SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) (7 page)

CHAPTER 12 - WORCESTER

“What makes you think that you’ll have any more success than we will?”

Broderson looked at me as he poured himself another mug of coffee. Mine was cradled in my hands. We were sitting at his desk in the Worcester Police Headquarters on Lincoln Square. As municipal buildings went, it wasn’t a bad looking edifice. But the coffee set a new standard for squad room java.

“Do you have any unsolved homicides in which coffee was involved?”

He laughed as Huntley came over from his own desk and perched on Broderson’s.

“What are you after, Rhode,” he said.

“I thought maybe we could work the Frost case together.” It was hard for me to imagine Ronnie as Sister Veronica. “Now I’m in your ballpark. I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“Just because you gave us a couple of drinks in your office don’t mean we’re gonna bend over and touch our ankles.”

“It was good bourbon. But I see your point. How about if I let you in on something? I know you checked out if there were any similar crimes, but I just stumbled on to something the Feds don’t want anyone to know about yet.”

I had rehearsed that phrasing several times. Even if they hadn’t checked for similar crimes, they wouldn’t admit it now. And any mention of the Feds holding back information from local cops would anger them. I was gambling that they weren’t privy to the new database.

“What do you have?”

I told them about the similar crimes. When I mentioned the beta program they exchanged glances.

“What’s that thing called,” Broderson asked.

I told them. I had to spell the initials out twice before they got it right. Huntley wrote it down and said, “Feds suck.”

They hadn’t known about it.

“Your pal must be pretty wired in,” Broderson said.

“Actually, he was pretty wired out for a while.”

I explained about how I saved Mac’s career by lying when he was accused of throwing a child molester off a balcony, and how he was later dumped from the D.A.’s Squad after an election until wiser heads prevailed. They were stories that I knew wouldn’t hurt me with these cops. All cops hate child molesters and politicians.

“Bottom line, he has a lot of friends. I bet you guys know someone, maybe in Boston, who can get you access to that database in the future.”

“Yeah,” Huntley said. “I went to B.C. with a guy who works organized crime with the Feds. I’ll make a call.”

“In the meantime,” I said, “I’ll give you everything I have on those murders.”

“OK, Rhode, you are proving useful,” Broderson said. “We checked for similar crimes and are still waiting to hear back. You saved us some time. We’ll make some calls. But your friend may be right. Could be four separate homicides.”

“Thinking that way doesn’t give me anyplace new to go. I’m not here just to rehash everything you guys have done. This is just where I’m starting. So, I want everything you have on your murder. The whole file. And if I annoy anyone by nosing around, I want you to get the word out that I’m one of the good guys. I want to be able to tell people that you have my back. That will save
me
a lot of time. And aggravation.”

“We appreciate your help, pal, but that’s asking a lot.”

“Are you guys flying to California or those other places?”

Broderson snorted

“Yeah, right, on our budget?”

“Well, I am. And I’ll give you anything I find out.”

“You must be independently wealthy,” Huntley said.

“No. Just independent. I told you before, this is personal. Come on, what do have to lose? I can be a royal pain in the ass around here. Instead, I’m offering to do some legwork. Expensive legwork.”

“And you don’t have a client,” he said. “Nobody is paying you.”

“I do some of my best work unpaid. I seem to have a lot of practice.”

“One of the cops on Staten Island told us an interesting rumor about you,” Broderson said. “You really find someone in Witness Protection?”

“Feds suck,” I said, smiling.

The two detectives looked at each other. Broderson, the senior man, nodded. Huntley slid open a drawer and came out with a file.

“There are no crime scene or autopsy photos in this,” he said. “I can get them if you want.”

I stared at him.

“He doesn’t want to see that shit, Dick,” Broderson said.

He was right. 

***

Broderson and Huntley let me use an empty interrogation room to study the file and told me where the copy machine was. They had been thorough in their investigation, interviewing dozens of people who knew Sister Veronica, either personally or professionally. None were likely suspects, although I knew that didn’t mean anything. As far as they were concerned, everyone in Worcester past the sixth grade was a suspect.

I read all the statements and cop notes, making some of my own on my iPhone. I also copied some names, addresses and phone numbers. I didn’t need the copy machine; my cell phone camera was just fine. I hadn’t expected to learn anything from the file, which could have been labeled “Brick Wall.” The detectives had pulled in known sex offenders, even though Ronnie’s murder didn’t seem to be a sex crime. They had even interviewed a man who had written a nasty letter to the principal because his daughter had received a “lousy grade” in “Boolean Algebra.” The grade in question was a B+, a mark I would have killed to
get
in high school, in any subject. Since the daughter was now in Harvard, the father was not considered a suspect. There had never been any allegations of abuse, sexual or otherwise, brought against Sister Veronica or any of the staff at Ave Maria, which didn’t surprise me. But the very fact that Broderson and Huntley delved into the possibility said a lot about the current moral climate and the Catholic Church.    

After the murder, several joggers had come forward to say that they had seen Ronnie running alongside a portly man. That man turned out to be a local rabbi, Gil Markowitz, who said he left the Blackstone River before the killing, an alibi confirmed by the owner of a Chinese takeout where Markowitz stopped on his way home to pick up some egg foo young. I made a mental note to ask Cormac, fond of both Chinese food and puns, if a rabbi’s alibi could be called a “ralibi.” 

The more I read, the more I became convinced that Ronnie’s murder was not a random act of violence limited to the Worcester area, but was tied to the cases Cormac had discovered. 

