- 6 -
He opened his trash can and was annoyed to find that the soggy cardboard boxes were still stuck to the bottom. Plus yogurt lids and all sorts of odds and ends. Then he registered movement in the adjacent driveway.
Her.
"Good morning!" he called out to her. She stopped as if rooted to the spot. I wonder if she had slept in the gray track pants. While she forced a tortured smile, he imagined what she would taste like. Freshly risen, without the smell of soap or shampoo. He suppressed a lustful chuckle.
Secretly, she had feared it. She couldn't even get the trash can in without being disturbed. And he wouldn't be satisfied with a fleeting smile. Already he was pattering along, in his corduroy slippers that pattered against his heels with every step. "Let me do it," he gasped. As was so often the case, he was unshaven, and she didn't like to imagine what he smelled like.
"Thanks. I'll be fine. I've got one more," she fended off. At that, she alluded to her left arm, which she carried plastered in a sling in front of her body.
"Well, anyway." The stubbly face grinned. "People like to help each other out between neighbors, don't they?" I'd shop and cook for you, too, he kept thinking. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. She didn't seem well, maybe she was in pain. And why should he shoot his powder all at once and risk a rebuff?
"I'm going to town later," he said after the trash can was in place. "Do you need anything?"
"Thanks. No."
He shrugged and returned to his house.
Cocky cunt.
When he got into the shower, he couldn't help but touch himself, thinking of her. Afterward, he shaved, applied a hair tint and a face mask. He found that this allowed him to pass as ten years younger. His Internet profiles were designed accordingly, Photoshop allowed his likeness another ten years.
Brad liked all women. But he liked young ones the most. And he soon seemed to have one of them on the hook. He logged onto Facebook. His profile bore the name Adam, another he kept under the name Haskel, mostly rarer, more elegant names than the one he had received from his parents.
She wrote to me, he thought contentedly. So far, so good.
And as he answered her, he imagined how she would feel. It had been a while since he had laid a teenager. Part of his thoughts lingered on the neighbor with the broken arm. But his desire for sex was far too greedy to pass up the opportunity for a young girl.
She would have to wait, as would he. But when the right time came, the two would become one.
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Jane sat on the couch in Maura's office and watched her wife type a report into her laptop. She licked her lips and frowned deeply. "Maura?"
"Mhm," the blonde hummed without looking up from the screen or stopping to type,
"Have you ever actually thought about having kids?"
Maura froze when she heard the question and her eyes snapped upward. "Excuse me?"
Jane opened her mouth almost enthusiastically and slid forward in her seat, but then hesitated and dropped her shoulders. "We've known each other for so long, and we didn't just become a couple yesterday, but somehow we never really thought about having kids someday."
Maura surveyed the detective and closed the laptop slowly, very slowly. She licked her lips and looked at Jane with a slight frown. "I don't assume this question is related to the case, because two of the four couples are childless, and Mr. Alperstein's daughter is of age."
"I don't spend twenty-four hours a day thinking only about work, Maura," Jane said in too high a voice, lowering her brows when she saw the doctor's half-skeptical, half-amused look. "And table talk isn't when we have dinner with Ma. And after sex, it's not the best topic to bring up either."
Maura took a deep breath and got up, walked to the couch, and sat down next to her wife, running her hands down her skirt. "So you figured the best time to bring this up would be in my office, in the morgue?"
Jane opened her mouth again and closed it immediately, pursing her lips. "Why have we never talked about this, Maura? I mean, before we got married. Maybe we have different ideas." She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees. "I'm a cop, Maura. Something could happen to me at any time. And then you and the kid would be alone."
"I wouldn't be," Maura countered, and Jane turned her head slowly toward the ME, eyes wide. "In the event, we had a child and something happened to you in the line of duty, I'm very sure Frankie and Tommy, and your mother would help me with raising our child."
"My, that's uplifting," Jane said with sarcasm.
Maura smiled broadly and ran her hand down the detective's back. "Of course I'd love to start a family with you, Jane. When the time is right. And I think -" Maura was interrupted by the buzzing of Jane's cell phone. She waited for Jane to answer the call and frowned when nothing happened. "Aren't you going to take it?"
"It can wait unless it's very important." She rolled her eyes when she saw Maura's look. She grabbed her cell phone and answered the caller. "Rizzoli."
