Archer
ARCHER
M y wife is the most tenacious woman I’ve ever known, and modern medicine can only do so much to keep a person on their feet, even when they really shouldn’t be. But an hour after our shower and a box full of tissues later, Minka insists on dressing and heading to the George Stanley.
Because those are her bones, that’s her case, and she’ll be damned before she allows someone else to reconstruct the skeleton she spent eighteen hours digging out of the frozen ground.
So I suppose that probably makes me the second most tenacious person I know, because I dog her steps, stock cold and flu pills in my pockets, and know I’ll have to catch her if she stands too quickly and loses consciousness.
So far, so good.
She brings a handful of tissues to her red nose and blows, the strangest, most unnatural honking sound I’ve ever heard emanating from the depths of a beautiful woman. “I need to talk to Aubree.” Her voice is nasally and dry. Raspy and pained as we approach the ninth floor. And when she looks my way, her eyes burn with the fever she pretends not to have. “We left things kinda tense yesterday and?—”
“Today, actually.” I set my hands in my pockets and rock on the backs of my heels. But I’m prepared, just in case, to throw my arms out and catch if she’s on her way to the floor. “We left the scene today . It’s still the same day.”
“Whatever.” She breathes through her mouth, searching for more air because her nose won’t allow it. “We left things kinda tense today . You and I have said our bit, so now me and Aubree need to.”
“You afraid she’ll cast a spell on you?”
Unimpressed, she firms her lips into a straight line and stares at the shiny steel doors. “She’s not a witch.” When the elevator stops on our level and the doors open, she moves out on fast feet, leaving me behind to catch up.
She strides toward her office door, past Aubree’s empty desk, and glances back to check if the computer screen is off or on—it’s off—then she nudges her door open, unceremoniously lobs her bag in, snatches her white coat and switches out for the one she wears outside, then turning back, she steals handfuls of tissues from Aubree’s desk and stuffs them in her pocket.
“She’s in the suite already.”
“Like I said.” I keep my distance—three feet, at least—so she can’t swing out and hit me, but I turn when she turns and walk when she walks. “Aubree got here a couple of hours ago and said she’d begin sorting through the piles. She knows you’re not feeling well. In fact, coming to work while sick is irresponsible. You could infect your team.”
“Dead people can’t get sick, the George Stanley boasts the best air filtration systems in the city, and each suite is intended for one tech at a time anyway. So, by that logic, no one should be near enough to get sick. Besides,” sniff , “I’m not sick. There.” She fists a fresh tissue from her pocket and narrows her eyes on Doctor Emeri quietly working in her autopsy suite.
And by her , I mean Minka’s.
Target locked, she makes a beeline for the door and shoves the glass open, startling Aubree as bright blue eyes covered in protective plastic swing up in confusion at first, then detached observation. Suspicion. Challenge.
Come at me, she’s saying. I won’t say no to a fight.
“What are you doing here? ”
“I could ask you the same.” Minka strides through the room and straight to the recorder perched on the far counter. She whips it up and makes a show of switching it off, setting it down, and turning back to her friend with a hard expression. Deadly eyes. Firm lips. Unflinching determination. “Have you forgotten I signed these remains in, Doctor Emeri?” She scours the massive steel table and the hundred or more bones already laid out. Some are short, some long. Some like disks, while others could be… I don’t even know. The knee joint, maybe? “You’re tampering with my case, kinda like how you tampered with my marriage.”
Challenge, set.
Aubree carefully places her bone with the others, peels her glasses off, and rises from the stool she’d been perched upon. Going toe to toe with a woman already flirting with death is an easy win for a dirty fighter. And Minka’s willingness to duke this shit out leaves me with an agonizing ache twisting in the base of my stomach.
Because saving my wife from a beat-down is always my number one priority. But manhandling Timothy Malone’s wife is… no bueno .
“We need to cool this shit down.” Cautiously, I move from the door and allow it to slowly shut behind me, then I circle the long steel counter and come around to stand on Aubree’s right. Mostly so I can see Minka’s eyes. “Things were tense yesterday, and everyone’s tired today. So how about we calm the fuck?—”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you.” Minka’s apology, coupled with the sickly swallow of mucus sliding down her throat, is like cold water tossed in our faces. But she stares into Aubree’s eyes and dips her chin. “I’m sorry I put you in a position where you thought you had to say something. I felt attacked because you interfered where I didn’t think it was appropriate, and I was offended because your interference felt like a giant ‘ I don’t trust you ’ punch to my face. Trust, of course, is something I value a great deal within my relationships. Detective Gilbert is clearly a sensitive topic, and I kept that information from my husband because I thought it was the best way to avoid drama and accountability. While I know, without a single shred of doubt, that my conduct with Paxton has been nothing but professional, keeping our past a secret was wrong. But you, being you, were brave enough to speak up, even at the risk of pissing me off and earning a fist in the face for your troubles.”
Stunned, Aubree merely stares. Then frowns. Then stares some more. She looks my way with eyes brimming with curiosity, then back to her boss as a deep line digs between her brows. “You’re sorry?”
“That I snapped at you.” Minka sniffs again and wipes her nose with a scrunched tissue. “Had I been transparent from day one, you wouldn’t have felt the need to step in. Your lack of trust stings, but your integrity makes you exactly who you are. Speaking up not only risked your job, but our friendship. And still, you did what you considered right.”
“And you…” She looks my way. “You guys are good now?”
“Your interference forced us to talk.” Minka blows her nose— honk —and wipes above her lip. “It put all this in fast forward. Whatever fight was coming, whether it was next week or next month, it was inevitable. I wasn’t ready to face it yet, but it’s done now, and and I said what we had to say.” She peers across and holds my eyes for a beat, a small shift of her lips bringing a barely there smile to her expression. “We’re okay.”
“And now you’re…” Again, Aubree’s brows pinch. “You’re apologizing to me, though you want to punch me in the face?”
