2 in the Hat (19 page)

But Connie had the details now. He stretched out on the couch in his basement. The one place he could really focus. Here he could block out distractions and think, and now he was running possible scenarios through his head.

The Tai-ji symbol might be the key to everything. It represented the Yin and the Yang, symbols of the opposite forces of nature, in balance, continually changing. But what did the symbol mean to the killer? Was it an obsession, however misguided, with Chinese culture and philosophy? Or was he trying to give them a false lead? Either way, it would reveal something about the killer.

Interesting thought. What if it was just by chance that the first female victim had a Tai-ji tattooed on the back of her neck? Now, maybe, he was copying the symbol to make each murder look the same.

He believed that the first murders were the most important. The murders of Adams and Flowers were unorganized, spontaneous, unplanned. Something provoked the killer to strike. Stressors. A lost job, a
fight with a girlfriend, sure, but more likely something like a surge of electricity scouring through the circuitry of the body till there was no choice but to act.

Connie needed to bring himself back to that time, to visualize things as they were ten years earlier. The murders had all occurred in the summer months, when Connie was home from college in Arizona, between his junior and senior years.

Connie remembered where
he
was and what
he
was doing that summer, but he needed to put himself back into the climate in the city. He couldn’t just
think
back on the time, he had to relive it. Then he could turn his focus on the murders and put himself in the place of the killer.

That was something that Alves and Mooney didn’t understand. They were good at processing crime scenes and pursuing leads doggedly, but they had no idea how to think like a killer.

Connie was good at that.

S
leep was a careful driver, not too fast and certainly not too slow. Just
a couple of miles over the speed limit so as not to draw attention to himself. He didn’t want anyone to notice him, especially the police. His headlights, taillights and signals were all working properly. He checked them each time before he went out.

He would have liked to have gotten closer to the investigation on Peter’s Hill, but he knew where to draw the line. Push too hard and people start asking questions. He had come close enough to get a taste of the investigation, to smell the scent of the grass on a cool autumn evening, to imagine himself back on that hill with the young lovers. They must have been marvelous under those brilliant lights.

He was sure no one had noticed him, tangled in the stalled traffic. And if they did bother to take a look, that’s where his little disguise came in handy.

Now he needed to get back to work, check on his next subjects. He knew their hangouts. It was amazing how many couples were out there every night. He was sure their parents didn’t know what they were up to, drinking and partying. Or maybe their parents didn’t care.

The not caring, the indifference, that’s what made it so easy for Sleep and his brother Death to enter their lives.

I
t had been years since Connie had set foot in the microfiche room
at the main branch of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. He had spent so many summer afternoons in this room, staring into the screens, doing research for his honors thesis in history. Even after recent renovations to the building, the room still had the dusty feel of an old library, a true depository of information. That was what Connie loved about it.

Instead of taking a rare sick day, Connie could have stayed in his office and Googled key terms related to the Prom Night Killer. There were plenty of articles online about the killer and his crimes. But sitting at a computer wouldn’t take him back to the time of the original murders. Reading the newspaper articles, seeing the ads and announcements from the time would remind him of everything that was going on, from the Boston sports teams to the local political landscape. He could read about which department stores were having sales, what movies were playing in theaters, and, most of all, how the public was reacting to the killings.

Connie planned to read every issue of the
Globe
and the
Herald
from that summer. That was how he worked, slow, methodical, and thorough. Each line he read brought him back in time. The heat came early that year, before the murders began. One of the hottest summers on record. He thought back to the Tai-ji, the Yin and the Yang, opposite forces at
balance in nature. The hot and the cold. Was the killer trying to send a message about the heat that summer, that things were out of balance, that the hot was too hot, that it lasted well into fall? That wouldn’t explain why he’d stopped.

As he was going through the papers, he came across a short article on page three of the Metro Region section, just below the fold.
ONE DEAD IN ROXBURY SHOOTING
, the small headline proclaimed.
In a bold daylight shooting, notorious gang member Marcus Little was shot and killed on Columbia Road. Although the shooting occurred on a busy section of the street, no witnesses have stepped forward. The victim’s younger brother, Darius “D-Lite” Little was arrested after a brief altercation with police. When questioned by reporters, the officer who ordered the arrest, Homicide Sergeant Wayne Mooney, refused comment
.

Connie could see why Darius Little—Luther—hated Wayne Mooney. Their first meeting ended with Luther getting arrested at his brother’s murder scene. The family was vocal about their mistrust of the department and Mooney, telling the newspapers that he should take himself off the case. He had arrested an innocent grieving boy, they claimed. They suggested that he would have worked harder to catch Marcus’s killer if Marcus had been white. Mooney stayed on the case, but he never caught Marcus’s killer.

Within weeks, Adams and Flowers turned up dead. Two white high school seniors murdered. With all the pressure to catch the Prom Night Killer, Marcus Little’s murder must have slipped down on the priority list. Connie wondered if Mooney did put enough effort into solving Marcus’s murder. How could he, when Mooney was in the paper nearly every day trying to catch his first serial killer, trying to make a name for himself?

Connie was not distracted by the high-pitched squeal of the microfiche machines fast-forwarding and rewinding around him. He savored the sounds of this place. They were comforting, reassuring. Other researchers had come here hunting for information, learning about their history, reading old newspapers from as far back as the early 1800s. He had to trust that his thoroughness would lead him to more discoveries. More links in the case.

Interesting story in early September 1998. It was an article about a mob wannabe named Richard Zardino getting fingered on a gangland murder. A federal informant had testified before a grand jury that Zardino shot and killed a man in retaliation for an earlier murder.
Zardino was taken into custody and didn’t breathe fresh air outside the prison walls for eight years.

