No doubt Louise thought Maura needed a hug, a shoulder to cry on. But what Maura needed most was information. Anything that would help her reconstruct what had happened during the hours she could not remember. For all I know, I killed a man that night.
She already knew a great deal about Christopher Scanlon. She knew he’d been arrested twice, accused both times by women who told eerily similar stories. Scanlon had met them in crowded settings and offered to refresh their drinks. Both Kitty O’Brien and Sarah Shapiro woke up hours later in their own homes, with no memory of what had happened. In both cases, the charges were dropped.
Kitty O’Brien never recovered from the emotional trauma. Months later, she committed suicide, a heartbreaking end to the case.
No, not quite the end.
She found an online news article about Kitty’s father, Harry O’Brien, who’d threatened to kill Scanlon. In the photograph, she saw the bottomless grief in Harry’s face, the sunken eyes haunted by loss. That image so transfixed her that she barely noticed when Louise laid Scanlon’s autopsy report on her desk and quietly exited again.
Harry O’Brien. Why does your face seem familiar?
She opened the report and read the description of Scanlon’s injuries. Dr. Bristol counted fifteen stab wounds in all, of various depths, in the chest and back. She turned to the conclusions and was startled by Bristol’s statement:
Based on varying width and depth of wounds, it appears that at least two separate blades were used.
A frenzied attack. Two different knives.
As far as she knew, the murder weapons had not been found. Her own treasured set of chefs’ knives had been confiscated by Boston PD, and were now being analyzed in the crime lab. Could she have done it? Plunged a blade again and again in Scanlon’s chest and back? She knew that under the influence of the drug Ambien, patients had been known to drive, to eat, to behave in purposeful ways that made them appear fully conscious, yet awaken with no memory of what they had done. Drugged with Rohypnol, could she have performed similarly automatic tasks? Or had some monster from her id, released from her darkest subconscious, emerged to take control?
Maybe I am not so different from my mother after all.
Shaken by the possibility, she closed her eyes, hunting for the flimsiest strand of a memory. Glimpsed lights, heard a voice, distant as an echo. But nothing solid, nothing she could grasp and hold on to.
If I killed him, would I recognize the place where it happened?
She barely murmured a goodbye to Louise as she walked out, and once again felt her colleagues watching her, perhaps wondering if she could have done it. Even she didn’t know the answer.
It was a warm summer evening, and when she arrived at Olmsted Park, she saw joggers dutifully running along the riverway and couples lolling on the bank of Leverett Pond. She followed the path along the Muddy River, toward the location where the body had been found, according to the autopsy report. It wasn’t difficult to spot the place; a bright strand of crime scene tape was still snagged in a tangle of brush. She recognized the riverside bench and the same overarching pair of trees she’d seen in the death scene photos. Parallel gouges in the soil marked the trail of the stretcher that had borne the body up the riverbank, and she stared down at the disturbed earth, which marked the comings and goings of crime scene personnel.
According to the autopsy report, Scanlon had been attacked on the paved path. His body was then rolled down the steep bank and had landed just short of the river’s edge, where the stones were stained brown. That’s where he bled to death, she thought. But here, on this path where she now stood, was where he had been stabbed.
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine this spot as it would have looked in the dark. Tried to dredge up some memory of being here. Of holding a knife and plunging it, again and again, into flesh.
The snap of a twig made her eyes fly open. She turned and saw, a few dozen yards away, a man standing among the trees. Had he been there all along? In her single-minded pursuit of the death location, had she simply missed seeing him? All at once she noticed how silent it was on this isolated stretch of the riverwalk. No joggers, no strolling couples. Only her and this man, who was now gazing at her through the trees.
He started toward her, and as he passed from shadow into sunlight, she saw that his hair was gray, and he had the gait of someone with a bad hip. No longer fearful, she remained where she was as the man slowly made his way toward her.
“Are you with the police?” he called out.
“No. No, I just came to see…”
“You heard about it, then. A man was killed here Saturday night. It’s been all over the news.” He came to a stop beside her, his gaze on the river below. “To think it happened right down there.”
She studied him, and suddenly realized why he looked familiar. “You’re Harry O’Brien,” she said.
Startled, he looked straight at her, and she thought she saw a similar flash of recognition in his eyes. But that was impossible; they had never met.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
“I know your daughter was one of his victims.” She gestured down the riverbank, where Scanlon’s body had been found. “I read the article in the Globe. How you threatened him, after she…” Her voice trailed off.
He finished the painful thought for her. “After she killed herself.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. O’Brien. I can’t imagine how horrible it is to lose a child.”
“No one can. Until it happens. Then it’s all you think about, all you feel.” He stared down at the river. “I came here to spit on his grave. Does that make me evil?”
“It makes you a grieving father.”
He nodded, and his thin shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would, knowing he’s dead. All I feel is… relief.” He looked at her, and once again she felt that strange shock of recognition. Somehow I know this man. And I think he knows me. “Why are you here?” he asked.
“I wanted to see where he died.”
“Did you know him?” He paused. Asked, quietly: “Did the bastard hurt you, too?”
She didn’t respond, but she felt certain he could see the answer in her face. Yes, he hurt me. The question is: Did I hurt him?
“Savor this moment,” he said. “The death of monsters should always be celebrated. I was afraid I wouldn’t live to see it, but here I am. While he burns in hell.”
Those last three words jolted a nerve of recognition. Not just the words, but the voice, deep with rage. She had heard it before.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, backing away.
He looked straight at her, his eyes fixed on her face. Seeing too much.
A pair of joggers came around the bend, huffing toward them. That’s when Maura made her escape. Swiftly she walked away, heading back to Leverett Pond. Toward other people. Only once did she pause to look back, and she saw he was standing where she’d left him, but his eyes were still on her.
She drove straight home, hands shaking as she clutched the wheel. Only when she was in her garage, the door safely closed, did her breathing begin to steady, her heart to slow.
Inside the house, the first thing she did was call Jane.
“Harry O’Brien,” she said. “Did you question him?”
“Of course we did,” said Jane. “How do you even know about O’Brien?”
“I know he once threatened Scanlon. It made the newspapers, after Kitty O’Brien’s suicide. Jane, I think he’s involved. I recognized his voice.”
“You spoke to him? What the hell are you doing, getting in the middle of an investigation?”
“We met by accident, in Olmsted Park. I went to the death scene, to see if I remembered anything, and O’Brien was there. We had a few words, and I had this-this sudden flash of recognition. I’ve heard his voice before, Jane. Maybe it was that night.”
“Saturday?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? Even though there’s so much I don’t remember, there could be bits and pieces that I did retain. A face, a voice.”