The Secret Friend

by Unknown

59

  Tim Bryson lay on the dented roof of a surveillance van, a pool of blood under him. Drip marks were frozen along the van’s sides and back doors, blood smeared against the shattered front windshield where his crooked legs were splayed, one of them dangling near the dashboard. He stared up at the sky, his head tilted against his shoulder, as if puzzled. His neck was broken.

  Two men from ID were photographing the body. She couldn’t examine Bryson until ID had finished.

  Darby looked up the brick building full of dark windows. Offices, she thought. The building was at least ten storeys high. Why did Fletcher bring you up to the roof, Tim? If he wanted to kill you, why didn’t he do it downstairs?

  She found Cliff Watts sitting in the back of an ambulance holding an oxygen mask to his mouth while an EMT stitched an ugly gash on his forehead. The front of his jacket and shirt was stained with blood and vomit.

  He saw Darby, pulled away the mask and gave her a detailed report of the basement attack.

  ‘He left an aerosol grenade inside the shower,’ Watts said. ‘Firemen said it contained some chemical that induces vomiting. I was staring at it when the next thing I knew I was hit. I thought I was gunshot – it sure as hell felt that way. I fell and cracked my head on the shower knob.’ He inhaled on the oxygen mask for a moment as he reached inside his jacket pocket. ‘He hit us with this.’

  Watts came back with a blue ball the size of marble. ‘It’s a kinetic weapon,’ he said. ‘It looked like a shotgun. I don’t know how he got it past security. You’ll find shotgun-sized shells along with these rubber balls all over the floor.’

  Darby rubbed the ball between her fingers. It felt hard.

  Kinetic weapons were non-lethal devices used by police forces in riot situations. Boston police had used them up until a few years ago when working crowd control after a Red Sox game. A beanbag weapon was discharged and hit a college student in the head. The student died, and the parents sued the city and won a large settlement.

  The weapon Watts had described contained more firing power than the traditional beanbag weapon. The shotgun round was designed to hit the target with maximum force. Unlike a bullet, this round exploded upon impact.

  ‘I couldn’t stop throwing up,’ Watts said. ‘Fletcher hogtied me and then dragged Tim into the next room and locked me inside the bathroom. The firemen had to chop down the door.’

  Why hadn’t Fletcher killed Watts? Darby tucked the question away and said, ‘Did he say anything to you, Cliff?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Did he speak to Bryson? Did you overhear anything?’

  Watts shook his head as he brought the oxygen mask up to his face.

  ‘What was the security like?’ Darby asked.

  ‘They had two guys waving one of those magic wands over you to see if you’re packing a knife or gun. They said Fletcher flashed his badge and they let him through. I didn’t see any security cameras, but I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  ‘Who’s in charge of the scene?’

  ‘Neil Joseph.’

  Good. Darby knew the man. Neil was solid.

  ‘Fletcher went downstairs with a woman, a redhead,’ Watts said. ‘We thought he was going down there to get his rocks off. It’s one of those private sex clubs with a bathhouse and lots of rooms full of kinky toys that would make a good Catholic girl like you blush.’

  A tired grin as he put the mask over his face again. He inhaled for several seconds. ‘You can’t get down there unless you have a gas mask,’ he said. ‘In addition to a smoke grenade, Fletcher threw another one of those aerosol containers. The place is sealed tight, so that chemical shit is still lingering in the air. It has a longer shelf life because of the steam from the bathhouse.’

  Darby left to find Neil Joseph. A patrolman pointed her to a brick-faced club called Instant Karma.

  All the lights inside the club were on, the dance floor crowded with witnesses being interviewed by patrolmen and detectives. Empty steel cages hung from the ceilings, the tables and counters were stacked with glasses and beer bottles, many of them still full of booze. Darby spotted Neil Joseph behind the bar, in a roped-off area with plush chairs and couches. He was talking to a group of young men built like linebackers, all of them dressed in black and wearing matching shirts with the word security silk-screened on the back.

