Damaged (23 page)

Tuesday, May 15, 8:00 p.m.

E
than walked casually down Agricola Street, his eyes skimming the doorways and alleys. The old north end street was lined with buildings that had gone from being elegant and proud a century ago to derelict and forgotten. But the street was on an upswing. In the past five years, interior design and antique furniture businesses had “rediscovered” Agricola. New paint in updated historic colors picked out the beautiful Victorian trim on the houses. During the day, the street didn’t look half-bad.

At night, it was a different story. The trendy businesses hadn’t been successful in doing away with the some of the more established enterprises. When dusk fell, crack whores and pimps crawled out of the woodwork.

He strode toward a pair of women, one black, one white, both stoned. They were leaning against a wrought-iron railing in front of a weed-filled yard. A derelict rooming house loomed above them.

“Want somethin’, hon?” one of the women called out.

He stopped in front of them. “’Evenin’, ladies,” he said.

The black woman shimmied forward. She seemed less
stoned than the white girl, who looked barely sixteen and was so out of it that Ethan wondered how she remained standing.

He fished around in his pocket. The black woman smiled encouragingly. “Fifty for a blow, a hunred for anythin’ else.”

There was an edge of desperation in her gaze that made Ethan want to take her away someplace safe. God only knew what she was willing to do for a hundred bucks. “Not tonight, hon.” He smiled to take the sting away.

She stepped back, tottering in her latex stiletto boots. Her gaze flickered over him. “You’re a cop.”

“Yeah.” He pulled out a photo. “You seen him ’round?” It was a mug shot of Mark “the Shark” Arnold.

The prostitute barely glanced at the picture. “Nah.” She stepped back against the railing and began scanning the street for possibilities. Ethan pocketed the photo. “Do you know where Shonda is?” he asked.

She jerked her chin toward the corner.

“Thanks.” He slid his hands into his jacket pockets and headed down the street. The day had been clear, but fog was moving in. He wanted to find Shonda before it became hard to see.

A girl stood with her back to him, talking to a prostitute. The woman glanced over the girl’s shoulder, said something hurriedly under her breath and left.

The girl stuffed a bag in her pocket and began to walk down the street. Ethan hurried after her.

“Shonda,” he called her name softly. He didn’t want to scare her away.

She quickened her pace. He broke into a light jog. “Shonda! I just want to talk. That’s all.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze was cool, direct. Ethan was relieved. She wasn’t high. He might get some information from her.

He fell into step next to her. “You’re Shonda, right?”

She nodded.

He smiled. “I’m Ethan.” They walked past a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

She stopped in front of him. “I already spoke to the cops.”

“I know. We just have a few more questions.”

She crossed her arms. “What about?”

“About the guy who killed your friend Lisa.”

“Yeah?”

He’d got her attention. Hopefully, he’d get the truth with it.

“You were the last person to see Lisa alive. Did you see anyone pick her up that night?”

She shook her head. “I already told the cops I didn’t.”

“What about Krissie Burns?”

She chewed her lower lip. Ethan noticed that her teeth were large and very white. “I didn’t see her at all last weekend.”

“And Karen?”

She shrugged. “She disappeared. We thought she was out west.”

“So you never saw anyone pick up these girls?” Ethan tried to contain his frustration. How could the killer pick off his victims and no one notice him?

“The only time I ever saw anyone pick up someone was with Vangie.”

Vangie? The name was familiar. “What was her last name?”

Shonda pulled at her lip. “White. I mean, Wright.”

Vangie Wright.

Suddenly he heard Kate’s voice:
“There was another girl. Her name was Vangie Wright. She’s still missing. But
the police told Shonda that she took so long to file the report she’d be hard to track down.”

He remembered passing this information on to Ferguson. Had she given it to Vicky?

Could Vangie Wright be their still-unidentified victim number three?

Vangie Wright went missing a year and a half ago, if he remembered Kate’s information correctly. But victim number three’s body wasn’t decomposed. She’d been killed recently.

The killer could have held her captive for months and then butchered her.

He breathed out slowly. “Tell me what she looked like.”

“Real tiny, like a bird.”

This did not sound like their latest girl. “How old was she?”

