by G. M. Ford
“Then ask her what she figures the de Groot girl is doing now.”
“What do you mean now?”
“I mean like as we speak. She was in her mid-thirties when she left Avalon, Wisconsin. By now, if I’m right, and she’s somehow still alive, she’s in her mid-forties. Maybe had time to work up a whole new family. Who knows?”
Molina pulled at his lower lip. “What do you think the weather’s like in South Dakota this time of year?”
“Cold as a grave,” Corso said.
23
Sorry I punked out on you last night,” Dougherty said. “I just couldn’t look at that stuff anymore.” She waved the Coke bottle. “Not that it helped any. I didn’t sleep worth a damn.”
“Me neither,” Corso said.
“Are we still under arrest?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where does that leave you with Wisconsin?”
“No clue.”
“Any word on what they found?”
“Nope.”
“Not even on whether they found anything at all?”
“Uh-uh.”
The Newark, New Jersey, Regional Offices of the FBI occupied the entire seventh floor of the Ethan Dombrowski Building on East Third Street. Once you got past the receptionist and the big gold seal on the wall, and if you forgot about the trio of interrogation rooms down the hall, the place looked more or less like any other suite of corporate offices. On the left, two conference rooms, one big, one small, and then the day room where the agents mustered in the morning, followed by three adjoining interrogation rooms and then the johns behind that.
On the right, private offices. Special agents shared space with their partners and used the johns down the hall. Special agents in charge got nice rooms overlooking the street, with private facilities to boot.
Angelo Molina stepped out into the hall, motioned with his head for Corso and Dougherty to follow him, and then disappeared back into his office, leaving the door open.
Molina’s stone-faced secretary sat with her hands folded as they marched past, through the outer area and into Molina’s office. He had the whole ball of wax. The colorful flags with the gold braid. The big seal on the wall. The deep red leather club chairs, all of which were about six inches below his perch behind the big mahogany desk, from whence he could look down at the rabble below.
His face looked like somebody’d shot the family dog. He moved his hair again. “Close the door.” Corso eased it shut and then stepped into the room.
“Results are still sketchy,” Molina said. “The body had been badly burned to begin with, and after thirty plus years in the ground, there wasn’t a hell of a lot left of it.” He pointed to his computer screen. “What they can tell us at this point is that the remains are those of a female between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, who was probably about four months pregnant at the time of her death. Her teeth were intact. They’re checking dental records right now.” His eyes traveled down the screen. “At some point in her life she’d seen a doctor. She had three stainless steel screws holding her left shin together. Which may or may not be a help, because so far we haven’t been able to turn up a single medical or dental record on any of these kids.” He looked up at Corso and spread his hands. “Looks to me like it’s the end of the trail. We crapped out on this one. Leslie Louise de Groot is exactly where she’s supposed to be.”
“What now?” Corso asked.
“I spoke to Sheriff Trask this morning. Explained why there was no chance you were the perp and that you were no longer in FBI custody.” Something flickered in his dark eyes. Amusement maybe. Or disapproval. It was hard to tell.
“What’d she say?” Corso asked.
“She was pretty much flabbergasted. I got the impression she’d hung her hat on you as the perp. Maybe didn’t follow up on the rest of her leads like the protocol demands.” He shrugged. “I’m sure something like this isn’t the kind of thing she deals with all the time…little place like that…in Wisconsin.”
He looked like the excuse tasted bad in his mouth and turned away.
“So…he’s off the hook?” Dougherty asked.
“Yes.” Molina chuckled. “Except for the pair of Dallas County deputies who showed up here bright and early this morning wanting me to hand him over on a material-witness warrant.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky I didn’t know the girl was in her grave at that point, Corso. I’d known that, I’d have let them have you.”
“What did you tell them?” she asked.
“I said that for the foreseeable future you were both going to be the property of the Bureau and otherwise unavailable for extradition.”
“And they said?”
“They wanted to wait in the lobby.”
Corso couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “Those old boys are tried-and-true, now aren’t they? Never give up.”
“The Rangers always get their man,” Molina said.
“Speaking of that…you find Tommie de Groot yet?”
Molina seemed annoyed by the question. “The car at the airport was a dodge. De Groot didn’t fly anywhere. Didn’t rent a car or a limo or charter a plane or even get on a bus. He hasn’t cashed a check, used an ATM, or charged anything. If he had, we’d have turned him by now. We’re completing a sweep of the area around the airport and investigating other channels of inquiry.”
“Maybe he knew Abdul Garcia too,” Corso said.
Molina colored slightly. “You know, Mr. Corso, I just may have had enough of your company for one week. For your information, Mr. de Groot’s spent half his life in mental institutions. He was granted a psychological discharge from the Marine Corps after beating another recruit damn near to death with a trenching tool. I’m starting to think you’re not funny at all, and I’m willing to bet Randy Rosen’s ninety-year-old mother doesn’t find you very amusing either.”
The air in the room was electric with rancor and recrimination. Dougherty swallowed hard. “So we can go, then?”
“By all means,” Molina muttered. “Go.”
