The Wreck

by Marie Force

  “It’s a stretch, Bri.”

  “Do you remember the one piece of advice you gave me when I started with the DA’s office? I’m trusting my gut, Dad.”

  “I’ll mention it at our meeting tomorrow, and I’ll talk to her to make sure she’s being careful.”

  “Thank you,” Brian said, releasing a long deep breath. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “No problem. Now, turn off that prosecutor’s brain and go to sleep, you hear your old man?”

  “Yes, sir,” Brian said with a small smile. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  The next morning, as Michael sat at the head of the conference room table and listened to the monotone recitation of the known facts of the case, his stomach turned with disgust. He had read the reports, seen the horrific photos, and memorized the victims’ chilling accounts, but to hear it all again with the added suspicion that the man they were hunting could also be responsible for the death of his own son… It was almost more than Michael could stand.

  “Penetrated multiple times,” the detective from Smithfield was saying. “Our victim is still hospitalized, recovering from the three rounds with him she remembers, and possibly more after she mercifully lost consciousness. She also suffered from exposure after spending a night naked and bound in the woods.”

  “The woods seem to be a possible signature, like the notes,” Federal Agent Nathan Barclay commented.

  The others nodded in agreement. Michael struggled to maintain his professional composure as rage threatened to consume him. Every one of these victims was someone’s little girl, just as Sam had been his little boy.

  “How’s it possible this guy hasn’t left a shred of DNA behind?” Federal Agent Jeff DiNardo asked.

  “He had our girl gargle something she said smelled like Windex,” the detective from Cranston said. “That took care of the DNA in her mouth.”

  “Ours, too,” Matt Collins said.

  “Each girl also reported he used two condoms at a time, except for the oral sessions.”

  “Jesus, what’s the point?” Barclay muttered.

  “What do you mean by that?” Michael asked, annoyed by the agent’s cavalier tone.

  “I don’t know what you think of condoms, but most guys hate them because you can’t feel a damned thing through one of them, let alone two,” Barclay said.

  “So you’re suggesting he’s not looking for sexual satisfaction?” Matt asked.

  Barclay shrugged. “Maybe our guy has a perfectly satisfactory sex life at home and this is all about torture, plain and simple.”

  Michael wanted to say there was nothing plain or simple about it. And if his years of law enforcement had taught him anything, rape was never about sexual gratification.

  “Let’s keep our minds open to the possibility our perp might not be a loner, but a family guy with a wife and two-point-five kids at home,” Barclay said.

  “What else do we know about him?” DiNardo asked.

  “He’s big,” Matt said. “The lab report on the partial footprint found at the Holbrooks—where one of the notes was discovered—indicate it was made by a work boot that was at least a size fourteen.”

  “And we’ve ruled out the home owner as bigfoot?” Barclay asked.

  Matt nodded. “Steve Holbrook wears a ten-and-a-half, and his son, who hasn’t been home in more than a month, wears an eleven.”

  “Most shoe stores carry up to what?” Barclay asked. “Size thirteen?”

  “That’s right,” Matt said. “I’m a fourteen. I special order most of my shoes from Gleason’s. I could check with them to get a list of other local residents who special order larger sizes and see if any of them have a tread that matches the print.”

  “Good,” Barclay said.

  “Um, we also know his feet aren’t the only thing that’s big.” Matt’s face flushed with embarrassment. “An average-sized … man … doesn’t do the kind of damage this guy did to these girls. They all reported he was extremely well endowed.”

  “Big feet, big dick,” DiNardo commented.

  Michael glared at him.

  “Sorry,” DiNardo said under his breath.

  “There are a few other common elements,” Matt said. “We already mentioned they were all cheerleaders, but they also walked to and from school, which is how he managed to nab them.”

  “We’ve concluded it would take a tremendous amount of time, patience, and planning to identify the cheerleaders at four schools in two different states and then to find one at each school who was vulnerable,” the detective from Danielson, Connecticut, said.

  “You read my mind, Detective,” Barclay said. “Our guy has either a flexible schedule or a seasonable job where he has downtime in the winter.”

  “The attack in our town happened in late spring,” the detective from Smithfield said.

  “He could’ve planned it earlier,” DiNardo said.

  “We need to put out a bulletin to all high schools in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, warning them a serial rapist is targeting cheerleaders who walk to and from school,” Barclay said to the administrative assistant he had brought with him.

  She nodded as she typed notes on a laptop.

  “You might want to add colleges, universities, community colleges, and technical schools to your distribution list,” the Pawtucket police chief interjected. “Our carjacking victim—a former high school cheerleader—was a freshman at Rhode Island College.”

  Barclay accepted the suggestion with a gesture to his assistant. “Let’s talk about tie-ins. You’ve mentioned the carjacking, which had the cheerleader factor as well as the absence of DNA.”

  “Right,” the Pawtucket chief confirmed. “Except for some reason he went a step further in this case and murdered the victims.”

  “That was also his only known sex crime against a man,” Matt added.

  “Give us the details on that one,” DiNardo requested.

