The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  Now Donovan lost his appetite. He grabbed his napkin, unconcerned about not finishing the last two bites of eggs and the hash browns that seemed to be marinating in a pool of grease.

  “I have a man whose daughter went missing. Six years after that, his wife ends her life after he’s been picked up by the Wayne County sheriff for soliciting a minor. Fast-forward to a few days ago when he hands me the remains of his daughter’s right index finger. He takes me to a mass burial site for girls who’d been kidnapped and claims a woman named . . .” Klein snapped his fingers, faking that he couldn’t think of her name, and then motioning at Donovan to help him out.

  “Monica,” Donovan said.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Carmen Drouin, a missing person out of Boston . . .”

  Not Louisiana? Her social media profile had said Louisiana.

  “Who hasn’t been heard from in over a dozen years. That makes her a few years younger than Elizabeth, right? And how she materialized on your front porch a couple of weeks ago and not, say, in a hospital emergency room or other likely facility . . .” Klein raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead. “Well, I guess that’s the mystery here, isn’t it? Which makes me wonder, Donny, are you sure it’s Carmen Drouin you’re talking about?”

  “Absolutely, it’s her. At least, I think it is.” He’d never known about Carmen Drouin until half an hour ago. Hadn’t even run a Google search on her.

  “Huh. Because if I were a betting man, and I really shouldn’t be because of the nature of my work, but if I were, I’d bet I have a better shot at digging up Carmen’s bones from one of those grave sites you introduced the FBI to yesterday.”

  Donovan wasn’t sure what else he could say. When he’d driven out to Roseland this morning, he’d been hoping to confirm that Monica Russell was a real-life person and not some fabricated, imaginary friend. Instead, he discovered that Monica was actually Carmen Drouin, a girl who’d been missing for almost as long as his daughter.

  “Y’all ready for the check?” the waitress asked, sneaking up to the booth and startling Donovan. When he jumped, the big woman giggled. “My lord, that’s the highest I seen anyone jump in this place unless he be having a heart attack.”

  Klein laughed as well, a little too loudly to convince Donovan of its authenticity. He withdrew a ten and twenty from his pocket and handed it directly to the waitress. She walked away with an even bigger smile, and Klein pocketed the receipt.

  With the waitress gone, Klein returned his gaze to Donovan and sighed. “In the interest of full disclosure, things aren’t looking all that good for you, Donny. I wouldn’t have followed you all the way out here if my boss didn’t think you’re elbows deep into your own daughter’s disappearance and murder.” Klein contorted his face to make it look like it hurt him to even think those words.

  Shaking his head, Donovan chuckled. “You know what I was doing in Detroit, Agent Klein.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, and I also know what you were doing in Twilight Creek with your banker.”

  Donovan could feel the color draining from his face.

  Rolling his eyes, Klein pressed his back against the booth’s bench. “Come on, Donny. After Amelia sliced her arms up, we went through your banking records. Hell, you’re the one that provided them. Didn’t think we’d notice those kinds of things? Why do you think I asked the question last night?”

  He’d known there was some kind of significance with Twilight Creek, even though he hadn’t been there until after Amelia was gone. The question had been rhetorical, another test Donovan had failed.

  “Come on, man. You have to give me something. Cases like your daughter’s don’t come to life like this, not after fifteen years, and they sure as hell don’t drag back a name like Carmen Drouin. What aren’t you telling me, Donny?”

  Donovan considered Klein’s words. He also considered the way the federal agent was staring him down. If he’d known the answer to the question about Twilight Creek last night, did he know about Roger on Central Avenue/Street, too? Scratching at his temples, Donovan made some quick calculations, which weren’t quick enough to Klein’s standards.

  “You know, I can drag you in for tampering with someone’s mail,” Klein said, half grinning as he pushed his legs out of the booth and stood. “We can wait it out at the field office while you weigh the pros and cons of giving me whatever detail is percolating in that bruised head of yours. At least I can smoke there.” He gave a sideways nod, indicating their breakfast date was coming to an end; it was time to go.

