The Dead Soul (6 page)

“We can check it out later.” Jake put his hands in his pockets. “Please continue.”

“We’re ninety-nine percent alike,” Kelsey explained, glancing down at the chart in front of her, then looking back up at them. “All of us. Our DNA is just about all the same. It’s that one percent that makes each of us different. Just one percent. Two thousand proteins are created every second in our bodies. That adds to our make-up. But one percent separates us.”

“Interesting lesson. Mr. Discovery Channel here,” Jake looked over at Dickie, “loves this shit. But how’s that got
anything
to do with my case?”

The doctor pointed with a pen to Lisa’s chest cavity. “I’m getting to that.”

Jake noticed that Lisa’s rib cage on the right side was gone.

“What’s that?” he asked, puzzled. “You take it out?”

“You don’t know?” Kelsey said. “No one told you?” She looked at Dickie, who held up his hands as if someone held a gun to his back.

There was an empty space in Lisa’s chest about the size of a man’s fist. Her ribs were cut precisely with some sort of electric tool, exposing the tar-colored bone marrow inside like a dog bone.

“It’s gone,” Kelsey said.

“What’s ‘gone’?” Jake was missing something.

“Her heart.”

Jake looked at Dickie.

“I’m no profiler,” Kelsey said, “but someone who takes out the heart of his victim has sexual issues to compensate for. Impotence, maybe? Viagra complex. Loss of love.”

“The father?” Dickie tossed out.

Jake walked over to the sink and turned on the water to wash his hands. “Wait a minute here. No. No. No. The heart has been extracted because he is telling us something. But the anomaly is somewhere else. Dickie, a father would never do that. Take out his daughter’s heart to cover up a sex crime.” Dickie had been hot on the father ever since they identified Lisa Marie.

“Never overlook the obvious, Jake. Who taught us that. Anyway, we can put,” Dickie explained, scrolling through pages of notes, “Alyssa and Lisa Marie in the same library, same college café downtown, and
same
bar within the past few weeks.” He tossed the little notebook on the table next to where Jake stood scrubbing his hands.

“Together?”

Kelsey walked over. “Um, we use that sink to wash organs, Detective Cooper. The hand-washing station is over there.” She pointed to Jake’s left.

“What? Damn it.”

“We’re working on that connection,” Dickie said.

“Doesn’t mean squat, Dickie. Or that they even knew each other.” Jake dried his hands with a brown piece of paper towel.

“If they knew each other, boss, that certainly changes things.”

10

Friday, September 5 - 1:33 P.M.

Dickie and Caroline Shaughnessy had lived on Plymouth Avenue in East Milton near Cunningham Park for the past twenty years. The neighborhood, dotted with three-deckers lined up so close to one another you could see what your neighbor was having for dinner, was an easy on-off jaunt from I-93, which made the trip downtown quick for Dickie.

Dickie stopped at home to grab lunch after leaving the morgue. Jake had radioed to say he’d be by to pick him up. Something about a tip Jake had gotten from a sheriff up north. The sun beat down on Jake as he walked up the short stone pathway, the flower beds edged in perfect lines of cut earth. Caroline was standing, drilling holes in the mulch with a strange tool she had impulsively purchased from an infomercial—this, so she could plant her tulip bulbs for next year. Dickie’s wife had her bleached-blonde, shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail, her cell phone clipped to the side of her waist. She wore wool gloves so as not to damage a fresh manicure—purple polish with little white hearts and silver glitter at the tips—she had just gotten at the Somers Day Spa in Quincy, her weekly Friday afternoon treat. There was the perfect smear of dirt on Caroline’s right cheek. All her adult life she had worked as an insurance consultant for Met-Life, just recently from home. She had dinner on the table at five every night. If Dickie wasn’t there, Caroline ate in front of
Golden Girls
reruns on a TV tray by herself and told her man to fix his own damn plate when he came home.

“Does it really take ‘the hard work out of yard work,’ Caroline?” Jake asked of the gardening tool, referring to the pitch line in the commercial.

