Mercy Street (12 page)

“Are you sure she hasn’t—”

“I said
no.
”

“How about your mom?” Mallory threw this out mostly to see Misty’s reaction. She felt certain if Linda had heard from her daughter, Mallory would have sensed it, but she hadn’t. “I know the three of you were close. Maybe Courtney tried to call your—”

“No. She hasn’t tried to contact anyone, okay?” Misty was almost whispering.

“Do you have any idea where they might be?”

“No.”

“Anyplace where Courtney would go if she wanted to hide?”

“I said no. Stop asking me. I already said no.” Misty’s eyes darted nervously, focused on the street behind Mallory.

“Misty, has anyone else been around asking about Courtney? Other than the police?”

“What do you mean?” Misty licked her lips as if they were suddenly very dry, her eyes still on the street. “Anyone like who?”

“Anyone at all.”

“Just the police.”

“You’re sure?”

“I
said.
”

“Look, here’s my name and number. I want you to call me if anyone—I mean anyone—asks you about Courtney. Will you do that?” Mallory handed her a card.

“Sure.” Misty wrapped her fist around it.

“Anyone, Misty.”

“Okay.”

“Misty, do you ever hear from your father?”

Misty snorted. “My father? Are you serious?”

“I take it that’s a no. How about Courtney? Do you know if he’s ever been in contact with her?”

“Like he’d contact either of us.” Misty rolled her eyes again. “Why would he do that? He doesn’t even know we’re alive.”

“If he does contact you, will you let me know?”

“Right. But don’t hold your breath.”

Mallory nodded. It was the best she was going to get today. “You look like you’re going out. Can I drop you someplace?”

“I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“Was Courtney dating anyone special?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Corcoran mentioned someone named Joe.”

“Joe Slivinsky.” Misty was back to making eye contact. “He went to Central. She went out with him a couple of times but it wasn’t any big deal to either of them.”

“You sure?”

Misty nodded readily. “She said he only hung with her because he liked her friend Dana. But Dana wasn’t interested, either.” She shrugged. “You know how those things go.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Mallory turned to go. “Listen, you think of anything…”

“Right. I’ll be sure to call.”

A little too sarcastic for a kid her age,
Mallory was thinking as she walked across the street to her car. She got behind the wheel and checked her phone for messages. She listened to Charlie’s and checked the clock on the dashboard. It was after one. She’d be right on time to meet him at the diner.

She started the car and pulled away from the curb, glancing at the Bauer home just in time to see Misty rip up the card Mallory’d given her into a dozen tiny pieces and toss them into the gutter.

“Son of a bitch,” Mallory muttered under her breath as she drove away.

TWELVE

M
allory could see Charlie from the diner steps. She went inside and headed for his table without glancing around, then sat opposite him without waiting to be invited.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. Guess you got my message.”

She nodded. “I probably should have called, but I was only a few blocks away when I heard it.” She studied his face for a moment, then said, “You look as if you’ve had a rough morning.”

He laughed wryly. “You could say that.”

“Look, if you’d rather do this some other time…if there’s someplace you need to be…”

Charlie shook his head. “No time like the present.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” She signaled to the waitress and asked for an iced tea.

“Do you want something else?” Charlie asked. “I was just going to order a sandwich.”

Mallory nodded. “Good idea. I’ll have a BLT.”

“And for you?” The waitress eyed Charlie.

“Roast beef on rye,” he told her.

“Want a refill on that coffee?”

“Water is fine, thanks.” As he handed her his empty cup. To Mallory, he said, “You look like you’re on to something.”

“How can you tell?” She frowned. Was she that transparent?

“You have that I-know-something-you-don’t-know look.”

Mallory laughed. “Actually, I think I
am
on to something, but I’m not sure what it is. I’m glad you called when you did. Maybe talking it out…”

“Do it.” He sat back against the booth. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“There are a couple of things. First, I spent a few hours at the high school yesterday talking to several teachers who knew all four of the kids. There was nothing new there, they all said pretty much the same things, pretty much all of what we’ve heard before.”

“Good kids, good grades, yada yada yada.”

“Right. The only real news came from Sister Rosalie, the counselor. She said that after the shooting at Hazel’s, Courtney had a rough time.”

“I don’t know about the shooting at Hazel’s,” he told her.

Mallory filled him in. “So after the shooting that she didn’t witness and didn’t know anything about, she has nightmares.”

“That’s not really all that uncommon, though, is it, for a teenager to react that way?” he asked. “What was she, sixteen, at the time?”

“Fifteen, sixteen,” Mallory said, nodding.

“I don’t think it’s that unusual for a kid that age to have nightmares, coming that close to death.”

“But what if she really had seen something? What if she recognized the shooter but said she hadn’t seen anything because she was afraid?” She sat back while the waitress served their beverages.

