Smith leaned forward in his chair. He had smoked half of his cigarette. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. She waited.
'That's one hell of a story.'
'Agreed,' she said. 'But that's what happened.'
'Now I know why you insisted on talking face to face. If you had told me this shit over the phone, I would've hung up on you.'
'You read about it in the papers? I know the Globe covered it.'
'I'm a Herald guy, and I only buy it for the sports page. I stopped following the news… Christ, it's been years. First thing you learn as a cop is that almost everything that's printed or said on the news is about two per cent truth. The other ninety-eight per cent is bullshit spin. You really think it's him? Charlie, I mean?'
'I don't have the benefit of DNA or a fingerprint, so the rational part of me says no.'
Smith nodded, and took a long drag off his cigarette.
'My gut says the man I met was Charlie,' she said. 'The eyes were the right colour, and he was missing two nipples. He made it a point of showing them to me.'
He nodded again, more to himself than her.
'All this time…' He ran a big hand over his face, staring out at the darkening sky. 'If what you're saying is true, all this time that kid was alive and…' He took in a deep breath and cocked his head to her. 'You said his body was scarred.'
She nodded.
'He tell you from what?'
'No, but I think it was from being whipped.' She had thought about it on and off during the past week. The lattice pattern seemed right. 'It's only a guess. I forgot to mention he'd been turned into a eunuch.'
Smith glared at her, wide-eyed.
'Castrated,' she said.
'I know what it means, I just… you're sure?'
'Positive.'
He ran a big hand over his face. Then shook his head as if snapping out of a trance.
'This business with the face mask, what's that all about?'
'Don't know,' she said. 'Charlie didn't say anything about it. Does it mean anything to you?'
'First time I've ever heard about such a thing. Must have some sort of religious significance.'
'What makes you say that?'
'The tattoos on that guy's neck, the one with the missing tongue? You said they were Latin, right?'
'According to what I read on the Internet. I don't know their significance, so I sent them over to a Harvard professor to decipher their meaning.'
'You Catholic?'
'Irish Catholic.'
'My condolences.' He chuckled softly. 'They used to speak Latin during church services years and years ago, way before you were born — before I was born, probably. Makes me think you're dealing with some sort of religious cult.'
She nodded. The thought had occurred to her too.
'What did the army tell you?'
'They didn't tell me anything. Neither did the feds. I'm shut out from the investigation. My guess is that this thing is bigger than someone using nerve gas to kill a bunch of cops.'
'I'm not sure how I can help you here.'
'Tell me about Mark Rizzo.'
'He… Shit, you're talking about, what, twelve years ago? Truth be told, I don't want to revisit it. Don't look at me like that, you know what I'm talking about. You worked a missing person's case before, that Traveler creep, the one who came for you when you was a little girl and ended up snatching your friend.'
Darby nodded.
'So you know how that shit can linger if you don't find a way to turn it off. Because if you don't, you end up dragging it around like a ball and chain for the rest of your life. I can't really help you here. You'd be better off reading my case notes.'
'I don't have access to them.'
'You've lost me. You're not working with that CSU group?'
'No. It's been permanently disbanded. And, as of this morning, I'm no longer an employee at the crime lab. I'm looking into this on my own.'
'I hope to Christ you're not trying to recruit me. Because the answer's no. Besides, I wouldn't be of any use to you. And I don't have them. Copies, I mean. Some homicide guys, they make copies of the cases they didn't get to solve before they go into retirement. They think they'll revisit one or two, you know, break it open or something. Not me. When I left, I shut the door behind me.'
'Was Mark Rizzo ever a suspect?'
Smith didn't pause to consider the question; he shook his head.
'Never,' he added.
'But you looked into him.'
'Of course we did. Him and his wife. It's the first thing you do when a kid is abducted or goes missing, because nine times out of ten the parents or a relative is involved. So, yeah, we looked into the parents, but they both had strong alibis. The mother was at home, the father working at the office. Everything checked out.'
'How far did you dig?'
'Well, if I'm to believe what you say, that the father was involved in his son's abduction, then I'd have to admit we didn't dig far enough.' He leaned back in his chair. 'Like I said, his alibi checked out. Marriage was solid.'
'Was he married before?'
'No. First marriage for both of them. He was a tax guy… I remember some incident involving one of his clients, guy pissed off about having to pay too much money to the government and thought Rizzo had bungled his tax return. So this guy, he went back to Rizzo's office and goes after him with a baseball bat. Police were called, so there was a report. We looked into it, thinking this guy harboured a grudge all these years and maybe decided to get even with Rizzo by snatching the kid. I don't remember the guy's name, but I remember it came up empty.'
'Was Rizzo born here?'
He thought about it as he took another sip of his drink.
'I think so,' he said.
'I don't remember him having a Boston accent.'
'That doesn't mean anything. I know plenty of people who don't — people who've lived here their whole lives. Like you. You don't have one, and you grew up in Belham, right?'
Darby nodded. 'Where'd you hear that?'
'Didn't hear it, I read it. Online.'
'What about Mark Rizzo's extended family? Any brothers or sisters?'
'No. He was an only child. His parents died when he was seventeen. Some sort of car crash. I don't remember where or when.'
'Who raised him?'
'Haven't the foggiest. I can't even say I asked him the question. I don't know if the guy had any uncles or aunts either. And his wife, Judith? I don't remember anything about her except that she was a die-hard Catholic. Kept a pair of rosary beads in her hands at all times. That's the only thing that sticks out.'
He shrugged, showed her his empty hands. 'I don't know what else to tell you. The guy was as clean as a whistle — at least that's how he looked at the time.'
'Did the feds get involved in the case?'
Smith took another healthy slug of whiskey. 'They usually do with missing kids.'
'Only if they believe someone's been transported over state lines.'
'News got out fast that Charlie Rizzo had been abducted — that was the way it looked since we found his
