Mercy Street (10 page)

He coughed again rudely into the phone, and she knew he was doing it to be as annoying as possible.

“So I says, Where’d you see that? And Steve says, They have to post the name of everyone who applies, the list is right outside on the wall. So when my case is over, I go out and look, and sure enough, there it is. Mallory B. Russo. We know what the
B
stands for, don’t we? Heh, heh. Anyway, I’m thinking how hurt I am, you didn’t put me down as a reference. How ’bout Cal, you put him down?” His laugh was harsh and without humor. “Gonna be some fun, the first time you and I cross paths out there, know what I mean? So I hope you get lots of criminal work, because your ass isn’t going to be worth…”

“Asshole.” She hit
DELETE,
wondering why she’d listened for as long as she had.

Annoyed, Mallory went straight on to the kitchen and tossed her bag on the table. Her grumbling stomach reminded her that it had been hours since she’d eaten, but Toricelli’s message had left her with little appetite. She checked the refrigerator and found a container of yogurt that had expired the previous week and a bottle of iced tea. She plucked a spoon from the dishwasher and sat at the table looking out at the backyard, mindlessly eating the yogurt. Surprised when she found she’d finished it, she went back to the refrigerator for more and found one last container stashed behind the bottle of pomegranate juice that she’d bought because she’d heard it was healthy but had forgotten once she’d stuck it in the fridge.

She unlocked the back door and walked out onto the tiny patio. The parrot on the deck next door began to squawk.

“Hello, beautiful,” the parrot called, his customary greeting to any woman. Men, on the other hand, were always greeted with, “Who goes there?”

“Hello, Leroy,” Mallory called to the bird, whose cage hung over the deck rail and was a mere ten feet from her door. “Did Jacky go out and leave you outside again?”

“Jacky’s a bad, bad boy!” the parrot said, climbing along the side of his cage as if to engage Mallory in conversation.

“There are lots of bad boys out there, Leroy.”

Mallory stepped off the concrete onto the grass and walked to the back of the property. Her town house was located at the very end of the development, the last row of houses before a dense wood. She stopped halfway to the trees and inhaled deeply, recognizing the scent of spring rain and damp earth. The sun was setting over the woods, as it had been the day she’d first seen the house. She’d liked the view enough to make an offer the next day. For the most part, she’d been relatively comfortable here and had never thought twice about her decision to buy it. It was the right size for one person and an occasional guest—should she ever want to have one—and required little maintenance, so all in all she figured it had been a good choice.

She took a few more deep breaths of fresh air before turning back. It was quiet except for the birds chattering in the hedge that ran past her next-door neighbor’s unit. As the last one in the row, Jacky had a bit of a side yard, a narrow strip of grass between the dark green of the hedge and the white brick outside wall of his house. Sometimes on summer nights, he set up the posts for games of horseshoes, and if her bedroom windows were open, she could hear the metal shoes clanging well into the night. She’d never complained, though the sound had kept her awake on more than one occasion. It reminded her of summer evenings in the house where she’d grown up, when all the boys in the family would play outside after she’d been tucked in, and she’d lay in the dark, listening to their voices and their laughter, envying their camaraderie, knowing that they were separated by more than age and gender.

“Who’s your daddy?” Leroy squawked merrily at her approach.

“Ah, now that is one of life’s great mysteries, Leroy,” Mallory said under her breath as she went back inside.

She made a pot of coffee and, while it brewed, went upstairs to her den and turned on her computer. Opening a new file, she began to type up notes from that day’s interviews. There was little of substance until she got to her meeting with Sister Rosalie, and her fingers began to move over the keyboard more quickly, then she stopped and reread the last two sentences she’d typed.

Why the change in Courtney’s college choice—significant or not?

Courtney in Hazel’s during shooting.

The first, Mallory knew, could very well have been nothing more than a teenager changing her mind.

But the second set off that buzz in her head. Tomorrow she’d talk to Charlie, have him get a copy of the police file relating to the shooting. While she hated to rely on someone else, hated the thought that she’d be dependent on a man she didn’t know well enough to trust to get information she needed, she was just going to have to live with it.

