Eight in the Box (8 page)

CHAPTER 21

M
ooney was anxious to leave as soon as he stepped into the VFW hall.
The hall was decorated with pink streamers and a Happy Birthday banner printed off a home computer, and he was surrounded by people he didn’t know. Parties were a waste of time, especially when there was work to be done. Sure, if it had been a party to raise money for a cop who was out injured, he wouldn’t mind kicking in a few bucks, grabbing a sandwich off a deli platter and downing a couple of cold ones, but this was just a birthday party. Whoopee shit, you survived another year.

Alves led Mooney across the floor to where Marcy was sitting with some older women, probably family. “Happy Birthday, Marcy.” Mooney forced a big smile. “Twenty-five, right?” He would be pleasant, for Alves’s sake.

“Why do I have the feeling you guys aren’t staying long?” She gave a look to her husband.

“Because we’re not,” Mooney shot back before Alves could say anything. “It’s not Angel’s fault, but we have to get back to the office. You understand, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” she said, still looking at Alves. “Angel, you promised.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but we’ll stay for a while,” Alves said. “I’ll be sure to walk around and say hello to everyone.”

“You’d better be quick about it,” Mooney said. “I’ll give you an hour tops. We’ve got a lot to do tonight.” He could see that Marcy was angry, but she was going to have to live with it.

Mooney watched as a woman snuck up behind Marcy and covered her eyes. “Guess who.” Mooney didn’t care who she was, as long as she distracted Marcy.

Marcy didn’t appear to be in the mood to play games. She turned her head immediately to see who it was. “Robyn.” She jumped out of her chair to hug the woman. “Oh my God, Angel, it’s Robyn Stokes. It’s been so long,” Marcy said. “You look terrific.”

“So do you, Marcy. Who would guess that you’re the mother of four-year-old twins?”

Alves stepped between the two women to give Robyn Stokes a hug. “You really do look great,” he said. “Robyn, this is my boss, Sergeant Wayne Mooney.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Sergeant Mooney.”

“Likewise,” Mooney managed.

“Wayne,” Marcy said, “Robyn’s a Mission Hill girl like me. We all grew up together.”

“That’s nice,” Mooney said.

“She’s done so well for herself. She graduated from Northeastern, top of her class.”

“Marcy, you’re embarrassing me,” Robyn said. “How do you know all this?”

“My mother keeps me up on all the dirt from the neighborhood. Sergeant Mooney went to Northeastern too. Didn’t you, Wayne?”

Mooney smiled.

“You’re a Husky?” Robyn asked. “What year did you graduate?”

“A long time ago,” Mooney said. Marcy was starting to sound like a used-car salesman. She was playing matchmaker and he didn’t appreciate it. The last thing he needed right now was a new woman in his life. He was too busy and women always complicated things. Mooney turned to Alves. “I’m starving. Where’s all that great food you promised me?”

“This way,” Alves said. “I’ll be right back, honey.”

“Could you feed the kids too?” she asked. “They keep going over to the table, sticking their fingers in everything.”

Alves nodded and smiled, leading the way to the buffet table.

“What was that?” Mooney asked. “She was trying to fix me up.”

“I know. And don’t think this is the end of it. She’ll probably bring Robyn over while you’re eating so you guys can have some nice dinner conversation. Marcy’s a very smart woman.”

“What does setting me up have to do with being smart?”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Sarge. She has us here at the party, now she just needs to find a way to keep us here. If that means setting you up with one of her friends, so be it. If it means making me feed the kids, then I’m feeding the kids. That’s why I brought you with me. If you want to do some work tonight, it’s your job to get us out of here.”

“Hi, Daddy,” the kids ran up and hugged Alves’s legs.

Alves bent down, took one of them in each arm and lifted them up. “Iris, Angel, can you guys say hello to Sergeant Mooney?”

“Hello, Uncle Wayne,” they said.

“Uncle Wayne?” Mooney forced a smile for the sake of the kids. “Who told you to call me Uncle Wayne?”

“Mommy,” Iris said.

“I told you she’s good, Sarge,” Alves laughed. “She’s even got the kids in on the conspiracy. Why don’t we get you a nice big plate of food so we’ll be ready to make our escape?”

