THE DEAD SOUL: A Thriller

by M. William Phelps

  One of the blues took Mo by the arm and pulled at him. “Check that file, Jake. Mancini Construction.” Mo laughed, went with the escort. “Your ass is going to burn, too. Burn hard.”

  Dickie and Ing looked at Jake, waiting for him to respond. Jake ignored the comments. Then continued with his analysis as Mo was led out of the office. “Part of the psychology behind these predators when they get caught is knowing that there are victims out there suffering because of what they’ve done—and they hold the key to closure. Micah is sitting in that wheelchair, laughing, enjoying the fact that he knows and we don’t. Locked-up serials do the same thing—think Gacy and Dahmer. They give up only a certain number of bodies and kept a few for themselves. They get off on the fact that there are families out there suffering, not able to bury their babies, but they know where those bodies are.”

  “Sick.”

  Ing spoke up. “Well, I’ll keep reading. But it seems like one of you should go up to the orphanage and search through the old records.”

  “Closed about ten years ago,” Jake said.

  “No records for it anywhere?” Dickie added.

  “There are. We’re working on tracking them down.”

  “You Google the place?” Ing asked.

  “You techies and your computer craziness. iPhones and profiles … ridiculous.”

  Ing laughed.

  Jake frowned. Stood. Walked over to the window. Palmed the ledge. Stared out into the dead space of Boston’s skyline, watched a radio station traffic helicopter hover over the Mass Pike.

  56

  Saturday, September 13 - 5:45 A.M.

  Anastasia Rossi thrashed around in the back of the Jeep as if someone had tasered her awake. When the mailman got her down to the marina, inside the parking lot by the docks, Anastasia intensified her struggles. That bullet in her thigh didn’t seem to bother the CSI much as she fought to kick the windows out and somehow get the back door unlatched and open.

  “Where in the heck do you think you’re going, anyway?” The man dressed like a mailman said, watching his victim through the Jeep’s rearview mirror as he backed into an assigned marina parking space. “There’s nobody around. The sun’s not even up over the harbor yet.”

  Boats were lined up along the docks, bouncing and swaying to the beat of the dark water. The Grand Pause was ready, waiting. He had gassed her up the previous day. Set her GPS position on the radar and could drive out of the marina blindfolded. He set up the hoist so he could hook Anastasia’s legs to the end, lift her up in the air as if she was the catch of the day. Having her upside down, it would be easier to scalp and gut her. Blood rushed to the head, he knew. That first poke with the knife was going to be like crushing a bloated tick.

  Killing a cop enhanced the drama. No doubt. He was feeding that greed factor he knew Jake would put his finger on sooner or later. Trauma was hardwired into his psyche. Nothing he could do about it now. Controlling his victims gave him power over the Teacher. He needed that.

  “You’re a lot less congenial than you come across on television, Officer Rossi.”

  She refused to speak.

  “Not going to give me the satisfaction of engaging in a dialogue, I see!”

  There was a few beats of silence between them.

  He couldn’t take it. “You have this enormous chip on your shoulder. It’s so obvious.” He put the Jeep in park. Walked to the back. After putting on a pair of black leather gloves, wiggling each finger in its place OJ-like, scanning the marina for witnesses, he opened the door. “You think Boston owes you something because you’re from New York. It’s that puffy-chest attitude, like you’re better than everyone else. Well, you know what, Officer—you’re just like the rest of us.”

  Anastasia was on her back. Arms handcuffed behind her. Her feet down at the gate-style door into the back of the Jeep.

  He opened it and stepped into the Jeep. Unzipped a large black duffel bag he stole from a Revere postal station. “When I thought about it, you were the perfect example for what I have planned. You represent everything the Teacher was. Everything that he took from me. And everything I can recover by killing you. Think of it this way—I am freeing you. Your death will serve a purpose.”

  When the mailman wasn’t looking, Anastasia lifted her feet, spread her legs apart, then grabbed him by the neck in a wrestling move in between her calves. She had strong legs. Short and muscular. The bullet wound burned, but she fought through that pain. Twisting madly, he grabbed her ankles and tried to escape the tight grasp. In the tussle, she slammed his head against the window, knocking him out of the vehicle and onto the tar. He had clipped his eyebrow and fattened his lower lip on the way down.

