by Lisa Gardner
“Shana hasn’t had any new visitors. And according to you, she definitely hasn’t been engaging in any outside communication. Which makes me wonder if that simply means she doesn’t have to: Her new friend isn’t from outside these walls. Her new friend is already on the inside. Inmate. Corrections officer. Staff.”
McKinnon didn’t speak right away. When she did, her words were clipped. “You suspect me in that list? I fall under staff? Because to be fair, I have to include you in that list. You’re not a new visitor, and yet you’re here often enough. The kind of regular all of us are so used to seeing, sometimes I bet we don’t even notice you.”
“Why are you letting Shana and me talk?” I asked. “We’re way over our monthly allotment. Yet she made the request and you allowed it.”
The superintendent frowned, appearing troubled again. “I want to know what’s going on,” she said. “Yesterday . . . Shana convinced me. I don’t know how, but in some way, she’s connected to these murders. The question remains: Is Shana some criminal mastermind, ordering murders from the solitude of her cell? Or is she simply laughing at our expense, creating a macabre game where now I suspect you and you suspect me, and the BPD probably suspects both of us. I need to know what’s going on, Adeline. As the superintendent of this prison, hell, as a supposedly intelligent woman who used to sleep at night, I want to know what’s really happening in my facility. Now, I expect the Boston detectives will visit again soon enough to press the matter. But, all suspicions aside, my money’s on you. If anyone gets the truth out of Shana, it’s going to be you.”
We resumed walking, not toward the visiting room Shana and I usually shared, but toward the interview room used last time by the Boston detectives. Apparently, Superintendent McKinnon planned on listening in. All part of her pursuit of truth? Or to make sure Shana didn’t reveal too much?
And me? What did I want, think, feel about all of this?
McKinnon was right. We were all twisted up. Jumping at shadows, suspecting everyone, frightened of everything.
I thought of what Charlie Sgarzi had said just the other day. I couldn’t feel pain, meaning what did I have to fear?
I remembered my disposal project yesterday. The way I had flushed strings of human flesh down a public toilet. The way three had floated back to the top, mocking me.
And I realized, for the first time in my life, I had never been so afraid.
Once again, Shana was already waiting inside the room, shackled hands resting on the edge of the table. She glanced up as I walked in, dark eyes lasering in on my fuchsia top, and I suffered my first moment of uncertainty.
My sister didn’t appear anything like I’d expected.
Her face was gaunt; if anything, even paler than yesterday, with deep bruises under her eyes. As if she had yet to sleep, her shoulders bunched with tension.
I’d imagined a gloating Shana, smug in her newfound powers that enabled her to meet with police officers and myself at the snap of her fingers. Her prediction had come true, and now here I was, answering her summons, while waiting for her to dictate her terms.
Instead, if I didn’t know better, I would say my sister appeared deeply stressed. Her gaze went from my cardigan to the one-way viewing glass.
“Who’s there?” she asked sharply.
I hesitated. “Superintendent McKinnon.”
“What about Detective Phil?”
“Did you want to speak with him?”
“No. Just you.”
I nodded, crossed to the tiny Formica table, took a seat.
“I suppose you’ve heard that the Rose Killer murdered another woman last night?”
Shana didn’t say a word.
“Flayed one hundred and fifty-three strips of skin from her cancer-ravaged body. Must’ve been hard to do. Some of those treatments leave a person’s skin so thin and translucent, it’s like the skin of an onion. Difficult to remove without tearing.”
She didn’t say a word.
“How are you doing it?” I asked at last.
She looked away from me, lips pressed firmly into a thin line, eyes locked on the wall behind my head.
“One hundred and fifty-three,” I said lightly. “The number of pieces of skin our father collected forty years ago. The number of strips the Rose Killer leaves behind now. Proof that you really are exchanging notes with a killer? Feeding him information about our father? Does it feel the same, Shana, to kill long-distance? Or is it not as good as you imagined? You’re still the one sitting here, and your puppet is the one out there, actually gripping the blade, smelling the blood.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered at last.
