2 in the Hat (5 page)

The girl looked just as bad as the boy, her body showing signs of deterioration, her eyes open and covered with a cloudy, opaque film. He wondered if she really was Courtney Steadman. He prayed that she wasn’t, for her parents’ sake. But then, what did it matter? Someone’s parents were going to be devastated. For a moment Alves was back on the hill where he had seen her the night before, staring into his eyes, begging for help. She looked even worse now, lying naked on a cold steel table. A final indignity before being cut open, no longer human, just evidence.

Alves followed Mooney’s lead and put on a pair of latex gloves. Alves helped roll her onto her side and Mooney lifted the braid of long black hair off the back of her neck. He sorted through the hair at the base of her skull. Then he stopped.

Mooney shifted his body so Alves could see the base of the girl’s skull.

She had been stamped with black ink.

“Is that the Yin and Yang symbol?” the photographer asked.

Mooney nodded. “It’s called the Tai-ji.”

“What does it mean?” Eunice asked.

“It means we’re not dealing with a copycat,” Mooney said as he gently lowered Jane Doe’s head to the table. “I need to confirm one more thing.” Mooney leaned over the girl’s body, opened her mouth and looked inside.

“Angel, can I borrow your mini Mag?” Mooney said, extending his hand toward Alves. Mooney put the small flashlight in his mouth so he could use both hands to inspect her oral cavity. Then he reached in and removed a small white piece of paper.

“What is that?” Alves asked.

Mooney removed the flashlight from his mouth. “Her fortune. This is the way this guy communicated with us. A different fortune with each female victim.”

“What does it say?” Belsky asked.

Mooney motioned to Eunice Curran. She carried a piece of the brown paper to him. He placed the rumpled fortune in the center. Eunice placed the sheet on the table. With her gloved fingers, she held
down the two ends of the tiny strip, then smoothed out the air pockets caused by the moisture in the girl’s mouth. Alves made out the black letters, all caps, on the thin strip.

Eunice read aloud, “
DEPART NOT FROM THE PATH WHICH FATE HAS YOU ASSIGNED
.”

C
onnie stepped out of the interview room and closed the door
. Greene was still with Tracy Ward, smoking up a storm, building a rapport. That was a good thing. Maybe Greene could get him to testify. But if the court officers caught them smoking, Connie would catch hell for it.

The interview had gone well. Ward still refused to give it up in front of the grand jury, but that didn’t matter. He’d identified the shooter as Shawn Tinsley. Even given up the names of two new witnesses to the shooting.

Now they could build a case against Tinsley. If not, they might find another way to take him off the street. Either way, they had a suspect, which was more than they had when the day started. Connie walked down the corridor toward the grand jury’s main office. He’d let the grand jury chief know that he was taking the case off the list for today. No need to present any testimony now.

“Mr. Darget.”

Connie recognized the voice behind him. Sonya Jordan. His old friend Mitch Beaulieu’s ex-girlfriend. A defense attorney. A royal pain in the butt. He knew what she wanted. He turned and said, “Ms. Jordan, nice to see you again.”

“Where’s my discovery? We’re on for trial in three weeks and I still
don’t have my client’s FIOs or your ballistics expert’s CV. We need to set up a time so I can look at the gun with my expert.”

“I’ll fax that stuff over to you this afternoon. And you can go over to ballistics any time you’d like. I don’t need to be there.”

“That’s fine.” She turned to walk away. “But if I don’t have my discovery this afternoon, I’ll be filing a motion with the court to impose sanctions.”

“I’m sure you will, Ms. Jordan.”

W
ayne Mooney ran through the Fens, past Roberto Clemente Field
and onto Avenue Louis Pasteur. He was moving at a steady pace toward Longwood Avenue, the pale gray of new buildings wedged against the weathered stone of older medical buildings. He hadn’t missed a noontime run since getting launched from the Homicide Unit to Evidence Management three years ago. At first he’d been angry with the commissioner. But, honestly, he had embarrassed the mayor during a major investigation, and he had to accept his punishment. But what the mayor and the commissioner didn’t know was all he’d had to sacrifice to work Homicide. His marriage, for one thing.

