Chapter 39

Alex had already called three times. Bobby kept putting off answering. As hard as he'd tried, his five minutes in the hall with Frank had colored the rest of the visit with his Mom. She'd noticed, too, and it seemed she blamed Bobby for it. He kept thinking about that moment when she'd pointed right at him and said "it's about time." Like it was Bobby's fault she never saw Frank. Like he'd been harboring some kind of grudge against his brother all these years.

He missed her call again, but this time, he frowned and dialed her back.

"Bobby? Are you okay? I was worried," she said quickly.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. I'm- I'm fine."

"Oh. Good. How did it go?"

"Well, you know… Frank was there."

"He was?"

Bobby nodded furiously, and then spat out a yes. "Look, Eames, I… I'm not really in the mood to talk, okay? I just wanna… I should just get some rest, you know."

"Yeah. Sure. Okay, Bobby. We have to drive back to Pennsylvania tomorrow. Maybe you can fill me in, then."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Bobby?"

"Yes?" He hated that he was feeling snippy with her. The truth was, he was mad at the world right now.

"I just… I love you."

"Yeah. Me too." As an afterthought, he muttered, "Thanks," but she'd already hung up the phone.

He looked like hell in the morning. Alex had already gotten them both coffees on the way to his place, and he grasped the cup eagerly. She didn't ask about the visit. If he was ready to tell her, he would. If he wasn't, asking would serve no purpose but to aggravate his already dark mood.

She looked out at the remnants of ice patches still lingering by the side of the road. "I wonder when it will ever warm up again," she said. "Seems like this has been the longest winter…"

"Yeah. It has," Bobby said, only it seemed to Alex he wasn't talking about the weather. "You were right about him," Goren said, five minutes later.

"Huh?"

"Frank, my brother. You were right. Once an addict, always…" He shook his head and stared out his window.

"He was there," Alex prompted. He'd already told her that much the night before.

"He asked me about her 'affairs.' I mean, what are we, high society or something?" The anger was bubbling up as he spoke. "All these years, I've been managing it all, Alex, the bills, the medical, the taxes. Where the hell was he?!" Bobby shook his head again, this time with determination. "All he's after is money, and probably just to go blow it in some casino, to see if maybe God wants him to be rich or something."

"He went to a casino?" She asked. She was having a hard time following what Bobby was saying.

"Yeah, he had this, this suit. And he said God wanted him to look good for Ma. God, Eames!" Bobby simply shook his head and for a moment, she thought she heard a growl. "You were right. You were right all along."

He was silent a few minutes, but she could see by the constant bouncing of his knee and his clenching fists that he was about to pop. Alex decided the car wouldn't be the best place for that. She found a gas station and pulled off the road.

They piled out of the car, and he hovered near her.

"There's more," she said, eyeing him closely.

He struggled, and tried to keep his voice down when he finally spoke. "He asked me why I'd been so worried about her."

Alex saw the newly formed fists, and the flush of red in his cheeks.

"I mean, he didn't believe me?"

She took a deep breath and stepped forward. Setting her right hand against his bicep, she looked Bobby in the eye. "I've got to gas up anyway. Why don't you walk? Walk some of this off?"

After a long, hard stare, Bobby waggled his head and stomped off toward the woods behind the station. Alex sighed and pulled the handle out of the pump.

Ten minutes later, he was back. He was still energetic, but the anger seemed to be gone. She handed him a drink from the store and gave him an approving nod.

Mark Ford Brady had ten days until his scheduled execution. He was in solitary, and except for the visits from the detectives and his lawyer, he had very little contact with other human beings. He asked for a favor from the only guard who ever gave him the time of day. He asked for some background on Detective Goren.

Brady had recognized the name right away. He remembered the women, all of them, regardless of what he'd told the detectives. As soon as Wally had said the name Goren, Mark had filed that tidbit away.

Now, after several sessions with the great detective, he saw something familiar in the man. He didn't look anything like his mother; it wasn't that. It was the way the man thought, the way he spoke. And Mark Ford Brady had a vague remembrance of a couple of kids tugging on Frances' skirt, the smaller one in particular.

So he waited, hoping the guard would come through for him, and in the meantime, he tested his theory against the man in front of him.

"Mark…Could we talk in private?" Bobby asked, staring the killer down.

