Eight in the Box

by Raffi Yessayan

  Monica studied it, taking a cautious sip of her tea. The mug was so big Andi lost sight of her face for a second. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, a pencil holder, a coffee mug, a soup bowl. It’s whatever you want it to be.”

  “Is Connie going to like it?”

  “I hope so. It’s handmade by a real artist. Who wouldn’t like it?”

  “Connie.”

  “Right. What the hell am I going to get him?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I don’t think you’re going to find it here. Why are you getting him a gift? Is it his birthday?”

  “No. I just thought I’d get him something to thank him for all he’s done to help me. He’s given me two trials. And I’ll be second-seating him on the Jesse Wilcox trial.” At the next table, students were selling massive bowls full of homemade chili. “Who could eat all that?” Andi asked. “It’s the size of a serving bowl.”

  “Connie could probably eat it, if he ate anything but those disgusting lunches he brings every day.”

  “That’s it. I’ll get him one of these bowls. Without the chili.”

  “What’s someone like Connie going to do with a beautiful piece of pottery?”

  “Eat his family-sized servings of oatmeal. This is the perfect size.” Andi paid for the bowl and the young art student began carefully wrapping it in old newspaper. “You put aside that tough-guy image and he’s a big teddy bear,” Andi said as they waited for the young woman.

  “I hope it works out for you.”

  “What’s the deal with Nick? He seems to be stalking you.”

  “I think he’s cute.”

  “Are you serious? He’s ridiculous, following you everywhere.”

  “I don’t mind him. He keeps asking me out and I keep putting him off. One of us will eventually get promoted or transferred. Then I’ll give him a shot.”

  “What are you thinking? He isn’t ready for a serious relationship.”

  “What makes you think I’m looking for a serious relationship?” Monica winked.

  “You’re crazy.” Andi laughed. “What about Brendan? He’s a nice guy.”

  “Not my type. Besides, he already has a girlfriend.”

  “Allegedly.”

  They both laughed.

  The student placed the wrapped bowl in a used plastic supermarket bag and handed it to Andi. “We’d better get going. We’ve already been gone for an hour. Nick might have a panic attack if he’s away from you too long.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Richter’s headache had dulled, but it was still there, lingering behind his eyes. The stiffness in his neck was there too. He never should have agreed to take her out for a day of shopping. Too domestic. Big mistake. That must have been what got her talking about their long-term plans together. Now she wanted to go away for a long weekend in Maine. Soon she’d be talking about moving in together. He couldn’t let that happen. Not now. He was too close. Richter needed her, but he didn’t want things to get too complicated. He had agreed with her weekend getaway plan just to shut her up. He would come up with an excuse to get out of it later. He needed to put up with her a little while longer. Then he could get rid of her.

  Richter put his window down as soon as he started the car. They had just left a discount women’s clothing warehouse and were headed for a store that specialized in knickknacks and home accessories. Both stores were always packed with women looking for bargains. All the different perfumes in the air were overwhelming. Throw in some potpourri, scented candles and poorly ventilated stores, and his headache would be raging again.

  He only went to places like this when forced by a woman. He remembered being led into a communal dressing room as a child. There he was, staring up at the crotches of overweight, scary women who undressed in front of him as if he weren’t even there. He would feel dirty for hours afterward.

  Richter was glad they were driving now. The cool air filled the car as they drove on the highway. It was almost June and the weather still hadn’t warmed up consistently. It had been eighty degrees two days earlier, when a cold front came in from Canada, bringing with it a steady downpour of rain. Richter leaned his head toward the open window, allowing the rain to cool him off.

  “Could you close your window, please?” the woman asked. “It’s freezing in here and my bags are getting wet in the backseat.”

  “Sorry. I’ve got this terrible headache and the cool air helps.” Richter had to put up with her. She was very important, after all. He suspected the police profile would be of a loner, a man who had difficulty forming relationships with women. Richter had to prove that he was at least involved with someone.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?” the woman said. She seemed genuinely concerned. “Let’s just go home. I can go shopping some other time.”

  “Don’t be silly. We only have one stop left. Then I can go home and take it easy.”

  “But if you don’t feel good—”

  “I’m fine. I’ll check to see if they have aspirin while you shop. We’re almost there anyway.”

  “Are you sure? I won’t be upset if you want to go home.”

  “Really, I’ll be okay.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. As he parked the car she said, “You can stay out here if you want.”

  “I’ll come in. If I start to feel worse I’ll go back out.”

  The air inside the crammed store was stifling in contrast to the crisp air outside. Richter scanned the store. There were women, kids and shopping carts everywhere. “I’m going to go look for the aspirin,” he told her. “I’ll meet back up with you.”

  She was already engrossed in a picture frame rimmed with buttons. It would probably be a half hour before she’d even notice that he wasn’t with her.