“You startled me.” Caroline stopped working.

Jake kissed her on the cheek. Grabbed Caroline by the shoulders. Took a look at her. “You’re a sucker for those TV gadgets, Caroline.”

“How are Dawn and Brendan?”

Jake considered how independent today’s woman was. He adored that about Dickie’s wife. He wished Dawn was more like her. Free-spirited and tough. Caroline was one of those women who insisted on separate checkbooks and bank accounts from her husband.

“They’re wonderful, Caroline.”

“Right, Jake. Everything’s just hunky-dory at home, uh-huh,” she said, wiping a bead of sweat with the back of her wrist from her crinkled brow.

Jake walked away. Stepped up onto the wrap-around porch connected to the three-decker the Shaugnessyes owned. “No one uses ‘hunky-dory’ anymore, Caroline. Let’s you and I bring that one back, huh. Along with maybe ‘a million miles an hour,’ and ‘highway robbery.’ Now where is that husband of yours?”

“Downstairs in ‘The Zone.’ ” Caroline looked up to the sky and shook her head. “Like a little kid sometimes—he is.”

With his towering frame, Jake was forced to duck at the bottom of the stairs leading into Dickie’s finished basement. He didn’t want to hit his head on the ceiling above the final stair. Dickie had made some changes to the house since Jake’s last visit. The basement was now decked out in Red Sox memorabilia.

“That thing tell you who our killer is yet?” Dickie asked as Jake came off the bottom stair keying something into his iPhone.

“Close, but not yet. Don’t be such an obvious Luddite, Dick. Technology’s our friend.” Saying this, Jake realized he was speaking to a man who had a name for his basement. “You actually call this room in your house ‘The Zone,’ and you’re making fun of my phone.”

Dickie laughed. He gave Jake a quick tour, pointing out the new additions. “Got this from Yaz at a card show last year.” He held up a baseball with the slugger’s signature at twelve o’clock.

Jake shrugged off the memorabilia. “Come on, you know I could care less about this shit.”

“You see, Jake, this is what makes us so different.” Dickie threw the ball up in the air and caught it a few times. “I come down here to get away. Escape.”

Jake thought of the drives he liked to take alone along Cape Cod Bay in his Chevelle. His muscle car was his Zone. But how rare were those trips? Dickie was right. The guy couldn’t get away from the job. It consumed him.

“Any luck with that security guard lead?” Dickie asked. He shut off the lights.

“Naw. Nothing there.” They both knew it was going to be a dead end. “Something’s come up, though. That’s why I’m here. Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.”

Outside on the front lawn, Dickie told Caroline he’d be back—“with any luck”— around six. She waved to Jake. “Give Dawn a kiss for me. If she ever wants to join me for yoga class, tell her to call.”

Jake cranked the ignition. Put the car in reverse, got out onto the open road.

“You want to talk about Mo?” Dickie asked. “I did some checking, heard some ‘things.’ Word is there is some tension brewing between you two.”

Jake gave his partner a look. “I’m dealing with that, Dick. Keep out of it.” Then: “How’s Maddox?” Maddox Shaughnessy was Dickie and Caroline’s twenty-three-year-old boy, stationed in Baghdad, E-Co. 1/329.th The kid had been a Marine for almost five years. He was born, Dickie liked to say, with that camouflage green and black war paint under his eyes.

Rambo Jr.

“He’s getting by. Should be home in about four months. But says his new tour starts two months later.”

Military
, Jake thought.
Huh
. He stared at Dickie. Listening to him talk about his son, Jake could picture some Muslim teenager wearing a backpack full of explosives and nails walking into a café, setting it down, blowing up the place with Dickie’s boy inside. He wondered how Dickie lived with that fear day in, day out.

“What’a ya got, man?” Dickie wanted off the subject of the military.

