Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

“Maybe because the murderer is a female. She’s not driven by bloodlust, but something else.”

“It’s the something else we need to understand. If we could identify the why, then perhaps that would reveal the who.”

“All right.” D.D. was game. “Why Randi Menke? Why Jackie Knowles? What do they have in common?”

“Both single women living in urban environments. Same age. Both grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with friends and family in common. More specifically, both were best friends of Charlene Grant.”

“Which Charlene takes to mean that she’s the next victim. Are you as sure of that? Maybe this has something to do with Randi and Jackie. Not Charlie at all.”

“Possible,” Quincy agreed. “With only two murders, we lack enough data points to draw meaningful conclusions. The fact that Randi and Jackie happened to know each other could still be completely random; they knew they knew each other, but the killer did not.”

“I don’t like random,” D.D. said. “I know it happens, but it still hasn’t made a believer out of me.”

“That would make two of us,” Quincy agreed. “So, we’ll make our first assumption: Randi and Jackie share a common link that led to their deaths. Now, in adulthood, they didn’t really. They lived in two different states, separated by nearly a thousand miles. Randi lived in a posh area of Providence, divorced from an abusive husband, worked as a receptionist at a wellness center. Jackie lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, single, lesbian, corporate workaholic. Not so much in common.”

“Wait a minute,” D.D. interjected. “What about the abusive husband? Did Jackie know, perhaps intervene on behalf of her friend, Randi, which might have put Jackie in the doc’s sights?”

“Negative. According to Jackie herself, she never knew Randi was having domestic issues until after Randi’s murder. Apparently, Randi had never confided in her friends.”

“She isolated herself,” D.D. murmured, recognizing the pattern of so many beaten wives.

“In adulthood, the three friends had drifted apart,” Quincy stated. “Meaning, in order to find the common link between Randi and Jackie, you must go back approximately ten years, to when they grew up together in the same small town, attending the same tiny school. And during that time, they were not defined as Randi and Jackie, but as Randi, Jackie, and Charlie. Apparently, the locals often referred to them by a single moniker, Randi Jackie Charlie.”

“The Three Musketeers,” D.D. said.

“Precisely, and given that, I can’t blame Charlene for making the assumption that she’s next. Best case scenario, she wakes up pleasantly surprised January twenty-second. Worst case scenario…”

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” D.D. murmured.

“Exactly.”

“All right,” D.D. said briskly. “For the sake of argument, let’s assume the entire trio has been targeted. So why now? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to kill them when they lived in the same town? All together? For that matter, why pick them off, one by one? And why on January twenty-first?”

“Excellent questions, Detective. When you find the answers, please let me know.”

“It’s ritualized,” D.D. continued thinking out loud. “The perpetrator’s whole approach is deeply personal to him or her. The date, the methodology, even the individual targeting. Perhaps the target cluster is a trio of friends, but the killer’s style ensures each one dies alone.”

“An interesting observation, Detective.”

“All right, so let’s say the killer is morally opposed to BFFs. First murder was two years ago, nearly eight years after the women had gone their separate ways. Why wait until so many years have passed, then start by attacking Randi on the twenty-first?”

“There are several points to consider there,” Quincy replied. “One, age. The women parted ways at eighteen. Assuming the killer is someone who knew them from childhood, it’s possible the killer is of their peer group. Eighteen is a transitional age, the boundary between being a teenager and being an adult. You could argue the killer needed to gain more experience before having the wherewithal to act out his or her impulse…”

“Grooming,” D.D. muttered. “Had to go to various murder-r-us chat rooms, learn how to get it done.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Eighteen is also a pivotal age in mental health. There are many conditions, including bipolar or schizophrenia, that manifest around this stage of development.”

“Meaning, the attacker transitioned from ‘normal’ to ‘abnormal,’ including an abnormal need to kill BFFs?”

“Possible, worth considering, I think. The issue with this theory is that the nature of the crime scenes argues for a perpetrator in full possession of his or her faculties. An organized, not disorganized killer.”

“But something happened,” D.D. murmured. “If you assume that three friends are the target, something happened to make the perpetrator embark on this ritual.”

“Maybe it happened on the twenty-first,” Quincy said.

“Did the women see something, witness something?” D.D. mused. “Maybe they were home for the holidays, as adults, they came across an incriminating auto accident, happened to witness a Mafia killing, something, anything.”

“Question has been asked many times. Charlene has always responded negatively.”

“Okay,” D.D. kept thinking. “Three best friends. Who hates three girls?” And then it came to her, so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “The fourth,” she breathed out. “The fourth girl, who never made the cut.”

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Quincy said. “It’s a good theory. In fact, I’m sorry I never thought to ask that question.”

“So I return to Charlene, I ask about other childhood friends.”

“No,” Quincy corrected immediately. “Don’t ask about friends, ask about the girls who were never friends. The loner in the classroom. The girl who always sat by herself at lunch, the outsider, looking in.”

“But you said the killer has above average communication skills. When has that loner had above average communication skills?”

“Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe Randi and Jackie opened their doors out of lingering pity for a former classmate, not warm welcome of a charismatic stranger.”

“Okay, okay. I can do that,” D.D. muttered. “But even if Charlene remembers a name, I’m down to forty-eight hours to track a person for a case that isn’t even yet my case. Given the time line, maybe this girl is already in Boston, on the hunt for Charlene…”

“You want a strategy that is more proactive?”

“I want to draw the killer to us. I was thinking of setting up a Facebook page, something commemorating the anniversary of the murders, honoring the victims. I want to stir the pot. Crawl inside the killer’s head. How do I do that?”

The phone line fell quiet. She could feel Quincy considering the matter.

“I wish I could come to Boston,” Quincy muttered. “I would feel better, I think, if I were in Boston.”

“Hey, nothing personal, Mr. Former Fed, but Boston PD is not a bunch of local yokels. We try to keep at least one person alive a year. I’m thinking this year that’ll be Charlene Grant.”

“I’m worried about her,” Quincy said quietly.

“You should be,” D.D. said bluntly. “I spent an hour with the girl. She needs to gain about twenty pounds, sleep twenty days, and lay off the twenty-two. Other than that, though…”

“My wife and I. We’ve recently adopted.”

“You have a baby?” D.D. was shocked. She hadn’t seen a photo of the former profiler to determine age, but given that his daughter was a full-grown fed with kids of her own…