“Brock’s house too,” Susan said. “We need to either protect Randall or keep tabs on him until we figure out who Sam is. At this point, I’m thinking it’s gotta be Hooper Landsky in disguise, or he and Randall are working together. Something like that.”
“It’s under control. Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We gotta catch this guy, boss. I can’t have a unit outside my house forever.”
“We’ll get him. It’s just a matter of time. He’ll slip up, and we’ll be there. I promise.”
44
Instead of going straight home, Susan walked into the barracks and up to the front desk. She was tired, and her body ached.
“What’re you doing here?” the dispatcher asked, looking up from the 911 computer monitor. He was a young kid, fresh out of the academy. She couldn’t remember his name. “I heard Crosby ordered you home.”
“Yeah, well.” She made her way down the narrow corridor toward the investigator’s unit. “Anybody here?”
“Nope. Everyone’s out on calls or looking for your hooded man.”
The kid said something else, but Susan didn’t hear him. The investigator’s unit was completely empty. It didn’t usually get this still until two or three in the morning. She checked her watch and saw that it was only ten. Troop K appeared to be running on all cylinders tonight.
She sat in her chair and pulled a stack of files that she hadn’t had the time to go through in the last few days. It was busywork, but she couldn’t go home yet. Her adrenaline was still too high, and she knew she’d never get to sleep. She also knew she wouldn’t be able to endure her mother’s questions. Better to use the pent-up energy and quiet to catch up on things. Once they had a better handle on the investigation, she could handle Beatrice’s interrogation. But she knew if she went home now, it would only be white noise, which would most likely end in an argument.
The troopers assigned to guard Randall’s house had reported in that they had arrived and Randall was home. She called her mother and told her about the unit that would be out front. As suspected, Beatrice was scared and told her so. Susan assured her that they were safe and she’d be home as soon as she could. The one thing she couldn’t admit to her mother was that she was scared too.
The top file contained the supervisor acceptance form for Tommy’s transfer as well as Tommy’s personnel information. There was a Post-it on top of it from Crosby. It was already a few days old: Review and sign ASAP!
She opened the HR file and scanned the transfer document, snatching a pen from an old mug that was on her desk. She should have gotten the sign-off back to HR no more than twenty-four hours after Tommy had come on board. That obviously hadn’t happened. Time always had a way of getting lost when she was on a case.
Tommy’s file wasn’t that thick because he hadn’t been around the department for that long. Susan flipped through it, skimming as she went, most of the information familiar from what Tommy had told her. He’d been assigned to Wolcott, New York, out of the academy and had worked there for six years. His father, Martin Corolla, was a retired NYPD homicide detective. Mother worked part time at Macy’s. Tommy had grown up in Port Jefferson, as he’d said, but the family had moved just before he’d started high school. Susan stopped when she saw the neighborhood the Corollas had moved to.
Queens. Saint Albans section.
Tommy had graduated from Queens Academy High School. The rest of the file was full of past job-performance evaluations, accolades, and awards Tommy had received since joining the state police. His biggest commendation had come after the largest drug bust in Wayne County’s history. He’d been part of the team that stopped the trafficking of some serious drugs. Tommy was a good officer. But that was not the part of his story that interested her.
She grabbed her laptop and logged into the NYPD database of old case files that were shared with the state police. She typed in Gary Anderson’s name.
The file was seventy-six pages long, and she scrolled through each page, looking to confirm what she thought she already knew. The confirmation came in the General Information / Background section. The Andersons had lived at 119 196th Street. Susan pulled up a map of Queens on another screen and traced her finger. The Corollas had lived only a few blocks away on the other side of Linden Boulevard, on 116th Avenue. Lily Anderson had gone to the same high school as Tommy and graduated three years after Tommy, which meant she was a freshman when he was a senior. They could’ve known each other.
Tommy’s the same height and build as Sam.
He showed up right after Amanda’s accident.
Susan continued scrolling through the Anderson case file until she got to the page listing the investigating officers. She read the name of the lead detective on the case.
Martin Corolla.
Tommy knew you were going out with the kids to get a tree.
He was wet when he arrived on scene. The K-9 officer said they lost the scent at the base of a creek in the woods.
No. Impossible. Susan shook her head, refusing to believe what her mind was whispering to her. Even in the short period of time she’d known Tommy, she couldn’t picture him killing anyone. Why wouldn’t Tommy have said anything about the Anderson case when it came up earlier? Why would he pretend not to know anything about what had happened?
Tommy knew.
45
It took most of the next morning for Susan to track down Tommy’s father. He was no longer at the address listed in Tommy’s file, so she called a few friends at the NYPD, who, in turn, called a few of their friends and got her word that Martin Corolla had moved back to Long Island and was living in Stony Brook, near the university. She was on the road by midafternoon.
She’d been ignoring Tommy’s calls, letting them roll to her voice mail. She needed to get things clear in her head before she decided if she was going to call him out on what she discovered in his file. She’d sent an email letting both Tommy and Crosby know that she was following up on a lead and wouldn’t be heading into the barracks that day. Tommy had emailed back, requesting her location so he could meet her there, but again, she ignored him.
