The Dead Room (23 page)

50

Jamie walked down the garage steps lugging her suitcase, a battered black monstrosity she had purchased shortly before her honeymoon. It had travelled with her to St Lucia and then later, throughout the States with Dan and the kids. She hoisted it into the back of the minivan and stared at it for some moments.

I’m really doing this,
she thought.
I’m just going to jump in my car with the kids and drive west until we find San Diego
.

She had been fine at the bank. When she gave the teller the signed form to close her savings and chequing accounts, she had expected a moment of panic. Instead, she’d had a burst of clarity. The teller came back with an envelope holding a little over five grand in cash, and when she held it, she knew leaving was the only way she could protect her kids now. To do it right, she’d need to create new identities for them. She knew how to do it. Carter was too young to understand, but Michael would. First, she would have a long talk with him about Ben Masters. Not now. Later, once they got settled. She walked out of the back smiling at the thought of a fresh start, a brand-new slate for all of them.

That feeling changed when she went to the liquor store in Wellesley Hills.

The young-looking guy who worked behind the counter – tall and lanky with thick black hair and smooth tanned skin – had gone out of his way to find some larger boxes. He insisted on bringing them out to the car.

‘Are you Jamie Russo?’ he asked.

She stared at him, wondering how he had recognized her.

He blushed. ‘You sort of look like her. That’s why I was asking.’

She nodded. ‘I’m… ah… ah… Jamie.’

‘I sort of knew your husband. Dan would come in every other week or so and buy a bottle of Johnnie Walker. We’d talk about the Sox or whatever for a bit. Your husband was a real good guy, and I… I’m sorry about what happened to him and… everything else.’

Dan bought a bottle of booze once a week
, she thought numbly as she drove home.
How long had you been doing that, Dan? I never saw you drinking during the week – then again, how could I, since you were spending all of your time in the basement. What were you doing down there? Why were you drinking so much? And how come I never saw a single empty Johnnie Walker bottle in the recycling bin? Did you hide them in the rubbish?

Jamie felt a sudden rising tide of bitterness aimed at this liquor store clerk who owned some piece of her husband she didn’t know –
would
never know. A part of her wanted to turn around, drive back to the liquor store and interrogate him.
Do you know why my husband was drinking so much? Did he seem upset? Did he tell you anything? How did he act? Tell me about every conversation you remember because I want to fill this goddamn hole I’ve been carrying inside my chest for the past five years
.

She didn’t turn around, just kept driving, suddenly aware about how she would always be anchored to Wellesley. By leaving, she would never know why Dan was killed. Sure, she could take some satisfaction in knowing Ben Masters was dead, but Kevin Reynolds was still out there, Reynolds and this still unknown third man, Judas.

She kept checking her rear-view and side mirrors to see if anyone was tailing her. By leaving now, she realized that no matter where she went, this was how she would spend the rest of her life – always looking in her rear-view mirror, always looking over her shoulder.

Jamie slammed the hatchback shut, went inside the house and grabbed the keys from the kitchen drawer for the dead room.

Michael was helping Carter select which toys to pack. She had given each a single box; she wouldn’t have any more room inside the minivan with the clothes and boxes of documents and other paperwork she didn’t want to leave behind. She had expected some resistance to this whole sudden pack-up-and-leave plan, maybe even a change of heart. Michael went right to work without any argument. Carter kept asking if they were going to live at Disney World.

She opened the door to the dead room and closed it behind her. Bright sunlight flooded the room. The furniture was still here, washed of blood, and she had thrown out the old bedding. All that remained were the mattress and the dusty valance covering the box spring.

She grabbed the pictures from the walls and placed them inside the box, thinking about the minivan, how Kevin Reynolds had stood only a few feet from it this morning.

So close
, she thought.
He was so goddamn close, if only I had stepped out of the minivan more quickly
…

She heard a car pull into her driveway. She went to the window and saw a black Honda.

