“Yeah, really. I have no idea what Racine misunderstood. Probably all that sexual tension from not knowing who or what to fuck this week.”
“Oh, I think you’ll certainly feel fucked, Garrison, when we’re through with you,” Racine said without so much as a blink, playing out her role as the bad cop.
O’Dell, also, remained cool and calm. “You have the photos with you?” she asked, nodding at the duffel bag.
“Sure. And I’m more than willing to show them to you.” He lifted his hands and clanked the handcuffs against the steel chair. “Hell, I’ll give them to you. As soon as all the charges are dropped, of course.”
“Charges?” Racine glanced at O’Dell, then back at him. “Did the boys give you the impression you were under arrest? I’m sure you must have misunderstood, Garrison.”
He wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, but instead he smiled and held up his hands again for her to remove the cuffs.
O’Dell reached over and knocked on the door, bringing in the thick-necked cop to unlock the handcuffs. Then he left again, without a word to either woman.
Ben rubbed his wrists, taking his time before he pulled over the bag and began digging through his equipment. He didn’t want them messing with his stuff. He set his camera, lens and collapsible tripod out on the table. Then he removed a couple of T-shirts, a pair of sweatpants and a towel to get the manila envelopes at the bottom. He opened one and spilled its contents on the table: negatives, contact sheet and the prints Harwood’s people had developed and given him copies of. He laid five eight-by-tens on the table, putting them in chronological order for the full effect.
“Jesus!” Racine said. “Where and when was this?”
“Yesterday. Late afternoon. Boston.”
From one of the other envelopes, he pulled out several prints from the Brier girl’s crime scene along with about a dozen from Everett’s rally in the District. One showed Everett with a young blond-haired girl and Ginny Brier, alongside two of the same boys in the Boston photos. He slid them across the table.
“Pretty easy to recognize some of these good Christian boys,” Ben told them. “When I was at the District rally, Saturday night, I heard them talking about some kind of initiation they were planning in Boston Common on Tuesday. I played my hunch that it might be something interesting.”
“Funny how you didn’t mention that to me. You didn’t even mention that you had been at that rally,” Racine said.
“Didn’t seem important at the time.”
“Even though you knew you had photos of the dead girl attending the rally?”
“I took lots of photos over the weekend. Maybe I didn’t know exactly what or who I had shot.”
“Just like you didn’t know that you hadn’t turned over all the film you shot at the crime scene?”
He smiled again and shrugged.
“Was Everett in Boston?” O’Dell asked as she picked up each photo, carefully scrutinized it, then moved on to the next.
“No sign of him, but I heard them talking like maybe he was.” He pointed to Brandon in several of the Boston photos and in the District one. “This one seemed to be in charge. They were all drunk. You can see in one of the photos that they had beer bottles and were spraying the women.”
“I don’t believe this,” Racine said. “Where were the cops?”
“It was a Tuesday afternoon. Who knows? I didn’t see any around.”
“And you just watched?” O’Dell was staring at him now as if she was trying to figure him out.
“No, I took pictures. It’s my job. It’s what I do.”
“They were attacking these girls, and you just stood around and took pictures?”
“When I’m behind the lens, I’m not there as a participant. I’m there to record and capture what’s going on.”
“How could you do nothing?” O’Dell wasn’t going to give it up. He could hear the anger in her voice.
“You don’t get it. If I had put down my camera, you wouldn’t have these fucking photos so you can now go out and charge these motherfuckers.”
“If you had put down your camera and tried to stop them, maybe we wouldn’t need any photos. Maybe those girls wouldn’t have had to go through this.”
“Oh, right. Like this is my fault. Let me tell you, it takes a lot more work and planning to make news happen, Ms. FBI Agent. I record the images. I capture the emotions. I’m not a part of what happens. I’m a part of the instruments. I’m fucking invisible when I’m behind the camera. Look, you’ve got your photos. I’m outta here.”
He grabbed his duffel bag, stuffed his camera and lens inside and started to leave, expecting one of them to stop him. Instead, they were both busy examining the photos. Racine was already jotting down notes.
Fuck them! If they didn’t get it, he didn’t need to explain it. He left, a bit disappointed that even the Neanderthal wasn’t around for him to shove or at least flip off. Guess Racine won this round.
CHAPTER 59
“Do you believe this?” Racine said, standing over the pictures and shaking her head as if she was truly having a tough time believing it. “You think this is what happens to them?”
Without any more of an explanation, Maggie knew Racine was talking about the murdered women: Ginny Brier, the transient they had found under the viaduct and the floater in Raleigh. And now, after talking to Tully, they could add this poor woman whom the Boston PD had just identified as a stockbroker named Maria Leonetti to their list.
“Is it possible?” Racine continued when Maggie didn’t answer. “Could it be some savage initiation? Some rite of passage for Everett’s young male members?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie finally said. “I almost hope not.”
“It would sure answer a lot of questions. Like why they weren’t killed right away. You know. Some crazy game they play with them. And it makes sense that it would coincide with the rallies.”
“But there was no rally in Boston,” Maggie reminded her.
The two women fell silent again, standing side by side, staring at the photos scattered across the table, neither touching them.
“Why do you say you almost hope not?” Racine broke the silence.
“What?”
“You said you almost hope it’s not the way the murders happened.”
“Because I hate to believe one man can incite a group of boys to do something like this. That one man could convince a group of boys to rape, brutalize and possibly murder women simply on command.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time in history. Men can be such bastards,” Racine said, letting some anger slip through.
Maggie glanced at her. Perhaps her anger came from personal experience. Perhaps it came from spending several years on the sexual assault unit. Whatever the reason, it seemed a bit personal, and not something Maggie wanted to know.
“It means Everett is much more dangerous than we ever thought,” Maggie said, then added in almost a whisper, “Eve was right.”
“Who’s Eve?”
“An ex-member I talked to. Cunningham and Senator Brier were able to set up the meeting. I thought she was being silly for being so paranoid.”
“So what do we do now?”
Maggie finally began to sort through the pile of stuff Garrison had left behind when he’d emptied the duffel bag. He had been in such a hurry to leave that he had taken only his camera and a lens. She pushed aside the strange metal contraption, a smelly T-shirt and sweatpants and reached for the manila envelope. She opened it and spilled its contents-more photos-onto the table alongside the Boston ones. These all looked like shots from Ginny Brier’s crime scene. They had to be from the roll of film he had kept for himself-leftover prints from what he had
