Ireland or Mexico. Father Frisco was a tall, dark-haired Italian.
“What happened to her?” Trey demanded. “Why is she so skinny?”
“Shh,” the nurse admonished.
Sean said, “Stay with her. I’ll find answers.”
Father Frisco rose and shook Trey’s hand, holding it while he spoke. “Talk to her. She’s not responding, but maybe a familiar voice will draw her back.”
Tears in his eyes, Trey sat down and tentatively reached for Kirsten’s hand.
Sean walked back out to Jeanne at the nurses’ station, with Father Frisco right behind him.
“Father, Jeanne explained how you found Kirsten. Why do you think she didn’t walk in on her own?”
“Her feet were bandaged, and they were clean. If she walked even a short distance, they would have been dirty.”
“And,” Jeanne added, “when we inspected her injuries, we determined that she wouldn’t have been able to walk. The tendon in her right foot is severed, but began to heal improperly. Walking on it would have been impossible. We can do surgery to correct the worst damage, but first we need to stabilize her and beat the infection.”
“We sent a notice around to all hospitals on Wednesday,” Sean said. “Did you see it?”
“We post current notices, and keep older missing persons in a book. But there are so many from all over the country. When we get a Jane Doe we go through the book again, but it’s been a busy weekend. We would have identified her eventually. And the administration filed a police report on Friday when we admitted her. But these things take time to work through the system.”
“Do you know what caused the damage to her feet?”
Jeanne nodded. “Someone had cleaned her feet, but not well enough. There were small pieces of gravel deep in cuts that had started to heal, but because of the infection they weren’t healing properly. We also found a piece of colored glass, probably from a beer bottle, under her skin.”
“Someone cleaned and bandaged her feet?”
“Probably daily. The bandages on her feet were clean with little discharge, except pus from the infection and a small amount of blood. We ran blood tests and had some odd results, so sent them and hair samples to an outside lab for testing.”
“Hair samples?”
“Primarily for illegal drugs and certain poisons that may be out of her blood system, but show up in hair for months afterward.”
“When do you think she sustained the injuries?”
Jeanne pulled her file. “The doctor said they were five to seven days old when she was admitted on Friday.”
That put her injuries most likely the night that Jessica was killed.
Sean turned to Father Frisco. “Are there any security cameras at your church?”
He shook his head.
“Why do you think she was brought to your church and not any other?” Sean asked.
“Are you suggesting this might be one of my parishioners?” From the weary tone it was obvious that the priest, too, had considered the possibility. “Why not take her to a hospital?”
“Security,” Sean said. “Whoever left her in the church didn’t want to be seen with her.” Someone who has a lot to lose. The person also cared about her enough to leave her indoors where she would get help. And because she was left in a Catholic church, either someone lives in the area around the church or is Catholic. He changed the subject. “How was she dressed? May I see her personal effects?”
Father Frisco said, “She was dressed warmly in new clothes and had a blanket on her.”
Jeanne said, “The shirt still had a tag on it; I thought she might have shoplifted the item, except that there was a return sticker on the back that some of the stores put on.”
That might tell Sean when she bought it, or if someone else bought it for her. “I need her clothing, the blanket, everything she had with her.”
“I’ll get them.” Jeanne strode down the hall.
Father Frisco stated more than asked, “The people who left her, they didn’t want her to die.”
“I think whoever it was wanted to help her, but her condition worsened and he panicked.”
“Who?”
Sean had an idea, but he needed to do some research before he called Suzanne Madeaux.
First, he had an important call to make.
“Excuse me, Father, but I need to tell Kirsten’s mother that we found her daughter.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Lucy prepared Suzanne and Detective Panetta for the interview. She first convinced Suzanne to interview Dennis Barnett at NYPD headquarters, because the bustling atmosphere with uniforms and guns screamed authority and Lucy believed Dennis Barnett would be unusually obedient to authority.
She then cautioned the cops against leading or browbeating him in any way. “Any competent defense attorney will get a confession thrown out.”
Panetta said, “His IQ isn’t low enough to qualify for medical deficiency, and even if it were, the D.A. would still prosecute. There’s enough precedent.”
“It’s low enough that counsel could argue his natural obedience to authority led him to say whatever he thought you wanted to hear.”
“How many interviews have you conducted, Ms. Kincaid?” Panetta asked.
Lucy couldn’t respond. The detective was right; she wasn’t a cop. Her experience hadn’t prepared her for this; what was she even thinking agreeing to act as psychologist? She had a master’s degree, that was it. No experience other than what life had handed her.
Suzanne said, “We’re not going to browbeat anyone. But I want to nail him, and I want it airtight. How do we get a confession?”
Lucy said, “He wants to please, and you have to convince him that only the complete truth will make you happy.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“I read his statement to you, when you talked to him in his brother’s apartment. He wants to be good and do the right thing, but because of his relationship with his brothers, I think he’ll respond better to the detective.” She glanced at Panetta and encountered his disbelieving frown. She straightened her spine and continued.
“His entire life he has looked up to CJ and Wade,” she said. “He parrots what they say, as you can tell if you read his statement closely. CJ’s disapproval over Wade’s lifestyle came through clearly, though Dennis doesn’t feel the same. He sees Wade as both his corrector and defender. Wade wants Dennis to be normal because he wants a brother, so he takes him to the parties and to shows and other places. But Dennis is slow and clumsy, and Wade gets frustrated. Dennis will do anything to please Wade, and Wade will say anything to protect Dennis. If Wade is innocent, and believes Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess.”
“If he’s innocent?” Panetta shook his head. “Only in the movies. I get people confessing to everything under the sun mostly for attention, but I’ve never had anyone confess to protect someone unless they were threatened.”
“He
“Or Wade will be in prison, too, if they did it together,” Suzanne said, “Probably on death row.”
“He’ll consider himself a failure because he couldn’t raise his brother.”
“He’s only five years older.”
“Their mother abdicated the responsibility for raising Dennis to CJ and Wade. CJ became the father, a financial genius who turned their settlement into a fortune, and Wade became the mother, the playmate.”
Lucy was losing them. She wasn’t good at this; she’d always had Hans or her brother Dillon to bounce her
