The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (7 page)

Sky was stunned.

Fat Fitzpatrick was the head of Boston’s Irish mob. Murdered two dozen men and women during his reign of terror in the ‘80s and ‘90s – a conservative estimate, some said. Fat skipped town on the eve of his indictment and remained a fugitive on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, up there with the likes of Osama Bin Laden. But Fat was free and probably living large thanks to a dirty FBI agent. Was the Boston bureau really that corrupt?

“I suppose Rourke is taking the fall for everyone involved,” Sky said, thinking out loud.

“Yeah, there was some talk at Rourke's trial that other agents – and some cops – accepted payoffs from Fat’s gang.” Kyle guided the cruiser under the Anderson Memorial Bridge and onto Storrow. “Too late to prosecute anybody else. Statute of limitations and all that.”

Sky felt a small sorrow for Monk. Such flagrant corruption in the bureau would have wounded her father.

“Hey, darling,” Kyle’s tone softened. “Everybody knows your old man had a spotless reputation. I’m just giving you a hard time. Habit, I guess. To tell you the truth, we’re all a little jealous of the late, great Monk Stone.” He pressed on the gas pedal and the cruiser picked up speed. “The Chief thinks Monk walked on water. Doesn’t help things. With Jake, I mean.”

Or with me, Sky thought. But she accepted Kyle’s apology for the gift it was and changed the subject. “What’s the victim’s name?”

CHAPTER NINE

“The murdered woman’s name is Nicolette Mercer.” Kyle steered the cruiser along the south bank of the Charles. “Lived here.” He flipped open a folder and showed Sky the Commonwealth Avenue address.

The victim’s name had a melodic quality, like a small song. Nicolette Mercer. Repeating it silently as she looked out over the Charles, Sky found herself heartened by the sight of the river. It felt like an old friend, welcoming her home.

Did Nicolette Mercer take runs along the Charles during breaks from the lab? Sky wondered. She directed Kyle to the Kenmore Square exit, a sharp right and a left on Sherborn. Another right brought the cruiser into heavy traffic.

Boston University straddled Commonwealth Avenue from the Citgo sign to the gargantuan delta-shaped Ellis the Rim Man billboard near the Allston student ghetto. Thirty thousand students wedged into a raucous, mile-long stretch of academic buildings, brownstones, and dorms. Pocketed with cheap eateries, funky retail stores, and nightclubs, the BU campus presented an urban universe in perpetual motion.

Kyle guided the cruiser west on Commonwealth, weaving around knots of students and double-parked cars. Scarlet banners heralded the university’s presence from Kenmore to the BU bridge and beyond.

“Nicolette’s roommate is Jenna Weems, she identified the body.” Kyle parked along a stretch of brownstones. He jumped out of the cruiser and pulled a print kit from the trunk.

Sky and the detectives entered the Queen Anne-style apartment house beneath a green awning and climbed a flight of worn marble steps to the second floor. Sky rang the buzzer and a tallish young woman answered.

“Jenna Weems?” Sky showed her ID and made introductions.

Jenna led the team into the living room, where a television was broadcasting live coverage of the marathon. The drab, mismatched furniture and stained carpeting were standard student rental.

Jenna, in contrast, presented a vivid array of color. A purple tee with black skulls stretched tight over her canary yellow thermal undershirt, and a pink taffeta skirt floated around her knees above black and white stripped leggings. Purple plaid ballet flats underscored the improbable ensemble with touches of black patent leather at the toe.

Something about Jenna’s large, pale eyes and thin blonde hair made Sky think of a newly hatched chick, still wet from the egg. Jenna was twenty-four, according to Kyle’s folder, but her flat chest and long-limbed body still carried the awkwardness of adolescence.

Jenna muted the TV and clutched the remote like a security blanket. She pointed Nicolette’s bedroom out to Kyle and Axelrod, who began the process of gathering latent prints.

A passing train shook the building with a noisy clatter.

“How often do you hear that?” Sky said.

“Hear what?”

“The train.”

“Every ten minutes.” Jenna’s voice had a nasal quality, as though she were fighting a cold. “That’s the Green Line, Kenmore Square to Boston College. And back again.” Jenna gave a small laugh. “Drove me nuts when I first moved in. Now I don’t even hear it.”

Sky pulled her notebook out and Jenna joined her on the sofa; the taffeta skirt made soft crunching noises.