He had to make some decisions before getting too involved in the case. He was used to his relaxed schedule. No stress of homicide investigations, just sit around and watch boxes all day. He had the quiet of his apartment and the company of Biggie, his twenty-two-pound cat. A year or so ago he’d screwed up the courage to call Leslie. They’d met for tea and scones at Greenhills. That was something they’d always enjoyed doing together, sitting and looking out at the Eire Pub—coldest beer in the city—for a who’s who of Boston’s politicians, old-school guys hanging out with the working stiffs. Seeing Leslie again, without the pressures of marriage, reminded him why he had fallen for her in the first place.

He tried to pick up his pace a little as he turned down Longwood and
continued across Huntington. The steady cardiac workouts were paying off. He felt like he was forty again.

He had gotten used to the idea that his career in Homicide was over. A couple more years and he could finish out his time in the Department. Then maybe he’d get a job working security at the federal courthouse—the Palace on the Pier—keep busy and put in enough quarters to collect on Social Security. Everything was planned out. Rock solid.

Now there were two more dead kids. The MO was unmistakable. This was no copycat. He couldn’t let Alves handle the case alone. His old partner had come a long way as a Homicide detective, but he wasn’t getting any help from his new boss, Duncan Pratt.

The victims and their families deserved to have things done right. No mistakes. Nobody getting off on a technicality. The case couldn’t just be solved, it had to be gift-wrapped for the DA. And the only way that would happen is if he got himself reassigned to Homicide, reassigned to this case.

Mooney struggled down the decline of Tremont Street, watching the crowd of kids outside the Roxbury Crossing T station up ahead. They should all be in school, but he wasn’t about to play truant officer.

This case was about him too. About not having any regrets when he retired. There were other cases he still thought about, cases lost at trial. But that was the system working the way it was supposed to work. If the government couldn’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then the guy walked. That was that. But someone had killed four young couples and hadn’t been arrested. Hadn’t been tried before a jury.

Yet.

“DEPART NOT FROM THE PATH WHICH FATE HAS YOU ASSIGNED.”
A simple message. Once you cracked open your cookie and fished out the fortune, read it over the fried rice and chicken bones on your plate, had a laugh, and tossed it off, you never thought of it again. Now the fortunes found in the bodies of four dead girls haunted him.

He continued past the young truants hanging out at the station and turned onto the Southwest Corridor, the final stretch, less than a mile back to headquarters. The Corridor had been built to replace the old elevated tracks that ran along Washington Street from Forest Hill to downtown Boston, supposedly making the new Orange Line aesthetically pleasing. Instead, it proved to be an excellent place for young professionals to get robbed on their way to and from work.

What was the killer trying to tell them with the fortunes? The first
one, Adams and Flowers, read, “
STOP SEARCHING FOREVER, HAPPINESS IS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU
.” Mooney remembered them all. Two months later with Markis and Riley, “
LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE, FEAR AND WORRY ONLY SPOIL IT
.” Then Picarelli and Weston, “
EVERY EXIT IS AN ENTRANCE TO NEW HORIZONS
.”

Mooney had just passed the Reggie Lewis Center when he started his dash, a strong kick to finish his workout. This final sprint was the most invigorating part of the run. He knew he would be sucking wind when it was over. Much better than the feeling he was going to have a heart attack jogging up a flight of stairs. When he reached the edge of the parking lot near headquarters, he walked a lap around the parked cars, a good cooldown before hitting the showers.

How did the fortunes tie together? Maybe the messages were random. Even if they were meant to throw him off, they were still clues.

Mooney wove through the vehicles parked by the evidence bays next to the ID Unit. In one of the bays was a car covered over with a massive tent, being fumed for prints. The officers from the Crime Scene Unit parked their SUVs at the end of the drive.

As he came around one hulking blue-and-white Explorer, Mooney heard a familiar voice. “Quite a run. Back in top shape?”

Commissioner Sheehan was sitting on a bench on the edge of the Corridor, a bench usually occupied by the smokers in the department. “Trying to keep up with the bad guys,” Mooney said.

The commissioner pointed to the gun on his belt. “This works pretty well for bad guys. And without all the sweating.”

“You taking up smoking?” Mooney asked. “Or you just out here catching rays?”

“Have a seat, Wayne.”

“I’m okay.” Mooney stood where he was.

“I need a minute.”

