Mercy Street (4 page)

She crossed her arms over her chest, walked to the back door of her small town house, and stepped out onto what passed as a patio in her complex. Large enough only for two plastic chairs and a wooden table she’d found at a yard sale and painted red, the concrete rectangle provided a change of scenery from the tiny second bedroom she used as an office. She sat on one of the chairs and stretched her legs out in front of her, wiggled her feet out of her shoes, put her head all the way back, and closed her eyes.

She couldn’t deny she’d been intrigued, even before Robert Magellan’s name came into the conversation.

Of course she’d seen the news stories about the double homicide on TV. For the first week, all the local stations covered the story daily, keeping it right out in front, and why not? It had everything that the media loved, though over the past few days the local sniper had taken over page one. The two young men who’d been shot to death on the playground were already fading into the background. For their sake, if for no other reason, Mallory had to admit she was interested.

Joe was right, of course. This was just the kind of case that got her going.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Mallory went into the kitchen and grabbed her bag from the counter. She slid her sunglasses onto her face and walked outside through the front door, locking it behind her.

“I need my head examined,” she grumbled under her breath as she got into her car and started the engine. “I need to deal with those assholes again like I need a hole in my head.”

She backed out of her parking space and took the familiar route that led into the center of town, all the while reminding herself that Daniel had survived the lion’s den and that there were people who swam in shark-infested waters all the time and were never attacked. She tried to think of other analogies to her situation, but she arrived at the station before any others came to mind. Force of habit had her pulling into a reserved parking place, but she caught herself before she’d driven all the way to the end. She put the car in reverse and headed for the visitor spots closer to the back door, then went up the steps leading into the back of the building. As she’d told Joe, she wasn’t a coward, but there was no point in looking for trouble.

“Well, well. Look who’s returning to the scene of the crime.” Frank Toricelli stood two steps up, his beefy hands on his hips.

The dark glasses half covering her face were apparently insufficient as a disguise.

“Nice to see you again, too, Frank.” Mallory tried to go past him, but he sidestepped to block her way.

“Not so fast, Blondie.” His smirk turned her stomach. “You just missed your old partner. Of course, I could always call him back if you have something to say to him.” He stepped closer to the close the gap between them. “You got something to say to Cal, Blondie, or did you say it all to IA?”

“Get out of my way, asshole.” Mallory shoved him to one side.

“Careful, Blondie. I can arrest you for assaulting a police officer.” His eyes narrowed behind his dark lenses. “Just the thought of you behind bars gets my blood pumping, you know what I mean? I’ll bet you look really hot in orange.”

She shook her head in disgust and pushed past him, praying he wouldn’t follow her inside the building. She opened the door at the top of the steps and turned slightly to glance over her shoulder as she entered. Toricelli still stood where she’d left him. Knowing he’d watched her climb the stairs sent a chill up her spine.

“Bastard,” Mallory whispered under her breath as she closed the door behind her and walked to the information desk.

Relieved to find no one she knew working the desk at that hour, she filled out the request forms and handed over the required cash.

“You’re lucky things are slow this afternoon,” the pert young officer behind the counter said with a smile. “This shouldn’t take too long. You can have a seat over there.” She gestured in the direction of the plastic chairs on the opposite wall of the counter.

“Thanks.” Mallory nodded and took a seat. Apparently her fame hadn’t spread quite as far as she’d feared. There’d been no apparent recognition of her name. Must be one of the new recruits.

So I’m batting five hundred,
she told herself.
Could be a lot worse.

After ten minutes passed, she searched for a couple of quarters to buy a newspaper from the metal stand at the front of the lobby.

Fifteen more minutes passed before Mallory’s name was called.

“I can only give you the preliminary report.” The officer—
OFFICER P. CROMWELL
, Mallory noted the name tag this time—held out several stapled sheets of paper. “The case is still active, and some of the reports are classified at this time. You can stop back in a few weeks to see if that’s changed.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks again.” Mallory folded the papers and tucked them into her bag. If she ran into any of her other former coworkers, she’d rather not advertise her purpose in being there.

With a knot in her stomach, Mallory started toward the door, almost afraid to step outside. But Toricelli must have been on his way to a call—or meeting one of his several girlfriends—as it appeared he hadn’t hung around. She took a deep breath and started down the stairs. She’d almost made it to her car, her hand stretched out toward the driver’s-side door, when she realized her visit hadn’t gone unnoticed after all.

Along the drive leading to the exit stood half a dozen or so of her former colleagues, their arms crossed over their chests as they watched her approach.