  Richter cut across toward the middle of the store. A woman was walking in front of him with a cart full of junk and three crying kids, with a fourth one just waiting to plop out of her swollen belly. She had pale white skin with blotchy red cheeks that she’d tried to cover with powder. Her hair stuck straight up with hair spray and she repeatedly snapped the gum in her mouth. The garish red lipstick and nail polish added the finishing touches.

  He felt a sharp pain behind his eyes as he caught a whiff of her perfume. Richter tried to make his way around her cart, but it was taking up the whole aisle. He should have thought to leave his jacket in the car. He would probably knock over a display if he tried to take it off in the narrow aisle.

  He took a right turn down the next aisle to see if he could get ahead of her. His path was blocked by another pregnant woman. Barely squeezing past, he was confronted by a different family coming down the aisle.

  All of their odors joined to form one stench. The smell seemed to have gotten stronger. Richter looked at the shelves to see that he had stumbled into the scented candles and potpourri section.

  He was getting hotter. He had to get out of that aisle. He edged his way past the family and found himself at the back of the store, surrounded by a group of women in the gift-bag aisle. They were wearing way too much spandex. He closed his eyes for a moment. Their conversations about sales and bargains, and this looking cute and that smelling nice, were running together to make one inescapable sound. He finally took off his jacket and turned back the way he had come.

  Richter thought about a passage in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. It was so well written that when Richter read it he had felt as though he was right there with Gulliver, seeing, hearing and smelling everything that Gulliver had.

  Gulliver was in the land called Brobdingnag, inhabited by people sixty feet tall. He had been stripped naked and placed on the breasts of naked women. Their skin appeared “coarse and uneven” with “a mole here and there as broad as a trench, and hairs hanging from it thicker than pack threads.” Gulliver was disgusted by this whole experience. Jonathan Swift’s mother must surely have taken him into the women’s dressing room as a child.

  He
was still hot, even with his jacket off, and thinking of Gulliver’s trip didn’t help at all. It was like imagining himself on a long cruise in a rocky boat in an effort to cure himself of motion sickness in a car.

  There was the front entrance to the store. He walked toward it quickly. He’d told the woman that he would see her outside, hadn’t he? The cool air hit his face. He kept his jacket off as he looked up to the sky. The rain on his face was a soothing relief.

  CHAPTER 65

  Connie and Alves made their way up the stairs of the old triple-decker, each step creaking as they moved. It was the last week of May, six months since Michelle Hayes had been murdered.

  “You look like shit,” Alves said.

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning. What do you expect?”

  “I expect you to wake up before coming to a crime scene.” Alves laughed.

  “What’s her name?” Connie changed the subject.

  “His name was Edwin Ramos,” Alves said as the two men entered the third-floor apartment.

  Connie stopped walking and grabbed Alves’s arm. “It’s a guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “What the…Are you sure it’s the same killer?”

  “The MO is there, everything’s identical, right down to the nine-one-one call. Public still doesn’t know about the calls.”

  “Now he’s killing men? What does that mean?”

  “We don’t know. He fucked with our heads when he killed Robyn Stokes, because she was the first vic that wasn’t white. Then he goes and kills Jill Twomey, another white woman. Now he kills a Puerto Rican dude. He’s all over the place.”

  “What does Sarge think?”

  “He’s frustrated and angry. So am I. We can’t figure out any pattern, not as to when he strikes or who he’s going to pick as his next victim. Nothing. We were hoping the warnings we put out for people to be careful riding the T, to watch for strangers following them home, would slow this guy down. Now he goes and kills a guy. Men aren’t as likely to be worried about being followed. That could be how this guy ended up dead.”

  “Ramos live alone?” Connie asked.

  Alves nodded.

  “Who else lives in the building?”

  “Nobody. He owns the house. Bought it a few months ago. Fixing it up. I guess his plan was to fix up all three units, live in one of them and rent out the other two. He finished this apartment and was living here while he worked on the other ones.” Alves scanned the apartment. “Judging the quality of the work, I’d say he was quite a handyman.”

  “Poor bastard,” Connie said.

  “Hey! Don’t touch that.” Alves’s attention was on a young lab tech who was about to pick a couch cushion off the floor and put it back on the couch. “Don’t move a fucking thing until ID gets pictures of the whole room. I want them taking full panoramic shots so we have a virtual crime scene.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alves joined Connie as he walked down the hall toward Mooney, who was kneeling outside the bedroom. On Mooney’s right ankle Connie spotted a holster holding a small revolver, probably a .22 or .25 caliber. Mooney was so old school, if the department would allow it, he’d probably be carrying a big revolver on his waist instead of the standard-issue 9mm Glock. “Hey, Sarge, how’s it going?” Connie called out.

  “I’ve been better,” Mooney said. “Don’t go fucking with my crime scene like that last DA.”

  “Sorry about that. You won’t see Richard Wahl again. He got booted off Response.”

  “Joe Cool got shit-canned?” Alves laughed.

  “You’re going to get shit-canned too if you don’t do some fucking work.”

  “I guess that’s my cue,” Alves said, walking back toward the front of the apartment. “He’s very subtle.”

  “I’ve noticed that about him.”

