The Survivors Club (12 page)

Mrs. Como didn’t say anything. Her expression had scarcely changed the entire time they’d been here. No grief, no rage, no denial, no fear. Now she stirred something in a giant metal pot. It smelled to Griffin like bleach. Then he got it. She was preparing to wash diapers by boiling them on the stove. He looked around the kitchen, the cramped quarters filled with baby food, baby clothes, baby toys. And he got the rest of it. For Mrs. Como, Eddie had already been gone for nearly a year. Now her life was about her grandson.

Two Como males gone, one left to go. Did she wonder about that late at night? Did she cry when no one was looking? Or was it simply a fact of life for a woman like her, in a place like this? Seemed like too much of Griffin’s job was spent dealing with these kinds of scenes. He felt suddenly, unexpectedly, sad, and that bothered him even more. You needed walls for this kind of business. You needed to compartmentalize if you were going to be a cop and maintain your peace of mind.

He should go for a run soon. Find a punching bag. Beat at the heavy leather until all the tension was drained from him and he had no emotions left. Then he could pretend that sad old ladies didn’t twist his conscience and that two years later he didn’t desperately miss his wife.

“You were with Eddie the nights the women were attacked?” Griffin asked Tawnya.

“Yeah. I was. Not that Detective Dickwad believed me.” She gave Fitz another dark look. Fitz smiled sweetly. “We had an apartment then,” Tawnya went on. “A decent place, over in Warwick. Eddie, he made good money with the Blood Center. That’s not easy, you know. He had to get special training, take some courses. Eddie was smart. He had plans. And he really liked what he did. Helping people and all that. We were doing all right.”

“No one saw you two together those nights.”

“
Mierde!
You sound just like him.” Chin angled toward Fitz. “Come on, Eddie had a tough job. He was on his feet six, eight hours a shift. He got home, he was tired. He wanted to relax. You know what Eddie liked to do best? He liked to stretch out on the sofa, watch a rented movie and place his hand on my belly so he could feel his baby kick. Yeah, that’s your College Hill Rapist. Hanging out with his pregnant girlfriend and telling stories to his baby. And now . . . now. Ah, fuck you all.”

Tawnya turned away. In front of the stove, Mrs. Como picked up a pile of cloth diapers and threw them into the pot. Round and round she went with a big metal spoon. The kitchen filled with the smell of bleach and baby powder and urine.

“You know he called the women,” Griffin said quietly.

Tawnya whirled back around. “Of course he called them! They fucking ruined his life. Railroaded the police into his arrest. Worked the public into a frenzy talking on the news about this horrible, horrible rapist, gonna kill your daughter next. You know we got death threats, thanks to those women? Even Mrs. C. here, and what’d she do? One day, some guy called a radio station saying that if there was any justice in this world, Eddie, Jr.’s, little penis would fall off before he could turn into his father. Jesus Christ! Someone should lock that man up, threatening a baby like that. I couldn’t bring Eddie, Jr., to the courthouse ’cause I was too afraid of what people might do. What the fuck is up with that?”

“You don’t think Eddie did it.”

“I
know
Eddie didn’t do it. He was just a poor dumb spic working in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s the way the world works. White girls get hurt, some yellow or black man loses his ass.”

“The state found Eddie’s DNA at the crime scenes.”

“Bah! Cops fake DNA all the time. Everyone knows that.”

“Cops fake DNA?” Griffin glanced over at Fitz as if to ask if such a thing could be true. Fitz shrugged.

“Cops don’t handle the DNA,” Fitz said. “And in this case, we had two different nurses and one medical examiner handing evidence over to three different couriers to be sent to the Department of Health. That’s a lot of people for conspiracy, but hey, I’m just the poor dumb cop who gets accused of corruption anytime I do my job. You know—that’s the way the world works.” He looked at Tawnya, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Why would the cops tamper with evidence?” Griffin asked Tawnya more reasonably.