“What made you think of that?” He took a sip of his drink, his eyes on her face.

“Just little things. Little things, and a feeling that I have. She told her mother that she was on the phone with a friend at the time of the shooting, so she didn’t hear anything that was going on. She said she didn’t even hear the gunshots.”

“That wouldn’t be unusual, either, a teenage girl on a cell phone. Why does that bother you?”

“I just don’t remember Hazel’s being so big that you wouldn’t hear a gunshot. And the police never did verify the story with the girl Courtney said she’d been on the phone with.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I was with Courtney’s mother this morning. That’s where I was when you called.”

“How does she know the police didn’t talk to the girlfriend?”

“She said she would have heard if they had, she knows the girl’s mother really well. She said no one ever called them.”

“I’ll pull the case file on Monday, see if her name shows up,” he said. “You happen to get the name of the girl?”

“Callie Henderson. Father Burch can probably get her out of class for you if you want to talk to her.”

“Great.” He wrote the girl’s name down on a small spiral-bound notebook he took from his pocket, then looked up at Mallory and said, “It’s not sitting right with you, either, is it?”

“If you’re referring to the fact that Courtney would have been at Hazel’s the night of the shooting back then, and she’s in the playground the night of the most recent shooting—then yeah,” she replied, “it’s not sitting right with me.”

“Could mean something—or nothing.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “All right, let’s table that for now. See what develops.”

“By the way, what did you do with the scrap of yellow fabric we found on the fence?”

“It’s bagged and tagged and sitting in the glove box of my car. I’ll take it in on Monday.”

“And guess what else?” Mallory couldn’t help but grin. In the car on the way to the diner, she’d debated whether or not to share everything she’d learned that morning and had decided to wait to see what her instincts told her. But she knew that if she wanted him to play straight with her, she’d have to return the favor.

“What else?” He grinned back at her, and she felt as if they were, if not old friends, then coconspirators at least.

“Well…” She paused as their sandwiches were set on the table. When the waitress had walked away, Mallory lowered her voice and said, “This is the big one.”

“Hit me.”

“Courtney’s sister knows something. I feel sure of it. I think she knows what happened that night. I think she may even know where Courtney is.”

“Whoa. That is big. She told you that?” He frowned, the sandwich halfway to his mouth.

“Not in so many words.”

“What did she say?”

“It’s what she didn’t say.” Mallory touched her napkin to the corners of her mouth. “Look, your sister is missing from a murder scene—missing for more than two weeks—someone asks you about her, you say,
Oh, my God, I’m so worried about her, I’m so scared that something terrible has happened to her.
”

“Courtney’s sister didn’t say that?”

“She never even raised the possibility that her sister could be dead or in any danger. She was surprisingly nonchalant about it. And when I asked her if she’d heard from Courtney, I got a really fast
no.
She was way too quick to deny it.” Mallory picked up her sandwich. “And when I asked her if anyone else had been around asking about Courtney, she got really nervous. No more eye contact—eyes darting all over the place—watching the street as if she was scared to death.”

“So she was lying.”

Mallory nodded. “I asked her some things I knew the answers to, things about her sister, and her reaction was different. I got straight answers, complete with eye contact.”

“So you think Courtney has contacted her?”

“I do. I think she knows where she and Ryan are hiding.”

“How about the mother—you think she knows, too?”

“Uh-uh.” Mallory shook her head. “Linda Bauer is a total wreck over this. She looks like she’s borderline breakdown.”

“Maybe it’s an act.”

“I don’t think so. I think she’s genuinely sick over her daughter, not knowing if she’s dead or alive. If you’d seen this woman’s face, Charlie, you’d know.”

“I trust your instincts. So why doesn’t the younger sister tell her mother that Courtney is alive and ease her mind?”

“I think it’s because someone else is looking for Courtney—someone who’s approached Misty and scared the shit out of that kid. I think Misty is trying to protect her mother. Like maybe she thinks what her mother doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”

“Because either Mom would go to Courtney and lead the scary someone to her, or Mom would go to the police. Either way, Courtney—maybe all three of them—would be exposed.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Courtney gets in touch with Misty, tells her she and Ryan are okay but not to tell anyone”—Mallory talked it out—“because maybe Courtney knew this person would be coming around, trying to find out where she was…”

“Which would mean this person knows that Courtney is still alive…”

“…because this person was at the scene and knows that Courtney and Ryan got away that night.” Mallory finished the thought.

“Holy shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.” She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed for a moment. “For the sake of this conversation, let’s assume that we’re right about all this, that this person was at the park at the time of the shooting and saw Courtney and knows that Courtney saw her. Courtney’s disappeared, so this person is looking for her now. Why? Because she wants to make sure that Courtney doesn’t tell anyone what she saw this person do. She knows that Courtney knows who she is. Not just that she can identify her, but that Courtney knows who she is.”

