Fear Nothing (43 page)

“Are you really so afraid . . . ?” the woman breathed.

“Better safe than sorry,” D.D. assured her. “Same goes for you, Mrs. Davies. Best to stay inside, and keep the house shuttered tight. If you hear any sound out of place, dial us direct.” Phil produced a card. “We’ll have a patrol car sent here immediately. Okay?”

“Okay.” But Mrs. Davies didn’t appear frightened anymore. She had that belligerent look back on her face.

“Do you want to see her again?” D.D. asked curiously.

“There are some things I’d like to say.”

“Such as?”

“I’m sorry.”

“
Why?
”

“I am sorry,” Mrs. Davies repeated evenly. “We were the parents. It was our job to do right by her. Then, when we realized we couldn’t, we should’ve gotten her to a home or to a place where they could’ve helped her. But we didn’t. We sat on our hands, waiting for something to magically change. For that, I’m sorry.”

“Mrs. Davies . . . What Shana did, that wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that, too. That girl is the devil, and the devil will have her due. But she was still the child, and we were still the adults. That matters, Detective, don’t you think? At least, it matters to me.”

D.D. shook her head, unconvinced. Not all children were childlike. And she’d met enough youthful offenders to know that some were well beyond the reach of any well-meaning adult, let alone mental health expert or even dedicated parole officer.

Mrs. Davies assured them she would take all necessary precautions. Then Phil and D.D. conducted a slow drive around the block, eyes peeled, just in case they’d missed something, such as Shana blatantly peering around from behind a bush. Or a trail of blood leading to a neighbor’s back door.

When the neighborhood remained quiet, they continued on.

Four
P.M.
The sun already beginning to fade, dusk approaching.

They went in search of Samuel Hayes.

 • • • 

T
HE ADDRESS LED THEM
to an apartment building in Allston, one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in Boston. D.D. followed Phil up a very narrow flight of stairs, keeping her right shoulder against the wall, reminding herself to breathe deeply—then modified that request to include breathing through her mouth, when the stench of cooked cabbage and cat urine assaulted her senses.

Upon reaching the fourth-floor unit, Phil did the knocking. He indicated for D.D. to remain behind him and slightly to the side. He had his right hand floating around his waist, not far from his holster.

So many things they didn’t know about Samuel Hayes.

Phil knocked a second time.

The door finally opened.

And they found themselves standing face-to-face with a man seated in a wheelchair.

 • • • 

“
I
HAVEN’T HAD THE HEART
to tell Mrs. Davies,” Samuel Hayes was explaining ten minutes later. They sat together in his one-bedroom unit, Hayes in his wheelchair, D.D. and Phil on the lone love seat in the modest space.

“I fell off a ladder a month ago, working on a roof. Apparently bruised my spine. First few days, when I still had problems moving my legs, the doctors told me it was due to the swelling; I just needed more time to recover. But four weeks of physical therapy and home exercises later, here I am.”

“There’s no elevator in this building,” D.D. said. “How do you manage?”

“I get on the floor and belly crawl my way down four flights of stairs. The guy who drives the rehab shuttle then helps me load up. At the rehab center, they have a wheelchair waiting, which I can use while I’m there. Then, once I get home, I repeat the process of crawling up four flights of stairs. My legs may still be shit, but I’m finally getting those big guns I’ve always wanted.”

Hayes flexed his right arm, his biceps bulging noticeably.

D.D. couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. Their top suspect was wheelchair-bound. Or at least claiming to be. He could be faking it, right? Then again, dragging yourself up and down four flights of stairs in full view of your neighbors seemed a pretty dramatic ruse.

Was this why the Rose Killer’s victims had been ambushed while they slept? After all, then Hayes could’ve dragged himself onto the bed, done his thing, dragged himself off—

Ah hell, she was reaching for straws. Samuel Hayes was not their man. But then, who was he?

“Tell us about AnaRose Simmons,” D.D. began.

Hayes blinked, clearly startled. “You mean the little girl in Mrs. Davies’s house? Shit, I haven’t thought of her in years.”

“Keep in touch?”

“Nah.” He shook his head.

“Tell us about her anyway,” D.D. prodded.

