2 in the Hat (18 page)

Then he squeezed.

C
onnie made his way toward Peter’s Hill and stopped at the yellow
crime scene tape. He stood on Bussey Street at the base of the hill near a dozen police cars. The message had come across the alpha pager twenty minutes earlier. Two bodies, one male and one female, discovered by a runner in the Arnold Arboretum. This was an upscale neighborhood. All the old houses were being bought up and renovated by a new generation. More gentrified by the day.

He had been on his way to meet Greene and Ahearn at the station, but when he got the page, his plans for the evening changed. He didn’t have much going with them anyway. Not since Shawn Tinsley’s death. With a shooter like Tinsley out of the picture, things would quiet down in District 2.

Connie kept an eye out for Alves. He’d already called the DA’s office and spoken with the chief of homicide. He wanted them to know that there was no need to page the Homicide Response ADA. Connie would handle things at the scene and give updates.

Connie skirted the perimeter of the crime scene, taking in as much as he could, which was very little. He was familiar with the area. When he was a teenager, Peter’s Hill was a popular place for parties. The gentle rise of tree-covered ground provided a spectacular view of downtown Boston at night. And it offered plenty of hideaways if a couple wanted to
slip away for some privacy. From where he stood, the police seemed focused on one of those spots, well off the paved path that looped around the hill.

He saw Alves and a familiar figure lumbering from a thicket. Wayne Mooney. He was carrying a stack of small, numbered orange cones that he was using to mark evidence. Working slowly around the scene, Alves gestured to the criminalists and directed the photographer.

Connie could provide valuable information about Peter’s Hill. He could point out the different entrances to the park and the best place to conceal a vehicle if someone was trying to drop something off unnoticed. The killer had done that with two bodies. If the investigators looked in the right spots, they might find tire treads or shoe imprints in the dirt paths near one of the entrances.

Angel Alves acknowledged Connie with a nod. That was all he needed. Alves was balking a little at letting him into this case, but Mooney had liked his ideas on the fortunes. One of the two would let him know when he could have access to the crime scene. Then he could dig deeper into what this killer was about. When things started to fit together, he could point Alves and Mooney in the right direction.

S
leep waited in the line of cars on Walter Street in Roslindale. He
thought he could see the glare of unnatural light coming from Peter’s Hill. The police roadblock closed off Bussey Street, and when he got that far, probably Mendum Street too. All the direct public accesses to the Arboretum were blocked. The commotion indicated that the police had found his perfect couple.

It made him sad. The lovers would get to repose only a short time more.

With these two, he could see that he was getting better at his art. The girl was beautiful and didn’t need much makeup, even after meeting Brother Death. The dress Sleep had chosen for her slipped on, a perfect fit. The boy was the boy. Just like at weddings and proms, you could put a call into central casting and get a handsome groom or a date in a white shirt and black tux. But the boy was a necessary part of the tableau. Sleep was getting better with hair too. Momma had left a generous supply of beauty products. All in all, a very successful venture.

There was a time, long ago, when he didn’t understand his purpose. Before he’d discovered all those books about mythology in the library. Before he’d met his brother Death. A time when he lived for his Little Things. Dressing them, buying new outfits for them at yard sales. Browsing
through stores, pretending he was selecting a gift for an imaginary sister.

It was exactly at that time that his father caught on.

Then his Little Things started demanding even more.

He could remember every detail of that day. The two of them, Sleep and his father, were alone at the bakery. They’d been working since one in the morning. It was three when his father, the black hairs of his arms dusted in flour, his round face greasy from frying oil, said, “When are you gonna get a girlfriend? Act like other kids your age? When I get home, I’m gonna go up to that attic and get those dolls. I’m gonna bring ’em here and hang them in the window with a sign that says ‘These are my half-a-fag son’s toys.’ Week after that, we’ll hang Cinderella’s pissy wet bedsheet in the window.”

Something like a dozen plane engines roaring filled Sleep’s head. His old man was relentless. He watched girls on the street and nudged Sleep to watch too. If a love scene came on the TV screen, he jacked up the volume. Once they had been waiting for Momma in Filene’s and his old man had shoved him into a rack of bras.

