Andrew Taylor sat by a window in the library as Dickie and Anastasia entered the house under Bernadette Taylor’s direction. The maid offered coffee. Both refused. Dickie said something about being up all night if he drank caffeine after four.
Anastasia walked around the Taylor library, taking in what Andrew liked to read. Lisa’s father and Dickie got comfortable with each other. “Leave us be a few minutes,” Andrew told his wife. From a sofa in the middle of the room, she got up, said nothing, then walked into the kitchen around the corner.
Dickie had already decided to take a chance. Solving difficult cases required risk. They had made some headway in the case, but not fast enough. Dickie had read the ME’s report and decided to put a volatile subject out in the open. Enough time had elapsed. Mr. Taylor could take the hit.
“So, what was going on between you and Lisa?”
“You guys are quick,” Andrew said, staggered by the question. “I’ll give you that.” He felt the loss now more permanently. It took several days to settle. This was what Dickie remembered most about being in uniform—how a parent’s reaction to their kid’s death came with that unfortunate, terribly compounded delay.
“Talk me through this, Andrew, as I give you the benefit of the doubt. We have a source says you liked to touch your daughter. That’s enough to blow this fake-ass Ozzie and Harriet world you and the missus have to pieces. We also know Lisa had an abortion recently. Help me understand what’s going on here.”
Andrew took a long, slow breath, let it all out from his nostrils. “I guess, in light of your investigation, you need to scratch some things off your list, Detective. So I’ll oblige. If I didn’t care about my daughter, I’d throw your ass out of my house for making such an accusation. Then sue the blue out of the Boston Police Department. You’d be directing traffic in Jamaica Plain with the connections my wife and I have.”
“Come on, Andrew, were you sneaking into your daughter’s room in the middle of the night? We can find this out the hard way if you choose.”
“Not a chance, Detective. The problem that Colby kid was referring to—it is Barton Colby making this erroneous claim?—involves my daughter sneaking around with some older man she met in the hospital. You see, Lisa spent some time in McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont. We paid this guy off to forget her. The bastard actually shook us down. What, did you nail Colby on drug charges? We call that a deflection at the university. You forestall attention on yourself by pointing a finger at someone else.”
“We’ll need that name, Andrew. Did he get her pregnant? And this has been bothering me. Where was Lisa going that day she disappeared?”
“Look,” Taylor stared out the window, lost in a haze of mourning, “you were going to find this out soon enough anyway, but please don’t let the press know about it. Lisa got the help she needed. We had someone watching her almost twenty-four hours a day. But when she went to the library,” he looked down at the carpet, swallowed a lump, “we allowed her that space—without intrusion. She was doing research on some ‘project’ she said we wouldn’t be interested in. She was, most likely, checking her eBay accounts on the library computer. To be honest, she was right—we weren’t that interested. We were too involved in our own damn lives to care about what mattered to Lisa. It’s so true, Detective. You have no idea what you have until it’s gone.” He choked back tears. “It was Barton Colby’s child—and we paid for the abortion. Gladly, I might add.”
Hindsight. The ultimate reality check.
Dickie was disgusted with the guy. He saw that cross tattoo on Lisa’s stomach and realized Lisa had put it there as a memorial to her aborted child. Andrew obviously loved his daughter. But hadn’t treated her the way he now wished he had. Colby’s insinuation was ridiculous. Dickie knew the art of body-language lie-detecting. He noticed that Andrew had a habit of dropping his right shoulder and running a hand across his chin whenever he spoke the truth. Dickie had asked several common questions he knew the answers to and Andrew made the same gestures when asked about an inappropriate relationship with his daughter.
“That name, Andrew?”
“Robert Tanglewood. You won’t find him, though. Shot himself in the head after a bad acid trip. He was in that psych hospital for a reason, Detective.”
“What’s this about the eBay stuff?”
Taylor played with a tissue in his hand. “I’m not really sure because … because, well, we never really asked her about it. The eBay trading kept her busy and we thought that’s what she needed. She believed she was hiding it from us. We allowed her that.” He changed the subject. “Are you telling me this sonofabitch cut my baby’s legs off? How was he able to get into our home to put the legs in her closet?”
“We’re not sure yet.” Dickie was glad no one had gone over the initial autopsy report with the family. The Taylors had never asked specifics regarding how Lisa was murdered, other than a cause of death. Most families didn’t want particulars. Death was enough information. But the Taylors had assumed the legs found in Lisa’s walk-in were hers. Jake didn’t want any facts about the legs released.
“What else did this animal do to her?”
“We’re working all of that out now, Andrew. Takes time. Let me ask you, the Colby kid said you and Mrs. Taylor, you didn’t want Lisa trading on eBay. You knew about eBay. But why would you make Lisa think you didn’t want her to do it?”
“MySpace and Facebook, we did not want her on those social sites. We come from money, Detective. Once people understand that, they think they deserve a share. Lisa told Barton eBay because she didn’t want to admit we wouldn’t allow her on the other sites. She said it was embarrassing.”
The response sounded legit enough to Dickie.
“How did this animal get into my home? How did my daughter’s killer get into my house? Do you know how much money I spend on security? This guy comes into my house and leaves behind a reminder of what he did to our little girl.”
