The Pattern
After sending the manuscript for his latest novel off to his publisher, Dermot O'Grady decided to take a break before beginning work on a new book. Writing his bestselling Inspector Gaskell mysteries, he rarely had time to enjoy a weekend away with his wife, much less take a long vacation. As supportive of his career as Calista was, she longed to travel.
"I suppose being a multimillionaire ought to have some perks," Dermot reasoned when she hinted at visiting Europe while they were still young enough to enjoy it.
A lifelong introvert, he was perfectly content to spend his days in his restored eighteenth-century home in Barnstable. Nevertheless, he owed it to his more sociable partner to periodically escape from Cape Cod to somewhere other than Boston.
"Surprise!" he exclaimed when she opened an envelope and found two airline tickets inside.
"London? That's the perfect place to start a European vacation. From there, we can take the Eurostar to Paris!"
"But we're not going to France. I booked a tour of Ireland for us."
The smile disappeared from Calista's face.
"Why Ireland?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Dermot laughed. "I'm Irish. My ancestors immigrated to America during the Great Famine. I'd like to see where they came from. You're part Irish, too. Aren't you?"
"Yes. I'm also part Polish, but I have no desire to traipse around Poland, searching for my roots."
Considering the vacation was meant as a gift to his wife, he felt guilty that she was less than delighted by the destination.
"Maybe after we've seen Ireland, we can fly to Paris from Dublin. Let me send an email to the travel agent and have her make the arrangements."
Seeing the immediate transformation from frown to smile made the author proud of his decision.
* * *
The Virgin Atlantic flight from Logan to Heathrow arrived in London at seven in the morning on a sunny April day. After checking into their hotel, the O'Gradys had plenty of time to sightsee.
"Where to first?" Dermot asked, thumbing through the pages of his guidebook.
"Which is closer, Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace?" Calista responded to his question with one of her own.
Because the two attractions were less than two miles apart, they were able to visit both of them that same day. The following morning, they set out to see Windsor Castle, followed by a trip to Kensington Palace in the afternoon and a Jack the Ripper walking tour in the evening. On their third day in England, they took a train out of Waterloo Station to East Molesey to visit Hampton Court Palace, and upon returning to the capital city, rode on the London Eye.
"Ah! The Tower of London. We've saved the best for last," Dermot opined as he partook of a full English breakfast on the day before they were to head west to Ireland.
Calista disagreed.
"I think Windsor Castle and the two palaces are so much nicer. But I imagine someone who writes about murder for a living would be partial to prisons and dungeons."
"There's so much more to the Tower than the executions that took place there. Prior to the seventeenth century, it was a royal residence. Over the centuries, it has served many purposes, including a royal mint, a menagerie, an arsenal and a public records office. Today, it's one of London's most popular tourist attractions not only because of its history but because it is a repository for the crown jewels."
Once their tour of the Tower ended and they shopped for souvenirs in the gift shops, the couple had an early dinner and went to bed. The alarm on Dermot's cell phone woke them up early the next day. After a continental breakfast—no calorie-packed feast like the one he ate the previous day—the writer collected their luggage and settled the bill. As they waited for the car that would take them to Paddington Station, he hummed a tune that Calista identified as "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."
When they got off the Stena Line ferry at Rosslare, Dermot was too tired to enjoy his arrival in Ireland.
"Don't you want to eat?" his wife asked when he took his shoes off upon entering their hotel room.
"All I want to do is sleep. I'm exhausted. If you're hungry, why don't you call room service and have something sent up?"
By the time the young man delivering her fish and chips and a glass of wine knocked on the door to their room, Dermot was fast asleep.
"You'll have to excuse my husband," she apologized, handing the waiter a generous tip. "I'm afraid the Town of London did him in."
* * *
While sightseeing in Ireland, Dermot contemplated possible plots for his next book. While photographing the Cliffs of Moher, he envisioned a kidnapping during which the abducted wife of an investment banker is strangled. It was on the Dingle Peninsula that he mentally outlined a school shooting scenario at Harvard University. When he and Calista visited the Ring of Kerry, he imagined a celebrity being stalked and stabbed by a deranged fan. At a pub in Galway, it was a serial killer who preyed on women with long blond hair, and on a jaunting car in Killarney, it was a political assassination at the Capitol building.
