by Lisa Gardner
“I want to see it.”
“What?”
“The grave. Where you found Dori. I want to go there.”
“Oh no,” he stated immediately. “Crime scenes are for professionals only. We don’t do public tours. Lawyers, judges, D.D., frown on that sort of thing.”
She worked that tilt of her chin again. “I’m not just a member of the public, I’m a potential witness.”
“Who, by her own admission, never saw anything.”
“Maybe I just don’t remember. Going to the site might trigger something.”
“Annabelle, you don’t want to visit a crime scene. Do your friend a favor: Remember her as your happy seven-year-old playmate. That’s the best thing you can do.” He closed his notebook, tucked it inside his jacket, then finished his water before placing the empty glass in the sink.
“There is one thing,” he said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
“What?”
“Well, I don’t really know. I mean, Dori Petracelli went missing in ’82; everyone’s sure about the date. What’s so puzzling, however, is that her kidnapping bears a resemblance to another case from 1980. A man named Richard Umbrio kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl and, get this, kept her in a pit. Probably would’ve killed her, too, except hunters stumbled upon the opening and set her free.”
“She lived? She’s still alive?” Annabelle’s voice perked up.
He nodded, tucking his hands in his pants pockets. “Catherine testified against Umbrio, sent him to prison. That’s what’s so odd, you see—Umbrio was incarcerated by January of ’82 and yet…”
“The cases seem related,” she filled in for him.
“Exactly.” He looked her up and down. “You’re sure you’ve never met Catherine?”
“I don’t think so.”
“For the record, she doesn’t think she’s met you either. And yet…”
“What does she look like?”
“Oh, about your height. Dark hair, dark eyes. Actually, not so dissimilar, come to think of it.”
She blinked uncomfortably at that news. He decided it was now or never.
“Say, what would you think of meeting her in person? Face-to-face. Maybe, if we got the two of you in the same room…I don’t know, it might shake something loose.”
He knew the moment she figured out he’d been playing her, because her body went perfectly still. Her face shut down, her eyes becoming hooded. He waited for an outburst, more swearing, possibly even physical violence. Instead, she just stood there, untouchable in her silence.
“You don’t have to like a system,” she murmured. “You just have to understand it. Then you can always survive.” Her dark brown eyes flickered up, held his. “Where does Catherine live?”
“Arizona.”
“Are we going there or is she coming here?”
“For several reasons, it would be best if we go there.”
“When?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Good. That will give us plenty of time.”
“For?”
“For you to escort me to the crime scene. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Isn’t that how the saying goes, Detective?”
She had him, fair and square. He nodded once, admitting his defeat. It still didn’t soften the rigid set of her shoulders, the stubborn tilt of her chin. He realized, belatedly, that his deceit had hurt her. That for a moment there, they had been conversing almost like real people, possibly she had even liked him.
He thought he should say something; couldn’t think of what. Policing often involved lying, and there was no sense in apologizing for something he’d do again if he needed to.
He headed for the door. Bella had risen from her dog bed. She licked his hand while Annabelle unlocked the fortress. Door opened. Annabelle gazed at him expectantly.
“Are you afraid?” he asked abruptly, gesturing to the locks.
“Chance favors the prepared mind,” she murmured.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes.”
“You live in the city. Locks are smart.”
She studied him a moment longer. “Why do you keep asking why my family fled so many times?”
“I think you know.”
“Because perpetrators don’t magically stop. An UNSUB doesn’t spend years stalking and abducting six girls, then suddenly decide one day to get a new hobby. You think my father knew something. You think he had a reason to keep us on the run.”
“Locks are smart,” he said again.
She simply smiled, stoic this time, and for some reason that made him sad. “What time?” she asked.
He considered his watch, the phone call to D.D. he was gonna have to make, the temper tantrum he was about to endure. “Pick you up at two.”
She nodded.
He exited, starting back down the stairs, as up above the bolt locks once again fired home.
