The Graves

by Pamela Wechsler

  He turns off the camera and looks at Chip.

  “Richard Aldridge, or whatever your name is, you’re under arrest,” Kevin says.

  “For what?” Chip says.

  “Soliciting a prostitute, resisting arrest, and whatever else we decide to charge you with,” I say.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Kevin gives me a ride home and watches me step into the lobby of my building. As soon as he drives off, I go back outside. I’m not ready to face Ty. I’m going to have to fess up, but not yet. I walk across the street, get in my car, and dial Max.

  He answers on the first ring. “Did he confess?”

  “No, he invoked.”

  Chip took the Fifth, but the right to remain silent doesn’t apply to me. The words don’t come easier the second time. Max listens, silently, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. When I’m done talking, I expect him to yell or swear, but he doesn’t.

  “What did you charge him with?” His tone is quiet, detached.

  “So far, just a bunch of misdemeanors.”

  “How are you going to play it?”

  “I was looking for your thoughts, boss.”

  “It’s your case, your call.”

  This is worse than a lecture; I’d rather be reprimanded than hung out to dry.

  “The arraignment is tomorrow,” I say. “We need to come up with a plan. Should I recuse myself?”

  Max takes a beat. “Jesus, Abby. Men hit on you all the time—lawyers, cops, judges. You could date anyone.”

  “We didn’t date.”

  “Delay the trial until after the election,” he says. “That way, I’ll be long gone when this keg of dynamite explodes.” He hangs up.

  That was tough, but the worst is yet to come. When I walk in my apartment, I find Ty in the living room, drinking a Rolling Rock, hunched over his laptop. He sits up, gives me a kiss, and helps me slip my arms out of the sleeves of my coat.

  “You look stressed,” he says.

  “We did a takedown tonight.”

  “You caught the guy?”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  I busy myself by hanging my coat in the closet and getting a glass of wine from the kitchen. When I return to the living room and sit on the sofa, I avoid eye contact.

  “Do you remember Chip Aldridge?” I say. “That doctor we ran into in the hospital?”

  “The dude who was checking on your mother?”

  “Turns out he’s not a doctor. And he was stalking me.”

  He studies my face. “For real?”

  “We arrested him tonight.”

  “What do you mean, stalking?” Ty knows I’m holding back. He watches me closely as he speaks. “Did he try to hurt you?”

  My mouth is dry. “He just kept turning up places—Starbucks, the Harvard Club.”

  “Why?” He closes his laptop and sits up.

  I can’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Hold on,” he says. “You told me that you knew that dude from work.”

  “I didn’t want you to get jealous.”

  My head throbs as I watch him stand and prepare himself for what he knows is coming.

  “Jealous about what?” he says.

  I speak quickly. “He’s a con man. He was persistent. We had lunch. It was nothing, just lunch with a guy who said he knew my family.”

  “But you didn’t do anything to stop him.”

  “I told him all about you.” I stand to face him.

  He pauses. “Did you want to mess around with him?”

  I hesitate. If I don’t come clean, there’s no hope for us.

  “I guess I liked the attention. Nothing happened. I swear.”

  “Okay,” Ty says.

  “That’s it?”

  “You’ve probably got a big day tomorrow.”

  He leaves the room, and I hear him undress and get into bed. I brush my teeth and wash my face. When I get out of the bathroom, he’s lying down, his eyes are closed. I pull down the covers on my side of the bed and move toward him.

  “I’m going to recuse myself from the murder investigation,” I say. “Chip Aldridge is probably going to turn out to be the killer.”

  Ty opens his eyes, sits up straight, and leans against the headboard.

  “Don’t do that,” he says.

  I’m surprised by his reaction. He’s always interested in my cases, but the only time he voices a strong opinion is when he thinks I’m in danger.

  “Cassandra can take the case,” I say. “She’s been salivating over it since it came in.”

  “You’re not a quitter.”