It was getting late and I decided to visit the crime scene before it got dark. I knew it was a waste of time. But I wanted to see where Ronnie had died. I know some detectives, good, tough, pragmatic detectives, who insist they get some sort of karmic boost from walking the ground where a person was murdered. I don’t know about that. All I do know was that it couldn’t hurt. I also know that a fair amount of crimes are solved by detectives doing things that couldn’t hurt.

I had a reservation at a Hilton Garden Inn that turned out to be only five minutes from the site. Huntley gave me directions from the hotel to the site.

“Can’t miss it,” he said.

I checked into my room and headed to the site. Naturally, I missed the cutoff to the jogging trail. Twice. When I finally got there, the sky had turned threatening. I noticed several cars parked in the spot where Ronnie’s body was found, presumably belonging to the joggers I could see working their way along the path adjacent to the river. She had been spotted by two teen-agers who had pulled into the small lot for some back-seat jogging. Considering their raging hormones, it was to their credit that they got out of their car to check out someone who appeared slumped over by an open car door. By the time the police arrived, the rain had washed away any clues, including footprints and car tracks. Since it was a gathering place for both cars and runners, even on a good day the mixture of tracks would probably have been forensically worthless.

I got out of my car and walked down to the jogging path. As runners finished up, they had to pass me. I stopped all the men and asked a few questions, mostly to study their faces and reactions. None of them looked like Hannibal Lecter. I knew that didn’t mean anything. Ted Bundy was a prolific serial killer and he looked like a boy in a Norman Rockwell painting. In a non-profiling spirit, I also stopped a couple of women, hoping that they may have noticed something, or someone, that made them wary. Women, perhaps feeling more vulnerable, tend to notice things like that. But no one had.  

There was a rumble of thunder and the sky began to darken. The first large drops of the approaching storm began to splatter the dirt and leaves. More joggers came up from the river, sensibly trying to beat the storm. It was useless to try to stop them for a chat. Most were sprinting to their vehicles. Soon, no more showed up. I was getting soaked, so I got in my car and turned on the wipers.

The police had concluded that Ronnie had opened the door to her car, turned around and was stabbed. Ambient body temperature indicated she died approximately two hours before the lovebirds showed up. It would have been dark or near dark. If her assailant had come by car, which was likely, she might have assumed he was also a jogger. She might have even been comforted, thinking she wasn’t alone in the woods.

However it happened, Ronnie didn’t fight back. There were no defensive wounds on her hands, or skin under her fingernails. Whoever killed her probably took her by surprise. Either that, or she knew her killer. Of course, one assumption did not preclude the other.

An SUV pulled into the lot next to mine and a man in a jogging rain suit got out. Undoubtedly, a real health nut. Wasn’t going to let a little rain stop him. He had taken only a couple of steps toward the path when a bolt of lightning hit a tree nearby, followed almost immediately by an appalling crash of thunder. My car actually shook. The jogger might have been a health nut, but he apparently wasn’t crazy. He stopped dead in his tracks and jumped back in his SUV and drove away. It was a smart move. The thunderstorm lasted a half hour and the rain came down in sheets. Finally it slowed to just a steady downpour. There was still some lightning and thunder, but now it was in the distance.

Mine was the only car left in the lot. It was quite dark and I reflected that the situation probably wasn’t much different than the night Ronnie was killed. I sat in my car looking out through my rain-smeared windshield, imagining myself as a killer waiting for her to emerge from the river path. Open the door. A quick but savage upward thrust. Get back in the car and drive off. It wouldn’t have taken any more time than it took the lightning bolt to scare the jogger back to his car.

It would have been so easy.

After all, if I was right, the killer had plenty of practice by then.

***

Joggers often vary the time of day when they run. So, early the next morning I went back to the jogging trail by the river. I was dressed for the occasion, since I was almost as interested in perspiration as inspiration. I needed a workout.

It’s hard to chat up joggers while they’re chugging along, but I did fall in step with a few of them and squeezed in some breathless questions. I also corralled one or two joggers as they took a break, usually leaning against a tree. I knew I was spinning my wheels. I really didn’t think my killer was a local jogger, and if he was, the odds were against me “running” into him during the times I was at the river. But at least I got my five miles in.

When I walked back to my car, there was a Worcester police cruiser next to it. Two uniformed cops got out and approached me. One of them had sergeant stripes on his arm. Big smiles, hands resting easily on their holsters.

“How are you doing?” the sergeant said.

“Just dandy. What can I do for you fellows?”

“You can start by telling us why you are back here this morning annoying joggers. And why you want to know so much about the nun’s murder.”

I should have figured that with the recent killing my activities the night before might have made some people nervous. Someone had called the cops and they came back to check things out. I was suddenly very conscious of the small .25 Beretta pistol in my sweat-jacket pocket. I carry it when running, in case I’m attacked by an angry squirrel.

“My name is Rhode. I’m a private detective looking into the murder. I’m carrying a piece and my I.D..”

Their guns came out.

“Turn around and put your hands on the roof of your car,” the sergeant said. Then he came up and patted me down. “Easy does it, pal.”

The other cop moved to the side so his partner wouldn’t be in the line of fire. My gun and I.D. were removed and the sergeant stepped back. A couple of joggers came up from the trail and gave us a wide berth.

“Call Broderson or Huntley in Homicide,” I said. “They’re in this.”

“Keep an eye on him, Tommy,” the sergeant said.

He got in his squad car and picked up his phone.

After everything was straightened out, the sergeant handed me back my gun and I.D.

“Let me ask you something, bud,” he said. “Do you really think this is a productive use of your time?”

“Well, I found out not to mess with Worcester’s finest.”

“Have a nice day.”