Acts of Mercy (5 page)

Trula sniffed. “It was Robert’s idea.”

“After you planted it,” Mallory noted.

“Emme works long hours. Someone needs to watch Chloe when she comes home from school,” Trula countered.

“She could have hired a babysitter,” Mallory pointed out.

Trula fixed her with a glare, and Mallory smiled as if she’d been expecting the reaction.

“We all agreed that Chloe has to be protected,” Mallory told Sam. “And we all agreed there’s no safer place for her than here. She goes to all-day preschool at Our Lady of Angels so Kevin keeps an eye on her there, and Robert has beefed up security here at the house as well.”

“Which he needed to do anyway,” Trula said. “This big house and all these acres of grounds—for a while all he had was a puny little alarm system. Now, I’m not one to be paranoid, but when you’re Robert Magellan, you need to take some precautions. I’m glad he finally hired some guards and had the fencing and the alarms upgraded like I’ve been telling him to do for the past two years. I hate to think badly of my fellow man, but ever since Beth and Ian disappeared, and we didn’t know if they’d been abducted …” She shivered.

“How’s the search going?” Sam asked.

“It’s going,” Mallory replied. “No news. I’m thinking it’s going to take some creative thinking on their part to find that boy.”

“It was creative thinking on Susanna’s part that found the car in the first place,” Trula reminded her. “If Robert didn’t need her to run his life, he could hire her to work on cases. She’d make a crack detective.”

Sam watched Mallory open a cupboard and sort through a shelf of mugs until she found one that apparently pleased her. She filled it with coffee and returned to the table where she sat and added cream and sweetener. He craned his neck to read the writing on the mug.
ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
.

What, he wondered, was up with all the mugs?

“You met Susanna Jones last week as you were leaving. She’s been Robert’s personal assistant since before he even had his own company. Since the police put the case on the back burner, Susanna spent nearly every weekend traveling the route Robert’s wife would have taken to get back home from her sister’s in Western Pennsylvania. She took every side road, every mountain road, every hill and valley between here and Pittsburgh, until she found the place where Beth’s car had gone off the road and down the side of a mountain into a ravine where it couldn’t be seen from the road.” Mallory shook her head. “That’s determination.”

“I read about it online. I was amazed at her persistence,” Sam said.

“We all were. If anyone can find that baby, it’s going to be Susanna.” Trula nodded. “She and
Robert and Emme together, they’re going to find that boy.”

“Let’s hope so.” Mallory turned back to Sam. “And speaking of finding someone …”

She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a file.

“This is all we have on the Ross Walker case.” She handed him the folder. “I spoke with Lynne Walker on Thursday. She’s expecting to hear from you today or tomorrow. I thought you’d want to start with her.”

“Thanks.” Sam put the file on the table next to him.

“Aren’t you going to look at it?”

“Sure. But right now, I’m going to eat the eggs Trula is putting onto one of those plates, and I’m going to drink my coffee. Then I’ll go to whatever place you’ve set aside for me to use as an office, and I’ll read everything you’ve given me.”

“Don’t you want to talk about it?”

“Not especially. Not right now, anyway,” he said honestly. Might as well put that out there, right up front.

“I get it.” Mallory shrugged. “I should probably be insulted, but I get it.”

“Get what?” Trula set a plate in front of them both.

“Sam likes to work alone.”

“It’s nothing personal,” he told her. “It’s the only way I’ve ever worked.”

“Haven’t you ever had a partner?”

“Not recently.”

“But when you were called in to work as a profiler, surely you had to play nicely with the others.”

“Mostly I studied whatever information there was
and talked to the people in the field, but I rarely worked a case with anyone else.” He thought about that for a moment. “At least, not until I’d had time to digest the information and talk to a few people, get a feel for it. But even at that, I was really just giving my opinion and my thoughts.”

“Well, once you’ve had time to do a little digesting of Ross Walker’s case, I’d appreciate your thoughts on it.” Mallory took a piece of toast from the plate that Trula had placed between them on the table and began to butter it. “Actually, I’d more than just appreciate it. I’m going to require it.”

“So I should think of you as sort of the special agent in charge of the Mercy Street Foundation.” Sam nodded, glad to have the hierarchy spelled out. For some reason, he had assumed he’d be reporting directly to Magellan. Clearly he’d been wrong. It was good to get that straightened out on the first day.