Blarney Castle inspired not one but two ideas. As he climbed the narrow, crowded, circular staircase to the top of the castle ruins, where he and his wife kissed the famous Blarney Stone, he pictured an unfaithful wife being buried alive à la Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Once back on the castle grounds, he discovered the poison garden, a place where visitors could learn about the medicinal values and dangers of the variety of deadly plants grown there. It occurred to him that he had yet to have a murder by poisoning in any of his books.
"I could see why you wanted to come here," Calista teased, looking down at a Ricinus communis plant. "Not only do you have the opportunity to hang over the side of a castle to get the gift of Blarney, but you also get to discover new ways to poison your fictional victims."
After leaving Blarney Castle, the couple headed toward Dublin. The capital city was the last leg of their tour. After a few days there, they would fly to Paris for a short sojourn and then home to Barnstable. Their hotel, on the bank of the River Liffey, was a short walking distance from the Famine Memorial (which gave the writer the idea of starving one of his victims) and a replica of the Jeanie Johnston, a three-masted barque that once transported emigrants to North America during the Great Famine. Unlike the so-called "coffin ships" of that time, no loss of life was ever reported aboard the vessel.
On their last day in Dublin, the O'Gradys planned to visit the Guinness Storehouse. Although neither of them had a fondness for beer, they did not want to miss one of the main attractions of the city. Afterward, they hoped to have enough time to see Dublin Castle and Kilmainham Gaol Museum. They did manage to see both the storehouse and the castle, but were unable to get into Kilmainham.
"I'm sorry, sir," a garda stationed outside the museum apologized. "The gaol is closed today."
"I thought it was open every day, except for Christmas week," Dermot protested.
"Normally, it is. However, there has been an ... incident inside, and the gardai are investigating it."
"Incident? What kind of incident?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say, sir."
As he walked away, the writer took his phone out of his pocket. A quick search on the internet revealed that a body had been discovered inside the museum.
"Was it a case of murder?" Calista asked.
"The article doesn't say. I gather from what I read, the body has only just been discovered. It may take a while for the media to get any details."
It was not until they arrived in Paris the next day that Dermot learned about the death of Ellis Hogg, an American businessman who had been living in Dublin for the past three years.
"How did he die?" Calista wondered.
"Hanging."
"It must have been suicide; they don't execute people in Ireland. But why hang yourself in a museum?"
"It couldn't have been suicide," her husband argued. "His hands and feet were both tied, and a black hood was placed over his head."
"He was murdered in a museum, and no one saw anything? That's hard to believe."
"Want to hear something more unbelievable? He was hanged with a noose that was suspended from a wooden gallows."
"That doesn't sound like murder—more like an execution."
* * *
Once back in Massachusetts, Dermot was ready to begin work on his next novel. Like the writer himself, Inspector Gaskell was back on the job. Because Calista had forbidden him from bringing his laptop on vacation, he had drawn up a brief outline of the plot on a sheet of hotel letterhead. Of the ideas he'd had in Ireland, he chose to write about a celebrity being murdered by a stalker. By the end of the first day, he had completed the first chapter.
"How's the story coming?" his wife inquired when they sat down to a homemade meatball and spaghetti dinner.
"I've introduced the main character, a Grammy-winning pop singer. In the next chapter, I'll write about the obsessed fan. I'm thinking I'll write his chapters in the first person, using only his thoughts. I don't want the reader to know who he is or what he does. His identity is going to be a complete mystery until Gaskell unmasks him."
Having made good progress during the day, Dermot wanted to spend the evening with his wife. Calista made a large bowl of popcorn, poured two glasses of wine and joined her husband on the sofa in front of their large-screen television.
"What do you want to watch?" she asked.
Despite subscribing to numerous streaming services, her husband chose to see a series on network television. It was a choice that proved to be fortuitous. During a commercial break, the station provided a teaser for the nightly news.
