The Missing (22 page)

‘I know what he’s looking for,’ Rachel said. ‘I took it from his office. He can’t find it because I buried it.’

‘What did you bury?’

‘I’ll show you, but you’ve got to find a way to help me out of these handcuffs. I can’t find my handcuff key. I must have dropped it.’

Darby stopped the tape again and hunted through the pictures.

Here was one of Rachel Swanson in the back of the ambulance. Her arms were covered in mud. The next three photos were close-ups of the wounds on Rachel’s chest.

Here was a close-up photo of Rachel’s hands. The fingernails were caked with dirt, the skin cut up
and bleeding not from fighting but from
digging.

Darby ran down to the kitchen and grabbed the cordless. Coop answered on the sixth ring.

‘Coop, it’s Darby.’

‘What’s wrong? Is it your mother?’

‘No, it’s about Rachel Swanson. I think she hid something underneath the porch.’

‘We searched that area, including the trash, and didn’t find anything.’

‘But we didn’t search the ground,’ Darby said. ‘I think she buried something.’

Chapter 51

The rectangular-shaped area underneath the porch was about half the size of a small bedroom. The ground was still muddy. Darby couldn’t see any recent evidence of digging, so she started working in the far left-hand corner where she had first spotted Rachel.

Darby did the digging. She filled the bucket and handed it to Coop. He dumped the dirt on top of the sifter set up on a large garbage can lined with plastic.

They’d been at it for well over an hour, and the only thing they had to show for their efforts was a collection of rocks and glass shards.

Kneeling underneath the porch, her pants wet and soaked with mud, Darby handed Coop another bucketful for sifting. Carol’s mother stood on the neighbor’s back porch, watching them dig, her face twisted with worry and hope.

Coop ducked his head underneath the porch. ‘Just more rocks,’ he said, handing her the empty bucket. ‘What do you think?’

It was the third time Coop had asked the question.

‘I still think she buried something in here,’ Darby said.

‘I’m not saying you’re wrong. I looked at the same pictures you did, and I agree she dug in here with her hands. But I’m beginning to think maybe she buried something only she could see.’

‘You heard the tape. She kept mentioning a handcuff key.’

‘Maybe she
believed
she had a handcuff key. The woman was delusional, Darb. She thought you were Terry Mastrangelo. She thought the hospital room was her prison cell.’

‘We know, for a fact, she escaped the van. I think she had a handcuff key. It’s got to be around here somewhere.’

‘Okay, let’s say you’re right. What’s a handcuff key going to buy us in terms of evidence?’

‘What do you want to do, Coop? Sit around and wait for Carol Cranmore’s body to turn up?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Then what are you saying?’

‘I know how badly you want to find something. But there’s nothing here.’

Darby grabbed the trowel and started digging at a feverish pace. She had to remind herself to slow down. She didn’t want to damage any evidence with the trowel.

Rachel Swanson might have been delusional, but it was brought on by real trauma and not some imagined event. The woman had suffered unimaginable horrors over the course of five years. Mixed up
in her fear were grains of truth. Something was buried here, Darby could feel it.

‘I think the Dunkin’ Donuts is open,’ Coop said. ‘I’m going to grab a coffee. You want one?’

‘I’m all set.’

Coop crossed the backyard, walking past the crime scene vehicle, which was still parked in its original spot from this morning.

Darby dug up two more pails and sifted the damp dirt on the screen. More rocks.

Forty minutes later, Darby had dug up about three-quarters of the area underneath the porch. The muscles in her legs and lower back ached. She thought about hanging it up when something caught her eye – a folded, corner section of what looked like paper sticking out from the dirt.

Darby moved the portable light into the hole. She used her gloved fingers to scoop away the dirt and then switched to the brush.

A handcuff key sat on top of the folded piece of paper.

‘Looks like I owe you an apology,’ Coop said.

‘Buy me dinner and we’ll call it even.’

‘It’s a date.’

Once the photographs and documentation work were completed, Darby lifted the folded piece of paper out of the hole and set it up on top of the sifting screen.

Documents required special handling and care.
Because paper was nothing more than pulverized wood and glue, when wet paper was allowed to dry, it turned to glue. Folded pages and papers stacked on top of one another would be stuck together and couldn’t be pried apart.