Shonda shrugged. “’Bout thirty. But she looked like an old bag.”

This definitely wasn’t the newest victim. “Tell me about Vangie. What happened to her?”

“She went off in a car with some guy and disappeared.”

Ethan searched her eyes. They were bloodshot but clear. She was telling the truth.

“When was this?”

She frowned. “A coupla years ago?”

He pulled out the photo of Mark Arnold, although he hadn’t been released from prison when Vangie Wright went missing. “Did the guy who picked up Vangie look like this?”

She shook her head. “Nah.” She chewed her lip. Finally she said, “I dunno. I never saw the guy. He just pulled over and Vangie got in the car with him. They drove off.”

“What did the car look like?”

“I dunno.” She squinted off beyond Ethan’s shoulder for a minute. “It was just a car, ya know?”

“Big, small, hatchback, sedan?”

“Medium. I guess a sedan?”

“Do you remember the color?”

She gazed past him for another second. “It was a dark night, kinda drizzly. All I remember is that the car was shiny.”

“Metallic shiny?”

“Yeah.”

“Gold, silver?”

“Dunno.” She pulled at her lip. “Silver, I think.”

Ethan put the photo of Arnold back in his jacket and gave Shonda his card. “If you see your friend Vangie again, or if you remember anything else, call me.”

She nodded. Ethan was reassured to see her slip his card into her back pocket. “Ya think Vangie got knocked off by this guy?”

“Hard to say.” His gaze sought Shonda’s. She looked so young and yet so old. “If you see the car again, call the cops right away, you hear me?”

“Yeah.” She studied Ethan. “Besides that lawyer, you’re the only one who seems to give a shit ’bout Vange.”

“What lawyer?”

“Kate somebody.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “I thought she was gonna figure out what happened to Vange.” She shrugged. “But she passed it on to the cops.”

He smothered his surprise. So Kate had listened to his concerns. “I’m gonna look into it.” As an afterthought, he added, “Has anyone else approached you about Lisa?”

She shrugged. “Just a friend of hers.”

Jesus. “A friend?”

“Yeah. A blond guy. He had a couple of dogs with him. I think he walks them or somethin’.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember his name. But I saw him at Lisa’s funeral.”

His mind raced. A blond guy at Lisa’s funeral? He re
membered a fair-haired man, edging his way toward Kate when she was fainting. “If you remember his name or if he comes around again, call me.” He felt a stirring of alarm for this too-old kid. “Don’t talk to him, okay? And in the meantime, keep an eye out for yourself.”

She hunched her shoulders. “Yeah, like you care.”

He watched her go up the street and disappear into a house. Time for another hit.

He walked back to his car. His gut was churning big-time. It was either a sign he’d had too much pizza or he was on to something.

His cell rang.

“Drake here.”

“Ethan? It’s Deb. We ID’d our girl.” Ferguson’s voice sounded perturbed.

“Yeah?” He switched on the ignition. The car rumbled to life.

“You better come down.”

Tuesday, May 15, 9:00 p.m.

K
ate put the vacuum back into the closet and leaned against the door. She was so tired she could barely move.

But the house was clean.

Boy, was it clean.

Once Finn left, she had wolfed down her dinner. The terror she’d felt in the closet had given her a new appreciation for life. It filled her with restless energy.

She washed the dishes, tidied up the rest of the mess in the kitchen, scrubbed the floors and vacuumed round one of Alaska’s shedding.

While her body worked, her mind sifted through the layers of intrigue that had suddenly been revealed. John Lyons had blown all of her previous assumptions about her position in LMB out of the water. She’d been stunned initially, as if she had bitten into a cake she’d been craving and discovered it was full of pepper.

But then it became abundantly clear that John Lyons knew something about TransTissue that he didn’t want her to find. It was the only explanation she could come up with. Why else would he settle a case that could clear his client’s
reputation? Why else had he been deliberately obtuse about her efforts to trace the supply chain of tissue?

She had the sinking feeling he hadn’t expected her to do that. That her initiative, her smarts, had surprised him.

Was that why he’d given her the case? Because he thought she wouldn’t dig deep enough?

Was that why he hired her?

She straightened.

