The Secret Friend

by Unknown

  ‘The security guard at Sinclair said Fletcher drove a Jaguar,’ Darby said.

  ‘He’s also a clothing snob,’ Chadzynski said. ‘I remember my friend saying Fletcher was ordering hand-made suits and shirts from a well-known tailor in London’s Mayfair district. Nobody knows anything about the man’s family life or if his eye condition was caused by some genetic defect or disease. I was told the man isn’t a psychopath. He kills for specific reasons. Are you familiar with The Shadow?’

  ‘The movie with Alex Baldwin? It wasn’t very good.’

  ‘Actually, I was referring to an old pulp-magazine character. The Shadow was a vigilante. He skulked around in the dark, fighting for justice.’

  ‘“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows,”’ Bryson said. He saw Darby’s expression, and with a slight grin, added, ‘Before your time.’

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher is the same way,’ Chadzynski said. ‘He only targets people whom he believes have committed some grievous offence. I heard speculation – and, at the moment, that’s all it is, idle speculation – that Fletcher was working independently on some of his unsolved cases. Maybe these Saugus cases are connected to Hale and Chen in some way. I’ll need to make some phone calls.’

  ‘You’re going to bring the Feds into this?’ Darby asked.

  ‘We need to consider the possibility. They have access to information about the man that we don’t.’

  ‘I think that’s a mistake.’

  ‘I agree with Darby,’ Bryson added. ‘The Feds will come in, take over the case and when things go wrong, they’ll start pointing the fingers back at us, get their PR machine to cover their ass.’

  ‘Let me call my friend and see if I can make some subtle inquiries,’ Chadzynski said. ‘I doubt the task force would come here based solely on a sighting. They’d want concrete evidence before they mobilize. In the interim, we need to take some proactive measures. Darby, since he seems to be focused on you, with your permission I’d like to place a trap-and-trace on all of your phones. I’d also like to place you under surveillance.’

  Darby nodded.

  ‘Tim, you have surveillance experience,’ Chadzynski said. ‘Can you head it up?’

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Good. As for continuing to search through Sinclair, I’d like to suspend the operation until we have something more concrete. I want our focus on Judith Chen.’

  ‘We may have another potential victim,’ Bryson said. He told Chadzynski about Hannah Givens.

  ‘Have either of you spoken to Dr Karim?’ Chadzynski asked.

  ‘I’ve left a message at his office over the weekend,’ Darby said. ‘I’m hoping he’ll cooperate.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ Chadzynski said. ‘Karim likes to push, and I like to push back. Keep me informed at every step.’

  The commissioner stood. ‘Good work on the necklace, Darby. Let’s see what else we can find.’

  39

  When Darby arrived at the lab, she immediately went to Serology. Coop had set up in the back, near the grouping of windows with the strong light. Keith Woodbury was taking pictures.

  The pink sweatshirt, nylon running pants, socks and sneakers were laid out on sheets of butcher paper. Like Emma Hale, Judith Chen’s dirty clothing was ripped and snagged in several places from rocks, branches and other rough, sharp things she had bumped up against during her journey across the cold, dark bed of Boston Harbor. The clothes were dry but still carried the water’s polluted, metallic odour.

  Coop handed her a mask. ‘Paperwork’s all done, and Keith is almost finished the Polaroids,’ he said.

  ‘What about digital?’ Darby always used digital pictures to augment her files.

  ‘How long have we been working together?’

  They each took an item of clothing and began the painstaking process of examining the fabric under the illuminated light magnifier.

  Inside the running pants Coop found a long black hair. He examined it under a comparison microscope. The hair didn’t contain a root bulb, which ruled out DNA analysis. Given the length, texture and colour, chances were the hair belonged to Judith Chen. He placed the hair inside a glassine envelope and went back to work.