‘Any idea when these mobile forensic units are arriving?’ Coop asked.

‘I don’t know, but if we wait too long, these pages will start to stick together and we’ll be screwed.’

As it turned out, Darby didn’t have to wait long. By the time she finished bagging the handcuff key into evidence, a Ford 350 turned the corner at the far end of the street, towing a seventy-foot trailer with antennas and a small satellite dish.

Chapter 52

Darby borrowed Coop’s cell phone and called Evan Manning. When he picked up, she got right to it.

‘Sorry for the early call, but I’ve found some evidence at the Cranmore house – a folded wet piece of paper that was buried, along with a handcuff key, underneath the porch. One of your mobile units just arrived, and I need to open the paper before it dries. How soon can you get here?’

‘Look across the street.’

The trailer door opened. Evan Manning waved to her.

The mobile forensic unit contained all the latest equipment, all of it carefully designed to fit inside the long, narrow space. Everything looked and smelled new. Displayed on one of the computer monitors was the FBI’s DNA identification system, CODIS.

‘Where are your forensic people?’ Darby asked as they walked.

‘In the air,’ Evan said. ‘They’re scheduled to touch down at Logan sometime in the next three hours. The other two mobile units have already started working the blast site in Boston. Does the paper have blood on it?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t unfolded it yet.’

‘We should suit up, just in case.’

After they dressed, Evan handed out masks, safety goggles and neoprene gloves.

‘The neoprene will leave indentation marks if we touch the paper,’ Coop said. ‘They’ll show up during fingerprint processing. We should use cotton gloves over latex.’

The examination room was cool and gleaming white. The work counter was small. Evan stood behind Darby to give her some space.

She transferred the paper to the clean work space. Using two pairs of tweezers, she went to work unfolding the paper.

Prying the pages apart was slow, painstaking work. In addition to being wet and flimsy, the paper was badly wrinkled and had started to tear in several places from having been folded and refolded so many times.

It was an 8 × 10 sheet of white paper. The side facing them was a printout of a computer-generated color map. Most of it was unreadable. The colors had faded and several spots had been rubbed away, most likely from the perspiration from Rachel Swanson’s hands.

Two areas of the map were caked with mud. Other areas had absorbed the dirt’s dark color. Some spots were covered in dried smears of blood and with some yellow liquid, either mucus or pus.

‘Why did she fold the paper into such a tiny square?’ Coop asked.

Darby answered the question. ‘That way she could conceal the paper inside a pocket, her mouth or, if needed, her rectum.’

‘I’m glad we suited up,’ Coop said.

Darby used cotton swabs to clear away the mud from the paper, careful not to rub off any more of the color toner. Carol’s face kept flashing through Darby’s mind as she worked.

Hidden beneath the mud were computer-printed directions in neat but faded lettering. At the bottom of the sheet was the URL of the website from which the map had been printed.

Darby had to use the magnifier to read the directions.

‘It says “1.4 miles, go between two trees, go straight.”’

Evan moved behind her. ‘Any idea where the road is?’

‘Hold on.’ Darby followed the trail of the printed road, stopping when she saw what appeared to be part of a number hidden underneath dirt. She used a cotton swab to clear it away.

‘It’s Route Twenty-two,’ Darby said. ‘There’s a Route Twenty-two in Belham. It wraps around the woods on the other side of Salmon Brook Pond.’

‘Let’s take a look at the writing,’ Evan said.

Darby turned the piece of paper over. On the
back, written in a shaky hand with small lettering, were notes and what appeared to be names, all written in pencil faded from perspiration and the constant folding and refolding of the paper. Some of the writing was obscured behind crusted spots of dried blood.

Using the light magnifier, she examined the sheet for several minutes.

‘Take a look at this.’ Darby stepped away from the counter to give Evan room.

‘1 S R R 2R S,’ he said. ‘Does it match what Rachel Swanson wrote on her arm at the hospital?’

Darby had consulted her PDA, where she had transferred her notes. ‘Here’s what she wrote on her arm: “1 L S 2R L R 3R S 2R 3L.”’

‘Not only are they different, they’re shorter.’

