by Anne Frasier
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about this,” David said, “but I need to ask about the man who abducted you.” Abducted. A big word for a kid his age, but he’d be hearing it a lot and there was no need to water it down or make it something cute.
David pulled a flyer from his pocket, unfolded it, and showed him the composite drawing of Remy. “Have you ever seen this man?”
Taylor gave it a glance, then went back to coloring. “Don’t know.”
David tried another tactic. “Did you know the man who took you away from the park?”
“No.”
That eliminated acquaintances. David asked him more questions. About where they’d gone, what kind of vehicle the man drove. Was it a truck? A van? A car?
Taylor gave him nothing more. “Did he tell you not to say anything?” David asked.
The crayon stopped, then started again.
That was it. He was afraid to share what he knew.
The boy began to rock back and forth. “I’m gonna add stars too. Mommy says stars are out in the day; we just can’t see them.”
Out of the mouths of babes.
Remy was working and living in plain sight. David was sure of it. He thought about the short list of suspects Meg had put together. Outside the hospital, without slowing his stride, David called Sweet. “Since you’ve proclaimed yourself to be the eyes and ears of the Savannah underbelly, see if you can find anything new on the panhandler from our suspect list.” He gave him the name of the homeless shelter where the man might be found. Before Sweet had a chance to chew him out again, David disconnected.
CHAPTER 49
John wanted to help find Elise, and finding Elise also meant finding Mara’s killer. For the first time since regaining consciousness in the hospital, he felt a spark of purpose. At the downtown Live Oak Library, he began by viewing newspapers in neighboring towns, then expanding his search to include places like Hilton Head, South Carolina. After two hours of loading plastic reels into the microfilm machine, his head was pounding and he needed to rest. He eyed the marble floor and wondered how it would work as a bed. Eyes burning, arm shaking from full-body weakness, he loaded another reel, this one from the Charleston Post and Courier, Charleston being a short two-hour drive from Savannah. He threaded the film under the glass, then watched the monitor.
He was halfway through the second article when his hand paused over the “Advance” button. He read the piece again, about a man named Brian O’Connor, who’d gone missing on a business trip two days before Remy was buried.
He zoomed in on the headshot and adjusted the focus. Then he slipped a quarter into the slot and pushed “Print.” Beside him, a copy machine spit out an enlarged photo. Another quarter and he had the full article.
He called David’s cell. “I think I might have something.” He gave him the information, adding, “The accompanying photo looks like our John Doe, but I can’t be certain without a dental match.”
“That would take too long. You’re the coroner. You performed the autopsy. What do you think?”
He was talking forensic anthropology. Not John’s thing. “I don’t know.”
“Get a copy of the newspaper image to me, and I’ll forward it to Hollis Blake. She can compare it to photos she took of Doe after his acid-melt. She can at least check bone structure.”
John stared at the microfilm machine. “I don’t think I can make a digital image.” Times like these, he could really tell his brain wasn’t working right, and it was especially evident when he got tired.
“Take a photo with your phone.”
“It’ll only be seventy-two dpi.”
“John.”
“Okay, okay.”
He took a photo of the print and sent it to David.
“In the meantime,” David said, “I’ll get Meg Cook on this. But what’s your opinion? Don’t think too hard. Don’t second-guess yourself.”
“This isn’t at all scientific or professional.”
“We don’t have time for scientific or professional.”
“Are you going to trust the opinion of a guy with a head injury?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think it’s him.”
“Okay. Go home and rest. Hear me? You sound exhausted. I’ll keep you updated.”
John packed up the film and tucked it back in the labeled canister and told the librarian thanks while she tried not to stare at his bald head and cast.
“Car wreck.” He didn’t know why he lied. Maybe the story of him and Mara was too personal to speak of to a stranger.
“I recognize you.”
“Well shit.” He headed back to David’s apartment.
David called Meg Cook and told her to find out everything she could about O’Connor. Thirty minutes later he heard back from Hollis Blake. She agreed with John.
“This isn’t at all scientific,” she reminded David over the phone.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Let’s put it this way. When I compare the morgue photo to that of the newspaper, I see nothing in the images that tells me these two people cannot be the same person. But why don’t I forward the JPGs to an acquaintance of mine in Atlanta? He’s an expert in forensic facial reconstruction and should be able to make a more accurate and confident assessment.”
David agreed to the plan, but his mind was already made up. It was the same guy. He was telling her good-bye when he got a call from Meg.
“O’Connor was a salesman from Florida,” she said. “He had a wife and two kids.”
Florida.
“I need to talk to the wife, if she’s still alive.”
“Already checked. She is. She lives in California now, pretty much as far away from Florida as a person can get. Her name is Tracy O’Connor.”
“Good work.”
“There’s something else. Her kids? A few years after O’Connor vanished, they both died under what were considered suspicious circumstances. After that, some even suspected she was behind her husband’s disappearance. The DA tried to prove the kids were victims of Munchausen by proxy, but the mother never wavered in her innocent plea. She got off eventually, although it sounds like she was pretty much ostracized after that.”
