fifty-two
“I want to be alone,” Megan said before opening the door to her mother’s room.
Rose had been hooked up to life support. Megan sat down in a chair and stared out the window. She needed to be near her mother, but she couldn’t bear to look at her connected to the medical apparatus. The sound of her forced breath was nearly too much to handle.
A light knock was followed by, “Can I come in?” It was Nappa.
“I said I want to be alone.”
He politely ignored her before shutting the door behind him. “Brendan will be here in a few hours. He caught the last flight. You need to know a few things we’ve uncovered.”
Megan met his suggestion with silence, then handed her cell over to him with the photo of Quinlan, Fintan, and Breton filling the screen.
“I know everything I need to.”
Nappa looked away from the photo and handed Megan back her phone. “No. You don’t. There’s more. I’ll leave it with you and when Daly wakes up we’ll both go in, together. Together,” he emphasized.
“I’ll give you the broad strokes of it. So far we’ve found out that Daly was Caroline Dacey’s mentor. Palumbo and Rasmussen went through Daly’s apartment. Lots on her computer, pictures of her and Shannon at the kids’ camp. She paid a search site and got all of her information on you from there. Palumbo went to The Catholic Times with Daly’s photo ID. They identified her as the person who placed the ad. The blood on the cross matches hers.”
“And Fintan’s.”
“No one could have seen this coming.” He was out of words. Nothing could ever fill the void deepening in Megan with every moment that passed.
“All the pieces coming together, huh, Sam? All but one.” It was the first time Megan made eye contact with Nappa since he’d walked in. “Can you tell me why I’m sitting here next to my mother, who has a fucking machine breathing for her?” She turned back toward the window. “I didn’t think so.”
_____
Four hours later the doctors moved Breton Daly to a private room with two policemen guarding the door. Megan stood staring at her through the glass. Breton was beginning to stir but was not yet fully awake.
“Ready?” Nappa asked Megan.
“Where’s her lawyer?” she asked.
“She waived her rights to having a lawyer present. When she awoke in recovery, she asked only for one thing,” Nappa said.
Megan knew intuitively what Breton Daly requested.
“She wants to see you,” he said.
Megan stared through the glass at the woman who’d changed her life forever.
“I can’t believe the killer was a woman. It never even crossed my mind. A fucking female serial killer. That would have been last on my list.”
“Her full name is Joan Breton Daly. Born upstate, in Elmira, New York. Both parents deceased. She was raised by her grandmother, Bridget Daly.” Nappa emphasized her first name when he spoke. “Attended nursing school at Saint Joseph’s in Elmira. There was a report on her grandmother. You may want to take a look at—”
“She’s up,” Megan interrupted. “Let’s give the woman what she wants.”
A nurse was in with Breton. Her wrists were strapped to the bed, handcuffed. The nurse was giving her water through a straw.
Nappa put a hand on Megan’s shoulder, preventing her from entering. “Give me your gun,” Nappa said.
Megan stared Nappa down, then took her gun out, opened the chamber, emptied the bullets onto the floor, and closed it, placing it back in her holster. She took the file from Nappa and they both walked in.
Breton was groggy, but she knew who was standing across from her.
“Hello, Megan,” she said.
“You will refer to me as Detective McGinn.”
Breton glanced over at Nappa. “Does he have to be here?”
“Yeah, I do,” Nappa said.
“Be grateful for his presence,” Megan added. “He’s keeping me from killing you.”
Breton sighed, “Meg—I’m sorry, Detective McGinn. How’s Rose?”
“Do not speak her name again while I’m in this room,” she demanded.
“The nurse said she’s on life support. Is that true?”
Megan ignored her. She opened the file, pretending to re-read it so she didn’t have to maintain long eye contact with the woman. “It says here both of your parents are deceased. Did you kill them, too?” she asked.
Breton smiled at her sarcasm. “Come on. Don’t be silly. You’re reading my life story—you know my father was killed in Vietnam, and you know my mother is dead, too.”
“She was a hooker. Died of a drug overdose. You were raised by your grandmother, Bridget Daly,” Megan stated.
“I’ve looked forward to this moment. I never really knew how it was going to come about, but on some level, I was positive we would meet. My little mouse made it through the maze. Tell me. Was it luck or good old-fashioned detective work?”
“Witty. You know you’re brother once said that exact same line to me.”
Breton’s smug demeanor transitioned to a careful mask. “I don’t have a brother.”
“Funny, when I spoke with him a few hours ago, he first said he didn’t have a sister. But, then”—she waived her finger—“he told all. Boy, those family Thanksgivings must have been eventful.”
With each step Megan took toward Breton’s hospital bed, Nappa became more vigilant. He wasn’t about to protect a murderer, but he’d protect Megan’s career at all costs.
“After he was taken out of your grandmother’s home, how long was it before the two of you reconnected?”
