Last Night, page 18
Conor’s Major Crime Squad had raided nail salons where women were being held against their will, forced to work off the debt they owed to their human smugglers—payment for bringing them into the United States from their countries of origin. Their work didn’t stop at the salon doors; it often took them to darker places where they were expected to have sex with whoever would pay.
Many of the women Conor had rescued gave off the impression that their lives had already ended. Dead eyes, an unwillingness to testify, no desire to return home. To go home would be to reveal what they felt about themselves, what they felt they had become. Traffickers most often subdued their victims by creating drug addiction. Heroin, meth, fentanyl. The drugs killed the pain. They also killed the spirit.
Conor hadn’t encountered them often, but the worst cases involved trafficked children. Kids whose tearful parents appeared on the news, holding up school photos, begging for whoever had their child to return them.
Police departments had media experts and victim advocates who always advised parents willing to go on air to stress the child’s name, to humanize them, mention their Little League prowess, their dreams of college, tell how they loved their puppy or kitten, in the hope that such details would soften the kidnappers’ hearts, allow the beloved child to return home.
But to the kidnapper, the trafficker, the child was just merchandise. Someone would buy them, and there would be no going home. Conor knew that Joe was thinking the same thing, that Grub’s words about money might mean this could be CeCe’s fate.
“What is Zane saying?” Conor asked. “Has he asked for a lawyer?”
“No, he hasn’t. He’s saying he doesn’t know anything. He claims he never heard of Cecelia Lafond before seeing her on the news. That she was never in his house, but if she was, his son must have brought her here.”
“Nice equivocation.”
“Yeah, I almost feel sorry for his kid. Except the fact he’s probably got CeCe with him.”
“Look, I don’t know the Garsons, but Tom does. He’s had lots of experience with both Zane and his brother. Ronnie might take her there, to Grub’s.”
“We know Grub,” Joe said. “If the two of them are in it together, Grub’s calling the shots. He’s the older one, and we’ve had plenty of run-ins with him. He’s the leader of the duo. He lets Zane think he runs the fishing operation, but actually he just lets him do the grunt work. He sits in the office where it’s safe and warm.”
“Doing what?” Conor asked. “Selling CeCe? Can you get over there?”
“I’ve already said the Feds have taken control of that part of things; they’re probably already at the house.”
“Don’t you want to be there?”
“There’s plenty else for me to do.”
“You’re going to test that hair? The blood? Prove that she was here?”
“Jeez, what a good idea! Thanks for suggesting it,” Joe said. “What do you think? Of course they’ll be tested. And don’t worry—I know you found them. You’ll get the secret glory.”
Secret glory. Conor knew what that meant. The FBI would claim success when the blood on the wall and in the sea chest came back as CeCe’s, and so would the Rhode Island State Police. As it should be.
“We’re holding Zane, we’ll find out how this all started.” Joe paused. “The main problem is the fact he was on a sinking ship when CeCe was taken gives him an alibi. Your brother’s a witness to that.”
“And he’s laying the groundwork to blame his son for it,” Conor said.
“Ronnie’s what, fifteen?” Joe asked.
“What difference does age make? We’ve both dealt with teenage killers,” Conor said. “Or maybe Grub killed Maddie. But then how did Ronnie wind up with CeCe? If the point was to traffic her, Grub would have just taken her with him.”
“It’s premature to say for sure, but I hear multiple people will alibi Grub.”
“What, a blizzard party?”
Joe shrugged. “Not sure it started out that way, but word is he was at the Magellan Club. A lot of fishermen, seafood industry people hang out there. Sailors. Locals. Even cops. I go there for the fish fry on Fridays during Lent. Great bar.”
“Okay,” Conor said. “Would his buddies lie for him?”
“Some might,” Joe said. “We’ll find out. But for now it sounds as if he wasn’t in Watch Hill.”
Conor pictured the beach path where he and Kate had come upon Hadley with Maddie’s body. Zane had been on his foundering fishing boat. Grub might have an alibi, too. Yet a Garson key ring had been found at the scene, and Conor had no doubt that CeCe had been in Zane’s house not even an hour ago.
