Last to Die

It’s telling you something is wrong.” He leaned closer, studying her face. “Am I correct?”
    She thought of the empty sugar bowl. And the baffling phone conversation between Jane and Anna. She looked down at the file that Sansone had slid to her, and opened the folder.
    The first page was a photo of Anna, before her hair had turned silver. It was taken sixteen years earlier, when she’d been proposed for the society. As always, she wore a modest dress with long sleeves and high collar, a wardrobe choice that made her seem eccentric, but which Maura now understood was meant to hide the scars of torture. Nothing in Anna’s smile, in her eyes, spoke of old torments or a future suicide.
    Maura turned the page to a dry compilation of biographical data. Born in Berlin to a US Army officer and his wife. Earned a degree in psychology from George Washington University in DC and married to Franklin Welliver. Along with her husband, she worked for an international headhunting firm with offices in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina.
    She turned the page and saw newspaper articles about the couple’s abduction and Franklin’s subsequent murder in Argentina. A second clipping stated that the killers were never apprehended.
    “Anna personally experienced the failure of justice,” said Sansone. “That made her one of us.”
    “Not the sort of membership qualification anyone wants to have.”
    “None of us joined the society because we
wanted
to, the way you want to join a country club. We were each compelled to join because of personal tragedies that left us angry or hopeless or in despair. We understand what ordinary people don’t.”
    “Evil.”
    “That’s one word for it.” He pointed to the file. “Certainly Anna understood. After her husband’s death, she quit her job and returned to the US to go back to school. Earned her degree in counseling. In her own way, she was trying to fight evil, by working with the families of victims. We offered her the chance to be even more effective, to reshape a whole generation of lives. Not just as a counselor, but as our admissions scout. With her contacts within child protective agencies and law enforcement, she could identify prospective students all over the country.”
    “By trawling through murder cases? Targeting the wounded?”
    “We’ve had this conversation before, Maura. I know you don’t approve.”
    “Because it smacks of recruitment for your cause.”
    “Look at Julian and how he’s blossomed. Tell me this school hasn’t been good for him.”
    She didn’t respond because she had no rebuttal. Evensong was exactly where Julian should be. In just these few months he’d gained both muscle and confidence.
    “Anna knew he would do well here,” said Sansone. “If you judged him only by his school records in Wyoming, no one would consider him a promising candidate. He was failing half his classes, getting into fights, committing petty crimes. But Anna saw in his file that he was a survivor. She knew he’d kept you alive in those mountains for no other reason but compassion. And that’s how she knew he was a student we wanted.”
    “So she made that decision?”
    “Anna’s approval was key. She handpicked half the students you see here.” He paused and added: “Including Claire Ward and Will Yablonski.”
    She considered that last piece of information for a moment. Thought about the meeting that she and Jane had held in Anna’s office about these three children, and whether there was a connection among them. Anna had told them it was merely a coincidence , and not worth pursuing. Yet on the day Anna died, she had been studying the files of those same three children.
    The room was so quiet Maura could hear her own heartbeat. The silence magnified the sound of approaching footsteps, and she turned as four figures emerged from the shadows and walked into the glow of the lamp.
    “We need to talk to you,” said Julian. Beside him stood three companions.
The
three. Will and Teddy and Claire, the trio whose tragedies seemed to have no end to them.
    Although it was approaching eleven PM , and these children should all be in bed, Sansone regarded them with the same respect he’d give any adult. “What do you have on your mind, Julian?” he asked.
    “The Jackals had a meeting this morning, about Dr. Welliver,” the boy said. “And these three members have since uncovered a lead. But we need your help to pursue it.”
    Maura sighed. “Julian, I know you