  Neil saw her, flipped his notebook shut and limped his way toward her. What was left of his black hair was damp against his scalp. With the exception of his limp from his bad knee, he still looked the same as when she had met him during her first days at the lab – an old-school cop with a no-bullshit attitude hidden behind layers of caustic sarcasm nurtured from his years on the job and growing up one of twelve boys in a strict Irish Catholic family.

  ‘Have you found the woman who accompanied our suspect downstairs?’ Darby asked.

  ‘Not yet. When the fire alarm went off, they all went running. Do you know a woman named Tina Sanders?’

  Darby nodded. ‘Her daughter disappeared over two decades ago. We thought it might be connected to a current case.’ She thought about the skeletal remains dressed in the Sinclair lab coat. The remains were definitely female. ‘I think we might have found her.’

  ‘When did you tell her?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘So Tina Sanders doesn’t know you found her daughter?’

  ‘We haven’t identified the remains yet. Why are you asking?’

  ‘She’s here. A taxi dropped her off near the commotion and the woman tried pushing her way through the crowd with her goddamn walker, screaming about her daughter’s murder and Bryson’s swan dive from the roof.’

  ‘How does she know that? Did someone tell her?’

  ‘I don’t know anything else,’ Neil said. ‘The woman refuses to talk to anyone but you.’

  60

  Neil Joseph explained what to do as they walked.

  Be patient, he said. If the woman doesn’t answer a question right away, hang back for a moment. Silence can be your biggest ally. Most people want to talk, want to get things off their chest. It’s important that they be heard. When she does talk, be an empathetic listener. Nod in the appropriate places. You want her to open up and share everything. Don’t take any notes, just listen. You want her to trust you.

  Tina Sanders sat in the back of a patrol car parked in a dark alley away from the commotion. She wore the same threadbare winter coat Darby had seen that morning at the lab.

  Neil knocked on the driver’s window. The patrolman left the motor running and walked with Neil into the alley to smoke.

  Darby opened the back door. The interior light clicked on. Tina Sanders didn’t look over, didn’t look up. The woman’s face was streaked with mascara, her grey hair dishevelled, as though she had rolled out of bed and into her clothes. The cigarette pack with the crucifix tucked under the cellophane was clutched in her arthritic hands, the gnarled fingers shaped like tree roots.

  Darby slid into the seat and shut the door. The interior was uncomfortably warm and smelled of stale beer and cigarettes.

  ‘I understand you wanted to speak to me.’

  Tina Sanders didn’t answer. In the soft blue glow from the dashboard lights, Darby could see the dark, hollowed pockets underneath the woman’s eyes. Her cheeks, etched deep with grooves, were wet and shiny, but her voice was clear when she spoke.

  ‘He said I can trust you,’ Tina Sanders said.

  ‘Who said this?’

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher. He said his name was Malcolm Fletcher. He’s one of those FBI-type cops. He called me today. Twice.’ The woman paused between her words to take short, quick breaths. ‘He’s the same man who called and told me to go to my mailbox, to go to the crime lab to talk to you about Jenny.’

  ‘You said he called you twice.’

  Sanders licked her lips, nodded.

  ‘When was the first time he called?’

  ‘This afternoon,’ Sanders said. ‘He told me you found Jenny’s body.�
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  Darby shifted in her chair.

  ‘Did you find Jenny?’

  ‘We found a set of remains, but I can’t say for certain if it’s your daughter,’ Darby said. ‘We have to do a dental comparison first.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Jennifer’s mother looked to the crucifix now wrapped around her fingers, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘He said you would tell me. He told me to come down here and find you and you would tell me what happened to my daughter.’

  ‘I don’t know anything at the moment,’ Darby said. ‘I haven’t examined the bones.’

  ‘He said you would tell me the truth.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth. If the remains we found belong to your daughter, I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you everything.’

  ‘Have you found Sam Dingle?’

  ‘Who?’

  Tina Sanders turned her head and stared out the window.

  ‘Who’s Sam Dingle?’ Darby asked.

