Bone Thief

by Thomas O'Callaghan

  “If I hear that little voice or see that smirking face one more time, I’m gonna scream,” said Margaret.

  “She ever mention a boyfriend?” Driscoll asked.

  “Just type D-R-I-S-C-O-L-L.”

  “Cute.”

  “I mean it. Give it a try.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Here…let me do it.” She typed in the Lieutenant’s name.

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  “What’s your middle name?”

  “Give me a break!”

  “I know…William.”

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  “I think it’s time for a break,” Margaret grumbled, rummaging through her purse, searching for her compact. Finding it, she applied a fresh layer of lipstick.

  “Margaret, I could kiss you! That’s gotta be it. She wasn’t shushing me then, and she’s not shushing us now. Don’t you get it? She’s pointing to her lips! Get Eileen Tiernan on the phone. I gotta have the name of Moira’s lipstick.”

  Chapter 74

  Driscoll palmed the open tube of lipstick.

  “It smells fruity,” he said as he sniffed it.

  He turned the cylinder bottom side up only to find an illegible fingerworn product label.

  “According to Product Marketing Research there are 2,691 different lipsticks being sold nationally,” said Margaret. “In New York City alone there are over 1,300 labels.”

  “You have any idea where your daughter shopped for her makeup?” Driscoll asked Eileen Tiernan who was sitting rigidly in the chair next to Driscoll’s desk.

  “Probably at the Queens Mall. That’s where Moira bought everything.”

  “Worth a trip,” said Margaret.

  Their trek to the mall led them in and out of CVS, Revco, Bath & Body Works, Essentials Plus, Nature’s Element, J.C. Penney, Claire’s, and Rite Aid. None of the retailers could identify the lipstick.

  “Teenagers are like pack animals,” said Driscoll as he stood with Margaret in the center of the mall. “They hang out in specific spots, shop the same stores, and buy the same stuff. Maybe we missed a store.”

  An outburst of laughter erupted from a group of adolescents spilling out of Candyland, a sweets boutique. Driscoll and Margaret looked at each other. “Gimme the tube,” said Margaret. “They’ll think you’re a dirty old man.” With tube in hand, she headed toward the teens.

  “Can any of you girls help me? There’s twenty bucks in it for anyone who can ID this lipstick.”

  “Twenty bucks! Give it here,” said an acned brunette.

  Margaret complied.

  “Yeah! I know this one. It’s one of those fruit smears.” She handed the tube back to Margaret. “Go ahead. Taste it.”

  “You mean it’s edible?”

  “That’s why they call ’em Fruit Licks.”

  “Where can I buy it?”

  “Cute Cuts. It’s a hair boutique right here in the mall.”

  “Point the way, and the twenty is yours.”

  “It’s on level two. Right next to the Gap. Ya can’t miss it.”

  Driscoll and Margaret made their way up the escalator and into the haircutting salon.

  “Do you have an appointment?” a bleached-blond receptionist asked.

  “Do I need one?” said Driscoll, flashing his shield.

  “What’s this?” Margaret asked, handing the woman the lipstick.

  The woman eyed the cosmetic and gave it back to Margaret. “That’s a Fruit Lick. That one’s called Mango Madness. They’re mostly for teens. With your complexion, I recommend Summer’s Dawn—”

  “We can’t thank you enough,” said Driscoll as he and Margaret headed for the door.

  Chapter 75

  “Well, Lieutenant, are you ready to do a little dancing with me?” asked Margaret.

  Driscoll gave her a curious look.

  “On the keyboard, John. On the keyboard.”

  “Cute,” Driscoll said with a grin as he began to type the name of the lipstick into Moira’s laptop computer. A chime sounded. MANGOMADNE was as far as he got.

  “Too many letters,” Margaret muttered.

  “I’ll try breaking it down.”

  He typed. MANGO.

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  He tried MANGOMAD.

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  MADMANGO.

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  MADMAN

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  Margaret seized the computer and brought her face eye to eye with Moira’s. “The game’s over, sister. Talk to me.” When she didn’t get a response, she sighed and tried, MANMADE.

  “Not that one, silly. Read my lips!”

  MANMAD, she typed. “That’s just what you are, Moira.”

  The sound of a muted trumpet emanated through the laptop’s tiny speakers. “Aha! You found the lipstick. No keeping you out now. Kudos to you.”

  Margaret smiled triumphantly as Moira’s digital face quickly faded into oblivion. “We’re in!”

  It took Driscoll and Margaret a little more than thirty minutes to deduce how Godsend had spun his webs on the bulletin boards of every online service on the Internet. Moira’s Received Mail and Outgoing Mail folders contained every correspondence between herself and her abductor, as well as all the correspondence she had hacked from each of the victims. It all supported her theory about how the madman had lured his prey.

  “That son of a bitch,” Driscoll seethed. “Moira had him dead in his tracks from the start.”

  “And since she unmasked him, you can bet Godsend has vanished into cyberspace.”

  “No wonder the killings have stopped. But who’s to say everyone he lured got snuffed?” Driscoll picked up the desk phone and punched in Thomlinson’s extension.

  “Thomlinson here.”