The tears turned on. Taylor had worked himself up into a frenzy.
Dickie was glad he didn’t manage the Taylors’ security company. “We’ve had a twenty-four-hour watch on your house since.”
“A little late for that, dontcha think—Detective!” Taylor walked to the window. He put one arm up on the tic-tac-toe pane and leaned, staring outside into a maze of what-ifs. The gardener, an olive-skinned man of about thirty, pruned an apple tree. He stood on a stepladder. Whistled. Andrew Taylor looked through him.
Dickie appeared behind Taylor. “The eBay accounts, that ‘research’ she was doing at the library. Where did Lisa keep it?”
Taylor didn’t answer.
“Andrew? That research—you know where it is? It could be important. If she left it somewhere in the house, we need to see it.”
“Probably in her backpack in the closet.”
“Take me there.”
The closet was outside the doorway leading into the library. Andrew Taylor opened the door slowly. Lisa’s smell wafted up and out. It was a gentle, flowery mixture of pomegranate body wash and Johnson’s Baby Oil. This was where Lisa kept her coat and backpack. Scarves and hats. As the dad got a whiff of his daughter, he sighed and sobbed. His shoulders bounced up and down as tried holding in the tears. “You’re going to … please, if you could … come back, Detective.”
Dickie took the bag. “Sorry, Andrew. Of course.” Taylor started up the spiral Colonial-style cherry wood staircase. “You mind if I take this with me?” Dickie held up the book bag. Anastasia stood by the front door, held it open. She stared down at the marble tile with an embarrassed crinkle. This part of the job sucked.
“Whatever you want,” Andrew Taylor said, one hand on the gnarled railing. He did not turn to look.
“Was that laptop you gave us the other day Lisa’s only computer?”
“Yep.”
“If you come up with her cell phone, please call me.”
“Tell my wife. She’ll help.” Andrew Taylor was at the top of the stairs, mar
ching fast for his bedroom and a fresh bottle of Xanax the local Walgreens had just delivered.
Dickie and Anastasia walked out of the house. “Evidence, Shaughnessy?” she said, referring to the backpack. Shouldn’t we be taking precautions with handling Lisa’s belongings?
“It would have been if it was under a warrant or grabbed when we came over here last week. We never got a warrant to search the Taylor home. What for?”
“Got it.”
The backpack could be a treasure trove. It was heavy. When they got to the car, the first thing Dickie pulled out after un-Velcroing the flap was an encyclopedia—Rare Exotic Plants. The others were a mix-and-match of rare coin and stamp catalogues. A few books of cheap jewelry. A rather thick copy of High Performance Auto Parts for the Fast and Furious.
“Big money in trading that car stuff,” Anastasia said and pointed to the auto parts catalogue. “All the kids are doing it. Thank Vin Diesel for that.”
“Vin who?”
“Nobody.”
What did it all mean? So Lisa sold everything from rare plants to auto parts to jewelry on the Internet. She didn’t need the money. What was her interest?
“Take this, Rossi, and see what you can find. There’s more to this than that girl having a hobby.”
“It’s late, Shaughnessy. The lab is dark and lonely this time of night. Tomorrow?” She steepled her hands in front of Dickie as if praying. “Please?”
“How ‘bout you take it home? It’s nothing we can use in court, anyway. It’s more for our own investigative purposes.”
Anastasia held up a forefinger. Closed her eyes. “One question that’s bothering me. Something you ignored in there with Taylor.”
“Shoot.”
“How did Lisa’s killer get into the house to leave Alyssa’s legs?”
Dickie shrugged. “I guess they have lousy security.”
“Come on.”
“I asked myself the same thing. Then it hit me. The Taylors are always having work done on that house. Carpets cleaned, catering, all that rich people stuff. So our guy disguised himself as a one of these people. He watched the house for a few days and got in as a workman. It’s either that, or our killer and the Taylors know each other.”
“I’ll take a second look at that security company.”
“I want a list of the vehicles every employee drives, you got that?”
“A Jeep in there, perhaps …” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Consider it done.”
46
Thursday, September 11, 8:50 P.M.
Anastasia returned to her apartment. What a day. Approaching the door, she looked down and found a white and blue-striped USPS envelope sitting on the doormat. She bent over and picked it up. Eyeballed the package out in front of herself with a quizzical look on her face.
The center was bulky, soft. It felt foamy, like a stuffed animal.
Anastasia titled her head back, smiled, pressed the package against her heart.
Todd.
Her birthday was a few days away. Regardless of the break-up, the guy insisted on sending Anastasia “a little something” on special occasions. “We can still be friends.”
She opened the door. Walked in. Placed Lisa Marie’s backpack on the empty wooden wire spool she used as dining table.
After listening to her voicemail, Anastasia walked into her bedroom and got her forensic tool kit. Sitting at the small dining table, her back to the TV, she pointed the remote at the mirror in front of her on the wall and zapped the television on. The Boston News recap was coming up at ten, a bumper said. A rerun of Sanford & Son was almost over. When Anastasia heard that whiny voice of Aunt Esther, “You fish-eyed heathen,” she stopped, turned around. Fred Sanford held his chest with one hand, the other waved toward the sky. “You hear that Elizabeth? I’m coming to join you, honey.”