  The woman didn’t answer. Her blank expression reminded Darby of her mother – Sheila staring at Big Red’s coffin, not believing he was lying in there, dead and waiting to be lowered into the ground as the priest talked about God’s divine plan for all of us; Sheila looking inside the closet, afraid to touch Big Red’s clothes; Sheila wandering around the house in the months after he was buried, wondering what went wrong, how she got to this place.

  ‘He put Detective Bryson on the phone.’

  Surprise bloomed on Darby’s face. ‘You spoke to Detective Bryson?’

  Jennifer’s mother nodded.

  ‘When did you speak to him?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Sanders said. ‘He confessed to everything.’

  ‘How do you know you spoke with Detective Bryson?’

  ‘I recognized his voice.’ The woman’s voice was eerily calm. She squeezed the crucifix in her hand and closed her eyes. ‘I know the truth now. You people can’t hide it any more. I won’t let you.’

  Darby’s head was spinning. She wanted roll down the window for air. ‘What did Detective Bryson tell you?’

  ‘All these years… all these years I prayed to God to tell me what happened to Jenny. If I knew the truth, then at least I could grieve and move on, maybe get to some place where remembering Jenny wouldn’t hurt as much. That need to know the truth – time doesn’t take it away. It only sharpens the edges.’

  Darby thought back to Fletcher’s warning. What had he said? I shouldn’t have to warn you, of all people, that the truth is, more often than not, a terrible burden. You may want to give that some thought.

  ‘After I left the police station, I was angry,’ Tina Sanders said. ‘I didn’t want to carry that hope again – that hope of finally coming close to knowing the truth. It’s happened too many times over the years. I went to church and prayed to God to take it away. Father Murphy told me to have faith. “God will send his angels, Tina.”

  ‘And then this man Malcolm Fletcher called me and he put Detective Bryson on the phone and he told me how Sam Dingle killed these women – Detective Bryson knew it and yet he went to Dingle’s father and said he would throw away the evidence because he needed money to pay doctors to treat his daughter. He let Dingle go and then Dingle came back and killed Jenny. The man raped my daughter for days inside that basement and then he strangled her and left my baby to rot.’

  ‘Detective Bryson told you this?’

  Tina Sanders looked back to her rosary beads. ‘Father Murphy said if I ever met the man who killed Jenny, I had to forgive him. It was the only way to let go of the hate. I had to forgive him.

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher asked me how Detective Bryson should be punished. I said it was for God to decide. That’s what I said. Those were my exact words.’ She squeezed the rosary beads in her hand and closed her eyes. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he suffer?’

  Darby told the woman the truth. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he did.’

  Jennifer’s mother took a deep breath. Opening her eyes, she exhaled slowly, choking back tears, and stared back out the window.

  She refused to speak again.

  61

  Darby was placed in charge of the crime scene. The remaining members of the lab were called to the nightclub. It took considerable time to locate additional gas masks.

  At 6 a.m., bleary-eyed and weary, she entered the lab and started logging the evidence. Neil Joseph called. He asked her to come to the morgue.

  Her office door was open, the light on, spilling into the hallway. Darby heard the voice of a reporter.

  ‘… don’t know any details yet. Detective Timothy Bryson was the lead investigator for Boston Police’s newly formed Criminal Services Unit, which was working on the murders of Emma Hale and Judith Chen. Both women were abducted and disappeared for several weeks before their bodies were found. Both women were shot execution-style in the back of the head. While the police have been uncharacteristically quiet on the murder of these two college students, Channel Seven has uncovered through a source close to the investigation that Hannah Givens, a sophomore at Northeastern University, is, in fact, missing and may be the next victim of this Boston-based serial killer. Boston Police Commissioner Christina Chadzynski is scheduled to hold a press conference sometime this afternoon. Stay tuned for more details.’

  Darby stepped into her office and saw Coop and Woodbury sitting in chairs, watching a live newsfeed on the internet.

  ‘Have they mentioned Malcolm Fletcher?’ Darby asked.

  Coop answered the question. ‘I didn’t hear anything, and I haven’t had a chance to read the papers. We just got back from Sinclair.’

