“C’mon. What do you think? Honestly.”
“The connections are interesting, but we’re talking about a bunch of educated—highly educated—people.”
“Intelligence is orthogonal to evil. You know that. And if you know anything about academics, you might even say there is a correlation between the two.”
“I’ll do a little digging. You go make those phone calls.”
“Yeah, yeah. They’re on my to-do list.” McAdams paused. “You know, I could really use a cup of coffee.”
“Lucky for you there’s a café on almost every corner of town.”
“They don’t open until six. I guess it’s off to my favorite twenty-four-hour truck stop, Paul’s. Don’t blame me if I smell like bacon and sweat. It’s not me, it’s the company I keep.”
The profiles of serial killers over the centuries ran the gamut of race, religion, socioeconomic status, intelligence. Most killers were from disturbing backgrounds that included sexual and physical abuse, but some were spawned from intact families with nothing to suggest a bad seed in the making.
Pairs who killed—siblings, friends, and couples—usually came from highly dysfunctional and sadistic backgrounds, like Rosemary and Fred West. But there were exceptions. Karla Homolka for instance was an attractive, middle-class, popular teen. When she hooked up with Paul Bernardo, she became monstrous, arranging the rape and murder of her younger sister, Tammy, as a Christmas present for her psychopathic husband.
Serial-killing blood-related families—there weren’t a slew to draw from—tended to be poor and uneducated, usually living in isolated rural areas. Within the family, strict rules were enforced, and frequently parents carried out acts of sadism and incest with their children. Away from the prying eyes found in cities and towns, the clans committed barbaric acts, including torture, dismemberment, and cannibalism.
By the time Decker closed the computer, it was eight in the morning. He had spent sunrise reading synopses of some of the most notorious depraved human beings in history. He sat back in his desk chair at the station house and exhaled in a whoosh, trying to rid his body of all the poison he had just ingested.
Three bodies were buried up at Bogat Trail and every possibility of how they got there was up for consideration. Although professors were sometimes petty and backbiting, especially in pursuit of tenure, a family of sexual serial killer academics seemed a little far-fetched. Besides, Carter, Urbana, and Pallek all had tenure. As interesting as the theory was, the workday had started and Dana Berinson was still missing.
It was the living before the dead.
All morning Decker and McAdams did a block-by-block canvass, showing people her picture, trying to get a toehold on Dana’s whereabouts. When luck proved to be elusive, Decker spent the afternoon calling up police stations, jails, hospitals, and morgues from Greenbury to Boston. Three hours into the search, a morgue near Boston reported an unidentified beaten female body brought in two day ago. The age and race fit and Decker asked for a photo. Twenty minutes later, he was e-mailed a bloated, lacerated, and bruised face. The features were hard to distinguish, but eye color doesn’t change. Dana’s were brown; the body had eyes with blue irises.
At four in the afternoon, after another three hours of phone calls, he finally found another possibility. After being placed on hold numerous times, he was put through to the ICU at St. Beatrice, a small hospital seventy-five miles north of Greenbury in the tiny New England burg of Marrison in Massachusetts.
“One-person car accident,” the nurse told him. Her name was Edie Aarons. “The car went down a steep embankment and caught fire, but somehow the driver got out and crawled to safety. She was brought in Sunday afternoon and she was unconscious. I don’t know how long she’d been out there.”
Decker’s eyes narrowed. “The car caught fire?”
“That’s what I was told.”
No matter how many times it happened in movies, it was rare for cars to explode on impact. The fuel was there—that is, gasoline—but conflagrations usually required a heat source to get the fire going. Something like matches or even better a torch. The nurse was still talking.
“. . . the accident could have happened any time over the weekend. Regardless of when it happened, she was brought in Sunday afternoon.”
“And she’s still unconscious.”
“She’s in a deep sedation to reduce the swelling on the brain.”
“Is she going to make it?”
“Touch and go.”
“And she didn’t have any ID on her.”
“Like I said, the car burned—probably along with her ID.”
“But she managed to escape and crawl to safety.”
“Miracles do happen.”
“I’m sure. So if she was unconscious, who called it in?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that Traffic is looking into it.”
“Who in that area does the collision report?”
“That would probably be the Massachusetts State Police. But I’d start with the Marrison Sheriff’s Department first. Less bureaucracy. They usually coordinate with MSP. We get a fair number of crashes along that stretch of road because it’s dark and can be slippery in winter. Of course, it wasn’t winter. Anyway, try them. You need a phone number?”
“I have Massachusetts State Police. I can look up the Marrison Sheriff’s Department. Thank you, though. Could you text or e-mail me some description of your victim? Eye color, hair color . . . things like that?”
“Sure.”
“Also, is there a way you can send a picture? I have a set of very concerned parents.”
“It isn’t pretty.”
“I was a homicide detective for thirty years. I can handle it.”
“You wouldn’t want to show it to the parents.”
