by Aiden Bates
"Prissy Pete." Ray replied without thinking. "Even the teachers called him that. He'd even tattle if one of us called another kid something. He was just so prissy."
"Exactly." Robles put his feet up on his desk. "He's not going to get his hands dirty with a murder, not if it's possible that he might get hurt. He's willing enough to smack his woman around, because she doesn't fight back. All of these women, the dead ones? They're not like that. This one here, Audrey Cruz? Someone took a swing at her in a bar once, because she turned him down. She broke his arm in three places."
Nenci whistled. "No way Tolbert's going up against her. He might have fantasies about it. I'm sure he did have fantasies about it. But he'd never have the balls to actually do it."
"It's worth keeping him in mind." Tessaro stroked his chin. "Guys like that can have a way of surprising us sometimes, but for the most part I agree. This Gagne guy is where my money is."
Ray chewed on the inside of his cheek. "He's got access to all of the kids, either through work or through church. I wonder if we shouldn't talk to the priest, either Father D'Cruze or the one currently at St. Dominic's. If Gagne really is our guy, he's managed to fly under the radar all this time. He's very intelligent. We have to be careful not to spook him or he'll bolt."
"Let him move on to Rhode Island," Tessaro muttered. "Let him be someone else's problem for a while." He held up his hands. "Kidding, of course."
"We're laughing on the inside, dude." Ray turned back to the whiteboard. "All right. Who wants to go and interview which priest?"
Ray wound up taking Tessaro up to Braintree for another chat with Father D'Cruze. He didn't want to put anyone else through a conversation with the cultist, although he certainly couldn't be alone with him considering his close connection to the case. Robles and Morris hit the Lakeville parish to talk about more recent activity.
Father D'Cruze was more than willing to talk about both Tolbert and Gagne, although he couldn't fathom why they would be of interest to the police. "They're both good men. Tolbert is a bit old-fashioned, I suppose, but there's certainly a place for that in this world. Gagne is a quiet sort, but he's an excellent mentor to so many of the boys of the parish. At least he was. I fell out of touch with him after I transferred up here."
"Can you tell me about their relationships with any of the Lakeville Killer victims?" Tessaro asked.
"Hmm." D'Cruze's eyes went far away as he tried to remember. "There's not a lot that stands out in my mind, to be honest. I remember that Tolbert had a few little disputes here and there with some of the other parishioners. He liked everything to be just so, the way that he wanted it, and he sometimes had problems when other people didn't see things the same way that he did. But it never escalated to violence."
Ray narrowed his eyes. "I'm aware that you can't break the seal of the confessional, Father, but surely you must have noticed Mrs. Tolbert's injuries."
D'Cruze chuckled. "Oh, everyone wants to think the worst these days. And I'm sure that in your job you only see the worst. But really, Mrs. Tolbert is just a very clumsy woman. That's all."
Tessaro leaned forward to speak, before Ray could snap out a retort. "And what about Gagne? Did you ever see him in contact with any of the deceased women?"
D'Cruze grimaced and crossed his legs. "That's a bit of a puzzler. Gagne preferred to avoid occasions of sin, and for him women were a real temptation. I don't think that I'm breaking the seal of the confessional when I tell you that he was very attracted to women. He had a healthy libido, but he tried to avoid them so as to avoid fornication." He nodded once, as though showing approval.
Ray wasn't buying it. At least, he wasn't buying that this was the whole story. "Did Mr. Gagne have any debates or discussions with Michelle Kerry?"
D'Cruze's lip curled. "Detective, I think about half the parish had 'debates' with that woman. After her husband left she turned her back on the Lord and on nature and declared herself to be a lesbian."
"I see." Ray made a note of the priest's comment. "Did any of those disputes turn violent?"
"Not within my view. And she would only have brought it on herself if they had."
Ray pursed his lips and bit his tongue. "What about Eva Butler? Did Gagne ever approach her?"
"I believe that he might have approached her, before he realized that she was married. He was wracked with guilt about that, especially since he believed that his intentions were reciprocated." D'Cruze lifted an eyebrow. "Now, I knew Eva Butler, and I know that she would never have been unfaithful to her husband. But perhaps Gagne didn't have such a great understanding."
"And Emiliana Morrison?" Tessaro leaned forward.
D'Cruze shook his head, a look of real regret passing over his lined face. "Gagne only joined our community in 2000. Emiliana was killed in 1998." He looked up to the sky for a moment. "Is her husband truly not the killer?"
Ray tightened his grip on his pen. "We've cleared him of all but one of the killings. And if we've cleared him of twenty-four of twenty-five, at least, he's probably not guilty of that twenty-fifth either."
D'Cruze shook his head. "I can't believe it. After all this time, to think that he might have been innocent after all." He sighed. "I'll admit that I was a little bit biased against him, between his dispute with Emiliana and his continuing to harbor that thing in his home."
"That thing." Ray swallowed. "You know, Emiliana never made any secret of her feelings for the boy."
D'Cruze blinked at him. He looked a little bit like an owl. "Why should she? He was a monster, Detective. An abomination that should never have been born."