Oh my Jesus, that looks like Kevin Reynolds’s car.

Jamie dropped the box, about to call out for the kids, when she saw a man in black trousers and matching short-sleeved shirt stepping outside. Father Humphrey.

She didn’t want to invite him inside the house, didn’t feel like fielding questions about her sudden move. She ran back downstairs and hit the button to open a garage bay.

Father Humphrey rushed inside, face flushed.

‘Good, I’m glad I caught you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been calling you all afternoon.’

‘I… ah… stepped… ah –’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Humphrey brushed past her, knees cracking, and walked across the garage. He hit the button for the bay door.

‘What… ah… ah…’ She couldn’t get the words out, watching Humphrey dart around the minivan to look through a window.

‘Has anyone come by the house?’ he asked. ‘Anyone you haven’t recognized?’

Every muscle in her body tensed.

Humphrey moved away from the window. ‘How do you know a man named Kevin Reynolds?’

Jamie opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. The dread she’d been carrying wrapped its tentacles around her throat.

‘His sister lives in Wellesley, not far from here,’ Humphrey said. ‘You might’ve seen her in church. She’s a good woman, but I can’t say the same about Kevin. A mean bastard, that one.’

‘How… ah… ah… how… how…’

‘Just listen to me,’ he said. ‘Just listen and let me do the talking.’

Humphrey’s wrinkled face and bloodshot eyes kept disappearing behind the hot, bright stars exploding across her vision.

‘Kevin comes to me for confession every now and then. He came to confession about an hour ago. Afterwards, I found him sitting inside the pew. He wanted to have a friendly chit-chat about the church, fundraisers and so forth. Then he worked his way into asking questions about you. He knows what happened here and asked if I knew you, if you still lived in the area.’

Get the kids
, she thought.
Get them and leave.

‘Being the good Catholic you are,’ he said, ‘I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you the seal on confession. How a priest cannot break it even under the threat of death. I’m a man of God, but I’m also a man –
wait, Jamie, come back!
’

She ran for the stairs.

Father Humphrey caught up with her inside the foyer. He grabbed her by the arm, pulled her back.

‘
Calm down
.’ He shook her. ‘
Calm down and listen!
’

She screamed and tried to push him away.

‘I have people who can help you, Jamie. These people have helped women like yourself, victims of crime – they’ve helped entire families start new lives in places where men like Kevin Reynolds can never find you. I’m going to call these people. They’ll be here in under an hour.’

‘L-l-l-l-l-leave.’

‘A man like Kevin Reynolds has the resources to find you. These people will make sure he can’t. And you don’t have to worry about money. They’ll help you until you get established, okay? I’ll help you pack until they arrive.’

She pushed him away and ran for the stairs.

Jamie opened her mouth to speak, to tell the kids to get downstairs right now, they were leaving. The words died in her throat as a clear plastic bag was wrapped over her head.

51

Darby stepped out of the elevator with Lieutenant Warner and saw two men dressed in suits and ties waiting outside the doors for the crime lab. They saw Warner and reached for the bulky plastic briefcases sitting on the floor near their legs.
Must be the men here to sweep the offices for bugs
, she thought.

Warner didn’t introduce the men to her. She didn’t care. She was sick of talking and now she had to talk to Coop.

The lab was eerily quiet, the offices she passed by empty. The staff had most likely been called out to Charlestown to help assist the bomb squad in the collection of evidence and to help search for bodies and remains.

Coop wasn’t in his office. She checked the fingerprint database. IAFIS had come up with a match on one of the prints.

She opened the screen. It was the fingerprint from the blister pack of nicotine gum. The print had a 96.4 per cent match to a man named Jack King.

That was one of the names Ezekiel told me – one of the dead Feds
.

Sure enough, it was. The information on the screen said that Special Agent King had died on July 2, 1983 – the same day Sullivan had died. All the notes were listed.

