Authors: Chris Mooney
Tags: #Fiction, #Crime, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #General
The Missing (32 page)
Darby could see the way it unfolded – the gunshot
muffled by the rain and the TV, but Boyle had heard it because he was inside the house, in the basement, planting the evidence. He ran up the stairs thinking Grady had killed himself and found Sheila standing over the body.
‘When I saw that badge, I broke down,’ Sheila said. ‘All I could think about was you – what would happen to you if I went to jail. I begged him to let me go. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at me. He didn’t seem upset or surprised, just… blank.’
Darby wondered why he hadn’t killed her mother or, worse, abducted her. No, abducting her would look too suspicious; so would killing her. Boyle was there to plant evidence to frame Grady and now Grady was dead. Boyle had to think of something. Quick.
Then Darby remembered what Evan had told her about how he had been watching Grady’s house. Evan knew Boyle was inside the house, planting evidence. Evan had seen the fire.
‘He told me to go home and wait for him to call,’ her mother said. ‘He said if I told anyone, I would go to jail. He told me to go through the basement door. I didn’t know about the fire until the next morning.
‘He called me two days later and told me that he had taken care of Grady. But the fire had burned away most of the evidence. He said he had an idea, something that would keep me out of jail. He said he
found evidence, but I had to get it because he was busy working the case. The evidence was buried out in the woods. He gave me directions and told me to get it and bring it home. Then he was going to come by and get it. He wouldn’t say what it was. He kept saying not to worry. He understood why I had killed Grady.
‘I went out early the next morning with my gardening gloves and a hand trowel. I found a brown paper bag full of clothes – women’s clothes – and a picture.’
‘The one I just showed you.’
Shelia nodded. Her lips were pressed together.
‘Do you know her name?’ Darby asked.
‘He never told me.’
‘What else did you find?’
There was something lurking behind her mother’s eyes that made Darby want to run away.
‘Was it –’ Darby’s voice cracked around the words. She swallowed. ‘Did you find Melanie?’
‘Yes.’
Darby felt a hot knife slice its way through her stomach.
‘I saw her face,’ Sheila said, the words coming out raw, as if wrapped in barbed wire. The bag had been buried over Mel’s face.’
Darby opened her mouth but no words came out.
Sheila broke down. ‘I didn’t know what to do, so I put the dirt back in the hole and went home. He
called me early the next morning and I immediately told him about Melanie. He said he knew and told me to go out to the mailbox. There was a videotape in there and a sealed envelope. He told me to play the videotape and tell him what was on it. It was me. Digging out in the woods.’
Darby’s head was spinning, everything around her a blur of colors.
‘The pictures inside the envelope – they were pictures of you at your aunt and uncle’s house. He said if I told anyone what happened, if I told anyone what I found out in the woods, he said he’d mail the videotape to the FBI. And then, after I was in jail, he said he would kill you. And I believed him. He had already tried to take you away from me once, I couldn’t… I wasn’t going to risk that.’
Sheila pressed a fist against her mouth. ‘He kept sending pictures to remind me – pictures of you at school, pictures of you playing with your friends. He even put them in Christmas cards. And then he started sending me clothes.’
‘Clothes? My clothes?’
‘No, they were… they belonged to other people. Other women. They came in these packages, along with pictures, like this one.’ Sheila gripped the sheet of paper in her fist. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Mom, these clothes, where are they?’
‘I thought maybe, just maybe, I could do something with them. Maybe mail them anonymously to
the police. I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I hung on to them for a long time.’
‘Did you tell anyone? Maybe a lawyer?’
Sheila shook her head, cheeks wet from the tears. ‘I kept thinking what would happen if I came forward. What if I told the police what I did? About how I kept the clothes of all these missing women and said nothing? If I did that, people would have thought you helped me hide the evidence. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. People would think you had something to do with it – look what happened to you when you worked on that rapist case. Your partner planted the evidence, and they thought you helped him. If I came forward, it would have ruined your career.’
It took a great effort for Darby to speak. ‘What did you do with the clothes?’
‘They were in the boxes you donated to the church.’
‘And the pictures?’
‘I threw them away.’
Darby buried her face in her hands. She saw the pictures of all the missing women, dozens and dozens of them lined up on the bulletin boards at the police station. If her mother had only come forward, then those women would be alive. That knowledge was inside her now, planted like a seed, its roots sinking deeper and deeper.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Sheila said. ‘I couldn’t
change what I did. I thought about going to the police hundreds of times, but all I could think about was you – what he would do to you if I went away. You were more important.’
‘This place where you found Mel,’ Darby said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think about it.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it all day, ever since I saw that man’s face on TV. I don’t remember. It was over twenty years ago.’
‘Do you remember where you parked the car that morning? How far you went in?’
‘No.’
‘What about the directions Boyle gave you? Did you save them?’
‘I threw them away.’ Sheila was sobbing, the words sounding as though they were being ripped out of her. ‘Don’t hate me. I can’t die knowing you hate me.’
Darby thought about Mel lying somewhere in the woods, buried beneath the ground, alone, where no one would ever find her.
‘Can you forgive me?’ Sheila said. ‘Can you at least do that?’
Darby didn’t answer. She was thinking about Mel – Mel standing by the locker, asking Darby to forgive Stacey so they could go back to being friends. Darby wished she had said yes. She wished she had forgiven Stacey. Maybe Mel and Stacey would have stayed
home that night. Maybe they would be alive right now. Maybe all those women would.
‘Mom… oh Jesus… ’
Darby grabbed her mother’s hands – the same hands that had hugged her were the same hands that had killed Grady and pushed the dirt back over Melanie. Darby felt the strength in her mother’s grip; it was still there but not for much longer. Soon her mother would be gone, and Darby would bury her. And one day Darby would be gone too, buried alone, forgotten. Someday, if there was such a place as heaven, she hoped she could find Melanie and tell her how sorry she was. Maybe Mel would forgive her. Maybe Stacey would, too. Darby wished for that more than anything.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the support and insight of criminalist Susan Flaherty. Susan was not only kind enough to take me through her job at the Boston Crime Lab, she patiently answered all of my technical questions. All mistakes are mine.
Thanks to Gene Farrell, who was extremely helpful with police procedural questions, as was Gina Gallo. George Dazkevich helped me understand a lot of the technical information regarding computers without laughing too hard.
Special thanks to Dennis Lehane, for his many words of encouragement over the years, his advice and friendship.
Big thanks go to fellow writers and good friends John Connolly and Gregg Hurwitz, who patiently read through many drafts of this book and offered their advice and insights.
And last but not least, thanks to my publicist and friend, Maggie Griffin, for everything. You’re the best, Mags.
Writing – at least my own – is more painful than it is pleasant.
The Missing
was especially difficult, and the
following people deserve a special round of thanks for their input and for putting up with me: Jen, Randy Scott, Mark Alves, Ron and Barbara Gondek, Richard Marek, Robert Pépin and Pam Bernstein. Mel Berger helped get me through the rough patches and patiently read through every incarnation of this book. My editor, Emily Bestler, once again gave me insights that made the book better. Thanks, Emily, for your astounding patience.
Thanks are also due to Stephen King’s excellent book
On Writing
and the songs of U2, most notably the album
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,
which kept me going through the long months of rewriting.
What you have in your hands is a work of fiction. That means, like James Frey, I made everything up.
Table of Contents
I The Man from the Woods (1984)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76