The Killing House mf-1

by Chris Mooney

  Karim nodded. ‘She told me about the missing kidney. What do you think that’s — ’ He cut himself off, looked at Fletcher sharply. ‘I didn’t divulge the doctor’s name to you, and I gave her explicit instructions not to — ’

  ‘She didn’t tell me,’ Fletcher said.

  ‘Did Boyd tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you know her name?’

  ‘I recognized her perfume.’

  ‘Her perfume,’ Karim repeated.

  ‘You asked for my assistance with her case. The home invasion that killed her — ’

  ‘Right, right. I completely forgot you handled that matter.’

  ‘The night I went through her home I found two bottles of Ce Que Femme Veut in the bathroom vanity,’ Fletcher said. ‘It’s quite rare. Last manufactured in 1965.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The night I entered her home? Thursday, 19 October 1994.’

  ‘Your memory is goddamn remarkable.’

  Fletcher said nothing.

  ‘There’s a name for your kind of memory, did you know that?’ Karim said. ‘It’s called “superior autobiographical memory”. A professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, coined the term. It’s very rare, this type of memory. This professor has found only a handful of people who possess this unique intellectual gift. He gave each person he tested a random date and they could go back in time and recall everything they experienced on that day — what meals they ate, the people they spoke to and the content of their conversations. What they read and the television programmes they watched. These people can remember almost every single detail of their lives going back years, the way an ordinary person remembers what happened yesterday, if he or she can remember it at all.’

  Fletcher did not share Karim’s wide-eyed enthusiasm. He had been born with this type of instant recall. For as long as he could remember, he could pick a date at random, travel back in time and relive any memory as though he were experiencing it in real-time. He remembered everything and forgot nothing.

  ‘Were you able to uncover any information on Nathan Santiago?’

  ‘Yes, I have the information right here.’ Karim started to root through various loose sheets and pads of paper. ‘I didn’t run Santiago’s prints yet, thank God. That would have set off a firestorm of questions. Here they are.’

  Karim handed him sheets of paper holding printed aged-enhanced photographs of Nathan Santiago. In the photos, the young man had black hair worn in a variety of styles, but the face was identical.

  ‘That’s him,’ Fletcher said, placing the sheets on the corner of the desk. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nathan Santiago left his three-decker tenement home in downtown Lynn, Massachusetts, to visit a friend who lived four blocks away. The boy vanished into thin air, never to be seen or heard of again — until now.’

  ‘Boy?’

  ‘Teenager,’ Karim said. ‘He was seventeen when he disappeared, which would make him twenty-five today.’

  ‘He’s been missing for eight years?’

  Karim nodded sombrely. ‘There’s more,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette in a small and crudely shaped clay ashtray created by a child’s hand. Jason Karim, Fletcher knew, had made that for his father.

  ‘Nathan Santiago’s mother?’ Karim said. ‘She vanished too.’

  47

  Karim reached across the desk and handed Fletcher a thick sheet of paper. It was a colour picture of a round-faced, middle-aged woman with light brown skin and shoulder-length black hair. Her nose was crooked. Fletcher suspected it had been broken one too many times by a husband or boyfriend. The haunted look in her eyes brought to mind Dr Sin, the way the doctor had stared into space, wondering what she had done wrong for such horror to have entered her life.

  ‘Louisa Santiago was a single mother and a nurse,’ Karim said. ‘She left her job at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, and that’s the last anyone saw of her. The police found her Honda Civic in Lynn, parked in the lot for the subway stop for Wonderland Station. Husband’s not in the picture, as far as I can tell. I won’t know anything further until I get copies of the police reports.’

  Fletcher continued to stare at the photograph as his attention turned inward, his mind’s eye focusing on the eleven garment bags hanging inside the closet. He could recall each item of clothing, the rips and tears, the dried spots of blood. He saw himself turning to the garment bags hanging on the right-hand side — here it was, the second to last bag holding a green hospital smock and matching green scrubs. Sitting below it was a pair of white clogs with scuffed and worn edges.