“See if you can set up a Skype call. I need to talk to her.”
“Will do.”
An hour later David sat at his computer monitor introducing himself to the woman who used to live in Florida. She had bleached hair and a sad face. He could see she’d attempted to apply makeup.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“We have reason to believe your husband’s disappearance thirty-six years ago was somehow tied to Frank J. Remy, a convicted killer in the state of Georgia. Have you heard of him?”
“I’ve seen articles about him in my Facebook feed, but I don’t know what that has to do with my husband.”
“Are you aware of the recent child killings in Florida and Georgia?”
“Are you really a detective?” She looked ready to bail. “You sound more like a reporter. I don’t talk to reporters. I’ve been lied to by reporters. I moved to California to start over and get away from them.”
David held up his badge.
“You could buy one of those online.”
He tucked the badge away. “Guess I could.” He was dangerously close to unraveling, thinking of the ticking clock and Elise, but he forced himself to maintain, dredged up his charm while appealing to the mother in Tracy O’Connor, hoping she hadn’t been behind the murder of her own kids. “I’m not a reporter, but I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about the deaths of your children.” She blanched, and he continued, quickly getting to the point before she could end the call. “I understand the killer was never caught, and I’m trying to determine if the recent Florida and Georgia murders were perpetrated by the same person. His capture won’t bring your own children back, but it will keep other ones from losing their lives. And it will clear your name.”
His straightforwar
d approach worked. She gave in and described the deaths of her children. Asphyxiation, same as the Florida murders. Same as Zane Novak. Same as Mara and Loralie.
“Can you think of anybody in your area, a neighbor, someone at school, a teacher, anybody who might have wanted to harm them?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been through this again and again. You aren’t asking me anything new.”
“Were you dating anyone?”
“I dated, of course. I mean, I wasn’t old.”
“Who were you dating at the time of the deaths?”
“It couldn’t have been Franklin.”
Franklin. David fought the urge to lean forward as he tried not to appear too desperate.
“The kids loved him, and he adored them even though they weren’t his own.”
“The killer might very well have been charming and loving. Psychopaths are charming.”
Tracy suddenly seemed eager to share her story. There were probably few people she could talk to about the darkest period of her life. “We started seeing each other shortly after my husband went missing. Franklin was wonderful, thoughtful, just what the boys and I needed, but we broke up after their deaths. It was too much for Franklin. He had such a soft heart. And even though he never said it, he suspected me. I could see it in his face.”
It would have been hard enough to lose her kids, but to be blamed for those deaths by the very people who should have been supporting her . . . And how sick would it be if Remy had searched out the widow of the man whose body had replaced his in the coffin? It seemed that might be exactly what had happened. It would also explain why Remy went to Florida rather than farther away from Georgia.
His motive for the cemetery fiasco? The identity of the body would have led them straight to Tracy O’Connor and her murdered children.
“Franklin could do anything,” Tracy said. “Sing, play the piano, clean house, cook. He was Mr. Mom, always baking cookies and cupcakes. Even doughnuts. He made the most amazing doughnuts.”
CHAPTER 50
Time to ramp this up,” Remy said. “You’re getting desensitized to him, and we’re not getting good footage.”
Hours had passed since Elise had been introduced to Tremain, and she’d quit reacting. To remedy that, Remy had removed Tremain from the room a few times, hoping each reintroduction would produce some epic video, but none would ever be as satisfying as her initial response. The fact that Remy still wore his mask told her he felt some twisted measure of shame, because she was sure he had no intention of letting her live so she could ID him.
“Camera on?” he asked.
The meth head nodded.
“Don’t miss anything. You’re only going to get one chance.”
“Under control.”
Remy hit the release mechanism on the restraint pole, then lifted the looped end over Tremain’s head, freeing him. It took Tremain a few moments to realize what had happened. When it finally sank in, his dead eyes lit up, and he charged at Elise, shouting her name. He ripped her shirt open and dropped to his knees in front of her, his hands on her thighs while the other two men stood feet away.
Before the horror of the scene could fully sink in, he bent his head, opened his mouth—and bit into her upper stomach, just below the breast. She screamed and bucked in the chair. He lifted his head to look at her face, smiled a bloody smile, and came at her again.
This time he ripped the tape from her mouth and pressed his face to hers. She thought he was going to bite off her lip, but instead he plunged his tongue down her throat while his filthy, clawlike hands kneaded her hips.
Unsatisfied, he pulled away and stood up. Never taking his eyes from her, the smile never fading, he fumbled with the zipper of his pants while Remy moved even closer for prime viewing.
Her stomach a raw pit of pain, her mouth free of the tape, Elise ducked her head. Using her teeth, she reached into her bra and pulled out the packet LaRue had given her. The contents were meant for her, but instead of biting it open, she spit it out. It dropped to the floor in front of Tremain.
He was never going to rape her again. No matter what it took, even if it meant killing them all, herself included.
