by Gary Braver
While Reardon listened, Steve explained how Dana had had cosmetic procedures, including rhinoplasty, performed by Aaron Monks.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I can’t locate her.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a missing wife problem, not a serial killer.”
“Captain, I think she may have even been seeing him socially.” He hated uttering the words.
After a moment’s silence, Reardon said, “This sounds more personal than investigatory.”
“I know how it sounds, but I’m telling you I think Monks is our man.”
“And I think you’ve got nothing to go on. And before you jump in, I got a call from Captain Ralph Modesky of the Cobbsville P.D. saying you called him today in the middle of a political fundraiser asking questions about cosmetic surgery.”
“Yeah, on legitimate police matters. Does the investigation have to stop for lunch?”
“Lieutenant Markarian, I don’t like the tone of your voice.”
“And I don’t like resistance on running down a prime suspect.”
“He’s not a prime suspect. You’ve got nothing—no priors, no physical evidence, not even circumstantial evidence. Nothing but that he did your wife’s cosmetic work and she vaguely resembles the victims. Besides the guy is the Bigfoot of plastic surgery, probably up for the Nobel Prize. You check his whereabouts on any of these?”
He hadn’t, but the Boston Globe “Party Line” said that on the night Terry Farina was killed Monks had been photographed at a banquet at the Westin Hotel in town. It ran from five to closing, but he could have slipped out a little after eight to make it to her apartment—maybe even do a fast outfit change in the car—kill her then return to the hotel to seal an alibi. “I want to search his place.”
“You can try, but I doubt you’ll get a warrant. And if you go over there looking for your wife, you’re doing it as private citizen Markarian. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know how to say this without saying it, but if you try to break into Dr. Monks’s place or anywhere else without papers, I’m going to cut you another asshole. Is that clear, Lieutenant Detective Markarian?”
“Yeah.”
“You cannot enforce the law by breaking the law.”
Steve hung up.
Moments later he was in his car as private citizen Markarian with Lieutenant Detective Markarian’s service weapon on his belt and an assault rifle in the trunk with enough rounds to shoot nonstop into next week.
He called Dacey and explained what he had found. She said she understood. They were heading for Monks’s place, which was 17 John Street in Lexington. According to GPS, it was a mile out of the center. Because Steve was closer, he got there in under twenty minutes.
John Street turned out to be what was probably the only remaining dirt road left in that town. The house was a large modern place with no lights on. A BMW SUV sat in the driveway. Steve rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.
Dacey arrived while Steve finished walking around the place.
“Alarm signs all over,” Dacey said.
“Forget it. Nobody’s here. And the car engine’s cold.”
Steve also didn’t want to be held up explaining to local uniforms why they had broken in. Plus it would get back to Reardon, who’d send a posse after them.
The clinic was in Chestnut Hill. “By the way,” Dacey said, “the receptionist’s name is May Ann Madlansacay.”
“And you wonder why I forgot.”
Because they might need backup, Steve made one more call as he led Dacey to the clinic. To Neil French.
They arrived a little after four.
The parking lot was empty, but for a cleaning van. Several other medical offices were located in the building, but the sign on the door said that all closed at two, that the building was locked until Monday morning.
Dacey had pulled up to the door with her blue-and-whites flashing silently and pressed the call button until one of the cleaning persons came to the door. She badged the man and explained they were here to search an office.
Neil French arrived as Steve had expected he would. Steve explained the situation. “I think he killed Terry, and Dana may be with him.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah.”
They followed the cleaning man up the stairs to the clinic, which he opened.
“What are we looking for?” Dacey asked
“My wife.”
Steve didn’t believe in telepathy, ESP, precognition, or any paranormal claims, including psychics they sometimes turned to in desperation. But he knew on some visceral level that Dana was in trouble.
While Dacey checked the other rooms, Neil tried to access the appointments’ calendar at the reception desk. But they needed a password.
A Rolodex listed Monks’s name, Lexington address, and several telephone numbers, including one that simply said “Homer’s.” There was also a listing for the receptionist and office manager, May Ann Madlansacay. Steve punched the numbers and said a silent prayer. A woman answered. “Is this May Ann Madlansacay?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Steve Markarian with the homicide bureau of the Boston police. You may recognize the name because my wife had some work done by Dr. Monks.”
“Oh, yes.”
“It’s very urgent that we locate him.”
“Oh, my. Is he all right?”
“We don’t know, but we’d like to know where he might be.”
There was some hesitation. Then she said, “How do I know you are who you say you are? He gets people calling all the time from the media saying they’re someone else.”
“How about I send a squad car to 343 Acacia Lane in Newton to talk to you in person?”
“No, there’s no need for that. He’s probably at home.”
“We were just there—17 John Street in Lexington. Nobody’s there.”
“Well, he may be cruising on his boat. Or he may be at his summer place.”
“Where’s that?”
“I really don’t think I can give you that information.”
“The option is bringing you to police headquarters.”
