Major Shields nodded. “The phone is tapped and the computer is set up so we can track every keystroke. We know you’ve been chasing down all sorts of leads you didn’t bother to share with us. We know you didn’t go to Spartina the other day, although we don’t know where you did go. You want to tell us?”
“I don’t think so,” Tess said, almost instinctively, guarding what she knew.
“It doesn’t matter. We know you went back to see the Gunts family, despite our instructions. Those infractions could have been forgiven because they didn’t interfere with the investigation.
“But this girl, sitting in front of us, is key. Our killer stopped as suddenly as he started. We’ll learn his name, one day. But for now the important thing is that he stopped. And death is the only plausible explanation for that.”
“Serial killers have periods of dormancy-” Carl began, but stopped when he saw Tess’s sorrowful gaze.
“I trusted you,” she said. “I thought we were working together.”
“We were,” he said. “But this isn’t important. Really.”
“Carl,” Major Shields said, “you need help. You ought to think about going back to that place in Havre de Grace, the one where the state sent you last time.”
No longer the center of attention, Mary Ann was crying even harder now. “Would he really have killed me? Truly?”
“I hope not,” Major Shields said. “It’s our belief that something changed his mind. Maybe he was dying, as he told you. Maybe he realized the sickness inside him was as deadly as any cancer.”
“Then do you think… do you think…” Her voice was so choked with heaving sobs she could barely get the words out. She struggled to get control of herself and looked at the major with glistening eyes. “Do you think Lifetime Television would want to make a movie out of this?”
CHAPTER 26
Tess moved through the next week in a strange fog. Technically, she was still working, even if she no longer had an office at the state police barracks. After all, the brief career of Eric-Alan-Charlie was perfect for the needs of her contractors. Whitney had whooped with pleasure when Tess told her the bare outlines of what they had learned. The state police were not going public, not yet, but they would eventually give the story to the press. The consortium would be able to make a lot of political hay, once everything was sorted out.
“Especially with this nut, this Carl Dewitt guy, who almost screwed up the investigation because of his own obsession,” Whitney had said over the phone. Her bell-clear voice had never sounded quite so hard to Tess, so cruel. “He’s practically a walking example of why all branches of law enforcement need training.”
“I don’t know,” Tess had demurred. “I think he had some good ideas.”
“How do you figure? He couldn’t see the killer had been sitting in front of him-until you came along. Then, once he realized the right guy had slipped through his fingers, he couldn’t accept the fact that he might be dead. But why was a Toll Facilities cop investigating a homicide at all? The state police need to be prepared to step in and help these incompetents.”
“He wasn’t incompetent,” Tess said. “Just… inexperienced. And the state police were in charge all along. Carl Dewitt kept investigating this homicide on his own time, even after he retired on disability, because he cared.”
“Or because he had fucked up,” Whitney said, “and was psycho to boot. Look, don’t take it so personally. No one’s accusing you of messing up. The point is, we have reams of stuff to take to the judicial committee next session. You’re working for advocates, remember? When you write your report, be sure to gear it to our needs. Who knew that five seemingly unrelated homicides would actually yield such a rich find?”
Who did know? Tess wondered as she hung up the phone. She had been so focused on Tiffani and Lucy that she had forgotten about the other three names: Hazel Ligetti, Michael Shaw, Julie Carter. Were they significant in some way? Carl had said it wasn’t accidental that their paths had crossed. But Carl was crazy. Well, not crazy, but obsessed.
The day they had returned from Saint Mary’s, Major Shields had taken her into his office for a final conversation.
“I want you to know, we don’t blame you,” he said. “You’re not responsible for Carl’s mistakes.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said.
“But you are responsible for your own. You were insubordinate. In our organization, we need people to follow instructions. I told you we could overlook your visit to the Gunts family. But you should not have tried to interview the little girl, Darby.”
“Why not?”
“Interviewing children is a specialized skill. It requires training.” He allowed himself a one-sided grin. “Just like the domestic violence cases that were supposedly your focus.”
“Point taken.”
Major Shields was not insensitive. He realized that Tess’s sourness was not about being cut out of the official investigation.
“Don’t blame Carl,” he said.
“Why not? You do.”
“Carl suffered a breakdown while working on the Fancher case. That’s why he’s on permanent disability from the state.”
“He told me he screwed up his knee in a fall.”
“He may have, but that’s not why he got early retirement.”
“If he’s such a nut, why did you let him work on this?”
Major Shields was still wearing his trooper hat, which was disconcerting. It made his eyes harder to see.
“That was Sergeant Craig’s idea. He thought it might help Carl. If we made an arrest and he could feel he was part of it, it could have helped him put the whole matter behind him.”
“So instead you humiliated him by dragging him down to Saint Mary’s.”
“That was for you,” Major Shields said. “We wanted you to understand how serious this is. And we wanted you to know the investigation is, for all intents and purposes, over.”
“They never found a body.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“Several men about the right age have surfaced in the bay since Charlie Chisholm disappeared, including two John Does. Remember, Charlie Chisholm wouldn’t come up as Charlie Chisholm, because the real one is alive. We’re looking at these drowning victims. We’re sure one of them is our guy.”
“But if Charlie had surfaced, wouldn’t someone have brought Mary Ann Melcher in to make the ID? After all, the DNR police knew he had gone missing because of the float report.”
“These bodies were found in such an advanced state of decay that visual ID was-to put it nicely-no longer feasible. But the medical examiner had dental records on file that Mary Ann thought belonged to her boyfriend. She found them in the apartment after he disappeared. Here’s the odd thing: The dental records matched the real Charlie Chisholm, the one in the VA hospital.”
“How did he get those?”
“Believe me, we’re trying to find out. But it explains why they didn’t match up to a John Doe.”
“But what if Carl is right? What if the killer just faked his suicide and he’s still out there? What if he’s moved to another state?”
“We’ve been all over that, Tess. We cannot find a single unsolved homicide that matches. The guy’s either dead or he’s Houdini. Do you believe in criminal masterminds? Do you honestly think that serial killers are geniuses, toying with law enforcement officials? In many cases, they’re the lowest of the low, with barely functional IQs.”
“Still-”
“Go home, Tess.” His voice was not unkind. “Let Carl be an example to you of what can happen when you get obsessed with something.”
“And what if Carl is right?”
The question caught her off guard, but only because it was strange to hear Dr. Armistead say what was inside her head. He had a way of sneaking into her thoughts when she least expected it.
She hated it when he did that.