The White Carnation Page 6

  Each body had been washed in bleach, the same concentration used to clean their apartments, removing every trace of evidence. They’d been given manicures and pedicures, and previously two of the three had their hair colored and styled—the third had been a natural brunette. The victims had been dressed in pristine white cotton nightdresses and wrapped in a handwoven blanket, either blue or pink. The operative theory was that the color of the blanket indicated the sex of the child the woman had borne, but so far, without the infants, they were just guessing.

  Find the children, and we’ll find the answers.

  Each victim had been left near a school or playground where she’d be found quickly, and there was little danger of scavengers attacking the bodies. It was almost as if he didn’t want anything to desecrate his creations. O’Connor, the BAU analyst, thought the women were posed to look like angelic statues. Even their skin, thanks to the cyanide, had the same shade as pink Italian marble. The investigation into the blankets and headbands showed they were pure wool, handwoven, impossible to trace. Similarly, the nightgowns had been handmade from good quality cotton. He’d spoken to a few dressmakers, and they hadn’t been able to give him any more information other than to say each of the three nightgowns he’d shown them had been made by someone different, not a professional dressmaker. The feet were bare.

  Tom hung up the phone, and from the look on his face and the speed of his walk, Rob knew whatever he’d learned wasn’t good news.

  “It’s been confirmed. Mary Green was pregnant—near the end of her second trimester. She took a leave of absence from her job in New York last month. The police questioned her neighbor, who said Mary packed up her car and her dog about three weeks ago and told her she was going home for a while. Apparently, Ms. Green was a loner, rarely left home or had visitors, and the neighbor”—he checked the notes he’d made—“had been more than a little surprised when the baby bump had appeared. Lucy Green filed a missing person’s report last week.”

  “I wonder why she waited so long. I assume the local LEOs checked her apartment?”

  “They gave it a quick once-over when Mrs. Green reported her missing, looking for signs of foul play. Someone had noted the apartment was very clean. I asked them to have another look.” Tom’s frowned deepened. “Here’s where things get eerie. The apartment’s been cleaned alright, the fridge emptied, and everything either turned off or unplugged. There’s no sign she was planning to come back with a baby. The rent’s been pre-paid for the rest of the year.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Rob stood and began to pace. Since he’d left Beverly, his mind had flitted from one insane theory to another, some so fantastic no one would believe him. Hell, they were his ideas, and he had trouble accepting them. He forced himself to concentrate on Tom’s voice.

  “Every alarm in my head went off when I heard that,” Tom said, rubbing his chin nervously. “Talk about déjà vu. Considering what we found at the Harvester’s victims’ apartments, I’ve asked them to send in a forensic team. If they find what I hope they don’t, we’ll have our first break. I sure as hell hope I’m wrong. The police have put out an APB on her car, a late-model Toyota, and on her dog. It’s a purebred English bulldog registered with the American Kennel Club.”

  “Are you sending NYPD what we have?”

  Tom shrugged. “Send them what? We don’t have anything; Mary’s disappearance isn’t even our case. Before we jump the gun and send out information related to the Harvester, we should run this by Pierce. He is the FBI liaison. Let’s see if the bleach concentration and the rest of it fits. If it does, we’ll know our killer has a live one, and we can go from there.”

  Rob ran his hand through his hair, unable to keep what he’d learned tonight to himself any longer. “Let’s assume we’re right, and the bleach matches. Fifteen months without a lead and now, bam! Within four hours we have another victim, a second murder, Lucy Green, and a missing woman who’s vanished under the same circumstances as the Harvester’s victims.” Excitement filled him as he voiced his thoughts, and his heart hammered. “Someone screwed up, Tom. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Whoever killed Lucy Green just handed us the brass ring.”

  And I’ll make damn sure he doesn’t get it back.

  Tom scratched his head and looked at him. “What brass ring? What are you talking about?”

