The Secret Friend (24 page)

72

Walter shoved her up against the wall and jammed the stump of his disfigured hand against her mouth. ‘Say one word and I’ll lock you in the dark with no food. Do you want that?
Do you?’

Hannah shook her head.

The doorbell rang again. Looking past his horribly scarred face, she saw the basement steps leading up to an opened door; saw kitchen cabinets and the ceiling of another room. Less than a dozen steps. If only she wasn’t handcuffed…

What if the police were at the door?

Bite his hand, get it away from your mouth and scream DO IT.

Walter yanked her away from the wall, spinning her around and wrapping his arm around her throat, squeezing as he dragged her back down the hallway. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t fight him. He was too strong.

He stepped up next to the card reader. It beeped and he pressed 2 followed by 4 and 6. She didn’t see the last number.

The door opened. Walter shoved her inside. Hannah tripped and fell against the floor. A moment later, the room went dark. Hannah hugged her knees close to her chest and rocked back and forth, trying to stifle her tears.

Walter grabbed the .22 Bulldog from the kitchen cabinet. He kept the gun behind his back as he moved inside the living room and looked through the window.

Standing on his front porch was a heavyset woman bundled up in a bulky winter coat, hat and scarf. Walter didn’t recognize her. She was holding a dish wrapped in tinfoil.

He checked the street and didn’t see any cars. His was the only house on this street. He looked back to the woman.

Answer the door or let her leave?

She rang the doorbell again.

The woman smiled as the door opened. The smile faltered a little when she saw his face. It took her a moment to recover.

‘Hello, I’m your new neighbour, Gloria Lister.’

Walter didn’t answer. He stared at the snow melting against her boots, knowing she was shocked by his face, knowing she was judging him. He wanted to swing the door shut and hide.

When he didn’t introduce himself, the woman broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘The lights were on, and when I saw your car in the driveway, I thought you were home,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to leave this pie out here, so I rang the doorbell a few times. It’s apple. I’m a baker –’

‘I’m allergic to apples.’ A lie. He wanted her to leave. Now.

‘Oh… okay, well, I’ll take it back then.’ She waited a moment, and when he didn’t answer, she said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. Have a good night.’

Walter slammed the door shut. He put on the padlocks and shut off all the lights. He felt dizzy.

He should have said hello. He should have taken the pie. Tomorrow, when his new neighbour went to work, she would tell all her friends at the bakery about her strange neighbour, the man with the ugly, scarred face.
I was glad to go, really, he looked like a monster,
Gloria would say, and they would all have a good laugh. People would talk. Word would get around – it always did in small towns – and sooner or later the police would get wind of Gloria Lister’s strange neighbour who didn’t invite her inside his home, who left her standing outside in the cold with her pie. Maybe the police would pay him a visit, decide to come inside and take a look around. You never knew.

He should have at least said hello.

Using the wall for support, he stumbled into the living room and looked out the window again, watching his new neighbour carefully manoeuvring her way over the icy patches on the street. Walter wondered what it would be like to invite a woman inside his house. That would be a first.

73

Darby was reviewing the DVD Malcolm Fletcher had sent to Jonathan Hale when she heard a knock on the door.

‘I’ve got some news on the unknown makeup sample,’ Keith Woodbury said. He wore a winter coat and his face was red from the cold. ‘Follow me to my office.’

Seated behind his desk, Woodbury removed a sheet of paper from a folder. He handed her the FTIR graph showing the breakdown of the chemical compounds and their individual concentrations.

‘For the past week, I’ve been playing the chemical version of Scrabble with my MIT friend, rearranging the compounds,’ Woodbury said. ‘What threw us off were the levels of titanium dioxide. It’s a mineral. You can find traces of it in everything from food to cosmetics. You don’t need to take notes. This will all be in my report.

‘One of the products found in the sweatshirt sample is called Derma. It’s a cosmetic concealer used to hide severe facial scarring caused by acne, surgery or burns. The product comes in a variety of shades so the patient can match it to their individual skin pigmentation. A good number of plastic surgeons and dermatologists recommend it to their patients. It’s not a prescription item any more – it used to be, until the late nineties – but you can’t buy it at a store, at least not yet. The company is manufacturing a new line of cosmetics that, starting next year, will be carried nationwide in department stores like Macy’s. At the moment, you can only order Derma through the company website.’