“It doesn’t track,” Conor said. “It wasn’t a crime of opportunity—the killer didn’t just stumble on a random victim in freezing temperatures and snow blowing sideways. It wasn’t a sexual assault. It wasn’t a robbery—Maddie was still wearing her Rolex watch. She wasn’t related to the Garsons . . .” Conor trailed off. “Was she?”
“Madeleine Morrison related to Zane and Grub Garson? Ronnie?” Joe asked. “Um, no. Well, not that I know of. But we’ll check. Maybe they thought they were in line to inherit.” He paused, looked into Conor’s eyes. “Come on. We are not talking brain trusts here. Whatever happened can’t be that complicated. We just have to get one of them to break. It’ll all come spilling out. You and I can both feel Zane wanting to throw his son to the wolves.”
“And you’re the alpha wolf,” Conor said.
“Patrick and I are duking that out, but yeah, I am. Quit messing up my crime scene and my case. I’ll call you when I know something,” Joe said.
“Appreciate that,” Conor said.
He stepped over the yellow crime-scene tape and walked toward Tom’s truck, parked by the dock.
“How bad is Grub Garson?” Conor asked when he climbed in.
“Depends on what you mean by that. Like I told you, he’s poached other lobstermen’s pots, cut lines. He fished for SG back in the day, but that was a long time ago, and now pot’s legal,” Tom said.
“On a large scale? Was he ever convicted for it?” Conor asked. He knew that SG stood for square grouper—bales of marijuana or cocaine, wrapped in plastic and thrown overboard or out of planes by smugglers, waiting to be picked up by local contacts. They had been more prevalent in the eighties, and mostly in southern waters. Conor once had a case in which one smuggler had shot and killed another over a shipment. The trade came with violence and a kind of cowboy recklessness.
“He was arrested but never convicted,” Tom said. “He insulated himself pretty well, threw the blame at another lobster fisherman who disappeared before trial.”
“Was he ever found?” Conor asked.
Tom shook his head. “No. We don’t know if he went overboard tied to an anchor or if he managed to start a new life in the islands. Rumors fly, but no proof.”
Conor thought about that. The Garsons seemed adept at shifting responsibility, and they didn’t shy from violence, even murder.
“Would Grub sell a child?” Conor asked.
Tom was silent for minute.
“Is there a chance he’s into trafficking?” Conor asked.
“Jesus,” Tom said. “I don’t want to believe anyone could do that to CeCe, but with Grub . . .” He paused for a second. “It’s possible, Conor.”
Then Tom put the truck in gear and drove out of the parking lot. Without him saying anything, and despite Joe’s warning, Conor knew that his brother was driving them toward Grub Garson’s.
32
“That snowball hurt,” Ronnie said.
“Sorry,” CeCe said.
“Why are you saying sorry?”
“Because it’s not nice to hurt people,” she said.
“Yeah, but I hurt you,” he said. “You were just fighting back.”
It was true—he had hurt her. Her broken tooth, from when his father had shoved her into the box, had cut her lip when she had fallen in the snow. It kept scraping her tongue. She wondered if she would get in trouble for writing on the wall with her blood. She knew she wasn’t bad, but things were mixing her up. She thought of the rules, how she was supposed to obey them, and how if she didn’t, Ronnie’s father would kill her father and aunt.
“Where are we going now?” she asked. She almost didn’t care, as long as it was away from Ronnie’s father.
“You’ll see,” Ronnie said.
“To your uncle’s?” she asked.
“Thanks for the reminder; I should let him know we’re almost there,” Ronnie said.
He hadn’t had his cell phone when they were trapped in his car during the blizzard, but he must have found it in his house, because he pulled it from his jacket pocket and dialed. He put the call on speaker, and CeCe heard the line ringing.
“Why are you calling me?” the deep voice said when he answered.
“Hi, Uncle Grub. We’re on the way. I think Dad’s in trouble . . .”
“Yeah, he is. Change of plans. Don’t go to my house.”
“You’re not there?”
