Four

by Dustin Stevens

  The men on the edge of the yard waited in anxious silence as finally Beckett stood and turned to them.

  “This woman was murdered,” he said, turning back to the yard. He pointed to the branch the rope was flung across and said, “This is course grit rope. Even a woman as slight as her would weigh enough to chew into the flesh of the branch. There’s not a mark on the tree and not a single shred of bark or pulp on the rope.”

  He turned and motioned to the body. “Her neck is broken, but there’s no rope burn whatsoever. Again, course grit rope. It would have chewed right through her.”

  Remaining fixed in place, he pointed to the grass around them. “This broad blade grass has been bent in several places by footprints that shouldn’t be here. If the delivery man only made it as far as that sack of groceries, or even if he came clear over to the body, there are still unexplained tracks.”

  A short man with a large stomach and beefy arms stepped up beside Meeks. “Jimmy Warren, Sheriff of Billerica. You’re sure this was a murder?”

  “Let’s forget everything I just told you,” Beckett said. He spread his arms and turned from side to side. “Look at the layout of this yard. For this woman to have done this is impossible.

  “There is nothing back here high enough for her to jump, and there’s no way she stood and hoisted herself up and then pounded a stake into the ground by her feet.”

  Beckett stood a moment longer and ran a hand over his chin. “Sheriff, I’m done back here. Thank you for holding the scene, it’s all yours.”

  Warren nodded and circled a hand overhead as several crime scene techs scrambled into the yard. Beckett swung his gaze around one last time before heading to the back door and going on into the house.

  Meeks followed him in and said, “It’s for sure a murder, but do you think it’s one of ours?”

  Beckett stood in the kitchen and panned the room. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s a lot sloppier than what we’ve been seeing. So far this guy has left us nothing to work with and all of a sudden he does something this crude?

  “Almost seems like a copycat at work or something.”

  Without responding, Beckett pointed around the kitchen and into the living room. “I don’t think so. Anything strike you as funny about this place?”

  Meeks sighed at having his question ignored and said, “Yeah, it’s a complete dump.”

  “Not entirely. Look in the living room, in the sink, on the floor. Stuff piled everywhere. Stacks of shit that should have been tossed out years ago.”

  “Everywhere except the table,” Meeks said, and crossed over to it. Against the wall was a stack of clean linen paper, beside it a quill and ink. There was nothing else on it, not even a spot or stain.

  Meeks made a face and looked up at Beckett. “So, what exactly does it mean?”

  Beckett walked up on the other side of the table. He knelt low, his eyes level with the top of it. “Something about this table was special to her.”

  “Yeah, but what? And what’s with the paper and ink?”

  Beckett flicked his gaze over to the materials. “You have to look hard out there to find it, but you can tell that her body is covered with self mutilation. Those stains on her dress are blood.”

  “You sure? Looked to me like some raccoon had a field day on her, could have been from that.”

  Shaking his head, Beckett said, “Those stains are old and crusted. They’ve been there a while. Besides, dead people don’t bleed.”

  “How do we know the perp didn’t do it? A day in the sun could dry blood out right quick.”

  “I don’t think so. There aren’t any new wounds that the blood could have come from and this guy might have been sloppy, but he wouldn’t have been dumb enough to leave his own blood at the scene.”

  “So she’s been mutilated?” Meeks asked.

  “Arms look like a set of railroad tracks. Thick slices up her forearms, down her thighs. I didn’t remove her dress, but I’m guessing she’s covered.”

  Meeks turned back to the table. “So she was a cutter. What’s that have to do with this table?”

  Beckett swept his hand out over the table and said, “This woman didn’t respect the most fundamental thing in the world, her own body. Yet, she treated this table like an altar and these supplies like an offering. Why?”

  The heavy hum of the refrigerator filled the room as Meeks started to respond, but closed his mouth.

  There was no answering that.

  Beckett glanced at the table again and turned into the living room. A pair of crime scene techs were rifling through the stacks of things piled everywhere, another was taking pictures.

  He watched a moment before exiting the front door and out into the yard. He found Warren standing in the side yard, watching his team process the scene.

  “Sheriff, we’re going to be on our way now. I appreciate you holding the scene for me.”

  Warren shook his hand and said, “You seem pre-occupied, like you’ve already got an idea what all this means.”

  Beckett nodded. “I need to go speak with someone, but I have a pretty good hunch that this is all connected to a few cases we’ve been working with.”

  “You don’t mean the Congressman Wilbanks murder do you?”

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t know exactly how just yet, but I think they’re connected.”

  “Damn,” the Sheriff muttered and shook his head. “Liz Gerkin and Keller Wilbanks, connected. Who would have thought it?”

  “Right?” Beckett asked before excusing himself and turning on his heel to leave.

  Meeks was waiting for him in the driver’s seat when he arrived, the engine already running. “Where to?”

  “Back to Graham.”

  “Graham?”

  Beckett shook his head and stared out the window. “Back to ask her something I should have before. I was so damn certain the wife angle played into this I forgot what I was really there for.”