It was already late afternoon when she pulled up to Martin Corolla’s house. It was a petite split-level ranch, yellow with white trim, a big picture window next to a red door. It sat on a tree-lined street that looked as if it had been manufactured in the early seventies. The sidewalks were cracked where the roots of the large elms poked through, but the road had been recently paved, and it was quiet. Several cars were parked at the curb along the block and a few more in the driveways of the other split-level ranches, but for the most part, everyone seemed to be at work.
She climbed slate steps to a brick pathway, rang the bell, and waited.
Martin Corolla appeared behind a storm door wearing a sleeveless T-shirt despite the fact that it was December. His hair was mostly gone, so he’d shaved it down to a tight silver crew cut. Aside from his age, he looked remarkably like his son. Same jawbone. Same eyes. If Tommy took a close enough look at his father, he’d know exactly what he’d be in another twenty-five years.
Martin pushed the storm door open. “Yeah?”
“Detective Corolla? Martin Corolla?”
“Depends. What do you want?”
Susan held up her badge and ID. “I’m Investigator Susan Adler. State police.”
“Okay.”
“I was hoping I could have a few minutes of your time. I’m working with your son, and we’re on a case involving Dr. William Feder. I understand you knew him from the Gary Anderson investigation, and I’d like your perspective on that case and Dr. Feder in general. Off the record, of course.”
Martin winced at the sound of Anderson’s name. “Where’s Tommy?” he asked.
“Back at the barracks following up on some other leads. Didn’t make sense for both of us to come out.”
“Makes sense to see his parents.”
“That’s what days off are for.”
Martin laughed and
pushed the door open farther. “All business. I like that. Yeah, okay. Come on in.”
Susan stepped inside the house and looked around. White walls, family pictures hanging crooked on the way up to the second floor, a collection of Hummels in a glass display case, cheap furniture, clean.
“My wife’s visiting her sister in Orlando,” Martin said as he walked up several steps into the living room. “She’ll be sorry she missed you. She’s so happy Tommy’s back in the area. She always said he was too far away upstate.”
“I bet.” She pointed to the large gold ring on his finger, the black onyx gem surrounding a small diamond. “West Point?”
“Class of seventy-two. How’d you know?”
“My uncle was a cadet. Same ring.”
They walked into a small living room that held a blue couch, a matching love seat, and a red La-Z-Boy chair. Martin sat in the chair, and Susan sat on the love seat. The television was on in the background.
“So how’s he doing?” Martin asked. “Settling in okay? Adjusting? This was a big promotion for him.”
“Fine,” Susan replied. “He’s doing fine. Fits right in with the rest of the team.”
“That’s my boy.” Martin kicked up the footrest that was attached to the chair. “Tommy hasn’t mentioned anything about Feder or Anderson. What’s the case?”
“I really can’t say.”
“Come on,” Martin coaxed with a wink. “You said we’re off the record. Give me some professional courtesy. Just between us girls.”
Susan hesitated for a moment, then nodded. She needed him on her side, so why not disclose a little to get him talking? “Dr. Feder changed his identity to Randall Brock. His wife was involved in a fatal car accident, and we have reason to believe the crash was intentional.”
“Changed his name, huh? I guess I can’t blame him. You guys looking at murder or manslaughter?”
“We’re leaning toward murder. Obviously we want all the information on Dr. Feder that we can get, and I know you were involved with the Gary Anderson incident, so I wanted to pick your brain a little. See what you thought of him.”
“He’s a nutjob.”
“Is that your opinion as an investigator?”
“That’s my opinion as a human being. How long you been working this case?”
“A few days.”
“Well, I was with William Feder for a lot longer than a few days. Try almost an entire year. Took us a while to wrap our case, and I had to keep coming back to him for more statements and details on things. Trust me—he’s not right in the head. Not after what he went through. If you like him for the murder, you’re probably right.”
“I just want to hear about the Anderson case from your perspective,” Susan said. “I remember some of the details when it happened, but I was hoping to get a more nuanced angle on what we’re looking at.”
Martin shrugged. “Sure, okay. Don’t really think about it much these days. For me it’s fishing and hunting. Retirement the way it should be.” He stared up at the ceiling and was quiet for a moment. “I can tell you two things with one hundred percent certainty. The first is that I moved back here from Queens because I couldn’t be near that house anymore. Once I saw what happened in there, it was like the place cast a dark cloud over the entire neighborhood. I couldn’t keep driving past it without thinking about everything that went down.”
“What’s the second thing?”
Martin looked at her. “The Anderson case was the most brutal thing I’d ever seen in my career. Ever.”
“Tell me.”
Martin let out a deep sigh that cut through the temporary silence. “To this day no one really knows what made Gary snap. There’re some stupid theories that make no sense. Cults and possession and all kinds of crazy crap. I think it was people trying to wrap their heads around how a father and husband and neighbor could go from being normal one day to a complete psycho the next. There was no rationale around it, so how could it not be supernatural or a cult, you know?
