Chapter 16 #5
She tiptoed out of her bedroom without turning on a light, opening the door with care.
It creaked in the middle, so she stopped it halfway and squeezed out through.
Still without a light, she tiptoed down the hall, but she slowed when she moved past the kids’ room because they were always leaving shoes and other grandmother-tripping devices lying around.
They were like the little voles in the back yard, flinging dirt and debris out of their holes behind them as they burrowed.
Nothing tripped her up, thank goodness.
She went on past the staircase to Sam’s door, leaned in to listen, and heard his soft steady breaths from the other side. Marina was staying in a hotel.
She drifted down the staircase like a ghost, skipping the step with the telltale squeak, and went to Mark’s den.
The door was locked. It wasn’t a fancy lock, just a cheap doorknob like on a bedroom door.
It had a twisty thingie on the inside knob, and a tiny hole on the outside.
She had an unbent paperclip in her robe pocket for this very purpose.
She poked it into the hole. The lock popped open.
She went into the office and closed the door behind her.
Files were on the desk. A notepad too, and that darn laptop where the good stuff probably was.
She decided to open it and give it a try, but it needed a fingerprint to unlock it, so she closed it again and tried the notepad.
His chicken scratch was barely legible, however.
She opened the file folder and there was nothing in there that hadn’t been the day before, so she set it aside, and there was Sam’s phone.
Work phone? Or personal?
It looked like his personal phone. She picked it up and the screen lit with a number pad.
All she had to do was punch in the code.
She had three tries. His own birthday—he wouldn’t use that.
Too obvious. Marina’s? No. Maybe once but not a year after their divorce.
She tried the twins’ birthday, and that didn’t work.
So she tried her own, and miracle of miracles, the phone unlocked.
“Aww.” She clapped a hand over her mouth at the unintended pleased-mom sound, got up and ran to the door, opened it and listened for a long moment. No creaking of floorboards. No footsteps on stairs. Okay. Phew!
She almost closed the door again but decided to take the phone elsewhere to look at it and smuggle it back into the den later. She took it with her back to her bedroom, locked herself in, and proceeded to scroll.
And man, did she ever hit pay dirt.
There were crime scene photos, both with the blanket on and off Dangerous Dan’s body. There were close-ups of his head that she had to scroll past quickly, and then shots of the wall, where gobs of goo and blood droplets clung. They’d have never been able to clean that room enough.
She kept going. There were photos of the devices in those drawers, both all together, just as they’d been found, and then individually, each with a numbered yellow tag beside it.
And then there was one photo that rocked her right to her core.
The leg shackle, one of its locking rings around the footboard, the other unfastened, dangling from beneath the covers.
She was sure they hadn’t cleaned it. She hadn’t even seen it when they’d been cleaning and suspected it had been hidden by the bedding.
She pulled her bag around from where it hung from the bedpost, fished out the burner phone and texted their secret loop.
Bonnie: Did anyone wipe down the leg shackle?
Christine: What leg shackle?
Diane: …
Bonnie: Are you sleeping, Diane? How can you sleep?
Diane: I forgot the shackle! My fingerprints are on it. So are the girl’s.
Christine: That only matters if your prints are on file somewhere.
Diane: …
Bonnie: Diane?
Christine: Where the f is Rosa?
Bonnie: She just got out of the hospital. Probably has her phone off so she can sleep.
Diane: I was arrested at a protest in college.
Bonnie: A protest against what?
Diane: Apartheid, I think. Might’ve been the CIA in Central America. I protested a lot in college.
Christine: You dirty hippy. So your prints are on file?
Diane: And on the shackle. I know they are. What do we do?
Bonnie: Pray.
Christine: And pick out a lawyer.
Bonnie closed her burner phone, returned it to the bottom of her bag, and once
again picked up her son’s.
She’d run out of crime scene photos, so she opened his Notes app instead. And there were his initial thoughts, tapped rapidly, no caps, no punctuation, lots of abbreviations. He’d probably transcribed them into a police report, but she had the raw goods, his on-the-spot impressions.
Strong bleach smell—room’s been cleaned. Just like at Terrence’s place.
Plate number we found on the hard drive matches Fitzpatrick’s.
Castoff on right wall—multi blows. Overkill.
Shackle on bedpost. Prisoner got loose & took vengeance?
Where’d they get the bleach?
Multiple sex aids-restraints—sick shit—webcam aimed at bed
Got his phone—opened with print. Right forefinger.
Kid porn. 32 videos, 100s of pics, incl: Fitzpatrick with Jeff Schlotski and an unidentified individual. Working on IDing third man.
Closet safe full of photo albums—same shit with dollar amounts. Paid? Received?
Clearly a child sex trafficking ring.
Vigilante murders, then? And what’s Jeff Schlotski doing with those guys?
I’ll have to question him. Mom’ll never forgive me.
Assuming Terrence is dead, the vigilante has two kills now. One more and I’ll have to use the words serial killer my first week on the job. That should go over well.
*NOTE: Don’t forget to delete crime scene shots and notes from this phone once I get the official one tomorrow