The Survivors Club

Chapter 9

“JILLIAN HAYES IS THE DE FACTO LEADER OF THE GROUP,” Fitz explained as he drove through the maze of narrow one-way streets that comprised East Side Providence. “Her sister was the third rape victim, a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Brown. She died during the attack of an anaphylactic reaction to latex.”

“I thought the victims were blood donors.”

Fitz slid him a sideways glance, obviously surprised Griffin knew that much. “One link discovered in the course of the investigation was that both the first victim, Meg Pesaturo, and the third victim, Trisha Hayes, had donated at campus blood drives in the weeks prior to the attacks.”

“So Trisha Hayes gave blood, even though she was allergic to latex?”

“Sure. According to Kathy Hammond, the phlebotomist who assisted Miss Hayes, Trisha informed her that she was latex-sensitive and Mrs. Hammond switched to vinyl gloves, following the Rhode Island Blood Center 's policy and procedures. Latex allergies are becoming more common, you know. Most hospitals, blood-donor centers, visiting nurse associations, etc., stock other kinds of gloves as well.”

“Do they note latex-sensitivity on the blood-donor card?”

Fitz understood where Griffin was going with this and regretfully shook his head. “No. Too bad, too. If we could've proven that Como had prior knowledge of Miss Hayes's allergy, we could've gone after him for murder. Instead, we had to settle for manslaughter.”

“Too bad,” Griffin agreed. He glanced idly at the side-view mirror, caught a glimpse of white and narrowed his eyes for closer scrutiny just as Fitz lurched the car forward.

“So,” Fitz was saying. “Jillian Hayes was supposed to meet her younger sister at seven for dinner, but was running late. She showed up around eight, entered the basement apartment and was promptly jumped from behind. Eddie beat the living shit out of her. Choked her with his bare hands. God knows how far he would've gone, except an upstairs neighbor was alerted by the noise and called the police. Eddie took off at the sound of sirens. Jillian dragged herself over to the bed, where she found her sister's body tied up with latex tourniquets.”

“That was his signature?”

“Yep, latex tourniquets, all three victims. He used ten ties, one for a gag, one for a blindfold, then two each for the wrists and ankles, forming a double noose that actually grew tighter when the victim struggled. If they relaxed, on the other hand… Let's just say Eddie had a keen sense of irony.”

“I assume after the neighbor's call, uniforms responded from all over and immediately canvassed the neighborhood. They never stumbled across a guy running from the scene?”

“Nope. But to be fair to the uniforms, we had no description. The only victim who caught a glimpse of the attacker was number two, Carol Rosen, and she says her room was too dark to get a good look. The first girl, Meg Pesaturo, doesn't even remember the attack, so she couldn't help. Trisha Hayes may have seen Eddie, but she never regained consciousness to give a statement. And her sister, Jillian, was attacked in a gloomy basement apartment, so she couldn't provide any details either. In other words, sure, we poured all sorts of manpower into the streets that night, but Eddie either holed up, or played it cool. No one ever stopped him.”

“Eddie Como sounds either very lucky or very smart,” Griffin muttered. He turned to Fitz. “Hey, see that white van four vehicles back? You know, the one with the satellite dish up top.”

Fitz glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yep.”

“I'm thinking that's the Channel Ten News van.”

Fitz studied it for a moment. “Oooooh,” he drawled. “I think you're right. Bringing your admirers with you, Sergeant Griffin?”

“Oh, I don't think it's me they're admiring. You were the one who led the College Hill Rapist case. Ergo, you're the one most likely to know where to find the women.”

“Ah shit. Little bloodsucking leeches. You'd think two corpses would be enough to keep them occupied. But no, you're probably right. They want to find one of the victims. Then they can stick a mike beneath her nose and say, ‘Hey, Victim Number Two, your rapist was just splattered all over the sidewalk. What are you going to do now? Fly to Disneyland?' Fuck.”

