"Not a problem."
He arched a brow but didn't press. "It won't be so bad," he found himself saying. "Don't let the news articles fool you. Catherine's a woman, same as any other. And we're just going to talk."
"Yeah, I guess." Annabelle popped open the door, stepped out onto the curb. At the last moment, however, she turned back toward him.
"In the beginning," she said softly, "when I saw myself declared dead in the paper, I was relieved. Dead meant I could relax. Dead meant I didn't have to worry about some mysterious boogeyman chasing me anymore. Dead left me feeling a little giddy."
She paused, took a deep breath, then looked him in the eye. "But it's not like that, is it? You, Sergeant Warren, and I aren't the only ones who know it wasn't my body in that grave. Dori's killer also knows he abducted my best friend in my place. He knows I'm still alive."
"Annabelle, it's been twenty-five years…"
"I'm not a helpless little girl anymore," she filled in.
"No, you're not. Plus, we don't know if the perpetrator is active these days. The chamber was abandoned. Meaning he could've been incarcerated for another crime, or here's a thought, maybe he did the world a favor and dropped dead. We don't know yet. We don't."
"Maybe he didn't stop. Maybe he moved. My family kept running. Maybe it was because someone kept chasing."
Bobby didn't have an answer for that one. At this point, anything was possible.
Annabelle shut the door. He rolled down the window, so he could monitor the situation while she went to work inserting the keys. Maybe he was getting a little paranoid, too, because his gaze kept scouring up and down the street, checking every shadow, making sure nothing moved.
The outer door opened. Annabelle turned, waved, stepped into the brightly lit space. He watched her pull the door shut firmly behind her, then go to work on the inner sanctum. Then that door was also opened and closed and he caught one last glimpse of her back as she headed up the stairs.
Chapter 16
BOBBY WAS LATE to the task-force meeting again. No baked goods this time, but the other officers were too busy listening to Detective Sinkus to care. As promised, Sinkus had met with George Robbards, the District 3 clerk who'd served in Mattapan from '72 to '98. Apparently, Robbards had a lot to say about their favorite suspect du jour, Christopher Eola.
"The body of the nurse was found gagged with a pillowcase that came from the hospital supply room. Coroner's report indicated that she'd been worked over before death, which was from manual asphyxiation. Originally, the investigation focused on a former boyfriend of Lovell's—they'd recently broken up—and a couple of key staff members who worked at the hospital. Theory was, no way a patient could've been missing that long without someone noticing. Plus, the most logical suspect pool for patients would've been the guys in maximum security, and according to the head administrator, most of them were too drugged up to pull off something this sophisticated.
"Boyfriend got ruled out early on—had an alibi for the time in question. Three male staff members were interviewed, but the only thing they volunteered was the name Christopher Eola. Seems every time a staff member was questioned about the patient population, they ended up saying, 'Oh, our guys couldn't have done something like that, well… except for Eola.'
"Lead detective was Moss Williams. He personally interviewed Mr. Eola four times. Later, he told Robbards that within the first five minutes of speaking to Eola, he knew the guy had done it. Didn't know how, didn't know if they could prove it, but said there was no doubt in his mind Eola had murdered Inge Lovell. Williams would stake his badge on it.
"Unfortunately, that plus a quarter would still only fetch you a cup of coffee. They never could build a case. No one saw anything, Eola wasn't admitting anything, and they had no physical evidence. Best Williams could do was advise the staff to keep a much shorter leash on Eola.
"Shortly thereafter, Eola led some kind of patient revolt in the I-Building and finally earned himself a transfer to Bridgewater. Williams didn't hear about it until nearly a year later, and it pissed him off. According to Robbards, Williams believed they could've used the Bridgewater transfer as a bargaining chip. Maybe make some kind of deal with Eola, so at least the Lovell family could have some closure. No dice, however. Boston State Mental, apparently, preferred to handle its problems on its own—and without public knowledge."