The Secret Friend (29 page)

86

Bill Jordan called as Darby was pulling onto the Mass Pike. Darby explained what she needed.

‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘The panic button is transmitting. The GPS signal is about a quarter of a mile north of number eight Old Post Road in Sherborn.’

The town, located south of Boston, was less than a half-hour’s drive from Weston.

‘That’s all I can tell you right now,’ Jordan said. ‘When I get closer I can lock onto the signal and we’ll walk right up to him – or whatever’s left of him.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m already on the road. I should be there in Sherborn in forty minutes.’

‘I’ll meet you there.’ Darby pulled over to enter the address into her car’s GPS unit.

‘I don’t think we have to rush,’ Jordan said. ‘The signal hasn’t moved in fifteen minutes.’

Like Weston, the small town of Sherborn was another high-end suburb of cold McMansions and renovated antique farmhouses separated by miles of trees and dense woods to give owners the illusion of privacy.

Old Post Road was long and steep, bordered by rolling fields of melting snow. Darby drove ten miles and passed two homes.

The mailbox for number 8 was still standing, but the home at the end of the driveway had been demolished to make way for a new foundation. An excavator, backhoe and two dump trucks sat in a wide open field across from a pair of horse barns, the wood grey and rotting.

Standing under the warm afternoon sun, listening to the tick of her car engine, Darby shielded her eyes and stared into the distance at the woods. Jordan said the GPS signal was a quarter of a mile away from here, but which route had Fletcher taken?

Walter Smith was too heavy to carry. Did Fletcher drive him somewhere into these woods? A car couldn’t drive out here, not with all this snow, but a truck might work.

Darby walked into the open field. Tyre tracks left by a heavy piece of machinery were in the snow. The tracks led back to an excavator. The ignition had been hotwired.

Weapon in hand, she followed the tracks into the woods, wading through the wet, knee-high snow. The overhead tree branches were bare, and she could feel the sun on her face and hair.

A quarter of a mile in, she found a large open space of recently overturned dirt. Darby looked around the woods and didn’t see any additional tyre tracks. They ended here. She called Bill Jordan.

‘I think I found the spot where Fletcher buried the body,’ Darby said. She told Jordan about the excavator tracks and poked the ground with her boot. The dirt was loose. ‘We’re going to need shovels.’

‘See you in twenty.’

Sticking out of the ground was an inch of white PVC pipe. In the slant of sunlight, Darby saw that the white tubing extended deep into the earth. Kneeling, she took out her flashlight.

A ruined eye stared back at her.

‘Help me,’ Walter Smith croaked. ‘I can barely breathe.’

Darby backed away, stumbled, and fell against the cold ground.

‘I’m sorry!’
Walter’s raw, terrified voice echoed up the pipe from his crudely made coffin.
‘I don’t want to die in here. PLEASE!’

Darby tried to get to her feet and stumbled again. She knelt on all fours, heart hammering as she gasped for air.

Malcolm Fletcher had cut a hole into the coffin and fitted it with a PVC pipe that ran up to the surface so Walter wouldn’t suffocate. He could breathe until he died of starvation or insanity.

‘I told Mr Hale I was sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

Did Hale know Walter was buried here? Did he plan to come out to this spot and drop food down the pipe to prolong Walter’s torture?

You
wanted
Walter to suffer,
Malcolm Fletcher had said.
When you think back to that moment inside the bathroom, you’ll wish you’d pulled the trigger.

In her mind’s eye Darby saw herself pressing the handgun’s muzzle against Walter’s head. The cold, alien voice that spoke to her inside the bathroom was speaking to her now:
Block the pipe and let him suffocate to death.

‘Please,’ Walter screamed. ‘Please don’t leave me here, I’m sorry.’

Darby recalled the photograph of Emma Hale’s body lying on the bank of the Charles, buried under snow, discovered by a dog. Judith Chen’s body lay on the autopsy table, the woman’s face picked apart by fish. Walter Smith killed both women and he was going to kill Hannah Givens before turning the gun on himself.

‘Please get me out of here,’ Walter cried. ‘I’m so scared. I don’t want to die here alone without Mary.’

Block the pipe and cut off his air. Let him suffer.

Walter Smith deserved to suffer. She
wanted
him to suffer.

Do it. Nobody will know.

The wind blew through the woods, shaking the branches. Darby scrambled back across the ground and looked down the pipe.

‘Hang on,’ she said, reaching for her cell phone. ‘Help is on the way.’

Acknowledgments

This book could not have been written without the insight of criminologists Susan Flaherty and Kevin Kershark; Randy Moshos, from the Boston Medical Examiner’s Office; Meigan Dingle, a burn specialist; and Keith Woodbury, who helped guide me through the minefield of chemistry. These people patiently answered all of my technical questions. All mistakes are mine.

One of the perks of being a writer is having the opportunity to discuss the craft with some of the best. With that in mind, I’d like to thank the following writers: John Connolly, Gregg Hurwitz, Laura ‘Mrs Mooney’ Lippman, Mike Connelly, Joe Finder, Tess Gerritsen, George Pelecanos, and Jodi Picoult.

Thanks to Pam Bernstein and the wonderful Maggie Griffin.

If you liked the book, you can thank my editor, Mari Evans, for all of her hard work; and my agent, Darley Anderson, and his wonderful staff – Emma White, Madeleine Buston, Camilla Bolton and Zoe King.

What you have in your hands is a work of fiction. That means I made most of it up.