  “Faye. I’m talking about Faye. I learned something from her that’s given me a whole new perspective on the case.” Rob pulled the forensic photographs of the three Harvester victims out of the folder and spread them on his desk. “Look at them. What do you see?”

  Tom stared at the pictures. “Young, white women, slender, good skin tone, attractive … Throw me a bone here. What am I looking for?”

  “Something’s been bothering me for weeks now every time I look at that file. They look alike, Tom, not just in death because of the nightgowns, the poses, and the hairstyle. Look at the before pictures.” He took them out of the folder and placed them on the desk next to the others. “Even with dissimilar hair color, dressed differently, smiling or serious, they still bear an amazing resemblance to one another.”

  “Hell, Rob, we saw that. It’s part of the profile the BAU gave us, but it only means he’s particular about the type of woman he chooses. And don’t forget, she has to be pregnant, too. There are thousands of women living in the United States who bear a superficial resemblance to one another.” He indicated the photographs. “These women are all average—average height, weight, you name it. There is nothing spectacular about any of them. Hell, we’re all supposed to have a twin somewhere. I’ve often mistaken a stranger for someone I know.”

  “There’s more to it than that, and I think Mary’s the key. All of these women were single and lived alone. All three of them were self-employed—an artist, a novelist, and a medical transcriber. They all worked out of their homes. None of them had regular boyfriends. According to her family, Tracy Volt had planned to enter a convent, and yet she and the others all got pregnant. How? They didn’t do the club scene, didn’t go to the gym, didn’t even live in the same damn city or town. Once we found the bodies, we realized all the apartments had been sanitized—cleaned with bleach, fridge emptied so nothing would spoil, everything turned off to conserve energy. We couldn’t find a single commonality among them. Now look at Mary’s picture.”

  Tom chewed his lower lips. “I’ll concede that she looks a lot like the others, but she’s not his type. Her hair’s short, and she’s heavier. If the apartment’s been cleaned the same way, you might be onto something—what exactly, I’m not sure. Where are you going with this?”

  “What if I told you Mary’s gay?”

  Tom let out a low whistle. “But remember, this is all speculation. We’ve got nothing linking Mary to the Harvester’s victims.”

  “We will as soon as we get that report from NYPD. I feel it here.” Rob pointed to his gut. Every police officer learned to trust his instincts.

  “Assuming you’re right, maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong. I’d say we need to start looking at insemination clinics. I don’t know if the other women are gay, but we can look into it. This could be nothing more than an elaborate effort to cover up a hate crime. On the other hand, we could have a self-righteous looney on our hands. These women chose to have babies on their own, and some Neanderthal found out about it and decided they wouldn’t make good parents. That could be why he keeps the kids, ostensibly providing them with a better life. Maybe he’s some kind of religious fanatic.”

  “Makes sense considering the way they’re posed like angels. As far as deciding to have a baby on her own, Faye insists the last thing Mary would want is a kid.”

  Tom frowned. “So, she changed her mind. It happens.”

  Rob stood and paced behind his desk. “Apparently, not to Mary. I have another idea, but I really don’t like it. There’s something else you need to see. What if we can connect the cases?” He stopped, opened his bottom desk drawer, and slapp
ed a photograph of Faye on the desk. He’d meant to get rid of it, like the caterer’s file, but somehow he’d never gotten around to it.

  Tom picked up the photo, and his face paled as he realized the implications of what Rob had said.

  “Jesus H. Christ, you’re serious about this, aren’t you? Get a grip. I knew seeing her would be hard on you, but have you lost your ever-loving mind? You can’t connect two cases without anything to link them together. How the hell can you spin this so that your ex fits the equation? Think about it.”

  “I’ve done nothing but think about it since I left the last victim. You didn’t see her, Tom. I did, and just after I’d left Faye. I almost lost it. Faye resembles all the victims. Don’t deny it. She’s also a single woman with a career who lives alone. And if that isn’t enough, she and Mary Green could be sisters, the same Mary Green who’s missing and pregnant and whose mother is dead. Mrs. Green called Faye to tell her something important. What did she know? Before she could spill her guts, someone shut her up permanently and made it look like a home invasion gone bad. Why? And who discovered her? Faye. It’s gone full circle.”

