Fear Nothing: A Detective

  Chapter 36

  WE SHOULD’VE RETURNED to the safety of my condo, but we didn’t. No one seemed to recognize Shana, and as darkness fell, we felt safer and safer with her new guise. On second thought, Shana wanted to try real pizza. I took her to the best dive I knew, where you could buy a slice the size of a football and the cheese hung down in gooey strings. At first, the kid behind the register was too shell-shocked by my mangled face to respond to our order. He stared at me, mouth slightly ajar.

  Shana leaned in. She gave the kid a single hard look. He yelped slightly, rubbing his arms as if to ward off a chill, then jumped to it. He gave us both slices for free.

  We ate them walking along the sidewalk, smearing pizza grease across our faces and feeling smug, as if we’d gotten away with something.

  Shana declared it the best fucking pizza she’d ever had. She remembered other pies, from before. In prison, she often took out each memory of her life before incarceration, replaying each moment in her head like an old family video. Maybe that was why she forgot nothing. She had turned memory into an art form, serving as her own family album.

  The hour passed five, daily commuters rushing to catch buses, subways, taxis, everyone bundled up against the bitter chill.

  We steeled our shoulders against the evening’s bite and soldiered on, not speaking, because that would make all of this too real and subject to doubts and anxiety and hesitation. Better to just be. Better, certainly, not to think of the hours ahead.

  Can you pack a lifetime into a single afternoon? Remake a family, reforge old bonds?

  I took Shana through Boston Common to the Public Garden, which was beautiful even this late in the fall. Like in the clothing store, she couldn’t stop touching. The bark of a particularly majestic tree. The dangling fronds of a naked weeping willow. The prickly sticks on a border hedge. We stood on the bridge, watching tourists snap photos of the lake that in the spring would host the swan boats. Then we walked up Newbury Street, where Shana gawked at the store windows with their designer clothes and overpriced wares.

  Her fingers were still flexing and unflexing at her sides, but she never slowed down, even as numerous pedestrians crashed against her, and at one point, she nearly became entangled in a dog leash. Her eyes remained fierce, drinking it all in. She reminded me of a hawk, not quite ready to take flight but already remembering the promise of open skies.

  We roamed. Over to the Prudential Center, then, using the pedestrian bridge, into Copley Center. We went nowhere. We went everywhere.

  And sometimes people stared at me, and sometimes people stared at her. But in the rush-hour frenzy no one looked too hard or for too long. My sister had been right in her instinct to get lost in the crowd. It was easier to hide in plain sight.

  Shana told me stories of lousy prison food, guards who were actually nice, the joys of living with zero privacy and even less water pressure. But mostly she asked questions. About streetlights and fashion trends and what was with all the tiny cars that looked like you could fit them in a purse and who taught any of these people to drive anyway? She wanted to touch buildings. She wanted to stare at everything. She wanted to devour an entire city in thirty minutes or less.

  My sister. The two of us, finally together again.

  Six P.M. Air colder, sidewalks thinning slightly.

  More pizza, my sister decided. This time, I ordered an entire pie, then a six-pack of beer. I carried the beer, Shana carted the pizza box, as I finally waved down a taxi, gave him the address for my building.

  We didn’t speak in the taxi. We didn’t speak as we unloaded from the cab in front of my high-rise. Shana looked up, up, up, but she didn’t say a word.

  I saw a police cruiser parked on the corner, but no lights flashed on, no door popped open at the sight of me and a male colleague, clearly armed with dinner, heading into the building.

  Maybe the cop thought I was smart to have a guy stay over for the night.

  Who knows?

  Mr. Daniels greeted us inside. He took one look at my red-scarred face, blanched and nearly stuttered.

  I’d had a visitor, just an hour before.

  “A Mr. Sgarzi. Charlie Sgarzi,” Mr. Daniels provided anxiously.

  Shana made a sound low in her throat. It might have been a growl.

  Mr. Daniels shot her a nervous glance before continuing. “But I didn’t let him up. I told him to leave his name and number, you would be in touch.”

