Hangman: A Novel (17 page)

“Who do we start with?” Raymond said.

“There’s a lot of things happening around Sandy. The missing girl. Her father’s rich and he was Hangman’s uncle. There’s one other thing—his home backs up on Hoyt Lake.”

Raymond shot her a bug-eyed look. “Stop playin’.”

“It’s true,” Abbie said. “So I’m going to have a talk with Frank Riesen. He’s a twofer—he might have information on his daughter’s disappearance, and he might be the second man. Then I’m going to talk to Walter Myeong, Maggie’s father. Less tantalizing, but still rich.”

Abbie nodded to Raymond, who popped off the hood of the Saab and walked toward the Crown Vic. Abbie jumped in her car, did a slow U-turn, watching for more joggers, then whipped the Saab into a straight line and drove through the park, the white mist parting in front of her and whipping over the windshield as she pressed the gas. She exited the park and took Delaware Avenue downtown, drove eight minutes before finding Riesen’s business address.

Abbie stared at the low-slung building, sleek and
metallic-looking, that housed Riesen Properties, LLC. It looked like a just surfaced submarine, with rivulets of rain sliding over the surface. She parked across from the building, hustled across the street, pulled open the dark glass door and strode in.

There was a hush to the building, accentuated by low-burning golden lights set low into the dark walls. A feeling that made you want to whisper. In Abbie’s experience, that meant money.

No directory was posted in the entrance, just a smoked glass door to the left. Pulling it open, she found herself in a wide reception room with padded leather benches along one wall and a glass-and-metal desk straight ahead. A young woman glanced up from a shiny Apple laptop and smiled.

The receptionist had light brown hair streaked with gold pulled back in a bun, a tailored business suit in cream, and a black silk blouse. Strangely tanned for the season, she wore scalloped gold earrings, a plain gold chain necklace tucked behind the silk collar, and no wedding ring. Her green eyes were appraising, noncommittal.

Abbie walked toward the desk, pulling out her ID as she went. “I’m
Detective Kearney from the Buffalo Police Department,” she said as the woman glanced at the badge. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Riesen.”

The receptionist nodded, smiling. “He’s not available,” she said in a faintly accented voice. Abbie couldn’t locate the origin. Boston? London, a long time ago?

“When might he be available?” Abbie said. “It’s urgent.”

There was a leather appointment book at the corner of the desk. Abbie looked at it, but the woman only leaned back in her chair. She was in terrific shape, you could see by the way she held herself. “He’s in a business meeting with a client. I couldn’t say when he’d be available to talk. His schedule is very tight these days.”

Abbie took that in. “I’m investigating the Hangman case.”

Abbie couldn’t hear any sounds coming from the street. It really was like being in a submarine a hundred yards underwater. “You heard he escaped?”

The woman’s eyebrows raised briefly, and the smile stayed steady on the lips. “I did.”

“Every piece of information helps in these kinds of investigations.”

“Mr. Riesen’s involvement with the case happened a long time ago.”

“Mm-hmm,” Abbie said, eying the woman. “And you are?”

“I’m Katie Siegel, Mr. Riesen’s personal assistant.”

“Ms. Siegel.”

“Katie, please.”

Abbie almost laughed. She found herself in some kind of duel.

“Katie. Mr. Riesen seems to have given you a lot of leeway in deciding whether he talks to certain people. Like the police searching for his daughter’s killer, for instance.”

Katie’s face hardened. “He—”

“And it seems you’ve been told beforehand to brush us off.”

Katie’s eyes were unreadable. It struck Abbie that she was good at her job, and that job involved saying no a lot. “I have been given instructions on how to handle Mr. Riesen’s time, yes.”

“And I didn’t make the cut?”

Katie smiled and shook her head softly. Her politeness was exquisite.

“Can I ask what kind of deal he’s negotiating?” Abbie said.

“It involves a commercial property in Toronto, but I don’t see how that can possibly matter.”

“I’m trying to see what the stakes are. How much he might possibly make in the deal. I’d like to measure that against the chance that he might help me save a girl in the next couple of days, see what the current price of a teenage girl is these days. Or does it fluctuate due to market conditions?”