Anastasia snickered along with the laugh track. Those random voices in the background of single life. The company of the lonely. To her, it was heaven.
Bored, she got up and grabbed a bottle of red wine, a $5.99 two-year-old merlot she bought at Star Market. She poured four fingers worth into an empty grape jelly jar. Taking a sip, she started to go through the papers and books and whatever else Lisa Marie had collected over the course of her research. Every once in a while, Anastasia looked at the package at the far end of the table, smiled.
Todd.
Maybe there was hope for the two of them, after all.
The package was going to have to wait. She wanted a little glow on first. Whatever it was—a tiny stuffed bear, music box, small red pillow with Happy Birthday embroidered on the front—warranted a phone call. She needed to be prepared to say things to Todd she was thinking about lately.
Raising the jar in a toast to the package, Anastasia took a good, hard swallow. Thank goodness for liquid courage.
It was clear to the CSI that Lisa liked to take copious notes for whatever eBay project she was working on. She had conducted research on the Queen of the Night flower after realizing how much money could be made selling them, studying every aspect of the plant. Going through it all, well into the end of the news (the sports was already on), Anastasia thought she just might end up with a Ph. D. in botany. At least where the Queen was concerned.
Meticulous didn’t cover Lisa’s need to know everything she could about the items she sold. Must have helped her get better prices, Anastasia figured.
Professor Shelton was spot-on with his assessment. The seedling found near Lisa body in the Public Garden was from South America—Fortaleza, Brazil, to be exact. The most expensive breed available. Lisa understood the real money was in selling direct descendents of a certain pedigree, she wrote in her notes, of Dutchman’s Pipe over 100 years old. She got her plants from a guy just outside Boston. She called him “Papa.”
Strange. Papa.
Further along in her notebook, closer to the day of her abduction, Lisa wrote of a meeting she had set up with “MM” to purchase several Queen of the Nights. MM claimed they were from that same Brazilian pedigree. According to Lisa’s notes, he said he was willing to knock off ten percent if she bought within a week’s time.
“How gullible,” Anastasia said out loud. “My God.” She reached across the table, took another gulp of merlot.
The printed email was folded and placed inside Lisa’s notes.
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: August 31, 6:06 AM
Lisa … great to meet you. glad I could be of some help. You’re right, eBay buyers are crazy for these … i’d sell them myself if I had the time. i do have a few south american dutchmans left over… seems you have another local green thumb pipe lover nearby, Mr. MM, you know him? Stop by anytime, I’m always here. addy below.
all best, allen
---
Smith & Sons Nursery
54 Industrial Park South
Braintree, MA 02185
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Anastasia wrote a note to herself. She needed to give the name to Dickie first thing in the morning. They could go see Papa and find out what he knew about MM.
Comparing the entry to notes Lisa had written in the days leading up to her abduction, Anastasia concluded that MM had a contact who was going to sell the flowers to Lisa, who was going to double her money by reselling them to an eBay buyer in Canada. How gullible these freakin’ people are, Lisa wrote. Then told a story of how she had once bought fifteen broaches at the Dollar Tree for a buck each and turned around and sold them on eBay for $40 a piece. Suckers will buy anything.
On paper, it seemed like a drug deal, which was probably why Lisa took such an interest in it all. The thrill of buying and selling. eBay was floating out there in cyberspace creating armies of pushers.
Studying those days leading up the abduction, Anastasia was startled by her ringing telephone. She glanced at the cal
ler ID.
Todd, New York, NY …
It rang again.
Don’t seem desperate. Three rings was the rule.
On the second ring, she picked up the empty bottle of merlot, held it up to the light, let out a quick laugh. Clearing her throat, “Hello there, Mr. Firefighter.”
“Ana, how are you, honey?”
She loved that. Ana. No one in Boston called her Ana.
“Good, I’m fine … and how are you, sir?” She let out a shallow, drunken laugh.
“What’s up with the I-know-something-you-don’t-know tone, Ana? What’s going on?”
“I got something today. I’m holding it in my hands.” Anastasia cradled the phone in the crook of her shoulder. “You never call me on a Thursday night, Todd. I know what you’re up to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on.” She shook the package. “It’s twelve by twelve, white, a little bulky in the center, soft, little cold. Chocolate, maybe?”
“You’re crazy.”
“A big chocolate heart from my favorite Fifth Avenue store, J. Pierre’s?”
“Ana, please. I didn’t send you anything.” Todd was serious. Impatient.
“That’s funny, lover boy. What, did you break up with your new bimbo? Feeling a little guilty, huh, cowboy?”
“You been drinking?”
Duh.
“I’m gonna have to open this now while I have you on the phone.”
“Go right ahead. I know when your birthday is, Ana. I never send you anything early.” He sounded like her brother. She hated him for it.
Then a thought. Todd was right. He was late with his gifts, yes. Early, never.
Anastasia sat down. Placed the package on her lap. Ripped open the tab. Reached inside.
THE DEAD SOUL: A Thriller Page 22