An hour after they’d started, they reached the village of Big Indian and turned right on Fire House Road. Five minutes later, Forrest braked and pulled onto a weed-choked gravel road past a faded wooden sign: “Little Indian Summer Camp.”
Mulligan slid down the car window and photographed the sign.
The Wrangler rolled past athletic fields overgrown with saplings, milkweed, and poison ivy. Off to the right were two large log buildings. One was black with fire damage. The other had a spindly young spruce growing through the middle of its collapsed roof.
“The administration building and the crafts building,” Hurley said as Mulligan snapped a few more photos. “In the nineties, Frank Hudson and his wife, Julie, ran the place. Before the murder, they were just barely hanging on. Afterwards, they had a lot of trouble attracting customers. Finally, they just pulled up stakes and moved away.”
Weeds scraped the bottom of the Wrangler as it climbed the gravel trail into the mountains. As they gained elevation, balsam fir and red spruce gave way to beech and birch. A quarter mile in, ramshackle cabins dotted the woods on both sides of the road. The windows were broken, the stoops crumbling, the rotting shiplap siding green with algae and moss.
“The campers’ cabins,” Forrest said, and kept driving. He continued on for another sixty yards, then pulled over beside a cluster of six somewhat larger cabins.
“The counselors’ quarters,” he said, and they all climbed out. “Watch out for the poison ivy.”
He led the way through the weeds to a cabin with a faded “31” painted beside the entrance.
“Allison Foley slept here,” he said, “with three other young women.”
The windows were broken, and the door and front stoop were missing. Hurley gave Mulligan a boost, and he climbed inside.
“Careful,” the editor said. “The floor might be rotted out.”
Mulligan stood in the doorway, a musty smell filling his nostrils, as he waited for his eyes to adjust. To his right and left, two sets of bunk beds, the mattresses covered with animal droppings. Ahead of him, an open door. Behind it, a yellowed toilet with the seat missing.
Mulligan took a step. The floor felt spongy under his feet. He stepped back into the doorway. The floor of the cabin was littered with empty beer cans and Thunderbird wine bottles.
“Looks like somebody had a party in here,” he shouted.
“Figures,” Hurley said. “Vagrants have taken to camping out in the abandoned cabins. The local cops used to chase them off, but now they just leave them be.”
Mulligan raised his camera and took a few flash photos. In the corner to his left, something hissed. He wheeled and saw a large opossum rear on its hind legs, eyes glowing red.
“There’s one in here now,” Mulligan said. “The four-legged kind.”
“Raccoon?” Hurley asked.
“Opossum,” Mulligan said.
“Careful,” Forrest said. “A lot of them are rabid.”
Mulligan turned and jumped down into the late afternoon sunlight. He backed off a few yards and snapped exterior shots of the cabin while Hurley and Jennings climbed inside for a quick look.
“Stand by the door so I can get you in the shot,” Mulligan told Forrest.
“I’d rather not,” Forrest said.
“You’ve chased this case for nineteen years,” Mulligan said. “Like it or not, you’re a big part of the story.”
Forrest doffed his Yankees cap, exposing a thick crop of steel-gray hair, smiled sheepishly, and reluctantly complied.
Then he led the men into the stillness of the trees through a thick undergrowth of brambles and giant purple hyssop in full bloom. Briars clutched at their jeans, the thorns biting through and raking their skin. Eighty yards in, they stopped at the base of a large birch.
“This is where they found her,” Forrest said.
Mulligan snapped a photo of the retired trooper standing beside the tree. There was nothing more to see.
That evening, Mulligan and Jenkins checked into the Days Inn near Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, then met Forrest and Hurley for a late dinner at the Coyote Grill.
Over steaks and beer, Forrest flipped through his murder book, running down the fine points of the Foley case. Then Jennings did the same with the Diggs cases.
“So if the DNA from the Ashcroft case hadn’t been contaminated, you would have nailed the bastard,” Forrest said.
“Yeah,” Jennings said. “Think the DNA from the semen he spilled on Foley might still be good?”
“I doubt it,” Forrest said. “It’s been a long time. I’m not sure it’s even still in storage. But it doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. The state crime lab ran a DNA test on it back in ’93. A copy of the result is in the back of the Foley murder book. Get your lab to compare it to a sample from Diggs. If it’s a match, New York will charge him with murder, and he’ll spend the rest of his sorry-ass life getting corn-holed in Attica.”
“Fantastic,” Jennings said. “My old boss at the Warwick PD can get our state crime lab to expedite this. We should have our answer in a few weeks.”
Early next morning, Mulligan and Jennings were on their way back to Providence when the opening licks of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” streamed from Mulligan’s shirt pocket. His ring tone for Gloria.
“Mulligan.”
“How’s it going?”
“Good. I think we’ve got him.”
“Better hurry.”
“Why’s that?”
“The state Supreme Court just turned down Roberts’ appeal without a hearing. Diggs is going to be released next week.”
“Aw, shit. Do you have the date and time?”
“No. The authorities are keeping a tight lid on that. They want to avoid a media circus.”
“I’ll bet,” Mulligan said.
72
“Good morning, Governor.”
“Mulligan? Calling me at home on a Saturday? Must be a social call.”
“It’s not.”
“Oh. Too bad.”
“You know why I’m calling, Fiona.”
“You want to know when he’s being released.”
“I do.”
“We’re keeping it under wraps. The less publicity the better. No way we want Iggy Rock and his mob waiting for Diggs in the prison parking lot.”
“You know we’ll handle it the right way.”
“Just you and a photographer?”
“Not me. Mason and Gloria.”
“Noon on Monday,” she said. “His mother will pick him up and take him home.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Anybody going to keep tabs on him?”
“We’ll give him a police escort to the state line. After that, he’s Massachusetts’ problem.”
“The authorities there have been informed?”
“We’ve alerted Brockton PD and the Massachusetts State Police. They’ll keep an eye on him, drop in on him from time to time. That’s all they can do.”
“Until he kills again.”
“Yeah. Until then.”
“Still having fun playing governor?”
“Right now, not so much.”
Monday, there were only a half-dozen cars in the Supermax visitors’ lot. Only one of them, a gray 2002 Chevrolet Malibu, had Massachusetts plates. Gloria pulled her Ford Focus into the space next to it. A moment later, Felicia drove into the lot.
At five past noon, Kwame Diggs strode out of the prison gate, his arm around his mother. Esther Diggs looked incredibly small. She glanced up at her son as if she were looking at a stranger. Kwame closed his eyes, tilted his face up to the sun, rolled his shoulders, and grinned. Gloria’s shutter clicked.
Diggs turned and stared at her. She got the impression he was trying to figure out where he’d seen her before. She was very glad, then, that she’d colored her hair.