Fear Nothing (27 page)

Go, go, go, I instructed my suddenly frozen muscles. Move!

Back outside into the bitter night. Nearly fleeing to my car, where I put it in gear and raced out of the parking lot. Two, three, four blocks down before I got my breathing under control and forced myself to focus.

Grocery stores had security cameras to protect against shoplifting. I hadn’t taken anything illegally; ergo, I had nothing to fear. In fact, I’d dumped glass into glass recycling, so I
really
hadn’t done anything wrong.

Just go home, I ordered myself. It had been a long and trying day, dealing with my sister, the riddle of 153 and the terrible possibilities that now loomed ahead.

But time was on our side. The Rose Killer had struck only two days prior. Given the cycle of six weeks between first and second victim, odds were the police had at least another month before the killer attacked again. Plenty of time to figure out the best way for handling Shana and her manipulative games.

Plenty of time for me to get my head on straight.

Nine
P.M.
Finally entering my condo, where I dropped various shopping bags on the floor.

I walked straight into my bedroom. Turned on a lone bedside lamp. Stripped off my clothes.

Then moved into my closet, where I curled up on the floor, huddled in the pitch black, arms wrapped tight around my knees, as I gazed at the faint sliver of light formed along the edge of the door.

And finally succumbed to wave after wave of nameless fear.

How would you feel? What would you do? If you woke up in the middle of the night and found a killer standing in the middle of your bedroom?

“Daddy,” I whispered.

While out in the bedroom, my phone began to ring.

Chapter 23

C
HARLIE
S
GARZI LOOKED DESTROYED
. Set jaw, obstinate chin, solid shoulders, all gone. Instead, he sat on his mother’s sofa, a gutted version of his former self, and regarded D.D. and Phil with red-rimmed eyes.

“You don’t understand,” he said thickly. “She never opened her door without first checking the peephole. And she sure as hell wouldn’t let a stranger into the house. Even in broad daylight. When do you think my cousin was killed?”

D.D. nodded. She remembered Sgarzi having said that his mother basically lived as a shut-in.

And yet, sometime roughly between two and four this afternoon, according to the ME’s initial assessment, the Rose Killer had entered Janet Sgarzi’s home. At which point the killer had drugged Charlie’s ninety-pound cancer-ravaged elderly mother, carried her to a back bedroom and proceeded according to plan.

Charlie had discovered the scene shortly after seven, when he’d shown up at the house with dinner. Having Phil’s card from their earlier discussion, he’d dialed the older detective direct. In turn, Phil had summoned Alex to assist with the crime scene analysis and D.D. to serve as an “independent consultant.”

They’d been driving to Alex’s parents’ house to pick up Jack. Instead, they’d turned around, notifying his understanding parents as they’d headed straight to the Rose Killer’s latest crime scene. A tiny, perfectly appointed home in South Boston that reeked of old memories and fresh blood.

“It’s possible the killer poses as a security company employee, pest control, etcetera,” Phil said. “Would your mother have opened her door for a deliveryman, that kind of thing?”

“Why hasn’t that been in the paper?” Sgarzi exploded.

“Because we haven’t found any witnesses to corroborate our theory,” Phil supplied gently. “Right now, it’s just our best guess based on the ease with which the suspect is accessing his victims’ homes. You say your mother was cautious—”

“Yes!”

“Could she have been asleep in the middle of the afternoon?”

“She naps, yeah. Hell, she’s getting near the end now. More bad days than good and nothing the doctors can do . . . I mean, could’ve done. Ah geez. I need a fucking minute, okay?”

The tiny front parlor allowed little space for privacy. Sgarzi stalked over to the fireplace and stood staring at the mantel.

The house reminded D.D. of Sgarzi’s apartment. Small but well kept. Freshly dusted surfaces, vacuumed rugs. She wondered if Janet still maintained her own home or if it was something Sgarzi did for his mom. Most likely the latter, given the woman’s drastically declining health. Just like Sgarzi had brought his mother dinner tonight. Soup from one of her favorite local restaurants, he’d said, as swallowing solid foods was becoming increasingly difficult.

D.D. couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like to walk through the door, call his ailing mother’s name and receive no reply. Then, already starting to worry, moving to the back bedroom, only to discover his deepest, darkest fears had never been deep enough or dark enough to picture what he’d found there.

