2 In The Hat Part 9

"Bologna, boiled ham, salami and American cheese."

"With mayo? I'd rather drink Schlitz beer." Alves chugged half his beer and made a show of wiping his mouth with his shirt sleeve.

"Eat your sandwich before Biggie gets it." Mooney took a bite and washed it down.

Alves could see the man's mind working. He could see that Mooney was not in the mood to discuss the merits of his sub sandwich. "You come up with anything today, Sarge?"

"Yeah. A headache. I told you what Stone said about the gun. Later I interviewed Eric Flowers's parents again, started digging around in his past. First time around, we spent a lot of time on Kelly Adams. I want to be sure Flowers wasn't the primary target." Mooney looked frustrated. "I have to figure out why he's started up again."

"I had a thought about that today," Alves said.

"Let's hear it," Mooney's mouth was full, a small glob of mayonnaise clinging to his lower lip.

Alves motioned for Mooney to wipe his face and he did. "I was talking with Eunice Curran about the possibility that this guy has a hit kit like Dennis Rader."

"BTK."

"Rader kept everything he needed for his so-called 'projects' in a hit kit in his bedroom closet."

"I read about that on the Internet."

"Look at our guy. The wire's the same, the cheap necklaces, the ballistics, and it looks like he may have had the clothes stored away. Eunice mentioned mothb.a.l.l.s."

Mooney nodded. "So he's had all this stuff stashed somewhere while he was away."

"What if he wasn't 'away'? I got a list of recent releases from the DOC. Only a couple of guys live near the BC campus. Their records didn't fit. Mostly involved with drugs. No real violence or s.e.x offenses. That got me thinking. What if this guy stopped killing because he wanted to stop. He was smart enough, or paranoid enough, to stop because he didn't want to get caught. BTK did the same thing. Just stopped killing. He had images of his victims, so he could relive the attacks as fantasies."

Mooney closed his eyes. He looked to be mulling things over.

"Just a thought," Alves said. "Maybe he has pictures or video of his victims."

"How does this help us?"

"I don't know that it does, beyond helping us understand him better. If that's what happened, if he's like Rader, just a seemingly upstanding citizen with no criminal record, who can stop killing when he wants to, then it does us no good to round up the usual suspects."

"Do it anyway. It's a nice theory, Angel, but we have no idea if it's true. It just puts more pressure on us to figure out how he came across Steadman and Kipping." Mooney downed the rest of his beer. He went into the kitchen and came back with two more. "Let's get back to the two most recent vics. If the killer ran into them at school he's probably not a student, unless they've got thirty- or thirty-five-year-old freshmen running around BC. Maybe he works there."

"Administration faxed me a list of employees, from maintenance workers to professors. I have the groundskeeper who paints the lines at Alumni Stadium and the Zamboni driver at the Conte Forum. I have the BRIC helping with that, running everyone's BOP."

"What about the bars in the area?" Mooney asked.

"I talked to the sergeant who does the licensed premises checks in the district. He's getting me a list from every bar. Bartenders, waitstaff, bar backs, bouncers, hostesses. Everyone. These two didn't drink much, but they went out with their friends to hang out, dance."

"I talked to Commissioner Sheehan. He's putting out the word to all the media outlets that anyone with information should call the Homicide Unit or the Crime Stoppers Hotline. That should bog us down with useless leads."

"I checked in with their professors, got cla.s.s rosters, talked with a bunch of kids who were too busy texting and talking on their cells to notice anything."

Alves and Biggie watched Mooney pick through his sandwich and pull out strands of shaved onions. "I knew I tasted onion. I told them no onions. Tomatoes, pickles, no onions. They can't even make a simple sandwich anymore."

"Are you going to finish eating that or what?" Alves asked as Mooney fished through his sandwich fiasco. Biggie was purring so loud it sounded like a motorcycle. He had never understood why people kept cats. They were unpredictable. A cat that big could kill a baby. Maybe, just maybe, he'd let Angel and Iris get a hamster some day. "I've had enough of working in your living room with Mr. Big Cat here, staring at my throat."

Mooney took a bite of his crumbling sandwich. Typical Irish guy. Couldn't eat a couple slices of shaved onion. "Almost done."

"I got a bunch of video. BC has a decent number of cameras set up all over the campus, same with some of the bars. The guys at the BRIC are going over the footage, looking for Steadman and Kipping, see if anyone's following them. I told them to look for suspicious vehicles circling the area, unmarked cruisers that don't belong, the kind of stuff we talked about."

"Are they monitoring the website, too?"

"That, and one of the detectives has been logging on to the site and leaving postings on the message board, trying to get a response."

"Anything?"

"Nothing yet."

Mooney took the last bite of his sandwich and wiped his hands with a paper towel. No napkins in the bachelor pad. He took his time, finished off his beer, and held the last can out to Alves. Alves shook his head. Mooney opened the beer and took a savoring draft. "It's time for the same information to get leaked to the media. I don't get along with many reporters, but I've got a few who owe me a favor or two. We're going to have them tout me as the guy who caught the Blood Bath Killer. Now I've got my sights set on this guy. The press will catch me off guard, as I'm walking out of headquarters. I'll let it slip that I think he's a copycat, a fraud, that the real killer is probably dead. We need to get him to communicate. And make a mistake."