"Did you hear that?" Calista asked Dermot, who was returning from a brief trip to the bathroom.
"Hear what?"
"There was a hanging in Kansas."
"It can't be an execution. They use lethal injection in Kansas."
"I don't know any details. You'll have to watch the news at eleven."
Not willing to wait, the writer took out his phone and googled "Kansas hanging." The results surprised him.
"What did you find out?"
"You remember the two killers from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock?"
"Yeah. We watched the movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman."
"They were executed in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing back in 1965. Recently, the penitentiary added a replica of the gallows to the prison tours. Yesterday morning, a tour guide found a body hanging in a noose suspended from those gallows."
"Just like in that museum in Dublin. What a strange coincidence."
"It certainly is," Dermot agreed. "What's even more strange is that in both cases, the victim was from Florida."
* * *
Dermot was on his ninth chapter, in which Inspector Gaskell makes his first appearance in the book, when Calista was invited to her cousin's wedding shower in Pennsylvania.
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" the writer asked.
"It's a wedding shower. Only women are invited."
"I can drive down with you. I'll bring my laptop with me and write in the hotel while you're at the shower."
"I appreciate the offer, but I'm going to meet my aunt in Boston, and we're going to drive to Stroudsburg together."
Alone in the house, Dermot worked from the time he woke in the morning until he was ready to go to bed at night.
Another two hundred pages or so, and I'll be done with my first draft.
The day of the shower, as he sat in the breakfast nook, drinking his second cup of coffee of the morning, he received a text from his wife.
THOUGHT YOU'D WANT TO SEE THIS, it read. Below the message was a link to the Times News, a daily paper from Lehighton, Pennsylvania. He clicked on the link, and seeing the headline made his pulse quicken: HANGING AT JIM THORPE JAIL.
"Another one?" he cried with disbelief.
The Old Jail Museum, the former Carbon County Jail, is a popular attraction for history buffs and fans of the paranormal alike. In 1877, four men, believed to be members of the Molly Maguires, were hanged there. One, Alexander Campbell, swore he was guiltless. He left his handprint on the cell wall as proof of his innocence. Defying all efforts to remove it, the print remains to this day. The article Calista wanted him to read had nothing to do with executed coal miners or mysterious handprints. As had happened in the Kansas State Penitentiary and the Kilmainham Gaol Museum, a body was discovered hanging from the gallows.
As he was reading about the Philadelphia woman who was found at the end of a rope, he got a second text from his wife.
ANOTHER WEIRD COINCIDENCE.
Coincidence? he thought skeptically. No way. Two hangings are a coincidence. Three signifies a pattern.
* * *
Dermot sipped his Coca-Cola through a straw as he read the pages he had just written. Dissatisfied with them, he highlighted the entire day's work and deleted it. He put the soda can down and resumed typing. It was slow progress. He would write a paragraph or two and then draw a blank.
"How's the book coming?" Calista called through his open door as she walked down the hall with a basket full of laundry.
"Terrible!"
"But you were doing so well. What happened?"
"I can't seem to concentrate on the story anymore."
"No doubt your mind is on those hangings."
Dermot did not deny his wife's claim. All too often, as he tried to come up with clues that would lead Inspector Gaskell to solve the murder of the pop star, his mind strayed to the mysteries in Dublin, Lansing and Jim Thorpe. Several times a day, he checked the internet to see what, if any, progress was being made on the three cases. So far, the police departments involved were baffled. The day he began the thirteenth chapter, he found another hanging in a historical prison. This one occurred at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville.
"Two is a coincidence; three is a pattern. This makes four, which is a certainty," he contended. "This is the work of a serial killer."
"Are you sure? Couldn't it be a copycat killer instead?" Calista wondered. "These hangings are spread out over three states and two different countries."
"It's possible. But my money is on it being only one killer."
"What do the police think?"
"I haven't read anything online that suggests the cases are related."
Dermot's eyes suddenly widened, and his face seemed to glow.
