No Mercy--A Mystery

by Joanna Schaffhausen

  “No worries. I’m just working on the geographical analysis. It’s coming along.” Ellery came over to sit next to him on the couch, and he showed her the initial distribution of the crimes. “You can see the attacks span across these different cities,” he said as he drew his finger between the dots.

  “Well, yeah,” she replied as though this were obvious. “That’s the Red Line.”

  “What?”

  “That invisible line you just drew? It’s pretty much the Red Line for the subway—Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Arlington.”

  Reed frowned. He’d been so wrapped up in the small details he’d rather missed the big picture. “Oh,” he said. “That’s, uh, that’s useful information.”

  “So the rapist probably lives near one of the stops, huh?”

  A simple paper map could have revealed that much. Reed cleared his throat and shut his laptop. “I’ll incorporate that detail into the modeling after we eat,” he said.

  They ate dinner at her kitchen island, and Reed smiled inwardly as he watched her wolf it down. This was part of the joy of cooking for him, the enjoyment his food gave to others. He used to love to make Sarit’s favorite scones, and nothing had made him happier than when tiny Tula would dive face-first into his homemade baby food. Cooking for himself in his lonely apartment was a dismal enterprise.

  After the meal, Ellery tidied the kitchen as Reed fiddled with the computer model, reworking it so that it accounted for proximity to the Red Line T stops. When he had a heat map that looked reasonable, he called Ellery over for a look.

  “The blue areas are zones where the offender is less likely to reside. The yellow zones are somewhat more probable, and the red peaks you see here…” He pointed. “And here … they are the neighborhoods most likely to contain the offender’s address.”

  The program had identified two hot zones: one in East Cambridge and one in Chinatown. Ellery was looking instead at the easternmost dot, representing a forcible rape inside one of the South Boston row houses that had occurred three years ago. “That’s only a half mile from here,” she said.

  Reed shifted because this thought had occurred to him, too. “Yes,” he admitted. “It fits the pattern. The attacker went in through an open second-floor window. Your building doesn’t especially match the targets. It’s much larger and the windows don’t open in such a way that would allow a human being to climb through them.”

  “Great,” she said flatly. “So I’m safe. What about everyone else?”

  “I’ve cross-referenced these addresses against the database of registered sex offenders with a history of forcible rape or sexual assault involving a previously unknown victim,” Reed said. “There are eleven names.”

  “Eleven?” Her mouth fell open.

  “The heat map narrows the area down to a few probable neighborhoods, but in a densely populated city, that still means thousands of residents. Still, it’s a place to start. At least you can give Manganelli some actual names this time, not a profile of a building. That should make him happy.”

  Ellery looked at the list of names Reed had up on his screen. “So what are the odds one of these guys is the rapist? Fifty-fifty? Better than that?”

  “I can’t say.” Reed looked at his lap, reluctant to confess the truth. “There is a good chance—let’s call it eighty percent—that the offender lives in one of these neighborhoods. But we’re working only with a list of names of men who have been apprehended before. They’re already in the system.” He paused. “Studies suggest that offenders with this profile have an average of six victims before they are caught.”

  “You have fourteen dots there. Fourteen cases.”

  “They may not all have been committed by the same man. We’re just presuming based on some limited similarities.”

  “What about the dates and times?” she asked, peering at the screen. “Any pattern there?”

  “The attacks mostly occurred at night, no discernible pattern as to the day of the week. The longest separation between them was eight months, and the shortest was three months. There is a slight trend toward increasing frequency.”

  “Wendy Mendoza was attacked seven months ago,” Ellery said quietly.

  “Yes.” Reed had worked out the math himself. If the rapist hadn’t picked a new victim already, he would do so very soon. “We can send the results of the analysis to Detective Manganelli,” he said, “and hopefully he can run through this list of names quickly. With luck, he’ll get a hit.”

  Ellery regarded the work that Reed had spread out across her coffee table. “I don’t feel good pinning some poor woman’s future on the possibility of luck,” she muttered.

