Chris Mooney - The Secret Friend

'I've got a woman named Tina Sanders here who wants to speak to you,' the desk sergeant said.

The name wasn't the least bit familiar. 'What does she want?' Darby asked.

'She says you have some information on her missing daughter, Jennifer. I told her to go to Missing Persons, but she said the detective she spoke to told her only to speak directly to you and no one else.'

'What's the detective's name?'

'Hold on.' The desk sergeant spoke in a murmured conversation for a moment and then came back on the line. 'She doesn't know the guy's name but said he was working with you on the Sinclair case. Does that mean anything to you?'

'Send her up,' Darby said.

Tina Sanders was ravaged by osteoporosis. Protruding from her back and hidden underneath the red fabric of a ratty down coat was the classic dowager's hump. The woman was hunched forward, her bony, gnarled fingers clutching the rubber grips of her walker. Her hair, tied up in rollers, was partially hidden underneath a blue silk scarf.

'Did you find Jenny?'

'Let's talk in the conference room,' Darby said.

Tina Sanders shuffled across the floor in her walker and black orthopaedic shoes. Darby held open the door. She had already left messages on Tim Bryson's cell and office voicemails asking him to call her immediately.

Darby helped the woman into a chair. Cigarette smoke was baked in her clothes and hair.

Hand shaking, Tina Sanders reached inside her purse. She came back with a folded piece of paper and placed it on the table.

The glossy 81/2?11 sheet contained a picture of a blonde woman with feathered hair – the same picture Darby had seen tacked to the rotted wall inside Sinclair.

'Where did you get this, Miss Sanders?'

'He left it in my mailbox.'

'Who left it in your mailbox?'

'The detective,' Tina Sanders said. 'He told me to come down here and find you. He said you knew what happened to Jenny.'

'What was this man's name?'

'I don't know. What's going on with Jenny? Did you find her body?'

'You'll have to forgive me, Miss Sanders, but I'm confused. Bear with me a moment.' Darby opened her notebook. 'First tell me how you got this photograph.'

The old woman struggled with her impatience. 'I got a call this morning. It was a man saying he was a detective from Boston. He said Darby McCormick from the Boston Crime Lab found out what happened to my daughter. I asked him what it was, and he told me to go out to my mailbox. That's where I found the picture. When I came back to the phone, he wasn't there, got disconnected or something. That's what happened. Now tell me about Jenny. What did you find?'

'Where do you live, Miss Sanders?'

'Belham Heights.'

Darby grew up in Belham and knew the Heights section well – triple-deckers with views of clotheslines fastened to porches and postage-stamp sized backyards separated by sagging chain-link fences.

'And this is your daughter in the picture.'

'I said that, what, six times now?' Tina Sanders removed a pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes from her purse.

'I'm sorry, Miss Sanders, but you can't smoke in here.'

'I just want to hold this.' She had turned the cigarette pack over; tucked underneath the cellophane was a gold crucifix. 'I've been praying for this moment for twenty-six years,' she said, voice breaking. 'I can't believe it's finally happening.'

'Tell me what happened to your daughter,' Darby said. 'Start at the beginning and take your time.'

On the evening of 18 September 1982, twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Sanders, a psychiatric nurse for the Sinclair Mental Health Facility, had left the hospital to meet her mother at a bridal store in downtown Boston. They were scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. and then have dinner.

By six, when Jennifer hadn't shown up at the bridal store, Tina figured her daughter, coming into the city from the North Shore, was stuck in traffic. There was no way for Jennifer to call and say she was going to be late. This was 1982, a time when cell phones were big, bulky expensive toys owned by the wealthy.

By 7:30 p.m., and with still no word from her daughter, Tina Sanders had grown nervous. Maybe Jennifer got into a fender bender. Maybe her car had crapped out and she had left to seek out a pay phone to call AAA. If that was the case, Jennifer would have called the store to let her mother know what had happened. Maybe she was in an accident. Maybe she was seriously hurt and on her way to the hospital.

Or maybe, Tina thought, Jenny had gotten the dates mixed up. Or maybe she had simply forgotten. Jenny was very forgetful lately. She worked long hours and was always tired. Jenny was under a lot of stress – planning for the wedding and possibly having to find another job. An electrical fire had destroyed part of Sinclair, and in the midst of the chaos of moving patients to other hospitals, there was constant talk that Sinclair might be forced to close its doors.

Tina used the bridal store's phone and called her daughter at work. Her boss was still in his office and said Jennifer had left a few minutes before five.

Jennifer's fiance, Dr Michael Witherspoon, an oncologist, was home. They had recently bought a house in Peabody, close to where Jenny worked, and decided to move in together.

Tina had the correct date, Witherspoon said. Was there a problem?

Tina Sanders told her future son-in-law Jenny was late. She stayed at the store until eight, when it closed, and drove back home to Belham, telling herself there was a rational explanation for this. There was no reason to worry.

Dr Witherspoon didn't share his future mother-in-law's optimism. By midnight, and with still no word from Jennifer, he was sure something had happened. Pacing the rooms waiting for the door to open or the phone to ring, his imagination conjured up all sorts of grisly scenarios.

He also had another reason to worry: Jennifer was two months pregnant. She didn't want to tell anyone the news just yet – it was too early in the pregnancy, she insisted, and anything could happen. She knew of too many friends who had suffered miscarriages.

There was another reason Jennifer didn't want to tell her mother. Given her staunch Catholic background, Jennifer felt a measure of shame for getting pregnant before she was married.

Sinclair was a massive place, and Jennifer worked in a world of emergencies. The patients she treated were violent offenders. Sometimes they killed themselves or another patient. They attacked the staff. There had been an incident the previous year when a paranoid schizophrenic punched Jennifer in the face. The young man believed Jennifer was trying to poison him.

Witherspoon called the hospital's emergency line and asked to speak to someone in security. He explained the situation and asked the man on the other end of the line to look into the matter. The security guard called Witherspoon back an hour later.

'They found her car in the lot,' Tina Sanders told Darby. 'That's all they ever found of her.'

'Does Michael Witherspoon still live in Peabody?'

'No, he left… it must have been ten, fifteen years ago. Moved out to California, I think. We lost contact. He kept in touch with me in the beginning, those first few years, and then he came to me one day and said he couldn't live like this any more, not knowing, the stuff with the police.'

'What stuff with the police?'

'They thought he had something to do with Jenny's disappearance, but that was ridiculous. The man was devastated. They put him through hell. He wanted to get on with his life. I didn't blame him. You don't have that luxury as a parent.'

'Were you and Jenny close?'

'Of course we were.' The woman seemed insulted by the question. 'Growing up, it was just the two of us. Jenny's father was in the Marines, stationed in China. He wrote me one of those Dear Jane letters saying he fell in love with some Chink. I never heard from him again.