Now Sgarzi’s hands clenched and unclenched spastically down by his sides. D.D. wondered if he was going to punch the brick fireplace or drive his fist through the aged yellow drywall. With obvious effort, the reporter seemed to pull himself together. One last shudder, then he turned, staring at them with a haggard expression.

“Shana Day did this,” he stated, jabbing the air with one finger.

“Now, Charlie,” Phil began.

“Don’t ‘now, Charlie’ me. I’m onto her, and she knows it. I thought I was just sifting through old dirt when I started asking questions about her. Except first thing I learned is that she’s got eyes and ears beyond prison walls. And now she’s using them. Got herself a little killer puppet who can do all the work out here, while Shana sits in her cell pulling the strings. Perfect alibi, right? Shana couldn’t have killed my mother; she’s already locked up! But she did it. She slaughtered my mom to get back at me, and worse, she’s laughing her ass off because she knows there’s nothing you can do about it. This is what thirty years of incarceration has taught her—how to perfect her own goddamn crime.”

“Would your mother have opened the door for a deliveryman?” Phil asked again.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Does she have a home security system?” D.D. spoke up.

“Yeah, the house is alarmed.”

“Cameras?”

“No. Just wired the doors and windows.”

“Name of the company?”

Sgarzi supplied it; Phil wrote it down.

“Did your mother mention noticing anyone new in the neighborhood? A stranger she’d spotted lurking around? New tenant on the block?”

“No.”

“Feeling as if she was being watched?” Phil asked.

“My mom didn’t leave the house and kept the blinds down. How the hell could anyone watch her?”

Fair enough, D.D. thought. “What about a visiting nurse, some other kind of health professional?” she spoke up.

“Yeah. Twice a week, Nurse Eliot. My mom needed more help, course, but that’s all we could afford.”

“Nurse Eliot? Male, female?”

“Older woman. Nice enough. My mom liked her.”

“And it was always the same nurse?”

“Most of the time. But if Nurse Eliot couldn’t make it, they’d send someone else. But they always called and notified us ahead of time. Besides, Nurse Eliot worked Tuesdays and Fridays, so no one was due to show up until tomorrow. Did the neighbors see anything?” Sgarzi jumped ahead. “I mean, the guy would’ve had to stand on the front porch, in full view of the street. . . .”

“We’re canvassing now,” Phil assured him, voice still soft.

“Which means you got nothing!” Sgarzi accused. “One of your plainclothes had anything good, you’d have heard it by now. Son of a bitch!”

He whirled back around, returned to staring at the fireplace.

“You said you brought food back for your mom,” D.D. said. “What about lunch?”

“She does one of those nutritional drinks for lunch. Ensure, something like that.”

D.D. eyed the reporter’s back. “What about midafternoon snack? Because there are two plates and glasses in the sink.”

“What?”

Sgarzi turned around again, eyes wide. Before they could stop him, he barreled past them, into the kitchen.

“Don’t touch anything!” Phil’s voice boomed behind him.

The reporter’s arm froze right where he was already reaching into the stainless steel sink for the first glass.

“Evidence,” D.D. chimed in more directly.

Sgarzi returned his arm to his side. “She had a guest,” he said, and his voice sounded funny, almost confused.

“What do you mean?”

“Ma hasn’t eaten much in weeks. Side effects of the drugs, pain, who knows. I bring her dinner, she has a little breakfast, then one of those drinks for lunch. But two plates, two glasses. And these are her good plates. She brought them out for special occasions. You know, like a guest.”

“Charlie,” D.D. said quietly, “is it possible your mom knew who came to her door this afternoon? That’s why she let the person in?”

“I don’t know,” Sgarzi said, and his voice sounded dazed, far from his certainty of before.

“If she had a guest, what would she offer?” Phil asked.

“Fig Newtons. Tea and cookies, you know?” Sgarzi opened a cupboard, pulled out a yellow cellophane package. It appeared to have been freshly opened, with two cookies missing.

“Son of a bitch,” Charlie said again.

“We’re going to need a list of your mother’s friends and acquaintances,” Phil began.

