Authors: G. M. Ford
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Suspense, #Thrillers
W
hat am I going to tell a judge?” Molina demanded. “That some famous author has a hunch some kid who’s supposed to have been buried up in the mountains has actually been traveling around killing people for the past thirty years? Killing her own husband and kids. Killing
nuns,
for pity’s sake. All this from a guy who’s been fired by the
New York Times
for fabricating a story. Who’s currently under indictment in Texas over some information he said he had when he didn’t. Who’s got a pair of felony assault beefs in his jacket. Come on, help me out here, Corso. We’re gonna be digging up graves, we’re gonna have to do a whole lot better than that.”
Corso threw his hand out over the array of files and folders that littered the table in front of him. “It’s all in there,” he said. “The state of New York made Smithville send their kids to public school in March of ’68. Eight boys, six girls.
“Ten seconds after the girls from Smithville hit the public school system they started telling anybody who’d listen they were being sexually abused at home. It’s no damn wonder the parents didn’t want to send their kids to school. They knew what was going to happen.” He picked up a red folder marked “Confidential.” “There’s a hundred seventy pages”—he shook the folder—“a hundred seventy pages of conversations between counselors and social workers and five of the Smithville girls. Rape, sodomy, beatings”—he dropped the folder on the table—“being passed around from house to house like trade goods. I’m less than halfway through this pile and there’s stuff in there that would make a mechanic blush, for Christ’s sake.” He grabbed the red folder again. Leafed through it until he found what he was looking for.
“Listen to this. It’s dated April fourth, 1968. It’s an interagency report on Leslie Louise de Groot. Generated by the Rockland County Department of Child Protective Services at the request of Hillburn, New York, School District Thirty-Two.” He rattled the papers. “Here goes:
“Pursuant to your request for a psychological profile on the minor Leslie Louise de Groot, I met with the young woman in my office for a period of three hours on March twenty-seventh, 1968. Before beginning, I wish to stipulate as to the diagnostic difficulty inherent in reaching conclusions from such a short contact with the patient, for whom no prior medical records appear to exist. That said: Miss de Groot appears to be an average fifteen-year-old girl. Five feet eight, somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and twenty pounds. She has wavy black hair and blue eyes. While she claims to be what she describes as “a Ramapo Indian,” in the absence of prior medical data, I would be unwilling to hazard a guess as to her actual ethnic or racial background.
“Paragraph,” Corso said.
“In the course of our conversations, Miss de Groot described the same horrific pattern of sexual abuse at the hands of her extended family as she related to your staff. I have absolutely no doubt as to her veracity in reporting these events. Nor do I, for a moment, doubt the debilitating effect of her experiences on her developing psyche.
“Miss de Groot is extremely disturbed. The bizarre nature of her experiences has forced her to cope in ways not normally demanded of human beings, and most certainly not of children. She harbors homicidal fantasies involving her abusers and yet, as is often the case, is unable to imagine herself in any other milieu. What we have is the classic approach-avoidance syndrome at its most extreme: a victim who is inexorably, and in all probability permanently, bonded to her abusers. Miss de Groot copes with her situation by attempting to control everything in her immediate environment. Variables that are not under her control are seen as threats and treated accordingly.
“Without further data, I am, at this time, unable to expand upon the above opinion.
“Now listen to this,” Corso said.
“The scope of possible behaviors emanating from the experiences which Leslie has suffered range from violence either to herself or to others, a wide array of compulsive behavioral disorders, extreme sexual aggression (which in Leslie’s case could be manifested toward both women and men), and, as is often the case, could include extreme clinical depression and schizophrenia.
“The prognosis for this young woman is not encouraging.
“It’s signed Phoebe Hill, M.D., Ph.D. Yadda-yadda.” Corso dropped the paper on the table. “That’s sick as hell,” Corso said.
Molina hooded his eyes. “It’s also thirty years old.”
“Nine adults did serious prison time for aggravated child abuse. The rest of the kids ended up in foster homes. Permanently. Somebody showed up one night and burned down whatever was left of the town. What the hell else do we need?”