"Wouldn't it be something if I ...."
"What?" his wife prompted.
"If I could solve these murders before the police do?"
"But you're a writer, not an investigator."
"A writer who writes detective novels."
"And what about your book? When will you finish it? Solving these hangings will take up most of your time," Calista pointed out.
"I can kill two birds with one stone. I'll put aside the one I'm writing now and begin a new one. This novel will be semiautobiographical. Whatever I learn about these hangings, I will attribute to Inspector Gaskell."
The decision having been made, Dermot closed the Word file of the incomplete manuscript and opened a new blank one. Then he began typing the first chapter in which Gaskell, celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary, takes his wife to Dublin and learns about the hanging in the Kilmainham Gaol Museum.
* * *
It took Dermot three days to scour the internet for information on the hangings and incorporate the known facts into a rough draft of his book. His next step was to contact the police departments and speak to the detectives in charge of the four investigations. Surprisingly, not one of the men he spoke to was willing to consider that the cases might be related.
"Now, for the victims," the writer mumbled as he went back to his laptop to see what he could learn about the men and women who had been murdered.
Before he was able to google Marsha Kanin, the woman from Philadelphia found dead in Jim Thorpe, another corpse was discovered hanging in a former prison. This one was found in the Old Jail Museum in Gonzales, Texas. Like the other four victims, his hands and feet were bound, and a black hood was pulled over his head.
"Don't tell me these cases aren't related!" he exclaimed after learning of the latest murder.
"If it is a serial killer, he certainly does get around!" Calista observed. "Maybe that's the way to catch him. See who travels to all these different places."
Dermot shook his head, disagreeing with his wife.
"Lots of people travel both for work and for pleasure. No, I believe the key here is the victims themselves."
"Do serial killers target specific people? I thought their killings were more random."
"Sometimes but not always. No. In this case, I think all these people are connected in some way. The question is how?"
Researching the media coverage on the cases revealed that three of the five people killed, all men, lived in Florida. One woman lived in Pennsylvania, and the other lived in California.
"Maybe all five of them went to college in Florida," Calista suggested.
"No. The woman from Philly was a doctor who went to Princeton and then got her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. The woman from California went to UCLA. And the man who was hanged in West Virginia didn't graduate high school."
"What about online dating? The internet can bring people together from all parts of the country."
"But we're talking about both men and women, young and old. There's no specific dating profile here."
"It could be a case of catfishing. If it is a serial killer, he could be pretending to be someone else in order to lure them in."
"Nice try," Dermot laughed. "But I don't think we're dealing with a Lonely Hearts killer here. Why were these people killed in old jails? Why did the killer specifically use a gallows? I think there's a symbolic aspect to the deaths here that we're not getting."
* * *
Two months passed. Dermot divided his time between researching the victims' lives, hounding the police investigating the crimes and incorporating the details into Inspector Gaskell's story. Meanwhile, two more hangings took place: one in the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield and the other in the Tennessee State Prison in Nashville.
"That makes four men and three women," Calista noted. "Don't serial killers stick to one sex? Dahmer and Gacy killed men. Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway killed women."
"Yes, but Berkowitz and Zodiac killed both. And Dennis Rader, BTK, killed men, women and children. Regardless, I'm beginning to think we're not dealing with a typical serial killer. I believe the man or woman we're looking for has a clear-cut motive for killing each one of these people. Let's go back to basics. Most murders are committed for jealousy, financial gain, revenge ...."
Dermot's face took on the countenance of one who had experienced a religious epiphany.
"That's it!" he screamed. "Whoever killed these seven people wanted revenge for some perceived wrong done to him or her."
"Do you really think it could be a woman?" his wife asked skeptically.
"Why not?"
"Wouldn't it require a great deal of physical strength to hang them? After all, would the victims be willing to climb the steps of the gallows and voluntarily stick their heads in the noose?"
"You've got a point," the writer conceded. "If it is a woman, she must be strong. For now, let's concentrate on the victims, not the killer."
Dermot spread a map across his desk and plotted the places where the bodies were found.
