by Lisa Gardner
Bobby blew out a puff of air, rubbed at the back of his neck. He wondered when he was going to start to develop some answers instead of a longer list of questions. He wondered how he was going to squeeze approximately twelve hours’ worth of phone calls into the approximately two hours he had before the next task-force meeting.
He wondered, once again, if he should say something reassuring to the subdued woman sitting beside him.
No answers yet. He kept driving, hands upon the wheel.
Night had descended, end of day prodding the city to life. Route 93 streamed ahead of them, a long ribbon of glowing red brake lights coiling to an island of glittering skyscrapers. People commented that the Boston cityscape was particularly beautiful at night. Bobby’d spent his whole life living in the city and his whole career driving around it. Frankly, he didn’t get it. Tall buildings were tall buildings. Mostly, this time of night, he wanted to be home.
“You ever lose someone close?” Annabelle spoke up abruptly. “A family member, friend?”
After the long silence, her question startled him into an honest answer. “My mother and brother. Long time back.”
“Oh, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…That’s sad.”
“No, no, no, they’re still alive. It’s not what you think. My mother walked out when I was six or seven. My brother made it about eight more years, then followed suit.”
“They just left?”
“My father had a drinking problem.”
“Oh.”
Bobby shrugged philosophically. “Back in those days, the choices were pretty much flee the scene or dig your own grave. To give my mother and brother credit, they didn’t have a death wish.”
“But you stayed.”
“I was too young,” he said matter-of-factly. “Didn’t have long enough legs.”
She blinked her eyes, looking troubled. “And your father now?”
“Has been sober for nearly ten years. Been a rough road for him, but he’s holding course.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m proud of him.” He glanced over at her for the first time, making eye contact, holding it for the fraction of an instant driving would allow. He wasn’t sure why he said this, but it felt important to get it out: “I’m not so great with booze myself. I understand how hard my father has to fight.”
“Oh,” she said again.
He nodded at that. Oh summarized his life quite nicely these days. He’d killed a man, gotten involved with the victim’s widow, realized he was an alcoholic, confronted a serial killer, and derailed his policing career all in the course of two years. Oh was pretty much the only summary he had left.
“Do you still miss your family?” Annabelle was asking now. “Do you think about them all the time? I honestly hadn’t thought of Dori in twenty-five years. Now I wonder if I’ll ever get her out of my head.”
“I don’t think about them the way I used to. I can go weeks, maybe even a month or two, not thinking of them at all. But then something will happen—you know, like the Red Sox winning the World Series—and I’ll find myself wondering, What is George doing right now? Is he cheering in some bar in Florida, going nuts for the home team? Or when he left us, did he leave the Red Sox, too? Maybe he only roots for the Marlins these days. I don’t know.
“And then my mind will go nuts for a few days. I’ll find myself staring in the mirror, wondering if George has the same wrinkles around his eyes that I’m getting. Or maybe he’s a plump insurance salesman with the beer gut and double chin. I haven’t seen him since he was eighteen years old. I can’t even picture him as a man. That gets to me sometimes. Makes me feel like he’s dead.”
“Do you call him?”
“I’ve left messages.”
“He doesn’t return your calls?” She sounded skeptical.
“Not so far.”
“And your mom?”
“Ditto.”
“Why? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not your fault your father was a drunk. Why do they blame you?”
He had to smile. “You’re a kind person.”
She scowled back. “I am not.”
That just made his smile grow. But then he sighed. It felt strange, but not bad, to be talking about his family. He had been thinking about them more and more since the shooting. And leaving more messages.
“So, I went to this shrink a couple years ago,” he said. “Department orders. I’d been involved in a critical incident—”
“You killed Jimmy Gagnon,” Annabelle said matter-of-factly.
“I see you’ve been busy on the Internet.”
“Were you sleeping with Catherine Gagnon?”
“I see you’ve been talking to D.D.”
