I wouldn’t want to be the one who comforted Lucy after Carrie came close to destroying all of us. It’s not a level playing field. It never has been, and Janet’s smart enough to realize there are but a few degrees of separation between murderous hate and erotic love. They are different extremes of the same raging passion, and she evokes neither in Lucy.
Janet is somewhere between the best and the worst of everything when it comes to life with my niece, and I constantly feel bad about it even as I say nothing. It’s not my business. But I worry I’m to blame. Maybe Lucy would have been better off had I not tried to do so much for her, had I not insisted on rescuing her from powerlessness, from loss and every other perceived bogeyman that plagued my childhood.
Maybe Dorothy is right when she says that I’m the one who’s done the real damage to a niece I couldn’t love more were she my own daughter. The irony is that Dorothy doesn’t know about the worst mistake I made. She doesn’t know about Carrie Grethen. My sister could be sitting next to her on the plane and not know who she is or why it matters.
Heading toward the big boxy tent silhouetted against the night, I realized how unsettled I am by Lucy showing up and giving shape and form to her worst fears. I resent walking around in the dark with Carrie on my mind, and I feel myself begin to resist her as I’ve done countless times.
“How are we holding up?” I say to one of the uniformed cops as my sweat-soaked Tyvek-covered feet quietly crunch past on the unpaved path that stretches ahead of me.
“Hanging in.”
“Stay cool,” I say to another officer.
“You too, Chief.”
“If anybody needs any water, let us know,” I offer the next one I encounter.
“Hey, Doc? We got any idea yet what happened to her?”
“That’s where I’m headed,” I reply, and I have a similar exchange with all of them.
There are at least twice as many uniformed officers stationed about, and I have no doubt that Marino’s made sure the park is surrounded and buttoned up. No one uninvited can come in and out, and I find myself constantly listening for news helicopters, grateful I’m not hearing them yet. I don’t need them hovering low and churning up the scene with their rotor wash.
I reach the tent and for the second time tonight am startled by a figure stepping out of the shadows.
“Marino’s inside waiting for you,” Investigator Barclay says officiously as if I’ve just shown up late for an appointment.
VELCRO RIPS AS I push my way through the side flap of the canopied enclosure. For an instant I’m dazzled by auxiliary lights, the scene as bright as an operating room. I stop just inside, setting down my shoulder bag, placing my phone on top of it.
I survey some forty-by-thirty feet of the John F. Kennedy Park that includes the iron lamp with its shattered bulbs, the bicycle and the body, all of it lit up like high noon. Marino and I are alone, no one else allowed inside until we say so. He moves about in white protective clothing that starkly contrasts with the black-paneled walls and twelve-foot-high black roof supported by a scaffolding of gunpowder-gray aluminum poles.
As I watch him make notes and take photographs I feel as if we’re immersed in a black-and-white postmodern photograph. The only noticeable colors are the margins of green grass, the tawny fitness path, red biohazard warnings, and the dead woman’s light blue shorts. From where I’m standing I can’t see the blood but it will be coagulated, tacky and a dark reddish brown on the way to dry black.
That’s based on what I noticed earlier when I got close, and also on the weather conditions, which remain extreme. Already I can feel the trapped humidity from the river. The hot air is sticky and low pressure like a tennis bubble. There’s a plastic smell, and it won’t be long until the stuffy environment bristles with a foul stench as bacteria teem and dead flesh and fluids putrefy.
“I went through the knapsacks,” Marino calls out to me, and I assume he’s talking about Enya and Anya.
“Are the girls safe and cool in a daisy room, I hope?” I find an equipment case to sit on so I can suit up.
“Eating snacks, drinking sodas. Flanders is babysitting, and I’ve got a couple uniforms making a wellness check on the mom.” Marino’s booming voice is amplified by the enclosure.
“She’s still not answering the phone?”
“Or the door. Poor kids. I feel bad for them.”
“And they’re still saying she’s supposed to be home?”
“Asleep in bed when they left the house, and I have a feeling I know what that means. Dead drunk, how much you want to bet?” Marino says. “I’m going to have to get DCF involved because it’s obvious there’s a problem.”
The Department of Children and Families is the agency in Massachusetts responsible for neglected and abused kids. I tell Marino that no matter what happens in this case, he should make certain the twins are safe. It would seem they don’t have adequate adult supervision. The way they’re headed they’re going to end up hurt or worse, and I don’t think they understand the different kinds of trouble they can get into.
“Like stealing. Like tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice,” Marino agrees. “Call it what you want? That’s what it is when you pick up something that’s not yours at a scene and decide to keep it. And guess what?” He hunches his shoulder to wipe sweat off his chin. “It turns out they were in possession of the dead lady’s sunglasses. Which is too freakin’ bad because I would have liked to see where they found them. How close to the bike or the helmet, that sort of thing?”
He lowers the camera and heads toward me as I begin pulling off the shoe covers I wore walking here.
“Do I dare ask what else was in their knapsacks?” When children stumble upon a violent scene it’s bad for every reason imaginable.
