Autumn's Game

by Mary Stone

  Carla headed for the door, but Adam cut her off. “I wish you had let me talk to him. I would have focused on his location, not on evoking empathy.”

  Was the man serious? Autumn just stared at him, wishing she could see Sheriff Morton’s face. She was more worried about who the killer might target next, and how they could be protected or warned.

  Who was his next target? Did he already have more victims selected?

  She wished she had been able to get him to talk longer.

  The sheriff scoffed. “If you had focused on his location, he would have hung up on you within thirty seconds.”

  Adam’s gaze snapped to Autumn over the sheriff’s head. “I understand, but I feel that the situation could have been handled better.”

  Carla shrugged. “That’s your opinion. I’ll tell you one thing, though. Your colleague made the killer slip up.” She exchanged a glance with Rich, who was wearing the headset now. “Twice. And he admitted to having the girl. I call that good any day.”

  Rich nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. “Kyle Murphy’s father’s name is Joe Murphy.”

  Carla sighed in relief and turned back to Adam. “That means we finally have an official suspect…thanks to the good work of Dr. Trent.”

  Autumn appreciated the sheriff’s efforts to make her look good in her boss’s eyes, but it didn’t change the fact that they weren’t getting anywhere with the case.

  Autumn rubbed her temples again. They had to find Kyle soon.

  Before he found another set of victims.

  11

  After the excitement of the call, Autumn needed to get out of that building. Not only were her nerves still jittering under her skin, but she couldn’t take another second of Adam Latham dissecting her every word.

  When the two deputies Carla sent out to search for Kyle Murphy didn’t find a single sign of him, the sheriff looked like she was about to spit nails. She looked at Autumn. “Want to interview Nancy Gaines, the director of the Newby Memorial Community Center, while the rest of us cover other assignments?”

  Autumn practically vaulted from her chair.

  Adam Latham stood too, clearly preparing to join her. Carla stepped in. “Not you, Latham. I need help writing a press release, and I could use your specialty.”

  Adam puffed up, looking very pleased, and Carla gave Autumn a wink. She fled from the building before anyone could change their mind.

  The Newby Memorial Community Center was a bland, one-story 1970s-style cement building with a parking garage in the basement and windows that didn’t open. But considering the challenges that community centers often faced, Autumn could understand the reasons for such a bland, impregnable building. She climbed up the cement-slab steps and made her way through the entry. There was no metal detector at the door, but there was a uniformed guard at a desk.

  “You’ll need to check in, miss.”

  Autumn gave her name and signed in on the guest log. “I’m here to see Nancy Gaines. She’s expecting me.”

  Nancy Gaines was the woman Carla had recommended Autumn speak with at the center. Carla had promised to call ahead and arrange an appointment.

  “She should be in Room 207. Let me take you there.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was given a visitor’s sticker to wear on the lapel of her blazer. The guard led her through a set of confusing hallways. Children’s laughter echoed from somewhere in the building.

  Autumn passed a large room filled with couches, orange beanbags, a ping-pong table, and four shiny new computers on a sturdy table, where four teen boys wearing headphones were intent on their shared video game.

  Room 207 was far less of a showpiece. It was a crowded warren of small desks and ancient workstations. It was clear that what money there was went toward the kids. As the guard led Autumn into the room, a bleached blonde stood up from one of the desks, a middle-aged woman with dark eyebrows and heavy eye makeup. A leather jacket hung from the back of her chair, and she wore a tiny gold cross on a chain around her neck.

  “Dr. Trent? I’m Nancy Gaines. Come on over.”

  They shook hands.

  Autumn immediately got the impression that Nancy Gaines was the same kind of person that Carla Morton had described Marcus Webster as being: someone who constantly walked a line, and who mostly succeeded in keeping on the “good” side more often than not.

  Nancy seemed to be sizing Autumn up too, and a couple seconds later, she winked. “You grew up in the system, didn’t you?”

  Autumn blinked rapidly at the woman. “I’m sorry?”

  Nancy barked a laugh. “Don’t worry. You didn’t give yourself away. It was just a couple of little things that added up. Don’t mind me, I’m just nosy. But I’m no different. Here, check this out.” She brushed her blonde hair back from one temple to reveal a scar. “Courtesy of my mom, may she roast in Hell forever.”

  Autumn curled her fingers into fists so that she wouldn’t touch her own scar. “I’m sorry.”

  Nancy shrugged. “There’s just something about kids who had normal childhoods that people like us never pick up on. When they walk into a room, they look straight at you. We look around the room to make sure nobody’s waiting around the corner for us. We always check for a back way out, and we watch other people’s eyes as we talk to them to make sure they aren’t about to hit us. Sometimes, I wonder if what people call empathy or psychological insight isn’t just being paranoid that we’re going to get hit again.”