“And I won’t.” At that moment, McAdams walked in. Decker waved. “I’m not bad at facial recognition. If it’s close, the parents will want to drive up and see for themselves. Actually, they shouldn’t be driving. I’ll arrange a car.”
“Do you have a picture of what she looks like normally?”
“I do. I’ll e-mail it to you.” After they exchanged cell numbers and e-mail addresses, Decker said, “Before I tell the parents anything, let’s compare pictures and have another conversation.”
“Sure. And I hope this is your girl.”
“Thank you, I hope so, too. But whoever she is, I hope she recovers soon.” Decker hung up.
“You found Dana Berinson?” McAdams asked.
“Possibly. Where were you?”
“Talking to Lindsey Terrehaute and Caroline Agassi.”
“Erin Young. Learn anything?”
“Nope. Caroline does talk a lot, but both of them seemed honest. They don’t know what happened. What’s going on with Dana?”
Decker gave him a recap. “You know, Harvard, maybe you should go up north and start preparing for school. I may need you up there.”
“Trying to get rid of me. I’m sorry I called you early, okay?”
Decker laughed. “No, Tyler, I’m being honest. I may need your help as a liaison up north.”
“Actually, I was thinking about settling in over the weekend.”
“Good. It would serve both of our needs if you did.”
“Sure you’re not trying to get rid of me?”
“Not this time, amigo. Not this time.”
“It was a 2014 Honda Accord sedan. There was enough framework still left to determine make and model. Light gray paint on the exterior and black leather in the interior.”
Over the phone, Decker was talking to Byrd Hissops—the Massachusetts detective assigned to the car accident. “That matches my missing person’s vehicle.”
“We’ve towed the car to the lab and we put a team on it.”
“Is something off-kilter?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you towed the car to the lab—unless that’s your usual procedure.”
“It’s not.”
Decker said, “I thought it sounded off when I first heard about the accident. Even going over an embankment, cars usually don’t catch fire. Interiors burn—they have soft material that’s flammable—but it takes a very high temperature to burn metal.”
“Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you what we found,” Hissops told him. “But first I’ll tell you what we didn’t find. A license plate. We found a frame, but no license plate.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. Plus, traffic didn’t find any skid marks. There were tire tracks going over the embankment so it’s possible that she fell asleep at the wheel. No sudden move, no skid marks. But the treads on the tracks look like the tires were rotating very slowly, not moving at high speeds.”
“Someone pushed it over.”
“It’s one scenario, especially if the burn turns out to be arson. State has towed the car from the scene and put investigators on it. Whatever happened, it’s a miracle that the girl is alive.” A pause. “She is still alive, right?”
“Yes, but she’s in critical condition.” Decker was writing as he talked. “So you think you’re dealing with the collision as an attempted murder?”
“Nothing is definite until we get all the reports back, but that’s what it looks like to me.”
“Could you find a VIN number anywhere? It would be confirmation.”
“We’re working on it,” Hissops said. “Want to tell me about the girl?”
“Her name is Dana Berinson. She’s a student at Morse McKinley.”
“That’s one of the colleges in Greenbury.”
“Yes.”
“We get lots of students driving that road. It’s more direct but often it isn’t any faster because it’s two lanes and very dark. I keep asking the state for more road lights, but bureaucracy is slow to the point of slothful. Anyway, that’s not important in this case because I don’t think this was an accident. What’s your interest in this case?”
“The colleges asked Greenbury Police to help find the girl. There are things I need to tell you about this girl that will probably be relevant to your case. She has a reputation as a dealer.” Decker recapped what he knew about Dana Berinson.
“And she dealt up north?”
“That’s what several people told me. Whether it’s true or not . . .”
“I’ll check it out.”
“There’s one more thing.”
“I’m listening.”
“You must know that Greenbury is working on a series of unsolved murders.”
“I thought those bodies were old.”
“They are not recent murders, no. But the victims were all students at the colleges, and the buried bodies were discovered in the same area—Bogat Trail. We’re probably looking at serial killings. We don’t have any suspects, but our thinking is that it’s someone local and someone associated with the colleges.”
“So how does she fit into this?”
“I don’t know that she does. We haven’t a clue to the killer’s identity, so he may still be active in the area. I’m just thinking that since Bogat is now off-limits, maybe the killer is trying something new.”
“Makes more sense if he just buries the bodies elsewhere.”
“Of course that would be logical. There are acres of virgin woods out here. But now all eyes are on activities in the woods. And Dana is a college student who—like the others—seemed to vanish into thin air. I’d be interested in any forensics you pull up regardless of how large or small.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Are you going to notify the parents?”
“Yes. I’ve already booked a car to take them to the hospital. Thanks for your help.”
“Good luck,” Hissops said.
“Regardless of the outcome, I’ll keep in touch.” Decker said good-bye, hung up, and blew out air. He grabbed his coat and went over to the Inn at the Colleges.
It wasn’t as bad as a death notification, but it was painful. After the expected moans, groans, and cascades of tears, Decker managed to convince Larry Berinson to take the provided car service rather than drive the seventy-five miles to the hospital.
