Sand City Murders (53 page)

“Do you know anything about that weird room, that circular annex up there?” I asked.

“The planetarium?”

“Is that what it is?”

“You didn’t go inside, did you?” He gave me a look.

“Well, yeah…”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t go digging around up there, it can only mean trouble.”

“What, like as in native American burial grounds?”

“No, like missing persons. Countless people have disappeared from that place over its long and checkered history. Who can say where they are now?”

“Really?”

He dropped me off at the courthouse with the promise to pick me up in about an hour at the nearby diner. For now, I had a date with Wilma at the county office, guardian of the records. I was certain they would be my most reliable source of information, and I had to be sure what this timeline said, not to me, but to everyone else. It was all cut and dry: Clara, Debra and Elaine Luis, still listed as missing persons. I also picked up a copy of Elaine’s birth certificate. Thought it might come in handy. Traffic was killer on the way back. Pretty sure I dozed off for awhile.

***

The next morning I pedaled up to the Sand City Police Department. Durbin kept me waiting in the lobby, busy talking to the new Bike Patrol, a squad of six men and women with strong legs and good lungs. This was their debut weekend, Memorial Day. I guess he had a lot to tell them. Sergeant Manuel finally led me into Arantez’s office and closed the door behind us. Durbin sat behind the desk. I guess I would have to get used to calling him Chief Durbin pretty soon.

“What’s up, Jardel? I’m kind of busy this morning.”

“Sorry to bug you then…” I started.

“What’s this… about the fire?”

“Not really.”

“Well, you’re talking to the wrong chief. You should check with Paul, SCFD.”

“Who? Chief Keller?” I asked.

Durbin shuffled through some papers. “Told me it was a gas main break… not arson… One less headache for me really.” Durbin looked up from his desk. “Get any good pictures?”

“I did. Got some great shots of the tug boat spraying water up from the shore.”

“Nice… so, is that it?”

“Actually, I’m just wondering how Inspector Fynn is doing.”

“How the hell should I know?” Durbin’s anger surfaced quickly.

“I’m just saying, you know you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Wrong guy, huh? Don’t start down that road again, Jardel.”

“What if I could prove it wasn’t Fynn?”

“I’ve got eight murders… Without Fynn in the house, none of them are solved… none of them even close.” The detective made a face of frustration. “He’s not saying much though.”

“Talk to me, Durbin… please,” I said then paused, “Can’t we think this through a little?”

Durbin nodded slightly. “Alright… I admit, I don’t see the big picture here. I get the barefoot killer… the young girls, but then the old lady? What the fuck? And how is Doc Samuels tied into this? He must be though, why else would anyone kill Emma and Alyson up there? And their murders are different… no barefoot bullshit… And then there’s Lucinda, the mystery girl. I’m goddamn fucked.”

“I think you’re making this harder than it is,” I said.

He looked at me, trying to understand.

“Match the shoes and you find the murderer.”

“Yeah, that’s what Fynn said too.”

“Why won’t you call in the feds on this?”

“You know what? I did go to the feds… I had a meeting with some FBI liaison in Fairhaven last week. The guy was a real asshole, started making jokes about Scully and Walter…”

“Who?”

Durbin ignored my question. “We got nothing…. without an ID on these girls, this is going nowhere.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“What the hell, Patrick?”

“Listen, it’s easy: you match the shoe prints to the shoe and you’ve got the killer. Six crimes scenes… same shoe, same killer, barring the swamp.”

“Yeah… well okay, maybe you’re right about that. But how? How do I match the goddam shoe?”

“I think that’s what Fynn was trying to do with his crazy Policeman’s Ball.”

“What?”

“Like Cinderella maybe… see who comes to the ball in those shoes.”

“Got it… Pretty smart, pretty lame too. And that’s not gonna happen.”

“Okay, show me your whiteboard then,” I said.

“My what?”

“Your whiteboard, that big flat thing with all the clues you’ve written down.”

Durbin made a face, maybe an angry one, but he got up and beckoned with a finger. I followed him to his old office, smaller and certainly more modest. He gestured with his hand. I looked and there it was. Written across the top in black marker were the eight murders, each with a long list of details. On the bottom, in big letters it said, FYNN. That was circled and underlined several times.

“Can I fix this?”

