The Silenced Women

by Frederick Weisel

  “Mr. Lerner,” Frames said, “I realize this is a difficult time. But this is a murder investigation, and we need any information you have on this young woman.”

  “You know what? I’m really not comfortable saying anything else.” Lerner pressed his fingertips on the table edge and stared at them. “I don’t mean to be opaque, but I don’t want to commit myself to anything else.”

  For a moment neither man spoke.

  “So, are we, like, through?” Lerner pushed back his chair and grabbed the Starbucks cup.

  “For now.” Frames waited a beat. “At some point we’ll want a full statement.”

  Frames let Lerner walk out the door ahead of him and then pointed him toward the stairs at the end of the corridor. As he watched Lerner walk away, Frames thought: You can be opaque or whatever the fuck you want. But we are definitely not, like, through.

  Part II

  Chapter Fourteen

  (i)

  (WEDNESDAY, 10:05 A.M.)

  Mahler leaned against the wall in his usual spot in the VCI room watching Frames. He saw a wariness in the other detective’s eyes. “Where’s Lerner now?”

  “He left,” Frames said.

  “You let him walk out?”

  “He didn’t seem like he was going to say anything else.”

  “So, in your interview, this guy says the victim was high-strung and unpredictable. And he’s not surprised she was killed. She liked some version of sex he declines to tell us. Any of this sound like something that might be important?”

  Frames held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I knew we had to bring him back in, but I was thinking, this guy’s just found out his employee’s been murdered. He needs some time to—”

  “To what? Figure out what his story’s going to be? Go find him, and take Daniel with you.” As he spoke, Mahler already regretted the anger in his voice. He disliked calling out an officer’s mistakes in front of others. He took a deep breath.

  Rivas broke the silence. “You think this guy Lerner was involved with the victim?”

  Mahler pushed himself off the wall and walked closer to the other detectives’ desks. “I don’t know. But he’s withholding something.”

  “If the victim was being treated for bipolar, that could be what Lerner means by ‘high-strung,’” Eden said.

  Mahler shrugged. “Yeah, but why did Lerner say he wasn’t surprised she was killed?” He turned to Coyle. “Get a warrant for the victim’s apartment, car, phone, the works. Once you’ve got it, go out to the apartment. Her roommates might be able to tell us where she was Monday night. And get a search warrant for her room.”

  “You want me to go?” Coyle asked.

  “You have a problem with that?” Mahler sighed.

  “No. It’s just that I don’t usually… Never mind. By the way, the men’s scarf that the dogs found in the park is probably a dead end. We have to get a court order to check the store sales, and even then we have no evidence to connect it to the victim’s body.”

  “Put it on the back burner,” Mahler said. “We’ll revisit it later if we need to.”

  “What about the victim’s mother?” Coyle asked.

  “I contacted the police back in Montgomery Township, Pennsylvania, and asked them to notify her in person. If I don’t hear back in a couple hours, I’ll give them a call.”

  Mahler walked back to the whiteboard. “Elise Durand” had been written in red marker under two photos of the victim. The countdown to another possible homicide now said thirty-seven hours. Beyond that, a second whiteboard was set up with photos of three earlier victims: Michelle Foss and Susan Hart, killed in Spring Lake Park, and Beth Hunter, killed forty miles away in Vallejo. Beneath each face was a close-up of a small knife cut in the flesh at the base of their spines. Mahler felt the others watching him as he studied the photos. “I understand we may have another possible match with this Vallejo victim?”

  Eden opened a file. “Yes, sir. All three girls have the same signature cut at the base of the spine, and all were killed when Irwin Partridge lived in the area.”

  “You figured this out by yourself?” Mahler asked, without turning to face Eden.

  “Yes, sir. But Daniel pulled Beth Hunter’s file off ViCAP, and Sergeant Woodhouse noticed the cut on Michelle Foss.”

  Mahler turned to face Eden. “But you put it together. It’s good work, Detective Somers. Now go back on ViCAP and see if any other cases show up with this new signature thing and—”

  “I already looked on ViCAP. No other murders show up with the signature cut. It might not mean anything. The signature wasn’t even mentioned in the ME’s report on Michelle Foss and Beth Hunter. I only saw it because Sergeant Woodhouse made a note. Maybe it’s been overlooked in other cases.”

  “Call the investigating officer in Vallejo, and tell him—”

  “I talked to Officer Dennis Jermany. He said their leads in the case didn’t pan out. Also said Partridge’s name never came up. But Partridge’s file shows that at the time of the Hunter murder, he had a job in Vallejo. Worked for Mare Island Rigging. So Jermany’s calling the company this morning to see if they have a record of Partridge’s schedule on the day of the murder.”

  Mahler stopped listening. The information about the signature cuts was like a new door opening. Maybe the way into the Partridge case wasn’t through the local murders but through a matching case in Vallejo.

  “Eddie, you saw my report?” Rivas asked. “Peña says he saw our victim Saturday night with three individuals. Probably a drug buy. If it’s true, we should find those guys.”

  Mahler nodded. “Get the ADA on it. If Peña has something more to tell us, I want to hear it this afternoon. And, Martin, ask the roommates about the three men.”