  “But you told him I was out,” I pointed out.

  Mr. Daniels regarded me quizzically. “Well, I had to. He wanted to see you, and you weren’t home.”

  I gave up on the matter, taking the note from Mr. Daniels and thanking him for his help.

  In the elevator, Shana lurched awkwardly as the cable car began to move, then stood rooted in the middle, face pale as each floor rushed by. Upon reaching my floor, she was the first one out.

  “Fast,” she muttered. “Everything. So damn fast.”

  We reached the door of my unit. She stepped forward. I obediently fell back. Just like that. As if we’d been doing this for years.

  Once inside, we set aside our dinner, then quickly searched the space. No sign of the Rose Killer. The surveillance equipment also remained intact, masking tape still in place.

  “I’m going to need a knife,” my sister said.

  I led her into the kitchen, gestured to the butcher block.

  She took her time selecting, not the largest blade, not the smallest, but the one that apparently felt exactly right. Then she pulled out the knife sharpener and set to work honing the edge of the blade.

  This was it. Our moment was done. All the things we could’ve said. All the things we should’ve said. None of it mattered anymore. We were down to business.

  Maybe my adoptive father had been right. I never should’ve opened that first letter so many years ago. I could’ve spent the rest of my life as Dr. Glen, never giving a thought to the Day family tree. Looking only forward, never back.

  Shana shrugged out of her coat, opened the pizza box. Her blade of choice rested on the countertop beside her, within easy reach. I’d armed a serial killer, I dared myself to consider, but the thought remained vague, as if it applied to someone else. I’d broken the most notorious female murderer in the state out of prison. Then I’d brought her back to my apartment. A woman who could not bond and who was completely incapable of feeling empathy, love, remorse.

  I touched my face with my bandaged left hand. Sensing the razor-thin lines I could not feel.

  My sister. Who’d cut my face just so, staying true to her word. Who’d not bailed on me during those hours right after the breakout when she could’ve. Who, even now, ate pizza as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She would take on another serial killer, she would protect her baby sister, because that’s what she’d promised. To our father, forty years ago. To me, just this morning.

  And I realized that all these years later, I still didn’t know my sister at all, and yet, I knew her well enough. The nature of all families. The nature of each of us.

  I reached across the counter. I squeezed Shana’s hand.

  And for one moment, my sister squeezed it back.

  “Now what?” she asked, already helping herself to a second slice.

  “Now,” I said, “we wait.”

  Chapter 37

  WHAT DO WE KNOW about Charlie Sgarzi?” D.D. thought out loud, as Phil drove them to the reporter’s apartment. “He’s a wannabe, the so-called Great Pretender. And what do we know about the Rose Killer? His murders feel less like crimes of the heart and more like staged productions. The deaths are almost too quick, while the postmortem mutilation almost too shocking. Then there’s the champagne and roses, which have never made any sense. More window dressing. Because all these years later, Charlie is still pretending. He’s doing what he thinks a killer should do. Like a pa
rt he’s researched for a play. Or a character in a novel.”

  Phil shot her a look. “He’s become a serial killer to sell a book?”

  “Sure. We know the murders are not motivated by obsession, compulsion or sexual sadist fantasies. Which pretty much leaves financial gain at the top of the list. How much you wanna bet, Charlie tried to shop around a book on his cousin’s thirty-year-old murder, but no one was buying. Shana Day wasn’t sexy enough. And Harry Day, her notorious father, was just plain forgotten.”

  Phil played along: “So Charlie concocts a killer operating in the style of Harry Day. Except, he can’t manage the sexual-assault part, nor, apparently, stomach the kidnapping-and-torturing-for-days part. Leaves him with one signature element, removing human skin.”

  “Creepy enough to get the job done. And not being an experienced killer, he plays his odds. Ambushes sleeping women, chloroforms them to reduce any chance of struggle. Keeps it all straightforward. Because it’s not about the killing. It’s about the end game.”

  “His mom.” Phil sighed heavily. “I mean, come on. Killing his own mom?”