“What do you mean,
fix?
”

“Can I change it?”

Durbin nodded and sat down at his old desk to watch. It was obvious he had already done a lot of erasing and rewriting, though I couldn’t see past this current iteration. I grabbed the eraser and wiped FYNN from the board. I wrote
Mortimer
instead.

“Who’s Mortimer?” Durbin asked.

“Think of it as an alias. He’s the guy we’re looking for, the guy with the Italian shoes and the cane.”

“Okay…” Durbin muttered.

I erased Jane Doe number one and wrote Clara Hobbs. Durbin started to object. “Give me a second, okay?” I replaced Jane Doe number two with Debra Helling. And finally, swapped the names for Lorraine and Elaine. Doc Samuels, Emma, Alyson and Lucinda remained as they were.

“What the fuck, Jardel?”

I tossed a dog collar over to Durbin. The detective looked up at me.

“What the hell is this?

“A collar belonging to a yorkshire terrier named Roxy.”

“What does it mean?” Durbin made a face. “Wait, Roxy, pet-of-the month?”

“The very same.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Read the back, the owner: Clara Hobbs.”

“Who?”

“Clara Hobbs, went missing in nineteen seventy-five. She’s on file.” I reached into my satchel and pulled out her missing persons report, courtesy of Wilma Peterson.

“What the fuck?”

“Trace her… Fingerprints, dental records, or something, DNA...”

“There was no DNA in nineteen seventy-five… no fingerprints either, unless she was a major felon.”

“I’m daring you to ID her.”

“What are you saying? This is crazy shit.”

“You have everything you need… now that you know who she is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Match her to her birth certificate, dental records, family photos…anything. She is your first Jane Doe.”

“You’re wasting my time, Jardel.”

I ignored him and reached into my satchel again. I handed Durbin a copy of Lorraine Luis’ birth certificate. It had a big toe print in the corner.

“So who is this?” Durbin asked, now somewhere between annoyed and perplexed.

“You can read…” I replied and maybe a bit too sarcastically. “Match this toe print to the victim.”

“We already ID’ed her.”

I pointed to the whiteboard. “No, she’s Jane Doe number three, Sunset Park… placed on her mom’s memorial bench.”

“The corpsicle?”

I nodded.

“So you’re trying to tell me she was fucking frozen for thirty-six years and then dumped at Sunset?”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything. You have to make your own mind up.” Then I handed Durbin the birth certificate for Elaine Luis. “This is her sister… not Lorraine, on the sculpture…
match her toe print too
.”

“Sister? How come one is twenty something, and the other is fifty something?”

“Not a question I can answer.”

“Okay, say it wasn’t Lorraine at Spooky Park; this still doesn’t help your buddy Inspector Fynn much.”

“What do you mean?”

“It might mean he killed the wrong girl in nineteen seventy-seven and he came back for her sister.”

“C’mon, Durbin...”

“He still doesn’t have an alibi.”

“Okay, alibis… fair enough. First there’s this….” I fished through my bag and pulled out a statement from Oscar Fuentes the cab driver. “You put Fynn at Sunset Park that morning, right?”

Durbin nodded.

“This says otherwise. I talked to Oscar. He says he dropped Fynn off at Partners the night before. You can ask him yourself. The receipt you have was very misleading.”

“Okay, so I give you that one— what about the others?”

“I’ll admit, I’ve got nothing for Doc Samuels and the girls.”

“So you’re saying Fynn is good for those?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. It’s still this Mortimer guy.” I felt a little frustrated but I was well prepared. “I just don’t see Fynn doing anything like this. And why did he insist that Samuels was murdered? All he had to do was agree with you and call it an accident.”

“How about Lucinda? Where’s Fynn’s alibi for that?”

A smile came to my face. “Here, look at these…” I handed Durbin more evidence.

“What’s this?”

“His alibi for Lucinda… it was in his hotel room.”

“How did you get this?”

“I took a picture with my cellphone when you weren’t looking.”

“Figures… so... what is it?”

“A receipt from an antiques dealer in Pennsylvania. Fynn sold him a rare coin. I called him up, I emailed him a picture of Fynn and he verified the sale. You can double check.”

“And this... a bus receipt?”

“Yup. Doylestown, PA. Check the date.”