CHAPTER 22

“N
ot bad, Sarge, we were only gone two hours.” Alves unwrapped the
piece of cake Marcy had packed for him. He usually ate healthy, but his one weakness was gold cake with white frosting. The only thing missing was a tall glass of cold milk. “You sure you don’t want any of this, Sarge? It’s a massive piece.”

“Too full. Maybe I’ll have a candy bar. I couldn’t stop eating the yucca and fried plantains. That stuff must be brain food,” Mooney said.

“Why’s that?”

“I think I figured out what our boy’s up to. He wants the bodies. I don’t know why, but he wants them. Maybe he’s some sick necrophiliac having sex with them. We need to check the DOC releases for all known sex offenders over the past year. This guy may have just gotten out of prison.”

“I know one of the screws out in Walpole. I’ll give him a call tomorrow. He’ll take care of me. I’ll check with the Sex Offender Registry too.”

“He wants us to know the victims are dead. That’s why the nine-one-one calls and the blood in the tubs. All these jackasses in the media calling him the Blood Bath Killer are falling for his little gimmick. But this blood-bath shit is just a means to an end.”

“Gimmick?” Alves shoveled a piece of cake into his mouth.

“If he kills someone and keeps their body, there’s no evidence of a crime. They just end up as a missing person. The case doesn’t draw the same kind of attention as a murder. Angel, I’m convinced this guy has killed before. We just didn’t know it. It pissed him off that we didn’t know. That’s when he came up with this whole blood-bath thing.” Mooney shoved a stack of reports aside and pointed to a photo of a smiling Susan McCarthy on the front page of the
Globe.
“He keeps the body as a trophy and throws us a curveball and gets the attention he wants. He even gets himself a catchy nickname.”

“That’s not bad, Sarge,” Alves said.

“It’s brilliant. But what it means is that there’s at least one victim out there we don’t know about.” Mooney took a Sky Bar out of his desk. Alves thought they tasted like they were left over from the fifties, but Mooney lived on them. The vending machines at headquarters were one of the only known sources of the relics. Mooney always broke them into four pieces, eating his least favorite—the peanut butter one—first. “Did you ever get a chance to look up the old missing-persons reports?”

Alves licked the frosting off his plastic fork. “I’ve got the guys from the Cold Case Squad putting together the files for me.”

“We need to go back at least a year to see if anyone fits the general profile of McCarthy and Hayes. I don’t think this guy started with prostitutes like a lot of serial killers. He picks his victims for a reason.”

“The missing outfits might explain that. Why do you think he takes their clothes?”

“He probably can’t have a normal relationship with a woman. I bet he’s a professional guy who deals with professional women. He gets rejected on a regular basis by those women. This is his chance to spend some time with them without being ridiculed. Maybe he dresses them up so he can undress them. He’s trying to create what he thinks is a normal relationship.”

“What’s next, Sarge?” Alves asked. Either he was getting a sugar rush from the cake or Mooney’s enthusiasm was contagious. Whatever it was, Alves was ready to repay Mooney for letting him make an appearance at the party.

“Let’s map out everything we have so far.” Mooney licked his fingers, savoring the vanilla square of his candy bar. “Tomorrow we’ll start looking through those old files to try and identify another vic. I’m hoping we can find his first kill. Maybe we’ll catch a break and figure out how he’s picking his targets.”

CHAPTER 23

D
ressed in his black running pants and hooded sweatshirt, Richter
stood perfectly still. He had disciplined himself to remain still for hours, invisible to the casual observer and to anyone who might hurry by on the distant sidewalk. While most people were afraid to go into a cemetery at night, Richter was energized by it. As a child he’d been afraid to sleep without a light on, until his grandfather helped him to appreciate the darkness for all its beauty.

The old man turned off the light in the bedroom. The child was sleeping away from home for the first time, spending some time at his grandparents’ farm. He was used to sleeping with a small night-light in his room at home. Now, in this strange bedroom, he was terrified. Was there something under the bed? Was there something in the closet? Could something climb in the open first-floor window?

“Grampa, I’m scared,” the child said.

“Scared of what, boy?” the old man replied.

“I’m scared of the dark.”

“There’s no need to be scared of the dark. I thought you were a big boy.”

“I am a big boy.”

“Big boys aren’t afraid of the dark. Next you’ll be telling me you wet the bed. Now go to sleep before I give you something to really be scared of.”

