The Doll Maker by Richard Montanari

fresh wound across his city, the disappearance of Thaddeus Woodman was no less terrible.
    Byrne had told Theresa Woodman on the phone that there had been no news of her son, and had debated with himself about whether or not he would bring her the news he did have, and whether or not it would help.
    When he found himself at a table at the Starbucks on Arch Street, a block or so away from where Theresa worked at the Comcast Center, he thought it might have been a mistake to do this. When she entered the coffee shop, and he saw her eyes, he knew it was so.
    It had been ten years since Theresa Woodman had last seen her little boy.

    Theresa hugged him, sat down. Despite her burden, she now seemed to float above her chair.
    ‘Can I get you something?’ Byrne asked.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m … I’m fine. Thank you.’
    Byrne saw that she had in her hands a wad of damp paper towels, already shredded.
    He reached into his bag, took out the document. He had clipped the article from the Inquirer , and made a photocopy of it.
    ‘I didn’t know whether or not you had seen this,’ he said. He unfolded the photocopy, slid it across the table. He watched as she read the piece.
    When she was done, she dabbed at her moist eyes, took a few moments, pointed at the document. ‘The date,’ she said. ‘This is less than three weeks from now.’
    She was referring to the date of Valerie Beckert’s scheduled execution. Byrne just nodded.
    Theresa put down the article, looked out the window. Byrne could all but see the conflict doing battle inside her. He understood. The death penalty, and all its attendant emotions – political, spiritual, human – was, and forever would be, a war fought on the fields of the heart.
    Theresa turned back to Byrne. ‘Are we absolutely sure she had something to do with Thad’s …’
    Byrne wanted to finish her sentence for her. There were only two words. One was disappearance. The other was murder .
    He used neither.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s still only a hunch on my part.’
    This wasn’t true. It was more than that. It was a belief.
    ‘But the DNA,’ she said, as if for the first time. ‘In her car.’
    There were a number of explanations as to why Thaddeus Woodman’s DNA had been found in Valerie’s car, none of which Byrne, or any other cop, would buy. The boy’s DNA was lifted from four strands of his hair on the upholstery in the back seat.
    Byrne had first visited Theresa and her husband John the month after Valerie had been arrested. He had also visited the parents of eight of the twelve other children who had gone missing. During these visits Byrne had requested a personal item belonging to each of the missing children, something from which a DNA test could be run. He did not concern himself, at that time, with the four children who had lived at foster homes, as their clothing, hairbrushes and other personal items were almost always shared, therefore contaminating the sample.
    Because the processing of these DNA control models were not part of an active investigation, the city would not authorize – or pay for – the analyses. Byrne had paid for the testing out of his own pocket. There had only been one match.
    Thaddeus Woodman.
    Byrne turned his coffee cup on the table, searching for the right words. ‘I would like to say I know how your son’s hair got there, but I can’t, Theresa. There’s no proof that Thaddeus was ever in Valerie’s car, or her house, or even in her company.’ He thought about taking a sip of coffee, stalling even longer, but he knew the coffee was cold. ‘It’s possible that Thaddeus came in contact with Thomas Rule somehow, that Thomas introduced the DNA into the car. Maybe the transference took place that way.’
    Byrne could hear the uncertainty in his own voice, his disbelief in this implausible theory, and it made him feel dirty.
    ‘But how would that be possible? They didn’t know each other,’ Theresa said. ‘They went to different