The Secret Friend (19 page)

58

Darby received the news from Bill Jordan, the man heading up her surveillance. He was waiting for her on the front steps of the hospital.

Jordan quickly filled her in on the Jaguar and Tim Bryson’s last conversation with Mark Lang, an undercover narcotics detective and driver of the second surveillance van. Lang had followed Bryson into Boston. Bryson had entered the club along with his partner Cliff Watts, who had provided the details of the events inside the club’s private basement but couldn’t explain why Bryson was cuffed and dragged away or how Bryson had ended up on the roof of the second surveillance van. Jordan was taking his men into the city.

Darby stood alone in the dark, hands deep in her pockets as she stared off into the woods, allowing the news to sink past her skin. She had to deal with this. Now.

She left Coop in charge of the crime scene and drove to Boston.

One hand steady on the wheel, the Mustang’s engine booming as she tore down the highway, she dialled the commissioner’s home phone number.

Chadzynski had already received several updates about the events in Boston. At the moment, details were sketchy. Darby briefed the commissioner on what she had discovered inside the hospital’s chapel.

‘These Virgin Mary statues you found inside the box are the same ones found on Hale and Chen?’ Chadzynski asked.

‘They appear to be the same. I’m more interested in the Virgin Mary statue standing next to the altar.’ Darby told her about the rags she had found along the floor, the sponge in the bucket of water. ‘The statue was spotless. He’s been there recently. After we’re done with the remains, I want to stake out the chapel, leave a couple of men inside there so we’ll be ready the next time he returns.’

‘You really think he’ll go back?’

‘He will as long as he thinks it’s safe.’

‘Okay, I’ll find someone to organize the stakeout.’

‘We can’t involve Danvers PD.’

‘Aren’t they already involved?’

‘They don’t know about the remains. I’d like to keep it that way.’

‘Darby, we can’t –’

‘I know we’re playing in their backyard. But the more people we bring into this, the greater risk we run of having the information slip out. If the media gets wind of the remains found inside that chapel and decides to run with it, the man who killed Chen and Hale won’t come back. If it’s the same man who has Hannah Givens, he might kill her and run.’

‘What about Reed’s people? How are you going to keep them quiet?’

‘We can’t. Bill Jordan and some of his men are already working with Reed’s people, so we’re containing the situation the best we can. Finding this chapel might be the break we needed. I’d hate for us to lose it.’

‘I’ll talk to Jordan. Call me when you know more about Bryson. I want to be updated at every turn.’

Darby took the first empty parking spot she found on the street and ran the rest of the way, following the red, blue and white lights pulsing like distress beacons over the building rooftops on Lansdowne Street.

The streets were blocked off with sawhorses and cruisers. It seemed as though every emergency vehicle in the city had been summoned to the area. Patrolmen were everywhere performing crowd control.

Darby pushed her way past reporters and showed her ID to one of the patrolmen. A moment later she was snaking her way past cops, firemen and emergency medical technicians until she reached Tim Bryson’s body.

59

Tim Bryson lay on the dented roof of a surveillance van, a pool of blood under him. Drip marks were frozen along the van’s sides and back doors, blood smeared against the shattered front windshield where his crooked legs were splayed, one of them dangling near the dashboard. He stared up at the sky, his head tilted against his shoulder, as if puzzled. His neck was broken.

Two men from ID were photographing the body. She couldn’t examine Bryson until ID had finished.

Darby looked up the brick building full of dark windows.
Offices,
she thought. The building was at least ten storeys high.
Why did Fletcher bring you up to the roof, Tim? If he wanted to kill you, why didn’t he do it downstairs?

She found Cliff Watts sitting in the back of an ambulance holding an oxygen mask to his mouth while an EMT stitched an ugly gash on his forehead. The front of his jacket and shirt was stained with blood and vomit.

He saw Darby, pulled away the mask and gave her a detailed report of the basement attack.

‘He left an aerosol grenade inside the shower,’ Watts said. ‘Firemen said it contained some chemical that induces vomiting. I was staring at it when the next thing I knew I was hit. I thought I was gunshot – it sure as hell felt that way. I fell and cracked my head on the shower knob.’ He inhaled on the oxygen mask for a moment as he reached inside his jacket pocket. ‘He hit us with this.’

Watts came back with a blue ball the size of marble. ‘It’s a kinetic weapon,’ he said. ‘It looked like a shotgun. I don’t know how he got it past security. You’ll find shotgun-sized shells along with these rubber balls all over the floor.’

Darby rubbed the ball between her fingers. It felt hard.

