Skin Deep (33 page)

Steve shook his head. “Except the bottle wasn't wiped clean.”

“Maybe he handled it without getting his prints on the bottle.”

“Mean he shows up palming it by the knob? Doubtful,” Steve said. “This was a premeditated murder. Even if he saw the Clicquot with the note and saw an opportunity to frame me, he staged it to make it look like an accidental death.”

“So what are you saying?” Dacey asked.

“I'm saying Terry came down to look for me or maybe unlock the door. She spotted the bottle and sunglasses in the mailbox and brought them up. Meanwhile, somebody else e-mails or text messages to say at the last minute he's coming by. She tidies up and changes, he drops by with a bottle of Taittinger, she lets him in, and he kills her.”

Dacey and Hogan were quiet for a moment as the scenario sank in. Then Hogan said, “Unless she had the Taittinger on hand.”

“Check the codes to see if you can trace it to a retailer.”

Dacey nodded.

“So why did you drop them off in the box and not come up?” Hogan asked.

“Because,” he said, “I'm still a married man.”

They packed up their stuff and turned off the lights and headed back out. “You know we're going to have to file a report,” Dacey said.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He looked at the two patrol cars double-parked across the street. “You going to bring me in, or you got statement enough?”

“I think we got enough,” Dacey said.

Hogan nodded and put a call in to Captain Reardon. Steve would still have to face him.

“Thanks.”

They drove him back home. He went up to his apartment not knowing where the investigation would lead. He knew he'd have to face Reardon in the morning and maybe his suspension from the force. He was ready for that.

But for the first night in three weeks the pea was gone.

Dana loved her nose.

The ugly bump was gone. She could look aslant and not see the obstruction. Gone also was the sausagey thickness. In its place was a sleek, perfectly sculpted work that harmonized with her other features.

A week had passed since the dressing had come off, yet she'd still sneak up on a mirror, half-expecting to see her old face looking back at her. But it was gone, really gone.

As Aaron Monks had said, it would take another few weeks for final definition to set in, but she looked remarkably different even straight on. The swelling on her upper face had diminished and the purple bruising, though faded, still smudged her face. And even though she could cover that with makeup, she still felt self-conscious about going out into public.

Of course, Aaron understood and told her not to worry. In the meantime, he said they should formally celebrate and suggested Independence Day, which had a nice symbolic touch.

She agreed.

“It's your princely taste that saved your ass.”

Captain Charles Reardon stood behind his desk, peering down at Steve like a face hewn from Mount Rushmore.

“Your bottle of Veuve Clicquot had the distributor's own product label, which was traceable to Central Street Liquors. We also got this,” he said, and handed him a sheet of paper.

It was a grainy black-and-white blowup of a security camera shot of him at a counter with a bottle of champagne, the Clicquot label clearly visible.

“What about the Taittinger?”

“No luck there because there wasn't any retailer stamp. But the UPC price is thirty-four ninety-nine, nothing on your credit card records.”

“You mean you checked.”

“Your sweet ass we did.” Reardon smiled. “And next to you the killer's a cheapskate.”

Steve felt as if he'd been flushed with fresh water. Reardon was pronouncing him an innocent man. Yet he could almost smell the fumes of overheating rise from him. Reardon had not summoned him to celebrate his exoneration.

“That's the good news.” Reardon glanced at the paper in his hand. “The bad news is that someone else saw you trying to park your car in a resident slot near your place on St. Botolph a little before eight
P.M.
, an hour before the estimated time of death of Terry Farina. She remembered because she claimed it took you a half-dozen tries to get the car in the spot which, she says, could have taken an eighteen-wheeler. When you were finished, the car was at a tipsy angle and you stumbled into your apartment.”

Steve remembered none of that.

“In short, you were fucking blotto.”

“I had a beer and two scotches. What she saw was the medication on top of that.”

“You said you were off the booze.”

“I said I was working on it. Still am.”

