The Secret Friend

'Is she local?' Darby was thinking maybe the student had gone home for the weekend to visit her parents.

'Her parents live in Boise, Idaho,' Bryson said. 'I don't know all the details yet, it's just a preliminary report. Watts is on his way to Brighton to look into it. We have some other missing-person reports from the past month, but none involving female college students.'

The commissioner's secretary was a thin, neat man with long, manicured fingers and blond highlights in his gelled brown hair. 'The commissioner will see you now.'

37

Christina Chadzynski sat behind a wide mahogany desk, reading a file under the soft light of a lamp. Her office, wide and airy with windows overlooking the grey sky hanging over Boston, was decorated with nautical antiques and replicas of old wooden sailing ships.

Four chairs were set up in front of the desk. Darby took the seat next to Bryson and waited for the commissioner to finish reading his report detailing the events from Friday night until Sunday evening.

Chadzynski closed the file. 'I don't even know where to begin.' She took off her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose. The corners of her eyes were lined with wrinkles. Even with makeup, the woman looked tired. 'Let's start with the man you met Friday night at Emma Hale's home.'

'Malcolm Fletcher,' Darby said.

'You're sure this man is Fletcher?'

'Detective Bryson showed me his picture from the FBI website. That's the man I met. Fletcher was here in eighty-two, consulting on two strangling cases for the Saugus police. We're investigating a possible connection.'

'And we still don't know what Fletcher was doing inside Emma Hale's home.'

'No. Mr Hale claims he doesn't know the man.'

Chadzynski's brown eyes were as cold and unforgiving as an X-ray. 'Are you suggesting that Jonathan has hired the services of a known felon?'

'Do you know Mr Hale?' Darby asked.

'We travel in the same social circles. My husband knows him very well. They do a lot of charity work together.'

'We know Malcolm Fletcher accessed the building through the garage,' Darby said. 'He took the service elevator to Emma Hale's floor and entered her apartment. Burglary examined the locks. They weren't picked. He had a key. I think it would be prudent to place Jonathan Hale under surveillance.'

'Darby, the man is a respected member of the community. I can't have him followed without a valid reason, and I certainly can't bring him in for questioning. The press would crucify us.'

'Hear me out. Malcolm Fletcher is the man I met inside Emma Hale's home. I don't know what he was doing there. Either he's working alone, for a reason we don't yet understand, or he's working for Hale.

'For the moment, let's assume Fletcher is acting solo – and that may, in fact, be the case,' Darby continued. 'We know Fletcher was here once before, back in the early eighties, when he was working as a profiler. Is it possible he's independently investigating a connection between the strangulations and the murders of Chen and Hale? Yes. We also know Hale's Newton office was broken into and the surveillance tapes, the DVDs, for Emma Hale's building are, in fact, missing. So we do have some evidence to suggest that Fletcher's acting alone. However, given what we know about the man's history and his status on the Most Wanted List, don't you think it wise to place Hale under surveillance for his own protection?'

'Darby has a valid point,' Bryson added.

Chadzynski put on her glasses. 'How many times have you spoken with Malcolm Fletcher?'

'I spoke with him inside Emma Hale's home,' Darby said. 'So far, he's called me twice – Saturday afternoon while I was at Judith Chen's and then later while Tim and I were at Sinclair.'

'And he hasn't called you since?'

'Not yet.'

'Do you think he'll call you again?'

'I think it's a strong possibility.'

'What do you base that on?'

'He's inserted himself into our investigation. He led me to Sinclair where we found, in a room inside an area where they supposedly held violent offenders, a picture of a woman and a statue of the Virgin Mary – the same statue we found inside the pockets of Hale and Chen.'

'Where did he get the statue? Do we know?'

'We have no idea.'

'And the woman in the photograph,' Chadzynski said. 'Is she connected to these strangled women from Saugus?'

Bryson answered the question. 'Cliff Watts passed her picture around the Saugus station. They don't know who she is. She's not listed in any of their missing-person cases. I'm going to give a copy of the picture to our Missing Persons Unit after this meeting.'

'My understanding is you searched the hospital and failed to find anything else,' Chadzynski said.

'We only managed to search part of the hospital,' Darby said. 'The basement itself is a maze. Some sections are sealed off because they're unstable. Other areas are locked. The place is massive, and it took a good amount of time to map out the areas we searched. We only had a day and a half.'

'So you think we should continue the search?'

'I do.'

'Tim?'

'I don't see the need.' Bryson explained his position.

Chadzynski turned back to Darby and said, 'What do you think Malcolm Fletcher wants you to find? You can't honestly believe a living woman is trapped inside the hospital.'

'The last time I spoke to Fletcher, he mentioned a quote by George Bernard Shaw – "If you can't get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance." I don't think he was being clever. I got the sense he was warning me. He mentioned opening Pandora's Box. I think there's something inside that hospital, and he wants us to find it.'

'Or, as Tim suggested, Fletcher is simply jerking us around.'

'That very well may be true,' Darby said. 'The fact is he's involved himself in this case. He left us the same Virgin Mary statue we found in Hale and Chen's pockets. I'd like to know where he got it.'

'You think he wants to help our investigation?'

'I don't know what the man's motives are,' Darby said. 'What little I know about him came from the FBI website, which isn't much.'

Bryson said, 'There's also another theory: What if Malcolm Fletcher murdered Hale and Chen?'

'That's not Mr Fletcher's style,' Chadzynski said.

'Do you know something about him?'

'How many people have you told about Malcolm Fletcher?'

'I told Watts,' Bryson said, turning to Darby.

'Jackson Cooper and Keith Woodbury know,' she said. 'I haven't told anyone else.'

Chadzynski crossed her legs. 'What I'm about to say I'd like to stay inside this room.'

38

'This is the second time Malcolm Fletcher has resurfaced in Boston,' Chadzynski said. 'The first time was roughly nine years ago. Do you remember the Sandman case?'

'It was big news.' Darby had followed the story in the papers.

A serial murderer named Gabriel LaRouche had murdered a family in Marblehead, a North Shore town north of Boston, and called the police. LaRouche, watching the house through sophisticated surveillance equipment, waited until all the police were gathered inside and then detonated the bomb he had left at the crime scene. Two more families were killed before he was captured.

'Do you know Jack Casey?' Chadzynski asked.

'The former profiler,' Darby said. 'He's the one who caught Miles Hamilton, the "All-American Psycho".'

'Yes. Casey had retired from the Bureau and was working as the chief of detectives for Marblehead, where the first family was murdered. Boston SWAT was called in at one point – there was a hostage situation on a highway. I have a personal friend at the Bureau, someone who works in Investigative Support. Jack Casey brought Fletcher in as a behind-the-scenes consultant. After the Sandman case was solved, Casey left Marblehead and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Fletcher disappeared. Several years later, he was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List.'