Page 100 of The Change
“No.”
At least three of the girls died of overdoses at Harding’s beach house. When that happened, Chertov would place the body inside two heavy-duty lawn bags and drive it to the forgotten trail off desolate Danskammer Beach. The same night, under the cover of darkness, a local fisherman named Randall Duffy would land his boat on Danskammer Beach, pick up the bag, and cram it into an old metal lobster trap. Then he would toss the trap and its contents onto an underwater heap of abandoned lobster traps.
“How many traps are down there?”
“Thousands. After all the lobsters died in ninety-nine, that’s where the local fishermen sank their traps.”
“So when he dumped a body, Randall Duffy knew the odds were pretty good that no one would ever find it.”
“It was a needle in a haystack.”
Unfortunately, the perfect plan depended on a less-than-perfect man. Randall Duffy used the money he made from dumping bodies to fund a heroin addiction. Police believe he died of an overdose just hours before he was scheduled to make his last pickup from Danskammer Beach. According to Danill Chertov, he had no idea that the body he’d left in the scrub was still there, just waiting to be found.
Jo stopped the video on an image of Randall Duffy standing on the fishing boat he’d used to dump the bodies, wearing only a pair of swim trunks. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a perfectly round, hairless head and a perfectly round, hairless belly to match.
Nessa squinted at the screen. “I’ve never seen that guy before.”
“Me either,” Jo agreed.
By the evening of Tuesday, June ninth, Chief Rocca had heard more than enough from Danill Chertov. An arrest warrant was issued for Spencer Harding. But by the time the billionaires on Culling Pointe were woken up by the sound of sirens outside their windows, the man who had raped countless young women and murdered at least four people was gone, his helicopter en route to Manhattan. At ten to midnight, it would make a fatal plunge into the harbor, less than a mile from the famed Statue of Liberty.
“What happened? How did he get away?”
“He was tipped off,” Rocca said.
“By someone inside of your department?”
“No, sir. By a podcast.”
Nessa gasped. “That lying motherfucker.”
That very same night, the popular podcastThey Walk Among Usreleased what it called a “special episode.” It featured an interview with two of the women who had discovered the first body. They claimed to also know the location of two additional bodies at the bottom of the ocean off Danskammer Beach. The host of the podcast, Josh Gibbon, sent a scuba diver down to check out their claim. The video footage was posted online the same night as the podcast. It clearly showed the remains of two bodies crammed into lobster traps.
“How did these women know where to look for the bodies Danill Chertov had paid Randall Duffy to dump in the ocean?”
“I’m sad to report that they were tipped off by a detective on the case. He was apparently involved with one of the women.”
“Detective Franklin Rees.”
“That is correct.”
“And what happened to this detective?”
“He has since been relieved of his duties.”
And for good reason. Thanks to that leak, Spencer Harding was able to flee Culling Pointe before authorities arrived to arrest him. Until Harding’s body is recovered from New York Harbor, we have no way of knowing what brought down his helicopter. For now, all we know is that the man who brought suffering and heartache to so many will forever go unpunished.
Nessa was sobbing.
“I can’t watch any more of this,” Jo said.
“You must,” Harriett insisted. She was no longer laughing. In fact, she’d never sounded so serious. “You have to see what they’re willing to do.”
After Harding’s death, two bodies were recovered from the water off Danskammer Beach. One belonged to a local girl, Mandy Welsh. The second body has yet to be identified. Spencer Harding’s house was also searched, and thanks to information gathered from Danill Chertov, a hidden room was uncovered.
“It’s been called a sex dungeon.”
“I would say that’s an apt description.”