"Oh, Detective Rizzoli, how nice," said an unfamiliar voice and Jane froze.
"Jane?" asked Maura as she felt every muscle in Jane's back stiffen. "What's wrong?"
Jane looked at her wife and turned on the speaker. "Who is this?"
"I want to talk about the dead. You're running the investigation, aren't you?"
Maura looked at the detective and felt her heart begin to beat wildly.
Jane thought of Cavanaugh's clear announcement regarding press contacts. "Are you a reporter? Then -"
"Oh, reporters. Does it matter that much? On a serial killer, a couple killer? In the middle of a beautiful summer?"
Jane had opened her mouth a little while a shiver ran down her spine. She looked at Maura with wide eyes. "I'm going to refer you to the press office."
"Then I'll hang up right now," he growled, and Jane knew she wasn't talking to a reporter.
"Knock yourself out," she growled back. "Then I can go eat."
"Don't you want to know why I said, a serial killer? Doesn't it take three or more acts to make a series of murders?"
Maura walked quickly to her desk and picked up the phone, convincing Korsak in a few words to start a trap-and-trace.
Jane tried to locate a number on the display, but of course, the caller used the suppression function. "I'm not saying anything about that."
"You don't have to. But you should listen to me."
"Why don't you come down to BPD if you have something to say?"
"Nice offer. Maybe some other time."
"So what is it now? Are you the killer, or a witness to the crime, or just one of many busybodies who call every day?"
"Neither. But I know something you should know."
Jane began to lose her patience and looked darkly at Maura. "Fine, out with it. Otherwise, this conversation will be over in three seconds."
"You're chasing a ghost."
Spinner category. Jane groaned and ran her fingers over her brows. "Uh-huh."
"Ask yourself what happened in the woods. Look, I won't make it too hard. Do you have anything to write about?"
Jane looked to Maura, who nodded and affirmed.
She thought she heard rustling paper. Apparently, he was reading off the verses, which he delivered in a determined voice, if somewhat haltingly:
A pretty couple twenty-nine deep in forest grounds.
In all the treetops barely a breath, when will he find them?
The birds are silent, panting they lie down there,
the blood on moss and stone flows from their deep wounds.
It is as if there were a thousand trees,
and behind a thousand trees no world:
As it was, so it will be again.
Just wait, soon, until the next evening light,
Until the next curtain falls.
When the line clicked, Jane realized that the caller had hung up. Electrified, she dialed Nina's number, then she and her wife made their way to Cavanaugh's office.
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Connolly sat down at Jane's desk with a loud sigh and gave her a long, serious look. "Next time, you go to the archives yourself," he grumbled, holding a shoulder as if to say he had hurt his shoulder. He had obtained files from 1989. Non-digitized material that caused a dusty taste on his tongue when he thumbed through them.
"Deal," Jane said back, unusually friendly and also a little tired, he thought.
He wouldn't have minded a continuation of a friendly repartee he and Jane had started at the wedding reception. But his colleague seemed tense. He bit his lower lip. "So, if we're to assume that the murders are connected to my old stuff here -"
"Yeah?" said Jane long-drawn-out.
"Then it's a lot more than two or three murders," Connolly concluded, and Jane, groaning, put her head back.
Meanwhile, he filled his colleague in on a spectacular case that had gone to trial in 1989 and been widely reported in the media.
A man had been linked to a half-dozen couple murders in the Boston area and in other parts of the country as well.
"But that was almost thirty years ago," Jane said with furrowed brows when Connolly paused.
"Razor-sharp combination," he replied, and Jane rolled her eyes before smiling.
"Oh stop it. What I meant is that nothing like that has happened since then. Right?"
"I would have been strongly surprised," Connolly replied with a snort. "The murderer was arrested, convicted, and died while still in custody. Finito."
Jane pursed her lips. Finito.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, because Maura had four bodies lying on her tables that looked so not 'finito'.
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After the lunch break, Jane and Frankie arrived at the Cold Case department, and shortly thereafter Ed Baker, Connolly's supervisor approached them.
"Connolly sends his apologies," he said. "He had to go somewhere else on short notice."
Jane narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "But we had an appointment."
"I know. Let's go to my office."
Jane and her brother followed the tall man, and Jane wondered how old Baker was by now. He was about the same age as Korsak and also nearing retirement.
