by Lisa Gardner
“Basic background check on Schmidt?” D.D. inquired.
“Nothing came up. So either Adam’s been a very good boy since his Boston State Mental days, or he’s been much smarter about not getting caught. My spidey sense is not tingly, however. I like Eola better.”
D.D. merely gave him a look.
Sinkus threw up his hands in defense. “I know, I know, a good investigator leaves no stone unturned. I’m turning, I’m turning, I’m turning.”
Sinkus, apparently, was a little punchy from lack of sleep. He sat down. Detective Tony Rock took over the hot seat, reporting on the latest activity on the Crime Stoppers hotline.
“What can I tell you?” the gravelly voiced detective rumbled, looking exhausted, sounding exhausted, and no doubt feeling as good as he looked and sounded. “We’re averaging thirty-five calls an hour, most of which fall into three basic categories: a little bit crazy, a lot crazy, and too sad for words. The a little and a lot crazy categories are about what you’d expect—aliens did it; men in white suits; if you really want to be safe in this world, you need to wear tin foil on your head.
“The too sad for words, well, they’re too sad for words. Parents. Grandparents. Siblings. All with missing family members. We got a woman yesterday who’s seventy-five. Her younger sister has been missing since 1942. She heard the remains were skeletal, thought she might get lucky. When I told her we didn’t believe the remains were that old, she started to cry. She’s spent sixty-five years waiting for her baby sister to come home. Tells me she can’t stop now; she made her parents a promise. Life is just plain shitty sometimes.”
Rock squeezed the bridge of his nose, blinked, forged on. “So, I got a list of seventeen missing females, all of whom vanished between 1970 and 1990. Some of these girls are local. One’s as far away as California. I got as much information from the families as possible for identification purposes. Including jewelry, clothing, dental work, bone fractures, and/or favorite toys—you know, in case we can match anything against the ‘personal tokens’ attached to each of the remains. I’m passing the info along to Christie Callahan. Otherwise, that’s it for me.”
He took a seat, the air seeming to leave his body until he collapsed, more than sat, in the folding metal chair. The man did not look good, and they lost a moment, staring at him and wondering who would be the first to say something.
“What?” he barked.
“You sure—” D.D. began.
“Can’t fix my mom,” Rock shot back. “Might as well find the fucker who murdered six girls.”
There wasn’t much anyone could add to that, so they moved on.
“All right,” D.D. declared briskly, “we got one prime suspect of above-average intelligence and financial resources, one still-worth-looking-at suspect who was a former employee, and a list of seventeen missing girls from the Crime Stoppers hotline. Plus, there may be a link to an abduction two years before any of these six girls disappeared. Who else wants to join the show? Jerry?”
Sergeant McGahagin had been in charge of culling unsolved BPD missing-persons cases involving female minors for the past thirty years. His team had developed a list of twenty-six cases from Massachusetts. They had now started on the broader New England area.
He was skimming the copy of Tony Rock’s report from Crime Stoppers, identifying five overlapping names between the two lists.
“What I need next,” McGahagin stated heavily, “is a victimology report. If Callahan can give me a physical description of the remains, there’s a chance I can make a match with an unsolved case. Then we could go to work on making a positive ID, which in turn would give us a time line for the mass grave. Bada bing, bada boom.”
McGahagin stared at D.D. expectantly.
She returned his look levelly. “What the hell do you want me to do, Jerry? Pull six victimology reports out of my ass?”
“Come on, it’s been four fucking days, D.D. How can we still know nothing about the six remains?”
“It’s called wet mummification,” D.D. shot back hotly. “And nobody’s ever dealt with it in New England before.”
“Then with all due respect to Christie, call someone who has.”
“She did.”
“What?” McGahagin appeared startled. Investigators made requests for resources, experts, forensic tests all the time. That didn’t mean the powers-that-be granted them. “Christie is getting reinforcements?”
