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M
Y FATHER LOVED
old sayings. Among his favorites, Chance favors the prepared mind. Preparedness, in my father’s eyes, was everything. And he started to prepare me the minute we fled Massachusetts.

We started with Safety 101 for a seven-year-old. Never accept candy from a stranger. Never leave school with anyone, not even someone I know, unless he or she provides the correct password. Never get close to an approaching car. If the driver wants directions, send him to an adult. Looking for a lost puppy? Send him to the police.

Stranger appears in my room in the middle of the night? Yell, scream, bang on the walls. Sometimes, my father explained, when a child is deeply terrified, she finds it impossible to operate her vocal cords; hence, kick over furniture, throw a lamp, break small objects, blow on my red emergency whistle, do anything to make noise. I could destroy the entire house, my father promised me, and in that situation my parents would not be mad.

Fight, my father told me. Kick at kneecaps, gouge at eyes, bite at throat. Fight, fight, fight.

With age, my lessons grew more involved. Karate for skill. Track team for speed. Advanced safety tips. I learned to always lock the front door, even when at home in broad daylight. I learned to never answer the door without first looking through the peephole and to never acknowledge someone I didn’t know.

Walk with your head up, steps brisk. Make eye contact, but do not maintain. Enough for the other party to know you’re attuned to your surroundings, without calling undue attention to yourself. If I ever felt uncomfortable, I should catch up to the nearest group of people in front of me and follow in their wake.

If I was ever threatened in a public bathroom, yell “Fire;” people will respond to the threat of a fire before they’ll respond to cries of rape. If I was ever uncomfortable in a mall, run to the nearest female; women are more likely to take action than men, who often feel uncomfortable getting involved. If I was ever confronted by someone pointing a gun, make a run for it; even the most skilled sharpshooter had difficulty hitting a moving target.

Never leave the shelter of your home or workplace without having your car key in hand. Walk to your vehicle with the key protruding from between your curled fingers like a shank. Do not unlock the door if a stranger is standing behind you. Do not climb into the car without first checking the backseat. Once inside, keep the doors locked at all times; if you need air, a window may be cracked one inch.

My father did not believe in weapons; he had read that women were more likely to lose possession of their firearm and have it used against them. That’s why until the age of fourteen I wore a whistle around my neck for use in case of emergency and always carried mace.

That year, however, I knocked out my first opponent in a juniors sparring contest at the local gym. I had given up karate in favor of kickboxing, and it turned out I was quite good at it. The assembled crowd was horrified. The mother of the boy I flattened called me a monster.

My father took me out for ice cream and told me I’d done good. “Not that I’m condoning violence, mind you. But if you’re ever threatened, Cindy, don’t hold back. You’re strong, you’re fast, you have a fighter’s instinct. Hit first, question later. You can never be too prepared.”

My father entered me in more tournaments. Where I honed my skills, learned to focus my rage. I am fast. I am strong. I do have a fighter’s instinct. It all went well until I started winning too much, which of course garnered unwanted attention.

No more tournaments. No more life.

Eventually, I would throw the words back in my father’s face: “Prepared? What’s the use of being so prepared when all we ever do is run away!”

“Yes, sweetheart,” my father would explain tirelessly. “But we can run because we are so prepared.”

I
HEADED FOR
the Boston Police Department straight from my morning shift at Starbucks. Departing Faneuil Hall, I had only a one block walk to the T, where I could catch the Orange Line to Ruggles Street. I had done my homework the night before and dressed accordingly: low-slung, broken-down jeans, frayed cuffs dragging against the pavement. A thin chocolate-colored tank top layered over a black, tight-fitting long-sleeve cotton top. A multi-colored scarf of chocolate, black, white, pink, and blue tied around my waist. An oversize blue-flowered April Cornell bag slung over my shoulder.

I left my hair down, dark strands falling halfway to my waist, while giant silver hoops swung from my ears. I could, and had on occasion, pass as Hispanic. I thought that look might be safer for where I would be spending my afternoon.

State Street was hopping as usual. I tossed my token into the slot, breezed my way down the stairs to the wonderful, rich, urinal smell that accompanied any subway station. The crowd was typical Boston—black, Asian, Hispanic, white, rich, old, poor, professional, working-class, gangbanger, all milling about in a colorful urban tableau. Liberals loved this crap. Most of us simply wished we could win the lottery and buy ourselves a car.