Baker opened his office door and invited the two inside. "Close the door," he said to Frankie, who already had the doorknob in his hand. "And have a seat. Coffee?"
"No, thanks." Jane shook her head as she sat down. "Best we get straight to the point. Where exactly is Connolly?"
„I sent him somewhere else."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know the direction of this investigation first," Barker said sharply. "Are you going to accuse us of sloppiness?"
"Bullshit," Jane replied, growling. "We received a tip -"
"A fucking call! You call that a tip?"
"What do you call it?" intervened Frankie now.
"I'm asking the questions here. If someone's going to mess around in our files, I want to know why."
Jane frowned deeply and slid forward in her seat. "All right, let's get this straight," she said with a flash in her eyes. "There are four dead people, maybe as many as six, who pretty much fits the pattern of that time.
We have to go through all the details, especially those that no bystander could have known about. We ask ourselves why, after thirty years, there is a copycat killer. And I'll tell it like it is: we're chasing a killer in the here and now, and I don't want any more dead bodies! I don't give a shit what feet I have to step on in the process, but we didn't come here to parade anyone from your department either."
"Mmm." Baker scratched under his chin and took a sip from his coffee cup. Since the black brew had apparently long since cooled and turned bitter, he pursed his lips. "Keep talking."
"There's not much to talk about. Connolly said the series of that time was solved and ended in a conviction. Your turn now."
"Well, okay." Baker rustled a sheet of paper with handwritten bullet points on it. He fished a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his shirt, unfolded the temples, and balanced the device on the tip of his nose. Then he read aloud the names of six people. Along with a few dates. "The last murder took place on July 19th, 1989," he concluded. "It was sheer horror. The first week of vacation, a sweltering heat, and the bodies weren't found until two days later. Near a forest lake, by teenagers who went there to make out and skinny-dip. For the press, it was a feast for the eyes, and then in the middle of the summer slump."
"Yes, okay, and how did the arrest come about?"
"By chance. A hunter took down the license plate of a Ford Bronco parked on a forest road. The digits had a spin, so we had a lot of vehicles to check."
"The results were clear, though."
"Beyond a shadow of a doubt," Baker pointed out, taking off his glasses. "I followed through with it at the time. And I triple-checked his every move, for that reason alone, for the sole reason that, yes, my brother was still on active duty at the time."
Jane recalled. Barker was a second-generation lieutenant. And, she calculated, he had been quite young at the time. But Jane had also convicted her first serial killer at a young age, then, Charles Hoyt. A cold shiver ran down her spine. She saw a scalpel, a basement, remembered nightmares. Shaking her head, she forced herself to concentrate. "All right," she said, "on with the text."
"George Scully was convicted on a whole host of circumstantial evidence. He didn't resist, I made the arrest myself at the time. That's why I'm talking to you about it today. He was indicted, the trial didn't start until the spring because the evidence of more murders was mounting. He didn't say anything, not a word, but you can read all about that for yourselves. He accepted the verdict in silence. A few months later, he committed suicide."
"Shit," Frankie growled, and Jane knew what he meant.
The whole thing sounded smooth, far too smooth. If Scully had been the killer, who was killing today?
"Did he have family? Friends? Colleagues?" she asked.
"Nothing. A woman he lived with at some point. But no marriage certificate. We only know her from a photo."
"Neighbors?"
"Of course. The neighbors' testimony was an important piece of the puzzle. The woman hadn't been seen for a long time at the time of the murders. We put out a BOLO on her, to no avail."
"Maybe ... she's dead, too?" thought Jane aloud.
"That's what we assumed, too. In fact, the first victim looked just like her."
Jane winced. "Looked like her - or was her?"
Frankie interjected that the name had been different after all.
Baker nodded. "Exactly. We have a positive identification of each victim. There's no chance of mistaken identity."
"Shit," Jane commented, biting the inside of her cheek. There was a whole lot of work coming her way. A surge of past and present threatened to overwhelm BPD. And the sharks of the media, just waiting to snap at her floundering legs.
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Sarah Baker slammed the door to her room and locked it.
She plopped down on the bed and reached for her cell phone, which was hanging from the charging cord. She hadn't used the device in an hour, an eternity for a teenager. Accordingly, there were many messages waiting for her. But one in particular interested her.
