D.D. automatically pushed back her chair, then caught herself. “Wait. Is this a test? Because I heard you, you know. I get that I’m headstrong and controlling, and I should trust my partners and have more faith in your abilities to get things done. Meaning, you get to go see the body. And I get to await your report like a good restricted duty supervisor? And then—” She caught herself, as surprised as anyone by the sudden thickening in her throat. “Then you won’t be mad at me anymore.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“I do trust you,” she got out while she could. Because now she was remembering yesterday’s conversation with Phil and it stung. She’d never say it out loud, but Phil was the closest thing to a surrogate father figure that she had, especially given that her own father didn’t approve of her job. She didn’t miss her parents, who lived in Florida. She didn’t even mind anymore that they didn’t understand her job. But Phil, his clear disappointment in her . . . that hurt.
“I trust you, Phil. I trust Neil. And I miss you guys. Every day. I miss our squad, our partnership. I don’t like feeling like I let you down. Because you’re my team. You’ve always been my team, and let’s face it, not just anyone wants a team member as headstrong and controlling as I am. I know that. I definitely know that.”
“Are you done?”
“Maybe.”
“Because this isn’t a test. Though, for the record, you are headstrong and controlling.”
“I know.”
“And you should have more faith in us.”
“I know.”
“But you’re also you, and I know you, D.D. Most of the time, when I’m not completely exasperated or frustrated or scared out of my mind, I even like you. So now that we both agree that I’m right and you’re wrong, are you going to come along or not?”
“Come along?”
“To the crime scene. With the body. But I get to drive.”
D.D. didn’t need to be asked twice. “Okay!”
“You really are a lousy restricted duty supervisor.”
“Yeah. Been thinking that a lot myself.” Which still didn’t stop her from grabbing her leather jacket and walking away from her desk.
“So where are we headed?” she asked as she followed Phil out the door, world order officially restored.
“Mattapan.”
“Again? Why are the bodies always hidden in Mattapan?”
“Because some neighborhoods are just like that.”
* * *
MATTAPAN HAD A NATURE PARK run by the Mass Audubon society on acres of land that used to belong to an abandoned state mental hospital. Which Phil and D.D. were both very conscious of as they skirted the perimeter of the property, sticking close to the elaborate wrought iron fence that separated the unexpected expanse of leafy trees from the dense urban jungle that surrounded it.
They’d been to this park before. They’d walked these grounds when the skeletal remains of the abandoned mental facility had still winked shattered glass eyes from atop the hill. They knew all about the ghosts of this area’s past, and the mummified remains of six girls they’d excavated from an underground pit last time they’d been here.
Following Phil toward the first wooded trail, D.D. had a chill, and it wasn’t from the weather.
In theory, the Boston State Hospital was long gone. Half of the green space had become the Boston Nature Center, home to 150 species of birds and 350 species of plants in the midst of a densely packed neighborhood where the triple-deckers were jammed shoulder to shoulder and most looked worse for the wear.
Bostonians came from all over to walk through these trees, listen to the birds, admire the butterflies. That the park came up as a frequent destination in Devon Goulding’s GPS could just mean he was someone who enjoyed communing with nature.
Except, of course, the park also represented a decent chunk of tucked-away green space, which is exactly what a killer would need to bury a body.
According to Phil, they’d brought out dogs first thing this morning. It had taken them less than twenty minutes to make the find: a low mound of earth resting next to an equally long depression in the ground, both just starting to be reclaimed by the undergrowth.
Laypeople generally gravitated toward the mound when digging for a body. Experienced pros like Boston’s ME department, however, knew better. The mound was formed from all the displaced dirt the killer had excavated from the grave—digging down, dumping shovelfuls of soil to the side. The depression, that was the grave. Where the subject had interred the body, then covered it with enough soil to make it relatively level. Never once considering the effects of putrefaction. That flesh and muscle would eventually decay, slide off the bones, melt into the very ground. That if blowflies had found a way to lay eggs on the body before it was interred, this process would happen even faster—let alone critter activity as a new food source was introduced into the local area.
Shallow graves took on a life of their own. And eventually, all bodies did what they were meant to do. Decay. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Disappearing back into the earth, until months later, a uniquely shaped depression was formed. The kind of hollow that any experienced homicide detective could look at and say, hey, betcha a body is buried there.
The ME’s full team was out. This kind of retrieval was conducted like an archeological dig, with the leaf-strewn area beneath the trees already marked into a series of grids. Each shovelful of earth that was removed went into a marked container, to be sifted through later for signs of additional evidence. It would take all day for the ME to remove the body, D.D. knew, and weeks, if not months, before Ben would issue his full report.
D.D. and Phil approached, making sure they didn’t get too close. Ben Whitely was very good at his job, which was to say he was territorial and had little patience for stupid cop tricks.
He’d also once been romantically involved with their squad mate Neil. After the breakup . . . everyone was professional. Nothing was quite the same.
“Morning, Ben,” Phil called out. An opening salvo.