  “He had to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his mother’s death removed him from being a suspect, while simultaneously giving him the insider’s perspective for selling the novel. I was wrong about the inciting event for the Rose Killer. It wasn’t Charlie investigating Donnie’s murder. It was his mom getting terminal cancer. That brought him back to town, remember? Got him on this path of thinking about the past. Once he realized he couldn’t sell novel A and started considering novel B . . . Well, by then his mother was pretty near the end, right? You saw her. And frankly, compared to what the cancer was doing to her, the days, even weeks, she had left, I bet Charlie convinced himself the Rose Killer’s method was kinder. She’d never feel a thing. But doing the deed was still harder than he’d anticipated. The hesitation marks, remember? For all of his planning, some things were easier said than done.”

  Phil grimaced, clearly not loving the theory, but no longer arguing. “And you? You don’t even know Charlie Sgarzi. Why shove you down the stairs?”

  “Like we thought, I must’ve caught him off guard. He returned to what appeared to be a vacated crime scene and ended up coming face-to-face with a homicide detective. Split-second decision, he shoves me down a flight of stairs. Then probably ran the hell out of there, grateful to have gotten away with it. Except, like you and Alex said, I came back. Started hunting again, which I’d like to think scared him, but most likely got him thinking, too. What does every villain need? An archnemesis. And planned or not, the Rose Killer now had one. Scary for him as the killer, exciting for him as a future bestselling author. Another reason to egg me on with a personal note left in my house; Charlie’s earning a larger book advance by the minute.”

  Phil grunted. “And helping Shana escape?”

  “That I don’t understand.”

  “Finally, an honest answer.” He rolled his eyes.

  “It’s Sam Hayes that seals the deal,” D.D. informed him impatiently. “How else do you explain the materials from Harry Day appearing on his doorstep? Charlie placed them there in order to position Hayes as the red herring. Or maybe, if Hayes hadn’t fallen off the ladder and injured his back, the lead suspect. But again, every great drama needs suspects. So Charlie created one: Samuel Hayes, who once upon a time had a relationship with Shana Day and now has her father’s personal documents in his possession. Looks guiltier by the minute, right? Especially when all Samuel can say is that he found the items. Come on.”

  “But Hayes is crippled,” Phil rebutted. “Makes him a piss-poor prime suspect.”

  “Ah, but his injury is recent, and according to Hayes, he received the materials before he fell off the ladder. In fact, the envelope would’ve arrived shortly after the Rose Killer’s first victim.”

  Phil scowled. She was winning; she could feel it.

  “And Dr. Adeline Glen?” Phil prompted. “The Rose Killer has been stalking her, too. We assumed as a fan, but under your theory . . . ?”

  D.D. considered it. “The crescendo,” she murmured. “Because this game can’t go on forever, and the Rose Killer must end on a high note. By killing the daughter of his idol. The bloody finale.”

  “Then what? The Rose Killer simply disappears? Never to kill again?” Phil wrinkled his nose. “Pretty disappointing, if you ask me. In real life, and in a book.”

  “You’re right: The case demands resolution. Otherwise, Charlie won’t be able to get quotes from the detectives involved, let alone clearance for publication. For Charlie’s plan to work, the Rose Killer must end up caught. But how . . .” D.D. rubbed her temple, starting to feel the beginning of a headache.

  “Charlie plans on surrendering?” Phil asked. “Wait, that won’t work, either. Killers can’t profit from their crimes. We nail Charlie as the Rose Killer, Charlie’s publishing career is over.”

  “Sacrificial lamb,” D.D. deduced. “Only way it could work. Charlie frames someone else for the murder. Hell, maybe that was why he brought in Samuel Hayes. Charlie would kill Dr. Glen, then return to Hayes’s apartment and ambush him with chloroform. Once Hayes was unconscious, Charlie could hide the murder kit in the apartment, maybe even forge a suicide note, then load Hayes into the tub.”

  “The tub? Why the tub?”

  They were almost at Charlie’s apartment now. D.D. talked faster.