  Unsure whether he wanted Klein to take him back to his car or lock him up at the field office, Donovan decided to tell him about Roger. “Monica or Carmen says he’s the one that abducted Elizabeth. He’s the one that tried to kill her.” He gulped, then regained his composure before adding, “The one that took my daughter and killed her, too.”

  “Roger, huh?”

  They were walking past the busy booths now, under the curious gaze of the other patrons. Although Donovan was sensitive to the conversation they were having, Klein didn’t seem to care if the others overheard them.

  “Does this Roger character have an address?”

  “That’s the thing. I think he might have two. Both are on Central. One is Central Avenue, the other is Central Street.”

  They walked to Klein’s Ford.

  “I can take you there,” Donovan said, blurting it out as he opened the passenger-side door and slipped inside the car.

  Klein settled behind the wheel, grabbed a cigarette, and lit it. Before starting the engine, he checked his phone and then nodded.

  “Yeah,” Klein said. “I think you should take me there.”

  “And then I can go home?”

  Klein shrugged. “That depends.”

  Now Donovan was really getting nervous. What else did Klein think he was holding back? It didn’t make sense to Donovan, but Klein sure had a way with making him question his own sanity and innocence at times.

  “Agent Klein, I don’t think I understand.”

  “It depends on what you can tell me about this guy.” He tapped and swiped on his phone, finally turning the screen so that Donovan could see a picture of a white man with gray hair and a dark, trimmed beard. He was a good-looking man, roughly Donovan’s age, with a sophisticated gaze, big shoulders and chest. Could have been an accountant or professor, except Donovan doubted that a man like Agent Klein kept photographs of those types of people unless they did something bad.

  “I still don’t understand,” Donovan said, raising his attention from the phone and noticing how Klein had been watching him closely.

  “You don’t, huh?”

  Donovan shook his head. No. He didn’t.

  “His ID was missing when they pulled him out of the Detroit River. But luckily we keep our own database of dangerous sex offenders, so getting a positive ID on Gerald Tepperman wasn’t too tough.”

  Klein watched him, and he surely saw the recognition that flashed across Donovan’s eyes at the mention of Tepperman’s name. He was the sexual predator that Monica/Carmen had lured to her hotel room in Detroit, the man she’d subsequently murdered. If Donovan’s memory was worth anything, he believed Monica/Carmen had said Tepperman lived at 132 Oneida Way, Saginaw, Michigan.

  “So you do know about Gerry.” Klein smiled and shook his head. He started the Taurus’s engine and got the car moving. “And something tells me you’re going to blame that murder on Carmen, aren’t you?”

  Donovan raised his shoulders and tried to shrug, but he found his muscles were too tense to allow much movement at all. And when he spoke, trying to sound calm and casual, the words came out with the same degree of intensity and uptightness. “I guess if the shoe fits . . .”

  Laughing, Klein shook his head as he aimed his car toward the Dan Ryan, heading north rather than back to Halsted, which would get them to where he’d abandoned his Impala in Roseland.

  “You think I had anything do with that man’s murder?” Donovan asked, noticing
how his voice came out sounding defensive and maybe even a little guilty. “I never heard of him until Monica mentioned his name to me.”

  Still smiling from all of that laughter, Klein shook his head in disbelief. “You meant Carmen, right? Carmen Drouin, the girl who was abducted from a Boston-area park some twelve-plus years ago?”

  “Yes, one and the same.”

  Still shaking his head, Klein glanced over at Donovan. “You want to hear something crazy, Donny? Drouin was petite for her age. When we process her through our age-forecasting system, take into account that she was probably malnourished for a period of time, today we’d peg her at five feet, a hundred and five pounds. How big was Tepperman?”

  “I don’t know,” Donovan said, his jaw clenched. “I never met the man, although I can’t say I wouldn’t have hurt him if I had.”

  “He was two fifty, six feet and four inches tall.”

