“What about the bars in the area?” Mooney asked.
“I talked to the sergeant who does the licensed premises checks in the district. He’s getting me a list from every bar. Bartenders, waitstaff, bar backs, bouncers, hostesses. Everyone. These two didn’t drink much, but they went out with their friends to hang out, dance.”
“I talked to Commissioner Sheehan. He’s putting out the word to all the media outlets that anyone with information should call the Homicide Unit or the Crime Stoppers Hotline. That should bog us down with useless leads.”
“I checked in with their professors, got class rosters, talked with a bunch of kids who were too busy texting and talking on their cells to notice anything.”
Alves and Biggie watched Mooney pick through his sandwich and pull out strands of shaved onions. “I knew I tasted onion. I told them no onions. Tomatoes, pickles, no onions. They can’t even make a simple sandwich anymore.”
“Are you going to finish eating that or what?” Alves asked as Mooney fished through his sandwich fiasco. Biggie was purring so loud it sounded like a motorcycle. He had never understood why people kept cats. They were unpredictable. A cat that big could kill a baby. Maybe, just maybe, he’d let Angel and Iris get a hamster some day. “I’ve had enough of working in your living room with Mr. Big Cat here, staring at my throat.”
Mooney took a bite of his crumbling sandwich. Typical Irish guy. Couldn’t eat a couple slices of shaved onion. “Almost done.”
“I got a bunch of video. BC has a decent number of cameras set up all over the campus, same with some of the bars. The guys at the BRIC are going over the footage, looking for Steadman and Kipping, see if anyone’s following them. I told them to look for suspicious vehicles circling the area, unmarked cruisers that don’t belong, the kind of stuff we talked about.”
“Are they monitoring the website, too?”
“That, and one of the detectives has been logging on to the site and leaving postings on the message board, trying to get a response.”
“Anything?”
“Nothing yet.”
Mooney took the last bite of his sandwich and wiped his hands with a paper towel. No napkins in the bachelor pad. He took his time, finished off his beer, and held the last can out to Alves. Alves shook his head. Mooney opened the beer and took a savoring draft. “It’s time for the same information to get leaked to the media. I don’t get along with many reporters, but I’ve got a few who owe me a favor or two. We’re going to have them tout me as the guy who caught the Blood Bath Killer. Now I’ve got my sights set on this guy. The press will catch me off guard, as I’m walking out of headquarters. I’ll let it slip that I think he’s a copycat, a fraud, that the real killer is probably dead. We need to get him to communicate. And make a mistake.”
“I hope we’re not making the mistake. Forcing him to kill two more kids. Shouldn’t we wait on this, see what we come up with first? We haven’t looked into all the people working at BC, the bars. He’s not stupid. Even if he thinks we didn’t find the Tai-ji or the fortune, he would assume we have a ballistics match. Which means the killer isn’t a copycat.”
Mooney balled up his waxed paper. He stood up and reached for his jacket. “That’s what we’re doing tonight. Let’s go hit those bars.”
CHAPTER 32
Connie pulled over when the call came in. His radio was the most important tool for keeping on top of the action in real time. It could be cleared as shots fired. Or there might be a shooting victim.
He listened carefully.
“Three callers report hearing shots from the area of Greenhay and Magnolia,” the calm voice of the dispatcher anounced.
Connie thought about turning around and going to the area, but he didn’t want to waste time. No point unless the police confirmed someone had been shot.
One of the responding officers radioed back. “Negative. I got nothing out here.”
No witnesses.
No ballistics.
No victim.
Connie took his foot off the brake and continued on home. If anything turned up, a message would go out to all the alpha pagers. Like the one Connie wore on his belt, a gift from the captain at District 2. With the alpha pager, Connie got the same notification the BPD brass got whenever there was a shooting, homicide, hostage situation, any major occurrence in the city.
He was tired. He headed down Blue Hill Avenue and took a right onto American Legion Highway. He’d be home in ten, fifteen minutes tops.
The radio crackled. The call sign indicated the Rapid Response car on Magnolia. “Bravo one-o-one,” the patrolman’s voice rose with nervous energy. “I got something behind Nine-thirty Magnolia. An abandoned house. I need a patrol supervisor out here and EMTs. I think we need to make notifications.”
They had a body.
Connie spun into a quick U-turn at a break in the island that ran down the center of American Legion Highway. The tires squealed as he put the pedal to the floor and raced back toward District 2. The heart of Roxbury.
CHAPTER 33
Alves checked his beeping alpha pager. Shooting on Magnolia. One body. Male. The good news? The victim wasn’t wearing a tux.
The other good news was that Alves wasn’t on call tonight. He pulled his car into the driveway. It was almost eleven o’clock, and he’d just left Mooney. The minivan was parked in the driveway ahead of him. Lights were on in the bathroom and kitchen. Marcy might still be awake.
Alves hadn’t been home much since Iris had found the bodies two nights ago. He had only seen Marcy for a few minutes earlier in the day when he stopped in to shower and shave. Iris and Angel had already gone to school, and Marcy had given him the silent treatment. It wasn’t the usual silent treatment, the one he got for working late and leaving her to deal with all the kids’ activities. It was clear she was angry that he’d left her and the twins alone with a killer in the neighborhood.
