Brian Haig - PrivateSector

“Right. Could you tell me where to find her?”

“Well… she’s right here, young man. But this isn’t a good time to talk with her.”

I recalled Lisa once mentioning a spinster aunt, her father’s sister, the dragon lady of the clan, who had helped raise the girls after their mother died. She was, according to Lisa, a nosy, eccentric, tart-tongued old biddy. But she was a parental figure of sorts, I guess. And it made sense that the girls went to see her at a moment like this.

I explained, “Listen, I’m standing outside your brother’s hospital room. I flew up on a military helicopter. It’s urgent that I speak with her right away.”

“Oh, all right. But keep it short. She’s quite upset.”

A moment later, Janet came on the line. I said, “It’s Drummond. I’m at the hospital. Where are you?”

“My aunt’s house. What are you doing in Boston… at the hospital?”

“I’ll explain later. Give me the address.”

She did. And I wrote it down and handed it to Spinelli, who then dashed off in search of the patrolman who had met us on the roof.

I said to Janet, “Listen closely. Lisa knew Julia Cuthburt and Anne Carrol. She e-mailed them several times before they were all murdered.”

“Oh my God.”

“Spinelli’s here, too. Don’t leave your aunt’s house. We’ll be there soon.”

We jumped into the squad car, a cop at the wheel, Spinelli in front, Drummond in back. The cop punched his lights and siren, and we screeched out of the parking space. Then it struck me that this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I ordered the cop to pull over and shut it down, then said to Spinelli, “What’s this guy doing right now?”

“Who the hell knows? Watching her apartment, I guess.” He scratched his nose, appeared briefly perplexed, and then commented, “Nah. He breaks into the house while the old man’s at work, positions some igniters and fuel, and a few minutes after the old man gets home, he torches the house. Right?” I nodded, and he continued, “He finds a vantage and watches the fire. He sees the fireman haul out the body, then follows the meat wagon to the hospital, so he knows which one.”

I suggested, “Where he picks up Janet’s trail. He follows her when she leaves.”

And he concluded, “He’s probably watching her aunt’s house right now.”

We then spent a few moments batting this scenario around. Of course, there was a very good chance the killer wasn’t behind the fire, that we were on a wild-goose chase, and Sean was earning himself a long session on a big couch with a very nice, very inquisitive shrink. But my instincts told me he was here. So did Spinelli’s.

If we roared into the neighborhood, horns blaring, lights flashing, we’d blow this thing. The track record suggested that this guy was very, very good; we had no idea what he looked like; he’d see us; we wouldn’t see him-end of story.

“We sneak in,” Spinelli concluded.

“Fine.”

“We need an unmarked car and some sort of disguise.”

We batted that around awhile.

Plumbers or airconditioning repairmen were the normal routines, but on short notice were out of the question. Then I got an idea and off we went.

Thirty minutes later, Monsignors Sean Drummond and Daniel Spinelli parked the beat-up Honda Civic we borrowed from Father Brian Mullraney of St. Mary’s parish in front of Aunt Ethel’s town-home in Cambridge. Charitably, the place was a pit: a small, two-storied clapboard affair, seedy and ill-tended, no front yard, just a five-stepped stoop that rose from the cracked sidewalk.

Aunt Ethel answered our knock. She was somewhere in her eighties, shrunken to less than five feet, wispy, white-haired, with a bony, scowling face and hard eyes that regarded us harshly.

I nervously fingered my collar and explained, “I’m Drummond. I called earlier. This is Chief Warrant Spinelli, a military police officer. Please… invite us in.”

“Why are you dressed that way?”

I said, “Please. We’ll explain inside.”

She glowered at Spinelli and said, “I assume you have a badge or something.”

He flashed his shield and we were inside, being led down a short hallway to the kitchen. The whole place smelled musty and airless, like lots of old people’s homes, and was cluttered with old-lady junk; overstuffed chairs, doilies, figurines, and so forth. The kitchen was small and cramped, and looked like a mausoleum for ancient appliances. Aunt Ethel was a very strange duck.

Janet set down her teacup and calmly did the introduction thing, which, considering the circumstances, was sort of strained. The three sisters were huddled around the table, wrung out and glum.

There followed a moment of clumsy silence before Janet asked, “Why are you two dressed like priests?”

So I explained that, and what I had learned from Lisa’s computer file, ending with our suspicion that the killer might be, and, in our view, probably was, hanging around the neighborhood, and he wasn’t through.

My explanation came out a bit rushed, and understandably, the kitchen became very hushed and quiet. I mean, the Morrow sisters had just learned that their father’s incineration was no accident, that one sister might be marked for death, and that the grim reaper might be lurking behind the garbage cans in Aunt Ethel’s backyard. They were hardy women, and nobody got panicky or anything, but nobody looked drowsy anymore.

After a few moments, Janet asked, “Why burn down our house? Why try to kill my father?”

Spinelli replied, “To get you up here. Your old man’s the cheese in the trap.”

“Why? If he wanted to kill me, why not D. C.?”

Why indeed? Exactly the question I had been trying to piece together on the flight up. I wasn’t sure, but back at the hospital, Spinelli had given me an idea worth exploring and I said, “Spinelli still thinks this guy is a copycat.” I then asked, “Why do people copycat?”

Janet pondered this interesting question a moment, then replied, “The normal motives are envy, sympathy, or a perverted sense of brotherhood. Some want to feed off the fame and deeds of other killers, and some want to outdo famous killers, employing the same patterns and techniques, but excelling over the original. Emulation and ego enhancement.”

I nodded. Her Harvard Law professors would be proud of her. This was a textbook reply, almost verbatim. But I’d had a little more time to consider this thing, and it had struck me that part of the problem was that everybody was too wedded to their textbooks. I suggested, “How about as a cover-up? He wants somebody else blamed. Yes? No?”

“That could make sense,” Janet replied.

I continued, “And until now, nobody’s found a link between the victims, thus the prevailing opinion is that there is no link. Killing you would cause everybody to rethink their theories and assumptions.”

“Yes. But killing me up here engenders the same risk.”

“He might think otherwise. Boston’s outside of the scope and jurisdiction of the task force down in D. C. Also, the killer isn’t aware of your… relationship to the head of the FBI field team. Or your entanglement in the investigation.” This was obviously true, she nodded, and I continued, “So maybe he intends to kill you differently than he did Lisa and the others. Arrange your murder without any obvious parallels.”

Janet thought about this, then pointed out, “You’re making a lot of guesses.”

“Look, I know this sounds odd, but…” I thought about how to couch this: “I’m starting to understand how he operates.”

“You’re right. That’s completely off-the-wall.”

“Humor me. Now, let’s call the Boston PD and get out of here.”