‘What’s the next line say?’

Evan read the combination of letters and numbers.

‘They’re different – and longer,’ Darby said.

Evan moved the magnifier over the paper. There are dozens of different combinations here.’

Coop said, ‘How could directions change?’

‘I don’t know,’ Evan said. ‘I was thinking it might possibly be a combination to, say, a locked door until I saw this line. It says “3: STAY AWAY.” Terry Mastrangelo’s name is written beside it with a question mark. And there are several other names here Rachel crossed out.’

‘She was keeping track of the names of the women
kept with her all that time,’ Darby said, more to herself. ‘Any chance you have a Video Spectral Comparator in here?’

‘The best I’ve got is the stereomicroscope.’ Evan grabbed the piece of equipment, set it up on the table and backed away from the counter.

Darby slid onto the stool and carefully transferred the paper to the stereomicroscope. She started her examination at the top, left-hand corner of the paper. Most of the names were illegible. Several names had been crossed out.

‘There’s a space here that looks like it’s been erased,’ Darby said. ‘We can toy around with oblique lighting sources to see if we can pick up any indented writing.’

‘We’re better off using infrared reflectography,’ Coop said. ‘It works well on revealing erased pencil marks and covered signatures. We can also use it on the areas that are crossed out.’

‘I’m concerned about fingerprints.’

‘The pencil won’t wash away under any of the solvents we use. My first choice would be to try an electrostatic detection apparatus to see if we can pick up any indented writing. It won’t damage the document or any potential fingerprints.’

‘We might have a portable ESDA unit,’ Evan said. ‘I’ll have to check the equipment list.’

‘I have a name – Joanne Novack.’ Darby spelled it as Coop wrote it down on the clipboard. ‘Next is
K-A… I can’t read the rest. Last name is Bellona or Bellora, I’m not sure. Below it is Jane Gittle, maybe Gittles. There are additional letters but they’re too faded.’

‘Let me see what I can find out about these names.’ Evan copied the names on a notepad and left the room.

Darby examined the rest of the document. Dozens and dozens of lines were written in Rachel Swanson’s cryptic number and letter code.

Darby took extra pictures with the Polaroid for her own personal file while Coop set up the camera equipment for the close-up pictures. She stuffed the Polaroids in her back pocket and then jotted down the directions on a separate sheet of paper.

She tore the sheet off the pad. ‘I’m going to give these directions to Evan.’

Stripped of her containment gear, Darby walked into the hallway. Evan wasn’t in here. A laser printer was spitting out a sheet of paper. It was a picture of a woman with curly black hair and pale features – Joanne Novack, twenty-one, from Newport, Rhode Island. She was last seen leaving her shift at a local bar. She had been missing for almost three years.

Darby picked up the other two sheets.

Kate Bellora, nineteen, had the kind of sallow, haunted face Darby had often seen in battered women. Kate was a heroin addict and known prostitute. She was last seen working in the town she grew
up in: New Bedford, Massachusetts. Nobody knew what had happened to her. She had been missing for almost one year.

The last picture held a photograph of a blue-eyed woman with feathered hair and freckles. Jane Gittlesen, twenty-two, from Ware, New Hampshire. Her abandoned car had been found on the side of a highway. Gittlesen had been missing for two years. She was married and had a two-year-old daughter.

Darby borrowed Coop’s phone and dialed Banville’s number. He didn’t answer. She explained what she had found, along with the directions, and stepped outside to find Evan.

He was standing near the crime scene van, talking to the Boston Bomb Squad commander, Kyle Romano. Dawn was breaking, the sun visible through the trees. The cool air still smelled of smoke.

Evan took a phone call. Romano walked away. Darby caught up with him and asked him if she could use the crime scene vehicle. She could. By the time she reached Evan, he had hung up.

‘Any good news?’ Darby asked.

Evan shook his head. ‘I need to head into Boston to take care of a few things.’

‘Romano gave me clearance to use the crime scene vehicle,’ Darby said. ‘I’m going to head out to the woods and see what’s out there.’

‘I need you to stay here and work the evidence until the lab people arrive.’

‘There’s nothing left to do until the paper dries. Coop and I will head out. I told Banville to meet us there.’