"The first killing was in Dublin," he announced, drawing a star around a numeral one above Ireland.
He then identified the remaining sites in a similar fashion: Kansas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Ohio and Tennessee.
"I would guess, based on these locations, that our killer is an American, most likely from the Southeast," the writer presumed.
"Why Ireland then?"
After giving his wife's question some consideration, he answered, "Maybe that wasn't the work of our killer. Maybe we have a copycat who read about the hanging in Kilmainham and followed suit."
This theory was soon disregarded when the killer's next victim was found in London's Pentonville Prison.
* * *
Calista finished putting the ornaments on the Christmas tree while her husband sat in his recliner in front of the fireplace, reading about the latest murder on the internet.
"That was the second one in New Jersey," he informed her. "The first was at the Old Essex County Jail in Newark, and this one was at the Morris County Courthouse in Morristown."
"A courthouse?" she echoed. "That's a first. The others were all prisons."
"Apparently, a man named Antoine LeBlanc was hanged for murder on the Morristown Green in 1833. The gallows was eventually disassembled and stored in the attic of the courthouse."
"That brings us up to what? Twelve so far?"
In October, a victim was found in the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins, and in November, one was discovered at the Old Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise.
"An even dozen. Eight men and four women. Eight were from Florida and one each from Pennsylvania, California, Virginia and Louisiana. Honestly! As hard as I look, I can't find a single thing to connect these people. The pattern is there, but I just can't see it."
"It's like that game we played when we went skiing. The one where we had to come up with movies starring Kevin Bacon."
"Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. We had to connect actors with other actors who starred in movies with Keven Bacon. That was a hell of a lot easier than finding out what these people have in common!"
"Oh, yeah?" Calista laughed as she hung strands of silver tinsel on the branches of the artificial tree. "Try connecting Marilyn Monroe to Kevin Bacon."
"Seriously? I'm in no mood to play games."
"I can see that. All you want to do is solve a series of murders that twelve police departments, numerous state police forces, the FBI, Ireland's Garda Síochána and Scotland Yard can't solve. I'm beginning to think not even Sherlock Holmes could make heads or tails of these killings!"
* * *
In the days leading up to Christmas, Calista was kept busy with shopping, sending out Christmas cards, wrapping gifts, baking cookies and planning a menu for her holiday meal. Her husband remained in his office, at his desk, perusing the victims' social media accounts.
"Find anything?" she inquired when Dermot went into the kitchen for a glass of eggnog and a freshly baked gingerbread man.
"Yes, I did. I was looking at Wallace Brokaw's Facebook page ...."
"And Wallace Brokaw is ...?"
"The victim found in Wyoming. According to the newspaper accounts, he lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, after graduating from William and Mary. My research indicates he was born and raised in Alexandria, but before he went to college, he served in the Coast Guard and was stationed in Miami."
"That makes another one from Florida. Do you think the victims from Pennsylvania, California and Louisiana also lived in Florida at one time?"
"I don't know yet, but I'm going to dig deeper into the background of those three people."
Of all the Christmas presents Dermot O'Grady received that year, the best once was discovering that the doctor from Philadelphia, before attending Princeton, was married for four years and lived in Coral Gables; the computer analyst from San Francisco was born in Palmetto Bay; and the young woman killed in Morristown was employed by Royal Caribbean and had once worked at the Miami cruise ship terminal.
"Whatever connects these twelve people must be found in Florida—specifically Miami-Dade County," he contended moments before the doorbell announced the arrival of his relatives who had come to Barnstable for Christmas dinner.
"They're here," his wife announced and ran to answer the door.
"Great! Just when I'm so close to finding the pattern," he grumbled and closed his laptop.
Despite a house full of relatives, Dermot could not keep his mind off the murders.
What connects twelve people who otherwise have nothing in common? he wondered.
The victims represented an ethnically diverse group: African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic and Asian. Furthermore, they ranged in age from twenty-four to seventy-three.
