by Lisa Gardner
This was it for Larry Digger. Twenty-five years after he'd started the search for the Holy Grail, he was in Boston, and it was boom or bust.
He hailed a cab. It had taken him a week to track down the address in his fist. Now he handed the piece of paper to the tired-looking driver who was paying more attention to the Red Sox game on the radio than to the other cars on the road.
Digger was traveling light, just clean underwear, a couple of white shirts, the tape recorder, and a copy of his own book, published fifteen years before. He'd started writing it soon after Russell Lee Holmes's execution when most nights he woke up with the scent of burning flesh polluting his nostrils. The other guys had gotten a break that night. Blowing an inmate apart had given the anti-death penalty liberals all the ammunition they'd needed. Texas had gotten to hastily re-retire Old Sparky, not entering the execution business again until 1982, when the state got lethal injection.
It hadn't helped Digger though. He'd thought Russell Lee would be the big story for him, finally break him out of Pisswater, USA, and move him to national news. They'd kept him in Huntsville, covering the retirement of Old Sparky, covering the debate. Then he got to cover the setup of the lethal injection, and way before he was ready, he was back to watching men die.
He had started needing a drink before going to bed. Then he started needing two or three. Most likely he was on his own slow road to dying, when lo and behold, the phone had rung.
Two A.M., May 3. Exactly three weeks ago. Larry Digger remembered it clearly. Fumbling for the ringing phone on the bedside table. Swearing at the thundering sound. Pressing the cold receiver against his ear. Hearing the disembodied voice in the dark.
“You shouldn't have given up. You were right about Russell Lee Holmes. He did have a wife and child. Do you want to know more?”
Of course he did. Even when he knew he should've given up, when he knew that his obsession with Russell Lee Holmes had cost him more than it had ever given him, he hadn't been able to say no. The caller had known that too. The caller had actually laughed, a weird, knowing sound that was distorted by some machine. Then he'd hung up.
Two days later the caller was more specific. This time he gave Digger a name. Idaho Johnson.
“It's an alias. Russell Lee Holmes's favorite alias. Track it down, you'll see.”
Digger had tracked the name to a marriage certificate. He'd then traced both husband's and wife's names to a birth certificate for a child listed as Baby Doe Johnson. No sex or hospital was listed, but there was a midwife's name. Digger found her through the Midwives Association, and there he'd struck gold.
Yes, she remembered Idaho Johnson. Yes, that picture looked like him. A slight hesitation. We-ell, yes, she understood that his real name was actually Russell Lee Holmes. Not that she'd known it then, she informed Digger crisply. But when the cops had arrested Russell Lee and the papers had carried his picture, she'd sure figured it out. Then the midwife thinned her lips. She wasn't willing to say another word. Baby Doe Johnson was Baby Doe Johnson and she didn't see any reason to infringe upon the privacy and rights of a child simply because of what the father had done.
Digger had tried tracking down the child and mother on his own, only to hit a wall. The woman's name on the marriage certificate also appeared to be an alias, having no social security number, driver's license, or tax history to back it up. Digger had combed through old records, old files. He'd hunted for photos, property deeds, any damn kind of paper trail. No sign of Angela Johnson or Baby Doe.
Digger had gone back to the midwife.
He'd begged. He'd pleaded and argued and brow-beat. Offered money he didn't have and glory he'd never known. The best he could get out of the woman was one last grudging story, a small incident that had happened to her after Russell Lee's arrest. Really, it had probably been nothing.
But to Larry Digger it had been everything. Within seconds of hearing the midwife's little tale, he thought he knew exactly what had happened to Baby Doe Johnson. And it was a bigger story than any dried-up, washed-up, half-drunk reporter had ever dared to dream.
But why dredge it up twenty years later?
He'd asked his three A.M. caller that question, actually. And he still recalled the weird, high-pitched answer.
“Because you get what you deserve, Larry. You always get what you deserve.”
The cab was slowing down and pulling over. Digger glanced around.
