The Survivors Club Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  By Lisa Gardner

  Preview for The Killing Hour

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  As a general rule, I enjoy researching all of my novels. Murder, mayhem, investigative procedures, it’s all good stuff. This time around, however, I had a particularly wonderful experience, and for that I’m deeply indebted to the Rhode Island State Police. Not only are they one of the best law enforcement agencies in the country, but they are also helpful, generous and patient people. From explaining the proper protocol for rendering a salute to demonstrating the new AFIS technology, the officers went out of their way to answer my questions and impress upon me the pride they have in their organization. It worked. I’m very impressed by the RI State Police, and I have even started following the speed limit. Well, okay, so the latter half only lasted for a bit. I tried and that says something about their powers of persuasion right there.

  Of course, as with all novels, I promptly warped most of the information they graciously provided. In this novel you’ll find police procedure and forensics testing happening at approximately the speed of light. Also, my police detectives are perhaps a tad rougher around the edges and a bit more familiar with murder suspects than their real-life counterparts. Remember, the RI State Police detectives have real jobs. I, on the other hand, am a fiction writer who makes things up.

  I would like to thank the following members of the RI State Police for their assistance: former Superintendent Colonel Edmond S. Culhane, Jr. (ret.); Superintendent Colonel Steven M. Pare; Major Michael Quinn; Inspector John J. Leyden, Jr.; Lieutenant John Virgilio; Lieutenant Mark Bilodeau; Corporal Eric L. Croce; and Detective James Dougherty.

  From the Providence Police Department I would like to thank Lieutenant Paul Kennedy and Sergeant Napoleon Brito. They also gave me the warmest reception, as well as a wonderful collection of gory anecdotes. Let’s just say I never fully appreciated the history of dismemberment in the Ocean State before visiting the PPD.

  Finally, I owe the following people my deepest gratitude for assisting me in the development of this novel:

  Dr. Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Atlanta Christian College, a wonderful friend and a very wise man.

  Albert A. Bucci, Assistant to the Director, State of Rhode Island Department of Corrections, who provided a highly enthusiastic overview of prison life.

  Margaret Charpentier, pharmacist and general shoulder to cry on, as well as her fellow pharmacist/partner in crime, Kate Strong.

  Monique Lemoine, speech language pathologist and very kind soul.

  Kathy Hammond, phlebotomist, Rhode Island Blood Center, and my bloodsucker of choice.

  Jim Martin, Public Information Officer, Department of the Attorney General, Rhode Island.

  The Providence Preservation Society.

  Kathleen Walsh, executive assistant and overall savior of my sanity.

  And finally, my very tolerant husband, Anthony. This time around, it was his Ghirardelli double-chocolate brownies that saved the day.

  Once again, all mistakes in the novel are mine. Anything you think is particularly brilliant I’ll take responsibility for as well.

  Happy reading!

  Lisa Gardner

  PROLOGUE

  Eddie

  IT STARTED AS A CONVERSATION:

  “The scientists are the problem—not the cops. Cops are just cops. Some got a nose for jelly doughnuts; others got a nose for pensions. The scientists, though . . . I read about this case where they nailed a guy by matching the inside seam of his blue jeans with a bloody print left at the murder scene. I’m not kidding. Some expert testified that the wear pattern of denim is so individual there’s something like a one-in-a-billion chance that another pair of jeans would leave the same print, yada, yada, yada. Fuckin’ unreal.”

  “Don’t wear blue jeans,” the second man said.

  The first man, a kid really, rolled his eyes. “That’s fuckin’ brilliant.”

  The second man shrugged. “Before you lecture me about Calvin’s sending someone to the big house, perhaps we should start with the basics. Fingerprints.”

  “Gloves,” the kid said immediately.

  “Gloves?” The man frowned. “And here I expected something much more innovative coming from you.”

  “Hey, gloves are a pain in the ass, but then again, so is serving time. What else are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t want to wear gloves if I don’t have to. Let’s think about it.”

  “You could wipe down everything,” the kid said shortly. “Ammonia dissolves fingerprint oil, you know. You could prepare a solution, ammonia and water. Afterwards, you could spray it on, wipe stuff down. You know, including . . .” The kid’s voice trailed off. He didn’t seem quite able to say the word, which the man thought was pretty funny, given everything this “kid” had done.

  The man nodded. “Yes. Including. With ammonia, of course. Otherwise they might be able to print the woman’s skin using Alternate Light Source or fumigation. Instead of spritzing, the other option is to put the woman in a tub. To ensure that you’re being thorough.”

  “Yeah.” The kid nodded his head, contemplating. “Still might miss a spot. And it involves a lot of maneuvering. Remember what the textbook said: ‘The more contact with the victim, the more evidence left behind.’ ”

  “True. Other ideas?”

  “You could leave fake prints. I once met this guy from New York. His gang liked to cut off the hands of their rivals, and use them to leave false prints at their own crime scenes.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Well, half the gang was in Rikers at the time . . .”

