press. That’s what we tell the family.” With that last statement, Odom’s voice turned from angry to sad.
“We gotta see what’s inside the house,” Conte said.
“Get your forensics crew in there, Russ. This whole case will rise and fall based on the work they do.” Odom shuddered at the thought. “And the work they need to do will take days.”
“I’ll have some people call the airport,” Conte said. “We’ll have the sheriff’s office looking for her to make sure she doesn’t get on a plane.”
“What if she shows up here?” Dodge asked.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Sunday night. Sheila pops in here all the time. If she comes home and we’re still on her property, she’ll come down here to give us a piece of her mind.” Dodge looked back and forth between them. “Do I arrest her?”
It was decided that, no, Sunday night was not the time. For a female suspect, there were special considerations for searching her person, checking her body for wounds or evidence. Conte wanted to do it back at the state police barracks during a normal nine-to-five shift when a female crime technician could do the job. “Be nonchalant about it. If she does show up, tell her to come back tomorrow.”
Being nonchalant about any encounter with Sheila was a tall order.
“You know,” Conte said again. “I have seen…”
“…more fucking shit on this job. And guys either write a book or they never talk about it again.”
I heard these words from Lieutenant Russ Conte clear as day. Because the Epping Safety Complex, while a model of modern municipal construction, has extremely thin walls.
I was sitting in the lobby of the police department waiting for a sound bite. If this truly were a search for a missing person, where were the searchers? Why won’t the police talk to us? A search and rescue means “cooperation” from authorities (they’ll give us a name and a photo, make a public plea for assistance). A homicide, that was a major pain in the ass. In New Hampshire, no one except the prosecutor could publicly comment on a homicide, so cops and other sources clammed up. True, this would be my third murder in three Sundays, and all of those stories came together fairly well. But an at-large suspect, a lengthy interrogation or an unidentified victim are all things that could delay a press briefing.
And I had to have something to report at 6:00.
I was alone in the lobby of the Epping PD, alone except for the newspaper reporter who had wandered in on the same tip. Editors on the desk overheard a blurb on the Manchester police scanner dispatching a squad car to check on a subject “in connection with a possible homicide investigation out of Epping.” Odom, who had been fielding phone calls, denied they were conducting a homicide investigation. It was a missing person’s case.
The two of us sat quietly, waiting for someone to talk. My videographer was in the tiny parking lot helping the satellite truck operator find someplace to set up. It was 5:15. They had to point the dish to the south in order to hit the satellite moving in geosynchronous orbit along the equator, and a tuft of tree was blocking the line of sight.
“Do you think she burned the body before she dismembered it or after?”
The voice came through the wall and echoed in the lobby. The other journalist and I looked at each other in shock. There was no way in hell we should have been hearing this, but the wall is thin and Conte’s voice was strong.
“Did you get that?” I asked the newspaper reporter. I don’t know how he could have missed it. He had his back up against the wall while I stared so hard at the wall I thought I was going to burn a hole in it.
“I heard ‘dismembered.’ Didn’t you?”
“Ya.” Neither of us could believe what we were getting.
“Who is checking on that?” Conte asked someone. “Hold on to that rabbit.” Then there was some mention of blood on the animal.
I looked at the notebook resting on my lap. The page was still white, crisp and blank. I should have been writing all this down. But you learn there are some things you’re not going to forget and taking the time to write them down only distracts you from hearing further details.
Someone asked Conte a question. “We’ve already got the file sealed,” he said. “The press is going to want that bad boy big time!”
I knew three things:
There had been a homicide and the suspect was a female.
If the files were sealed and no one went on the record with me, I was royally fucked for 6:00.
I had unexpectedly found the story of my career.
On the other side of a very thin wall, Chief Dodge made notes. It was starting to get dark and it was going to be a long night ahead. He realized the calm balance of their town had been upset. “There’s one more thing,” he said.
“What is it, Chief?”
“There were others.”
Conte and Odom looked at each other. Now there was no air in their lungs.
“What do you mean?”
At first, Dodge wouldn’t make eye contact, tapping a pen on his desk as he spoke. But saying the words brought out more strength in the chief.
“There are others who’ve lived on that farm with her. Other young men. Other guys we’ve seen around town with her.”
There was silence in the room. “Go on.”
“And there’s at least one or two that…I can’t say I’ve seen in quite some time.”
4
Adam
Pamela Paquin enjoyed the girl talk with her houseguest. She had been surprised as all hell when her son and daughter came home with this strange older woman and a cage full of rabbits. Is she some kind of freaky rabbit saleswoman or something? she first thought. She was surprised that the woman was actually offering money to her daughter to take care of the rabbits. And then she was touched.
Donald carried in the box containing the hutch. He explained how Sheila had bought it for them and how she took the two of them to dinner. Who does that? Paquin thought.
When Sheila LaBarre walked up to Paquin’s home, the other woman felt embarrassed, because it looked dilapidated. The exterior of the building was sea foam green, sided with ruffled metal slates made of asbestos. There were bicycles on the porch. It looked like the front door frame might have been broken. Spiderwebs caulked the outline of the porch lamp fixture, its bulb bare.
Pam Paquin kept her home clean the best she could. However, she was living