“Grampa, can you just leave one light on for me so I can see?”

“Look, there’s nothing to be scared of.” The old man waved the child over. “Come with me. I’ll prove to you that there’s nothing to be scared of in the dark.”

The child got out of bed and followed him down the long hallway to the kitchen. The old man opened the door to the basement and started down the stairs. The child stood at the top of the stairs, not wanting to go any farther.

“C’mon, follow me,” he said. “I’m not going to bite you.”

He crept down the stairs after the old man, who led him into a smaller room. This was where his grandmother stored her potatoes and turnips so they would keep longer in the cool, dark air.

“Why are we down here, Grampa?” the child asked. “What did you want to show me?” He was more frightened in the dark basement than he’d been in the bedroom. The only thing that made him feel safe was his grandfather beside him.

“This room is what I wanted to show you,” the old man said. “Where you’re going to sleep tonight.”

“Stop kidding with me, Grampa.”

“You’re going to sleep where I tell you. And tonight you’re going to sleep on that potato sack in the corner. You can use this empty sack as a blanket,” he said, handing the child an old burlap sack.

“But, Grampa—”

“No buts, boy. You’re going to sleep down here in the dark tonight. When you see that there ain’t nothing going to hurt you down here, you’ll understand that there’s nothing to be scared of in a dark bedroom.”

“I believe you! Now I know there’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll be a good boy and go to sleep in the bedroom upstairs.”

“It’s too late for that now. You go to sleep. I’ll come down in the morning to get you for breakfast. You’ll be fine. You’ll see that there’s no bogeyman in the dark.”

The old man closed the battered wooden door and latched it from the outside. The room was completely dark except for the thin light that fought its way through a crack in the door. The child started to cry. He ran to the door and pounded on it.

“Grampa, let me out!” he shouted. “I’m not afraid of the dark anymore. Please let me out.”

The old man didn’t respond. The child heard him make his way to the top of the stairs and then the light coming through the crack in the door went out. He fell to the dirt floor. He cried himself to sleep, never making it back to the potato sack that was supposed to be his bed.

Richter opened his eyes. Now he understood what his grandfather had done for him. Richter could become one with the dark; if he stayed there long enough, he would absorb all of it and become the darkness and the shadows. He could move anywhere unnoticed. This was important because he wasn’t in his own neighborhood. If spotted, he would stand out as someone who didn’t belong.

He had parked his car just off Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, near a couple of busy restaurants and bars where his car would blend in with those of the patrons. From there he had walked down side streets, eventually making his way to Forest Hills Street and the entrance to Franklin Park. After he ran through the park—an area full of high school track teams and joggers by day and, by night, muggers—he jumped a fence and crossed Morton Street and slipped into the Forest Hills Cemetery. At the farthest point south in the cemetery, the land, in almost an hourglass shape, met up with Mt. Hope Cemetery and Calvary Cemetery.

He had been in his position for some time when he heard them, a bunch of teenagers moving down the street, yelling at passing cars and smashing bottles. Someone was sure to call the police. If the caller was smart enough, he’d say he heard shots fired and the cops would respond right away. If not, the response might come in an hour. That complicated things. And she was running late. She should have been home by now.

There was a little knot of tension starting up in his neck. He had to relax. He did his best work when he was relaxed. Then at the corner he spotted it, a T bus crawling along, swerving to make stops. He heard the familiar whoosh, the crank of the door and she was there, on the sidewalk right in front of him. She walked briskly up the stairs and was swallowed in the darkness.

Richter saw the lights come on. From his vantage point he studied the nurse as she moved about her snug bungalow. It was shabby, but without a man to paint and plaster, she’d probably planned to save up before she tackled the big projects. He watched as she went through her mail and then as she got ready for bed. She didn’t go to sleep right away. She read a book on the couch before going to her room.

He admired her for her commitment and dedication to her work. She didn’t have children or a boyfriend. Obviously, she had put aside any thoughts of a serious relationship or of raising a family so she could focus on her career. She was a nurse manager at the New England Medical Center. Maybe she had bought the house in this neighborhood thinking she’d be one of those people that would bring about change. Maybe she planned to finally clear some time in her busy day for those community groups that left flyers in her mailbox.

Richter knew that none of that was going to happen, because he was about to enter her life and change everything. Not tonight, but soon.