Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (31 page)

"Detective Burgess," he said, "and Detective Kyle, Ms. Mercer, Portland police. Could we have a few minutes of your time?"

Lois Mercer's already stiff body went rigid, her glare turned up to killer strength. She directed it at both of them before turning to her daughter. "Mandy, go back inside and let me deal with this. You don't have to talk to them."

The girl shrugged. "You're being rude, Mom. I can talk to them." Her lashes fell over her eyes and she lowered her head as a blush stole up her cheeks. She was exactly as Tolliver had described—bon-bon fresh and lovely. No makeup. No airs. No pushed-up breasts or swaths of naked skin. Just healthy and perfect in comfy old sweats and a giant gray sweatshirt, her thick hair pulled back in a bouncy ponytail.

"It's okay. I can talk to them," she said again, thrusting the leash at her mother. "You go. Go take Standish for his walk."

"I am not..." Lois Mercer's chin jutted angrily, her arms tight against her chest. "Not leaving you here alone with these... uh... these policemen." She stepped between them and her daughter.

"We'd be happy to walk along with you so you don't have to keep Standish waiting," Burgess said, "if that would be more convenient."

The girl's smile was grateful. "Okay," she said. She took the leash back from her mother. "Let's go, then."

"Mandy, I don't think... Please, dear, you don't have to talk with these... these men." When Mandy didn't respond, her mother said, "You're making a big mistake, Amanda."

To Burgess and Kyle, she said, "Mandy's only sixteen. Aren't I supposed to be..."

"Seventeen, Mom, remember?" The girl's spine stiffened in an unconscious imitation of her mother. She tugged on the leash. "Come on, Standish."

"I hope you'll keep your wits about you," her mother said. She turned and went inside, shutting the door rather too firmly behind her.

The mother's remark was some kind of shorthand, but shorthand for what? Burgess wondered.

They were an odd trio on the streets of that neighborhood, two detectives in shirts and ties, and the girl and her dog. He figured they probably looked like bodyguards, lacking only those little curly wires in their ears. Come a little too late, though. They should have been there while she visited Joey.

When they'd turned a corner and were out of the glare of her mother's eyes, she said, "So what's this about? You guys
are
cops, right?"

"We're trying to locate Joey Libby, in connection with an investigation, and we understand you know him?"

Her quick flip-flopped feet came to a rubber-squeaking halt. "This is about Joey?" Sensing tension, her real bodyguard, Standish, set himself between his mistress and the cops as her eyes searched their faces. "Why come to me?" Then, on the heels of that, "How did you find me?" And at last, her lips quivering, "Did that old man send you? The one down at the marina?"

That "old" man wasn't much older than he was, Burgess thought. And he'd taken on Joey Libby, who was a pretty big guy.

She jerked the elastic off her ponytail as she bent and patted the dog's head. "He must have sent you, otherwise you'd just go out to the factory, if you really wanted to find Joey. I mean, I'm the least likely person anyone would come to." Her voice was small and breathless. She shook her head, taffy-colored hair settling around her shoulders and veiling her face. Then she looked from one of them to the other, her eyes pleading. "What did Mr. Tolliver tell you? I begged him not to say anything." She looked stricken now, smaller and less confident.

"He didn't come to us, Mandy," Kyle said. "We went down to the boat, looking for Joey. In the course of our interview, you came up. Mr. Tolliver is a kind man. He was concerned about you, that's all. So are we. We're looking for Joey because we have some questions about his father's death. We came looking for you to see if you're okay."

"I'm fine," she said, looking down again. "It's nothing. I'm not..." One toe twisted. "He didn't... he tried but I wouldn't let him... I mean, I stopped him. That is, I got away. I tried to run, Joey grabbed me, I screamed, and there was Mr. Tolliver." Her voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "I just never thought. Oh!" The "oh" was sharp and sudden, and as she exhaled, she folded her arms over her stomach like she was in pain. "How could I be so stupid? I thought... I just thought he was a cute guy who liked me. I never..." Her hands pressed harder and the toe dug deeper. "It's my fault. All my fault. I'm just a dumb, trusting girl with bad judgment."