He was in downtown Boston. One block from the Ritz, one block from the landmark Cheers, limos everywhere. This was where the Stokeses now lived? The rich did get richer.
God, that pissed him off.
Digger slapped ten bucks in the cabbie's hand and crawled out of the taxi.
The sky was clear. He sniffed a couple of times, wiped his hand on his rumpled trousers. Air definitely smelled like flowers. No exhaust fumes here. Rich folks probably didn't stand for such things. Some big park loomed behind him, filled with cherry trees and tulips and, of all things, swan boats. He shook his head.
He turned away from the park and inspected the row of buildings. They were all stone town houses, three stories high and rail thin. Old and grand. Nestled shoulder to shoulder but still managing to appear aloof. Built by blue bloods, he figured, one hundred years ago, when everyone was still tracing their lineage to the Mayflower. Hell, maybe they still were.
He checked the addresses. The Stokes home was the fourth in. It was currently lit up like the Fourth of July, with two red-coated valets guarding the doorway like matchsticks. As he watched, a Mercedes-Benz pulled up and a woman stepped out. She'd draped purple sequins and white diamonds all over her plump body and looked like a moldy raisin. Her husband, who was equally portly, waddled like a penguin in his tux. The couple surrendered their keys to a valet and sauntered through heavy walnut doors.
Digger looked down at his old trench coat and rumpled pants.
Oh, yeah, he could just stroll right in.
He walked into the park, took a seat on an old wrought iron bench beneath a vast red maple tree, and contemplated the Stokes house once more.
As the reporter who'd tagged Russell Lee Holmes to the grave, Larry Digger had gotten to know all the families of the murdered children. He'd met them when their grief was still a raw, ragged wound, and he'd interviewed them later, when the horror had leached away and left only despair. By then the fathers had a vengeful gleam in their sunken eyes. They fisted their hands and pounded already beat-up furniture when speaking about Russell Lee Holmes. The mothers, on the other hand, clung to their surviving children obsessively, and stared at all men, even their husbands, mistrustfully. By the time the state got around to killing Russell Lee, most of the families had imploded.
Except the Stokeses. From the very beginning they had been different, and from the very beginning the other families had resented them for that. Except for Meagan, Russell Lee's victims lived in poor neighborhoods. The Stokeses had lived in a mansion in one of the newly rich neighborhoods of Houston. The other families had had that worn, mongrel look of two working parents. Their kids had had torn clothes and uneven teeth and dusty cheeks.
The Stokeses belonged on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens—the strong, noble doctor-husband, the slender, classy, former-beauty-queen wife, and their two golden children. Gleaming blond hair; perfect white teeth; pink, rosy cheeks.
They were the kind of people you half wanted something bad to happen to, and then, when it did . . .
Digger had to look down at the grass. Images from that time still shamed and confused him.
The way Patricia Stokes's clear blue gaze had softened when she spoke of her daughter, trying to describe to reporters the perfect little girl who'd been kidnapped from her family, begging them to help her find her daughter. Then, the way her face had broken completely the day Meagan's body had been ID'ed. Her blue eyes grew so bleak that for the first time in his life, Larry Digger would've given up a story, hell, Larry Digger would've given up his soul to give this perfect woman
back her daughter.
Right after the execution, when Patricia had been overcome by grief and horror, Digger followed her to the hotel bar. Her husband hadn't come. Work, Digger had heard. According to the rumor mill, since the death of Meagan Stokes, all Dr. Harper Stokes did was work. The man seemed to have some misguided notion that saving other lives would make God give him his daughter back. Rich men were stupid.
So, the fourteen-year-old Brian had gone to Texas as his mother's escort. He'd even followed his mother into the bar as if he owned the place. When the bartender tried to protest, the kid gave him a look. A don't-you-mess-with-me-after-the-things-I've-seen look. The bartender shut right up.
Christ, what kind of kid attended an execution?
Right about then Digger figured that the Stokeses weren't so perfect or golden after all. There was something there, something beneath the carefully manicured surface. Something dark. Something sinister. In all the years since, he'd never shaken that impression.
