Tess Gerritsen - John Doe

“I’m so sorry, Mr. O’Brien. I can’t imagine how horrible it is to lose a child.”

“No one can. Until it happens. Then it’s all you think about, all you feel.” He stared down at the river. “I came here to spit on his grave. Does that make me evil?”

“It makes you a grieving father.”

He nodded, and his thin shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would, knowing he’s dead. All I feel is… relief.” He looked at her, and once again she felt that strange shock of recognition. Somehow I know this man. And I think he knows me. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I wanted to see where he died.”

“Did you know him?” He paused. Asked, quietly: “Did the bastard hurt you, too?”

She didn’t respond, but she felt certain he could see the answer in her face. Yes, he hurt me. The question is: Did I hurt him?

“Savor this moment,” he said. “The death of monsters should always be celebrated. I was afraid I wouldn’t live to see it, but here I am. While he burns in hell.”

Those last three words jolted a nerve of recognition. Not just the words, but the voice, deep with rage. She had heard it before.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, backing away.

He looked straight at her, his eyes fixed on her face. Seeing too much.

A pair of joggers came around the bend, huffing toward them. That’s when Maura made her escape. Swiftly she walked away, heading back to Leverett Pond. Toward other people. Only once did she pause to look back, and she saw he was standing where she’d left him, but his eyes were still on her.

She drove straight home, hands shaking as she clutched the wheel. Only when she was in her garage, the door safely closed, did her breathing begin to steady, her heart to slow.

Inside the house, the first thing she did was call Jane.

“Harry O’Brien,” she said. “Did you question him?”

“Of course we did,” said Jane. “How do you even know about O’Brien?”

“I know he once threatened Scanlon. It made the newspapers, after Kitty O’Brien’s suicide. Jane, I think he’s involved. I recognized his voice.”

“You spoke to him? What the hell are you doing, getting in the middle of an investigation?”

“We met by accident, in Olmsted Park. I went to the death scene, to see if I remembered anything, and O’Brien was there. We had a few words, and I had this-this sudden flash of recognition. I’ve heard his voice before, Jane. Maybe it was that night.”

“Saturday?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? Even though there’s so much I don’t remember, there could be bits and pieces that I did retain. A face, a voice.”

“It couldn’t have been O’Brien that night. He had an alibi.”

“You’re absolutely sure it’s real?”

“He was visiting a friend in Swampscott. Frost and I interviewed her, and she swears O’Brien was at her house till midnight.”

“Is she reliable?”

“She’s an architect. Her mother was there that night, too. Apparently the evening was some sort of matchmaking plot to pair Mom off with Harry. It’s rock-solid, Maura.”

But even as she hung up, Maura could not shake off the certainty that she’d heard Harry O’Brien’s voice that night.

She sat on her living room sofa and stretched out on the cushions, trying to call up another memory. Here was where she’d awakened Sunday morning. The night before, someone had laid her on this sofa. Had words been spoken, words that she might still remember? She closed her eyes.

The doorbell rang.

She snapped straight, heart slamming against her chest. She forced herself to rise from the sofa and peeked through the glass panel.

A dark-haired young woman, pretty and petite, stood on the porch.

Maura took a deep breath and felt the tension go out of her. She opened the door. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” the woman said, “but I’m trying to find David Chatworth’s house. I know he lives around here somewhere, but my cell phone just died. Could I borrow your phone book?”

“Of course. Hold on,” said Maura. She turned toward the kitchen, where she kept the phone directory. Made it only halfway up the hall when she heard the front door suddenly slam shut.

Footsteps closed in behind her.

Jane sat at her desk, troubled by her conversation with Maura. Flash of recognition was how Maura had described her reaction to O’Brien, a certainty that she’d met him. But it couldn’t have happened on Saturday night, because O’Brien was at his friend’s house in Swampscott.

She pulled out her file on their interview with Monica Vargas, the woman whom O’Brien had been visiting. Thirty-five years old and an architect, she lived alone in an impressive house with a view of the sea. She had been definite about O’Brien’s visit, had told Jane and Frost that O’Brien arrived around six PM, dined with Monica and her mother, and the three of them had watched Woody Allen DVDs. Around midnight, O’Brien left her house. Monica had offered the police her mother’s phone number, should they need further corroboration.

Yes, a rock-solid alibi.

But now, thinking back to that interview, Jane recalled details about Monica that suddenly seemed significant. Her poise, her beauty. An attractive female professional, confident and accomplished.

Like Sarah Shapiro and Kitty O’Brien. Like Maura Isles.

She spun around to her computer and was just about to do a background check on Monica Vargas when her phone rang.

“We finally got into Scanlon’s TracFone,” said Frost.

“We have access to his calls?”

“We have everything. And you won’t believe what’s here.”

She saw the excitement on Frost’s face when she walked into the crime lab. He sat in front of a computer screen as a printer churned out pages of documents.

“He hardly made any calls on this phone,” he said. “But he did use it to send text messages.” He pointed to the computer screen. “We’ve got them all here, dating back four years. About a dozen of them. And they were all sent to the same recipient.”

Jane frowned at the date of the most recent text. “Scanlon sent one Saturday night. Eight thirty PM.”

“Look at what he wrote.” Frost clicked on the body of the text, and one sentence appeared. It was an address in Brookline. Maura’s.

“ This is how Scanlon told his partner where to find the next catch,” she said, and she gave Frost an excited slap on the back. “We’ve got the second perp!”

“Wait. You need to see something else. The other texts.” He scrolled down the list. “See the dates? This one here, eighteen months ago, corresponds to the attack on Sarah Shapiro. And this one, just before it, was Kitty O’Brien.”

“So we have a record of every attack. Every victim’s address.”

“Right. Now look at this one.” He clicked on a text from nine months earlier.

Jane stared at the address. Swampscott. “It’s Monica Vargas! She was a victim, too?”

“Only she never reported it,” said Frost. “And Julia Chan, the woman who gave Sarah Shapiro her alibi? Her address is in here as well. Somehow, these women managed to connect. They found each other. We’ve got a whole nest of victims here, and they’re covering for each other. We can’t trust anyone’s alibi.”

“Which means Harry O’Brien could have killed Scanlon. He could have been… oh Jesus.” Jane snatched up her cell phone.

“What?”

“Maura spoke to Harry O’Brien this evening. She recognized him.”

“Does he know that?”

Jane hung up. “She’s not answering her phone.”

It was dark when they arrived at Maura’s house. There were no lights on inside, and the front door was unlocked. Jane and Frost glanced at each other, a grim acknowledgment of what could very well await them. They both drew their weapons, and Jane gave the door a nudge. She slipped through first, moved into the living room.