“Tomorrow, I’m told. Some hotshot from Ireland who specializes in this shit and is curious to see a ‘modern’ example. The DA sprung for the dough—apparently the Crime Stoppers hotline isn’t the only one going insane. The entire city is flooding the governor’s office with hysterical complaints that a serial killer is loose and going to murder their daughters next. Which reminds me, the governor would like us to solve this case, mmm, about five minutes ago.”
D.D. rolled her eyes. The rest of the detectives managed a few chuckles.
“Seriously, folks,” D.D. resumed speaking. “Christie is trying. We’re all trying. She believes she needs one more week. So we can sit on our hands and whine, or, here’s a thought, conduct some good old-fashioned police work.”
She returned her attention to McGahagin. “You said you had a list of twenty-six missing females from Massachusetts? Twenty-six seems like a lot to me.”
“As Tony said, it’s a shitty world.”
“You graph ’em? Do we have, say, a cluster of activity around certain dates?”
“Seventy-nine to eighty-two was not a good time to be a young female in Boston.”
“How bad?”
“Nine cases in four years, all unsolved.”
“Age parameters?”
“Zero to eighteen.”
D.D. considered him. “And if you narrow the age range to, say, between five years old and fifteen?”
“Drops it to seven.”
“Names?”
He did the honors, including Dori Petracelli.
“Locations?”
“All over. Southie, Lawrence, Salem, Waltham, Woburn, Marlborough, Peabody. If we make the assumption same subject was responsible for six of the seven cases …”
“By all means, let’s assume away.”
“You’re talking someone with a vehicle, for one,” McGahagin considered. “Someone who knows his way around the state, is comfortable blending in in a lot of different places. Maybe a utility worker, a repair person. Someone smart. Organized. Ritualized in his approach.”
“Time line fits Eola,” Sinkus commented. “Released in ’78, doesn’t have anything better to do …”
“Except,” D.D. murmured, “incidents wind down in ’82. Eola wouldn’t have any reason to stop. Eola could theoretically go on forever. Which, frankly, would be true of any perpetrator. Predators don’t magically just wake up one day and repent. Something happened. Other events, influences, must have interceded. Which brings us to”—her gaze shifted, found Bobby—“Russell Granger.”
Bobby sighed, tilted back his chair. He’d been so busy since returning to HQ he hadn’t had time to piss, let alone prepare notes. He had all eyes on him now, the city guys sizing up the state game. He did the best he could off the top of his head.
“According to police reports, Russell Granger first reported a Peeping Tom at his Arlington home in August of 1982. This set in motion a chain of events that culminated with Russell packing up his family and disappearing two months later, ostensibly to protect his seven-year-old daughter, Annabelle. So at first blush, we have a targeted victim—Annabelle Granger—and her poor, beleaguered father. Except …”
“Except,” D.D. agreed.
Bobby held up a finger. “One,” he said briskly, “Catherine Gagnon, who was abducted in 1980, recognized a photo of Russell Granger. Except Gagnon knew him as an FBI agent who interviewed her twice in the hospital after her rescue. That would be November of 1980, almost two years before the Peeping Tom report Russell Granger would file in Arlington.”
Rock had
appeared to be nodding off at the table. This information, however, brought his head snapping up. “Huh?”
“Our thoughts exactly. Two, during his visits with Catherine, Granger produced a composite sketch for her consideration. Catherine said the black-and-white didn’t match her attacker. Granger tried to insist it did, got upset when she stayed firm, said it didn’t. So, was the sketch an attempt on the part of Granger to distract Catherine, or did he honestly have a suspect in mind as her rapist? I have my opinion.” He jerked his head toward D.D. “The sergeant has hers.
“Which brings us to three: There’s no record of Russell Granger. No driver’s license. No Social. Not for him, not for Annabelle’s mother, Leslie Ann Granger. According to real estate records, the Grangers’ home on Oak Street was owned by Gregory Badington of Philadelphia from ’75 to ’86. I’m guessing the Grangers rented the property, except Gregory passed away three years ago, and his wife, who sounded about one hundred and fifty on the phone, had no idea what I was talking about. So one dead end there.
