Cloudland (31 page)

“You don’t need to call him back, Mom,” Breck repeated, this time for Violet’s benefit. “I know you want to, but—”

“I’m
not
going to call him. At least not right now.”

“Ma, look at me,” Breck said. “You can’t at all.”

I flared up. “I’m not your daughter!”

“That has nothing to do with this!”

“My, my … Breck!” Violet murmured, warning her not to press me too hard.

It was time to call Anthony. My purse was sitting on an end table across the room. I hurried over and fished out my cell phone and scrolled through the numbers until I found the hospital exchange I’d dialed previously.

He picked up the phone, sounding very weak.

“It’s Catherine,” I said. “How
are
you?”

“Just okay. I’m tired. Glad to hear from you. They won’t let me talk too long on the phone, though … okay, Fiona?” he said. And then to me, “She’s on me about it.”

“She told me you got quite a concussion.”

“Yeah. Got to stay here at least until tomorrow morning.” He hesitated a moment. “We got problems, Catherine.”

His statement left me feeling winded. “What problems?” I glanced at Breck and Violet, who were sitting in their chairs motionless, trying to glean bits of the conversation.

“Well, I was going to Burlington, right—”

“To see the coroner?”

“Yeah. Because … a DNA match was finally identified to the second hair sample in the car.” He broke off and the phone was muffled. “Wow … I’m really dizzy.” Then I heard Fiona say, “I can give her the information.”

“No,” he resisted. “I need to talk just a little more. Just give me another minute, all right?” I braced myself for him to say the DNA match was to Matthew but he surprised me. “It’s to some guy in Florida.”

Flummoxed relief. But I knew the relief would be momentary. I said, “Prozzo came to my house—”

“I know. He was here at the hospital with his new theory.”

“What do
you
think of his new theory?”

Anthony faltered again, the phone sounded as though it was being shuffled around. “Remember when I last called you and you couldn’t really talk? The FBI agent assigned to us had just gotten in touch with me. He said he’d wanted to be in contact sooner but there’d been developments with that kid who went missing up in Middlebury—right before he was found. Anyway, he gave me some information, troubling information. I have my notes here.” He stopped to confer inaudibly with Fiona. “All right,” he said to her. “When I’m ready you can read the notes to Catherine, as long as you go slow. Real slow.”

Anthony went on, “But the gist of my conversation with the agent was that Prozzo has been in possession of certain facts that he has not shared with anybody else, including me.”

“How does the FBI know what hasn’t been shared?”

“Because he got the information from them. Not from this particular agent, but somebody down in D.C. with whom Prozzo has some kind of inside track. When our agent up here began talking about what I already should have known about and didn’t know, we both figured out what was going on.”

“Why didn’t you confront Marco about that when he came to see you?”

“Two reasons. I was feeling rather ill when he showed up and I just wasn’t up to interrogating an interrogator. And then I decided I want to try and find out on my own why Prozzo might be withholding information.”

“Okay, I hear you. But now I’m wondering about Prozzo’s claim that New Hampshire wasn’t cooperating with him, that they were withholding information. In light of what you just said, I wonder how true that claim actually is.”

“My thoughts entirely,” Anthony said. He paused, muffled the phone, and then I could hear, “Okay, Fiona, take over.”

She finally came on. “Hi, Catherine, I don’t mean to horn in, but he’s not supposed to talk too much or get worked up.” She actually sounded annoyed. “When that detective barged his way in here he really wore Anthony out.”

I reluctantly asked, “Should I call back?”

“No. As long as you don’t mind my giving the notes to you.”

“Not at all.”

“So this is basically Anthony’s shorthand of what the FBI told him.

“Two and a half years ago, before Tammy Boucher, the first victim, another woman was reported missing in Holyoke, Mass. Ann Marie Wilkinson, wife of a helicopter pilot who fought in Afghanistan back in ’01. Apparently her husband, Christian, came home from the war with nightmares and his wife woke up once with his hands around her throat. Mother-in-law described him as overcome by memories. Like hallucinations. The couple had been living in Vermont but then moved to Holyoke shortly before Christmas in 2006. Once in Holyoke, the mother-in-law had trouble reaching them. For days on end. The daughter made excuses. Mother-in-law couldn’t reach them either on Christmas Day or the 26th of December, 2006, and drove a hundred and ten miles down 91 to check on them. She had a duplicate house key, and when no one answered the door, she let herself in.

