by Blake Pierce
“I needed the perspective.”
“Then you call me, or Connelly, or anyone else connected to this case. You don’t go to a federal prison to hunt down an old flame. I mean, Jesus. Don’t you even read the papers? They made it look like this entire department is a bunch of morons, and that the only leads we could get had to come from a former flame. It’s bad, Avery, real bad.”
“Captain, I’m—”
“Three,” he said and held up three fingers, “you’ve got dissention in your ranks. Thompson and Jones are complaining about the surveillance gig.”
“They wasted an entire day yesterday!”
O’Malley held up a hand.
“Connelly won’t even talk to you—”
“That’s not my fault!”
“I don’t know what you did to Finley,” he said, shocked, “but he’s actually been working his ass off and he’s genuinely upset about all this.”
Suddenly, Avery began to realize where the conversation was headed.
“Upset about all what?” she said.
“Maybe I promoted you too soon,” O’Malley mumbled to himself.
“Captain, wait.”
He shook his head and made a face.
“No more, Avery, please. No more. OK? I’ve got the chief barking up my ass. The mayor is pissed. I’ve got complaints coming in from who-the-fuck-knows, and they’re all about you. But the worst of it all, seriously,” he said with true sorrow in his eyes. “The worst thing is, this isn’t about you at all, or any of this petty bullshit. We’ve got three dead girls in under a week. Three dead, Avery. And no leads. And a dead trail. Am I right?”
Avery flashed on the killer’s twirl and bow in the parking lot camera.
“I’m going to find him,” she said, “I swear it.”
“Not on my watch,” O’Malley replied. “You’re off the case. Effective immediately. Connelly is taking over.”
“Captain—”
“Not a word, Black. Not a word because I’m calm right now, right? I’m calm because this is upsetting to me too, but if you push me I’m going to get really angry because of all the pressure I’m under over this case. You’re off. I want all your research on Connelly’s desk in the next hour. Any information from the latest crime scene in Belmont. Where are we on that? Where’s the body? No, I don’t want you to tell me now. I want it all written down, along with any leads you’re pursuing, anything. Leave nothing out. Understood? Then you’re free to go. Take the rest of the day off. Come back on Monday and we’ll talk about what happens next. I need the weekend to think it over.”
“I’m off the case,” she said.
“You’re off.”
“For good?”
“For good.” He nodded.
“Am I still on homicide?”
O’Malley wouldn’t answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Avery had nowhere to go. Her favorite place, the shooting range, was for cops, and she no longer felt like a cop. Her house was dark and empty, and she knew that if she went home, she would simply crawl into bed and remain there for days.
A local pub, right around the corner from her house, was open.
She started the morning off right.
“Scotch,” she said, “the good stuff.”
“We have a lot of good stuff,” the bartender replied.
Avery didn’t recognize him. She’d only ever visited the bar at night. Not any longer, she thought with reckless abandon. I’m a day drinker now.
“Lagavulin!” she demanded and pounded the bar.
There were only a couple of other people in the bar at that hour, all locals, two old men that looked like they drank for a living.
“Another!” Avery called.
After four shots, she was wasted.
Strangely, the sensation reminded her of the past. After Howard Randall had killed again after his release through Avery’s genius defense, she’d gone on a bender for weeks. All she remembered from that time were lonely nights in her dark room, and hangovers, and the constant media coverage that seemed to run in a loop.
She stared down at herself, at her hand and clothes and the people in the bar.
Look how far you’ve fallen, she thought. Not even a cop anymore.
Nothing.
Her father’s face came to mind, laughing: “You think you’re so special,” he’d once told her with a gun pointed at her temple. “You ain’t special. I made you, and I can take you.”
Avery stumbled home.
Images of the killer merged with car routes and her father and Howard Randall, and the last thing she remembered before she blacked out was her own sobs.
* * *
Avery spent the rest of the day in bed, the blinds closed. Randomly throughout the afternoon and night, she got up to hydrate or down a beer or stuff her face with leftovers in the refrigerator before she headed back to her room and crashed.
At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, the phone rang.
The caller ID read Rose.
Avery picked up, groggy and still consumed with sleep.
“Hey.”
The voice on the other end was tough and unrelenting.
“You sound asleep. Did I wake you?”
“No, no,” Avery said and sat up to wipe the spittle from her chin. “I’m up.”
“You never answered my email.”
“What email?”
“I responded to your email. I said yes to lunch. Are we still on?”
It took a second for Avery to understand what she meant, but then she remembered having emailed Rose at the height of her own excitement, when she thought she was on the verge of catching a killer. Now, hung over, a pariah at work, and not even sure about her own position, she was loath to dress up her misery in clothes and makeup and try to act like a loving mother in front of her estranged daughter.
