Catch Me (39 page)

“How’d she die?”

“Coroner’s guess was natural causes, liver failure caused by long-term alcohol abuse, but the body had been lying in situ for some time before discovery. Makes establishing cause of death more art, less science.”

“Suffocation,” O said. “Pillow to the face, that’s what I would’ve done.”

“Kill the mom the same way she once murdered her babies? But coroner would be able to determine evidence of asphyxia: petechial hemorrhages.”

“Not if decomp was advanced enough. Like you said, more art, less science.”

“You think Charlene did it?” It was a genuine question. The coincidence of the mom dying in Colorado the same time Charlene worked there bothered D.D. And yet…“Charlie asked all the right questions when we interviewed her. Never assumed her mother was dead, asking about prison first, then a mental institute, then finally death. She even inquired about how her mother died, meaning, if Charlie did do it—tracked her mother down in Boulder, paid her a visit, pressed a pillow against her face for a full five minutes while her mother kicked and fought and struggled—she’s one hell of an actress.”

Detective O was quiet for a moment. “You still like her.”

“Like has nothing to do with it. I’m just thinking out loud. Good detectives argue. It’s the fun part of our job.”

“She grew up with a killer. Maybe watched her mother suffocate two babies. Maybe did it herself—”

“Big assumption.”

“Still, ritualistically abused. Think of the bonding that never took place. Lack of empathy. The free spirits of the world would have you believe a little bit of love eases all pain. Cops know better.”

“She claims to have loved Rosalind.”

“Didn’t make a difference. Maybe it was even baby Rosalind’s death that put her over the edge. She blew up. Fought violently with her mom, would’ve killed her if the mom hadn’t stabbed her first.”

“Another big assumption.”

“Mom exited stage right, Charlie went to the mountains of New Hampshire. New house, new rules, new stability. Maybe it worked for a bit. Until her friends scattered, and poor old Charlie was once more all alone. Maybe she decided to track her mother down, finish old business.”

“Would really like a witness, any proof at all that Charlie even knew her mom lived in Boulder.”

“Seize her computer.”

“She doesn’t have one.”

“Bet her aunt does. Bet it’s in New Hampshire. Get it, pore through old docs. There’s an e-mail somewhere, an Internet search. Always is in this day and age. Plus, bet she still has access to a computer, maybe checks out one of the laptops at the Boston Public Library and uses it to hunt pedophiles, before returning it to the help desk. Nobody lives totally off the grid, and everyone leaves tracks, as you were explaining to Neil today. We just gotta keep digging. Maybe eight years ago Charlie searched for her mom, Charlie found her mom, Charlie killed her mom. And it felt good. Justice done.”

D.D. couldn’t argue with that; the death of Charlie’s mom did appear to be justice done. And she certainly hoped everyone on the Internet left tracks. She’d talked to Phil right before dinner, and he and Neil had seized eight separate electronic items from Barry’s bedroom. They now hoped the techies found lots of tracks, including
ones that tied Barry to two other pedophiles, as well as revealing how one blue-eyed “demon,” in the words of their witness, tracked him down.

“So, Charlene Grant killed her own mother,” D.D. filled in now, “and liked the feeling so much, she decided to wait eight years, then systematically hunt down Boston sex offenders for more righteous kills?”

“Maybe she didn’t wait eight years. Maybe there are other dead sex offenders in other jurisdictions. We just know the three on our watch. Not to mention, stress is a major trigger for killers, and you can tell just by looking that Charlene Grant’s a little stressed out right now.”

“She’s a good girl, until her stress level rises too high, then she loads a gun and lets off a little steam?”

“Why not? Worse reasons to kill sex predators.”

“More big assumptions.”

“Which is why,” Detective O replied curtly, “I followed her tonight, got my hands on her twenty-two, and delivered it to the lab. Tomorrow, fuck assumptions. We’ll have a ballistics report.”

“Hope so,” D.D. murmured, “seeing as we just seized a potential murder victim’s legally registered means of self-defense, on the eve of the big day.”

