On, Off. Colleen McCullough

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СКАЧАТЬ parents. But she had died of a cardiac arrest, and there were no suspicious circumstances.

      The Norwalk police came up with a missing sixteen-year-old girl of Dominican extraction named Mercedes Alvarez, who had disappeared ten days ago.

      “Five feet tall, curly but not kinky dark hair, dark brown eyes—a real pretty face—mature figure,” said someone who had announced himself as Lieutenant Joe Brown. “Oh, and a large heart-shaped birthmark on her right buttock.”

      “Don’t go away, Joe, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

      He put the flashing light on the Ford’s roof and gunned the car down I–95, siren screaming; the forty miles took him slightly more than twenty minutes.

      Lieutenant Joe Brown was around his own age, early forties, and more excited than Carmine had expected him to be. Brown was on edge, so were the other cops in the vicinity. Carmine studied the color photo in the file, looked for the reference to the birthmark, which some untutored hand had attempted to sketch.

      “She’s our girl, all right,” he said. “Man, she’s pretty! Fill me in, Joe.”

      “She’s a sophomore at St. Martha’s high school—good grades, no trouble, no boyfriends. It’s a Dominican family been here in Norwalk for twenty years—the father’s a toll collector on the Turnpike, the mother’s a housewife. Six kids—two boys, four girls. Mercedes is—was—the eldest. Youngest is three, a boy. They live in a quiet old neighborhood, mind their own business.”

      “Did anyone see Mercedes abducted?” Carmine asked.

      “No one. We busted our asses to find her because”—he paused, looked worried—“she was the second girl of that type to go missing within two months. Both sophomores at St. Martha’s, in the same class, friends but not bosom buddies, if you get me. Mercedes had piano practice after school finished, was due home at four-thirty. When she didn’t turn up by six and the nuns said she had definitely left when she was supposed to, Mr. Alvarez called us. They were already upset over Verina.”

      “Verina was the first girl?”

      “Yeah. Verina Gascon. A Creole family from Guadeloupe, been here a long time too. She disappeared on her way to school. Both familie s live within walking distance of St. Martha’s, just a block away in either direction. We ransacked Norwalk looking for Verina, but she’d gone without a trace. And now this one, the same.”

      “Any possibility either girl took off with a secret boyfriend?”

      “Nope,” Brown said emphatically. “Maybe you should see both families, then you’d understand better. They’re old-fashioned Latin Catholics, bring their kids up strict but with lots of love.”

      “I’ll see them, but not yet.” said Carmine, shrinking inside. “Can you organize Mr. Alvarez to identify Mercedes on the basis of the birthmark? We can’t show him more than a tiny patch of skin, but he’ll have to know beforehand that—”

      “Yeah, yeah, I get the job of telling the poor bastard that someone chopped his beautiful little daughter into pieces,” said Brown. “Oh, Jesus! Sometimes this is a shit job.”

      “Would their priest be willing to go with him?”

      “I’ll make sure. And maybe a nun or two for extra support.”

      Someone came in with coffee and jelly donuts; both men wolfed down a couple, drank thirstily. While he waited for copies of the files of both girls, Carmine called Holloman.

      Corey, said Abe, was already at the Hug, and he himself was about to see Dean Wilbur Dowling to find out how many dead animal refrigerators existed within the medical school.

      “Did we get any other missing persons who might have fitted our girl’s description?” Carmine asked, feeling better for the food.

      “Yeah, three. One from Bridgeport, one from New Britain, and one from Hartford. But when none of them had the birthmark, we didn’t follow up. They all happened months ago,” said Abe.

      “Things have taken a turn, Abe. Call Bridgeport, Hartford and New Britain back, and tell them to send us copies of those files as fast as a siren can travel.”

      

      When Carmine walked in, Abe and Corey got up from their desks and followed him into his office, where three files lay waiting. Down went the two files Carmine carried; he unclipped the five photographs, all in color, and laid them out in a row. Like sisters.

      Nina Gomez was a sixteen-year-old Guatemalan girl from Hartford, and had disappeared four months ago. Rachel Simpson was a sixteen-year-old light-skinned black girl from Bridgeport, disappeared six months ago. Vanessa Olivaro was a sixteen-year-old girl from New Britain of mixed Chinese, black and white blood whose parents hailed from Jamaica; she had disappeared eight months ago.

      “Our killer likes curly but not kinky hair, faces that are fantastically pretty in a certain way—full but well delineated lips, wide set and wide open dark eyes, a dimpled smile—a height of no more than five feet, a mature figure, and light but not white skin,” Carmine said, flicking the photos.

      “You really think the same guy snatched them all?” Abe asked, not wanting to believe it.

      “Oh, sure. Look at their backgrounds. Godfearing, respectable families, all Catholic except for Rachel Simpson, whose father is an Episcopalian minister. Simpson and Olivaro went to their local high schools, the other three went to Catholic high schools, two at the same one, St. Martha’s in Norwalk. Then there’s the time span. One every two months. Corey, go back to the phone and ask for all missing persons who fit this description from as far back as—say, ten years. The background is as important as the physical criteria, so I’d be willing to bet that all these girls were famous for—well, if chasteness is too old-fashioned a word, at least goodness. They probably volunteered for things like Meals on Wheels or were candy-stripers in some hospital. Never missed on church, did their homework, kept their hems at knee level, maybe wore a touch of lipstick, but never full make-up.”

      “The girls you’re describing are thin on the ground, Carmine,” Corey said, his dark and beaky face serious. “If he’s snatched one every two months, he must waste a lot of time finding her. Look at how far afield he’s gone. Norwalk, Bridgeport, Hartford, New Britain—why no girls from Holloman? Mercedes at least was dumped in Holloman.”

      “They’re all dumped in Holloman. We’ve only got five girls so far, Corey. We won’t know his pattern until we’ve traced him back as far as he goes. In Connecticut, at any rate.”

      Abe swallowed audibly, his fair, broken-nosed countenance pale and sick looking. “But we’re not going to find any of the bodies prior to Mercedes, are we? He cut them up and put the pieces in at least one dead animal refrigerator, and from there they went to the medical school incinerator.”

      “I’m sure you’re right, Abe,” said Carmine, who to his loyal and most constant companions looked unusually cast down. No matter what the case, Carmine sailed through it and over it with the ponderous grace and power of a battle wagon. He felt—he bled—he pitied—he understood—but until this case he had let nothing burrow in as far as his central core.

      “What else does all this tell you, Carmine?” Corey asked.

      “That he’s gotten a picture of perfection in СКАЧАТЬ