by David Hosp
The first thing that hit him was the stench. It hovered in the air, and he passed into its grasp within a few steps from the top of the stairs. It was the foul odor of decaying flesh mixed with the sharp, acrid smell of chemicals. Stone was already feeling light-headed from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and this new noxious smell was almost enough to keep him from moving on, but he steadied himself against the wall and pushed forward.
The second thing he noticed was the chanting. It was low and droning, overlaid by the endless whine. Stone couldn’t make out the words, but it rambled on in singsong fashion, like the prattle of a small child fixated more on the sounds of phrases than their meaning or importance. It filled him with a new sense of dread.
But Stone didn’t appreciate the full horror of what he’d stumbled on until he was nearly at the bottom of the narrow stairway, where he could see the entire room and take in the nightmare that was unfolding.
There was a steel medical-type table bolted to the center of the floor, and she was lying on top of it—at least what was left of her. She was entirely naked, and her arms and legs were strapped to the sides. A wispy mist of smoke drifted up off her extremities, which were stripped of their skin, as well as much of their muscle and soft tissue, as if they had been burned in a fire of such intensity that it had literally melted the flesh. The same was true of much of her torso and head, which no longer held any hair, and had lost most of its skin as well, so that the top of her skull reflected the white of the sterile room around her. Only the skin around her eyes seemed to have been left intact, and from beneath that small stretch of living tissue, the girl’s eyes stared out in an agony too indescribable to comprehend.
Standing over those eyes was the man Stone had seen in the Kiss Club. A surgical saw was still whirring and whining and pulsating in his hand as it slipped through the girl’s ribs, opening a chasm in her chest that oozed and coughed and bled.
It took a few seconds for Stone to recover his senses, so grotesque was the scene that played out in front of him. Then all at once he remembered who he was and why he was there. His gun flew up, pointing at the man’s head.
“Freeze! Police!”
The man was startled. He’d been so involved in his work that he hadn’t heard Stone as he came down the stairs. His shock quickly turned to anger when he realized he’d been interrupted.
“You can’t be down here!” he yelled. “You shouldn’t be here, you must leave at once!” His voice was indignant, as though Stone had committed some sacrilege, rather than the other way around.
“Shut up, you sick fuck! Put down the saw and move away from the girl, or I swear to God I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
Now the man looked confused. “But I can’t,” he protested. “I haven’t finished yet.”
“I swear to God, I’ll shoot you!” Stone looked at the girl again and saw that a new look had come into her eyes—a look of hope. It was so pathetic and useless he wanted to tear out his own eyes to purge the image. She couldn’t survive this, could she?
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ! What did you do to her? You sick, sick fuck.” Stone was beginning to lose it now. The horror of the scene was overwhelming whatever sense of reality he still clung to. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911, his gun still leveled at the man’s head.
“Nine-one-one,” came the operator’s voice.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, I need some backup,” Stone said. “I need an ambulance now! Oh, fuck! Please send someone now!”
“Calm down, sir. Where are you?”
“Cypher Street! I’m at 1027 Cypher Street in Southie. Freeze, motherfucker!” The man, saw still in hand, was bending down toward the girl again. Stone spoke back into the phone. “This is Police Officer Paul Stone, and I need backup and an ambulance, now!” He took in the scene in the basement again. “Oh my God, what have you done?”
“I did it for God!” the blood-covered man exclaimed. His voice was full of conviction. It was no longer angry or indignant, but calm and self-assured. “He is here with us now, and He wanted me to do this. He needed this to be done, and He needed you as His witness.”
“Shut up, you sick fuck, or I swear I’ll shoot you!” Stone wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. “I need backup!” he yelled into the phone again. He didn’t realize he’d already hung up.
“You know it’s true, don’t you? He told me to do this. He told all of us to do this. It’s been written in the scripture, and so shall it be. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to show His servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant, John, who has testified to what he has seen—that is the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
“Shut up!” Stone’s hand was shaking now, and he was having trouble keeping his aim at the man’s head.
“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near!” The man’s voice was louder now, and clearer. It reverberated off the whitewashed walls of the sterile basement, booming out in a sermon of death and pain. “Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments!”
“Shut up!”
“He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries!”
“Shut up!”
“He has avenged on her the blood of His servants! And again they shouted, Hallelujah!”
“I’ll blow your head off!”
“The smoke from her goes up forever and ever!”
“You sick fuck!” “He has sent His angel to me!” “No!” “The time is near!”
“Stop!”
“The time is near!”
“Stop!”
“The time is near!”
With that, the man raised the surgical saw over his head, waving it with a flourish. His eyes were wide and staring, and he had a bright, toothy grin as he brought the saw down into the hole in the girl’s chest. He was shouting as his arm came down. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty!”