“Really? I’m wearing your favorite-color sweater.”
A muscle flexed in her jaw. She glared at me, and I could see for the first time just how enraged she truly was. But she’d stopped speaking again.
I leaned back. Rested my hands on my lap. Studied the woman who was my sister.
Prison-orange scrubs today. A color that jaundiced her complexion, further washed out her skin. Her hair still appeared lank and unwashed. Or maybe it was simply the best she could do given the notoriously low water pressure in the prison showers.
A hard woman. With a thin, sinewy build like our father. I bet she worked out in her cell. Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, plank exercises. Plenty of ways to keep strong in an eight-by-eleven-foot space. It showed in the harsh lines of her face, the gaunt hollows of her cheeks. All these years later, she’d not allowed herself to go soft or fatten up on processed prison food.
All these years later, she was still waiting.
Somehow, someway, for this very day.
“No,” I said.
“No what?”
“No to whatever it is you’re asking for. No to any deals, negotiations or exchanges of information. If you are in communication with the Rose Killer, if you have knowledge that would help catch a murderer, then volunteer it. That’s what people do. It’s called being a member of the human race.”
Shana finally looked at me. Her brown eyes were hooded, hard to read.
“You didn’t come all the way down here to tell me no,” she said flatly. “No is a phone call, not a personal visit. And you’ve never been one to waste your time, Adeline.”
“I came because I have a question for you.”
“So now you’re the one who’s going to negotiate?”
“No. I’m going to ask. Answer or don’t answer as you’d like. When did Daddy first cut you?”
“I don’t remember.” Her words were too automatic. I already didn’t believe her.
“When did he first cut me?”
Now she smirked. “Didn’t. You were just a baby.”
“Liar.”
She frowned, blinked her eyes.
“He did. I know he did. And I didn’t cry, did I? Or flinch or pull away. I just stared at him. I stared and that scared the shit out of him, didn’t it? That’s why I lived in the closet. Not to keep me safe. Not because our mother magically loved me more, and not because I was just the baby. I was stuck in that goddamn closet because he didn’t want me looking at him like that.”
“Seriously?” my sister drawled. “That’s what you’re angry about? Being stuck in a closet? Because take it from me, I got bigger things worth raging about.”
She started rolling up her sleeve to show me her collection of scars, ones my father, and even Shana herself, had inflicted over the years. Fat scars, thin scars, rolling pink lines, thin white streaks. All of which I’d seen before. All old news.
“I know your pain, Shana,” I said quietly. “I can’t feel it, but I know it. That’s my role. I’m our family’s conscience. I have been from the very beginning. That’s what scared Daddy so much forty years ago. He looked into my eyes, and instead of seeing the terror and anguish and misery he was
accustomed to, he saw himself. Just himself. No wonder he kept me in a closet after that. It’s easy to be a monster. It’s much harder to see yourself as monstrous.”
“That doctor talk? Kind of thing you bill out by the hour? Because real people, we call that bullshit. Just so you know.”
“Good-bye, Shana.”
“You’re leaving already?” Then, as the silence dragged and the full meaning of my words sank in: “Seriously? You came down here . . . all the way down here . . . to, like, break up with me?”
“I loved you, Shana. Honestly, when I first got your letter, all those years ago . . . It was as if I’d spent twenty years locked in that closet, just waiting for you to open the door. My sister. My family.”
Shana thinned her lips, drumming her fingertips restlessly on the tabletop.
“I told myself I could handle these monthly conversations. I assured myself I had the training necessary to manage a relationship with a convicted killer. But mostly, I wanted to see you. I wanted one hour a month when I could have a sister. We’re the only ones left, you know. Just you and I.”
Shana’s fingertips, drumming faster.
