He nodded.
“I think it might have had something to do with the parties. I know she didn’t like it, that people at work were telling her about it. The neighbors, too. They kept calling the police. The cops were there all the time. ‘Enough is enough.’ That’s what Rose kept saying. It was really getting to her. And then this thing with Leah. Whatever that was.”
“Do you think Leah was the fifth petal, Callie?”
“What do you mean, the fifth petal?”
As Rafferty asked the question, he’d been sketching a five-petaled rose on a legal pad. Now he turned it around so she could see it. It looked just like the scar on her left palm.
He’d told her yesterday about something he’d found in the files, something Rose had alluded to after the murders when she was finally lucid enough to be questioned. She’d said that the girls were all petals of the rose. She was referring to that rosary necklace she’d handed to Callie. She said each petal stood for one of the five who were executed in July 1692, and that the petals corresponded to their descendants as well.
“I know you and your mother were related to Rebecca Nurse.”
“So was Rose,” Callie said.
“Right. I knew that. And I’ve accounted for Cheryl and Susan. But then I go blank. According to your memory, Rose also spoke two other names that night: Elizabeth Howe and Sarah Good.”
Callie thought about it. “I’m pretty sure Rose was related to more than one of Salem’s executed.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Rose told me she was. She said that’s why she got interested in the witch trials in the first place. Because she found out she was related to more than one who was put to death.”
Rafferty remembered hearing that a number of people in this area had more than one accused or executed relative. Towner said it was why people here weren’t as interested in the whole history as the tourists seemed to be. They’d had enough of it. Their relatives had lived it. Evidently, it was the opposite for Rose.
“So Cheryl and Susan are two petals of the rose,” Callie said. “And my mother. And me. I would guess the other one is Rose.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But if you and your mother and Rose are all related to Rebecca Nurse, wouldn’t you all be on the same petal?”
“Maybe.”
“And if Rose was related to more than one of Salem’s executed, her name may be on another petal as well.”
“That makes sense.”
“Since she spoke two other names that night, I’m thinking one of them might have been for her other relative and the other for Leah, who was supposed to be there.”
“Okay,” Callie said, going along with his logic.
“If you remember her last name, let me know. Or if you come up with anything else.”
“That’s all?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “But I’m sure there will be more. I know where to find you.”
“As in don’t leave town?”
“Yeah.” Rafferty laughed. “One more thing…” He reached into his desk and pulled out an old Polaroid of her mother he’d found in the file, one taken before the murders. He slid it across the desk to her. “You look a lot like her,” he said.
“I know,” she said, still shocked by the resemblance.
“I don’t think not using your last name, as my wife suggested, is going to be enough. I think you’d better dye your hair as well.”
“Really?”
“The less familiar you seem to people, the better. If you’re right about Rose’s innocence, then there may still be a murderer out there. And now you’re back in town: the only eyewitness who’s even remotely reliable. You could be in danger.” He stood.
She handed the photo back to him.
After she left, Rafferty watched the tape again. She was a brave girl, especially for someone so young. Though she was upset—they kept asking the same questions over and over—she never cried. Instead, she stared blankly at the camera, clearly in shock, her hair disheveled and her bandaged hand placed carefully on her lap, palm oddly angled and facing up, as if it were disconnected from her body. Even in that early photo, Callie had looked remarkably like her mother.
He thought of his own daughter at that age and felt almost like crying himself. And from what he’d heard from Towner about Callie’s life since the murders, it hadn’t been an easy one.
He was almost relieved when Jay-Jay interrupted to tell him the assistant district attorney was on the phone. But any trace of relief disappeared when he heard the word exhumation.
“They’re going to exhume the Goddesses?” Towner gasped as she read the morning paper.
“They’re going to try.”
“You’re not going to let them do that, are you?”
Normally, Rafferty would have welcomed any shot at DNA evidence when he was trying to solve a crime. This was a triple murder. If it had happened today, there’d be no question about whether to do DNA testing. Hell, he would have insisted. Even twenty-five years later, it wasn’t a bad idea, although he knew that actually getting any clarity was a remote possibility. Testing was expensive and time consuming, and, in the case of exhumation, it required a judge’s order.
Still, in this case, the thought of testing made him very nervous. Rose had lived with the victims, and their blood was found all over her. If there was any DNA left after the bodies had been autopsied and prepared for burial, it was likely to be Rose’s. And the exhumation was being requested by people who wanted to see her charged. He hadn’t yet reopened the case, and already people were circulating a petition. This was a witch hunt.
But Rose’s words the night of the murders and the conversation he’d had earlier with her kept coming back to him. “Do you think, inside, every one of us is a killer?” And the line that followed, the one she’d repeated when Porter arrested her. “The lesser of two evils.” That was the one that bothered Rafferty the most. Had Rose thought about this? Was she talking about what had happened so many years ago on Proctor’s Ledge? Or was she talking about Billy Barnes? Had she considered hurting him, or was she, like Towner and Ann Chase and several other people he’d met since his arrival in Salem, able to get glimpses of events before they even happened?
He wanted to see the rest of the physical evidence before he determined his position on DNA testing. If the physical evidence was as complete as it should be, the testing might not be necessary. As soon as he got back to his office, he would place another call to the archives to hurry the process.
Rafferty put down the newspaper and ran his hand through his hair.
“A lot of people in town are calling for DNA testing. The boy’s death and Rose’s…involvement in it have incited all sorts of panic. People want answers.”