Dougherty grabbed Corso by the elbow and began to pull him toward the door. Corso had just given in and turned to leave, when Molina’s voice stopped him.
“Few things before you go,” Molina said. He used his fingers to count. “First off, you can see my secretary about where to retrieve your gear. Two, you’re gonna need a new rental car. The Ford is evidence in a murder case. Three, you probably want to try somebody other than Hertz. They’re not real happy with you guys. Four, I’d keep my eyes out for those Dallas boys if I were you. They seemed pretty damned determined to me. And five, next time you dream up some half-assed theory about teenagers rising from the grave, you take it to somebody else.” He cut the air with his hand. “Now get out of here.”
They didn’t quite make it to the door.
“Whoa,” Molina said. “No way.”
His attention was welded to his computer screen. He tapped the keyboard twice. Held up a “don’t move” hand to Corso and Dougherty and then used the keyboard again.
“I think I owe you an apology,” Molina said.
“How’s that?” Corso wanted to know.
“Pathology was inputting the data on the girl’s body. They got a kick-out from the computer on the steel screws in her shin.”
“I thought you couldn’t find her medical records.”
“We can’t. The kick-out was on a thirty-year-old missing person. Named Velma de Groot.” He looked up at Corso. “The body was never found. She was supposed to be one of Richard Leon Parker’s victims.” He tapped the computer screen. “Compound fracture of her leg when she was nine.”
He spun the screen Corso’s way. While Corso and Dougherty crossed the room to peer at the flickering monitor, Molina pushed one of the buttons on his phone. “Dean,” he said, “get whoever you used to exhume the girl. Get the rest of the family down here to the morgue as quick as you can.” Molina listened for a moment before losing his patience. “You let me worry
about the paperwork. You just dig those people up and get them down here. ASAP.”
What’s your brother doing here this time of year?” he wanted to know. “He don’t usually come till summer.”
“What’s the time of year matter?”
“Summers, at least I can take the girls camping and get away from him and that goddamn cigarette smoke of his.”
She looked away. “He had a little free time. He wanted to see me.”
“The girls don’t like him. They say he’s always putting his hands on them. They tell you that?”
“That’s that damn Sarah,” she said. “Girl’s an out-and-out liar.”
“That why you cut her hair off?”
“I cut her hair so’s she’d stop spending all her damn time fooling with it.”
She turned to face him now. “Why don’t you just let me worry about the ladies’ fashions around here. I’m thinking maybe somebody with as goddamn little hair as you got ought to keep his nose out of such things.”
“Coupla more days and then I want him out of here.”
“It’s my house too.”
“It’s my mother’s house,” he corrected.
“And don’t neither of you ever let anybody forget it, now do you?”
“Coupla more days,” he said again.
She walked across the room to the stove. “Maybe if you’d spend more time getting this new stove installed and less time worrying about my brother, I wouldn’t have to be cooking off a hot plate.”
He walked her way. She held her ground. Made him reach around her to grab the piece of pipe leaning against the wall. He pointed at one end. “Needs another reducing bushing right here. Ajax was out of them. Be a coupla days till they get one in. Soon as that happens, I’ll put it together.”
She walked away. Turned on the water in the sink. “None too damn soon either.”
“Coupla days and I want him gone,” he said.
24
We’re pursuing a number of other leads,” Sheriff Trask insisted. She went on about all the people who were in the hospital at the time of Officer Richardson’s murder. All the local and national media types, not to mention curiosity seekers and the hospital staff, each of whom had to be questioned and systematically eliminated as suspects. She nodded at Corso and Dougherty. “These two caused quite a stir around here,” she said finally. “We had a hell of a circus going on that morning.”
Molina nodded in all the right places, as if affirming his complete confidence in the integrity of her investigation. Truth was, she didn’t have a clue, and even if she did, she had neither the staff, the budget, nor the expertise to properly pursue the matter. Everybody in the room knew the investigation was going nowhere, but nobody was willing to say it out loud. Professional courtesy, you know.
“You get the slug?” Molina asked.
“Sure did,” the sheriff said. “Thirty-eight caliber. Lab says it came from a Smith and Wesson Model Ten with a four-inch barrel. Which just happens to be the same make and model as everybody in this department carries. The state police test-fired every piece from every officer in the department, including mine. No matches.” She shot Corso a look. “That’s why I figured it had to be Mr. Corso here.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Molina said. “S and W Model Ten’s real common. Must be millions and millions of them around.”
The sheriff took a deep breath and finally made eye contact with Special Agent in Charge Molina. “So,” she began, “how do I rate a visit from the FBI? Especially a visit from the faraway New Jersey FBI.” She threw Molina a thin, insincere smile. “As you can probably tell, I’m stretched pretty thin around here.”
She sat behind her desk with her hands steepled in front of her. The three available chairs were occupied by Dougherty and Special Agents Fullmer and Dean. Molina and Corso had refused an offer to have more chairs brought in and instead stood along the wall, whose surface was covered with plaques, commendations, public service awards, and pictures of Sheriff Trask in the company of an assortment of local dignitaries.