“So you were involved with her?” Annabelle sounded genuinely surprised. Apparently she’d just been fishing, and he’d stupidly taken the bait.
“I have never so much as kissed Catherine Gagnon,” he said firmly.
“But the lawsuit—”
“Was ultimately dropped.”
“Only after the shoot-out in the hotel—”
“Dropped is dropped.”
“Sergeant Warren obviously hates her,” Annabelle said.
“D.D. will always hate her.”
“Are you sleeping with D.D.?”
“So,” he said loudly, “I did my job and shot an armed man holding his wife and child at gunpoint. And the department sent me to a shrink. And you know that old saw that shrinks only want to talk about your mother? It’s true. All the woman did was ask about my mother.”
“All right,” Annabelle said, “let’s talk about your mother.”
“Exactly, one soul-baring moment at a time here. It was interesting. The longer my mother and brother stayed away, the more, on some level, I’d internalized things as being my fault. The shrink, however, raised some good points. My mother, brother, and I shared a pretty traumatic time in our lives. I felt guilty they’d had to run away. Maybe they felt guilty for leaving me behind.”
Annabelle nodded, jingled her necklace again. “Makes some sense. So what are you supposed to do?”
“God give me the strength to change the things I can change, the courage to let go of the things I need to let go, and the wisdom to know the difference. My mother and my brother are two of those things I can’t change, so I gotta let go.” Their exit was coming up. He put on the blinker, worked on getting over.
She frowned at him. “What about the shooting? How are you supposed to handle that?”
“Sleep eight hours a day, eat healthy, drink plenty of water, and engage in moderate amounts of exercise.”
“And that works?”
“Dunno. First night, I went to a bar, drank until I nearly passed out. Let’s just say I’m still a work in progress.”
She finally smiled. “Me, too,” she said softly. “Me, too.”
She didn’t speak again until he parked in front of her building. When she did, her voice had lost its edge. She simply sounded tired. Her hand went to the door latch.
“When do we leave in the morning?” she asked.
“I’ll pick you up at ten.”
“All right.”
“Pack for one night. We’ll handle the arrangements. Oh, and Annabelle—to board the plane you’re going to need valid photo ID.”
“Not a problem.”
He arched a brow but didn’t press. “It won’t be so bad,” he found himself saying. “Don’t let the news articles fool you. Catherine’s a woman, same as any other. And we’re just going to talk.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Annabelle popped open the door, stepped out onto the curb. At the last moment, however, she turned back toward him.
“In the beginning,” she said softly, “when I saw myself declared dead in the paper, I was relieved. Dead meant I could relax. Dead meant I didn’t have to worry about some mysterious boogeyman chasing me anymore. Dead left me feeling a little giddy.”
She paused, took a deep breath, then looked him in the eye. �
�But it’s not like that, is it? You, Sergeant Warren, and I aren’t the only ones who know it wasn’t my body in that grave. Dori’s killer also knows he abducted my best friend in my place. He knows I’m still alive.”
“Annabelle, it’s been twenty-five years…”
“I’m not a helpless little girl anymore,” she filled in.
“No, you’re not. Plus, we don’t know if the perpetrator is active these days. The chamber was abandoned. Meaning he could’ve been incarcerated for another crime, or here’s a thought, maybe he did the world a favor and dropped dead. We don’t know yet. We don’t.”
“Maybe he didn’t stop. Maybe he moved. My family kept running. Maybe it was because someone kept chasing.”
Bobby didn’t have an answer for that one. At this point, anything was possible.
Annabelle shut the door. He rolled down the window, so he could monitor the situation while she went to work inserting the keys. Maybe he was getting a little paranoid, too, because his gaze kept scouring up and down the street, checking every shadow, making sure nothing moved.
The outer door opened. Annabelle turned, waved, stepped into the brightly lit space. He watched her pull the door shut firmly behind her, then go to work on the inner sanctum. Then that door was also opened and closed and he caught one last glimpse of her back as she headed up the stairs.
