THE DEAD SOUL: A Thriller

by M. William Phelps

  Lisa Marie’s killer imagined how Mary’s neck was going feel in his hands. He relished in the sight of blood streaming from her legs after he cut them off with a hacksaw. He was going to tell her, as she screamed and pleaded with her god, that her father was nothing but a lying bastard sonofabitch who had cheated him out of a life.

  An eye for an eye, Mary O’Keefe. Study your Bible.

  19

  Saturday, September 6, 7:05 P.M.

  A violent thunder and lightning storm rolled into the city, bringing with it torrential downpours that washed away the mini heat wave. As Jake walked out of his house, he could smell that after-rain aroma permeating the air, a mixture of sumac and pine, dead worms in the gutters, motor oil evaporating from the tar. The driveway steamed like a casserole, the red maple by the mailbox dripping perfect rainforest droplets of water.

  It was a fifteen-minute ride from the Cooper’s house in Brookline to Beacon Hill. A little less with Jake behind the wheel. The case nagged at Jake as he maneuvered his way around the rotary connecting Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street. The fact that a second victim’s legs had been left in Lisa Marie’s closet was a portent, a warning.

  Additional victims would follow.

  “Nervous, honey?” Dawn asked Jake. She glanced over the seat back at Brendan. “Excited to see grandma and grandpa, Bren?”

  Jake had made a deal with himself that he wasn’t going to talk about the case. Not tonight. He owed Dawn that much after scaring the shit out of her that morning at the park.

  “I am, Mommy.” Brendon wore his favorite Red Sox T-shirt. His hair was messy, as usual. He was looking forward to the five-dollar bill he knew his grandfather would slip to him. As Jake drove, Brendan colored in a book of dinosaurs. Going to see his grandparents was a good diversion for Brendan from not seeing his father all that much anymore. But the kid still hurt.

  Jake mulled over those crude markings Kelsey had recovered on both bodies. Was it a message? Or was their serial throwing off the scent, playing games? So far, Jake’s iPhone profiling program hadn’t come back with anything—Not enough data.

  Worthless geeks and their ‘technology’!

  What would Anastasia and Dickie find at Simmons? They must be there by now. Why the hell hadn’t Dickie called?

  Anxiety flared. Jake realized his forearms hurt. He didn’t know it, but he was squeezing the steering wheel, allowing his thoughts to run away from him.

  “Not going to answer me?” Dawn asked.

  “Sorry,” Jake finally said. “Was thinking about things. Hey, unfoil me a piece of my nicotine gum, would you.” His hands shook.

  Jake took a left. Drove down the ramp onto Storrow Drive. Brendan liked this part of the trip. He loved watching the Boston University Terriers scull team. They sat in a line on those skinny canoes. Worked in unison. Pulled themselves against the Charles River current. True teamwork.

  “Like pirates,” Brendan said whenever they passed.

  There were times—like this one—when Jake looked out at the water himself and could think of nothing but Martin Cooper, his father. They used to fish underneath the Boston University Bridge for pumpkinseed and smallmouth bass when Jake was in kindergarten. Martin would wear one of those white Fonzie T-shirts, the seams on the sleeves rolled up to expose his bicep muscles. Looking up at his dad, Jake felt an irreplaceable sense of safety. The good years. His most vivid memories now, however, were from years later, after Casey died. The death years. “Why would you ever want to be a cop?” Martin had asked after young Jake shared the news of being accepted into the state police academy. “Why not the service, like your brother? Like me! Military’s not good enough for you, son, huh?”

  This made Jake feel rejected. He tried to resist commenting back.

  “You’re probably not Army material, anyway,” Martin Cooper said after Jake refused to give in and placate the man with an answer.

  Ever since then, Jake had wondered if he had become a cop because it was in his blood and who he was, or simply to spite his father.

  “Hey, anybody in there?” Dawn said, snapping her fingers in front of Jake’s face as he drove.

  “Sorry.”

  “They’re excited to see you.”

  “Do you know what the average family income is in Beacon Hill?” Jake said, quickly changing the subject, more for his benefit.

