“I don’t suppose you know where I could find them,” he said, but now the man stepped back.
“Son, I don’t even know who they are. How am I going to know where they got to?”
“Fair enough,” Sampson said. “I’ll just try back.”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. What’s your name?” the man called out as Sampson headed to his car.
“Joe Smith,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. I’m pretty good at finding someone when I want to.”
CHAPTER
82
ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE AFTERNOON, I GOT A SECOND CALL FROM Detective Penner down in Palm Beach.
I’d already passed Elijah Creem’s information on to Penner, and for all I knew Creem’s alibi for the night of the Florida murders had checked out. So what was this?
“What can I do for you?” I said.
“Actually, I might have something for you,” he said. “We’ve been seeing some of the coverage on your Georgetown serial cases up there. Sounds like some pretty crazy stuff.”
“To say the least,” I told him.
“So, these masks your perp is using. What can you tell me about them?” he asked.
Penner had no way of knowing about my restricted work status, and I wasn’t in any hurry to clue him in. I wanted to see what he had to say. For that, I was going to have to share a little information.
“They seem to be fabricated from latex,” I said. “Definitely high-grade, and convincing enough to pass on the street. If you look closely, you can pick up on a little bit of stiffness in the footage we’ve got, but not much.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. “We’ve got a little security footage of our own down here. We picked up a guy getting into a dark sedan, a quarter mile north of our double homicide, and about half an hour after the estimated time of death for our two victims. There was just something about him—”
Penner hadn’t gotten all the way through what he had to say, but I saw it coming.
“Older white guy? Maybe six feet, and a hundred and eighty, two hundred pounds?”
“So you know what I’m talking about,” he said.
“I know that much,” I told him.
“I was hoping we could do an image swap, and see if we aren’t talking about the same guy,” Penner said.
“And by same guy, you mean Elijah Creem.”
“At a minimum, it’s highly suspicious,” he said. “He’s got homes in Georgetown and Palm Beach, which just happens to be where these masks are popping up.”
I was already on my feet, with the blood pumping in my ears. Considering the kind of sociopathic tendencies Creem had shown me both times we met, it all felt entirely plausible. Creem was also a surgeon, which meant a high degree of knife skill, whether that was with a scalpel, or with our killer’s signature serrated blade.
In homicide, circumstantial evidence can be an easy trap. I’ve been around long enough to avoid getting carried away by how things seem to be sometimes. But even so, by the time I hung up with Penner, this didn’t just feel like a theory to me.
It felt a whole hell of a lot like the solution.
CHAPTER
83
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG TO CONFIRM WHAT DETECTIVE PENNER HAD SUSPECTED. Other than a few cosmetic details, the old man mask in the Florida surveillance image was a clear match to the ones we’d seen in Georgetown. It was time to move on Dr. Creem.
The first thing I did was call Errico Valente down at his crime scene on Roosevelt Island to brief him. Then I printed everything I had in hard copy and left it in a plain envelope on Valente’s desk. I’d already gotten enough heat for one day. I didn’t need an e-trail leading back to me on any of this, and I knew Errico could handle it. Also, that he’d be discreet. If he got the credit, that was the least of my worries.
After that, all I could do was finish out my day, head home, and wait to hear what they’d made of it all.
Of course, that didn’t stop me, Bree, and Sampson from putting our heads together that night, up in my office at home. There was still plenty to talk about.
It was starting to feel like we had our own PI firm running out of my attic. It was a little ridiculous, with all the secrecy—but also exciting. After three days on the desk, I felt like I was actually getting something done.
I caught Bree and John up on everything I’d learned that day, and we swapped a few theories. My best guess was that Elijah Creem would be in for questioning by morning, if not actually in custody. This also put a bright light on his friend, Josh Bergman, who was starting to look pretty good as our River Killer. Valente would be speaking with him, too, no doubt.
After that, we moved on to the Elizabeth Reilly case, and her phantom boyfriend—the man we knew of only as Russell. Bree had continued checking NCIC records, flagging any arrests for someone with that first or last name. So far, none of the hits she’d gotten had shown even a remote possibility of being related.
It was the same deal with Rebecca Reilly, Elizabeth’s kidnapped daughter. I’d been checking in with Ned Mahoney at the FBI, but there was no movement on that front, either. The hard truth was that our best shot at finding this baby would be if “Russell” came out of the shadows to go after another pregnant girl. I hated to even think about it.
All of which left the subject of Ron Guidice on the table.
“What about our other friend?” I said. “The one we don’t talk about.”
Bree and Sampson looked at each other. Whatever they had going on Guidice, they’d been keeping it to themselves.
“Not much to tell,” John said.
“Not much?” I said. “Or nothing at all?” I was too curious to leave it alone. Or maybe just sick of being out of the loop.
Sampson shrugged and killed the last of his beer. “Supposedly, there was an older woman and a little girl living with him until recently. The neighbor thinks they were Guidice’s mother and daughter, but he couldn’t say for sure. Either way, they’re gone now. That place of his out in Reston is like a ghost house.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about this,” Bree said.
