On the Street Where you Live (10 page)

I can prove it

I shall prove it.

By late afternoon he had decided the way in which he would reveal the truth about himself to the skeptic.

A simple ordinary postcard would be sufficient, he thought. A crude drawing, no better than what a child might send.

He would mail it on Saturday.

On his way to church.

T
OMMY
D
UGGAN
and Pete Walsh were on the porch waiting for Emily when she arrived home.

Tommy brushed aside her apology for keeping them waiting. “We're a little early, Ms. Graham.” He introduced Pete, who promptly reached down and picked up the bag of books Clayton Wilcox had given Emily.

“You must be planning to do a lot of reading, Ms. Graham,” he commented as she unlocked the door.

“I guess I am.”

They followed her into the foyer. “Let's talk in the kitchen,” she suggested. “I'd love a cup of tea, and maybe I can persuade you to join me.”

Pete Walsh accepted. Tommy Duggan passed on
the tea, but could not resist helping himself to a couple of the chocolate-chip cookies she put out on a plate.

They sat at the kitchen table. The big window afforded a stark view of the excavation site and the piles of dirt around it. The words C
RIME
S
CENE,
N
O
T
RESPASSING,
were printed on the tapes that cordoned off the area. They could see the policeman guarding the site looking out the window of the cabana.

“I see that the forensic team is gone,” Emily said. “I hope that means you're through with the investigation here? I want the contractor to get that pit filled in. I've decided I'm not going ahead with a pool.”

“That's just what we want to discuss, Ms. Graham,” Tommy said. “While the backhoe is here, we'd like to have the rest of your yard dug up.”

Emily stared at him. “What purpose would that serve?”

“A very important one. You should have the reassurance of knowing that you will never face another shock like the one you experienced yesterday.”

“Surely you don't believe there are
other
bodies buried out there?” The shock in her voice was unmistakable.

“Ms. Graham, I know you watched the prosecutor on TV, because you phoned in about the ring that was found.”

“Yes.”

“Then you heard him say that after your—What is it, great-great-grandaunt?—disappeared in 1891, two other young women vanished from Spring Lake.”

“Dear God, do you think they may be buried out there?” Emily gestured toward the backyard.

“We'd like to find out. We'd also like to get a blood sample from you so that we can verify through DNA that it really is Madeline Shapley's finger bone.”

Tom Duggan realized that he was suddenly feeling the absolute exhaustion that sets in when you've barely slept in a day and a half. He felt dull and heavy eyed. He felt sorry for Emily Graham. She looked shocked and distressed.

They had run a check on her yesterday—top criminal defense attorney going to one of those fancy law firms in Manhattan. Divorced from a jerk who tried to horn in on her when she came into money. Victim of a stalker who was now in a psychiatric facility. But someone had taken her picture the night she arrived in Spring Lake and slipped it under the door.

Anyone could have looked her up on the Internet and found out about the stalker. There'd been a lot of publicity when they finally caught him. Some stupid kid from around here might have thought it funny to try to scare her. The Spring Lake cops were good. They'd keep their eyes out for anyone hanging around here. Maybe they'd be able to lift fingerprints off the snapshot or the envelope.

And now she's sitting in this beautiful house, with the backyard looking like a bomb site because the remains of two murder victims, one of them her own relative, were buried here. It was sad.

Tommy knew his wife Suzie would want to know about Emily Graham. What she looked like. What she
was wearing. Suzie had found his description of his meeting with Emily Graham yesterday totally inadequate. Tommy tried to sum up the impressions he would pass on to her when he went home this evening.

Emily Graham was wearing blue jeans, a red sweater with a big collar, and ankle boots. Her clothes sure didn't come from a discount house. Plain gold earrings. No rings. Dark brown hair, soft, shoulder length. Big brown eyes that were now worried and apprehensive. Really pretty, maybe even beautiful.

My God, I'm falling asleep talking to her, he thought.

“Ms. Graham, this summer I don't want you to be sitting outside with your friends and wondering if more human bones may suddenly work their way to the surface.”

“But isn't it a fact that if two other young women vanished in the 1890s, and their bodies
are
found here, it will prove that there
was
a serial killer in this town one hundred and ten years ago?”

“Yes, it would,” Duggan said. “However, my concern is to get my hands on the guy who killed Martha Lawrence. I've always believed it was somebody from around here. A lot of people have roots in this town going back three and four generations. Others spent summers here or worked in the hotels when they were college kids.”

“Tom and I worked at the Warren,” Walsh observed. “Ten years apart, of course.”

Duggan shot a look at him. It as much as said, “Don't interrupt.”

“The bones we found here underneath Martha's skeleton were in a relatively shallow grave,” he continued. “They'd have been found long ago if that tree hadn't been there. A few might have surfaced over the years. I think what happened is that somebody came across them at some point, maybe even found the finger bone with the ring, kept it, and when he killed Martha decided to bury her there with it.”

He looked at her. “You're shaking your head,” he said. “You don't agree.”

“I'm letting my guard down,” Emily said. “A good defense attorney keeps a poker face. No, Mr. Duggan, I can't agree. It's too much for me to believe that someone found the bone, never told anyone about it, murdered that poor Lawrence girl, then decided to bury her here. I don't buy that.”

“How would you explain it?”

“I think whoever murdered Martha Lawrence knew exactly what happened in 1891, and has committed a copycat murder.”

“You're not into that reincarnation theory, I hope?”

“No, I'm not, but I do believe that Martha's killer knows a whole lot about Madeline Shapley's death.”

Tom stood up. “Ms. Graham, this house has turned over ownership quite a few times during all those years. We're going to look up the records, find out who those owners were, and see if any of them are still around here. Will you allow us to dig up your yard?”