"That would be good," Brady said.

Alex had her reservations, but she trusted Bobby. They'd already discussed strategy in the car, and he'd said he would play it Ross' way. "Fine by me," she said quietly, and got up.

"Forgive us, dear… man talk," Brady said to his female lawyer, who also stood and walked to the door. The two guards stayed at their posts. This was as close to privacy as Brady would ever get.

Bobby loathed the man in front of him. He waited while the women left, and as he watched the door close behind them, he heard Brady.

With a sickening excitement in his voice, he asked, "The body really survived all those years?"

Bobby paused, collected himself, and announced, "We still have… ten unknown." He straightened the stack of loose papers in front of him.

"Ten," Brady said, suspiciously. "That can't be right."

"Yes," Bobby told him, too calm.

Brady screwed up his eyes, then shook his head. "No. You're cleverer than that. They can't all be dead."

Goren looked down at the photographs a moment.

"Somebody had to come forward."

"No."

"How many do you really have left?" He pressed.

"I said we had ten." The guard moved a little closer behind Bobby.

"Five?"

"No."

"Four?"

"No." Bobby's temper got the best of him. "Ten unidentified!" he shouted.

Brady shouted, too. "You're lying to me! You can't lie to me, I'm a short-timer here! You gotta tell me the truth! Now!"

Bobby glanced at Brady, then at the table. He thought it through, and made his decision. "Okay, we have three left."

"Three!"

"Yeah," Bobby said with a frown. He'd probably just made a fatal error as far as the captain was concerned.

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Well done!" Brady said with a genuine smile.

Bobby was disgusted with him. "Yeah, well, you have ten days left." He stood and packed up his pile of stuff.

"I need more time," Brady said.

"Yeah, well, I'll try and make it to your execution," Bobby snapped. He walked to the door. Brady clapped his hands.

"Excellent," Brady called, with a grand smile on his lips. "You have three."

Bobby paused at the door.

"What do you say we try for two?"

Goren came back in and set the three pictures in front of the killer.

He snapped a finger down on one. "Ah. See this little redhead here? She liked to fish, but she couldn't swim."

"Fishing, you mean in the lake?"

Brady realized then that he'd underestimated the detectives. "You've been to my lake house?"

"Sorry? Uh, where is it?" Bobby asked.

"Sullivan County. Beautiful in the springtime. Great place to get out of the city."

Bobby turned and put his hands on the photograph, working to gather them back into a pile. His emotions almost got the better of him as he thought again of what Brady had done in his fisherman's shack. He jerked in surprise when Brady's warm hand landed atop his.

"I even planted crocuses there," Brady said. After a moment, he pulled his hand away from Goren's.

"All right," Bobby growled, and left the room.

Brady watched him walk out, and thought again that this detective must be one of Frances' little boys.

Bobby catnapped on the drive to Sullivan County. Eames was glad to see him relax, but she also saw how often he stirred and shifted in his sleep. She worried about him.

A full team met them at the shack. The lake crew found remnants of canvas sheets. Having seen how he used canvas with Madeline and the other girl, Alex surmised those could have once housed bodies.

The shack offered nothing but termites. Bobby walked down closer to the shore and looked back at the little house.

"Whatever was up here, it's been eaten away," Alex said.

Goren stooped down, looking more closely at the bed of leaves beside the house. There were new green shoots coming up out of the ground. He pointed a finger there. "Crocuses," he said, and stood up fully. "Brady made a point of mentioning them," Bobby explained. The two detectives walked to the old flowerbed.

Bobby kicked at the leaves with his foot and called for some shovels. The crew hurried over and started digging. Bobby thought he saw something, and grabbed a shovel to join in. After a few strokes, one of the guys hit something. Bobby stopped them, and carefully extracted a wrapped package from the earth.

"Not a body," Alex said.

"Another scrapbook," Bobby said, realizing it too, would be full of victims. No wonder he was willing to give them more. There was no telling how many women this man had killed.

This one was in worse shape than the first, due to its exposure to the elements. The features of some of the women in the photographs were indiscernible. There were other clues, however: buildings, clothing, or the type of street paving.