“Yesterday, I started a routine check on financial records, got nowhere. Started a search for the Granger family furniture, ostensibly put into storage. Nada. It’s as if the family itself never existed. Except, of course, for the police reports Granger filed.”
“You think Russell Granger targeted his own daughter?” Rock said in confusion. “Made the whole thing up?”
Bobby shrugged. “Me, no. Sergeant Warren, on the other hand …”
“It would provide the perfect cover,” D.D. said flatly. “Maybe by ’82, Russell thought police would start noticing the sudden uptick in missing females. By positioning himself as a victim, he figured he could avoid being viewed as a suspect. Plus, it sets up the perfect cover for his own departure come October. Think about it. Seven missing girls between 1979 and 1982, one of them a known acquaintance of Russell Granger’s—his daughter’s best friend—yet not a single detective tries to track him down and question him. Why? Because he’s already established himself as a protective father. It’s perfect.”
Sinkus appeared crestfallen. It was clear he liked his man, Eola, for the crime, so the sudden rise of Russell Granger as a viable alternative came as a heartbreak.
“One minor detail,” Bobby countered. “Russell Granger is dead. Which means regardless of what he was doing in the early eighties, he’s not the one leaving a note on D.D.’s windshield.”
“You sure about that?”
“You’re not really suggesting—”
“Look at the facts, Detective,” D.D. said. “So far, you can’t prove Russell Granger existed. Therefore, how can you be so sure he’s dead?”
“Oh, for crying out loud—”
“I mean it. Do you have a death certificate? Corroboration? No, you have the sole testimony of Russell Granger’s daughter, who claims her father was accidentally killed by a taxi. No other supporting documents or details. Damn convenient, if you ask me.”
“So Russell Granger is not only a serial killer, but his daughter is covering for him? Now who’s devolved from fact into fiction?”
“I’m just saying, we can’t jump to conclusions yet. Two things I want to know.” D.D. regarded him stonily. “One, when did Russell Granger first arrive in this state? Two, why did he keep running after leaving Arlington? Give me those answers, then we’ll talk.”
“One,” Bobby said crisply, “just got word from MIT on the name of Russell’s former boss. I hope to meet with Dr. Schuepp first thing in the morning, which should help fill in the background info on Russell Granger, including his Massachusetts time line. Two, I’m trying to research the dates and cities after the family left Arlington, but I’ve been too busy chasing after you to get anything else done.”
D.D. smiled grimly. “On that note”—she held up the stack of photocopies—“let’s discuss the night’s main event.”
My mystery caller turned out to be Mr. Petracelli. He was no warmer by phone than he had been in person. He wanted to meet. He didn’t want Mrs. Petracelli to know about it. Sooner would be better than later.
The sound of my real name over the phone lines had left me rattled. I didn’t want him in my apartment. The fact that he was using the phone number I’d given to Mrs. Petracelli felt invasive enough.
We finally settled on meeting at Faneuil Hall, at the east end of Quincy Market, at eight p.m. Mr. Petracelli grumbled about having to drive into the city, find parking, but grudgingly agreed. I had my own issues—how to strategically plan my shift break to coincide with the proper time—but I thought it could be done.
Mr. Petracelli hung up and I stood alone in my apartment, clutching the phone to my chest and working on finding focus. I was due at work in seventeen minutes. I hadn’t fed Bella, changed clothes, or unpacked.
When I finally moved, it was to set down the phone and hit Play on my answering machine. First message was a hang up. Second message the same. Third message was my current client, who, come to think of it, didn’t like the valances after all; she’d just seen this great new window treatment at her friend Tiffany’s house and maybe we could start over, or if that was too much of a problem for me, she could just give Tiffany’s interior decorator a call. Ciao, ciao!
I scribbled a small note. Then I listened to three more hang ups.
Mr. Petracelli, reluctant to leave a message? Or someone else, desperate to get ahold of me? Suddenly, after years of isolation, I was a popular girl. Good news or bad? It made me nervous.
I chewed my thumbnail, looking outside at the dark, rainy gloom. Somebody wanted the locket back. Somebody had found Sergeant Warren’s car. Was it only a matter of time, then, before that same someone found me?