“Gary was a mechanic out at LaGuardia. I forget which airline. Was doing that job since he got back from the first Iraq War in ninety-two. Paid his taxes, paid his bills. Lived simple. He was known in the neighborhood to be a drinker, and units were called out to his house every now and again on domestics. He’d drink and get to slapping around his wife, Rose, but she’d never press charges, so there wasn’t much we could do. The last time he was arrested, the judge ordered mandatory counseling, and that’s when Dr. Feder came into the picture. I don’t remember how long his sessions lasted for. Couple years, maybe? But if you ask me, I think Feder was the one who lit the fuse in Gary’s brain. I think it was all that therapy, all that dredging up of the past that brought out the beast. That’s my theory anyway. Makes more sense than cults and possession.”
Susan looked out the picture window and watched as two boys rode down the street, one on a skateboard and the other on a bike. They were laughing and talking about something she couldn’t hear. Those kids had no idea how brutal and unforgiving life could be.
“So Gary tricks Dr. Feder into coming to his house to save him from suicide,” she said. “And when he gets there, he becomes one of Gary’s victims.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Martin replied. “I know that’s how the report reads, but it’s a bit more involved than that.”
“How?”
“Feder was kept prisoner in the basement with Rose and the Andersons’ daughter, Lily, but Gary didn’t treat Feder like you might think. It was weird. Gary used him so he didn’t have to do all the sick shit himself. It was like Gary got off on watching his wife and kid get brutalized instead of having to participate in the act himself. The first few times, Feder refused to do what Gary wanted. He tried using his psychobabble to talk Gary down, but Gary slashed his back up with a razor over and over until he complied. At one point Gary was going for one of his eyes. Feder eventually agreed to do what Gary said. Over the course of twelve days, Rose and Lily were caught in this cycle of torture. They were raped repeatedly and had things done to them that I can’t even say out loud. Both women were beat within inches of their lives, and in the end, well, just read the file. It’ll tell you how it ended. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Susan could see Martin replaying the images in his mind. The torture. The pleading. The tears. The pain. “I did read the file,” she said quietly.
“Then you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” She waited a few beats before continuing, hoping her next lie would sound convincing. “I also saw in the file that Lily and Tommy were close.”
Martin nodded. “Lily was a good girl. Kind and gentle. Always thinking of someone other than herself. Tommy loved her very much. We all did.”
Bingo.
“How long had they been dating?”
“I don’t know. A few years, on and off. It was hard because he was older. They dated throughout his senior year; then they broke up when he was away at college. Then they reconnected when he was graduating. They started dating again, but by that time she was on her way to college, and he was about to head into the academy. He never said anything, but I figure they called it quits for good when he got assigned upstate. Her life was in Queens, and they both knew she wasn’t going to move all the way up there. So they were done, and life moved on. Next thing I know, I’m calling my boy with this horrific news. He came down for the funerals but went right back upstate. I don’t think he could face the fact that he hadn’t been here to protect her.” He looked up at Susan. “Must be strange for him to be working this case with Feder involved. Has Tommy mentioned any of this?”
“No. And don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I just wanted your perspective on the Anderson case to see how the experience could’ve affected Dr. Feder. Clearly he suffered the kind of trauma that could change a person.”
Susan got up from her seat, thanked Martin for his time, and made her way to the door. Martin followed behind.
“Can I ask you one thing?” he sai
d. “A favor for a favor.”
“Of course.”
“Tell Tom to call his mom and dad more often. A visit wouldn’t hurt him either.”
“I will. And thank you again for seeing me.”
As she walked to the car, Susan thought about the relationship between Tommy and Lily Anderson that he’d never disclosed. Martin said they’d been in love. That they’d been together for years. Then she was dead. Brutally murdered. And the one person to survive that horrific incident was now having his life torn apart, piece by piece. She reminded herself of what Tommy had told her in the kitchen when they’d first gotten the case.
There are no such things as coincidences.
46
With dusk approaching, Susan turned onto Linden Boulevard. She hadn’t been planning on coming into Queens, but when she saw the exit off the Long Island Expressway after leaving Martin Corolla’s house, she realized she was close to the Andersons’ residence and should take a look. She knew the twins were waiting for her to decorate the tree, so she’d have to make it quick, but she didn’t want to give up the opportunity to check out the old crime scene while she was in the area.
She took a left on 196th Street and came upon the tree-lined, working-class, suburban neighborhood of Saint Albans. Tract houses crowded both sides of the road, separated by only the width of a single-lane driveway. She took her foot off the accelerator for a moment, looking at the houses, as she coasted through. She continued down 196th Street, passing 118th Road. As she crossed 119th Road, Susan saw a mailman on foot, his oversized bag causing him to tilt as he walked, hurrying before it got too dark.
The Anderson house was a slightly dilapidated two-story tract home, light blue in color with navy-blue trim and shutters. A narrow driveway hugged the left side of the house and ended at a detached one-car garage in the back. Dead leaves filled the front yard. The flower beds were nothing but dark stalks of corpse flowers that once were. The concrete path leading to the concrete front porch was cracked, with dead weeds poking through. One of the windows on the top floor had been broken and covered with a piece of plastic that had since torn, allowing the elements inside. The house was dead, unoccupied, left to rot in its own sin. Given what had happened, it was no surprise that no one wanted to live there.
I Know Everything Page 20