She debated whether to leave through another exit and pretend she didn’t see them, or to drive directly past. She took her time starting her car, her head down as if she hadn’t noticed their disapproving stares, while she deliberated. On the one hand, the thought of facing their cold condemnation yet again made her physically ill. On the other, running just wasn’t her style. She took a deep breath, slid her sunglasses down from the top of her head, and backed out of the parking space.

Through her dark glasses, she saw the unsmiling faces of people she’d once counted among her friends. At least, she’d
thought
they were friends. She shook her head imperceptibly. How could any one of them ever have thought she’d lied, that she’d wanted a promotion so badly that she’d make up a story to cast a fellow officer in a bad light?

Not that Cal Whitman had needed any help in that regard. He’d done more than his share of stupid things in the three years they’d been partners. She’d often wondered if matching him up with her had been the powers-that-be’s way of trying to keep him out of trouble until he was able to retire. After all, she did have the well-earned reputation of being levelheaded, while his rep was somewhat less complimentary.

Since it was easier to not make eye contact with anyone, she stared straight ahead as she passed from the parking lot onto the street. In the rearview mirror, she could see them turn their backs and walk back toward the building.

If she said it didn’t sting, she’d be lying.

On the way home, she stopped at a fast-food drive-through at the edge of a strip mall for a cold drink. The all-brick strip had once been home to a somewhat fashionable clothing store, a florist, a pet shop, and a bookstore. Now those same storefronts housed a Laundromat, a pizza parlor, a nail salon, and one boarded-up newsstand.

She drank the soda as she drove, hoping to push back the lump in her throat. Inside her house, she forced the incident behind her, behind that wall she’d thrown up a long time ago, where she tossed everything she wanted to hide or push from her mind, and settled down to read the file.

By the time she was finished reading, the events of the day were behind her, and she was, as Joe had predicted, hooked.

FOUR

M
allory pulled up a chair to her small kitchen table, typed “magellanexpress.com” into her laptop’s browser, and wondered how many other people had used the mechanism named for the man to follow the story that had, by all accounts, destroyed his life.

Many thousands, at the very least, she figured.

She stuck a straw into the can of Diet Pepsi she’d just opened, and read through several accounts regarding the disappearance of the mogul’s wife, along with their six-month-old son, in March of the previous year. The results page had brought up countless articles describing how Beth Magellan had driven herself halfway across Pennsylvania to her sister’s home in Gibson Springs to attend a baby shower for their cousin, how she’d left for home in a hurry the next morning.

“Beth said there was something Robert had wanted to do on Sunday afternoon, and she had to get home,” Pamela
Clement, sister of the missing woman, said in an early interview.

“When Beth arrived here on Saturday,” Clement continued, “she parked her car—a Land Rover—up near the garage. When she came out to leave the next morning, she found that my husband, Rick, had parked behind her when he came in late Saturday afternoon. By the time Beth was ready to leave for home, Rick had left for an early golf game, and I couldn’t find the spare keys for his car. She was in a big hurry to leave, so she borrowed our old Jeep. The plan was that I’d drive down on Monday or Tuesday in her car to make the exchange.”

At this point in the story, Pamela Clement broke down. “If she’d taken her own car, we’d know where she is. We’d have been able to track her, but the Jeep doesn’t have GPS.”

Clement added that Mrs. Magellan had left her cell phone in her car when she arrived at the Gibson Spring home and had neglected to retrieve it before leaving on Sunday.

“I’m sure she forgot she left it on the seat,” Clement said. “She hadn’t needed it while she was at the house, and I think Beth just assumed it was in her purse. Ian had been fussy when they were leaving, and Beth was distracted.”

The article, like many others that appeared as the result of her search, was accompanied by photos of the happy family. Several had the same photo of a grave Robert Magellan walking side by side with Father Kevin Burch.

Interesting, Mallory thought as she tapped a pen on the tabletop, recalling her conversation with Joe Drabyak. The two men certainly did look more like brothers than cousins. Both tall—though Robert appeared to have a few inches on the priest—both lean, dark-haired, and good-looking. She’d read that they were the same age—had she read something about them having been born on the same day?—but Robert looked older. Could be due to the stress he’d been under for the past fifteen months.

She returned to the results page and clicked on the link to the next article.
WHERE IS ELIZABETH MAGELLAN?
the headline asked, and below it, in smaller type,
WHERE IS BABY IAN?

