Billy seemed distracted. “Like how?”
“Like wiping away any trace of a specific call. Making it look like that call never happened.”
“What’s a cattle prod?”
“What?”
“Sorry, man. Jeopardy question.”
“Do me a fucking favor and focus,” Blackburn said.
“Yeah, yeah. You want to know if it’s possible to sanitize a cell phone record, right?”
Blackburn sighed. “Yes.”
“As long as the company’s network is accessible, then yeah, it’s possible. They try to wire in all kinds of security protections, firewalls and such, but an enterprising hacker can worm his way through all that bullshit and do just about anything he wants. How do you think we ended up with our last president?”
“And he could erase just one or two entries?”
“Sure,” Billy said. “He could add some too. Hell, he could throw in the latest Bruins-Trojans score if he wanted to.” Another pause, then, “So does that answer your question, man? I’ve got a game to get back to.”
Blackburn told him it did and hung up, thinking again about the events of the day. Tolan had said that Vincent threatened him, believing he’d been used as a scapegoat for the wife’s murder.
So was it possible that Vincent had erased those threats from the record? The use of an untraceable server for the website photos indicated at least some skill with computers.
Could Vincent be pulling a reverse whammy on Tolan?
If you looked at it that way, it all started to hang together.
Something like this:
Tolan somehow comes across the secret of the emoticon. If not through Soren or Jane Doe, then directly from Hastert, whom he may have treated at County General. Soren had said Tolan didn’t do much pro bono work, but that didn’t negate the possibility.
A few months after Abby Tolan is murdered — reportedly Vincent’s eighth victim — Hastert and his buddy Janovic put it all together and finger Tolan, threatening to expose him. Tolan gets tired of draining his bank account and does what has to be done. He kills them both, again making it look like a serial perp at work.
Vincent, in the meantime — the real Vincent — uses the anniversary of the wife’s death to get even with Tolan for stealing his thunder. Instead of simply giving credit where credit is due, why not let Tolan take the fall for all of the murders? Why not frame a guilty man?
The question was, how did Carmody fit in?
Was she part of the frame?
One last victim to help seal the deal?
Blackburn felt sick. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to believe that the ear in that bag was Carmody’s, yet there was no denying that ruby birthstone.
But maybe he was wrong.
Please, God, let him be wrong.
Popping open the glove compartment, he sent up a small prayer that whoever drove this car last had been a smoker and had left behind his stash.
Miracle of miracles, he found a crumpled pack of Winstons inside, one lonely, battered cigarette still in the pack. Shaking it out, he stuck it in his mouth, pressed the in-dash lighter, waited for it to pop out, then fired up the Winston.
The smoke in his lungs felt wonderful.
52
“Alive? Why would you say something like that?”
“Because it’s true,” Lisa said. “Abby’s alive. What you saw in that room today was real. Every bit of it. Just like the old man said.”
“What is your obsession with this old man?”
Then it hit him. Something Blackburn had mentioned early this morning about an old homeless coot claiming he knew Jane Doe. Could this be the old man she was talking about?
“You have to believe me, Michael. I saw it with my own eyes. I knew it was all true the minute Cassie showed me the tattoo.”
“What tattoo?”
“The Hello Kitty tattoo.”
“On Jane’s shoulder?”
“The one that used to be there. Cassie showed me the observation tapes. It was like a special effect from a movie. We saw it fade right before our eyes. I think Cassie was ready for a nice tall drink after that.”
Tolan felt the flesh on his head prickle.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re telling me the Hello Kitty tattoo is gone? Completely gone?”
Lisa nodded. “Just like the needle marks, the eyes, and everything else you saw.”
No, Tolan thought. It couldn’t be right. This kind of nonsense went against everything he believed in.
But hadn’t Clay reported a case of heterochromia? Hadn’t Cassie confirmed the change in Jane’s eyes? Hadn’t Blackburn claimed he’d seen the needle marks? Hadn’t Jane sung that goddamn song?
Mama got trouble
Mama got sin
Mama got bills to pay again
Tolan had thought he was losing his mind, but if Cassie and Blackburn and Lisa and Clay had also seen these things, was it possible that Lisa was right? That his delusion was not a delusion at all?
“It’s her, Michael. It’s Abby. She’s a borrower. Un emprenteuse.”
“A what?”
“It’s what the old man called her. She’s come back from the dead, and borrowed a friend’s body to do it.”
Tolan tried to grasp this idea, but couldn’t get past the absurdity of it. He’d spent his life looking for rational answers to people’s problems, looking for ways to explain away their delusions and their superstitions. Yet despite this resistance, part of him wanted to believe. Could it really be Abby lying on that hospital bed?
“Why?” he said. “Why would she want to come back?”
“Why do you think? She’s not here for a glorious reunion. You killed her, Michael. You butchered her.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe it, I—”
“Stop it. You know it’s true.”
“Then why can’t I remember? Why can’t I remember any of them? Abby. Anna. Carmody.”
“Because you’ve blocked it. Just like your…” She paused, looking up sharply. “What was that? Did you hear that?”
He had no idea what she was talking about.
“It sounded like a cell phone ringing. I thought I heard it before.”
She popped open her door and climbed out, moving around the front of the car. Tolan opened his own door and joined her.
She pointed toward the forest of pepper trees. “It came from in there.”
Tolan stared into the darkness, but his mind was somewhere else. All he could think about was Abby. His Abby. Lying on that hospital bed.
“I don’t hear it now. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.” Lisa turned, looking toward the trunk of the car. “We’d better get that body inside. There’s an old incinerator in the basement. We can hide her in there.”
But Tolan wasn’t listening. He started for the pepper trees. “I have to go to Abby. I have to make it right.”
As if in response to this, the wind kicked up, rustling the leaves, whistling in the black windows and doorways of the old hospital.
Lisa grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
“I have to go to her. She came here for me.”
“What you have to do is help me with this body or neither of us is going anywhere.”
“No,” he said, wrenching free. “She needs me.”
“She doesn’t need you, Michael. She wants to kill you.”
“I don’t care,” he said, starting for the trees again. “I have to see her. I have to make it right.”
“Stop, Michael! It’s too late.”
He stopped dead then and turned, dread once again filling his gut. “What do you mean it’s too late? What did you do?”