I’D NEVER RIDDEN in a police car before. I didn’t really know what to expect. Hard plastic seats? The stench of vomit and urine? Like my experience with the Boston police station, reality was a let-down. The dark blue Crown Vic looked like any other four-door sedan. Inside was just as prosaic. Plain blue cloth seats. Navy blue carpet. The dash had a two-way radio and a few extra toggle switches, but that was it.
The vehicle appeared recently cleaned—floor freshly vacuumed, air scented by Febreze. A small consideration for me? I didn’t know if I was supposed to say “Thank you” or not.
I belted myself in the passenger’s seat. I was nervous, hands shaking. It took me three times to work the metal clasp. Detective Dodge didn’t try to help or make any comment. I appreciated that more than the car’s freshened hygiene.
I’d spent the time since the detective’s departure trying to complete an elaborate window valance for a client in Back Bay. Mostly, however, I’d held the watered silk fabric beneath the needle of my sewing machine, foot off the pedal, eyes glued to the TV. Coverage of the Mattapan case was easy to find, every major news station giving it round-the-clock attention. Few, unfortunately, had anything new to say.
They had confirmation that six remains had been found in a subterranean chamber, located on the grounds of the former lunatic asylum. The remains were believed to be those of young girls and had possibly been in the chamber for some time. Police were pursuing several avenues of investigation at this time (Is that what I was? An avenue of investigation?). Reports diverted quickly into wild speculation from there. No mention of the locket. No mention of Dori. No mention of Richard Umbrio.
I’d abandoned my sewing and looked up Umbrio on the Internet. I had found the story under “Fatal Shooting in Back Bay,” an account of how the survivor of a midnight police shooting, Catherine Gagnon, had endured tragedy once before: As a child, she’d been held captive by convicted pedophile Richard Umbrio until rescued by hunters shortly before Thanksgiving.
Umbrio, however, was merely a sidebar. The big story—how Jimmy Gagnon, Catherine’s husband and the only child of a wealthy Boston judge, had been fatally shot by a police sniper during a tense hostage situation. The officer who had made the kill: Robert G. Dodge.
Criminal charges had been filed against Officer Bobby Dodge by the victim’s father, Judge Gagnon, who alleged that Officer Dodge had conspired with Catherine Gagnon to murder her husband.
Now, there was a small tidbit neither Detective Dodge nor Sergeant Warren had bothered to mention.
In case that wasn’t shocking enough, I then found another story, dated a few days later: Bloodbath in Penthouse… Three people were declared dead and one critically wounded after a recently paroled inmate, Richard Umbrio, stormed a luxury hotel in downtown Boston. Umbrio murdered two people, one with his bare hands, before being fatally shot by Catherine Gagnon and an assisting Massachusetts State Police officer, Robert G. Dodge.
Interesting and more interesting.
I didn’t say anything as I sat bes
ide Detective Dodge now. Instead, I hoarded my little nuggets of truth. Bobby had been exploiting the details of my past. Now I knew some things about him.
I stole a glance at him, sitting next to me. He drove with his right hand resting casually on the wheel, left elbow propped against the door. Life as a police officer had obviously made him immune to Boston traffic. He zigged in and out of narrow side streets and triple-parked cars like a NASCAR driver doing a warm-up lap. At this rate, he’d have us to Mattapan in under fifteen minutes.
I didn’t know if I would be ready by then.
I turned away, staring out the window. If he could be comfortable in the silence, then so could I.
I didn’t know why I wanted to go to the crime scene so badly. I just did. I had read the story of Dori’s last days. I’d stared at my locket, worn so proudly around her neck. And then my brain had filled with too many questions, the kind her parents had probably wondered about every night for the past twenty-five years.
Had she screamed for help as she was snatched from the yard in front of her grandparents’ house and stuffed into an unmarked van? Had she struggled with her abductor? Had she tried to open the doors, only to discover the true evil of childproof locks?