“You keep saying ‘she,’” he noted. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that that’s no slip of the tongue.”

“Okay, this is a stretch, right? I know that,” she told him, her eyes intense, “but follow along with me for a moment, okay?”

“Go on.”

“Supposing Courtney wasn’t on the phone in the back room with a girlfriend the entire time the clerk was shot at Hazel’s. Suppose she was in the store, and maybe ducked down behind a display. Or maybe she was outside but heard the shots and came out of the back room and saw the shooter.”

“Why didn’t the shooter blast her there and then and get it over with?”

“There was a customer in the store who had a cell phone and called 911. Maybe the cops were pulling up out front when Courtney came out of the back and she and the shooter saw each other. So…yes, I know, a lot of conjecture here, but follow me…the shooter has to decide whether to take the time to line up a shot on Courtney or to get out of the store before the cops get closer. She decides to run, but she knows who Courtney is.”

“You’re still saying ‘she’—and how does she know who Courtney is?” “The suspect who was arrested and tried in the Hazel’s Market case was a woman. And she could easily have found out who Courtney was from the newspaper reports.” Mallory took out her phone and used it to access the Internet. She pulled up Magellan Express and entered enough information for the search engine to locate several pages of articles on the shooting at Hazel’s Market in Conroy, Pennsylvania. She skimmed several before reading aloud, “‘Police say that Courtney Bauer, another clerk on duty at the time of the shooting, was in the back room and was not able to provide a description of the gunman.’”

“But if Courtney and the killer had seen each other, it wouldn’t be too hard for the killer to find Courtney…”

“And give her a message she’d remember.
Keep your mouth shut or I’ll kill you. Or your family.
Any threat would have worked.” Mallory walked through the possibilities with him. “Courtney had already seen this woman kill. She managed to convince the detective who handled the case that she didn’t know a thing so that she wouldn’t even be called at trial as a witness. Her mother told me she spoke to the detective herself and asked that Courtney not be put on the stand since she really wasn’t a witness to anything and the whole thing had upset her.”

“The detective agreed, I take it?”

“He apparently took her name off the list and convinced the DA that she had nothing to contribute.”

“Who was the detective, by the way?” he asked.

“Frank Toricelli.” She pronounced the name as if it were a profanity.

Charlie raised an eyebrow.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He shrugged and turned his attention to the sandwich on the plate in front of him.

“What about Toricelli?” Her eyes narrowed. She knew when someone was being evasive.

“Just that I met him the other day.”

“And…?”

“And he seemed friendly enough.” He met her eyes across the table.

“And…?” Mallory knew there was something more he wasn’t saying.

“And frankly, I got the feeling he was a bit of an asshole. Which may be unfair of me, since I’ve only really had one conversation with him.” Charlie paused for a moment, then said, “Maybe
asshole
is too strong a word since I don’t really know him. Maybe just say that he didn’t impress me in a favorable way.”

“
Asshole
is not too strong a word, and you don’t need to get to know him to figure that out.”

Charlie laughed. “Some people just sort of have that aura….”

“Toricelli definitely has the asshole aura.” She rested an elbow on the table.

“Want to tell me about it?”

She thought about it for a minute. “Not really. At least, not now. I was on a roll, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed.” He smiled. “Go on. Get back on it.”

“Right. Okay, so we’re going to say that the shooter from Hazel’s knows that Courtney knows who she is, but she’s kept her mouth shut all these months.”

“Why didn’t the shooter just kill her after the trial so she’d never have to worry about her again?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute.”

“I’d think she’d have found a way to get rid of the witness at some point, but go on. Is there more?”

“You betcha. Fast-forward to the park a few weeks back. Let’s put the kids in their places.” She moved the salt and pepper shakers to the left side of the table. “Here are Adam and Jamey on the swings. Here’s Courtney at the top of the slide, Ryan behind her on the ladder or at its base.” She moved the sugar and sugar substitutes into place.

“Here’s the Dumpster.” The metal napkin holder was placed off to the right side.

She moved her index finger back to the swings. “Here’s the shooter—she robs the two boys at gunpoint, then decides to shoot them right there where they sit.
Bang. Bang.
One bullet to the back of the head for each of them. She starts to walk away, then looks up to see Courtney at the top of the slide and recognizes her, knows she can’t let her get away twice. So she chases her across the playground but can’t find her in the dark. Meanwhile, Ryan has pulled Courtney off the slide and gotten her over the fence behind the Dumpster and they’ve disappeared into the night. The killer follows the news reports, knows that Courtney and Ryan are out there somewhere but they’re in hiding. She figures that sooner or later, Courtney is going to contact someone, so she corners the little sister—maybe she’s there at the house one day when Misty comes home from school while Linda is at work—and tells her to tell Courtney she’d better stay hidden because if she surfaces, she’s dead.”