Without warning, Fitz flung the vehicle right. The Ford Taurus, technically the same vehicle Griffin drove but in Fitz's case considerably more abused, groaned in protest. Fitz ignored the creaking steering, shuddering shocks and his entire suspension system, gunning the engine as he shot up onto the curb, cut across the corner and landed hard on the cross street.

Griffin grabbed the dash for support, then glanced in the mirror. “Still got 'em.”

“That's what you think.” Fitz came to a narrow alleyway, jerked left, came to a parking lot, jerked right, then came back to a side street and shot left again. Impressive, Griffin thought. But then, like a great white shark, the van appeared again.

“Maureen, Maureen, Maureen,” Griffin murmured. “Feeling a little vindictive over the loss of your videotape?”

“I'm not leading any fuckin' reporter to my women,” Fitz growled. “No way, not on my watch.”

Griffin took that as a hint to grab the handle protruding from the roof. Good thing. Fitz hit the sirens, shot through a red light without the customary tap on the brake and about plowed into a garbage truck. Apparently not one to sweat near misses, he merely accelerated faster, rocketed through another red light, hung a left, sped four blocks, then hung a right before finally ducking into a parking space between two cars.

“That's gotta do it,” he said, breathing hard and fast. Both hands still gripped the wheel. He had a savage gleam in his eye.

For no reason at all, Griffin decided not to let go of the safety handle. “I don't see them anymore,” he commented.

“Keep looking.”

“Aye, aye, Kimosabe.”

“I hate reporters,” Fitz growled.

“Hey, isn't this People magazine?”

The magazine had slid out from underneath Griffin 's seat. Fitz reached over, snatched it off the floor and flung it into the back.

“I know, I know,” Griffin filled in for him. “You only buy it for the pictures.”

“Not the pictures,” Fitz said grumpily. “The crossword.”

They waited a few more minutes. When the news van still hadn't appeared, Fitz slowly pulled back into the street. Traffic was light here, the neighborhood quiet. In the good news department, they had left most of the madness of the downtown scene behind. In the bad news department, it would take them that much longer to get to their destination. Ah well. Quality time for bonding, Griffin was sure. He flexed his biceps, then rolled his neck.

“Now, where were we?” Fitz asked, finally relaxing at the wheel and picking up the threads of their earlier conversation.

“One amnesic victim, two others who couldn't see the rapist in the dark,” Griffin cued up. He turned toward Fitz curiously. “If you never had a physical description, how did you determine it was Como?”

“We didn't right away. You have to understand, this wasn't your typical investigation of a serial crime. Our first victim, Meg, was no help at all thanks to trauma-induced amnesia. She doesn't recall the attack, the day of the attack, or for that matter most of her life leading up to the attack-”

“Most of her life?” Griffin interrupted, baffled. “I thought trauma-induced amnesia was forgetting the trauma. How did she leap from blanking one bad night to blanking her whole entire life?”

Fitz shrugged. “How the hell do I know? Maybe Meg didn't like her whole life and this provided a good opportunity. Maybe her brain doesn't like to differentiate. Beats me. But her doctor swears her amnesia is legit, her parents say her amnesia is legit and she seems to think her amnesia is legit. God knows I've interviewed Meg about two dozen times over the last year and she hasn't slipped up yet. So if she's faking it, she's a damn good actress.”

“Huh,” Griffin said.

“Huh,” Fitz agreed. “Either way, Meg's condition made investigating the initial rape complaint difficult. We tried her roommate, Vickie, but all she knew was that when she came home at two A.M., Meg was mysteriously bound to her bed. Then we turned to trace evidence, which was equally unenlightening-no tool marks, no hair, no fiber, no fingerprints. In fact, at the end of attack number one, all we had was one confused college coed, one traumatized roommate, ten strips of latex and one DNA sample that yielded no hits in the sex-offenders database.”

“You follow up on the latex?”

