The Girl on the Bridge

by James Hayman

  “But didn’t she finally go to the dean and accuse Josh and Charlie Loughlin of rape? I mean, she did, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. It was your husband who finally drove her to do that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Holden is a small campus. Whenever he’d see her walking on one of the paths, going to the library or to class or whatever, he’d catch up to her and start talking to her. Asking her if she wanted to go out on a date with him. Get together again is how he put it. ‘Gee, I’m sorry about what happened the last time but I’d really like to see you again.’ Each time he’d say something like that Hannah would panic. Imagine him coming after her. She wouldn’t leave her room for days. Wouldn’t go to class. After months of enduring that kind of bullshit, with my encouragement—no, at my insistence—she finally worked up the strength to go to the dean’s office and accuse your husband and the others of rape.”

  “But they didn’t believe her?”

  “Oh, I think some of the people there probably believed her, maybe all of them did, but there was no proof. No physical evidence. Not four months after the fact. Loughlin and your husband swore it was all consensual and they’re sticking with the story to this day. They even played some phony tape for the dean where Hannah was supposedly giving consent to having sex. And none of the other four guys ever came forward. Josh and Charlie never named them. To this day I don’t know who they were. Shortly after that, Hannah dropped out of school and never came back.

  “Again I blame myself for not going to Plattsburgh that Sunday morning. After four months had passed, not only was there no DNA, there was no longer any proof of vaginal bruising, no tears or other evidence of forced penetration or the fact that she’d been a virgin. The only proof that anything had happened was that Hannah was pregnant.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “She didn’t even know which of the six was the father. Naturally she had an abortion.”

  “Wouldn’t fetal DNA have proven who the father was?”

  “Sure. But so what? They’d already admitted they had sex with her. It was all too late. I should have dragged her to the hospital to have a rape kit taken the morning it happened. But I didn’t. In the end, twelve years later, Hannah punished me for my weakness in not doing that by jumping from a railroad bridge near our home into the freezing water of the river below.”

  “You said she didn’t love you. Yet she loved you enough to marry you.”

  “Yes. We were married the year I graduated from Holden. I’d never wanted anyone else and I think eventually, in her own way, she came to love me as best she could. But her capacity for love and certainly for a normal sexual relationship between husband and wife had been severely diminished. Sex between us was difficult and occasional and, no matter how much I loved her, I’m sure she never enjoyed it. It was because of Hannah that I chose my specialty in Behavioral Psychology.”

  “Researching PTSD in rape victims?”

  “Yes. And over the years Hannah continuously exhibited all the classic symptoms. Depression. Isolation. A sense of being dirty or disgusting. Flashbacks in which she relived the rapes as if she were experiencing the whole thing all over again. She suffered from recurring nightmares. Sudden rushes of intense fear for no apparent reason. And finally, of course, suicide, which is very common among women who’ve been as violently raped as she was.”

  “Even after twelve years.”

  “Yes. Listen, Rachel. I’m a good liberal and I normally don’t believe in capital punishment but I believe your husband murdered my wife. I believe he deserves to die for what he has done.”

  There was about twenty to thirty seconds of silence on the recording. Nothing but the background sounds of the city.

  “Are you planning on killing him?” Rachel finally asked.

  “Who knows? Maybe I will.”

  There were a few more seconds of background sounds and then the recording stopped.

  “After that he just got up and walked away,” said Rachel. “I never saw or heard from him again. At the time I didn’t take the threat of murder seriously. I thought it was just talk. But given what’s happened it’s obvious I was wrong. I think the man who killed my husband was Evan Fischer. It’s your job to find him and arrest him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this recording during our interview yesterday?”

  “Because I didn’t know for sure that Josh was dead yesterday. If he wasn’t, if he was just involved in some kinky sex thing somewhere or even if he had been kidnapped for ransom, I didn’t want the details of what happened at Holden College to go public. That would have ruined both our lives. As it is, it’s only ruined mine.”

  “It also ended his.”

  “Yes, it did.” Rachel’s voice was flat as she said this. Devoid of emotion or affect.

  McCabe put Rachel’s phone in his pocket. “I’ll need to listen to this again. Have some other people listen to it as well. In any event, the recording constitutes material evidence in a murder case so we’ll need to keep it. And we’ll also need to talk to you again, so please don’t leave Portland.”

  McCabe headed for the door of the suite and Rachel followed him. “Josh may bear some responsibility for the death of Fischer’s wife,” she said. “But that doesn’t excuse Fischer’s guilt for the murder of my husband. Or for the murder of Charles Loughlin. He should be punished for both these crimes.”

  “He will be if we can prove he did it. Is there a number I can use to reach you?”

  “Yes,” said Rachel. “I bought what your partner called a burner phone.” She gave McCabe the number.

  “Before you go,” she said, “you never told me how Josh died?”

  “He was killed with a knife.”

  “Stabbed?”

  “Not exactly. His throat was cut. He bled to death. He was also castrated.”

  Rachel looked at McCabe blankly. “Well, I suppose that, in its own way, is a kind of justice.”