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Are you sure? You sound terrible.”
“I’m just, I’m fine, honey. Noon. Right?”
“See you then.”
The line went dead.
Rose, Avery thought with a sigh.
They were strangers. Avery had never admitted it to anyone, but nursing Rose and trying to be a mother had been a nightmare. At the time, the idea of motherhood had been beautiful: a new life, the wonder of childbirth, the possibility that Rose could save her relationship with Jack. In practice, however, she’d found it to be exhausting, unrewarding, and yet another reason to battle with Jack. Any chance she could get, Avery had hired a nanny, or put Rose in daycare, or handed her over to her ex-husband. Work had been her only refuge.
I was such a bad mother, she thought.
No, she tried to remind herself. It wasn’t all bad.
She had truly loved Rose.
There were plenty of great memories. Sometimes they would laugh and dress up together. Avery even taught her how to wear high-heeled shoes. There were hugs and tears and late-night movies and ice cream.
All of that seemed so far away now.
They’d been apart for years.
After Howard Randall, Jack had filed for custody, and he got it. He said that Avery had been an unfit mother, and cited numerous incidents, including pictures of when Rose had started to cut herself, and texts and emails to her mother that had never been answered.
When was the last time I saw her? Avery wondered.
Christmas, she thought. No, a few months ago. You passed her on the street. You hadn’t seen her in so long she was practically unrecognizable.
Now, Avery wanted to be a mother, a real mother. She wanted to be the person Rose called for advice and had sleepovers with and went on ice-cream binges.
Pain continued to stand in Avery’s way, the endless pain in her heart and stomach over what she’d done in the past, and what she still had to make up for as a detective. It was all consuming, a giant, dark monster that demanded to be fed.
There is no justice.
; Avery pulled herself together.
In jeans, T-shirt, and a brown blazer, she stared at herself in the mirror. Too much makeup, she thought. You look tired. Depressed. Hung over.
A bright smile did little to hide her inner turmoil.
“Fuck it,” she said.
Jake’s Place on Harrison Avenue was a dark, cavernous diner with maroon booths and lots of places where people could enjoy a good meal and remain largely anonymous. On multiple occasions, Avery had spotted movie stars and celebrities. Rose had first picked the location during the custody dispute, and although Avery was sure it was because Rose didn’t want to be seen with her own mother, it had become the string that kept them together, and the only place they ever met after long months apart.
Rose was there early, already seated in a booth far away from other customers.
In many ways, she was a clone of Avery when she was young: blue eyes, light brown hair, a model’s features, and excellent taste in clothing. She wore a short-sleeved blouse that exposed her toned arms. A tiny diamond nose ring had been placed near her left nostril. With perfect posture and a guarded stare, she gave a perfunctory smile before her features once again turned blank and unreadable.
“Hi,” Avery said.
“Hi,” was the curt reply.
Avery leaned in for an awkward hug that wasn’t returned.
“I like the nose ring,” she said.
“I thought you hated nose rings.”
“It looks good on you.”
“I was surprised by the email,” Rose said. “You don’t contact me that often.”
“That’s not true.”
“I take that back,” Rose thought. “You only contact me when things are going really well, but from what I read in the papers, and from what I can see for myself,” she said with a squinted observation, “that’s not the case.”
“Thanks a lot.”
To Avery, who only saw her daughter in spurts every year, Rose appeared far older and more mature than her sixteen years might have indicated. Early admission to college. Full scholarship to Brandeis. She even worked as a nanny for a family near her house.
“How’s Dad?” Avery asked.
The waiter came by an interrupted them.
“Hello, there,” he said. “My name is Pete. I’m new here so bear with me. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Just water,” Rose said.
“Me, too.”
“OK, here are your menus. I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.”
“Thanks,” Avery said.
“Why do you always ask about Dad?” Rose snapped when they were alone.
“Just curious.”
“If you’re so curious, why don’t you call him yourself?”
“Rose—”
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I said that. You know what? I don’t even know why I’m here,” she lamented. “To be honest, Mom, I don’t know why you want me here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m seeing a therapist,” Rose said.
“Really? That’s great.”
“She says I have a lot of mommy issues.”
“Like what?”
“Like, you left us.”
“Rose, I never—”
“Hold on,” Rose insisted, “please. Let me finish. Then you can talk, OK? You left. You handed custody over to Dad and you were gone. Do you have any idea how that destroyed me?”
“I have some idea—”
“No, you don’t. I was like, super popular before that whole thing went down. Then, practically overnight, I’m the girl everyone has to stay away from. People teased me. Called me a murderer because my mom let off a killer. And I certainly couldn’t talk to you, my own mother. I needed you back then. I really did, but you practically abandoned me right then and there. You refused to talk to me, refused to talk about the case. Do you realize that everything I knew about you from that time, I learned from the papers?”