Ray ran his tongue across his teeth. He had a hunch. It was too awful to think, to even contemplate. "Did you talk about this with Emiliana?"
"Of course." He bowed his head. "She asked me—outside of confession—if murder or raising an omega was the greater sin. I told her that murder is only murder if the thing killed is a human. Animals are slaughtered and no one has any moral problem with it at all. Indeed, it's something that happens every day, for survival."
Tessaro grabbed onto Ray's arm. "Thank you for your time, Father. Have a great day." He ushered Ray out of the rectory and back toward the car. "What the hell got into you back there?" he snapped as Ray buckled himself into the passenger seat.
Ray gulped for breath, his hands clenched into fists in his lap, as he waited for the red to dissipate from before his eyes. "He told Emiliana to murder her own child."
Tessaro paled, but started up the car. "No. He didn't."
"Okay." Ray rolled his eyes. "He told her that it would be morally acceptable, because Doug isn't human."
"That's different. He didn't instruct her to kill her child, or at least he didn't admit to it." Tessaro headed back toward Framingham. "And she didn't get a chance to do it. She was killed. Apparently by Gagne."
"Maybe, maybe not. Gagne didn't join the parish until two years after she died." Ray thunked his head against the headrest. "Doug remembers being sick when his mother died. What if she was trying to kill him?"
Tessaro gave Ray a long, hard look. "Don't you think that you're getting a little ahead of yourself there, Space Case?" He shook his head. "It's a remote possibility, sure. It's a remote possibility that Gagne saved your omega's life by snuffing his mother. Does that excuse everything else he's done?"
"No." Ray closed his eyes. "Let's prove that he killed the women we know we can and get him behind bars. If we can get him for Emiliana once he's locked away for these other women, then great. Otherwise, we'll just have to be content with what we get."
Tessaro patted his shoulder. "There we go."
It didn't take long to get a warrant for Gagne's cell phone records and for his financial records. Judge Murphy, who both Doug and Maggio said hated Doug and would have hanged Larry, signed the warrant without asking too many questions. Ray wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he decided not to question it either. Right now he had too many other things going on that he needed to worry about.
Once that warrant was obtained, the banks, credit card companies, and phone companies were able to give them plenty of data. It took Ray a week to go through it all, and that was with help. Gagne turned out to be smarter than most murderers. He'd turned off his cell phone for a block of time on either side of the killings of each woman on the list. The only problem, the place where he was going to be tripped up in court, was that he had turned off his cell phone for every murder on the list.
That wasn't necessarily damning evidence. There might be a perfectly good reason to turn off their phone, and apparently remove the battery, for a three-hour period every six months that just happened to coincide with the brutal murder of a woman that he knew. The fact that, out of all of the credit card receipts, only two of them showed any transactions near body dump sites spoke volumes about Gagne's ability to plan.
Those two transactions happened in 2002 and 2014, respectively. They were both for tires. Gagne couldn't have anticipated getting a flat out in the wilds of southeastern Massachusetts, and of course he'd have taken out the spare tire to accommodate the body parts.
It was enough to get a warrant. They searched his house. They found the heads of forty victims, in various states of preservation, in trunks in Gagne's bedroom.
They arrested Gagne that same day, December 9.
Gagne put up a little bit of a fight. When he found out that his home had already been searched, he stopped struggling and asked for a lawyer. "I understand that one of my former students is now a highly regarded defense attorney," he told Ray, a smirk crossing his face. "I want Doug Morrison for my defense counsel."
Doug did indeed come down to the Plymouth County Jail, but it wasn't to accept Dan Gagne as his client. "They tell me that you want me as your lawyer." He met his former teacher's eyes without flinching.
"You owe me this one, Douglas. After all, I wrote you a spectacular letter of recommendation to Stanford." Gagne simpered.
"I went to Yale, you pretentious twerp." Doug leaned closer to the cell. "You didn't write that letter. And what you have been doing is setting my father up to twist for your crimes, for well over a decade. You don't really think that I'd waste half a second of my valuable time on you?"
Ray watched as Gagne leaned back and laughed. "My boy, you have so much to learn. I might have borrowed certain elements from your father, but it wasn't just the clothes. Your father's twisting for crimes that are his own, and he knows it." He jumped off of his chair and grabbed the bars to his cell. "Why do you think that he didn't ask the hotshot lawyer in the family to defend him in the first place, hmm?"
"I don't know, but my father's nothing like you." The ends of Doug's mouth twitched, almost like a smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've recently made partner. I bill out at six hundred dollars an hour. Your union will probably fight to keep your salary coming in for a little while, until the conviction. Or until you plead guilty. You still can't afford me." He turned on his heel and let his wool coat flare out behind him as he headed out the door.
Ray followed him out. "You were amazing," he told Doug, taking him into his arms once they had some privacy.
Doug buried his face in his chest. "Thank you," he said, breathing deep. "Thank you, Ray. Thank you for catching him, and thank you for saving my father."