“Yes, I will.” Her voice was resigned.

“And now I'm going to ask
you
something. Let me see the records you found about Madeline Shapley's disappearance and the disappearance of those other two young women in the 1890s.”

They looked at each other. “I'd have to check with the boss, but I don't see a problem there,” Duggan told her.

She walked to the front door with them.

“The contractor told me he can start again first thing in the morning,” she told them. “I had hoped he'd be here filling in the hole, but if the whole yard has to be dug up, so be it.”

“We'll have the forensic unit here sifting. They shouldn't take more than a day, or at the most two, then you can put all this behind you,” Duggan promised.

Back in the car, they drove in silence for five minutes. Then Duggan said, “Are you thinking the same thing I am, Pete?”

“Maybe.”

“That girl, Carla Harper, from Philadelphia?”

“Right.”

“She disappeared two years ago, in August.”

“Right. An eyewitness swears she saw her talking to a guy at a rest stop just outside Philadelphia. Claims they were driving separate cars, but when they left he followed her. Eyewitness swears he had Pennsylvania plates. Then a couple of days later Harper's purse with apparently nothing missing was found in a wooded area not far from that rest stop. The case has been handled by the Philadelphia prosecutor.”

Tommy picked up the phone and called the office and asked to be put through to Len Green, one of the other detectives working closely on the case.

“Len, when did the second woman disappear in the 1890s?”

“Give me a minute?” There was a pause. “Here it is, August 5, 1893.”

“When was Carla Harper reported missing?”

“Be right back to you.”

Tommy held the phone until he heard the words he'd been expecting to hear. “August 5th.”

“We're on the way. See you in twenty minutes. Thanks, Len.”

Tommy Duggan was no longer sleepy. They had to talk to the Philadelphia detective who had handled the case of Carla Harper immediately. The fact that both Madeline Shapley and Martha Lawrence had disappeared on September 7th, even though separated by one hundred and ten years, might have been coincidental; the fact that then two young women had disappeared on August 5th in the same time frame could not be coincidental.

They
did
have a copycat killer on their hands in Spring Lake. “You know what this means, Pete?” he asked.

Pete Walsh did not answer. He knew Tommy Duggan was thinking aloud.

“It means that if this guy is following a pattern, he's going to target one more young woman, on March 31st.”

“This
March 31st?”

“I don't know yet. In the 1890s the three women
vanished several years apart.” He got back on the phone. “Len, now check this out,” he began.

When he had the information he wanted, he said. “There was a difference of twenty-three months between the disappearances of the first two women in the 1890s. There was exactly that same number of months between the disappearance of Martha Lawrence and Carla Harper.”

They were pulling into the parking lot at the prosecutor's office. “If some woman vanishes in Spring Lake next week on March 31st, the cycle will be complete. And to add to the fun, we may have a copycat stalker of Emily Graham on our hands too.”

As Pete Walsh got out of the car, he wisely did not tell Tommy Duggan that his mother-in-law believed in reincarnation and that he too was beginning to think there might be something to it.

W
HEN SHE HAD DONE
the food shopping after the closing on the house, Emily had purchased a package of chicken parts with the idea of making a pot of soup. After the detectives left, she decided to prepare it now and have it for dinner tonight.

The open pit in the backyard and the possibility that other bodies were buried there made her feel as if
the scent of death were permeating the very air around her. Besides, she thought, I always do my best thinking when my hands are chopping vegetables or kneading dough.

Chicken soup does do something for the psyche, and right now, Emily admitted to herself, mine needs some help.

She went into the kitchen and drew the blinds, grateful to block out the dismal scene in the yard. Her hands worked independently, scraping carrots, cutting up celery and onions, reaching for seasonings. By the time she had turned on the flame under the pot, she had made a decision.

It had been foolish not to call the Albany police immediately and report what had happened last night. They should be aware of it.

Why didn't I call them?

She answered her own question. Because I don't want to believe that it's going to begin again. I've been burying my head in the sand since I saw that photograph slipped under the door last night.

She knew what she had to do. Detective Walsh had carried the bag of books into the kitchen. She picked it up, went into the study, and laid it by the ottoman in front of the deep armchair. She went over to the desk, got the portable phone, and perched on the ottoman.

Her first call was to Detective Marty Browski in Albany. He had been the one who collared Ned Koehler lurking outside her townhouse. Browski's response to what she told him was both astonishment and concern. “My guess is that you've got a copycat, either
that or one of Koehler's friends is picking up where he left off. We'll look into it. Emily, I'm glad you called the local police. Tell you what. I'll give them a call down there and alert them to the seriousness of the problem. I can fill them in on the background.”

Her next call was to Eric Bailey. It was after five, but he was still in the office and delighted to hear from her. “Albany's not the same without you,” he said.

She smiled at the familiar worried tone. Even with millions of dollars, Eric would never change, she thought. Shy, little-boy-lost, but a genius. “I miss you too,” she assured him. “And I've got a favor to ask.”

“Good. Whatever you want, you've got it.”

“Eric, the security camera you put in the townhouse was the reason the cops got Ned Koehler. You offered me one for Spring Lake. I want to take you up on that offer. Can you send someone down to put it in?”

“I can send myself down. I want to see you anyhow. The next few days are really busy. Is Monday okay?”

She could visualize him, his forehead creased, his fingers restlessly toying with some gadget on his desk. When he became successful he traded his blue jeans and tee shirts and parkas for an expensive wardrobe. She hated the sly jokes people told about him, that he still looked the same: woebegone. The poor soul.

“Monday is fine,” she said.

“How's everything going with your house?”

“Interesting. I'll fill you in on Monday.” And that's
about as much as I can do, Emily thought as she replaced the receiver. Now to get into these books.