Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

“Mr. Rosen?”

“I owed eighty thousand dollars,” Dan said gruffly. He ran his right hand through his hair, leaving the brown strands standing up on end. “Only twenty now. I, uh, I liquidated my brokerage account. Otherwise, they weren't going to give me any more money. And then… Well, then I wouldn't have any chance of getting ahead, would I?”

“Who's they, Mr. Rosen?”

“Why don't you ask Mr. Pesaturo?” Dan said bitterly.

Griffin looked at Vinnie.

“Not with that tape on,” Vinnie said.

“I'm working on a murder here-”

“Not with that tape on.”

Griffin sighed, shut off the Pocket Memo. “Let's hear it.”

“I might be aware of Mr. Rosen's predicament.”

“You think?”

“Hey, man needed money, and I happen to know people who don't mind loaning a few bucks every now and then.”

“Percentage?”

“Well, you know how it is in banking. The interest rate on the loan is dependent upon the level of risk. Look at him.” Vinnie shot Dan Rosen a disparaging glance. “Eighty grand down at jack? He's high risk.”

“You're charging him a hundred percent?”

“Fifty. We're not completely unsympathetic.”

“Wait a minute.” Jillian raised a hand, finally interjecting herself into the conversation. “You mean to tell me that you-”

“My associates,” Vinnie amended.

“Fine, your associates are loaning Dan money for his gambling habit with an interest rate of fifty percent?”

Vinnie nodded. She turned to Dan. “And you are taking the money at that rate?”

“One good day,” he said immediately. “That's all you need. One good day, and the loan is repaid and I can get the credit cards down, maybe even make an extra payment on the mortgage. One good day.”

“Oh God,” Jillian said. “Poor Carol.”

Dan deflated again. Griffin turned the recorder back on. “Is it correct to say, Mr. Rosen, that you used the sixty thousand dollars you liquidated from your brokerage account to repay loan sharks?”

Dan nodded. Griffin gave him a look. “Yes,” Dan said belatedly into the minirecorder.

Griffin turned to Vinnie. “And can you, Vincent Pesaturo, verify-through sources -that such a transaction took place?”

“Yeah. My sources, they say such a thing took place.”

“Vinnie Pesaturo, did you order a hit on Edward Como? Did you arrange for him to come to harm in any way?”

The questions came out of left field, but Vinnie didn't blink an eye. He bent lower, so his mouth was directly above the recorder. “No, I, Vincent Pesaturo, did not order a hit on Eddie Como. If I, Vincent Pesaturo, wanted that piece of garbage dead, I would've done it myself.”

“Or ordered a hit in prison,” Griffin muttered. Vinnie smiled, looked at the recorder and didn't say a word.

“Tom Pesaturo,” Griffin spoke up again. “Did you order a hit on your daughter's suspected rapist, Edward Como?”

Tom looked a bit more defensive. “Nah,” he said slowly. “I decided against it.”

“Tom!” his wife gasped.

“Daddy!” Meg seconded.

He shrugged. “Hey, I'm a father. After what that bastard did to my daughter, I'm allowed to think these things. But I didn't do anything.” He shrugged again. “I don't know. Sounded like the police had a good case. That DNA and all. And I figured… I figured the trial might be better for Meg. She could face down her accuser and all. I, uh, I read someplace that sometimes that's better for the victim, you know. Gives her some sense of power back, control. That kind of thing.”

“You read about rape victims?” Meg asked.

“Kinda. I saw this article… in Cosmo .”

“Cosmo?” Vinnie exclaimed.

Tom Pesaturo huffed his shoulders. “Hey, she's my daughter. I want what's best for her. 'Sides, there was a long line at checkout, and you know they got all those women's magazines just sitting right there, decorated up with half-naked cover models. Of course I started looking. And then, well, I saw the title for the article. And then I kind of opened up the magazine. And hey, it was a really long line and, and… It was a good thing to read.”

“You are a sweet man, Tommy Pesaturo,” Meg's mother said. She slipped her hand into her husband's and squeezed.

“Ah well,” he said. Everyone was looking at him now. He turned bright red.

A tapping sound came from the back of the room. Heads turned to Libby, who was staring at Griffin expectantly.

“Oh,” he said belatedly. “Um, Olivia Hayes, did you hire someone to kill or harm Edward Como?”

Olivia made a motion with her hand, which he took to mean no. She was using her left hand to flip through her picture book. Toppi came closer, leaning over her shoulder as Libby tapped on one picture, flipped several more pages, then tapped on two more pictures.

“She's pointing out Jillian, Carol and Meg,” Toppi said. She looked at Libby. “The Survivors Club?”

Libby tapped once, flipped through the book, tapped again.

“The number one,” Toppi said. “The Survivors Group, plus one?”

Single tap.

“That means yes,” Toppi translated for the group. She knelt down. “I don't know what that means, Libby. Do you mean the other victim? Sylvia Blaire?”

No response.

“Do you mean the Survivors Club should be four people?”

Libby frowned, then tapped once. This tap was clearly reluctant, however. The statement still wasn't quite right.

“Why four people?” Meg asked.

“It can't be an open-ended question,” Jillian spoke up. “She knows what she wants to say, but you have to help her find it by using yes or no questions.”

She was studying her mother now as well. It was hard to read the look on her face. Some compassion, some yearning, some resignation. Then Libby looked at her as well. The softening of her features was immediate and obvious. A mother looking at her daughter. A mother, looking at the only daughter she had left.

“Yes or no question,” Tom muttered.

“Four people, four people,” Vinnie was saying.

“A bigger Survivors Club,” Meg mused.

Then all of sudden, Jillian's eyes grew wide. “I know what she means. Oh my God, why didn't we think of it before?”

In her wheelchair, Libby leaned toward her daughter, waited for her daughter to speak the words from Libby's head.

“Sergeant Griffin asked all of us if we were involved in Eddie's death, because we're Eddie Como's victims. We have the best motive.”

Tap, tap, tap.

Jillian turned toward Griffin now. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dazed. “But what's the other major statistic in rape cases, Griffin? That rape is a largely unreported crime. That in fact, something like only one in every four rapes is ever brought to the attention of the police.”

Griffin closed his eyes. He understood now as well. “Ah, no.”

And in her wheelchair, Libby went tap, tap, tap.

“Ah, yes,” Jillian said softly. “Meg, Carol and I are the women who came forward, the women who called the police. But that doesn't mean we were the College Hill Rapist's only victims. It is quite feasible, it's very probable, that there's at least one other woman out there. Another woman, another family, and a whole host of other people who wanted Eddie Como dead.”

BY 6:30, THERE WAS STILL NO WORD ON CAROL, BUT Griffin had to go. Waters was waiting for him, plus he had work to do. He left the subdued group inhabiting one corner of the waiting room, an odd sort of family. Dan had started off slightly apart, but then Jillian, of all people, had moved to the seat beside him. Maybe Dan was grateful. It was hard to tell. He should be, Griffin thought. He gave Jillian one last glance, then headed out the door.