Текст книги "The Missing"

Автор книги: Chris Mooney

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Chapter 32

Time had been kind to Evan Manning. His short brown hair was a bit grayer, but he was still lean and fit, his face still seriously handsome.

What Darby remembered clearly, even after all this time, was the quiet intensity he carried in his face. Evan Manning, she saw, was looking at her that way right now.

Banville did the introductions. ‘Darby, this is Special Agent Manning from the Investigative Support Unit.’

‘Darby,’ Evan said. ‘Darby McCormick?’

‘It’s nice to see you again, Special Agent Manning.’ Darby shook his hand.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Evan said. ‘You still look the same.’

‘How do you two know each other?’ Banville asked.

‘I met Special Agent Manning when he worked the Victor Grady case,’ Darby said.

‘The auto mechanic who abducted those women back in eighty-four?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Eighty-four,’ Banville said. ‘That would make you, what, about fourteen?’

‘Fifteen. I knew two of Grady’s victims.’

‘He killed one of them, didn’t he? Shot a young girl in a botched abduction, if I remember correctly.’

‘He stabbed her.’ In a flash Darby saw her foyer walls splashed with Stacey Stephens’s blood. ‘As for the other women, we’re pretty sure Grady strangled them.’

‘How did you know they were strangled? The police never found the bodies.’

‘Grady recorded some of his… sessions with his victims. On a couple of the tapes, the women made sounds that were consistent with someone being strangled – at least that’s what I read in the reports.’ Darby turned to Evan for confirmation.

‘Grady kept the audiotapes in a lockbox hidden in his basement,’ Evan said. The heat from the fire damaged most of the recordings.’

Banville nodded, satisfied by the explanation. ‘Special Agent Manning is the new division head of the ISU’s Boston office. AFIS alerted him early this morning when Rachel Swanson’s fingerprint was identified. He’s offered us access to his labs, anything we need.’

‘I understand you were in there talking to Rachel Swanson,’ Evan said. ‘Did she tell you anything useful?’

‘She mentioned the names of two more missing women. We’re looking into that right now. The whole conversation’s right here.’ Darby held up the tape recorder. ‘What about this package that’s on the way to the lab?’

‘It’s a padded mailer,’ Banville said. ‘I have no idea what’s in it.’

‘I’m going to head over. Rachel’s done speaking to me at the moment.’ She turned to Evan. ‘Why was the FBI alerted about Rachel Swanson’s fingerprints?’

‘I’ll explain everything when we get to the lab. My car’s in the garage. Can I offer you a ride?’

Darby looked to Banville for direction.

‘I’ve already filled in Agent Manning on what we’ve found,’ Banville said. ‘I’ll meet you at the lab as soon as I finish up here.’

Chapter 33

‘How long have you been working as a criminalist?’ Evan asked after the elevator doors shut.

‘About eight years,’ Darby said. ‘I did an internship in New York for about a year, and when the Boston lab had an opening I applied for the job and here I am. How long have you been working in Boston?’

‘About six months. I needed a change of scenery.’

‘Getting burned out?’

‘I was getting dangerously close. The last case I worked on nearly did me in.’

‘Which one?’

‘Miles Hamilton.’

The All-American Psycho,’ Darby said. The former teenage psychopath, now confined to a mental asylum, was believed to have murdered more than twenty young women. ‘I hear he’s gearing up for a retrial because of possible tainted evidence by one of your profilers.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Will Hamilton get a retrial?’

‘Not if I have anything to say about it.’

The elevator doors chimed open. Evan suggested they leave through the back entrance – no reporters there.

The sun was bright and strong as they jogged across the street to the parking garage. Evan didn’t speak again until they were pulling onto Cambridge Street.

‘Banville told me about the listening devices you found.’

‘I’m surprised you persuaded him so easily,’ Darby said. ‘I was expecting more of a fight.’

