Fear Nothing (28 page)

“There are dishes for two in the sink,” D.D. reported. “As if Janet shared refreshments with a guest beforehand. Fig Newtons.”

Alex grimaced.

“Chances are, Janet Sgarzi never felt a thing,” Alex said quietly. “Compared to what the cancer was doing to her body, perhaps you could argue this was . . . easier. At least, a less painful way to die. And yet . . .”

He stepped back, revealing the oversize, metal-framed hospital bed. And despite herself, D.D. gasped.

Postmortem, she reminded herself. Postmortem, postmortem, postmortem. And yet, as Alex had said, it didn’t help.

True to the first two crime scenes, the Rose Killer had flayed the skin from Janet Sgarzi’s torso and upper thighs. Unlike the first two victims, however, young, relatively healthy females, Janet had already been wasting away from a terrible disease. She’d been nothing but skin and bones. Meaning once the killer had removed the skin . . .

D.D. put a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t help herself. As crime scenes went, this one would leave a mark.

“There are hesitation marks,” Alex said.

“What?”

“Along the edge of her outer thigh, and ribs. You can see . . . The skin is jagged, not evenly sliced. Third time out, a killer should have less internal resistance. He/she should be growing even more adept and elaborate with his handiwork. Instead, our killer struggled with this one.”

“Her age?” D.D. guessed. “Harder to attack an elderly woman?”

“No fur-lined handcuffs,” Alex said. “Which are the most blatantly sexual objects left behind at each scene. If we’re thinking a female killer obsessed with attacking young women in order to collect ribbons of unblemished skin—”

“An elderly woman doesn’t fit. She’s not the Rose Killer’s type. Are we even sure this is the Rose Killer’s handiwork and not a copycat crime?”

“Yes,” Alex said.

“But the hesitation marks, lack of restraints—”

“Janet Sgarzi is his third victim,” Alex interrupted her. “One hundred and fifty-three, D.D. That’s what I’ve been doing. Counting flayed strips of human flesh. And I hope to God I never have to do that ever again in my lifetime, but it did yield the magic number: one hundred and fifty-three ribbons of skin.”

D.D. didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t swallow, much less talk. No wonder Alex had appeared so . . . somber. Of all the scenes he’d ever had to analyze . . .

“I’m sorry,” she said at last.

“Janet Sgarzi was the Rose Killer’s victim,” Alex continued steadily. “She wasn’t, however, the killer’s preferred victim type. Meaning something else must have made her a target.”

“Charlie Sgarzi believes Shana Day did this,” D.D. supplied. “She ordered the Rose Killer to murder his mother to get back at him for investigating her. Or maybe to warn him off, in which case, I don’t think it worked, because he’s mostly vowed revenge.”

“Or she knew something,” Alex said.

“What do you mean?”

“Shana Day has been quietly sitting in solitary for nearly thirty years, yes?”

“True.”

“And now, suddenly, you believe she’s engaged in some kind of coded communication with a serial killer who’s magically appeared in Boston and seems to be emulating another long-dead predator, Harry Day.”

“True.”

“Except, returning to the question of the day, why now? What’s the inciting event? The thirty-year anniversary of Donnie Johnson’s murder? Because that seems rather arbitrary as anniversary dates go.”

D.D. gave him a look. “We discussed this. And trust me, you doubted my intelligence just fine the first time.”

“I’m not doubting your intelligence. I’m offering a theory. Janet Sgarzi wasn’t just Donnie Johnson’s aunt; she was Charlie’s mom—the reporter who, only a matter of months ago, started asking fresh questions about his cousin’s death.”

D.D. looked up at him, frowning. “You mean . . .”

“A thirty-year anniversary date is subjective. Reopening an investigation into an old murder, on the other hand . . . What if Shana really does have a friend from back in the day? And what if that person knows things, or did things, that all these years later, he/she/it still can’t afford to come to light?”

“The Rose Killer’s true motive isn’t a macabre string of murders deliberately staged to recall shades of Harry Day,” D.D. murmured. “It’s a cover-up. Because there’s no statute of limitations on homicide. Pat’s still got everything to lose.”

“And one very real weakness,” Alex offered grimly. “Shana Day.”