Jake explained a call he had taken from a guy named John Branford. Branford worked out of the Danvers Police Department, an hour north of Boston, a small hamlet close to that fishing village made famous by Sebastian Junger’s
Perfect Storm
. The cop claimed to have valid information about what he called “that serial murder case.” Jake was skeptical, but knew cases got solved like this sometimes. One cop talking to another, both searching for the same answer. Old-school gumshoe police work.

As Jake explained it to Dickie, Captain Branford said he “saw an article in the Globe about the Boston Public Garden DB, and stated asking around. Wanted to know if it’s true that the Common case was connected to Quincy Market.”

“Might be,” Jake had told him. He pictured the cop twirling a toothpick in his mouth. Sitting back. Feet up on his desk. Enjoying the moment.

“I need to speak to you,” Branford said.

“I’m listening.”

“In person.”

The guy is willing to travel an hour. Must have something.

Jake drove by the T near Fenway Park. Dickie was scrolling through his voicemail message numbers to see who had called.

“So we’re heading over to meet him,” Jake said, parking near a meter on Boylston Street in Kenmore Square.

They walked into the Back Bay Pub, a little dive tucked in between a Star Market and Riley’s Laundromat. Branford was not what Jake had expected. A small man, five-foot-six, 120 pounds, skinny as a jockey. He wore a black blazer. Brown bolo tie. White dress shirt. Blue jeans. Cowboy boots. A ball cap with a large gold star on the front. He had a lazy eye that would not stop twitching.

Jake walked over, stuck out his hand. “This is my partner, Detective Shaughnessy.”

Dickie waved.

“I recognize you both from the
Globe
,” the captain said as if he wanted Jake’s job or an autograph.

Jake forced a smile. Dickie leaned against a wooden beam with names and obscenities carved into it. There were black cigarette burns in the red carpet below his feet.

“I think I have an idea of maybe someone you need to take a serious look at. It all made sense to me when I found out why he requested a transfer.”

“So far you’re speaking a foreign language, Captain. Sorry.” Jake raised his eyebrows. “What do you have here?”

“He worked for me. Not a bad cop. Just wasn’t any good.” He laughed at his own turn of a phrase. “I did some checking. Found out he had a certain problem with young blondes. Also found out he got his self kicked off the Bangor force in Maine before coming to me, beggin’ for a job. Apparently, he waited outside the local high school up there and drove some of the girls home in his squad car. Said some creepy things.”

Jake wondered where this was going. A cop. Problem with blondes. It could fit. Then again, the guy sounded more like a loser rather than a killer.

Dickie watched a guy at the bar stirring his drink with a red plastic sizzle stick.

“We transferred him to your unit last May, a week or so before that Bettencourt kid went missing. Your lieutenant approved the transfer. Guess he knew the kid’s uncle or something.”

“Name?”

“He walks with a bum knee, kinda sliding it along. Name’s Mark Stanhope.”

Jake and Dickie looked at each other.

“Why did he ‘request’ a transfer?”

“He wanted to be,” Branford said, “closer to the action downtown. Truth is, though, he knew we were about to find out he was peeping on some young chick—a blonde, of course—every morning where he stopped for coffee at this diner. He’d follow her into the bathroom. She never knew until one day she happened to look up and caught him peering over the wall, underneath the ceiling tile.”

“Never liked Officer Stanhope,” Jake said.

“I heard you guys got a nickname for him?” Branford said.

“B-B-B-Benny,” Dickie said, laughing.

“We call him Rookie,” Jake said. “Appreciate this info.”

11

Friday, September 5 – 2:00 P.M.

Traffic was light for an early Friday afternoon downtown. Most everyone had their windows up, AC on. The digital temperature reading on the LCD clock over Copley Square read a balmy 97 degrees.

Driving into the city on the Mass Pike, eastbound, the Carmichaels were headed to Maine to spend the weekend with relatives. Jason Carmichael drove the family maroon Suburban. His wife sat shotgun. Their ten-year-old, Jeffrey, sat in back behind Dad. It was little Jeffrey’s job to keep Sergeant Bilko, their four-year-old Lab, occupied. Jason listened to talk radio, WRKO, disagreeing with just about everything.