  There was a moment of hope.

  This did nothing more than infuriate the killer. “Don’t touch me!”

  He pushed her legs upward. Thumped her feet back down on the metal floor of the Jeep. Anastasia’s heels throbbed with pain—metal against bone.

  “‘For in all your precepts, I go forward, every false way I hate.’”

  What is he talking about?

  The mailman felt a warm sensation on his lip. It pulsated with his heartbeat. He looked down at the blood on his finger. Closed his eyes. It was better than cutting himself. More gratifying and sensory. His heart had never pumped this frantic when he slit his forearms or thighs.

  “It’s over, Miss Rossi. Don’t fight it. You’re going to make me do things I don’t want to.” He showed her the blood on his finger. “Did you know that red, for many civilizations, is the color of joy?” He licked his finger, then spat on the ground.

  In the front seat, he reached into the glove box, took out a serrated hunting knife, long, bulky and shiny. Then he grabbed the bottle of chloroform he had used on Mary O’Keefe. The roll of gauze was underneath the driver’s seat.

  He went around to the back door. In one violent strike, he lodged the knife into Anastasia’s right thigh, just above the knee.

  She screamed, but nothing came out.

  He sprang forward. Placed the soaked gauze over her mouth and nose. Anastasia struggled at first. Then, as if sitting in a dentist’s chair, taking in that first hit of laughing gas, her face muscles fell, relaxed. She saw stars in front of her face; little white specks dancing in the dark like fireflies.

  57

  Saturday, September 13 - 10:18 A.M.

  Lieutenant Ray Matikas stood in his office. He held a Louisville Slugger baseball bat out in front of himself, practiced his softball swing in slow motion. He was thinking of a way to explain how that folder went missing. The captain was going to be asking.

  Ing buzzed in on the intercom.

  “Yeah, Ing, what is it?”

  “I have a Todd Something here on line two.” Matikas walked over to his desk. The line was blinking. “Says he used to date Officer Rossi. Was supposed to talk to her last night, but can’t find her. Wants to talk to you.”

  “Ex-boyfriend, you say?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tell him to hold on.”

  Matikas hit the speaker phone button, pushed line two. “Can I help you?”

  “Hi, Mr. Mathis … I’m … a New York firefighter.” Firemen were like cops. They defined themselves by their jobs. “I used to date Ana.”

  “I got all that, Todd. Move on with what you need. Name’s Matikas. I’m a busy guy here.”

  “Right. I’m worried about her. Can you call her on the radio?”

  “Hold on.” Matikas got Dickie on another line. “Where is Rossi, Shaughnessy? I got her paranoid boyfriend on one.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “She’s in today, right?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Matikas pressed the intercom. “Ing, Rossi sign in this morning? Was she at roll?”

  “I checked. No.”

  “Thanks.” The lieutenant went back to Todd. “I’ll have someone call you.” Matikas rolled his eyes. “Seems Miss Rossi is AWOL.”

  Before Todd could say thanks, M
atikas hung up on him.

  “Ing?”

  “Yep?”

  “Tell Shaughnessy to find Rossi.”

  Matikas stepped away from his desk and continued swinging his bat.

  58

  Saturday, September 13 - 2:45 P.M.

  The librarian was positive. “Look, I’ve never seen the girl.” She pointed at the photo of Lisa Marie that Jake held in his hand.

  “You’re one hundred percent certain? She was here the day she disappeared.”

  “Do I look like I forget things, Detective?”

  Actually, she didn’t. Walden’s Library had been part of the Cambridge landscape for the past one hundred years. Lucy May Allen had been the head librarian for twenty-five. If there was one thing Lucy could depend on in her waning years, it was a memory like a computer chip. Part of being a librarian was recalling where things were located. Your day revolved around searching.

