The Secret Friend (9 page)

25

The lab’s overnight drop-off box contained only one item: a sealed padded mailer. Darby saw her name written across the front. She opened the mailer on her way to the conference room.

The VHS security tape showed, in grainy colour, Emma Hale’s parking garage. Sitting on the edge of the table, Darby watched a man with short black hair, pale skin and a black wool coat walk quickly across the garage to the delivery elevator. He pressed the button and waited, his back facing the camera. The man’s hair colour and clothing matched the intruder she had met last night – Malcolm Fletcher.

When the elevator doors opened, Fletcher stepped inside and moved to the right, out of the camera’s view. The doors shut.

If Fletcher was working for Hale, he wouldn’t have to sneak inside the building.

Darby rewound the tape and watched it again.

What were you doing inside the penthouse? What were you looking for?

She watched the tape three more times and, failing to find anything useful, left the conference room.

Coop and Keith Woodbury were working inside a small evidence room. Pieces of Emma Hale’s jewellery sat inside a clear fuming cabinet slowly filling with a cyanoacrylate vapour. Off-white latent fingerprints appeared on the jewellery.

‘How’s the humidity level?’ Coop asked.

Woodbury, tall and sleek, with a shaved head and a runner’s build, examined the gauge. ‘It looks good,’ he said, his voice, as always soft and pleasant. He saw Darby, said hello and then turned his attention back to the gauge.

Coop put down his clipboard. ‘The AFIS results came back – no good news, I’m afraid,’ he told her. ‘The partial thumb we found on the jewellery drawer’s metal handle not only failed to find a corresponding match, it couldn’t even find a
probable
match. We’ll need a better-quality print.’

‘Any luck with the jewellery?’

‘We’ve only done one tray. So far, all the prints belong to Emma Hale. It’s going to take a few days to get through this.’

Darby nodded. Fuming with cyanoacrylate, the main chemical in superglue, yielded great latent prints but the process was slow. Then there was the additional step of dusting the prints to preserve them so they could be lifted.

‘How did the meeting with the father go?’ Coop asked.

Darby hopped up on the back counter and filled them in on her talk with Hale and the subsequent burglary.

‘Nice timing,’ Coop said. ‘You think Fletcher knows about the missing necklace?’

‘The only way he could know about it is if he had access to our evidence file,’ Darby said. ‘Hale doesn’t have a copy.’

‘So what the hell was Fletcher doing there?’

‘I have no idea. I want to talk about the Virgin Mary statue.’

‘No prints.’

‘I know,’ Darby said. ‘Either our man wiped it clean before he placed it in the pocket or he was wearing gloves. But wearing gloves while holding a sewing needle would be tricky, don’t you think?’

‘Depends on the type of gloves he was wearing. If they were ski gloves or ones made of thick leather then, yeah, it would be hard to hold a sewing needle and thread the pocket. But if he was wearing latex…’ Coop shrugged.

‘What if he wasn’t wearing gloves at all?’ Darby said. ‘What if he sewed the pocket shut with his bare hands?’

‘I see where you’re going. Trying to lift a latent print from clothing… it rarely happens. Fabric doesn’t hold a print’s ridge characteristics.’

‘That’s true. Generally,’ Darby said. ‘Chen’s running pants are made of nylon, and the area around the pocket was spotted with blood. What if he left a print?’

‘Then the question becomes how to lift it without damaging the blood sample for DNA testing.’

‘There are some chemicals we can mix together that won’t damage the core STR loci.’

Woodbury, who had been quietly listening, spoke up. ‘If you go that route, I wouldn’t recommend using a peroxidase-reaction chemical. For one, they’re not easy to use. Second, there’s a toxicity issue.’

‘What about using a solution based on a general protein-staining dye?’ Darby asked.

Woodbury thought it over.

‘That would be safer,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll have to do some research and see if I can find the appropriate, ah, recipe.’

‘And we’ll have to wait until the clothes are dry,’ Coop added.

‘I want to examine Chen’s skin,’ Darby said. ‘I want to see if our man touched her with his bare hands.’

‘I’d say the chances of a latent print surviving that long underwater are slim to none.’

‘Coop, what’s the first rule you told me when it comes to fingerprints?’

‘There are no rules.’