‘Banville is under the spotlight. He needs to be able to say he exhausted every resource when the Cranmore girl turns up dead.’

‘I don’t think she’s dead.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Rachel Swanson was kept alive for almost five years – Terry Mastrangelo for two. That may buy us some time.’

‘Right now one of his victims is lying in a hospital room. If he’s smart, he’ll kill the Cranmore girl, bury her body someplace where we’ll never find her and then blow town.’

‘Then why would he bother with the listening devices?’

‘I think he’s hoping to discover just how much we know about him so he can change his tactics before he moves on,’ Evan said. ‘What are your thoughts?’

‘He seems very organized, very careful and methodical. I think he watches these women for a long time, gets to know their habits and routines – I think he had a key to Carol’s house. He brings his victims to a private place where nobody can see or hear them.’

‘And what does he use them for?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You think it’s something sexual?’

‘There’s no evidence of that, although there’s always some sexual component to these sorts of cases. Did Banville tell you about the evidence we found at the house?’

Evan nodded. ‘Our lab is still trying to identify the paint chip.’

‘You didn’t seem surprised Carol’s abductor left a package.’

‘He’s trying to establish control. It’s what most psychopaths do when cornered.’

‘Is that what you think we’re dealing with here? A psychopath?’

‘Hard to say. I’m not a big fan of labels.’

‘I thought you profiling types lived for labels – and acronyms. There’s your fingerprint system. AFIS. You have CODIS –’

‘You can’t slap a label on every type of behavior,’ Evan said. ‘Have you considered the possibility that the man you’re looking for abducts these women simply because he likes it?’

‘There’s a motivating reason behind every type of human behavior.’

‘What made you interested in this field?’

‘Are you profiling me, Special Agent Manning?’

‘You’re avoiding the question.’

‘I took a criminal psychology course in college. After that, I was hooked.’

‘Banville told me you went on to get a doctorate in criminal psychology.’

‘I’m not a doctor yet,’ Darby said. ‘I still have to do my dissertation.’

‘Which is?’

‘I have to pick a case and analyze it.’

‘And you picked the Grady case.’

‘I’ve been toying around with the idea.’

‘What’s stopping you?’

‘There are some missing pieces in the case file,’ Darby said. ‘Riggers, the detective who handled the Belham case, didn’t leave much detailed information in his notes.’

‘I’m not surprised. In addition to being an idiot, the man was lazy. Tell me what you know and I’ll see if I can fill in the blanks.’

‘I was able to look over the evidence files – the chloroform-soaked rag Grady dropped in the woods behind my house and the dark blue fibers he left behind in the bedroom door. I also read a copy of the fed’s lab report. I know they identified the manufacturer of the rag. They narrowed down their search to automobile shops in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The blue fibers matched the same brand of coveralls used at the North Andover automobile shop where Grady worked.’

‘We found all that out later, after Grady died.’

‘I read that,’ Darby said. ‘I also read about Grady’s criminal record. He had two counts of attempted rape.’

‘Correct.’

‘According to the case file, Riggers was investigating about a dozen or so possible suspects. What made him move Grady to the top of the list?’

‘A tip came through on the hotline about Grady. The caller, a regular customer at the garage where Grady worked, called in and said he saw a pearl necklace on the floor of Grady’s car. The necklace appeared to have blood on it.’

‘But why didn’t the caller report it to the police? Why did he call the hotline?’

‘Because one of the missing women, Tara Hardy, was last seen wearing a pink cardigan sweater and a pearl necklace,’ Evan said. ‘That picture ran in the papers for weeks. It was all over the TV. The caller thought it might have belonged to her. The hotline was being flooded with calls. Everyone was trying to cash in on the reward money.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘Riggers, wanting to be the hero, took it upon himself to search Grady’s house. Riggers found clothing belonging to several of the missing women and left to get the search warrant. The problem was one of Grady’s neighbors saw Riggers invite himself into the house.’

‘Making the evidence he found inadmissible.’

