Eight in the Box (4 page)

CHAPTER 8

A
ndi Norton fished the car keys out of her bag before starting
down the stairwell of the courthouse. A habit she’d learned in a self-defense course in college. The parking lot was poorly lit—a couple of the streetlights had been out for months—but the courthouse was close to the police station. Pick up Rachel at Mom’s, toss something in the microwave for a quick dinner, read Rachel a story and send her off to bed, then get to work on the trial. As Connie had suggested, she was going to spend her night writing out her direct exam questions for her witnesses and practicing her opening. Connie had done a nice job keeping her nerves under control earlier, but the truth was that this “simple” trial was getting her stressed out.

She’d parked her silver Camry, a hand-me-down from her parents, in the far corner of the lot. Instinctively, she scanned the area for anyone suspicious before closing the courthouse door behind her. From halfway across the lot she could see the car’s dull finish, dirty with street salt. She had some of her mom’s leftover lasagna in the fridge. That wouldn’t take long to heat up. Rachel could have her bath before dinner to save time.

Footsteps behind her, soft at first, then ringing as they drew closer. Someone else was in the lot. Maybe one of the cops heading out on a detail or one of the ADAs working late. She turned, ready to smile, but saw a dark figure in a hooded sweatshirt. She tried to pick up her pace, but the footsteps quickened. Why hadn’t she changed into her sneakers? The high heels were useless. Looking over her right shoulder she saw the man in the gray hood closing the gap between them.

Panic rose in her chest and she tried to run. Why hadn’t she parked the car closer to the stairs? She clenched the key chain in her right hand, all her keys sticking out between her knuckles like spikes. They weren’t brass knuckles, but they would have to do.

She was no more than ten feet from her car but the man’s heavy breathing was loud. The battery on her automatic door lock and panic button was dead. She would have to use her key to unlock the door, the same key that was her only weapon. She felt a hand on her left shoulder, and then a tug on the bag in her right hand. A muffled voice said, “Run your shit!”

She was being robbed.

Maybe worse.

Give him the bag,
she thought. Isn’t that what they taught her in that self-defense class? Give up your wallet, your purse, your keys, your car. Give him whatever it is he wants so he doesn’t hurt you. But what if he wasn’t going to rob her? What if he was going to throw her in the car and kidnap her? What if he planned on killing her? What if he was the man who’d killed those women? What else did they teach her in that class? Fight! Fight like hell. And make lots of noise.

Andi spun around to her left, leading with her elbow, catching him squarely in the jaw. She let her momentum carry her as she followed with an immediate right cross to the side of his head, the whole time screaming as loud as she could. She didn’t get his face with the keys like she’d wanted to, the hood of his sweatshirt protected him. Before he could react, she swung her right foot up and kicked him in the groin. Her pointy shoes came in handy, maybe the best weapon she had. He was hunched over, clutching himself, gasping for air, and she was getting ready to give him another boot when she heard more footsteps running toward them.

Even in the poor light she recognized Connie’s familiar frame running toward them. She stepped back as Connie hit the mugger with his shoulder, knocking him down hard onto the asphalt. Connie stayed with him, putting his knee in the man’s back to hold him down before jerking off his hood.

With a jolt, Andi Norton recognized Nick Costa, who lay moaning, trying to breathe, blood running from his split lip.

Connie hopped up. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

Nick spit blood. “Trying to have some fun with Andi. Figured I could scare her.” He was fighting to catch his breath.

“You idiot!” she yelled. “You
did
scare me. What’s your problem?” She swung her bag at Nick, hitting him, and he yelped.

“I guess you figured wrong,” Connie said. “Are you all right?”

Nick nodded his head, unconvincingly.

Connie helped him to his feet. “You just got your ass kicked.”

“Yeah, and I’ll be sure to tell everyone about that in the morning,” Andi said. “As if I don’t have enough stress getting ready for my first trial, you have to pull this crap.”

“I’m sorry, Andi,” Nick said, getting some wind back. “I understand your being angry and all, but I think you and your goon here”—he nodded toward Connie—“have punished me enough.” He wiped the blood from his lip and stared at it for a moment before licking it off his fingers. “You’re one tough chick.”

She shook her head, stunned that he would pull such a dumb stunt. “I did give you a pretty good beating, didn’t I?” she said, trying to play it off.

“I learned my lesson,” Nick said. “I won’t be harassing any more pretty redheads in deserted parking lots.”

“You’re lucky she’s wearing a skirt or she really would have tuned you up.” Connie laughed.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Nick coughed.