“The pressure, of course! Come on—three white women, attacked in their homes. One in a big fancy house on the East Side. Cops can’t ignore that kind of thing. Then one dies and the whole state goes apeshit. Cops gotta arrest someone then. Next thing you know, cops are looking at blood drives and there you go. Young Hispanic male. Can’t even afford an attorney. Eddie was guilty before they ever asked him a question. Cops got their arrest, mayor got his headline, and hey, who gives a fuck about the rest of us?”

“Eddie was victimized by the state?”

“Damn right.”

“Because he was a minority?”

“Damn right.”

“So if the state already had him on the rapes, who do you think shot him this morning?”

Tawnya finally drew up short. She inhaled deeply, held the breath in her lungs, then blew it out all at once. “Everybody thinks Eddie’s a rapist. Everybody wants a rapist dead.”

“The threats on the radio station?”

“Yeah. And in the newspaper. And in prison.” She added hotly, “Tell me the truth, you really gonna do something about this?”

Griffin thought of the bank of microphones outside. He said honestly, “As of this morning, we had every state detective working this case.”

Tawnya narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t dumb. “It’s ’cause he was shot at the courthouse, isn’t it? If they’d got him in prison, you wouldn’t even be here right now. But they shot him in public. In front of cameras. That makes you guys look bad.”

“Murder is murder. We’re on the case. I’m on the case.”

Tawnya snorted again, unimpressed. She did know how the world worked.

“Do you have any specific names?” Griffin asked. “People you know of who threatened Eddie? People you heard say they wanted him dead?”

“Nah. Check the papers. Talk to the prison guards. They should know. If they can be bothered to tell you.”

“Anyone else we should consider?”

“The fucking women, of course.”

“The three victims?”

“Victims, my ass. Those bitches are the ones who picked Eddie. They pushed for his arrest, harassed the cops all the time. Maybe they wanted to make sure it was done all the way. Eddie can’t defend himself now. And hey, they don’t have to worry about anything unpleasant coming out at trial.”

“Was something unpleasant going to come out at trial?” Griffin asked sharply.

“You never know.”

“Tawnya,” Fitz began warningly. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, but Tawnya shook her mass of dark hair.

“I’m not doing your job for you, Dickwad. You wanna know what was gonna happen, you figure out what was gonna happen. Now come on. I gotta feed my kid.” She turned around, gesturing at the handcuffs with her fingers. When Fitz still hesitated, she shot out, “I’ll call the ACLU!”

Fitz grudgingly undid the bracelets, though Griffin noticed the Providence detective now leaned farther away, mindful of his face. Tawnya flashed her teeth at him, then smiled when he flinched.

“I don’t care what you guys think,” Tawnya said right before she left the room. “I was with Eddie those nights. I
know
he didn’t hurt those women. And you wanna hear something else? You guys are screwed. ’Cause that dude’s still out there. And now Eddie’s gone. No one to blame anymore. No one to hide behind. It’s a full moon tonight. Perfect weather for when the College Hill Rapist rides again.”

Fitz and Griffin didn’t speak until they were back on the street, climbing into Fitz’s beat-up detective’s car.

“Is it just me,” Griffin said, “or is Tawnya the spitting image of Meg Pesaturo?”

“Wait ’til you see a photo of Trisha Hayes. Oh yeah, Eddie definitely had a type.”

“She would’ve made a good witness for the defense,” Griffin commented.

“Yes and no. Eddie’s phone calls to the women . . . One way it could’ve been done was if someone on his approved calling list, say his girlfriend, had a phone feature, say call forwarding, and, ignoring the recorded warning which specifically says do not forward this call, did it anyway.”

“Ah, so pretty little Tawnya takes her girlfriend duties seriously.”

“ACI has tapes of the calls if you want to listen.”

“Anything good?”

“Only if you buy into conspiracy theories. Eddie seemed convinced that the women were out to get him. Of course, the inmates know their calls are taped, so it might have merely been window dressing for the trial.”

“That was going to be his defense? That three strange women were picking on poor little innocent him?”

“The perpetrator as victim. It’s a classic.”

“And unfortunately, it seems there’s always someone in the jury box who buys it.”

“Damn juries,” Fitz muttered.

“Yeah, whatever happened to good old-fashioned mob justice? String ’em up, cut ’em down. Saves a ton of money on appeal.”

