“Nope. Died of a heart attack caused by some sort of poison.” Chainey pulled out a photo of an old, bald man with a belly rounder than the Pillsbury Doughboy. He was curled up on the floor, laying in a pile of his own vomit.
“Do you have the toxicology report?” Kate asked, finally hopeful that something useful could come out of this.
Chainey nodded and flipped through pages in his file. “Here it is.”
“Great! Let’s redo our toxicology requests for all victims and include this specific blend of chemicals. With any luck, this will match our current cases, and we’ll finally have results.”
“That’s still going to take several days. At least,” Rosebud said.
“Don’t I fucking know it. But what else can we do?” Kate looked at Rosebud and Chainey, both looked as exhausted as she was herself. “Did they determine how the poison was ingested?”
“They found a bottle of Californian red wine that tested positive for the same chemicals found in his body.”
“Wine… That could be how our killer has been drugging our victims as well,” Kate had begun pacing the floor without realizing it.
“Were there prints on Thompson’s bottle?”
“Just his.”
Kate continued walking the floor, her head focusing on the industrial carpet as she thought aloud. “He could have roofied their drinks, they passed out, he dragged them to their bedrooms…”
“But who’s he? Have we eliminated women for certain now?” Chainey asked.
“Fuck if I know who our killer is,” she said. “I used to think it was Matthews. But now it looks like Anderson Carson. But then again, we’ve got nothing on him right now. Nothing but a weak link—”
“But he’s also twenty-six years old,” Chainey interjected.
“Hate to break it to you,” Rosebud told Chainey, “but the fact that his age matches an anonymous tip from California and that he was home-schooled by a guy who got murdered isn’t enough for a warrant. You’d have to be running a lucky streak to get a judge to approve one on so little. Especially when he has an alibi for Thompson’s murder and for some of the latest ones. Plus his arm’s in a cast, making lifting and carrying a person upstairs nearly impossible—”
“Then again, we can’t assume the killer acted alone or that the victim hadn’t walked herself to her final location,” Kate said. “Plus there’s the bug… Anderson had easy access—”
“You said it yourself when we spoke to Fuller. Anyone could have placed it on Coffedy’s robe—”
“It’s a robe, right? Coffedy lectured me when I called it that!”
“What did he call it?”
“An alb or something—”
“Guys! Enough!” Chainey said, putting an abrupt end to their tangent.
“Anyways,” Kate said, grateful that Chainey had stopped her. She was in no mental state to hold a straight-up conversation. “We don’t have enough right now. But let’s keep digging. I’ll look into Anderson. Rosebud, you look into his sister. Maybe she’s involved, somehow. Chainey, did the New Bedford detectives mention her?”
He shrugged. “Nope, but I didn’t ask either. There might be something in this file here.”
“Okay, fill me in on what else you learned about Thompson. One of the details has to mean something. We just have to find it.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Digging into Mr. Thompson’s and Candidate Anderson’s past turned into a task much more difficult and intriguing than Kate had anticipated. Together with Chainey, she’d found the candidate’s driver’s license, insurance papers for a blue Honda Civic, and a birth certificate, which led them to the discovery of the twin sister’s birth and death certificates.
“There goes the theory she could have been involved,” Kate said as the document appeared on the screen, proving that she was already dead well before Thompson got killed, let alone the current murders.
Just over a year ago, Kate realized.
If only she could find something. Anything of substance that could connect it all. At least enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant so they could find out more.
A few phone calls and emails later, Kate started reading newly acquired legal documents pertaining to both Anderson and his sister, Penelope. The siblings had been emancipated at the age of sixteen. That little tidbit, as uncommon as it was in Massachusetts, led her down the rabbit hole she was now in. The kids had to have had really strong reasons to have been granted such a request.
So, there she was, following the parents’ trails. She’d phoned in a request to get travel information from Customs. See if she could find out where they were now. Their latest departure date from the US had been over three years ago. Best information pointed to them having entered Peru at that time.
Customs had no other information for her.
So she got on Google next, hopeful that some information about the parents and their current location could be found somewhere. She’d discovered a religious sect she’d never heard of: Explorers of Christ. According to their websites, their goal was to bring the Christian faith to isolated communities throughout the world. Photos of both the mother and father were displayed on the website, as though revered as semi-gods themselves. The spacing between the mother’s eyes and her dimples made it obvious she was related to Anderson. The twin daughter had inherited the mother’s blonde hair.
Their hyped-up bios listed them as having fought malaria, yellow fever, and other disabling diseases before successfully converting isolated villages that most would have called “savages” back in the explorers’ days. A map showed little dots of settlements they’d converted all over Asia and Central and South America. Hovering over the colored circles provided Kate with additional information such as dialect spoken, number of people in the community, and date visited.
It was obvious spreading the Lord’s word had been much more of a priority than raising their own children.
