Raffi Yessayan - 2 in the Hat

“Sounds good.” Alves couldn’t help but think what a good guy Bland was. He put aside all the bullshit and focused on what was important. “I really appreciate you helping me with this, especially since we haven’t been overly hospitable to you.”

“I understand the position you’re in, detective. I don’t blame you for any of this. Any time we can help catch a murderer, we’re glad to help.”

“I’ll FedEx that stuff to you today.”

“Detective Alves? About that Blood Bath case. That one still bothers me,” Bland said. “I’m not convinced Beaulieu was your killer.”

The accusation was a sucker punch. Robyn Stokes, one of the victims, was a childhood friend. Another was a colleague in the DA’s office. A wave of nausea washed over Alves. Bland’s instinct hit on something he had been asking himself since the day Mitch Beaulieu jumped from that courthouse balcony, taking the truth with him. Something didn’t sit right with the way the case ended.

“We had solid evidence against him,” Alves said, trying to convince himself. “We never got a confession. But the answers he gave us during our interview were evasive. They showed his consciousness of guilt. Beaulieu also had the opportunity and means to kill each of the victims. Then he killed one of his co-workers, Nick Costa, maybe when he got too close to the truth. And Agent Bland, the killings stopped when he died.”

“I remember reading about the evidence at the time. It was all circumstantial,” Bland continued the argument.

“Sometimes circumstantial evidence is the best kind,” Alves said. “Circumstances can’t be mistaken, and they certainly don’t lie. We had his shoe print outside a victim’s house, we had his hairs at the scene of the last murder, we found his brand of condom near the same house.” Alves was aware of how he sounded-like he was arguing a losing cause.

Bland said, “If I recall, the finishing touch was the room in his house where he had built a shrine to his father. Video of that room was leaked to the media.”

“That wasn’t our fault. That came straight from the mayor. It was a bizarre scene.”

“I’m sure it was. But it’s not what I would have expected to find in the killer’s home. It sounds like a memorial put together by a lonely, depressed young man who missed his father. A father who had also committed suicide, if I remember right. I think Mitch Beaulieu was more likely to have suicidal ideation, rather than homicidal. When the pressure gets to a guy like that he directs his frustration internally, on himself. He wouldn’t have an external lashing out at others.”

“So you don’t think he was the killer?” Alves asked.

“I’m not saying that. I’m not sure. I like to question everything. And what you found in his apartment wasn’t what I had expected.” Bland was silent for a couple of seconds. “Were there any other suspects at the time?”

“Everyone in the courthouse was a suspect.”

“So anyone who worked there would have had the same means and opportunity that Beaulieu had?”

“We had physical evidence that pointed to him.”

“Could any of that evidence have been planted?”

Alves was starting to see what had infuriated Mooney. What was Bland suggesting? That any of the items could have been placed there by someone else who had access to Mitch and his stuff? And they were too stupid to know the difference?

Bland continued, “Don’t you find it odd that this guy was so careful not to leave any evidence at the crime scenes? There was no indication that he was doing anything sexual with his victims. Yet as the police are converging on the courthouse, trying to find out who may have had access to the jurors, the killer suddenly decides to make a post mortem sexual assault on his final victim, leaving hairs and a condom at the scene that point directly to Mitch Beaulieu.”

“The condom was found outside the apartment in a sewer,” Alves said with resignation.

“Of course it was. It wouldn’t be a very good frame-up if someone had left it on the bed with a name tag. The condom was hidden, but in a place that the police were likely to find it.”

“Why would anyone think we’d find a condom in a sewer?”

“Because Wayne Mooney was the lead investigator. Remember, I’ve looked at your case files. I’ve seen Mooney’s work. He processes a crime scene as thoroughly as anyone I’ve ever seen. And he understands the importance of making his crime scene as large as possible. Spares no expense on the yellow tape. Anyone who knows Mooney would have known the condom would be discovered.”

“What about the shoe print?” Alves felt like he was manning a sinking ship. “That was recovered at a crime scene several months and several victims before we focused on Beaulieu.”

“Think about it. If someone was planning on framing Beaulieu, they didn’t decide to do it the day before you interrogated him. The real killer had probably been planning it for months, possibly from the beginning. He may have known how it was all going to end before he even started killing.”

Another blow. More like a kick than a punch. If he subscribed to Bland’s theory, someone-most likely someone Alves knew personally-was responsible, not only for the Blood Bath murders, but for setting up and, in effect, causing Mitch Beaulieu’s suicide. “That doesn’t explain why the killing stopped after Beaulieu was dead.”

“It’s not unusual for a killer to stop for a variety of reasons,” Bland said, “especially an organized killer. If the end game was to kill as many people as he could before police caught his scapegoat, then he had accomplished his goal. He couldn’t then go out and kill more people in the same way. Not without bringing the attention to himself. That doesn’t mean he’s not still killing. Remember, no bodies were ever recovered. We have no idea why he took the bodies or what he did with them. For all we know, he could be doing the same thing, only without leaving a bathtub full of blood for the police to find.”

It was a stunning idea. That the Blood Bath killer could still be out there. The dark and threatening shadow of a terrible idea crossed his mind. Could the Blood Bath Killer also be the Prom Night Killer?

“I’ll FedEx that stuff right away,” Alves said.

The Healey Library at UMass Boston maintained all the student yearbooks from its first graduating class in 1969. Connie discovered that Richard Zardino had never graduated. But the yearbooks were full of the photos of the students around him who did. Connie wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Maybe for a good-looking dark-haired girl. Maybe a name or a face he recognized from Alves’s files. Anything tying Zardino to Kelly Adams. Hours of searching, and there was nothing. Maybe he’d wasted a day off coming here this morning.

Connie took the catwalk to the Registrar’s Office in the new Campus Center, flashed his prosecutor’s badge, and worked his way through the phalanx of state workers guarding the Registrar. A skeleton of a man with tobacco-stained fingers came out from behind a bank of computers.

Connie flashed his credentials again and introduced himself. “I’m conducting a grand jury investigation into a serious matter. I’ll need to see a complete list of students registered to take classes at the time a certain student was enrolled here. We’re looking back ten years,” Connie said.

The Registrar gave a cough that seemed to allow him to speak. “I would need to see a subpoena before I could turn over those kinds of records.”

“I understand. I’ll have my secretary fax one over right now. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait for the records.” Connie took out his cell phone and hit #1 on his speed dial.