“There was a Christmas tree, gifts unopened. Nobody had been there for days. The house was really cold. Seemed to have been a hasty departure, clothes everywhere, scuff marks on the wall near the front door. She turned up the heating and called the police. The couple never returned.

“FBI was brought in, went on something the mother-in-law told the police, that her daughter warned her that Wilkinson might pick up and have them move somewhere else. They considered his possibly kidnapping her. Then, a few months later in the spring of 2007, Tammy Boucher, victim number one, disappeared in Charlestown, New Hampshire. Her body was found a month later in dense woods, stabbed and strangled.

“Wilkinson finally was located in Charlemont, the far western corner of Massachusetts, living alone. He told the police and FBI Ann Marie had left him before Christmas. Never bothered to contact her family. Claimed they’d been against the relationship and figured they were behind her leaving. He said his heartbreak caused him to leave hastily. Spoke fondly of Ann Marie, and blamed the war for his depression. He appeared distraught during the questioning.”

I heard Anthony asking Fiona to give him the phone. “Hi,” he said, “I’m on again. A little revived. So this guy has been a suspect for a while. They’ve been keeping an eye on him. And Prozzo has known about it and apparently been doing his own tracking of the guy and digging around.” I heard Fiona muttering a protest in the background. “Anyway, the DNA sample found in Elena Mayaguez’s car was matched to a sample found in the Wilkinson apartment in Holyoke.”

I digested his declaration for a moment. “So then
this
guy is the killer.”

“Mom,
what
is going on?” Breck interrupted.

“Can you just wait a second?” I hissed at her.

“We definitely have
a
killer. Problem is he can’t be found and questioned because …
he’s
dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah, the reason why the FBI agent called to begin with was to tell us the guy died just over a week ago.… Give me a second.” I heard Fiona once again objecting to his carrying the conversation any further. I wanted to be annoyed with her, but I knew she was right, that Anthony was probably wearing himself out and shouldn’t be talking at all. “The FBI tracked him in…” He hesitated. “Florida, living with another woman and her daughter, but by the time they showed up at his house, Wilkinson was gone. Apparently he went to Abilene, Texas. That’s where a man, a woman, and her daughter were found in a motel room dead of gunshot wounds. It was ruled murder and suicide. The man’s DNA was digitized and sent to Washington and it too was matched to Wilkinson’s.

“Prozzo believes there are at least two killers at large. And now his theory makes more sense than ever before. Because of the striking differences between the murders of Angela Parker and Elena Mayaguez. The Seventh-Day Adventist pamphlets were found in Angela Parker’s pockets but not in the pockets of Elena Mayaguez. Or anywhere in her car. Angela was strangled and stabbed. Elena was not.”

“But all the others were.”

“Yes, so that means there are even more variables. One thing we do know, with Marjorie Poole and Angela Parker, it was obvious that the killer wanted to leave a signature, to leave pamphlets where they could’ve been found.”

I was still hoping pitifully that Matthew somehow might not be involved in any of the murders. I heard Anthony take a deep, troubled breath and exhale. “I just can’t understand why Marco would keep the information about Wilkinson’s identity to himself. Anyway, he came to the hospital saying that because Matthew Blake comes from a Seventh-Day Adventist background, and because he lied to you about when he came back from the Far East and because he assaulted a woman in Burlington while you were having a relationship with him—all this is compelling evidence against him.”

I sighed and then admitted to Anthony that Matthew had actually been at my house a few days ago, the night he called.

“Oh, really?” Anthony said. “So that wouldn’t have been the time to talk to you about the case anyway.”

Fiona stepped in yet again to admonish Anthony for being on the phone. I had to agree with her and reluctantly said good-bye to him.

When I was done with the call I explained everything, and to their credit, Breck and Violet listened carefully.