I identified an elderly lady, moving slowly with a teenage granddaughter in tow. I stood next to them, just far enough away not to intrude, but close enough to seem part of the group. We all regarded the far wall studiously, everyone careful to avoid one another’s eyes.

When the subway car finally arrived, we pressed forward as one cohesive mass, squeezing into the metal tube. Then the doors shut with a
whoosh
and the car hurtled into the tunnels.

For this leg of the trip, there weren’t enough seats. I stood, holding a metal pole. A black kid wearing a red headband, oversize sweatshirt, and baggy jeans gave up his seat for the elderly woman. She told him thank you. He said nothing at all.

I shifted from side to side, eyes on the color-coded transit map above the door, while I did my subtle best to appraise the space.

Older Asian man, working-class, to my far right. Sitting, head down, shoulders slumped. Someone just trying to get through the day. The elderly woman had been given the seat next to him, her granddaughter standing guard. Then came four black male teens, wearing the official gangbangers’ uniform. Their shoulders swayed in rhythm with the subway car, as they sat, eyes on the floor, not saying a word.

Behind me a woman with two small kids. Woman appeared Hispanic, the six- and eight-year-old kids white. Probably a nanny, taking her young charges to the park.

Two teenage girls next to her, both decked out in urban chic, hair in braids, oversize diamond studs winking from their ears. I didn’t turn but pegged them as worth keeping on radar. Girls are more unpredictable than boys, thus more dangerous. Males posture; females have a tendency to get straight in your face, then when you don’t back down, start slashing away with concealed knives.

I wasn’t too worried about the girls, though; they were the known unknowns. It’s the unknown unknowns that can knock you on your ass.

The Ruggles Street stop arrived without incident. Doors opened, I departed. No one spared me a second glance.

I hefted my bag over my shoulder and headed for the stairs.

I’d never been to the new police headquarters in Roxbury. I’d only heard the stories of midnight shootings in the parking lot, of people being mugged outside the front doors. Apparently, the new location had been some political bid to gentrify Roxbury, or at least make it safer at night. From what I’d read online, it didn’t seem to be working.

I kept my bag tucked tight to my side and walked on the balls of my feet, ready for any sudden movement. The Ruggles Street station was large, crowded, and dank. I wove my way swiftly through the mass of humanity. Appear purposeful and focused. Just because you’re lost is no reason to look that way.

Outside the station, down a steep flight of stairs, I spotted the towering radio antennae to my right and took the hint. Just as I headed down the sidewalk, however, a sneering voice yelled from behind me, “Looking good, Taco! Wanna try a burrito with real meat?”

I turned, spotted a trio of African American boys, and flipped them off. They just laughed. The leader, who looked about thirteen, grabbed his crotch. Now it was my turn to laugh.

That took some of the thunder out of them. I twisted back around and headed up the street, footsteps calm and even. I clenched my hands into fists so they wouldn’t tremble.

BPD headquarters was hard to miss. For one thing, it was a vast, glass-and-metal structure plopped down in the middle of crumbling brown housing projects. For another, concrete barricades were positioned all around the front entrance, as if the building were actually located in downtown Baghdad. Homeland security, brought to every government building near you.

My footsteps faltered for the first time. Since I’d decided what I was going to do last night, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it. I’d planned. I’d acted. Now here I was.

I put my bag down. Drew out a corduroy blazer the color of milk chocolate and put it on, the best I could do to dress myself up. Not that it mattered. I had no proof. The detectives would simply believe me or not.

Inside, there was a line in front of the metal detector. The officer in charge demanded to see my driver’s license. He inspected my oversize bag. Then he looked me up and down in a manner that was supposed to inspire me to say, Yes, I’m secretly smuggling guns/bombs/drugs into police headquarters. I had nothing to say, so he let me through.

At the front desk, I drew out the newspaper article, checking once more for the detective’s name, though in all honesty, I knew it by heart.

“Is she expecting you?” the uniformed officer asked me with a stern frown. He was a hefty guy with a thick mustache. Immediately, I thought of Dennis Franz.

“No.”

Another up-and-down look. “You know, she’s busy these days.”