“No, you don’t. My mother was dying of cancer. The people who knew her didn’t come here looking for cookies; they brought her food. This was a stranger guest, you know? The kind of person you’re still getting to know, putting your best foot forward, that kind of thing.” Sgarzi frowned down at the yellow package, as if the cookies could tell him something. “A friend of a friend would do it,” he murmured. “Someone who claimed to know me, or an old acquaintance returning to the neighborhood. Someone who knew Donnie,” he concluded abruptly. “Someone claiming to know something
about
Donnie.” He glanced at them. “She’d open her door for that person. Invite him in. Offer him refreshments on her nicest plates. She’d make an effort for someone who once knew Donnie. I’m telling you, Shana Day killed my mom. And you’re fucking idiots for not having stopped her sooner.”

D.D. didn’t bother with a reply. Lack of evidence to support his theory, due process, investigative 101—these were not topics that interested Charlie Sgarzi. What he really wanted was the one thing they’d never be able to give him—his mother back.

Phil got the man to return to the front parlor, while putting a crime scene tech to work fingerprinting the items in the sink, as well as everything else in the kitchen. Phil had just gotten Sgarzi started making a list of his mother’s friends and neighbors when Alex appeared.

He had a look on his face D.D. had never seen before; not just very grave but also deeply troubled. He made a gesture for her to follow him.

Not one word of warning. Not a single expression of encouragement.

Which was how D.D. knew it was going to be awful before she ever entered the room.

 • • • 

T
HE BACK BEDROOM WAS VERY TINY,
probably originally intended to be a rear study in the quaint Colonial-style house. Most likely the room had been converted when Janet Sgarzi’s health had deteriorated to the point she could no longer climb the stairs.

A single hospital-style bed with metal railings dominated most of the space, pushed up against the far wall and blocking what was probably a rear exit. Next to the bed was an old oak nightstand, topped with a pitcher of water, numerous orange pill bottles and, of course, a champagne bottle and a single red rose.

D.D. stared at the two items for a moment, because knowing what she was about to see didn’t make it any easier.

“No fur-lined handcuffs,” she murmured.

“No,” Alex said from beside her, where he currently blocked her view of the bed. The two of them were tucked tightly together, crammed into the remaining space in the room. For her to step forward, he would have to fall back, and vice versa. “There are some differences this time around,” he continued. “With both the victim and the MO. Though the differences in the MO may have to do with differences in the victim.”

“Start from the beginning?”

“The victim is sixty-eight-year-old Janet Sgarzi, lived alone, also in the end stages of cancer. The living-alone part is consistent with our victim profile. Her age and health, however, make her distinct. We’ve gone from a predator who targets relatively young single women, to the murder of an ailing elderly mother.”

“Daylight attack,” D.D. supplied. “Higher risk for our predator.”

“Yes. Pat is getting bolder. Then again, this particular victim had a reputation for caution and probably wouldn’t have answered her door after dark. Also, while she lived alone, sounds like Charlie often stayed over, given the state of Janet’s health. Meaning a nighttime attack might have actually proved riskier in this particular case.”

“The Rose Killer watched her first. Must have to account for all those variables.”

“Which we figured,” Alex said. “Pat does his or her homework, plans ahead. That’s why we can’t get a bead on him/her, even after four break-ins.”

“Four?”

“Three murders, plus our own home. Which was also midday.”

D.D. straightened. “Pat was practicing! I bet you anything the son of a bitch was practicing. Toying with us, yes, but also practicing! Pat had already selected the next victim, Janet Sgarzi, who would have to be approached during the day. So Pat worked on technique while scoping out and entering our house. Dammit!”

Alex placed a hand on her right shoulder. Not to soothe but to still her.

“D.D.,” he said, and there was a wealth of gravitas in that word.

Immediately, she fell silent.

“To continue our analysis,” he stated formally.

“Okay.”

“Pat plans ahead. In this case, the Rose Killer had to approach the victim during the day. Given the victim’s age and health, however, Pat probably wasn’t worried about overpowering her even if she was awake and fully conscious. Just to be safe, however, the killer appears to have brought a colorless, odorless and tasteless sedative; Ben recovered a vial from the trash can with traces of Rohypnol. Most likely, Pat drugged Janet Sgarzi first.”