‘Exactly,’ Darby said, hopping off the table. ‘Let me tell you what I have in mind…’

26

Coop needed to finish processing the jewellery inside the fuming cabinet. He agreed to meet them at the morgue. Keith Woodbury helped Darby carry the items she needed.

Judith Chen’s nude body lay on a steel table. While Woodbury set up the equipment in another room, Darby plugged in the portable Luma-Lite and, wearing a pair of orange-tinted goggles, moved the wand of light over Chen’s body.

At 180 nanometres, Darby found diluted bloodstains on the woman’s face and chest. On Chen’s forehead was a smear shaped like the letter ‘t.’ Darby thought the smear resembled a crucifix.

She paused several times to adjust the light’s wavelength. At 525 nanometres, she discovered a full latent print. She called Coop.

‘Bingo.’

‘You’re shitting me.’

‘I shit you not,’ Darby said. ‘I have a nice latent print on her forehead. It’s at the tip of – get this – a cross.’

‘There’s a
cross
on her forehead?’

‘My guess is he baptized her before dumping her into the water. Don’t you remember anything from Catholic school?’

‘I’ve tried to block it all out,’ Coop said. ‘How are we going to lift the print?’

‘My recommendation is to use superglue – Keith’s setting up the fuming chamber right now. We’ll put Chen’s body in the chamber, and once the cyanoacrylate has set, we can dust the print using an ultraviolet powder and then develop it with something like Ardrox dye. Since you’re the fingerprint expert, I’ll let you make the call.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Darby said. ‘Now haul your ass over here, and bring that partial latent thumbprint with you.’

Darby left Coop and Woodbury to lift the print from Chen’s forehead and drove to Natick.

Judith Chen lived with a roommate in a duplex, on the corner of a crowded street. A Natick patrol car sat in the driveway. The rest of the street was quiet. Good. The media wasn’t here.

Darby showed her ID to the patrolman.

‘Bedroom’s on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs,’ he said, stepping out of the car. ‘Parents were here earlier. They didn’t take anything.’

‘What about Chen’s roommate?’

‘I don’t know. She moved back in with her parents – she’s from Long Island, I’m pretty sure – she left here must have been in early December. She’s taking a semester off. Got all spooked about Chen’s disappearance and didn’t want to live here alone. I’ll get you her name and phone number.’

The house was dark. Darby turned on the light and climbed the stairs.

A bathroom was on the top floor. It was spotless. Darby wondered if the roommate had cleaned it before leaving.

She opened the medicine cabinet. The left half was empty. The right side contained items which most likely belonged to Chen – vials, tubes and containers of various makeup and lotions; a lot of Alka-Seltzer and cold medications. There were two prescription bottles – Paxil, an antidepressant, and something called Requip.

Darby walked down the hallway. It took her a moment to find the light switch for the bedroom.

Hanging on Judith Chen’s wall was a framed picture of her holding a Labrador puppy – the same photo Darby had tacked to the wall inside her home office.

Some of the picture frames were on the floor. Darby wondered if the parents had taken them off the wall earlier in the day. The bed had a pink comforter and matching throw pillows. Darby saw the indentation marks where the parents had probably sat.

Darby was glad the room seemed to be in order. She wanted to see how the woman had lived.

A small Dell laptop sat on a tiny desk. She turned on the lamp. Three large chemistry textbooks and several spiral notebooks were staked in the corner. Everything was coated in dust.

Darby put on a pair of latex gloves and flipped through the notebook pages full of complex chemistry and calculus equations.

An hour had passed when her phone rang.

‘You’re going to love this,’ Coop said. ‘The print from Chen’s forehead matches the partial print we recovered from the handle of Hale’s jewellery drawer. I’ll put the forehead print into AFIS. Keep your fingers crossed.’

The notebooks didn’t contain any ‘To Do’ lists, Post-It notes or handwritten reminders like where to meet friends for dinner. The desk drawers contained computer manuals and several paperback copies of Jane Austen novels.

Darby turned on the laptop, relieved when it didn’t ask for a password.

Chen used Microsoft Outlook for email and the calendar to keep track of appointments. Darby sorted through the months leading up to her abduction and found only entries containing Chen’s class schedules and the dates that certain projects were due.

Her phone rang again. The caller was Tim Bryson.