"I hope we're not making the mistake. Forcing him to kill two more kids. Shouldn't we wait on this, see what we come up with first? We haven't looked into all the people working at BC, the bars. He's not stupid. Even if he thinks we didn't find the Tai-ji or the fortune, he would a.s.sume we have a ballistics match. Which means the killer isn't a copycat."

Mooney balled up his waxed paper. He stood up and reached for his jacket. "That's what we're doing tonight. Let's go hit those bars."

CHAPTER 32.

Connie pulled over when the call came in. His radio was the most important tool for keeping on top of the action in real time. It could be cleared as shots fired. Or there might be a shooting victim. important tool for keeping on top of the action in real time. It could be cleared as shots fired. Or there might be a shooting victim.

He listened carefully.

"Three callers report hearing shots from the area of Greenhay and Magnolia," the calm voice of the dispatcher anounced.

Connie thought about turning around and going to the area, but he didn't want to waste time. No point unless the police confirmed someone had been shot.

One of the responding officers radioed back. "Negative. I got nothing out here."

No witnesses.

No ballistics.

No victim.

Connie took his foot off the brake and continued on home. If anything turned up, a message would go out to all the alpha pagers. Like the one Connie wore on his belt, a gift from the captain at District 2. With the alpha pager, Connie got the same notification the BPD bra.s.s got whenever there was a shooting, homicide, hostage situation, any major occurrence in the city.

He was tired. He headed down Blue Hill Avenue and took a right onto American Legion Highway. He'd be home in ten, fifteen minutes tops.

The radio crackled. The call sign indicated the Rapid Response car on Magnolia. "Bravo one-o-one," the patrolman's voice rose with nervous energy. "I got something behind Nine-thirty Magnolia. An abandoned house. I need a patrol supervisor out here and EMTs. I think we need to make notifications."

They had a body.

Connie spun into a quick U-turn at a break in the island that ran down the center of American Legion Highway. The tires squealed as he put the pedal to the floor and raced back toward District 2. The heart of Roxbury.

CHAPTER 33.

Alves checked his beeping alpha pager. Shooting on Magnolia. One body. Male. The good news? The victim wasn't wearing a tux.

The other good news was that Alves wasn't on call tonight. He pulled his car into the driveway. It was almost eleven o'clock, and he'd just left Mooney. The minivan was parked in the driveway ahead of him. Lights were on in the bathroom and kitchen. Marcy might still be awake.

Alves hadn't been home much since Iris had found the bodies two nights ago. He had only seen Marcy for a few minutes earlier in the day when he stopped in to shower and shave. Iris and Angel had already gone to school, and Marcy had given him the silent treatment. It wasn't the usual silent treatment, the one he got for working late and leaving her to deal with all the kids' activities. It was clear she was angry that he'd left her and the twins alone with a killer in the neighborhood.

He tried to open the front door quietly, but it stuck at the top the way it always did. He gave it a little shove with his hip, and it creaked open. Marcy was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. She didn't look up at him. "Are you sleeping here tonight?" she asked.

"I'm in for the night," he said, taking care not to be sarcastic with his answer.

"You sure? I was just watching the news. They found a body in Roxbury."

"G.o.d, they're quick. That just came across the pager, and they're already reporting it on TV?" He walked around the table and kissed her on the top of her head. "Mooney and I aren't on call tonight. Unless someone turns up dead dressed in formal wear, I'm not going anywhere."

She didn't smile.

"How's Iris?" he asked. "She make it through school today?"

Marcy nodded. "My mother picked them up at school. She had them all day. Said they were okay. Iris was a little withdrawn. Spent most of the day in her room reading. Mom left an hour ago, when I got home."

It hit him. Marcy was teaching three cla.s.ses this semester. A full time workload for a part-time professor. She usually taught two sections, Tuesdays and Thursday in the late morning. That way she could send the kids off to school and be home in time to meet them at the bus. Her schedule got thrown off this semester when one of the full-time professors took a medical leave, sticking Marcy with two afternoon cla.s.ses and a night cla.s.s. They had decided that she would get the kids out the door in the morning and her mom would be there for them in the afternoon. Alves agreed that he would come home early and help out. He figured he could manage since it was only two days a week. The first day with the new system and he'd already blown it. "I'm sorry, honey. I forgot. I'll be early on Thursday."

"That's okay. You do your work," she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. "The kids will be fine. They can just eat Cheerios out of the box. And my mother loves having them for eight hours straight, twice a week. It's good for her arthritis to stay out until ten, eleven o'clock at night. And, sweetheart, it's not like anything bad ever happens in our neighborhood. We haven't had a double homicide in two whole days."

What could he say? She was right. He shouldn't open his mouth, but once he started talking it was too late to take the words back. "Honey, I understand how you feel, but I know that this neighborhood is safe."

"Don't patronize me, Angel."

"Marcy, the killer didn't attack anyone in this neighborhood. He could have dumped those bodies anywhere in the city."