“Just tell her Annabelle Granger is here. She’ll want to know that.”

The officer must not follow the news much. He shrugged, picked up the phone, told someone my message. A few seconds passed. The officer’s look never changed. He merely shrugged again, set down the phone, and told me to wait.

Other people were in line, so I took my bag and drifted to the middle of the long, vaulted lobby. Someone had erected a special display documenting the history of the police department. I studied each photo, read the captions, walked up and down the exhibit.

Minute passed into minutes. My hands grew shakier. I thought I should run while I still had the chance. Then I thought maybe I’d feel better if I could just throw up.

Footsteps finally rang out.

A woman appeared, walked straight toward me. Slim-fitting jeans, tall stiletto boots, a tight-fitting, white-collared, button-up shirt, and a really big gun, holstered at her waist. Her face was framed by a wild mass of blonde curls. She looked like she ought to be a cover girl. Until you saw her eyes. Flat, direct, unamused.

That blue gaze homed in on me, and for one moment, something flickered across her face. She looked as if she might have seen a ghost. Then she closed the space.

I took a deep breath.

My father had been wrong. There are some things in life for which you cannot be prepared. Like the loss of your mother when you are still a child. Or the passing of your father before you had a chance to stop hating him.

“What the hell?” Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren demanded to know.

“My name is Annabelle Mary Granger,” I said. “I believe you’re looking for me.”

T
HE OFFICES OF
the Boston Homicide unit looked like they belonged to an insurance company. Bright, expansive windows, twelve-foot-high drop ceilings, pretty blue-gray carpet. The beige cubicles were modern and sleek, breaking the sunlit space into smaller desk areas, where black filing cabinets and gray overhead bins were decorated with plants, family photos, a child’s latest grade-school art project.

I found the whole setup disappointing. So much for all the years I’d dedicated to
NYPD Blue.

The receptionist gave Sergeant Warren a friendly smile as we walked in. Her gaze flickered to me, open, unassuming. I looked away, fingers fidgeting with my bag. Did I look like a perpetrator? A key informant? Or maybe the family of a victim? I tried to see myself through the receptionist’s eyes but came up empty.

Sergeant Warren led me to a small, windowless room. A rectangular table filled most of the tiny space, barely leaving room for chairs. I searched the walls for signs of a two-way mirror, anything to fit in with my TV-prepped expectations. The walls were blank, painted a clean bone-white. I still couldn’t relax.

“Coffee?” she asked briskly.

“No, thank you.”

“Water, soda, tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll be right back.”

She left me in the room. I decided that must mean I didn’t look too guilty. I set down my bag, surveyed the space. Nothing to look at, though. Nothing to do.

The room was too small, the furniture too big. Abruptly, I hated it.

The door opened again. Warren was back, this time bearing a tape recorder. Immediately, I shook my head.

“No.”

She appraised me coolly. “I thought you were here to make a statement.”

“No tape.”

“Why not?”

“Because you just declared me dead, and I plan on keeping it that way.”

She set the recorder down but didn’t turn it on. For the longest time, she stared at me. For the longest time, I stared right back.

We were equal height, five foot four. About equal weight. I could tell from the expanse of her shoulders, the slight bulge of her crossed arms, she also trained with weights. She had the gun on her side. But guns had to be drawn, aimed, fired. I didn’t have any of those constraints.

The thought gave me my first measure of comfort. My arms un-crossed. I took a seat. After a moment, she did, too.

Door opened again. A man walked in, wearing tan pants and a long-sleeve dark blue dress shirt, credentials clipped at his waist. A fellow homicide detective, I presumed. He wasn’t huge, maybe five ten, five eleven, but he had a lean, sinewy build to go with a lean, hard-edged face. The moment he saw me, he also did a little double-take, then quickly caught himself and blanked his expression.

He stuck out a hand. “Detective Robert Dodge, Massachusetts State Police.”

I returned the handshake less certainly. His fingers were callused, his grip firm. He held the handshake longer than necessary, and I knew he was appraising me, trying to get a read. He had cool gray eyes, the kind used to sizing up game.

“Want some water? Something to drink?”

“She already played Martha Stewart.” I jerked my head toward Sergeant Warren. “With all due respect, I’d just like to get this done.”