  Mooney went back to supervising the collection of evidence in Ramos’s bedroom. He also had two techs from the Identification Unit dusting for latent prints on every surface in the house. Smaller items like a lamp and a watch had been collected and bagged. Mooney even had them remove some of the doors to be fumed for prints back at headquarters.

  “Sarge, can I check out the bathroom?” Connie asked.

  “From the hallway,” Mooney barked, “but don’t go in any of the rooms, don’t touch anything and don’t get in my way.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.” Connie crept down the hall. He could see the tub just as he got to the threshold of the bathroom.

  The tub reminded him of a scene from an old horror movie, where some sexy, naked woman pops up out of the blood and scares the hell out of the viewer. But this was no movie. The deep red created a stunning contrast to the white enamel of the old cast-iron claw-footed tub. Connie could smell the blood in the air, salty and metallic.

  He felt invigorated being back at a crime scene with Mooney and Alves.

  There were several white bath towels on the floor next to the tub with a bloody imprint of a human body. More blood-soaked towels were tossed in the corner. Just like the other crime scenes. Connie was fascinated by the image and the story it told. He wondered if the police would ever figure out what it all meant.

  CHAPTER 66

  Richter smiled at the juror. Linda Bagwell wasn’t the most attractive woman he’d ever seen. Her longish brown hair was pulled back in a bun. She was wearing no makeup. She had small breasts and wore a blouse that was too tight. Her skirt made her look bottom heavy, like a pear.

  Yet Richter knew she’d do just fine. He had seen her confidential juror questionnaire, making a mental note of her personal information. She lived downtown. At the age of thirty-three she was still single with no children. She had her MBA and JD and was working at a boutique consulting firm downtown. She must have been very bright if they’d hired her despite her physical shortcomings. Although she was obviously successful, he could tell she had never really enjoyed herself. He could see it in her eyes. She wasn’t happy with her life.

  Richter pictured her as one of the nameless, faceless sheep he saw every day on their way to work. They were herded into their high-rise buildings for the day, then set free long enough to eat and sleep before being herded back in the following morning. The juror was a well-paid sheep, nothing more, nothing less.

  Richter would change all of that. He got that warm feeling inside that most people get when they give toys to a charity at Christmastime or give a dollar to a homeless person.

  Richter was going to give the juror a much greater gift. He sent her another little smile as she sat in the jury box. This time she actually smiled back.

  She was perfect.

  CHAPTER 67

  Richter gazed out the window at the Back Bay skyline. The setting sun reflecting off the John Hancock and Prudential towers in the distance created a postcard image of the city.

  Friday night. Only a few people were still in the office. The weekend weather was supposed to be warm, so most of the others had left early. Richter watched Nick in his cubicle, muddling through paperwork.

  In the half-lit, silent office, nagging thoughts of his last trial edged out all other concerns. His jury had deliberated a little too long. The women, he knew, had been enthralled. But the men he wasn’t so sure about. This potential weakness grew in his mind until all he could think about was how to establish that bond of trust with every juror.

  “Hey, buddy,” Nick interrupted his thoughts. The city outside the windows was blanketed in darkness now, the streetlights were on.

  “Yeah?” Richter looked up, rubbing his eyes.

  “It’s getting late. You want to get a bite? We can grab some Chinese from the Golden Temple.”

  “Best egg rolls in America.” Maybe there was a simple solution to his dilemma. “We can eat at my house. Have a couple of beers. Watch the Sox.”

  “I could use a couple of cold ones,” Nick said. “Long week.”

  “I can call in the order from the car.” Richter put on his suit jacket. “Let’s do it.”
/>   CHAPTER 68

  On Monday morning, Andi was checking her e-mails when Monica came into her cubicle.

  “Nick’s not here yet,” she said. “He’s never this late without calling.”

  “So you’re starting to fall for your stalker?” Andi teased her.

  “I’m serious. He’s usually in early. No one’s seen him. His cell phone’s going right to voice mail.”

  “Maybe he had a late start and got caught in traffic. Probably forgot to turn his phone on.” Andi could see that Monica wanted to believe her. “I wouldn’t worry. He’ll show up.”

  Monica turned and stared out the window for a moment. Andi could tell there was something else.

  “He didn’t call me,” Monica said.

  “I know.”

  “That’s not what I mean. He’s been calling me on the weekends. He’ll find some excuse to call, usually something stupid about work, then we talk for hours. He didn’t call this weekend. I was a little worried, but then I figured he was trying something new to get me to like him, see if I missed him. Something’s wrong.”

  “Did you guys have a fight last week?”

  “No. When we said good night on Friday, I knew he’d be calling me. Andi, I’m going to call the police.”

  “Let’s talk to Liz first.” Andi led Monica into Liz’s office. Connie, Mitch and Brendan were already there, trying to figure out who would cover Nick’s cases until he got in. Andi was glad Connie was there. He’d know what to do.

  “He wouldn’t miss work like this,” Monica said. “His job is everything to him.”