Flutter (27 page)

Frankie grabbed his shoulder and asked, “What have you been up to, Larry?” Frankie folded his arms.

Larry answered, “I’ve been doing my own research on your girl, and Abigail Paige does not exist. That ID is fake! She’s a fraud! She...”

“Keep your voice down!” Frankie interrupted. He looked around to see if anyone was paying attention. They weren’t. “What do you mean Abigail Paige doesn’t exist?”

In a soft voice Larry said, “I looked her up. I spent a few days trying to see if there were any reports of a missing woman and didn’t find one. So, I ran a background check and
nothing
came up under that name. Nothing! So then I placed a missing persons report.”

“WHAT!?” Frankie shouted in the pub.

Frankie was clearly not happy with this information. He threw a towel on the counter and stormed into the kitchen, pushing the door open. A few of the customers noticed. Larry smiled and put his hand up as if to say, “It’s okay.”

Larry followed Frankie into the kitchen. 

Frankie yelled, “Are you out of your goddamned mind? Why would you do that?!”

Larry said, “Don’t give me that, Frankie. You act like you don’t know how this works. This is what we do! You are a king at this. You know how to run checks without detection, so don’t play dumb. You should have run that ID months ago. You should have searched her thoroughly, and you didn’t.”

Frankie bit his lip until he broke the skin. His eyes were red. He said, “You are in violation, Larry. You should have
never
done that without telling me first.”

Larry rolled his eyes and walked away. He said, “Someone has to know the truth about this girl. You don’t even care to know.”

“I don’t want to know, Larry. Is this all about this pub? Is my happiness up for trade over saving this business?” Frankie asked with a disappointed look on his face.

Larry quickly answered, “Your happiness, Frankie? What about mine? I haven’t been happy since she got here,” Larry’s eyes watered. 

“What the hell does she have to do with your happiness? You would be totally fine if I hadn’t closed the fight club, and you’re taking it out on Abigail because you attribute my decision solely to her when I’m just over it!” Frankie paced the kitchen for a while and said, “I don’t know exactly where she comes from, but if my common sense were to decide, someone from her past was trying to kill her. You know this. They are probably looking for her and you... you lit a fucking beacon for them to find her. You selfish son of a bitch.”

“Son of a bitch? That’s where this is going now? Okay, I’ll take down the ad.” Larry felt disrespected and was hurt by the insult, but Frankie didn’t care.

“Yes you will. Take it down right now!” Frankie shouted. He wanted to wring Larry’s neck.

“No fucking problem, boss man. Anything else?” Frankie didn’t answer. Larry said, “You are so narrow minded, Frank. You wouldn’t know a concerned friend if you saw one. And you know what, I may be wrong about her. That’s possible, but at least I was trying to protect you and this good thing we have going here. I was trying to be a good friend, that’s all. Sorry that in the process all I am telling you are things you don’t want to hear.” Larry turned to walk away.

Frankie leaned on the counter, and with a calmer voice he said, “Larry, I know you mean well; but you have to trust me. That’s all I asked. God, Larry. You just shouldn’t do things like that without telling me.”

“Okay, Frankie. You win. I’m done. I’ll take the ad down and leave you and Abby alone to figure things out; but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you, Frankie. And if I’m wrong, trust me, the repercussions of me being wrong will never amount to the repercussions if you are.” Larry walked out of the kitchen.

Detectives Brown and Finch met up with Detective Tammy. She was in the Forensics Lab in the south corner on the 3rd floor. The lab was cold, with dim lights. There were two other lab technicians in the room photographing and sorting the remains from the alley murders. The walls were covered in white subway styled tiles. There were two commercial sinks by the back wall, a shelf of various tools, vials, bags and storage cabinets. There were vents and eight, 5 x 20 inch translucent windows resting 11 inches from the ceiling. The old windows were transparent until a brave reporter had rappelled down the wall to steal pictures of the room. He wanted to get an image of a female serial killer who had stalked and killed priests. In the process he accidentally fell, broke both legs and laid on the ground until he was discovered four hours later. Soon after, the windows were replaced to let in only light and nothing more.

Tammy worked with her assistant, Maria Sanchez, who took notes as she spoke. She saw Finch and Brown walk into the room. She smiled and nodded as they walked over. She said, “How’s it going?”

