Vengeance Road (9 page)

A
dell Clark had risen early with a knot in her stomach.

She pulled a robe over her T-shirt and sweats. She went to the bedroom across the hall. Crystal, her seven-year-old daughter, had Ralph, her stuffed bear, in a choke hold and was sleeping deeply.

Good.

Adell went to her home office in the corner of her living room. It consisted of a polished sheet of cherry wood atop two second-hand steel file cabinets she'd gotten from a veterinarian who'd retired to Tempe, Arizona.

Time for the moment of truth
.

She switched on her laptop and called up the
Buffalo Sentinel
's Web site. The retraction dominated the page. She read it then read the news story on the “mystery truck.” Next, she went to the online edition of the
Buffalo News
and read their coverage, including the column attacking Gannon's credibility.

Gannon had shielded her.

He'd sustained the suspension, the humiliation and the professional ridicule to protect her. He'd put it all on the line.

What she couldn't fathom was why Michael Brent, or whoever was behind it, had gone out of their way to kill Gannon's story and practically clear Styebeck. There had
to be a deeper thread to the investigation that Brent was holding back, she thought as her phone rang.

“Clark.” A habit from her days at the bureau.

“It's Gannon.”

“Speak of the devil.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I just read today's papers. Thank you seems inadequate.”

“Forget it. I need your help again. I'm at the Hogan crime scene. I've been here all night and I think I found something.”

“Were the forensics people sloppy?”

“No. Listen, can you get to your e-mail?”

“Got it right here.”

“I've sent you some pictures of a ticket. Have a look. I need to confirm who bought it.”

Adell opened the e-mails. As she studied the photos of the scene and the ticket, Gannon told her about Mary Peller's visit to the newsroom, her worries about her daughter Jolene's disappearance, street talk about Bernice Hogan having argued with another woman before she'd vanished and what Bernice's foster mom had said about people trying to help Bernice get off the street.

“So, can you help me?”

Adell enlarged the images. The ticket had a number that could be traced to the point, time and date of purchase. Records would show the method of payment. If it was a credit card or bank card, the identity of the cardholder would be easy to trace. If it was a cash purchase, records would still confirm the date and time of purchase, which might, in a perfect world, be linked to captured security-camera images.

“Can you help me, Adell?”

“It's going to take a few calls. Where are you going to be in the next couple of hours?”

“Getting some sleep. Get back to me if you find anything.”

 

On his way home, Gannon stopped off at a drive-thru for some breakfast. As his car crawled along the waiting line he tried focusing on what he should do next, but exhaustion dulled his thinking.

At his apartment he showered, got into bed and read through his notes until he fell asleep. Sometime later, he was looking around the bedroom trying to determine what had awakened him when his phone rang again.

“It's Adell.”

“What do you have?”

“I had to call in a lot of favors.”

“I appreciate that.”

“The ticket was purchased for Jolene Peller.”

“
For
Jolene?”

“Yes, it was charged to a credit card belonging to the Street Angels Outreach Society.”

“It sounds remotely familiar.”

“Check it out, Jack, I have to go.”

He made a pot of strong coffee and began researching the Street Angels. He put in a few calls to city hall administration then started digging online. It didn't take long before he'd confirmed that they were a tax-exempt nonprofit association. A few archived news stories characterized their mandate as reaching out to help addicts and homeless people improve their lives.

He dug into the group's charter and administration pages and his jaw dropped.

Karl Styebeck was a board member.

And the group's biannual open fund-raiser banquet was tonight.

The banner on the events page said:
Tickets still available at the door
.

“T
his is Jolene at six.”

A big-eyed girl in a flower-print dress and pigtails smiled at Gannon. Then the plastic cover sheet crackled and Mary Peller flipped through the album to more images of her missing daughter's life.

“When she was six, Jo fell from a swing in the park and fractured her skull. I was so afraid I was going to lose her then. But I didn't.”

Mary covered her mouth with her shaking hand.

“But now. Oh God, this is so bad.”