“Well, it’s not public information,” she said. “But he has a place on Homer’s Island.”
“Homer’s Island. Where’s that?”
“I believe it’s between Falmouth and Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Are you saying it’s his summer residence?”
“Actually, it’s where he goes to get away. It’s also an offsite clinic where he sometimes operates.”
“You mean he’s got an operating room out there?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say he was going this weekend?”
“He didn’t, but he usually goes there on weekends and days off.”
“Do you know where he moors his boat? And the name of it?”
“Yes, it’s moored at the Waterboat Marina near the New England Aquarium.”
“And the boat’s name?”
“Fair Lady.”
When Steve got off the phone, Neil said, “It’s one of the Elizabeth Islands.” Online he found a nautical site for Massachusetts. Neil enlarged the image. Homer’s Island was the last in the Elizabeth chain beyond Cuttyhunk.
Dacey had wandered back from the other rooms. The place was empty. “There’s a photo of a fancy white power cruiser on his wall you might want to take a look at.”
Steve headed into Monks’s office while he punched Dana’s telephone numbers again. Nothing. Then he called Monks’s cell phone and got a voice mailbox. He called the number for Homer’s Island and got a busy signal.
The file cabinets were locked in the back room. They could send a car to pick up Madlansacay, but that would take time. It was quarter to five, and Steve didn’t give a rat’s ass about the contents of Monks’s file. He wanted to find Dana.
He turned to Dacey. “Hogan’s on duty. Call him to check the marina on the boat.”
Dacey snapped out her phone and made the call.
He turned to Neil. “Who do you know who’s got a chopper?”
“A chopper? Nobody, but I know some guys in the coast guard.” And he whipped out his PDA.
Dacey returned. “He says the slip is empty, the boat’s gone. According to the harbormaster he left at about four o’clock. A security guard said that a woman was with him. I asked for a description. He said he didn’t get a good look, but she was an attractive redhead.”
“Sweet Jesus!”
His eyes fell blankly on the sepia drawing on the wall behind Monks’s desk. He didn’t know what it was, but the first time he was here something about that abstract had bothered him. Something just beneath the range of awareness. He closed his eyes to center himself. He may have closed his eyes for twenty or thirty seconds when on the inside of his eyelids an image appeared.
A woman’s face.
He opened his eyes again and stared at the image again for maybe another half minute, then closed them again.
A jolt of realization passed through him. The image reappeared on the inside of his lids. He opened his eyes. That was no random abstract Japanese drawing. It was the image of a woman in sepia on white but in negative. When he stared at it long enough then closed his eyes the positive formed in his vision.
Dana.
92
The next moment Aaron Monks entered the room.
An involuntary cry pressed out of Dana’s lungs as she stumbled to look at the man on the gurney and then at the man walking toward her.
I’ve lost my mind. I’ve had some kind of brain seizure that’s left me delusional. They’re one and the same man.
“Wh-wh-who…” was all she could get out.
“He’s nobody.”
“Wha-what’s happening?” she pleaded.
He walked over to the gurney and pulled the sheet over the man’s face and turned toward her. His face looked strangely immobile, eyes dark but blank. Gone was the warm simpatico smile that she had taken comfort in. And in its place something implacable and raw, like a face that had too long been kept under a mold.
“What are you doing?” she begged. She told herself that things would make sense, that someone would tell her what was going on and rid her of the sense of dread that was wracking her bowels.
She tried to ask who that man was and why he looked like Aaron and was he the real Aaron and who are you, but nothing would come. Nothing but fat dumb syllables that didn’t connect.
From someplace she heard the sounds of people. The dinner party guests had arrived, she told herself. Thank God. Maybe someone would explain things, explain why nothing was making any sense.
My head.
Her brain felt like a lightbulb loose in its socket. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Who are you?”
But he didn’t answer her. “Get her ready.”
And from behind her Cho and Pierre entered with two other men in green. They took her arms and pulled her out of the room and into the bright lights of the corridor and into another room across it where they lifted her up and laid her on a bed.
Then they began to remove her clothes.
She was too weak to stop them.
93
The chopper owner was a retired coast guard pilot named Rob Krueger who ran his own flight school out of a small airport in Plymouth. He was a friend of Neil’s, who had gone to the police academy with Krueger’s brother.
To save time, the pilot picked them up at the medevac heliport on Huntington Avenue in Boston and flew a southerly inland course straight toward Buzzards Bay. Homer’s Island lay about ten miles off the Massachusetts shore. The sky was heavily overcast and growing darker by the minute as they approached.
Krueger said he had been over the Elizabeth Islands before and knew the general layout of Homer’s. Using a detailed island map that marked the various estates, he found Vita Nova, the name of the estate that Monks’s receptionist had given. It was located on a rocky ledge that hung over Buck’s Cove.
About fifty minutes from liftoff, they crossed over the southeastern end of the Elizabeth chain and dropped to two hundred feet as they approached Homer’s. A sharp turn and the pilot pointed to Buck’s Cove, which was outlined by the night lights burning on the row of half a dozen estates.
