18

Till had wasted much of his night driving around Boston searching for the white Toyota Camry. He had stayed out until the news at seven a.m. announced that a young woman had been found dead in a field south of Boston. The description was clearly that of Kelly.

The only train of thought that seemed plausible was to return to the speculation that the Boyfriend was doing something else besides killing hookers. And judging from his behavior and talents, there was only one really likely thing he could be doing.

Till used his cell phone and dialed the number of Detective Alan Rafferty. He listened to the ringing sound for a few seconds, and then heard a sound like a door opening. “Vice, Rafferty.”

Till said, “Detective Rafferty, my name is Jack Till. Ted McCann in Los Angeles gave me your number.”

“Yeah, he called me and said you might be getting in touch.”

“Did he tell you anything about my case?”

“Some. He said you were trying to hunt down a guy who had been killing and robbing redhead escorts. Is that right?”

“Yes. The parents of the one who was killed in LA hired me. When I checked with Ted to find out if this was a onetime thing or a pattern, he had a list of five in other cities who fit our girl’s description and had been shot with a nine-millimeter pistol.”

“You’re calling about the one here last night. Joelle Moody.”

“Uh, I thought her name was Kelly Allen.”

“Yeah, that was her work name. Same girl. Long reddish hair, shot in the head with a nine-millimeter pistol.”

“The shooter was the man I’ve been following across the country. When I realized he was living with Kelly Allen in Woburn, I tried to warn her. I went to her apartment, and showed her the pictures of the seven murdered girls. They all looked a lot like her. They all had strawberry blond hair. Three of them had been wearing the same custom-made necklace in their online ads that she’d worn. I thought I’d persuaded her to run, but then he drove up, and she ran to join him. Now she’s dead.”

“If she ran to him and joined him, why kill her?”

“That’s part of what I’ve figured out. What the girl does or doesn’t do doesn’t matter. He always kills them, and then leaves town. I thought at first it was a compulsion, that he was one of those guys who get so disgusted with themselves for going to a prostitute that the girl has to be eliminated along with the sin. Then I thought he was so bat-shit crazy that he got off on killing them. But now I think it’s a policy. I think he kills them to keep them from talking about him.”

“What’s he doing that they could talk about?”

“I’ve tried looking at all the dates when girls were killed. I checked the papers in the cities where they died to see what else made the news in the next day or two. The only things I’ve found are high-profile murders, each one done right before the girl dies. I think he might be a contract killer.”

“If he’s a pro, and he knows from the start that he’s going to have to kill the girl before he leaves town, why does he want them to begin with?”

“At first I assumed his main interest in the girls was stealing their money. That’s got to be fairly profitable, since they’re all pretty enough to make a lot of money over time. And they’re not likely to put much of the money in a bank, where it would be reported to the IRS. So he takes the money. That makes it look to the police like the killing is a by-product of the robbery. It isn’t. He kills them because they know who he is, when he got to town, and how long he’s been around.”

“I’m not sure about this.”

“I’ve been tracking him. Whenever he comes into a new town, he almost immediately hooks up with one of these girls, and moves in with her. That means during the month or two it takes to prepare for his contract killing, he doesn’t need a hotel, has no need to use credit cards, no need to fill out a rental agreement. He’s got the cash he stole from the last girl, so he deals only in cash. If he wants to keep his car out of sight, he can leave it in a garage and use her car. Most escorts use false names and move from town to town, so not only does nobody know him, they don’t really even know her. If, when he leaves, the girl is dead, nobody in town knows he even exists. He cleans the apartment, and tries to remove all prints. If he left fingerprints, they’re in a room that’s been visited by a hundred other men a month.”

“Okay, suppose that’s all true,” Rafferty said. “What’s going on today? What’s he doing now—running?”

“If he killed Kelly prematurely, before he did his hit, then I’d say he’s getting ready to do it now,” said Till. “I want you to help me stop him.”

“How?”

“You must have people in the department you can talk to. Get any inside info you can on anybody that’s a good target for the next day or two. Some gangster in this part of the country is going on trial, or some company is about to enter a bidding war, or a rich family is having a wedding. Whatever. We’ve got to concentrate on anything that’s only going to happen once.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Can I give you my phone number?”

“McCann gave it to me already. Just keep your phone on.”

Till read newspapers, read local magazines, and signed onto Web sites that purported to have detailed calendars of events for the Boston area. He thought, We are looking for a victim who may be vulnerable for today only. Or a victim who is about to do something—perform or testify or abscond or deliver. If it’s a secret, or the person isn’t well-known, we won’t find it.

As Till searched, he found so many possibilities that the task seemed impossible. David Farraday was filming a modern version of Charley’s Aunt at Dunster House with exteriors in Harvard Yard. Apparently Farraday was an up-and-coming actor. Till saved the article. He could easily imagine a creep asking a movie company for a payoff or he’d kill some movie star, but he couldn’t imagine the creep hiring a professional hit man to kill the star if the company didn’t pay.

He saw an article about Nobel Prize winners who were or had been at MIT. He went online to see how many of them were living, and he was astounded. The answer was nine faculty members, nine former faculty members, five emeritus faculty members, one student, fourteen former staff members, and twenty alumni. He knew there was some remote possibility that somebody would want to kill a Nobelist. But if that was going on, the victim was as good as dead. Unless they were all going to be at a party today, Till couldn’t find a way to protect the intended target.

There were two well-known rock bands and a solo female singer appearing in Boston this evening. He noted the locations and kept searching.

The time was going by. He could see it always on the upper right of his computer screen as he searched. He wondered if he should be using the time to persuade some deputy chief in the Boston Police Department that a full-scale alert should be declared. Just having more cops on the street might not help, but it wouldn’t hurt, either.

He searched for the heads of various companies in the Boston area. A few of them had controversial histories or products. He saved the ones accused of some environmental crime. There were extremist groups who might raise hell, but so far none had ever hired a shooter. The executives who had ordered big layoffs or were flamboyant about their riches he saved too, but he didn’t have much confidence. The way to get to their money was kidnapping or extortion, not murder.

After a half hour he got to the one he had been expecting at the beginning. It was Joseph A. Peccorino, who was reputed to be the current head of the Mafia in Boston. He was a great candidate, but he had been under surveillance for years. On the days when he wasn’t being questioned, arrested, or brought to court, he was probably surrounded by FBI agents who were trying to eavesdrop on him. There wasn’t much Till could do that wasn’t already being done.

Till tried politicians, starting with the mayor because he was based in Boston rather than in Washington. He found that an announcement had been posted only five minutes ago. This afternoon Mayor William Meisterberg would be at a press conference to welcome a Mexican federal prosecutor, Luis Salazar, for a joint discussion of the paths of drug trafficking into the northeastern United States.

He closed the laptop and headed out of the hotel room, reaching for his cell phone. The visit of the Mexican federal prosecutor might not be the right event, but it was the only one he’d found that included a man a lot of people would pay to see dead. Till figured he might as well wait at City Hall Plaza for whatever Rafferty found out.