The Stolen Ones

by Richard Montanari

  ‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘And neither did her brother when he called her. So she would have no way of knowing what we wanted to talk about.’

  ‘Unless, of course, she had something to hide regarding her relationship with Freitag, or had some knowledge of what happened to him.’

  Byrne absorbed this for a moment.

  A few minutes later James Delacroix came walking up the steps, opened the door to his sister’s house, and slipped inside.

  ‘Sorry it took me so long,’ he said. ‘I made a few calls to Joan’s friends.’

  ‘Any luck?’ Jessica asked.

  Delacroix shook his head. ‘No. She has a friend, Molly Fowler, who lives two streets over. Joan has been known to cut through the vacant lot across the street when she visits Molly. I thought that’s what happened. But Molly said she hasn’t seen Joan in a few weeks.’

  ‘And no one else has seen her or heard from her?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I also called her phone twice. I got her voicemail.’

  ‘Did it ring a few times or click over to voicemail immediately?’ Jessica asked this in the hope of determining whether the woman was on her phone at the time. With many systems, if you were on the phone, it routed to voicemail after one ring. Sometimes without ringing at all.

  ‘It rang a few times,’ Delacroix said. ‘You didn’t hear it ring in the house, did you?’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘No.’

  At this, Delacroix put his hands on his hips, glanced at the floor, adrift in thought.

  ‘Has she ever done anything like this before?’ Byrne asked.

  Delacroix looked up. ‘What do you mean by anything like this?’ he replied, with more than a little hostility.

  ‘What I mean, Mr Delacroix, is perhaps your sister is so busy that she forgot she had another appointment when she agreed to speak with us. I meant nothing more.’

  Delacroix maintained his rigid posture. ‘If you’re asking if my sister is senile, or has dementia, or early onset Alzheimer’s, the answer to all three questions is no. She’s sharp as a tack. Sharper than I am. She does my taxes.’

  ‘Good,’ Byrne said. ‘That’s what we figured. Had to ask.’

  Delacroix softened his position a bit. ‘So, can you walk me through this again? You came over here and then what?’

  ‘When we came over the door was open, we pushed on it, knocked on the jamb.’

  ‘Did my sister come to the door?’

  ‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘I called out her name, identified myself. She yelled up from the basement, and said she was just finishing up with her laundry.’

  ‘So you didn’t actually meet her.’

  It was more a statement than a question. And more than a little accusatory. ‘No, sir, we didn’t,’ Jessica replied. ‘She said she would be up in a few minutes and for us to make ourselves at home.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take a look downstairs?’ Delacroix asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Byrne said.

  Without any hesitation James Delacroix quickly crossed the living room, ran noisily down the steps. ‘Joanie?’ he yelled. No response. Jessica could hear the man moving things around down there. A few moments later he trundled back up the steps.

  ‘Did you do look upstairs?’ Delacroix asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Jessica said. ‘We did.’

  Delacroix sat down heavily in one of the armchairs. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘This isn’t right. This is unlike Joan. I don’t like this at all.’

  ‘Mr Delacroix, there’s absolutely no reason to suspect that anything might be wrong with your sister,’ Byrne said. ‘There are probably a dozen plausible explanations as to why she stepped out.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I know some people think my sister is a little demanding, and that perhaps she has some sort of… mean streak, but it’s not true. And the one thing about Joan you should know is that she takes her responsibilities very seriously. If she has an appointment, even a casual appointment, she is there. When she said she would talk to you, she meant it. She wouldn’t just walk out.’

  Unless she had something to hide, Jessica thought.

  Delacroix tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair. ‘At what point does a person become a missing person?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re a long way away from that,’ Byrne said.

  Delacroix stopped tapping. ‘What should we do?’

  ‘What we should do now is take a quick walk around the neighborhood. If I remember correctly there are a few stores and small restaurants in these blocks. It’s entirely possible your sister popped out to a bodega for a bottle of fabric softener, or a coffee to go, and is on her way back right now.’

  The look on Delacroix’s face said that he did not believe this.

  ‘We’ll need to lock the place up,’ Byrne added. ‘Do you have keys?’

  For a moment it appeared the question had not registered. Then, James Delacroix snapped back, stood up, fished around in his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have keys for the front and back.’

  ‘The back door is a deadbolt key lock, am I right about that?’ Jessica asked.

  Delacroix nodded. ‘Yes, Joan always keeps it locked, and she never leaves the key in the lock. She has this vision of someone punching through the glass, taking the key out and opening the door from the outside. She always keeps that deadbolt key in a drawer somewhere.’ He held up a key ring. ‘But I have a copy.’

  Jessica had tried the back door, found it secured. That’s why this disappearance was so mysterious. Joan Delacroix would have had to come up the stairs from the basement, walked down the short hallway to the kitchen, through the kitchen to the back door, turned the key in the lock, stepped through the door, and locked the door from the outside, all without making a sound. It wasn’t possible.

  ‘I’m going to check the back door, then we’ll go,’ Delacroix said.