  “Which was?”

  Beckett continued slowly shaking his head and staring out the window. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The office of Keller Wilbanks was slightly less abuzz as Beckett crossed the open foyer floor and went straight up the staircase. Most of the piles of posters and billboards were gone, as was the mob of young people.

  Beckett took the stairs two and three at a time and swung around the balcony to Graham’s office. The door was closed and he wrapped twice on it with the back of his hand, a bit harder than he intended to.

  “Come in,” Graham answered and Beckett stepped into the room. He had hopped out of the car as soon as they were within sight of the building, leaving Meeks to park and catch up later.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you, I didn’t mean to knock that hard,” Beckett said, entering the room.

  Graham sat up a little higher at her desk and pressed her hand to her chest. “Woo. Not a problem, I understand I suppose.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you back so soon. What can I help you with?”

  Beckett looked at her and then looked away. “I apologize for leaving in such a rush this morning. I was so certain that the cheating wife thing was going to pan out...”

  “Yeah, I could tell I took a little wind from your sails. I apologize for that, by the way.”

  “No need,” Beckett said, raising his hand. “Better for us to find out up front than to be operating under false assumptions. However, that was just a piece of what happened this morning.”

  He paused and leaned back for a moment. “We had another murder this morning, out in Billerica.”

  Graham furrowed her brow. “Another Congressman?”

  “No, couldn’t be further from it,” Beckett said. “A shut-in living in squalor on a deserted street.”

  “Mr. Beckett, I am more than willing to help but I am quite certain I don’t know of anybody fitting that description.”

  “How about the name Liz Gerkin? Ever come across anything like that bef
ore?”

  Graham muttered the name aloud a couple of times, her eyes narrowing. “No, never.”

  She turned to her computer and entered a long string of key commands. “Nothing on any of Keller’s schedules about a Gerkin either.”

  Beckett leaned forward a bit as Meeks entered the room. He took the same seat he’d used that morning, but said nothing.

  “What is on Keller’s schedules?” Beckett asked, completely ignoring victim decorum.

  “Come again?”

  “Ms. Graham, we have a list of victims that is growing by the day. Most of these people are average citizens, but not Keller.

  “If there’s a link between these murders, it has to lie with him.”

  Graham’s eyes clouded and she shook her head, “But, he was a good man. He wasn’t involved in any killings or anything.”

  Beckett shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. There has to be something tying these people together, and I think the biggest player in that tying is Keller. He may not have been the first victim, but he’s certainly the most famous.”

  Open surprise and confusion spread across Graham’s face for a moment, then she drew herself together. “What, um, what kind of things are you looking for?”

  “We already know what committees he served on, his penchant for avoiding inflammatory subject matter, his cheating wife, all that. Was there anything new, professional or personal, about him recently? Anything at all?”

  Graham swung back to the desk and hit a few more keystrokes and a printer buzzed to life beside her. The purring of the machine continued for several seconds and when it was done, she handed each of them a printout.

  “This is an overview of Keller’s activities for the past month. Every person he met with, issue they discussed, everything.

  “I trust you know this is highly confidential.”

  Beckett nodded. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of removing it from this room.”

  He took his pen and went down through the list, scratching out everything they already knew. Several meetings with Graham, committee hearings, two luncheons with his father.

  Beckett scanned through three pages and was about to give up when a name caught his eye. He circled it in black ink and said, “Bill Richards? As in part owner of Gillette and minority owner of the Red Sox Bill Richards?”

  Graham nodded. “Very same.”

  “Any idea what they were talking about?”

  Graham returned to her screen and scanned through some documents. “Here it is,” she said, her eyes squinting at the screen. “Now that’s odd.”

  Rising from his seat, Beckett placed both palms on the desk and leaned out over it.

  Graham shifted the monitor a few inches for him and scrolled back up to the top. “This is a database where we keep everything. All meeting information, etc.”

  She clicked on a single cell. “This is an example of a meeting he had with a young man seeking a commendation letter to West Point. Detailed opinions, list of things to follow up on, an order for me to draft a preliminary letter.”

  She scrolled back down and clicked on a second cell. “This is the Bill Richards meeting.”

  An empty white box stared back at both of them.

  “I take it this is kind of out of the ordinary?”

  “Extremely. I’ve been his Chief of Staff since he established this office. This is the first one I’ve ever seen.”

  Beckett slid back into his seat. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what that meeting was about do you?”

  Graham shook her head. “It’s wasn’t uncommon for Keller to take his major donors to dinner in the time following an election, but this was a daytime meeting and the last election was almost a year ago. I have no idea what this could have been about.”

  “So Mr. Richards was a major donor?” Meeks asked, Beckett turning towards the voice he’d forgotten was there.

  Leaning forward, Graham placed her elbows on the table and nodded in the affirmative. “With the exception of his father, Bill Richards was the best friend this office had.”