“Of course I followed up on the latex. Only damn lead I had. I made the lab analyze chemical compositions, do brand comparisons, batch comparisons, look at the amount of latex powder used on each strip. Frankly, I learned way too fucking much about latex. And none of it did us any good. The way it's manufactured, there is no way to narrow down a batch or shipment number based on a handful of strips. Three weeks after the first attack, we had hit the wall. Case was dead, dead, and deader.”

“Oh yeah? What did Meg's Uncle Vinnie have to say about that?”

Fitz promptly laughed. “So you've heard about him. Uncle Vinnie's a funny guy. He came to my office one day. Wanted to know if I was holding back any information from the family. For example, I might already have a name in mind. And for instance, if I already had a name in mind, then he might have a name in mind, and his name might be able to take care of my name, without any taxpayer expense.”

“In his own way, Vinnie's a helpful guy.”

“Yeah,” Fitz agreed, then promptly sighed. “We probably need to pay Uncle Vinnie a visit. In all honesty, I didn't think of him as an advocate of sharpshooting. Rooftop snipers and courthouse assassinations attract a lot of attention, and I don't think Uncle Vinnie likes to attract attention. Personally, I was betting that someday, Eddie would enter the prison showers and suffer a little incident. You know, one involving someone else's prison shank and Eddie's liver. But hey, live and learn.”

“Live and learn,” Griffin agreed. He returned to the initial string of rapes, still trying to get a sense of that investigation and how they'd gone from one victim with amnesia to an arrest two months later. “Okay,” he said. “So after the first rape, you didn't have Eddie Como in mind. You didn't have anyone in mind.”

“After the first rape, we were chasing our tails. We went through the drill. Looked at past boyfriends, rattled the sex-offender tree-who had been recently released from the ACI, who might live in the area, etc., etc. Frankly, Meg didn't date much, and all the known perverts were doing other perversions at the time. Probably watching Sex and the City on HBO. None of them go out as much now that they have cable.”

“But then came the attack on the East Side.”

“Right. Four weeks after the Pesaturo rape came the attack on the East Side.”

“Quite a different neighborhood,” Griffin observed.

“It's also a college area,” Fitz said, but then shook his head. “Yeah, attack number two had some key differences. Carol Rosen's a forty-two-year-old housewife, not a college coed. She lives with her husband in an old Victorian house, which isn't exactly the same as a college apartment. Finally, and this is probably the most significant difference, the level of violence was way up. According to the sexual assault nurse, Meg Pesaturo suffered only vaginal penetration, with minor lacerations on her wrists, ankles and mouth from the tourniquets. No sign of beating, and more importantly, no bruising around her throat. With Meg, Eddie apparently got in, got it done and got out.

“Carol Rosen, on the other hand, suffered vaginal and anal penetration. She had bruises on her breasts and buttocks, multiple contusions on her face, multiple lacerations on the inside of her thighs, plus he started flirting with asphyxiation, squeezing her throat so hard he left bruises from his fingertips. He also tied her up so tightly that she still has scars on her wrists and ankles. On a relative scale of things, Meg was lucky. Carol was not.”

“But you're sure it's the same guy?”

“Ten latex strips,” Fitz said. “One DNA sample. Oh yeah, it was Eddie again.”

“And where was the husband through all this?”

“Dan Rosen works as an attorney, corporate stuff. He just opened his own practice a few years ago and keeps long hours. He didn't get home until after midnight, which was when he discovered his wife tied to their bed. We called in uniforms, we tried a canvass, but once again we had no description and once again we had no luck.”

Griffin frowned. “Wait a minute. The first victim has a roommate who just happens to work that night, second victim has a husband who also happens to work late. Does this mean what I think it means?”