  “Rob, this is crazy. We solve cases by looking at the evidence we have, not by pulling it out of a hat like a damn magician. We theorize, but those theories are based on evidence, not coincidence and cockamamie ideas. What does Pierce think of this? I don’t like the guy, but he’s had a lot more experience with this type of sicko than we have.”

  “I haven’t mentioned it to him yet,” Rob said, hurt by his partner’s refusal to consider the idea. “Look, I’ve solved cases starting with less—we both have—and you know it.” Explaining his theory aloud fleshed it out, made it more plausible than he’d expected, so he was more than a little pissed that Tom, his partner, the man he’d trusted with his life, could dismiss it like some damn dog and pony show stunt. Sure, seeing the resemblance to Faye had rattled him, but damn it, this made as much sense as anything else he’d thought of—more, actually, and it all fit.

  “Will you at least concede the possibility that they could be connected? What if Lucy Green was killed so she couldn’t talk to Faye?”

  “Rob, listen to yourself. You’re talking conspiracies. For that to happen, someone would have to be watching Faye’s every move. The woman’s not stupid. She’d have noticed that kind of interest. Isn’t it enough we have a madman out there kidnapping pregnant women, killing them after they give birth, and stealing their babies? We also have an old woman who has a missing pregnant daughter and who was murdered in her apartment for God knows what reason. Two separate cases. You want me to believe they’re connected, prove it.”

  “I will, damn it. I know I’m right.”

  Angry, feeling almost as betrayed as he had the day Faye accused him of being dirty, he picked up his phone, dialed, and heard it ring in the morgue.

  “Amos Flynn. How can I help you? You’d better not have another body because I’m up to my eyeballs now.”

  Rob shook his head at the grouchy voice on the phone. The crusty ME’s bark was worse than his bite. “No more bodies from me tonight, Amos, but Mira Kane will transfer the Harvester’s suspected fourth victim to you as soon as the preliminary results are in. He left his latest target in Beverly. I have a few questions for you. I read somewhere that a woman carries her children’s DNA her entire life. Is it true?”

  “She does, why?”

  “Second question. Is there any way to determine paternal DNA?”

  “There is,” he said. “I took blood from all the victims, and since they’d given birth so recently, there might still be fetal blood cells in the maternal blood stream, but if that doesn’t work, the bodies are still in the freezer, and I can check the maternal brains for microchimerism—cells from two genetically distinct individuals. It’s a relatively new discovery. I can’t be sure it’ll work, but I can give it a try. But to establish paternity, I need a sample of the father’s DNA to test it against. Do you have a suspect?”

  “No, but run the tests and check them against each other. I’ve got a gut feeling about this, and if what I suspect is true, you’ll know it soon enough. For my third question, is it possible to tell how sexually active the women were before they gave birth?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Vaginal delivery would have obliterated all sign of that. It’ll take at least a couple of weeks to get your results. The DNA lab is backed up big time, and unless you have something more than a hunch, they won’t make this a priority. If I have to check the brain cells, it could take even longer.”

  “Do what you can. Let’s hope my hunch is wrong. By the way, you’ll find secondary traces on the body from Beverly. It was raining, and there were a few people attracted by the kerfuffle in the park. Pierce threw a blue tarp over her.”

  “That’s the third time that man has contaminated my corpse.”

  “I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. If a picture of the body hit the Internet and went viral …”

  “I know, but it just complicates matters. Goodnight.” He ended the call, and Rob hung up the phone.

  “I think you’re way off base, but you can’t leave me hanging here. What are you thinking?” Tom stood in front of Rob’s desk, still holding the photograph of Faye in his hand.

  “It’s a long shot, Tom, and I have nothing to back it up yet, but the one thing that’s been bothering me is how did he know these particular women were pregnant? What if he knew because he impregnated them himself?”