Did the man speak to her? Did he ask about the locket? Accuse her of stealing it from her friend? Had she begged him to take it back? Had she asked him, once he got started, to please stop and kidnap Annabelle Granger instead?
I honestly hadn’t thought of Dori Petracelli in twenty-five years. It was humbling, horrible, to think now that she had died in my place.
The car slowed. I blinked rapidly, ashamed to find my eyes filled with tears. As quickly as I could, I swiped at my face with the back of my hand.
Detective Dodge pulled over. I didn’t recognize where we were. I saw a block of old triple-deckers, most in need of new paint and maybe some actual grass in their front yards. The neighborhood looked tired, poor. I didn’t understand.
“Here’s the deal,” Dodge said from the driver’s seat, turning toward me. “There are only two entrances onto the site. We, the police, have smartly cordoned them off in order to preserve the crime scene. Unfortunately, the media are camped outside both entrances, desperate for any comment or visual they can stick on the news. I’m guessing you don’t want your face on the news.”
The notion terrified me so much, I couldn’t even speak.
“Yeah, okay, like I thought. So, this isn’t exactly glamorous, but it will get the job done.” He gestured to the backseat, where I now saw a folded-up blanket, roughly the same hue as the upholstered seats. “You lie down; I’ll cover you with the blanket. With any luck, we’ll pass through the vicious hordes so fast, no one will be any wiser. Once we’re actually on the grounds, you can sit up. The FAA agreed to restrict the airspace, so nobody gets to play in their choppers anymore.”
He popped open his door, stepping out. Moving on autopilot, I shifted to the backseat, lying down with my knees curled up, arms tucked tight against my chest. With a sharp snap, he unfolded the blanket, then settled it over me. A couple more tugs to cover my feet, obscure the top of my head.
“Okay?” Detective Dodge asked.
I nodded. The back door slammed. I heard him move around, settle back into the driver’s seat, put the car in gear.
I couldn’t see anymore. Just hear the sound of the asphalt rumbling beneath the tires. Just smell the nauseous mix of exhaust and air freshener.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and in that moment, I got it. I knew exactly how Dori had felt, thrown into an unknown vehicle, tucked away out of sight. I understood how she must have curled up tighter and tighter, closing her eyes, wishing her own body would disappear. I knew she had whispered the Lord’s Prayer, because that’s what we said at bedtime when I slept over. And I knew she had cried for her mother, who always smelled of lavender when she kissed us good night.
Underneath the blanket, I covered my face with my hands. I cried, never making a sound, for that’s how you learn to cry when you spend your life on the run.
The car slowed again. The window came down, I heard Detective Dodge give his name, hand over his badge. Then the larger background rumble of gathered voices crying out for recognition, a question, a comment.
The window came up. The car started to drive again, engine downshifting as the vehicle ground its way up a hill.
“Ready or not,” Detective Dodge said.
Beneath the blanket, I once again wiped my face.
For Dori, I told myself, for Dori.
But mostly I was thinking of my father and how much I hated him.
DODGE HAD TO let me out of the backseat. Turns out, back doors in police sedans do have some differences from ordinary cars—they only open from the outside. His face was unreadable as he assisted me, hooded gray eyes peering at a spot just beyond my right shoulder. I followed his gaze to a second car, already parked beneath the skeletal umbrella of a massive oak tree. Sergeant Warren stood beside it, shoulders hunched within her caramel-colored leather jacket, expression as annoyed as I remembered.
“She’s lead officer,” Detective Dodge murmured low, for my ears only. “Can’t very well visit her crime scene without her permission. Don’t worry, she’s only pissed off at me. You’re just an easy target.”
Being labeled a target offended me. I straightened up, shoulders squaring, balance shifting. Dodge nodded approvingly, and immediately I wondered if that hadn’t been his intention. The thought left me more off balance than Sergeant Warren’s perpetually sour look.