  He told Karim.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘They were the only hospital clothes inside the closet,’ Fletcher said. ‘Did Louisa Santiago disappear before or after her son?’

  ‘After. Nathan Santiago was abducted on the evening of 5 November 2004. The mother, Louisa, vanished four years later, the day before Thanksgiving.’

  Fletcher thought back to the research he had conducted inside his Colorado motel room — the names of the eight families who had a child disappear, followed months or years later by a parent. Eight families, and the closet contained eleven garment bags.

  ‘The list of the families I gave you in Chicago,’ Fletcher said. ‘I didn’t include single parents in my preliminary search.’

  ‘I know, which is why I asked M to expand her search.’

  His office phone rang. Karim glanced at the caller-ID screen and with a grin said, ‘Speak of the devil.’

  He answered the call. Karim didn’t speak for the first few minutes. He ended the conversation asking M to come straightaway to the house to deliver an evidence bag to the lab.

  Karim hung up and said, ‘M looked into the medical records of the missing parents on your list. You’ll be pleased to know that, in addition to Theresa Herrera, these parents don’t have their medical records stored on the Medical Information Bureau’s database.’

  Karim lit a fresh cigarette with a worn, gold-plated lighter. ‘So now we have a connection between Theresa Herrera, Louisa Santiago and the eight married couples on your list. It appears your initial theory was correct — that our lady friend in the fur coat was there to abduct Theresa Herrera.’

  Karim leaned back in his seat with a heavy sigh. ‘Rico Herrera,’ he said. ‘Do you think he could still be alive?’

  ‘We’ll have to ask Nathan Santiago — the sooner, the better. Dr Sin told me she’s bringing him to Manhattan.’

  ‘He’ll arrive at Sloan-Kettering between seven and eight this morning. M has the documentation ready for Santiago — driver’s licence under another name, corresponding medical insurance, et cetera. That way we can keep Santiago safe and hidden. She has a cover story already worked out. I’ve managed to procure a doctor who does emergency rounds. This person will be in place when Boyd admits Santiago.’

  Fletcher nodded, well aware of Karim’s Rolodex of the walking wounded — prior victims of violence he had assisted, people who were all too willing to perform some favour or service to help out a fellow innocent.

  ‘All the bases are covered,’ Karim said. ‘We haven’t discussed Santiago’s missing kidney. What do you think that’s about?’

  ‘I think our couple is subsidizing their kidnapping operation with the sale of blackmarket organs.’

  Fletcher told Karim about Corrigan’s vial of pills, how the two medications were used in conjunction to treat hand tremors and alleviate surgical anxiety. How Corrigan had been scheduled to perform surgery — a fact confirmed by Jenner. How’re your hands holding up? Jenner had asked Corrigan on the phone. You ready for surgery?

  Then Fletcher told Karim about the ornate dining-room table and the words Jenner had spoken to his companion, Marcus, while inside the house: Call Rick on your way, tell him to keep everyone at the hotel.

  They might as well hop back on their jets and go on home, Marcus had replied.

  ‘Private
or chartered planes aren’t subject to the same security as commercial flights, as you well know,’ Karim said. ‘If people had flown in to collect organs, they would be ushered back to their private jets or chartered planes without having to undergo any searches. They could fly away with their organs properly packed and cooled with no one the wiser.’

  ‘Your Baltimore contact who searched the buildings, did he find any coolers or medical equipment?’

  ‘The buildings were empty. What about the house in Dickeyville?’

  ‘Organ harvesting requires specialized surgical equipment. I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘So if Corrigan was telling you the truth — that there were at least three other victims who were still alive — then he was performing the surgery in another location.’

  ‘Which is all the more reason why we need to speak with Nathan Santiago. These people are shutting down their operation.’

  ‘I understand and share your frustration, Malcolm, but I’m not a magician. I can’t wave a wand and make Santiago wake up and start talking. He’s near death as it is.’

  Fletcher opened his netbook.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Karim asked.