  “Are you frigging nuts? Isn’t this bastard sick enough? First, you say the women were gay and have me thinking about insemination. Now you think they were what, bisexual and all somehow slept with the same man? They didn’t even live in the same town, work in the same field, or move in the same circles.”

  “What if he found them somehow, stalked them, targeted them, and then, when he got his chance, he took it.”

  “Gay or straight, women, especially women like these, don’t just hop into bed and have unprotected sex with a stranger. And if it wasn’t consensual sex … These aren’t uneducated women. If a woman like this is raped, she’s going to report it. Let’s back it up. Say these women all decided to have a baby and used a clinic. The information about who donates where is supposed to be confidential. How would the donor find out where his sperm had taken the plunge?” Tom stopped pacing. “Wait a minute. Do you think this creep might be a doctor? It would explain the way he kills, the methodology, but we checked everything. None of these women used the same doctors, either. Seeing your old girlfriend has addled your brain. Even if the bleach connects Mary to the Harvester’s victims, there’s no reason to believe Faye is involved with him in any way or that the Green murder has anything to do with him either. We have no evidence of rape. If the tests you’ve asked the doctor to perform pan out, I’ll pay for front-row seats at the Celtics’ home opener.”

  “Save your money. I know I’m right.”

  “Whatever. I’m too damn tired to think. I’m going home. I suggest you do the same. Maybe we can actually attempt real police work when we’ve got something to work with.” Tom grabbed his coat off the chair and walked out of the squad room.

  Rob tidied the files on his desk and put them in his top drawer. He locked it, pocketed the key, and followed his partner.

  Chapter Five

  The alarm went off, jarring Faye out of a deep sleep that had been a long time in coming. All the lights in her room were on, as they had been after the nightmare that had taken her earlier. She’d seen Lucy Green in a pool of blood and felt the knife bite into her own throat. The woman’s dead eyes were accusatory. She kept asking why Faye hadn’t come sooner. Mary, her body distorted by pregnancy, stood next to her mother’s corpse and begged her for help.

  Faye had awakened, drenched in sweat, the chain she always wore twisted tightly around her neck. She’d turned on all the lights, removed the chain, changed both her clothing and the bedding, and had climbed back into bed around four—after finishing off the bottle of whiskey
. Her head ached.

  She looked at the clock. It was half past six, her usual wake-up time. Pushing the covers aside, she stood, walked into the bathroom, and downed two acetaminophen tablets, hoping the headache wouldn’t grow into the blinding migraines that occasionally crippled her. Hangovers were the price you paid for the oblivion of good whiskey, and that hadn’t even been a good one.

  Back in her room, she did her early-morning stretches and then went to the closet to select a black pantsuit, a pink silk blouse, spiked heels, and a matching black purse. She never wanted to see her signature peacock-blue bag again, but she needed what little money was in her wallet, her credit cards, and the rest of her ID.

  After making the bed, she grabbed the dirty clothes she’d left lying on the floor during the night and carried them into her small efficiency laundry room. Somehow, doing the mundane chores of her daily routine made her feel a bit more normal, as if all of yesterday had been some strange hallucination. Once the washer started, she moved into the kitchen. She’d given up a lot of luxuries in the past year, but her designer, single-cup coffee maker wasn’t one of them. She waited the few minutes it took for the coffee to brew and polished off a small container of yogurt. She’d learned to live without butter but had to have good coffee. The fridge was barer than usual. She’d either go to see her mother or do groceries. She’d decide which after her meeting with Rob this morning. The prospect of going home was appealing.

  She carried her coffee mug, the one Rob had given her when he’d proposed—the one that, despite everything, she couldn’t part with—back to her office and booted up her laptop. There was a message from Tina mentioning that she still hadn’t received her notes on the dog show and another sale notice for one of her favorite stores, but no message from Mary. She sent another, marked it urgent, and went to shower and get ready for what she knew would be a long, unpleasant day.