Brown answered, “As well as it can. Meghan’s been busting her ass trying to put some pieces together and has only stirred up more unanswered questions. But we feel good about the connections we’ve made so far.”

Meghan smiled. She took Brown’s comment about her work ethic as a compliment.

Tammy said, “Sounds good. Did you guys talk to Duffy?”

Finch answered, “Not yet. We came straight to you. We figured we would come ask about the murders in the alley and see what you’ve found out so far. Did you have anything more to add?”

Tammy was happy to answer, “Yes! Well, let’s start with the Benson arm. See here. These fingers were pried open.”

Finch was taken aback, “What do you mean pried open?”

Tammy responded, “Once the hand was disconnected from the body, rigamortis would set in and stiffen up the hand in whatever position it was in. Who ever found the hand first, didn’t find it with the fingers open.”

“So they opened the hand,” Brown said.

“Exactly,” Tammy said. “When prying the hand open, a few of the ligaments were torn. I did an X–Ray to be sure. I can tell the ligaments were torn
after
the arm was severed because of the lack of swelling and bruising. If you were to tear all these ligaments in your hands, they would look like sausages with plums for knuckles.”

Brown added, “And the only reason to pry open a hand…”

“Because you want what’s in it,” Tammy finished. “From what I can tell, this hand wasn’t in a tight fist but it was closed and had something in there. I wiped down the hand and found paper fragments that had stayed attached to the skin from oil and moisture.”

Finch said, “We know his ring was stolen, but what else? What was on that paper?”

No one had an answer. Suddenly Brown received an email and said, “I just got an email from MIT.” Brown checked the email. They sent the images from Eddie Cons’ cell phone memory card.

Brown shouted, “Son of a bitch.”

Finch leaned over to view the photos and said, “What? What is it?”

Brown turned to a picture with a better view. He said, “The hand
was
closed. And it looks like something
was
in it.” Brown showed Tammy the images. 

Tammy shook her head and said, “I hope that’s not a ring I see on the finger there.”

“Yes it is!” Finch chimed in. She was furious. “Cons is a liar!” She took out her phone and made a note but didn’t upload it to the shared drive. She said, “So now that we know I’m gonna kill Cons later... I know Downy wanted Duffy to take over but, what about the alley slayings? Anything you can share with us?”

Tammy’s assistant pushed the cart with the Benson arm on it closer to the body fragments of the men found dead in the alley. Tammy used a pointer and said, “Look over here. Compare these two. The tears, scratches… identical. The bones have clean breaks. There wasn’t any DNA we could use to link the two. We tried but nothing.”

Brown added, “These weird patterns here are identical.”

Duffy suddenly walked in and said, “Taking over my investigation?”

Brown said, “Sorry, Duff. We were just making comparisons.”

Finch said, “Duffy, do you think we could get Alan Jiang’s autopsy report? Do you know anyone up there that can hook us up without a shitload of drama?”

Duffy thought for a moment and said, “No, I don’t think so. I can make some calls.”

Tammy butted in and said, “I can dig it up. I have a few favors owed to me over up that way.”

Brown said, “Great! We’re gonna follow up with Cons and get back to you. Please call us as soon as that info becomes available. Keep it low key please; I don’t want to hear anything from Downy about this.”

“I’ll make that phone call right now,” Tammy said. She pulled off her gloves and picked up the phone.

Duffy, Brown and Finch walked out of the lab into the hall. They reached Duffy’s desk.

Brown said, “We’re gonna follow up with this Eddie Cons guy.”

Duffy said, “I have some work to do here. I’ll be here when you guys get back. I’m trying to ID these Johns from the alley. None were carrying ID’ on them, but we matched prints on two of them. There were two missing persons reports filed yesterday for men who, if we could piece them back together, would fit the description of names we pulled. I’m hoping Tammy can get the bodies presentable for the family members to come in and give a positive identification. I’m also hoping that they know the other guys, too.”

“Did you get any possible names?” Finch asked.

“Oh. Yes. One was uh...” he fiddled for a paper on his desk. “Scott Baine. The other we think is Caesar Gibbs. I know you guys are looking for a connection here but I don’t think these guys knew Alan Jiang.”

“But the murderer probably did.” Finch said.

“Very true.” Duffy added.