Coop had been here this morning. Surely he had checked the database. Why hadn’t he called her?

Darby didn’t find him in any of the other exam rooms, but she found Randy and Mark in serology examining Kendra Sheppard’s bloody clothing and the personal items she had removed from the body yesterday at the morgue – a black plastic watch, a sterling silver Claddagh ring and a plain, thin gold necklace.

Randy put down his clipboard, his gaze fixed on the raw stitches covering her face. Both he and Mark looked exhausted.

‘We thought you could use a hand with the clothes,’ Randy said, ‘so Mark and I came in early.’

‘Thanks,’ Darby said. ‘Thank you both. I really appreciate it. Have any of you seen Coop?’

Randy shook his head. Mark said, ‘I know he was here this morning. I haven’t seen him since.’

Darby wondered if Coop was working at the bomb site. She checked in with the lab’s secretary.

‘He took a personal day,’ the secretary said.

‘Did he say why?’

‘Not to me he didn’t. Maybe he left you a message.’

Darby went to her office. No message from Coop, but there was one from Madeira James.

‘Miss McCormick, I’m calling to follow up on our conversation yesterday regarding the microstamped bullet you found. The company president has the form I signed to release all information regarding the test ammo and the demonstration. He’s currently reviewing it with legal. As soon as I know anything, I’ll call or email.’

The message had come in this morning shortly before ten. It was now a quarter to four.

The second message was from Rob Litzow, the desk sergeant in charge of the evidence trailers. He had been unable to find the evidence and murder books associated with the Sheppard murder in April of 1983.

Darby called Litzow. ‘What happened to the evidence?’

‘Don’t know. It could’ve been mislabelled or lost. This happens a lot with older stuff. We’ll find it, I’m sure, but it’ll take some time.’

She recalled what Ezekiel had said about Sullivan having inside help within the police departments.
You can’t trust anyone, especially people inside the Boston police department. Sullivan had plenty of your people on his payroll
.

She turned to her computer and said, ‘I need a list of people who’ve checked out the Sheppard case.’

‘Nobody’s asked for it for the last five years, I can tell you that.’

‘What do you do with the old logs?’

‘They’re in storage.’

‘Find them and fax them over to me. And while I have you on the phone, I want you to pull everything you’ve got on the murder of Thomas McCormick.’ She read out the evidence and case file numbers.

Darby hung up and checked her email. Nothing from Madeira James. Randy had emailed her a copy of the evidence report he had filled out on the items he recovered from the woods. She printed out a copy, then picked up the phone and dialled James’s direct number at Reynolds Engineering Systems. She got the woman’s voicemail. Darby left a message asking her to call with an update.

Next, she tried calling the owner of the Belham house, Dr Wexler, in France. No answer. She left another message.

Now Coop. He didn’t answer his mobile. She tried his home number. No answer.

Why are you avoiding me, Coop?

Darby went to the printer. Her head throbbed separately from the wounds on her face.
Thump-thump
, like a heartbeat. She sat back in her chair and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The Percocet the doctor had prescribed for her would take care of the pain. It would make her feel sluggish and stupid. She grabbed some Advil tablets from her desk drawer and dry-swallowed them as she picked up the evidence report.

No prints or blood were recovered from the smoke canisters. Randy had given the serial numbers to the bomb squad. Good move. They would know where to look to see if they had been stolen. Running down the serial numbers, though, had taken a back seat for the moment now that the entire bomb squad was busy in Charlestown.

Darby flipped through the sheets and read through Randy’s notes. The Wonder Twins had done an exhaustive job processing the evidence.

Something about the binoculars bothered her. She thought about Randy’s grid map and carried the evidence report with her to the conference room.

52

Darby stood in front of the whiteboard. The binoculars had been found in the upper-left-hand quadrant of the woods, a good distance away from the incline leading up to the road. Randy had recovered sneaker prints near the binoculars. These same prints matched the ones on the back deck steps, and so belonged to the person who had shot their way inside the house. This person had been far away from the others. It was possible this person was acting independently of the other men – had no connection to them. Okay, so why did the binoculars bother her?