“But we don’t really have a relationship, do we? The bottom line is, you suffer from severe antisocial personality disorder. Meaning I’m not real to you. Nor is Superintendent McKinnon, or any of the corrections officers or your fellow inmates. You will never love me or care about me. Such emotions are as impossible for you as feeling pain is for me. We both have our limitations; it’s time for me to accept that. Good-bye, Shana.”
I pushed back my chair, rose to standing.
And my sister finally spoke, her tone so low, her words sounded more like a growl than a sentence. “You are a fucking idiot!”
I moved toward the interview room door.
“He told me to take care of you! That’s what Daddy said that day. Sirens coming down the street. Daddy, stripping off his clothes, climbing into the bathtub, clutching his goddamn aspirin. And smiling. Fucking smiling as he handed over the razor blade.
“I was scared, Adeline. I was a four-year-old kid and Mom’s crying and people outside are shouting and Daddy’s just smiling, smiling, smiling, except even I knew that wasn’t the right kind of smile on his face.
“‘Take care of your sister,’ he tells me as he climbs into the tub. ‘No matter what happens, you’re her big sister and it’s your job to keep her safe. Take it from me, Shana girl, if you don’t have family in this world, then you got nothing.’ Then he stuck out his arm, and Mom brought down the razor. . . .
“The shouting men heaved a battering ram against our door. Because they’d knocked and rung the bell and screamed at us to open up, but Dad was too busy dying, and Mom was too busy killing him, and I didn’t know what to do, Adeline. I was a scared little kid, and all the grown-ups, the whole world, had gone crazy.
“Then I heard you crying. You, the baby who never cried, who simply watched us all the time with your big dark eyes. You were right, Adeline. You unnerved Mom and Dad. But not me. Never me. I went to you. I opened the closet door and I picked you up and held you close. And you stopped crying. You looked at me. You smiled. Then the door burst open, and shouting men poured into our house. And I whispered to you to close your eyes. Just close your eyes, I told you. I’ll keep you safe. ’Cause you’re my baby sister, and if you don’t got family, then you got nothing at all.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you that day in foster care. I did what I was taught and they took you away from me and I was alone. You have no idea, Adeline, just how alone. But I didn’t forget you. I remembered what I’d promised Daddy, and I found you so I could watch over you and keep you safe. I’m the big sister and I won’t ever let anyone hurt you. I promised, and regardless of what you think of me, I’ve always been a person of my word.”
My sister’s voice trailed off. I’d stopped moving toward the waiting door. I stared at Shana instead. Her face held the strangest expression I’d ever seen. Not just earnestness but sincerity.
“You’re in league with a killer,” I whispered.
“How? I can’t communicate with the outside world. Someone inside here would have to like me enough to help. No one likes me, Adeline. We both know that.”
“You know things. My fuchsia sweater.”
“I see things. That’s what thirty years of solitude does to you. That day, you had a fuchsia-colored thread stuck to your top. It stood out against that stupid gray shirt. It made sense that you had been wearing a brighter color but changed so you wouldn’t stand out while visiting prison. And that . . . angered me. That this place makes even you depressing.”
“One hundred and fifty-three,” I said.
My sister sighed, her face falling. “I remember everything,” she whispered. “Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe that’s my problem. If I could just forget . . . I looked up Daddy when I was old enough. I dreamed of blood. All the time. Things I could see, always clear as day, as well as smell and taste. The things I already fantasized about doing . . . Except they weren’t really fantasies. They’d be . . . reenactments. Daddy ruined me, Adeline. And not just with his DNA but with his appetites. I am him. He died in that goddamn tub, just to regrow under my skin. So, yeah, I looked him up. Went to the library, read every article I could find on microfiche. His collection reached one hundred and fifty-three strips of human skin, labeled and preserved in jam-size mason jars. You gotta admit, not bad for a life’s work.”
“But the Rose Killer—”
“Clearly looks up to Daddy. Meaning he’s done his own homework. As long as you are studying a master, wouldn’t you pay homage?”
“You’re saying you have no personal connection with the Rose Killer. You merely . . . think like him? Or like her.”