Now here he was, twenty years later. The Stokeses had a new daughter, and this one had gotten the chance to grow up. But somehow the demons couldn't all be settled, because someone had called up Larry Digger and invited him over to play.
Someone still thought the Stokeses hadn't gotten what they deserved.
Digger felt a chill.
He finally shrugged. He spared one last thought for the other daughter, wondering what she was like, if she'd found any happiness there on Beacon Street. He decided he didn't care.
This was his shot and he was going to take it. He'd done his research. He had his information. And he knew by then how to make his opportunity.
Ready or not, Melanie Stokes, he thought indifferently, here I come.
TWO
B Y NINE-THIRTY, guests were filling up the Stokes home like glittering jewels. White-tuxedoed waiters cut clean lines through the expensively dressed crowd, offering silver trays heavy with champagne flutes or sizzling garlic shrimp or wild boar with blueberry demiglaze. Baccarat chandeliers threw sparkling lights over carefully coiled hairdos and captured handsome men whispering to beautiful young ladies.
Rushing down the stairs, Melanie waved merrily at the Webers and the Braskamps and the Ruddys, then exchanged nods with the Chadwicks and Baumgartners. Lawyers, deans, chiefs of surgery, and management consulting VPs. Investment bankers and a few politicians. Boston was full of new money and old money, and Melanie had shamelessly invited it all. Everyone brought a rare book to donate for literacy, and if they were all jockeying to give the best book, the most priceless donation, even better. When it came to fund-raisers, Melanie was a true hussy.
She exchanged smiles with her father, who stood by the door, looking elegant in his favorite satin-trimmed tux. At nearly sixty years of age, blue-eyed, golden-haired Harper was in his prime. He worked like a dog, jogged religiously each morning, and was an avid golfer who'd finally gotten down to a nine-handicap. More important, Boston magazine had just named him the best cardiac surgeon in Boston, a long overdue triumph. Tonight Melanie thought her father appeared happier than she'd seen him in months.
Satisfied, she went in search of her mother. Parties had always relaxed Melanie, hence her job. She felt comforted by the throng of milling people, the flutter of multiple conversations. In her mind, hell was solitary confinement in a room that was cold and stark and unending white. Fortunately with her job, her volunteer work at the Dedham Red Cross Donor Center, and her family, she didn't have much time to waste on worrying about being alone.
Melanie finally spotted her mother across the room and altered course straight for her.
Patricia Stokes was tucked in a corner, standing next to one of the sterling silver juice carts, and chatting with the young male server. This was a sure sign that she was nervous. A tall, striking blonde who had conquered the hearts of most of the men in Texas by the time she was eighteen, Melanie's mother had grown more beautiful with age. And when scared or unsure, she had a tendency to migrate toward men, as they inevitably gushed over her every word.
“Melanie!” Patricia had spotted her daughter. Her face immediately lit up, and she waved enthusiastically. “Darling, over here. I've spoken with catering and the juice stations are all set.”
“Wow,” the waiter exclaimed. “Your daughter looks just like you!”
“Of course,” Patricia declared breezily. Melanie rolled her eyes. She didn't look like her mother any more than a yellow buttercup resembled a yellow rose.
“Are you harassing the help?” she asked her mom.
“Absolutely. Charlie here was just pouring me a drink. Orange juice. Straight up. I figured that would keep the room buzzing. ‘Does she have vodka in that or doesn't she?' ‘Does she/doesn't she?' You know I love to be the life of the party.”
Melanie squeezed her mother's hand. “You're doing fine.”
Patricia merely smiled. She knew people still whispered such things as They found her first daughter murdered. Just four years old and her head was cut off. Isn't that horrible? Can you imagine?
And these days they were adding Her son just announced he was gay. You know he's always been, well, troubled. And get this—she's started drinking again. That's right. Fresh out of rehab . . .
“Everything looks great,” Patricia said too cheerfully. Two women walked by, then whispered to each other furiously. Patricia's grip on her crystal glass grew tight.