“The last time I saw Nicolette? Saturday. She came home around five o’clock. I was just bringing in my laundry, watching the end of
High Fidelity
on HBO.” Jenna sniffed. “She came in all crazy, racing around. Said she was breaking up with her boyfriend. She showered, got dressed, left the apartment around nine.”

“Did she seem depressed? Anxious?”

“No. She was in a good mood. Cheerful, even. Who’s cheerful when they’re breaking up with someone? I wanted the story, but she blew me off. Like she always does.” Jenna corrected herself. “Like she always did.”

“Who was Nicolette’s boyfriend?”

“Ellery Templeton.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ellery Templeton,” Jenna repeated. “The guitar player? You have a funny look on your face. You know him?”

If you spent any time at all in blues clubs around Boston, you knew who Ellery Templeton was. Played guitar in successive incarnations of his blues band. During a blizzard on New Year’s Eve a few years ago, Sky was enjoying too much champagne at the House of Blues. Templeton’s band was performing, standing room only. Sky saw the guitar player watching her from the stage. The attraction was immediate. The crowd chanted a countdown to New Year’s, and by the stroke of midnight Ellery Templeton was kissing Sky. A long, deep kiss.

“You have Templeton’s address?”

“No. He has a place in Charlestown. He’s playing at Genuine John’s tonight. Just around the corner from here.” Jenna’s eyebrows furrowed. “Or maybe he’s not.”

“How long have you known Nicolette?”

“Six months. I’m from Manhattan, by way of SoHo. I got my bachelor’s at Boston University two years ago. Biology. But I didn’t want to go back home. I love the Bean. When a clerical position opened up in the biology department, I grabbed it.” Jenna picked at a loose thread in the taffeta skirt. “Last October I was looking for a roommate to share the rent so I posted a note on the department bulletin board. Nicolette practically lived at the bio department, like graduate students do. We started hanging out together. She moved in, the day after Halloween.”

Jenna slipped into girl-talk mode. “Nicolette was so much fun at first. We went to all the clubs, dancing at The Estate, Umbria, Royale. First we’d go to Forever 21 or H&M, get something wild to wear. I love all the trendy trash. That seventies revival stuff? No spank you!” She gave a dismissive sniff. “We found some funky sheath dresses at the Garment District in Cambridge a couple of months ago. Dollar a pound! We did some serious shopping.”

Jenna cast a doubtful eye at Sky’s jeans and sweater. “Nicolette may have been from L.A., but she shopped like a New Yorker, I’ll give her that. When she had money, that is.” Jenna scratched her head with the remote.

“Wasn’t until she moved in that I found out about Nicolette’s money problems. Her research fellowships paid, but not enough for the Bean. No help from her mom. Her dad wasn’t even in the picture.” Jenna gave Sky a sidelong look. “Serious issues there. I think she was living on credit cards.”

“Nicolette thought it was okay to stiff me on the rent because we were so-called friends.” Jenna’s thin lips formed a disapproving pout. “Truth is, she knew my folks would cover me if I came up short at the end of the month.”

“Do you know where Nicolette might have gone last Saturday? Who she was with?”

“I know she got her hair done at Duquette’s in Newton Centre. Manicure, too. She made a big deal out of showing me her nails, said she had them match the polish to her hair color. First time ever.”

“First manicure ever?”

“God, no. Nicolette spent a small fortune on her hair and nails. Saturday was the first time I ever saw her with red nail polish, though. She usually went with a French manicure, said it lasted longer. Lab work and all.” Jenna’s nails were bitten to the quick. She caught Sky looking at them and curled her fingers into her palms.

“Was Nicolette a natural redhead?”

“Yeah, but she was always getting highlights. She’s been going to the same hair guy since she came to the Bean. His name is Francois, owns that whole chain of Duquette salons.” Jenna rolled her eyes. “The guy’s about a hundred years old, seriously. Francois from Seekonk.”

“Did Nicolette spend the night here on Friday?”

“No. She was here Friday morning, early. She left for the lab around six-thirty, just after I got up. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the BU bio department. She probably stopped for coffee on the way.”

“And once she got to the lab?”

“Nicolette ran her rats at seven o’clock every morning, Monday through Friday.”

“That’s awfully early, isn’t it? To run experiments?”

“No shit.”

“Did you ever go to the lab with her?”

“God, no. I hate research. Rats give me the creeps.”

“Did you see Nicolette again on Friday, after she left the apartment?”