He tried to open the front door quietly, but it stuck at the top the way it always did. He gave it a little shove with his hip, and it creaked open. Marcy was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. She didn’t look up at him. “Are you sleeping here tonight?” she asked.
“I’m in for the night,” he said, taking care not to be sarcastic with his answer.
“You sure? I was just watching the news. They found a body in Roxbury.”
“God, they’re quick. That just came across the pager, and they’re already reporting it on TV?” He walked around the table and kissed her on the top of her head. “Mooney and I aren’t on call tonight. Unless someone turns up dead dressed in formal wear, I’m not going anywhere.”
She didn’t smile.
“How’s Iris?” he asked. “She make it through school today?”
Marcy nodded. “My mother picked them up at school. She had them all day. Said they were okay. Iris was a little withdrawn. Spent most of the day in her room reading. Mom left an hour ago, when I got home.”
It hit him. Marcy was teaching three classes this semester. A full time workload for a part-time professor. She usually taught two sections, Tuesdays and Thursday in the late morning. That way she could send the kids off to school and be home in time to meet them at the bus. Her schedule got thrown off this semester when one of the full-time professors took a medical leave, sticking Marcy with two afternoon classes and a night class. They had decided that she would get the kids out the door in the morning and her mom would be there for them in the afternoon. Alves agreed that he would come home early and help out. He figured he could manage since it was only two days a week. The first day with the new system and he’d already blown it. “I’m sorry, honey. I forgot. I’ll be early on Thursday.”
“That’s okay. You do your work,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “The kids will be fine. They can just eat Cheerios out of the box. And my mother loves having them for eight hours straight, twice a week. It’s good for her arthritis to stay out until ten, eleven o’clock at night. And, sweetheart, it’s not
like anything bad ever happens in our neighborhood. We haven’t had a double homicide in two whole days.”
What could he say? She was right. He shouldn’t open his mouth, but once he started talking it was too late to take the words back. “Honey, I understand how you feel, but I know that this neighborhood is safe.”
“Don’t patronize me, Angel.”
“Marcy, the killer didn’t attack anyone in this neighborhood. He could have dumped those bodies anywhere in the city.”
“But he didn’t. He left them right here, practically on our doorstep. He left them for our daughter to find. If he wanted you to find them he could have dropped them off at One Schroeder Plaza.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? What would have happened if she had found the bodies while your killer was still tying them up?”
He didn’t allow the thought. It was more than he could take.
“I didn’t think you’d have an answer for that one.” Marcy dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink. “I’ve decided to take the kids and live at my mother’s for a couple weeks. Till you solve the case. Her house is not that far out of your way. You can stop by and visit whenever you’re off duty.”
She left him standing by the kitchen table, his head spinning with the news.
CHAPTER 34
Sergeant Detective Ray Figgs downed another shot of Johnnie Walker Red. The Tap in Dudley Square was good for a quick drink. Or eight of them. It was better than going home and watching reality shows until he passed out on the couch. Or sitting with his father in the rehab. First he needed a cigarette. Thanks to the mayor and the city council and the freaking state legislature, he couldn’t smoke in the bar. He’d have to go stand on the sidewalk with the other holdouts, sweating in the summer and freezing their butts off in the winter. It was ridiculous how he and the other smokers were punished for fueling the economy, spending their money in bars, tipping the waitresses and bartenders, supporting half the state’s social programs with the cigarette tax. Not to mention Keno.
Ray Figgs reached into his jacket pocket for his last cigarette, a crumpled-up soft pack of the no-name brand sold at Economy Gas on Blue Hill Ave. As he fumbled for the pack, he felt his pager vibrating. He had five unanswered pages, three from Operations and two from Inch O’Neill, his partner. Inchie was a good detective. Didn’t need babysitting, did things on his own. Figgs checked his alpha pager and saw that a male had been killed on Magnolia Street.
He settled up his tab, grabbed a few handfuls of salted peanuts, folded them into a cocktail napkin and shoved it into his sports jacket pocket. He took another handful and tossed them in his mouth. He would chew them on the ride. He was really going to need the nuts tonight. He was the on-call Homicide Sergeant and he was already late getting to a crime scene.
CHAPTER 35
Connie hung back while Greene, Ahearn and a couple of patrolmen secured the scene on Magnolia. The house was a single-family colonial with green asphalt shingles and graffiti-covered plywood sheets covering the windows and doors. Connie had spent most of the night in this neighborhood with the detectives looking for Michael Rogers, Ellis Thomas’s friend. Thomas hadn’t given them much information, even after his mother agreed to let him talk. The kid was scared word would hit the street that he was a snitch. The only thing he’d told them was where to look for his pal.
The two patrolmen were setting up the crime scene tape around the property. Greene and Ahearn stood in front of the building, managing the crowd gathering in the street. Ellis Thomas lived across the street. Connie expected the kid’s mother, with Ellis in tow, to show up on the scene.