‘If he had played by the book, we probably would have nailed Grady before he killed himself

‘Did his suicide surprise you?’

‘It did at first. Later, we discovered his family had a history of mental illness. His mother was bipolar. If I remember correctly, his grandfather committed suicide.’

‘I saw that in the notes.’

‘My guess is Grady got spooked after Riggers went through the house. The day he killed himself, we went to the garage where he worked with a search warrant. I think he felt the walls starting to close in on him and took the easy way out.’

‘The case file mentioned that Riggers was bothered by the fire,’ Darby said. ‘He thought someone might have killed Grady and started the fire to burn away evidence.’

‘The fire bothered me too. What bothered me more was what Grady used to kill himself – a twenty-two.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Cops generally use a twenty-two as a throw-down piece. You ever hear a twenty-two go off? Makes a small pop, you can barely hear it. If someone slipped inside Grady’s house and shot him, you wouldn’t hear it, especially if something like the TV or the radio was turned on. There were rumors someone clipped Grady. I’m sure you heard them.’

‘No.’

‘I was at Grady’s house the night of the fire,’ Evan said. ‘I was watching his house. I would have seen someone.’

Darby had seen Grady’s house once, at night. She had driven there on her own, about a month or so after coming home. She had hoped seeing the blackened shell of the house would somehow keep the nightmares away. It didn’t.

‘There’s one question you can answer for me,’ Darby said.

‘You want to know if Melanie Cruz was on one of those tapes.’

‘The audiotapes were given to the federal lab for analysis. No copies were ever forwarded to Boston police.’

‘The heat from the fire either damaged or destroyed most of the recordings. It took months to have them enhanced. We had the victims’ families provide us with voice samples for comparison purposes. Melanie’s parents gave us a home movie. Because of the condition of the audiotape, we couldn’t get an exact match, but our voice expert agreed that, in all probability, the voice on the tape belonged to Melanie Cruz. The parents didn’t feel the same way.’

‘They heard the tape?’

‘They insisted on it. I played the part where Melanie… She was calling out for help. The mother shut the tape off and said, “That’s not my daughter.” She said her daughter was still alive and we had to find her.’

Darby saw a snapshot of Helena Cruz turning her back to a cold blast ofwind, clutching the sheets with Mel’s picture against her chest so they wouldn’t blow away.

‘Did Mel say anything on the tape?’

‘Not much that I recall,’ Evan said. ‘Mostly I remember her screaming.’

‘Was she in pain?’

‘No, she was scared.’

Darby could tell there was more. ‘What did Mel say?’

Evan paused.

‘Tell me,’ Darby said.

‘She kept saying “Put away the knife, please don’t cut me anymore.”’

Images flashed through Darby’s mind – Mel’s terrified face, the black tears from her mascara running down her cheeks. Stacey Stephens lying on the kitchen floor, blood spurting between the fingers clutched against her throat. Mel screaming as the man from the woods cut her.

Folding her arms around her chest, Darby stared out the window at the fast-moving traffic and thought back to that cold winter evening in the Serology Lab. The box of evidence from the Grady case sat on the counter. She remembered holding the rag that had been used on Melanie – the rag that would have most likely been used on her if she had gone downstairs.

‘If you decide to go ahead and examine Grady’s case for your dissertation, let me know,’ Evan said. ‘I’ll make you copies of everythingwe have, including the audiotapes.’

‘I may take you up on that offer.’

‘Tell me about your conversation with Rachel Swanson.’

For the next twenty minutes, Darby took him through her first encounter under the porch, finishing with what had happened in the hospital room.

Evan didn’t speak. He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts. Darby could feel the man’s fierce intelligence at work. To be so freakishly smart might be a gift, but Darby was sure it was a lonely one.

‘Banville is mulling over the idea of using a reporter to set up a trap,’ Evan said.

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘If we blow the trap and he slips away – if he suspects we’re on to him – he won’t wait to kill Carol Cranmore.’