Sleep could see himself reaching for the rolling pin. He could see himself waiting for his old man to show the back of his head. He could see himself raise the pin, feel the heft of the wood. Before he could stop himself, he remembered trying to say something like “oh no,” he could see himself hammering until his father was quiet at last.

When the police came, he told them he had come in late that morning and found his father on the floor, the register open and empty.

He didn’t tell the police about his father nattering at him, humiliating him, pushing him. And he didn’t tell them about the queen of the gods and the dwelling of Sleep and his Brother Death. He bet none of the cops had ever read
The Tales of Troy
.

Sleep was startled by the loud noise. The driver in the car behind him was leaning on his horn. Traffic was moving. Sleep adjusted his sunglasses and pulled his Bruins cap down tighter on his head. He drove toward the patrolman directing traffic. He waved to the officer as he passed close to Peter’s Hill, taking one last look.

C
onnie followed Alves up Peter’s Hill. He’d stood in the cold
, watching Mooney setting up cones while a photographer snapped pictures, for close to two hours before getting inside the yellow tape.

“Aren’t you in the middle of a trial?” Alves asked.

Alves was treating him like a punk DA, making him wait, greeting him with a sarcastic question first thing. “Trial’s over,” Connie said. “A simple gun case, remember? Jury came back in ten minutes with a guilty. Angel, I’m out here because this case is important to me.”

Alves didn’t say anything as he led Connie around a thicket of bushes, toward the glow of the klieg lights. The hill was lit up like a night game at Fenway. Connie stopped when he saw the girl. She was lovely, even in death. She reminded him of Andi, his ex-girlfriend, but without the long red hair. The victim was a brunette, like the others. “Have they been moved?” Connie asked.

“Not yet. We’ve marked off everything that might have evidentiary value. Sarge had the ID unit take about a thousand pictures. Mooney wanted me to give you a walk-though before the ME takes the bodies. Eunice Curran and her crew are standing by to collect everything else.”

“Their poses are different from the last time,” Connie said. “These two are having a picnic.”

“Yeah. A post-prom snack. He has them set up to make you think, next thing, the dress comes off.”

“You’re wrong,” Connie said. “Look at the scene. It’s more like a romantic dinner. She’s wearing a dress that will never come off. The killer doesn’t want it to. He wants them in this position, at this moment in time, happy, before the relationship is consummated. Before everything goes to shit. He wants them to live happily ever after, like in fairy tales.”

Alves’s face betrayed a range of emotions, pain among them. Connie had heard the rumors that Marcy Alves wasn’t sleeping in the big bed anymore. “You got all that from looking at this setup?” Alves seemed impressed, then doubtful. “Creative, but it doesn’t fit. Remember, he’s re-creating prom night.”

“Who gave him the name Prom Night Killer? The media? The police? He’s never called himself that.” Connie closed his eyes and imagined himself at the first crime scene. “The first victims were coming from their prom, but our killer didn’t know that. Male was in a tux. Female was in a fancy white dress. To him they could have looked like newlyweds going for a stroll in the park. Picture those miniature plastic figures, those wedding cake toppers. He’s dressing the victims up as though they’ve just been married. That’s why all the women are wearing white instead of the carnival of colors you’d normally see in prom dresses.”

Connie opened his eyes again to find that Alves was staring at him. He had to know that Connie could be right. Connie did not avoid his stare. “What have you been holding back from me, Angel?”

“What are you talking about?” Alves asked.

“There’s something else. Something related to Chinese culture. I saw the look you gave Mooney the other day at his place. You let him answer for you.”

“I can’t tell you, Connie. Mooney will flip. He’s kept this thing under wraps for ten years. Hardly anybody knows about it. It’s one of the reasons we’re convinced he’s not a copycat.”

“I haven’t held anything back from you, Angel. I can’t help you if I don’t know all the facts.”

Alves seemed to think over his options for a couple seconds. “If I show you, it goes nowhere. You can’t tell Mooney. If you come up with anything based on what I show you, you come to me. Then I’ll relay it to Mooney as my idea. Got it?”

“I’m not looking for credit.”

Alves walked over to the girl and lifted the hair off the back of her neck.

