The Secret Friend

by Unknown

  Walter didn’t answer, but his eyes moved up to my chest. I grabbed his good hand and placed it on my breast. He was shaking.

  ‘Make love to me.’ If I got him on the bed with me, he’d be vulnerable. Get on top of him and poke his goddamn eyes out with my thumbs. I was nursing enough hatred to know I could go through with it.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, moving his hand across my breasts. He was breathing hard but he wouldn’t stop shaking. I moved his hand down across my stomach and he yanked it away and stormed out of the room.

  He came back later and gave me a small plastic statue of the Virgin Mary. It’s on my nightstand right now. He made me pray with him for strength. We pray together every night, kneeling on opposite sides of the bed, and give thanks to HIS Blessed Mother. Walter never shuts his eyes. I pray along with him, of course. I don’t tell him I don’t believe in those things any more.

  After he left, I held the statue in my hand, hoping it would bring me comfort. It doesn’t. I used to think of hell as some dark place full of fire and eternal pain. Now I think of it as a place where you’ll be alone forever, a place where you feel a total lack of anything. I know I’m going to die alone in this room. I just don’t know when.

  Hannah heard a beep, followed by the sound of locks clicking back. She shoved the notebook under the chair cushion as the door swung open.

  35

  The man named Walter Smith came into the room with his head bowed in either shame or embarrassment, maybe both. Hannah had a chance to look him over in the soft light.

  His face had been badly burned. Even under all the makeup, she could see thick, bumpy scars. That’s why he’s keeping his head bowed, she thought. He doesn’t want me staring at his face.

  Knowing he was physically damaged made him seem inferior for some reason, less threatening. Hannah felt as though she might be able to reason with him. She could reason with anyone.

  Walter held a wicker basket packed with an assortment of muffins and croissants. Tissue paper overflowed from the sides of the basket and the handle was decorated with ribbons. It reminded her of the getwell basket her father had bought on the morning after her mother’s hysterectomy.

  Hannah felt a sense of unease as she watched Walter place the basket on the table and retreat to the shadows near the sink. His hair was long, wet and messy. It looked too perfect. If it was a wig or a hairpiece, it was the best one she had ever seen.

  Walter, his head still bowed, stared at the floor and cleared his throat.

  ‘Your nose is looking better.’

  Was it? She didn’t have a mirror, but she had felt her nose with her fingers. It was still swollen. She wondered if it was broken.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ Walter said.

  Hannah didn’t answer, was afraid to answer. What if she said the wrong thing and set him off? If he came at her with his fists, she couldn’t protect herself. He was too big, too strong.

  ‘It was an accident,’ he said. ‘I would never hurt someone I love.’

  A cold sweat broke across her skin.

  You can’t love me, she wanted to say. You don’t even know me.

  It was as though Walter had read her mind.

  ‘I know all about you,’ he said. ‘Your name is Hannah Lee Givens. You graduated from Jackson High School in Des Moines, Iowa. You’re a freshman at Northeastern University. You’re majoring in English. You want to be a teacher. When you can afford it, you like to go to the movies. You go to the library and check out books by Nora Roberts and Nicholas Evans. I can bring you some of those books, if you’d like, and movies. Just tell me what you want and I’ll get it. We can watch movies together.’ Walter looked up and forced a smile. ‘Is there something you’d like to see?’

  How long had he been following her? And why hadn’t she seen him?

  Walter seemed to be waiting for her to answer.

  What had the writer in the notebook said? That’s what feeds him, talking. He needs to talk, needs to connect.

  Hannah wanted him to leave so she could get back to the notebook and read what else this woman had written about Walter. Maybe there was something in there that could help her figure out a way to escape – and she would escape. She would find a way. Hannah Lee Givens knew she wouldn’t live down here forever – and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be used as a punching bag. She just needed to figure out a way to survive until she was found.

  ‘You’re still upset,’ Walter said. ‘I understand. I’ll come back later with your dinner. Maybe we can talk then.’