“Yes.” Minka drops her hands and the snotty tissues into her pockets. “That’s accurate. My fist very much tingles to mess up your pretty face, because what you did made me angry. That doesn’t mean you were wrong,” she adds when Aubree opens her mouth to speak, “but it hurt. That typically presents as anger for me. I was ready to smack you with a shovel until you made things right.”
“A shovel?” Aubree’s lips twitch with playfulness. “Really? No wonder you turned the record off. Can’t have those kinds of threats tendered in a courtroom.”
Finally, Minka rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve wanted to hurt you, or you’ve wanted to hurt me. Certainly won’t be the last. But I’m saying I’m sorry. My actions created that situation. That’s on me. and I have cleared the air, and now it’s our turn. Accept my apology.”
“Accept it?” Her eyes dance with humor. “Is that an order, Chief? ”
“Yes. Because I don’t do this often, and I’m too woozy to stand much longer.”
Stunned, I cross the metaphorical picket line and come up behind my wife. Just in case .
“You’re sick, huh?” Sauntering forward, Aubree takes Minka’s hand and cups it in both of hers, bringing them up and holding them at chest height. “You should be in bed, not in the office, attempting to assert your dominance.”
“You should mind your damn business, accept my apology so we can move on, and then get the hell out of my autopsy suite. This is my bag of bones.”
“ Our autopsy suite, O Captain.” She rubs their hands together, creating friction and warmth and somehow drawing a rosy blush to Minka’s cheeks. Then she releases her and moves to the sink. “We work together, Boss. We dug her up together, so now we’ll sort her out. Together.” She pumps soap into her palm and flips the tap on to start the water. “I’ve started separating human from animal. I’m no veterinary scientist, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and declare that,” she dips her head toward the table and a stack of bones that I guess aren’t human, “a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae.”
She switches the tap off and drags paper towels from the dispenser. But she glances across and meets my confused eyes. “It’s a deer. Or, well, was. Danika is?—”
“Not yet formally identified,” Minka cuts in. The chief is back . “We have bones, and we have assumptions. We have a compelling argument we could present to the investigating detectives. But we have no formal identification, and until we do, we don’t get to call her Danika.”
Behind Minka’s back, Aubree purses her lips. “The as yet unidentified skeletal remains are female.” Tossing the towels in the trash, she comes around and stops on the opposite side of the table from her boss. “Early assessment indicates they belong to a woman in her early to mid-twenties. Pelvis concludes female, and that she has never carried a child. Decomp suggests she’s been in the ground for approximately twelve to eighteen months. Female’s height is estimated between five feet, three inches and five feet, seven inches. Unidentified female’s left ankle shows what was a significant break earlier in her life. The fracture healed long before her time inside the ground.” She peeks up with smiling eyes. “Can you confirm, Detective Malone, if your missing person’s medical history includes a fractured left talus?”
Yes. I fucking can . Because I’ve been looking for this girl for a year and a half already, and I’ve studied her files front to back, back to front, and upside down so many times I could almost recite every detail by memory. But I clear my throat and nod. “Yes, Doctor Emeri. The woman I’ve been searching for did, in fact, suffer an injury to her left ankle when she was nine years old.”
She was also mid-twenties, five-five, and had never carried a child.
“Good.” Aubree peers at her boss, whose hands remain firmly in her pockets so she’s not tempted to contaminate evidence with her own mucusy discharge. “We recovered the skull.” She moves to Danika’s head and lifts it the way Hamlet intended, gently twisting her wrist and allowing the overhead lights to illuminate shattered lines. “This skull met something very hard, at deathly force, at some point surrounding her death.”
“He hit her?” I question. “The way Tarran says it, Buke choked her.”
Minka leans closer to study her find. “We can’t say yet if she was hit before or after death.”
“ Will you be able to?” I step forward, too, so she has something to lean on if she needs it. “Or is decomp too advanced?”
“We’ll be able to tell.” Aubree twists her wrist and shows me a red staining on the inside of the skull. “We’ll get you a pretty decent recount of events. The ankle injury is step one in identifying the remains. Step two will be to pull her dental records and confirm. No jewelry or distinguishable clothing was recovered at the scene, which means he probably dumped her naked.”
“Sad, really.” Minka sniffles and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her white coat. But if she intended to take a moment to be embarrassed about it, her phone trills instead, stealing the air from our autopsy suite and casting a thick sheen of unease over us all.
We know who it is, and fuck, but we know he bothers us.
Minka’s focus remains on Danika for a moment more. Mourning a life and grieving a woman she’s never met. Danika’s only crime was to trust someone she shouldn’t have. “I’m glad that inmate called you,” she murmurs. “Her family deserves closure.” But she steps away from the table and fishes the phone from her pocket to read the screen. “I’m putting this on speaker,” she decides. “Record’s still off.” Swiping to answer, she hobbles to the far wall and leans against the cold glass. “Pax. It’s Minka.”
“Min!” His breath explodes with relief. “Hey. I heard you’re not feeling well. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m not sick.” And yet, she tugs a tissue from her pocket and wipes her nose. Honk . “I never get sick. What’s happening in New York?”
“I worked down the list of moms, starting with the most recent and tracking my way back. I asked about their movements in the last few weeks before their daughter was taken.”
“Caught any overlaps yet?”
“Yeah!” He’s a high-energy blend, the kind we’d get if we mixed Aubree, Fletch, and Cato. “Sort of. It’s loose, but I’ll run them through and see what you think.”
Couldn’t do that with your own team? You fuckin’ bitch.
“Elouise’s mom mentioned how it had been her birthday recently—the mom’s,” he clarifies, “which, obviously, we already knew from the initial files. But it was an entire month before the abduction, so no one really explored that as a significant event. You mentioned the ‘ free things people do to save money ’ last time we talked, so with that in mind, I asked her about shows or zoos or whatever they might have visited over the holiday period. Since mom’s birthday is in December, they’d made a habit of swinging by this local juice bar. Sign up for their email list, and you get a free jumbo juice on your birthday month. You can also sign up for some fancy makeup brand and get the same deal. Give them your email, visit their store on your birthday, and you get all these extra free samples.”