“They'll get over it,” Melanie said gently. “Remember, the first public outing is the worst.”
“It was my own fault.” More hesitation now, genuine remorse.
“It's okay, Mom. It's okay.”
“I shouldn't have been so weak. Fifteen years of being sober. Sometimes I don't know myself . . .”
“Mom—”
“I miss Brian.”
“I know,” Melanie murmured. “I know.”
Patricia pinched the bridge of her nose. She had worked herself up to the point of tears, and Patricia Stokes did not cry in public. She turned, giving the room her back until the worst passed.
The waiter looked reproachfully at Melanie, as if she should be doing something. Melanie would love to do something. Unfortunately the rift between her father and brother was old, and there was little she or her mother could do. Harper looked in good spirits tonight, so maybe the end would soon be near.
“I'm . . . I'm better now,” Patricia was saying. She had pulled herself together, adopting that firm smile she'd learned in some finishing school umpteen years earlier.
“You can go up anytime you want,” Melanie said.
“Nonsense. I just need to get through the first hour. You're right—the first public outing is always the hardest. Well, let the windbags talk. I've certainly heard worse.”
“It's going to be okay, Mom.”
“Of course, it is.” Patricia was back to her overbright smiles, but then she leaned over and gave her daughter a genuine hug. Her arms were strong around Melanie, the scent of Chanel No. 5 and Lancôme face cream comforting. Melanie looped her arms around her mother's too-thin waist the way she had been doing since she was nine and let the embrace last for as long as her mom needed it to.
When they drew back, they were both smiling.
“I have to get to the kitchen,” Melanie said.
“Do you need help? I'm really not doing much.”
“Nope. This show is on the road.” She was already stepping away, but then her mom caught her hand. She looked intent.
“William coming?”
Melanie shrugged. “He is dad's favorite anesthesiologist.”
“Nervous?”
“Never. What's one ex-fiancé among three hundred people?”
“William's a jerk,” her mom said loyally.
“And you are the best.” Melanie gave her mother's hand a squeeze, then plunged into the crowd.
A sudden movement caught her eye. She turned just in time to see the flapping tail of a brown overcoat disappear into the kitchen. That was odd. Who would be running
around in a soiled overcoat?
She was about to follow up, when she heard a commotion from outside. The valets were fighting over whose turn it was to park a Porsche. By the time Melanie sorted it all out, the matter of the out-of-place overcoat had completely slipped her mind.
AN HOUR LATER Melanie realized she still hadn't checked in on the blood donor room that her friend Ann Margaret had set up in the front parlor.
“I'm so sorry!” she apologized immediately, bursting into the wood-paneled room that now boasted four blood donor stretchers instead of the usual leather sofas. “I wanted to see if you needed anything, but it's been so crazy!”
“Completely understandable,” Ann Margaret drawled as she finished rubbing iodine on the exposed skin of a man's arm and in the next heartbeat slid in the needle. “As you can see, life here is just fine.”
“Hey, gorgeous,” the man said. “I've been wondering where you've been hiding.”
Melanie burst into a smile. “Uncle Jamie! Here you are. I should've known my godfather would fly all the way from Europe just to hole up with a beautiful woman.”
“Can't help myself,” Jamie informed her. “It's the gift of being Irish.”
Melanie shook her head. She'd heard it all before but didn't mind hearing it again. A longtime friend of her parents from their days in Texas, Jamie O'Donnell was one of her most favorite people in the world. He jetted all over the globe tracking down rare items for his import/export company, then blazed into town twice a year to spoil her rotten with imported chocolates, exotic toys, and larger-than-life stories.
Now he was sprawled on the raised donor bed, looking just off the docks even in a three-thousand-dollar tuxedo. It was probably the single diamond winking in his left ear, or the mischievous look on his face.
“They take your blood, Uncle Jamie? Somehow I figured with the life you've led . . .”
“Ah, I'm a saint, lass. A pure, angelic sort, I swear it.”
“Hardly,” Ann Margaret murmured, and snapped a rubber band around an empty donor bag.