"It's not over yet. But we've saved however many women he would have gone after. And Doug." Ray lifted Doug's chin to make sure his omega caught his eye. "You know you were part of this. It wasn't me. It was us. You and me." He kissed Doug's lips. "Together."
Chapter Thirteen
Doug rose when the bailiff said, "All rise." He could barely contain himself, and he knew that the joy must be radiating from him like a halo. He had no idea how his father could stand there with such a dejected face and hangdog air. Today was the best day of Doug's life. It should be the best day of his father's too.
Of course, maybe his father was just more realistic than Doug. The judge on the case hadn't changed. Maybe Larry wasn't willing to put much faith in Murphy to actually follow the law. Doug could understand that. Doug had already planned for that. He had a whole pile of forms ready to go.
Murphy walked in and glanced around the room. "You may be seated." He sat down and picked up the file on the bench. It was all for show, which disgusted Doug. It wasn't as though Murphy didn't know exactly who was before him, and why.
After a long and silent moment, Murphy looked up again. "Mr. Maggio. It says here that the Commonwealth is seeking to dismiss all charges against Mr. Morrison, senior. Is that correct?"
Chris, alone at the prosecution's table, rose. Doug heard the furious clicks of a dozen cameras. Ray might have been the only spectator in the gallery who wasn't a member of the press. "It is, your Honor. We've found evidence that someone else committed the crimes for which Mr. Morrison was convicted. That individual has been arrested and charged. The evidence is solid and compelling, and it is current. That individual has continued to kill during Mr. Morrison's incarceration. Based on this evidence, the Commonwealth feels that it is a gross miscarriage of justice to continue to hold Mr. Morrison in prison."
Murphy raised an eyebrow. "A gross miscarriage of justice, eh? Interesting choice of words. Mr. Morrison junior, I can only imagine that dismissing the charge against your father would delight you."
Doug rose. "Dismissing the final charge against Larry Morrison is the only way to achieve justice, your Honor."
Murphy's lip curled. "That's funny. I'll buy that some other guy might have committed those other killings. You've done an excellent job of proving it. I'm not entirely sure how the police missed it the first time through, but I suppose that's what review boards are for."
Murphy ran his finger along the edge of the file. "The problem, of course, is that you haven't disproven that one case. The case of Emiliana Morrison."
Doug bit the inside of his cheek and clenched his fist. Larry reached over and took his hand, behind the lip of the table so that the judge wouldn't see. It was Chris who responded. "Your Honor, the Commonwealth feels very strongly that those charges should be dismissed. Mr. Morrison has been proven innocent of every other accusation against him. We feel that it is a waste of the taxpayer's money to keep him locked away when the expense of trying him outweighs the evidence against him. There is no evidence, your Honor, that he killed Emiliana Morrison."
Murphy harrumphed. "Mr. Morrison was tried and convicted of her murder by a jury of her peers."
"On faulty evidence, your Honor." Chris leaned forward against the prosecutor's table. "Evidence that seems to have been mostly concocted to allow someone else to avoid detection."
"That's irrelevant." Murphy met Doug's eyes. "The fact of the matter is that Larry Morrison was convicted of first degree murder in the case of Emiliana Morrison, and no compelling evidence has been produced to show why a legitimate jury verdict should be set aside. He has a new trial, and jury selection will begin on the appointed date. Unless viable evidence can be found to prove that Mr. Morrison did not butcher his wife, it would be remiss of me to release a convicted murderer out onto the streets. Court is adjourned, and don't come back before me until you have actual, hard evidence to show why the verdict in this specific case should be ignored and this man should be freed."
Doug swallowed his rage as the rest of the court rose. Sheriffs, who seemed unusually sympathetic to Doug's practiced eye, approached to take his father back to Shirley. "I'm sorry, Dad. We're not done yet." Doug hugged his father. "I've got paperwork here to get Murphy removed from the case. He's clearly biased."
"It's okay, son." Larry stroked Doug's hair, just once, before the sheriffs led him gently away.
Ray joined him just after that. He had an omega with him, a mated omega with golden blond hair. "That judge has an absolute vendetta against the Morrisons," he said. "I've never seen anything like it."
Doug made a face. "It's a problem." He sighed and patted his briefc
ase. "Next stop is the Superior Court Clerk's office. I'm filing to have Murphy removed from the case. He's not subtle about his issues, and that's just not okay."
The blond omega narrowed his eyes at the door to the judge's chambers. "You know, I'm pretty sure my mother knows Judge Murphy socially. Let me see if I can find out what's going on with him."
Doug held out a hand. "Doug Morrison."
The other omega shook it. "Pete Nolan-Morris. My alpha works with yours." He grinned. "I had a chance to take a look at some of the photos in evidence against Gagne, and they're pretty damning. Not retouched at all. I'll be one of the experts testifying at the trial, for the prosecution."
Ray put an arm around Doug. Did he know just how much Doug needed that right now? "Pete here is an award-winning photographer and photojournalist. He's something of an expert when it comes to cameras and angles and whatnot."