Dermot greeted Brynn and Jake, his sister and brother-in-law, the first guests to arrive, soon followed by Calista's brother, Mickey, and his family. Thankfully, he could perform his duties as host while his mind dwelled on what linked the victims to the killer.
"Here, let me take your coats," he offered and laid the warm garments across the bed in the guest room.
Maybe they all belonged to the same gym.
"Be a dear, will you, and put these presents under the tree?" his wife requested, handing him a stack of wrapped gifts.
"Sure."
Perhaps they all frequented the same bar.
When he entered the kitchen, he was handed the electric knife and told to slice the ham.
Speaking of bars, it's possible they were alcoholics and attended the same AA meetings.
Once the ham was carved, he opened two bottles of wine and poured glasses for the adults.
It could be that they all belonged to some kind of club, or that they took dance lessons at the same studio.
The writer took his seat and spread butter on a warm biscuit.
Possibly, they attended the same church. Or what if they were in the hospital or participated in some type of group therapy at the same time?
Brynn passed him the gravy boat. He thanked her and poured the gravy over his mound of mashed potatoes.
Maybe they volunteered at a food bank or animal shelter.
"Dermot, could you refill everyone's wine glass?" Calista requested.
He immediately went to the kitchen and opened another bottle. When he returned to the dining room, Brynn was telling everyone about her cruise to Spain and Portugal.
A cruise! Of course, Miami is a cruise port. One of the victims even worked for a cruise line. They could have all been on a cruise together.
Once everyone had finished their meal, Calista and her two sisters-in-law took away the dirty dishes.
"We have pies for dessert," she announced, once the table was cleared. "Apple, pumpkin and pecan. And if that's not enough calories for you, we have vanilla and chocolate ice cream, too. After all, what's pie without ice cream?"
Dermot was torn between pecan and apple, but chose apple because it tasted better à la mode. As he savored the melting vanilla ice cream with the warm, cinnamony apples, he overheard Mickey complain about the plumber he had hired to install a new water heater.
What if these twelve people didn't know each other at all? he considered for the first time. It could be that the killer knew them individually, not as a group. He might have been a plumber, a car mechanic or a contractor. Hell! He could have worked at Walmart, and they were all annoying customers. If that's the case, I'll never be able to find the link that connects them!
The writer was so despondent at his failure to find the common denominator that he did not hear his wife speaking to him.
"Earth to Dermot," she laughed.
"Oh, I'm sorry. What did you say, dear?"
"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"Yes. After that big meal, I'll need one to stay awake."
The children scurried off to the family room to watch a holiday movie on Netflix while the adults drank coffee and indulged in a second piece of pie. With the youngsters out of earshot, the conversation turned to the murders that inspired Dermot's new book.
"I had nightmares when I learned about the hanging in Morristown!" Jenna, Mickey's wife, exclaimed.
"Why is that?" Jake wondered.
"I used to live in New Jersey. I had to serve on jury duty at the Morris County Courthouse. And to think, all that time I was there, there was a gallows in the attic."
Dermot's hand trembled as he put his cup in the saucer.
Twelve people. Why didn't I think of that before? There are twelve members on a jury.
* * *
Over the years, Dermot often called upon various consultants to help him with technical questions in his books. There were a number of lawyers, doctors, police detectives and forensic experts he routinely relied upon, one of whom was now a judge. On January 2, with the holidays over and most people having returned to work, he phoned the Honorable Rodney M. Barton and invited him to lunch.
The conversation began with the usual questions. How's the wife? What have you been up to lately? How were the holidays? Did you see the Patriots game on Sunday? After the server brought them their drinks and appetizers, the judge asked the writer what he wanted to know.
"In the book I'm currently writing, Inspector Gaskell is presented with twelve seemingly unrelated murders," Dermot began, not wanting to let his friend know he was referring to actual crimes. "He has a theory that these people served on a jury together. How would he go about proving that? Is there some database of jurors' names I can go to?"
"Not a public record, no. Their names and addresses are kept private for their safety."
"So, there's no way of plugging those twelve names into a computer and coming up with the answer?"
"You couldn't do it," Rodney answered. "But there are members of the court who have access to that information."