“Rose—”
“And of course, there was no money,” Rose laughed with a flip of her hand. “We were broke after you lost your job. You never thought about that, did you? You went from a star attorney to a cop. Great move, Mom.”
“I had to do that,” Avery snapped back.
“We had nothing,” Rose insisted. “You can’t just start a new career over in the middle of your life. We had to move. Did you ever think about that? About how it would affect us?”
Avery sat back.
“Is this why you came here? To yell at me?”
“Why did you want to come here, Mom?”
“I wanted to reconnect, to see how you were, to talk to try and work things out.”
“Well, none of that is going to happen unless we get over this first, and I’m not over it. I’m just not.”
Rose shook her head and looked to the ceiling.
“You know? For years I thought you were a superstar. Incredible personality, big job, we lived in a great house, and it was like—wow—my mom is amazing. But then it all fell apart, and everything went along with it, the house, the job and you—most of all, you.”
“My whole life collapsed,” Avery said. “I was devastated.”
“I was your daughter,” Rose complained. “I was there too. You ignored me.”
“I’m here now,” Avery swore, “I’m here right now.”
The waiter came back.
“OK, ladies! Do we know what we want?”
Simultaneously, Avery and Rose yelled: “Not yet!”
“Whoa, OK. Why don’t you just flag me down when you’re ready.”
No one answered.
The waiter backed away and left.
Rose rubbed her face.
“It’s too soon,” she realized. “I’m sorry, Mom. But it’s too soon. You asked why I wanted to come here? Because I thought I was ready. I’m not.”
She edged out of her seat and stood up.
“Rose, please. Sit down. We just got here. I miss you. I want to talk.”
“It’s not about you, Mom. It was never just about you. Don’t you get that?”
“Give me another chance,” Avery said. “Let’s start over.”
Rose shook her head.
“I’m not ready yet. I’m sorry. I thought I was, but I’m not.”
She walked out.
“Rose! Rose!?”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
For a long time, Avery remained in the diner booth, alone. She ordered eggs and toast, a small salad, and a cup of coffee and just sat there, going over everything that had been said.
My daughter hates me, she realized.
More depressed than she’d been in years, she wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Instead, she paid the check and walked out.
Sunlight made her cringe.
Why can’t it be a rainy day? she wondered.
People on the street seemed to race by. Cars whizzed past her view. She stood alone among the activity like a spirit, not yet dead, not truly alive.
This is what the killer wants, she thought. He’s in your head. He’s laughing at you. Just like Howard. Just like Howard.
Avery went back to her car and drove.
Without any conscious thought to a destination, she found herself headed south—toward the prison. The bodies of all three girls kept flashing in her mind, and the killer and the car and the routes and some house, a house she imaged he might live in: small, hidden by trees with an unkempt lawn, because he had better things to do than mow a lawn. Her suspects were discarded, every one of them.
She needed a fresh start. A new perspective.
The prison parking lot was as she remembered. The walk inside was the same. Guards whispered behind her back and pointed. The woman behind the gates chided her for no appointment.
“He said he knew you’d back,” a guard laughed. “What are you, in love now? I guess I should believe everything I read in the papers.”
There was no real reason to go back. She didn�
�t actually believe he would help her, or could help her, not after the disastrous turn at Art for Life. He just liked to play games, she understood. But Avery was in the mood for games. She had nothing left to hide, nowhere else to go, and for some strange reason—at that moment in time—Howard Randall seemed like the only real friend she had in the world.
Howard sat in the basement meeting room as he had before, only this time, the smile was gone, he appeared concerned.
“You don’t look quite yourself today, Avery. Are you all right?”
Avery laughed.
If she had a cigarette, she might have taken it out and begun to smoke. She hadn’t smoked since she was a kid, but that’s how she felt: reckless, untouchable.
She took seat and placed her elbows on the table.
“Your last tip was bullshit,” she said. “An artist? Did you mean John Lang?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit!”
She aggressively smiled.
“You played me,” she said. “Nice move. Was that all so we could take a trip down memory lane and you could watch me break down in tears?”
“I take no comfort in your pain,” he said in earnest.
“Fuck you!” she yelled. “You’re playing games with me right now. You told me he was an artist. You practically handed him to me on a platter.”
“Your killer is an artist,” he said. “A true artist.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He takes great pride in his work. He’s no random killer. He’s no butcher. There is a purpose to his cause. These girls mean something to him. He knows them, personally, and in exchange for their lives he gives them immortality, in art.”