laid down the cup and raced down the stairs for the duplicate keys in a kitchen drawer. When he found them he raced back up and went through several tries before he found the right one. It slipped into the tumbler all the way and turned.
The interior was still dark, and it took him a moment to make sense of the strange dark configuration in the middle of the four-poster canopy bed that took up most of the room. But it was the odor that hit him first.
He flicked the light switch and a sharp staccato shriek rose out of his lungs.
Lila was naked and hanging by the neck from a single black stocking tied to the upper frame of her bed.
64
Steve had no more than seventy minutes to do this if Neil kept to schedule.
The usual appointment with Lily’s psychiatrist was at five P.M. and would run for fifty minutes. In the rush- hour traffic it would take them a minimum of fifteen to get back to his place on Park Drive.
At about ten to five, Dacey reported that she was four cars behind Neil’s black Explorer. “You’re good to go. They’re heading south on Brighton Avenue toward the Francis Street parking garage. I can see the Walden Medical Building.”
“Good.” Steve sat in another unmarked car parked in a resident’s spot on Park Drive across from number 448—a yellow brick and granite four-story structure named the Versailles. They each wore headsets connected to their PDAs’ open Nextel lines, which could not be picked up by radio.
Steve’s concern was that another car sat in the open garage shared by Neil. Were the tenant to spot him snooping around he might have a face-off with him or, worse, a patrol officer. He could imagine the fun headlines: BOSTON HOMICIDE DETECTIVE ARRESTED FOR BREAKING INTO PARTNER’S HOUSE. Reardon’s reaction would be cardiac arrest.
Dacey came online. “Okay, subjects just pulled into the med center.”
“Good. Problem is a neighbor just pulled her trash barrel in front and is chatting with someone. I’ll have to wait to go around back.” They both knew that would be a critical delay.
“Do what you have to do.”
Although a surveillance team of two was not ideal, Dacey would wait outside the medical center while Neil was upstairs with his daughter for her session and would stay with them when they left. Neil usually sat in the waiting room then either brought Lily home or took her to dinner. Steve prayed she had an appetite since that would buy them half an hour, maybe more if she wanted to shop.
The neighbors chatted for a full seven minutes. When they left, Steve got out of the car and headed toward the house. He was about to cross the street when the first tenant returned with a second barrel. Before she spotted him, he ducked behind a parked pickup, pretending to tie a sneaker. The tenant left the barrel at the curb then headed to the front door. When he was sure no other tenants were coming out, he whispered, “I’m going in.”
“Hustle,” Dacey said.
Steve slipped into the rear of the building, keeping close to the wall. He heard a television through a first-floor window. Neil lived on the second. A set of six two-car bays made up the rear of the building. He had been here before with Neil and was counting on the spare key being in the same place he had told Lily. She had called to say she was locked out and forgot where the spare was. The window frame. Steve reached up and ran his fingers along the top.
“Nothing. The car’s still in the lot. Wish I brought a book.”
He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and made his way through the kitchen and into the living room. “I’m checking the living room.”
“You’ve got fifty-two minutes.”
“How’s your battery power?”
“Getting low.”
“Got extras?”
There was a pause. “Shit, negative. I better click off. I’ll call when I’ve got something.”
“Affirmative.”
Steve had been to Neil’s apartment only twice before, which made him feel even more grungy. Even on a search warrant, he would have hated it. It was Neil and his daughter’s private space, and he was going to go through it hoping to find clues that Neil was bad and he wasn’t. He could not imagine a worse circumstance for creeping a suspect.
There were five rooms, but the ones that counted were Neil’s and the spare bedroom that served at his office. He passed through the living room and skimmed the interior, which was neatly arranged with furniture Neil had shared with his wife—floral armchairs and divan, an antique credenza. On the mantel were framed photographs—a shot of Neil receiving an award for valor from his superior officer at the Gloucester P.D. Another of him, a young Lily, and his wife; the same woman in the obit photo. Her hair was brown.
The door to Lily’s room was closed, as it was the last time he was here; and tacked to it was a HAZARDOUS WASTE sign. The door was unlocked and he opened it.
His first thought was that the sign was not a joke. Clothes, shoes, books, magazines, and a lot of other stuff were in jumbled heaps on the floor, a pile of laundry spilled from two plastic baskets on the bed. The walls were plastered with posters of rock and movie stars and a thousand other magazine cutouts, mostly of thin young celebs. A white chest of drawers had a pile of cosmetic stuff, and over it was a mirror with stickers, more cutouts, and photos taped to the glass. It looked like the room of a crazy person. Or a self-destructive teenage girl who was on a bunch of meds and who regularly saw a shrink.
Steve closed the door and checked his watch—fifty minutes left.
By contrast, the master bedroom looked as if it had been attacked by Merry Maids. The large oak sleigh bed was made, square-cornered, the spread folded neatly over the pillows, decorative pillows fussily arranged points up. A pair of men’s leather slippers sat under the bed table. Across from the bed was an oak bureau with bottles of aftershave, cologne, and lotions lined up, a small inlaid jewelry box, and a photo of Lily and Neil. Also a large container of aspirin.
Above the bureau hung a large wooden crucifix with a carved Jesus. Steve wondered if the same man who prayed to that tortured Jesus did those things to Terry Farina.
He went through the drawers from top to bottom. The top two contained men’s underwear—boxer shorts, white socks in balls in one drawer, colored in another. Pajamas and different tops in the third drawer, the bottom reserved for walking shorts. Nothing.
But in one drawer he did find an old billfold under some T-shirts, and in it a photo of Neil and Terry Farina, posing in ski outfits on a slope. His arm was around her shoulder and both were beaming at the camera.
“Hey,” Dacey said into his earpiece. “They’re coming out.”
“Shit.” They were leaving ten minutes early. Maybe the doc had to cut it short, got an emergency call or something. Or maybe Lily flipped out. Whatever, if they were coming home, he had fifteen minutes tops. “Stay with him and tell me his route.”
“Roger. Find anything?”
“Negative.”
The closet area contained garment bags hung and a chest of drawers sat in the back under pants and shirts hanging from a pole. But given the press of time, Neil’s office was a priority.
Like his bedroom, it was a tableau to order—desk, file cabinets, bookshelves all neatly arranged—files stacked evenly on shelves, desktop papers arranged in wire baskets, large and small paper clips in little dispensers, a bowl with loose change. It was the self-defensive statement of a man taking control despite whatever emotional chaos raged around him. Or inside.