Chapter 24

S
UPERINTENDENT
M
C
K
INNON CALLED
just after 6:00
A.M.
Having yet to fall asleep, I found it easy enough to pick up the phone, then murmur the appropriate words as McKinnon explained that my sister wanted to speak with me. But of course, I said. I could be there at eight.

Then I hung up the phone and crawled out of the depths of my closet, where I’d spent the night after D. D. Warren’s phone call notifying me of the Rose Killer’s latest attack. I spent long minutes under the stinging spray of a lukewarm shower. I still didn’t feel quite human.

What to wear for this latest battle of wits? I went with the fuchsia cardigan. It seemed the obvious choice. It felt that for years my sister and I had been engaged in a dance. One step forward, one step back, swaying side to side. The music was changing now. Speeding up, moving toward a pounding crescendo, where, at the end, only one of us would be left standing.

I contemplated checking in with D.D. or Detective Phil as I drove south to the MCI. But I didn’t. I already knew what I would say to Shana, what I had to do. And when it came to my sister, I was the expert. It was only appropriate that I should be the one calling the shots.

I entered the sterile, gray shaded lobby. Showed proper ID, then checked my purse into an available locker. I went through the tasks on autopilot, a ritual I’d performed too often lately. If my sister was the one who had committed the crime, then why did I feel like the one who was spending all of her time in prison?

Superintendent McKinnon was already waiting for me. She escorted me through security, down a back hall, her low-slung black heels clicking briskly.

“No BPD?” she asked.

“The day is young. How is Shana?”

“Same old, same old. That reporter, Charlie Sgarzi . . . Paper says his mother was murdered last night. Latest victim of the Rose Killer.”

“So I’m told.”

“You think Shana’s involved, don’t you?” The superintendent stopped walking, turning abruptly, arms crossed over her chest. Dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit, hair pulled tight, high, sculpted cheekbones pronounced, her intimidating look worked well for her. “I called an emergency meeting of my COs yesterday. Demanded to know if any of them had caught so much as a whiff of Shana communicating with anyone inside or outside of the prison. According to them, there’s no way, no how. Least they haven’t suspected a thing.”

I kept my voice neutral. “Not the kind of thing the guilty party would admit to, though. As you mentioned yesterday, if a corrections officer is the one serving as the messenger, it would be for a price.”

“Except no price is high enough to help your sister. She’s killed two of our own. Behind these walls, that kind of thing is taken personally.”

“Are you sure? Those killings happened a long time ago, before many of your current COs started working here. For that matter, before you came here.”

McKinnon stared at me, gaze hard. “What are you getting at, Adeline?”

“Shana hasn’t had any new visitors. And according to you, she definitely hasn’t been engaging in any outside communication. Which makes me wonder if that simply means she doesn’t have to: Her new friend isn’t from outside these walls. Her new friend is already on the inside. Inmate. Corrections officer. Staff.”

McKinnon didn’t speak right away. When she did, her words were clipped. “You suspect me in that list? I fall under staff? Because to be fair, I have to include you in that list. You’re not a new visitor, and yet you’re here often enough. The kind of regular all of us are so used to seeing, sometimes I bet we don’t even notice you.”

“Why are you letting Shana and me talk?” I asked. “We’re way over our monthly allotment. Yet she made the request and you allowed it.”

The superintendent frowned, appearing troubled again. “I want to know what’s going on,” she said. “Yesterday . . . Shana convinced me. I don’t know how, but in some way, she’s connected to these murders. The question remains: Is Shana some criminal mastermind, ordering murders from the solitude of her cell? Or is she simply laughing at our expense, creating a macabre game where now I suspect you and you suspect me, and the BPD probably suspects both of us. I need to know what’s going on, Adeline. As the superintendent of this prison, hell, as a supposedly intelligent woman who used to sleep at night, I want to know what’s really happening in my facility. Now, I expect the Boston detectives will visit again soon enough to press the matter. But, all suspicions aside, my money’s on you. If anyone gets the truth out of Shana, it’s going to be you.”