  In other words, it was impossible for a woman like Monica to cause the kind of damage to Gerald Tepperman that saw his body float up on the shore of the Detroit River.

  The more he thought about this, the more Donovan accepted Klein’s warning that things weren’t looking all that good for him.

  CHAPTER 40

  Parked outside Roger’s Central Avenue town house, Donovan watched Agent Klein tap away on his phone. Despite the way the federal agent often made Donovan feel like he was mocking him or was two steps ahead of him, Klein sure seemed to be taking his job seriously now. In fact, the agent seemed to have forgotten that he’d lit a smoke and slipped it between his lips, the ash tip bending forward and on the verge of dropping into the federal agent’s lap.

  After he sent his email, Klein glanced over at Donovan and offered a half grin. “We’ll find out who owns this address.”

  “You think it might not be Roger?” And if it wasn’t, then what?

  Flinging the cigarette out of the open window, Klein pulled the gear selector into drive and started off. “It’s possible, if not probable, that Roger rents this place. You said he’s a CTA bus driver?”

  “Well, Monica said that.”

  “Uh-huh. Carmen.” Klein turned around in someone’s driveway and steered his Taurus back to Prairie. “So where’s the other place?”

  Donovan provided directions based on the route he’d followed two nights ago. He remembered getting over to Green Bay, but in the daylight and with his sleep all messed up, the landmarks were unfamiliar. Just when Donovan began to worry that they’d passed the other Central, it appeared.

  “Take a left here.”

  They drove the short distance to the building where Roger had gone the other night. But unlike Donovan, Klein turned onto the quiet side street that fed traffic to the building’s covered parking. He stopped the car at the curb.

  “This place is brand new,” Klein said. He inhaled a deep breath through his nostrils. “I can still smell the construction.”

  Donovan took a deep breath, too, but he didn’t detect the smell of anything except summer in Chicago and the stale cigarette smoke in the Taurus’s cabin.

  “Figure of speech. I just made it up.” Klein nodded out the window. “I bet there are tons of students living in that place. Which makes me think it’s a rental. Did Carmen happen to mention Roger’s last name?”

  He rubbed his temples, trying to stimulate his memory of any conversations he’d had with Monica about the abductor’s true identity. At last, he shook his head. “No, she never mentioned it.”

  “Is there any point in heading into the lobby and searching the directory?”

  Donovan kept shaking his head. “Probably not.”

  “Well, then I guess we can get your car so you can go home.” As Klein reached for the gear selector, something stopped him. He redirected his reach to his pants pocket and produced his cell phone. As he read the text or email or whatever it was, the eyelid on his right eye twitched.

  “Everything okay, Mike?” Donovan wanted to get back to Roseland so he could fetch his car and head home to see about tracking down Monica Russell, or Carmen Drouin. Whatever her real name, the stolen mail offered Donovan a fresh lead, the potential for answers.

  Klein tucked the phone back into his pants. Instead of reaching for the gear selector, he grabbed his door handle and pulled it open. “Yeah. The town house on Central is owned by James Francis. Let’s see if James has a unit inside this building.”

  Matching Klein’s stride, Donovan couldn’t help but feel a little anxious about what they were doing. It suddenly made sense why Monica had not wanted to face Roger the other day, why she’d insisted he take her to Barney’s if he wanted to stick around and potentially be seen by the abductor.

  Walking up to the building’s main entrance, Donovan knew that Klein’s presence served to protect Roger more than it served to protect Donovan.

  “What if James Francis is our guy?” Donovan asked once they were inside the lobby. There was a touch screen on the wall that listed all the tenants, nearly a hundred in total it seemed. Klein walked up to it and began scrolling his finger across the names.

  “Whether he’s our guy or not, it’s worth a conversation.” Once Klein finished his first pass through the names, he started at the beginning once again. “Except James Francis doesn’t live here.”

  “So these two places are rentals?” Donovan scanned the names, hoping to find one that looked familiar.