Kinetic weapons were non-lethal devices used by police forces in riot situations. Boston police had used them up until a few years ago when working crowd control after a Red Sox game. A beanbag weapon was discharged and hit a college student in the head. The student died, and the parents sued the city and won a large settlement.

The weapon Watts had described contained more firing power than the traditional beanbag weapon. The shotgun round was designed to hit the target with maximum force. Unlike a bullet, this round exploded upon impact.

‘I couldn’t stop throwing up,’ Watts said. ‘Fletcher hogtied me and then dragged Tim into the next room and locked me inside the bathroom. The firemen had to chop down the door.’

Why hadn’t Fletcher killed Watts? Darby tucked the question away and said, ‘Did he say anything to you, Cliff?’

‘Not a word.’

‘Did he speak to Bryson? Did you overhear anything?’

Watts shook his head as he brought the oxygen mask up to his face.

‘What was the security like?’ Darby asked.

‘They had two guys waving one of those magic wands over you to see if you’re packing a knife or gun. They said Fletcher flashed his badge and they let him through. I didn’t see any security cameras, but I wasn’t really paying attention.’

‘Who’s in charge of the scene?’

‘Neil Joseph.’

Good. Darby knew the man. Neil was solid.

‘Fletcher went downstairs with a woman, a redhead,’ Watts said. ‘We thought he was going down there to get his rocks off. It’s one of those private sex clubs with a bathhouse and lots of rooms full of kinky toys that would make a good Catholic girl like you blush.’

A tired grin as he put the mask over his face again. He inhaled for several seconds. ‘You can’t get down there unless you have a gas mask,’ he said. ‘In addition to a smoke grenade, Fletcher threw another one of those aerosol containers. The place is sealed tight, so that chemical shit is still lingering in the air. It has a longer shelf life because of the steam from the bathhouse.’

Darby left to find Neil Joseph. A patrolman pointed her to a brick-faced club called Instant Karma.

All the lights inside the club were on, the dance floor crowded with witnesses being interviewed by patrolmen and detectives. Empty steel cages hung from the ceilings, the tables and counters were stacked with glasses and beer bottles, many of them still full of booze. Darby spotted Neil Joseph behind the bar, in a roped-off area with plush chairs and couches. He was talking to a group of young men built like linebackers, all of them dressed in black and wearing matching shirts with the word security silk-screened on the back.

Neil saw her, flipped his notebook shut and limped his way toward her. What was left of his black hair was damp against his scalp. With the exception of his limp from his bad knee, he still looked the same as when she had met him during her first days at the lab – an old-school cop with a no-bullshit attitude hidden behind layers of caustic sarcasm nurtured from his years on the job and growing up one of twelve boys in a strict Irish Catholic family.

‘Have you found the woman who accompanied our suspect downstairs?’ Darby asked.

‘Not yet. When the fire alarm went off, they all went running. Do you know a woman named Tina Sanders?’

Darby nodded. ‘Her daughter disappeared over two decades ago. We thought it might be connected to a current case.’ She thought about the skeletal remains dressed in the Sinclair lab coat. The remains were definitely female. ‘I think we might have found her.’

‘When did you tell her?’

‘I haven’t.’

‘So Tina Sanders doesn’t know you found her daughter?’

‘We haven’t identified the remains yet. Why are you asking?’

‘She’s here. A taxi dropped her off near the commotion and the woman tried pushing her way through the crowd with her goddamn walker, screaming about her daughter’s murder and Bryson’s swan dive from the roof.’

‘How does she know that? Did someone tell her?’

‘I don’t know anything else,’ Neil said. ‘The woman refuses to talk to anyone but you.’

60

Neil Joseph explained what to do as they walked.

Be patient, he said. If the woman doesn’t answer a question right away, hang back for a moment. Silence can be your biggest ally. Most people want to talk, want to get things off their chest. It’s important that they be heard. When she does talk, be an empathetic listener. Nod in the appropriate places. You want her to open up and share everything. Don’t take any notes, just listen. You want her to trust you.

Tina Sanders sat in the back of a patrol car parked in a dark alley away from the commotion. She wore the same threadbare winter coat Darby had seen that morning at the lab.

Neil knocked on the driver’s window. The patrolman left the motor running and walked with Neil into the alley to smoke.

Darby opened the back door. The interior light clicked on. Tina Sanders didn’t look over, didn’t look up. The woman’s face was streaked with mascara, her grey hair dishevelled, as though she had rolled out of bed and into her clothes. The cigarette pack with the crucifix tucked under the cellophane was clutched in her arthritic hands, the gnarled fingers shaped like tree roots.