Molina put both hands on the table. Leaned toward Corso. “What?” he demanded. “You think this is lost on me or something? I’ve got two daughters, man. Twelve and fifteen. Takes every bit of restraint I’ve got not to follow them around when they leave the house. Every day I see what human beings are capable of doing to one another for a blow job or a bottle of wine or maybe just for the hell of it. And every time my kids leave the house, I start seeing all the pictures that twenty years in the Bureau’s stored inside my head. So don’t be lecturing at me like you’ve cornered the market on outrage, okay. You’re not the only person in the world who gives a shit.”
“Sorry,” Corso said.
“We need something that connects it to right now. Something that makes it important that we disturb the dead. Something timely that connects this Leslie Louise de Groot girl to this Mary Anne Moody and this…”He looked to Corso for help.
“Sissy Marie Warwick,” Corso said.
“Some connection other than
your
gut feeling that they’re all the same person. I need something tangible.”
“Show the judge the drawings,” Corso said.
Molina winced. “Edith Wells is a grandmother three times over. She and her husband, Grant, spend a couple of months every summer up at their little retreat in the Poconos. They’re big with the Rockland County Opera and the ballet. You understand what I’m saying to you here? I show her those drawings, I’ll be assigned to South Dakota within forty-eight hours. I don’t think my family would like that. Matter of fact, I don’t think they’d come along.” He shook his head. “No way. Not gonna happen.”
“Then ask her what she figures the de Groot girl is doing now.”
“What do you mean
now
?”
“I mean like as we speak. She was in her mid-thirties when she left Avalon, Wisconsin. By now, if I’m right, and she’s somehow still alive, she’s in her mid-forties. Maybe had time to work up a whole new family. Who knows?”
Molina pulled at his lower lip. “What do you think the weather’s like in South Dakota this time of year?”
“Cold as a grave,” Corso said.
S
orry I punked out on you last night,” Dougherty said. “I just couldn’t look at that stuff anymore.” She waved the Coke bottle. “Not that it helped any. I didn’t sleep worth a damn.”
“Me neither,” Corso said.
“Are we still under arrest?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where does that leave you with Wisconsin?”
“No clue.”
“Any word on what they found?”
“Nope.”
“Not even on whether they found anything at all?”
“Uh-uh.”
The Newark, New Jersey, Regional Offices of the FBI occupied the entire seventh floor of the Ethan Dombrowski Building on East Third Street. Once you got past the receptionist and the big gold seal on the wall, and if you forgot about the trio of interrogation rooms down the hall, the place looked more or less like any other suite of corporate offices. On the left, two conference rooms, one big, one small, and then the day room where the agents mustered in the morning, followed by three adjoining interrogation rooms and then the johns behind that.
On the right, private offices. Special agents shared space with their partners and used the johns down the hall. Special agents in charge got nice rooms overlooking the street, with private facilities to boot.
Angelo Molina stepped out into the hall, motioned with his head for Corso and Dougherty to follow him, and then disappeared back into his office, leaving the door open.
Molina’s stone-faced secretary sat with her hands folded as they marched past, through the outer area and into Molina’s office. He had the whole ball of wax. The colorful flags with the gold braid. The big seal on the wall. The deep red leather club chairs, all of which were about six inches below his perch behind the big mahogany desk, from whence he could look down at the rabble below.
His face looked like somebody’d shot the family dog. He moved his hair again. “Close the door.” Corso eased it shut and then stepped into the room.
“Results are still sketchy,” Molina said. “The body had been badly burned to begin with, and after thirty plus years in the ground, there wasn’t a hell of a lot left of it.” He pointed to his computer screen. “What they can tell us at this point is that the remains are those of a female between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, who was probably about four months pregnant at the time of her death. Her teeth were intact. They’re checking dental records right now.” His eyes traveled down the screen. “At some point in her life she’d seen a doctor. She had three stainless steel screws holding her left shin together. Which may or may not be a help, because so far we haven’t been able to turn up a single medical or dental record on any of these kids.” He looked up at Corso and spread his hands. “Looks to me like it’s the end of the trail. We crapped out on this one. Leslie Louise de Groot is exactly where she’s supposed to be.”
