keep digging. Maybe eight years ago Charlie searched for her mom, Charlie found her mom, Charlie killed her mom. And it felt good. Justice done.”
D.D. couldn’t argue with that; the death of Charlie’s mom did appear to be justice done. And she certainly hoped everyone on the Internet left tracks. She’d talked to Phil right before dinner, and he and Neil had seized eight separate electronic items from Barry’s bedroom. They now hoped the techies found lots of tracks, including ones that tied Barry to two other pedophiles, as well as revealing how one blue-eyed “demon,” in the words of their witness, tracked him down.
“So, Charlene Grant killed her own mother,” D.D. filled in now, “and liked the feeling so much, she decided to wait eight years, then systematically hunt down Boston sex offenders for more righteous kills?”
“Maybe she didn’t wait eight years. Maybe there are other dead sex offenders in other jurisdictions. We just know the three on our watch. Not to mention, stress is a major trigger for killers, and you can tell just by looking that Charlene Grant’s a little stressed out right now.”
“She’s a good girl, until her stress level rises too high, then she loads a gun and lets off a little steam?”
“Why not? Worse reasons to kill sex predators.”
“More big assumptions.”
“Which is why,” Detective O replied curtly, “I followed her tonight, got my hands on her twenty-two, and delivered it to the lab. Tomorrow, fuck assumptions. We’ll have a ballistics report.”
“Hope so,” D.D. murmured, “seeing as we just seized a potential murder victim’s legally registered means of self-defense, on the eve of the big day.”
“Forget the other murders,” O shot back, sounding almost irritated. “This is all about Charlene. What happened when she was a kid, to her and her siblings. I doubt she’s even a target tomorrow. I bet she’s the instigator. I mean lots of people are abused as kids, and they still manage to grow up remembering such a minor detail as being stabbed by their own mother. Then there’s Charlene, who claims she forgot it all. I think that’s her first lie.”
“I thought you said she was Sybil, which accounts for her lack of memory; Charlie wasn’t stabbed by her mother but her ‘victim personality’…Rosalind…was, meaning Charlie really didn’t know any such thing. And Charlene’s not really running around shooting sex offenders, some ‘protector personality’ Abigail is.”
“Bunch of hooey.”
“You started it.”
“Just to argue with you. Most fun part of the job, right?”
D.D. shook her head at the detective’s quick change of heart. “Fine. At least we agree on one thing-we need the ballistics report. Good work seizing the gun and making arrangements at the lab, Detective.”
For a moment, D.D. could almost feel O’s discomfort over the line, and she couldn’t help but think of another detective she knew that was always more comfortable with criticism than praise-herself.
“Detective,” D.D. said briskly.
“Yes?”
“Go home. Get some sleep. We have approximately seven hours until Charlene gets off work and Jon Cassir has results from the ballistics test. Meaning, most likely, tomorrow will be a big day. And…” D.D. hesitated, “being the anniversary date of two murders, maybe even a longer night.”
“Not a problem,” O said immediately. “We’ll have Charlene arrested by eleven, processed by one, and tucked safely in jail by three. Meaning, if any killer wants her, he’ll have to tunnel through cinder blocks to get her.”
Chapter 33
HELLO. My name is Abigail.
Don’t worry, we’ve met.
Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid for me?
Trust me, and I will take care of you.
Don’t you trust me?
Hello. My name is Abigail.
Chapter 34
SATURDAY. 7 A.M. Thirteen hours and counting.
Maybe less? Maybe more?
What did I know? My shift was due to end, but my replacement hadn’t appeared, leaving me trapped at a desk, comm lines still ringing with various Boston citizens in various states of panic.
I’d arrived to a slew of motor vehicle incidents. Car versus cat. Motorcycle versus telephone pole. Drunk teenager A versus drunk teenager B.
By 2 A.M., the bars had closed and the phone lines heated up. Tina Limmer from 375 Markham Street called to report that her boyfriend was an asshole. Guess she caught him balling her best friend. Sadly, being an asshole was not yet a prosecutable offense, so I’d been forced to end the call. Just in time for Cherry Weiss from 896 Concord Avenue to report the smell of smoke in the stairwell of her apartment building. Two officers were dispatched, not to mention the fire department. Officers arrested two drunken seventy-year-old men who were trying valiantly to prove that you could light a fart on fire. Fire department laughed, took in the show.
Which brought me to Vinnie Pearl of 95 Wentworth Way. He wanted to report that he’d lost his nose. With a bit of searching (I managed to direct him to the bathroom of his own apartment), he located said nose in the mirror. Turned out, Vinnie had spent most of Friday brewing homemade limoncello. Which explained his call back ten minutes later to report he’d lost his lips, couldn’t feel them anymore, his entire mouth was gone.
I ordered Vinny to take four aspirin, drink three glasses of water, and good luck in the morning.
That call ended just in time for the first of three bar brawls, followed by two calls of domestic violence and yet another motor vehicle incident, Hummer versus three parked cars.
Parked cars lost. Hummer didn’t fare so well either, and completely drunk-as-a-skunk Hummer driver was arrested, as they say, without incident.
Sometime around 3 A.M., I ate my cold chicken breast and half grapefruit while still sitting at my desk. At four thirty, the call volume lulled enough I could actually pee. Five thirty, I attempted to log onto Facebook from the PD’s computer; I wanted to check the page honoring Randi and Jackie.
I got eight minutes to marvel at the long list of friends, the outpouring of shared memories and bittersweet tears, then the monitor lit up again, this time car versus pedestrian. The pedestrian was injured, but still able to make the nine-one-one report, as the offending vehicle sped away.
Randi hadn’t suspected a thing on the twenty-first. That was my best guess. The police had never uncovered any sign of threatening notes, suspicious behavior. She’d lived a small, self-contained life, her closest friend probably her yoga instructor, who said Randi hadn’t commented on anything out of the ordinary. Meaning the twenty-first had dawned as just another day. Get up. Go through the motions. No idea, no inkling, this would be her last day on earth.
Is it better that way? To never see death coming, or to spend the past year as I have, counting down every minute, planning out every second toward looming demise?
Jackie had cried the morning of the twenty-first. I’m sure of it. She would’ve woken up with the same heavy feeling I had. This was it. The one-year anniversary of Randi’s death, and still the police had no leads, no major breaks in the investigation. Our childhood friend had been senselessly murdered and we remained with more questions than answers.
Jackie would’ve started off the day quiet, reserved. Maybe she would’ve donned a string of pearls in memory of Randi. Or bought fresh flowers, or listened to Randi’s favorite band, Journey, during her drive to work.
Being in New Hampshire, I’d driven to Randi’s grave that morning, bearing a grocery store bouquet of yellow roses. I’d been nervous I’d meet her parents and not know what to say. But the cemetery was empty, and I’d stood alone on the hard-packed snow, shivering in the single-digit chill, while feeling the tears fall, then freeze on my
