“They’re releasing her?” Callie sounded horrified. After all that had just happened, the thought made her worry for Rose’s safety. Before Rose’s recent outburst, Callie had been thinking she should start looking for a permanent place, somewhere they could both live. But this was happening a lot faster than she’d expected. “Rose isn’t well enough to be released.”
“Her commitment hearing only granted her thirty days. She’ll be heading over to the Crisis Abatement Center on Arbor Street as soon as they have a bed.”
“When will that be?” Zee had already briefed Callie about Arbor Street. Patients were allowed to come and go during the day but were provided with meals, meds, counseling, and shelter. “There are other options around Salem, but I think Arbor Street is the best,” Zee had said.
“Sometime before Christmas,” Rafferty said.
“They told me that Rose tried to escape from the hospital again yesterday…She’s likely to have run-ins with the people of Salem when she gets to Arbor Street.” Callie sat silent for a moment. “Maybe I should say yes to that interview they keep asking me to do. Try to change a few of the opinions about what really happened that night in 1989.”
“No one knows exactly what happened that night,” Rafferty said. “So what would you tell them?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just think it might help to say something on Rose’s behalf.”
Towner had told him about the interview requests. When Rafferty learned that Callie had refused them, he’d been relieved. Now he was concerned that she might change her mind. “That’s a tough call,” he said now. “Talking to the press can make things worse.”
“You sound like Rose,” Callie said.
“You asked Rose about doing the interview?”
“I mentioned that I was considering it.”
“And what did she say?”
“She told me not to court the strike.”
He nodded. It was one of Rose’s catchphrases.
“But I think it might lead to information about Leah. Someone must know something about where she is.”
He’d told Callie that Leah, who’d rapidly become his number one suspect, had been reported missing right after the murders. They sat in silence for a long moment.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or it could make her go deeper into hiding.”
“But if it helps make Rose safer,” Callie said.
Rafferty said nothing. He was as worried about Rose’s release as she was.
“It’s just too soon to release her,” Callie said again. “Only yesterday she was ranting about the banshee being loose.”
He sighed. “It’s a flawed system.”
Lately, every official system seemed flawed to Rafferty. They’d talked about the mental health cutbacks, how the state hospitals had closed their doors while the promised local facilities never materialized. The mentally ill often ended up on the streets, like Rose, or, worse, in jail. Which brought him to the criminal justice system, which was even more troubling. Why, in the twenty-five years since a triple homicide, was Rafferty the only cop serious about finding the murderer?
The police chief’s cell rang. He checked the number and then apologized to Callie. “I have to take this.” He stood up and walked toward the window.
It was the ADA. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. We have approval for the exhumation. We dig up the bodies on January twenty-seventh.”
“So Helen Barnes wins,” Rafferty said, ending the call with a few terse words. It had played out just as Helen had threatened: Her political influence was going to bring the Goddesses back from the grave. Literally. And the timing couldn’t be worse for Rose and Callie. He sat back down.
“Trouble?”
“That was the ADA. They’re going to exhume the bodies of your mother and the others.”
There was a long pause before Callie spoke. “When?”
“The end of January.”
“What does this mean, exactly?”
“Unfortunately, exactly is not something I can predict. It might mean we find evidence that will lead us to the real murderer. Which would be great. It could mean we find something that implicates Rose. Or it could mean that we’ll find nothing.”
Slowly, through snippets he was picking up from his detective friend in Beverly and follow-up on the neighbor’s story, Rafferty was cobbling together Leah’s history. Her mother had died when the girl was fourteen, leaving only her father and a younger sister. After her disappearance, the younger sister, Becky, was the one who tried hard to find her. She was only twelve at the time, and they hadn’t paid too much attention to her persistent requests for help. Though they did some perfunctory searching, they hadn’t followed it up. The father hadn’t tried very hard to find her. She was a runaway, he said, and had always been troubled. They didn’t question him further. There was no record of any coordinating efforts between the Beverly and Salem police.
On the way back from Beverly, Rafferty took a detour to Rice Street in Salem.
Tom Dayle, his predecessor, was in the yard, bringing in empty trash barrels. He looked like a man burdened by life, Rafferty thought, bent at the waist and crippled by arthritis and stress. Even the empty barrels seemed a struggle.
“Want some help with that?” Rafferty parked and got out of his car.
Tom looked up. “I’m all set,” he said, frowning.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Is it about the exhumation of those girls?”
Rafferty was surprised. “Wow, word travels fast in these parts.”
“That why you came by? To let me know?”
“Nope.”
Dayle stopped and looked at him.
“There’s a box of evidence missing.”
“So?”
“So I thought you might have some idea where to look.”
“Did you try the archives?”
“A couple of times,” Rafferty said.
“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“What do you know about Leah Kormos?”
There was a long pause before Tom answered. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“She was one of the Goddesses.”
“Never heard of her,” he said, this time with more conviction.
“She wasn’t on the hill that night, but she was at the party at Hammond Castle. The young woman in the red dress that people talked about? The one who had the argument with the girls the night they were murdered? That was Leah Kormos. Not sure how you guys missed that part.”
“I’ve never heard of any Leah Kormos.”
Rafferty looked at Dayle for a long time. “Funny that you guys never made that connection. Especially since Leah Kormos is now my number one suspect.”
“I’m retired,” Dayle said. “I’m not interested.”
“Sorry,” Rafferty said. “My mistake. You seemed interested enough in the exhumation.”
“I’m hoping the exhumation will prove Rose Whelan’s guilt once and for all. And finally end all this nonsense.” Dayle turned around and began limping toward the house, leaving an empty barrel midlawn.
Rafferty picked up the barrel and followed. “If we had their clothing, we might not need to do the exhumation. You guys did keep the clothing as evidence, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let that go.”