She needed to find out what was going on. If Brad Gallivant and Denise Rogers had in fact been infected by contaminated tissue from TransTissue, there could be any number of people also infected by tissue products that TransTissue hadn’t screened properly.

The implications of this were far-reaching. Alarming. Much bigger than a lone bad batch of product. Under normal circumstances the first person she should call would be the firm’s managing partner.

But Randall Barrett had shown he was capable of deception.

Who knew, he could be in on whatever this was.

And there wasn’t anyone else at LMB she could trust. She was the outsider. Everything would get back to the senior partners.

If she was going to get to the bottom of this, she needed to do it on her own. Pretend that she bought John’s story lock, stock and barrel, while gathering enough information to notify the authorities.

At this point, all she knew—rather, all she
suspected
—was that John was covering up something. She didn’t know what, if anything, TransTissue was covering up. It would be a breach of her fiduciary duty to her client to jump the gun until she had more proof than five identical viral-screening reports.

What kind of proof she was looking for, she didn’t know. But she had a feeling that TransTissue’s tissue supplier might have that answer.

“Who is she?” Ethan asked. He strode toward the group of detectives clustered around the boardroom table.

Ferguson turned. The strain of the investigation was showing. Her freckles stretched across her cheekbones. “Her name was Sara Harper.” She stepped around the group and waved him over to the other end of the table. “I’ve just finished briefing the team. I’ll give you an update.”

He leaned a hip against the table. “Who ID’d her?”

“Her parents.” Ferguson’s gaze flickered to Lamond. The constable was sitting at the other end of the table, by himself. Telling the parents that their daughter had fallen prey to a sick and savage killer—one that they had failed to catch after two victims—would be something that would probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

“So what’s the story on her?” Ethan pulled out his notepad.

Ferguson flipped open a file on the table. “She’s from Montana. She was doing summer courses at Hollis U.”

Ethan’s brows rose. Not the killer’s usual victim. No wonder Ferguson looked stressed. A different victim typology was like a mutating virus. They wouldn’t know where the killer would strike next.

“So how’d he get to her?”

“She went downtown with her girlfriend. The girlfriend hooked up with some guy, and she was left to go home on her own. She didn’t have much money so she walked.”

“Shit.” He could picture this all too easily. A struggling student spends her cash on a few drinks, then discovers her friend has made other plans. “Why wasn’t she reported missing earlier?”

“The parents were away in Europe, and the victim had planned to go to Toronto the next day—hence the reason she was saving her money—so her friends assumed she’d gone.” Ferguson shrugged. “She lived alone. A perfect storm.”

“Tell me about it. Where’d she get picked up?”

“She was caught on video surveillance walking down Barrington. She lived on Fenwick. We think she was picked up on the south end of Morris.”

Close to the granary. And the cemetery. Ethan drained his coffee. “How’d he kill her?”

“Same way. He drugged her, then strangled her.”

“Any signs of sexual assault?”

“No.”

“So his M.O. is the same except for the victim?”

“Yeah. He seems to be getting a little sloppier. The victim wasn’t laid out as straight as the last time. Looked like he was in a hurry.”

A tingle of excitement ran through him. This was good news. He peered over Ferguson’s shoulder at the M.E. report she had in her hand.

“Any trace on the body?”

“A fiber in her hair.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Ferguson put down the report. “The lab says it matches the one found on Lisa MacAdam. Probably car seat fiber.”

“So he killed them in the car, and then took them somewhere else to cut them up.”

“Just like the others.” She pushed her hair back. It was lank. Like everyone on the team, no one was getting home. “What’s your status?”

“I finished tracking down Arnold. I spoke with Judge Carson—she just got appointed to the Supreme Court—”

Ferguson gave a low whistle.

“She says Arnold threatened her fifteen years ago. She hasn’t heard anything from him since.”

“So is he the type to stalk quietly or does he need the attention?” Ferguson’s gray-green eyes probed Ethan’s.

“He killed his girlfriend in a fit of passion. He’s not the type to plan this all out.”

“Have you located him?”

That’s where things didn’t look too good for Arnold. “He’s disappeared.”

Ferguson raised a brow. “We need to track him down.”