  “What, bored again at work, honey? Reading Wikipedia?” Jake heard Brendan laugh from the backseat. “You cannot count on that info. You should know that—you’re a cop.” Dawn put the sun visor down, flipped the mirror flap up. The little dome light shone on her face as she checked her makeup, flexing her face in different positions, puckering her lips, making sure her lipstick wasn’t smudged. Dawn opened her mouth wide, then closed it, as though doing jaw exercises.

  “Hear me out here for a minute. I’ll have you know,” Jake continued as he turned the corner onto Charles Street, looked down the block, found his way onto Joy. Dawn’s parents lived in a luxurious Beacon Hill redbrick townhouse next door to the Crumblers, whose great-granddaughter was the first Afro-American in the United States to receive a medical degree. “The combined income for a married couple in Beacon Hill is—drum roll, please, Brendan—five million dollars.”

  “Not Mom and Dad,” Dawn said out of the corner of her mouth. “Please. Give me a break.” The house had been an inheritance from Minnie’s grandmother.

  Every inch of space on Beacon Hill held historic value. Joy Street was indeed one of the wealthiest sections of the city. Besides the red-brick appearance and colonial feel, the town houses were known for their exaggerated brass door knockers. Residents insisted on keeping them polished to a glare. The brick sidewalks were spotless. Perpetually burning gas lanterns in place of streetlights. Pear trees. Hidden gardens situated around architecture from the Federal, Greek Revival, Colonial and Victorian periods. Jake felt out of place.

  “Indeed, you all here on Beacon Hill may have money, status, even fame,” Jake held up a forefinger, “but we—and you’re now one of us, Mrs. Cooper—in Brookline, we have JFK. No one can take him away from us.”

  “You’re incredible,” Dawn said. “Delusional.” She paused. Smiled. “Thanks for suggesting this dinner, honey. It’s a been a while since we’ve seen them.”

  Jake parked. As he got out, he stopped, looked down the block. At the end of Joy was the edge of Boston Common. Just a half-mile away from Cleveland and Minnie Benedict’s town house was that Lisa Marie Taylor crime scene Jake Cooper could not let go of.

  “Hi, Mother,” Dawn said after ringing the bell. Jake stood behind his wife with his hands on Brendan’s shoulders. As soon as Minnie opened the door, Brendan saw his grandfather and bolted into his open arms.

  “Dawny, how are you? Jake, always good to see you.”

  The smell of braised lamb, rosemary and fresh mint hit them as they walked into the foyer.

  Dawn’s father, Cleveland, wore a beige three-piece suit, white ruffled shirt, bow tie, Italian shoes. He had his trusty gold pocket watch tucked away, the chain hanging a half circle, clipped to a belt loop. Jake Cooper couldn’t deny the man looked sharp whenever he saw him, but had a weird Sherlock Holmes vibe Jake never understood.

  “Sir,” Jake stuck out his hand. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Detective.” The old man enjoyed that greeting—calling Jake by what he did. “Any luck with the Garden case? Still cannot believe that happened right here.” He shook his head. “Brandy, Jake?”

  “Just a Mountain Dew, sir.”

  “Brendan, get your dad a soda pop.” Cleveland walked over to a makeshift bar on a small table by the stairs, poured himself a snifter of brandy, cleared his throat. “What’s the word on the case? Anything new?”

  “Not much happening yet, sir. It’s early in the game.”

  “I saw the Italian girl on New England News the other night. She said y’all think we’ve got a serial killer working in the city. How chilling to consider such a random, ev
il thing.”

  They walked toward a large room with oak floors, walnut shelves, shiny lacquered cherry wood walls. Jake admired how in shape Cleveland kept himself. His was no fake Jack LaLanne, Juicer body. Cleveland had real muscles, hard and ripped.

  Walking, Jake noticed a bandage on Cleveland’s right knuckle. “Cut yourself working in the garden again, Cleve?”

  The old man lifted his hand, stared at the injury. “That, oh … well, you know, probably should have gotten stitches, but … What I did was, I smashed a glass accidentally while watching the Sox game the other night. Had serious money on it.”

  Jake had a strange look about him. “Bad luck, Cleve, huh.”

  “About the murders,” Cleveland said. Jake felt his father-in-law wanted off the subject of the cut knuckle. “What can you tell me about them?”

