Skin Deep (40 page)

Steve called Dana's numbers again, and still no answer. He called Lanie Walker, who said she didn't know where Dana was. He called Jane Graham, two colleagues at her school, but they had no idea either. The same with her aerobics teacher, who had not seen her for at least a week.

His blood was racing. He made another call. On the third ring he heard Mickey DeLuca answer. It was about one o'clock and the afternoon dancers were on the stage warming up the beach crowd. “I've got a few questions for you.”

“I'll do my best, Detective.”

“I'm looking at photos of Terry Farina a.k.a. Xena Lee. She looks different in the older ones than your Web site shots.”

“Yeah, and that's because couple of months ago she got a new rack.”

“A new rack?”

“You know, inserts,
breast enhancements
.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Came back with friggin' musk melons. What a difference! I mean, like, the guys went wild.”

“I'm sure. But the thing is her face looks different also. Her features…”

“Yeah, she got a paint job, bright red hair. ‘Xena on Fire' is how we billed her.”

“I'm talking about her face. Her eyes and mouth look different. Know anything about that?”

“No, not really.”

“Did she ever mention getting any plastic work done on her face?”

“No. I mean, she was in her upper thirties, and girls sometimes do that, because customers like them young. But she never said anything about a face job.”

“When she took those weeks off in May, did she say anything about having some work done, maybe getting away to recover?”

“She never said.”

“Did she ever mention a plastic surgeon, or ever say where she got her breasts done?”

“Not a clue. The girls don't talk about their personal lives. We're pretty strict.”

“Know any friends who might know?”

“Not a clue.”

“Other girls or staffers up there?”

“Not a clue.”

His answer would probably cover any known subject in the universe. When he hung up, Steve dialed Katie Beals. He got the answering machine and left the message to call him on his cell phone as soon as possible. It was urgent.

His eye fell on the map with markers of where the women lived—a hundred-mile circle around Boston. All the victims were around forty and in professions where a premium is put on looking younger than their age.

All were in transition from relationships, starting over, reinventing themselves.

All were killed within weeks of having cosmetic surgery.

All dyed their hair red about the same time they had their cosmetic makeovers.

All had the same heart-shaped face with wide cheeks and forehead and angular jaw and full lips.

He dialed Dana's number. Again he got the answering machine. Steve tried to control his voice. “It's me again. It's urgent. Call me immediately.” He dialed her cell phone. He got her voice mail. He left the same message.

Almost seems like a progression.

Jackie's words cracked across his mind like an electric arc.

“Aaron, you're hurting me.”

“Sorry, I don't mean to.”

He loosened his grip on her arm as he led her out of the office and down the hall. Her legs moved as if they were made of wood.

“I think you need to lie down.”

But she didn't want to lie down. “I want to go home.”

She tried to concentrate on putting one foot solidly in front of the other. They were moving down the corridor from his office. The fluorescent lights were making a harsh glare in her eyes as she moved.

“There's a bed in here,” Aaron said as they approached a room. “I'll give you something to make you feel better.”

Through the haze she heard herself say, “No, I want to go home.”

“I don't think that's a good idea. The water's choppy. You might get seasick. Tomorrow will be better.”

She made a feeble attempt to free her arm, but he only held her more firmly. In a part of her brain that was still lucid she wondered,
What happened to the nice doctor? Why is he being rough with me? Why won't he take me home?

She continued shuffling down the hall with Aaron steering her. They turned into a dimly lit room where he led her to a reclining chair. He guided her onto it.

“You'll feel better,” he said, and patted her hand.

“I want to go.”

“Tomorrow. I promise. I'll get you something to make you feel better. Okay?”

She did not respond. She was having a hard time focusing on his face as he stood beside her.

“Just relax. Think of something pleasant like cruising in the Caribbean. You'd like that wouldn't you? Martinique?”

“Mmmm.”

“Maybe I'll take you with me.”

Someplace behind her she heard a telephone jingle.

“You stay put and relax. I'll be right back”

“I want to go home,” she mumbled. She watched him leave the room.
I don't feel good
.