For a moment, she wished she were still with the force so that she could sit down and read all the reports herself, talk to the officers who had investigated, read all the witness statements. Then she thought about the harassment she’d endured until her patience wore out and remembered why she’d left.

“Not for all the money in the world,” she murmured as she read over her notes.

Her arrangement with Conroy’s newest detective was just going to have to work out. She’d have to watch her own back—she couldn’t depend even on Joe for that, because when it came down to helping her or protecting his department, she knew there’d be no choice—but she could live with that, too. It was just one case, she reminded herself.

One case, then she would go back to writing her book, and get on with her life.

ELEVEN

C
harlie locked his hands behind his head and finished his last set of sit-ups. It was barely six
AM,
but he’d been awake most of the night. He’d slept—or tried to—in his late brother’s bed, the only one available, and in retrospect Charlie thought he’d have been more comfortable on the sofa. Except for the fact that his mother had sat up half the night watching old movies and infomercials. Twice he’d heard her placing orders over the phone. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been buying.

Across the hall, his sister was still softly singing the same song she’d been singing since about one. He’d peeked in on her once and found her on the floor, fixated on the spinning arms of a pinwheel, singing “Tiny Dancer” and wiggling her toes. At four, she was still singing, though the pinwheel had been forgotten, her feet tapping up and down on the carpet.

Charlie rested his head back against the side of the bed, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to his family in the two short years since Dan died.

Whatever the cause, Charlie couldn’t help but feel he was responsible, at least in part, for his sister’s deterioration and his mother’s drinking problem. He should have come home more frequently and stayed longer than he had. He should have realized how hard his mother was taking Danny’s death. He should have realized that in her state, she wasn’t going to give Jilly the attention she needed. He should have, he should have, he should have…

He rubbed the back of his neck, overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. His mother had needed help, and he’d failed to see it, choosing to immerse himself in his cases—street shootings of school-aged children, housewives with the backs of their heads bashed in, prostitutes disappearing from their corners, whatever the hot case of the week might have been—which somehow always seemed more important, more urgent, than a weekend trip back home.

Would he be here now if his mother’s next-door neighbor hadn’t called him? The honest answer was probably not. The truth of it was that he didn’t want to deal with Danny’s death any more now than he had when they’d first been notified. His mother probably didn’t want to deal with it, either, he reminded himself. God knew, in her life, she’d had more to bear than he had. She sure as hell had not had an easy life.

Mary Jo Wanamaker had buried her husband at too young an age and had lost the home she’d loved. She’d had five miscarriages, two between Charlie and Danny, three more before Jilly had been born. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out that Danny’s death would be Mary Jo’s last straw. Intellectually, Charlie supposed he’d been aware, but emotionally, he’d been clueless, which in the long run had made things easier for him. But his last trip home had made it apparent that he could no longer ignore the situation in Conroy, that something needed to be done, that it was up to him to figure out what that something was and to make sure it happened.

It had taken him a while, but he’d finally come up with a plan to get the Wanamaker family back on its feet. He’d taken the necessary steps, made all the arrangements. By the end of the week, the only thing left to do was to break it to his mother, and he’d had that discussion with her the other night.

He’d steeled himself for her reaction, and as he’d anticipated, she hadn’t liked a bit of what he’d had to say.

“You don’t know how hard this has been for me since we had to leave Toby Falls, Charlie,” she’d said accusingly after he’d laid out his plan. “I loved my old life. My pretty house. My friends. I didn’t want to give it up, not any of it.”

Her eyes had misted, and her face had grown softer. “When you were little, we’d walk to the park—I don’t suppose you remember, you were so little then, but there was a lovely park across the street. We used to have picnics there, just the two of us—this was before Danny was born. I’d pack up our food and take a blanket and spread it out on the grass…Oh, it was just like a movie scene. Then when you started school, and Danny came along, I used to picnic with him.” She’d looked up at him with round sad eyes. “I had such a pretty life back then….”

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did for you.”

She hadn’t seemed to have heard him.

“Then it was time for Danny to go to school and for a long time, I didn’t have anyone to picnic with. Until I had Jilly. My perfect baby girl.” She smiled wryly. “Well, perfect for a while, anyway.”