  Jake and Dickie sent several blues to shake down the local mailmen servicing the area around the library. None of them knew anything. The library’s regular mailman was on a leave of absence during the period in which Lisa went missing. His replacement, said the regional supervisor, was a well-respected eighteen-year man, Charles Howard. The guy had not a blemish to his career. According to a quick check by the department, his life was faultless, legally. Despite that, several blues headed out to Charles Howard’s house in Beverly to ask him a few questions. Jake said he and Dickie would be there as soon as they finished at the library.

  Jake talked to the librarian. He ran through the normal set of when, where, how and why questions. Dickie spied a state trooper walking into the library. The tall, heavyset cop held his hat in hands. He looked glum. Something grave on his mind.

  “Oh shit. This is not going to be good.” Dickie watched the trooper walk toward them.

  “Detective.” The trooper nodded to Dickie.

  “Trooper?”

  “I need to speak with you in private.”

  Dickie’s stomach dropped.

  Jake thought: Maddox ... Iraq. Fucking terrorist bastards finally got Dickie’s boy.

  “What is it, man? Just let her rip.”

  “Outside, Detective. Not in here.”

  “Go, Dickie. I’ll finish up.”

  The library smelled as they all do. A dry, arid base of flat air as though it had just been vacuumed. The staleness burned your nose. Dickie and the trooper passed by a bulletin board littered with so many announcements, they all blurred together in a quilted pattern of various fluorescent colored papers. In there somewhere was a flier for some Berkeley flower girl with an acoustic guitar who made all of her friends promise they’d make “the gig.”

  They walked out the door.

  Jake stared at them from the inside window. The librarian stood next to him.

  “What is it? Why wouldn’t you want Jake out here, too?”

  Jake looked on from inside. He half-expected Dickie to fall to the ground in agony and scream, My son. My son. It was the only reason why the trooper would have pulled Dickie outside. Jake was the lead. If it was something about the case, Jake was the go-to man. Or maybe the Mo Blackhall ball had finally dropped. That’s it. Jake’s walking papers were on the way in the form of an indictment. The trooper was there to cuff him and lead him away.

  “I pulled you out of there, Dick, because we’ve known each other now twenty years. Am I right? Twenty-five, perhaps. Anyway, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the librarian.”

  “I guess, trooper. What’s going on here?”

  “It’s, well, Dick … it’s Rossi. I think you guys better come now. Like right now.”

  “What about Rossi? Spit it out, man.”

  “She’s dead, Detective.”

  Jake walked up on them as Dickie got the news.

  “Detective Cooper. It’s Rossi, sir. I’m so sorry.”

  59

  Saturday, September 13 - 4:15 P.M.

  As a cop, you walk into a morgue where the body of a colleague lies in wait for the scalpel, and you feel a towering sense of revenge well up inside. You want to kill somebody. Mainly yourself. For not being there. Jake had experienced this one time before.

  Casey.

  Helplessness twisted his insides. His chest tightened. The moment someone you know is dead, you run through all those things you wished you’d said and did.

  Heading over to view the crime scene of Anastasia’s death, Jake considered what Father John had brought up last time they spoke. No matter what his father had done, no matter how he felt about the past, Jake Cooper was going to have to forgive the man. Make things good before Alzheimer’s took him. Not that Mr. Cooper would have a sense of it. But loose ends were not something Jake wanted in his life. He needed closure in order to move forward. To hold on to it was no better than injecting poison.

  Jake and Dickie got out of the car. It was clear the mailman had sent a message with Anastasia Rossi’s murder. Holy shit, was all Jake could manage to think while shaking his head. Besides the obvious torture she had endured, her body had been nailed to the front door of the Old South Meeting House on Washington Street. The morning cleaning guy came upon Anastasia as he went for his keys to open the museum. Luckily, his shift started at five. No one else had seen the cop tacked there like some freak show.

  Jake and Dickie had stopped at the scene before going to the morgue. With growing anger, they stood on the step, staring at the blood-stained door where their colleague’s naked body had hung for hours. Jake told a CSI on scene he wanted a full report texted to him as soon as they were finished.

  “Beyond the obvious, he’s well into his element now, Dickie.”

  Tears welled up behind Dickie’s eyes. That sinus pressure pushed. He did not want to speak.

