The Wreck

by Marie Force

  Michael checked the deadbolt on the back door one last time. He waited while Carly locked the front door and then extended his arm to her. “Madame?”

  With a grateful smile for the man who, in another life, would’ve been her father-in-law, Carly hooked her hand through his arm and let him walk her the short distance to her sister’s house.

  Chapter 9

  Michael sat in the police station conference room that had become the command post for the unfolding investigation. Photocopies of each piece of evidence were tacked up on a bulletin board. A large map of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts occupied most of one wall. Four red pushpins indicated where each of the recent sexual assaults had occurred.

  Five smaller blue tacks marked the locations where the notes had been found—three in the cemetery and the two discovered by Carly. A yellow pin marked the unsolved carjacking in Pawtucket, which had characteristics that mirrored the recent attacks with one distinct difference—the carjacking victims had been murdered.

  Since most of the pins were clustered around tiny Granville, Michael, the other chiefs, and the state police officers on the task force had concluded a sexual predator, who was also possibly a murderer, was living among the citizens of his town. The conclusion infuriated the man charged with keeping Granville safe. That someone he knew could be capable of these crimes was unimaginable to him.

  The fourth red pushpin was located just over the border in Connecticut. Since the case now involved multiple states and jurisdictions, the task force members had agreed to call in the FBI. They were meeting with federal agents in the morning.

  Matt Collins came into the room. “Mike? I thought you had left.”

  “Oh, hey,” Michael said. “What’s up?”

  “We got the labs back on the new notes.”

  “Let me guess? Nothing?”

  Matt’s expression was grim when he said, “Right. Just Carly’s prints on the one from Tucker Road.” He used blue pins to add copies of the latest notes to the board. “They’re still working on the partial footprint.”

  “I hate to admit I’m actually relieved the feds are on their way.” Under normal circumstances, he would resent the intrusion.

  “We’re out of our league here,” Matt agreed.

  “It’s someone we know,” Michael said, feeling the need to say it out loud.

  Matt sat down on the other side of the conference table. “Yes.”

  Michael studied the map intently.

  “What’s on your mind, Mike?”

  “I just wonder…”

  “What?”

  Michael finally took his eyes off the map and focused on his friend. “This is between you and me.”

  “Of course.”

  “I also want to be clear that I’m speaking as a police officer and not a grieving father.”

  “You’re thinking there’s a connection between our perp and the accident, aren’t you?”

  “Hear me out on this,” Michael insisted. “A few weeks before the accident, Brian sees a man standing in the road at the exact place where the accident later occurs. He has to swerve to avoid hitting him but is able to maintain control of the car. Now factor in that our perp clearly has an ax to grind with popular kids.”

  Matt nodded in agreement.

  “You’ve got a group of cheerleaders and athletes in a car that travels up and down Tucker Road every day. How hard would it be in this town to track the whereabouts of kids who do everything together?”

  As he thought about it, Matt rubbed at the blond stubble on his chin.

  “Isn’t it possible?” Michael hated the desperation he heard in his own voice.

  “I know you want it to be.”

  “But?”

  “A guy standing in the road doesn’t discount the fact that Sam was driving too fast.”

  Michael sat back in his chair. “Granted, but maybe he doesn’t lose control of the car if he’s not trying to avoid hitting someone who was waiting for one of the Westbury boys to drive by.”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say it happened just the way you think.” Matt stood, picked up a dry-erase marker, and wrote “May 19, 1995: Accident on Tucker Road” on the board. “The next incident is on July 6, 2000,” Matt said as he added the carjacking to the list under the accident.

  “That’s the next known incident.”

  “Work with me here.”

  Michael scowled and forced himself to stay quiet.

  “Five years after he allegedly orchestrates a car accident that kills six popular teenagers, he carjacks a young couple, rapes and sodomizes both of them, and then strangles them. Are we in agreement on the facts?”

  “Yes.”

  “The M.O.s don’t match.” Matt raised his hands to make his point. “In five years he goes from standing in the middle of a road to kidnapping, raping, and murdering?”

  “I’ll admit it’s a leap,” Michael conceded as he studied the dry-erase board. Suddenly he froze.

  “What?”

  Michael got up and walked over to the board. “Remember studying investigation tactics in the academy?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Michael never took his eyes off the board when he said, “They told us to look for patterns, right?”

  “Where you going with this, Mike?”

  “Look at the years—1995, 2000.” He reached for the pen and added 2010 to the list, leaving a space between the carjacking and the recent spate of attacks. In the space he wrote “2005” with a question mark after it. He turned to Matt. “Until you put the dates on the board, I didn’t see it.”

  “An anniversary perp?”

  The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

  “I’ll pull a statewide list of unsolved cases from 2005,” Matt finally said.

  “Check 1990, too. Maybe this didn’t start with the accident.”

  On his way to the door, Matt stopped and turned around to face his friend. “If we run with this, Mike, you need to be prepared for what people will say about your motives.”

  “Let them say whatever they want. If I’m right and we can clear Sam’s name, it’ll be worth it.”

