I didn’t need clarification to know who he was asking about. “No,” I heard myself say, another rare admission, a memory barely known and definitely never explored. But if I really thought about it…of course my mother was dead. It stood to reason that if she were still alive, she would’ve contacted me by now. Written a letter from prison or whatever mental institute she was living in. Dropped by the first moment she was released. That’s the whole point of Munchausen’s by proxy—the perpetrator considers herself the victim. It’s all about her—she doesn’t just need sympathy, support, understanding. She deserves it. But I’d never heard from my mother since waking up in the upstate New York hospital. Not a phone call, not a letter, not a peep.
There had been some kind of final confrontation. I’d lived, and my mother…
“Drinker?” J.T. asked.
“No.”
“Drug abuser?”
“Crazy. Just plain crazy.”
“Glad she’s dead then,” J.T. said. “Now get over her.”
“Sure,” I promised him. “Might as well.” I glanced at my watch. “Fifty-eight hours to go,” I muttered. Both of us started to jog.
Chapter 20
“QUINCY.”
“This is Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, Boston PD. I’m calling regarding the criminal profile you developed for Charlene Grant. The January twenty-first homicides. As in two murders down, maybe a third to go, which I’d personally like to avoid. Boston’s homicide rate is high enough, thank you.”
“Detective,” retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy greeted her crisply. “Spoke to my daughter last night. She apprised me of your investigation. Sounds like you have a plan, something involving social media?”
“Seems worth trying. I understand you studied both the first and second crime scene.”
“Prepared the first report for Jackie Knowles. Wrote the second for Charlene, after Jackie’s murder.”
D.D. hadn’t thought of that. “Sorry,” she murmured, not sure what else to say to the retired profiler.
“Crime scene analysis is easier,” Quincy replied simply, “when you don’t know the victim. Therefore, I must add caveats to my second report. It is probably not as objective as the first.”
“Let’s start with the first murder, the Providence scene,” D.D. decided. “My impression from your report, and the lead investigator, Roan Griffin, is that the perpetrator is someone with a high-degree of self-control, advanced communication skills, above average intelligence, and a good deal of manual strength.”
“Agreed.”
“Male or female?”
“Statistics would argue male. Lack of sexual assault, however, complicates the analysis.”
“Gut feel?”
“Can’t get one from the Providence murder. However, factoring in the Atlanta homicide, where the victim was last seen with a woman, I lean toward a female perpetrator. It would explain the willingness of both women to open their doors, even the thorough cleanup afterward. Granted, many serial killers can be meticulous in their ability to sanitize a crime scene, but few think to tend the sofa cushions.”
“Tend the sofa cushions?” D.D. asked.
“They appeared recently fluffed. A distinctly feminine touch.”
“Fluffed? How can you tell that?”
“Can’t, not definitively. But according to Jackie’s neighbor, Ms. Knowles had a tendency to toss the decorative pillows to one side of the love seat and sit on the other. When the police arrived at the scene, however, the accent pillows were perfectly positioned. In fact, the lower cushions and back cushions of the love seat were smoothed out and neatly squared. As one detective observed, it appeared as if no one had ever sat on the furniture. It was fluffed.”
“But Jackie might have done it,” D.D. countered. “You know, tidying up in case she brought up a ‘guest’ that night.”
“True. I’m offering a theory based on supposition, not fact.”
“Well, at least you’re honest,” D.D. informed him.
She thought the profiler might have laughed, but the moment was brief.
“We need to stir the pot,” D.D. said abruptly. “We have two days before January twenty-first. I’ve got Charlene Grant running around Boston, hiding from everyone she knows and currently armed with a twenty-two semiauto—”
“She has a handgun?”
“Legally registered.”
“Won’t help her.”
“Based on supposition or fact?”
“Both. First two victims never fought back. If they didn’t rip off their own fingernails trying to claw away a pair of hands choking them to death, what makes Charlene think she’ll get off a single shot?”