“Sounds like a good way to be spammed with bullshit for the rest of your life.” Tired, Minka turns to the long counter spanning most of the floor-to-ceiling window and leans on her elbow, resting her face in her hand. Power-nap time . “But okay. So makeup and juice. What else?”
“Well, she was a little embarrassed when I pushed this angle, but eventually, it all came tumbling out. I guess it’s common knowledge amongst the frugal-livers to sign up for everything and turn your birthday into a tour-de-free. Krispy Kreme will give you a free donut. There’s a theater in the city that gives you a free popcorn and soda. Show your ID at this bakery, prove it’s your birthday, get a free cookie. Pretzel place, same. Yogurt place, same. Free wings. Free burrito. Free coffee. You can walk all over Manhattan if you have the time and energy and fuel up on stuff you maybe couldn’t afford the rest of the year. Elouise and her mom did that every single December. It was their tradition.”
“Okay. Who’d you call next? And did they sign up for the yogurt place, too?”
“Tegan Webb’s mother. She took her baby to the zoo for free every single winter break. The lines were short, the weather was abysmal, but the animals were magical after the snow, she said, and she’d cut a coupon from the Sunday Times a few weeks before.”
“So free is how they connect.” She’s so sick, so tired, so fucking weak as she sluggishly brings her head up and meets my eyes. She blinks owlishly, pained because I know each time she does, it’s like dragging sandpaper over her eyeball. “But free isn’t a particular place or person. It’s multiple places.”
“True. But besides the park, the single status of each mother, and the eventual death of each child, this is the first connection we’ve made in a decade. Even loose, it’s the best we’ve got.”
“Thanks to me,” Aubree murmurs, checking her nails and avoiding Minka’s fiery gaze. “I suggested that.”
“So I handed names out to the squad,” Gilbert continues, oblivious to his extended audience, “and told them to ask the same questions. Focus on what they were doing in the weeks leading up to January eleventh. I spoke to Ariana Farelly’s and McKenzie Brooks’ moms. They, too, copped to doing similar. Birthday outings or coupons in the newspaper. Single moms’ve gotta do whatever they gotta do to get through and still enjoy something nice. Farelly also swung by the fruit market, and got a free cookie and juice on her birthday month. The woman who worked at the fruit stall— she was a single mom too, remember? —well she was the one who planted the idea with her boss to buy a juicer and offer free perks to customers. Come by and buy your fruit, show your ID and get a free juice on your birthday. That way, they use over-ripe produce they wouldn’t be able to sell anyway, create goodwill amongst the community, and keep customers coming their way.”
“And just to confirm,” Minka growls, “the boss—AKA Andy Stein—with a history of DV, abuse, and neglect, the one who served time in prison, and eventually lost his child to a woman who would obviously become a single mother, thus, creating a target that matches our case MO to the dot and making these women the perfect target for revenge, is not our guy? That’s what you’re telling me?”
Gilbert chuckles, the scratch of his laughter echoing through the line and scraping on the temper I remind myself not to lose.
“That’s what I’m telling you. He would’ve made the perfect patsy, if only his alibi wasn’t so tight. And before you ask,” he adds quickly. “Yes, he’s actually dead. No, he didn’t ascend from hell and come back to continue his work. No, no one else was buried in his place, and yes, I’ve personally seen the footage of his body being loaded into the furnace and his cremation taking place. And since we’re on the topic, no, he never hit on or in any way made the single mom who worked for him nervous or uncomfortable. He never threatened her or her daughter, never harmed them, was never alone with the girl, and to this day, the woman says he was the best damn boss she ever had.”
Defeated, Minka slumps and harrumphs. “Fine. So what did the rest of the squad find?”
“Similar. Moms doing what moms do. Cutting coupons, visiting free museums, collecting free cookies and juice and donuts, and whatever else they could find. It wasn’t always December or January, wasn’t always a birthday promo, wasn’t always a coupon from the Sunday Times. Each of them varies, which makes the connection a little less steady, and many of them recall ‘ doing the rounds ’ and visiting these places but couldn’t give me a definitive list of where they went. Not all of them were email sign ups, which makes the trail shakier still.”
But it’s a line to follow, I think in my head. One of them will be a common denominator .
“I have a meeting scheduled with Janiesa’s mom in a little over an hour, now that we have this new direction. I wanna talk to her and see where she’s visited lately. And I was talking to Andy’s employee earlier, but we got cut short because she had to go to treatment. She’s got a kidney thing going on but welcomed a call back if I need it.”
“Do you need it?” Minka questions.
“I mean…” He shrugs until the rustle of his shirt echoes through the line. “The fruit stall overlooked the park a bunch of our girls were taken from, which means she saw a lot of what happened on a daily basis back then. He changed things up eventually, but he kept to the same date every single year. If you’re a single mom and you have a little girl, you’re gonna glance over at the park on January eleventh. You must . Even if not consciously. I’ve yet to find a connect between her and the later cases, since he changed location and obviously, she didn’t. But she seems like she wants to help, and her memories are reasonably clear, considering how much time has passed. These other women we’re talking to, they’re moms whose entire lives were shattered. Their baby girls were stolen, and later, returned in a horrifying state. They’re trying to forget, no doubt. But Gloria’s daughter was safe, right there with her. She homeschooled her kids and played with them in the park, so they were never truly at risk. But she would’ve been hyper-vigilant. I’m hoping that hyper-vigilance means she saw something that’ll help.”
“Maybe. Hopefully.” Dragging her head up, Minka sniffles and pathetically peers across to lock eyes with me. So I dig a hand into my pocket and take out her next round of meds, then I circle toward the door in search of water, only for Aubree to nod toward the corner of the long steel counter lining the glass wall.