The next morning, when the photos were ready, they drove back to the prison. Bobby couldn't sleep this time. He spoke with his mother in the car, and she was in pain. Alex offered to let him go, to finish with Brady on her own, but Bobby bit his lip and shook his head. They were already halfway there. Time spent returning him to the city would likely mean Brady would have to wait until tomorrow. The clock was ticking. Brady didn't have that many tomorrows.

The information had come through. Brady knew now that Goren was indeed the son of Frances, his former lover. He looked forward to the next meeting. He wanted to see if the detective could uncover that little mystery.

He smiled as they escorted him into the visitation room. "Were the crocuses in bloom?" He asked cheerfully.

If looks could kill, Eames would have committed murder.

Bobby sorted through the loose papers in his binder.

"First flower of the springtime," Brady said. "Impatient. Sometimes they push up right through the snow."

Alex was astounded. How this man could kill without regard and go on an on about a bunch of stupid flowers was beyond her. "We dug 'em up, every one of them," she said, just to get his goat.

"We didn't find any remains," Bobby said, getting them down to business.

"Those poor families," Brady said. He looked up at Bobby. "Are you close to your family?"

Goren looked his way, but refused to answer. "Let's talk about your family," he said, laying pictures in front of the killer.

"Ah, the 60's, some of my early work," Brady said. "I made a little darkroom out of a closet in my mother's house."

"Who are these women?" Alex asked. She didn't want to hear him walking down memory lane.

"Oh, it's been so long… and you… you can't see all of their faces."

"But there are other details," Bobby told him. "This building," he said, pointing. "Maybe New York City Hall? Did you ever work as a maintenance man downtown?"

Brady nodded. "Right after I got out of the Army, in '65. I came back to New York City." Bobby made a note in his ledger. "This was the place to be," Brady continued. "The women, so stylish."

Bobby went over the pictures with him one by one as Alex listened and made her own notes. Brady started making smalltalk, speaking in German with Bobby. "Do you remember her name?" Alex asked.

"Nein," said Brady.

She pulled out another picture and asked him about it. He told a story about hitchhikers on the way to Woodstock. He told a lot of details about the girl, but not her name. "It's a fog," Brady lied.

Alex gave Bobby a look that said this was a waste of time, and her partner sighed. "You remember she was hitchhiking and you remember taking her picture but you don't remember raping and killing her?" Alex said.

Brady looked at her with disdain. "You're so impatient," he scolded. "Eager. Like my crocuses." Brady was smiling at her now, as if she'd sparked his interest.

Alex's fury got the better of her. As Bobby sat down, she directed her words to him. "You know, you have somewhere much more important to be. Let's go." She got to her feet, and Bobby looked over, surprised.

She started gathering up his things, as well, taking pictures right out of his hand. "I'm serious," she said.

Bobby was exhausted. He came in with a job to do, and had set his mind to do it, but Alex's determination was powerful. She never took charge like this, not with him. Today, in the tired fog he was moving in, he was grateful she was doing it. Bobby let her plop his binder into his hands and prepared to stand.

"Just a minute!" Brady cried. He went through the stack of photographs in Bobby's binder and stopped at the one he knew would strike a chord. "This photo," Brady said quietly. The woman's face was completely obliterated by time and weather, but the building and street around her could still be clearly seen. Brady directed his words at Goren. "I remember it."

"Yeah? Who is she?" Bobby asked.

"I think I saw her more than twice, after my discharge."

"A girlfriend?" Eames asked.

"No, no, no, no… she was married," he said. "I did some handiwork around the house, when the husband wasn't there."

Goren was listening.

Brady looked right into his eyes and added, "which was often. Somewhat of a roué."

Bobby was familiar with the neighborhood in the picture. It was his own neighborhood, the one he'd grown up in. "Where did she live?"

"Brooklyn," Brady told him, and Bobby's quiet fears started to stir inside his mind. He'd already spent some time studying this picture. The woman wore a houndstooth skirt. It had reminded him of one of the pictures in his mother's album. "Canarsie," and Brady added, "The Rockaways."

Goosebumps rose on Goren's flesh.

"I took the double-L train," Brady said.

Bobby took a breath and his leg started to jump. "Her name?" He asked.

"She had big doe eyes. I called her Bambi."

He tried to hide his emotion, but it was clear that Brady had struck a nerve. Eames watched Bobby closely as he sat back and made notes in his ledger. When Bobby looked back up at Brady, the man was staring at him, a smile in his eyes.