“Leftovers from dinner,” Marino says as he reaches me. “Bread wrapped in napkins, little packets of stuff like Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, salt, salad dressing.” His big face is framed in white Tyvek like a nun in a habit, his cheeks bulging and a sweaty deep red.
“Sounds like they’re not being properly fed.” I look up at him from where I sit. “But you’re not really going to know until you get inside their house. Are you okay, Marino? I’m worried you’re very hot.”
“Well they don’t exactly look like they’re starving. Yeah I’m hot. This sucks.”
“One can be overweight and malnourished,” I remind him. “In fact that’s often the case, especially if the diet is mostly sugar and fast food. And left to their own devices, that’s what kids will eat morning, noon and night.”
“It appears they were telling the truth about having pizza for dinner and why they were out wandering around,” he says. “I get the feeling they do this sort of thing a lot in all kinds of weather, probably because you’re exactly right. Their mother’s not taking care of them.”
“It may be that she’s never taken care of them, including when she was pregnant.” I suggest that the twins may be suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome.
“That would explain why between the two of them they couldn’t light up a ten-watt bulb,” Marino says. “They’re street-smart but that’s about it. And it’s shitty. Little kids shouldn’t have to be street-smart.”
“The sunglasses they picked up,” I go back to that. “What do they look like?”
“Maui Jims, sporty ones.”
“Rimless with amber lenses?” I inquire as I get a sinking feeling again.
“Yeah,” he says. “They were near the body, according to Enya. The lenses are dusty and scratched real bad, and I’m thinking the victim may have been wearing them when she was attacked. Assuming they weren’t already damaged.”
“We need to be careful about saying she was attacked.” I don’t like it when he makes me feel like a scold.
“When you saw the lady riding her bike earlier did you notice if her sunglasses were damaged?”
“I didn’t notice, assuming that’s for sure who this is.”
&
nbsp; “I think we know.” He pulls off his gloves and tosses them into the nearby biohazard trash bag hanging on a metal stand. “It’s hard to imagine we’re talking about two different women who look similar, are about the same age, and both had on Converse sneakers and a Sara Bareilles concert T-shirt. And maybe the same type of sunglasses. And they appeared in the same part of Cambridge at the same time.”
“Even if they’re the same person that doesn’t mean we know who she is.” I’ll continue reminding him to be conservative even if he doesn’t listen.
“And the other thing the girls had squirreled away?” He picks up a roll of paper towels, tearing off several squares to wipe his face. “A pendant. A gold skull about the size of a quarter, like from a necklace. I’m thinking it came from the broken gold chain.”
“Where was it found?”
“They said on the path near the bike. Based on where they showed me, I’m thinking it was in the general area where the pieces of chain were.” He tosses the wadded paper towels into the bright red trash bag next, and I follow them with my used shoe covers.
“The woman I encountered earlier was wearing an unusual necklace shaped like a skull. It was gold and looked fairly substantial, not flat like a medallion but rounded with contours,” I inform him. “I noticed her flip it around to her back, tucking it into the back of her shirt when she rode across Quincy Street, heading into the Yard.”
“It’s gotta be her, and I’m not liking that you saw her twice right before she got whacked. I keep worrying that she’s got some connection to you, Doc.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be,” I reply. “I don’t believe I’d ever seen her before today.”
Then I tell him about my Internet searches for Elisa Vandersteel. I couldn’t find her in London or anywhere.
CHAPTER 28
THE DRIVER’S LICENSE COULD be fake,” he says. “These days technology makes it a piece of cake to counterfeit IDs that look like the genuine article.”
“It’s odd that whoever Elisa Vandersteel is she doesn’t seem to be on social media either,” I inform him. “What young person isn’t these days? And I came across nothing in the news about anyone with that name that might be her. But I only looked for a few minutes.”
“I agree it’s strange. Unless she had reason to stay below the radar.” Marino pulls down his white hood, patting dry his shiny head with paper towels. “Jesus, I’m sweating like a whore in church. Or she had a fake ID card, and there’s no such thing as an Elisa Vandersteel with that DOB and address. And maybe that’s why there’s no one with that name on social media.”
“Lucy’s working on it. Let’s see what she comes up with.” I tear open a packet of coveralls.
“More than she’s been coming up with, I sure as hell hope.” It’s an unfortunate dig at her failed efforts with Tailend Charlie, and I won’t get into it with him.
I scan the lighted area of the park inside the flat-topped block-shaped enclosure, my attention wandering over the grass, the hard-packed path, the laid-down bike and the body. The scene looks eerily undisturbed as if it’s not possible someone died violently here.
“How are we doing?” I ask Marino to fill me in on what might have developed since we last communicated. “Have you found anything interesting that we missed the first time? We’re going to want to wrap this up as quickly as we safely can. It’s awful in here, and I don’t want either of us or anyone else getting overheated.”
“Mostly I’ve been collecting what we already know about. The pieces of gold chain, the driver’s license. And her helmet, which didn’t look damaged to me.”
“Do you think Enya and Anya might have picked up other evidence?”
“Where would they hide it? I searched their knapsacks, and we’ve got the glasses, the skull pendant, the phone. Plus we found the shirt one of them threw up on in the bushes.”