The smile was gone now. “Mr. Riesen lost his daughter, Detective.”

Abbie leaned across the desk. “Yes, I know. Which makes me wonder why I’m talking to you and not him right now.”

Up close, Katie’s eyes were extraordinary, a kind of luminescent green flecked with gold. “Perhaps it’s painful, Detective Kearney. Perhaps he doesn’t see what’s to be gained by going through it again.”

“What’s to be gained is saving another father from going through the same thing.”

Abbie thought she detected a flicker of worry or sympathy in the eyes, but it came and went so fast it was hard to tell.

“I’ll tell Mr. Riesen you came by.”

“I’ll tell him myself,” Abbie said. “I
will
be speaking with him.” She placed her card down on the leather appointment book and turned to leave.

Abbie drove toward Niagara Square, thinking of the image from this morning that wouldn’t leave her. The redheaded woman pushing the stroller. It was back again. She could see the woman leaning into the wind, the stroller’s big, ten-inch back wheels turning as if in slow motion.

Was it the stroller? No, there were no strollers or prams or rocking cribs in the case. But there were children. The North’s next generation was being killed off.

What did the note say? “They are not your children.”

When she’d thought of children, she’d thought of teenagers. Their habits, their clothes—Martha’s raw-skinned hand sticking out of the blue-striped sailor’s shirt—their vulnerabilities. But these teenagers
had once been infants. Is that what stuck with her about the baby in the stroller—their innocence?

No, it wasn’t anything so airy-fairy. It was something concrete.

Okay, it wasn’t the stroller. What else went with babies? Diapers. Onesies.

Abbie pulled to the curb, pulled the trunk release button, and got out of the Saab. She walked back and heaved the hatchback open. There was the case file where she’d left it. She pulled it out and flipped to the evidence pictures as traffic whipped by on her left.

Sandy’s silk scarf, shiny in the photographer’s flash.

Charlotte Breen’s green wool V-neck sweater.

Maggie’s rumpled Guess jeans.

No, no, and no. There’s nothing in this case that is even tangentially infant-related.

She shuffled impatiently to the next page. It was a close-up of Maggie Myeong’s hand, the inside left palm.

The A inside the square had been crudely carved, the cross-line of the letter going outside the box. Drawn hurriedly, even frantically.

Abbie’s eyes fluttered. Her body felt light, as it always did when a piece of the puzzle fit into place.

The A inside the square. The infant in the stroller.

The two images seemed to align in her mind. The second unlocked the first.

It was a baby’s block. It had to be.

Katrina Lamb sat in her homeroom in the chilly west
wing of Nardin Academy, the swirl of female voices bouncing off the tile floor and getting lost in the high-ceilinged room. She was thinking of Drama Club, which met every Tuesday at four. This being Tuesday, Katrina was getting worried. There was a rumor going around the school that had apparently started the moment the girls had arrived that morning. Katrina had heard that all after-school activities, including clubs and sports, were going to be canceled because Hangman was still on the loose.

She listened to her friends’ chatter, their four desks scooched close to each other, and hoped this wouldn’t happen. The steam from the old iron radiators made hissing noises as it floated into the classroom.

Katrina wanted to go to Drama Club. She’d been chosen to play Cordelia in
King Lear
and their second and very important rehearsal was scheduled for this afternoon. The club had voted to do
Lear
because for the past three years the members had chosen the most awful plays you could think of, including, two years back,
South Pacific
. But if the club was canceled, it would mean another week before Katrina would get the chance to speak the lines she’d been practicing nightly.

She’d decided to move Actress to number two on her life’s ambitions, right behind Oral Surgeon, which is what she’d always wanted to be. If she took science courses at Harvard and tried out for the Drama Club, she’d have four years to decide which was for her. But now Hangman was getting in the way. Everyone in school was talking about how insane he was, where he was hiding out, and when the police would catch him.

It was 2:49, and they were still waiting for the principal, Ms. Ferrote, to speak over the intercom and let them know if after-school activities were canceled. Obviously, the killer had thrown the principal into a spin, just like everyone else, because she was fifteen minutes late getting on the intercom and Katrina was supposed to be in Spanish, not hanging around here with her friends. She stared down at her white capri pants and blue cable-knit sweater and wished she was wearing the long flowing dress that was Cordelia’s costume.