She flipped back through the pages. Here. Smooth glove prints and a couple of smudged latent prints Mark had tried to enhance without any luck.

She read the specs on the binoculars. They were made by Nikon. Inexpensive. Not the sort of thing a tactical person would use. The bald guy with the tactical vest had had night-vision goggles. The Fed, Alan, had used some sort of HERF device to fry the circuitry inside the hospital’s security cameras. The TV cameraman she’d seen watching the house had had a camera with a laser mike. High-tech equipment. These binoculars were small, meant to be folded and tucked into a back pocket. You used them to watch birds, maybe a sporting event or a concert. They weren’t used for surveillance.

She turned the binoculars over in her mind’s eye. Saw the cracked plastic and the screws, the screw had –

Darby left the conference room and checked the binoculars out of the evidence locker.

The screws had been stripped. Someone had taken apart the binoculars to fix them. Someone had touched the inside of the binoculars. Mark had only fumed the
outside
.

She carried the evidence bag back to serology. She told Mark about the binoculars.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I never… It didn’t even occur to me.’

He took them to the exam room across the hall.

Randy said, ‘The fingerprints came back on the Belham house. No matches except for those belonging to Kendra Sheppard and her son. The ones that we couldn’t identify I’m guessing belong to the people who own the house.’

‘Wexler,’ Darby said, wondering why neither the man nor his wife had returned her call.

She turned her attention to the bloody clothes spread out across the bench.

Kendra found out who Sullivan really was
, Ezekiel had said,
and she also found out about the Boston Feds setting up local witnesses and informants… Kendra told me she’d kept the tapes, notes, all of it. I don’t know where they are; she didn’t tell me
.

Audio tapes and notes are bulky things. She couldn’t have carried them with her all the time. That meant she must have locked them away somewhere safe. Where? A safety deposit box?

No
, Darby thought.
You have to fill out a form for that, you need to show a licence. Whatever identity she was using would have to have been logged on the bank’s computer system. Kendra didn’t trust computers. She wouldn’t have wanted to give these men a way to trace her
.

So where had she stored these tapes?

‘The clothes are pretty much dreck,’ Randy said. ‘Lots of blood, yes, but most likely it’s the vic’s. We’re using…’

Randy’s voice trailed off in her mind. Darby was thinking about an airport locker. That was anonymous. Stuff your items in the locker and pay a fee – you could use cash. Problem: you couldn’t use an airport locker indefinitely. The fee covered you for a day or two, depending on the airport. An airport was anonymous but not convenient. Kendra would have wanted to keep the evidence she had close to her – within arm’s reach. She’d need access to it quickly in case she had to run. She had been running for a long time.

‘… just what they’re reporting on the radio and TV about the bomb site,’ Randy was saying. ‘Dr Edgar and his grads students are still unaccounted for, along with Jennings. Lots of injuries but no names given, lots of witnesses…’

Running
, Darby thought. Kendra had been on the run for twenty plus years, changing identities for her and her son. Ezekiel had said something about Wisconsin. Kendra working at an insurance company, Kendra seeing Peter Alan heading inside the building and Jack King sitting behind the wheel of a car parked right out front.

She picked up Sean from school and started driving to look for a new place to live
, Ezekiel had said,
just left all of her stuff behind
.

Darby said, ‘Randy, I need you to get Kendra’s handbag from the evidence locker.’

‘I searched it and didn’t –’

‘Don’t talk, just go get it.’

In her mind she saw Kendra spotting the dead FBI agents.
What did she do? She drove away to pick up her son from school.

Drove to find a new place to live.

Left all of her stuff behind.