“What now?” Corso asked.
“I spoke to Sheriff Trask this morning. Explained why there was no chance you were the perp and that you were no longer in FBI custody.” Something flickered in his dark eyes. Amusement maybe. Or disapproval. It was hard to tell.
“What’d she say?” Corso asked.
“She was pretty much flabbergasted. I got the impression she’d hung her hat on you as the perp. Maybe didn’t follow up on the rest of her leads like the protocol demands.” He shrugged. “I’m sure something like this isn’t the kind of thing she deals with all the time…little place like that…in Wisconsin.”
He looked like the excuse tasted bad in his mouth and turned away.
“So…he’s off the hook?” Dougherty asked.
“Yes.” Molina chuckled. “Except for the pair of Dallas County deputies who showed up here bright and early this morning wanting me to hand him over on a material-witness warrant.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky I didn’t know the girl was in her grave at that point, Corso. I’d known that, I’d have let them have you.”
“What did you tell them?” she asked.
“I said that for the foreseeable future you were both going to be the property of the Bureau and otherwise unavailable for extradition.”
“And they said?”
“They wanted to wait in the lobby.”
Corso couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “Those old boys are tried-and-true, now aren’t they? Never give up.”
“The Rangers always get their man,” Molina said.
“Speaking of that…you find Tommie de Groot yet?”
Molina seemed annoyed by the question. “The car at the airport was a dodge. De Groot didn’t fly anywhere. Didn’t rent a car or a limo or charter a plane or even get on a bus. He hasn’t cashed a check, used an ATM, or charged anything. If he had, we’d have turned him by now. We’re completing a sweep of the area around the airport and investigating other channels of inquiry.”
“Maybe he knew Abdul Garcia too,” Corso said.
Molina colored slightly. “You know, Mr. Corso, I just may have had enough of your company for one week. For your information, Mr. de Groot’s spent half his life in mental institutions. He was granted a psychological discharge from the Marine Corps after beating another recruit damn near to death with a trenching tool. I’m starting to think you’re not funny at all, and I’m willing to bet Randy Rosen’s ninety-year-old mother doesn’t find you very amusing either.”
The air in the room was electric with rancor and recrimination. Dougherty swallowed hard. “So we can go, then?”
“By all means,” Molina muttered. “Go.”
Dougherty grabbed Corso by the elbow and began to pull him toward the door. Corso had just given in and turned to leave, when Molina’s voice stopped him.
“Few things before you go,” Molina said. He used his fingers to count. “First off, you can see my secretary about where to retrieve your gear. Two, you’re gonna need a new rental car. The Ford is evidence in a murder case. Three, you probably want to try somebody other than Hertz. They’re not real happy with you guys. Four, I’d keep my eyes out for those Dallas boys if I were you. They seemed pretty damned determined to me. And five, next time you dream up some half-assed theory about teenagers rising from the grave, you take it to somebody else.” He cut the air with his hand. “Now get out of here.”
They didn’t quite make it to the door.
“Whoa,” Molina said. “No way.”
His attention was welded to his computer screen. He tapped the keyboard twice. Held up a “don’t move” hand to Corso and Dougherty and then used the keyboard again.
“I think I owe you an apology,” Molina said.
“How’s that?” Corso wanted to know.
“Pathology was inputting the data on the girl’s body. They got a kick-out from the computer on the steel screws in her shin.”
“I thought you couldn’t find her medical records.”
“We can’t. The kick-out was on a thirty-year-old missing person. Named
Velma
de Groot.” He looked up at Corso. “The body was never found. She was supposed to be one of Richard Leon Parker’s victims.” He tapped the computer screen. “Compound fracture of her leg when she was nine.”
He spun the screen Corso’s way. While Corso and Dougherty crossed the room to peer at the flickering monitor, Molina pushed one of the buttons on his phone. “Dean,” he said, “get whoever you used to exhume the girl. Get the rest of the family down here to the morgue as quick as you can.” Molina listened for a moment before losing his patience. “You let me worry about the paperwork. You just dig those people up and get them down here. ASAP.”