Mary looked at the bus ticket Gannon had set on her kitchen table. Her daughter's ticket.

She stared at it as if it were a death warrant.

As a reporter, Gannon had seen fear exact different reactions. Some people punched walls, or other people. Some insisted the facts were wrong, or a lie. Some collapsed to the floor.

Some prayed.

Others performed acts of faith in the face of looming tragedy, as Mary Peller did now. She'd reached for a cherished album, for comfort and confirmation that she'd confronted and triumphed over fear before.

See, like the time Jo fell off the swing.

Gannon understood.

But they weren't talking about a six-year-old girl. And they weren't talking about falling from a swing in the park.

Jack, if you saw the crime-scene pictures of what Bernice Hogan's killer did to her
…

So Gannon let Mary Peller take her time to absorb the significance of the ticket as he walked around her modest apartment. It was on the third floor of a four-story low-rent building in a struggling working-class area near Schiller Park.

It was clean, tidy, and filled with Jolene's presence. Certificates for completion of her night-school courses and recognition for her “outstanding” work at her restaurant job hung on the wall. On the floor, a plastic ring-toss game and several picture books belonging to Jolene's son, Cody.

Gannon peered down the hall to a door partially opened to a bedroom where the three-year-old was napping. He saw his small face, cherubic calm amid tornados of curls.

Prior to arriving nearly half an hour ago, Gannon had grappled with how much he would tell Mary about his discovery of the ticket and its possible link to Bernice Hogan's murder.

Investigators needed to know about it.

Mary Peller deserved to know about it.

It was at the instant when Mary opened her apartment door to him and he looked into her worried eyes that he'd decided to tell her everything and ask for her help.

Now, after he'd explained all that he knew, after he'd given Mary time to process the twist in her daughter's case, Gannon had to push things.

“I know this looks bad, Mary.”

“Jolene's not dead.”

“That's right. Until we know the facts, anything is possible.”

Mary glanced around her kitchen, helpless.

“Mary, I need you to think hard about my questions. I know they're painful but I need to know the truth so I can help you, okay?”

Mary agreed.

“When you first came to the newsroom to see me about Jolene, you told me that she wasn't proud of some of the things she'd done to get drugs. I'm sorry, but I have to ask—did she ever work downtown as a prostitute?”

Anguish creased her face.

She looked away to the window, then her focus returned to the photo album and the picture of Jolene at six in pigtails. Then she looked at the gold-framed photo on a bookshelf near the living room. It was Jolene smiling with Cody laughing in her arms.

“Mary?”

“Yes.”

“Did Jolene ever work as a prostitute?”

“Yes, to pay for drugs.”

“Did she know Bernice Hogan?”

“I don't know.”

“Did she know Karl Styebeck?”

“I don't know because she never talked about that part of her life. It was like she wanted to rip it out of her past and move on. She'd worked so hard to crawl out of the hell she was trapped in.”

“She must've known people with the Street Angels Outreach Society,” he said, “given that they bought the bus ticket for her.”

“I didn't know this. I thought she'd bought the ticket with money she'd saved. All I know is that she had some help from some groups.” Mary touched a tissue to her eyes. “Some things she wouldn't talk about.”

Mary's knuckles whitened. She clasped her hands together as if to keep herself from coming apart.

“I'm so scared. You found this ticket at the murder scene. I have to find my daughter! I have to find Jolene!”

Mary stifled a sob with both hands.

“I don't know what to do. Help me, please!”

“Take it easy, Mary. Try to think hard about my questions and listen to me again. I'm going to tell you what you should do, but I also need your help, okay?”

She nodded as she regained her composure.

“I'm going to leave the ticket with you in the envelope. Try not to touch it. I'm the only one who's handled it. I've got a copy. I left details on how it was discovered and my card in the envelope. Call the FBI field office and also call Investigators Michael Brent and Roxanne Esko with the state police in Clarence. Then call the county sheriff's office. Tell them about the ticket being found near the Hogan scene. It will get their attention.”

Mary nodded as Gannon stood to leave.

