The One I Left Behind (35 page)

“Does the dog bother you?” Stu asked. “I can crate him.”

“No. I’m fine, thanks. I’m not sure he likes me much, though.”

Stu smiled. “Dogs smell fear.”

Reggie swallowed a sip of bitter weak coffee and set her cup down on the table. “Charlie says you’ve got a boat you’re fixing up?”

“Yeah. Down at the shore. She’s a mess, but I’ll get her into shape. I’m actually heading down there today to do some painting.”

Reggie nodded, picked up her coffee, and took another sip. Stu stared at her with his best ex-cop look. It was the same way he’d looked at her years ago when she went to the station to explain that she believed the scarred hand that showed up was Vera’s. His eyes were steely and alert, taking every detail in, but his face showed no emotion.

“So what can I do for you, Regina? I’m guessing you didn’t come out to see me to ask about my boat,” he said.

Reggie set the cup down, pushed it away. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“It’s about your mother, then?”

Reggie nodded.

He looked at her, waiting. Then said, “Has she remembered anything? Anything at all?”

Reggie shook her head. “Not that we can tell.”

Stu took a sip of his coffee.

“I found something when I was going through my mother’s things. Her old high school yearbook. There was a picture in it of the two of you. And you’d written down a poem.”

Stu’s jaw clenched slightly. He nodded, but said nothing.

“But she was also involved with your brother Bo, right?”

He sighed. “Ancient history,” he said.

Reggie smiled. “But history repeats itself, right? Like my mother coming back and moving in with Bo?”

“Vera and I were over before she left for New York. Nothing between us was ever rekindled.”

“So you weren’t involved with her in any way before she went missing?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but, no.”

“But you were there in the bar that night, weren’t you? At Runway 36? You either saw Vera get out of Bo’s car or she told you he’d given her a ride.”

Stu gave her a long hard look; then his serious face broke into a smile. His teeth were so perfect and white that Reggie wondered if they might be dentures. “I’m afraid you missed your calling, Regina. You may be a world-class architect, but you would have made one hell of a detective.”

Had he been keeping tabs on her over the years? She thought of the mysterious phone calls she’d been getting since leaving home—had it been Stu Berr on the other end, breathing into her good ear?

Reggie looked at the dog, who was still lying down, but his eyes and ears showed that he was at full attention, much like his owner. Reggie was close to the door and had no doubt she could get to it quicker than Stu, who was several feet away with a coffee table between them. But she doubted she could outrun the dog. She touched the cell phone in her pocket, wondering if she could dial 911 without looking at the numbers.

“I was there that night. I was the man in the Yankees cap that people saw talking with Vera.”

“Why didn’t you ever say so?”

“Because my visit with her was part of an ongoing investigation into the Neptune killings.”

Reggie gave him a questioning look. She didn’t want him to know the full extent of her suspicions. “Why Vera? Did you know she was going to be taken next?”

He shook his head. “No. I was there to talk to her because she was a suspect.”

“Suspect? In what kind of case?”

He cleared his throat and gave her a long serious look. “I was fairly certain your mother was the Neptune killer.”

Reggie sank back in her chair. “You can’t be serious.”

“Detective work is all about finding threads. Connections. In the case of Neptune, all these threads led me back to your mother. She was the one thing all the victims had in common.”

Reggie remembered all her mother’s talk of threads and connections, how everyone was linked, whether they realized it or not.

“But she only knew Candy! Not the other two.”

“True. Which is where the real detective work comes in. Candace Jacques had been dating James Jacovich. In fact, Jacovich dumped Vera for Candace. Andrea McFerlin had been dating a man named Sal Rossi. Does that name ring a bell?”

“My mother dated a guy named Sal. She said he was a photographer.”

Stu shook his head. “Sal Rossi was the manager for Airport Cab company. He didn’t date your mother long. When he broke up with her, he took up with Andrea McFerlin. They met through a dating service.”

“And what about the young woman—the film student?” Reggie asked.

“Here’s where things get interesting. Ann Stickney was making a documentary about the tobacco sheds and the men who worked there. One of the men was Wayne Abbott.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You mother dated him for some time. He was a younger man. Dark hair, very handsome. He drove a VW bus and went around telling people he’d had small parts in movies. Total bullshit, by the way.”