“Did anyone see
The Voice
last night?” Bea asked.

Katrina frowned. “I don’t watch that show,” she said.

“Why?” Bea said in a shocked voice that had no real shock in it.

“Because everyone gets so excited by the new voice and then a few months later you can’t even remember her name. It’s so fake. I hate fake excitement.”

Bea nodded. The hissing of the radiators was making them sleepy.

“I guess you’re right,” Bea said.

Julia leaned in. “So if Hangman was going to grab some Nardin girl …” she began, her voice low.

Katrina looked over at her.

“Who do you think it would be?” Julia finished, looking at the others in turn, a look of serious concern on her face.

“That is in poor taste,” said Katrina.

Julia made a face.

“No, it’s not, it’s just being proactive.” She ducked her head down, and looked at Katrina. “So who do you think? I know who
I
think would get it.”

“You know who I think?” Katrina said.

“Who?” asked Julia.

“You.”

“Me?” she squawked, clutching at nonexistent pearls on her neck. Her throat flushed red.

Bea and Katrina laughed.

“Yes,” Katrina said, studying Julia with mock solemnity. “Because you’re so nosy. You’d see something in your backyard, like a man in a red mask, and you’d just have to go investigate. Is that true or not?”

Julia looked at her dubiously. “I’m inquisitive. There’s a difference.”

“Which is?”

“I’m nosy, but I’m smart about it,” she declared.

Katrina rolled her eyes.

“I think it would be Kris Shepherd,” said Bea, twisting her red-gold ringlets and looking out the window. “She’s odd. I think Hangman chooses odd people to target.”

Katrina made a face. “What makes you say that?”

“Because it’s not
normal
to get murdered by a serial killer.”

Their half-smothered giggles rang sharply against the polished floor. The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Taylor, looked up.

“Girls?” she said.

They lowered their heads and tried not to catch each other’s eyes. After a minute, Mrs. Taylor went back to reading a book. Crackling noises came from the intercom, but the principal’s voice failed to emerge.

“God, when is she going to give her speech?” Katrina said. “This is torture.”

“Maybe she’s waiting to announce that they caught Hangman,” Bea said. “She’s just now getting all the details so that everything can go back to normal.”

Julia frowned. “Getting back to potential victims,” she whispered, “
I’m
thinking the Indian girl, Anandi.”

Katrina shot her a look. Anandi had arrived from India the previous year. There were Indian girls in the school, three at last count, but they’d been raised in the States and had fit in more or less seamlessly at Nardin, especially Shooki, who was Katrina’s third-best friend. But Anandi was different, still more Indian than American. The other girls whispered that she smelled like hot spices and that in gym class she’d
stood on the sidelines during volleyball and refused to participate. Some wondered if she had crazy tattoos, even though Katrina had assured them this was not the case.

“Julia,” Katrina said now, shaking her head sadly. “Really?”

“What?”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not. I’m being entirely scientific. Or what’s that word? Forensic. I have three reasons.” Julia presented her hand to the group and held up a finger. “One, she’s brunette. Hangman always goes for girls with brown hair.”

“Ha,” said Bea, tossing her golden red hair. Katrina again rolled her eyes and turned back to Julia.

“Two. She has no friends. Therefore, she’s always alone. That’s what detectives call ‘opportunity.’ ”

“You don’t know that she’s alone at home,” Katrina said, interested in the question despite herself. “Maybe she has, like, five brothers that she lives with.”

Julia shook her head. “I know from reliable sources that she’s an only. Three, her house’s backyard faces the park. I think he’s hiding in the park.”

“
My
backyard faces the park,” said Katrina. “Am I going to get murdered?”

Julia ignored her. “All in all, Anandi is an excellent candidate. I heard she’s always on the Internet. The Internet has really become a way for these creeps to get their victims. Maybe Hangman learned all about computers in prison and now he’s in a Starbucks looking at profiles on Facebook, narrowing his list.”

“God, Julia,” Bea said. “They had computers five years ago, when he got caught. It’s not like they were just invented.”