Mr. Thompson, the school teacher, had held that responsibility. But he was dead. The sister, too, was dead and the parents were God knows where trying to push their faith down the throats of people who didn’t want that done to them. But that’s neither here nor there.
It left Kate very little to go on. Why would Anderson kill his school teacher? What possible motive could he have had? That teacher was probably the closest thing to a parental figure he and his sister had had.
Unless Mr. Thompson had become too involved with the education of the children…
As suspicions of pedophilia crossed her mind, Kate realized she could have just stumbled into enough of a motive. But that thought was pulled out of thin air.
She had to find a way to prove whether or not it could have been the case.
Following Thompson’s trail left her empty-handed. No siblings, no parents, no children. The man had been an island, or so it seemed.
She didn’t have much to go on, save for one tiny detail. The Andersons had owned one home until 2009, the year when the children received their emancipation.
Chances were that the address of that home would have been the address where the children lived and where Thompson had educated them.
“Look at what I found,” Rosebud said, handing Kate a photocopy of a small clip from a newspaper as she was getting up from her desk.
A portrait of a blonde woman with a braid hanging over her shoulder appeared above a brief paragraph:
“Penelope died on June 1st, 2017. No funeral or service will be held but donations can be sent to the AFSP.”
“What’s AFSP?” Kate asked.
“American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Isn’t that the shortest obituary you’ve ever seen?”
Kate shrugged. “Can’t say that I read them very often.”
“Well, I do, and this one was written like someone was making a mockery of it.”
“Or maybe they were embarrassed by the fact that she had committed suicide. Maybe she disfigured herself. Maybe they didn’t want anyone to see
her. Maybe they were ashamed of her suicide.”
“But why pay for an obituary if they’re ashamed? As far as I know, there’s no legal obligation to do so in Massachusetts.”
“Why don’t you look into her death a bit more? See if anything suspicious comes up. Perhaps it wasn’t a suicide. Maybe it was a murder after all. I’ll head out to scope the neighborhood where they grew up. See if I can find people who knew the teacher way back when. Maybe they’ll remember something about what happened in that home nine years ago. If I learn that some dodgy stuff was happening, that could point us to Anderson’s motive. Then we’d need to figure out how he poisoned the man remotely.” Kate shook her head. “I know it’s a stretch.”
“We’ve got nothing else. I’ll keep digging into her past and man the phones. With a bit of luck, and a toxicology match…”
Kate walked out, letting Rosebud’s words dangle in the air and inflate her hopes. They desperately needed a bit of luck.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The third door on which Kate knocked proved the lucky one. After identifying herself and learning that the bearded man with the John Deere cap and cigarette dangling from his lips had lived at his current address since he was born, she couldn’t help but get excited.
“This is probably going to sound strange, but do you recall two kids living next door to you, being homeschooled by a Mr. Thompson?”
“Heck yeah! Strange little thing they had going there, if you ask me.”
“Mind if I come in and ask a few questions?”
The man shrugged as ashes dropped from his cigarette. “Sure. Don’t got nothing better to do. TV’s broken.” He moved aside and let Kate in.
The older house reeked of tobacco and stale beer. Kate sent a quick text message to Rosebud to update him on her whereabouts and followed the man into his kitchen. A half-eaten pizza lay atop the table, house flies now having a go at it, which didn’t seem to bother the man as he put his cigarette down into the ashtray and grabbed a slice.
“Have some, if you want,” the man said, his mouth full.
“No thanks.” She pulled her notepad out and clicked open her pen. “So you were living here back in 2009, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Got this place from my parents when they died. I’ve been living here a long time. All my life.”
“So, you said strange things were going on next door back then. Can you tell me a little more?”
“Heck, let me show you.” He got up and grabbed what was left of his cigarette. Kate followed him to the back of his house where he used both hands to slide open a patio door. Its mechanism was in obvious need of lubrication—or perhaps replacement—Kate noted as she stepped over the crooked threshold groove to join the man outside.
“See that fence there?” he asked before inhaling from his cigarette.
“Yeah?”
“I had that put up because of the shit I saw.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Well, it ain’t my place to say… Especially since what happened to that poor girl.”
“What happened to her?” Kate asked.
“You don’t know? I don’t mean no disrespect. But aren’t you supposed to detect a little better than that? Are you really with the poh-lice?” he asked, stressing his last word.
Kate showed him her badge once more. “I know what happened to her. I’d just like to hear what you have to say about it.”
“Oh. I get it.” He inhaled the last of his cigarette then flicked the butt out on his yellowed grass. “She died, so I don’t want to soil her reputation or nothing.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“Heard she did herself in.” The man’s brows got crooked, then something sad—or perhaps disturbing—passed through his eyes. “Poor girl.”
“Did you witness anything in that backyard that could have led her to that? Anything… inappropriate, let’s say?”
“Inappropriate would be the bare minimum.”
“Go on. Tell me what you saw.”
“Well, that little Penelope sure grew up fast. I still remember her in her braids, wearing those pink dresses and playing with her dolls outside. She changed around the same time she forced everyone else to call her something different. I forget now. Silly nickname.”