A brand-new bottle, just waiting to be used.
Such a good girl.
I snatch it up and crack the seal open, then wandering toward my wife in silence, I place two capsules in her palm and wait with the bottle while she tips her head back.
“Have you talked to Doctor Wells yet?” Weary, she swallows the pills and takes the water next to wash them down. “I know he was M.E. on a few of the earlier cases. Have you shown him the files and picked his brain?”
“We’ve talked, but he’s on the verge of retirement, too. And off the record,” he lowers his voice, “but I feel like he just doesn’t give a shit anymore. Apathetic at best. These girls have plagued his career, and every case so far has gone unsolved. His notes are, from what I can tell, perfect, and his inclusion in the earlier years is commendable, but when I ask questions now, it’s like he’s given up.”
“That can happen, I guess.” Shakily, Minka offers the water back. “It’s soul-shattering to give something your all, only to keep coming up empty. I’ve seen it in a dozen techs over the years.”
“But here you are, Min.” His voice is just fucking smooth enough to bring my brows up high. “Still fighting the good fight. There’s a reason I called you, and it has everything to do with the fact I knew you’d still have your heart in it. I’m sad to know you’ve worked yourself to sickness.”
“Not sick?—”
“Not surprised,” he amends. “But I am sad about it. I’ll see if I can pull Doctor Mason in, since he caught the Reading case. Maybe a fresh look will knock something loose. In the meantime, I want you to get some rest, okay? We’re gonna nail him this time, Min. I need you healthy for when that happens.”
Wary, her eyes flicker to mine. “It’s your case,” she counters carefully. “But I’ll assist where I can. Do you mind if I call the fruit shop lady?”
“Do I—” Stunned, he trips on his words. “You wanna call my witness?”
“Just to talk. The fact I’m a woman might make her a little more comfortable. If she’s holding on to anything that could help, I wanna get it out before it’s lost to time and poor recall.”
“I mean… Sure. I don’t mind. Keep it clean,” he adds quickly. “Introduce yourself as chief medical examiner, explain how you worked Alana’s case. We need to be able to present this in court someday, so make sure you cross all those t’s.”
“I will. Promise.”
“And maybe do it tomorrow,” he snickers. “Ya know, when you’re less not sick . You sound like you drank methylated spirits for breakfast and chased it with a lit match.”
“Funny.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ll keep the chat formal and send my notes over after. Meanwhile, you’ve still gotta find a witness who remembers a guy hanging out at the park. Or one who worked nearby. Better yet, find a guy who worked nearby, hung out at the park, and offered free cookies to single moms.”
“Tall order,” he teases. “Anything else?”
“It would be handy if they had a history of child abuse, sexual assault, mental health concerns, and an addiction to cleaning with methylated spirits.”
Now he rolls his eyes. I just know it. “I’m on it, Min. Rest up, and I’ll call you later.”
“Mmhm.” She doesn’t say goodbye. She merely taps her screen and kills the call, then she drops the phone to the counter and folds in on herself, too tired to hold her own weight. “I don’t wanna hear about the Min thing.”
“Sure thing, Min .” I flash a playful smile when she brings fiery eyes up. But I meander closer and lean against the counter, too, if only so I can scoop my arm across her back and pin her to my side to save her from standing all on her own. “Sounds like he found that haystack we were searching for. Now we gotta find a needle and figure out what the fuck it represents.”
“Sounds like he’s found a bunch of haystacks,” Aubree grumbles. “None of which are appropriately labeled, all of which are messy, and very few are likely to help.”
“I wanna call the witness.” Blinking slowly, Minka turns to her phone again. “The one from the park.”
“The fruit stall lady?” Sneakily, while Minka’s back is turned, Aubree selects a bone from the pile on her table and places it in the deer mound. “Gloria something.”
“No. I wanna call her, too. But can’t until she’s done with her appointment. For now, I want to call the other one. The coffee cart lady.”
“Justine? The one who served Janiesa’s mom?” Again, Aubree selects a bone from the pile and uses Minka’s distraction to sort it. “You wrote that one down somewhere.”
“On a Post-it at home.” Sighing, she stares at her phone like it could somehow conjure the information she needs. “But not that one. The other one. Beatrice, something? She was around for Diane’s disappearance.” A long yawn wracks her frame and holds her captive, tears springing from the corners of her eyes. She blinks them away and smacks her lips, then she goes to her call log and selects a name that makes me break out in a cold sweat every damn time I see it. “I’m calling Soph.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I drop my head back and stare up at the ceiling, dread coiling in my belly and the threat of favors owed like a brand on my leg. “I’d prefer you called Paxton.”
“Hush.” She sets the call on speaker and waits only a beat for the line to connect. “Soph?”
“I’d say something pithy about how you’re making an annoying habit of this, but I know you’re working the New York thing, so I’ll allow it. What do you need?”
“Beatrice someone. The… um…” She gestures with her hand, rolling her wrist and achieving absolutely nothing for her efforts. “Beatrice?”
“Uh…” Sophia clears her throat. “I’m good, Doc, but I can’t pull miracles out of my asshole. Help me out.”
“Beatrice served coffee back in ‘98,” Aubree offers. “She’s on record somewhere. Made a statement back then, and contacted the NYPD again when Janiesa was snatched. Her full name is in the files, but we don’t have access to those right now.”
“ Cool ,” Sophia unhappily drawls. “Another doctor comfortable enough to ask me for things.” And yet, she taps at her computer. “You sound like shit, Mayet. You eat a chainsaw for lunch?”
“She’s sick,” I insert. “A medical miracle, really, considering she’s actually clinically dead at this point, and still, on her feet. Your husband ever wanna throttle you because you’re too fucking mulish to admit you need a break?”