  Desperate to get through the second half of his forced vacation, Brian took long walks through his Tribeca neighborhood and ventured north to SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy. One day he set out for Battery Park, the southernmost point in Manhattan where the Hudson and East Rivers come together. Watching the ferries running back and forth from Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Brian thought about taking a trip out there, but somehow it seemed like it would require too much effort.

  Another day he wandered through the gentrified Lower East Side and across the Brooklyn Bridge, stopping on the Brooklyn side for a cup of coffee in a diner that reminded him of Miss Molly’s and Carly. Like he’d done all week, he pushed the thought from his head and set out back across the bridge to Manhattan. Another day he wandered into a few of the galleries in SoHo. It was the most time he’d ever spent playing tourist in more than eight years of living in the city.

  When he wasn’t out walking, he caught up on his laundry, picked up a ton of dry cleaning, and puttered around the small loft he had bought his first year in New York. At the time, he’d considered the purchase price a small fortune, but the place had appreciated significantly and was now worth an actual fortune.

  While he was doing nothing more than killing time until he could go back to work, Brian was also making an effort not to think about his recent longings for home or his desire to see Carly again. After talking it over with his mother in Florida, he’d decided to chalk up his odd feelings to the emotional anniversary of the accident and the roller-coaster ride of the trial. The idea of going home and confronting the past filled him with the kind of anxiety he seldom experienced, which he took as a sign that he needed to leave well enough alone.

  On Wednesday night, he had dinner with his ex-wife Beth and her husband Joe, who were in town for a few days.

/>   “You look good, Brian,” she said after they were seated at the restaurant. “All tanned and rested.”

  “Better than my usual look?” he asked with a self-deprecating smile.

  “Which is white and pasty,” Joe joked. He was a hulking Irishman with bright blue eyes and a big smile. Brian had always liked him.

  “Gee, thanks,” Brian said, chuckling. “Pregnancy certainly agrees with you, Beth. You’re glowing.”

  She snorted with laughter. “I’m glowing, all right. I’m huge.”

  “You’re adorable,” Joe said, kissing his wife’s hand.

  She had short dark hair and big brown eyes that had once reminded Brian of Carly’s. He’d been disappointed to discover the likeness was only on the surface. Beth was sweet and loving, but she wasn’t Carly.

  Over dinner Beth and Joe grilled him about every detail of the trial, which they had followed from their home in Chicago. While Joe was in the men’s room, Brian reached for Beth’s hand. “It’s great to see you so happy.”

  “I’m beyond happy. I’m ecstatic.”

  It showed on her face and in her delighted smile.

  “I can’t wait to be a mom. But what about you, Bri? Still all work and no play?”

  He shrugged. “I love the work. You know that.”

  “There’s more to life than work, but I won’t waste my breath trying to convince you otherwise. You’re hopeless.” She paused, studying him intently. “I worry about you.”

  Touched, he said, “Can I ask you something kind of weird?”

  She grinned. “How can I say no to that?”

  “When we were together, did you ever think of me as … hollow?” He hesitated. “Like something—”

  “Was missing?”

  He nodded.

  “All the time. On the outside you were this smooth, well-put-together package, but on the inside…” She shrugged. “Not so much. I wondered why that was.”

  “I was terribly unfair to you, Beth. I’m sorry for that.”

  “Don’t be. I had to go through what I did with you to get to where I am now. I want you to find what I have with Joe, Brian. You deserve it.”

  How could he tell her he’d once had it but walked away from it? “Don’t worry about me,” he said with a cavalier smile. “I’m happy enough.”

  Her expression was skeptical, but Joe returned to the table, and the conversation went in a less serious direction.

  After seeing them off in a cab, Brian took his time walking home. Posters from the recent Tribeca Film Festival were still affixed to telephone poles and in store windows. Brian liked that he never knew who he might see in the eclectic neighborhood. He had once dined next to Robert De Niro in a café and passed Meryl Streep on the sidewalk.

  At home he plugged his cell phone into the charger and noticed he had missed a call from his father. He checked his watch and found it was after ten, but he returned the call anyway.

  “Hey,” Michael said.

  “Sorry it’s so late. Did I wake you?”

  “No, I was up. How are you? How’s the vacation?”

  “I’m bored out of my mind, and I’ve got four days to go.”

  Michael laughed.

  “I had dinner with Beth and Joe tonight. That’s where I was when you called.”

  “How is she?”

  “Six months pregnant and loving life. She said to say hi to you and Mom.”

  “That’s nice. Good for her on the baby.”

  “So what’s up? You’ve been keeping a low profile lately.”

  “I’m up to my eyeballs in a case.”

  “We sort of figured that when you blew us off in Florida last week,” Brian joked.

  “Believe me, I would’ve much rather have been there.” He gave his son a quick summary of the case.

  As he listened, Brian sat down on the sofa. “Jesus, Dad. You really think it’s someone from Granville?”

  “It’s looking that way.”

  “And the attacks in other towns?”