Reardon looked at him with that flat stone face. “Well, while you're working on it you better work on reviewing the policies and procedures of this department, Lieutenant, because you withheld vital information regarding the victim. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but you're the second cop who's diddled the truth on this case.”

“The truth is that I didn't know if what I withheld was information real or imagined.”

“How could you not remember having drinks with the vic two hours before she's killed?”

“I did, but nothing after that because the meds reacted adversely with the alcohol. I had a memory lapse. Until I could verify my whereabouts, I saw no point in reporting what might or might not have happened.”

“You had receipts from the bar and the liquor store. You were with her.”

To try to justify his inaction would only make his case worse, so he simply nodded.

“I can bust you back to foot officer for this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reardon glared at him for another long moment then handed him an envelope. Steve did not have to open it. He knew it contained a formal letter of reprimand. “Am I off the case, sir?”

“No, and only because Sergeants Dacey and Hogan went to bat for you. Said you were cooperative in alleviating their suspicions, blah, blah, blah. You owe them thanks big-time.”

“Right.”

“Here's the other reason you're not chasing speeders.” He handed him a sheet of paper with the letterhead of the New Hampshire State Crime Lab.

“What's this?”

“They went back to the evidence box and did an analysis of the stocking in the Corrine Novak case. The results show the patented nylon combination that's unique to Wolfords.”

“Either female autoasphyxia is on the rise or someone's made the rounds,” Steve said.

An emergency meeting the next afternoon was called with Captain Reardon and Detectives Vaughn, Dacey, and Hogan, as well as the assistant D.A. and two other detectives who had been assigned to the case after Neil French was taken off. In a few days, the unit would be swelled by investigators from different departments as well as reps from the Massachusetts and New Hampshire State Police and attorney general's office, possibly full of jurisdictional contention now that the investigation had crossed state lines.

Because most homicide investigations were local, police did not regard a yet unsolved murder as the work of a serial killer. But with the stocking identification in the Cobbsville death, Steve went into the database of ViCAP—Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—and found two other cases of females found strangled to death with black stockings.

Each case was officially listed as accidental. On his request, the respective departments had sent records via fax and e-mail. Duplicates had been distributed around the table and at Reardon's request Steve presented a PowerPoint review of what they had so far.

On the projection screen Steve had displayed victims' photos, their personal data, pin-mapped locales, some forensic data, and what so far they had determined as common MOs.

“Six years ago, Jillian Stubbs, a fashion model, age thirty-six, was found hanging naked from her bedpost by a single black stocking in her Worcester apartment,” Steve said. “Again, no signs of an intruder nor forensic evidence of foul play nor traces of alcohol or drugs in the woman's system. She was single, living alone, and had no steady boyfriend. Her death had been ruled an accidental suicide. The M.E.'s autopsy reported that she had dyed red hair.

“Five years ago, Marla Murphy, a thirty-nine-year-old white female and former television reporter for a Washington NBC affiliate, was found hanging naked from a single black stocking in the shower of her beach house in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. She was gay and living alone. Her death had been ruled an accidental suicide. She had naturally auburn hair.”

On the screen was a spreadsheet comparing the women, their physical and vital statistics, and the similarities of their killings.

“Each was a single female between the age of thirty-six and forty-two. They were similar in body size, in appearance, and they all had red hair of varying shades, one natural, three dyed. Each lived alone—two were single, one divorced, the other gay. They were found dead in their homes, strangled with a black stocking—three so far identified as Wolfords.”

“Got to be the same perp,” Hogan said.

“Looks it,” Steve said. “But if it is the work of a single killer, we're going to have to determine what it was about these women that brought the killer to them.”

That meant examining their private, social, and professional lives for commonalties as well as geographical overlaps just in case there were particular venues where the women had lived or visited that could reveal the killer's topography.

“It says here that Jillian Stubbs was left-handed, like Terry Farina,” Hogan said.

“Yeah, again making it likely the suicide was staged.”

“According to crime scene photos,” Dacey said, “three of the four victims had beds with headboards. For some reason he shifted his MO from the bed to shower to closet and back to bed.”