“My husband wouldn’t be so stupid.” Tap, tap, tap . “Beatrice Mackenzie. She stopped working in ‘08. Her husband is retired FDNY, and her kids are adults now. She has three grandbabies and a nice garden a little ways out of the city. She has a granddaughter just a little younger than the target for these cases, which is probably why she checked in with Gilbert the second Janiesa hit the news.”
“Yeah.” Minka dips her chin in a slow nod. “That one. Can you send me her number?”
“Detective Gilbert know you’re about to sully his witness? ”
“I was talking to Detective Gilbert a minute before you. He said I can make contact, so long as I introduce myself, explain my interest in the case, and keep everything legitimate for the courts.”
“He said you could call Gloria Donohue,” she counters smugly, knowing too much, as always. “No one mentioned speaking to Beatrice. But who am I to step in the way of justice?” She taps again, while right beside me, Minka’s phone vibrates. “Sent her number. I got these amazing, extra strength pills I can send over if you want. They’re like a shot of vitamins and minerals and pain relief and insta-feel-better, all wrapped up in one gel pack. They’re non-drowsy, added caffeine for a pick-me-up, they’ll march through your body like tiny little soldiers and annihilate every bad germ currently holding you hostage. Then you’ll sleep like a baby once they wear off. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up feeling like a million bucks.”
“FDA approved?” I question seriously. “Which labs created this drug, Solomon?”
“ My lab. My chemist. I don’t share with the government, and I haven’t been sick in years. But you do you, Detective. Is that all?”
“That’s all.” Minka licks her lips and swallows—she’s like the sloth in that kid movie Mia loves to watch—but then she nods and hovers her thumb over the red button that’ll end their call. “But since you’re so smart and all that, do you have anything to add to the New York case? Why haven’t you solved it yet?”
She scoffs. “I’m not a cop, it’s not my case, and believe it or not, but I don’t shit rainbows and answers on demand. I need to puzzle these things out like everyone else, and to this point, I haven’t figured it out.”
“So she doesn’t know everything ,” Aubree murmurs. “Interesting.”
“I have my own workload,” Soph grumbles. “And a billion things fighting for the top spot. But New York is sitting there, too. I give it some thought when I have a second. What’ve you figured out so far?”
“Did you hear my entire conversation with Detective Gilbert?”
“Fragments.” She crunches on something on her side of the line. “I paid more attention once you mentioned calling his witness, since the cops I know would’ve said fuck no, stay out of it, and don’t fucking touch .” She smiles. I don’t see it, but I feel it in my gut. “Detective Gilbert sure thinks highly of you, Chief. ”
“Mmhm.” She purses her lips, side-eyeing me as though to make sure we’re not about to start fighting again. “There seems to be a break in the case, though it’s damn small. A crack, really. Each of the victims and their mothers had a thing for free entertainment.”
“Like zoos and stuff?”
“Yeah, like that. Single moms rarely have spending money left over at the end of the month, so it seems these mothers monitored promo deals and cut coupons when they found something worth visiting.”
“Any particular place?” She has an investigator’s brain, whether she admits it or not. “Where do they lead?”
“None that cross over so far. Lots of different free places that offer a variety of perks and giveaways. While Pax is following those down, I wanted to talk to Beatrice and… the, uh…” Minka rolls her wrist again. “Um…”
“Gloria?”
“Gloria! Yes.” She closes her eyes and drops her head back. “Jesus. It’s like I’m working with half my brain. Gloria. Coffee cart, juice cart. Both women, both present on or around the time of the first handful of disappearances. I asked Pax if I could call Gloria, specifically. But I wanna talk to, the uh… um…”
“Beatrice,” Aubree inserts with a grin. “Coffee.”
“Yes. Her. I’ll call Fruit Lady after that.”
“I suggest you let the other doctor speak,” Soph taunts. “And record the call so you can come back to it later. I’ll ship some of my magic pills over, anyway. We have day and night options. Take the night one before bed, and you’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
“She’s not taking your backyard lab meds,” I growl. “Don’t send them, or I’ll tip the Feds off that you’re shipping drugs across state lines.”
“Cool. And I’ll return the favor by telling them you shot Laramie Fentone in the forehead. Oh…” Sugary sweet, she hums while my panicked eyes swing to Aubree’s. “Sorry. Was that uncalled for?”
“You’re an asshole,” Minka drawls, “and you’re lucky no one else was in this room just now. We had an agreement, and you might’ve blown it because you felt like getting big.”
“I know who is in the room with you, Mayet. I know where you are, when you’re there, and how many times you use the bathroom in a day. Not enough, by the way. Which means your water intake is too low, which is probably why you feel like death warmed up today. But…” She’s just playing with us now, singing in the back of her throat and slinging facts like they don’t set our worlds on fire. “I wanna know more about the other doctor.”
Surprised, Aubree brings her hand up and jabs a thumb back in her direction. Me?
“The hippie one. So innocent looking. So… colorful. Now she’s hitched to the Timothy Malone, and I heard things not so long ago. Things that are based neither in fact, nor are physically attainable or testable.”
“Oh, so it’s a bit like how you collect people,” Minka counters. “The husband who can shoot an apple off a rock from five hundred yards away.”
“Eleven hundred, actually.”
“The biochemist, who makes medicine on Mondays and explosives on Tuesdays. The lawyers and doctors and hell, even the mayor of our city. But you don’t have an Aubree.” For possibly the first time today, her lips curl into a taunting smirk. “You don’t have her, you can’t buy her, you can’t learn her skills, and you’re pissed her loyalties are with me. Shucks, Solomon. That sounds like a situation you can’t control. And thus, you can’t handle.”
“Shucks, Mayet. Shut your damn face, hop on a plane, and come visit me in my town for a few days. I’ll show you around, take you out for a burger, and strap your best friend to my neurofeedback headset. All totally normal things.”
“No.”
“It won’t even hurt!”
“I said no. And my FDA approved meds are finally kicking in, so I’m hanging up and calling… um…”
“Beatrice.”