But not everything – not the most important thing
, a cold, flat voice said.
Kendra wouldn’t have left behind the evidence. She needed that. So after she picked up Sean, she drove – she didn’t stop, she just kept driving because she already had the evidence with her. She figured out a way to have it with her at all times, within arm’s reach in case she needed to run. She had the evidence with her at all times
.

Randy removed the handbag from the evidence bag and placed it on the bench. Darby’s attention never left the blood-soaked clothes, afraid that if she looked away she’d lose the connection to the voice speaking to her:
She had the evidence with her at all times. She had the evidence with her at all times
.

Darby reached for the box of latex gloves. She put them on and started with the handbag.

Black leather Liz Claiborne wallet holding nothing but cash and a Vermont driver’s licence for Amy Hallcox.

Three plastic-wrapped tampons.

Next, the box of Altoids. Nothing in there but mints.

She had the evidence with her at all times
.

You couldn’t carry a handbag with you at all times. Kendra would have used something that she could have with her at all times.

What was left? Watch and jewellery.

The watch had already been dusted for prints. Darby picked it up. Black polyurethane strap and a black faceplate surrounded by a stainless-steel mask with a brushed-steel finish. The second hand ticked along steadily. Silver numbers but no manufacturing stamp identifying the watchmaker.

She turned it over. The back of the watch looked normal, but not the left side. A small rectangular piece of plastic. She grabbed a pair of tweezers and pushed out a plastic tab belonging to a small USB flash drive.

‘Holy shit,’ Randy said. Then his surprise turned to embarrassment. ‘I never would’ve thought… I examined that watch myself and not once did I notice that.’

‘You weren’t supposed to. It’s concealed. I need to take this to my office. Oh, and before I go, I should tell you that there’ll be some people inside here momentarily sweeping the office for listening devices.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Sorry, Randy, I can’t tell you. Orders of the commissioner.’

‘Say no more.’

Darby thought about the USB drive. Kendra Sheppard had gathered information during a time when such devices had yet to be invented. That meant only copies of the original documents and audio recordings were on the drive. Had she destroyed the originals? Or had she stored them someplace safe?

She found Warner inside her office along with the other two men.

‘I need to speak to you privately for a moment,’ she said.

Warner pointed to the door. The two men nodded and left.

Darby slid the tiny flash drive into the USB slot of her computer.

The door shut behind her and Warner said, ‘What’s up?’

‘I found Kendra Sheppard’s documents.’ Darby pointed to the computer screen holding a list of MP3 audio files and PDF files.

Warner slid next to her and leaned on the desk. He took out a pair of bifocals. Darby stared at the list.
Christ, there’re dozens of files here
. ‘Judging by the size of these files, I’d say they were scanned.’

‘Can you print them out?’

She nodded, then grabbed the mouse and clicked on one of the PDF files.

A window opened asking her for a password.

She clicked on one of the audio files and got the same window.

‘Shit.’

‘What?’ Warner asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘They’re password protected.’

‘You don’t happen to know the password, do you?’

‘No. And don’t ask me to start typing in random passwords either.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I might wind up erasing the files. I’ll call the computer lab.’ She reached for the phone.

Warner blocked her. ‘I’ve got to clear it with the commissioner. You got a guy in mind?’

‘Jim Byram,’ she said. ‘He’s the best at this stuff.’

‘Okay. Once he’s vetted, I’ll have him get to work on it.’

‘These files are probably just copies. Kendra either stored the originals someplace else or destroyed them.’

Warner nodded. ‘You talk to Cooper yet?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Where
is
he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then go find him. Find him and talk some sense into him. Then call me on your way back here. I’ll need your help sorting through these files.’

She pushed the chair back and stood up.

‘One other thing,’ Warner said. ‘These people who were following you… if you
think
you see anything, I want you to call. Don’t go all Rambo on me, okay? We need these guys alive.’

Darby nodded and left, thinking about where Coop was, how she was going to get him to open up and talk.

She checked in to ballistics. They had no record of a Glock eighteen ever having been used in the commission of a crime.