  Beckett matched her lean and said, “From what I’ve gathered, this wasn’t an office in need of any financial backing. Wilbanks’ old man could buy most of Boston. Everybody knows that’s how Keller got the post in the first place.

  “What reason could there possibly be for Bill Richards to be donating that kind of money?”

  Graham parted her hands and said, “I have no idea. Hoping for favors on down the line?”

  “I thought you said Keller was a man that didn’t want any part of pandering politics?”

  “He was, but to men with as much wealth as Bill Richards, that doesn’t mean a thing.”

  Beckett nodded in agreement. “Have you ever known Richards to be sniffing around before?”

  Returning to the computer Graham entered some more keystrokes. “First time the two men have been in the same room since Keller’s Thank-You dinner last January.”

  “You have any contact information on Richards?” Beckett asked.

  Graham stared at him for several seconds before flipping over one of the printouts in front of them. She pulled up a new screen on the computer, scrawled out an address and phone number and slid it back towards them.

  “Do remember, I have no idea what this was concerning. They could have been negotiating Red Sox season tickets for all I know.

  “I trust you’ll use discretion in involving this office, particularly this office.”

  Beckett took the paper and folded into his jacket pocket. “No worries Ms. Graham, your name won’t be mentioned.”

  “He is a powerful man, he could bring a lot of trouble down on this office and the police department too if he wanted to. I’d be careful of making any pointed accusations.”

  Turning towards the door, Beckett said, “I don’t plan on making any accusations, pointed or otherwise. They had a meeting. I’m going to go ask him what it was about.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Thick skinned. Most people think that to be able to do what I do, they need a thick skin.

  To those people I laugh.

  A thick skin is needed to play a ballgame on the road or if someone’s boss is an ass. To do what I do, you need to have the ability to completely separate from your active conscience.

  Leave it in the hotel, do what you need to, reunite with it at the end of the day when the job is complete.

  I don’t know why, but for some reason Liz Gerkin got to me. The people I dealt with weren’t supposed to be begging me for death, they are supposed to be clinging to life with every last breath in their body.

  No, check that.

  They are supposed to not even know I was there, to claw at everything around them as life slipped through their helpless fingers.

  Liz Gerkin didn’t do that. She knew why I was there when she came to the door. There wasn’t surprise in her face, not an ounce of bargaining in her body.

  She was relieved.

  Last night after I left Gerkin’s house, I didn’t go right back to the Tria. Hell, I didn’t go back at all.

  I ended up back on 95 and instead of going south through Waltham and into Alewife, I went north. Up the coast, past Salem and the witch museums, past Manchester and Singing Beach.

  By early evening I was in Gloucester. I parked just off the docks and walked by the memorial honoring the fishermen that never made it back, on around to Bass Rocks where I sat and sat.

  I watched as the tide came in for the evening and I watched as the sun set for the night. Well past dark I sat on the point and stared out at the water. The cool ocean mist rose and washed over me and the stars came out, but still I sat.

  It was well after midnight by the time I rose from my perch. When I did, the spot where I was sitting was dry, surrounded by a thick layer of salt water. I had barely noticed it though, I had decisions to make and I had made them.

  I was done.

  I stayed in Gloucester for the night and called Mave
tti from the road this morning. I told him we needed to meet and it needed to be today.

  He knew better than to argue.

  We agreed on the Barking Crab restaurant off of Atlantic Avenue at noon. He wanted me to come to him and I told him to piss up a rope. He offered to come to me and I told him the same.

  Neutral or nothing.

  The Barking Crab opened at eleven on weekdays for lunch. I was seated there at one minute past.

  The place was nearly deserted and nobody seemed to mind that I was sitting for an hour, nursing a cup of coffee and waiting for Mavetti.

  The old maxim about arriving someplace fashionably late is for the birds, something that might work well for a dinner date but not in this line of work. I arrived as early as possible, put my back in the safest corner, and waited.

  I chose the Barking Crab because it sat on stilts above the Harbor. By sitting in the corner booth I ensured nobody could come up behind me. I watched every person that came and went for a good hour before Mavetti arrived.

  I would stay for at least that long after he left.

  From where I sat I had clear sight to every exit in the place, not to mention I was right beneath a screen window. If things got ugly, I was through it and in the water in four seconds flat.

  We agreed that neither one would bring a weapon to the meeting, though the first thing I did upon arriving was grab two crab crushing stones from the neighboring tables and slide one beneath each of my thighs. Rudimentary as hell, but they’d buy me the four seconds I needed if it came to that.

  At exactly noon, I saw Mavetti walk past the front row of windows and enter the restaurant. Two men entered with him, both wearing cargo shirts and tank tops. They looked ridiculous, though the uniforms were so I could see they weren’t carrying guns.

  One of them though was carrying a briefcase.

  Mavetti approached as the men took seats in plain sight, well over fifty feet away.

  I hadn’t seen Mavetti in ten years, and the time had not been good to him. He’d added another forty pounds to his bulbous body and his face was etched with more lines. His hairline had slipped back about an inch, much of the remainder changed from black to grey.