“Unless they hid something somewhere,” I propose. “Money, for example. Credit cards, cash? The victim was riding her bike out here alone with no money and no keys?”
“All I can tell you is they swear they didn’t borrow anything else.” Marino takes off his gloves and unzips a small black Harley-Davidson cooler bag that belongs to him personally. “They turned their pockets inside out for me. Nothing.”
“I suppose it depends on whether they trust you enough to be truthful,” I reply as he lifts out a dripping bottle of water and offers it to me. “No thanks. I’m all set at the moment. It depends on whether you trust them in return,” I add about the twins. “Do you?”
“Hell, by now I’ve got them thinking they’re going to be sworn in as junior detectives any minute. So I’m pretty sure if they had anything else they would have handed it over.”
“I’m also curious about why they didn’t bother picking up the driver’s license.” I begin working the synthetic white pant legs over my horrible shoes. “It was still on the path when Investigator Barclay arrived. I’m wondering how it got where it was and why the girls took other things but left that for some reason.”
“Probably because, the way they figure,” Marino says, “a dead person’s ID would get them caught red-handed. It’s not like they thought it was fine and dandy to take the belongings of someone who’s been injured or in this case killed. Point being, at some level they know right from wrong. They were thinking finders, keepers. And they assumed the dead lady wasn’t going to need sunglasses, a phone or a gold skull pendant anymore.”
“They said that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well she wouldn’t be needing money anymore either.”
“I know. But unless they’ve got it hidden in their underwear?” He gulps the water, and the bottle is almost empty when he returns it to the cooler bag. “But I’ll have Flanders check into that because there was no way in hell I was going to and be accused of manhandling them.”
“Let’s hope there’s nothing else they’ve squirreled away that the victim wasn’t going to need anymore.” I replay my encounters with the cyclist when we were in front of the Faculty Club.
I didn’t notice much in the way of jewelry.
“I didn’t see a watch, for example,” I pass on to Marino. “But the phone, the sunglasses and any other items Anya and Enya picked up and tucked inside their knapsacks will be a problem if this goes to court.”
“I hope they didn’t mess up anything that matters.” He splays his fingers, working his hands into new gloves. “Not that there’s anything much to mess up. So far I’m not seeing discernible footprints, no fresh cigarette butts. No blood drips or anything that might make you think there was a struggle. It’s like she was already dead when she hit the ground.”
“It certainly appears that she didn’t move.” I stand up and work my arms into the slippery white sleeves. “Based on what I’m seeing, I suspect once she was on the ground she was unconscious and dying,” I add as my phone rings.
It’s Lucy, and I put on my earpiece. I tell her I hope she’s found something.
“South Audley Street, Mayfair. Off Grosvenor Square,” she says.
“Elisa Vandersteel’s address?” I sit back down on top of the equipment box, and I look up at Marino.
“A six-thousand-square-foot house valued at around thirty million pounds,” Lucy tells me. “That’s the address on the driver’s license, and one of the reasons her name’s not coming up in ordinary searches is it’s not her or her family who lives there.”
“The address is fake then.”
“It’s not. The owner is the CEO of a tech company, William Portison. British, went to MIT, wife’s name is Diana.” Lucy’s voice sounds in my earpiece. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s who owns the house where Elisa Vandersteel was living as an au pair for the past two years,” Lucy says with no lack of confidence. “It could explain why the Portisons’ ritzy Mayfair address is on her British driver’s license. And being an au pair might be why she’s no
t on social media. Not every employer wants that if they’re private and careful with their kids.”
“You might be right but it’s odd,” I reply.
“A lot of au pairs work in exchange for room and board,” Lucy says next. “They basically become part of the family.”
“Yes but usually not literally,” I reply. “I wouldn’t think living with a family entitles you to hijack their address and use it as your own. If the South Audley Street house isn’t Elisa Vandersteel’s legal residence, then it really shouldn’t be on her driver’s license or other forms of identification. If nothing else it presents a liability to the Portisons.”
“Well it seems they didn’t stop her from using it when she moved to London two years ago and got the license,” Lucy says. “She lists it on a number of things and got mail there. So I assume they knew what she was doing.”
“Moved from where?” I ask.
“CANADA,” LUCY SAYS IN my earpiece. “She exchanged her driver’s license for a British one. And the obvious reason to do that would be if she planned to drive in the UK for more than twelve months.”
She goes on about it with a certainty that perplexes me, and I’m not going to ask how she’s managed to find out all this. When I searched the Internet for Elisa Vandersteel I came up empty. But I don’t know where Lucy looked. Possibly the Deep Web, the Undernet, and I don’t venture into the Bermuda Triangle of cyberspace, where terrorists and deviants prowl, and unsuspecting people and their property are wrecked and forever lost.
Lucy reminds me rather constantly that nothing is private anymore. Maybe what I’m seeing with the Tailend Charlies of the world is simply the price of doing business these days. But I admit I hate it. At times I feel like Rip Van Winkle waking up to discover decades have passed. Only it feels more like a century. Life used to be more civilized than it’s become, that’s for sure.
“And it’s likely her work visa was up or a problem of one sort or another,” Lucy adds as if she’s had access to a dossier, “which explains why she’s no longer in London.”