“It could be anybody’s.”

“It could be, but it’s not. If you get a court order, you can pull a video from the depot. I guarantee you’ll find a picture of Fynn boarding the bus or sitting in the waiting room.”

Durbin gave me an exasperated look.

“Either one of these alone gives him an air-tight alibi…”

“Jesus F. Christ.” Durbin looked totally stumped. “I’m not sure what to say. This is not making a whole lot of sense to me… How the fuck do you know all this, anyhow?”

I smiled.

“What about Jane Doe number two? Debra Helling— you’re calling her up on the board.” He nodded.

“I think you should test her for freezer burn.”

“What?” Durbin asked and then consider further. “Hmm, can’t do that though.”

“Why not?”

“She’s already a freaking corpsicle, sitting in the county morgue for the last two months.”

I dropped a copy of the
Chronicle
onto Durbin’s desk. It was open to page six.

“What’s this?” he asked and looked up at me, trying to gauge my intent.

“Police Blotter, April twelfth.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Third item down.”

Durbin read aloud, “A possible breaking and entering was reported by Officer Adams, 2:45 am, on the morning of Sunday, April 7th, Building 17, Canal Street, Long Neck Marina. Bolt cutters and a crowbar were found at the scene. A suspect was also observed. Adams reports an unidentified male wearing a black hoody sweatshirt fled the area but was not apprehended.” Durbin looked up at me again. “So?”

“You remember this?”

“Yeah, sort of… but, what’s it got to do with anything?”

“I know what’s inside that garage.”

“Let me guess, a car… So?”

“What if I could prove this car belonged to Jane Doe number two?”

Durbin gave me a look. “Well… I dunno, guess that would be a relevant clue.”

I laughed, reached into my pocket and held up a rabbit’s foot with two keys dangling on the end.

“And this is?”

“The key to a Pontiac, registered to Debra Helling, Jane Doe number two.”

“What the hell?”

“I can show you the car and her registration, and her fingerprints will be all over it. Wanna check it out?”

“Who else’s prints would I find on this car?”

“What?”

“Whose prints am I going to find?”

“Um… mine I guess.”

“This I can check.”

“You don’t have my fingerprints,” I said defensively.

“Ha, you don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“About three years ago, we did that free identification program for the Village. You did a story on it, and you volunteered your fingerprints back then.”

“I did?”

“Yes you did.”

I vaguely recalled what Durbin was saying and eventually came to believe he was correct, especially when he handed the file to me.

“And you have no alibi for most of these murders.”

“Wait, I’m a suspect now?”

“I’m just saying, Patrick….You know at least five of the victims.”

“Who?”

“Doc Samuels, Alyson, Emma, and Lorraine Luis, Lucinda…”

“C’mon Durbin… First of all, everyone knew Doc Samuels. That’s not going to fly. Okay, I dated Alyson, we were friends— why would I want to hurt her? Emma, I barely knew… I think Joey was sweet on her… And Lorraine Luis,
aka Elaine Luis
, well, I told you I was doing a story on that sculpture…” I paused. “You checked my alibi for Lucinda— the laptop?”

“Right...” Durbin gave me a half smile at least. “And I can tell you that your fingerprints were not found in Fynn’s hotel room.”

“What?”

“That’s a good thing, Jardel.” Durbin grinned slightly. “I made you wear gloves, remember?”

“What about my car?”

“Oh yeah, it’s in the back lot. Didn’t you see it?”

“No. And…?”

“Your Saab is free and clear, no trace evidence.”

“No bodies in the trunk?”

“No.”

“Okay then, I’ll give you a ride.”

“To the garage?”

“Yeah.”

“Who owns this garage?”

“Um… Fynn actually.”

“Really now...” Durbin made a face. “Alright, let’s go.”

***

It was a Charger not a Saab that took us there. Lights and sirens and a road that cleared out like a parting sea. Otherwise it might have taken an hour to get across Sand City on this particular weekend. Durbin pulled up along Building 17 near the Marina. I had a deep pit in my stomach and imagined opening the garage door to find nothing at all but an empty space and a few oily rags. It was certainly possible that Mortimer or his accomplice got here first. I was somewhat relieved to find the padlock still in place. Durbin helped me haul up the door and sure enough there was a vehicle parked under a faded tarp.