  “We think they were intended to draw the focus away from Granville.”

  “So he kidnaps and rapes three girls in other towns just to send the cops on a wild goose chase?”

  “It probably wasn’t the sole purpose. He also succeeded in traumatizing three pretty, popular cheerleaders, and a fourth one here in town.” He told Brian his theory about the accident and the five-year pattern.

  “You think it’s our guy in the road,” Brian said, incredulous.

  “We’re looking for a connection. Matt says the M.O.s don’t match up, and he’s right, but the common thread is all the victims were popular kids. And every one of the girls, including the carjacking victim, was a cheerleader.”

  “The feds will bring in a profiler. He’ll tell you you’re looking for a loner who was picked on or ignored by popular kids.”

  “If this started with the accident, we might be looking for someone you and Sam went to school with.”

  “I still have my yearbook. I can flip through it to see if anyone stands out.”

  “That would help. Thanks.” Michael paused before he added, “Listen, there’s one other thing I should tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Carly found the last two notes—one at the accident site and another at her parents’ house.”

  “What? What was she doing at the accident site?”

  “She maintains it. Plants flowers, pulls the weeds.”

  As Brian ran a hand through his hair, he absorbed that intriguing piece of information and was swamped with helplessness and fear. “He was in her parents’ yard. Mom said she walks everywhere. She’s totally vulnerable.”

  “You talked to Mom about Carly?”

  “I just asked how she was doing. Don’t make it into something it’s not.”

  “That’s interesting, because she asked me about you earlier.”

  “She did?”

  Michael chuckled. “But I won’t make it into something it’s not. Don’t worry.”

  “Dad, she could be in danger. You have to do something.”

  “We’re keeping an eye on her. She’s fiercely independent, so she won’t make it easy.”

  “You don’t think it’s a coincidence that the notes were put in places where she was likely to find them, do you?”

  “I’m not sure, son. She doesn’t live at home anymore, but everyone knows her parents are in Europe for a month. So it’s possible our guy assumed she’d be taking care of the house in their absence. I’d be more concerned if the note had been left at her place.”

  “You have to promise me you’ll keep her safe, Dad. You can’t let anything happen to her.”

  “I’m doing everything I can to keep this whole town safe,” Michael said, sounding weary. “Tomorrow we’re going public with what we know. We’ll also be going into the high school to talk to the students about traveling in groups and keeping an eye out for each other. If I have to, I’ll institute a curfew to keep them in at night. It won’t be a tough sell. They’ve been freaked out since Tanya Lewis was attacked,” he said, referring to the high school student from Granville who’d been raped in January.

  “How is she?”

  “Still recovering at home. She’s had surgery twice to repair the damage that animal did.”

  “I just can’t believe something like this could be happening in Granville.”

  “I know. I told Matt earlier I’m actually relieved to have the feds stepping in. We need the help.”

  “Well, I’ll let you get some sleep. I’m here if you need to talk or anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It sure would be something if you could tie this guy to the accident, wouldn’t it?” Brian asked softly.

  “You and I have always had our suspicions there was more to it.”

  “People said we were grasping at straws,” Brian said. “Take care of Carly, Dad. Please.”

  “I will. I’ll keep you posted.”

  After they ended the
call, Brian sat in the dark for a long time, his head spinning with everything his father had told him. The idea of Carly being in danger made him sick with fear. Eventually, he changed into sweats and a T-shirt and went to bed. But for hours he was awake trying to think through the facts of the case as a prosecutor, not as a concerned son, a grieving brother, or a regretful ex-boyfriend.

  If the crime spree had begun with the accident, didn’t it stand to reason that the perp had been targeting someone in the car? Or someone who wasn’t. Brian sat straight up in bed. The accident had occurred on the road that led to his house and Carly’s. Had she been the intended target? Or was it me?

  “Okay, man, get it together,” he muttered as he realized he was breathing heavily and his heart was beating hard, like it would if he—or someone he loved—was in imminent danger. Unable to shake the feeling he was on to something, he got up to get his cell phone. As he waited for his father to answer, Brian paced back and forth in his small living room.

  “Westbury,” Michael said, his voice hoarse with sleep.

  “Dad.”

  “Brian? What’s wrong? Christ, it’s four in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry, but I was thinking… What if the person he was hoping to kill in the accident wasn’t in the car?”

  “I don’t follow,” Michael said with a big yawn.

  “What if he’d been counting on Carly being in that car with the others like she should’ve been?”

  Silence.

  “Dad?”

  “Are you suggesting he’s targeting Carly?”

  “He put notes in places she was likely to find them.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t you he was after?”

  “Because he prefers girls—young girls. Cheerleaders.”

  “Carly’s not young anymore. At least not by his standards.”

  “Mom said she looks exactly the same.”

  “She does,” Michael agreed. “I hear what you’re saying, son. I do. But if he was after Carly, wouldn’t he have acted on it by now?”

  “Maybe he is by going after girls that remind him of Carly. He could be building up to the main event.”