Chapter 34

Since 9/11, every package and letter coming inside Boston Police headquarters was taken downstairs to the basement levels and X-rayed.

Darby paced the well-lit marble lobby full of patrolmen and detectives. The pacing helped keep her mind clear and focused.

Twenty minutes later, she was running the package, a medium-sized brown padded mailer, up the set of stairs. She didn’t want to waste time waiting for the elevator.

Two white adhesive labels were on the front. The one in the center contained Dianne Cranmore’s name and mailing address. The label in the upper left-hand corner contained only two words: ‘Carol Cranmore.’

Both labels were the same size. Both had been fed into a typewriter – most likely one of those old-fashioned manual models that used an ink ribbon. Darby saw the spots where the ink had smudged on some of the words.

Coop had everything set up inside Serology. Waiting with him were Evan and Leland Pratt. Coop, clipboard in hand, stepped aside to give her some room.

Darby set the mailer on a sheet of butcher paper. After measuring the mailer, she took several pictures, first with the lab camera, then with the digital. The digital pictures would be emailed to the federal lab where Evan had people waiting.

Darby flipped the mailer over and looked for a manufacturer name or any unusual markings. All it said was ‘No. 7.’

‘Sometimes the manufacturer stamps its name inside one of the glued seams,’ Evan said. ‘Check when you take it apart.’

Darby pinched the pull tab between her gloved fingers and opened the mailer. Small gray particles – the shredded filler used for the padding – swam in the air. She turned the mailer over and gently shook out its contents.

A folded white shirt fell onto the butcher paper.

Darby pried open the mailer’s lip. There was nothing else in there.

She unfolded the shirt. A cold balloon of fear filled her stomach when she found the pictures, three in all.

Darby transferred the pictures to a separate sheet of butcher paper resting under the soft afternoon sunlight coming in through the windows.

Here was a picture of Carol Cranmore dressed in gray sweats, scared as she walked with her hands outstretched in a room of concrete walls and floors. There was a drain by her bare foot.

Here was Carol on the floor, stunned and frightened, staring up at the person behind the camera.

The last photograph was Carol stuck in a corner, a scream frozen on her face.

Evan stared down at the pictures with his cold and penetrating gaze. ‘Is Carol Cranmore blind?’

‘No, she isn’t,’ Darby said. ‘Why?’

‘The way she’s walking, bumping into the wall, I thought she might be blind. He must have surprised her in the dark, then.’

Darby held the first picture in her hand, staring at it as though it were a window into Carol’s dark prison cell. Seeing the terror captured on Carol’s face made Darby feel closer to the teenager.

She flipped the pictures over. Taped to the back of the third picture were several strawberry blond hairs. Carol’s hair.

Darby took in a deep breath. Okay. Let’s do this.

‘Coop, I have some writing on the back of the photo, bottom right-hand corner.’ Darby swung over the desk magnifier to read lettering. ‘H as in Henry, P as in Peter, one-seven-nine. There’s no processing stamp.’

Coop was standing next to her. ‘Could be a photo printer,’ he said. ‘The letters and numbers you found are probably the paper’s stock number.’

Darby checked the back of the second picture. Same writing in the same bottom corner.

‘Let’s get the hairs over to DNA,’ Darby said. ‘Coop, finish up with the mailer. I’ll work on the shirt.’

Evan left to listen to the tape alone in the conference room.

The white shirt, a man’s size large, hung on a hanger, suspended above a table covered with a sheet of butcher paper. Darby worked a spatula over the shirt, scraping for trace evidence that might have been stuck. It was tedious, painstaking work. The entire time she had to fight the urge to rush.

‘Got something,’ Pappy said.

Lying on the white paper, mixed in with the dirt and flecks of rust, was a single tan fiber. Darby grabbed it with a pair of tweezers and tucked it inside a glassine envelope.

Next, she moved the light magnifier over the trace evidence.