  “Cedric, you online?”

  “Can be in a minute. What’s up?”

  “I want you to post a message on every online service’s bulletin board.”

  “Will do. Whad’ll I say?”

  “Anyone having had bad karma with Godsend is to contact me. Include my e-mail address.”

  Driscoll and Margaret stared at the laptop’s luminous screen. Their eyes focused on the two words Godsend had used to sign off with on his last correspondence with Moira: Leigheas Duine.

  “It’s Old Irish,” said Driscoll.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Medicine Man.”

  Chapter 76

  It had only been twenty-four hours since Thomlinson placed Driscoll’s message in cyberspace. It was yet to prompt a response, but the Lieutenant remained hopeful. He picked up his desk phone and summoned Margaret and Thomlinson to his office. Within thirty seconds the two officers came in and took their seats. The Lieutenant was all business.

  “Margaret, your friend has a record.”

  “My friend?”

  “Doctor Pierce. They caught him trying to take out a bulldozer.”

  Driscoll handed Margaret the rap sheet. It read:

  21st May 2004. Pierce, Colm F. Arrested 2100 hours by P.O. Jack McGuinness of Old Brookville P.D. Witness did observe defendant pour maple syrup into the diesel fuel tank of a bulldozer.

  “What the hell is that all about?” Margaret asked.

  “He called the DEP to complain about the bulldozer making too much noise. They’ve got him on tape.”

  Driscoll handed Thomlinson the DEP report.

  “There’s more to his story.” Driscoll was filled with excitement. He felt he was closing in. When he spoke, it was with conviction. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he works in the hospital where the Parsons girl died. I checked the logs. He called it quits at three o’clock the day Clarissa was hit by the car, and failed to respond to his medical beeper all afternoon.” Driscoll paused and took note of Thomlinson’s reaction. He’d seen that look before. It was the look a
good cop gets when he was on the tail of the right suspect. “Again, why does he, a radiologist, show up later at her bedside? With defibrillator paddles, no less?” Driscoll believed Pierce had his own agenda. The defibrillator paddles were somehow part of that agenda, and Driscoll was determined to find out what the connection was. “I’m convinced the guy needs a thorough background check, and that’s what I intend to give him. Cedric, while I’m at it, I want you to keep an eye on that Internet mail. Margaret, you’re to keep a close leash on the doctor.” Driscoll said a silent prayer. This was Margaret now, dancing with the devil. “Continue to date the man as though nothing was up. Remember, the killings have stopped since you started seeing him. Let’s see if there’s a correlation. But be on your guard. He just might be our Medicine Man.”

  Chapter 77

  “Cedric, hold the fort,” Driscoll said into his car phone as he drove along Interstate 91. “I just left Fremont Center, where Professor Tiernan last encountered his secret Druidic society. But they’ve closed up shop. No one there has heard from them in years. Another dead end. If anyone’s looking for me, I’m heading for Vermont. That’s where Pierce received his first license to drive. And get this. It’s the first record of any kind for the guy. It’s almost as though he didn’t exist until he received his driver’s license. The address on the license put him in Windsor County, in a town called Hortonville. I’m heading there now to speak to a Cyrus Karp. He’s the town’s sheriff.”

  Later, when Driscoll and Karp met, Karp got down to business quickly. He asked, “Lieutenant, did you say 1172 Mackmore Lane?”

  “That’s the address I got from Vermont’s Department of Motor Vehicles, Sheriff.”

  “Please call me Cyrus. Folks looking to spend the night in jail can call me Sheriff.”

  “OK, Cyrus, why did the woman at Motor Vehicles suggest I call you?”

  “Why, you were plumb lucky, son. You see, that woman is Emma Machleit. And when she heard some big-city police detective was asking about a license that had as its address the old place on Mackmore, she thought it best to refer you to me.”

  “Is the house haunted?” Driscoll asked curiously.

  “It ought to be. ’Cept there ain’t no house to haunt.”

  “You mean, the address is a phony?”

  “Nope. The address is for real, only the house that used to be there, ain’t. What year did you say that driver’s license was from?”

  “1984,” answered Driscoll.

  “Well, the last house that had that address burned down in ’68. A young girl and her parents burned to death in the blaze. C’mon, I’ll take ya there.”

  Karp and Driscoll walked to what once was 1172 Mackmore Lane. The vacant lot, stretching between two Victorian homes, was a field of weeds.

  “The townies, they won’t go near it,” said Karp. “They swear the lot’s haunted.”

  “Did you know the residents?” asked Driscoll.

  “No. Only the stories.”

  “And what do they say?”

  “That the occupants of that house were into pain,” Karp said, his eyes fixed just above the tufts of wild weeds. “Lots and lots of pain.”

  “You said a young girl and her parents were lost in the fire. Were there any survivors?”

  “A young boy.”

  “What became of him?”

  “Last I heard, he was adopted by the well-to-do Pierce family in Manchester.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect, Cyrus, but, how is it you know that?”

  “Cause Hortonville’s a small town, where everybody knows everyone else’s business.”