She got up from the chair and steadied herself as the rush of blood to her head set her spinning. She shuffled to the door and opened it.

The bright lights of the empty corridor filled her eyes. Across the way was a white door. Hoping it would lead her outside, she moved to it and pushed it open, telling herself that she had to get out of this house, off this island. Things were happening that she didn't understand. She had been brought here for a dinner party, but no one else was here, and Aaron was acting strangely. And why that picture of her with fluffy red hair?

Vaguely she sensed that things were being choreographed against her, as if she were moving in a dark and elaborate scheme.

The room was dark but a relief from the too bright corridor. She felt the wall and found a switch. She flicked it on. The light was not so blinding as outside, but she still had to squint because her eyes were very sensitive for some reason.

The interior looked like some kind of recovery room with medical equipment and IV stands, electronic monitors and other equipment sitting silently in racks against the walls. Against another wall were beds made up in stiff white.

But what caught her eye was a gurney in the middle of the room. Because her vision was blurry and her brain slow, it took her a few moments to realize that it was not empty—that something was lumped under a white sheet.

As steadily as her feet would allow, she shuffled toward the gurney. Her brain fluttered in and out of awareness in rapid cycles as if what her eyes took in was illuminated by strobes.

From the impressions, the sheet appeared to be draped across a human body, for she could make out the little tents at the feet and the vague impression of legs and torso and a head contoured under the tip of a nose. Almost without thought her fingers picked up the edge and pulled back the sheet.

Dana let out a cry of horror. It was Aaron Monks.

“Aaron Monks. The cosmetic surgeon. I don't know what I've got, but I want to talk to him.”

“Where are you?” Dacey asked.

“On my way to my wife's.”

“I'll call for backup.”

“Let me check first. What you can do is find his receptionist. I think she's a Filipina woman with a long last name beginning with
m
. Also, I need to know who manages the building his clinic is in.”

“No problem, but I think you might want to call Chief Reardon.”

It was Saturday afternoon, and Reardon was probably playing golf somewhere.

Hi, Chief. Sorry to interrupt your game, but seems we got a serial killer who goes after redheads who all had plastic surgery and who look like my wife, who just got some work done by Dr. Aaron Monks, surgeon of the stars. Just want to break into his office and look around.

Steve made it to their house in less than fifteen minutes.

What bothered him was that the outside lights, including the driveway floods, were on. And it was two in the afternoon, which meant that either Dana had forgotten to turn them off when she went to bed last night, or she hadn't come home yet. The other possibility was that she didn't want to return to a dark house.

But what set off an alarm was that her car sat in the garage. Someone had again picked her up. Maybe the guy in the limo.

He let himself in through the back door. The kitchen lights were on, so was a lamp in the living room and family room. The only sound he could hear was the refrigerator. He called out her name. Nothing. A single wineglass sat on the counter by the sink. It had been rinsed out. A tiny puddle of water remained at the bottom. He picked it up and felt a shudder that took him back to that night in Terry Farina's apartment.

He made a fast check of the downstairs rooms. No Dana, and all was in place. He bounded upstairs, calling her name again. Their bedroom was to the right at the top of the stairs. The door was open and the interior was dark. He said a little prayer that Dana was under the blankets.

The bed was flat and empty. He flicked on the lights, his fingers slimed with perspiration. He checked the guest bedroom, then their offices.

No Dana.

He dialed her cell phone. Once again he got her voice mail and left an urgent message to call him no matter what time.

“Shit,” he said aloud.

Her desk calendar lay open with no entries for the last several days, but last Wednesday she had scribbled “checkup.” He didn't know if that was for a regular medical exam, her dentist, or Monks.

He went back into the master bedroom then to the bathroom. He flicked the switch, ducked his head in, then flicked it off, thinking about calling colleagues at Carleton High. He started out of the bedroom toward the stairway, when he stopped in his tracks. Like the afterimage of an old television set something lingered in his mind. He shot back inside and moved to her vanity.

On it sat a color photograph.

For a moment all he could feel was numbness as his brain processed what he was looking at. Then a bolt of horror shot through him. It was a computer portrait of Dana.