A wave of accomplishment swept over her. She’d handled a dangerous situation. She’d impressed Connie. She smiled to herself, turned back to her car, started it up and backed out of her spot. It felt good to see them both jump out of the way. She leaned out of her window, blew a kiss at Connie and said, “I’ll talk to you later. And you, Nick, need to come up with a creative story to explain what happened to your face.” She accelerated, leaving the two of them looking after her.

CHAPTER 9

S
tanding in his garage, Connie unlocked the dead bolt on the
heavy wooden door and bumped it open with his hip. He’d bought the 1960s ranch with the attached two-car garage a couple of years earlier as a fixer-upper. Thanks to the summers he’d spent working for contractors during college, he was a pretty decent carpenter, plasterer and painter. He’d recently finished fixing up the basement so he could actually enjoy having his own place. The white house with green trim had been painted pink when Connie first saw it. That was probably why he’d gotten it so cheap.

Walking into the kitchen, he threw his keys on the counter and headed down to the basement. He flopped onto the couch and turned on the television. He could finally relax, knowing that the pager wasn’t going to disturb him. He still had some work to do, but at least he didn’t have to think about the drug case he’d given to Andi. She’d do a great job with it. He didn’t have any worries about that. And he’d seen a new side of her tonight. It had been fun watching her kick Nick’s ass in the parking lot. He’d never dated anyone who handled herself like that.

It was almost seven o’clock. He had TiVo’d the broadcasts from Boston’s major news stations and now he could watch them at his leisure. Once he got it started, he sat engrossed in the coverage of Susan McCarthy’s disappearance.

Sgt. Mooney and Angel Alves stood behind the district attorney and the police commissioner at a press conference. The logo of the BPD, a gray badge with its prominent
1854
on a background of deep blue, was fixed above their heads. Face time for the DA and the commissioner. Neither of them said anything significant beyond the fact that McCarthy was missing. They’d done a good job of giving vanilla answers.

Connie recognized one of the reporters with a reputation for sensational reporting. The man was positioned so his viewers could see his squared jaw and perfectly coiffed white hair as well as his station’s logo on his microphone. “Isn’t it true that Susan McCarthy is dead? That the physical evidence you have is a bathtub full of her blood?” His intense gaze swiveled smoothly from the podium back toward his cameraperson. Before either man could answer, the reporter continued his cross-examination. “Isn’t it also true that there was a similar murder a couple of months ago? And isn’t it true that the police are referring to the assailant as the Blood Bath Killer?”

The other reporters now began shouting questions. The DA responded to the barrage by saying that both matters were under investigation. His answer seemed like a resounding “yes” to everything. And that quick, the world knew there was a deranged killer prowling the neighborhoods of Boston.

Channel 7 followed the press conference with file footage of the Boston Strangler murders that had rocked the city between 1962 and 1964. Albert DeSalvo, the Strangler himself, was the city’s most infamous serial killer, so what better time to revisit those crimes? The Strangler preyed on women alone in their homes, getting in by posing as a maintenance or delivery man. He then sexually assaulted his victims, strangled them with their own stockings or bathrobe ties and left them in obscene sexual poses.

The report segued to coverage of Susan McCarthy’s daughter and distraught ex-husband getting off a plane and being hurried into an unmarked police car. Walter McCarthy’s hair was disheveled; his clothes were wrinkled and the circles under his eyes made him look as though he hadn’t slept in days. The girl looked confused and frightened by the reporters and cameras. She was maybe seven or eight years old and her long blond hair looked like maybe her father had tried to fix it for her. She probably didn’t really understand what had happened to her mother. Maybe she’d been told that her mother was dead, but she was too young to understand what that meant. Her father might have told her something that was easier for a child to comprehend, like that her mother was now an angel in heaven with some previously deceased relative, maybe a grandparent, and that since Mommy was now an angel she would always be with her and watch out for her.

Connie thought about how this little girl’s world had been instantly altered. This one incident would affect her for the rest of her life, as it would every member of Susan McCarthy’s family.

Connie was hungry. How many hours ago had he eaten his boiled eggs and tuna? The flickering images faded to coverage of the grieving family and friends, who talked about what a good, caring person Susan was.

What were people supposed to say about Susan? Should a jealous sister say that she hated Susan because Susan was always their mother’s favorite? Should a co-worker competing for a promotion say that Susan was a backstabbing brownnoser? No one was going to say anything bad about Susan McCarthy now that she was dead.

Connie’s grandmother had often used the expression “Never speak ill of the dead,” but he’d always thought it ridiculous. Did it mean you shouldn’t speak ill of Hitler? Mussolini? Stalin? What about mass murderers? Nobody could speak ill of Ted Bundy, who killed college students at the University of Florida and women throughout the Pacific Northwest? Or Richard Speck, who killed an apartment full of nursing students during one bloody night of self-gratification? Or Jeffrey Dahmer, who raped, sodomized, murdered and ate people in his apartment in Milwaukee?