  ‘I placed a GPS transmitter inside Corrigan’s throat.’

  Karim smoked, waited. Fletcher pressed keys and moved a finger across the netbook’s track pad. Fletcher stared at the screen, his eyes narrowing in thought. Then he went back to typing.

  A moment later, he leaned back in his chair, propped an elbow up on the armrest and rubbed a latex-covered finger across his bottom lip.

  ‘What?’ Karim asked.

  ‘The signal is no longer transmitting,’ Fletcher said.

  48

  On the computer screen Fletcher saw the route the transmitter had travelled, where it had stopped broadcasting.

  ‘Malfunction?’ Karim asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Fletcher said. ‘It was transmitting perfectly before I left for New Jersey. I need you to look up an address for me: 9611 Washburn Road in Baltimore.’

  Karim turned to his keyboard. Typed and clicked the mouse button repeatedly.

  ‘Address is in West Baltimore,’ he said.

  ‘Is it a funeral home?’

  Karim eyed him curiously. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Does it offer cremation services?’

  ‘Hold on… Okay, here’s the website. Funeral home is called Washington Memorial Park… Yes, it offers cremation services.’

  And now we have the reason why the GPS tracker stopped transmitting its signal, Fletcher thought. The device was destroyed when Gary Corrigan’s body was cremated.

  ‘How did you know?’ Karim asked again.

  ‘I didn’t. The ashes inside the closet made me think of it. To obtain the ammo from Sacred Ashes, you need to be able to provide ashes. Someone with access to a crematorium could do it — and easily forge the necessary death certificates.’

  ‘This business of making ammo using human ashes, what do you think that’s about? Why does she — or he — do it?’

  ‘Part of their revenge fantasy, I suspect. Does the funeral home’s website contain the names of the owner or owners? Photographs?’

  ‘I’m looking right now… No. There’s nothing listed under the contact page, no names or personal photographs. There are, however, pictures of the facility. It’s set in a wooded area, has its own adjoining cemetery.’ Karim looked away from the screen and said, ‘What if the other victims are somewhere on the grounds, maybe even in the funeral home itself?’

  ‘We won’t know until we perform a search.’

  Karim glanced at his wristwatch.

  ‘Have your Baltimore contact do it,’ Fletcher said. ‘If these people are shutting down their operation, we can’t afford to waste any time.’

  Karim nodded in agreement and reached for his phone. While he conducted his conversation, Fletcher ruminated on the bedroom closet containing the killing shrine.

  Eleven garment bags and eleven sets of cremated remains tucked in bags behind the footwear. The highball glass contained a small trace of ash — human, not cigarette, ash. The closet did not smell of cigarette smoke. The woman in the fur coat sprinkled cremated remains in her bourbon and ingested her former victims as she sat in her chair, staring at the clothing and reliving… what? The kidnapping of the parent? She had also used the ashes to place three separate orders with a company that specialized in adding cremated remains to gun ammunition. She didn’t keep the ammo inside the closet. And what was the reasoning behind the custom-made ammunition? What purpose did it serve?

  Fletcher didn’t have an answer, just an idea that led back to his original theory that all the victims were connected. One thing was clear: the woman in the fur coat and, possibly, her male partner were motivated by revenge.

  And the children… after you harvested their organs you cremated their remains, didn’t you? But what did you do with their ashes?

  Karim hung up the phone. ‘My contact is going to look into the funeral home,’ he said. ‘Now let me tell you what I found on Gary Corrigan. He has a record. After he graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he completed his residency at Saint Agnes, also in Baltimore. He stayed on and worked there as a cardiac surgeon until early 2000, when a routine audit showed he was shorting patients their medications, most notably Valium.’

  ‘He must have been using Valium to treat his hand tremors or surgical anxiety. Or both.’

  ‘You said he was using a beta-blocker and that other drug.’

  ‘Propranolol,’ Fletcher said. ‘The medical cocktail is relatively new.’

  ‘So he tried self-medicating with Valium and got caught. Why not just seek treatment?’