He received a grunt from a burly figure hunched over the shallow grave, seemingly brushing at the dirt. D.D. recognized his actions from past retrievals: They had exhumed all the way down to the body, and Ben was now dusting the final layer of fine soil from the mummified skin, bones, whatever was left.
This close, D.D. could catch a whiff of decomp mixing with the peaty smell of soil, fall leaves. So the remains weren’t fully skeletal yet, which would make sense given the timeline of the missing women’s disappearances.
“Male or female?” D.D. asked. Unlike Phil, she didn’t waste time on pleasantries. Which, she happened to know, made her one of Ben’s favorites. He didn’t care for pleasantries either.
“Female.”
“Time of death?”
“Bite me.”
D.D. and Phil exchanged glances. Apparently, that was a question to be answered back at the morgue. Made sense. The rate of decay in shallow graves varied wildly, depending on depth of grave, insect activity, that sort of thing. Ben would have to analyze soil samples taken from beneath the body to pinpoint time of death, and even then he’d grumble about the accuracy. Which made today a better day to be a homicide detective than an ME.
“Clothing, jewelry, any unique indicators we can use for identification?” D.D. asked. Personally, she was hoping for replacement parts—anything from breast implants to artificial knees, all of which came with serial numbers that could be traced back to the recipient.
“Got an earring,” Ben supplied, not looking up. “Gold hoop. Some clothing. Blue jeans maybe. Cotton top. Can’t tell if there’s anything in the pockets. Not there yet.”
D.D. looked at Phil. “Neil and I came across a stash of photos of Natalie Draga in Goulding’s room. I don’t remember her wearing hoop earrings.”
“I’ll call Neil, ask him to double-check,
” Phil said. “Kristy Kilker?”
“We didn’t find any pictures of her. Just her driver’s license.”
“He can check that too. Just in case she’s wearing earrings in that photo.”
D.D. nodded, though it was a long shot. Some women wore the same earrings day in and day out, but a twentysomething girl out on the town? Chances were Kristy had different accessories for each outfit, that sort of thing.
“Hair appears to be brown,” Ben offered from the grave.
Which would be consistent with either Natalie or Kristy.
“Got something on the fingernails. Polish. Maybe dark pink, red? Either of your missing girls partial to manicures?”
Phil made a note. One more detail to track down.
“Are you sure there’s only one body?” D.D. called out.
Ben finally glanced up, skewered her with a glance.
“Never mind.” Even D.D. knew when to beat a hasty retreat. “So . . .” She tried to pick her next question carefully. “We have two missing girls. One last seen nine months ago.” Natalie Draga, who’d never collected her last check at work. “One vanished more like five months ago.” Kristy Kilker, who’d called her mother once or twice since the alleged Italy trip.
“If I had to pick between the two . . .” Ben went back to brushing.
“Sure.”
“Body’s on the fresher side. Been here like a two-to-three-month window.”
D.D. glanced at Phil.
“Only tells us how long ago the body was buried,” Phil warned. “Natalie Draga might have gone missing nine months ago, but that doesn’t mean she was killed then.”
D.D. nodded, understanding his point. They didn’t know enough of Goulding and his MO. Had he kept the girls alive for a bit? The haunting photos of Natalie Draga seemed to imply as much. Then again, they had nothing on Kristy except for a bloody license. Questions D.D. would’ve liked to ask Goulding. Except, thanks to Flora Dane, he was no longer available to answer.
“Call Kristy’s mom,” she instructed Phil at last. “Ask her about favorite earrings, nail polish. Maybe she can give us a starting point.”
Phil nodded, moving off to a separate bank of trees to work his phone.
D.D. stood alone, watching the ME carefully brush dirt from the remains of at least one missing girl who would finally go home again.
* * *
“PRETTY IN PINK,” Phil reported fifteen minutes later. “Kristy’s go-to nail polish. Wore it all the time. Was also partial to a pair of gold hoops, which were a sixteenth birthday present from her mom.”
“Kristy Kilker,” D.D. said.
“Not enough for an official ID.”
“No. We’ll have to wait for Ben to work his full magic at the lab. But chances are . . .”
“Kristy Kilker,” Phil agreed.
“So where is Natalie Draga? A second dump site? Are there other frequent destinations recorded in Goulding’s GPS?”
“Not that would work for stashing bodies. This is it.”
“And the dogs have covered the entire park?”
“Yep.”
“So where is Natalie Draga?” D.D. asked again.
Phil had no answer.
D.D. looked around, at the trees, the gawkers, the milling crew of blue-clad crime scene technicians. “Phil, what are we missing?”
* * *
SHE CALLED SAMUEL KEYNES. She didn’t know why. He wasn’t an investigating officer but a professional headshrink. He didn’t catch bad guys; he assisted with victims. And yet . . .
Everything about this case came back to Flora Dane. And given her disappearance, the closest link they had to her was Dr. Keynes. Which was interesting in its own right because most of the time, D.D. would peg the mother in a situation like this. But for all of Rosa’s fierce protection of her daughter, their relationship was strained. Flora herself hadn’t called her mother after Friday night’s incident. She’d called her former victim specialist instead.