Nobody was going to “speak ill” of Susan McCarthy, just like they never said anything bad even when a drug-dealing gangbanger was killed on the city’s streets. Connie was sure that the day Jesse Wilcox turned up dead from lead poisoning on some street corner, his mother would be on the television saying he was a good churchgoing boy. Every one of these gangbangers was a
good kid who’d just turned his life around when this tragedy struck him down.
Alves liked to joke about how there must be a serial killer who specialized in knocking off drug-dealing gang members who’d just turned their lives around.

When he looked back at the screen, the voice-over was talking about where Susan McCarthy had gone to school, where she worked, where she volunteered her time: Rosie’s Place, a women’s shelter for survivors of domestic violence. An elderly neighbor talked of how “Suzie” bought her groceries every Saturday and shoveled her walk in the winter. A blank-faced newspaper boy said “Mrs. McCarthy” would leave him a bag of homemade cookies with his tip every week. It was amazing how many people had been affected by her death.

Connie felt as though he really knew her. He wasn’t getting a complete picture of who Susan McCarthy truly was, but she was certainly the type of person he’d have liked to have had as a friend when she was alive.

The segment ended with a Boston Police hotline number anyone could call with information on Susan’s disappearance. Authorities were still calling it a disappearance, and she was officially considered a missing person. But Connie had been in that bathroom. Susan McCarthy was dead. No phone calls to a hotline were going to change that fact.

It was getting late. He had to fix some dinner and get to work. He turned off the television and closed his eyes. He truly believed that she was in a better place.

CHAPTER 10

R
ichter lifted Susan McCarthy out of the refrigerator. He didn’t
like leaving her in there all day, but it took time for the rigor mortis to dissipate. Now, twenty hours after, her limbs were moving smoothly. He could have worked out the rigor with a little massage and slow movement of the joints, but waiting was easier. He wasn’t in any hurry.

He placed her on the large, white enamel table he had once used to fold his laundry. At first glance it looked like a vintage laundry table from the 1920s, but it was actually an antique embalmer’s table he’d purchased at a bankruptcy auction at an old, family-owned funeral home.

Susan McCarthy’s skin was cold but still soft. All those years of moisturizers had paid off. The peaceful look on her face told Richter she was enjoying Wagner’s
The Flying Dutchman,
music he’d selected especially for her.

With the first few notes, he thought of the scene in
Apocalypse Now
when Robert Duvall’s Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore explains how they’re going to attack a Viet Cong village as helicopters fly in low out of the rising sun with massive speakers blasting
The Ride of the Valkyries.
Over the years Richter had collected all of Wagner’s work.

Richter studied Susan’s face. The minute lines under her eyes showed her age, but he appreciated her maturity. The bloodshot eyes were always a problem, though. Ocular petechia. It happened every time, an inescapable result of oxygen deprivation. Fortunately, you can pretty much find anything you need on the Internet, even dealers in old medical supplies.

He was pleased to see that the music had relaxed her, and the cold table didn’t seem to bother her much. He anticipated spending some good time with Susan after her transformation, but he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable in the meantime. The news reports told about how generous and loving a person she was, how she was admired as much for her character as for her mind. He’d made an excellent decision in selecting her.

Her face looked angelic in repose, her naked body somehow innocent. Richter began gently washing her skin with antiseptic soap. Now it was time for the real work. With great care he made an incision in her neck exposing her carotid artery. Raising the artery with an aneurism hook, he made another small incision and placed a tube inside the artery, securing it with string. He followed the same procedure with the other carotid artery as well as both femoral and axillary arteries.

The tubes were connected to a gravity tank suspended four feet above Susan’s head. The ten-gallon tank was filled with straight thirty-index arterial fluid, the strongest solution on the market. He had “acquired” the embalming materials from the same funeral home where he had bought the table. They had a full stock of fluids and powders, although they weren’t for sale legally. A late-night visit with bolt cutters and the discipline to take only what he needed before he replaced the padlock with his own assured him that the theft would never be detected.

Before removing the clamps on the tubes, allowing the arterial fluid to flow through her arteries and return the color to her skin, Richter inserted drainage tubes in the corresponding veins that allowed the remaining blood to flow out of her body.

But first he had the messy job of removing her organs and filling her abdominal and thoracic cavities with embalming powder and cotton. Unfortunately, there was no real way to preserve the organs and prevent decomposition. So this was a necessary step.

Tomorrow, once her body had absorbed all of the fluid it could take and he had stitched her up again, he’d dress her in the blue suit he had taken from her closet. Then she could join the others in the next room. He had a feeling Susan McCarthy was going to fit in just fine.