‘I have a black speck here, could be a paint chip,’ Darby said. ‘There are several of them.’

It was coming up on five. Evan had people standing by the federal lab for another hour. She gathered the glassine envelopes and distributed them through the lab before heading to check on the fingerprints.

Coop had used ninhydrin on the mailer. The paper was a dark purple. The mailer had been carefully cut open along the seams.

‘The outer shell is a mess of fingerprints,’ Coop said. ‘I have comparison samples from the woman who picked up the mailer. The inside of the mailer is clean. No fingerprints, but he did use latex gloves. I found a tiny piece of it stuck on the mailer’s self-adhesive lip but I didn’t find any prints.’

‘What about the pictures?’ Darby asked.

‘They’re absolutely clean. I may have some luck with the adhesive sides of the tape and the labels. I’m about to do that next.’

‘Okay, you have anything else?’

‘Just the name of the mailer – Tempest,’ Coop said. ‘It was stamped under a fold. That’s all I’ve got. Mary Beth just called. She’s down in Missing Persons. She has something on the two names Rachel Swanson mentioned.’

Chapter 35

Stomach grumbling from hunger, Darby pushed open the conference room door.

‘– wasn’t able to trace it,’ Banville was saying to Evan.

‘Trace what?’ Darby asked. She took the seat next to Leland and handed him a file folder.

‘Dianne Cranmore received a call at her home an hour ago,’ Banville said. ‘The answering machine picked it up. It was a message from Carol saying she needed to talk to her mother and would call back in fifteen minutes. She did but didn’t stay on long enough for a trace. Dianne Cranmore confirmed it was her daughter. One of my guys dropped off a copy of the tape. We were just about to listen to it.’

Banville hit the PLAY button on the tiny micro-cassette recorder and leaned back in his seat. Evan finished typing on his laptop. Darby folded her hands on the table and stared at the recorder sitting a few inches away.

On the tape, the phone picked up. ‘Carol? Carol, it’s me, are you okay?’

Darby heard stifled tears, the clearing of the throat.

‘Carol, honey, is that you?’

‘Mom, it’s me. I’m… He hasn’t hurt me.’

Swallowing. Rapid breathing.

‘Where are you?’ Dianne Cranmore said. ‘Can you tell me?’

‘I can’t see anything, it’s too dark.’

‘Where… What can I – Carol, listen to me –’

‘He’s here inside this room. He’s got a knife.’

‘You need to protect yourself, like I showed you.’

Click.

Banville shut off the recorder.

Evan looked to Leland. ‘With your permission, I’d like to send this tape to our lab. We can enhance the background noises, see if there’s anything there. I’d also like to send the mailer and pictures. Questioned Documents can identify the type of typewriter used on the mailing labels and see if it matches another case.’

Darby could tell Leland wanted to say no, but he was boxed in a corner where he couldn’t. The FBI’s Document Section was composed of seven different units that investigated anything to do with paper. The Boston lab simply couldn’t compete.

‘As long as we share everything,’ Leland said. ‘I take it the federal government has improved its communication.’

‘See for yourself Evan reached across the table and dialed the number on the conference phone.

The sound of the phone ringing echoed over the speakerphone.

A voice picked up: ‘Peter Travis.’

‘Peter, Evan Manning. I’m calling from the Boston lab. I’m with lab director Leland Pratt and the forensic investigator on this case, Darby McCormick. Also joining us is the lead investigator, Detective Mathew Banville, from the Belham police. They may have a question or two for you, so I’m going to tell them to just jump right in.’

‘Absolutely,’ Travis said.

‘Did you get all the digital pictures I sent you?’

‘I’ve got them loaded up on my screen. The quality of the writing on the mailing labels isn’t all that clear. I’ll need the originals if you want me to identify the typewriter.’

‘You’ll have them. Let’s start with the pictures first.’

