Page 104 of 4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

She peeled cellophane and foil from the mouth of the packet, tapped out a cigarette. A match sparked, and the smell of sulfur rose into the air.

“Keith was only twelve when he came to my school. Same age as my son, Bob,” she said. “Lovely boys, both of them. Tons of promise.”

I listened intently as Carolee described the appearance of Brian Miller, an older boy, a runaway who gained her confidence and eventually become a counselor at the school.

“Brian raped them repeatedly, both Bob and Keith, and he raped their minds, too. He had a Special Forces knife. Said he’d turn them into girls if they ever told anyone what he’d done.”

Tears slipped from Carolee’s eyes. She waved at the smoke as if that was what had made her tear up. Her hand shook as she sipped at her container of coffee.

The only sound in the room was the soft sibilance of the magnetic tape spooling between the reels of the Sony.

When Carolee began speaking again, her voice was softer. I leaned toward her so that I wouldn’t miss a word.

“When Brian was finished using the boys, he disappeared, taking their innocence, their dignity, their self-worth.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Look, I reported it, but by the time Bobby told me what had happened, time had passed. And the police weren’t so interested in my school for runaways. It took years to get Keith to smile again,” Carolee went on. “Bob was even more fragile. When he slashed his wrists, I had to do something.”

  Carolee fooled around with her watchband, a dainty, feminine gesture, but fury contorted her features, an anger that seemed as fresh now as it had been a decade ago.

“Go on,” I said. “I’m listening to you, Carolee.”

“I found Brian living in a transient hotel in the Tenderloin,” she told me. “He was selling his body. I took him out for a good meal with lots of wine. I let myself remember how much I’d once really liked Brian, and he bought it. He believed that I was still his friend.

“I asked him nicely for an explanation. The way he told it, what he had with the boys was ‘romantic love.’ Can you believe it?”

Carolee laughed and tapped ashes into an aluminum foil tray.

“I went back to his place with him,” Carolee continued. “I’d brought his things with me: a T-shirt, a book, some other stuff.

“When he turned his back, I grabbed him. I slashed his throat with his own knife. He couldn’t believe what I’d done. He tried to scream, but I’d cut through his vocal cords, you see. Then I whipped him with my belt as he lay dying. It was good, Lindsay. The last face Brian saw was mine.

“The last voice he heard was mine.”

An image of John Doe #24 came to me, animated now into a living person by Carolee’s story. Even if he was everything she said he was, he’d still been a victim, condemned and executed without a trial.

The final coincidence, and it was a killer, was that Carolee had scrawled “Nobody Cares” on the hotel wall. It was in all the newspaper stories. Ten years later, the clippings were found in Sara Cabot’s bizarre collection of true crime stories. She and her brother had ripped off the catchphrase.

I flipped a notepad across to Carolee’s side of the desk and handed her a pen. Her hand was shaking as she started to write. She cocked her pretty head. “I’m going to put down that I did it for the children. That I did it all for them.”

“Okay, Carolee. That’s fine. It’s your story.”

“But do you understand, Lindsay? Someone had to save them. I’m the one. I’m a good mother.”

Smoke curled around us as she held my gaze.

“I can understand hating people who have done terrible things to innocent children,” I said. “But murder, no. I’ll never understand that. And I’ll never understand how you could have done this to Allison.”

Chapter 145

I WALKED ALONG THE dreary alley called Gold Street until I reached the neon sign, Bix, in huge blue letters. I entered through the brick-lined doorway and the blue-note chords of a baby grand thrilled me.

The high ceilings, the cigarette smoke hanging above the long sweep of mahogany bar, and the art deco fixtures and trappings reminded me of a Hollywood version of a 1920s speakeasy.

I stepped up to the maître d’, who told me that I was the first to arrive.

I followed him up the stairs to the second floor and took a seat in one of the richly upholstered horseshoe-shaped booths overlooking the jumping bar scene below.