  A tension that Autumn hadn’t known she was carrying slowly released. For a moment, she had wondered if the woman was able to pick up intuitive images based on touch too. “The kids must be lucky to have you. It sounds like you really understand their situation.”

  “You bet your sweet ass they’re lucky. I’m also a criminal lawyer, and more than one of them has ended up in my other office. I use my past history with them here at the center to help talk them out of trouble.” She chuckled. “Although I’m sure some of them would rather get sent to juvie than hear what I have to say when they screw up.”

  Autumn struggled to keep a straight face. She had the feeling that Nancy Gaines would keep talking all day if she let her. “I’m sure they’re in good hands.” It was time to get down to business. “Thank you for making time for me. I’m very interested in learning more about Marcus Webster.”

  Nancy pursed her lips, bringing up fine lines around them, and assessed the room. “Let’s go into a counseling room so we won’t be interrupted. There’s coffee in the break room across the hall there. It’s crap, but it’s better than tap water and a couple of NoDoz after a long day. And it’s been a long day already, even though it’s still early.”

  Autumn agreed. “That’ll be fine.”

  They grabbed big paper cups of coffee and walked over to the counseling room, a small room with eggcrate foam squares attached to the walls in a checkerboard pattern. Two hard plastic chairs and a small desk with a stack of legal pads, a jar of colored pencils, and a stack of tissue boxes were the only other things in the room.

  Well, except for a young man who was emptying a smaller trash can into a much larger one. He jolted up straight when they walked into the room, looking wide-eyed at the director. “Sorry,” he mumbled in a voice so hoarse it sounded like a whisper. He dropped the can he’d been holding, then had to chase it down as it rolled away. His face was heart-attack red by the time he got it back in place.

  Nancy looked at him with instant concern. “Are you okay?”

  The young man coughed, then put a hand at his throat. When he sneezed, both women, looking as if they’d practiced the maneuver for weeks, took two quick steps backwards.

  If it was even possible, the janitor blushed even harder. “A little sick.” Those words were just as hoarse as the first.

  The look of concern grew even deeper. “You should go home, Linus. You look like you feel just terrible, and we don’t want to spread what you have to others, now do we?”

  He shook his head vig
orously. “No, ma’am,” he croaked before sneezing again. Quick as a cat, he moved to the cart that held the large trashcan and an array of cleaning supplies. The wheel squeaked as he pushed it across the room and toward the door.

  “Hope you feel better soon,” Autumn said and was only rewarded with a lift of the hand and a nod. “Poor kid.”

  Both women stared after him, then at the table he’d just sneezed all over. Nancy was frowning and Autumn understood why. Flu season was far from over. “No matter how many times we ask employees not to bring their germs into the center…” She clicked her tongue and turned on her heel. “I’ll be right back.”

  And she was, armed with a canister of antibacterial wipes. Autumn reached for one, and they got to work wiping everything down. Autumn couldn’t contain a smile as she imagined Adam’s face in this situation. Would he have bolted from the room, or maybe helped? Or would he have waited until the little ladies finished the job before taking a seat at the head of the table and manspreading as wide as he could?

  She’d put her money on the latter.

  When everything was clean and sanitized, they sat across from each other, Nancy taking the chair facing the door. Autumn found herself uncomfortably aware of having her back to the door, and slightly embarrassed when she realized that Nancy knew exactly how she was feeling.

  Nancy sipped her coffee. “So, Marcus Webster. Genius, saint, or asshole? The jury’s still out. He was brilliant with the kids, though. We were glad to have him. We’re all in mourning, even those of us who cursed him out on a regular basis.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “Met him at an AA meeting. Hated him at first sight. He had just…” She snapped her mouth shut, and Autumn instinctively knew why. AA meetings were confidential. The other woman sighed. “I shouldn’t be talking about that stuff. It’s private.”

  Autumn shook her head. “I don’t need you to violate a confidence, but I do need to know as much as I can.”

  Nancy pursed her lips, stopping to consider her next words. “Let me sum up. Marcus Webster was trying to become the kind of man he wished he’d known when he was a kid. Came this close,” she held up her fingers a fraction of an inch apart, “from ruining everything he had gained. Pulled himself back from the brink. It was a miracle. I know he and Olivia were having problems, but that’s how it goes. You can’t squeeze a woman dry and still expect her to have the hots for you. He was lucky she stuck around as long as she did.”

  “How was Gina taking it?” Autumn asked.

  Nancy gave her a rueful smile. “Well enough, I guess. She was one of those kids who was always too grown up for her age. The first time I saw her I thought, woah, that kid’s either sixteen or thirty-six, no telling which.”

  “In your opinion, would you consider Gina a danger to herself or others?”

  Nancy scoffed and wagged a finger in Autumn’s direction. “Don’t listen to the rumors. She didn’t have anything to do with her parents’ deaths. She was handling the whole thing better than they were, although I think she might have been drinking toward the end. I don’t think it would have become anything serious, as long as she got the hell out of that house, and sooner rather than later.”