We resumed walking, not toward the visiting room Shana and I usually shared, but toward the interview room used last time by the Boston detectives. Apparently, Superintendent McKinnon planned on listening in. All part of her pursuit of truth? Or to make sure Shana didn’t reveal too much?

And me? What did I want, think, feel about all of this?

McKinnon was right. We were all twisted up. Jumping at shadows, suspecting everyone, frightened of everything.

I thought of what Charlie Sgarzi had said just the other day. I couldn’t feel pain, meaning what did I have to fear?

I remembered my disposal project yesterday. The way I had flushed strings of human flesh down a public toilet. The way three had floated back to the top, mocking me.

And I realized, for the first time in my life, I had never been so afraid.

Once again, Shana was already waiting inside the room, shackled hands resting on the edge of the table. She glanced up as I walked in, dark eyes lasering in on my fuchsia top, and I suffered my first moment of uncertainty.

My sister didn’t appear anything like I’d expected.

Her face was gaunt; if anything, even paler than yesterday, with deep bruises under her eyes. As if she had yet to sleep, her shoulders bunched with tension.

I’d imagined a gloating Shana, smug in her newfound powers that enabled her to meet with police officers and myself at the snap of her fingers. Her prediction had come true, and now here I was, answering her summons, while waiting for her to dictate her terms.

Instead, if I didn’t know better, I would say my sister appeared deeply stressed. Her gaze went from my cardigan to the one-way viewing glass.

“Who’s there?” she asked sharply.

I hesitated. “Superintendent McKinnon.”

“What about Detective Phil?”

“Did you want to speak with him?”

“No. Just you.”

I nodded, crossed to the tiny Formica table, took a seat.

“I suppose you’ve heard that the Rose Killer murdered another woman last night?”

Shana didn’t say a word.

“Flayed one hundred and fifty-three strips of skin from her cancer-ravaged body. Must’ve been hard to do. Some of those treatments leave a person’s skin so thin and translucent, it’s like the skin of an onion. Difficult to remove without tearing.”

She didn’t say a word.

“How are you doing it?” I asked at last.

She looked away from me, lips pressed firmly into a thin line, eyes locked on the wall behind my head.

“One hundred and fifty-three,” I said lightly. “The number of pieces of skin our father collected forty years ago. The number of strips the Rose Killer leaves behind now. Proof that you really are exchanging notes with a killer? Feeding him information about our father? Does it feel the same, Shana, to kill long-distance? Or is it not as good as you imagined? You’re still the one sitting here, and your puppet is the one out there, actually gripping the blade, smelling the blood.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered at last.

“Really? I’m wearing your favorite-color sweater.”

A muscle flexed in her jaw. She glared at me, and I could see for the first time just how enraged she truly was. But she’d stopped speaking again.

I leaned back. Rested my hands on my lap. Studied the woman who was my sister.

Prison-orange scrubs today. A color that jaundiced her complexion, further washed out her skin. Her hair still appeared lank and unwashed. Or maybe it was simply the best she could do given the notoriously low water pressure in the prison showers.

A hard woman. With a thin, sinewy build like our father. I bet she worked out in her cell. Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, plank exercises. Plenty of ways to keep strong in an eight-by-eleven-foot space. It showed in the harsh lines of her face, the gaunt hollows of her cheeks. All these years later, she’d not allowed herself to go soft or fatten up on processed prison food.

All these years later, she was still waiting.

Somehow, someway, for this very day.

“No,” I said.

“No what?”

“No to whatever it is you’re asking for. No to any deals, negotiations or exchanges of information. If you are in communication with the Rose Killer, if you have knowledge that would help catch a murderer, then volunteer it. That’s what people do. It’s called being a member of the human race.”

Shana finally looked at me. Her brown eyes were hooded, hard to read.

“You didn’t come all the way down here to tell me no,” she said flatly. “No is a phone call, not a personal visit. And you’ve never been one to waste your time, Adeline.”

“I came because I have a question for you.”

“So now you’re the one who’s going to negotiate?”

“No. I’m going to ask. Answer or don’t answer as you’d like. When did Daddy first cut you?”

“I don’t remember.” Her words were too automatic. I already didn’t believe her.

“When did he first cut me?”

Now she smirked. “Didn’t. You were just a
baby.
”