Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

“She was just another lost soul I met in here. I looked out for her, kept her safe. Too bad she died before she could return any favors.”

“Is that why you’ve been writing to Martin Stanek? Because he owes you?”

“I looked out for his mother. Why wouldn’t he do me a few favors?”

“Like what?”

“Buy me magazines, newspapers. My favorite chocolate bars.”

“He also told you things. Things he was planning to do.”

“Did he?”

“When I visited you in the hospital, you said, You’ll find another one soon. You meant we’d find another one of Martin Stanek’s victims, didn’t you?”

“Did I say that?” Amalthea shrugged and pointed to her head. “You know, chemo brain. It fogs the memory.”

“Did Stanek tell you what he planned to do to the children who exposed him?”

“Why do you think he was planning anything?”

This was a chess game, Amalthea playing coy, bargaining for information. Giving away nothing for free.

“Answer me, Amalthea. There are lives at stake,” said Maura.

“And this should matter to me?”

“If there’s any trace of humanity in you, it should matter.”

“Whose lives are we talking about?”

“Twenty years ago, five children helped send the Staneks to prison. Now three of those children are dead and one has gone missing. But you already know this, don’t you?”

“What if those victims weren’t so innocent? What if you have it all turned around and the Staneks were the real victims?”

“Up is down, black is white?”

“You didn’t know Irena. I did. I took one look at her and I knew she didn’t belong in here. People like to talk about stamping out evil, but most of you can’t recognize it when you see it.”

“I assume you can?”

Amalthea smiled. “I know my own kind. Do you?”

“I judge people by their actions, and I know what Martin Stanek did to those children.”

“Then you don’t know anything.”

“What am I supposed to know?”

“That sometimes up really is down.”

“You told me we’d find another victim soon. How did you know that?”

“You didn’t seem to care at the time.”

“Did Martin Stanek tell you? Did he share his plans for revenge?”

Amalthea sighed. “You’re asking all the wrong questions.”

“What’s the right question?”

Amalthea turned to the one-way mirror and smiled at Jane, who was standing on the other side of the glass. “Which victim haven’t you found?”

“It’s all bullshit. She talks in riddles just to string you along. Make sure you come back and visit her.” Jane slapped the steering wheel. “Damn it, I should have talked to the bitch myself. I shouldn’t have put you through that. I’m sorry.”

“We both agreed it had to be me,” said Maura. “I’m the one she trusts.”

“You’re the one she can manipulate.” Jane scowled at the afternoon traffic, which had slowed their progress back to Boston. A line of cars stretched out before them, as far as they could see. “We got nothing useful out of her.”

“She mentioned a victim you haven’t found yet.”

“She probably means Bill Sullivan, the young man who vanished in Brookline. If he was buried alive like Saint Vitalis, we may never find him. I just hope the poor guy was unconscious when Stanek started shoveling in the dirt.”

“What if she was talking about a different victim, Jane? You still haven’t found Holly Devine. Do you know if she’s alive?”

“I keep calling her father, and he keeps refusing to talk to me. Maybe that’s a good thing. If we can’t find her, the killer can’t find her either.”

Maura looked at Jane. “You’re so certain Martin Stanek is the killer. Why don’t you arrest him?”

Jane’s silence was revealing. For a moment she simply stared in silence at the traffic ahead. “I can’t prove it,” she finally admitted.

“You searched his apartment. You didn’t find any evidence?”

“No ketamine, no duct tape, no scalpels, nothing. He doesn’t have a car, so how did he move Tim McDougal’s body to that pier? Plus, he has an ironclad alibi for Christmas Eve. He was eating dinner at the church soup kitchen. The nuns remember him.”

“Maybe he’s not your perp.”

“Or he’s working with a partner. Someone who’s doing the killing for him. Stanek spent twenty years in prison, and who knows who he met in there? Someone has to be helping him.”

“You’re already monitoring his phone. Who does he talk to?”

“Just people you’d expect. His lawyer, the local pizza joint. Some journalist who’s writing a book. The realtor who’s selling his parents’ house.”

“Anyone with a criminal record?”

“No. They all check out squeaky clean.” Jane glared at the road ahead. “He’s got to be working with someone he met in prison.”

A minute passed. “What if Stanek is innocent?” Maura asked quietly.

“He’s the only one with a motive. Who else would it be?”

“I just worry that we’ve settled on him too soon.”

Jane looked at her. “Okay, tell me what’s bugging you.”

“Something that Amalthea told me. She said I’m too sure of myself and it makes me blind. Unable to see the truth.”

“She was messing with your head again.”

“What if we’re all blind, Jane? What if Martin Stanek isn’t guilty of anything?”

Jane gave a groan of frustration and abruptly turned the car onto the next exit ramp.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to Brookline. I’m going to show you the old Apple Tree Daycare Center.”

“It’s still there?”

“It was in a wing of the Staneks’ house. Frost and I walked the property yesterday. The place has been on the market for years, but there’ve been no offers. I guess no one wants a house with satanic vibes.”

“Why are you taking me there?”

“Because Amalthea put that bug in your ear and now you’re doubting everything I tell you. I want to show you why I think Martin Stanek is guilty as hell.”

By the time they arrived at the Stanek property, the sun was already setting, and the trees cast spindly shadows across the snow-covered front yard. The signpost still stood near the gate, but the shingle for Apple Tree Daycare was long gone, and the only evidence that children had once played in this yard was a dilapidated swing set. Maura lingered in the warm car for a moment, reluctant to trudge through the cold to that sagging front porch. The house was a traditional New England Cape with wooden shutters and double-hung windows, the clapboards now feathered with peeling flakes of paint. Disintegrating roof shingles littered the snow with flecks of asphalt.

“What exactly am I supposed to see in there?” said Maura.

“Come on in.” Jane shoved open her car door. “I’ll show you.”

A path to the front porch had already been trampled through the ankle-deep snow during Jane and Frost’s visit the day before, and they followed the same iced-over footprints to the porch.

“The stairs are coming apart, so be careful,” Jane warned.

“Is the rest of the house in such bad shape?”

“The place is basically a teardown.” Jane lifted a rock near the doorstep and retrieved a key. “I don’t know why the Realtor even bothers to lock the door. She should invite vandals to torch the place and take care of the problem.” Jane pushed the front door, and it gave a haunted-house creak as it swung open. “Welcome to Satan’s Daycare.”

It felt even colder inside the house, as if a chill had been permanently trapped within these walls. Maura stood in the shadowy foyer and surveyed peeling wallpaper printed with dainty pink roses, a floral print that probably graced the homes of countless grandmothers. A cracked mirror hung in the hallway, and the wide-plank pine floor was littered with dead leaves and other detritus that had been tracked inside or blown in by the wind whenever a visitor stepped through the front door.