“Yeah, she had office hours. One to two-thirty. I didn’t talk to her, but I could hear her arguing with Horace in her office. That’s Professor Horace Fisk, she worked in his lab. Don’t know what they were arguing about. Nicolette’s door was shut.”

“Was Nicolette seeing anyone besides Templeton?”

“I don’t think so. But just so you know,” Jenna’s voice lowered, “Ellery was her boyfriend, but Nicolette played guys on a regular basis. I mean, she used what she had, to get stuff from men. You know the type.”

Indeed, Sky knew the type quite well. “Can you give me an example, Jenna? Something specific?”

“Sure. Perfect example. Nicolette took graduate statistics last year. I always knew when she was stuck on an assignment because she would be smiling and laughing with Stanley Grabowski. A graduate student, into computational genetics.”

“Time after time, I watched Stanley help poor little Nicolette with her homework. Then she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Until the following week, when she needed his help again. She’d toss her hair and giggle his name. Made me want to hurl. Seriously. You could hear that obnoxious giggle all the way down the hall.”

Jenna arched a pale brow. “And then there’s Horace. He had such a woodie for Nicolette. Totally repulsive.”

Kyle was dusting the trim around the bedroom doorway, but he looked up when Jenna spread her long arms out in a gesture of confusion and said, “You’d think guys as smart as Horace Fisk and Stanley Grabowski could tell when they were being used by a woman, wouldn’t you? What’s up with that?” Jenna fixed Kyle with an accusatory glare.

Kyle smiled and shrugged. Sky knew Kyle suffered few illusions on this point. The man was on his third marriage, after all.

Sky said, “Did Nicolette flirt with other men?”

“That’s like asking if she breathed. It’s just the way Nicolette was. Pathological, really.” Jenna tugged at a legging. “It was all that red hair. Didn’t matter where we went, guys stared at her. Hit on her.” Jenna perched on the sofa with crossed arms and hunched shoulders, the posture of a petulant child. “I thought blondes were supposed to have more fun.”

Sky could imagine Jenna and Nicolette club-hopping together in Faneuil Hall, or the Theatre District. The two, side by side, sipping drinks under pulsing strobe lights – cocktails with names like Sex on the Beach or maybe a Red Death. Pale Jenna, forever eclipsed by a brighter, hotter Nicolette.

“Did Nicolette have a gym routine?” Sky asked.

“She ran. Five miles a day, sometimes more, if she was training. Said it was either run five miles every day or puke every day.” Jenna illustrated by sticking an index finger into her open mouth.

“Where did she run?”

“Nicolette always ran on Commonwealth. It was like a religion with her. She loved running by that statue on Heartbreak Hill. Said it inspired her.”

Sky knew the statue. It was Johnny Kelley, local legend, competed in over sixty Boston Marathons, even won a couple of times. It was a double statue, actually. Young Johnny and old Johnny, running hand in hand. It stood on the northwest corner of Commonwealth and Walnut, not two hundred yards from the spot where Nicolette’s body was found.

“Was anybody angry or upset with Nicolette?”

“No, I can’t think of anybody. But, like I said. Once she moved in, she sort of dropped me. She was using me for the apartment. She was a user. A bitch, actually.” Jenna gave a furtive look around and whispered, “I guess I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

Kyle walked into the living room and nodded to Sky, an indication that the latent prints had been gathered. Axelrod followed, glancing at Jenna and patting his cowlick.

“Mind if I look around?” Sky left Jenna with the detectives and entered Nicolette’s bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

The small room was dominated by a queen bed swathed in crumpled pink sheets. The white walls were bare save for a tattered poster of the LA skyline taped above the bed.

A table beneath a south-facing window held a black laptop, a desk lamp, a stapler, a ceramic cup jammed with pens and pencils, a Day of the Dead skeleton holding a guitar, and a small black jewelry case marbled with turquoise inlay. Lifting the lid, Sky found a necklace with a jeweled letter N, an assortment of costume rings, and a tangle of keys.

Sky lifted the keys from the box. It was a cumbersome collection, strung on various chains that were all attached to a single pink lanyard. Sky counted eighteen in all; fourteen of the keys were standard university issue, each engraved with letters and numbers and a label reading IT IS UNLAWFUL TO DUPLICATE THIS KEY. The other four were smaller, probably apartment keys, maybe a car? Sky popped them into her coat pocket.