  “The guy was twenty-one, she was nineteen. They had been dating about a year. On July 6, 1995, they stopped at a convenience store on Broad Street. He left the car running and went in to buy a soda. Security cameras showed him in the store alone, so we assume while he was inside, the perp got into the back seat and pulled a weapon on the girl. The car was found ten miles away in a wooded area.”

  “Again with the woods,” Barclay commented. To his assistant, he said, “Make a note to mention wooded areas in the warning memo.”

  “The victims were found in the car, arranged in a sexual position,” the Pawtucket chief continued. “They were strangled, naked, bound, and bloody. Like the other victims, they’d been raped multiple times and ways, and autopsies showed their injuries were consistent with those of the recent victims. The lack of hair and fibers in the car led us to suspect the attacks took place outside the car. We compared the time from the convenience store camera with the time of death to determine he had them for five or six hours before he killed them.”

  He let the impact of that settle in the room before he added, “Ten frustrating years later, we haven’t had a single suspect.”

  After fifteen years of looking for a guy in a road, Michael could sympathize with his colleague’s disappointment.

  “So let’s recap,” Barclay said, attempting to bring the two-hour meeting to a close. “We have four recent aggravated sexual assaults and a series of notes found in Granville at the graves of deceased cheerleaders, at a memorial where six cheerleaders and athletes were killed in a car accident, and another found at a former Granville cheerleader’s parents’ house. In addition, we have a carjacking where several elements match the current spree. Without the lack of DNA, I’d say the carjacking victim being an ex-cheerleader was a coincidence. I’m also bothered by the fact they were murdered, but I’m not ruling out a connection.”

  “When you add the same kind of sex and no DNA,” DiNardo said with a shrug, “it sounds like the same guy to me.”

  “For now, we’ll oper
ate under the assumption it’s connected,” Barclay decided. “Anything else?” When no one answered, he said, “You’ve all done an excellent job thus far. I want to reiterate that we’re here to help, not step on toes. So let’s meet here again the day after tomorrow at nine a.m. to regroup. In the meantime, I’ll be holding a press conference at noon to warn the public. I don’t want to mention the possible connection to the carjacking yet. There’s no sense getting the hopes of the victims’ families up until we know more. Thanks very much, everyone.”

  The others engaged in animated conversation while they gathered up their files and belongings. As they moved toward the door, Michael said, “Wait.”

  “Chief Westbury?” Agent Barclay said. “What is it?”

  Michael made eye contact with Matt across the room. Matt’s expression urged caution. But if there was a chance, even the slightest chance… “There might be something else.”

  “I’m listening,” Barclay said.

  “In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the accident site where one of the notes was found…”

  “What about it?” DiNardo asked.

  “The younger of my two sons was killed in that accident.”

  “I’m sorry,” Barclay said soberly.

  “Me, too,” DiNardo added.

  “Thank you,” Michael said. “About a month before the accident, my older son was coming home late one night and had to swerve to avoid hitting a man who was standing in the road at the exact place where the accident later happened.” In a rush of words, Michael laid out his theory. When he was done, he waited breathlessly for their reaction.

  “I ran a search for unsolved cases from 1990 and 2000,” Matt interjected. “Nothing jumped out from 1990, but in 2000, two high school cheerleaders—one in Providence and another in Cumberland—reported attempted abductions on their way home from school. They were able to get away—one kicked him where he lives, and the other said he bolted when a car approached them.”

  “No description of the perp?” Barclay asked.

  Matt shook his head. “All the girls who’ve been attacked said he grabbed them from behind and wore a face mask during the actual assaults. They did say he was big, though. So if Chief Westbury is right about the five-year pattern, our perp tried twice but failed in 2000. I also checked all the in-between years since 1995 but found nothing else that stood out as possibly connected.”

  Michael glanced at Matt, hoping his eyes conveyed his appreciation for his deputy’s support.

  Barclay stood with his hands on his hips as he contemplated Michael.

  For a long moment, Michael had no idea if he was about to be dismissed as a grieving father hoping to exonerate his son.

  Finally, Barclay said, “Let’s hear the rest.”

  At Miss Molly’s, everything came to a halt during the busy lunch hour as regular TV programming was interrupted to carry federal Agent Nathan Barclay’s chilling announcement that a serial rapist was targeting popular young cheerleaders in Rhode Island and Connecticut. With Chief Westbury standing next to him at the podium, Agent Barclay said the investigation was focused on Granville in part because of disturbing notes found in five places around town, including the graves of the three cheerleaders killed in the 1995 car accident on Tucker Road.

  As she heard that for the first time, Carly’s legs gave out under her, and she sat down hard on one of the stools at the counter.

  Agent Barclay called on young people to travel in groups and to be wary. He added a further warning to young women who had once been cheerleaders. “We’re looking for a dangerous predator who’s targeting cheerleaders and ex-cheerleaders,” Barclay concluded. “However, I urge all young women between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five to be highly vigilant, especially in wooded areas, until he’s apprehended.”

