The Missing

Chapter 28

By noon, Darby had learned most of the facts on Rachel Swanson's disappearance.

In the early morning hours of New Year's Day, 2001, twenty-three-year-old Rachel Swanson said good-bye to her close friends in Nashua, New Hampshire, and made the hour's drive back to the Durham, to the house she had recently moved into with her boyfriend, Chad Bernstein, who had skipped the party because he was ill. Lisa Dingle, a neighbor returning home from her own New Year's Eve celebration, saw Rachel's Honda Accord pull into the driveway sometime around two a.m. Rachel waved to her neighbor and entered through the side door of her house.

An hour later, Dingle, an insomniac, was still up reading in bed when she heard a car start. She glanced up from her book and saw Chad Bernstein's black BMW backing out of the driveway.

Five days later, when Lisa Dingle learned that both Bernstein and his girlfriend were missing, she called the police.

Police focused their attention on Bernstein. The thirty-six-year-old software engineer had been previously married, and the ex-wife was all too willing to tell police the stories about her former husband's physical abuse. She knew her ex was capable of hurting a woman, and the police knew it, too. The former wife had called 911 three times. During their last argument, Chad had pulled a knife and threatened to kill her.

Bernstein traveled extensively around the country for business. Three times a year he visited his office's London branch. A thorough investigation of Bernstein's house failed to produce his passport. The BMW was never found.

At quarter to one, the New Hampshire state lab faxed over the evidence report from the case. There was no sign of a forced entry, but boot prints were discovered in a flower bed outside one of the back windows – a man's boot print, size eleven. A mold of the footwear impression was taken, and the forensics technician Darby spoke to promised to send out a comparison sample via FedEx later today.

'So instead of shooting Chad Bernstein, our guy abducts the boyfriend,' Coop told Darby. They were jogging through the Public Garden, having decided to take advantage of the unusually warm fall weather and clear their heads. 'The question before us is why.'

'It makes the pattern less noticeable,' Darby said. 'Plus this guy is smart enough to abduct women from different states, so when a detective gets on NCIC or VICAP, he can't find a common denominator except missing women – and women disappear all the time, right?'

'And he mixes up the pattern at the crime scenes. Terry Mastrangelo was abducted outside of her house. Rachel Swanson was grabbed when she came home, and then he took her and her boyfriend somewhere. Then our guy goes inside Carol Cranmore's house, shoots the boyfriend and leaves with her.'

'If Rachel Swanson hadn't escaped, we'd be looking in all the wrong places.'

'You know what I keep wondering? How long has he been doing this?'

'We know he's been doing it for at least five years,' Darby said. 'Now we've got to figure out what he's using these women for. I'm hoping the blood from the house finds a match on CODIS.'

'I keep playing around with those letters you found on Rachel Swanson's wrist. I can't see the pattern. Any new thoughts?'

'Nothing beyond what I told you before about it being directions for something.'

They jogged up a set of stairs and then ran over the bridge overlooking the swan boats, heading toward the Common. Darby had to run fast to keep up.

Twenty minutes later, Darby spotted a hot dog cart and stopped running. 'I need to eat something before I pass out,' she said. 'You want anything?'

'I'll take a bottle of water.'

While she ordered a chili dog loaded with onions and a Coke, Coop made small talk with a female jogger dressed in very tight spandex. Darby noticed two professionally dressed women eating their lunch on a bench; they were staring at Coop. Darby wondered if Carol's abductor had done that, had sat on a bench somewhere like the Public Garden, waiting for someone to catch his eye.

Was it as simple as that? Darby hoped the selection process wasn't some random intersection. She very much wanted to believe all three women shared one single common denominator.

Darby handed Coop his water. A moment later, he joined her on a bench set up across from rows of colorful mums arranged around a water fountain.

'You know what's missing from this hot dog?' Darby said.

'Real meat?'

'No, Fritos.'

'The stuff you eat, it's amazing you don't have an ass the size of an elephant.'

'You're right, Coop. Maybe I should just eat heads of lettuce like your last girlfriend. It was great when she passed out at the Christmas party.'

'I told her she should splurge and have some ranch dressing with her celery sticks.'

'Seriously, do you ever feel guilty for being so shallow?'

'Yes. I cry myself to sleep every night.' Coop shut his eyes and leaned back against the bench to soak up the last of the afternoon sun.

Darby shook her head. She gathered up her trash and brought it over to the garbage can.

'Excuse me.' It was the good-looking blonde Coop had been speaking to a few minutes ago. 'I hope you don't think this is too forward of me, but that guy you're sitting with, is he your boyfriend?'

Darby finished chewing. 'He was until he came out of the closet,' she said.

'Why are all the good-looking guys gay?'

'It was for the best anyway. The man is hung like a cocktail weiner. His name is Jackson Cooper, lives in Charlestown. Warn all your friends.'

Coop was eyeing Darby when she came back. 'What were you two talking about?'

'She was asking for directions to Cheers.'

'Darb, you grew up in Belham.'

'Unfortunately, yes.'

'You remember the Summer of Fear?'

She nodded. 'Victor Grady made six women disappear that summer.'

'One of his victims was from Charlestown, this girl named Pamela Driscol,' Coop said. 'She was friends with my sister Kim. They were at some party one night, and Pam walked home and vanished. Pam was… She was just this really nice person. Very shy. She used to cover her mouth when she laughed because she had an overbite. Every time she came over she brought me a Hershey's Kiss. I can still remember her sitting in my sister's bedroom, listening to Duran Duran records and giggling about how cute Simon LeBon was.'

'I thought the bass player was better looking.'

'He didn't do it for me.' Coop's face turned serious. 'When Pam disappeared, everyone in town thought we had a boogeyman prowling around at night. My mother was so paranoid, she made my sisters move up to the second floor. She wanted an alarm system, but we couldn't afford one, so she convinced my old man to change all the locks on the house and install some extra deadbolts. Sometimes at night I'd wake up and hear a noise, and it would be my mother running around downstairs making sure the doors and windows were locked. My sisters wouldn't walk anywhere alone. Not that they could. Charlestown had instituted a curfew because ofwhat happened to Pam.'

Coop wiped the sweat from his face. 'Wasn't one of Grady's victims from Belham?'

'There were two,' Darby said. 'Melanie Cruz and Stacey Stephens.'

'Did you know them?'

'We went to school together. I was friends with Melanie – good friends.'

'So you know what I'm talking about,' Coop said. 'That's what this case reminds me of, that same kind of fear.'

They jogged back to the station and hit the showers. Darby was drying her hair when her cell phone rang. The caller was Dr Hathcock from Mass General. It was difficult to hear her over the screaming.

'What did you say?' Darby asked.

'I said Jane Doe just woke up. She's yelling for someone named Terry.'