  Chapter 31

  MCCABE TRIED BOTH of the numbers listed on Evan Fischer’s business card. Neither answered. He next called the head of the Psychology Department at UNH. An assistant answered. “Professor Fischer has been on leave of absence since the death of his wife. I expect he mostly stays at home.”

  “I need to speak to him about a related investigation. He’s not answering his phone. Do you happen to know where he lives?”

  “I’m not sure Evan would welcome any intrusion given the grieving process he’s been going through. In fact, I’m sure he wants to be left alone.”

  “I do think he’ll want to hear what we have to tell him. It concerns the death of his wife.”

  “I see. Well, Evan and Hannah kept an apartment in town not far from campus: 1024 Madbury Road. But they spent most of their time at a small cabin they owned in the woods off Lee Hook Road about ten miles from town. If I had to guess, I expect you’d find him there. It’s where he’d likely retreat. Where they were the night Hannah . . . died.”

  McCabe got directions to the cabin and, as he ended the call, Connie Davenport tossed a folder on his desk.

  “Printouts of all the news reports I could find on Reindel’s suicide,” she said. “Figured this was the one you wanted even before you gave me Fischer’s name.”

  “Anything useful?”

  “Nothing about the rapes. More like obits than anything else. This should prove more helpful.” She handed him a second folder. “The state police investigator’s report on the death. I asked the New Hampshire Staties to send over a copy and they did.”

  “Thanks, Connie.”

  “Need anything else?”

  “Let me look through this stuff first.”

  McCabe glanced through the few newspaper and Internet reports on the death. Most were local to the Durham, NH, area and, as Connie had said, none offered either many details or insights. He tossed the folder on his desk and picked up the police report.

  McCabe opened it and started reading. The ME had listed hypotherm
ia as the cause of death. Manner of death was suicide. Jumping off a bridge into a freezing river. Date of death December 24. Christmas Eve. Time of death 4:11 A.M.

  The first officer on the scene was a local deputy sheriff who had to fight off Fischer’s hysterical demands that they find his wife. “Professor Fischer looked about five minutes from death himself when I picked him up on the road. I called it in. Got a rescue team down to the river to see if they could find the wife. Then I drove him straight to the hospital. The docs there told me doing that saved his life.”

  Rescuers found Hannah’s body about an hour later. She was still in the water, wedged up against a large rock. Seemed like the state police lead investigator, a Sergeant Wally Eckridge, had conducted a thorough investigation. Before accepting Fischer’s story at face value he’d questioned him at length about why his wife might have taken her own life.

  When McCabe finished reading Eckridge’s report he decided to talk to Eckridge directly.

  “What can you tell me about Hannah Reindel’s suicide?” he asked after introducing himself.

  “What’s Portland’s interest?”

  “We had a messy homicide here in town two nights ago. We think there may be a direct link between our murder and Reindel’s death.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of link?”

  “Our victim, a guy named Joshua Thorne, was accused of raping Reindel back in college. There was a reference to punishing rapists on a cardboard sign the killer left on the victim’s chest. Note said ‘rapists get what rapists deserve.’ The victim was castrated before having his throat cut. My guess is he was conscious at the time.”

  “Charming. Okay. What do you need from me?”

  “I read your report on Reindel’s death. Right now, Reindel’s husband, Evan Fischer, is a suspect for killing Thorne. Motive being revenge for her death.”

  “What kind of evidence do you have that he’s your guy?”

  “Aside from the obvious motive, we also have an audio recording made by Thorne’s wife of Fischer threatening to kill her husband.”

  “Wife make the recording?”

  “Yep. Fischer contacted her and arranged a meeting.”

  “And you’re sure the voice on the recording is Fischer’s?”

  “Not yet. We’ll have to authenticate that. But he may well admit it’s his voice when we talk to him. He’s also a suspect in the death of a second one of the accused rapists in Connecticut.”

  “Hard for me to see Fischer killing a guy the way you described. But I’ve got to admit he was and probably still is crazed about his wife’s death.”

  “Crazed enough to have tried something like that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I suppose it’s possible.”

  “What can you tell me about Fischer? Your guys fished him from the water?”

  “Not exactly. Local deputy found him waving his arms and screaming hysterically on a back road not far from the Lamprey River. Hundred yards or so downriver from the bridge where she supposedly jumped. Deputy thought Fischer was close to dying himself so he called for help to try to find the wife and then took Fischer to the hospital. He was there overnight coming down from a bad case of hypothermia, which is what killed her.”

  “What’s Fischer like?”

  “Well, he sure doesn’t come across like a ruthless killer or rabid vengeance seeker. Or somebody who’d ever push his wife off a bridge. Or, for that matter, cut your victim’s balls off. Evan Fischer is your classic mild-mannered professor. Teaches at UNH in Durham. He’s a fairly small guy. Five-nine or so. Skinny and kinda geeky-looking. On the other hand every cop in the world knows looks and manner can be deceiving.”