  Ty knows this will break me, that I can’t let the families down.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have told you about him.”

  I move to snuggle in next to him, hoping for a sign of forgiveness, but at the exact moment that I lean in for a kiss, he twists away and reaches over to turn off the lamp. I move back to my side of the bed, and we both pretend to fall asleep.

  After lying awake for a few hours, trying to will myself to sleep, I give up and slip out of bed. Ty is facing the wall; I can’t tell if he’s sleeping or faking, but either way, he’s not looking to chat.

  In the kitchen, I pop a K-Cup in the Keurig and nibble on the stale Starbucks scone that I’ve been carrying around in my tote for the past three days. When I log on to my laptop, I’m not surprised to see that Chip’s arrest has gone viral. There are news reports, tweets, and posts from dozens of women who recognize his picture but know him by other names: Ben Cabot, Spencer Coolidge, Sam Emerson.

  There are stories about his background; he’s been honing his con for years, moving around the country, expanding his repertoire, and growing increasingly bold. CNN is reporting that, as a teenager, he was thrown off campus at two schools, Groton and Andover, where he had convinced students to let him live in their dorm rooms. Fox News has a piece about his early adulthood, when he was caught sneaking into lecture halls at Princeton, Columbia, and Yale Law School, even though he was never enrolled. The Huffington Post reports he’s been engaged three times, married twice, and stolen from countless women. Most were too embarrassed to press charges, opting to cut their losses instead.

  I see an e-mail from Kevin, detailing two active arrest warrants out for Chip. He’s wanted for identity theft in Denver and investment fraud in Grosse Pointe. Neither charge merits more than a few months of jail, but if we’re desperate, it’ll be something we can pursue.

  Just as the sun is starting to rise, a call from dispatch comes through to my cell phone.

  “Abigail Endicott, homicide.”

  “Are you the ADA looking for Valerie Jackson?” the dispatcher says.

  I take a breath, sit back on the sofa.

  “Did they find her?” I say.

  “The Coast Guard picked her up.”

  “Where?”

  “The Graves,” the dispatcher says.

  “She was in a cemetery?” I say. “Which one?”

  “No. Not a grave—the Graves.”

  “The island?” I say.

  The Graves is a small, privately owned island in Boston Harbor. It’s less than ten miles from downtown, known for its one-hundred-year-old granite lighthouse, the Graves Light.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Has the medical examiner been called in yet?”

  “Medical examiner?” He pauses. “No, she’s headed to the Mass General.”

  I stand so quickly that I feel a little dizzy.

  “Valerie Jackson is alive?”

  “Her pulse is weak, her blood pressure low, and she’s suffering from hypothermia and dehydration, but, yes, Valerie Jackson is alive.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Coast Guard spotted Valerie on the rocky edge of the Graves; she was naked and dazed. As soon as the officer was able to get her name, he knew she was our fourth victim. Everyone had been on alert, searching for her, but no one expected to find her alive.

  Dispatch co
nnects me with the detective, who is riding in the ambulance with Valerie.

  “Do you want me to take a statement?” he says.

  “No, the less said, the better. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  I want to minimize the number of times Valerie has to repeat her story. Defense attorneys will pick apart whatever she says, using it as fodder for cross-examination. In the ambulance, you said that your assailant was wearing blue pants. In the hospital, you said he was wearing blue jeans. Which was it, pants or jeans? In court, the lawyer will argue that Valerie’s inconsistent statements prove that she was too frightened or injured to remember clearly, and therefore she’s not reliable.

  That’s the strategic reason to restrict the number of interviews. There’s also a psychological one: every time Valerie describes what happened, she’ll have to relive her trauma, over and over again. She’s already been wounded. I don’t want to inflict more pain than is absolutely necessary.

  I jump in my car, head to the hospital. On the way, I call Valerie’s father to deliver the first piece of good news I’ve had since we met.

  “She’s alive.” I get the words out quickly, knowing that’s all he cares about right now.