As Connie moved closer, he could see that Greene didn’t look good. He should have been barking orders. Instead he was quiet. Jack Ahearn, alone, minus his usual swagger, was moving the crowd back.
“Jackie, where’s the body?” Connie asked.
“In back with Detective O’Neill from Homicide. He’s securing things till Figgs gets here.”
A car pulled up across the street. Connie and the detectives watched as Lydia Thomas-Connie recognized her large frame-struggled to get out of her car. She scanned the crowd, turning her attention to Connie and the detectives. A thin woman in a housecoat rushed to hug her.
“This is going to get ugly,” Ahearn said. He pushed the button on his radio and said, “Where’s the Bravo 902? We need a supervisor and some backup units out here.”
“What’s going on?” Connie asked.
“What do you think?” Greene asked.
Connie looked back at Miss Thomas. She lurched out of the thin woman’s embrace. In an instant she went from concerned mother to angry bear. She walked toward them, quicker than Connie thought a woman her size could move. “You did this!” she shouted, pointing at Connie. “You killed my son!”
Connie turned to the detectives. He could see it in Greene’s eyes. Ellis, her only son, was dead. The same son that Connie had promised to protect.
Greene tried to pull him back, but Connie was stronger. He stood his ground and waited for her. She stopped a few inches away from him. Almost as tall as he was, close to six feet, she was intimidating.
“I’m sorry,” Connie said. There was nothing else he could say.
She slapped his face. He didn’t turn away or try to block her hand. She was right. He had killed her son.
Then she started to cry. Not quietly, the way she had cried up the grand jury earlier. She was wailing. She wasn’t afraid of losing her son anymore. He was lost. Her knees buckled. Connie thought of big timber crashing during a storm. Violent. Dangerous. He caught her in his arms and led her back toward her house.
CHAPTER 36
Alves lay in bed with his eyes open, watching shadows move back and forth on the ceiling, the moonlight intercepted by the trees swaying outside the window. Marcy had fallen asleep right away. Or pretended she had. The news that she was packing up the twins and moving over to her mother’s-even if only temporarily-had blindsided him. He had hoped the regular rhythm of her breathing would help him sleep. It usually did. An hour later he was still awake.
Alves closed his eyes. He was getting caught up in a cycle that was going to wear him out. Trying to sleep. His mind racing. Thinking about his marriage, the case. When he did fall asleep, the alarm would sound and it would be time for another day.
He opened his eyes again. It was a shame to waste the mental energy. He knew everything there was to know about the investigation. But he knew nothing about the killer. He didn’t know why he killed or how he selected his victims, the two most important pieces of the puzzle.
Alves thought about Mooney’s plan to draw the killer out, to get him to communicate. Get him to make a mistake. He remembered the website promnightkiller.com. Mooney had talked about the cult following that the killer had developed over the years. How could someone have a fan club based on the murders of innocent couples? The BRIC was monitoring the site, but Alves hadn’t had time to go there himself. This was as good a time as any to check it out.
Alves slid out from under the sheets and quietly made his way back downstairs. The family computer was set up in the den. He logged on and saw that the site was active. He scrolled down the long list of messages posted on the message board, wondering how many of them had come from the officers at the BRIC. The killer’s groupies seemed to know quite a bit about the murders. Someone running the site must have known enough to file a request under the Mass Public Records Law, because the actual police reports were posted. Mooney had been careful to leave out any references to the fortunes and the Tai-ji from every report, so at least that information was not available to these kooks.
The people who visited the site had an unhealthy obsession with trying to discover everything about the killer and his crimes. They posted any information they could find about the victims, much of it unflattering, hoping that the more they knew about the victims, the closer they’d get to understanding the killer. It didn’t seem to matter who the sour
ce of information was. The victims and their families were being victimized again.
Someone using the screen name printsofdarkness had posted the message: “The killer is known to police. Like old Jack the Ripper. A friend or relative of someone high up in the department, same old story. This is the biggest COVER UP!!! in history.”
Shortnsassy wrote, “He’s out there now. Waiting for the right time. Then he will begin his work in earnest.”
Alves could feel the fog of a headache settling in behind his eyes.
Two days ago, the only people who thought about the unsolved murders were Wayne Mooney, the families of the victims and the losers on this website. Now everyone in the city was thinking about the killer, locking their doors.
Alves logged off. Looking at the site convinced him that the killer had to be one of the visitors to the site, maybe not a contributor, but certainly an occasional visitor. So maybe they could draw him out and get him involved in a dialogue. It had to work. So far, they had nothing else.
But for now, he would make another attempt to get some sleep.
CHAPTER 37
Connie stayed with Lydia Thomas until the EMTs arrived. They gave her a sedative and took her by ambulance to Boston Medical Center. She had wanted to go back outside and see her son, but Connie had convinced her that she could see him later, after they processed the scene. “We can’t miss any evidence,” he had told her. “Not if we’re going to catch Ellis’s killer.” Even before the sedative had kicked in, she had looked at him with hopelessness in her eyes.
When Connie finally stepped back outside he could see that the scene was more controlled, a half dozen cruisers on the street, enough patrol officers to control the crowd, and supervisors giving orders.
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