Breton stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t have a brother.”
“Fintan molested you, sodomized you, fucked you, and then groomed you for … for what? Exactly what was the purpose?” Megan walked to the corner of the bed. Strapped down, Breton had few vantage points to choose from. “Wait. Maybe it was your grandmother? Did she touch you, hurt you, make you do things?”
“Are you sick? Of course not!” Breton snapped. “She was a saint, my grandmother, an absolute saint. You have no idea how much she sacrificed for me, how much she loved me. She was the most giving, kind, selfless woman in this world.”
“It’s interesting you say that. Those were the exact words the family and friends of the women you murdered said about them.”
“Why do you use that word, murdered?”
“That’s what it’s called when one human being unlawfully and with premeditation takes the life of another human being.”
Megan stood over Breton, slowly folding her hospital gown up each arm, exposing the self-desecration. Breton could do nothing to stop her. “Nappa, look at this.” Megan grinned, knowing she may not have her gun, but she was sure as hell not leaving without her own lasting mark on the monster lying in the hospital bed before her.
“Nappa, this sick shit is all over Ms. Daly’s body. How fucked up is that?”
The self-inflicted scars made Nappa wince.
“What are you doing?!” Breton screamed.
“Did Fintan do this to you?”
She wouldn’t answer.
“You did this to yourself, didn’t you? Penance for your sins, perhaps?”
Breton looked away, replaying in her minds’ eye how she relieved herself after each kill …
Blood-soaked fingerprints marred her reflection as she wiped steam from the mirror. Her naked body stood on the green bathroom mat. Her body was unspectacular. Thin, pale more than an anemic. A ten-year-old boy had more muscle tone, but nothing matched her force when she was on a mission. Her one attractive perk was her face, ironically angelic. Rarely noticed by either sex. Invisible to the world unless her abnormal strength was focused around one’s neck: not someone who would make you go gaga, unless she was pinning you down, throttling y
ou, laughing at the end, all over you. But that was merely her outside; her inside was a different story, hence the blood.
The nail clippers were new, as they always were on days such as these. She didn’t really need them, as she always wore two sets of gloves. Ten clips, the pointed cuticle instrument underneath the nail bed, and she was nearly done.
She turned the shower on, tilting the knob over to hot. The bathroom mirror steaming over cued her entrance. The scalding jet streams smacked at her from all directions. The horse brush lay next to the bottles on the floor near the soap. She didn’t like to use soap; not on these mornings, anyway. She held the brush as gingerly as a woman nestling her newborn in her arms. Slowly moving her fingers over the uneven acrylic bristles, staring down, she closed her eyes as she poured the rubbing alcohol over the bristles. She slashed herself with the vigor of a sushi chef against a piece of mahi-mahi. The brush crisscrossed over old scabs while the tips of each bristle dug under the dried clots of blood, excavating the fresh skin from underneath. She felt them rip open, but it was always the fresh cuts where she felt a small level of acquittal, if there were such a thing to find in her soul. The stream of water hit her skin like pellets of acid spitting down on her. Dead skin and dried crusted scabs mixed with fresh lacerations. Her grin emerged with each swipe, right up until the last hurling stroke. She released a deep groan, something she assumed an orgasm would sound like, if she’d ever experienced one.
She rested her head on the shower door, staring down at the feather-like wisps of skin floating into the drain. Moments later she stood in front of the full-length mirror watching the blood snake its way over her nipples, stomach, then her bare vagina, trickling down her legs. There were more of them on her left side, since she was right-handed. It would be hours before she would get sleep. The endorphins running through her system made her feel as though she’d just downed a few uppers, followed by a black coffee chaser.
“This was a good morning,” she breathed.
_____
Breton sighed while opening her eyes after recalling the ritual. She was determined to change the course of conversation.
“You know, when I’d visit your mother—” Breton paused. “You don’t seem surprised. Well, she and I had some nice chats. She wasn’t in a fog through all of them. She told me some great stories about you. Her memory was quite good when I was there, quite good. Tell me more about the time she taught you how to drive, or the time she dressed you up for that class photo. Now, that one I loved.” Breton started laughing.
“That’s enough,” Nappa yelled. It caused one of the police out in the hall to open the door. That’s when Nappa noticed Walker waiting nearby.
Breton ignored Nappa’s outburst to focus purely on Megan. “You don’t get it, do you? I was doing those women a favor. I helped them, just like Fintan helped the people he returned to God.”
“You helped them?” Megan flipped through the papers in the file until she came to a police report from the Elmira Police Department. She read it while Breton spoke.