“Do you remember her brother?”
“Yeah. He was quiet. Most of the time he sat alone, reading. The Bible of all things! But made sense with those missionaries for parents.”
“Did you ever meet them?”
“A few times. Decades ago.”
“What kind of people are they?”
“Mostly kept to themselves. Until she got pregnant out of nowhere. I remember how freaked out the mother had been. Not sure if the rumors I heard were true.”
“What rumors?”
“Poor Mrs. Anderson was raped. Mr. Anderson wasn’t the daddy of those twins.”
“Really?” Kate made a note to double-check the birth records.
“Sure added with the way she treated those babies when they came out. I’ve seen loving mothers in my days. She was nothing like one. Then, all of sudden, this home-teacher gets here, and the missionaries leave. Never to return.”
“Other than Mr. Thompson, did the children have any other adult supervision?”
“No, that man lived there alone with them after the parents left.”
“So, what was the inappropriate behavior that made you want to build a fence?”
“First, it was just him drinking. Can’t blame the man. He never had any adult friends coming over. I invited him over for beers once or twice, but he never accepted. But one nightly glass on the back deck soon turned to a whole bottle. But I’m not one to judge. Well, not on that.”
“What did he do that had you judging him?”
“The really weird stuff began when li’l Penelope hit puberty. Or maybe shortly after. Come to think of it, maybe that’s when the old teacher picked up on his drinking.”
Kate’s gut churned now, not just of hunger, but from the feeling that her pedophilia theory was dead on.
“Did he touch her?” Kate asked, bluntly.
The man’s eyebrows went up and he scratched his beard. “Afraid t’was the other way around. If you know what I mean…”
“He abused the boy?”
“Heck no!” The man had lifted his hands as though he was blocking himself from an impending attack. “I mean the poor teacher had his hands full with her.”
Kate nearly dropped her pen. “What?”
“At first, I’s about to call that number for reporting crimes against children, you know? Trying to get him away from them kids, but as I’s scrolling through the phone book, I overheard sweet Penelope talk to the teacher. She was the one coming onto him. Hard. I mean, she was saying some real nasty shit. Lines taken straight from them pornos would be my guess. I can’t imagine where else she would have heard those things. She was so sweet. Then suddenly…” He shook his head.
“How old was she?”
“I don’t know. I wanna say her personality changed around the age of fifteen?”
“What kind of stuff would you see?”
“I stopped coming out here ’cause of that weird shit that was going on. Heck, that girl even came knocking on my door a few times, wearing almost nothing. Her tits looked like those of a grown woman. Barely contained in her tops.” His hands made it clear the girl had been well endowed. “Never wore no bra either. Her skirts barely covered her ass.”
“What did you do?”
“Fucking slammed the door on her is what I done. I ain’t the type who touches a child! Told her to smarten up. Get her act together.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know. She got quiet for a while. I saw her brother get on her case, too. That helped, I think. Lots of fighting between the two. Then I started seeing another boy come over. Closer to her own age, at least. But from the moans and screams that came from their house late at night, it was obvious the two were …
quite close.”
“When Mr. Thompson died, did the police interview you?”
“That old teacher died? When?”
“About nine months ago.”
“Nope. I had no idea. But what do you mean if the police interviewed me? He didn’t die of natural causes? Heart attack or something?”
“No.” Kate left it at that, not wanting to mess up the other investigation. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, he was quite fat. And drank a fair bit. Those fancy cheese plates and meat platters he always brought out to snack on in the evenings.”
“Do you think the teacher could have stolen money from the parents?”
“Don’t think so. Spoke to him once or twice. Said the parents were wiring him money. A fair amount of money it sounded. Enough to cover those expensive snacks. And it’s not like he was heading into town to party. He was with those kids all the time.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Last time was the day the kids’ emancipation got approved. He packed up and left right there and then. Sayonara, señor. Looked more than happy to leave, if you ask me.”
Kate watched the pride in the man’s eyes and decided not to correct his mix of Japanese with Spanish. “So that was about nine years ago,” Kate said. “What happened to the kids after that day?”
“They went their separate ways. The boy wanted to become a priest, I think. They got their own apartments. She was as smart as fuck. Heck, both of them were smart. Real smart. Don’t know if that smartness had come in through their genes or if that teacher was a hell of a good one, but those kids were sure smarter than they looked. I still remember the chemistry experiments they did in their backyards. They’d taken that volcano project to a whole new level. Destroyed half of their lawn that one summer. Then they focused on other things, I guess. The girl managed to make a shit load of money on the stock market during her last year here. That’s how they managed to hire a lawyer to emancipate. Never saw either of them after that. Well, ’cept for her obituary. Shame they didn’t hold a service. I’d have gone and paid my respects. Li'l Penelope was one sweet girl… until she hit puberty. May God help her troubled soul find peace.”
The Last Amen Page 23