“Yeah, of course. I’ve got a ton more to get through anyway.”
“Great. Any more like these jump out at you, put them on my desk. And could you call the other lieutenants, tell them we’re having a meeting in my office at three o’clock?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t mention why, okay?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Not a problem. I was about to run out for a coffee, can I get you something?”
“I’d love a tall iced coffee.”
“Got it.”
“And Lieutenant Peters—good job finding these. I’m glad you’re on the team.”
Colin flushed bright red. “You bet,” he stammered before ducking out.
After he left, Kelly spread the contents of the top file across the desk and scanned through them, making notes on a legal pad as she went. As she read, she felt a hot ball of anger rising in her belly. It was outrageous that this information had been kept from her. She’d had a feeling from the beginning that something wasn’t right in this case, that she was two steps behind and being denied critical information. The fact that she was right was small satisfaction. Especially considering the fact that if she’d had this information earlier, the most recent victims might have been saved.
Kelly inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly, eyes closed. She needed to stay calm, figure out what her next step would be. She should run this new information by McLarty. There were political considerations here, and that wasn’t her forte. If she had a choice, though, she knew exactly what she’d do.
“So what the hell is this about?” Doyle grumbled.
Monica regarded him quizzically. “Why, Doyle, you got somewhere you gotta be? There a crew-cut convention in town?”
Doyle ignored her. “What about you, kid? Don’t suppose she told you.”
Colin simply shrugged but appeared to wither slightly under Doyle’s glare. “I—I think we should just wait for Agent Jones. She’ll be here any minute,” he stammered.
“Yeah, well, it’s three-o-five now. She’s got exactly one more minute before I leave and get on with my day.”
“You’ve been assigned to this task force, Doyle. You got nothing else on your plate right now, so why don’t you just sit back and relax,” Monica said with annoyance. “You’re not fooling anyone with that whole, ‘I got a million other things to deal with’ bull. Hell, more bodies popped up here in the last week than in the past year. If you weren’t so goddamn lazy, you’d want to find out why. I got my boss breathing down my neck, and we’ve only got one body in the red column. Can’t believe your captain doesn’t give a shit about the five found on your side of the state line.”
“He doesn’t give a shit because we know who the killer is,” Doyle retorted. “All I gotta do now is prove Sommers killed this last one to keep himself out of jail. And that won’t happen if I’m sitting around here.” He pushed his chair back and started to stand.
The door to the room opened and Kelly strode in carrying a box of files. She set it on the table with a thud as she said, “Afternoon, everyone—sorry for the late notice about this meeting, but something came up.”
“What’re all those?” Doyle said, eyeing the box.
“Old suspicious death cases.” Kelly said as she removed the top file from the stack, whipping it down the table so it spun and landed in front of Doyle. “That one’s from May, 2003, just after the first thaw. Remember it?”
Doyle leaned forward reluctantly and picked it up, turning to the inside page. He scanned it, then shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “Yeah, I remember. Turned out to be a lost hiker, so it got reclassified as an accidental death. So what?”
“Lost hiker, huh? What about this one?” Kelly tossed another one at him. “And this one?” She sent the files cascading across the table.
He dropped the first file and held up his hands. “Jesus, what’s your problem now?”
“What’s going on, Kelly?” Monica asked, looking puzzled.
“What’s going on is we came in on this case about five years too late, didn’t we, Lieutenant Doyle?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he muttered, standing. “And I don’t need this bullshit.”
“Sit down,” Kelly said authoritatively. He kept walking toward the door. She raised her voice. “Take a seat, Lieutenant Doyle, or my next call is to Internal Affairs.”
He paused, hand on the doorknob. “You got nothing,” he said, still facing the door, but there was a trace of uncertainty in his voice.
“Oh, really? Because I think the local media would be intrigued by the fact that five years ago, the remains of a young male age twenty to twenty-two were found in Pittsfield State Forest. And that less than a year later, more human remains were found off another trail in the same park.”
“These weren’t the first bodies?” Monica asked, realization dawning.