  As James Delacroix walked into the kitchen Jessica met Byrne’s gaze. What had begun as a routine interview had just ratcheted up the investigation one notch. Maybe two.

  Having checked the rear entrance, Delacroix walked back into the living room.

  ‘What about a car?’ Byrne asked. ‘Does she own a car?’

  ‘No,’ Delacroix said. ‘She takes SEPTA. If it’s a long distance, she borrows my car, or I drive her.’

  ‘Did you check to see if your car is gone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Jessica, Byrne and James Delacroix walked the neighborhood, covering five streets in all directions. No one had seen Joan Delacroix.

  It had now been a little over an hour since the woman had simply vanished.

  While Jessica and Byrne were waiting for James Delacroix to return they heard a scream coming from behind the woman’s row house.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  Jessica and Byrne ran to the corner, around to the alley. There they found James Delacroix leaning against the wall, a few doors down from his sister’s house, white as a ghost.

  ‘God no,’ he said.

  Jessica was just about to ask what he was talking about, when the man pointed to the ground. There, on the cracked concrete, just a few feet away, was a pearl clip-on earring.

  Byrne moved forward, put a hand on James Delacroix’s shoulder, easing the man back a step or two. ‘Are you saying that this belongs to your sister, Mr Delacroix?’

  The man nodded, began to hyperventilate.

  Jessica stepped forward, knelt down. The earring was an inexpensive gold tone metal, with a swirl of what were most likely faux pearls. It wasn’t particularly stylish, or expensive, but the earring itself was not what drew Jessica’s attention, or kept it there, bringing with it a chill that skittered down her spine.

  The earring was covered in blood.

  18

  With sector cars from the 22nd District parked at either end of the alley, and a patrol officer at the front door to Joan Delacroix’s house, Jessica and Byrne tried to walk James Delacroix th
rough his sister’s daily routine. Understandably, the man was all but inconsolable, and therefore not much help in the process.

  Every few seconds, as they stood chatting in his living room, Delacroix cast an expectant glance toward the front window.

  ‘There’s no reason to believe your sister is seriously injured, Mr Delacroix,’ Byrne said. ‘Let’s take this one step at a time.’

  Delacroix looked up, his frightened eyes finding Byrne. ‘I don’t know what to do. Should I try calling her again?’

  ‘We can handle that. What’s your sister’s number?’

  Delacroix told him. While Byrne stepped away to try the call, Jessica continued. She pointed to the picture on the wall. ‘Do you have another picture of your sister besides this one?’ she asked.

  ‘A picture? Why?’

  ‘We’d like to make copies and get it out to patrol officers in the district.’

  Delacroix got up from the chair, crossed to the dining room. He opened one of the drawers in the hutch, pulled out an eight-by-ten photo, handed it to Jessica. In it, Joan Delacroix wore a nurse’s uniform.

  ‘How recent is this picture?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Delacroix said. ‘Maybe ten years old.’

  ‘Do you have anything more recent?’

  At this, Byrne stepped into the room from the kitchen. He shook his head. He had not gotten hold of the woman.

  ‘No, I…’ Delacroix began. ‘We don’t do a lot of things where we take pictures any more.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Jessica said. ‘This picture will be fine.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I do have a recent picture. It’s on my laptop. I took it with my phone at a fundraiser a month or so ago. Joan didn’t want to be in it, but I snapped it anyway.’

  Delacroix took his laptop out of its case, connected it to a printer that was on the buffet in the dining room. He tapped a few keys. Moments later, the photograph began to print. It was a high-quality color print, followed by a second copy. Delacroix handed one each to Jessica and Byrne.

  As Delacroix was going to close his laptop, he suddenly stopped. ‘I just thought of something.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Her phone. The one we’ve been calling.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I bought her an iPhone last year. She really doesn’t use it much, but she always has it with her.’

  ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘We set up this app on the phone. Joan sometimes loses track of her phone, and she’s pretty paranoid about leaving it somewhere and having someone else have access to her data.’

  ‘You’re saying this app is set up?’

  ‘Yes,’ Delacroix said. ‘Find My iPhone. If she has it with her, we can find where she is.’

  Delacroix sat down at the dining-room table. He tapped a few keys on his laptop, navigated to the right screen. He put in an ID and a password. Moments later another screen displayed a map of the greater Philadelphia area. Delacroix tapped a few more keys. The area of the map became a section of the Northeast.

  In the center was a small icon.

  When Jessica saw the location her blood ran cold. She glanced at Byrne. He saw it too. Without a word spoken they both knew what they had to do. Byrne would stay with Delacroix; she would make the call.

  Jessica stepped out of the row house, onto the street. She got on the phone. In seconds she had Dana Westbrook on the line.

  ‘What’s up, Jess?’

  ‘Sarge, we need sector cars at Priory Park.’

  ‘How many?’ Westbrook asked.

  ‘All of them.’

  19

  Luther sat in the late-afternoon gloom.

  The old woman had not said a word to him, not even to ask why. She knew why. He had searched her house three times, on his previous visits, looking for anything that would tie her to the hospital – newsletters, patient lists, medication protocols, anything. He’d found nothing. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have something somewhere else.