Woodbury handed her another graph. ‘This is the unknown sample,’ he said. ‘It’s LYCD, shorthand for live yeast cell derivative. It’s a relatively new chemical – that’s the reason why FTIR couldn’t identify it. LYCD isn’t listed in any of the cosmetics databases.’

‘What is it?’

‘To put it simply, LYCD provides oxygen to the skin, allowing it to breathe. It’s a facial cream but not a traditional one. LYCD is supposed to help facilitate the healing. You apply it to either a fresh incision or a severe burn. It’s also supposed to help relax scar tissue. Did Judith Chen have any facial scarring?’

‘No.’

‘What about Emma Hale?’

‘Her face was flawless.’

‘Did either woman get a chemical peel?’

‘I don’t know. Judith Chen didn’t make enough money to afford something like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Emma Hale did.’

‘The sweatshirt sample contained
both
Derma and LYCD. As I said, LYCD is designed for fresh incisions, burns or scars. You apply the LYCD cream to your face in the morning and then at night, before bed. A container lasts about thirty days. Derma is used to camouflage the scarring. It’s for people who have sensitive or problematic skin. It doesn’t contain any alcohol. Most over-the-counter cosmetic concealers contain some alcohol-based preservative which, for some people, can irritate the face.’

‘Let me ask you this,’ Darby said. ‘Could someone with normal skin use it as a beauty treatment?’

‘You mean younger, healthier looking skin in thirty days or your money back?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I suppose you could use it for that purpose, but there are better products on the market, ones you can readily purchase in high-end specialty stores. What do you ladies call it? Hope in a jar?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Don’t you watch
Oprah?’

‘No.’

‘I thought all women watched
Oprah.
It’s like a law or something.’ Woodbury grinned as he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. ‘Okay, let’s say you wanted to use LYCD because you believed it would help make your skin more youthful. You’d have to go to a dermatologist’s office or a burn clinic. I doubt they’d sell it to you on that basis. Did you find any evidence of recent facial trauma on either victim?’

‘Given the advanced state of decomposition, it was impossible to tell.’

‘If Chen and Hale didn’t have any facial scars, if they hadn’t suffered some sort of facial burn, then there was no reason they would be carrying either product in, say, their purse or backpack when they were abducted. The other problem is Derma. The shade doesn’t match Judith Chen or Emma Hale’s skin colour. That leaves us with two possible scenarios. The first is that these products belong to another victim. The second is that their attacker uses both of these products. If Chen’s killer was wearing Derma and LYCD, it’s possible he might have accidentally transferred the products to her shoulder when he picked up her body.’

‘How would I go about finding out who sells this LYCD cream?’

‘That’s where we’re in luck,’ Woodbury said. ‘Only one company manufactures an LYCD product – Alcoa, based out of Los Angeles. The product is called Lycoprime. You can’t buy it at a drugstore or purchase it legally online. You have to find a dermatologist or burn clinic that sells the product. Lycoprime is relatively new. Alcoa started manufacturing it less than two years ago.’

‘So we’re talking limited distribution.’

‘I took the liberty of speaking to one of their sales reps this afternoon. Eli – that’s the name of the sales rep I talked to, Eli Rothstein – he faxed me a list of doctors and clinics who sell the product in New England. I assumed you’d want to start there.’

‘You assumed correctly.’

Woodbury handed her a sheet of paper.

The list of New England doctors was surprisingly small. Shriners Burn Center was a major customer, as were the burn centres in Boston’s two major hospitals, Beth Israel and Mass General. A handful of local dermatologists also prescribed the product. There were fewer than a dozen dermatologists in Rhode Island and New Hampshire that used Lycoprime.

Boston hospitals and doctors’ offices wouldn’t release any patient files without a court order. Neil Joseph could get the court order, but it would take time. Darby checked her watch. It was coming up on 4 p.m. If Chadzynski asked for the court order, people would jump through hoops.

Darby stood. ‘This is amazing work, Keith. Thank you.’

‘I’m sorry it took so long.’ Woodbury’s expression turned serious. ‘Hannah Givens… Do you think she’s still alive?’