A fountain of blood erupted from the girl’s chest, and Stone saw her eyes go wide and then fade. It was a mercy, he knew in his heart, for she could never have lived. She might have held on to life for moments, or hours, or even days, but it would have been a thin life filled with an agony no one should endure. There was a part of Stone that wanted her dead, because he wasn’t strong enough to accept the possibility that her anguish would go on.
“No!” Stone screamed as the man raised his arm for a second time. He was still sermonizing, but the words no longer penetrated the howl that ripped through Stone’s head. As the man’s arm came down again in a broad, smooth arc, Stone pulled the trigger. He would never know how many times he fired his gun. It didn’t matter. As the gun sounded, adding a mere fraction to the white noise that swirled in the basement, his vision faded and he lost consciousness.
Chapter Twenty-eight
FINN HAD TROUBLE SLEEPING that night. The evening with Linda Flaherty had awakened feelings of need and dependence, emotions he usually kept at bay. He’d been a loner his entire life, and every experiment with an alternative way of living had ended in misery. Still, his mind played with the concept of love, like a child with a new toy, turning it over and over again to inspect it and see if it worked.
When he wasn’t thinking about Linda, he was thinking about Natalie and the possibility that her death might not have been the result of a random attack by a serial killer, but a deliberate murder by someone she knew. Linda’s questions had suggested it was a serious possibility, which stirred an anger in Finn that had been lurking just beneath the surface of his grief. As long as he believed that Natalie’s murder was the random act of a deranged individual, the only place his anger could be directed was at God; and Finn had learned long ago that hating God was a waste of time and energy.
But now he could entertain the i
dea that Natalie’s killing might not have been random. And if he could help find the killer, he could direct his anger and his energy toward that cause. After tossing and turning in his bed for more than two hours, he finally got up. Taking some action might make him feel better, he thought.
He walked through the living room of his Charlestown apartment and into the second bedroom, which he’d converted into an office. He sat at his desk and took out a pad and pen. He’d promised Linda a list of all of the “connected” people Natalie had worked with, and he thought he might as well get started on it.
He covered the easy ones first. There was Rich Loring, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Natalie had worked with him when he was the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston office of the FBI and she was an assistant U.S. attorney. She never talked about Loring much, but Finn knew they’d had contact on the Bulger case. He also knew that Loring was in his late forties, married, and very attractive. Persistent rumors in the tight-knit legal community had placed him in amorous relationships with several unnamed women in his office. Finn liked to think Natalie was too smart to consort with the likes of Loring, but there was no way to know.
Next, Finn wrote down Jimmy Tribinio’s name. Tribinio was a local union politician who’d spent ten years carefully cultivating grassroots power and doling out support to other, better-known politicians until he had enough chits to run for mayor successfully. Because his power was based on his control over the local political machine, rather than on a defined public image, Finn knew relatively little about him, but Natalie had done some fund-raising for him as a favor to one of her friends.
Another possibility was Daniel Dolan. Dolan was a powerful political consultant who was based in Boston. He’d been credited with boosting the careers of several prominent politicians, and had connections at all levels of Massachusetts state politics. Natalie had represented him when he faced ethics charges under the Massachusetts lobbying statute.
Sheldon Seeley, the Middlesex County district attorney, also worked with Natalie for a few years at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the criminal division before being elected DA. Natalie never talked about him very much, but Finn got the feeling they knew each other. Finn wasn’t sure if Seeley was married or divorced, but he knew he had two children, because come campaign time they were paraded in front of the media.
Finally, there was Governor Clarke. Natalie had worked with him recently on one of his statewide Criminal Justice Enforcement initiatives. She had manned the phones and gathered necessary support from within the law enforcement community, helping to put the initiative over the top.
Finn sat back and looked at the list. Loring, Tribinio, Dolan, Seeley, and Clarke. It was quite a roster. They all fit the general profile of Natalie’s boyfriend. All were older, and powerful enough to help Natalie in her career. All had political interests that could be damaged by news of an affair. Finn took another minute or two and jotted down the names of a few lower-level politicos who might possibly fit the profile, but he realized quickly that these first were the most likely candidates.
He tapped his forehead with his pen. Was he missing someone? It felt like there were others, but he couldn’t think of anyone. Looking at the list, it seemed like there was a connection between them he should recognize, but he couldn’t fathom what it was.
His head hurt, and his eyelids were getting heavy. He looked at the list one last time. He’d type it up and give it to Linda tomorrow. Maybe he’d even drop it off himself.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“I SHOULD HAVE GONE in sooner.” It was a refrain Stone had repeated all night long. He couldn’t let it go.
“You couldn’t have gone in before you heard the screams. Don’t beat yourself up,” Kozlowski said. They were alone in one of the interrogation rooms at the station house. It had been a long night of gathering evidence at the little house on Cypher Street, and Stone had not yet had a chance to file his report.
“There were no screams, Detective. I just knew there was something wrong. I should have done something sooner.” He was holding his head in his hands, rocking back and forth.