It sounded like a quote from someone older and judgmental. If he had to bet, Burgess would guess her mother, a general statement of how she regarded her daughter. The tension between them read like tension between a mother's determination to control and a daughter's need not to be controlled, not like a mother's protective caring. Had she known the nature of their visit, she was unlikely to have left them alone with her daughter.

But there were faint traces of bruises on the girl's face and a cut lip was still healing. She couldn't have missed those, yet she hadn't called the police. What was that about?

"It's not your fault," he said. "You're not the first nice girl to trust Joey and have that trust violated. He's a handsome guy who can be extremely charming. He's also been arrested several times for abusing his girlfriends. He's even served jail time for it."

She looked up at him through the curtain of hair. "He's done this before?"

This was how abusers got away with it. They picked on the vulnerable, the insecure, the loving, the innocent, then made them believe it was their fault. He felt a wave of shame, and guilt that he hadn't kept closer tabs on Joey. Not that it would have been easy with Claire the Dragon guarding the gate. He'd been guilty of that common policeman's sin—hoping the bad guys have changed. Now he needed to know what "this" was. What had happened to Mandy.

He looked at Kyle. Normally, he'd lead and Kyle would listen for the things he might miss. This time, he thought Kyle should lead. Mandy wasn't much older than Kyle's girls, and he sensed, from what she'd said, that she hadn't talked to anyone about this and probably needed to.

Kyle nodded and moved closer. "Yes, Mandy," Kyle said, "Joey's done this before. And he'll keep on doing it unless girls like you speak up. Believe me, we don't want to cause you any more pain. We don't like invading your privacy, but I think we need to know what happened."

Each time she spoke, she seemed to grow smaller. "Do I have to?" she said.

"No," Kyle said. "That's up to you. But if you can tell us, we may be able to keep it from happening to someone else."

The dog had gotten restless and they'd started walking again, a route that after a while brought them to a small park. Kyle pointed at a picnic table near an empty swing set. "We could sit here if you like. Just sit and talk about it." Kyle could be fierce, but now he wore his "father" face, the one he used with his own daughters, a smile that invited confidences and his gentlest voice. "We need to know what Joey did and what he said so we can keep other young women like you safe, Mandy. And you can stop any time you feel uncomfortable. Will you"—he swept a hand toward the bench, leaning down with something like a bow—"talk to us?"

"He said he'd hurt me if I told," she said. "He'd hurt me, he said, and hurt my... He said he'd hurt Standish, see, because I'd told him about my dog. And I really couldn't bear that." She put a protective hand on the dog's head.

The three of them settled down on the benches, Kyle on the same bench facing Mandy, Burgess on the other side, where he could watch her face. Kyle took out his notebook and clicked his pen. "How old are you, Mandy? Sixteen or seventeen?"

"Seventeen," she said. "Mom knows that. My birthday was Friday."

Burgess felt his hands curl in anger. He forced them to relax.

Kyle got her birth date, address, and phone number, then said, "How did you meet Joey?"

"At work," she said, surprised, as if they should know this, and Burgess remembered her earlier remark that they could have just gone to the factory if they wanted to find Joey.

"And you work where?"

"In the office at my dad's business. Mercer Metals out on Warren Street. I worked there for the summer, and now I help out afternoons after school a couple days a week. Joey worked in sales. Works. He started back in the spring. I thought..." Her voice dropped and she stared down at her clasped hands, still holding the leash. "I thought he was cute. He'd stop at my desk sometimes and flirt a little. A couple times, he brought me a Coke or some chips. Nice stuff. You know. The kind of thing you hope a guy will do, instead of right off asking for a date."

"Did he ask for a date?" Kyle asked.

