Slidell dialed as we crossed the parking lot. Got a recorded voice. Next he phoned the surveillance team. Learned Ajax hadn’t left home since being deposited at six.
I glanced at my watch. Half past ten and we’d accomplished zip. The adrenaline fizz had long since faded.
Still smarting from Slidell’s speed-dial remark, I didn’t ask his plans.
I got into my car and headed home.
Inspired by Yoder’s skin storm, I took a quick shower.
Ryan called as I was dropping into bed. I stacked pillows behind me and put him on speaker. In the background, I could hear frenetic male voices.
“How goes it?”
“Good. You?”
“Watching the Habs pummel the Rangers.”
“At eleven P.M.?”
“DVR, baby.”
I told Ryan about the phone calls made outside Mercy. About Ajax.
“Sonofabitch. How’d he act?”
“Cool as a snake. Ajax was on duty in the ER when Donovan and Leal presented. Slidell and I are talking to everyone else who worked both shifts.”
“What do his co-workers say about him?”
“One CNA hinted he had something going with another CNA. Otherwise the interviews were a bust. No one knows diddly about Ajax. No one remembers much about Donovan or Leal. How about you? Any luck with McGee?”
“The mother was on the level. Tawny did take some CEGEP courses.” Ryan used the acronym for Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel, a type of post-secondary school unique to Quebec.
“Where?”
“Vanier. I talked to some profs. No one remembers her. Not surprising. She attended for a little while, dropped out in 2006. Then it’s as if she fell off the planet.”
“Did you ever hear back from the psychiatrist?”
“Yeah. Pamela Lindahl. You met her in ’04, right?”
“Only briefly.”
“Your impression?”
“She seemed genuinely interested in Tawny’s welfare. Why?”
“I don’t know. She’s odd.”
“Psychiatrists are all odd.”
“I can’t put my finger on it. She seemed to be hinting at something she wouldn’t come out and say.”
“Did you ask why she took Tawny to de Sébastopol?” Not relevant. But the outing still troubled me. I couldn’t see the upside.
“She claims she was opposed to the idea, but Tawny insisted, like it was some rite of passage. When the kid wouldn’t let up, Lindahl consulted colleagues, they said go for it, so she finally agreed.”
“The house was sealed after the fire. How’d they get in?”
“Lindahl called the city, and someone did a safety inspection. Though damaged, the building was structurally sound. Given the special circumstances, they were allowed to visit. I’m not sure of the whole story.”
“What did they do there?”
“Mostly sat in the parlor.”
“Did Tawny venture into the basement?”
“Yeah. Lindahl passed on that. Figured the kid needed to be alone.”
“Jesus.”
“Lindahl stayed in contact even after funds for treatment ran out.”
“How long?”
“Until the kid cut herself off in 2006.”
“Does she have thoughts on where Tawny might be?”
“If so, she’s not sharing them.”
“Did you ask about Jake Kezerian?”
“Lindahl’s comments weren’t flattering.”
“Does she think he’s the reason Tawny took off?”
“She refused to speculate.”
“Did Anique Pomerleau come up in their sessions?”
“She’s not at liberty to say.”
“Seriously?”
“Tawny is a patient. And an adult. Anything they discussed is privileged.”
“Did you ask about the potential impact of our contacting Tawny?”
“Lindahl felt revisiting the past would be painful.”
“No kidding.”
A pause.
“You really think Ajax could be our guy?” Ryan asked.
“Slidell does.”
“How’d he hook up with Pomerleau?”
“Unless Ajax cracks, we may never know. But after Oklahoma, he worked in New Hampshire.”
“Somehow they meet. Paired with Pomerleau, things escalate to murder.”
Nothing but hockey as we thought about that.
“Here’s what bothers me,” I said. “Ajax is a pedophile. But these homicides show no sexual component.”
“Who knows what’s sexual to these freaks. Our doer takes souvenirs. Maybe the rush comes after the kill.”
“Maybe it comes from controlling the victim.” Continuing Ryan’s train of thought. “From dictating minute personal choices—hair, clothing, body position.”
“Moment of death.”
I heard a match strike. An expulsion of breath.
“Why kill Pomerleau?” Ryan asked. “And why shift to Charlotte?”
“Better climate?” I didn’t believe it.
“Then why the delay? Why go to New Hampshire, then West Virginia?”
“Ajax needed time to rebrand himself.”
“Maybe.”
“Pomerleau probably told him about Montreal. About my role in bringing her down. Maybe that excited him. It’s not uncommon for serial killers to try to up the ante.”
“Increase the danger, increase the thrill.”
“The danger being me.”
We both considered whether that had legs.
“How about this,” Ryan said. “Ajax wants to be arrested. He loathes what he’s doing but can’t stop himself.”
“Subconsciously, he wants me to catch him?”
“While consciously, he tries to avoid it.”
“Hmm.”
The voices exploded into a frenzy.
“Who scored?”
“Desharnais.”
“Why would Ajax, or anyone, continue to strike on dates significant to Pomerleau?”
“He’s taken over her compulsion? Or maybe, unknowingly, he’s sending out a clue.”
“A clue I would understand.”
“That plays.”
“And the next date comes in less than six weeks.”
CHAPTER 32
LITTLE HAPPENED OVER the next forty-eight hours.
Turned out Ajax couldn’t reconstruct his movements on the day in 2007 when Nellie Gower disappeared. He was in New Hampshire by then, but the clinic’s pay records didn’t reflect exact dates worked, and it didn’t keep schedules going that far back. Neither did the doctor.
As in Charlotte, Ajax had lived alone, in a rental home on the edge of Manchester. He ventured out only to work, shop, and run errands, never socially. He did not attend church. He had no colleague with whom he was close, no friend or neighbor with whom he discussed gardening or sports. No one to contact to help jog his memory.
Ajax claimed to be at the hospital or at home on the dates Koseluk and Estrada went missing. Tinker worked on verifying his hours with Mercy. Talked to people there.
Ajax’s lawyer refused access to phone, credit card, and bank records. Tinker started the process to obtain warrants.
Leal was a different story. Ajax knew exactly where he was the Friday she was abducted.
November 21 was a rare day off. That afternoon he shopped at the Morrocroft Village Harris Teeter, then at a Walmart on Pineville-Matthews Road. Filled and washed his car at a service station one block up.
That evening he ate dinner at home, then went solo to see a film at the Manor Theatre. Unfortunately for him, he’d used no credit card, kept no receipt, no ticket stub.
Slidell showed Ajax’s photo to employees at the stores, gas station, and theater and requested surveillance video for the day in question. Began viewing it.
Barrow continued with video taken from locations Leal had frequented in the months before her death. Phoned out to Oklahoma. Learned Ajax’s wife and daughters had moved back to India.
Rodas floated Ajax’s picture in Hardwick and St. Johnsbury. No one recognized him. The man who serviced the furnace at the Corneau farm said he’d been too far away to see the guy’s face.
Tuesday morning the IT tech phoned Slidell. He’d found a visitor to the dysmenorrhea chat room he thought might be of interest. Ham-Lover. Ham. Hamet. Slidell told him to do what it took to identify the user.
Tuesday afternoon, under increasing pressure from the media, the CMPD press office agreed to a news conference. It took place in the courtyard outside the LEC. Under a sunny sky, Salter and Tinker fielded queries on the Leal homicide. Gave no real answers. Didn’t mention Lizzie Nance or the other girls. Didn’t mention Hamet Ajax.