Keynes picked up after one ring. Almost as if he was expecting her call.
“Do you know someone named Natalie Draga?” she asked him.
“No.”
“What about Kristy Kilker?”
“No.”
“Flora never mentioned these names? Never talked about trying to locate either woman?”
“No. Sergeant Detective—”
“But she did talk to you about Stacey Summers? Come on. Now is the time to be open and honest, Doctor. Because I have one dead body and I’m pretty sure there’s about to be more. Flora talks to you. Flora tells you things she doesn’t tell anyone else. Not even her mother. So what did she tell you about Stacey Summers?”
“Saturday morning’s phone call was the first contact I’d had with Flora in months. At least six months. We are not that close, Sergeant Detective. Not nearly as close as you think.”
“But she tells you things. Things she tells no one else. This morning, I spoke to the FBI agent who rescued Flora. According to her, she has lots of questions about what Flora did during her time with Jacob Ness. But Flora won’t answer those questions. She’ll only talk to you.”
“I provided a full report of Flora’s statement. Contrary to what you’re implying, everything I heard has been made available to investigators. That Flora didn’t want to share her experience again and again . . . that’s hardly unusual for someone who’s been through her level of trauma.”
“Did she do it? Help kidnap other victims?”
“Not that she ever revealed.”
“Is that what this is? All this vigilante business? Survivor’s guilt to cleanse her conscience of what she did during her captivity?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“No. Not true. One, you’re the expert. Two, she trusts you. And she keeps calling you. When she’s in trouble, when she needs help, your number is the one she dials. Five years later, Doc. How many families are still calling you five years later?”
Keynes didn’t say anything.
“Then there’s the mom,” D.D. continued, thinking out loud. “Rosa Dane. She seems pretty comfortable with you as well. Does she also keep you on speed dial, or do you call her? Because Flora doesn’t and you know that bothers her.”
Then, it came to D.D. The way Keynes had touched Rosa’s shoulder yesterday in her office. The way he’d stood so solidly beside her when, frankly, there was no reason for him to be there at all. But he’d come. At Rosa’s request. And he’d stayed. The good doctor and Rosa.
“Does Flora know?” D.D. blurted out. “About you and her mom. Have you ever told her?”
“Sergeant Detective, do you have any new leads on Flora’s disappearance?”
“Answer my question first.”
“I will not.”
“It’s relevant—”
“It is not. Now, do you have any new information—”
“Rosa’s standing there,” D.D. filled in abruptly. “She’s standing right beside you, and she’s asking about her daughter.”
Keynes didn’t answer, which D.D. took to be a yes.
“Rosa doesn’t know, does she?” D.D. said more softly. “Your feelings for her, you’ve never said.”
“I assure you—”
“I am mistaken. Got it. Your relationship with the family is purely professional. Proper feebie like you—”
“Sergeant Detective—”
“I have a body. One of the women we believe Devon Goulding abducted, we’ve found her remains based on evidence we recovered from his house.”
“You believe you’ve just discovered one of Goulding’s victims? In other words, Flora was right in her actions on Friday. If she hadn’t killed him, it might be her body you were discovering now.”
“Flora’s gone. And whatever happened to her has to have something to do with
Devon Goulding, Stacey Summers, and at least two other missing women. It would be too coincidental for it to be otherwise. So I’m asking you one more time, did Flora ever mention the names Kristy Kilker or Natalie Draga?”
“And I’m telling you, I hadn’t spoken to Flora in months before Saturday morning.”
“Which only tells me when you spoke to her, but doesn’t answer the question of what she said. Come on, Keynes. I might not have the initials PhD after my name, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“Do you have any new leads on Flora’s disappearance, Sergeant Detective?”
“No.”
“Please call me when you do.”
Keynes disconnected the call. D.D. stood there, gnashing her teeth for a while longer. Wondering once again at the relationship between the victim specialist and the Dane family. And why, once again, she had a feeling he wasn’t telling her everything.
* * *
D.D. CONVENED THE TASK FORCE meeting at one. Ordered in sandwiches and cookies because it was always good to keep the troops motivated. She also added salad, because most of them were at the stage in life where they had a deeper appreciation for dark leafy greens.
Alex walked in as they were just getting started. He was dressed in his official academy shirt and slacks. She remembered his offer to tour Flora’s apartment this morning and figured by the intent look on his face he’d made it there. She waved for him to take a seat, and he helped himself to a turkey sub.
“This is what we know,” D.D. stated, standing in front of the whiteboard at the head of the conference room. She liked running these meetings. Frankly, she needed an opportunity to organize her thoughts on this case.
Now she tapped a list of bullet points, sadly a much shorter list than the second column, which included all the questions they couldn’t answer.
“Flora Dane headed out Friday night, most likely in search of Stacey Summers’s kidnapper. In her own words, she’d targeted some loser at the bar when a second suspect, Devon Goulding, entered the picture. He punched out Flora’s original partner, then dragged her off. When she regained consciousness, she was tied up naked in his garage. When he reentered the space, presumably to rape her, she retaliated by setting him on fire using items she’d found in his garbage.