“We think he watched the victims beforehand,” Fitz agreed. “He targeted them at the blood drives, then he spent some time doing his homework, hence the lapse of time between when he first saw them and when he attacked. Now, this theory works well when we look at Meg and Trish, who were blood donors. We get in trouble with Carol Rosen, however, because she didn't actually participate in any blood drives. In her case, we think she was a last-minute substitute. A pretty brunette college student who fits Eddie's ‘type' lived just one block away. She'd donated blood during the campus drive, and she remembers someone ringing the buzzer of her apartment that night. She wasn't expecting anyone, though, so she refused to open the door. Good news for her. Not so good for Carol.”

“That doesn't explain the husband being gone,” Griffin pressed.

“Hey, you think I have all the answers to life? Maybe in the course of watching the brunette, Eddie also noticed that Carol Rosen pretty much lived alone. Maybe he simply saw Carol's open bedroom window, conveniently located above the wraparound porch, and decided to go for it. He was hungry. He'd psyched himself up for a big meal and then lo and behold, he'd been denied service. Besides, Eddie was capable of lifting two hundred pounds. Climbing onto a porch overhang was probably nothing to him. And if the woman's husband was also at home… Eddie probably figured he could handle it. After all, it's late at night, and he's got a little bit of adrenaline firing through his veins…”

“Which he then took out on Mrs. Rosen. So maybe Como was very unhappy at having to change plans. Or maybe he was building to something more.”

“Maybe.” Fitz slanted Griffin a look. “Jillian Hayes was also beaten very badly. Not her sister, but then again, Jillian interrupted that party. I don't know. It seemed to me after Carol Rosen's attack that we had a sexual predator with a rapidly escalating penchant for violence. And I thought… I thought if we didn't catch the guy soon, we'd end up with someone dead. Unfortunately, that day came before even I expected. Eddie Como attacked Trisha Hayes just two weeks later. The guy took hardly any time off at all.”

Griffin nodded grimly. “Too bad.”

“Yeah,” the Providence detective said gruffly. “Too bad.”

“So how did you finally determine the perpetrator was Eddie Como?”

“Process of elimination. Once we homed in on the blood-donor angle, we got a list of names from the Rhode Island Blood Center of who worked the relevant blood drives. Lucky for us, the majority of phlebotomists are female. So once we focused on the males we were looking at only ten suspects. Then we started pushing.” Fitz rattled off on his fingers. “One, Eddie had access to two of the victims' home addresses, plus plenty of latex tourniquets. Two, while Eddie's not the biggest guy you'll ever meet, he's shockingly strong. Used to be a champion wrestler in high school and still likes to work out with weights. Eddie is… was… five eight and one hundred fifty pounds, but he could bench-press over two hundred. Let's face it, that's someone with some muscle. Of course, once we got a DNA sample from him, that cinched it.”

“How'd you get the sample?”

“We asked.”

Griffin stared at him. “You asked, and he just gave it to you? No lawyering up? No pleading the fifth? No claiming illegal search and seizure?”

From behind the steering wheel, Fitz smiled. It was a predator's smile. “Let me tell you something else about the rapes that very few people know. Eddie thought he was smart. In fact, Eddie thought he was so smart that in fact he was dumb, but now I'm getting ahead of myself. See, Eddie had a book on forensics. Apparently, he'd bought it on-line and thought it made him a bit of an expert. He was pretty good at a lot of it. Three rapes later, we had no hair, no fiber, no fingerprints. Not even tool marks. We think he used social engineering, because in none of the attacks did we find any evidence of breaking and entering. So okay, the kid did all right. But he made one mistake.”

“No condom?”

“No condom. He thought he had a better idea. Berkely and Johnson's Disposable Douche with Country Flowers.”

“What?”

“Yeah, exactly. See, Eddie had been following the Motyka case-we found newspaper articles of that trial in his apartment. Do you remember the Motyka case?”

Griffin had to think about it. “Tiverton, right? Some handyman who had been doing work on a woman's house broke back in, raped her, murdered her, then put her body in a bathtub.”