  “So it didn’t work.”

  “Probably not.”

  The man pursed his lips. “It’s an interesting thought, though. Creative. The police hate creativity. We should find out where those people went wrong.”

  “I’ll ask around.”

  “A fingerprint is nothing but a ridge pattern,” the man thought out loud. “Fill in the valleys between the ridges and there’s no more print. Seems like there’s gotta be a way of doing that. Maybe smearing the fingertips with superglue? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know if it works.”

  “Wouldn’t that interfere with feel, though? I mean, if you’re going to lose sensation, you might as well return to gloves which you know will do the trick.”

  “There’s scarring. Repeated cutting of the fingertips with a razor to
obscure the print.”

  “No thank you!”

  “No pain, no gain,” the man said mildly.

  “Yeah, and no pleasure, no point. What do you think scar tissue is gonna do to the nerve endings of your fingertips? Might as well hack ’em off and be done with it. Keep it simple, remember? Another thing the textbook pointed out—simple is good.”

  The man shrugged. “Fine, then it’s gloves. Thinnest latex possible. That resolves the matter of fingerprints. Next issue: DNA.”

  “Shit,” the kid said.

  “DNA is the kicker,” the man agreed. “With fingerprints you can watch what you touch. But with DNA . . . Now you have to consider your hair, your blood, your semen, your spit. Oh, and bite marks. Let’s not forget about the power of dental matches.”

  “Jesus, you are a sick son of a bitch.” The kid rolled his eyes again. “Look, don’t bite anything or anyone. It’s too risky. They’ve nailed thieves by matching their teeth to indentations left in a hunk of cheddar in the fridge. After that, God knows what they can do with a human breast.”

  “Fair enough. Now back to DNA.”

  “Pull an O.J.,” the kid said grumpily. “Let the lawyers deal with it.”

  “You really think lawyers are that good, all things considered . . .” The man’s tone was droll.

  The kid got hostile. “Hey, what the fuck is a guy supposed to do? Wear a goddamn condom? Hell, man, might as well fuck a garden hose.”

  “Then we need a better idea. Blaming the cops is no kind of defense. They don’t handle the DNA anyway. The hospital sends it straight to the Department of Health via a courier. Or don’t you read the paper?”

  “I read—”

  “And a bath won’t help there either,” the man continued relentlessly. “Just look at Motyka. He stuck the woman in a tub and that worked so well he’s now facing life in prison. The semen goes up into the body. You need something more, some kind of flush action, I don’t know. Plus there’s the hair. Hair can also yield DNA, if they get a root, or they can simply match hair at the scene to hair on your head. Bathtub won’t help with hair, either. Some anal-retentive crime tech will retrieve your hair from the drainpipes—they can retrieve blood samples from there too, you know. You can’t approach this half-assed.”

  “Shave.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Yes.” The kid’s tone was grudging. “Yeah, shit. Everywhere. Tell people you’re into swimming. What the fuck.”

  “Shaving is good,” the man conceded. “That resolves the hair. What else? They’ll swab the woman’s mouth. Remember that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I read the same book you did.”

  “No touching anything with your bare hands—not even an eyeball.”

  “I read about that case, too.”

  “No blue jeans, I guess.”

  “Wear dust covers over your shoes to limit soil and fiber,” the kid added. “And, whenever possible, resort to social engineering. Breaking and entering leaves behind tool marks, and tool marks can also be matched.”

  The man nodded: “That covers most of the trace evidence except for DNA then. We still need to figure out DNA. They get one little sample of semen, send it to the DNA database . . .”

  “I know, I know.” The kid closed his eyes. He appeared to be thinking. Hard. He finally opened them again. “You could try confusing the issue. There was that guy who was arrested as a serial rapist based on DNA, then while he was in prison, another rape was reported with the same kind of DNA found on the girl’s panties.”

  “What happened?”

  The kid sighed. “They busted the guy in prison for that, too. Perpetrating fraud, something like that.”

  “He raped the other girl while he was behind bars?”

  “No, man, he jacked off into a ketchup packet while he was behind bars, then mailed it to a friend who paid a girl fifty bucks to smear the stuff on her underwear and cry rape. You know, so it would appear like there was another guy running around with the same DNA, who was actually the rapist.”

  “There is no such thing as two guys with the same DNA. Not even identical twins have the same DNA.”

  “Yeah, and that would be the problem with the plan. The scientists knew that and the prosecution knew that, so they pressured the girl until she confessed what really happened.”

  “Is there a moral to this story?”

  “Pay the girl more than fifty bucks!”

  The man sighed. “That is not a good plan.”

  “Hey, you wanted an idea, I gave you an idea.”

  “I wanted a good idea.”

  “Ah, fuck you, too.”

  The second man didn’t say anything. The kid lapsed into silence as well.

  “Gotta beat the DNA,” the kid muttered after a bit.

  “Gotta beat the DNA,” the man agreed.

  “The Raincoat on your John Thomas,” the kid mocked from Monty Python. “Ah, who needs it?”

