“It’s his attitude, and the way he treats the boys.”
“Or is there more than that?”
Sadlier’s face reddened.
“This happened just a couple of days ago,” he said.“I told Sabine about it.Renders keeps his own place between Bingham and The Forks, but each member of the staff has to spend a set number of nights on campus each week, and they sleep in one of the cabins.I heard noises from the one Renders was using when he was on duty.It was late, and I was on my way home, but the sounds were so strange that I was obliged to see what they might be.It helps that I know my way around the motion sensors.”
He swallowed and winced, as though he’d rather have spit out whatever he’d choked back.
“Renders was sitting in an armchair, watching pornography on this big laptop he has.He wasn’t playing with himself or anything like that, just sitting there with a beer in his hand.Look, I’m not a prude, and I won’t condemn a man for whatever occupies himwhen he’s alone in the privacy of his bedroom, but the girls on that laptop were teenagers, or not a whole lot older, and they weren’t enjoying what was being done to them, not one bit.You could see it on their faces, and the sounds they were making weren’t ones of pleasure.If you ask me, Renders was getting off on their pain and humiliation at least as much as the sex, and I don’t think a man like that has any place in a school.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?”
“No.”
“Because you were worried it would be your word against his, and you might lose your job if you weren’t believed?”
“Oh, I’d have been believed all right, and I’d still have lost my job.”
“So tell me why.”
“I was about to be on my way when I heard Renders speak,” said Sadlier.“A man laughed at whatever he’d said, and I realized Renders wasn’t alone.It was Santopietro.They were in there together, watching those girls being hurt.”
Sadlier drained his beer.
“Now I really am looking for a new job.”
Chapter 100
Sabine Drew trailed me from the pub, leaving Sadlier inside.
“What now?”she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.“We’re still dealing with pieces of the puzzle, but more of them than before.”
Sadlier had told us he was prepared to go to the police and share what he’d seen in the cabin.Combined with the Smiling Seed T-shirt at the Norton house, it might be enough to secure a search warrant for Spero, but only if DNA testing confirmed that the shirt was Scott Theriault’s.And what then?Santopietro and Renders could deny what Sadlier claimed to have witnessed, turning the tables on him as a troublemaker who resented the assistant principal; and watching pornography together, while embarrassing and potentially damaging to their reputations as school officials, was not illegal, depending on the pornography.What I did know was this: Those who gained pleasure from watching women being hurt and humiliated eventually got to wondering what it might be like to do some hurting and humiliating of their own, and Mallory Norton had drifted into the orbit of such men.
Before leaving the parking lot, I checked the tracker app, but Kenney’s vehicle was at his home and Teal’s was in West Gardiner.I had run out of ideas, and soon I would run out of time.I could only keep my promise to T.K.Norton and hope that McKibben and the Major Crimes Unit would have more luck.Back at the Motor Inn, I wrote up my notes, answered the more urgent of my emails, and went to bed.I anticipated having trouble sleeping, but I was out as soon as I lay down.I wanted to escape, and my body and mind permitted it.
Chapter 101
In Detroit, the cross-checking of traffic-camera images with the details of the Airbnb renters from the Hamtramck apartments on the night Gai Cotter vanished finally produced a match.Edward Kenney, co-owner of the Smiling Seed Company in Orono, Maine, was the driver of the Camry that had discarded Cotter’s body in a dumpster of construction waste off 1-94.The picture on his driver’s license left no doubt.As yet, the man in the passenger seat beside him had yet to be identified.
Similarly, there was no longer any doubt about Cotter’s fate: The contents of the dumpster had been taken to the northwest of the city to be used as fill dirt for homes being demolished under Proposal N, but hadn’t yet been sorted to remove organic or hazardous waste.When the dumpster was located, Cotter’s naked remains were discovered halfway down, wrapped in garbage sacks.
The FBI preferred dawn raids for the apprehension of suspects, but under pressure from the DEA, it was decided to move on Edward Kenney as soon as was practicable.Within the hour, the resident FBI agents in Augusta, Bangor, and Portland had been alerted, as well as the task force groups of the Maine DEA.By midnight, they would be ready to roll.
One thing was made clear to them all: Edward Kenney was to be taken alive.
Chapter 102
Iwas woken by a double buzz from my phone, followed seconds later by ringing.The clock read 11:30 p.m.and the call was coming from Tony Fulci.
“They’re on the move,” he said.“So am I.”
He stayed on the line as together we monitored the progress of the two vehicles on the app: one, Kenney’s, heading south, the other, Teal’s, north.When they came to Pittsfield, they stopped; they had returned to the storage lot.Ten minutes later, only one car left: Kenney’s BMW.Teal’s Highlander stayed where it was.
“Take a look at Teal’s Toyota, then call me.”
