The Red Queen Dies

by Frankie Y. Bailey

  McCabe said, “Right. Of course, we can both acknowledge that Mama loved Adam best.”

  “Sure she did. He was her favorite, the way you’re mine.”

  “And you don’t think there’s anything wrong with those family dynamics?”

  “It might be wrong, but that’s the way humans are. We love the way we love, and you take it or leave it. And my breakfast’s gotten cold while we’ve been standing here talking about it.”

  McCabe sighed. Whatever else Pop was, he was a realist, prone to pragmatism, she thought. He never quite got that it wasn’t always that easy for the rest of them.

  Not that it was always that easy for him, either. If it were, he wouldn’t have drunk himself half to death when Mama died.

  “Hearts don’t break,” he had informed her in one of his drunken hazes. But for a while, she had thought his would.

  “I’ll heat your breakfast up for you.” She took his plate from his tray. “Pop, changing the subject—”

  “Good. About time.”

  “The case I’m working on. We’re trying to find some information that doesn’t seem to be there.”

  Angus sat down at the table. “What kind of information?”

  “If I tell you this … and I’m only telling you because I really need to know—”

  “Stop filibustering and get on with it.”

  “You have to promise me first that you will keep this to yourself.”

  “Who am I going to tell? If you’re talking about me telling your brother—”

  “I’m talking about you telling anyone. I know when you get hold of a good story, you find it hard—”

  “As you keep reminding me, Ms. Detective, I’m retired now. Where am I going to write about it?”

  “Maybe in that book you might get around to writing.” She filled a mug with hot water and added another tea bag. “Or, who knows? You might decide to start your own thread.” She turned back to him and smiled. “I wouldn’t put that past you.”

  “Wouldn’t you? What is it that I know that you don’t? Must be important for you to be willing to take a chance on me keeping it to myself.”

  “The serial murder case. We’ve finally found a link between the first two victims.” She set his breakfast plate and the fresh mug of tea on the table in front of him. “When they were kids, both attended a two-week summer science camp for twelve- to fourteen-year-old girls sponsored by a women’s group. We’re trying to reach the officers of the group, but what we know so far is that something happened during the time the girls were at the camp.”

  “What?”

  McCabe sat down across from him. “A bullying incident. A girl was being teased by another girl. The girl who was being teased ran away when the teaching assistant was out of the classroom. She was picked up in a car by a boy. We don’t know what, if anything, happened. She was found. But she didn’t go back to the science camp. Instead, her very angry mother went in the next day. The teaching assistant was called to the office. She left crying. She didn’t go back to the camp, either.”

  “Sounds like a real dustup.”

  “It may have been. But so far, what we have is based on what we were told by the mother of one of our murder victims. No one seems to have called the police that day when the girl ran away from camp.”

  “Got any names for these people?”

  “No, other than Bethany Clark and Sharon Giovanni, our two murder victims, who both attended the camp. Sharon told her mother what happened. According to her mother, Sharon was involved because the girl who was bullying the other girl drew a picture and showed it to Sharon. Both the bully and Sharon got into trouble when the teaching assistant saw the drawing and called them out of the classroom to scold them.”

  “But, according to her mother, Sharon was as innocent as the driven snow in all this?”

  “Claims her mother. Actually, Bethany, our other murder victim, seems more likely to have been the instigator. Her sister remembers an odd little incident involving Bethany.” McCabe looked at him across the table. “Does any of this ring a bell?”

  “Who was running the camp?”

  “A group called Girls in Science, which as far as we can tell, was organized specifically to sponsor the camp.”

  “Where’d the money come from?”

  “Good question. We don’t know yet. None of the group’s officers seems to have been wealthy. We’re thinking they might have had some type of grant. By tomorrow, we should have access to any paperwork that they filed.”

  Angus scooped some egg whites onto the toast he had smeared with strawberry jam. “This would have been when? 2009?”

  “2010.”

  “Hand me my ORB over there on the counter.”

  McCabe got up and brought it to him. “You remember something?”

  “Not off the bat. But all of the crime stories the paper covered that year are on here. Indexed. What month?”

  “First two weeks of July.”

  She waited while he scanned the files.

  “Robbery … hit-and-run … arson … missing baby found with father.” He shook his head. “Nothing coming up on a runaway girl.”

  “She probably wasn’t missing more than a few hours.” McCabe said. “So you don’t recall anything?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just said we didn’t report on anything like that.”

  “So you do remember something?”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “Pop, you’re making me crazy here.”

  “Make yourself some breakfast and let me finish mine.” He took another bite of toast. “I’ve got my notes for that week here in another index.”

  McCabe shook her head. “I don’t understand why you can’t write a book about your life and times as a reporter and editor when you have your notes organized right down to the week.”

  “I wrote the notes as journal entries. That doesn’t mean I can make any sense of them years later. I’ve got some entries after your mother died, when I must have been on weeklong benders. Don’t know how in the hell I ever got anything written fit to print.”

  “Because you’re an extraordinary writer, even under those circumstances.”