  He took out his wallet and waved it in front of the card reader. The lock clicked back. He didn’t punch in a code. He opened the door but he didn’t leave.

  ‘I’m going to make you very happy, Hannah. I promise.’

  36

  Monday morning, while driving to work, Darby received a phone call from Tim Bryson. The commissioner wanted to meet at nine.

  ‘I’ve also got a copy of the murder books from the Saugus cases Fletcher worked on back in the eighties,’ Bryson said. ‘Why don’t we meet early? That way you’ll have a chance to read it over.’

  Darby found Bryson seated in the waiting area outside the commissioner’s office. On his forehead was a gauze pad wrapped under two Band-Aids. The previous night, while searching one of Sinclair’s lower levels, Bryson had whacked his head on the edge of a steel beam.

  ‘I’m guessing six stitches,’ Darby said, sitting next to him.

  ‘Try ten. How are you feeling?’

  ‘My back and legs are sore. I’ve never done so much crawling and bending in my entire life.’

  Along with assistance from Danvers police, a dozen search groups, aided by Reed and his security men and architectural blueprints of the hospital floors, had examined a portion of Sinclair’s lower levels all night Saturday and throughout Sunday, calling off the search at a few minutes past midnight. Absolutely nothing was found.

  ‘I told you he was playing us,’ Bryson said.

  ‘We still haven’t searched the basement fully.’

  ‘You really believe that woman is lying somewhere inside the hospital.’

  ‘I believe Fletcher wants us to find something.’

  ‘I still think you’re wrong.’

  ‘If I am, I’ll buy you a drink.’

  ‘No, you’ll buy me dinner.’ Bryson’s smile wiped away his years. He handed her a thick folder. ‘Here are copies of the murder books for the two strangled women from Saugus. Go ahead and read. I’m going to get some coffee. How do you like yours?’

  ‘Black,’ Darby said, opening the cover.

  On the evening of 5 June 1982, nineteen-year-old Margaret Anderson, from Peabody, was last seen leaving a friend’s party. The next morning her partially nude body was discovered along the Route One highway in Saugus. Three weeks later, a twenty-year-old Revere woman named Paula Kelly left her shift at a diner. Kelly’s body was found dumped on the highway less than a mile away from Anderson’s, a man’s leather belt, size 38, wrapped around her throat. Both women were raped, but no semen was found.

  Nineteen-year-old Sam Dingle lived at home with his parents and his younger sister and worked at the Saugus mall at a music store that both women frequented regularly. The store manager said Dingle had spoken at length to both women on several occasions and had even asked Paula Kelly for her phone number.

  Saugus police had recovered a partial thumbprint from the belt around Kelly’s throat. The print came from Sam Dingle’s right thumb.

  The belt never made it to the state lab for further testing. The evidence room at the Saugus police station had lost its key piece of evidence. Sam Dingle was never arrested.

  While Saugus police tried to build a case against him, searching for more evidence, Dingle, according to his sister Lorna, suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the Sinclair Mental Health Facility. Six months later, Dingle was discharged. He lived at home with his parents for a week before hitchhiking out west.

  Bryson c
ame back and handed her a cup of coffee with a plastic lid. ‘You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who drinks her coffee black.’

  ‘Why ruin a good thing?’

  Bryson nodded with his chin to the murder book. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I’d like to talk to Sam Dingle.’

  ‘So would I,’ Bryson said. ‘We’re looking for him. His parents are dead, and his sister doesn’t live in Saugus.’

  ‘I’ll call the state lab and see what they have for evidence.’

  Bryson sipped his coffee. ‘A call came in this morning from two girls living in Brighton,’ he said. ‘A college student named Hannah Givens was reported missing. Her roommates called it in. They all go to Northeastern. According to the report, Hannah Givens was supposed to come home after her Friday shift at some deli in Downtown Crossing. They called her cell and left messages. Givens hasn’t come home or called.’

  ‘Is she local?’ Darby was thinking maybe the student had gone home for the weekend to visit her parents.