The two detectives exchanged glances. Dodge took a seat, the one closest to the door. The space seemed overcrowded, closing in on me. I placed my hands on my lap, trying not to fidget.

“My name is Annabelle Mary Granger,” I began. Dodge’s hand reached for the recorder. Warren stopped him with a single touch.

“We’re off the record,” she told him. “At least for the moment.”

Dodge nodded, and I took another deep breath, trying to rein in my scattered thoughts. I’d spent the past forty-eight hours rehearsing the story in my head. Obsessively reading all the front-page stories of the “grave” found in Mattapan, of the six remains that had been collected from the site. Details had been sparse—the forensic anthropologist could confirm only that the remains were female, the police spokes-woman had added that the grave was possibly decades old. They had released one name, my own; the other identities remained a mystery.

In the absence of real information, and with round-the-clock coverage to fill, the TV personalities had begun speculating madly. The site was an old Mafia dumping ground, possibly a legacy from Whitey Bulger, the mobster whose murderous work was still being dug up around the state. Or maybe it was a former cemetery for the mental hospital. Or perhaps the hideous hobby of one of its homicidal patients. A satanic cult was operating in Mattapan. The bones were actually from victims of the Salem Witch Trial.

Everyone had a theory. Except, I guess, me. I honestly didn’t know what had happened in Mattapan. And I was here right now not because of the help I could give the police, but because of the help I was hoping they could give me.

“My family fled for the first time when I was seven years old,” I told the two detectives, and then with gathering speed ran through my story. The parade of moves, the endless procession of fake identities. My mother’s death. Then my father’s. I kept the details sketchy.

Detective Dodge took a few notes. D.D. Warren mostly watched me.

I exhausted the story more quickly than I’d expected. No grand finale. Just The End. My throat felt parched now. I wished I’d had that glass of water after all. I lapsed awkwardly into silence, keenly aware that both detectives were still studying me.

“What year did you leave?” Detective Dodge, pencil posed.

“October, ’82.”

“And how long did you stay in Florida?”

I did my best to run through the list again. Cities, dates, aliases. Time had dulled the specifics more than I’d realized. What month had we moved to St. Louis? Was I ten or eleven when we hit Phoenix? And the names…In Kansas City, had we been Jones, Jenkins, Johnson? Something like that.

I started sounding less and less certain and more and more defensive, and they hadn’t even gotten to the hard questions yet.

“Why?” Detective Warren asked bluntly when I had wrapped up the geography lesson. She spread out her hands. “It’s an interesting story except you never said why your family was running.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“My father never gave me the details. He considered it his job to worry, my job to be a child.”

She arched a brow. I couldn’t blame her. By the time I was sixteen, I’d become skeptical of that platitude myself.

“Birth certificate?” she asked crisply.

“For my real name? I don’t have one.”

“Driver’s license, Social Security card? Your parents’ wedding license? A family photo? You must have something.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Original documentation can be found and used against you.” I sounded like a parrot. I suppose for most of my life I had been one.

Sergeant Warren leaned forward. This close I could see the shadows under her eyes, the fine lines and pale cheeks of someone who was operating on little sleep and even less patience. “Why the hell did you come here, Annabelle? You’ve told us nothing, you’ve given us nothing. Are you looking to get on the news? Is that what this is about? You’re going to claim the identity of some poor dead girl in order to snag your fifteen minutes of fame?”

“It’s not like that—”

“Bullshit.”

“I told you already, I had only minutes to pack and I didn’t think to grab my scrapbook.”

“How convenient.”

“Hey!” My own temper was starting to rise. “You want some evidence? Go get it. You’re the goddamn police after all. My father worked at MIT. Russell Walt Granger. Look it up, they’ll have a record. My family lived on 282 Oak Street in Arlington. Look it up, there’ll be a record. For that matter, dig in your own damn case files. My whole family disappeared in the middle of the night. I’m pretty fucking sure you got a record.”

“If you know that much,” she replied evenly, “why haven’t you followed up?”

“Because I can’t ask any questions,” I exploded. “I don’t know who I’m afraid of!”

I pushed back from the table abruptly, disgusted by my own outburst. Sergeant Warren straightened more slowly. She and the other detective exchanged another glance, probably just to piss me off.