“I’ve alerted the other jurisdictions. There’s a warrant out for him already.” He leaned forward. “Listen, did Vicky get back to you about that missing prostitute? Name’s Vangie Wright.”

“Not much to it,” Ferguson said briskly. “Her friend filed a missing persons report months after she went missing. Her trail was cold. Vicky did a cross-jurisdictional check for the past five years and no one’s seen her. She checked the prisons. No sign of her in the past two years. She’s got a request in with Cold Case. As well, she called Vangie Wright’s sister, who told her she was really heavy into crack before she disappeared. And that she’d been diagnosed with some kind of illness that affects the brain.” She shrugged. “She was a sick, heavily addicted crack whore from the sounds of it. She probably OD’d somewhere. But just in case, Vicky’s put a call into the rehab centers and the loony wards.”

“I don’t know.” Ethan rocked back on his heels. “I don’t think Vangie Wright’s in some ward.”

Ferguson’s gaze sharpened. “Why do you say that?”

“I took Arnold’s mug shot to that drug dealing buddy
of Lisa MacAdam’s—” He could see the girl’s face perfectly in his head but her name just wouldn’t come to him. That’s what a week of no sleep did to you. He flipped open his notepad and searched for the name. “Shonda Bryant. That’s her street name. Found her on Agricola Street selling dope. She hadn’t seen Arnold around.” His eyes met Ferguson’s. “Confirms our suspicions about him. She said she saw Vangie Wright being picked up by a john in a silver sedan—but that was before Arnold was released. It was the last time Vangie Wright was seen.”

“She never put that in the missing persons report.”

“She’s an addict, too, Deb. She probably didn’t remember.”

“So she’s not a reliable witness.”

“No…but I think she’s telling the truth.”

“Why?”

Ethan shrugged. “She has no reason not to.”

Ferguson pressed her lips together. Finally, she said, “Fine. We’ve got so little to go with right now, we can’t ignore this.” She straightened and stepped back from the table. Looking around the room, she announced: “All right, everyone, we’ve got a new lead.”

Lamond and Walker came over. “Is it Arnold?”

Ferguson shook her head. “No, Arnold isn’t a contender. He’s gone AWOL so we’ve got a warrant out for him, but that’s not the lead.” She shot a look at Ethan. “Tell them.”

“We think that Krissie Burns wasn’t the killer’s first victim.”

Walker exchanged glances with Lamond. Ethan read the look. More bad news.

“There was another prostitute who went missing two years ago. She was picked up by a guy in a silver sedan and never seen again.” The detectives began making notes.
“She could be the first victim—or there could have been more before her.” Ethan shrugged. “But she fits the typology: prostitute, same geographic area, same network of friends. We need to find her body.”

Ferguson picked up her clipboard. “Lamond, get the lab on the phone and see if we can match the fiber to a silver sedan model, at least two years old. Walker, liaise with Vicky and get all her reports on this woman. Redding, I want you to go over the surveillance footage from the funeral and see if we can get a match on the car.”

The detectives began writing down their tasks. “Ethan.” Ferguson tapped the M.E.’s report with her fingernail. “We need to find the kill site. That’s the key to this.”

Adrenaline surged through him. This was the action he’d been craving. “The M.E. thinks that the killer has some specialized skill with dismemberment.” He glanced around, a smile tugging his lips. “Anyone got plans to go under the knife?”

“Walker needs a boob job.” Lamond smirked, reaching over and squeezing Walker’s pec. Ethan bit back a snort. Walker was a body builder and he was always bragging that his pecs looked like the Rock’s.

“Hey, don’t knock ’em. The ladies love the look.” Walker flexed his chest and threw Lamond a dirty look. “At least I don’t need brain surgery.”

“You’ll both be getting lobotomies if you don’t stop,” Ferguson said briskly. They were feeble jokes, but everyone smiled. It helped ease the strain of the past few weeks. “Ethan, you’re on the right track. I want you to go to the hospitals and check out the surgeons. See if there’s been anything going on. Lamond, when you finish talking to the lab, you go with him to assist.”

Ethan slipped his notebook back in his pocket. He tried to keep the elation from his face. He was back in action.

He couldn’t wait to find out what those surgeons were up to. Scrub gowns could hide a multitude of sins.