  ‘Her parents live in Boise, Idaho,’ Bryson said. ‘I don’t know all the details yet, it’s just a preliminary report. Watts is on his way to Brighton to look into it. We have some other missing-person reports from the past month, but none involving female college students.’

  The commissioner’s secretary was a thin, neat man with long, manicured fingers and blond highlights in his gelled brown hair. ‘The commissioner will see you now.’

  37

  Christina Chadzynski sat behind a wide mahogany desk, reading a file under the soft light of a lamp. Her office, wide and airy with windows overlooking the grey sky hanging over Boston, was decorated with nautical antiques and replicas of old wooden sailing ships.

  Four chairs were set up in front of the desk. Darby took the seat next to Bryson and waited for the commissioner to finish reading his report detailing the events from Friday night until Sunday evening.

  Chadzynski closed the file. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’ She took off her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose. The corners of her eyes were lined with wrinkles. Even with makeup, the woman looked tired. ‘Let’s start with the man you met Friday night at Emma Hale’s home.’

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher,’ Darby said.

  ‘You’re sure this man is Fletcher?’

  ‘Detective Bryson showed me his picture from the FBI website. That’s the man I met. Fletcher was here in eighty-two, consulting on two strangling cases for the Saugus police. We’re investigating a possible connection.’

  ‘And we still don’t know what Fletcher was doing inside Emma Hale’s home.’

  ‘No. Mr Hale claims he doesn’t know the man.’

  Chadzynski’s brown eyes were as cold and unforgiving as an X-ray. ‘Are you suggesting that Jonathan has hired the services of a known felon?’

  ‘Do you know Mr Hale?’ Darby asked.

  ‘We travel in the same social circles. My husband knows him very well. They do a lot of charity work together.’

  ‘We know Malcolm Fletcher accessed the building through the garage,’ Darby said. ‘He took the service elevator to Emma Hale’s floor and entered her apartment. Burglary examined the locks. They weren’t picked. He had a key. I think it would be prudent to place Jonathan Hale under surveillance.’

  ‘Darby, the man is a respected member of the community. I can’t have him followed without a valid reason, and I certainly can’t bring him in for questioning. The press would crucify us.’

  ‘Hear me out. Malcolm Fletcher is the man I met inside Emma Hale’s home. I don’t know what he was doing there. Either he’s working alone, for a reason we don’t yet understand, or he’s working for Hale.

  ‘For the moment, let’s assume Fletcher is acting solo – and that may, in fact, be the case,’ Darby continued. ‘We know Fletcher was here once before, back in the early eighties, when he was working as a profiler. Is it possible he’s independently investigating a connection between the strangulations and the murders of Chen and Hale? Yes. We also know Hale’s Newton office was broken into and the surveillance tapes, the DVDs, for Emma Hale’s building are, in fact, missing. So we do have some evidence to suggest that Fletcher’s acting alone. However, given what we know about the man’s history and his status on the Most Wanted List, don’t you think it wise to place Hale under surveillance for his own protection?’

  ‘Darby has a valid point,’ Bryson added.

  Chadzynski put on her glasses. ‘How many times have you spoken with Malcolm Fletcher?’

  ‘I spoke with him inside Emma Hale’s home,’ Darby said. ‘So far, he’s called me twice – Saturday afternoon while I was at Judith Chen’s and then later while Tim and I were at Sinclair.’

  ‘And he hasn’t called you since?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll call you again?’

  ‘I think it’s a strong possibility.’

  ‘What do you base that on?’

  ‘He’s inserted himself into our investigation. He led me to Sinclair where we found, in a room inside an area where they supposedly held violent offenders, a picture of a woman and a statue of the Virgin Mary – the same statue we found inside the pockets of Hale and Chen.’

  ‘Where did he get the statue? Do we know?’

  ‘We have no idea.’

  ‘And the woman in the photograph,’ Chadzynski said. ‘Is she connected to these strangled women from Saugus?’

  Bryson answered the question. ‘Cliff Watts passed her picture around the Saugus station. They don’t know who she is. She’s not listed in any of their missing-person cases. I’m going to give a copy of the picture to our Missing Persons Unit after this meeting.’