Fitz eyed Griffin suspiciously, probably trying to figure out if he was toying with him or not. Griffin kind of was, kind of wasn’t. The jury system was a royal pain in the ass.

Fitz glanced at his watch. “It’s three o’clock now. Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to have this wrapped up in time for the five o’clock news.”

“Doesn’t look it.”

“In fact, given that nobody seems to want to magically confess, I’m guessing this might take a bit.”

“It might.”

“That gonna be a problem?” Fitz’s gaze went to Griffin’s overpumped chest and hard-lined face. Griffin understood what he was asking.

“Not for me,” he said.

“I was just wondering—”

“I’m back. When you’re back on the job, you’re back on the job. You can’t do policing halfway.”

“I never thought so.” Fitz’s eyes were still narrowed, appraising. “Look, I’m just going to lay it on the table. If we’re going to work together on this, I think I have the right to know a few things.”

“Such as?”

“I heard about that Candy Man case, that it went on a little too long, then got a little too personal. Did you really beat up two detectives in the kid’s house? Nearly put one of them in the hospital?”

Griffin was silent for a moment. “That’s what I’m told,” he said at last.

“You don’t remember?”

“It’s a bit of a blur. I wasn’t aiming for Detective Waters or O’Reilly anyway. They were simply doing the honorable thing and throwing themselves in the way.”

“You were going after Price.”

“Something like that.”

“And if you’d gotten to him?”

“We’ll never know, will we?”

Fitz grunted at that. “You on Prozac?”

“I don’t take any meds.”

“Why not?”

Griffin smiled. “Not that kind of crazy.”

“Just wear my hockey mask?”

Griffin’s smile grew. “You could try, Detective, but I don’t make any promises.”

“Hey now—”

“Look,” Griffin said, his tone serious because they weren’t going to get this wrapped up by five so they might as well clear the air. “I’m not going to attack you. Two years ago, when my wife died . . . I let too many things go. Personally. Professionally. Life, this job . . . You gotta take care of things. We all learn, one way or the other. Last year was my lesson. I got it. I’m on top of things now.”

Fitz remained silent, so maybe he had his own opinions on that subject.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” Fitz said at last.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“I know a lot of the guys who went to the service. She sounded like a really neat lady.”

“She was the best,” Griffin said honestly, and then, because two years wasn’t nearly long enough, he had to look away. He fidgeted with the door handle. Fitz put the car in gear. They both cleared their throats.

“So what are you going to do now?” Fitz asked as he pulled away from the curb. “About the case.”

“Return to headquarters and set up command central. Then, I’ll probably go for a run.”

“I’ll follow up with the crispy corpse. With any luck, we got enough skin to print.”

“Hey, Detective, as long as you’re returning home, get me a copy of the College Hill Rapist file.”

Fitz stopped immediately, his foot hitting the brake and stalling the car in the middle of the street. Griffin kind of thought that might happen.

“Come on!” Fitz exclaimed. “Don’t let Tawnya get to you. The College Hill case was a good investigation. We had MO, we had opportunity, we had DNA. Took us six months to put it all together, and I’m telling you now, we did just fine. Eddie Como raped those women. End of story.”

“Didn’t say he didn’t.”

“I don’t need the state reviewing my work! That’s bullshit.”

“Life sucks and then you die.”

Fitz scowled at him.

Griffin returned the look calmly. “I want the file. The shooting is connected to the case, ergo, I need to learn the case.”

“I told you about the case.”

“You told me your opinions.”

“I’m the lead investigator! I built the goddamn theory of the case, I am the opinion!”

“Then explain this to me: You found Eddie once you started looking at blood drives. And you started looking at blood drives because of the latex strips.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“So why did Eddie, who left behind no hair, no fiber, and no fingerprints, leave behind ten latex strips? Why did he on the one hand learn how to cover his tracks, and then on the other hand leave you a virtual calling card?”

“Because criminals are stupid. It’s what I like best about them.”

“It’s inconsistent.”

“Oh Jesus H. Christ. We didn’t plant DNA evidence! We did
not
frame Eddie Como!”