  Klein glanced over. “Keeps ‘Roger’ hidden underneath a layer of privacy and obscurity, so to speak.”

  “So now what? How do we find out who this guy is?”

  “That’s for me to figure out.” Klein stared at him. “There’s no place for you in this, Donny, you understand?”

  “Can’t you just call the homeowner? James Francis would know who he’s rented the town house to, wouldn’t he?”

  “Like I said, that’s for me to figure out.” His stare seemed to harden. “If this Roger character happens to be the guy who abducted your daughter and filled all of those graves in Twilight Creek, having a conversation with his landlord is a little more delicate than calling him up, identifying yourself as the FBI, and asking about one of his tenants.”

  They left the lobby.

  Donovan agreed that a conversation like that might cause Roger to go into hiding, relocate, whatever. But . . . “Why would a guy like Roger rent two properties, Agent Klein?”

  Klein shrugged as he reached his Taurus and slipped behind the wheel. Once Donovan had his seat belt buckled, they started off.

  “A guy like Roger, he’d rent so that he’s never committed to a location. He’s calculating, he does what works, which is something you saw back at those grave sites.” Klein glanced over and seemed to study him for longer than what was prudent while driving on city streets. “He’s not an idiot; probably has an advanced educational background.”

  Roger was a CTA bus driver. What kind of advanced education would that involve? “Like a PhD in philosophy?” Donovan chuckled. When Klein didn’t chuckle in response, Donovan decided it was best to not make light of the situation.

  “You get a guy like him,” Klein continued, his tone turning preachy, “you need to be careful. You need to keep an eye on him. In fact, I’m surprised he let you follow him all the way from his town house to the apartment building. Because if you’re a guy like Roger, the kind of guy where you abduct, abuse, and murder as many victims as he has, you start to get paranoid. Not schizophrenic paranoid, but borderline medical-intervention-required paranoid, where you know your luck is running out with each passing day. But a guy like that, like Roger, he thinks he’s smarter; he thinks he’s just got to tighten his grip on the situation. But that’s not it. Because what’s happening here, Donny, is that his luck is running out. As far as we know, and until we start seeing the results from the tests on those remains, your Roger has been at this for at least fifteen years.”

  At least fifteen years. That was how long Roger had been at this, assuming Elizabeth was his first. But Donovan could tel
l that Klein knew more than what he was letting on. The federal agent had known about Carmen Drouin, had known she was an abducted child out of Boston. What else did Klein know that he wasn’t sharing with Donovan?

  “Law of probabilities,” Klein went on, opening the driver-side window and lighting up a cigarette before they reached the expressway. “You might get away with one. Like when you invest in the stock market, you get a good run on Apple, you think you’re a superstar. Then you pluck your second little girl out of a crowded place. Then a third, fourth, and so on. But like the stocks you pick after Apple, you’re gonna get stung by some dogs. Those things don’t go up, up, up every day. Trust me. There are price corrections and market crashes. And after fifteen years of getting away with this, he’s got to be due a price correction or a market crash. And it’s coming soon, too.” Klein inhaled a long pull from his cigarette before glancing over at Donovan. “What do you think?”

  Donovan gulped. “I think he deserves a market crash.” Or the crash of my hands ripping his throat out.

  CHAPTER 41

  Alone at home on a Friday afternoon, Donovan opened his new laptop and eased back into his investigator’s mind-set. The days after Elizabeth had gone missing and the FBI had stopped caring, he’d spent more time trying to connect the dots online than he’d spent trying to reconnect with Amelia. She’d reminded him that she’d lost her daughter, too. She missed her baby, too. She needed someone to work through that unresolved loss with her, too. She’d tried telling him that the only other person who could help was him.

  He’d told her that people handle these things differently. It had felt like a normal thing to say to a grieving mother. But the truth was that Donovan hadn’t been ready to deal with that loss. He’d been convinced that Elizabeth was still out there, waiting for her hero to come and rescue her—and, at nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, she was still at an age where the strongest and smartest man in the world, her hero, was her very own father.