“No matter how complicated this is getting…” Breck began, “I’m sticking to Matthew. How can Matthew explain why he lied about how long he spent in Thailand?”

I knew she was concerned about my getting drawn back in by him, and so I purposely said, “Don’t worry. I wonder the same thing.”

“Yes, I’d want to hear what that reason was,” Violet agreed.

“In the meantime, don’t phone him,” Breck seconded her.

*   *   *

Dismantling and reassembling and puzzling over my conversations with Anthony, I slept not a single minute that night. Prozzo’s hoarding of information was nightmarish and incomprehensible and I couldn’t help wondering if it somehow involved Matthew. Needless to say, my nerves were totally shredded by morning. I felt like a zombie when I wandered downstairs and found Violet dressed in a velvet bathrobe, holding a steaming mug of coffee. Through a pair of mullioned windows, she was observing Mrs. Billy and Virgil rooting around the backyard. “They’re so lovely.… We really should find ourselves a dog,” she murmured.

“Why don’t you?”

“It’s up to Breck,” she said in a faraway voice, and then turned to me. “We do travel a lot, so that would be difficult, especially for a young one.”

I told her that her foresight about possible neglect was admirable.

Glancing at her watch she said, “Okay, I’m about to get into gear. So you have everything you need?”

I told her I thought so.

“I don’t know what Breck is planning today but we have charge accounts at the grocery store and the pharmacy and the dry cleaner, should you need—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

While Breck was driving Violet to the train station, I checked my voice mail at home. Matthew had left two more messages. One said, “What is going on? Why haven’t I heard from you? Catherine, please call me!” The second: “Okay, I didn’t want to get into this on the phone, but this Detective Prozzo showed up here. There is something
really
important about him that I need to discuss with you. I know what he’s trying to prove. Please call me as soon as you can.”

I called him immediately, got no answer, and left a message saying I was out of town and to try me on the number that displayed, my cell phone. Breck returned a bit later and hung around the house for the rest of the day, as if to repress my urge to contact Matthew. The day seemed to trudge by while I waited for his phone call. I hadn’t heard from him by the time she got a text message from Violet, who needed to wear something the following day that was still at the dry cleaners and asked her to pick it up. Breck agreed but seemed irritated by the request. When I politely declined her invitation to ride along, she left reluctantly. The moment she pulled out of the driveway, I checked my cell phone and realized with great annoyance that the battery had died. I plugged it into the charger and dialed voice mail.

This time Matthew had left a long one. “I can’t believe you’re not picking up, especially after the message you left me. I’ve tried calling you six times. Where are you?” He sounded aggrieved. “Okay, so Prozzo is coming back to see me again in a while.… Look, I’m sorry I lied to you about Thailand. I did go but only for a few weeks. I was embarrassed because I told you I was going away for a long while to get away from you and I … just couldn’t stay very long. I was lonely. And I was really ashamed of this and having to tell you that it was the reason why I came home. Like when I went to Sweden. I guess I just hoped it would all get easier in my head and then I’d be able to contact you when I was feeling … different, less attached. But also I was afraid that when I finally contacted you, you wouldn’t respond. Believe me, Catherine, there were so many times these last two years when I wanted to call you and almost did and I … but, in your heart of hearts do you really think … just because I lost it once with you. You know what happened … it was only because I just couldn’t stand to … lose you,” he garbled. “And I stopped almost as soon as I started.

“But here’s the other thing, the more important thing. I am pretty positive this guy, Prozzo, is the father of somebody I dated very briefly at Saint Mike’s. A girl named Stephanie Prozzo, who was not all there. There’s a lot more of that story to tell. I’ll explain to you when we talk. But please, please call me as soon as you possibly can.”

TWENTY-ONE

B
RECK ARRIVED HOME
ten minutes later, burdened with plastic sheaths containing dry-cleaned suits and dark dresses, most of which I assumed belonged to Violet. She found me sitting practically catatonic at the kitchen table. She left the hangers up on the inside knob of the kitchen door, came in, and stood before me.

“You look freaked out.” I relayed the message I’d received from Matthew. She asked if I’d actually spoken to him and I shook my head.