  The sweatshirt was stained with blood. The splatter pattern suggested that Judith Chen, like Emma Hale, was shot first and then transported to the destination where her body was dumped into the water. Darby wondered if their killer had used the same vehicle both times. She also wondered if Chen and Hale had known they were going to die. Given the advanced decomposition of the bodies, it was impossible to know if either woman had struggled or put up a fight.

  ‘This is interesting,’ Darby said. Using a pair of tweezers, she pointed to a tiny pale smudge on the right shoulder of the sweatshirt.

  ‘What is it?’ Coop asked.

  ‘It looks like makeup.’

  ‘What’s that stuff you chicks put on your face and cheeks?’

  ‘It’s called foundation. Chicks use it to even out their skin tone.’

  ‘Okay, so Chen smudged some of her makeup on her shoulder.’

  ‘Look at the placement. It’s too high on her shoulder. She couldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Maybe she wiped her hands on her sweatshirt.’

  ‘Women don’t wipe their hands on their clothes, Coop.’

  ‘I think it’s safe to assume she was being held under less than favourable circumstances.’

  ‘If she wanted to wipe off her hands, she’d wipe them on her pants or the front of her sweatshirt. Why reach up and wipe it on her shoulder?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘This is probably oil based.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘The makeup is oil based as opposed to water based. If it was water based, we probably wouldn’t be able to see it. All the time in the Harbor would have washed it away.’

  Darby swung the illuminated magnifier over the stain. ‘The colour is too pale,’ she said. ‘Chen’s skin was darker. She wouldn’t have used this shade. It’s made for pale Irish chicks.’

  ‘Emma Hale had pale skin. Maybe it belonged to her.’

  ‘Then how did it get on Judith Chen’s shoulder?’

  ‘Maybe the guy who abducted Chen made them wear makeup.’

  ‘Or maybe he wears makeup to cover a scar or a defect,’ Darby said. ‘Don’t give me that look, Coop. I know plenty of men who use concealer to hide a pimple or a scar.’

  ‘You mean guys like Tim Bryson?’

  ‘I don’t think Tim wears makeup.’

  ‘He gets his hair cut at some fancy place on Newbury Street and he does yoga.’

  ‘For the record, yoga is an amazing workout. You should try it sometime.’

  ‘I’m strictly free weights, sister.’

  ‘Which way would you go?’

  ‘Sorry, but I don’t swing that way.’

  ‘Good for you. I was referring to the sample. Mass spectrometer or FTIR?’

  Woodbury answered the question. ‘FTIR has the better library.’

  Darby nodded. While the mass spectrometer could isolate a sample’s components, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy was a more sophisticated test. It would identify the organic and inorganic compounds found in a sample and compare them against its library in search of a ‘molecular fingerprint’.

  Darby took several close-up photographs of the smudge and then prepared the sample.

  ‘I’ll keep working on the clothes, see if I can find the print in the pant pocket,’ Coop said. ‘You two kids have fun.’

  FTIR had failed to find a unique match in its makeup library, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. The lab’s FTIR system was only as good as its library.

  On the FTIR computer screen was a bar graph listing the sample’s various chemical properties.

  ‘There’s a large concentration of titanium dioxide,’ Woodbury said. ‘We also have paraffinum liquidum, cera alba, talc, isopropyl palmitate, magnesium carbo
nate, allantoin, propylparaben and copernicia cerifera. We also have one listed as unknown. Let’s make sure we have the latest version of the makeup library.’

  Woodbury checked the system. The makeup library had been updated early last month. He checked to see if there were any additional updates to download. There were none.

  ‘Maybe it’s not makeup,’ Darby said.

  ‘These are chemicals found in makeup, but which brand?’ Staring at the monitor, Woodbury leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand across the stubble on the back of his head. ‘The problem is the sample listed as unknown. It’s throwing the system off. We’ll need to isolate it first.’

  ‘Could FTIR give us a possible list of brands?’

