Free On Off by Colleen McCullough Page B

sophomore at St. Martha’s High School — good grades, no trouble, no boyfriends. It’s a Dominican family been here in Norwalk for twenty years — the father’s a toll collector on the Turn-pike, the mother’s a housewife. Six kids — two boys, four girls. Mercedes is — was — the eldest. Youngest is three, a boy. They live in a quiet old neighborhood, mind their own business.”
    “Did anyone see Mercedes abducted?” Carmine asked.
    “No one. We busted our asses to find her because” — he paused, looked worried — “she was the second girl of that type to go missing within two months. Both sophomores at St. Martha’s, in the same class, friends but not bosom buddies, if you get me. Mercedes had piano practice after school finished, was due home at four-thirty. When she didn’t turn up by six and the nuns said she had definitely left when she was supposed to, Mr. Alvarez called us. They were already upset over Verina.”
    “Verina was the first girl?”
    “Yeah. Verina Gascon. A Creole family from Guadeloupe, been here a long time too. She disappeared on her way to school. Both families live within walking distance of St. Martha’s, just a block away in either direction. We ransacked Norwalk looking for Verina, but she’d gone without a trace. And now this one, the same.”
    “Any possibility either girl took off with a secret boyfriend?”
    “Nope,” Brown said emphatically. “Maybe you should see both families, then you’d understand better. They’re old-fashioned Latin Catholics, bring their kids up strict but with lots of love.”
    “I’ll see them, but not yet,” said Carmine, shrinking inside. “Can you organize Mr. Alvarez to identify Mercedes on the basis of the birthmark? We can’t show him more than a tiny patch of skin, but he’ll have to know beforehand that —”
    “Yeah, yeah, I get the job of telling the poor bastard that someone chopped his beautiful little daughter into pieces,” said Brown. “Oh, Jesus! Sometimes this is a shit job.”
    “Would their priest be willing to go with him?”
    “I’ll make sure. And maybe a nun or two for extra support.”
    Someone came in with coffee and jelly doughnuts; both men wolfed down a couple, drank thirstily. While he waited for copies of the files of both girls, Carmine called Holloman.
    Corey, said Abe, was already at the Hug, and he himself was about to see Dean Wilbur Dowling to find out how many dead animal refrigerators existed within the medical school.
    “Did we get any other missing persons who might have fitted our girl’s description?” Carmine asked, feeling better for the food.
    “Yeah, three. One from Bridgeport, one from New Britain, and one from Hartford. But when none of them had the birthmark, we didn’t follow up. They all happened months ago,” said Abe.
    “Things have taken a turn, Abe. Call Bridgeport, Hartford and New Britain back, and tell them to send us copies of those files as fast as a siren can travel.”
    When Carmine walked in, Abe and Corey got up from their desks and followed him into his office, where three files lay waiting. Down went the two files Carmine carried; he unclipped the five photographs, all in color, and laid them out in a row. Like sisters.
    Nina Gomez was a sixteen-year-old Guatemalan girl from Hartford, and had disappeared four months ago. Rachel Simpson was a sixteen-year-old light-skinned black girl from Bridgeport, disappeared six months ago. Vanessa Olivaro was a sixteen-year-old girl from New Britain of mixed Chinese, black and white blood whose parents hailed from Jamaica; she had disappeared eight months ago.
    “Our killer likes curly but not kinky hair, faces that are fantastically pretty in a certain way — full but well-delineated lips, wide set and wide open dark eyes, a dimpled smile — a height of no more than five feet, a mature figure, and light but not white skin,” Carmine said, flicking the photos.
    “You really think the same guy snatched them