  ‘Did the news mention anything about the remains?’

  Coop shook his head. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

  ‘The remains are at Carter’s office,’ he said. ‘Keith and I are going to get started on the duct tape and clothes.’

  ‘Okay, good.’

  ‘The Sony player you found is a new model, one of those combo devices – radio, cassette, and CD player. There’s even a jack to hook up an mp3 player. Did you notice anything strange about it?’

  ‘It was the only thing inside that room that wasn’t covered in dust.’

  ‘Right,’ Coop said. ‘So either Malcolm Fletcher brought it there or the killer did.’

  ‘The killer brought the radio there?’

  ‘We found the box of Virgin Mary statues, and that statue of her inside the chapel was clean. We know this guy goes there, so while he’s there, I don’t know, talking to the Virgin Mary or whatever, maybe he goes inside that other room and listens to the tape so he can relive what he did to Sanders. That’s what these perverts do, right?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Darby said.

  ‘But you don’t buy it.’

  ‘You saw the remains. The pants were pulled down. That woman, whoever she is, was most likely raped, maybe even tortured.’ Darby recalled portions of the recording – the man grunting as the woman cried out in pain and fear, begging for it to stop. ‘If it’s the same killer, I don’t see how he would evolve from rape to abducting women, holding them for weeks and then, after shooting them, dumping their bodies in water with a statue of the Virgin Mary sewn in their pockets.’

  ‘Hale and Chen were held someplace for weeks. We don’t know what this guy did to them.’

  ‘You’re right, we don’t,’ Darby said. ‘If the killer didn’t bring the cassette tape, that leaves only one other person – Malcolm Fletcher. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea.’

  ‘The cassette is old. The manufacturing stamp on the plastic is PLC. I forget what it stands for, but I remember buying them at record stores during the eighties. They were the cheapest tapes around. I’m pretty sure they don’t manufacture them any more, but we’ll run it down.

  ‘As for analysing the tape – trying to isolate or enhance certain sounds, lift background noises – we don’t have that
kind of equipment, so we can either send it out to a private company or we can call the FBI,’ Coop said. ‘The Feds will probably turn it over to one of the audio wizards at the Secret Service.’

  Woodbury said, ‘I’d recommend using the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles. They’re the ones who worked on the mother’s 911 call in the JonBenét Ramsey case. Aerospace had better luck than the Secret Service.’

  ‘Make the call,’ Darby said. ‘Can you make me a copy of the tape?’

  ‘I can probably make an mp3 file and burn it to a CD.’

  ‘That’s fine. What’s going on with the unknown makeup sample?’

  ‘I’m still working on it with my friend at MIT,’ Woodbury said. ‘I was planning on heading there today, but given what’s going on, our time and resources are going to be spread pretty thin.’

  ‘Which is probably what Fletcher wants,’ Coop said. ‘He’s burying us in evidence. It’s probably going to take us the rest of the week, including overtime, to process what we found inside the hospital.’

  ‘I want our focus on Hannah Givens,’ Darby said. ‘She’s our top priority. Neil Joseph is working on Bryson’s case. Fletcher is his responsibility now.’

  ‘Keith and I lifted a partial latent print on Judith Chen’s pant pocket,’ Coop said. ‘It’s running through AFIS.’

  ‘What about the thumbprint from her forehead?’

  ‘It didn’t find a match. The ballistics report came back. The slug retrieved from Chen’s skull was fired from the same gun that killed Hale. What about your end? What’s going on?’

  Darby told them about the basement level of Instant Karma, an upscale members-only bathhouse where any sexual appetite could be indulged. The man who ran the operation, Noah Eckart, preferred the term ‘private gentleman’s club’. The yearly fee was $5,000. Malcolm Fletcher had joined the club two days ago, paying in cash, under the name Samuel Dingle. The paperwork listed an address in Saugus. Darby wondered if, during that initial meeting, Fletcher had planted the ‘non-lethal’ shotgun Watts had described. Had Fletcher planned all along to lure Bryson to his death?