  ‘It could, but you could be talking hundreds of samples. The level of titanium dioxide is interesting.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘It’s rather high,’ Woodbury said. ‘Makeup – and that covers everything from foundation to products used to camouflage scars or pimples – contains traces of titanium dioxide, mica and iron oxides. Here, we have a higher than normal level of titanium dioxide. Did Chen have any scars on her face?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ll have to check the photographs.’

  ‘Did she use makeup?’

  ‘She had some things in her medicine cabinet.’

  ‘If I had the makeup she used, I could take samples and run tests against what we have here.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you get them.’

  ‘Are you going to get them yourself or are you going to send someone there to retrieve them?’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘I don’t know how to say this without sounding sexist, so I’ll just say it. You’re a woman.’

  ‘Thank you for noticing,’ Darby said.

  ‘What I mean is you’re more familiar with makeup than, say, a male patrolman who might rifle through her medicine cabinet or makeup kit and overlook something. For all I know, this sample is a zit cream with a camouflage tint.’

  ‘Understood. I’ll collect the samples myself.’

  ‘The other thing is we may be talking one or more different samples of makeup – meaning you could have two different brands here. You may also want to get Emma Hale’s makeup. If both of these women were held in the same place, maybe Chen used one of Hale’s products.’

  ‘How are you going to identify the unknown sample?’

  ‘Let me see what I can do.’

  That was Woodbury’s way of saying he wanted some time alone to think. Darby knew he didn’t like to work with someone hovering over his shoulder asking questions.

  ‘I’ll get you the makeup,’ Darby said.

  She was standing in her office, putting on her coat when she received a call from the station’s front desk.

  ‘I’ve got a woman named Tina Sanders here who wants to speak to you,’ the desk sergeant said.

  The name wasn’t the least bit familiar. ‘What does she want?’ Darby asked.

  ‘She says you have some information on her missing daughter, Jennifer. I told her to go to Missing Persons, but she said the detective she spoke to told her only to speak directly to you and no one else.’

  ‘What’s the detective’s name?’

  ‘Hold on.’ The desk sergeant spoke in a murmured conversation for a moment and then came back on the line. ‘She doesn’t know the guy’s name but said he was working with you on the Sinclair case. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Send her up,’ Darby said.

  40

  Tina Sanders was ravaged by osteoporosis. Protruding from her back and hidden underneath the red fabric of a ratty down coat was the classic dowager’s hump. The woman was hunched forward, her bony, gnarled fingers clutching the rubber grips of her walker. Her hair, tied up in rollers, was partially hidden underneath a blue silk scarf.

  ‘Did you find Jenny?’

  ‘Let’s talk in the conference room,’ Darby said.

  Tina Sanders shuffled across the floor in her walker and black orthopaedic shoes. Darby held open the door. She had already left messages on Tim Bryson’s cell and office voicemails asking him to call her immediately.

  Darby helped the woman into a chair. Cigarette smoke was baked in her clothes and hair.

  Hand shaking, Tina Sanders reached inside her purse. She came back with a folded piece of paper and placed it on the table.

  The glossy 8½ ×11 sheet contained a picture of a blonde woman with feathered hair – the same picture Darby had seen tacked to the rotted wall inside Sinclair.

  ‘Where did you get this, Miss Sanders?’

  ‘He left it in my mailbox.’

  ‘Who left it in your mailbox?’

  ‘The detective,’ Tina Sanders said. ‘He told me to come down here and find you. He said you knew what happened to Jenny.’

  ‘What was this man’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s going on with Jenny? Did you find her body?’

  ‘You’ll have to forgive me, Miss Sanders, but I’m confused. Bear with me a moment.’ Darby opened her notebook. ‘First tell me how you got this photograph.’

  The old woman struggled with her impatience. ‘I got a call this morning. It was a man saying he was a detective from Boston. He said Darby McCormick from the Boston Crime Lab found out what happened to my daughter. I asked him what it was, and he told me to go out to my mailbox. That’s where I found the picture. When I came back to the phone, he wasn’t there, got disconnected or something. That’s what happened. Now tell me about Jenny. What did you find?’