Under the bright lights, stamped with black ink, Connie saw the familiar Yin-Yang symbol. The Tai-ji. It was upside down. The killer didn’t know anything about Chinese culture. But he wanted the police to
think
he did.

Alves lowered her hair and stepped away from her. “Mooney’s coming.”

M
oney stood aside as the photographer took pictures of the tire
tread in the mud on the corner of South and Bussey.

“I think we can get a decent mold,” Eunice Curran said.

“Good. I’ll see you back on the hill.” He turned and followed the asphalt path, partly hidden in shadow, toward the opening ahead. The area looked so different at night. He remembered coming here on one of his first dates with Leslie. A warm spring day. It was Lilac Day, and Leslie thought it would be nice to go for a walk and have some bread and cheese outdoors near the little brook that ran through the woods.

Like his two unidentified victims on the hill.

That was a long time ago. Before he’d seen so much death. He and Leslie had stopped at the lilacs as they made their way through the maze of paths that wound through the trees. Peter’s Hill and the rest of the Arboretum were maintained by Harvard University, she’d explained to him. The best kept park in the city, she’d said. The most beautiful jewel in the…

Mooney stopped. He was alone, not quite at the path at the base of the hill where most of the other units were gathering. One by one, and in order, he ticked off the murder sites. The Fens. The Riverway. Olmsted Park. Franklin Park. And now Peter’s Hill, the Arnold Arboretum. It made perfect sense.

He picked up his pace. At the base of the hill, he stepped off the path and cut across the grass toward the scene the killer had left for them. He spotted Alves walking Connie through it.

When Mooney caught up with them, Alves said, “Connie doesn’t think the murders have anything to do with prom night. Thinks he dressed them up as newlyweds for their picnic in the park.”

“Interesting. ’Cause I don’t think this has anything to do with a picnic in the park.” Mooney waved his hand at the victims. “It’s more like a picnic on the Emerald Necklace.”

“I don’t get it,” Alves said.

“He’s not familiar with Boston’s history,” he said to Connie. “This minute, we’re standing on Peter’s Hill, which is a part of the Arnold Arboretum. Which is—”

“One of the jewels in Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace,” Connie interrupted.

Mooney nodded, then turned to Alves. “You’ve never heard of Frederick Law Olmsted, have you?”

Connie began, “Olmsted designed half of Central Park in New York City. Then he did the system of parks in Boston that runs from the Common to Franklin Park. Each one is a ‘jewel’ in what he called the Emerald Necklace. What kind of Bostonian are you?”

“I’m from Jamaica Plain,” Alves said.

“Most of the Necklace is in J.P.,” Mooney continued. “The Arborway, the Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, Franklin Park—”

“Got it. I’ll study up on my history of the Boston Parks tomorrow. How does this tie in?” Alves asked Mooney.

“The Boston Common and the Public Garden are the first two jewels in the necklace. Then you have the Commonwealth Mall, the grassy area that runs down the middle of Comm Ave. That leads right into the Back Bay Fens where Kelly Adams and Eric Flowers were found. Then you have the Riverway, which leads into Olmsted Park and the Jamaica Pond.”

“So the killer’s taking us on a tour of the Emerald Necklace,” Connie said. “But why?”

“Don’t know yet. Maybe Adams’s necklace gave him the idea to take us on a tour of his Emerald Necklace. Maybe he works for the Parks Department, a laborer, a supervisor.” Mooney paused. “Or a park ranger. Someone with a badge who might be able to gain your trust.”

Mooney studied the two men in front of him on the dark hill. One of
them was a student of Boston’s history, the other was not. The killer was someone with knowledge beyond knowing that kids from Dorchester hated kids from Southie, and that kids from Southie hated kids from Charlestown. The killer was someone who understood Boston. Here, all along, they’d been thinking that the killer was giving them clues—the Tai-ji stamps and the fortunes. That was crap. The real clues were much more subtle. The killer was challenging them on a level he didn’t usually find in criminals.

C
onnie had seen something at Peter’s Hill that he hadn’t mentioned
to Alves. He was irritated that Alves had kept the Tai-ji from him. Alves had never held back anything before. Maybe Alves was following Mooney’s orders to keep the symbol a secret. Maybe Alves didn’t trust him. For whatever reason, things had changed.