Warren got up. Left the room. I stared at the far wall resolutely, not wanting to give Detective Dodge the satisfaction of breaking the silence first.

“Water?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Must’ve been hard to lose both of your parents like that,” he murmured.

“Oh, shut up. Good cop, bad cop. You think I haven’t seen the movies?”

We sat in silence until the door opened again. Warren returned holding a large paper sack.

She’d put on a pair of latex gloves. Now she set the bag down, unrolled the top, and pulled an object from its depths. It wasn’t big. A delicate silver chain bearing a small oval locket. Child-size.

She held it out on her gloved palm. Showed me the front, engraved with a filigree of swirls. Then she opened it, revealing two hollow ovals inside. Finally, she flipped it over. A single name was engraved on the back: Annabelle M. Granger.

“What can you tell me about this locket?”

I stared at the locket for a long while. I felt as if I were sifting through a deep fog, searching carefully in the mist of my mind.

“It was a gift,” I murmured at last. I unconsciously fingered my throat, as if feeling the locket still hanging there, silver oval cool against my skin. “He told me I couldn’t keep it.”

“Who told you?”

“My father. He was angry.” I blinked, trying to recall more. “I don’t…I don’t know why he was so mad. I’m not sure I knew. I liked the locket. I remember thinking it was very pretty. But when my father saw it, he made me take it off. Told me I had to throw it away.”

“Did you?”

Slowly, I shook my head. I looked up at them, and suddenly, I was afraid. “I went outside to the garbage,” I whispered. “But I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the trash. It was so pretty…. I thought maybe if I just waited, he’d get over it. Let me wear it again. My best friend came out to see what I was doing.”

Both detectives leaned forward; I could feel their sudden tension. And I knew that they now understood where this was going.

“Dori Petracelli. I handed the locket to Dori. Told her she could borrow it. I figured I would get it back later, maybe wear it when my father wasn’t around. Except there was no later. In a matter of weeks, we packed our bags. I haven’t seen Dori since.”

“Annabelle,” Detective Dodge asked quietly, “who gave you the locket?”

“I don’t know.” My fingers were on my temples, rubbing. “A gift. On the front porch. Wrapped in the
Peanuts
comic strip. Just for me. But without a tag. I liked it. But my father…he was mad. I don’t know…I don’t remember. There had been other items, small, inconsequential. But nothing made my father as angry as the locket.”

Another pause, then Detective Dodge again: “Does the name Richard Umbrio mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“What about Mr. Bosu?”

“No.”

“Catherine Gagnon?”

Warren flashed him a sudden, hostile glance. But the significance was lost on me. I didn’t know that name either.

“Did you…Did you find this locket on a body? Is that why you thought it was me?”

“We can’t comment on an active investigation,” Sergeant Warren said crisply.

I ignored her, my gaze going to Detective Dodge. “Is it Dori? Is that who you found? Did something happen to her? Please…”

“We don’t know,” he said gently. Warren frowned again, but then she shrugged.

“It will take weeks to identify the bodies,” she volunteered abruptly. “We don’t know much of anything at this point.”

“So it’s possible.”

“It’s possible.”

I tried to absorb this news. It left me feeling cold and shaky. I squeezed my left hand into a fist and pressed it into my stomach. “Can you look her up?” I said. “Run her name. You’ll see if she has an address, a driver’s license. The bodies are children, right, that’s what the news says. So if she has a driver’s license…”

“You can be sure we’ll look into it,” Sergeant Warren said.

I didn’t like that answer. My gaze went to Detective Dodge again. I knew I was pleading, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Why don’t you give us your number,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” I murmured.

“Not at all. You’re welcome to contact us at any time.”

“And if you remember anything more about the locket…” Sergeant Warren prodded.

“I’ll sell my story to the cable news.”

She gave me a look, but I waved it away. “They wouldn’t believe me any more than you do, and I can’t afford to come back from the dead.”

I rose, grabbed my bag, then provided my home phone number when it became clear that some form of contact information was mandatory.

At the last minute, standing in the door, I hesitated. “Can you tell me what happened to them? To the girls?”

“We’re still waiting for that report.” Sergeant Warren, sounding as official as always.

“But it’s murder, right? Six bodies, all in one grave…”