  Coyle abruptly stood and approached the whiteboards. “Eddie, listen,” he said, startling Mahler from his thoughts. “The new information Eden found is important for the Partridge case. But it also puts our latest victim, Elise Durand, even further outside the pattern of the other killings. We can’t ignore that. Everything’s different.”

  “Except it’s a young woman strangled and left in Spring Lake Park.” Mahler turned back to the photos.

  “Yes, but the way it was done is different. You know, we all know, these guys have a pattern. They almost never vary from it. It’s how they’re wired. It’s what allows us to do what we do.”

  “Almost never?” Mahler faced Coyle. “Is that what you want to go with here? You want to lead with that? You want to tell the press and the city we’re not going to find another girl’s body up there tomorrow night? And when a twenty-one-year-old’s left on a dirt footpath, or under some bushes, and we put her photo on this board, you want to tell her parents that, according to the latest research and the best analysis, this almost never happens?”

  Coyle held his ground. “All I’m saying is I think this new information on the signature cut changes things.”

  “Let’s just do our job.” The room fell quiet. Mahler walked back to his spot on the wall. For the second time in five minutes he regretted his words. Did he think Coyle and the others needed reminding of the consequences of the case? Did he know anything they didn’t? Should he tell them a few hours ago a dead girl told him the key to the latest case was the victim’s breathing?

  After a minute, he said, “Daniel, make a timeline for this girl. Lerner says she was at work on Monday. Talk to the admin. Find out exactly when Elise Durand left work. The building where she worked may have security videos. When Martin talks to the roommates, we’ll find out if they saw her after work. We need to know where she went and who she saw Monday evening.”

  Frames, Rivas, and Coyle left the room.

  Eden packed her laptop into a carrying case. “I’d like to talk to former Sergeant Woodhouse, the one who worked the earlier cases.”

  “Tom?” Mahler frowned. “Wha
t for?”

  “Ask some questions on his case notes.”

  “Okay, but this isn’t a research project. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Watching her walk away, Mahler spoke again. “Detective Somers, remember in our interview with Partridge, he mentioned his current girlfriend, Lorin Albright?”

  Eden nodded.

  “Go and talk to her. Let’s see what she has to say about Partridge.”

  “You want me to take Daniel or Martin with me?”

  “No. Go by yourself. She’s more likely to talk to you alone.”

  (ii)

  (WEDNESDAY, 10:45 A.M.)

  Mahler recognized the voice on the phone as the police officer in Pennsylvania he’d spoken to a few hours earlier—Detective Sergeant Joseph Warringer of the Montgomery Township Police. “Lieutenant Mahler, I’m getting back to you on your request for a death notification.”

  Out of habit, Mahler tried to picture the man. It was not a young man’s voice. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

  “We’re a small department, but we try to get right on something like this.”

  “Thanks. It’s an active homicide investigation.”

  “Sure thing. After your call, I drove out to the address for your victim’s mother, Carol Durand. I’ll email you a report, but I thought you’d want to hear this.”

  Mahler knew he’d given the officer a crap assignment. Based on a murder investigation that wasn’t his own, three thousand miles away, Warringer had to deliver news to a stranger that ruined her life. If she asked questions, he had very few answers.

  Mahler saw Warringer in his mind. Late forties, sitting straight, both elbows on the desktop. “You spoke with her in person?”

  “Yes, sir. I guess you could say it was lucky. She works in an office a few miles away, and she came home for lunch. Otherwise, I’d still be chasing her.”

  “Yeah, that was lucky.”

  “Soon as I identified myself, she knew something was up. Right away, she had a kind of fearful look. Times like that, I wish I wasn’t as big as I am. Scares women. Not much you can do about that, is there?”

  “No, there isn’t.” Mahler saw the other man’s height and broad shoulders.

  “Anyway, I got her to sit down and informed her of her daughter’s death. I tried to keep it simple. Told her what I know, which isn’t much.”

  “We’re just at the beginning of this thing.”

  “I told her that. Said it appeared to be a homicide, and the local police were involved. She broke down pretty good then.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “She was. Just the two of us there. I did my best. Asked if someone could be with her, but she said no. She lives alone.”

  “We only had contact information for the victim’s mother,” Mahler said. He heard papers rustling on Warringer’s end. Paper-and-pen man, Mahler thought. Not using a tablet yet. He was starting to like Warringer.

  “Speaking of that, your victim’s father, Carol Durand’s ex-husband, is Sebastien Durand. Divorced more than fifteen years ago. French citizen. Lives over there. I got the idea he’s way out of the picture. But I have contact information I can put in the report. Couple had no other children.”

  “Did Ms. Durand know where her daughter was Monday night?”

  “Let’s see. I asked all the questions you requested.” More pages being turned. “She said she did not know where her daughter was Monday evening. Last time she spoke with the girl was two weeks ago. Everything sounded okay then. Job, money.”

  “No mention of a boyfriend, anyone she was seeing?”

  “Asked that question, too. The mother didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know if she had a boyfriend, or didn’t know who he was?”

  “The second. When I asked if she had a boyfriend, she said, ‘I’m sure she does. She’s very pretty.’”