  ‘Where do you live, Miss Sanders?’

  ‘Belham Heights.’

  Darby grew up in Belham and knew the Heights section well – triple-deckers with views of clotheslines fastened to porches and postage-stamp sized backyards separated by sagging chain-link fences.

  ‘And this is your daughter in the picture.’

  ‘I said that, what, six times now?’ Tina Sanders removed a pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes from her purse.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Sanders, but you can’t smoke in here.’

  ‘I just want to hold this.’ She had turned the cigarette pack over; tucked underneath the cellophane was a gold crucifix. ‘I’ve been praying for this moment for twenty-six years,’ she said, voice breaking. ‘I can’t believe it’s finally happening.’

  ‘Tell me what happened to your daughter,’ Darby said. ‘Start at the beginning and take your time.’

  41

  On the evening of 18 September 1982, twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Sanders, a psychiatric nurse for the Sinclair Mental Health Facility, had left the hospital to meet her mother at a bridal store in downtown Boston. They were scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. and then have dinner.

  By six, when Jennifer hadn’t shown up at the bridal store, Tina figured her daughter, coming into the city from the North Shore, was stuck in traffic. There was no way for Jennifer to call and say she was going to be late. This was 1982, a time when cell phones were big, bulky expensive toys owned by the wealthy.

  By 7:30 p.m., and with still no word from her daughter, Tina Sanders had grown nervous. Maybe Jennifer got into a fender bender. Maybe her car had crapped out and she had left to seek out a pay phone to call AAA. If that was the case, Jennifer would have called the store to let her mother know what had happened. Maybe she was in an accident. Maybe she was seriously hurt and on her way to the hospital.

  Or maybe, Tina thought, Jenny had gotten the dates mixed up. Or maybe she had simply forgotten. Jenny was very forgetful lately. She worked long hours and was always tired. Jenny was under a lot of stress – planning for the wedding and possibly having to find another job. An electrical fire had destroyed part of Sinclair, and in the midst of the chaos of moving patients to other hospitals, there was constant talk that Sinclair might be forced to close its doors.

  Tina used the bridal store’s phone and called her daughter at work. Her boss was still in his office and said Jennifer had left a few minutes before fiv
e.

  Jennifer’s fiancé, Dr Michael Witherspoon, an oncologist, was home. They had recently bought a house in Peabody, close to where Jenny worked, and decided to move in together.

  Tina had the correct date, Witherspoon said. Was there a problem?

  Tina Sanders told her future son-in-law Jenny was late. She stayed at the store until eight, when it closed, and drove back home to Belham, telling herself there was a rational explanation for this. There was no reason to worry.

  Dr Witherspoon didn’t share his future mother-in-law’s optimism. By midnight, and with still no word from Jennifer, he was sure something had happened. Pacing the rooms waiting for the door to open or the phone to ring, his imagination conjured up all sorts of grisly scenarios.

  He also had another reason to worry: Jennifer was two months pregnant. She didn’t want to tell anyone the news just yet – it was too early in the pregnancy, she insisted, and anything could happen. She knew of too many friends who had suffered miscarriages.

  There was another reason Jennifer didn’t want to tell her mother. Given her staunch Catholic background, Jennifer felt a measure of shame for getting pregnant before she was married.

  Sinclair was a massive place, and Jennifer worked in a world of emergencies. The patients she treated were violent offenders. Sometimes they killed themselves or another patient. They attacked the staff. There had been an incident the previous year when a paranoid schizophrenic punched Jennifer in the face. The young man believed Jennifer was trying to poison him.

  Witherspoon called the hospital’s emergency line and asked to speak to someone in security. He explained the situation and asked the man on the other end of the line to look into the matter. The security guard called Witherspoon back an hour later.

  ‘They found her car in the lot,’ Tina Sanders told Darby. ‘That’s all they ever found of her.’

  ‘Does Michael Witherspoon still live in Peabody?’