Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

Griffin's optimism lasted until 7:00 A.M., when his cell phone rang. It was Fitz, and he didn't sound good.

“You gotta get down here,” Fitz said without preamble.

“Where's here?”

“Providence,” Fitz said tensely. “Hurry.”

“Has there been another attack?”

“Just get here. Now. Before the press finds out.”

Fitz hung up the phone. Griffin sat there a moment longer, staring at his silent cell phone. Ah, shit.

He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. Halfway down the hall, he ran into Waters, who was just getting in for the day. Mike was moving a little stiffly this morning, which under other circumstances would've made Griffin proud. Now, however, he simply swapped notes.

“I gotta run to Providence. Something's up.”

“Another attack?” Waters asked immediately.

“I don't know. Have you heard the morning news?”

“Drive time was quiet.”

“Well, then, whatever it is, we're still one step ahead. That's worth something. Listen, can you follow up with the other detectives? See if they're making any progress with the rape-crisis groups. Oh, and take a few more bodies with you to the Cranston bars. I'm guessing we're going to need progress, mmmm, now.”

“Got it. You'll let us know?”

“When I know what I know, you'll be the first I'll let know.” Griffin headed down the hall.

“Hey, Griffin,” Waters called out behind him. Griffin turned. “I'll call ACI. Just in case.”

Griffin hesitated a fraction of an instant. “Yeah,” he said more slowly. “Just in case.”

He went out the door, no longer feeling so good about the day.

The Providence Police Department was located right off I- 95 in downtown Providence. The rapidly aging building took its role as an active urban police station quite seriously. Ripped-up gray linoleum floors, water-stained drop ceilings, scuffed-up walls, exposed pipes. The Providence detectives liked to joke that their offices were straight out of Barney Miller . For interior decorating, their color options were dirt, dirty and dirtier.

Definitely a far cry from the state police's White House in North Scituate. Not that there was any resentment or anything.

Griffin arrived shortly after seven-thirty. He parked his Taurus in the tow-away zone near the front entrance. A Providence uniform would ticket him out of spite. Fitz would make it go away. Every organization had its rituals.

He walked through the exterior glass doors, passing three black youths in baggy jeans and sleeveless sweatshirts who glared at him balefully. He stared back and, by virtue of size, got them to look away first. Inside was a small dark foyer. Griffin took the door to the left into another small dark foyer, where three receptionists sat behind bulletproof glass. This room was crowded with various people pleading various cases. “Man, I gotta see so-and-so.” “Hey, this parking ticket's bogus!” The receptionists didn't have the power to do anything, of course, but that didn't stop the masses from trying.

Griffin pushed to the front, flashed his shield and was promptly buzzed through the main doors, into the heart, or rather, bowels of the police station. Lucky him.

He took the stairs up. He'd tried the elevator only once and it had groaned so badly and moved so painfully he'd vowed never again. The way Griffin saw it, the Providence police would be lucky to get out before the whole building came down on their heads.

The Detective Bureau was on the second floor, adjacent to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. Griffin tried the main room, didn't see Fitz, then moved down to the locker room. Still no Fitz, but plenty of artwork; the detectives liked to hang photos of their more interesting cases on their lockers. The victim who was folded in half when hit by an oncoming train. The badly decomposed body of a victim who wasn't found for several weeks. A pair of hands, covered in marijuana leaves, found in the trunk of a car after it was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. The body, found a day later, that went with the hands…

Griffin continued through the labyrinth of tiny gray rooms until he came to the end of the hall. There, Providence had their evidence-processing center, basically two adjoining rooms, each the size of a coat closet, crammed full of cabinets, tables, gear and AFIS. Fitz was standing in front of the folding table, deep in hushed conversation with a sharply dressed black man whom Griffin recognized as Sergeant Napoleon, head of the BCI. Both men looked up the minute he filled the doorway.

“'Bout time,” Fitz muttered.

“You rang, I ran,” Griffin said lightly. Fitz's face had an unhealthy flush. His eyes had sunk deeper into the folds of his face and his sparse hair stuck up in unusual disarray. He'd finally changed clothes since yesterday, so he'd obviously managed to make it home. Unfortunately, the break didn't seem to have done him any good.

“Griffin, Napoleon, Napoleon, Griffin.” Fitz made the introductions.

“We've met,” Griffin said as he and the sergeant obligingly shook hands. In contrast to Fitz, Napoleon appeared excited. He had a light in his eyes, a fervor to his face. Oh no, Griffin thought immediately. When the forensics guys got excited… Oh no.

“You got the reports back,” Griffin said abruptly.

“Uh huh,” Fitz said.

“The DNA?”

Fitz looked at the open door. He dropped his voice to nearly a whisper. “Uh huh.”

Griffin leaned forward. He lowered his voice as well. “And?”

“We got a match,” Fitz whispered.

“A good match,” Napoleon emphasized.

“We know who raped Sylvia Blaire,” Fitz said grimly. “According to the Department of Health, it was Eddie Como.”

“This has got to be a mistake,” Griffin declared five minutes later. He, Fitz and Napoleon had commandeered the lieutenant's office, shut the door and resumed their earnest huddle. They kept their heads together and their voices down. In a police station, there were eyes and ears everywhere.

“Of course it's a mistake!” Fitz snapped, then immediately dropped his voice again. “A dead man did not rape and murder Sylvia Blaire. Now do you want to tell me who did?”

Griffin turned to Napoleon. “Could it be a family member? What about an uncle, a cousin, a father? Hell, what about a long-lost brother?”

Napoleon shook his head. “We got a preliminary match in seven out of seven sample sites. We'll send it out for further analysis, but we're looking at a dead-on hit.”

“Okay, a long-lost identical twin brother.”

“Identical twins don't have the same DNA. It would be close, yeah, but again, seven out of seven sample sites…”

Griffin raked his hand through his hair. “Shit,” he said.

“It is not Eddie Como,” Fitz muttered. “It is not fucking Eddie Como.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Griffin held up his hand. “Let's be logical about this. Assume for a moment that the DNA from the Blaire crime scene really does match the sample taken from Eddie Como. What if someone else had somehow saved semen from Eddie Como and smeared it at the scene?”

He and Fitz promptly stared at Napoleon, who at least seemed willing to consider the possibility.

“Swabs are first tested for semen, to see if we have something for DNA testing,” Napoleon mused. “Now, spermatozoa only tests positive for seventy-two hours, so if someone had gotten a Como ‘sample,' so to speak, it would have to be fresh. Otherwise the spermatozoa would be dead, the swabs would test negative for semen and nothing else would be done.”

“The man's been behind bars,” Fitz growled. “How do you get a fresh sample from a man in prison?”

Griffin just looked at him.

“Hey,” Fitz said. “I know there's more sex in prison than in most bordellos, gimme a break. But we're not talking about someone smuggling out a stained sheet and dropping it at the scene. The match was seven out of seven sample sites, meaning they found matching DNA on the sheets, the nightgown, vaginal swabs, etc., etc. You wanna explain that scenario to me?”