“Very slim, Daniel. I’ll be happy to reinforce that, though maybe you want a visiting detective in your class. In fact, you can tell the students the police think the woman was murdered somewhere else and her body dumped there.”
“Oh,” he said, weakly, and I imagined he was considering whether that made things sound better or worse to the parents.
When we hung up, I put a check mark next to Daniel’s name, and wrote buckyballs and Telkes in large letters off to the side.
Andrea Cabrini, a technician at Charger Street lab, was next on my list. I’d done better in the last couple of months keeping in touch with her, and not simply using her as a way for me to get into the lab without a badge. Andrea was the kind of person who wouldn’t have minded the latter, but I would have. I was glad I’d invited her to lunch last week, when there was no murder on the agenda.
I punched in Andrea’s number. She gave me her usual enthusiastic greeting, always making me feel she’d been sitting around hoping I’d call.
“Hi, Gloria. I’ve been thinking about you.” She lowered her voice. “The body in the marsh and all. And I figured you’d need a consultant.”
“A consultant to a consultant. You’re too good to me,” I said.
“I pass by there all the time, when I go to see my aunt in Lynn.”
Andrea had come a long way from the days when she would have thought she might be a suspect herself, for just such a drive-by connection. Her “big, beautiful woman” status didn’t help her self-confidence, but I thought she was doing better since she’d started dating my old friend, Peter Mastrone.
Gloria, the matchmaker.
“The only thing is, I couldn’t see that there was a link to the lab,” she said.
“The police didn’t release everything, Andrea.” I lowered my voice for effect, bringing her into the small inner circle. “It turns out there might be a connection.”
“Wow.” She whispered, matching the pitch of my clandestinemeeting voice.
How good I’d become at manipulation—I knew Andrea loved being on the inside of police work. Come to think of it, so did I.
“I have some brochures on the buckyball program, but I need some real, technical reports. Can you meet me—”
“You bet. When and where?”
I gave her specifics of what I would like, and we made a date for the next morning. I checked another name off my list.
I made a few other calls, leaving Jean for last. I’d decided I should personally confirm her visit, and make her feel welcome. I’d prepared an “I’m looking forward to having you” line, with a tone to match. I can do this much for Matt, I told myself. As luck would have it, I was interrupted in the middle of dialing her Cape Cod number.
MC arrived on our doorstep out of breath, her eyes filled with tears and panic. She flung her keys onto the small table in our entryway, and curled up on the couch, pulling her hands back into the sleeves of her navy blue sweatshirt. Her retreat position.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life. I didn’t know what he was going to do to me. Kidnap me, or … or kill me.”
Jake Powers, I thought.
“Wayne Gallen,” she said.
Déjà vu—like midnight at the RPD, my thinking of Jake when Wayne was the culprit.
I sat down next to her. Matt, who’d been reading the newspaper while I was phoning, gave MC a glass of water, which she guzzled down too fast, causing her to cough for a few seconds. I waited for the details, flexing my fingers, clenching my jaw. Had he … raped her? I could hardly think the word, and looked for signs that might tell me. MC did not look disheveled or bruised, which brought me some relief.
I let her tell the story, in fits and starts. The parking lot at the Windside in Winthrop, entering her car, keeping her there, wanting her to go away with him, once again telling her she’s in danger from someone in Houston.
“I don’t know if he’s crazy—well, I do know he’s crazy—but is he just crazy or am I really in danger from something?”
My question exactly.
“I didn’t know whether to go to the police first, or come here, Aunt G,” MC said, addressing me but looking at Matt. “I figured coming here was a little of both.”
“You did the right thing,” I said, patting her hand. I looked across at Matt for confirmation. He gave a slight nod, as if to say we were half right, that MC should have made an official complaint. Matt was tied into law enforcement protocol in a way that I was not.
“Did he give you any idea where he’s staying?” Matt asked.
MC shook her head. “He appeared from nowhere, and then left. I wasn’t paying attention to the direction he went. There was no other car in sight, so I don’t know how he got there or how he got away.”