Shana smiled. “Is that really so hard to imagine?”
“Did you know the killer would strike again last night?”
“I wouldn’t have picked last night. But sooner versus later. Once you know what you can do . . . it’s harder to fight the cravings.”
“Male or female, Shana? If you’re such a great expert, which is our killer?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, haven’t really thought about it. Most killers are boys, so I default to that. Not every woman, you know, can be as good as me.”
I stared at her. “Maybe it’s still you. Maybe it’s all about you.”
But my sister shook her head. “Nah. It’s you, Adeline. I’m locked up, tucked away, moldering after all these years. No one even remembers me—”
“Charlie Sgarzi—”
“Arrogant little shit. Always was, even back then. No one cares about me, Adeline. But you . . . The killer knows you. You’re the daughter of his idol, all grown up, pretty, successful. Interesting, too, with that whole can’t-feel-pain thing. Of course the Rose Killer’s looked you up, learned your name. Probably also visited your office and found where you live. I bet he’s walked through your bedroom, placing his hand upon the pillow where you sleep. He’d pose as a maintenance person or pest control to get inside, something so ordinary that all these weeks, months later you’ve still never suspected a thing. But he knows you, Adeline. He or she. The Rose Killer has researched you, watched you, obsessed over you. He has to. You’re Harry Day’s magical daughter who can’t feel pain. You’re like catnip for serial killers. Of course he can’t walk away.”
I couldn’t help myself; I shivered.
“But I know you, too,” my sister continued now, her voice matter-of-fact. “I understand not feeling pain actually works against you. It means you’ve never been able to take self-defense or engage in any kind of physical training because of course you can’t risk hurting yourself. You don’t know how to handle a blade, fire a gun, even throw a punch. You’re vulnerable, Adeline. I know it; bet the killer knows it, too.”
“Stop.” I meant the word to sound forceful. It didn’t.
> “Rose Killer’s gonna come for you. You call to him. And your call will only be silenced when you’re dead and he’s proved his superiority by murdering his idol’s daughter. He’ll kill you, Adeline. Slowly. Because he or she will have to test out this whole theory of you not feeling pain. My best guess: He’ll skin you alive. Because he’ll want to see how you react. He’ll want to look into your eyes as he flays every inch.”
I couldn’t face my sister anymore. I glanced sharply away, staring at the floor, because her words spooked me, no doubt just as she intended. She manipulates, I reminded myself. This whole conversation, I had to keep asking myself, what is in it for her?
My sister continued. “I sit in my cell, Adeline. Day after day. I hear things. I read things. And this is what I see. Some Daddy wannabe picking off my baby sister. Boy, girl, who the fuck cares. The Rose Killer is gonna come for you. The Rose Killer is gonna kill you. And then I’ll be all alone.
“Course, you don’t care about all this right now, do you? You came today to tell me good-bye. To prove to yourself you’re stronger and wiser than me. But I didn’t leave you, Adeline. All those years ago, I got you out of that closet. I honored my vow to Daddy. I held you close. I kept you safe. And I’d do it again—”
Shana’s voice broke.
I glanced up, just in time to catch a spasm of sorrow cross her face. Unexpected emotion? Particularly powerful acting?
“If . . . somehow, someway, I got a twenty-four-hour furlough from this joint, I could get this killer for you, Adeline. I’ll agree to any terms, follow any rules you want. What matters is that you let me at him, give me a chance to keep my little sister safe.” My sister smiled. A cold baring of her teeth that sent shivers down my spine. “As Daddy said, if you don’t got family, then you got nothing at all. You’re my family, Adeline. Get me out of here, and I’ll kill for you. You know I’ll get the job done right.”
Chapter 25
D.D. WAS SURPRISED by the midmorning knock on her front door. Her gaze went automatically to Phil and Neil, who sat across from her in the living room. Both had notepads on their laps, not to mention the enormous flipchart, propped up in the center of the space and now covered in black marker.