Charlie remembered Jilly’s birth, and how sweet she was, what a good baby she was, up until she was almost two and her symptoms became more and more pronounced. He’d been in high school then, and had been as confused as his parents and brother as gradually, Jilly began to change. Her increasing lack of responsiveness, her inconsolable crying, her singsong speech patterns, her increasing sensitivity to light and sound, her constant movement, and her zoning out of the present and retreating into a place that was hers alone—all classic symptoms of the disorder they would come to know well over the next few years.

Charlie had been getting set to leave home for college when Jilly was diagnosed. No one in the family really understood what autism was, and what it would mean for Jilly, what it would mean for the entire family, what her special needs would be. The private schooling they were able to afford while Charlie Senior was still employed as vice president of Conroy Mills went the way of their big house when the mill closed.

“Jilly did fine when she was in private school,” his mother had wept two nights ago.

“She did fine when she was in Riverside, too,” he’d reminded her. Riverside was the facility Jilly had attended after they’d moved to Conroy. “It wasn’t as fancy as her old school, but she did well there.”

“Structure.” His mother had nodded, sniffling and blowing her nose in a tissue she’d dug out from her pocket. “Structure and consistency. That’s what they told us she needed.”

“The two things she needs most, neither of which she’s getting now,” he’d said softly.

“You can’t imagine how hard it is.” His mother had started to cry again.

“Mom, we have a problem here.” He corrected himself. “Two problems. Your drinking and Jilly’s total lack of structure, and there’s a definite connection between the two. When you drink, no one’s there to take care of Jilly.”

“I can’t stay in this house twenty-four hours a day, Charlie. I’d go insane. And I can’t bring anyone in to stay with her because she gets upset when strangers are around and I—”

“Mom,” he said firmly, “you can’t keep on going out at night and leaving Jilly home alone. Really bad things could happen to her.”

“But now you’re here, and you could stay with her.”

“No, I can’t. There will be a lot of nights when I will have to work, or times I get called out in the middle of the night.” He hadn’t told her yet that his plan for their living arrangements did not include his staying with them. “Lena told me she found Jilly walking through the backyards, eleven thirty at night, dressed only in her nightgown. You know what could have happened to her, don’t you, Mom, a pretty young girl like Jilly roaming around in the dark alone at night?”

“I don’t want anything bad to happen to her,” his mother had sobbed, “but I can’t do it all for her anymore.”

“I know you can’t, Mom. And that’s why we have an appointment at ten on Saturday morning with the doctors at Riverside.”

“For God’s sake, Charlie, that place is for kids. She’s not a child.” The sobbing stopped abruptly.

“They’ve expanded their facilities, Mom. They’re taking a few select adults. They’re willing to evaluate Jilly.”

“She’s not going to want to go.” His mother got up and began pacing nervously. “And I can’t afford it anyway, even if she agreed to go, which she wouldn’t do.”

“She’s not going to be given a choice, and I’m going to pay for it.”

“You are?” She’d stopped pacing.

He nodded. “But only if you agree to stop drinking.”

“Sure, Charlie.”

He’d almost smiled, she’d acquiesced so quickly.

“No, Mom. This is serious. If you don’t kill yourself, you’re sure as hell going to kill Jilly. I can’t let that happen.” He took her hand gently. “So here’s the deal. Jilly is going to Riverside, and you go to Sharon Heights.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She pulled her hand away angrily. “To hear you talk, you’d think I was an alcoholic.”

“You are, Mom.” There. He’d said it, said it as gently as he could, but the words were still out there. She reacted exactly as he’d known she would.

“That’s a terrible, horrible thing to say to your mother.” Her voice rose in righteous indignation. “I can stop drinking whenever I want to.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because…because…,” she sputtered. “Because I’m not an alcoholic, Charlie. Because it’s not a problem.”

“Mom, just stop. Riverside for Jilly, Sharon Heights for you.”

“I won’t do it.” She drew up archly. “I won’t go to a place like that.”

“That’s the deal, Mom. Jilly gets the best care possible if you admit yourself to Sharon Heights and complete the program.”