‘We’ve catalogued the security DVDs. Care to guess which ones are missing?’

‘The ones from the day Emma Hale disappeared to the day her body was found,’ Darby said.

‘You got it. I vote we put people on Hale and see if Fletcher shows up.’

‘I saw the security tape. If Fletcher is working for Hale, why did he sneak inside?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe Fletcher is going to try and approach Hale, or maybe he’s simply acting alone. All I’m saying is that we should cover all the bases.’

‘I agree. You think the commissioner will go for it?’

‘That’s the next hurdle. What do you have on your end?’

Darby told him about the latent print found on Judith Chen’s forehead and the matching print recovered from Hale’s jewellery drawer handle.

She hung up and turned her attention back to the laptop. The files saved in Microsoft Word contained homework assignments and several essays for an English composition class.

There was a small folder holding digital photographs of Chen with what appeared to be her family and female friends. There were several photos of her with the dog and a white cat with black fur around its eye and chin.

Darby was examining Chen’s internet search history when her phone rang again.

‘Good afternoon, Dr McCormick.’

It was the intruder, the man with the strange eyes, Malcolm Fletcher.

27

‘I didn’t think I’d hear from you again,’ Darby said, wondering how Malcolm Fletcher had got her number.

‘I want to talk to you about the man who killed Emma Hale.’

‘Do you know something?’

‘I might.’

‘And why do you want to share this information with me?’

‘If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.’

‘Another quote by Shaw?’

‘Very good. I thought your generation had abandoned reading. What do you know about Themistocles?’

‘He was an Athenian political leader.’

‘Impressive,’ Fletcher said. ‘Themistocles led his people to victory over the Persians and was later banished by the same people he saved.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘In the end, it always comes down to a matter of degrees – how far you are willing to go, how far you’re willing to push your way through the dark. I shouldn’t have to warn you, of all people, that the truth is, more often than not, a terrible burden. You may want to give that some thought.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m extending an invitation to meet the man who killed Emma Hale and Judith Chen.’

‘How do you know the same man killed Hale and Chen?’

‘Judith Chen was shot in the back of the head, like Emma Hale – at least that’s what the papers are reporting. Are the cases connected, Dr McCormick? Or may I call you Darby? After reading so much about you, I feel as though I know you.’

‘What should I call you?’

‘Think of me as your secret friend.’

‘How about you tell me your first name?’

‘What would you like to call me?’

‘How does the name Mephisto sound?’

A quiet laugh. ‘Are you worried I’m going to hurt you?’ Fletcher asked.

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

‘I didn’t hurt you last night.’

‘Hard to do when you have a gun pointed at you.’

‘I suggest a private meeting at the Sinclair Mental Health Facility in Danvers. I’ll contact you in two hours.’

‘And if I say no?’

‘Then I wish you the best of luck finding the man who killed Judith Chen and the other women. I have no doubt of your abilities. You’re certainly much more dedicated, and considerably brighter, than Detective Bryson. He should have discovered the missing necklace months ago.’

Click.
Malcolm Fletcher was gone.

Darby called Tim Bryson. She filled him in on her conversation. Bryson listened without interrupting.

‘I don’t understand why he wants you to go to Sinclair,’ Bryson said after she finished. ‘The place has been abandoned for, Christ, it must be at least thirty years now.’

‘I’ve never heard of Sinclair.’

‘Before your time, I guess. The hospital was built sometime in the late eighteenth century. It was used as an asylum for the criminally insane. In the seventies, a private company took it over for a bit, and then it went back to being a state-run hospital. It’s going to be torn down next spring to make way for condos, I think.’

‘Fletcher said, “I wish you luck finding the man who killed Judith Chen and the
other
women.” Maybe he knows something about another victim, someone we haven’t found.’

‘I think he’s jerking your chain.’

‘He knows about the missing necklace.’

Bryson didn’t answer.

‘The only evidence we have at the moment is an unidentified latent fingerprint,’ Darby said.

‘You haven’t examined Chen’s clothing yet.’

‘Which is going to have to wait until Monday. I don’t want to spend Sunday sitting around with my thumb stuck up my ass.’

‘I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this.’

‘I want to know why Fletcher called.’

‘I’ll meet you at the hospital,’ Bryson said. ‘And I’m going to bring backup, just in case.’