“Not even close. I found four cases total, at two other parks within a fifteen-mile radius. Each time, the body was identified as a lost hiker who must have succumbed to the elements, and the death was categorized as an accident. And each time, the investigating officer was one Lieutenant William Doyle. Funny you didn’t mention this earlier, Lieutenant.”
Doyle had his back to the door. He crossed his arms over his chest and retorted, “Didn’t see the point. Had nothing to do with this case.”
“No? I think it would’ve seemed a little coincidental. Awfully handy, too, that the coroner agreed with your assessment, even though I couldn’t find any reports detailing whether the bones were examined for evidence of foul play.”
“We decided not to waste the lab’s time. Lots of kids come here in the winter to go camping. They get lost in the woods, maybe meet a bear…” His voice trailed off.
“And I’ve got a stack of missing-persons reports here, all young males that went missing in the past decade. Ever think to have those bones submitted for DNA analysis, see if it matched any of these files?”
“DNA tests are expensive, missy. I’m sure as hell not going to waste the taxpayers’ money…” He stopped short.
“On what?” Kelly said, voice lowering. “On a bunch of gay prostitutes?”
He looked away from her, chin set in defiance. Kelly examined his profile.
After a minute Monica spoke up, for once all levity gone from her voice. “You’ve just been burying these cases, Doyle? You’ve been letting this animal just kill these boys and get away with it?”
He didn’t answer. Kelly watched him, then continued. “At the very least, Lieutenant, what we’ve got here is a case of gross incompetence. Honestly, I’d prefer to blame it on that than to consider the alternative. Because a corruption case right now would bring us to a standstill. All our files would be requisitioned by Internal Affairs, we’d have the press breathing down our necks even more than they already are…it’d be a mess.”
“So what’re you going to do?” Doyle asked after a moment. All the bravado had vanished from his voice.
“Why, you worried about your pension?” Monica said coldly.
He didn’t answer.
“Lieutenant Doyle, I think you should step outside for a minute so the rest of us can make that decision together,” Kelly said.
He opened his mouth and started to say something, then snapped it shut, yanked open the door and left the room.
There was a long pause. Colin stared at the table, picking at a chipped piece of Formica with his thumbnail. Monica’s face was beet-red, her expression one of fury.
“You’re not going to let him keep working this case, are you?” Monica asked, voice rising.
Kelly pulled out a chair and sat down. She would like nothing better than to kick Doyle off the team and watch IAD roast him. But McLarty had clearly outlined what needed to happen for the case to move forward. “Even though I’m sure we’d be lost without all the help he’s given us so far,” Kelly said drily, “I think we can probably spare the good lieutenant. But we’re in an awkward position. We’re already established here, at his home base, and I don’t particularly relish the prospect of adding someone else from his unit to the task force. We don’t know how many other homicide detectives were in the loop. So for now I say we keep him, technically. With the understanding that by and large he stays out of our hair.”
“You really think he’ll do that?” Monica said skeptically. “Hell, he’s probably been working against us this whole time. That’s why it took so long to get those damn lab results.”
“From here on out, everything gets sent to either the FBI lab or to Dr. Stuart. I’ve already spoken to the people at the state lab in New York. Since the last three victims were found there, they’ve agreed to allow him to use their facilities.”
“Why don’t we just move everything over there, then?” Monica asked.
“I’d rather not—I still think our killer is local. If the situation changes and we need to shift locales, Lieutenant Peters said his captain wouldn’t have a problem hosting us. So are we agreed?”
Kelly looked from one to the other of them. Monica paused, then said, “I’m not gonna pretend to be thrilled about it. I think Doyle should roast for this. But you’re right, they start investigating him we’ll get caught up in the net, and this guy’ll get away with killing those boys. We got a fresh trail, we need to stay on it.”
Colin glanced up from the table. “I got here pretty late in the game, so anything is fine by me.”
“Okay. Right now the remains from these four “accidental death” cases are being exhumed, then they’ll be sent to Dr. Stuart for analysis. With any luck, we’ll be able to match them to one of these other missing boys.” She gestured toward the box of files. “Colin, you’re doing great work sifting through these. Keep at it. I also want you to check into any field cards about incidents around Club Metro in Northampton, even if they didn’t result in arrests. There’s a good cop there, Bennett. He can serve as your liaison.”