Afterward, Decker went back to the station house, called Morse McKinley, and updated the college. Then he filed a mountain of paperwork. Home by ten, he was tired, grumpy, and famished. An hour later, he was in bed, showered and fed, with a book about the Founding Fathers of America in his hand. He was reading words but not comprehending anything because his mind had wandered from Dana Berinson’s “accident” to the Bogat bodies to the teachers that McAdams had singled out.
Rina got into bed and crawled under the covers. “Sleepy?”
“A little.”
“We got up at four-thirty in the morning. How could you not be zonked?”
“My brain won’t turn off.”
“I could talk to you about my day. That usually puts you to sleep.”
“C’mon now.” He put the book on his nightstand. “Play nice.”
“At least one of your cases was solved.”
“Yes, it looks like we found Dana Berinson. But we’re far off from solving the case.” Decker gave her an update.
Rina was wide-eyed when he was done. “You really think it’s related to Bogat?”
“I don’t know, Rina. Superficially no, but right now I’m not about to rule anything out.”
“Is Dana Berinson’s accident even your case?”
“The crime is not in my jurisdiction. It isn’t even in the state of New York. But she was my case to begin with, so I’m sure they’ll extend me a courtesy. The dude on the phone sounded reasonable.”
“Will she even make it?”
“I certainly hope so. I’m working with so many unknowns. Like Erin Young. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”
“They haven’t found any more bodies in Bogat?”
“No.”
“So maybe she is alive.”
“If she is alive, she left without taking anything. Meaning she was scared to death.”
“Like we said, maybe she was the lucky one.” Rina’s voice was hushed. “You’ll solve it.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I think. And you think too much. Try to get some sleep.”
“I suppose I should.” He kissed her good night and turned off the lights, his mind slowly drifting off with images of bloated faces, mangled metal, boxed graves filled with bones and bodies, all of it ripped out of his current and former case files.
Chapter 26
Calling for an appointment didn’t mean getting an appointment. Decker knew from his last murder case that college professors could be very elusive. He left messages with Michael Pallek at his office at Clarion, for Lydia Urbana at Morse McKinley College, and for Jason Kramer at Duxbury. With that done, he regarded the boxes that held files from the disappearances of Pettigrew, Occum, and Jones. He also took out the newly minted murder books for each of the three victims. Often it helped to compare old and new.
The first time that Decker had read the missing person files, he had started with Occum and worked backward. This time, he decided to start with Jones and work forward. He had previously filled the pages with Post-its and it annoyed him that he was still asking the same questions. He hadn’t learned anything new or spotted a different avenue of detection. Even after he talked to the professors, he doubted that he’d come away with something meaningful.
Cold cases were the worst. But when you got a solve, they became the best.
By ten-thirty in the morning, he was prematurely tired and hungry and still in the dark. He took out his tuna sandwich from the station house fridge, filled his coffee cup, and opened up Erin Young’s missing person file. As usual, he ate too fast. He looked up from the pages and saw Kevin Butterfield hanging up from a phone call. He was tall and bald and had been with Greenbury PD for over twelve years. “Kev?”
“Yo.”
“Are you familiar with someone named Quentin Newhouse?”
&nb
sp; “Quentin Newhouse?”
“He’s in Erin Young’s files.”
“Oh yeah, him. We call him QVC.”
“The homeless guy who sells junk at the underpass to the highway?”
“Hence the name QVC. What do you want with him?”
“Why was he interviewed in connection with Erin Young?”
“Let me see the pages.” Decker handed them to Kevin, who said, “Yeah, now I remember. He was selling a pair of sandals that looked like the ones Erin’s roommate described her as owning.”
“Were they the same sandals?”
“Nothing to say yes or no.” He paused. “We have Erin’s DNA on file, but we didn’t test the sandals at that time. She was a grown woman with not a lot of ties to Greenbury. She could have left of her own accord.”
“She didn’t take anything with her.”
“Rumor said she lifted money from her previous job. If she took money from her new boss, that could explain her sudden departure.”
“Absolutely.”
Kevin thought a moment. “The sandals are still in evidence. We could have them tested.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.” Decker’s eyes reread the interview. “He said he found them in a Dumpster. And you went back and checked the Dumpster.”
“Yes, I remember that very clearly. We didn’t find anything else that clued us in to Erin’s disappearance. But I’ll tell you what I did do. I took a lot of the paper from the Dumpster. Not the garbage, but the shit that people usually throw away—useless mail, old receipts, things like that. It’s all in the evidence room if you want to take a look. If you pull out the sandals, I’ll get them tested.”
“Maybe. Thanks.” Decker paused. “Do you think if I go see Q, he might be able to remember anything about the case?”
“He’s usually pickled. That was the problem we had with him. But be my guest. Sometimes you catch him on a good day and he’s pretty lucid.”
“I’m not getting anywhere and I have nothing better to do.” Decker stood up and took his jacket from the back of the chair. “Besides, you never know what wares the guy has from Dumpster diving.”
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