“We’re not,” Sampson said, and laid himself across my old leather couch.
I gave John a thumbs-up by way of thanks. I wished I could be in on this, but as long as Guidice’s restraining order was in place, I wasn’t going to touch it. If that meant Guidice got to win a few battles along the way, so be it.
I was still determined to win the war.
CHAPTER
84
RON GUIDICE SLID HIS HEADPHONES OFF.
Son of a bitch! He almost wanted to turn the whole operation ninety degrees and go after John Sampson instead. No way that pathetic excuse for a cop was going to get any closer to his family than he already had. That was for damn sure.
Either way, the signs were unmistakable. It was time to make a big move. The only question was—what first?
When the phone in his pocket buzzed, Guidice gritted his teeth. He didn’t have to look at the ID. His mother was the only person who had this number, and it was the fourth time she’d tried him in the last hour. It was getting ridiculous.
“What, Mom?” he finally answered. “I’m working.”
“Daddy?”
Instead of Lydia, it was Emma Lee at the other end. Immediately, he regretted his tone.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly. “What are you doing up so late?”
“When are you coming home?” his daughter asked. Her little Virginia accent coaxed at him, pulling his heart right through the phone. He felt guilty as hell, but that couldn’t be helped right now.
“Just a few more days,” he said. “Not much longer.”
“The baby’s been crying a lot. I think she misses you.”
“That’s what babies do, sweet pea. Don’t worry about it. Now, put Grandma on the phone, okay?”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too. More than the moon.”
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After a short pause, Lydia came on the line. “Ronald?” she said.
Guidice could feel his gut turn a one eighty at the sound of her voice. “What the hell is she doing up?” he said. “You’re supposed to be looking after her.”
“Don’t you curse at me,” his mother said. “Your daughter misses her daddy. Can you blame her? You move us all the way out here and then don’t come around for days. And we’re out of milk, by the way. I can’t keep walking back to that store on these ankles.”
Guidice gave himself a ten count. There was nothing to do but suck it up. He needed Lydia now more than ever.
“Mom, we’ve talked all about this,” he said slowly. “As long as I’ve got this lawsuit going, I don’t think it’s safe for me to be around you and the girls too much. It’s no secret the police are out to get me.”
“But you’re the victim! You’re the one who got his nose broken.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The last thing you want is cops like that coming around, asking questions. Then it’s just a matter of time before you’ve got reporters out there, trying to snap pictures of you and the girls. Right through the windows, even.”
“Stop it,” she said. “Now you’re scaring me.”
“I’m not trying to, Mom. I’m just explaining.”
In fact, he was trying, a little. If there was one thing Lydia Guidice hated, it was seeing pictures of herself. The fat ones reminded her she was fat, and the skinny ones reminded her that she wasn’t skinny anymore. Somewhere there was a box of family snapshots—including half a dozen of Guidice’s old man, standing there with his arm around nobody anymore—where she’d torn herself right out.
It was too bad the old man had dropped dead instead of her. He might have actually appreciated what Guidice was trying to accomplish here.
“Don’t trust anyone, Mom,” he said. “You know your rights, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ronald. You’ve told me a thousand times.”
“If someone comes around asking questions, you tell them you’re not required to identify yourself, and that you want to speak to your lawyer first.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. I know, I know.”
It was one of the best ways to get Lydia off the phone. She hated talking about this stuff.
“I’ll try to get out there when I can,” he told her. “I just need you and the girls to hang on a little longer without me, okay?”
“Do we have a choice?” she asked, edging back into that childish tone of hers—the one that made Guidice think maybe the old man had been the lucky one after all.
“No, Mom,” he said before he hung up again, “I guess you don’t.”
CHAPTER
85
THE NEXT MORNING, VALENTE BRIEFED THE ENTIRE INVESTIGATIVE TEAM ABOUT Elijah Creem. At least, that’s what I inferred. I wasn’t permitted into the briefings, or the Joint Operations Center, where they took place.
But as soon as everyone started filtering back into the office, I could feel the buzz. Valente waved at me from across the room before he took off again, followed out the door by Huizenga and Jacobs. I didn’t expect him to catch me up in front of everyone, but it was clear that this case was now moving forward.
Before I could start sorting anything out, I got an unexpected call. It was Chief Perkins’s office telling me I was wanted upstairs. Perkins’s assistant, Tracy, didn’t offer any details. She just said to come right away.
I knew this summons could cut either way—good or bad news. Up to now, Perkins had been looking out for me as much as not. He’d let me spend the night in jail, but he’d also pulled me off the cell block early. He’d kept me on the sidelines all this time, but he also made sure I got my gun and badge back, which he didn’t have to do.
So what now?
“Go on in,” Tracy said, waving me past reception when I got there. “He’s waiting for you.”
Perkins’s door was open and he was sitting behind his huge maple desk—Old Ironsides, we call it—signing a stack of paperwork when I came in.