  Reed was so tired that his eyes burned. He, too, felt the limits of his power in this situation, where all he could offer was an incomplete picture of someone the offender might resemble. He leaned back against the sofa and favored Ellery with a wry expression. “There’s an old joke about Pablo Picasso getting held up by a robber on the street. The robber got away with Picasso’s money, but Picasso told the cops he could draw them a sketch of his attacker. The cops took his drawing and ran out immediately to arrest a one-eyed man, half a violin, and a bottle.”

  Ellery smiled faintly. “You’re saying we’re the cops in this scenario? Running down false leads?”

  Reed sighed. “No. I’m saying sometimes I feel about as useful as Picasso.”

  * * *

  In the morning, Ellery tried calling Detective Manganelli to tell him about the geographic profiling that Reed had done, but he wasn’t answering his phone. She left a message and then emailed him the results. “That’s that,” she said as she closed down her laptop. “Now we wait for him to do his thing, I guess.”

  “He knows how dangerous this man is. He’ll be motivated to follow up.”

  Ellery stood up and shoved her hands in her pockets. She nodded in the direction of his suitcase. “Looks like you’re all packed.”

  Reed cast a begrudging look at his carry-on, which had taken him all of ten minutes to prepare. Easy in, easy out. In six hours he would be back inside his empty apartment. More important, from McGreevy’s perspective, Reed would be back at his desk the next morning, with Ellery once again confined to his past. At least they had managed to go the past thirty-six hours without any sort of threat or vandalism. Reed walked to the window and looked down onto the street at the passersby, none of whom seemed to be skulking about. Still, he felt distinct unease. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you here alone when we still don’t know who’s been threatening you,” he said as he turned to her.

  Ellery was all business this morning, with her hair pulled back and her shirt tucked in, almost as though she were still in uniform. “We’ve discussed this already. You can’t stay here—I won’t let you.”

  He knew this, of course he did. There was no way he could live out his days on her lumpy, furry couch. “Maybe you could stay with someone else for a while. A friend, or…”

  “No, that’s not—that’s not necessary.” Her face faltered, just for a second, and Reed realized suddenly that he had hit a tender spot. Maybe she didn’t have any friends—how could she, given her insistence on living her life in anonymity? Ellery drew herself up and squared her shoulders. “I have double locks. I have my gun. If anyone slips a note under my door again, I’ll be sure to contact Detective Banyon.”

  “And me.”

  She tilted her head as if considering. “And you,” she allowed at last. This would have to do for now. “Now let’s get going before you miss your flight.”

  She drove him to Logan in the rented SUV, and this time, Reed barely registered the passing scenery. It felt like he was always leaving her. When she pulled over at the terminal to drop him off, she set the car in park and took a deep breath. “This is it. Thanks again for coming up here. I’ll be sure to let you know what Manganelli has to say.”

  “Call anytime,” he said, looking into her eyes to show he meant it. “If there is anything I can do
, please let me know.” He’d said approximately the same words to her years ago without really meaning them; now it felt as serious as a wedding vow.

  She stared back at him for a long moment and then gave a tiny nod. “I will.”

  This was the part where he was supposed to get out of the car, but instead, something made him reach over and take her hand. He heard her quick intake of breath but she did not pull away from him. Gently, he searched out the scars with his thumb. She remained rigid as he traced the barely perceptible lines. “If I felt these,” he murmured, watching her face as he touched her. “If I felt these scars, I would think … this woman has walked through hellfire and come out on the other side. She must be very strong and incredibly brave.”

  Ellery clenched her hand in a fist and turned to the window. “It’s not so brave when you don’t have a choice,” she said thickly.

  “Ellery.” She wouldn’t look at him. He took her wrist and put his lips to the scars. He could feel the tension in her, the rapid flutter of her pulse against his mouth. He let his lips linger a moment in a ghost of a kiss. “There’s always a choice,” he said as he released her.

  She balled her hands together in her lap, nodding at him, although he wasn’t convinced she actually believed him. “Go,” she said hoarsely. “Get out of here.”