Elise moved her chair forward—two rapid hops. With the final hop, a chair leg burst the packet open, white powder exploding. In a final attempt to survive, she held her breath and pushed herself backward, the room turning. She heard the sound of splintering wood as the chair shattered, felt the crack of her head hitting the floor. She dug in her heels, scrambling away from the cloud of tetrodotoxin, tried to get to her feet, tripped, collapsed, crawled, and kept crawling, leaving a trail of blood behind.
“We have to coordinate this,” Avery said in David’s office. “Brief a SWAT team, bring in a hostage negotiator. Maybe some people from Atlanta.”
“Set it up. But I’m not waiting around.” David fastened the Velcro on his bulletproof vest.
The baker had somehow falsified his prints. Not a hard thing to do today. Hell, there were probably YouTube tutorials on it. On top of that, Meg Cook was taking the news hard because her research had removed Hughes from their short list of suspects, but she couldn’t be blamed. He had lived in Indiana, and his wife was dead. He’d just left out the part about visiting Florida before moving to Savannah.
On the phone in Forsyth Park, Remy had tried to convince them of his innocence when it came to murder. David hadn’t fallen for it, and Remy’s connection to the O’Connor children supported that. Many child killers never confessed no matter how much evidence was stacked against them.
David strode from the building, not seeing anybody, almost crashing into Sweet outside the main entrance.
“The panhandler is not our man,” Sweet said.
“I know.”
“But he was telling me about a meth head who claimed to know Remy.”
“Forget the meth head.” David didn’t slow down. He unlocked his car from across the parking lot. “I’ve got a strong lead.”
Seconds later, Sweet in the passenger seat, they roared down the street. David ran red lights and cut across medians to get around cars waiting at intersections. He ignored the honking horns and finger gestures. At the vast warehouse, he slammed the car into park and cut the engine. Inside the bakery, David held his badge high above his head. “Everybody out.”
Chairs scraped. Mothers grabbed children. Within seconds the place was empty except for the young girl behind the register.
“Where’s Hughes?” David demanded.
She’d seen too many cop dramas, because she locked her hands behind her head. “I don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Y-yesterday. I opened today, but he wasn’t here.” She stumbled against the counter as David shoved past her, heading for the kitchen. One quick sweep was enough to tell him it was empty. He returned to the girl. She had a cell phone in her hand and was running for the door.
“Stop!”
She stopped.
“Are you calling 911?”
“Yes.”
“No cops.”
“You’re scaring her,” Sweet said.
He was right. She was shaking and trying not to cry. Hell, she was just a kid, no older than Audrey. Wearing clothes she probably detested—a pink ruffled apron and white sneakers.
“Don’t call the cops,” David said in his kind and charmingly persuasive voice. “Got it?”
The girl nodded and ran out the door.
David called Avery and told him they were checking the entire warehouse.
“You need backup?”
“Be ready. I don’t want anybody coming in with sirens blaring.”
“Got it.”
Down a narrow hall of old brick, they found a freight elevator with a metal accordion door. The lift had stopped on another floor; David could see the cables and gaping shaft.
They both pulled their weapons. Sweet pointed. “Stairs.”
The building was maybe five stories tall. The second
floor turned up nothing. David was getting nervous, thinking this was a waste of valuable time, when they stepped onto the ancient third floor.
The warehouse space was vast and dusty and dark, but not so dark they couldn’t make out four bodies. Weapons braced, David and Sweet moved forward until they were close enough to see that three of the bodies were men. The fourth was Elise, unmoving, a trail of blood behind her.
David swallowed the despair in his throat.
Sweet’s hand lashed out. “Don’t move.” He nodded toward a dusting of powder on the floor.
“TTX?” David asked.
“Maybe.”
An imaginary clock ticked down seconds that felt like minutes as David visually processed the scene. With chilling acuity, David realized Elise had most likely had the TTX on her. She’d planned to kill herself, which explained her actions and behavior the previous night. Instead she’d taken them all down, herself included. The scene in the warehouse played out in his mind, the sequence of events that had led to the men on the floor and to Elise and the shattered chair. Beside him, Sweet was eerily silent.
David wanted to drop to his knees and cradle his head. He wanted to vanish. Disappear. Forever, completely, because the pain was too much.
Instead, moving slowly and cautiously, he gave the powder a wide berth. The slightest waft of air could send the poison their way, and Elise might still be alive. When he reached her, he knelt down, hand shaking as he pressed two fingers against her neck, first lightly, then harder when he didn’t get a pulse, finally picking up a faint rhythm. That was all he needed to know.
He stood, put his hands under her arms, and dragged her backward, a safe distance from the powder. He had to make a decision. Leave her there and wait for an ambulance, or risk further injury and carry her to fresh air. He chose fresh air.
He hefted her into his arms. “Call 911.” David headed for the elevator but heard no movement or conversation behind him. David glanced over his shoulder to see Sweet frozen in place, a look of anguish on his face. Maybe Sweet had screwed up over the years, but it was obvious the guy was crazy about Elise.