Mallory studied the accompanying pictures of Beth Magellan, from a college yearbook photo to one taken just days before she disappeared. In the first, she was shown taking part in a charity run hosted by her sorority. In the other, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband, and while Mallory assumed that Beth Magellan had been wearing high-heeled shoes to the charity bash where they’d been photographed, she was clearly a tall woman. Tall and very pretty, with long dark hair that cascaded over trim shoulders and was clipped high on one side with what Mallory thought looked like a diamond-encrusted clip. A sapphire necklace that circled her neck surely had been chosen to match the designer gown of the same color. She clung to the arm of her husband and wore a very wide smile.

Well, duh.
Mallory snorted.
Young and gorgeous and married to one of the wealthiest men in the country. What’s not to smile about?

Stylishly dressed, stylishly coiffed. Stylishly young.

Mallory followed the article to the next page, where she found pictures of Ian Magellan’s chubby-cheeked face. The baby had been darling, there was no question of that, she thought, then chided herself for thinking of the child in the past tense. He could very well be alive. Robert Magellan still held to that possibility, if his cousin was to be believed.

She read online for another hour or so, then used Magellan Express to locate articles on the playground shooting. The story was familiar: four kids from Our Lady of Angels High—James Tilton, Adam Stevens, Ryan Corcoran, and Courtney Bauer—had arranged to meet at the playground around ten on Friday night, the twenty-fifth of April. The four had been close friends since kindergarten and spent a good deal of time together outside school. On that particular night, they’d gotten together to commiserate with Courtney over her rejection by Penn State, her first-choice college. According to her mother, while Courtney had applied knowing it was her “stretch” school, she had been very upset by the rejection. She’d called Ryan as soon as she’d opened the letter, Mrs. Bauer told reporters, and they made arrangements to meet the others later that night, after Courtney dropped her younger sister and two of her friends off at a community center dance.

“It was all she talked about in the car,” Courtney’s fifteen-year-old sister, Misty, told police. “She’d been accepted at a couple of other schools, but she decided late that she wanted to go to Penn State and I guess by then they’d filled all their places. At least, that was what Courtney was saying. She was really mad at herself for not applying earlier.”

There were interviews with the families of both of the murdered boys, and Mallory read every one of them trying to get to know the victims. Adam had been accepted at Rowan University in New Jersey, where he’d play saxophone in the band. He’d auditioned several times, and had been holding his breath until his acceptance arrived. James—Jamey—was going to Pitt on a full scholarship and hoped to write for the university newspaper, as he’d done at Our Lady of Angels. His dream was to one day write for one of the big newspapers—
The Washington Post,
the
LA
or
New York Times, The Boston Globe.

Ryan had been offered a full ride to Temple in Philadelphia to study film.

“He is going to be a famous producer,” his grandmother, Mary Corcoran, was quoted as having said. “He likes making documentaries that examine social issues. He submitted a film about religious prejudice as his senior project, and he recently shot one about the Underground Railroad stops in the area. His teacher thinks he has a lot of promise.”

Mallory sat back against the hard wood of the kitchen chair and absentmindedly began to chew on the end of the straw. These were all bright kids, focused kids, kids who had plans for their lives. Who the hell would have wanted to kill them?

Courtney and Ryan? That didn’t work for her. These didn’t seem like kids who would have hurt anyone, least of all two of their closest friends. For what? A thousand dollars?

While Mallory knew that people had been murdered for far less than that, she didn’t think these two college-bound kids with great futures were so shortsighted that they’d kill for one thousand dollars.

She got up and began to pace. It had to have been a robbery. Random. Some thugs coming across the kids in the playground and robbing them, killing them because they could. But the two missing kids? What were the chances that Ryan and Courtney could have been taken by the killers and killed somewhere else? Or maybe Ryan had been killed and Courtney kept alive to be abused by the abductors? Or had one of them been the shooter, forcing the other to leave the park at gunpoint only to shoot him—or her—somewhere else? Her mind raced through every conceivable possibility, but none felt right.

She tried, but she just couldn’t see Courtney or Ryan as the shooter.

Then again, she’d been around long enough to know that sometimes there was just no rhyme or reason to murder. As unlikely as she thought it that either of the two missing kids could have pulled the trigger, she knew it couldn’t be ruled out. She couldn’t blame the police for taking a long hard look at these two—especially since they’d gone missing. But at the same time, it just didn’t ring true to her.

It didn’t ring true to Joe Drabyak, either, she realized, or he wouldn’t have asked her to take the job.

She reached for the phone to call Father Burch to let him know he’d found his investigator, but turned the phone off after dialing the first five numbers. There was one more thing she needed to do before she committed. She stuck the straw back into the can and tossed them both into the trash on her way out the door.