  “Officer Rossi, she said something like that, but I’m not going there, sir.” The gruesome details of the case had not been released. Jake wasn’t about to share anything, family or not. “You and Minnie are going to Europe, I hear, in a few days.” Jake made a mental note to tell Anastasia to watch her tongue when speaking to the media.

  “I’m getting too old for those trips. But you do what the wife wants long enough and she expects it. So I don’t argue. I pack a bag and tell her I’m in, then complain of being sick a day before.”

  Dawn and Minnie sat by a window in two antique chairs near a large brick fireplace. A bookcase with volumes of leather-bound books no one read overlooked them. There was a rolltop desk, a family heirloom, nearby. Both chairs looked out into a courtyard flower garden.

  Dawn and Minnie drank tall, skinny flutes of a 1995 Krug, Clos du Mesnil champagne from a bottle resting in an ice bucket between them.

  “I don’t know about your father, Dawn. He leaves at all hours of the night, never says where he’s going.”

  “Probably to the club to play bridge, Mother.”

  “I don’t know.” Minnie was perplexed, seemed worried.

  They chatted for a brief time. The oven timer went off. Dinner was done.

  They sat at the dining table. “How are your mother and father, Jake?” Cleveland asked, snapping out his cloth napkin as of it were a tiny bedsheet, placing it on his lap. “We have not seen them in, oh, what has it been, Min, three, four years now?”

  “They’re good. Thanks. I’ll tell’em you asked. They’ll like that. They adore Deserts Winds, Arizona. It’s hot. They stay indoors a lot and read. Once in a while they hit the early bird at the local Applebee’s.”

  It was a lie. Jake’s father was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Most days the man didn’t know his own name. Jake’s mother took care of him. Jake and Dawn sent money at times and Dawn agreed her parents didn’t need to know.

  Jake took a pull from his Mountain Dew. As the green fizz burned his throat, he felt the buzz of his iPhone against his hip and looked down.

  “I have to take this.” He stood, pushed out his chair with the back of his knees, walked into the study for privacy. Cleveland followed him with his eyes. “You’re interrupting family time,” Jake said roughly to the caller. “Better be good.”

  “We have something with that seedling, Jake. I spoke to this doctor at Simmons who thinks he can help us. We emailed him a digital photo before we left, so he could get started. But now that’s he’s tested the actual seedling, he’s certain it’s from a rare flower that does not grow in the states. Means that the source of the flower could have ordered it.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. We’re meeting up with him again in the morning.”

  “Text me a brief report before you leave.”

  Dickie sighed. “I’ll have Rossi do that.”

  9:57 P.M.

  Brendan fell asleep as soon as Jake hit Storrow Drive. Leaning over the seat, putting a blanket over him, Dawn said, “Take the long way home.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. It was the last night with his Chevelle. The Crown Vic was going to be ready in the morning.

  They passed a U.S Army billboard on Commonwealth. Holding an M-16, a fresh-faced young man sat on the edge of an Army helicopter. He looked serious.

  Be all you can be.

  “Still jolts you every time you see something like that,” Dawn said. She moseyed over next to her husband as if they were teenagers at the drive-in.

  “It’s hard to forget. I often wonder what Casey’d be doing if he’d lived. He’d probably be a cop too.” Jack scowled as he looked out the front windshield. “He would have been ten times the cop I am.”

  Casey Milton Cooper was a decorated marine pilot in Kuwait during the Gulf War. “I had wanted, and we joked about it as kids,” Jake said, “so badly for my children to call him Uncle Milty.”

  Jake’s older brother joined the military to get out of Southie. He was hanging with those scally cap-wearing corner-dwellers of the Lower End in Old Colony Project. Got tired of running. Chasing a future in prison or a casket. Those Southie symbols—the shamrocks and claddaghs painted on the sides of buildings around the neighborhood—were said to represent “friendship, loyalty and love.” What a load of shit that was.

  Jake was younger then. Looking at photos mailed to the house from Kuwait once a month made Jake proud to be Casey’s brother. Envy eventually turned into respect. Jake realized he wanted to join the military, too. It was Father John O’Brien who talked Jake into the state police academy instead. Jake went to the priest one day to discuss how he felt about losing Casey. Explained that he wanted to pick up where his brother left off. He knew his father would want him to. Father John knew Jake wasn’t built for military life. Plus, Casey wrote to the priest and made him promise to talk Jake out of it. It was almost, Father John admitted to Jake years later, as if Casey knew his time was limited. That he wasn’t coming back. Mo Blackhall liked to take the credit for rescuing Jake out of Southie. But it was Father John. Mo was just the recruiter, so to speak. The priest changed Jake’s heart. Turned his life around. Then one day it all fell apart.