  “Because that’s how Harry Day died, remember? Slit wrists in a bathtub. A fitting end to a fitting criminal career. Wraps up the case, launches Charlie’s publishing empire. Five, six months from now, Charlie’s signed a major publishing deal while making the talk-show-circuit rounds. Maybe he even goes on to score his own show, à la Nancy Grace or John Walsh. Fortune and fame. What more could a Great Pretender ask for?”

  “Samuel Hayes to have not fallen off a ladder.”

  “Details, details.”

  Phil pulled up just down from Sgarzi’s apartment building. D.D. immediately popped open her door. She wasn’t feeling her shoulder or Melvin or her headache anymore. She was feeling anticipation and excitement and adrenaline. She was feeling everything she loved best about this job.

  “Wait.”

  Phil’s firm tone brought her up short. “Stay,” he ordered. “No way you’re going to confront a possible triple murderer, D.D. You’re not even on the job. Let alone, if anything happened . . . Alex will kill me.”

  “Alex won’t kill you,” she argued reasonably. “He’ll just process the scene of your death very sloppily.”

  “D.D.”

  “Phil.”

  “D.D.”

  “No. I’m not staying in the car like a helpless puppy. We’re partners. You’ve always had my back; I’ve always had yours. Now, give me the thirty-eight I know you keep in your glove compartment. In case of emergency, that’ll be enough for me to get the job done, one-handed or not. Besides, there’s no reason for us to get ahead of ourselves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We play Charlie like we did Hayes. We’re not here to accuse him of being the Rose Killer; we’re here to talk to him about Shana’s escape. His safety and security is our primary concern. We’re the good guys, his bestest buds. And hey, as long as we’re here, let’s walk around, check out the locks on the windows, take a peek at anything we can spy in plain sight.”

  She could tell Phil still didn’t like it. But they had been together forever, mostly because Phil had never been good at telling her no.

  He took the lead. She followed him up, obediently staying two steps behind.

  They were both out of breath by the time they arrived at the door of the walk-up unit. Phil once more motioned for her to step to the side. She made a show of acquiescing. In the end, however, it was all for nothing. Phil knocked and knocked, but Charlie never came to the door.

  Chapter 38


  THE PIZZA DIDN’T SETTLE WELL. I’d consumed only one slice, accompanied by a single beer, but now I could feel it like a brick in the bottom of my stomach. I shifted restlessly in the kitchen, acutely aware of my growing nausea, as well as a slow, crushing level of fatigue.

  The events of the day finally catching up. The inevitable crash that followed any adrenaline rush.

  Across from me, I could tell Shana felt equally uneasy. She’d eaten most of the pizza, a choice I could tell from her expression she now regretted. She’d also opened a beer, but it remained only half-consumed. She was nursing it with greater self-restraint than I would’ve imagined. Fourteen-year-old Shana had probably downed entire kegs. Her forty-four-year-old counterpart had finally learned patience and discipline.

  Either that, or she really was worried she was going to vomit.

  Shana rubbed her temples. She stood abruptly, the sudden change in equilibrium making her sway on her feet.

  “Come on,” she said thickly. “Let’s tend to your wounds.”

  She headed for the master bath. I followed in her wake, barely summoning the energy to walk. I should put on a pot of coffee. At this rate, we’d be hard-pressed to keep our eyes open long enough to confront a killer.

  In the master bath, I got down my daily medical kit, while Shana roamed her hands over the marble countertop, the sleek stainless steel fixtures. The walk-in shower, with its four shiny nozzles, fascinated her. But what she returned to again and again was the sensuously shaped soaking tub. Her fingers, dancing along the polished edges, following the line that dipped down the middle, then back up at both ends.

  “Not like Mom and Dad’s,” was all she said.

  With my bandaged left hand, I couldn’t open the antiseptic wipes. Shana did the honors. She carefully swabbed each cloth over the myriad of angry red lines marring my face. The doctors were concerned about my risk of infection, given that I wouldn’t feel the accompanying pain. I hadn’t had the heart to tell them it didn’t matter, just as I hadn’t the heart to stop my sister’s ministrations.