  “Where is she?” He fumbles with what sounds like keys.

  When I reach Mass General, I think about the last time I ran into Chip Aldridge, when he was masquerading as a compassionate physician. His strong hands and his confident smile, once so appealing, now make my stomach turn. My anxiety level surges; maybe I should stop by the pharmacy and fill the Ativan prescription I’ve been carrying around in my tote.

  I arrive at the always-busy emergency room, where I find a familiar nurse and give her the heads-up. She reserves an exam room, sets up IV fluids, and finds a rape kit.

  When Kevin arrives, we look around and see a few empty seats in the waiting area. No one is coughing or scratching, but you can’t always tell who’s carrying a communicable disease.

  “Let’s wait outside,” I say.

  “It’s freezing out there.”

  “I’d rather catch a cold than contract a case of C. diff.”

  I pump a dollop of hand sanitizer from a wall dispenser, and as soon as we step through the automatic doors, an ambulance pulls up to the bay and the driver jumps out. We move closer and watch the EMTs open the back door and slide the gurney out, expecting to see Valerie. False alarm; it’s an elderly woman with a gash in her head. We back away.

  “You look tired,” Kevin says. “You’re running yourself ragged.”

  “I can’t believe I thought Chip Aldridge was a doctor. I should have made him as the crook that he is.”

  “Let’s get something at the coffee shop, my treat. If you ask nice, I’ll even get you a chocolate chip cookie.”

  He puts his hand on my back and tries to lead me inside. I shake him off.

  “I came back to work too soon. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all.”

  He faces me, puts his hands on my shoulders. “If you’re going to kick yourself, you’re on your own,” he says.

  “I lost my edge.”

  “Baloney.”

  “All the signs were there, and I missed them.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you did everything right. You solved this case.”

  My phone sounds; it’s Carl Ostroff. He probably got a tip about Valerie’s rescue and wants to confirm it. I ignore the call.

  Another ambulance pulls up. A trooper jumps out and waves to us. It’s Valerie, on the gurney, hooked up to a monitor with an IV drip in the fold of her arm. Her hair is matted, her lips are blue, and there are ligature marks around her neck.

  We follow the EMTs as they wheel Valerie into the exam room. They grab the sides of the sheets and lift her off the gurney, onto the hospital bed. She looks like she’s in shock.

  We wait in the hallway, while the nurses and doctors examine her and do a rape kit, an internal and external examination. They’re looking for anything that could contain DNA; they swab for semen, comb for stray hairs, and clip her nails for skin cells. But we all know that whatever might have been there has since been washed away.

  Soon the doctor comes out. “You can see her, but only for a few minutes.”

  I inch into the room and look at her, trying to mask any hint of fear, horror, or pity. She looks small and fragile in her blue hospital gown. They’ve cleaned and stitched her wounds, including the ligature marks, and applied a few bandages.

  I speak softly, introducing myself and Kevin. She seems to understand what I’m saying, but doesn’t respond. Kevin asks if it’s okay to take pictures, and she nods. He snaps photos of everything, the cuts and swelling on her face and hands. There’s a bruise the size and color of an eggplant on her arm. She’s in no condition, physically or emotionally, to give a full statement.

  “Can you tell me your name?” I say.

  “Valerie Jackson.” Her voice is barely audible.

  There’s a cup of ice chips on a tray near her bed; I pick it up, and she nods. Using the tiny plastic spoon, I carefully deposit a sliver of ice in her mouth.

  “Do you know where you are?” I say.

  She looks at the IV tube, as though noticing it for the first time.

  “The hospital,” she says.

  “Who introduced you to your attacker?” Kevin says.

  She takes another ice chip. “Green … Greenough,” she says.

  “Can you identify the guy who did this to you?”

  She repositions her body and grabs the bedrails until her knuckles turn white. “He’s not here, is he?” she says.

  I put my hand on hers.

  “No.”