His name was Adam. Sarah had never met anyone by that name before.
Adam was quite a bit older, but she wasn't into the milksops in her year anyway.
Of all people, I'm supposed to sleep with one of them, she thought contemptuously. Just because we share a room.
What was her mom's problem? She wasn't usually such a prude. And what, pray to tell, prevented separate hotel rooms when people wanted to make out with each other? She tried to block it all out so she could focus on Adam.
But she didn't succeed. Her parents would manage to ruin her trip to Europe. But she wouldn't let it get that far!
Sarah had not had it easy in the past few years.
Bullying, a change of school, the breaking off of friendships that were basically nonexistent; all of this had left scars.
On the other hand, the seventeen-year-old was doing quite well, even her report card was better than average, and she was largely satisfied with herself and her life.
Adam wrote: Did you see the full moon?
Sarah: Missed it. Super moon, or what?
Adam: Beautiful. Everything okay?
Sarah: Nah. Stress with my people.
Adam: Bad?
Sarah: Because of Europe. Whatever. Change of subject.
Adam: You know I love listening to you. But we can text some other time.
Sarah: Nah, it's okay. What are you doing right now?
Adam: Packing stuff. I want to go out later.
Sarah: Out?
Adam: Do you know the old forest lake near you?
Sarah: That's where you're going?
Adam: Yep.
Indecisive, the teenager paused. Adam seemed trustworthy. He was different from most who pretended to be someone they weren't on the internet. And even if the meeting got kind of awkward - Sarah might not be a jock, but she was good at sprinting and knew some pretty good defensive moves from her dad. Still ...
Still undecided, she kept thinking. Did Adam expect her to ask him if she could come along? Did she even want to? There was something special about Adam, certainly, but Sarah hadn't yet wanted to think about whether there might be more.
Adam didn't seem to take silence well.
Adam: Are you still there?
Sarah: Sorry. Not in a good mood today.
Adam: That's okay. You can write me anytime. Anyway, I'm not going into the woods without my phone.
Adam used a few meaningful emojis. Devil, moon, and forest. Then a face that laughed tears.
Sarah Baker put the phone down and curled up on the bed. Her eyes roamed over the photo wall. A few grimaces, laughing faces. Mostly girlfriends, including a few guys.
The European clique. Boozing, screwing, smoking pot. The new sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. Of course, she wasn't living the life of a nun, but since she knew Adam, her friends' horizons seemed limited.
A dozen more messages had popped up, talking solely about when and where to hit the booze tonight. Boston Common Park if need be, why even be picky? Same as last night and the night before. A monotony Sarah hadn't felt before. Was this what she wanted?
She thought about the conversation with Adam. It was about the infinity of the universe, about the arbitrary extinction of half the world's population and whether, if you populated the moon, future generations would evolve differently, gravity was the keyword, six-meter people. And how they would feel about visiting the Earth.
It wasn't long before she had her cell phone in her hand again. Sarah had made up her mind.
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With a smug grin, Axel Singer slid the key into the lock of his car. They were stupid, all of them, and yet they were also good. He paused for a moment.
Was he allowed to think like that? Just because they were suddenly all jumping around like a flock of startled chickens? Because it had been he who had presented them with the dunghill of fat earthworms?
He was a simple man, with a simple mind, and he had never thought that was a bad thing.
Were they then, all the chiefs, all the big shots? What would they do if industry collapsed, or medical care if people were left on their own again?
He could handle tools, wood, metal, he could hunt. Cut up animals and knew when to grow what vegetables. Did that make him dumber than others, just because when he thought of the term 'Faust' he first thought of his right hand and then his left fist? With those fists, he could kill if he wanted to.
Wasn't that more important when it came down to it, instead of pondering about God and the devil?
And yet ...
Singer started the engine. Still, it had been fun. They wouldn't find anything, even though it probably wouldn't take them an hour to identify the apparatus.
And then ...
He had seen it before, how they had come to get him.
How they had taken him away, how the neighborhood hid behind their curtains, gawking their eyes out.
Some of them were still alive, like him. But they had learned nothing. They were still the same stupid sheep, cattle for slaughter. Curious, but ultimately not interested in anything other than what they could eat for their next meal.
The exhaust roared as he hit the gas pedal. That damned rust.
But he would get a handle on that, too.