“Yeah,” Griffin said. “And frankly, Detective, that’s what worries me.”

CHAPTER 13

Griffin

I
N SPITE OF HIS WORDS,
G
RIFFIN DIDN
’
T HEAD
immediately back to police headquarters in North Scituate. Instead, operating on a hunch, he returned to the rue de l’espoir restaurant in downtown Providence. It was 3:30. The three women definitely had had plenty of time to finish their mugs of chai and head out.

Except then he started thinking. Where would they go? They were obviously well experienced in the ways of the media. Surely they realized that as of 9:00 that morning, news teams had descended upon their front lawns, climbed up their front steps, started banging on their front doors. Let alone the number of white news vans trolling the streets, looking for leads, any leads, to give that station the advantage in the evening news race.

If it were him, he decided, he’d simply stay right where he was. With his fellow club members. That way if some earnest reporter did track them down, they’d at least all be together. Safety in numbers. According to Maureen, the Survivors Club had rules about that.

So Griffin returned to Hope Street. And then, operating on another hunch, he checked the license plates in the tiny parking lot. He found Jillian’s car in less than a minute. Gold Lexus with license plate TH 18.

“Damn,” he murmured, and for a moment, he simply stood there, feeling a rush of sadness that struck too close to home.

Rhode Islanders had a thing about license plates. He didn’t know how it had started. Maybe the original colonists had had a thing about horse brands. But Rhode Island was a small state, so its plates had literally started with one letter, plus a one- or two-digit number. Then the state had gone to two letters with a two-digit number. Now, the state did a straight five numbers, but only cultural outsiders settled for those. A true Rhode Islander, wanting to show off his long-standing ties to his state, personally went to the plate room of the DMV and requested the lowest letter/number combination possible, or, since highly prestigious plates such as A 20 or J 28 were mostly doled out to well-connected insiders, he requested his initials with a low two-digit number. Then he held on to those plates for life. Literally.

TH 18. Trisha Hayes, probably eighteenth birthday. Someone, Jillian most likely, had gone to a lot of trouble to get her little sister the special plates. Had Trisha been excited at the time? Had the plates gone with a new car, just what Trisha had always wanted? Maybe she’d thrown her arms around her sister’s neck. Maybe she’d kissed her mother on the cheek. Eighteen-year-old Trisha Hayes, celebrating a new car. Eighteen-year-old Trisha Hayes, about to embark on a whole, brand-new college life.

Griffin doubted that cool, composed Jillian Hayes would ever say much about that day. She’d probably sold the car by now, at the same time she was sorting through her sister’s clothes, closing up her sister’s apartment, sifting through her sister’s things. He could picture exactly what she’d had to do, because not that long ago, he’d done the same. The bureaucracy of death had surprised him. Nearly broken his heart all over again. But you did what you had to do. Get it done, people always advised. Then you can get on with your life.

Driving a car, he supposed, bearing your dead sister’s license plates.

“What are you doing?”

Griffin whirled around. Jillian Hayes stood four feet from him, her car keys clutched in her fist and her hazel eyes already starting to blaze. Quick, say something clever, he thought.

He said, “Huh?”

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” She enunciated each word clearly, like steel nails she was hammering into a coffin. He wondered if he should clutch his chest theatrically.

“Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?”

“No.”

“Well then, let’s not bother with the small talk.” He leaned against the side of her car and crossed his arms over his chest. Oh yeah, that definitely pissed her off.

“Get away from my car.”

“Nice plates.”

“Fuck you.”

“Already been told that once or twice today. Apparently, it’s time for me to contemplate a new aftershave.”

“You really think you’re cute, don’t you?”

“In all honesty, I hate to think of myself as being cute, but that’s just the male ego for you. Handsome, riveting, intimidating, compelling, charming, intelligent, threatening even, all good. Cute . . . Cute, bad.”

“I don’t really like you much,” Jillian Hayes said.

“Is it the aftershave?”

“I’m serious. And I’m not answering any of your questions without a lawyer present.”

“So you’re taking the Fifth in regards to my cologne?”

