afternoon, which meant that either Dana had forgotten to turn them off when she went to bed last night, or she hadn’t come home yet. The other possibility was that she didn’t want to return to a dark house.
But what set off an alarm was that her car sat in the garage. Someone had again picked her up. Maybe the guy in the limo.
He let himself in through the back door. The kitchen lights were on, so was a lamp in the living room and family room. The only sound he could hear was the refrigerator. He called out her name. Nothing. A single wineglass sat on the counter by the sink. It had been rinsed out. A tiny puddle of water remained at the bottom. He picked it up and felt a shudder that took him back to that night in Terry Farina’s apartment.
He made a fast check of the downstairs rooms. No Dana, and all was in place. He bounded upstairs, calling her name again. Their bedroom was to the right at the top of the stairs. The door was open and the interior was dark. He said a little prayer that Dana was under the blankets.
The bed was flat and empty. He flicked on the lights, his fingers slimed with perspiration. He checked the guest bedroom, then their offices.
No Dana.
He dialed her cell phone. Once again he got her voice mail and left an urgent message to call him no matter what time.
“Shit,” he said aloud.
Her desk calendar lay open with no entries for the last several days, but last Wednesday she had scribbled “checkup.” He didn’t know if that was for a regular medical exam, her dentist, or Monks.
He went back into the master bedroom then to the bathroom. He flicked the switch, ducked his head in, then flicked it off, thinking about calling colleagues at Carleton High. He started out of the bedroom toward the stairway, when he stopped in his tracks. Like the afterimage of an old television set something lingered in his mind. He shot back inside and moved to her vanity.
On it sat a color photograph.
For a moment all he could feel was numbness as his brain processed what he was looking at. Then a bolt of horror shot through him. It was a computer portrait of Dana.
His first thought was of James Bowers. The forensic anthropologist.
But that didn’t make sense. He opened his briefcase and found the projection image Bowers had given him. It had the same digitalized flatness, the same Photoshop fabrication, except in the printout Dana had red hair.
Then it hit him.
91
“The guy gave her a computer projection of what she’d look like with a nose job. He also colored her hair red.”
Steve explained to Captain Reardon what he had found. “They all had had cosmetic surgery and looked alike at their deaths. Only one of them had reddish hair, but at autopsy they all had the same shade of red. The thing is that nobody knew who did their work, like they were operated on under some code of omerta.”
While Reardon listened, Steve explained how Dana had had cosmetic procedures, including rhinoplasty, performed by Aaron Monks.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I can’t locate her.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a missing wife problem, not a serial killer.”
“Captain, I think she may have even been seeing him socially.” He hated uttering the words.
After a moment’s silence, Reardon said, “This sounds more personal than investigatory.”
“I know how it sounds, but I’m telling you I think Monks is our man.”
“And I think you’ve got nothing to go on. And before you jump in, I got a call from Captain Ralph Modesky of the Cobbsville P.D. saying you called him today in the middle of a political fundraiser asking questions about cosmetic surgery.”
“Yeah, on legitimate police matters. Does the investigation have to stop for lunch?”
“Lieutenant Markarian, I don’t like the tone of your voice.”
“And I don’t like resistance on running down a prime suspect.”
“He’s not a prime suspect. You’ve got nothing—no priors, no physical evidence, not even circumstantial evidence. Nothing but that he did your wife’s cosmetic work and she vaguely resembles the victims. Besides the guy is the Bigfoot of plastic surgery, probably up for the Nobel Prize. You check his whereabouts on any of these?”
He hadn’t, but the
“You can try, but I doubt you’ll get a warrant. And if you go over there looking for your wife, you’re doing it as private citizen Markarian. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know how to say this without saying it, but if you try to break into Dr. Monks’s place or anywhere else without papers, I’m going to cut you another asshole. Is that clear, Lieutenant Detective Markarian?”
“Yeah.”
“You cannot enforce the law by breaking the law.”
Steve hung up.
Moments later he was in his car as private citizen Markarian with Lieutenant Detective Markarian’s service weapon on his belt and an assault rifle in the trunk with enough rounds to shoot nonstop into next week.
He called Dacey and explained what he had found. She said she understood. They were heading for Monks’s place, which was 17 John Street in Lexington. According to GPS, it was a mile out of the center. Because Steve was closer, he got there in under twenty minutes.
John Street turned out to be what was probably the only remaining dirt road left in that town. The house was a large modern place with no lights on. A BMW SUV sat in the driveway. Steve rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.
Dacey arrived while Steve finished walking around the place.
“Alarm signs all over,” Dacey said.
“Forget it. Nobody’s here. And the car engine’s cold.”
Steve also didn’t want to be held up explaining to local uniforms why they had broken in. Plus it would get back to Reardon, who’d send a posse after them.
The clinic was in Chestnut Hill. “By the way,” Dacey said, “the receptionist’s name is May Ann Madlansacay.”
“And you wonder why I forgot.”
Because they might need backup, Steve made one more call as he led Dacey to the clinic. To Neil French.
They arrived a little after four.
The parking lot was empty, but for a cleaning van. Several other medical offices were located in the building, but the sign on the door said that all closed at two, that the building was locked until Monday morning.
Dacey had pulled up to the door with her blue-and-whites flashing silently and pressed the call button until one of the cleaning persons came to the door. She badged the man and explained they were here to search an office.
Neil French arrived as Steve had expected he would. Steve explained the situation. “I think he killed Terry, and Dana may be with him.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah.”
They followed the cleaning man up the stairs to the clinic, which he opened.