Vita Nova, which sat at the easterly end of the cove, blazed on the darkling heights. And in the cove below, illuminated by lights burning along a long dock stretching into the water, sat a long white power cruiser.
It was the same boat in the photo in Monks’s office. The Fair Lady.
94
Above her head hung blinding lights.
She tried to move her arms, but they would not obey the commands of her brain. The same with her feet. Even her middle felt fixed in place. They had strapped her to the table. Then her vision filled with faces.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“A little truth, a little beauty. All you need to know on earth. I’m sure Professor Pendergast would have appreciated that. Pity. The wrong man. That makes two of us.”
She didn’t understand what he was saying and she was too fuzzy by whatever he had given her.
Pendergast. Pendergast.
Her mind rummaged for a connection. She recognized the name. Something to do with Steve. But it was too much work to recall.
Three other faces closed over hers.
“You remember Cho and Pierre. Actually, Drs. Cho Furlon and Pierre Shan. And this is Dr. Max DuPre, your faithful chauffeur.”
Unlike Monks, who was in white, they were in green scrubs. She could vaguely recognize the faces. They smiled at her then pulled up their masks.
Someone put a needle in her arm, and magically an IV bag appeared above her head. She smelled chemical odors.
Please! Her mind screamed. What are you doing? What do you want with me? But the words got stuck in her brain and would not come.
Then her brain quieted.
And the last thing she saw was the light fixtures beginning to spin.
And the last thing she heard was a soothing voice, “Good night, Beauty Girl.”
The last thing she felt was Aaron Monks marking her face with a felt-tip pen.
95
The pilot lowered them to the beach, guided by the dock lights. The boat looked empty, although a night-light burned in the pilot compartment.
Dacey, Neil, and Steve got out with their weapons drawn. While Neil covered them from the beach, Steve and Dacey headed for the boat. Nobody was aboard, but a laptop and navigation charts were laid out on a table beside the steering wheel in the fore cabin. One chart showed the entire eastern seaboard, with details of the inland water ways. Others were of the eastern waters of Florida and the West Indies.
At the end of the dock rose a long set of wooden stairs leading up to Vita Nova, which glowed at the cliff top. There was no movement anywhere, no sounds but the waves and the chittering of cicadas. Overhead brooded a thick ceiling of clouds.
The chopper pilot had cut the engines and waited as the others climbed the stairs to the top of the cliff.
Neil and Dacey each carried a shotgun and a Glock in a shoulder holster, while Steve had his service weapon and a belt of stun grenades.
No one was certain what they would find in the mansion, but every fiber of Steve’s being told him that Dana was here and in trouble.
At the top, they split but kept in whispered contact by their PDAs. They circled the house to determine any activity inside. Exterior lights burned as did two rooms at the rear, including the kitchen. An upstairs room was also lit. But no sounds came from the house. And no cars in the driveway, although there were two golf carts.
Steve and Dacey reconnoitered at the front while Neil covered the kitchen in the rear.
The front door was locked, but Dacey was prepared. From her pack she removed a handgrip plunger that she fastened to the glass panel near the handle and cut an arc with a glass cutter, then snapped it
off, incised the sector, put her hand through the hole, and unlocked the door from the inside.
The interior was dead silent. A light burned in rear rooms, and in the parlor on the right. Steve pointed for Neil and Dacey to check the lit bedroom upstairs while he headed for the kitchen, his weapon gripped in both hands.
There was no sign of life in the kitchen, but there was a single champagne glass and an open bottle of Taittinger.
Neil French and Dacey came down shaking their heads. “Two packed travel bags,” Dacey whispered. “Women’s clothes.”
Steve motioned for them to spread throughout the rest of the first floor. As they headed into the other rooms, he stopped in his tracks.
On a stool at a counter in the kitchen he saw Dana’s bright green leather handbag. The one she had bought last summer when they were in New York for a long weekend.
When Neil and Dacey looked back, Steve held up the bag and mouthed: “Dana.”
Steve raised his gun and moved down the hall behind Dacey. She took only a few steps when she stopped and cupped her hand to her ear.
A sound. She turned and pointed to a door in a hall just off the kitchen.
Steve moved to it and nodded. A faint beeping. Neil nodded and they readied their weapons at the door. At a nod from Steve, Dacey pulled open the door.
The beeping was louder and more distinct. Like what you heard in hospitals. Heart monitors. Then from someplace below they heard muffled voices.
They were standing at the top of a long wooden staircase leading down to a lit basement. Steve led the way, Dacey behind while Neil waited at the top until they were below.
Steve found himself at the head of a long fluorescent-lit corridor with rooms on either side. The place looked like a replica of Monks’s clinic except for a reception desk.
Steve followed the beeping past two rooms, one of which was open and a light inside fell on a hospital gurney. He had been to the Medical Examiner’s office more times than he chose, and become all too familiar with the profile of a sheeted body.