“Since Farina's the latest, maybe that's his preferred killing venue.”

“Could be he changed to cover the pattern.”

Steve nodded and continued. “On the surface we've got a wide spread of professional backgrounds. Murphy was a former reporter, Novak a buyer for Ann Taylor, Stubbs a fashion model, and Terry Farina a personal trainer and part-time exotic dancer. But a common theme to each vic's employment is female appearance.”

“What do you make of that?” Reardon asked.

“I'm not entirely sure, but I think it may hold a key to how the killer was drawn to them—how he may have even stalked them. It's something to work on.”

“Given they all had red hair,” Vaughn said, “maybe we should put out an APB at the Irish-American clubs.”

That released some chuckles from the table. Given the mounting tension, had Vaughn told a moron joke he would have gotten laughs.

“What bothers me,” Steve said, “is that he might still be hunting.”

July 1.

The desk calendar hung right next to the photo of Dana.

July 1.

Twelve years ago today they walked down the aisle at the Unitarian church in Arlington center followed by a reception at Habitat on Belmont Hill. It was a glorious day and a glorious wedding, and they danced their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Markarian to “As Time Goes By.”

Well, time went by, more than a decade, and according to national statistics they were supposed to be living in their happy suburban Carleton home with two point something kids and entering middle age with grace and contentment. Instead, Dana lived by herself in their happy suburban home with her new face and new prospects while Steve bumped around a monastic four-room flat with zero point zero kids and not much else.

The good news—and the only good news—was that nearly three weeks had passed since he had last consumed alcohol. It was the one thing that kept him going because he tied that to the belief that if he conquered this demon, he might win back Dana.

“Hey.”

Steve turned and his heart gave a kick. Neil was standing behind him.

“I'm on my way out, but I want to let you know I got your messages.”

His face was an implacable pink blank. The slender end of a toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth. It had been a week since the break-in, and Neil seemed more drawn and his eyes slightly muddy, as if he had not gotten much sleep.

Steve stood up. “What can I say? I'm sorry.” Steve held out his hand, uncertain if Neil would take it or spit at it. And for a moment that seemed to last a week, his hand posed in the air while Neil moved his eyes from Steve's to his hand. Then he took it.

“You did what you had to do.”

“It was nice of you not to blow my head off.”

Neil nodded. “Until Dacey showed, I was convinced you were there to make a plant.”

“We're even.”

Neil had not filed a complaint for their unwarranted creeping, and Steve did not file a report that Neil pulled his weapon on a superior officer. Neither would have accomplished anything but a lot of administrative wrangling and lost time on their cases.

“How's the Farina thing going?”

“It's going.”

Even though Neil had been cleared, Steve did not want to compromise the integrity of the investigation even within the department. Also, over the last several days, Steve had, in total confidentiality, contacted Neil's superior at the Gloucester P.D. to determine if Neil had an alibi for the other cases. Luckily, as it turned out, during the estimated time window of Corrine Novak's murder, he was on duty with other police officers investigating the vandalizing of a local high school by some townie kids. And on the evening when Marla Murphy was killed in Wellfleet, Neil was at a conference in St. Louis. His whereabouts on the other two cases could not be pinpointed, but Steve was satisfied that Neil had nothing to do with the murders.

“I guess it's not official, but I hear it's gone serial.”

So much for tight lips. Admitting what they both knew might convince Neil that Steve's suspicion was dead. It would also serve as a gesture to make up. “Yeah. Got four so far.”

“Any suspects?”

Steve shook his head.

“Establish a motive?”

“Nothing yet.”

Neil shook his head. “So, what have you been doing?”

“Diddling with the files and hoping we get him before he gets the next one.”

“It's that bad?”

“Yeah.”

Neil made a move to leave. “How are things with Dana?”

“The same. How about Lily?”

“She's making progress.”

“Good to hear that.”

Neil put out his hand and Steve took it. “l wish I could make it up to you.”

“You can,” Neil said. “You get the son of a bitch, let me have five minutes with him.”

“You're on.”