  There was a knock on the door. Jake had just come in from the Boys & Girls Club and a stop at the Donut Chef. It was snowing. He was smiling. No sooner had he closed the door did he turn around and have to answer it.

  Two guys dressed in military greens asked for Mr. or Mrs. Cooper.

  “Go to your room,” Jake’s mother said, walking up from behind, wiping her hands on her apron. “Go now, boy. Hurry.”

  Upstairs, his ear against the door, Jake listened to his mother wail as Martin Cooper put on his game face. Only thing the old man said was, “You know, there was a time not even an ambulance would not have come into this neighborhood without a police escort.” He stuck out his hand. “Fifteen company. Korean War.”

  The captain handed Casey’s dog tags to Martin.

  Martin put them in his pocket.

  Jake had always viewed his father as a shell of a man, hollow and unfeeling. Mr. Pokerface. Martin was kind of just, well, there. He had played the role of the father, as if he had read a how-to book, or taken some adult-ed class on parenting. But then Casey died and Martin found salvation in a pint of Popov he kept in the glove box of his car. Jake would see him staring at the white and red label before taking a swig. Martin started hanging out at McBride’s and getting beaten up. As the years passed, Jake watched him sink deeper, never being able to pull himself out of it. Jake would walk out of the house or come up from behind the car unexpectedly and see his father tipping. He’d stop, watch, but never say anything to anyone.

  Alcoholism, the middle class white elephant.

  As Mrs. Cooper cried, Martin put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Captain. Lieutenant.” Nodded to both men. “We appreciate you coming out.”

  Jake backed away from his door. Walked to the closet, where he had hid Casey’s tattered and torn boot-camp training T-shirt. Jake planned on wearing it himself as soon as he could fill it out. Standing in his room that day, Jake held the shirt to his nos
e. He could still smell Casey.

  10:15 P.M.

  “I have to get over there and see Father John,” Jake said as he took the left on Woodycrest, nearing home. Brendan was just waking up.

  “You find out what he wants?” Dawn loved listening to Jake talk about Casey. She knew it helped him.

  “No. But I suspect it has something to do with the deacon. He mentioned his name. Never trusted that guy, Dawn.” Jake took a breath. “Hey, I want to drop Brendan off at school tomorrow morning, okay? Maybe once or twice a week from now on.”

  Dawn smiled. Jake would give up on it after two weeks. But it was a start.

  “I’m thinking of clocking out for good after this case.”

  20

  Sunday, September 7, 7:46 A.M.

  Dickie and Anastasia made contact with Dr. Albert K. Shelton. He was a rather academic-looking, owlish man who wore a bow tie. He had one of those Honest Abe mustacheless beards. Spoke in language that made two streetwise cops feel as though their community college degrees were worthless. They hooked up with the professor shortly after Dickie phoned Jake the previous night. Shelton decided it would be better to meet in the lab “as early as possible.” He said he was scheduled to give a lecture that afternoon in Canada at a conference, and didn’t have a lot of time to spare.

  “The Queen of the Night,” Shelton said aloud after introducing himself. He grasped the seedling found underneath Lisa Marie’s body with a pair of tweezers. Placed it under a microscope. “I’m sure of it. This little seedling is the ‘hot’ plant of the moment. All the rage today, detectives.”

  “I’m a CSI, sir. Not a detective,” Anastasia corrected. “A distinction not quite made clear on television these days.”

  The scholar ignored the comment. “What you officers need to do is conduct several more tests in order for the seedling to have any significance to your investigation.” Anastasia took notes. Dickie stood, listening closely. “Just to be certain. You need random samples of bark and leaves. Other seeds taken from different trees, shrubs, flowers, and other foliage and plant species surrounding the home of the victim. Along with any strange plants you might come in contact with during your investigation. The science behind this tiny naturally manufactured species is quite complicated. Same as, say, your DNA coding for blood.”