“Yes!” She exhales and grins. “Beatrice. See ya.”
“No, I?—”
She hits the red button and swipes across to her texts, but before dialing, she looks up to Aubree, not nearly as smiley anymore. “You can go wherever you want, just so you know. Talk to whoever. Be whoever you want to be and help anyone you choose. You’re not my collection . I was just messing with her.”
“She wants what Felix wants.” No longer hiding her intentions, she glances back down at her pile of bones and picks through them. “They think it’s some kind of superpower. But it’s just…” She selects a small bone, no longer than my finger, no more than a half-inch thick. “It’s intuition. We all have it. It’s just that some of us pay closer attention.”
“I think Sophia pays attention to hers, too. She just sees it through a different lens than you. A different lens than me. It’s like reading a book, ya know? Or watching a movie. All three of us could consume the same entertainment, same time, same room, even. But our pasts shape the lenses through which we absorb information. Soph’s intuition was honed after her sister’s disappearance. Mine came after Diane. Or my dad. Or maybe Alana, since she was my first official Body-In-The-Bag case. Yours is a little crunchier. A little purer, considering the family you came from. We can consume the same material and still come away with three different perspectives, and that doesn’t mean the others are wrong. It just means we get to bring different experiences to the table.”
“Kind of like a collection.” She sets the small bone in the human pile and pokes through for another. “I could make more money if I worked for her and just made things up.”
Minka snorts and hits dial on the number Soph sent over. “Do it. I wanna watch.” But of course, she drops her smile and straightens her back as the line connects.
“H-hello?”
“Hi, Mrs…” Panicked, her eyes swing up to me.
“Mackenzie.”
“Mrs. Mackenzie! Yes. Hello. My name is Minka Mayet, and I’m a medical examiner.”
“Did you find Janiesa?” Her voice trembles, fear rolling through the line in waves we can feel all the way over here on the West Coast. “Medical examiner means?—”
“No, ma’am. I was actually the medical examiner on one of the girls from before. Alana Lyons. Perhaps you remember her? ”
“Oh gosh, yes.” Her breath shudders. “Yes, I remember her very well. She was such a sweet girl.”
“You remember her case, or…?”
“I met her before she…” She sniffles. “Before her abduction. I met her several times, in fact.”
“Really?” Minka’s eyes widen and follow my hands as I reach for my phone and hurriedly open the notes app so I can write things down. “You didn’t meet all the girls, though, did you, Mrs. Mackenzie?”
“Beatrice,” she croaks. But she shakes her head from side to side. “And no, Doctor Mayet. I didn’t meet them all. Alana, though, lived near us before Arthur and I moved the kids out to where we are now.”
“Mrs. Mackenzie?” I clear my throat to make her aware I’m here. I can’t fucking help it. “So sorry to interrupt. My name is Detective Malone. We’re trying to collect more information for this case, since obviously another girl has gone missing.”
“Of course.” She sniffles while, on this side of the line, Minka does the same. “I already spoke to a different detective this week. He said it’s likely I’d get more calls. I’m happy to help, though I’m not sure what more I could say.”
“We’re mostly looking for your memories of the days and weeks leading up to each disappearance.” Minka wipes her nose and scowls, because each brush of the tissue on her already sensitive skin stings. “We’ve established that we’re searching for a man. Age bracket?—”
“Twenty to fifty back then,” she finishes with a sigh. “So probably forty to seventy now, right? You want me to remember a man who regularly visited that area alone. Someone who made a habit of sitting on the edge of the park, or wandering, or even stopping by my coffee cart and lingering a long time. He was probably always on his own, probably didn’t talk a lot, his eyes were often focused on the kids, and chances are, he paid for everything with cash.” She stops and swallows the crackle in her voice. “Right?”
“Right.” I turn at the counter and bend to rest my elbows on the steel. Because fuck it, I’m tired too. “I know you’ve heard these questions a million times, and I know the not-knowing is probably sending you insane. But if you could think, even if it feels irrelevant…”
“I told the police about anyone I considered a little out of place, Detective. I told them back then. They’ve arrested none of them, so I guess they ruled them out. I’m not sure I could recall the details anymore.”
“What if we asked you to tell us what was happening in the city back then?” Aubree questions. Fuck me, a third voice we didn’t introduce from the get-go. Gilbert’s gonna want to slaughter us. “Doctor Emeri, ma’am. I work at the office of the medical examiner. I’m not a cop, so I’m not really equipped to ask questions.” She sets a bone back on the steel table and wanders closer. “But I know that my mother had this gift for helping us remember. We were taught to associate the outside world with what we’re trying to recall. So if I had a math test coming up, she would take me for a walk around the garden. We’d talk about the different varieties of plants she’d put in that past year, and we’d discuss the fundamentals of whatever math concept I was trying to learn. It felt so silly,” she admits with a snicker, “like there was no way purple daisies could help my memory. But they weren’t dark purple, nor were they light. It was almost like a printer running out of ink. As if remembering that purple would help me absorb fractions. But alas,” she stops to lean against her table, folding her arms and crossing her ankles, “it did. I suppose it was like a meditation of sorts. She took me into the fresh air and yattered on about colors and flowers and pretty things. She cleared my mind of the very subject causing me stress and then filled it again, but only with relevant details. So maybe we could try that now.” Softly smiling, her eyes flicker to mine. “We know you remember the day Alana went missing. You’ve thought about it a million times. You know what you ate for breakfast, what time you started work, what you were wearing, and who you spoke to. But what about the day before that?”
“Uh…” The woman hesitates. “I’m sorry. I don’t?—”
“Don’t worry about what you ate. Tell me about outside. It was January, so Christmas had just passed. The lights and decorations were probably still up. The weather was bitter as hell. The wind kept sneaking under your coat, and you wore a scarf, I bet, because you worked outside a lot. Unfortunately, the sleeves of your coat were chunky and long, so they made your job a little more difficult.”