  He left the warmth of the car for the wind-whipped concrete sidewalk. Ellery pulled away so fast the tires screeched a little in her wake. Reed made his flight easily and took his usual seat by the window. The roar of the jet engines vibrated his body, preparing for takeoff, and he felt the plane gaining momentum down the runway. Faster and faster it hurtled, as though rocketing from the earth, until at last the ground fell away completely. Untethered now, Reed forced himself to watch as Boston grew smaller and smaller in the background, until it became gray and indistinct. No place he recognized at all.

  9

  Ellery was true to her word. After dropping Reed at the airport, she was extra cautious returning home, checking her rearview mirrors to make sure she was not being followed, taking care to park her rented car in a spot she could see from her apartment windows. If someone was watching and targeting her, it was possible that they were waiting for these first few moments when she was alone again. She kept her gun holstered to her hip and her coat unbuttoned as she walked to her building, but she did not see anyone lying in wait. At her door, she braced herself for the possibility of another nasty note, but she found only Speed Bump wagging on the other side. He snuffled her in greeting and then looked past her toward the hallway. Ellery closed the door and locked it. “Sorry,” she told the dog. “He’s gone home.”

  Bump nosed the crack at the bottom of the door, sniffing hard as though he could pick up Reed’s scent. Ellery sighed at his fickle behavior and went to the living room to phone Manganelli again. She tried not to notice how empty it seemed now without Reed and his suitcase taking up space. Reed was one slightly larger than average man who had been in her home for two days. It’s not like he’d had time to become a part of her landscape. Bump seemed to feel differently, though, as he ambled into the room and sat directly on her feet to get her attention. He looked up at her with baleful eyes, and Ellery frowned at him. “You realize your hero doesn’t even like dogs, right? He thinks you smell.”

  Ellery tried Manganelli again on her cell phone, but she only got his voice mail, the same as before. She left another message asking him to call her back, and then she set the phone and her gun on the coffee table to wait. After a while, she put on music to try to distract herself—Hallowed Ground by the Violent Femmes—but she barely registered the different songs. Later, she took Bump for a walk, pausing to check her cell phone every time he stopped to sniff a snowbank. No one followed them as near as she could tell. But neither did anyone call.

  It was not until Tuesday that she finally heard back from Manganelli. “Sorry,” he told her. “I’ve been a little busy. You might have seen the stories about the two jewelry store holdups. The last one, on Saturday, the owner got shot. It’s all hands on deck for this one.”

  Ellery didn’t usually watch the news. It never had anything nice to say. “That’s terrible. Did you catch the guy?”

  “Guys, plural. There’s two of ’em. And no, we’re still running down leads. I’m actually calling you from the head because that’s the only time I get a break right now. Look, I got the stuff you sent me. Thanks. I’ll be sure to check it out as soon as I get a chance. Tell Markham I appreciate his help.”

  Ellery’s heart sank. “But Reed found a pattern, and if it holds, there will be another attack soon. We don’t have any time to wait.”

  “I’m sorry. I want to catch this SOB even more than you do, but I gotta follow the hot cases while they’re still hot. This could still turn into a murder investigation if the owner doesn’t pull through. Once we nail these assholes and things settle down again, I’ll give the Mendoza case a fresh look.”

  “But—”

  “I gave it a once-over,” he cut her off. “The stuff you sent me. It’s a few neighborhoods where the guy might live, plus the names of some sex offenders. You think we haven’t already run those names ourselves?”

  “Reed’s list is more focused,” Ellery said levelly. “You could maybe put someone else on the case while you’re busy elsewhere.”

  “We’re all busy right now. It’s a shit-show around here, with the mayor calling every few hours to see if we have any new developments in the case. Turns out the owner of this jewelry store was a neighbor of his.” She heard the sounds of running water and men’s voices, suddenly loud, in the background. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll check out the names, I promise—just give me some time.”

  He clicked off before Ellery could say anything further. She was surprised to find herself shaking, at how personal it all felt. Somewhere out there was another woman’s life, about to be ruined, and no one was doing anything to stop it. Ellery went to the window and leaned her head against the cold glass. Night was falling, the sky turning purple, and faceless people streamed past on the sidewalks below. They were all hurrying home for the night, escaping out of the frigid winter and deep snow into the safety of their warm houses. Had the rapist already picked his next target? She imagined him on some anonymous street, standing in the deepening shadows, his eager breath steaming, his eyes following the woman in the upstairs apartment as she moved from room to room. Watching her. Waiting for the time when he could make himself invisible and climb inside.