“Yeah. During the trial, the prosecutor argued that Motyka thought immersing the body in water would wash away the semen. Of course it didn't, they matched the sample to him, and now he's spending the rest of his life behind bars. Because semen goes up in the body. Because you need more than simple bathwater to wash it out.”

“Something like a douche,” Griffin filled in.

“That's what Eddie believed. But he wasn't thinking straight. Sure, a douche can wash out a lot of the semen, but it's just rinsing it onto the sheet. And when we process a rape case, we don't just collect samples from the victim, we also collect samples from the sheet. A couple of lab tests later…”

“So Como thinks he's come up with the perfect way of beating DNA, hence he's not worried about providing a sample, but oops, he's not so good after all.”

Fitz nodded. “There you have it.”

“That's not a bad plan,” Griffin said honestly. “He have any priors?”

“Nope.”

“History of violence with girlfriends?”

“Nope. In fact, his girlfriend was going to be the primary witness for the defense. She claims Eddie's really a kindhearted, sensitive guy who wouldn't hurt a flea, plus she was with him the nights there were attacks.”

“He had an alibi?” Griffin asked with surprise.

Fitz rolled his eyes. “No, he had a pregnant girlfriend who wasn't interested in the father of her child ending up behind bars. Trust me, we looked into it. We never found another witness who could corroborate seeing Eddie at home those nights. Plus, we still had the DNA. If Eddie was really watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, then how did his DNA end up at not one, or two, but three crime scenes?”

Griffin bobbed his head from side to side. Fitz had a point. “So the big break came when you made the connection with the blood drives?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes. Okay, now he had it. “And this club, the Survivors Club, they helped you with that.”

“Jillian Hayes knew her sister had donated two weeks before the attack. She mentioned it because of the latex strips. We went back to check, and sure enough, good ol' amnesiac Meg had also donated one month prior to being raped. That was the first link we had between the victims. And yeah, everything finally fell into place after that.”

Fitz pulled the car over and parked next to the curb. “We're here,” he said.

Griffin looked out the window. They had arrived at the rue de l'espoir, a chic little café on Hope Street. Cindy had liked rue de l'espoir. Griffin, on the other hand, preferred its next-door neighbor, Big Alice's, which served the city's best ice cream.

Fitz cut the engine. Now that they were here, he was back to looking uptight, a territorial detective claiming his turf. “Here are the ground rules,” he announced. “As the youngest and quietest, Meg's the weakest member of the group. She also knows the least, so pressuring her doesn't do any good. Carol's the most prone to outbursts. I don't think she's dealing so well with the attack, and I get the impression it hasn't done wonders for her marriage. If we play our cards right, we might get something out of her. But here's the kicker. Jillian runs this show. She organized the group, she dictates the agenda. And she-if you'll pardon the phrase-has balls of steel. Piss her off, and the interview's done. She'll clam up, they'll clam up and we'll all end up wasting our time. So the name of the game is prodding just enough to make Carol say something before Jillian gets fed up and sends us packing.”

“You're anticipating an antagonistic interview.” Which was interesting, because Fitz supposedly had a rapport with these women. After a year of working their cases, he was their police guardian, protector, friend.

“I think these women won't be losing any sleep over Eddie Como's murder,” Fitz said carefully. “And I think, even if they are completely innocent, they won't care for any investigation into the events surrounding his death. Eddie Como… he was scum. Now he's dead scum. How much are any of us supposed to care?”

“Do you think one of them hired the shooter?” Griffin asked bluntly.

Fitz sighed. “None of them are proficient with firearms,” he said finally. “If they wanted Eddie dead, they would require outside help.”

“But do you think they are capable of ordering a hit?”

Fitz hesitated again. “I think they're rape survivors. And as rape survivors, they are capable of many things they never thought of before.”

“Even killing a man?”

“Wouldn't you? Come on.” Fitz popped open his door. “Let's get moving while we're still one step ahead of the press.”