Hayes blinked, seeming to have to search his memory banks. “Pretty girl,” he said at last. “Like in that way where other people stopped and stared. Made me feel bad for her. Being a foster kid is hard enough. Being a
pretty
child . . .” He shook his head. “Not a good thing. But she was tough, too. You had to be, to survive being a kid in the system.”

“Sounds like you were friends.”

“We had a relationship of sorts. Including the first night she arrived, she walked into my room and announced that if I tried to touch any of her private parts, she was gonna scream. Then she walked out, like she thought I should know.”

“She have reason to think that about you?” Phil asked.

“Hell no! I don’t go around molesting little girls. Mostly . . . it made me feel sad. ’Cause clearly someone had, you know, to make her feel she had to say such a thing.”

“You two were friends.”

Hayes shrugged. “I liked her. She was a good kid. I tried to look out for her. Being a black kid in a white Irish neighborhood of Southie wasn’t easy.”

“Who picked on her?”

“Anyone, everyone. She was a fish out of water, and she knew it. But she kept her head up walking. She didn’t socialize much, though. She came home, went to her room. Probably felt safest there.”

“What did she think of Shana?”

Hayes shook his head. “Never saw them interact.”

“Really? Only two girls in the house . . . ?”

“Shana led a fast life. She didn’t even hang out much. AnaRose . . . She was a good girl. Quiet. Smart. I think she took one look at Shana and saw everything she wasn’t going to do, in order to one day lead a better life.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Ah hell . . . I dunno. Since she moved out thirty years ago.”

“State moved her out,” D.D. prodded. “Sent her back to her addict mom, after Shana cast doubt on Mr. and Mrs. Davies’s ability to control their foster children.”

Hayes squirmed uncomfortably.

“You’ve never talked to AnaRose since?”

“How? I don’t know where she went. Not like foster kids run around with phone numbers attached to their chests or forwarding addresses. We’re all temporary. We know that.”

“Think she could be a killer?” Phil asked.

“What?”

“AnaRose. Had to be a tough life. From her perspective, Shana fucks up and she pays the price. Can’t blame her for hating Shana after that.”

“Hating Shana? Please, get in line.”

“Really?” Phil switched gears. “Tell us about Shana.”

“Come on, man. This was all thirty years ago. I barely even remember those days.”

“You two were an item?”

“Says who?”

“For one, your foster mom.”

Hayes flushed, ducking his head. “Oh yeah, I remember now.”

“Nothing like guilt to make it all come rushing back,” Phil assured him.

“Okay. So. Shana came on to me. Totally initiated things. We had sex a couple of times, say a half dozen. But then Mrs. Davies ordered us to cool it. Shana might not have cared, but I did. Mrs. Davies was—she still is—the closest thing to a mom I’ve ever had. She accused me of disrespecting her and Mr. Davies. And that hurt, you know? So I cooled it. Not like Shana cared. She just wanted sex. If I wasn’t available, then she moved on.”

“And how did that feel?” D.D. asked.

Hayes took a moment to compose his reply. “When you’re a seventeen-year-old boy, to find out just how easily you can be replaced . . . That’s not the best feeling in the world. But it was classic Shana. She wasn’t interested in your feelings. Only her own. I might have been a kid, but I wasn’t totally stupid.”

“Did she show up in your bedroom again?” Phil asked.

“Couple of times. I continued to tell her no. She finally got the message.”

“Very noble of you.”

Hayes shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. Shana never claimed to have feelings for me or vice versa. I was merely convenient for her. That’s all.”

“Oh yeah?” Phil drawled. “At which point did she gift you with items from her father, Harry Day?”

Hayes stilled. Then, “Ah fuck.”

“We saw the note listed on the Internet, Sam. Thanks to Harry’s meteoric rise to fame in the past twenty-four hours, looks to us you’re all set to score a major profit. Convenient, don’t you think, that Shana’s escape should bring her father back into the limelight, and here you are, holding items that once belonged to a notorious serial killer.”

“Okay, okay.” Hayes sounded a little desperate. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do we think?”

“I mean, I didn’t get the items from Shana. I never even heard her talk about her father. All the kids in the neighborhood knew, of course, and we’d jaw about it, but only behind her back.”