BOBBY WAS LATE to the task-force meeting again. No baked goods this time, but the other officers were too busy listening to Detective Sinkus to care. As promised, Sinkus had met with George Robbards, the District 3 clerk who’d served in Mattapan from ’72 to ’98. Apparently, Robbards had a lot to say about their favorite suspect du jour, Christopher Eola.
“The body of the nurse was found gagged with a pillowcase that came from the hospital supply room. Coroner’s report indicated that she’d been worked over before death, which was from manual asphyxiation. Originally, the investigation focused on a former boyfriend of Lovell’s—they’d recently broken up—and a couple of key staff members who worked at the hospital. Theory was, no way a patient could’ve been missing that long without someone noticing. Plus, the most logical suspect pool for patients would’ve been the guys in maximum security, and according to the head administrator, most of them were too drugged up to pull off something this sophisticated.
“Boyfriend got ruled out early on—had an alibi for the time in question. Three male staff members were interviewed, but the only thing they volunteered was the name Christopher Eola. Seems every time a staff member was questioned about the patient population, they ended up saying, ‘Oh, our guys couldn’t have done something like that, well…except for Eola.’
“Lead detective was Moss Williams. He personally interviewed Mr. Eola four times. Later, he told Robbards that within the first five minutes of speaking to Eola, he knew the guy had done it. Didn’t know how, didn’t know if they could prove it, but said there was no doubt in his mind Eola had murdered Inge Lovell. Williams would stake his badge on it.
“Unfortunately, that plus a quarter would still only fetch you a cup of coffee. They never could build a case. No one saw anything, Eola wasn’t admitting anything, and they had no physical evidence. Best Williams could do was advise the staff to keep a much shorter leash on Eola.
“Shortly thereafter, Eola led some kind of patient revolt in the I-Building and finally earned himself a transfer to Bridgewater. Williams didn’t hear about it until nearly a year later, and it pissed him off. According to Robbards, Williams believed they could’ve used the Bridgewater transfer as a bargaining chip. Maybe make some kind of deal with Eola, so at least the Lovell family could have some closure. No dice, however. Boston State Mental, apparently, preferred to handle its problems on its own—and without public knowledge.”
Sinkus cleared his throat, setting down his report expectantly. Most of his fellow detectives around the room were frowning at him.
“I don’t get it,” McGahagin said. He seemed to have laid off the coffee today, his voice having lost its overcaffeinated edge, though his face still had the pallor of someone who was spending too much time under fluorescent lights. “Are we really thinking one of the patients from the hospital did this? I admit, examining the local loonies makes sense. But like you said, the patients with a history of violence were supposedly locked up. And even if one did get out, how’d he get off the grounds to kidnap not one, but six girls? Then get back on the grounds. And prepare a chamber and spend time down there. And no one saw a thing?”
“Maybe he wasn’t a patient anymore,” Sinkus said. “Robbards had one other interesting thing to report. In the early eighties, he started noticing a disturbing trend: missing pets. Lots and lots of missing pets. Now, in the suburbs when Fluffy and Fido disappear, you wonder about encroaching coyote populations. But no one believes there are any four-legged predators operating in inner-city Mattapan. Not even on a hundred acre site.”
“What are you thinking?” D.D. pressed.
Sinkus shrugged. “We all know certain killers start by preying on animals. And it always struck Robbards that the same year the hospital shut its doors for good, local animals suddenly seemed to become prey. It kind of makes you wonder. Where did all those patients who were treated at Boston State Mental go when the hospital closed? And were all of them magically sane?
“More and more, I’m thinking we’re looking for a former patient of Boston State Mental. And if you’re going to look at former patients, then Christopher Eola has to lead the list. By all accounts, he’s shrewd, resourceful, and has already gotten away with murdering Inge Lovell.”