  “Quit trying to butter me up and eat. I’ll tell you if I find anything.”

  McCabe went over to the fridge and found herself a cup of yogurt. She tossed in a handful of walnuts and took a banana from the fruit bowl, then sat back down at the table.

  “Umm,” Angus said.

  “Umm, what?”

  “Probably nothing useful. Got a note here about sending a reporter to interview Ted Thornton. Thornton knew Jessup, didn’t he?”

  “They were old friends. When was this interview?”

  “Monday, July twelfth, 2010.”

  “What was the interview about?”

  “Thornton’s plans to expand his business interests in the Capital Region. The reporter asked a question that Thornton didn’t like, and Thornton said, ‘Interview over,’ and got up and walked out. I wrote a note to myself about arrogance and power. I was thinking of writing an editorial.”

  “Did you?”

  “Looks like I was working on it a few days later, but then they started to get a handle on the oil spill in the Gulf. My editorial turned into a piece about modern disasters and their aftermath. I couldn’t work Ted Thornton in.”

  “But Thornton was here in Albany in July 2010.”

  “Hadn’t built his mansion yet. He was renting a house on Willett Street, across from Washington Park. Rumor was that he was going to try to buy up all of the houses along there. That was the question that made him get up and walk out on the interview.”

  “You mean when your reporter asked about the rumor?”

  “Didn’t like being questioned. Whatever he was considering, he seemed to change his mind before he moved on it. Nothing to do with what you’re interested in.”

  McCabe broke off a piece of banana and stirred it into her yogurt. “I asked Ted Thornton if he
knew anything about our first two victims. He said he had never heard of them.”

  “Since they would have been young girls back in 2010, unless you’re implying that Thornton—”

  “I don’t have any reason to think that. But it does occur to me that with his interest in various modes of transportation, he probably also has an interest in science.”

  “So you’re thinking he might have had something to do with the summer science camp?”

  “He donates lots of money to charities and good causes through his foundation. Maybe back in 2010, he made a donation to a science camp.” McCabe scooped up another spoonful of yogurt. “Whatever these murders are about, if it somehow started with the science camp, then there’s a motive that we might be able to get a handle on. Not some whacked-out psycho who likes shooting women up with phenol.”

  “Sometimes serial killers have motives that make pretty good sense. Greed, for example. The payoff from the insurance policies they have on their victims.”

  “I think we can assume that isn’t the case here.”

  “Didn’t say it was. Just agreeing with you that your killer may not be foaming at the mouth.”

  “It would be a whole lot easier if he were. Easier to spot him.”

  “You got reason to be certain the killer’s a man?”

  McCabe pushed back her chair and stood up. “Forensics has been able to put together a profile from the trace evidence on the victim’s bodies. They aren’t prepared to swear in blood, but the indicators are male, European ancestry. Of course, we could have a killer who is leaving fibers and hairs for us to find.”

  “So it could be a woman.”

  “With the method of death, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be. But as Agent Francisco would remind us, most serial killers who kill women are men.” McCabe dropped her yogurt container into the recycle bin, the banana peel into a compost can. “Thanks for the info, Pop. I’ve got to get to the station. Baxter and I are going to spend some time going over what we have.”

  “Don’t work too hard,” Angus said.

  He had been saying that for years. Her reply was a part of the same ritual: “I won’t.”

  21

  Baxter came in a few minutes after she had settled down at her desk. He was carrying a Cambrini Bakery box. “Brain food,” he said.

  “Bless you,” McCabe said.

  “Since we’re probably going to be here long enough to order pizza, we may as well make it a complete pig-out.”

  “And repent and start over once the case is solved.”

  Baxter leaned back in his chair. “You see any solution in sight? I checked the master file, and we still don’t have anything useful on that women’s group that sponsored the camp. They organized as a nonprofit. No record of any other activity by the group after they rented the building, hired the instructors, and put on a two-week science camp.”

  “I swore my Dad to secrecy and asked him if he remembered his newspaper covering anything about a girl running away from summer science camp.”

  “Did he?”

  “No, and he was able to check the index of the articles for that month. Nothing.” McCabe took a sip of the ‘coffee’ that one of the detectives on the morning shift had made. She wrinkled her nose and put her mug down. “But he did come across something else in his notes from that month. Ted Thornton was here in Albany. One of my father’s reporters went to interview him.”

  “But Ted Thornton said he had never heard of either vic.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m wondering if he might have made a donation to the women’s group that sponsored the camp.”

  “And if he did?”

  “No idea. But at least we’ll have found something linking all three victims.”

  “And that would be our good friend Theodore. How do you want to handle finding out?”

  “We should have some more information about the group from Research by tomorrow morning. But, in the meantime, we could run this by the lieutenant and see if there’s any problem with contacting Ted Thornton and asking him directly.”

  “Thornton will probably refer us to Ashby.”

  McCabe picked up her ORB. “I hate to interrupt the lou’s time off. He and his wife go bowling on Sunday morning.”

  “Bowling?”