“Okay. We’re heading out.” Brown and Finch walked off and out the door. Just as they walked outside, Brown received a phone call from the Chief Downy. He told Brown that they were cleared to search Benson’s home, but only under the supervision of Benson’s lawyer Attorney Kasper Coltrain. They agreed. They decided to check in with Cons later on. Finch called Tammy to join them with her assistant.

Duffy went back to his desk and sat down. He looked at pictures of the murdered bodies in the alley. He was sickened by the photos and began to sweat. He wanted to vomit. The images were so grotesque he couldn’t believe that someone was capable of such horrible acts. He closed the binder with the images and wiped his brow. He then turned on his computer. On his desk he had a picture of his wife and daughter in a picture frame. He took a sip of coffee from his thermos.

As he waited for the computer to boot he received a text message. “HOW’S IT LOOKING?”

He replied, “STILL WORKING ON IT. I WILL LET YOU KNOW AS SOON AS SOMETHING COMES UP.”

“MAKE IT FAST AND GET BACK TO ME.”

He clipped his phone back to his hip. His computer was ready. He checked his work email. Nothing new came up. He checked his personal email account and erased a few spam messages. Next, he decided to open the shared drive. He clicked on the file folder and opened it. He saw a few new documents inside and said, “Interesting.” He tried clicking on the file but was not allowed access. He giggled and said, “So they suddenly want to be private. Hmm.” He saw another file named . He could not open that file either. He checked the folder to find the date of the last modification and it was that morning. He checked the files in the folder and noticed that none of the files had been modified. Then he thought for a moment, right clicked and hit

Duffy closed the folder. He picked up his phone and began texting someone. “THERE IS A HIDDEN/LOCKED FILE ON A SHARED DRIVE I WOULD LIKE TO GET ACCESS TO. CAN YOU DO IT?”

The person responded, “SEND THE INFO. I’LL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.”

Duffy closed the drive, leaned back in his chair and smiled. He took another sip of his coffee and went back to the lab where Tammy was preparing the bodies to be viewed by family members who should be arriving within the hour. Duffy cleaned up his desk, sorting papers and clearing off unnecessary files. He threw away old candy wrappers and receipts. He knew that body viewing was difficult for families so he didn’t want to look too sloppy, like he didn’t care.

After about 30 minutes, the families had arrived and gave a positive identification of the bodies. They only knew the nickname of one of the other men, Scissor, but the fourth man no one knew. Duffy decided that he would do more research on SCISSOR later. In the meantime his mind was bogged down trying to figure out why Finch and Brown were being secretive.
Or maybe it’s just Finch.
He wasn’t sure if Brown knew or not; but either way, he assumed Finch was the mastermind. He was determined to keep an eye out and stay on top of her. 

Meghan Finch and Sydney Brown arrived at Robert Benson’s home in Melrose, Massachusetts. They had also called in Alicia Tammy and Maria Sanchez who pulled up in a car behind them. The house was a light gray 2,500 square foot Colonial styled home with four bedrooms and an in–ground pool on a full acre of land. The house was on a hill with a two car garage under the main level. The driveway was constructed of flagstone blocks that circled in a path around to the back of the house. The stones also continued up the stairs that led up to the main entrance made of a mahogany door. The shrubs were slightly overgrown and the grass needed clipping, but it was obvious that someone had been maintaining the ground. Sanchez took out her camera and quickly snapped a few pictures of the exterior. There was a car in the driveway. 

Attorney Kasper Coltrain had parked in the driveway. He noticed the detectives approach the house and exited the front door to meet them. He was a short Jamaican man whose friends called him Duppy. Coltrain had an interesting story. Rumor had it he entered the United States when he was 15 years old on a school trip to visit the United Nations. Coltrain never made it back on the plane. He and his friend, George Fenton, walked out of the building, crossed the street and never returned to the field trip. They had planned it for months; but his family and school officials had no idea. Jamaican students disappearing while on school trips to the United States was nothing new. It had happened in the past on a few Disney World trips and trips to Washington, DC. It happened more often when students traveled to Great Britain. Coltrain and Fenton quickly blended in, forged paperwork and graduated from high school with honors. They both ran track at the University of Connecticut. Coltrain stayed for law school. Fenton was killed at a bar in Hartford a week after school reopened.