Molina was all professional goodwill. “We’re pursuing an interstate matter, which we believe may have started in our jurisdiction and later lapped over into yours.”
“And what matter might that be?”
Hard to tell what she expected for an answer. Not what she got, though.
“Your old friend Sissy Warwick,” Corso said.
The sheriff rolled her eyes, as if to say she didn’t need to be reminded of another open case. “I’m focusing my limited resources on the present tense,” she said. “We’ve lost a brother officer, and until that matter is successfully resolved, I’m afraid I don’t have the staff or the inclination to spare on anything quite that old.” She held up a restraining hand. “We’re certainly not forgetting about it. Matter of fact, we’re expecting the final forensics reports from the state crime lab any day now. But like I said, for the time being anyway, I’ve got to husband my resources.”
“As well you should,” Molina agreed. “The death of any peace officer is an affront to the entire law enforcement community.”
Corso watched as the sheriff’s professional demeanor did battle with her personal curiosity. After an uncomfortable silence, the cat won. “And how would Sissy Warwick Holmes have lapped over into your jurisdiction?” she asked.
Molina told her. Chapter and verse. Took ten minutes. Maria Trask listened in silence as Molina related what they knew for sure. “You need to understand,” he said, “that the condition of the bodies precludes most of the normal avenues for ascertaining cause of death.” He held up a finger. “But as I’m sure you are aware, certain chemical compounds do not deteriorate over time. They remain in the body until the very end.”
“Word has reached us,” she said with a smile.
Molina went on. “Preliminary forensic analysis of the other four members of the Paul de Groot family reveals a substantial residue of an arsenic-based substance still present in the hair and nails of the remains. The residue is consistent with what used to be sold as rat poison, back in the sixties.” He spread his hands. “Of course, that type of product is no longer sold over the counter due to health and environmental concerns, but back then it was quite common.”
The sheriff laced her fingers together and leaned forward in her chair. “So…you’re saying this girl—what was she, fourteen or fifteen at the time?—poisoned her entire family, somehow or other managed to drag another girl into her bed, and then set the house on fire.”
“Except for her younger brother,” Corso amended. “He was in the hospital with food poisoning on the night of the fire.”
“That’s what it looks like at this time,” Molina said.
“You don’t mind me saying, it sounds pretty farfetched to me,” the sheriff said. “You’re assuming she killed this other girl?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Molina said. “The other girl went missing two days before the fire. They rode the same school bus together. Louise was questioned by state and local authorities. She claimed the other girl…” Molina looked to Fullmer for help.
“Velma,” Fullmer said.
“She claimed Velma said she’d be right back and walked off as they were waiting for the bus out in front of Mahwah High School. That’s the last she saw of her. Turned out later that Richard Leon Parker had kidnapped another girl from that same parking lot.” Molina shrugged. “The natural assumption was that the de Groot girl was one of his victims.”
“Until she turned up in another girl’s grave.”
Molina shot a quick look over at Corso. “Yes,” he said. “The advanced stage of decomposition precludes determining a cause of death. She wasn’t poisoned like the others, we know that for sure.”
“Also, we’ve got a few gaps,” Corso said. “We’ve got about two and a half years between when her house burns and when she shows up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the better part of a year between the time she leaves Allentown and when she shows up her
e. What she was doing during those time periods, we don’t know.”
“We’re working on that right now,” Molina assured her.
“What about the brother? The one who shot this Professor Rosen.”
“Mr. de Groot took a taxi from Newark Airport to the nearby town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he purchased an ’88 Chevy Cavalier for cash on the day after the murder. The plates registered to that vehicle were recovered during a routine traffic stop in Elgin, Illinois, yesterday morning. An elderly couple. Folks never even noticed they didn’t have Illinois tags anymore. It appears de Groot’s swapping off license plates as he goes along. Quite frankly, if he keeps it up, we’ll have to get real lucky to catch him.”
“What do you need from me?”
“We’re here mostly as a matter of courtesy,” Molina said. “We’ve been in contact with the Wisconsin State Patrol, and we have the full resources of the Bureau office in Madison at our disposal. One of their forensics teams will be going through the house this afternoon.” Molina looked to his left. “Mr. Corso tells me that a family album was found with the bodies.”
The sheriff nodded. “Yes, it was.”
“We’d like to borrow that, if we may.” Before she could respond, he went on. “Also, I understand that the Holmes boys had an accident in the family truck.”
“Drove it through the front window of the Dairy Queen,” she said.
“Well then, somewhere in your records you must have the license plate number and the VIN number. It would be a great help if we had those as well.”
“You’re going to try to find the truck? Fifteen years later?”
Molina gave her a thin smile. “We’re pursuing a number of other leads.”
If the sheriff got the joke, she didn’t let on. Instead she sighed and pushed the red button on her phone. “Barbara,” she said.
“Yes, Sheriff Trask” crackled over the speaker. The office door was open. Both the sheriff and her secretary could be heard in stereo, as both their real and electronic voices filled the air.