  Luther knew all about cubby holes and secret places.

  Removing her from the house had been a challenge, but not one with which he was unfamiliar. He had taken her out of the basement through the crawlspace – a portal he had used for entries on his previous visits – then up into an abandoned shoe store five buildings down.

  As a shadow moved to his right, Luther looked over to see that the policeman stood no more than three feet from him. He tensed for a moment, the bone-handle knife now slick in his grip. The danger soon passed.

  Luther quickly arranged the table, descended the steps. A few minutes later he watched the flame begin to caper and dance. In the dream he was in a small village in Harju County. In that place two men were lashed to a roof beam in a stable – local men who loaned money to farmers at a usurious rate. Soon the green countryside became the dank basement of G10. In this dream Luther saw flames ripping up the back of soiled hospital gowns, scarlet harpies on blackening flesh. It stirred something inside him.

  Earlier in the day the doctor, dead these many years, had stepped forward from the shadows, and told him what needed to be done. The digging machines were finally near, and when they turned over the ground all secrets would be revealed. This could not be. Each body told a story, and each story would lead to ruin.

  ‘Do you understand what you must do?’ the doctor had asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Luther said.

  ‘Do you know the dreams?’

  Luther had closed his eyes, and in his mind walked the dream arcade, the long colonnade of bright exhibits, the carefully mounted dioramas of the dead.

  ‘I do.’

  When it was time, when the air began to shimmer, Luther rose to his feet, crossed the room, and stole into a darkness deeper than midnight.

  20

  When Jessica and Byrne arrived at Priory Park, for the second time in as many days, they were met by two units from the 8th District. Jessica stopped the car, put it in park, kept it running. Byrne was out of the vehicle like a shot. He spoke to one of the patrol officers, then returned to the car.

  ‘We’ve got cars at all four corners of the park. We’ve got two on the avenue, two on Chancel Lane.’

  ‘Anybody see anything?’ Jessica asked.

  Byrne shook his head. ‘No.’

  Jessica emerged from the car, slowly turned 360, looking for something, anything that looked out of place. She saw nothing. She reached in the car, retrieved her two-way radio, pointed to the tree line at the northwest section of the park, about one hundred yards away.

  ‘I’m going to head up there,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll take the southern end,’ Byrne replied.

  Both Jessica and Byrne had grabbed department-issue rain slickers out of the trunk of the car before heading to the park. It turned out to be a wise decision. As Jessica began heading across the open field she put up the hood on her slicker, pulled the cord tightly around her chin. The good news was that she had worn her boots. However, she had not brought gloves. She had been out of the car less than a minute and already her hands were freezing.

  They had not said much on the drive to Priory Park. There was no concrete reason to think that Joan Delacroix was a victim of extreme violence. Not yet. There might be a number of plausible explanations for fresh blood on her earring. Neither Jessica nor Byrne really believed that. They wanted to, but their experience pointed them in the other direction.

  When Jessica stepped into the wooded area she was somewhat shielded from the rain by the canopy of trees. She took out her flashlight, ran it along the ground. She saw no footprints.

  When she’d gone twenty yards or so, toward the creek, she saw it. It was so incongruous sitting on top of the dead pine needles and composting leaves that she had to look twice. She almost walked by it.

  But there was no mistake. It was the woman’s other earring.

  Jessica keyed her radio. ‘You better get up here, Kevin. Have the officers circle around to
the northwest section of the park.’

  Jessica put the two-way radio in her pocket, reached beneath her rain slicker, and drew her weapon. The only sound was the steady rain, and the pounding of her heart. A few moments later she heard footfalls. She spun around to see Byrne making his way through the trees.

  Jessica pointed to the earring on the ground. Byrne drew his weapon, held it at his side. Standing a few yards apart, the two detectives began to make their way through the pines. When they got to the clearing, and the southern bank of the creek, they saw her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Jessica said.

  The body of Joan Delacroix was lying, face up, on the muddy creek bed. Her feet were in the frigid water, her arms straight out to her sides. On each of her hands was placed a large rock. Even from twenty feet away Jessica could see that the right side of the woman’s skull had been all but crushed. She also saw something that made the scene even more surreal.

  The woman’s shoes – a pair of white Rockport walkers with rubber soles – were on the wrong feet.

  Jessica turned away, fighting the emotion, the nausea and revulsion. She glanced over at Byrne. He stood in the clearing, in the freezing rain, eyes closed. He seemed to be searching the air for a scent.

  The park looked like an armed camp. At least a dozen sector cars flashed. There were no fewer than six CSU officers walking a tight grid around the creek bed, every so often placing small yellow markers at what might have been evidence.

  The rain continued to pour, hampering efforts to maintain the integrity of the scene.

  Byrne stood in the downpour, now holding an umbrella, his gaze locked on the woman’s body. They would have to wait for an investigator from the medical examiner’s office to move or cover the corpse. It was just one further indignity for the victim to bear.

  While they waited, Detective Kevin Byrne stood guard, just a few feet away. The wheel, once more, had turned.

  He had his new case.