His first thought was of James Bowers. The forensic anthropologist.

But that didn't make sense. He opened his briefcase and found the projection image Bowers had given him. It had the same digitalized flatness, the same Photoshop fabrication, except in the printout Dana had red hair.

Then it hit him.

“The guy gave her a computer projection of what she'd look like with a nose job. He also colored her hair red.”

Steve explained to Captain Reardon what he had found. “They all had had cosmetic surgery and looked alike at their deaths. Only one of them had reddish hair, but at autopsy they all had the same shade of red. The thing is that nobody knew who did their work, like they were operated on under some code of omertà.”

While Reardon listened, Steve explained how Dana had had cosmetic procedures, including rhinoplasty, performed by Aaron Monks.

“Where is she?”

“I don't know. I can't locate her.”

“Sounds to me like you've got a missing wife problem, not a serial killer.”

“Captain, I think she may have even been seeing him socially.” He hated uttering the words.

After a moment's silence, Reardon said, “This sounds more personal than investigatory.”

“I know how it sounds, but I'm telling you I think Monks is our man.”

“And I think you've got nothing to go on. And before you jump in, I got a call from Captain Ralph Modesky of the Cobbsville P.D. saying you called him today in the middle of a political fundraiser asking questions about cosmetic surgery.”

“Yeah, on legitimate police matters. Does the investigation have to stop for lunch?”

“Lieutenant Markarian, I don't like the tone of your voice.”

“And I don't like resistance on running down a prime suspect.”

“He's not a prime suspect. You've got nothing—no priors, no physical evidence, not even circumstantial evidence. Nothing but that he did your wife's cosmetic work and she vaguely resembles the victims. Besides the guy is the Bigfoot of plastic surgery, probably up for the Nobel Prize. You check his whereabouts on any of these?”

He hadn't, but the
Boston Globe
“Party Line” said that on the night Terry Farina was killed Monks had been photographed at a banquet at the Westin Hotel in town. It ran from five to closing, but he could have slipped out a little after eight to make it to her apartment—maybe even do a fast outfit change in the car—kill her then return to the hotel to seal an alibi. “I want to search his place.”

“You can try, but I doubt you'll get a warrant. And if you go over there looking for your wife, you're doing it as private citizen Markarian. You hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't know how to say this without saying it, but if you try to break into Dr. Monks's place or anywhere else without papers, I'm going to cut you another asshole. Is that clear, Lieutenant Detective Markarian?”

“Yeah.”

“You cannot enforce the law by breaking the law.”

Steve hung up.

Moments later he was in his car as private citizen Markarian with Lieutenant Detective Markarian's service weapon on his belt and an assault rifle in the trunk with enough rounds to shoot nonstop into next week.

He called Dacey and explained what he had found. She said she understood. They were heading for Monks's place, which was 17 John Street in Lexington. According to GPS, it was a mile out of the center. Because Steve was closer, he got there in under twenty minutes.

John Street turned out to be what was probably the only remaining dirt road left in that town. The house was a large modern place with no lights on. A BMW SUV sat in the driveway. Steve rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.

Dacey arrived while Steve finished walking around the place.

“Alarm signs all over,” Dacey said.

“Forget it. Nobody's here. And the car engine's cold.”

Steve also didn't want to be held up explaining to local uniforms why they had broken in. Plus it would get back to Reardon, who'd send a posse after them.

The clinic was in Chestnut Hill. “By the way,” Dacey said, “the receptionist's name is May Ann Madlansacay.”

“And you wonder why I forgot.”

Because they might need backup, Steve made one more call as he led Dacey to the clinic. To Neil French.

 

They arrived a little after four.

The parking lot was empty, but for a cleaning van. Several other medical offices were located in the building, but the sign on the door said that all closed at two, that the building was locked until Monday morning.

Dacey had pulled up to the door with her blue-and-whites flashing silently and pressed the call button until one of the cleaning persons came to the door. She badged the man and explained they were here to search an office.

Neil French arrived as Steve had expected he would. Steve explained the situation. “I think he killed Terry, and Dana may be with him.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Yeah.”