  ‘My understanding is you searched the hospital and failed to find anything else,’ Chadzynski said.

  ‘We only managed to search part of the hospital,’ Darby said. ‘The basement itself is a maze. Some sections are sealed off because they’re unstable. Other areas are locked. The place is massive, and it took a good amount of time to map out the areas we searched. We only had a day and a half.’

  ‘So you think we should continue the search?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Tim?’

  ‘I don’t see the need.’ Bryson explained his position.

  Chadzynski turned back to Darby and said, ‘What do you think Malcolm Fletcher wants you to find? You can’t honestly believe a living woman is trapped inside the hospital.’

  ‘The last time I spoke to Fletcher, he mentioned a quote by George Bernard Shaw – “If you can’t get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance.” I don’t think he was being clever. I got the sense he was warning me. He mentioned opening Pandora’s Box. I think there’s something inside that hospital, and he wants us to find it.’

  ‘Or, as Tim suggested, Fletcher is simply jerking us around.’

  ‘That very well may be true,’ Darby said. ‘The fact is he’s involved himself in this case. He left us the same Virgin Mary statue we found in Hale and Chen’s pockets. I’d like to know where he got it.’

  ‘You think he wants to help our investigation?’

  ‘I don’t know what the man’s motives are,’ Darby said. ‘What little I know about him came from the FBI website, which isn’t much.’

  Bryson said, ‘There’s also another theory: What if Malcolm Fletcher murdered Hale and Chen?’

  ‘That’s not Mr Fletcher’s style,’ Chadzynski said.

  ‘Do you know something about him?’

  ‘How many people have you told about Malcolm Fletcher?’

  ‘I told Watts,’ Bryson said, turning to Darby.

  ‘Jackson Cooper and Keith Woodbury know,’ she said. ‘I haven’t told anyone else.’

  Chadzynski crossed her legs. ‘What I’m about to say I’d like to stay inside this room.’

  38

  ‘This is the second time Malcolm Fletcher has resurfaced in Boston,’ Chadzynski said. ‘The first time was roughly nin
e years ago. Do you remember the Sandman case?’

  ‘It was big news.’ Darby had followed the story in the papers.

  A serial murderer named Gabriel LaRouche had murdered a family in Marblehead, a North Shore town north of Boston, and called the police. LaRouche, watching the house through sophisticated surveillance equipment, waited until all the police were gathered inside and then detonated the bomb he had left at the crime scene. Two more families were killed before he was captured.

  ‘Do you know Jack Casey?’ Chadzynski asked.

  ‘The former profiler,’ Darby said. ‘He’s the one who caught Miles Hamilton, the “All-American Psycho”.’

  ‘Yes. Casey had retired from the Bureau and was working as the chief of detectives for Marblehead, where the first family was murdered. Boston SWAT was called in at one point – there was a hostage situation on a highway. I have a personal friend at the Bureau, someone who works in Investigative Support. Jack Casey brought Fletcher in as a behind-the-scenes consultant. After the Sandman case was solved, Casey left Marblehead and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Fletcher disappeared. Several years later, he was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.’

  ‘Fletcher attacked the agents in eighty-four,’ Darby said. ‘Why did the Feds wait so long to place him on the list? Do you know?’

  ‘The Bureau wanted to handle the matter quietly.’

  ‘What a surprise.’

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher was one of their best profilers,’ Chadzynski said. ‘His clearance rate is unprecedented. The problem was he crossed the line into vigilantism. The last dozen or so serial cases he worked on, each killer died. The last four cases he worked, the suspects disappeared. My friend didn’t say how long this had been going on, but when the Bureau found out, they sent in three agents to apprehend Fletcher and you know what happened next.

  ‘After the FBI placed him on their list, a task force was formed to apprehend him. The problem, from my understanding, is that nobody knows much about him. For a man on the run, he lives quite well. He stays in good hotels. He enjoys fine wine and cigars. He prefers driving luxury cars.’