  McCabe considered the description. The fact that Fischer would never have been able to subdue someone like Josh Thorne directly might explain his use of a plan B. Using Thorne’s weakness for sexy-looking women against him. Using Norah Wilcox, the high-priced escort, to lure Thorne into a helpless position. A handpicked Delilah hired to give Samson the haircut that neutralizes his strength.

  “According to your report you guys thought Reindel’s death might not have been suicide. You thought Fischer might have killed her.”

  “Yeah, we did briefly. What initially got me thinking that way was when I talked to him while he was still in the hospital. Admittedly he was a little hysterical but he kept blaming himself for Reindel’s death. Kept saying over and over again that he was the one who killed her. Certainly sounded like a confession to me. Got me wondering if maybe he’d pushed her in and then jumped in after her. Murder/suicide scenario. Not that uncommon with unhappy married couples. After he left the hospital I put him in an interview room and hammered him for a while. Tried to get him to admit murdering her by throwing her in the river.”

  “His motive being?”

  “Tired of living with and supporting a woman who by all accounts was suffering from mental illness. When we told him that’s what we thought had happened, he looked at me like I was crazy. Said he would have died for Hannah but never in a million years could he have killed her. That wasn’t what he meant when he said he felt guilty for having killed her.

  “When Joe Murray, one of our detectives, got tough with him, told Fischer to cut the bullshit and tell the truth, the truth being that he’d tossed Hannah over the side of the bridge, Fischer lost it. Said that he wasn’t responsible for Hannah’s death. Murray tried to ask him if that wasn’t what he meant, what the hell did he mean? Fischer started screaming at Murray. Told him he was just a dumb cop who’d never understand how much he loved his wife.

  “Murray said, ‘I love my wife but sometimes I feel like killing her.’

  “Fischer started ranting and raving about the real killers of his wife being these six guys who raped her in college. He said what they did caused her to jump off a bridge twelve years later, which, frankly, seemed pretty damned far-fetched to me.”

  McCabe decided not to argue the point. Better to let Eckridge keep on talking.

  “Fischer started telling us how much he wanted to kill the bastards for what they did to Hannah. He actually said, and you can watch him saying it on our video if you want, that he was gonna quote ‘cut their fucking balls off.’ Unquote.”

  “Did you ever check on his story about the rapes?”

  “Yeah, I checked. The Willardville cops said they had no record of anything like that ever having been reported. Not in 2001. Not in 2002 or 2003 either. Campus cops also didn’t have any record of what he was talking about.”

  Once again, McCabe didn’t bother explaining why there was no record. He just asked Eckridge what happened next.

  “Next? Not a damned thing except he lawyered up. One second he’s yelling and screaming and ranting about killing the fuckers who killed his wife. The next second he goes totally quiet. Just sits there silently like he’s lost the power of speech. Our guy keeps asking him questions. He keeps saying nothing. After a couple of minutes of that he asks for a lawyer. He called a guy named Richard Wyatt, who’s an acquaintance of Fischer’s. Got a cabin not far from Fischer’s. Wyatt teaches criminal law at UNH law school over in Concord and has a big rep as one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the state.

  “Wyatt was the one who told us about Reindel and Fischer’s history. He said Fischer had never been able to overcome his sense of guilt for having put Hannah in harm’s way. When he said he’d killed her all he meant was that he was the one who took her to the party where the rapes occurred. He also told us Reindel’s tried to kill herself a couple of times before. Once with pills. Once by slashing her wrists in the bath. Fischer saved her both times.

  “We checked and both the EMTs who rescued her and the ER docs at the hospital confirmed the story. Wyatt said that’s what Fischer was doing in the water when she jumped in this time. Trying to save her. He said that unless we were ready to arrest him for a murder he didn’t commit, and for which we didn’t have a shred of real evidence other than the rantings of a distraught man, we should let him go. He
was right on all counts so we cut Fischer loose. Now maybe you can tell me what you need from me.”

  “I think Fischer was telling you the truth. Our evidence indicates that back in college Reindel was gang-raped by a bunch of jocks at a fraternity party. The rapes were never reported to the local or campus cops, but one of my detectives confirmed with college administrators that they in fact happened. Anyway, our murder victim was the head rapist. The guy who dragged Reindel into the room where the others were waiting. The guy who was probably murdered down in Connecticut ten days ago was the second.”

  “Jesus. Think he’s going after numbers three through six?”

  “I’m not sure but I don’t think he knows their names. But I do have somebody trying to find out who they are and where they live now. At the same time we’re looking at Fischer as a likely perp in our case and so are the Connecticut cops. We need to find him and talk to him. He’s not answering either his office or cell phone and his boss says he’s on compassionate leave. Thinks he’s living in his cabin. I need directions how to get there.”

  Eckridge provided detailed instructions. “Want me to join you there?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I think the fewer cops the better when we talk to him. Last thing we need before we’re sure he’s our guy is a bunch of flashing blue lights.”

  “Probably a good call. He’s not real fond of me at the moment. Just seeing my face would probably get him to lawyer up again.”

  “Okay. Thanks. When we’re done with Fischer I may want to take a look at the bridge where Hannah took the leap. Just to get a sense of the place.”