Darby slid into the seat and shut the door. The interior was uncomfortably warm and smelled of stale beer and cigarettes.

‘I understand you wanted to speak to me.’

Tina Sanders didn’t answer. In the soft blue glow from the dashboard lights, Darby could see the dark, hollowed pockets underneath the woman’s eyes. Her cheeks, etched deep with grooves, were wet and shiny, but her voice was clear when she spoke.

‘He said I can trust you,’ Tina Sanders said.

‘Who said this?’

‘Malcolm Fletcher. He said his name was Malcolm Fletcher. He’s one of those FBI-type cops. He called me today. Twice.’ The woman paused between her words to take short, quick breaths. ‘He’s the same man who called and told me to go to my mailbox, to go to the crime lab to talk to you about Jenny.’

‘You said he called you twice.’

Sanders licked her lips, nodded.

‘When was the first time he called?’

‘This afternoon,’ Sanders said. ‘He told me you found Jenny’s body.’

Darby shifted in her chair.

‘Did you find Jenny?’

‘We found a set of remains, but I can’t say for certain if it’s your daughter,’ Darby said. ‘We have to do a dental comparison first.’

‘How did she die?’

‘I don’t know.’

Jennifer’s mother looked to the crucifix now wrapped around her fingers, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘He said you would tell me. He told me to come down here and find you and you would tell me what happened to my daughter.’

‘I don’t know anything at the moment,’ Darby said. ‘I haven’t examined the bones.’

‘He said you would tell me the truth.’

‘I am telling you the truth. If the remains we found belong to your daughter, I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Have you found Sam Dingle?’

‘Who?’

Tina Sanders turned her head and stared out the window.

‘Who’s Sam Dingle?’ Darby asked.

The woman didn’t answer. Her blank expression reminded Darby of her mother – Sheila staring at Big Red’s coffin, not believing he was lying in there, dead and waiting to be lowered into the ground as the priest talked about God’s divine plan for all of us; Sheila looking inside the closet, afraid to touch Big Red’s clothes; Sheila wandering around the house in the months after he was buried, wondering what went wrong, how she got to this place.

‘He put Detective Bryson on the phone.’

Surprise bloomed on Darby’s face. ‘You spoke to Detective Bryson?’

Jennifer’s mother nodded.

‘When did you speak to him?’

‘Tonight,’ Sanders said. ‘He confessed to everything.’

‘How do you know you spoke with Detective Bryson?’

‘I recognized his voice.’ The woman’s voice was eerily calm. She squeezed the crucifix in her hand and closed her eyes. ‘I know the truth now. You people can’t hide it any more. I won’t let you.’

Darby’s head was spinning. She wanted roll down the window for air. ‘What did Detective Bryson tell you?’

‘All these years… all these years I prayed to God to tell me what happened to Jenny. If I knew the truth, then at least I could grieve and move on, maybe get to some place where remembering Jenny wouldn’t hurt as much. That need to know the truth – time doesn’t take it away. It only sharpens the edges.’

Darby thought back to Fletcher’s warning. What had he said?
I shouldn’t have to warn you, of all people, that the truth is, more often than not, a terrible burden. You may want to give that some thought.

‘After I left the police station, I was angry,’ Tina Sanders said. ‘I didn’t want to carry that hope again – that hope of finally coming close to knowing the truth. It’s happened too many times over the years. I went to church and prayed to God to take it away. Father Murphy told me to have faith. “God will send his angels, Tina.”

‘And then this man Malcolm Fletcher called me and he put Detective Bryson on the phone and he told me how Sam Dingle killed these women – Detective Bryson
knew
it and yet he went to Dingle’s father and said he would throw away the evidence because he needed money to pay doctors to treat his daughter. He let Dingle go and then Dingle came back and killed Jenny. The man raped my daughter for
days
inside that basement and then he strangled her and left my baby to rot.’

‘Detective Bryson
told you
this?’

Tina Sanders looked back to her rosary beads. ‘Father Murphy said if I ever met the man who killed Jenny, I had to forgive him. It was the only way to let go of the hate. I had to forgive him.

‘Malcolm Fletcher asked me how Detective Bryson should be punished. I said it was for God to decide. That’s what I said. Those were my exact words.’ She squeezed the rosary beads in her hand and closed her eyes. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he suffer?’

Darby told the woman the truth. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he did.’

Jennifer’s mother took a deep breath. Opening her eyes, she exhaled slowly, choking back tears, and stared back out the window.

She refused to speak again.