“No. And the cops are probably listening to this and tracking the phones. So I’m going to say this just once, and as soon as I’m done, ditch your phone. Go to Coach’s house, okay? Do you know who I mean?”
CeCe saw Ronnie’s expression change. He went from looking strong and bossy to scared.
“No,” he said.
“No, you don’t know who I mean, or no, you won’t go there?” Uncle Grub asked, his voice deeper and meaner, sounding a lot like Ronnie’s father.
Ronnie didn’t answer. CeCe wasn’t sure whether he even hung up the call—he just rolled down the window and threw the phone as hard as he could. CeCe looked back and saw it skid off the slick pavement into the roadside brush.
“This is bad,” Ronnie said.
CeCe nodded because she agreed. It had been bad for two days.
“No, you don’t understand,” he said, looking across the seat at her. “You’re in bad danger.”
CeCe was only six, and there was nothing funny about what was happening. But she tilted her head and looked at Ronnie because it sounded as if he were making a joke about something so obvious. She wanted to say, “DUH!!!”
“I mean it, CeCe. I can’t let them find you. When Uncle Grub gets with Coach . . . they’ll do anything to make money. We have to hide you.”
“Haven’t we been doing that?” she asked.
“Yeah, but this is different. Before, we were hiding from the cops. Now we’re hiding from Uncle Grub and Coach.”
“Who is Coach?” she asked.
“Believe me, you don’t want to know,” he said.
Then he steered the truck off the main road, up a hill lined with pine trees. The night was getting dark; the snow glistened under streetlights, and then they were so deep in the woods that there were no streetlights anymore. The time of day reminded CeCe of the last moments she was with her mother. It made her so sad that she began to whimper.
Ronnie reached over. He patted her hand, and she flinched.
“Don’t cry, CeCe. I’ll take care of you,” he said.
“I want Mommy,” she said.
“I know,” Ronnie said. “I want mine, too. I am so sorry, CeCe. I did a really bad thing.”
Then he began to cry; she looked over at him, saw tears running down his face. What was happening to Ronnie? Suddenly he seemed like a different person than the one who had held the gun, stolen her away from her mother, and not let her go back to the yellow hotel.
He was sniffling, making sobbing noises. His cheeks were wet. For some reason that made her feel worse than anything. She wanted to pat his hand, the way he had done to hers, but instead she closed her eyes and pretended that she was with her mother and Star, that she was safe and surrounded by love.
33
By the time Conor and Tom got to Grub Garson’s house, the FBI was swarming, and Grub was gone. His girlfriend, Elise Braga, had just gotten home from working the lunch shift at a Narragansett seafood restaurant owned by her family, and she seemed extremely distraught by all the officers and FBI vehicles.
Conor got a text from Joe that shocked him:
Per ME: Madeleine Cooke Morrison was eight weeks pregnant.
Joe also confirmed that the medical examiner had taken tissue samples that would be compared with DNA swabs from Bernard Lafond, John Morrison, all three Garson men, and any other as yet unnamed suspects. Maddie’s toxicology screen had come back negative for drugs and alcohol. The cause of death was homicide. She had been shot at close range. A small-caliber bullet had been recovered. It would be helpful evidence if the murder weapon was eventually found.
Conor knew Joe didn’t have to give him this information, and he was grateful for it. Next, he hoped to hear about tests on the blood, hair, and vomit at Zane Garson’s. Conor had no doubt they would reveal that CeCe had been locked in the sea chest. That the single hair found inside had come from her head. He pictured the blotches of blood and the scratches in the wood. Conor was sure they had been made by CeCe trying to claw her way out. And he believed she had gotten sick before Ronnie took her away from the house.
Conor read Joe’s text while he was in Tom’s truck at the end of Grub’s driveway, distracted from what was going on at the scene.
“I know Elise,” Tom was saying. “She was a good kid. She enlisted in the Coast Guard just out of high school—she was stationed in New London when I first got there. She was promising.”
“What happened?” Conor asked.
“She had a bad car accident, hurt her back. She took medical leave but never came back—got addicted to painkillers and ended up being discharged. I was sorry about that.”