“Clock’s running.”

“I’m putting you back on Homicide.”

“This is what I remember. After I solved the Blood Bath case, it was you that shipped me out to Evidence Management, the Siberia of the Department.”

“Wayne, we’ve got eight dead college students. Two last night. Dolan might be pissed with you, but he’s not stupid.”

“What about Pratt?”

“He won’t be heading up the investigation. Starting today. The Mayor’s promoting him to Deputy.”

“A long time ago, when we both started on the job, you told me there are two kinds of people in this world, those that give a fuck and those that don’t. We both know that Duncan Pratt doesn’t give a fuck.” Mooney turned and started toward the building, the locker room and the peace of the shower. A place he could forget for just a few minutes how incompetence always got rewarded.

“Wayne?”

“Don’t worry, Commissioner Sheehan. I’m on it. And I’ll try not to embarrass you or Mayor Dolan.”

A
ngel Alves sat alone in the anteroom at the medical examiner’s
office. He’d just finished up interviewing the Steadmans and the Kip-pings. In the two hours he’d spent with them, he’d had them ID photos of Courtney Steadman and Josh Kipping. He’d had to ask when they’d last talked with their kids and put together a list of their acquaintances. The victims appeared to be normal college kids with no known enemies, no bad habits. Before the interview, he’d had the parents sit with a victim witness advocate to talk about what would happen next, answer questions about the process, give them a Homicide Survivors pamphlet and welcome them to the club no parent wants to be a member of.

While he did that, he’d had to assign one of the district detectives to witness the autopsy of Josh Kipping.

Alves sank back in a corner chair, closing his eyes, the image of the two kids lying in the next room, their devastated parents, burned into his brain. He wasn’t ready to head back into the autopsy room. He wasn’t ready for any of this, especially the responsibility of catching another serial killer. He had never stopped thinking about the case three years ago that the press had dubbed the Blood Bath Killings. The surreal crime scenes, each of them the same, a bathtub filled with warm water and blood, like a suicide. The missing bodies, never recovered. The devastated families. There was no closure for any of them, especially with the
killer, a man Alves had worked with, taking his own life before they could learn where he had dumped the bodies.

The BlackBerry on his hip vibrated, and he saw Wayne Mooney’s number.

“What’s up, Sarge?”

“What do you have? Did you get an ID from the parents?”

“I haven’t even called Pratt yet.”

“No need to. I’m heading up the case again. Had a brief conversation with Commissioner Sheehan out in the parking lot at headquarters. We’re all set.”

“You kidding me?”

“I’ll update you later. Did you get a positive ID?”

“Steadman and Kipping. Parents just left. Parents spoke with their friends early this morning. I’ve got names. Say they were at the BC football game Saturday night. Couple left the stadium after halftime. No one saw them after that.”

“What did Belsky say about cause of death?”

“Asphyxia. Steadman was strangled. No ligature marks, indicating manual strangulation. The marks from the wire were postmortem. They’re trying to get fingerprints off her skin, a button on the back of her dress, her shoes.”

“They won’t have any luck,” Mooney said.

“Kipping was shot four times.” Alves stood up. He had to stay focused. “Belsky found a bunch of internal perforations. They were small caliber bullets, but they had caused a lot of damage. Death was quick. Massive internal hemorrhaging. They didn’t have the clothes he was wearing when he was killed. No stippling. Belsky found tattooing on the skin. A bruise identical to a gun barrel. The killer put the gun up against Kipping and fired the shots into the same wound.”

“Anything on time of death?” Mooney asked.

“Belsky should be finished soon. He thinks they died within two hours of leaving the stadium. Stomach contents consistent with their halftime meal. Rigor just starting to dissipate at the scene. Belsky figured they’d been dead about twenty-four hours when I found them.”

“That’s consistent with the victims in the old cases. He attacks quickly. It’s not like he kills the guy and then has his way with the girl. That’s not what he’s about. It’s all about the way he displays them after they’re dead.”

“That’s the other thing,” Alves said, pacing the small room. “Belsky
wasn’t sure how long they’d been up there in the woods, but it had to have been more than a few hours. Their body temp had reached equilibrium with the outside temperature. But they hadn’t been put in those poses until some time Sunday morning, at the earliest, probably after it was light out.”