  Checking his iPhone, tapping in this new location, a chime went off. The profile had been updated.

  Jake double-clicked the App.

  Locales consistent with Boston’s Freedom Trail

  Jake gathered the blues on scene. “I want every other touristy destination along the Freedom Trail staked out until we give the all-clear sign.”

  Was worth a shot.

  The drive to the morgue passed without words. Jake could see a steely determination fill his partner’s face. He liked it. Dickie was on a mission now.

  Dr. Kelsey wore plastic goggles. Blue rubber gloves. A yellow-stained apron. She came in from another room to greet them. Jake did not want to know what she was doing before they arrived. But from the looks of her, it undoubtedly involved a power tool and lots of gauze.

  “Detectives.” Kelsey took off the gloves. Then snapped on the more traditional latex. “We meet again. This has not been an easy week.”

  They did not respond.

  Matikas showed up. For once, he had nothing more to say than, “Sorry. Losing a partner is the worst for a team. I know what she meant to you, Dick.” He patted him on the back. “We celebrate her life by catching this sicko.”

  Matikas motioned an over here with his eyes to Jake.

  “Be right back, Dickie. Hold tight.” Jake squeezed his partner’s shoulder.

  Matikas walked with Jake over to the corner of the room where it was private.

  Dickie and Kelsey examined Anastasia’s body. Her feet were lopped off just above the ankles. Seeing Anastasia with a blonde wig sewn crudely to her scalp, not to mention her mouth sutured shut, was beyond obscene and surreal.

  Corpsebride.

  She was naked. Orderlies had washed her down. The string used to stitch her mouth shut was deep-sea fishing line, thirty-pound test. It would take, Kelsey said, “Oh, maybe a week to trace back to its place of origin. But we’ll find it.” Dickie said nothing as Kelsey bent down for a closer look. “I checked inside her mouth, Dick.” An orderly came by with a clipboard. Asked Kelsey to sign off on a few bodies just brought in from Chinatown. Junkies. “He cut her tongue out.”

  Dickie looked at the doctor, stone-faced.

  “There was D
NA—skin—underneath her right fingernails, but without a donor, a profile is worthless. It will help later, though, when you guys arrest him. Oh, and the wound in her thigh is from her own weapon. We dug out a .40-caliber projectile. Ballistics say it’s consistent with a Glock—though we never found her weapon.”

  Jake returned. Matikas left without saying bye.

  Dickie looked up at the wall. Itched the side of his face. A large round clock, same as in any grammar school classroom, struck forty-five minutes past six.

  “I’m thinking authority figure, Dick. She represented influence over our guy. This could fit into a sketch of one of Micah’s victims, but who knows. There’s no doubt he’s getting back at the authority figure who abused him. It’s so damn typical and sickening.”

  Kelsey lifted Anastasia’s right arm. There it was. Crystal-clear, as if typed—the letter a.

  “M, I, C, A … at least the bastard can spell, huh, Dick?”

  Dickie stayed silent.

  “Means there’s one more victim out there left.” Jake crossed his arms in front of his chest. The intercom speaker barked something about a meeting for all pathologists. Kelsey glanced at her watch. “The h. Come on, Dick. We can’t let him win.”

  “We need to go to Maine.” Dickie spoke his words razor sharp, matter-of-fact. His voice a raspy, deliberate whisper.

  “Pack a bag.”

  Kelsey stood by Anastasia’s naked shoulder. She held a bunch of the wig hair in between her two peace-sign fingers as if she was a hairdresser preparing to cut it. “I’ll run this down immediately. We should be able to get a good hit on where the wig hair came from. Wig hair is generally from only a few different sources. Easily traceable. Bet the sonofabitch didn’t realize that!”

  Jake patted Dickie on his back. “Come on. Let’s blow this horror show. We’re no good to Rossi here.”

  “One of us is next.”

  “We’ll send Caroline to your brother’s house in Michigan. Get her on a plane right away. I’ll call it in when we get to the car. We’ll have a team of blues surround your house until she leaves. Dawn and Brendan are safe.”