Mallory kicked aside the remnants of the yellow crime scene tape that had marked off the entrance to the park not so very long ago. A path led from the gate to the playground equipment near a chain-link fence that trapped empty potato chip bags, candy wrappers, and soda cans tossed by passing cars or kids on their way home from school. She followed the path slowly, taking in her surroundings, very much aware that she was the only person in the park. Odd, she thought, for seven o’clock on a warm spring night. Could be that recent events accounted for the fact that the playground was deserted. She couldn’t blame the neighborhood mothers if they were keeping their children safely inside, even in the daylight. If she had kids, she probably wouldn’t permit them to play here, either, at least until the killer or killers were arrested.

The grass along the path hadn’t seen a lawn mower in weeks, and the long green leaves spilled onto the concrete sidewalk in several places. The overhead lights had yet to switch on, and her left foot turned on a couple of chunks of mulch that had been kicked up from the playground area just ahead. As she drew closer, she was surprised to find the equipment somewhat antiquated, the slide, swing set, and old-fashioned merry-go-round all made of heavy dark gray metal and rusted in spots.

Thirty years old if it’s a day,
she thought as she ran her hand along the rough side of the slide.

The climbing apparatus made in the shape of a fire truck appeared to be of more recent design, and the sandbox looked newly constructed—it couldn’t be more than a month or so old. The sand looked clean and new. Plastic cars, abandoned by their young owners, lay scattered about, and here and there small paw prints marched across the sand’s surface.

She noticed that the chains holding the seats to the crossbar of the swing set were missing, along with the seats themselves—taken, no doubt, by the crime scene techs the night of the shootings. Both Adam and James had been seated on the swings when they were shot in the back of the head.

Who shoots a kid in the back of the head, then walks away? Surely not a best friend.

Mallory walked around the swing set and stood where the shooter—or shooters—had stood. Had the boys seen them coming? Did they know they were about to die? Or had they been laughing and talking and unaware of the danger that was coming at them through the dark? She stared until she could almost see the two boys, first on the swings, then crumpled on the ground where they lay after falling. The vision sent a shudder through her, then disappeared.

She tried to picture Ryan pulling a gun—where would he have gotten a gun?—and approaching his friends from behind the swings. Pressing it to the back of Adam’s head—Adam, with whom he’d been best friends since kindergarten!—and pulling the trigger. How had Ryan been able to get James to remain seated on his swing after he’d shot Adam? Surely Courtney’s presence alone wouldn’t have been enough of a threat to keep James still.

Bang! Bang!
Mallory tried to imagine the scenario, tried to hear the gunshots, tried to see Courtney standing by while Ryan killed the two others, but she just didn’t see it happening that way. She couldn’t accept either Courtney or Ryan as the shooter. It just didn’t fit. There had to have been someone else there that night.

So if neither Courtney nor Ryan was the shooter, where were they when Adam and James were murdered?

According to the police report, the shooting had occurred sometime after ten
PM
, so it would have been dark. Assuming that on the night of the shooting there had been a bulb in the lamppost at the end of the walk, just as there was now, what, Mallory wondered, could be seen from where the shooter stood?

She did a 360-degree scan, and when she came back to where she’d started she had a pretty good idea of where the missing teenagers might have been when the shooting began.

Straight ahead—in direct line with the swings—stood the slide. In her mind’s eye, Mallory could almost see how it could have happened. She walked toward the slide, playing out the possibilities in her head. Supposing one of them—Courtney, more likely—had been at the top of the slide, just sitting there, maybe, or maybe about to go down, when the shots that killed the boys on the swings rang out. Might she have screamed, drawing attention to herself? Might she have frozen there, at the top of the steps, where she easily could have been seen by the shooter?

She saw the shooter, the shooter saw her.

Where would Ryan have been? At the foot of the slide or behind her on the ladder—either could work.

What would Courtney or Ryan—or both—have done?

They’d have run like hell, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they have looked for a way out of the park, or at the very least a place to hide?

Sure they would. They wouldn’t have stood there, waiting to be shot like Adam and James had been. They’d have looked for a way out. And since their bodies hadn’t been found, perhaps they’d found one.

Or maybe the shooter forced Courtney and Ryan to leave the park at gunpoint, killed them somewhere else. They’d already fired twice, enough to attract attention. Maybe the shooter feared the police had already been summoned by someone who’d heard those first two shots.

Possible, Mallory acknowledged. But why hadn’t their bodies turned up by now?

The first scenario sounded more likely to her than the second; it felt right. And if she was right, the missing kids were most likely still alive.