“What am I looking for? Solicitation charges?”
“Solicitation, drug use, traffic violations, pretty much anything. Whoever our guy is, he probably tracks his victims for a while before grabbing them. Start with the past few months, see if any names pop up again and again. Monica, any luck tracking down Danny’s former boyfriends?”
“I found two of them, still working on the other three. So far both claim they were out of town when he disappeared. I’m checking their alibis.”
“All right, stay on that for now.”
Monica hesitated before saying, “I’d like to look into one more thing first, if you don’t mind. Jordan mentioned some guy chasing him out of the flophouse, claimed to be the owner. Apparently someone rents the place every summer, paying for the boys to crash there. I’d like to find out who.”
Kelly tilted her head to the side. “Interesting. See what you can dig up, but try to get to Danny’s other boyfriends today or tomorrow. It seems like everyone is leaving town. I want to know if they have alibis.”
“Sure. I already got a call in to the local Registry of Deeds, they’re digging up contact info on the owner.”
“All right. Meanwhile, I got a call from Sommers’s lawyer. He’s got his client doing some sort of hypnotic regression therapy today and they want me to observe.”
“Hypnotic regression?” Monica said, rolling her eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to prove?”
“Nothing, and it’s not admissible in court. But I want to be there in case he slips and comes out with anything helpful. Maybe he’ll cop to his confession again.”
“Not likely,” Monica snorted.
“No, but you never know.” If Doyle’s old accidental death cases turned out to be homicides, that meant four more bodies just got tacked onto their list. Add that to the other six from the boneyard, and the three fresh corpses found in the past week, and they were dealing with at least one major serial killer. At this point I’d use a Ouija board if it got me a lead, Kelly thought, frustrated.
“When are you going to tell Sunshine he’s off the hook?” Monica asked, jerking her head toward the door.
“Let’s let him sweat a little longer,” Kelly said. “I’ve got a special assignment in mind for him after that.”
Kelly ducked out a side door to avoid the media horde camped on the street in front of the police station. Once fresh bodies had started turning up, the vans multiplied to include the major networks as well as local affiliates. She despised dealing with the media, and had handed the daily press conferences over to Doyle’s boss. The captain was happy to oblige. He seemed to enjoy standing on the top step of the barracks, rocking back and forth officiously as he droned on about how much progress “his” task force was making.
Kelly’s hands clenched involuntarily as she thought of Doyle withholding information and burying files. She’d be lying if she claimed to be surprised. These days the budgets of many police departments were tied to their homicide clearance rates. So no one looked askance when murders were classified as accidents, particularly when there weren’t any bereft family members demanding justice. Many serial killers targeted prostitutes and illegal immigrants for just that reason. And when you were talking about gay prostitutes it added a whole other layer, especially in a place with conservative views on homosexuality. She wondered how much the captain knew. That was always the danger of these task force assignments, you were thrown into a department and had to attempt to work within their structure, their codes, without ever knowing what that might entail. And in the end, you never knew who you could trust.
She felt a presence at her shoulder as she stooped to unlock her car door, and swiveled quickly, ready to go for her gun. The blond reporter, Jan, jerked back, holding both hands defensively in front of her chest. “Easy there, Agent.” She laughed nervously. “I swear I didn’t do it.”
“I’m not going to make a statement,” Kelly said, unlocking her door and sliding inside. As she reached to pull it shut, the blonde blocked it with her hand. She was surprisingly strong. Kelly raised an eyebrow at her.
“I understand another body was found today, across the border in New York,” Jan said in a rush.
“Like I said…” Kelly smiled thinly, and waved her away from the door.
Jan pressed on, undeterred. She had hungry eyes, like so many of them. Desperate to get out of this backwater and into a network chair in a major city. And a serial crime case was just the ticket for that kind of career move. “I understand that Mr. Sommers, your prime suspect, has volunteered to take a polygraph clearing his name. Why wouldn’t the district attorney allow him to do so?”