‘I hope so.’ Darby said a quick prayer as she reached for Woodbury’s phone to dial Chadzynski’s number.

74

For the rest of the day Walter worked on his client websites. His thoughts kept drifting back to Hannah, trapped alone in the dark.

Hannah had finally spoken to him and then the doorbell rang and he had panicked and now everything had turned to shit. Now Hannah thought he was a monster. He needed to figure out a way to fix this and start over.

Walter went downstairs into the kitchen and found the phone book. The closest florist was in the next town, Newburyport. He called the number. The man who answered the phone said it was too late for a delivery, but the store was open until five. He thanked the man and hung up.

Walter didn’t like to leave his house. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, there was no need. Clothes, medicine, movies and books, even groceries, were delivered to his doorstep. The only time he left the house was to see Mary.

Mary knew how lonely he was. She told him to be brave. He had prayed for months for strength. Then one day Mary told him to drive to Harvard Square. She didn’t tell him why. It was a surprise, she said.

Walter sat in his car and from behind the tinted windows watched the college students. It was spring, sunny and warm. He wished he could be outside, mingling with the crowds. If he got out of the car, people would see his face in the unforgiving light. People would stop and stare. Some would laugh.

The piercing loneliness Walter had felt for as long as he could remember stirred inside him, awakened, and then disappeared, replaced by Mary’s love. His Blessed Mother told him he was beautiful and made him look to his left.

A sexy woman with long blonde hair was crossing the street, heading in his direction. She wore heels, a short skirt and a tight-fitting shirt. Her face was flawless. Men were eyeing her, turning their heads to watch, and she knew it. She was the most beautiful woman Walter had ever seen.

This is my gift to you,
Mary had said. The spirit of the Blessed Mother moving through him, Walter started the car and followed the woman he would come to know as Emma Hale. Mary said Emma was a special woman. In time, Emma would grow to love him. Mary told him what to do.

He had tried everything to make Emma love him, and when that failed, Mary told him to drive back to Boston and introduced him to Judith Chen.

Now Walter had Hannah and she refused to speak. He needed to make it right. He grabbed his car keys and headed out.

The heavyset man working behind the counter and a young woman doing floral arrangements stared when he opened the door, tracked him as he walked to the refrigeration unit and examined the roses. Walter could feel their gazes, as hot as fire, on his neck.

He decided to go with a colourful bouquet of mixed flowers. A chime as the door opened behind him. Flowers in hand, Walter turned and saw a boy no older than five standing in the aisle.

‘Are you a good monster?’ the boy asked.

The boy’s face became a great, bright white blur, like a star staring down on him from space.

Walter put his hand inside his pocket and gripped the small statue. His Blessed Mother shrouded him with her love.

‘I’m not scared of monsters,’ the boy said. ‘My daddy reads me a book every night about the monsters that live inside my closet. They’re not scary. You just have to be nice to them.’

The boy’s mother apologized and whisked him away. The man behind the counter smiled thinly as he wrapped the flowers. Walter thought of Hannah while he waited, remembered her skin, so warm and soft, pressed against his scarred body.

When he arrived home, Walter immediately went downstairs. First he turned on the electricity for Hannah’s room. Then he placed the flowers inside the rolling food carrier, pushed them through and looked through the peephole. Hannah lay in her bed. Her back was to the door.

‘I brought you a gift,’ Walter said.

Hannah didn’t answer, didn’t move.

‘Hannah, can you hear me?’

She didn’t speak.

‘I was hoping we could talk.’

No answer.

‘Hannah, please… say something.’

No answer.

‘If you want to eat, you need to talk to me.’

Walter waited. Minutes passed. She wouldn’t speak.

Walter stormed upstairs and paced around the kitchen, hands shaking. When he’d calmed down, he went to the closet to pray to Mary for guidance.

His Blessed Mother’s voice was faint; he could barely hear her. Mary’s voice grew fainter, as though she was dying, and finally she stopped talking.

He needed to go to Sinclair. He needed to pray in front of Mary – the real, true Mary, the one who had saved him. He needed to get down on his knees, press his head against the chapel floor and with his hands clasped together and tucked against his stomach, pray until his Blessed Mother spoke and told him what to do.