Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

In the parking lot, he was immediately assaulted by the gathered press.

“Any word on Carol Rosen's condition?”

“Are you prepared to make an arrest?”

“Is Carol Rosen's attempted suicide connected with Eddie Como's murder?”

Griffin ignored them all and climbed into his car. In all honesty, there weren't as many reporters present as he would've thought. Then he turned on the radio and found out why.

Tawnya Clemente was holding a press conference in downtown Providence. At a law firm. Where her new attorney was announcing the fifty-million-dollar wrongful-death suit he was planning to bring against the city of Providence and the Providence Police Department on behalf of the Como family.

“As recent evidence indicates,” the lawyer boomed, “Edward Como never should have been arrested by the Providence Police Department. Indeed, the premature and irresponsible indictment of Edward Como as a serial rapist set in motion the events leading to the tragic death of this young man, shot down in front of the very courthouse where he would've shortly been found innocent. Yesterday was a dark, dark day in the halls of justice. The city of Providence turned on one of its very own sons. Now the city must make restitution. The city must make amends.”

On cue, Griffin's cell phone rang.

“Are you listening to this?” Fitz yelled into his ear. “Holy mother of God, I am having a heart attack. My heart is literally fucking exploding in my chest. I'm gonna die on this thankless, shitty, fucking nuts job, and then my wife is gonna sue this city for seventy-five million just so she can stay ahead of the Comos. Jesus H. Christ. I should've arrested Tawnya when I had the chance.”

“You have a wife?” Griffin said.

“Eat my shorts, Sergeant!”

“I take it you had another lovely afternoon.”

“Blockbuster,” Fitz moaned. “Goddamn kid seems legit. Showed us the computer records of Eddie's transaction, then practically cried as he told us how he'd been too scared to come forward earlier. His sister goes to Providence College and he was so sure Eddie was guilty, he didn't want to do anything that might set the College Hill Rapist free.”

“So on the one hand, the kid from Blockbuster did see Eddie that night, but even he's still convinced that Eddie is guilty?”

“The DNA. Some people really do believe in that stuff. Why the hell aren't any of them ever on juries?”

Griffin had turned onto the highway. The lack of sleep the night before was starting to catch up with him. So much information, and he couldn't seem to get his brain to process half of it.

“Is this kid the basis of Tawnya's claim?”

“Maybe. I'm guessing, though, her lawyer's mostly focusing on last night's assault on Sylvia Blaire. That case is consistent with the College Hill Rapist attacks and since that happened after Eddie was dead, Eddie couldn't have done it, meaning he couldn't have done any of them.”

“Meaning the heat is on to resolve what happened to Sylvia Blaire.”

“Would you believe the mayor just gave us carte blanche on the Blaire case?”

“Oh, you big boy you.”

“Yeah, apparently you can spend a small fortune on manpower and high-priority forensic tests without coming close to the expense of a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit.”

“I take it you're fast-tracking the tests on the DNA sample?”

“Oh yeah. We're trying to get results by first thing tomorrow morning. Please let it be an ex-boyfriend. About the only thing that will save our asses now is for it to be an ex-boyfriend. Oh, and when we pick him up, he's gotta confess that it was a copycat crime and he learned all the details from reading some Internet site, www.IWannaBeARapist.com, or something like that. Ex-boyfriend. Confession. Yeah, that's about what it's going to take to salvage my career.”

“I think you stood a better chance of having the heart attack,” Griffin said.

“Probably.” Fitz sighed again. He still hadn't gotten any sleep and it showed in his voice. “Hey, Griffin, did Carol Rosen really try to commit suicide?”

“We found her passed out with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills. I understand that she'd probably been drinking as well.”

“Ah, shit.”

“I'm sorry, Fitz.”

“It's the Blaire case, isn't it? Has everyone wigged out. Press is going nuts, people are phoning nine-one-one if the bush outside their house moves… It's a copycat. How hard is that for people to grasp? Sometimes you get copycats.” Fitz sounded desperate. He knew it, too. He sighed again, then said gruffly, “It's not her fault, you know. Whatever happened, whatever mistakes we may or may not have made… It's not her fault, not Jillian's fault, not Meg's fault. We're big boys over here. We handled the case the way we handled the case.”

“Fitz, did you guys ever try to find any additional rape victims?”

“What do you mean?”

“Jillian and her mom raised an interesting point. Rape is a largely unreported crime. Sure, we have three known victims of the College Hill Rapist. But that doesn't mean they were his only victims.”

Fitz was silent for a moment. “Well, we ran the details of the case through VICAP to see if we'd get any hits. No crimes matching these descriptions came up in any other states. Of course, that's not exactly foolproof. Another victim might not have filed a police report. Or maybe she did, and the police department still hasn't gotten around to entering it into the database, etc., etc. D'Amato waited six months before going to the grand jury, just in case we could find any other women willing to come forward and add their charges to the package. That's one of the reasons he didn't mind Jillian and her group going on TV all the time. He figured if anything would influence another victim to come forward, it would be seeing Jillian, Carol and Meg standing tall.”

“But no one came forward?”

“Not that we ever heard of.”

“But that doesn't rule out the possibility…”

“Griffin, there is no way of ruling out that possibility. You could interview every woman in this state, point-blank ask her if she was ever raped, and still not rule out the possibility because one of them might lie. We're cops. We can't focus on the impossible. We have to focus on the probable.”

“I can account for everyone's money,” Griffin said abruptly.

Fitz was clearly stunned. “No shit.”

“Yeah. I even asked Vinnie Pesaturo if he arranged for a hit. He said no. And call me crazy, but I actually believe him.”

“In other words, you just ran out of suspects.”

“I ran out of suspects for this theory,” Griffin said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning maybe it wasn't a vengeance case. Maybe it was about something else. You tell me, Fitz. Why else would someone want Eddie Como dead?”

Griffin had no sooner set down his cell phone from that call than it rang again.

“Sergeant Griffin,” he said.

“Where the hell are you?”

“Lieutenant Morelli! My favorite LT. Have I told you how lovely you look today?”

“You wouldn't know how lovely I look today. You haven't bothered to see me today. Funny, but my memory of the primary case officer's job is to keep the higher-ups informed. To actually be at headquarters overseeing information, generating theories and keeping the ball rolling. What is your memory of the primary case officer's job, Sergeant?”

“Good news,” Griffin said hastily. “We're making lots of progress.”

“Oh really? Because I've been listening to the news, Sergeant, and it seems to me that this case is going to hell in a handbasket.”

“It's the fifty-million-dollar lawsuit, isn't it?”

“That's one problem.”

“And the fact that the public is now convinced there is a serial rapist on the loose, and they're all about to be raped and/or murdered in their sleep?”