  “Wouldn’t necessarily help anyway. Condoms leak, condoms break. Police are also getting better at tracing the lubricants and spermicide. That gives them a brand, then they start checking stores and next thing you know some pharmacy worker just happened to notice some guy buying some box . . .”

  “You’re screwed.”

  “Yeah. Those scientists. Any little thing you introduce into the scene . . .”

  The kid suddenly perked up. “Hey,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Jersey

  THE BLONDE CAUGHT IN THE SIGHTS OF THE LEUPOLD Vari-X III 1.5–5 x 20mm Matte Duplex Illuminated Reticle scope didn’t seem to fear for her life. At the moment, in fact, she was doing her hair. Now she had out a black compact and was checking her lipstick, a light, pearly pink. Jersey adjusted the Leupold scope as the reporter pursed her lips for her own reflection and practiced an alluring pout. Next to her, her cameraman let his heavy video equipment fall from his shoulder to the ground and rolled his eyes. Apparently, he recognized this drill and knew it would be a while.

  Ten feet away from the blonde, another reporter, this one male—WNAC-TV, home of the Fox Futurecast, because heaven forbid anyone call it a forecast anymore—was meticulously picking pieces of lint off of his mud-brown suit. His cameraman sat in the grass, sipping Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and blinking sleepily. On the other side of the stone pillar that dominated the sprawling World War Memorial Park, a dozen other reporters were scattered about, double-checking their copy, double-checking their appearance, yawning tiredly, then double-checking the street.

  Eight-oh-one A.M., Monday morning. At least twenty-nine minutes until the blue van from Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) was due to arrive at the Licht Judicial Complex in downtown Providence and everyone was bored. Hell, Jersey was bored. He’d been camped out on the roof of the sprawling brick courthouse since midnight last night. And damn, it got cold at night this early in May. Three Army blankets, a black coverall, and black leather Bob Allen shooting gloves and he still shivered until the sun came up. That was a little before six, meaning he’d had two and a half more hours to kill and not even the chance to stand up and stretch without giving his position away.

  Jersey had spent the night—and now the morning—hunkered behind a two-foot-high decorative-brick trim piece that lined this section of the courthouse’s roof. The faux railing afforded him just enough cover to remain invisible to people in the courtyard below, and more importantly, to the reporters camped in the grassy memorial park across the street. The railing also offered the perfect rifle stand, for when the moment came.

  Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 A.M., the blue ACI van would pull up. The eight-foot-high wrought-iron gate that surrounded the inner courtyard of the judicial complex would open up. The van would pull in. The gate would swing shut. The van doors would open. And then . . .

  Jersey’s finger twitched on the trigger of the heavy barrel AR15. He caught himself, then eased his grip on the assault rifle, slightly surprised by his antsiness. It wasn’
t like him to rush. Calm and controlled, he told himself. Easy does it. Nothing here he hadn’t done before. Nothing here he couldn’t handle.

  Jersey had been hunting since the time he could walk, the scent of gunpowder as reassuring to him as talcum. Following in his father’s footsteps, he’d joined the Army at the age of eighteen, then spent eight years honing his abilities with an M16. Not to brag, but Jersey could take out targets at five hundred yards most guys couldn’t hit at one hundred. He was also a member of the Quarter Inch Club—at two hundred yards, he could cluster three shots within a quarter-inch triangulation of one another. His father had been an American sniper in ’Nam, so Jersey figured that shooting was in his genes.

  Five years ago, seeking a better lifestyle than the Army could afford him, he’d opened shop. He used a double-blind policy. The clients never knew his name, he never knew theirs. A first middleman contacted a second middleman who contacted Jersey. Money was wired to appropriate accounts. Dossiers bearing pertinent information were sent to temporary P.O. boxes opened at various MAIL BOXES ETC. stores under various aliases. Jersey had a rule about not hitting women or children. Some days he thought that made him a good person. Other days he thought that made him worse, because he used that policy to try to prove to himself that he did have a conscience when the bottom line was, well, you know—he killed people for money.

  If his father knew, he definitely wouldn’t approve.

  This gig had come along five months ago. Jersey had been instantly intrigued. For one thing, the target was a genuine, bona fide rapist, so Jersey didn’t have to worry about his conscience. For another thing, the job was in Providence, and Jersey had always wanted to visit the Ocean State. He’d made four separate trips to the city to scope out the job, and thus far, he liked what he saw.

  Providence was a small city, bisected by the Providence River, where, no kidding, they ran gondola rides on select Friday and Saturday nights. The slick black boats looked straight out of Venice, and the mayor even had a bunch of good ol’ Italian boys manning the vessels in black-striped shirts and red-banded strawhats. Then there was this thing called WaterFire, where they lit bonfires in the middle of the river. You could sit out at your favorite restaurant and watch the river burn while tourists bounced around the flames in gondolas. Jersey had been secretly hoping someone would catch on fire, but hey, that was just him.