  * * *

  At the start of the survivors’ group meeting, Miles met Ellery’s eyes the moment she walked through the door, almost like he had been waiting to greet her. He smiled broadly and raised his paper cup of coffee in cheerful salute. Ellery gave him a hesitant wave but opted to take an open seat next to Wendy. The woman had her hoodie pulled up over her bald head, her hands hidden inside her sleeves. She acknowledged Ellery’s arrival with a quick glance. “Any news?” she asked, not sounding hopeful.

  “Maybe,” Ellery told her. “Agent Markham did an analysis of potentially related cases and he’s given Detective Manganelli some names to follow up on. There’s no guarantee, of course…”

  “Names?” Wendy perked up, her dark eyes were shining. “Let me have them. I can check them out and maybe I’ll recognize the guy.”

  Ellery drew back, surprised. “You said you didn’t see his face. That he wore a mask.”

  “I might recognize his shape, his voice for sure, with all that disgusting stuff he said to me. Please?”

  For a half second, Ellery considered it. She could take Wendy around to each of these guys and maybe something would stand out to her. Manganelli would have to act if they could narrow down the suspects to one guy. But then she took in the desperate pleading in Wendy’s reddened eyes, how her fingernails were chewed down to the quick, and she saw a woman just barely hanging on. If they tried out all of Reed’s eleven names and nothing came of it, Wendy might be worse off than before. Ellery shook her head, her
own eyes wet with regret. “I’m sorry, no. It’s not safe.”

  Wendy recoiled, looking angry. “I can handle it.”

  “I’m sure you can. But Wendy, you may or may not recognize the guy. We can be damn sure he would know you.”

  Wendy stiffened as this thought went through her, and then she sagged in her seat once more, brooding again, no longer looking in Ellery’s direction. Ellery looked instead at Myra, who was being wheeled into the room by her husband. Patrick didn’t so much as glower her way, but Myra held Ellery’s gaze for a long moment, her mouth pursed as though she might have something to say. Before Ellery could find out one way or another, Dr. Sunny got the group session under way. “Today I’d like us to talk about gains and losses. The situations that brought you here are all admittedly painful and difficult. Each of you is healing from these wounds, but it’s okay to acknowledge that some losses will be permanent. So I’d like us to go around the room and share that, if you can, to say the words out loud. What has been lost to you that cannot be repaired? And on the other side, what have you gained from your experiences? This isn’t to say that what has happened to you is worthwhile or just, but that we can find unexpected gifts or knowledge even from the most trying of circumstances. So I put it to you all: what, if anything, do you have now that you did not have then?” She smiled gently. “Who would like to start? Alex?”

  Alex was wearing a Patriots sweatshirt over his considerable belly. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and Ellery wondered if maybe the holidays were getting to him. It was hard enough to appear normal even on a regular day, let alone when the entire damn universe was covered with twinkling lights and “Joy to the World” blared on every other street corner. Alex coughed twice and looked at the floor before speaking. “Uh, well, the first one is easy. I lost Nate. My buddy. He’s gone and nothing will ever bring him back. I dream about him sometimes, and it seems so real. Like, I can hear him laughing and joking around with me, giving me crap about my pathetic love life. In the dreams, I want to tell him: don’t go into the store. Let’s just keep walking, okay? I can hear the words in my head but they won’t come out of my mouth. We just talk about other useless shit until I wake up, and of course he’s still dead.” He shook his head as if disgusted with himself. “As for something I gained? I dunno. I guess there’s Nate’s kids, his two boys. I knew ’em pretty good before this whole thing happened, but now, I make sure to go over and see them at least once a week. They’re good kids. They didn’t deserve this crap. I told the older one, Mikey, I’d coach his Little League team this spring, and he seems pretty happy about that.”