“See that, Jeffrey?” Jason leaned down, pointed to his right, looked out the passengers-side window. “That’s the backside of the Green Monster, Fenway Park.”

“Cool!” Jeffrey said. He moved over to get a better look. Stared out the window. Buckled himself into the backseat on his mom’s side.

They drove under the Prudential Center and, as it got dark, the roar of a Harley echoed up along the left side, and the motorcyclist pulled in front of Jason.

“In about a half-mile,” Jason announced, “we’ll be coming up to the new Ted Williams Tunnel, part of the Big Dig project that cost the city billions. We’ll actually be driving
under
Boston Harbor, Jeffrey.”

Marjorie Carmichael said, “Billion, Jay. Not
billions
.”

“Awesome,” said Jeffrey.

It got a bit dark as they entered the tunnel. The fluorescent lights along the corner of the roof were bright, but only if you were stopped.

Jason noticed the Harley dude had one of those barbed-wire tattoos around his bicep.
How damn passé are those tats nowadays?
The woman on the back of the bike had an average ass, Jason considered. There was an angel tattoo above her plumber’s crack. Jason checked her out. She was hot, he thought, in a skanky, Lucinda Williams sort of way.

Do-able,
he’d tell the boys at work Monday morning.

The biker hit his brakes, illuminating the inside of the Carmichaels’ Suburban.

Jason slowed down, a squeal from the vehicle’s front rotors. “Traffic … damn-it.”

“Relax now, honey. We’re on vacation.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“This is something, Dad,” Jeffrey said from the backseat. “I can see my PSP like it’s nighttime.” Jeffrey played Super Mario Bros 3.

The line of cars, bikes, SUVs and taxis inched forward.

Jason was fixated on the little license plate strapped to the back of the Harley in front of him. He killed time memorizing it.

CVD-431.
Connecticut.
The Constitution State
.

Sitting, frustrated by the traffic, Jason was startled by the sound of a pebble hitting the windshield.

Huh
? He watched it bounce to the ground just outside his door. It was white, like chalk.

Then another.

Weird
?

Traffic moved up about ten feet at a time. Stop and go.

Several more pebbles fell on the windshield, bounced onto the ground.

“What the heck?” Jason said to himself. He looked out the window, up at the ceiling.

Marjorie fiddled with the dial, switching radio stations, trying to find anything other than the static coming in underneath the water.

“Screw it,” she said. Then reached above and pulled down the sun visor and looked through a library of CDs.

Jason zeroed in on a section of the tunnel’s ceiling. It was loose and flapping, as if it wasn’t attached in one corner. Several pebbles fell on the windshield.

What the hell
… It wasn’t registering.

A large piece of cement, about the size of a cigarette pack, fell and cracked the Carmichael’s windshield.

“What was that?” Marjorie asked in alarm, jumping back, CDs splaying all over her lap and floorboard.

Jason looked out the window, up at the ceiling again. “Oh my God.”

The tunnel erupted with an enormous
boom
.

Dust spread everywhere, causing blind panic. People screamed. Car alarms sounded. Chirps of tires reverberated. It had happened so quickly no one knew what was going on.

The Carmichaels, the Harley dude with his biker babe, not to mention everyone else inside the tunnel, were not going to make it to the other side on this day. A twelve-ton section of the newly opened Ted Williams Tunnel had let go. One of the steel tiebacks holding a forty-foot segment of the ceiling over the eastbound portion of the interstate had caved in onto several cars waiting in traffic.

The fallen debris had just missed flattening the biker and his girlfriend.  Unfortunately, as people got out of their vehicles and converged on the maroon Suburban behind the Harley, they were horrified to see that the heaviest section of the concrete had clipped the right-hand side of the SUV and crushed Jeffrey, Marjorie, and Sergeant Bilko.

Jason Carmichael sat inside his vehicle, unable to move, shell-shocked and speechless. To his right, on the now cracked inside wall of the tunnel, was a small sign indicating the company who had worked on this particular section.

Mancini Construction.