On the tape, the phone picked up. ‘Carol? Carol, it’s me, are you okay?’

Darby heard stifled tears, the clearing of the throat.

‘Carol, honey, is that you?’

‘Mom, it’s me. I’m… He hasn’t hurt me.’

Swallowing. Rapid breathing.

‘Where are you?’ Dianne Cranmore said. ‘Can you tell me?’

‘I can’t see anything, it’s too dark.’

‘Where… What can I – Carol, listen to me –’

‘He’s here inside this room. He’s got a knife.’

‘You need to protect yourself, like I showed you.’

Click.

Banville shut off the recorder.

Evan looked to Leland. ‘With your permission, I’d like to send this tape to our lab. We can enhance the background noises, see if there’s anything there. I’d also like to send the mailer and pictures. Questioned Documents can identify the type of typewriter used on the mailing labels and see if it matches another case.’

Darby could tell Leland wanted to say no, but he was boxed in a corner where he couldn’t. The FBI’s Document Section was composed of seven different units that investigated anything to do with paper. The Boston lab simply couldn’t compete.

‘As long as we share everything,’ Leland said. ‘I take it the federal government has improved its communication.’

‘See for yourself Evan reached across the table and dialed the number on the conference phone.

The sound of the phone ringing echoed over the speakerphone.

A voice picked up: ‘Peter Travis.’

‘Peter, Evan Manning. I’m calling from the Boston lab. I’m with lab director Leland Pratt and the forensic investigator on this case, Darby McCormick. Also joining us is the lead investigator, Detective Mathew Banville, from the Belham police. They may have a question or two for you, so I’m going to tell them to just jump right in.’

‘Absolutely,’ Travis said.

‘Did you get all the digital pictures I sent you?’

‘I’ve got them loaded up on my screen. The quality of the writing on the mailing labels isn’t all that clear. I’ll need the originals if you want me to identify the typewriter.’

‘You’ll have them. Let’s start with the pictures first.’

‘HP one-seven-nine is the brand of photo paper published by Hewlett-Packard. The paper is manufactured specifically for digital photo printers. You slip the memory card in, or you download the digital pictures from your computer or disc key, and it prints out a three-by-five picture.’

‘That’s the same size we have here.’

‘I can take ink samples from the picture and try and narrow down the type of printer cartridge, but you’re talking about a very big market,’ Travis said. ‘You’re not going to find Traveler that way.’

‘Traveler?’ Darby asked.

‘We’ll get to that in a moment,’ Evan said. ‘Go ahead, Peter.’

‘I can match the photo to the printer, if you have the printer.’

‘I don’t have a printer, I don’t have a suspect, and a seventeen-year-old girl is missing. What about analyzing the pictures using digital image processing techniques?’

‘It’s not a bad way to go. The problem is digital photography has evolved to such a point where you can doctor photographs without leaving any evidence.’

‘Meaning our guy could have, say, erased a window from the photograph.’

‘He could have erased a window, added a window – he could add and delete whatever he wanted if he knows how to operate the software. Given our past experiences, I doubt he’d leave anything in there that would lead us to his doorstep. I did find a new piece of evidence you can add to your list. Hold on a moment.’

A brief sound of pages being snapped back. ‘Okay, here it is,’ Travis said. ‘The mailer he used most likely belongs to a small paper company named Merrill, based out of Hollis, New Hampshire. The company went under in ninety-five. They don’t make them anymore.’

‘So our guy has a stockpile of them in his house.’

‘It’s a strong possibility. I’d add it to your list. However, I’d like to reserve my final judgment until I’ve had a chance to examine the mailer.’

‘You’ll have it on your desk tomorrow morning,’ Evan said.

‘The footwear impression recovered from the Cranmore home belongs to Traveler. It’s manufactured by Ryzer Gear, their Adventurer model.’

‘And the paint chip?’

‘We struck out. The sample is not in our system. That’s all I’ve got on my end. How did you make out with the shirt?’

Evan looked to Darby.

‘We’ve recovered one tan fiber,’ Darby said. The fiber matches the one we found in the foyer of the Cranmore house. The hair taped to the back of the picture is a similar match for Carol Cranmore. Fortunately, a root bulb was attached, so we can get a DNA sample. We struck out on the fingerprints on the mailer. It’s a wipe.’

‘Any questions for Peter?’ Evan asked the room.

There weren’t any.

‘Peter, I need you to contact Alex Gallagher, tell him to analyze an audiotape,’ Evan said. ‘It will be in the package I’m sending out today. You have my cell phone?’

‘I do. I’ll be in touch.’

Evan hung up.

‘I have some information on the two names Rachel Swanson mentioned at the hospital,’ Darby said. ‘Missing Persons did a search and came up with two possible candidates from New England.’

Leland handed her the folder. Darby removed the first sheet, a printed 8 × 10 color college graduation picture of a woman with plain features and curly blond hair. She placed it on the table.

‘This is Marci Wade from Greenwich, Connecticut,’ Darby said. ‘She’s twenty-six, lives at home with her parents. This past May, she drove to meet a former high school friend who was attending the University of New Hampshire. This friend lived about two miles from the campus. Marci drove home on a Sunday night and her car broke down on Route 95. She hasn’t been seen since.’

The second sheet Darby placed on the table was a printed picture of a good-sized woman, with round cheeks and a small port-wine stain on her flabby chin.

‘This is Paula Hibbert, a forty-six-year-old single mother and schoolteacher for a public high school in Barrington, Rhode Island. She asked her neighbor to watch her son so she could go and pick up a prescription for his asthma. She made it to the pharmacy but didn’t make it home. They never found her or her car. She disappeared in January of last year.

‘I don’t know any details about the cases, or what they found for evidence,’ Darby said. ‘Both labs are closed for the day. We’ll be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning. That’s all I have. Now, Special Agent Manning, why don’t you tell us about Traveler?’

Chapter 36

Evan swung his laptop around so it was facing the room.

On the screen was a picture of a Hispanic-looking woman with bleached blond hair.

‘This is Kimberly Sanchez, from Denver, Colorado,’ Evan said. ‘She disappeared in the summer of ninety-two. Went out for a jog and never came back.’

Evan clicked through the photos of eight more women. They were all Hispanic or African American, all in their mid-twenties to early thirties. They were all last seen last seen alone, driving away in their own cars, leaving a bar or their place ofwork late at night. The last trait they shared was that their bodies had never been recovered.

‘The Colorado task force caught one lucky break,’ Evan said. ‘A witness leaving a nightclub saw the last victim getting inside a black Porsche Carrera with Colorado license plates. The same witness also recalled that the back bumper was dented.

‘Police narrowed down the search of Porsche owners in the Colorado area. One of them, John Smith, was from Denver. When police went to question him, Smith wasn’t home. Four days later, when Smith still hadn’t returned home, police searched the house he was renting. Smith was already gone. He wiped the place clean before he left, but forensics managed to recover two key pieces of evidence – a small blood sample in a trash can and a boot print belonging to a Ryzer hiking boot, size eleven. It was an identical match to the boot print found in the dirt next to one of the victims’ cars.’