“How’d you get the letter, Sam?”

“I found it.”

“You
found
it?” Phil’s tone was dubious.

“Yeah. Right before my fall. I was on the job, working a long day. Came home to a large manila envelope sitting in front of my door. I opened it to discover some old documents, the letter, that kind of thing. At first, I didn’t understand, but then, when I saw the name Harry Day . . . I did a little Internet research, confirmed the items probably belonged to him. As part of that, I also discovered some websites where you can sell this kind of crap—I mean, can you believe people
wanting
to collect anything once touched by a murderer? I didn’t do anything right away, but then, last week . . . I’m not exactly working these days, you know. If someone wants to send me money for a stupid note I found on my doorstep, who am I to judge?”

“You
found
it?” Phil pressed again.

“Yeah.”

“Show us the envelope, Sam.”

Hayes pushed his wheelchair back with obvious effort. His small living space was not meant for a person maneuvering in a large chair. It took several attempts to get the chair turned and headed toward a side table piled high with miscellaneous clutter. Samuel dug around, both Phil and D.D. keeping their gazes fixed on his hands, prepared for any sudden movements, because wheelchair or not, something about Sam Hayes just didn’t add up.

“Got it.”

He returned, equally laboriously. D.D. had to fight the urge to rush over and shove his chair back into position herself.

Phil took a second to pull on a pair of latex gloves. First he inspected the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven manila envelope. No writing was on the outside, nor had the envelope been stamped or sealed. Just a plain envelope, looking like it’d come straight out of the box.

Next, Phil opened the flap, then slipped out half a dozen pieces of paper.

“Birth certificate,” he read out loud, for D.D.’s benefit. “In the name of Harry Day.”

She raised a brow.

“A personal letter to a customer, about some carpentry project he was working on. Three notes to his wife. And this.”

The last item was a piece of faded yellow construction paper, folded in half to form a card. On the outside, it read in a small child’s script,
Daddy.
Inside, a more mature handwriting had written out
Happy Father’s Day.
The card was decorated with red and blue crayon forming various squiggles and what might have been a cluster of stars. Inside the card, in a large scrawl, the
S
turned backward, the card was signed:
SHANA.

A Father’s Day card. From a little girl to her daddy. From one killer to another.

“Do you have any idea what this might be worth?” D.D. exclaimed.

“Yesterday, not much,” Hayes said. “But now . . .” His voice trailed off. He seemed to realize the increased value of his cache wasn’t doing him any favors.

Ten thousand dollars was D.D.’s first guesstimate. Then again, an item this rare and personal . . . For the right collector, it could be priceless.

“You
found
this?” Phil pressed again.

“Swear to God.”

“And you didn’t question it? Ask your neighbors if they saw who dropped it off? Call the police to tell them you had just received items that once belonged to a murderer?”

“Talk to my neighbors? I don’t even know who they are. Before this, I worked dawn to dusk. Now I’m a shut-in, except for my twice-weekly stair crawl. Either way, I’m not neighbor-of-the-year material. In this building, we do our own thing, and everyone is happy.”

“But you must have wondered . . .”

“Sure. I wonder why I didn’t better secure that fucking ladder. Or why I thought it was so important to work on the roof, even though it was drizzling out. I wonder about a lot of things, Detective. Doesn’t mean I get the answers.”

“You understand how this looks,” Phil stated.

“You mean, like I had thousands of dollars’ worth of reasons to help Shana escape and Harry Day become front-page news again? Except I haven’t even spoken to Shana in thirty years. Not to mention she scares the shit out of me. And, by the way,
I
can’t walk or drive.
Some great accomplice I’d make.”

“There are hand-controlled vehicles for people in a wheelchair,” D.D. said.

Hayes gave her a look. “Does this look like the apartment of a guy who can afford a custom rig? You know why I listed that stupid note? Because I could use the cash. And the first thing I’d like to do is get myself into a building with an elevator. I’m not dreaming big these days, Detective. I’m just happy I still dream.”

“Tell us about Donnie Johnson,” Phil said.

Hayes blinked. “Huh?”

“Donnie Johnson. Thirty years ago. What did you see that evening?”