  “He thinks I’m dead.” Her scratchy voice grows louder. “Please, don’t let him know where I am. He’ll kill me.”

  “A police officer will be stationed outside your hospital room,” Kevin says. “You’ll be safe.”

  I want to allay her fear, tell her I think we have the guy, that he’s locked up, but I can’t. First she has to make an identification. She’s my only surviving witness; her testimony could make or break the case. If I tell her anything about Chip ahead of time, his lawyer will argue that her identification is tainted, and it could be suppressed at trial.

  “I’m going to have another detective show you pictures. I’ll be right outside the door.”

  Per police protocol, an officer who doesn’t know the details of the case and has never seen Chip will conduct the photo array. It has to be a blind ID, and since the officer doesn’t know who we hope she picks out, he can’t be accused of trying to suggest a particular picture.

  We step outside and listen to the officer instruct Valerie.

  “I’m going to show you a series of pictures. Please look at all of them, one at a time, and tell me if you recognize anyone. The man who assaulted you may or may not be included in the group.”

  A few seconds pass. Then we hear a scream. The sound is shrill and loud. Even though there are no words, it’s very certain. We got him.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chip’s murder arraignment is delayed a couple of days so the victims’ families can be here. I arrive at the courthouse early; there’s a long wait at the security check, people hoping to catch a look at the handsome con man, the heartless killer.

  Inside, the courtroom is at capacity. The front row of the gallery is occupied by the families of my victims. I say hello to Rose’s parents, Ed and Delia Driscoll, who are seated on the aisle. When they speak, their eyes remain fixed on the empty judge’s bench, as though they don’t want to miss a second of the proceedings. Caitlyn’s mother, Karen Walker, has her arm around Caitlyn’s former roommate, Nadine Franklin. Valerie’s father, Walter Jackson, is surrounded by support. He introduces me to his priest, his employer, and his poker buddies. Britney’s sister is alone, arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

  I move past the bar and set my files on the prosecutor’s table. There’s no sign of a defense attorney.

  �
�Who represents him?” I say to the court officer.

  He checks his roster and shrugs. “No one filed an appearance.”

  “Has probation done an assessment?”

  “You’d never know by looking at him, but he qualifies for public counsel.”

  I call the Committee for Public Counsel Services and ask to speak with the assignment coordinator.

  “We sent someone to talk to him last night,” he says. “He said he’s not a member of the unwashed public, and won’t be treated as such. Good luck to whoever gets stuck with him.”

  Murder cases are expensive; we ran Chip’s financials, and it doesn’t look like he has the funds to retain his own lawyer. Either he conned someone into footing the bill, or a he found a defense attorney willing to represent him at a reduced fee, because of the free advertising the case will generate. I hope it’s one of the less offensive defense attorneys, someone I can reason with.

  Chip shuffles into the courtroom, handcuffed and shackled, flanked by court officers. He sits and grins at me. The fluorescent glare bounces off the back of his head, exposing a bald spot I never noticed. He looks older than I remember, but his charisma is still palpable, even in an orange jumpsuit. My stomach churns, but I hold his eyes. I want him to know he’s misjudged me. His girlfriends and ex-wives may have been too humiliated to stand up to him, but I’m not. Or at least I don’t want him to think I am.

  The Greenoughs, father and son, are ushered in next. They keep their heads down and make a point of looking away from the audience. Josh takes a seat and positions his chair to block the Greenoughs from the camera.

  The deputy goes into the judge’s chambers, to tell her we’re ready. When I found out Judge Hynes had been assigned the case, I was ecstatic. It’s been a while since Kevin and I went to her house, seeking authorization to search the Greenoughs’ homes, but she’ll remember the case. When we were asking for permission to bust down doors without probable cause, her legal acumen and evidentiary expertise were obstacles, but that phase of the investigation is over. She’s the perfect trial judge, one who will ensure an unassailable verdict, one of the few jurists who will keep a tight rein on these defendants.