The Secret Friend

'I'll keep working on the clothes, see if I can find the print in the pant pocket,' Coop said. 'You two kids have fun.' FTIR had failed to find a unique match in its makeup library, but that didn't mean one didn't exist. The lab's FTIR system was only as good as its library.

On the FTIR computer screen was a bar graph listing the sample's various chemical properties.

'There's a large concentration of titanium dioxide,' Woodbury said. 'We also have paraffinum liquidum, cera alba, talc, isopropyl palmitate, magnesium carbonate, allantoin, propylparaben and copernicia cerifera. We also have one listed as unknown. Let's make sure we have the latest version of the makeup library.'

Woodbury checked the system. The makeup library had been updated early last month. He checked to see if there were any additional updates to download. There were none.

'Maybe it's not makeup,' Darby said.

'These are chemicals found in makeup, but which brand?' Staring at the monitor, Woodbury leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand across the stubble on the back of his head. 'The problem is the sample listed as unknown. It's throwing the system off. We'll need to isolate it first.'

'Could FTIR give us a possible list of brands?'

'It could, but you could be talking hundreds of samples. The level of titanium dioxide is interesting.'

'Meaning?'

'It's rather high,' Woodbury said. 'Makeup – and that covers everything from foundation to products used to camouflage scars or pimples – contains traces of titanium dioxide, mica and iron oxides. Here, we have a higher than normal level of titanium dioxide. Did Chen have any scars on her face?'

'I don't think so. I'll have to check the photographs.'

'Did she use makeup?'

'She had some things in her medicine cabinet.'

'If I had the makeup she used, I could take samples and run tests against what we have here.'

'I'll make sure you get them.'

'Are you going to get them yourself or are you going to send someone there to retrieve them?'

'Why are you asking?'

'I don't know how to say this without sounding sexist, so I'll just say it. You're a woman.'

'Thank you for noticing,' Darby said.

'What I mean is you're more familiar with makeup than, say, a male patrolman who might rifle through her medicine cabinet or makeup kit and overlook something. For all I know, this sample is a zit cream with a camouflage tint.'

'Understood. I'll collect the samples myself.'

'The other thing is we may be talking one or more different samples of makeup – meaning you could have two different brands here. You may also want to get Emma Hale's makeup. If both of these women were held in the same place, maybe Chen used one of Hale's products.'

'How are you going to identify the unknown sample?'

'Let me see what I can do.'

That was Woodbury's way of saying he wanted some time alone to think. Darby knew he didn't like to work with someone hovering over his shoulder asking questions.

'I'll get you the makeup,' Darby said.

She was standing in her office, putting on her coat when she received a call from the station's front desk.

'I've got a woman named Tina Sanders here who wants to speak to you,' the desk sergeant said.

The name wasn't the least bit familiar. 'What does she want?' Darby asked.

'She says you have some information on her missing daughter, Jennifer. I told her to go to Missing Persons, but she said the detective she spoke to told her only to speak directly to you and no one else.'

'What's the detective's name?'

'Hold on.' The desk sergeant spoke in a murmured conversation for a moment and then came back on the line. 'She doesn't know the guy's name but said he was working with you on the Sinclair case. Does that mean anything to you?'

'Send her up,' Darby said.

40

Tina Sanders was ravaged by osteoporosis. Protruding from her back and hidden underneath the red fabric of a ratty down coat was the classic dowager's hump. The woman was hunched forward, her bony, gnarled fingers clutching the rubber grips of her walker. Her hair, tied up in rollers, was partially hidden underneath a blue silk scarf.

'Did you find Jenny?'

'Let's talk in the conference room,' Darby said.

Tina Sanders shuffled across the floor in her walker and black orthopaedic shoes. Darby held open the door. She had already left messages on Tim Bryson's cell and office voicemails asking him to call her immediately.

Darby helped the woman into a chair. Cigarette smoke was baked in her clothes and hair.

Hand shaking, Tina Sanders reached inside her purse. She came back with a folded piece of paper and placed it on the table.

The glossy 81/2?11 sheet contained a picture of a blonde woman with feathered hair – the same picture Darby had seen tacked to the rotted wall inside Sinclair.

'Where did you get this, Miss Sanders?'

'He left it in my mailbox.'

'Who left it in your mailbox?'

'The detective,' Tina Sanders said. 'He told me to come down here and find you. He said you knew what happened to Jenny.'

'What was this man's name?'

'I don't know. What's going on with Jenny? Did you find her body?'

'You'll have to forgive me, Miss Sanders, but I'm confused. Bear with me a moment.' Darby opened her notebook. 'First tell me how you got this photograph.'

The old woman struggled with her impatience. 'I got a call this morning. It was a man saying he was a detective from Boston. He said Darby McCormick from the Boston Crime Lab found out what happened to my daughter. I asked him what it was, and he told me to go out to my mailbox. That's where I found the picture. When I came back to the phone, he wasn't there, got disconnected or something. That's what happened. Now tell me about Jenny. What did you find?'

'Where do you live, Miss Sanders?'

'Belham Heights.'

Darby grew up in Belham and knew the Heights section well – triple-deckers with views of clotheslines fastened to porches and postage-stamp sized backyards separated by sagging chain-link fences.

'And this is your daughter in the picture.'

'I said that, what, six times now?' Tina Sanders removed a pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes from her purse.

'I'm sorry, Miss Sanders, but you can't smoke in here.'

'I just want to hold this.' She had turned the cigarette pack over; tucked underneath the cellophane was a gold crucifix. 'I've been praying for this moment for twenty-six years,' she said, voice breaking. 'I can't believe it's finally happening.'

'Tell me what happened to your daughter,' Darby said. 'Start at the beginning and take your time.'

41

On the evening of 18 September 1982, twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Sanders, a psychiatric nurse for the Sinclair Mental Health Facility, had left the hospital to meet her mother at a bridal store in downtown Boston. They were scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. and then have dinner.

By six, when Jennifer hadn't shown up at the bridal store, Tina figured her daughter, coming into the city from the North Shore, was stuck in traffic. There was no way for Jennifer to call and say she was going to be late. This was 1982, a time when cell phones were big, bulky expensive toys owned by the wealthy.

By 7:30 p.m., and with still no word from her daughter, Tina Sanders had grown nervous. Maybe Jennifer got into a fender bender. Maybe her car had crapped out and she had left to seek out a pay phone to call AAA. If that was the case, Jennifer would have called the store to let her mother know what had happened. Maybe she was in an accident. Maybe she was seriously hurt and on her way to the hospital.

Or maybe, Tina thought, Jenny had gotten the dates mixed up. Or maybe she had simply forgotten. Jenny was very forgetful lately. She worked long hours and was always tired. Jenny was under a lot of stress – planning for the wedding and possibly having to find another job. An electrical fire had destroyed part of Sinclair, and in the midst of the chaos of moving patients to other hospitals, there was constant talk that Sinclair might be forced to close its doors.