  “Very pretty?”

  “Yeah. When I asked if she knew the boyfriend’s name, she said, ‘No. I guess I should. She’s dated several boys.’ I got the impression her daughter didn’t share much in that way. It’s that way with a lot of kids. My own daughter won’t tell me a thing.”

  “We’re just hoping for a place to start.”

  “Ms. Durand said a few other things. Said she thought her daughter was well liked at the company where she worked. Apparently, your victim was an artist.”

  Mahler waited to see if Warringer would say more. Then he asked, “Did it sound like the mother’s coming out here?”

  “We talked about it. My impression is she’ll try to take a flight tonight. Probably a red-eye from Philly. Be out to you tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s good. We’d like to have a longer talk with her.”

  “By the time you see her, she’ll have had a little time to get used to it. Be readier to talk. I don’t know about you, but I find they do better the next day.”

  “Yeah. Shock’s worn off a bit.”

  “One other thing, if you’ve got a minute—”

  “What is it?”

  “Ms. Durand said this thing that raised a red flag. When she told me about her last call with her daughter, she said, ‘As far I could tell, Elise wasn’t in any trouble.’ When I asked her what she meant, she said her daughter suffered from bipolar disorder. In the past, Elise didn’t always use good judgment, went out with the wrong kinds of men, took drugs.”

  “But the mother thought that wasn’t happening now?”

  “In the phone call, her daughter sounded as if everything was going well. But now, with this…homicide, the mother wonders if she was wrong.”

  “Okay, thanks. You can never tell in the beginning what’s important.”

  For a moment the line was silent.

  “Before your call, I’d never heard of Santa Rosa,” Warringer said. “I Googled it. Looks like a nice town.”

  “Yeah, it’s really a city now. Getting bigger all the time.”

  “You get many homicides?”

  “Enough.”

  “Mostly armed robberies here. Last few years, we’ve had a real meth problem. Anyway, good luck with your investigation.”

  “Thanks again for your help.”

  “Glad to do it… By the way, maybe I don’t need to say this, but with this mom of your victim, you’re going to need kid gloves. Know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Mahler said. “Kid gloves.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  (i)

  (WEDNESDAY, 11:20 A.M.)

  Coyle sat on a stuffed chair facing the two young women. He’d knocked on the door a few minutes earlier and roused them from bed. Now they slouched on a sofa, dressed in tank tops and flannel pajama pants, one rubbing her eyes and the other raking fingers through her hair. The forensic tech who had come with Coyle, Bailey Perkins, stood beside his chair.

  The smaller of the two women asked, “Was Lisa really that girl they found in the park?” Her name was Molly. She had close-cropped hair and a shiny piercing on the side of her nose. She took a cigarette from a pack on the sofa and lit it.

  “Elise Durand,” Coyle said. “The victim was Elise Durand.”

  “She was trying to change her name to Lisa,” the other woman, Kira, said. “She hated the name Elise and made us call her Lisa.” She propped dirty bare feet on the end table, letting her tank top rise above her waist to show a roll of pale belly fat.

  In the morning light pouring through a bay window, the room had a worn, partied-out look. Plates of dried pizza lay on the floor, empty beer cans balanced on the arm of a loveseat. A thick candle had melted over a coffee table, its waxen trail stabbed with cigarette butts. The walls were bare except for an area above the sofa where an Indian bedspread was stretched and pinned at the corners. The air smelled of stale smoke and garbage.

  Coyle, who had prior experience being th
e first to tell a stranger that a relative or friend had died, watched the women’s faces. They gazed back with weary boredom.

  “How long did you live together?” Coyle asked.

  “Six months.” Molly shrugged. “We moved in last summer. Lisa was already here, with a girl named Jessica. When Jessica moved out, Lisa put a notice on the website for junior college housing and we answered.”

  “You’re students?”

  The girls nodded. Molly blew smoke out the side of her mouth.

  Coyle looked up at Bailey. She was a few years older than the girls on the sofa, her dark hair pulled into a ponytail. She wore narrow, dark-framed glasses. Her arms were wrapped around the black shoulder bag she took to crime scenes. She studied the two girls intently.

  “But Elise, or Lisa, wasn’t a student, right?” Coyle asked. “She had a job as a graphic artist?”

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “She was, like, twenty-four. I think she wanted to be a student but didn’t have any money. She was auditing a class at night or something.”

  “What else can you tell me about her?”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said. “We didn’t really hang. She was at work all day, and we were in classes at night. And she wasn’t, you know, like us.”

  “How was she?”

  “She was older,” Kira said. “Dated older guys. In the beginning, we tried doing things together, clubbing, stuff like that, but it was super-awkward.”

  “In what way?”

  “She didn’t want to talk about the stuff we talked about. And we’re drinking, like, Bud Light, and she’s ordering twelve-dollar mojitos.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Sunday night,” Molly said. “She was in her room. We didn’t talk.”

  “When she didn’t come home Monday night, it wasn’t unusual?”

  “Happened all the time.”

  “She didn’t say where she was going?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Did she have a car?”

  “Yeah, a Corolla,” Kira said. “She always drove it to work.”