“Gosh.” She releases a soft laugh. “Yeah. You’re pretty close. I had this knee-length jacket back then that had a hood I pulled on and tightened with the cords. I looked like an idiot,” she snickers, “but without it, my ears hurt too much, so after a while, I didn’t even care. I wore it every single day for several consecutive seasons. There was a winter dance thing on that week.” She grunts and moves, like pushing off her sofa and heading somewhere else in her home. The fact she’s in New York means she’s hours ahead of us and closing in on dinnertime. “There was a hall about two blocks up from where I worked. Like a PCYC type place, but it was for dance and performing arts. It was no Juilliard,” she adds on a small exhale. “It catered to the low- and no-income families. There was no budget for performances, and never did the kids have matching costumes. But it was something the neighborhood enjoyed doing, and the kids—girls, mostly—loved to dance. Every parent with a daughter knows it’s not a cheap sport, and those high expectations excluded even middle-income families sometimes. But this hall provided kids with something to do, and a show to put on that cost nothing except time.”
“What was the place called?” I question, my thumb poised over my phone, ready to write it down. “The name of the building? Or the business? Or even the dance teacher?”
“I don’t know that it had an actual registered business name. It was just ‘ the dance hall ’. Anyone who lived there knew about it. Classes were free, and teachers volunteered their time for fun. If I recall correctly, the hall used to be a church, maybe? But even then, I couldn’t say for sure…”
“Alright.” Aubree, with her calming tone and meditative voice, draws Beatrice’s focus back to her. “So you said there was a parade on that week? Parades cost money.”
“Not this one.” She opens her fridge, the sucking seal audible through the line. “It was just a few dozen kids freezing their little toes off, dancing along the street, while cars blocked the intersections to keep them safe. It was only for an hour, and it happened most years I was there, so everyone expected it, and no one complained.”
“How was the weather?” Aubree asks. “Was it snowing?”
She snorts. “It was always snowing. I think it was two days before Alana went missing… maybe three,” she ponders. “A tremendous storm had blown through. Snow covered the roads, and where we lived, there was never enough funding for a full-time plow. This created a kind of mini-ecosystem each year, if you understand what I mean. Only locals, si nce outsiders couldn’t really drive in. It meant everyone felt kind of safe.” She stops and sighs, the sad sound blowing along the line. “Which inevitably means whoever hurt those girls was a local. I hate to think it, since everyone basically knew everyone. But the logic is right there. It means, chances are, I’ve met him, whoever he is.”
“Good.” Aubree plays with the sleeve of her coat, rolling the hem back and forth. “So your neighborhood was essentially locked down. You’re still working, still serving coffee to the locals. It’s a low-income area, and you had a park right there in the middle, so even with the poor weather, moms still brought their kids out to the swings. Did you move your cart around a lot, or was it in mostly the same spot all the time?”
“Similar spots. It, uh…” She nervously clears her throat and coughs out a tense giggle. “Well, city rules stated we had to pay fees to operate, right? And fees, of course, cut into our already minuscule profit. So we moved it, and if officials asked questions, the locals would vouch that we were never in the same place twice.”
If we were face-to-face inside an interview room, I know her cheeks would warm, and her eyes would cut to mine— the cop .
“We served good coffee, and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as the boutique stuff. Plus, we were one of them, and back then, everyone had each other’s backs.”
“I understand,” Aubree murmurs sweetly. “And don’t worry, our resident cop has no interest in raising trouble about the fee thing.”
“Oh, good.” She bursts out nervously. “I worried.”
“Which businesses were you near two days before Alana went missing?”
“Two days? Um… geez.” She closes the fridge again and turns, the snick of a kitchen cabinet echoing through our autopsy suite. “Well, the day of , we were out front of Ned’s. His was a cute family-owned diner. They, too, served coffee, but didn’t mind we were there since anyone who wanted to sit and relax went to them, and anyone in a rush felt like Ned served a little slow. Different customer base, really. The day before that, we were across the other side of the park, right next to the markets.”
“The fruit market?” Minka questions seriously. “Was the owner there? ”
I meet her eyes and purse my lips. Barking up the wrong tree, Mayet .
“Andy? Yeah, he was there. He mostly focused on the loading and unloading and helping everyone else out. He was a guy, and the vast majority of us working in the area were women. So he flittered about, assisting anyone who needed it. He was always friendly and willing to lend a hand. His stall was often buzzing with business—I’m not sure he ever packed fruit away at the end of a day since most of the time, he sold it all. And on the odd occasion he didn’t, he put the leftovers out for anyone to take.”
“Are you aware of his criminal past?” Minka’s jaw hardens as she pushes on the one point she’ll never be able to present to a judge. The dude is dead . “He’d done time before setting up shop in your neighborhood.”
“Yeah. I knew. Pretty sure everyone did.”
“And you were okay with someone with a history of domestic violence being in your community?”
“I mean… at first? Of course, we were curious. Some were less forgiving, others were more. You should understand most of our community had some kind of past they regretted. That’s typically how things go. But he was nice, ya know? And he wasn’t a fly by night kinda guy. He didn’t slide in from nowhere and expect a welcoming party. He worked hard for years, and he never stepped out of line. And I know why you’re asking these questions,” she adds quickly, predicting Minka’s next words. “It makes sense you’re interested in a man who lost his kid. That same man with a history of treating women poorly. Of course, objectively, he seems the perfect person to target little girls and seek retribution for what, in his mind, was taken from him.”
“But in reality?” Aubree asks gently.
“He was one of the nicest, most generous, most humble men I’d ever met. He never pretended his past didn’t exist. Rather, he learned from it and spent his years making amends. He hired single mothers, gave half his produce away for free, helped his neighbors, and when someone needed it—men, especially—he provided a listening ear and advice if they asked for it. He could have been the worst thing that happened to our community. But he wasn’t. He turned his life around and became a beacon for men who needed direction and a refuge for women who could do with a helping hand. I certainly shed a tear when he passed a few years back.”