“Something like that.” Mallory smiled and turned her attention to the scrambled eggs and bacon Trula was serving. “Nice analogy. I like it.”

Sam glanced at the sparkly round diamond on her ring finger and silently wished a lot of luck to the guy who’d placed it there. Mallory must have caught the look, because she grinned and wiggled her finger to catch the light with the stone.

“Pretty, isn’t it? My guy done good, don’t you think?”

“Very nice, yes.” Sam nodded, and Mallory laughed.

“You’ll meet Charlie soon enough,” she told him.

“He’s a detective in Conroy, and there are times when we need him to get a little info for us. Of course, now,
with your contacts in the FBI, I’m thinking we might be able to let Charlie off the hook a little.”

“There are some people I can call on if we need to.” Sam nodded, already planning to check to make sure the details of Ross Walker’s murder had been entered into the Bureau’s computer system. “I’m assuming we have copies of all the reports from the investigating police department?”

“All the ones that were sent in by the widow. But I wouldn’t assume anything. I’m sure the Lincoln police have a lot more. Maybe they’ll even share it with you.”

“I’ll give them a call. I went to college in Lincoln. Haven’t been back in a while.”

“That’s right. I do recall reading that on your resume. Cornhusker, eh?”

“Absolutely. Nebraska born and raised.” He took a bite of Trula’s excellent eggs and wondered if she served breakfast to the staff when Robert was around.

He watched the older woman as she puttered, and wondered at her age—seventy-something, maybe?—and what her position here was. Robert’s housekeeper? The cook? Neither would explain why Mallory seemed to defer to her or why she appeared to have so much influence over Robert.

Interesting household
.

“Well, I have some calls to make.” Mallory stood and gathered up her plate and her mug and her flatware and carried all to the sink where she rinsed all but the mug and opened the dishwasher. “By the way, Sam, you’re in the office two down from mine. Your laptop is on your desk along with everything I think
you’ll need to get started. If there’s anything else you need, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Mallory.” He was pretty sure he remembered which office was hers.

“I’m in the process of unloading so leave everything on the counter,” Trula told Mallory.

“Okay.” Mallory did as she was told, filled her cup from the coffeemaker on the counter. “Thanks, Trula. Perfect, as always.” She waved to Sam as she passed out of the kitchen.

Trula turned to Sam and said, “I’m going outside to find Chloe. I’m going to have to get her to school soon. You can do as Mallory did and clear your own place whenever you finish.”

“I’ll do that, thanks. And thanks for breakfast.”

“You’re welcome. We usually have lunch around one for whoever is around.” She left the house by the back door, leaving Sam alone in the kitchen.

He poured himself another cup of coffee after rinsing his plate and tucked the file Mallory had given him under his arm. He looked out the back window and saw Trula sitting on the ground next to Chloe, making a chain of clover flowers. So much for getting the child to school on time. He smiled at the unlikely pairing, and went off in search of his office.

Two hours later, he’d read the file through and made several pages of notes. He’d had the benefit of having seen the file contents briefly when he’d met with Mallory for his interview, but now found himself poring over every page, looking for the bits and pieces of real information scattered throughout the wordy documents. When he felt he’d extracted as much as he was
going to get from the official reports, he pulled out the contact sheet and lifted the receiver to dial Lynne Walker’s number. He caught the address of the Walker home—4172 Clinton Street—and for a moment, wasn’t sure he’d read correctly. Hadn’t his first apartment in Lincoln been on Clinton Street? He tried to remember what the building had looked like but couldn’t bring it to mind. He shrugged. Maybe it had been Calhoun Street, or the name of some other president. Buchanan, maybe. Whatever.

He took his time dialing, remembering some very good times at the University of Nebraska. There’d been that hot little blonde at the Phi Mu house. Cheryl something. At the last reunion he’d attended, he’d heard she’d gone into TV reporting. He wondered what she was doing now …

“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered the phone.

“Is this Mrs. Walker?” Sam asked, his college memories swiftly put aside.

“This is Lynne Walker, yes.”

“Mrs. Walker, this is Sam DelVecchio. I’m with the—”

“Mercy Street Foundation,” she said with obvious relief. “Miss Russo said you’d be calling today or tomorrow. Thank you for being on the early end of the range. I’ve been on pins and needles all day.”