Jillian sighed, crossed her own arms and gave him a stern look. “I’ve had a long day, Sergeant. Don’t you have any other women you can go harass?”

“Not really.”

“A girlfriend, a sister, a wife?”

“I never had a sister, and I’m not married anymore.”

“Let me guess—she stopped thinking you were cute?”

“No. She died.”

Jillian finally shut up. He’d caught her off guard. She looked troubled and perhaps fleetingly sad. Then she looked angry again. Jillian Hayes really didn’t like being caught off guard.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation,” she said curtly.

“I’m not the one who started it.”

“Yes, you did. You showed up again after we’d already chased you off today.”

“Yeah, but tell me honestly—would you really sleep well at night knowing the state police sergeant working your case could be chased off by three women?”

She scowled and appeared even more flustered. Interesting, he thought. Her eyes went gold when she was angry, and brown when she was troubled. What about when she was sad? Or when she was plotting revenge against the man who’d killed her little sister?

“You miss her, don’t you?” he asked more softly.

Her voice was stiff, but at least she answered. “I think that’s obvious.”

“I lost my wife two years ago. Cancer. I still miss her.”

“Cancer is hard,” Jillian said quietly. She wrapped her arms around her middle, looked away. She did hurt. He could see it in every line of her body, whether she meant him to or not.

“I hated the disease,” he continued. “Then I hated the doctors who couldn’t make her better. I hated the chemo that robbed her strength. I hated the hospitals that smelled like antiseptic death. I hated God, who gave me someone to love, then took her away from me.”

Jillian finally looked at him. “And if you had a high-powered rifle,” she said, “you would’ve tried to kill the disease, too, isn’t that what you mean?”

Fitz had been right. She was no dummy.

“Something like that,” Griffin said lightly.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry you lost your wife. I’m sorry anyone loses someone they love. But don’t try to play me, Sergeant. Don’t think that because you’ve also known loss, you can climb inside my head.”

“Your grief is special?”

“Everyone’s grief is special.”

It was Griffin’s turn to look away. She was right, and that shamed him.

“Are you sure it was Eddie Como who attacked you and your sister?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Never had a moment’s doubt?”

“Never.”

“Why not?” He looked her in the eye. “Everyone has doubts.”

“Voice,” she said crisply.

“Voice?”

“When I was attacked, the man spoke. So while I couldn’t see his face, I definitely heard his voice. And that voice was consistent with Eddie Como’s.”

“Consistent?” Griffin raised a brow. He caught that nuance right away. “Did they do a voice line-up with Eddie?”

Jillian scowled. “Of course.”

“Just you?”

“Carol, as well.” More grudging.

“What went wrong, Ms. Hayes?”

“I’m telling you, it was consistent. That means nothing went wrong.”

“Bullshit. Consistent is not a positive ID. You couldn’t make him, could you?”

“We could narrow it down to him and one other guy.”

“Yeah, in other words, not a positive ID.” Griffin rocked back on his heels. That was interesting.

Jillian, however, was vehemently shaking her head. “Positive ID is a legal phrase. It’s law-enforcement fine print. As far as Carol and I are concerned, we stood in a darkened room, we heard six guys speak and we could pick Eddie out of that bunch. Think of it this way. Four of the guys we were certain
weren’t
the College Hill Rapist. And Eddie wasn’t one of those.”

“A legal breakeven,” Griffin mused. “You can’t use the voice ID at trial because you didn’t really make an ID, but the defense can’t afford to bring it up either, because then as you point out, you can argue that you did home in on Eddie. And once again we’re back to DNA to break the tie.”

She regarded him curiously, her face less obstinate for a change. “You make it sound like that is a bad thing. Last I knew, DNA evidence was a very, very good thing.”

“Yeah, generally.”

“Generally?”

“Have you ever met Eddie’s girlfriend?” Griffin switched gears. “Ever personally spoken to Tawnya Clemente?”

Jillian hesitated a fraction too long. “I . . . I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

She sighed. “Did Fitz tell you his theory that Tawnya forwarded Eddie’s calls to our homes?” Griffin nodded. “I’ve also gotten some other calls,” she continued. “Someone on the line, just
being
there. I don’t know why, but I think the caller might be Tawnya.”