The summer of ’98 had been interesting for a lot of people. Luther going crazy after his brother’s unsolved murder, Zardino taking a hit on a murder he didn’t commit, a city in fear of a violent killer, and Wayne Mooney at the center of it all.

Connie rewound the microfiche and pushed away from the machine and let his eyes adjust to the light in the room. After a few minutes he got up and returned his stack of microfiche reels to the librarian.

He hadn’t realized how long he was tucked away in the room. The late afternoon sun cast a long shadow of the library toward the Trinity Church. He had spent the entire day squinting into the gray screen. Not even a lunch break. It was worth it, though. He had learned a lot about that summer, and so much had come back to him. He walked toward the church, the sun at his back, a cool afternoon breeze in his face. He would walk down Boylston and then cut over to Comm Ave. and make his way to the Public Garden and the Common. He loved that walk. He needed to relax a bit.

He called his investigators on the cell. He needed them to get some information for him. Now his head was right. Tomorrow he would get his hands dirty. He was looking forward to it.

A
lves held the receiver to his ear. He wasn’t certain if he should
make the call. But Marcy was standing firm. She wasn’t coming back with the twins till the killer was caught. And if he didn’t mention it to Mooney, the Sarge didn’t need to know about the call. Why close off any avenue that might lead to something?

As he listened to the dial tone, he thought about his day—interviewing students about the last time they’d seen their friends Nathan Tucker and Karen Pine alive. They were students, sophomores at Boston University, found on Peter’s Hill. All he’d uncovered after a day of interviews was that they’d been out with friends at a bar on Monday night. Used fake IDs to get in. Nathan’s friends said he was hoping to go back to her place after they left the bar, but they never made it.

He should be out on the street doing something, but right now he didn’t know what that something was. Alves dialed the number.

A woman with a pleasant voice answered, “FBI. How may I direct your call?”

“Special Agent John Bland, please.”

Alves had met Bland and his partner when they were called in on a case three years ago. But Mooney had seen that their working relationship ended in bad feelings. Mooney had “fired” them, accusing them of undercutting his investigation. Luckily Alves had saved Bland’s card. He
was pretty sure Bland was the taller of the two, the one who did most of the talking.

“Detective Alves, nice to hear from you.” He recognized Bland’s voice. “How are things?”

“Not bad.” Alves lied. “You told me three years ago if I ever needed you to give a call.”

“The Prom Night Killer is back.”

“I was wondering if you could look over the case files. Tell me what we might be looking at here.”

“Do you want me to come up to Boston?”

Alves could only imagine Mooney walking in on the agent reading the files.

“Or you can send me copies of the reports, photos, everything from the crime lab and the ME.”

“Sounds good.” Alves couldn’t help but think what a good guy Bland was. He put aside all the bullshit and focused on what was important. “I really appreciate you helping me with this, especially since we haven’t been overly hospitable to you.”

“I understand the position you’re in, detective. I don’t blame you for any of this. Any time we can help catch a murderer, we’re glad to help.”

“I’ll FedEx that stuff to you today.”

“Detective Alves? About that Blood Bath case. That one still bothers me,” Bland said. “I’m not convinced Beaulieu was your killer.”

The accusation was a sucker punch. Robyn Stokes, one of the victims, was a childhood friend. Another was a colleague in the DA’s office. A wave of nausea washed over Alves. Bland’s instinct hit on something he had been asking himself since the day Mitch Beaulieu jumped from that courthouse balcony, taking the truth with him. Something didn’t sit right with the way the case ended.

“We had solid evidence against him,” Alves said, trying to convince himself. “We never got a confession. But the answers he gave us during our interview were evasive. They showed his consciousness of guilt. Beaulieu also had the opportunity and means to kill each of the victims. Then he killed one of his co-workers, Nick Costa, maybe when he got too close to the truth. And Agent Bland, the killings stopped when he died.”

“I remember reading about the evidence at the time. It was all circumstantial,” Bland continued the argument.

“Sometimes circumstantial evidence is the best kind,” Alves said.
“Circumstances can’t be mistaken, and they certainly don’t lie. We had his shoe print outside a victim’s house, we had his hairs at the scene of the last murder, we found his brand of condom near the same house.” Alves was aware of how he sounded—like he was arguing a losing cause.

Bland said, “If I recall, the finishing touch was the room in his house where he had built a shrine to his father. Video of that room was leaked to the media.”

“That wasn’t our fault. That came straight from the mayor. It was a bizarre scene.”

“I’m sure it was. But it’s not what I would have expected to find in the killer’s home. It sounds like a memorial put together by a lonely, depressed young man who missed his father. A father who had also committed suicide, if I remember right. I think Mitch Beaulieu was more likely to have suicidal ideation, rather than homicidal. When the pressure gets to a guy like that he directs his frustration internally, on himself. He wouldn’t have an external lashing out at others.”

“So you don’t think he was the killer?” Alves asked.

“I’m not saying that. I’m not sure. I like to question everything. And what you found in his apartment wasn’t what I had expected.” Bland was silent for a couple of seconds. “Were there any other suspects at the time?”

“Everyone in the courthouse was a suspect.”

“So anyone who worked there would have had the same means and opportunity that Beaulieu had?”

“We had physical evidence that pointed to him.”

“Could any of that evidence have been planted?”

Alves was starting to see what had infuriated Mooney. What was Bland suggesting? That any of the items could have been placed there by someone else who had access to Mitch and his stuff? And they were too stupid to know the difference?

Bland continued, “Don’t you find it odd that this guy was so careful not to leave any evidence at the crime scenes? There was no indication that he was doing anything sexual with his victims. Yet as the police are converging on the courthouse, trying to find out who may have had access to the jurors, the killer suddenly decides to make a post mortem sexual assault on his final victim, leaving hairs and a condom at the scene that point directly to Mitch Beaulieu.”