“They're going to be angry at me for not coming to them first. Let me worry about that, okay?”

“All right.”

At the door, Gannon gave Mary another business card to ensure she had his cell and home numbers.

“Now, I need you to promise me that whatever you learn from anyone on Jolene's case, you'll share with me and no other reporters. And I promise to share anything I find with you.”

“You're the only reporter I trust.”

Gannon nodded his thanks as his cell phone rang.

“Excuse me, I'll take this outside. I have to go.”

Mary took his hand and shook it. “Thank you for helping me.”

Gannon answered his call as he headed down the stairs.

“Gannon.”

“Hey, this is Lotta, from the diner.”

“What's up?”

“Got a working girl who wants to talk to you.”

“Really?”

“She's got information about Karl Styebeck that you should have.”

“I'll talk to her, tell me where and when.”

“I'll get back to you with the details. But Jack, you have to know something about her.”

“What's that?”

“She's scared to death.”

T
he hooker's name was Tuesday. And she wanted to meet Gannon at the Compassionate Virgin's Redemption Church.

He considered the irony.

The location venerated purity and forgiveness. It was also a sanctuary, a smart choice for someone afraid of the secret they possessed. And given what was emerging, a church in the middle-class suburb of Tonawanda seemed like a safe place to reveal the truth.

Especially if it was tied to Bernice Hogan's murder.

The fifty-year-old building had been designed in the postwar modernist style. An enormous cross rose from the center section, which resembled a book standing with its covers open to embrace worshippers.

Gannon parked down the street under the shade of a willow tree. Walking to the main door, he read the church's outdoor sign, which gave mass times and other messages. He noticed that confessions were being heard today from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.

His meeting was for 2:30 p.m.

The church had a center aisle with pews on each side. Light bled through its stained-glass windows that depicted the Stations of the Cross. The walls were interrupted with alcoves sheltering statues of the Holy Family, the apostles and saints.

At the front was the altar, graced by a massive crucifix suspended behind it and flanked by magnificent stained glass that ascended from the floor for several stories. The air held a mix of furniture polish, candle wax, incense and piety.

The building was empty but for a few people scattered among the pews, or waiting to enter the confessionals. Others found unoccupied pews where they said their penance while rosary beads clicked softly.

How egregious were the sins committed in this white-bread suburb? Gannon wondered as he went to a pew near the front right section, next to a replica of the pietà. The area was vacant. The bench seat of the wooden pew creaked when he sat down.

This was where he was instructed to meet Tuesday.

While he waited, he checked his phone.

No messages.

He set the ringer to vibrate and read his notes for several minutes, until his pew creaked.

A white woman in her late twenties sat next to him. She was wearing a charcoal business suit and tank top. The ensemble flattered her figure. Her dirty-blond hair was pulled up into a bun held with a hair clamp. Her face had the pallor of a woman averse to daylight, a condition she'd compensated for by applying a little too much makeup. Her eyes were blue, and Gannon noticed the scent of roses when she nodded to him.

“Are you Tuesday?”

“I'd like to see some identification,” she said.

He showed her his press ID from the
Sentinel,
which she studied for several moments. Then she took stock of the area. Satisfied they were alone in their corner of the church, she kept her voice low.

“Lotta said I can trust you, is that true?”

“Trust me with what?”

“My life.”

“Because of what you know about Karl Styebeck?”

“I don't want to end up like Bernice.”

“I understand.”

She looked around.

“You don't have a photographer hiding around somewhere with a big lens or anything?”

“No.”

“Swear to me that no one will ever know what I'm going to tell you came from me. Give me your word.”

“I don't reveal sources.”

“To anyone?”

“To anyone. No one will know we talked.”

Tuesday searched his face. Whatever internal security screening she possessed, whatever defence mechanism she'd engaged, Gannon had passed. Her face softened a degree; she spoke in a hurried whisper.

“After what happened to Bernie, my girlfriends and I read all your stories. You had the best information. Then things got weird.”

“Weird? How?”