“Bella,” I declared suddenly, “how would you like to go to work with me?”
Bella liked the idea very much. She twirled half a dozen times, trotted to the door, and gazed at me expectantly. The news that I had to change clothes wasn’t well received, but gave her a chance to eat dinner. While she scarfed kibble, I donned worn jeans, a basic white shirt, and black Dansko clogs, perfect for a long night on my feet. And, of course, I grabbed my handy-dandy Taser, a girl’s best friend, and tucked it into my oversized shoulder bag.
Bella and I hustled out the door, pausing only as I tended to all the locks behind me. At street level I hesitated again, looking left, then right. At this hour, traffic was busy, people making the long haul home from work. Over at Atlantic Avenue, it was probably bumper-to-bumper, especially given the rain.
My little side street was quiet, however, just the glow of street-lamps bouncing off the slick, black pavement.
I gathered Bella’s leash in my hand and we headed into the gloom.
Working at a coffeehouse sucked. I spent most of my eight-hour shift trying not to chew out the overcaffeinated customers or my undercaffeinated boss. Tonight was no exception.
Eight o’clock came. Five people remained in a straggly line, wanting nonfat this, tall soy mocha latte that. I cranked out shots of espresso and worried about Bella, tied up just under cover outside the glass doors, and Mr. Petracelli, waiting at the other end of the food-vendor-jammed length of Quincy Market.
“Need a break,” I reminded my manager.
“Got customers,” he singsonged back.
Eight-fifteen. “Gotta pee.”
“Learn to hold it.”
Eight-twenty, a family of caffeine addicts swarmed in and my manager showed no sign of relenting. I’d had enough. I whipped off my apron, tossed it on the counter. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said. “If you don’t like it, buy me another bladder.”
I stormed off, leaving Carl with four wide-eyed customers, including a little girl who demanded loudly, “Is she going to have an accident?”
I quickly wiped coffee grounds from my shirt, shoved my way through the heavy glass doors, and made a beeline for Bella. She stood, tongue lolling out, ready to go.
She was a little shocked when instead of going for a run, I simply walked her to the othe
r end of Quincy Market, where I hoped Mr. Petracelli was still waiting for me.
I didn’t see him at first, trying to sort through the small crowd that had gathered outside Ned Devine’s. The rain had stopped, meaning the barflies had returned. I had just started to panic, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around. Bella barked madly.
Mr. Petracelli backed way off. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, hands up, nervous eyes on my dog.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, to calm Bella now that so many people were staring. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Bella doesn’t like strangers.”
Mr. Petracelli nodded skeptically, his eyes never leaving Bella, as she finally settled down, pressing against my leg.
Mr. Petracelli was dressed for the weather. A long tan trench coat, black umbrella at his side, dark brown fedora capping his head. He reminded me of someone from a spy movie, and I wondered if that’s how he viewed our meeting, some kind of clandestine operation, carried out between professionals.
I didn’t feel very professional at the moment. Mostly, I was grateful for the presence of my dog.
It was Mr. Petracelli’s meeting, so I waited for him to speak first.
He cleared his throat. Once, twice, three times. “Sorry about, um, yesterday,” he said. “I just … When Lana said you were coming over … I wasn’t ready yet.” He paused, then, when I still didn’t say anything, expanded in a rush: “Lana has her Foundation, her cause. For me, it’s not like that. I don’t like to think about those days much. It’s easier to pretend we never lived on Oak Street. Arlington, Dori, our neighbors … it’s almost like a dream. Something very far away. Maybe, if I’m lucky, it only happened in my mind.”
“I’m sorry,” I offered lamely, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say. We had moved around to the other side now, away from the bar crowd, to the other corner of the broad, granite-columned building. Mr. Petracelli still hung back, keeping a wary eye on Bella. I preferred it that way.
“Lana said you gave Dori the locket,” he declared suddenly. “Is it true? Did you give her one of your … presents? Did that pervert who left them for you kill my daughter?” His voice had risen. I saw something move in the shadows of his eyes then. A light that wasn’t quite sane.