  Chapter 78

  Driscoll veered the Chevy into the driveway of Edgar and Charlotte Pierce’s estate in Manchester. Japanese pine trees dotted the lawn. Sculptured bushes bordered fields of red calla lilies in flamboyant bloom. Two bronze Siamese lions stood guard in front of a portal of carved wood.

  “You must be Lieutenant Driscoll.” A Chinese valet ushered Driscoll into a vast reception room. “May I offer you some green tea?” he asked.

  “Coffee, please.”

  The valet vanished, leaving Driscoll alone. He felt as though he had entered a gallery in some museum. On one wall, a painted Japanese screen depicted soldiers in armor, brandishing swords, decapitating a row of human heads emerging from the sand. Many heads had already been severed, their blood dyeing the earth. The spectacle was watched by a bearded man in pink robes who reclined on a sedan chair. That must be the Emperor, Driscoll surmised, and wondered why he had ordered such a bloodbath.

  “There sits Zheng, a passionate sort of fellow,” said a voice behind him.

  He turned to find a silverhaired woman in a long, fluid dress sashaying toward him. “The chap beheaded thousands of freethinkers.”

  “Your interior decorator has some sense of the macabre,” said Driscoll, shaking her hand.

  “Oh, no, Lieutenant. My decorator, Gustave D’Ambroise, protested at first, but how could I resist Premier Lin Piao? He insisted I display it. Regrettably, we women are at the mercy of powerful men. Well, in any event, I’m Charlotte. You said on the phone you wanted to talk about Colm.”

  “That’s right. I do.”

  Charlotte Pierce motioned for Driscoll to take a seat on an upholstered sofa.

  “Shall we start with when we adopted him?” she asked, seating herself on a high-backed chair.

  “That’d be fine”

  “We couldn’t legally adopt him until he left Wellmore.”

  “Wellmore? A boarding school?”

  “Oh no. It’s sort of a rest home for children, an enchanting place. My husband contributed largely to its continuance.”

  “A psychiatric residence.”

  “Yes, a child’s amusement park, if you will.”

  “Why was Colm committed there?”

  “You haven’t read the police report?”

  “I didn’t know there was one.”

  “He played with matches, the poor boy. He was fascinated with fire. Torched his house, I’m afraid. But he wasn’t known as Colm Pierce then. I can understand why you weren’t aware of the police report.”

  “What was he known as?”

  “Colm O’Dwyer.”

  Driscoll made a note of the name. He now understood why he could find no records of Pierce before he received his driver’s license.

  “Were there any casualties?” Driscoll asked.

  “His parents, and possibly a sister. It still isn’t clear what happened to her. Colm managed to escape the flames by burrowing himself in the cellar.”

  “Did he ever confess to his crime?”

  “He was…catatonic. I believe that’s what they call it. Doctor Hudson, the neurologist at Wellmore, was quite certain the fire’s excessive heat brought on the condition. But a year later, he was back to normal, having recovered most of his memory. The fire was not part of his recollections, though. He went on to redeem himself marvelously during his stay at Wellmore, putting all the errors of his youth behind him. We’re very proud of his cure. He was released to our custody ten years later because of his admirable behavior and a true sense of moral conscience.”

  “Why did you adopt him?”

  “On Tuesdays, back then, I volunteered my services at Wellmore, helping the nursing staff. I just fell in love with the child.”

  “Did your husband share your love?”

  “Absolutely. Edgar and I had lost a son, so Colm was welcomed in our home. Edgar spoiled him lavishly. It was my husband who introduced him to the finer things in life.”

  “I’d like to meet your husband.”

  “I’m afraid Edgar can’t receive you. He suffers from Alzheimer’s.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “Edgar has lost his ability to speak intelligently, but there is one word that he voices repeatedly, and that’s ‘Colm.’”

  The valet entered with coffee service.

  “Will you stay for lunch, Lieutenant?”

  “Certainly,
and after that I thought I’d visit Wellmore.”

  “I’m afraid it’s past visiting hours.”

  “In the middle of the day?”

  She ignored the question. Instead, she reached for Driscoll’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “This house feels like a mausoleum at times. I do crave companionship, and I appreciate your visit, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it is you’re here.”

  Driscoll searched her face. It was sharp and angular and full of power. It expressed a tenacity he had rarely witnessed in a woman. He wondered what secrets she was hiding. Being mother to the boy, she must have known his every inclination.

  “A patient died under your son’s care,” he said flatly, watching her every move.

  “If this is about malpractice, we will compensate generously.”

  A supportive mother? Or was there something else behind the gesture? “It’s about homicide.”

  “And you think my son is involved in such an affair?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to rule out.”

  “Thank goodness! And are you any closer to finding the culprit?”

  “We’re clueless,” he lied.

  “I find your sincerity jarring. Who was it that was murdered?”

  “A young girl.”

  Charlotte reached for a cigarette from an antique box and lit it. Her face showed no emotion.

  “Her parents have influence,” said Driscoll.

  “Obviously.”

  As the two proceeded down the long corridor to lunch, Charlotte Pierce, her arm entwined in Driscoll’s, whispered, “Be on your guard, the patients aren’t the only crazies at Wellmore. If I were you, I’d avoid the place.”