She shrugged. "Sorta. Kids don't really date much, you know. One Friday he offered me a ride home. I didn't have the car that day and my dad was supposed to drive me, but he forgot and went off somewhere—my dad does that a lot, actually—so Joey drove me home. He was real nice and polite, he even walked me to the door, which was so old-fashioned. My mom said she thought he was too old for me, so the next time I saw him, I asked how old he was. He said he was twenty."

Her fingers knotted tightly, her knuckles white. "Well, twenty's not so old," she said, "and he asked if I'd go out with him some time. So that next night, Saturday, I met him down in the Old Port, at some bar." She wouldn't meet their eyes when she said, "I forget the name. And Joey got the bartender to give us drinks. Real drinks, without asking for ID, which I thought was pretty cool, because I guess Joey knew the bartender from school or something. He asked for my number, which he didn't have 'cuz we saw each other at work, and I wrote it on a bar napkin. Then he drove me home... only..."

She shook her hair forward so they couldn't see her face. "He didn't take me home, he took me to this big empty parking lot, somewhere out near the office, and then he..." There was a long silence as she studied her fingers. Finally she sighed. "I told you I was stupid. He tried to do things to me, and tried to get me to do things to him, that I was no way ready for. I told him so and... and after a couple of tries, he stopped. He apologized, and took me home. And on Monday, he left flowers on my desk with a sweet little note. Later, he stopped by the desk and invited me to come see him at the boat some time, and gave me directions."

She pushed back her hair and raised her eyes to meet Kyle's. "I thought... I guess because of the apology and the flowers... I thought he knew he'd made a mistake that night in the parking lot. He'd thought I was one kind of girl and now he knew I was another. So on Tuesday, after school, after work, I put on a nice dress and got a girlfriend to drive me down to the marina. I had to ask that nice man, Mr. Tolliver, how to find the boat. I never thought—" She choked.

Kyle put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Mandy," he said. "Take your time. Take all the time you need. We're in no hurry."

"I just never imagined it would be like that." Another choke, and a sob. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Burgess gave her his handkerchief.

"Thanks." She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "You know... He was a guy who apologized and sent flowers. He looked good and dressed well and had nice manners, and well, I'm such a little idiot I thought, despite what happened in the car—" Her voice wavered to a stop. "I thought that meant he'd be nice."

She swallowed and went on so quietly they had to lean forward to hear. "And then, when I got on the boat, everything was just awful. It was filthy. He was disgusting. He kept trying to get me to drink, and he was drinking, and he kept pawing me and trying to get my clothes off, saying how I was going to be his fifth virgin, like he was keeping score or something. I fought him off a couple of times and then I'd had enough. I was mad. I told him what I thought of how he was behaving and that I was leaving. Only this time, instead of stopping, he went crazy. I was so scared." Tears swallowed her words. "He started hitting me and tearing my clothes. He tried to... he tried to..." They barely heard her say "rape me."

She looked at them, big, hurt eyes brimming with tears. "He would have, if that Mr. Tolliver hadn't pulled him off me, and hit him."

There were a million PC rules, safety rules, and just plain common-sense caution about touching an assault victim, a young girl, a witness. Kyle ignored them. He pulled the crying girl against his chest, holding her tightly until her sobs had finished, comforting her like you'd comfort any wounded child.

She'd just wiped her eyes and taken a breath, preparing to finish her story, when a passing patrol car, spotting them, stopped at the curb. A young officer got out and came toward them. He'd recognized neither Burgess nor Kyle. Probably figured them for a couple of perverts trying to pick up a young girl.

"Is everything okay here?" he asked loudly. "Miss, can you look at me, please, and tell me you're okay." The loud voice and sudden approach brought on another flood of tears and a glare from Kyle.

Quickly, Burgess was off the bench. He appreciated the officer's attention. They did make an odd group, and stopping to be sure everything was on the up and up was the right thing to do. But they had an interview to finish with a fragile subject. He didn't want it derailed. "Sergeant Burgess, CID," he said quickly. He grabbed the officer's arm and turned him around, explaining the situation as they walked back to the car.

When the patrol car had rolled away, Kyle said, "Sounds like Mr. Tolliver is a hero."