Dodge headed over to the sergeant. I followed in his wake, arms hugging my body for warmth. The afternoon was gray and chilly. Leaf-peeping season, easily the most beautiful time to be living in New England, had peaked two weeks ago. Now the brilliant crimsons, bright oranges, and cheerful yellows had succumbed to muddy browns and dreary grays. The air smelled damp and moldy. I sniffed again, caught the faint odor of decay.
I had read about the Boston State Mental Hospital site online. I knew it started as the Boston Lunatic Hospital in 1839, before becoming the Boston State Hospital in 1908. Originally, the compound had housed a few hundred patients and operated more like a self-sustaining farm than a role model for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
By 1950, however, the patient population had ballooned to over three thousand patients, with the compound adding two maximum-security buildings and an enormous wrought-iron security fence. Not such a tranquil place anymore. When deinstitutionalization finally closed the hospital in 1980, the community was grateful.
I expected to feel an eerie chill as I entered the grounds, maybe goose bumps rippling down my arms as I sensed the presence of a lingering evil. I would gaze upon some spookily Gothic structure, like the abandoned Danvers mental hospital that still towers over I-95, spotting—just for an instant—a pale, haunted face peering from a shattered window.
Actually, from this vantage point, I didn’t see the two remaining buildings at all. Instead, I gazed upon a thicket of snarled bushes, capped by an enormous hundred-year-old oak tree. When Sergeant Warren followed a narrow trail through the shrubs, we entered a yawning expanse of drying marsh grass that winked gold and silver in the rippling wind. The view was lovely, more of a nature hike than an impending crime scene.
The ground firmed up. A clearing appeared on our right. I saw what appeared to be some sort of refuse pile. Warren halted abruptly, gestured toward the overgrown heap of debris.
“Botanist started poking through that,” she commented to Dodge. “Found the remains of a metal shelving unit similar to what we saw in the chamber. Sounds like the hospital had a lot of those kinds of shelves. I’ve got an officer combing through archive photos now.”
“You think the supplies came from the hospital itself?” Detective Dodge asked sharply.
“Don’t know, but the clear plastic bags…word is, they were commonly used in government institutions in the seventies.”
Sergeant Warren started walking again, Detective Do
dge falling in step behind her. I brought up the rear, puzzling through their exchange.
Suddenly, we passed through another copse of trees, burst into a clearing, and a brilliant blue awning rose up before me.
For the first time, I paused. Was it my imagination, or did it seem quieter here? No birds chirping, leaves rustling, or squirrels squawking. I couldn’t feel the light wind anymore. Everything seemed frozen, waiting.
Sergeant Warren marched ahead, her movements determined. She didn’t want to be here, I realized. And that started to unnerve me. What kind of crime scene scared even the cops?
Underneath the blue awning were two large plastic bins. Warren removed the gray lids, revealing white coveralls made of a thin, papery fabric. I recognized the Tyvek suits from all the true-crime shows on Court TV.
“While technically the scientists have already processed the scene, we want to keep it as clean as possible,” she said by way of explanation, handing me a suit, then one to Detective Dodge. “This kind of situation…you never know what new experts might step forward with something to offer, so we want to be prepared.”
She stepped into her own coveralls briskly. I couldn’t figure out what were the arms and what were the legs. Detective Dodge had to help me. They moved on to shoe coverings, then hairnettings. By the time I got it all figured out, they’d been waiting for what felt like hours, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment.
Warren led the way to the back of the awning. She stopped at the edge of a hole in the ground. I couldn’t see anything; the depths were pitch-black.
She turned to me, blue gaze cool and assessing.
“You understand you cannot share what you see below,” she stated crisply. “Can’t talk about it to your neighbor, your coworker, your hairdresser. This is strictly on the QT.”
“Yes.”
“You may not take any pictures, sketch any diagrams.”
“I know.”