“What happened to his stall when he passed?” I question. “Did it just go away?”
“Essentially.” She draws a deep breath and exhales again, so the sound ricochets through the line. “He’d had this one lady working for him over the years. Gloria. There were others, too, when it was busier. But Gloria was his bread and butter, if that makes sense. She could run the place without him if needed, and did, in the end, while he was in the hospital. She never gave him a reason to worry. Never skimmed the till or caused any issues. She kept the stall clean as a whistle and, if I remember correctly, was the reason he started the free juice thing. There was no point tossing overripe fruit in the trash when it could be used to help the community instead. She kept the stall going while he was sick, but once he passed, and soon after that, another little girl went missing, a lot of our community broke away. Too many hits, too little time. I believe Andy left the place to Gloria in his will. But she got sick, too, and the neighborhood got quieter, anyway. It was stress, if you ask me.”
“What was stress?”
“Her sickness. And his.” She shrugs. “His was cancer, and hers is kidney. Not the same, obviously. But each of them carried a heavy load throughout the years, and in the end, it became their undoing.”
“What kinds of stress did Gloria Donohue carry?” Aubree asks. “She was a single mom, right? You said that.”
“Yeah. The father took off, I think. A long while ago. They were a quiet family, didn’t get out a lot except to work. She homeschooled her kids, and her son was…” She clears her throat. “Well, he was a bit of a handful. Very sweet boy,” she explains. “One of the purest souls I’ve ever met. But it’s like his body was growing, but his brain was not. He became a target for the other, harder street kids and got his butt beat a few times if he went out alone. Stress,” she adds with a sigh. “This kind of life is stress. Gloria’s daughter was a sweetie, but she was quiet, too. Kinda small and softly spoken. I think by the time Andy died and everything had changed, Gloria decided it was all too much, so like a lot of the other places nearby, she closed the stall and moved on in silence. ”
“I have one more question for you, Beatrice.” Carefully, Aubree straightens and releases the cuff of her coat. “I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind, though, okay? Don’t overthink it. Don’t justify or backtrack on your answer. Go with your gut, because it might be the key this investigation has been missing.”
“O-okay,” she stammers, swallowing. “I’m ready.”
“Can you close your eyes and think back to the day Diane went missing? You said your stall was in front of Ned’s that day. There had been a dance troupe parade in the street, and a couple of days before, a massive dump of snow. The roads are still messy, and the sidewalks are probably useless. The fruit shop is serving juice to customers, and Ned’s has got the slower, more relaxed crowd dining in. Christmas has been, and honestly, people are probably pretty broke by this point of the season. School is in, right? So kids have been to school and now the day is done. The park is right there, but it’s freezing out, so it’s probably mostly empty. Can you see all that in your mind?”
“Yes.” Her breathing comes a little faster. Just a little heavier. “Yes, I see all that.”
“It’s nineteen-ninety-eight: do you see Diane on the swings? Do you hear the squeak-squeak-squeak of the rusty chain on the old frame?”
Again, she exhales a soft, “yes.”
“Alright. Here comes the crucial question. Open your vision wider . Look past Diane. Look past her mom. Past the fluffy jacket that makes the little girl look twice as big as she actually is. There’s a man standing on the fringes of this scene. He’s probably wearing a black jacket. Zipped up high, his hands dug into his pockets. It’s freezing out, and chances are, there’s more snow coming. What does that man look like, Beatrice? Where is he?”
“I don’t… No.” It’s like Aubree’s spell breaks or something, because Beatrice’s breathing changes, and the soft monotone of her answers dissipates. “There’s no man. There’s just a bunch of kids on the far side of the park. They were shoving that other boy around because he wanted to sit against the brick wall and read. His desire for solitude made him the perfect target for the bullies, and Gloria being busy in the stall meant he ended up with a bloody nose more often than she could keep up. Then Diane went missing, and everything just…” She sighs. “Ever ything stopped. I don’t see a man in my memories, Doctor. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. You’ve done really well.”
“We appreciate your time,” I cut in, no closer to having any fucking clue who did this than I was before our conversation. “Thank you for taking our call and walking us through this.”
“I wish I could be more help.” Finally, Beatrice’s slippers shuffle against the tile floor as she moves through her home. “Honestly, I do. I spent so long terrified my baby would be next, and I’m ashamed to admit that, once she got through her fifth year, I was relieved she was no longer a desirable target for that sicko. He disappeared, and I thought it was over for everyone. But now he’s back, and my baby has a baby, and I just…”
“Stress,” Minka inserts. “It’ll get you if you’re not careful. You don’t live there anymore, Beatrice. You’ve saved your family. Be proud of that.”
I wait for the final goodbyes and end the call when they’re done, then I meet Minka’s exhausted gaze and hate how heavy shadows plague her eyes. How the whites are pink, and her pupils are too large. But I focus on work, because I know she won’t have it any other way. “It’s like he’s a ghost. He’s there, but no one can see him.”
“Gloria might’ve.” She grabs her phone and navigates to a new screen, but before hitting dial, she blinks, blinks, blinks away the ache in her eyes. “Her life was hard. Her son was relentlessly bullied. The kids’ father ran off. She was juggling a handful of jobs while homeschooling and trying to keep the mainstream kids off of hers. Years later, more girls are dead, her income is at risk when the boss dies, and now her health is declining.” She inhales until her lungs fill and her chest expands, then exhaling again, she turns from the counter and sways dangerously to the side. “Mere months after Andy drops, Elouise goes missing. She’ll either remember everything about that day or nothing. I’d like to look into her eyes while she tells me about it.”
“But you need to sit your ass down.” I follow her across the autopsy suite and snag the door handle before she has a chance to. “Take the call in your office. Rest on the couch before you fall.”
“Wait!” Aubree darts after us. “I wanna listen, too.”