They followed the cleaning man up the stairs to the clinic, which he opened.

“What are we looking for?” Dacey asked

“My wife.”

Steve didn't believe in telepathy, ESP, precognition, or any paranormal claims, including psychics they sometimes turned to in desperation. But he knew on some visceral level that Dana was in trouble.

While Dacey checked the other rooms, Neil tried to access the appointments' calendar at the reception desk. But they needed a password.

A Rolodex listed Monks's name, Lexington address, and several telephone numbers, including one that simply said “Homer's.” There was also a listing for the receptionist and office manager, May Ann Madlansacay. Steve punched the numbers and said a silent prayer. A woman answered. “Is this May Ann Madlansacay?”

“Yes.”

“This is Detective Steve Markarian with the homicide bureau of the Boston police. You may recognize the name because my wife had some work done by Dr. Monks.”

“Oh, yes.”

“It's very urgent that we locate him.”

“Oh, my. Is he all right?”

“We don't know, but we'd like to know where he might be.”

There was some hesitation. Then she said, “How do I know you are who you say you are? He gets people calling all the time from the media saying they're someone else.”

“How about I send a squad car to 343 Acacia Lane in Newton to talk to you in person?”

“No, there's no need for that. He's probably at home.”

“We were just there—17 John Street in Lexington. Nobody's there.”

“Well, he may be cruising on his boat. Or he may be at his summer place.”

“Where's that?”

“I really don't think I can give you that information.”

“The option is bringing you to police headquarters.”

“Well, it's not public information,” she said. “But he has a place on Homer's Island.”

“Homer's Island. Where's that?”

“I believe it's between Falmouth and Martha's Vineyard.”

“Are you saying it's his summer residence?”

“Actually, it's where he goes to get away. It's also an offsite clinic where he sometimes operates.”

“You mean he's got an operating room out there?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say he was going this weekend?”

“He didn't, but he usually goes there on weekends and days off.”

“Do you know where he moors his boat? And the name of it?”

“Yes, it's moored at the Waterboat Marina near the New England Aquarium.”

“And the boat's name?”

“
Fair Lady.
”

When Steve got off the phone, Neil said, “It's one of the Elizabeth Islands.” Online he found a nautical site for Massachusetts. Neil enlarged the image. Homer's Island was the last in the Elizabeth chain beyond Cuttyhunk.

Dacey had wandered back from the other rooms. The place was empty. “There's a photo of a fancy white power cruiser on his wall you might want to take a look at.”

 

Steve headed into Monks's office while he punched Dana's telephone numbers again. Nothing. Then he called Monks's cell phone and got a voice mailbox. He called the number for Homer's Island and got a busy signal.

The file cabinets were locked in the back room. They could send a car to pick up Madlansacay, but that would take time. It was quarter to five, and Steve didn't give a rat's ass about the contents of Monks's file. He wanted to find Dana.

He turned to Dacey. “Hogan's on duty. Call him to check the marina on the boat.”

Dacey snapped out her phone and made the call.

He turned to Neil. “Who do you know who's got a chopper?”

“A chopper? Nobody, but I know some guys in the coast guard.” And he whipped out his PDA.

Dacey returned. “He says the slip is empty, the boat's gone. According to the harbormaster he left at about four o'clock. A security guard said that a woman was with him. I asked for a description. He said he didn't get a good look, but she was an attractive redhead.”

“Sweet Jesus!”

His eyes fell blankly on the sepia drawing on the wall behind Monks's desk. He didn't know what it was, but the first time he was here something about that abstract had bothered him. Something just beneath the range of awareness. He closed his eyes to center himself. He may have closed his eyes for twenty or thirty seconds when on the inside of his eyelids an image appeared.

A woman's face.

He opened his eyes again and stared at the image again for maybe another half minute, then closed them again.

A jolt of realization passed through him. The image reappeared on the inside of his lids. He opened his eyes. That was no random abstract Japanese drawing. It was the image of a woman in sepia on white but in
negative
. When he stared at it long enough then closed his eyes the positive formed in his vision.

Dana.