“All right,” D.D. said, spreading her hands. “You convinced me. So where’s Mr. Eola these days?”
“Dunno. Left a message with the hospital superintendent at Bridgewater an hour ago. I’m waiting to hear back.”
D.D. considered the matter. “Pay her a personal visit. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Eola’s name today.”
D.D. launched into a brief summary of her and Bobby’s conversation with Charlie Marvin. She shared the minister’s concerns about Eola, as well as about former staff member Adam Schmidt. Then, taking a very deep breath, D.D. mentioned the appearance of Annabelle Granger.
The task force went from stunned silence to full uproar in under ten seconds.
“Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!” McGahagin’s rasping voice finally cut through the clatter. “You’re telling us we have a witness?”
“Mmm, too strong a word. Bobby?” D.D. turned to him neatly, her gaze perfectly steady, as if she weren’t dumping a load of shit in his lap. He gave her a tighter, thanks-a-lot-Teach smile of his own, then scrambled to boil down three days of covert activities into three salient points for the task force’s consideration.
One, Annabelle Granger was still alive and the remains found with her engraved locket most likely belonged to her childhood friend, Dori Petracelli.
Two, this narrowed their time line to the fall of ’82, where they had evidence an unidentified white male subject was stalking seven-year-old Annabelle, then possibly kidnapped Dori as a substitute after the Granger family fled to Florida.
Three, there was the highly messy, disturbing, niggling little detail that Annabelle Granger happened to be the spitting image of another young girl, Catherine Gagnon, who was kidnapped and held in an underground pit in 1980, two years before Dori Petracelli vanished. Catherine’s abductor, Richard Umbrio, had been imprisoned by the beginning of ’82, however, meaning he couldn’t have been involved in Annabelle’s case.
Bobby stopped talking. His fellow officers stared at him.
“Yep,” he said briskly. “That’s about what I think, as well.”
Detective Tony Rock spoke first. “Holy shit,” he declared. He looked worse tonight than he had last night. The long hours, or the situation with his mother?
“Another astute observation.”
McGahagin turned on D.D. “Were you ever going to tell us about this?”
Score one for McGahagin.
“I thought it was important to verify Annabelle’s story first,” D.D. replied steadily, “given its rather perplexing impact on our investigation. She herself couldn’t provide any supporting documentation. Instead, Detective Dodge has spent the past twenty-four hours substantiating the details. I’m willing to believe her now. Unfortunately, I still don’t know what any of this means.”
“We can add to the profile of our suspect,” Sinkus spoke up. “We’re definitely looking for a predator who’s methodical and ritualized in his approach. He doesn’t just abduct his victims—he stalks them first.”
“Who might be in some way connected to Richard Umbrio,” another detective thought out loud. “Can we interview Umbrio?”
“Dead,” Bobby volunteered, but didn’t elaborate.
“But you said he was imprisoned.”
“At Walpole.”
“So maybe they still have his personal effects. Including correspondence?”
“Worth a try.”
“What about Catherine Gagnon? Any connection between her and Annabelle Granger?”
“Not that we’ve determined,” Bobby said. “But we’ve set up a meeting between the two women for tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps once they see each other in person…” He shrugged.
A couple of the task-force members were studying him now. Detectives had a relentless memory for details, such as that two years ago Officer Dodge had been involved in a fatal shooting involving a man named Jimmy Gagnon. Surely the last name wasn’t just a coincidence.
But they didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.
“Charlie Marvin spotted Annabelle at the Boston State Mental site,” D.D. was saying now. “Said he thought she looked familiar. I caught up with him after Annabelle left and tried to press him for details. Maybe he’d seen her or someone who looked like her in Mattapan. He was vague, though. Just thought for a moment he recognized her from somewhere, one of those passing things. I don’t know if there’s something more significant there or not. Annabelle would’ve been just a child when Boston State Mental closed, so an actual connection between her and the site…”