‘HP one-seven-nine is the brand of photo paper published by Hewlett-Packard. The paper is manufactured specifically for digital photo printers. You slip the memory card in, or you download the digital pictures from your computer or disc key, and it prints out a three-by-five picture.’

‘That’s the same size we have here.’

‘I can take ink samples from the picture and try and narrow down the type of printer cartridge, but you’re talking about a very big market,’ Travis said. ‘You’re not going to find Traveler that way.’

‘Traveler?’ Darby asked.

‘We’ll get to that in a moment,’ Evan said. ‘Go ahead, Peter.’

‘I can match the photo to the printer, if you have the printer.’

‘I don’t have a printer, I don’t have a suspect, and a seventeen-year-old girl is missing. What about analyzing the pictures using digital image processing techniques?’

‘It’s not a bad way to go. The problem is digital photography has evolved to such a point where you can doctor photographs without leaving any evidence.’

‘Meaning our guy could have, say, erased a window from the photograph.’

‘He could have erased a window, added a window – he could add and delete whatever he wanted if he knows how to operate the software. Given our past experiences, I doubt he’d leave anything in there that would lead us to his doorstep. I did find a new piece of evidence you can add to your list. Hold on a moment.’

A brief sound of pages being snapped back. ‘Okay, here it is,’ Travis said. ‘The mailer he used most likely belongs to a small paper company named Merrill, based out of Hollis, New Hampshire. The company went under in ninety-five. They don’t make them anymore.’

‘So our guy has a stockpile of them in his house.’

‘It’s a strong possibility. I’d add it to your list. However, I’d like to reserve my final judgment until I’ve had a chance to examine the mailer.’

‘You’ll have it on your desk tomorrow morning,’ Evan said.

‘The footwear impression recovered from the Cranmore home belongs to Traveler. It’s manufactured by Ryzer Gear, their Adventurer model.’

‘And the paint chip?’

‘We struck out. The sample is not in our system. That’s all I’ve got on my end. How did you make out with the shirt?’

Evan looked to Darby.

‘We’ve recovered one tan fiber,’ Darby said. The fiber matches the one we found in the foyer of the Cranmore house. The hair taped to the back of the picture is a similar match for Carol Cranmore. Fortunately, a root bulb was attached, so we can get a DNA sample. We struck out on the fingerprints on the mailer. It’s a wipe.’

‘Any questions for Peter?’ Evan asked the room.

There weren’t any.

‘Peter, I need you to contact Alex Gallagher, tell him to analyze an audiotape,’ Evan said. ‘It will be in the package I’m sending out today. You have my cell phone?’

‘I do. I’ll be in touch.’

Evan hung up.

‘I have some information on the two names Rachel Swanson mentioned at the hospital,’ Darby said. ‘Missing Persons did a search and came up with two possible candidates from New England.’

Leland handed her the folder. Darby removed the first sheet, a printed 8 × 10 color college graduation picture of a woman with plain features and curly blond hair. She placed it on the table.

‘This is Marci Wade from Greenwich, Connecticut,’ Darby said. ‘She’s twenty-six, lives at home with her parents. This past May, she drove to meet a former high school friend who was attending the University of New Hampshire. This friend lived about two miles from the campus. Marci drove home on a Sunday night and her car broke down on Route 95. She hasn’t been seen since.’

The second sheet Darby placed on the table was a printed picture of a good-sized woman, with round cheeks and a small port-wine stain on her flabby chin.

‘This is Paula Hibbert, a forty-six-year-old single mother and schoolteacher for a public high school in Barrington, Rhode Island. She asked her neighbor to watch her son so she could go and pick up a prescription for his asthma. She made it to the pharmacy but didn’t make it home. They never found her or her car. She disappeared in January of last year.

‘I don’t know any details about the cases, or what they found for evidence,’ Darby said. ‘Both labs are closed for the day. We’ll be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning. That’s all I have. Now, Special Agent Manning, why don’t you tell us about Traveler?’