“She’s very convincing about Eddie’s innocence.”

“She’s a woman with a child to protect. A woman with a child to protect can be very convincing about anything she needs to be.”

“Do you like her?”

“I don’t know her.”

“You sympathize, though.” Griffin was sure of this, and it surprised him. Once again there was more to cool, composed Ms. Hayes than met the eye.

“She has an infant son, Sergeant Griffin. Whatever Eddie did or didn’t do, it’s not her crime, nor the baby’s crime.”

“But she forwarded his calls to you. Helped harass you. Maybe even called you on her own.”

Jillian smiled dryly. “Women in love, Sergeant, have done far worse.”

“Call me Griffin.”

“No offense, but I think I’ll stick to Sergeant.”

Now it was Griffin’s turn to smile. “Hey, Jillian,” he said lightly. “Do us both a favor. Look me in the eye, and tell me you weren’t involved in Eddie Como’s murder.”

Her chin came back up. She looked him in the eye. And she said, “I won’t tell you any such thing.”

“You understand that we have a second corpse, from the RISD parking lot. Now the bodies are piling up. We can’t ignore that, Jillian. The state is in charge of this investigation, and we’re manning it with every detective we have. Whatever we learn, whomever we zero in on, we’re going to come down on that person very, very hard.”

Jillian snorted. Her eyes had gone gold again, about the only warning he got. “Is that supposed to scare me, Sergeant? Is that supposed to terrify my weak little female mind? Because I’m not exactly quaking in my boots. Let’s get this straight once and for all. My sister wasn’t Eddie’s first victim. She was his
third
victim.
Third
victim, Sergeant! And six whole weeks after the first attack. That’s how well Providence’s ‘serious police investigation’ was going. And even then, my sister is dead, I’m beaten within an inch of my life and the Providence detectives still didn’t have jack shit until we, three
women,
three
civilian women,
got involved in the case. So fuck you, Sergeant. If you cops are so good at your job, you should’ve been good at it a year ago, when it might have still saved my sister’s life!”

She ended harshly, her face red, her breathing coming out in ragged gasps. In the next instant, the full extent of her outburst must have penetrated because she immediately turned away, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist. For a long time, they both simply stood there. Griffin looking at her back, the fallen line of her shoulders, the bowed curve of her neck. Griffin, hearing all her grief and rage still boiling so close to the surface. Calm, controlled Jillian Hayes. Accustomed to single-handedly running her own company while simultaneously raising her little sister and taking care of her invalid mother. Calm, controlled Jillian Hayes, who had probably never felt powerless before in her life.

And then for the first time, Griffin got it. Carol wasn’t the member of the Survivors Club closest to falling apart. Jillian was. She merely hid it better than the rest.

“I remember who you are,” Jillian said abruptly. She turned around.

Immediately, Griffin’s stomach tensed. He forced himself to remain leaning casually against Jillian’s car, arms folded over his chest, hands hidden beneath his elbows where she couldn’t see his fingers clench. “And who am I?” he asked lightly.

“You led the case. Against that pedophile in Cranston. The Candy Man? Young children kept disappearing, month after month after month. And you were on the nightly news talking about how you were going to find them all. I guess you did, in the end. In your neighbor’s dirt basement.”

Griffin forced his hands to open, relax. Breathe deep, count to ten.

“Your wife was dying,” Jillian said softly. Her voice had changed, not so hard anymore, maybe even sympathetic. Perversely, he found that worse. “Your wife was sick, that’s right. I think she had even died—”

“The cancer got her quick.”

“And still kids were disappearing and there got to be a bit of a hubbub about whether you were paying enough attention to the case—”

“I did nothing but work that goddamn case. It was all I had left.”

“And then”—her eyes were locked on his—“then the police finally found all those poor missing kids. Buried in the basement right next door to your home. The Candy Man was your next-door neighbor.”

“It took eleven months, but I caught him.”

“You were the one who figured out that it was him?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you see it sooner? Were you distracted because your wife died?”

“Maybe. Mostly I think it was because he was my friend.”