Gannon took out his notebook. Tuesday looked at it, hesitated.

“Do you have a hidden recorder?”

“No. Look, you called me. How can I be sure that what you're going to tell me is the truth?”

“Because it is.”

Now it was Gannon's turn to decide if she was helping him, or playing him. That would depend on what she said.

“Tell me what you know about Karl Styebeck,” he said.

“He was down on Niagara the night Bernice vanished, and when the detectives came around we told them about all the wack jobs and creeps who were down there, including Styebeck.”

“Styebeck was known to the girls?”

“Big-time. But first there's nothing in the papers about it. Even right after they found Bernice.”

“I had it.”

“Yeah, you did. A few days later, we all thought,
Great! Yes! Nailed Him!
And you were, like, a hero. This Gannon guy's good. He prints the truth, you know.”

Gannon didn't say anything.

“Then your paper prints a correction, retraction thing, like the stuff about Styebeck was all a big mistake, and we're all, like, ‘what the—?' Know what I mean? What happened?”

“The paper was told that Styebeck was downtown that night doing some community-outreach work for a charity and wrongly got caught up in the investigation of Bernice's murder.”

“That's a crock of shit.”

“What do you mean? He goes down there to help, right?”

“Yeah, right. This is what he does, every month or so. Styebeck comes down there and first he gets in our face. He calls us whores and wants to save us. We tell him to go f—,” Tuesday caught herself. “We tell him to take a hike.”

Gannon took notes.

“He goes away then he comes back, and it's like his whole personality's changed. He wants to date some of the girls, but he asks for girls who are shaved.”

“Shaved?”

“No hair down there because he likes them ‘young and clean,' he says.”

Gannon flipped quickly to a clear page.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“One girl said he once told her that he knew he was sick for what he was doing, and that he was that way because of his father.”

“His father? Did he say any more about that?”

“No, that's all I'd heard,” Tuesday said.

“What about the night before Bernice was killed?”

“He was bothering Bernice that night. He was in her face. We told the detectives. And he was asking us about some stupid truck. Some of the girls said they saw it.”

“What kind of truck?” he asked.

“I don't know. It was in the news—a blue truck with writing on the door, or something.”

“What about Jolene Peller?”

“Who?”

“Jolene Peller. She had a little boy and was trying to get out of the life.”

“You talking about J.P. Got a boy named Jody?”

“Cody,” Gannon said.

“That's her. Yes. I heard she left town.”

“She was supposed to leave for Florida the night Bernice disappeared from the street. Jolene's mother says she never got there and she hasn't heard from her.”

“Oh Christ, does anybody know what happened?”

“No. Did anyone see her talking to Bernice that night?”

Tuesday shook her head.

“I can ask around.” She sifted through her bag for her wallet and then showed him a snapshot of her laughing with Bernice Hogan in front of Toronto's skyline.

“That's us a few months ago. We went shopping in Canada. Bernie was like a little sister to a few girls on the street. She didn't belong there. I mean, who does?”

Gannon nodded.

“I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, where my family was a freak show. Got pregnant by my stepdad, who turned me out to his two friends for drugs. By the time I was sixteen, I'd had two abortions. One day, I stole all the cash I could find and just left on a bus to anywhere. We all make mistakes. We all mess up.”

Tuesday's eyes teared as she placed her photo back in her wallet. “Your job is to tell the truth, right?”

Gannon nodded.

“People think we're garbage,” she said, “that we deserve the life we're in, that we're something you scrape off of your shoe. Nobody deserves what happened to Bernice. You've got to tell the truth about what's happening with Styebeck, because if you don't do it, who will? And if the truth doesn't come out, who's gonna stop him?”

“I'm just a reporter.”

“Yeah, well, what's that old saying about the pen being deadlier than the sword?”

“Mightier.”

“Mightier. Well, remember that, Gannon.”

Tuesday accepted his card and left.

When Gannon headed to his car, he noticed a sedan that had wheeled off a block away.

It looked like an unmarked model used by detective units.