  The twenty-minute press conference ended without the agent taking any questions from the media. Patrons of Miss Molly’s, stunned by the news, conversed in low murmurs rather than their usual boisterous tones.

  Molly Hanson rested a hand on Carly’s shoulder. “Are you all right, honey? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  Trying to shake off the unease that had settled over her, Carly nodded.

  “Disturbing,” was Molly’s take on it. “Could be someone who sits at one of my tables every day.”

  The thought sent a cold shiver of fear through Carly as she glanced around the room full of familiar faces. These were people she had known all her life. The idea that she or anyone else could have reason to fear one of them was absurd.

  Molly brushed a loving hand over Carly’s cheek. “Do you feel up to working?”

  Embarrassed that the news had rattled her so deeply, Carly nodded, got up, and reached for the coffee pot to do refills.

  “Carly,” her coworker Debby called from behind the counter. She waved Carly over to her. In a low tone, Debby said, “Chief Westbury called for you. He asked that you wait for him here when your shift ends. He wants to talk to you.”

  Carly smiled her thanks and began her rounds with the coffee, wondering if the chief wanted to talk to her about the notes she had found. What else could it be? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

  Michael Westbury felt the eyes of the town on him as he walked from the station to Miss Molly’s just before two. If he were a regular citizen, he supposed he, too, would be wondering why the man charged with keeping their town safe had failed so miserably.

  Desmond Kane, a member of the volunteer fire department, stopped him outside the hardware store.

  “What do you know, Mike?”

  “Not as much as I should,” Michael muttered. He glanced down at Desmond’s feet and found them to be normal sized.

  “You really think this guy lives here?”

  Michael shrugged. “The only thing I know for sure is he has a beef with cheerleaders.”

  “I heard he did a real job on Tanya Lewis,” Desmond said, his interest in knowing more about just what had been done to Tanya apparent on his face.

  It disgusted Michael that people always wanted the details, especially in sex crimes. If they could see the pictures and read the reports, they wouldn’t be so curious. The images were burned into Michael’s brain, and he wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy. “Take care, Desmond,” Michael said, continuing down Main Street.

  Miss Molly’s had emptied out for the day, and Carly was working with the other waitresses to clean up. She looked up with a smile when Michael walked in and sat in a corner booth.

  Carly brought him a steaming cup of coffee and patted her stomach, raising a questioning eyebrow.

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  With her fingers, she suggested a little something.

  He smiled. “Okay. You pick.”

  She came back with a slice of Molly’s famous chocolate cake.

  He groaned. “Mary Ann’s going to flip when she gets home next week and sees how fat I’ve gotten.”

  Carly crinkled up her face and shook her head in disagreement.

  “Don’t let me interrupt your work. I can wait until you’re done.”

  She held up both hands to tell him she needed ten more minutes.

  “Take your time. I’ll enjoy this sinful cake you forced on me.”

  Leaving him with a smile, she went to finish refilling the creamers and sugar bowls in preparation for the next morning. By the time she joined him in the booth, the rest of the staff had left. Molly flipped the open sign on the locked door, came over to say hello to Michael, and then went to her office in the back of the building to do some paperwork.

  Carly tugged out a pad and pen. “Tough day for you,” she wrote.

  “Tough month.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I’m not sleeping very well these days.”

  “You really think it’s someone who lives here?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” He put down his fork and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Carly … I don’t want to fright
en you, but…” He looked around to make sure they were still alone. “It’s possible, but not definite, that there’s a connection to the accident.”

  Carly stared at him for a long moment before she wrote, “The guy in the road?”

  “Yes. Brian told you what happened to him?”

  She nodded. “After the accident. After he remembered it.”

  “I hate to dredge up your memories of that night, but you never did give us a statement about what you saw, so I need to ask…”

  Her nod gave him permission to continue.

  “Was anyone else there besides you, Brian, and the driver who stopped to help you? Did you see anyone else before the police and firefighters arrived?”

  Michael watched as Carly let her mind wander back to that fateful night. She trembled, so he reached for her hand. “Take your time, honey. I know it’s hard to think about.”

  “I can almost still smell the fire,” she wrote and then shook off the memory so she could tell him what he needed to know. “But no one else was there, at least not that I can recall. I kind of lost it when I saw…” She looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears.

  “What did you see?” Michael’s stomach twisted with anxiety as he waited for details he didn’t really want to know.

  “I saw them burning. I started to scream and couldn’t stop, like I was outside of myself watching someone else. It was surreal.”

  He squeezed her hand, his heart hurting for her, for both of them. “There’s more I need to tell you, facts about the case we haven’t made public. I know I don’t need say it, but they’re things we don’t want anyone to know.”

  Her smile was rich with the absurdity of him asking her, of all people, to keep a secret.

  Because he was concerned about her safety and knew he could trust her—and would’ve been able to trust her even if she could speak—he shared his theory about the five-year pattern. “We think it began with the accident, which means it’s most likely someone you, Brian, and the others went to school with.” Pausing to let that settle, he continued. “Do you still have your yearbooks from high school?”