“Have a seat if you like,” he said.
I stayed on my feet while he signed a few more forms. When he finally looked up, he took a separate page out of his inbox and held it out for me.
“What’s this?” I said.
“A letter of declination from the US Attorney’s Office,” he told me. “It looks like today’s your lucky day. They’re citing insufficient evidence for prosecution.”
I felt like a weight had just been lifted off me. A letter of declination meant they were declining to advance my case to an indictment.
“I’m a little surprised, to be honest,” I said. “Internal Affairs has been riding me pretty hard since this whole thing started.”
“Let’s just say you owe me one. Or two or three,” Perkins said without a smile.
Whatever he’d done, it had tilted the scales in my favor—which I appreciated, but quite frankly it shouldn’t have been that hard to do, since I was innocent on all counts.
“And you’re still going to be taking piss tests for the next couple months,” he added.
“I can live with that,” I said.
There was also the possibility of administrative charges, and Guidice would undoubtedly move forward with his own civil suit. But none of that was going to stop me from finally getting back to work. I was four days out of the loop by now, and that’s like dog years in homicide. I had some catching up to do.
“Anything else?” I said.
“Yes. Not everyone’s going to be happy about this. We’re going to take some heat,” Perkins said. “I need you to keep your mouth shut about the whole thing. Don’t defend yourself to the press, don’t talk about Ron Guidice, nothing. Just keep your head down and go back to work.”
“That’s all I ever wanted, Lou,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Because I think they’re expecting you downstairs. We’ve got Elijah Creem in for questioning right now.”
CHAPTER
86
BY THE TIME I GOT DOWN TO THE INTERVIEW SUITE ON FOUR, THEY ALREADY HAD Dr. Creem alone in a room with Detective Valente.
I found Huizenga, D’Auria, and Jacobs sitting at the end of the suite’s L-shaped hallway, gathered around a laptop and watching and listening in. Chief Perkins must have said something to Huizenga at the morning briefing, because she just nodded and made room for me at the table.
“Good to have you back,” she said.
“Shh,” D’Auria said, and tapped the screen in front of us.
I could feel the tension in the group. I wasn’t sure how long Creem had been in there, but something told me it wasn’t going well.
Creem was seated on an aluminum chair bolted to the interview room floor. His body language was open, with his hands at his sides and his legs wide. If anything, it looked studied to me. Arrogant, even, as if he were enjoying this—or at least, wanted us to think so.
Valente had pulled in a folding chair of his own and sat with his back against the door. The wedge-shaped table in the corner was empty, and the only pop of color in the room was the red panic button on the wall.
“Dr. Creem, do you recognize this signature?” Valente asked. He’d just taken a sheet out of an accordion file on the floor and turned it around to show Creem.
“That would be one of my intake forms,” he said.
“Yes. For Darcy Vickers,” Valente said.
“I can see that.”
Valente took the form back and stowed it. He wanted Creem looking at him, not the page.
“Her most recent procedure with you was a neck lift,” he said. “Eleven months before she was murdered.”
“A platysmaplasty, yes,” Creem said. “It’s unfortunate. I did some of my best work on her.”
I didn’t know what his exact goal was here, but he’d played the same game with me while he took putts in his backyard. The last thing Elijah Creem wanted us to think was that he cared about anything but himself. He was
going out of his way to make the point.
Valente sat back and crossed his arms. I could tell his patience was running thin.
“It’s a lot of coincidences, don’t you think?” he said. “Your former patient. Your neighbors in Palm Beach—”
“Now, you see there?” Creem said, suddenly more animated. “Why would you need to ask that question, unless you were short on information? I’m no detective, detective, but even I know that you don’t prosecute on coincidences.”
To my mind that sounded a lot like Yes, I’m guilty, but you can’t prove it. One of the most important aspects of any interview is what isn’t said. And Creem seemed to be not saying a lot. He liked us knowing what he’d done, didn’t he? Just as long as he stayed on the right side of that very thin line he was treading. It was a game of thrills for him—the killing itself, but this part, too.
“Okay,” Valente said. He got up and folded his chair against the wall. “Let me ask you a different question. Did you kill Darcy Vickers?”
“Let’s say I wish I’d gotten to her first,” Creem said. “That’s not illegal, is it?”
“Did you kill Roger and Annette Wettig in Florida?” Valente asked.
Creem seemed to consider it. “Same answer.”
“So, you did kill them,” Valente pressed. “That’s what I’m hearing.”
All at once, Creem jumped onto his feet. The two of them were suddenly inches apart. I jumped up, too, but D’Auria held out a hand for me to wait.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Valente said.
“You see this?” Creem held his hands up between them. “No cuffs. Not like the first time you people came after me. That means I haven’t been arrested, and that means I don’t have to be here.”
“Sit down!” Valente barked at him.
“No, I don’t think I will,” Creem said. “I’m ready to speak to my attorney. So you can either give me your phone, or you can let me out of this ridiculous little closet of yours. Either way, this conversation is over.”