perfect defense. She wasn’t in her right mind.”
Adeline shrugged. The night had fallen, the air fulfilling its earlier promise of icy chill. The doctor, in only a thin sweater, wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Shana wouldn’t be in a position to say what happened. Most people suffering psychotic episodes can’t remember them. Given her troubled past, maybe her lawyer felt such a defense wouldn’t hold up. Shana already had a history of violence. Why would the jury believe this single incident was different than all the rest?”
“But that means she could’ve killed Donnie Johnson,” Phil said. “And the reason he doesn’t fit the profile of her other victims is that she was out of her mind at the time. I mean, how else to explain the bloody knife, the ear in her pocket? That sounds like she did a bit more than stumble upon a murder in the neighborhood.”
Adeline didn’t answer, but D.D. had the impression the doctor’s mind was already made up. She didn’t believe her sister had killed the boy. Wishful thinking from someone who really should know better? Or something else she wasn’t willing to share with them yet? It bothered D.D. still, Charlie Sgarzi’s offhand observation. That if skinning was the signature element for both Harry Day and Shana Day, and if they couldn’t be the Rose Killer for obvious reasons, well, there was one family member left.
“You said you and your sister didn’t grow up together,” D.D. said. “So when did you meet again?”
“About twenty years ago. She wrote me a letter.”
“She initiated contact?”
Adeline’s voice was dismissive. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Because she was bored? Because I’m the only family she has left? You’d have to ask her.”
“She wrote to you because she wanted something,” D.D. deduced.
Adeline smiled. “Now you sound like my adoptive father.”
“But you’ve hung in there with her. All these years, various suicide attempts later. You’re her single longest relationship. Right?”
“True.”
“To what end? According to you, your sister doesn’t feel empathy, doesn’t bond, doesn’t even understand a real relationship. So what does she want from you, Adeline? You and she have been talking for two decades, for what?”
“We haven’t been talking regularly for that long. It was only six or seven years ago that Superintendent McKinnon started permitting the monthly meetings.”
“Still, why? What does Shana want from you? I mean, this is a woman who’s destroyed how many families, how many lives? No repentance, no remorse. Biggest emotion she sounds capable of is boredom. So why keep you coming back? Two decades later, what does she need from you?”
“She needs to keep me safe, Detective. It’s a promise she made to our father forty years ago. And if you don’t have family, you don’t have anything.”
“Seriously? Keep you safe? Seriously?”
Adeline kept her gaze fixed down on the sidewalk, her footsteps quickening, as if she could outwalk the skepticism in D.D.’s voice. It occurred to D.D. that when it came to her sister, Adeline suffered a giant blind spot. She didn’t think she did. She dished up clinical evaluations, offered frank statements to the likes of Mrs. Davies: Don’t worry about me. I harbor no illusions about my sister.
But Adeline did. All these years later, some part of her still wanted a big sister.
Making her the perfect victim-in-waiting for Shana Day. Question was, what was Shana waiting for?
“Sounds like Janet Sgarzi was close to her sister, Martha Johnson,” Phil spoke up. “Meaning if there was something more to Donnie’s murder, some relationship or secret friend his mother knew about but never thought to mention after Shana pulled her son’s ear out of her pocket . . .”
“Janet Sgarzi could’ve known something about the crime,” D.D. agreed, “whether she realized she held the key or not. Which leaves the Rose Killer feeling a need to dispose of her after all these years.”
“I think we should check out Samuel Hayes,” Phil announced as they finally reached his vehicle. “Seventeen-year-old boy at the time of the murder. Clearly had some kind of relationship with Shana given that the foster mom caught the two of them together. Probably has his own past, being a teenager in the system. Definitely old enough and big enough to kill a twelve-year-old. And maybe still thinking about Shana after all these years. His first girl, the one who got away, the one he can never forget. He researches her obsessively, learns everything there is to know about her infamous father, Harry Day. . . . Embarks on his own crime spree. Hell,