It had taken another hour and a half of denials and pleading and crying, but she’d finally agreed to go with him on Saturday to take Jilly to Riverside for an evaluation, and to admit herself to Sharon Heights as soon as Jilly was admitted to the residential facility. Both Charlie and his mother were exhausted when they’d said good night, but he wondered how much sleep either of them had gotten that night, or the next.

Getting an uncooperative Jilly ready to go to meet with the doctors earlier that morning, and leaving her there where she’d remain for the next forty-eight hours for observation and evaluation, was more of an ordeal than he’d imagined. Jilly was crying and shaking and pleading with him not to leave her there. He knew in the long run it was the best thing for her, but at that moment he felt like the worst person in the world. He was saved at the last minute from breaking down and taking her home when the therapist appeared and miraculously managed to calm his sister and talk her into the next room.

He left then, ushering his mother out through the front door before either of them lost their nerve. They barely spoke in the car, and as soon as he dropped her off at the house, he found Mallory’s card and dialed her number.

“I’ll be at the Conroy Diner by around one,” he said on her voice mail, “so if you want to join me, that’s where I’ll be…”

When he arrived at the diner, he took a booth at the end of the row. He ordered a cup of coffee and tried to work past the guilt he felt for putting his sister in a live-in school and forcing his mother into rehab. Making decisions for other people’s lives and hoping he’d made the right ones. Guilty for doing it now, guilty for not having done it sooner. Either way he looked at it, he hadn’t taken very good care of his family, and right now they were all paying the price for his neglect. He was going to have one hell of a time making it all right.

Mallory parked her car across the street from the two-story clapboard twin house that looked identical to every other one on either side of the street. She had decided not to wait to hear from Charlie, who apparently had better things to do, judging from last night’s phone conversation. She needed to get on with her investigation, and if he wanted to be part of it, fine. If not, she didn’t mind going it alone. This morning she had two people to talk to, with or without him, and she needed to get to them early. People often made plans for Saturdays. She wanted to hit the Bauer home before anyone had a chance to get on with theirs.

She rang the doorbell and waited. On the porch sat two dark green plastic lawn chairs that were identical to the ones Mallory had on her patio, and a pot of struggling red geraniums. She rang the bell again just as the door opened by a crack.

“Yes?” The woman stood behind the door.

“Linda Bauer?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Mallory Russo. I’m…”

“Father Kevin’s detective.” The door opened, and on the other side stood a stocky woman in her early forties with blond hair cut short. “He told me you’d be stopping by to talk about Courtney. Please, come in.”

Mallory stepped inside the dark living room. The shades were drawn, giving the place a claustrophobic feel.

“Come into the kitchen and have some coffee.” Linda Bauer led the way. “I have to be at work by noon, so we can talk while I get myself together.”

“I apologize for coming by, unannounced—,” Mallory started, but the woman cut her off.

“We’re talking about my daughter here, right? You’re trying to find her? I don’t care if you show up at three in the morning, if you can help find Courtney.” She turned on the kitchen light and pointed to a chair at the kitchen table. “Have a seat. We can talk while I get the coffee on.”

“Mrs. Bauer, let me start by saying that I cannot guarantee that I will find your daughter, but I can promise I’ll do my best.”

Linda nodded and turned her back. She stood at the sink, filling the coffeepot with water.

“I may ask you questions that you don’t like, but I want you to understand that I’m only asking because—”

“I know, I know. There are things you have to ask. It’s okay. Whatever you need. Just…go ahead. Start.” The woman’s voice was shaky.

“Is there any way Courtney could have gotten her hands on a gun? Do you keep guns in the house?”

“No. Not ever. I’m scared to death of them and so are both my kids. And even if she wasn’t afraid, even if she had one, she’d never use it on a friend. She just isn’t capable of that. Next question.”

“Was Courtney having any problems that you know of?”

“Only that she didn’t get into Penn State. Crazy.” She shook her head. “She had an offer for a partial scholarship at Bloomsburg. She could play lacrosse there, they have a good program. All of a sudden, she has to go to Penn State. Sister Rosalie told her it was too late to apply and expect to get in, but Courtney had to try anyway.” She turned to face Mallory. “So other than the fact that she didn’t get into the number-one college on her list, I can’t think of a damned thing that was bothering her.”

“When did you last see her?”