“What kind of life do you think those girls were going to have? Tell me! You didn’t know Shannon. She was as green as grass. She had no clue. No clue about how disgusting people can be, and usually are. About how selfish this world is.” Breton was getting more agitated the longer Megan refused to give her direct eye contact. “Shannon was …” Her anger was making her trip over her own words. “Shannon was so good. She didn’t deserve to be treated the way she was by some people—like some of the men she’d meet. She was too sweet for this world. I sent her to a better place. I saved her from all the world’s pain and disappointment.”
“Uh-huh.” Megan’s nonchalant tone continued into her next question. “Tell me about November 16th, 1986.” She had everything she needed to know about November 16th right in front of her.
Breton’s cheek began to twitch. Her fingers tapped the bed under her bound wrists. She didn’t answer.
“Young white male broke into your grandmother’s home. She was beaten. Raped. Her home burglarized. A fire consumed the house. It says in the police report she was rescued and taken to Saint Joseph’s Hospital. She died early the next morning. The man who did it was never caught.”
“I’m feeling very tired. I’d like for you to leave,” she said.
“What else happened that night?” Megan’s instincts told her to keep pressing. “What? You got a phone call. You rushed to her side. Then what?”
Breton shut her eyes, fighting off the memory of that night, but it wasn’t enough. She heard Bridget Daly begging from her hospital bed.
Breton, please. Breton, please. I’ve never asked anything of you. Please help me. Take me out of my pain.
“What was she like when you saw her? When you finally got to her?”
“I want you both to leave now,” Breton demanded.
“She was bruised. Bloodied. Soiled. A man had raped her. It says here the man had sodomized your grandmother, in her own home, her own bed. You’re a nurse. You know what ‘sodomized’ means.”
“Stop. Stop it!”
“The woman who gave her life to you. She was a saint, that’s what you called her, right? Saint Bridget. What did you say to her that night? When you finally got there? That you were sorry you weren’t there to protect her. That you failed,” Megan goaded.
“I did the one thing that you weren’t able to do for your own mother,” Breton hissed. “She begged me. She begged me!” She fought against the straps and handcuffs. “She did everything for me; I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t let her stay that way. I was not going to let her down. It was terrible to see her, to see her lying there. She was in so much pain.” She turned her head away from Megan.
Megan closed the file and threw it on the tray table in front of Breton. “You smothered her with a pillow, didn’t you? Just like you attempted to do to my mother. You fucking psycho bitch!”
Breton kept looking away.
“You don’t have the right to play God, Ms. Daly. You don’t have the right to decide who is too good for this dirty world and who isn’t. And you didn’t have a right to kill your grandmother.”
Breton’s head snapped in Megan’s direction. “Tell me, Detective McGinn, when that button’s pressed, and the machine keeping your mother’s pulse beating stops, what will you be then? Her savior … or her murderer?”
Megan walked closer to Breton’s bed, spurring Nappa to go to her side.
“McGinn, no. No!” he said.
Megan bent over the guardrail of Breton’s bed. She pressed her hand into the bandaged bullet wound to her shoulder until blood ran through the gauze. “Someday. Someday when a jury finds you guilty and you’re issued the death penalty—and you’ll get it, believe me—when that day comes, rest assured, Ms. Daly, you will not be reunited with Saint Bridget. Returning to God will be the last place you go.”
Just before Megan was out the door, Breton asked, “Detective? When can I get my grandmother’s ring back?”
fifty-three
The door to Rose’s room was opened slightly. Megan could see her brother Brendan speaking with the doctors and then signing a clipboard. Nappa, Pearl Walker, Mike, and Maureen all stood nearby. Megan stared at her mother through the doorway. The life-support machine pushed fresh air in and suctioned old air out. It sounded like a clogged vacuum cleaner was doing the job for Rose’s lungs. Her neck was heavily bruised, with pockets of broken blood vessels running up and down her skin.
“Momma, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
Brendan heard her comment as she came into the room. “No, it’s not, kiddo. It’s not.” He walked over to his baby sister. They cried in each other’s arms. “It’s time, Megs. It’s time,” he said.
One of the doctors stood in the doorway. Brendan nodded for him to come in. When he turned off the machine, Megan got up and held her mother the way she had one night befo
re. She remembered that nagging feeling she’d had when Rose came to and held her: that the moment was going to be the last they’d share. Megan hated herself for being right. She let go of Rose, gently placing her head back on the pillow. She walked out of the room, heading toward the elevators. She glanced into other rooms—patients smiling at the receipt of flowers. One older woman was packing a bag, happy to be leaving the hospital. That would never be Rose McGinn, ever. Seeing the handful of smiling faces made Megan feel hollow, more than she ever could have imagined. Guilt capsized her very being.
“McGinn? McGinn?” Nappa called out after her. “Where are you going?”
The elevator doors began to close between Megan and the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Nappa asked again.
“Away.”
about the author
C.J. Carpenter was born and raised in upstate New York. She has spent the majority of her life living in Manhattan and now divides her time between NYC and Philadelphia, where she is currently working on her third novel.
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