“Forget the other murders,” O shot back, sounding almost irritated. “This is all about Charlene. What happened when she was a kid, to her and her siblings. I doubt she’s even a target tomorrow. I bet she’s the instigator. I mean lots of people are abused as kids, and they still manage to grow up remembering such a minor detail as being stabbed by their own mother. Then there’s Charlene, who claims she forgot it all. I think that’s her first lie.”

“I thought you said she was Sybil, which accounts for her lack of memory; Charlie wasn’t stabbed by her mother but her ‘victim personality’…Rosalind…was, meaning Charlie really didn’t know any such thing. And Charlene’s not really running around shooting sex offenders, some ‘protector personality’ Abigail is.”

“Bunch of hooey.”

“You started it.”

“Just to argue with you. Most fun part of the job, right?”

D.D. shook her head at the detective’s quick change of heart. “Fine. At least we agree on one thing—we need the ballistics report. Good work seizing the gun and making arrangements at the lab, Detective.”

For a moment, D.D. could almost feel O’s discomfort over the line, and she couldn’t help but think of another detective she knew that was always more comfortable with criticism than praise—herself.

“Detective,” D.D. said briskly.

“Yes?”

“Go home. Get some sleep. We have approximately seven hours until Charlene gets off work and Jon Cassir has results from the ballistics test. Meaning, most likely, tomorrow will be a big day. And…” D.D. hesitated, “being the anniversary date of two murders, maybe even a longer night.”

“Not a problem,” O said immediately. “We’ll have Charlene arrested by eleven, processed by one, and tucked safely in jail by three. Meaning, if any killer wants her, he’ll have to tunnel through cinder blocks to get her.”

H
ELLO.
My name is Abigail.

Don’t worry, we’ve met.

Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid for me?

Trust me, and I will take care of you.

Don’t you trust me?

Hello. My name is Abigail.

S
ATURDAY. 7 A.M.
Thirteen hours and counting.

Maybe less? Maybe more?

What did I know? My shift was due to end, but my replacement hadn’t appeared, leaving me trapped at a desk, comm lines still ringing with various Boston citizens in various states of panic.

I’d arrived to a slew of motor vehicle incidents. Car versus cat. Motorcycle versus telephone pole. Drunk teenager A versus drunk teenager B.

By 2 A.M., the bars had closed and the phone lines heated up. Tina Limmer from 375 Markham Street called to report that her boyfriend was an asshole. Guess she caught him balling her best friend. Sadly, being an asshole was not yet a prosecutable offense, so I’d been forced to end the call. Just in time for Cherry Weiss from 896 Concord Avenue to report the smell of smoke in the stairwell of her apartment building. Two officers were dispatched, not to mention the fire department. Officers arrested two drunken seventy-year-old men who were trying valiantly to prove that you could light a fart on fire. Fire department laughed, took in the show.

Which brought me to Vinnie Pearl of 95 Wentworth Way. He wanted to report that he’d lost his nose. With a bit of searching (I managed to direct him to the bathroom of his own apartment), he located said nose in the mirror. Turned out, Vinnie had spent most of Friday brewing homemade limoncello. Which explained his call back ten minutes later to report he’d lost his lips, couldn’t feel them anymore, his entire mouth was gone.

I ordered Vinny to take four aspirin, drink three glasses of water, and good luck in the morning.

That call ended just in time for the first of three bar brawls, followed by two calls of domestic violence and yet another motor vehicle incident, Hummer versus three parked cars.

Parked cars lost. Hummer didn’t fare so well either, and completely drunk-as-a-skunk Hummer driver was arrested, as they say, without incident.

Sometime around 3 A.M., I ate my cold chicken breast and half grapefruit while still sitting at my desk. At four thirty, the call volume lulled enough I could actually pee. Five thirty, I attempted to log onto Facebook from the PD’s computer; I wanted to check the page honoring Randi and Jackie.

I got eight minutes to marvel at the long list of friends, the outpouring of shared memories and bittersweet tears, then the monitor lit up again, this time car versus pedestrian. The pedestrian was injured, but still able to make the nine-one-one report, as the offending vehicle sped away.

Randi hadn’t suspected a thing on the twenty-first. That was my best guess. The police had never uncovered any sign of threatening notes, suspicious behavior. She’d lived a small, self-contained life, her closest friend probably her yoga instructor, who said Randi hadn’t commented on anything out of the ordinary. Meaning the twenty-first had dawned as just another day. Get up. Go through the motions. No idea, no inkling, this would be her last day on earth.