“Is she still an addict?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I eat at her family’s place once in a while. She works there, and she’s always friendly. She asks about the crew, what we’re up to. It seems as if she’s clean—she’s held that job for a long time. But you can never be sure. Opioids are brutal.”
“How did she wind up with Grub?” Conor asked.
“It’s a small world down here,” Tom said. “The Garsons supply the restaurant with lobsters. I’m sure they’ve known each other most of their lives. Along the way, they got together.”
“I know you said Grub dealt, but does he also use?” Conor asked.
“I would say no,” Tom said. “He and Zane both run a tight ship. They’re sharp; they’re not users. They’re about profits.”
Conor was getting the picture. “Humans, narcotics—as long as it makes them money. I’d really like to talk to Elise,” Conor said. “Ask her about where her boyfriend and the kid, Ronnie, might be, where they’d hide CeCe. You think anyone else at the restaurant is close to them?”
“They all are—it’s one big extended family. Her aunt is usually at the front desk; her uncle, behind the bar. They own the place. Her sisters and cousins work there.”
“Maybe someone will know something,” Conor said.
“If they’re willing to talk. The Bragas and Almeidas are a loyal, tight-knit group.”
“Let’s hope someone has a conscience and wants to save CeCe.”
“Yep,” Tom said. “Let’s hope.”
It was just a few miles to the Binnacle, and when they arrived, they saw that the parking lot was empty. Tom pulled under the red awning that covered the entryway. There was a white paper taped to the door. Conor got out of the truck and walked over to read it:
DUE TO FROZEN PIPES, WE ARE CLOSED UNTIL TOMORROW AT NOON. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
“Frozen pipes?” Conor asked when he climbed back in. “Timing seems weird.”
“Right,” Tom said. “They might have frozen during the storm, if the heat went out along with the power.”
“But if Elise was here working the lunch hour and the place was in full swing, I don’t see why there’d be a problem now,” Conor said.
“Especially because there are contractors in the family. Braga Plumbing, Almeida Heating and Cooling—they’d fix it immediately. They wouldn’t want to lose an entire night of dinner reservations during the holidays. I’m sure there are Christmas parties booked.”
“So, word has gotten out that Elise got picked up. And the Garsons are under suspicion.”
“Circle the wagons,” Tom said.
34
The next morning dawned with a narrow streak of yellow over Block Island to the east, the sun instantly disappearing into thick white clouds. The ocean was dark gray-green and turbulent, with whitecaps building off Watch Hill Point. The first flakes had started to fall as Hadley got dressed. Christmas was just days away, and the suite felt so empty. She could almost feel Maddie’s presence in the other room, almost hear CeCe singing, talking to her mother and aunt and stuffed animals. That was how the holiday was supposed to be, how she had taken for granted that it would be. But instead of her sister and niece, there were ghosts.
She remembered Isabel telling her how Maddie had rested a hand on her belly, and how Hadley had known what it meant. Now she knew that she had been right: Maddie’s autopsy had revealed she was pregnant. Hadley could only imagine how they would have hugged when Maddie told her. A new baby in the family, a sister or brother for CeCe, a new niece or nephew for Hadley. Who could the father be? Who had sent Maddie all those roses?
She checked her phone again—she had been doing that nonstop, hoping for a call from Joe Harrigan telling her that they’d found CeCe, that she was safe—but nothing. And she hadn’t heard from Genevieve again. She felt relieved. Maybe Genevieve had realized how insanely uncomfortable it would be for both of them and changed her mind about coming.
She felt uneasy about the day ahead, the drive to Maddie’s unit at Silver Bay Fine Art Transport & Storage, where Jeanne would meet her with the key. Kate knew the storage facility well—her gallery rented space there—and had offered to go with her. Hadley had accepted.
But Hadley didn’t want to go. It felt wrong—so final, an inventory of Maddie’s possessions. All she could think about was her niece. With CeCe missing, nothing else mattered. Despite that, going to Maddie’s storage unit would be doing something—and it felt better than just sitting around. She couldn’t help but wonder what she would find there, whether there might be something that could help the cops, something that could help find CeCe. Even if it was a long shot, she was willing to look.