“Of course there were screams,” Kozlowski insisted. “It must have been the screams that caused you to go into the house.”
“No, Detective, you don’t understand,” Stone started to explain, but Kozlowski cut him off.
“No, Stone, you don’t understand,” he almost growled. “If there were no screams, then there was no probable cause for you to enter that house. If there was no probable cause, it was an illegal entry. If it was an illegal entry, then every piece of evidence that was collected tonight—including what was left of that girl that this sick bastard tortured to death—will be excluded from evidence. It would be like none of this ever happened, and he’ll walk.” Kozlowski grabbed Stone’s shoulder and shook him. “Are you listening to me? This asshole will walk, and that means he’ll most likely kill again, and we’ll probably never find enough additional evidence to nail the son of a bitch. Can you live with that after what you saw in that house?”
Stone looked at Kozlowski, bleary-eyed. He was exhausted, and the shock of what he’d seen in the basement of that little, unassuming house still hadn’t worn off. “No, I can’t live with that,” he said after a moment.
“Good. Then tell me about the screams.”
“I heard screams. That’s why I went into the house.”
“Good. When did you hear the screams?”
“I don’t know, right before I went in?” Stone asked.
“Think about this, Stone. Think long and hard about this. By the time you got down to the basement, the girl was in no condition to scream, so it must have been earlier than that, right?”
“Right, that’s right.”
“Did you walk around the house, maybe looking for a way in without picking the lock? That might explain the delay.” Kozlowski was nodding at him as he said it, and Stone began nodding along.
“That’s right. That’s what happened,” Stone said. “I was looking for an open door or a window so I wouldn’t have to pick the lock.”
“And it was only after you’d spent some time looking for another way in that you came back and picked the lock, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And by then the screaming had stopped, right?”
“That’s right, by then the screaming had stopped,” Stone said, still nodding.
Kozlowski patted the younger officer on the shoulder. “Good. That makes sense, and it explains a lot. Just make sure you keep it straight in your report.”
“I will,” Stone was still nodding, but the thousand-yard stare hadn’t left him. He looked lost as he rocked back and forth again, like he was in some sort of a trance. Kozlowski grabbed him and shook him once more.
“Hey, kid!” he said loudly. “Stay with me! You know that if you hadn’t done what you did, we still wouldn’t have caught this guy. We would have found that poor girl dumped somewhere in the harbor, and it would have been just a matter of time before we found another, and another, and another. You saved lives with what you did tonight. Be proud of that.”
Stone looked up at him, and for the first time since Flaherty and Kozlowski found him unconscious at the scene, there was a spark of life in his eyes. It was like hope was returning, at least in some small part. “Yeah, that’s right,” Kozlowski said, feeding the spark. “You did good, kid. Real good. Don’t screw it all up now by checking out on us.”
Stone nodded again, but this time it looked as if he had a real understanding of what Kozlowski was saying.
“Okay, Stone, good to have you back.”
Just then the door swung open and Flaherty walked in. “You guys ready for me?” she asked, looking at Kozlowski. He nodded.
“Yeah, Lieutenant, I think we’re all set here.”
“Good,” she said. She sat down at the table across from Stone and took out a tape recorder, placing it on the table in front of him. “How are you doing, Paul, hangi
ng in there?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” Stone replied. His voice was a little shaky, but he seemed to be getting his legs back underneath himself.
“Good. Now, what I want you to do is just walk through what happened this evening so we have a record of it. You think you’re up to that?”
“Sure,” he said, although Flaherty noticed that the idea of reliving the evening’s events didn’t make the young officer happy. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Let’s start from the time you first saw this guy.” “Okay.” Stone nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself against the torrent of memories he now had to pick his way through, like the charred remains of a holocaust. Then he opened his eyes and began telling the story.
It took about forty-five minutes, and he spared no detail, walking through the entire evening’s events, describing everything he could remember. The only lie he told was about the screams, and he touched only briefly on those, moving back to the truth as quickly as possible. Flaherty didn’t press him on the issue, and at that point in the narrative Stone thought he saw her and Kozlowski share a knowing glance. He didn’t care, though, and pressed on, eager to conclude his description so he could put the nightmare out of his head.
By the time he was done, he was exhausted. Flaherty seemed to understand, because she had few questions and soon dismissed him. “Go clean yourself up, Stone,” she said. “We’re probably going to have to go over some of this stuff a few times, but don’t worry about that now. I’ll have someone type this up so you can take a look at it later and see if you think you left anything out.”
“Thanks,” Stone said. He stood up and turned toward the door. “I need a shower more than I’ve ever needed one before,” he said. “I feel so disgusting, I could scrub my skin off to get clean.”
Flaherty nodded. “Stone,” she said as he was headed out the door.
“Yeah?” He poked his head back into the room.