“Sorry to have made you wait.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve finished reviewing the materials you sent. Have there been any follow-up calls from the police, or any other articles in the newspapers there in Lincoln since you submitted your application?”

“No calls, no articles that I’ve seen lately. I called Detective Coutinho to let him know that I was contacting
the Foundation, but I had to leave a message for him. I’m sure there’s plenty in his file that he didn’t let me see.”

“I’ll give him a call and let him know we’re on the case at your request, see if I can schedule a time to sit down with him.”

“He’s been very kind through all this. I’m sure he’ll be happy to work with you. Will you stop in here while you’re in Lincoln?”

“I’d like to do that. I’d like to know more about your husband.”

“He was a really nice man, Agent DelVecchio.”

“I’m not an agent, Mrs. Walker.” He thought it over for a moment, realized he wasn’t sure what his title was. Detective? Just plain Mister? Sam?

“Thanks. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

He hung up, still wondering if, as a private detective, he should call himself detective. He chided himself for getting hung up on something so inconsequential and searched his notes for Christopher Coutinho’s phone number at the Lincoln PD.

The call was answered on the second ring.

“Coutinho.”

“Detective, this is Sam DelVecchio. I’m with the Mercy Street Foundation.”

“Who?”

Sam started over.

“Mercy Street,” the detective muttered. “That thing on TV?”

“You might have seen something on television, but—”

“Big money guy fronting some private agency?”

“That’s the general idea, yes. We’ve been asked to
look into a case that I understand you handled last year. Ross Walker.”

“Walker, yeah.” Coutinho paused. “What’s your involvement?”

“His widow applied to the Foundation, asked us to take a look.”

“You mean, see if you can solve the case for us.” The detective’s voice developed a sudden edge. “Thanks a lot. We sure appreciate it. Since, you know, we’re basically incompetent.”

Sam sighed. He’d expected it.

“Look, here’s the thing,” Sam said. “It’s not a reflection on you. But we both know that when a case goes cold, when the evidence isn’t there and there are no leads and no suspects, it takes a hell of a lot of digging to find even one thread to tug on. If you had nothing else to do, no other cases to deal with, you’d probably find that thread, if in fact there’s a thread to be found. But you don’t have the luxury of handling one case at a time for however long it takes. I do.”

Sam let that sink in before adding, “Mrs. Walker came to us, Detective. We didn’t go looking for this case.”

Coutinho fell silent for a few moments, then said, “I appreciate you not rubbing it in that we weren’t able to solve the case. It’s been on my mind since the minute I walked onto that crime scene.”

“Let’s get something out of the way right up front. I’m not looking at this case as one you ‘weren’t able to solve,’” Sam said. “I know that if we are going to make any headway at all with this, it will only be because of the work you did when you caught the call, so let’s look at this as a sort of collaboration.”

“Do you have any idea of just how patronizing that sounded?”

“Yeah, well, it is what it is. I’m sure you guys did a bang-up investigation.”

“You know this how?”

“You got a do-gooder found behind a soup kitchen with a burger stuffed in his mouth, his chest slashed up, someone is going to want some answers. Everyone’s going to be on their best behavior because the case is going to have a profile. The heat would be on you on a case like this.”

“You got that much right.”

“So let’s stop the bullshit, and talk about the case.”

Coutinho’s manner changed and he became all business.

“A call came in around eleven on a Tuesday night. Woman said her husband was missing, that they’d put a few hours in at the mission down on Fourth Street, Pilgrim’s Place. Said she and her husband were volunteers who cooked and served dinner there every Tuesday night, that they usually finished up around ten thirty, but that night, she realized sometime around nine forty-five that it had been a while since she’d seen him. At first, she figured he’d stepped outside to talk to someone and lost track of time—she said he’s a talker—or maybe he was in the men’s room. So they start cleaning up and she asks the others if anyone knew where he was, and no one did. No one could recall the last time they’d seen him. So she’s getting worried and she calls his cell phone, but there’s no answer. So she waits a few minutes more, then calls again. Still no answer. Finally the kitchen cleanup is done, the others are getting ready to leave,
and he still hasn’t turned up. They search the house, inside and out, and even go out to the street to see if he’s out there chatting, but he was nowhere to be found.”