Is it better that way? To never see death coming, or to spend the past year as I have, counting down every minute, planning out every second toward looming demise?

Jackie had cried the morning of the twenty-first. I’m sure of it. She would’ve woken up with the same heavy feeling I had. This was it. The one-year anniversary of Randi’s death, and still the police had no leads, no major breaks in the investigation. Our childhood friend had been senselessly murdered and we remained with more questions than answers.

Jackie would’ve started off the day quiet, reserved. Maybe she would’ve donned a string of pearls in memory of Randi. Or bought
fresh flowers, or listened to Randi’s favorite band, Journey, during her drive to work.

Being in New Hampshire, I’d driven to Randi’s grave that morning, bearing a grocery store bouquet of yellow roses. I’d been nervous I’d meet her parents and not know what to say. But the cemetery was empty, and I’d stood alone on the hard-packed snow, shivering in the single-digit chill, while feeling the tears fall, then freeze on my cheeks.

Jackie had probably been preoccupied on the twenty-first. But still probably hadn’t thought about herself, felt a lingering tension, a fissure of fear. Maybe that’s why she’d gone out to a bar. She’d been sad, not afraid, and maybe figured a night out would cheer her up.

The police said she met a woman that night. A stranger made the most sense, as no friend or known acquaintance had stepped forward to say that she’d been with Jackie those final hours. So she’d gone to a bar, met someone she liked, someone who seemed nice enough, decent enough to welcome into her home.

No struggle.

That’s the part I kept coming back to. To not just die, but to die without putting up a fight.

I couldn’t imagine it. When J.T.’s hands had closed around my throat, I’d been shocked, momentarily paralyzed. But then came the instinct to breathe, the desire to strike back, struggle furiously for air.

Randi had been sweet, but Jackie had always been hard-edged. A woman who could battle her way to being vice president of a major corporation by the time she was twenty-six wasn’t a quitter.

So what had happened that night? Who could she have met, what could have transpired, for her to submit so passively to her own death?

I churned the matter over, as I’d been churning it for the past year. Finding no answers, just a fresh case of nerves.

The phone lines rang. My hands trembled. And I worked and I worked and I worked, my teeth clenched, my body jumpy, and my hands desperate for the feel of my Taurus.

Seven A.M. to eight A.M. to nine A.M.

Nine fifteen, Sergeant Collins appeared in the doorway to announce that my replacement had come down sick. They were working on finding a sub now; in the meantime, they needed me to continue to hold down the fort.

It was a statement, not a question. Such is the nature of the job. Nine-one-one phone lines
had
to be covered, meaning you couldn’t leave until the next person had arrived and planted butt in chair. No replacement meant no going home for me.

Nine A.M. to ten A.M. to eleven A.M.

My last hours, winding down as I sat in a darkened comm center, dealing with other people’s crises, solving other people’s problems.

So this is how the world ends, I thought, remembering the T. S. Eliot poem from high school. Not with a bang but a whimper.

I wanted to fight. Whatever happened tonight, I wanted to be the one who finally inflicted damage, caused bodily harm. Win or lose, Detective D. D. Warren and her team would get some fresh evidence from my crime scene. That was my resolution.

Eleven thirty. Shirlee Wertz appeared, black curly hair held back by a red bandana, overflowing book bag slung over her shoulder. We ran through the call log, I caught her up on drunk Vinnie and his disappearing body parts. Then I transferred my headset to her, stepped away from the desk, and took one look back.

Would I miss this?

I’d be taking a two-week vacation, that’s all I’d told the higher-ups. No drama over my departure this way. No burning questions about my future, life after the twenty-first.

It’s funny, but my throat felt tight. I stared at the ANI ALI monitor and I was choked up.

I’d liked this job. I cared about my officers, felt the burden and honor of watching their backs. I felt that, in a small, feeble way, in this dark room, manning these lines, I’d spent the past year making a difference.

Eleven forty-five A.M. Eight hours fifteen minutes.

I found my messenger bag. I exited the Grovesnor PD. And I forced myself not to look back.