"But he didn't. He left them right here, practically on our doorstep. He left them for our daughter to find. If he wanted you to find them he could have dropped them off at One Schroeder Plaza."

"Now you're being ridiculous."

"Am I? What would have happened if she had found the bodies while your killer was still tying them up?"

He didn't allow the thought. It was more than he could take.

"I didn't think you'd have an answer for that one." Marcy dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink. "I've decided to take the kids and live at my mother's for a couple weeks. Till you solve the case. Her house is not that far out of your way. You can stop by and visit whenever you're off duty."

She left him standing by the kitchen table, his head spinning with the news.

CHAPTER 34.

Sergeant Detective Ray Figgs downed another shot of Johnnie Walker Red. The Tap in Dudley Square was good for a quick drink. Or eight of them. It was better than going home and watching reality shows until he pa.s.sed out on the couch. Or sitting with his father in the rehab. First he needed a cigarette. Thanks to the mayor and the city council and the freaking state legislature, he couldn't smoke in the bar. He'd have to go stand on the sidewalk with the other holdouts, sweating in the summer and freezing their b.u.t.ts off in the winter. It was ridiculous how he and the other smokers were punished for fueling the economy, spending their money in bars, tipping the waitresses and bartenders, supporting half the state's social programs with the cigarette tax. Not to mention Keno. Walker Red. The Tap in Dudley Square was good for a quick drink. Or eight of them. It was better than going home and watching reality shows until he pa.s.sed out on the couch. Or sitting with his father in the rehab. First he needed a cigarette. Thanks to the mayor and the city council and the freaking state legislature, he couldn't smoke in the bar. He'd have to go stand on the sidewalk with the other holdouts, sweating in the summer and freezing their b.u.t.ts off in the winter. It was ridiculous how he and the other smokers were punished for fueling the economy, spending their money in bars, tipping the waitresses and bartenders, supporting half the state's social programs with the cigarette tax. Not to mention Keno.

Ray Figgs reached into his jacket pocket for his last cigarette, a crumpled-up soft pack of the no-name brand sold at Economy Gas on Blue Hill Ave. As he fumbled for the pack, he felt his pager vibrating. He had five unanswered pages, three from Operations and two from Inch O'Neill, his partner. Inchie was a good detective. Didn't need babysitting, did things on his own. Figgs checked his alpha pager and saw that a male had been killed on Magnolia Street.

He settled up his tab, grabbed a few handfuls of salted peanuts, folded them into a c.o.c.ktail napkin and shoved it into his sports jacket pocket. He took another handful and tossed them in his mouth. He would chew them on the ride. He was really going to need the nuts tonight. He was the on-call Homicide Sergeant and he was already late getting to a crime scene.

CHAPTER 35.

Connie hung back while Greene, Ahearn and a couple of patrolmen secured the scene on Magnolia. The house was a single-family colonial with green asphalt shingles and graffiti-covered plywood sheets covering the windows and doors. Connie had spent most of the night in this neighborhood with the detectives looking for Michael Rogers, Ellis Thomas's friend. Thomas hadn't given them much information, even after his mother agreed to let him talk. The kid was scared word would hit the street that he was a snitch. The only thing he'd told them was where to look for his pal. secured the scene on Magnolia. The house was a single-family colonial with green asphalt shingles and graffiti-covered plywood sheets covering the windows and doors. Connie had spent most of the night in this neighborhood with the detectives looking for Michael Rogers, Ellis Thomas's friend. Thomas hadn't given them much information, even after his mother agreed to let him talk. The kid was scared word would hit the street that he was a snitch. The only thing he'd told them was where to look for his pal.

The two patrolmen were setting up the crime scene tape around the property. Greene and Ahearn stood in front of the building, managing the crowd gathering in the street. Ellis Thomas lived across the street. Connie expected the kid's mother, with Ellis in tow, to show up on the scene.

As Connie moved closer, he could see that Greene didn't look good. He should have been barking orders. Instead he was quiet. Jack Ahearn, alone, minus his usual swagger, was moving the crowd back.

"Jackie, where's the body?" Connie asked.

"In back with Detective O'Neill from Homicide. He's securing things till Figgs gets here."

A car pulled up across the street. Connie and the detectives watched as Lydia Thomas-Connie recognized her large frame-struggled to get out of her car. She scanned the crowd, turning her attention to Connie and the detectives. A thin woman in a housecoat rushed to hug her.

"This is going to get ugly," Ahearn said. He pushed the b.u.t.ton on his radio and said, "Where's the Bravo 902? We need a supervisor and some backup units out here."

"What's going on?" Connie asked.

"What do you think?" Greene asked.

Connie looked back at Miss Thomas. She lurched out of the thin woman's embrace. In an instant she went from concerned mother to angry bear. She walked toward them, quicker than Connie thought a woman her size could move. "You did this!" she shouted, pointing at Connie. "You killed my son!"

Connie turned to the detectives. He could see it in Greene's eyes. Ellis, her only son, was dead. The same son that Connie had promised to protect.

Greene tried to pull him back, but Connie was stronger. He stood his ground and waited for her. She stopped a few inches away from him. Almost as tall as he was, close to six feet, she was intimidating.