“Mr. Hollywood,” Reggie said under her breath.

“Young Wayne thought Ann was a better prospect than your mother, so he ditched poor Vera, thinking that maybe Ann’s film would make his fictional movie star identity a reality. It didn’t work out that way.”

Reggie’s head spun. “So all three women . . .”

“Had taken men away from Vera.”

“But this doesn’t make sense!” Reggie said. “Because the killer came for Vera next!”

Stu smiled. “Clever, isn’t it? What better way to cover your tracks than to be the final victim, the one whose body is never found?”

Reggie sat forward, perched at the edge of her chair. “What? You’re saying she cut off her own hand? That’s insane!”

Stu shrugged. “My theory wasn’t very popular with the rest of the police force, either, and of course there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue it. But it made sense to me.”

“And what about now? Is my mother supposed to have taken Tara and cut off her hand, too? Just hopped out of her deathbed for one last go-around with the saw?”

“Unlikely,” Stu admitted. “I’m guessing it was a copycat. Or maybe Vera had an accomplice? Someone who was in on her secrets. Or maybe it’s just some random sicko drawn out of the woodwork by the news that Neptune’s last victim is alive. I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. I’m afraid I’m more of a boatbuilder than a detective these days.” There was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Reggie’s head began to pound as all the new information flooded in, swirling around in her brain like a logarithmic spiral. And there, at the center, was the one thing she felt certain of, held to like clinging to a rock in a storm: Stu Berr was wrong.

A
N HOUR LATER
, R
EGGIE
sat in her truck down the street from Stu’s house, waiting for him to leave, hoping he hadn’t been telling a story about going down to do some painting on his boat today. The bag from her quick trip to the Super Stop & Shop was on the seat beside her. She wasn’t sure if Stu still kept a key behind the street number plaque, or what she would do if he didn’t (break a window in the back maybe?), but she had to get into that house. She wasn’t sure just what she hoped to find—Tara bound and gagged in the basement? Not likely. No, if Stu was Neptune and did have Tara, he’d have her more carefully hidden, not in a quiet residential neighborhood.

In spite of her best intentions, Stu’s theory worked its way into her brain like a parasitic worm. Once there, it got its hooks in and held tight. She was sure—no, positive—that he was wrong. Vera was not a killer.

But what if . . .

She pushed the thought away, went back to watching the house. The curtains were closed now.

She eyed her cell phone, thrown on the passenger seat, then picked it up and dialed the number for Monique’s Wish. Reggie spoke to the answering machine until Lorraine picked up.

“I’m here,” Lorraine answered, sounding a little flustered.

“Listen,” Reggie said. “Do you remember—was Mom gone when each of the women Neptune killed first disappeared?”

She could hear her aunt breathing, but she didn’t answer. At last Lorraine said, “Regina, what’s this about?”

“Nothing, probably.” Reggie bit her lip, feeling like an idiot.

Across the street, Stu Berr emerged, duffel bag in hand. Reggie sank down in her seat. “I gotta go,” she said to Lorraine.

Stu got into his truck and pulled away. Reggie waited a good ten minutes, just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten something and decided to double back. Then she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, grabbed the plastic grocery bag, and headed for the front door. She turned the plaque on the siding, and there, just where she remembered its being all those years ago, was the key.

Bingo.

She replaced the numbers and unlocked the door. Then, before opening it, she reached into her grocery bag and unwrapped one of the two T-bone steaks she’d bought. Gingerly, she pushed the door open.

“Here, Duke,” she called, voice wavering. “Here, boy!” Cold sweat beaded between her shoulder blades. Her scar tissue tingled. As she heard his toenails clicking against the floor, she imagined the three-headed beast, guardian of the underworld, coming for her.

Duke (with only one head—thank God) came trotting over, gave her a warning growl. She held the door open for him and tossed the steak into the driveway.

He hesitated a moment, glancing from her to the meat.

“Good boy, go ahead. It’s for you.”

He licked his lips nervously.

“Go on,” she said, gesturing to the driveway.