"Who?"
Rodney's eyes narrowed. He did not become a judge without being able to assess people's motives.
"This isn't about a book, is it?"
"Yes and no," Dermot replied and, over their long lunch, he told the judge about the twelve hangings.
"I read something in the paper about the body found in Jim Thorpe when I visited my son and daughter-in-law in the Poconos. But I'm not familiar with the other eleven cases."
"I've researched all twelve victims. I spent weeks reading their social media postings and public records. I've discovered that at one time they all lived in Miami-Dade County, Florida."
"When was that?"
"Roughly, four to seven years ago."
After several moments of concentration, Rodney announced, "I have a friend, a fellow judge, who moved to Florida ten years ago. He's retired now, but he probably still has connections in the court system. Why don't you give me a list of those names, and I'll see what he can find out for you?"
Three days later, Dermot drove through the snow to visit Judge Barton at his home in Duxbury.
"You were right," the jurist told him after handing him a hot cup of coffee. "They all served on a jury five years ago. It was a murder trial. The defendant's name was Trent Pizer."
"Let me guess," the writer said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "They convicted him, and he was released from prison last April, which was when the first hanging took place in Dublin."
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. The jurors could not reach a unanimous decision, so the judge declared a mistrial."
"You mean it was a hung jury?" the writer cried with astonishment.
"Which makes these deaths apropos, don't you think?" Rodney laughed.
"Was the defendant retried?"
"No. He wasn't. Of course, the father of the girl he murdered wasn't about to see his daughter's killer go free. Six months after the trial ended, the father shot and killed Pizer and then turned the gun on himself."
Dermot frowned and shook his head.
"So, even though these people served on a jury together, it wasn't what led to their deaths."
"Not necessarily. You see, during the six months between the trial and his own murder, Pizer is believed to have killed a second young woman."
In the roller coaster of emotions that he had experienced since arriving at the judge's house, the writer was again elated by what his friend told him.
"And, by any chance, did this second victim have a father with a grudge against Trent Pizer?"
"No," Rodney answered with a gleam in his eye. "But she did have a fiancé. And he swore he'd get even with the man who killed her. However, the first victim's father beat him to it."
"But if he knew about the mistrial and Pizer's subsequent release, he might have been angry enough to hold the jury responsible for his fiancée's death."
"It makes sense to me," the judge agreed, "especially given the fact that the former jurors were all hanged. But tell me, are you sure your readers will buy such a bizarre series of murders? This isn't the type of case Inspector Gaskell usually deals with."
"Bizarre?" Dermot echoed, suddenly feeling as though Rodney was about to send his emotions plummeting down another steep drop.
"Bizarre. Strange. Unusual. Weird."
"I know what the word means. And I admit that hanging twelve people out of revenge is uncommon, but are these murders any more bizarre than those of someone such as Ed Gein?"
Now it was the judge's turn to play Cheshire Cat.
"Here's where the bizarre aspect comes into the story. The fiancé was killed in a car accident in April, just one day before the first victim's body was found in Kilmainham Gaol Museum. It seems as though the fiancé's hand reached out from the grave for revenge."
Thus, the roller coaster ride came to a shuddering end, leaving the rider emotionally exhausted.
"You're right," he intoned. "This is not a case for Inspector Gaskell. These murders are more in the realm of Stephen King."
After a second cup of coffee, Dermot O'Grady said farewell to the judge, got into his Subaru Ascent and headed back to Barnstable. As he drove along the recently plowed Route 3, his thoughts returned to Inspector Gaskell and to the case of the murdered pop star.
While all the prisons in this story once executed people by hanging, not all of them still have the gallows.
I've been to several of these prisons (just visiting). I saw the gallows in Moundsville Penitentiary and the Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe. While on a Ghost Tour in Dublin, I saw the outside of Kilmainham Gaol but did not get to go in. I also served on the grand jury in Morris County Courthouse, but I didn't know then that they kept the gallows in the attic.
Salem, the game is Six Degrees of KEVIN Bacon, not Oscar Mayer bacon!