  “They love the game. Whenever they both have a Sunday morning off, they go bowl a few games.”

  “What does the lou’s wife do?”

  “ER nurse.”

  When Dole answered, she could hear the clash of bowling balls in the background. When she had explained their theory about Thornton as a possible donor to Girls in Science, he said, “Go ahead and ask him about it and see what he says. If it was a legitimate nonprofit, he shouldn’t have anything to hide. If he stonewalls you, we’ll pull the CO in on it. But the general agreement on this is that as much as possible we treat Thornton the same way we would anybody else.”

  “That’s what we were thinking, sir.”

  “Let me know if you get anything useful.”

  “Good luck with your game.”

  “I’m going to need it. The woman just got another strike.”

  “What’d he say?” Baxter asked.

  “Go ahead and check with Thornton. Try to handle him the same way we would anyone else.”

  “Until he makes it clear that he’s not?”

  “You got it. But Thornton did tell us he wanted to be helpful.”

  “This means I get to see Roz again,” Baxter said, grinning.

  McCabe shook her head, “You and that robot.”

  “The woman of my dreams. Low-maintenance.”

  When McCabe reached Bruce Ashby, he gave the okay for them to visit. Ted, he said, would be happy to answer any other questions they might have.

  “I wonder if Clarence Redfield would be as happy to see us,” McCabe said after she had passed that on to Baxter. “I was thinking about Redfield when I was out running this morning.”

  “What about him? Other than whether you’re going to get your friend to beat him up.”

  “I was thinking some more about what we talked about. That we still don’t know how Redfield knew that we had a serial killer. During the press conference, Jacoby shut him down before he could say what it was that he knew about how the two victims had died. We still don’t know how much he knows. Or how he knows.”

  “You thinking Redfield should be on our list of suspects?”

  “Only wondering about him,” McCabe said. “If you were the killer, wouldn’t it be a great way of staying off the suspect list to be out there accusing the police of being incompetent and engaging in a cover-up.”

  “Yeah, it would be. On the other hand, we could have someone in the department who’s feeding Redfield information.”

  “That’s more likely. Either that or Redfield’s been in contact with the killer. But I think at the task force meeting tomorrow, we should put Redfield on the table. See how people are feeling about how he might fit into this.”

  “Want to swing by and pay him a visit after we see Thornton?”

  “Maybe we’d better wait until we have something that we can use as a conversation opener. If we just drop by, he’ll probably call his lawyer and claim I’m harassing him because of his thread.”

  “Okay. However you want to play it.”

  “That’s what I like,” McCabe said. “An agreeable partner.”

  Baxter pushed back his chair and stretched. “Does being agreeable buy me about five minutes to make a call?”

  “Sure, go ahead. I’ll meet you at the door.”

  McCabe glanced up from her ORB as he walked away. Probably the same woman he was calling on Thursday after the autopsy. Probably telling her he was going to be tied up most of the day and making a date for later.

  She glanced back down at the screen in front of her. She had no reason not to trust Baxter … unless being easy to get along with made him suspect.

  After all, he didn’t have to mention the call. He could
have said he needed to make a pit stop in the john. Could be that was where he was going to make his call.

  * * *

  Bruce Ashby opened the door at Ted Thornton’s house.

  “Where’s Roz?” Baxter asked.

  “Who?” Ashby said.

  “Rosalind. The maid.”

  “Oh, she … I happened to be passing, so I signaled her that I would let you in.”

  “Thanks for letting us drop by,” McCabe said. “We’ll try not to take up too much of Mr. Thornton’s time.”

  “I should have told you when you called that this will have to be short. Ted and Lisa are taking Greer and her husband down to the City on the airship later this afternoon. The memorial service for Vivian is tomorrow.”

  “A public service?” McCabe asked.

  “Private. For Vivian’s close friends and associates. Cremation rather than burial.”

  Horatio, the cat, did not appear, either, as they followed Ashby back through the house. This time, their destination was a room filled with cushioned wicker furniture, green plants, and sunlight from the windows that made up one wall. Lisa Nichols and Ted Thornton were sitting in adjacent chairs, with a table between them. They were sharing the Sunday paper over coffee and croissants.

  There was no sign of Greer St. John and her husband, Ron.

  Thornton stood to greet them, waving them to the sofa across from where he and his fiancée were seated.

  “Need me, Ted?” Ashby asked.

  Thornton passed the cup of coffee he was pouring to McCabe. “Please help yourself to sugar and cream. Are you … uh, going to have any questions that Bruce might be helpful in answering, Detective McCabe?”

  “Thank you,” McCabe said. “And, yes, actually we do have a question that might require Mr. Ashby to check his records.”

  “Then, Bruce, why don’t you join us?”

  Thornton poured coffee for Baxter and gestured for Ashby to serve himself. When everyone was seated with the cups in hand, he said, “Now, how can we help you?”

  Lisa Nichols, chic in white slacks, black tunic top, and strappy black high-heeled sandals, crossed her legs. She had been silent, but she seemed interested in what had brought them back for another interview.