  ‘Because the hospital would have to disclose it or face possible lawsuits. And would you want a surgeon who suffered from hand tremors?’

  ‘Good point,’ Karim said. ‘In any event, the hospital didn’t sweep the matter under the rug. Saint Agnes brought Corrigan up on charges. After his arrest, the medical board revoked his licence to practice. Judge didn’t give him any jail time, just fined and ordered mandatory drug counselling. Corrigan entered a rehabilitation unit in Maryland that specializes in addiction within the medical community — drug addiction, from my understanding, is a common and widespread problem. Three months later, he was released.’

  ‘His current occupation?’

  ‘Corrigan worked a variety of odd jobs until early 2001. There’s nothing listed after that year. That’s when he also stopped paying taxes. IRS never caught up with him.’

  ‘Background?’

  ‘Married in ’93, divorced a year later. No kids. Never remarried. Parents are deceased. No siblings. No debt either. House paid in full. That’s all I have on him at the moment.’ Karim picked up a small remote from his desk and said, ‘Now let’s see if we can find this Jenner bloke.’

  49

  Karim pointed the remote at the windows. The light-blocking shades began to lower and the office grew dark.

  But not the walls. Made of high-tech plasma screens, they glowed a bright white.

  ‘I found twenty-three men living in Maryland with either the first or last name of Jenner,’ Karim said.

  Fletcher got to his feet. ‘I’m interested in a white male, late forties to early sixties.’

  Karim clicked away on his keyboard.

  Minutes later, the brightness dissolved away in a series of pixels. Digital pictures started to fill the blackness — three rows of Maryland driver’s licences, fifteen in total.

  Fletcher found him in the middle of the third row: there was the man he’d seen leave the home in Dickeyville and enter the back of the Lincoln.

  Fletcher tapped the licence. Karim enlarged it and the others disappeared.

  William S. Jenner was fifty-eight, five foot ten and 220 pounds. He lived in Baltimore, at No. 922 Black Oak Road.

  Karim went back to typing and clicking, using the number printed on the Baltimore driver’s li
cence to unlock William Jenner’s social-security number, the master key in the digital kingdom. Fletcher entered the anteroom and helped himself to a bowl of fruit set up on the wet bar’s polished countertop.

  His thoughts turned to Nathan Santiago. Abducted at seventeen and found eight years later, a 25-year-old man with a bony frame and malnourished skin bruised with needle marks, and with a raw and infected horse-shaped incision from a kidney removal.

  Eight years.

  Fletcher recalled the moment when he had pulled back on to the highway, on his way to Karim’s home in Cape May. Santiago had collapsed into himself, wailing, refusing to speak. Did he know his mother had also been abducted? Had she been imprisoned with him?

  The child is taken first, Fletcher thought. Years pass as the parents live moment to moment on a bridge suspended between hope and reality — hope that their child might yet still be found alive, while the overwhelming reality suggests that their son or daughter is most likely dead, never to come home.

  Why take the child first?

  Psychological torture.

  Years pass and then a single parent is abducted, the spouse killed. Why?

  Payback.

  Revenge.

  And what happened to the abducted parent? Was he or she brought to the place where their missing child was being held?

  Santiago had been found tied to a bed. He had been washed and in clean clothing. Why? Was he on display for the dinner guests, the people who had flown in to collect organs? Had Nathan Santiago been scheduled for the operating slab?

  Fletcher saw the closet again, with its garment bags and human ashes tucked behind the footwear. The woman in the fur coat and her male partner had erected a private sanctuary inside their killing house. They had collected — so far — eleven garment bags for eleven victims. Eleven adults, and each one had a child who had been abducted. Each child had been missing for years and then a parent was abducted.

  Fletcher marvelled at the predation at work here, the cunning sophistication and ruthless patience required to pull off such a feat. The feeling didn’t repulse him. As a profiler, he had learned to view deplorable acts as works of art. It was the only way to decipher the meaning behind the brushstrokes.