At last his desire for meat overpowered his guard-dog self and he trotted into the driveway, pouncing on the steak. Reggie slipped into the house, locking the door behind her. She left the second steak by the front door to use for her escape.

Stu had tidied the kitchen, washed out the coffeepot and cups. The place smelled like bleach. Too clean.

She went back into the living room, saw the neat bookshelves with old encyclopedias, sportsman’s guides to hunting and fishing, boatbuilding books, some marine biology textbooks that must have been Charlie’s. Her eye caught on the old photo of Stu with his buddies in Vietnam, all in uniform, raising tin cups in a toast, an ambulance behind them. “Holy shit,” she mumbled, another piece of the puzzle coming together. She’d forgotten he’d been a medic in the army—that’s where he’d had the medical training, where he learned about tourniquets and pressure dressings. And didn’t they sometimes have to do amputations right on the battlefield to save soldiers? Reggie was sure she’d read that in a book about the Civil War, so maybe it was true for Vietnam, too.

Reggie hurried down the hall to Stu’s bedroom. It contained a double bed—carefully made with a dark spread on top, a bureau, a wooden chest, and a walk-in closet. The wooden chest contained extra sheets and blankets. In the bureau she found the usual—socks and boxer shorts in the top drawer, T-shirts in the second, a few pairs of jeans in the bottom. While rummaging around in the drawer with the jeans, she felt something cold and metallic. Even before lifting it from its hiding place, she knew what it was: a gun. Some kind of automatic pistol. Reggie didn’t know enough about guns to identify it beyond that. She tucked it back right where she’d found it, between two pairs of pants.

No big deal,
she told herself. Lots of people keep handguns in the house, especially ex-cops. Still, it made her shiver. But this was no proof. Neptune wasn’t a shooter. What she needed to find was surgical tools, bandages, a fine-toothed saw for cutting bone.

She reminded herself she had to hurry. Who knew how long it would be before Duke dropped his steak bone and started barking to alert the entire neighborhood that there was an intruder in his house. She checked the closet and found neatly pressed shirts and pants hanging. She felt along the top shelf and found only a few mothballs.

Charlie’s old bedroom was across the hall from his father’s. It was empty now, except for a twin bed, neatly made, and an empty chest of drawers. There was nothing in the closet, no homey artwork on the walls. It felt abandoned.

She walked across the hall to Stu’s office, the heels of her boots clicking on the hardwood floor. Back when Charlie was living at home, Stu had kept his office locked. Now, Reggie was happy to discover, he didn’t bother. The old hasp was still bolted to the outside of the door, but there was no heavy padlock in place.

What she saw when she stepped into the room sucked the breath from her chest, as if she’d stepped into some kind of vacuum chamber.

The room was cluttered and chaotic, the walls, desk, and floor covered with notes, photos, police reports, and newspaper clippings on the Neptune case.

“Son of a bitch,” she murmured.

It was like going back in time.

Pinned to the wall were police photographs of each hand inside each milk carton, and of the three victims as they were found: Ann Stickney on the town green, Candace Jacques at the base of the
Knowledge
statue in front of the library, Andrea McFerlin sprawled in the fountain at King Philip Park. Each woman was naked, left in a strange, contorted-looking pose, each with a big white paw of bandages covering the place where her right hand had been.

Reggie felt stomach acid burning its way up into her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to keep it down. It was one thing to read about the bodies, to hear it talked about in the news, and to imagine what they might have looked like. But actually seeing them—noticing little details like the C-section scar on Andrea McFerlin’s stretch-mark-covered abdomen; Candace’s Jacques torn earlobe from Neptune’s ripping at her earring during their struggle; the waxy, dappled light that made Ann Stickney’s body seem almost blue-ish—brought the killings to life in a whole new, sickening way. These were real women, not just names on the news. She’d known that before, yes, but never truly understood it till now.

And there, in the last photo on the right, was her mother’s right hand inside the milk carton, the scar tissue looking like plastic, like maybe the hand had been made of modeling clay—something from a Hollywood special effects department. But it was Vera’s hand, no doubt. And even now, the finger was stuck pointing in Reggie’s direction.