  “She’d been seeing Kyle Murphy?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yes. From what I understand, they met at the foster home Gina lived in. Kyle’s parents were killed in a tragic car accident a few months before he turned eighteen. With no other family, he was put into a foster home until he was legally an adult.”

  Autumn scribbled the information down. “So, he’s a couple years older than Gina?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yeah. He’s a tall, good looking kid. Twenty-one or twenty-two.”

  “And they apparently stayed in touch over the past three years,” Autumn murmured, sketching their relationship timeline out on her pad. “Did they date the whole time?”

  “I’m not sure when it got serious between them, but I’d say they’ve been exclusively dating for two years or so.”

  Autumn’s pen hovered over her notepad. “And Kyle is a long-haul trucker?”

  “I believe he has done quite a bit of trucking, but I’m not sure if it’s long-haul or not. I don’t think he has his own truck or anything like that.” She spread her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m just not close with Kyle, but I can tell you that he was always polite the few times I met him.”

  It was clear to Autumn that she wasn’t going to get much else out of the woman, so she changed the subject. “Who are Gina’s other friends?”

  Nancy tapped her bottom lip as she considered the question. “I’m honestly not sure. Gina used to be very popular and was a star volleyball player her first year or two in high school, but then everything happened with her parents and the foster home, and when she came back, she was much more demure and quiet. She quit the team and took up baking and knitting, of all things. She once told me that she wanted to be the perfect housewife.” From her change of expression, Nancy clearly didn’t approve of housewife as a profession.

  Autumn looked at her notes. “I was told that she had trouble with her grades and with school after returning home from the foster system.”

  Nancy tapped her lip again. “I’m not sure about that, but I wouldn’t be surprised. She was very different after that, and I often wondered if something…” she hesitated, the frown returning, “bad happened to her while she was there.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  Nancy immediately became defensive. “I saw the girl once or twice a month. During those times, I went out of my way to be kind to her and invite her to join some event or another. I never got close enough to her when she was alone to have a delicate discussion like that.”

  They were getting off track, so Autumn worked to bring them back. “And her friends…?”

  “Well…” she looked lost in thought for a moment, “I’ve seen her talking to Linus quite a few times, but like I said, she was a friendly girl.”

  Autumn tapped her pen. “Linus the janitor?”

  “Custodian,” Nancy said a little bit haughtily.

  Autumn smiled. “Yes, sorry. Linus the custodian and Gina were friends?”

  Nancy lifted a shoulder. “I’m not sure how close they were, but as I said, I saw them talking together several times.” She smiled. “I think Linus actually had a little crush on her. It was cute, and a little sad. Gina clearly didn’t feel the same way about him.”

  Autumn thought about the custodian. His hunched shoulders, acne scarred face, his timid presence. He looked fit and well built, but the way he carried himself eclipsed those positive features. Had he been mistreated as a child? Bullied in school?

  “I’d like to talk to Linus, if that’s okay.”

  Nancy’s eyebrows shot up. “Better wear a safety mask and gloves.”

  Autumn conceded the point. “If you could get me his contact information, I’ll get in touch with him soon.” A phone interview might work, then she thought of his hoarse voice. Maybe not. But she did need to speak with him. He might have some insights that could lead them somewhere.

  Nancy made her own note on the paper in front of her. “I can send you his contact info, but I wouldn’t waste much of my time on him.”

  “Why?”

  Nancy made a face that turned her perfectly applied lipstick into a downturned grimace. “That kid.” She sighed, long and deep. “I hate to see him working here. He’s worked as a janitor since before graduating from high school. From what I understand, he’s very bright and could do so much better for himself.”

  Autumn was even more curious. “Tell me more.”

  Nancy turned her coffee cup around and around in her hands, her fingernails scratching on the paper heat sleeve. “He’s very shy. Sweet. Kind to dogs. Overwhelmed talking to anybody more than a year or two older than he is. Always ducking his head like he’s afraid to get kicked. There isn’t a baby bird that falls out of its nest that he doesn’t try to nurse back to health. I’ve actually spoken to him abou
t going back to school and becoming a vet or at least a vet’s assistant, but he just laughs and shakes his head.”

  Autumn’s heart went out to the boy. She understood too well how a lack of self-confidence could destroy a person’s future. “Does he do anything else besides custodian work?”

  “Oh yes. Linus decided to volunteer with this outreach program Marcus Webster was just starting up. Helping young boys form better attitudes toward themselves. It was more of a mentorship program than anything else. Marcus would find out what the boys were interested in, then try to connect them with someone interesting. You know, if a kid was interested in how things worked, they’d take him to a garage to work on cars. That kind of thing.”

  “It sounds like a good idea.”

  “It is a good idea. I admit that I was a bit worried about having Linus involved.” Nancy lowered her voice. “He isn’t what one would call appropriate mentorship material.” She sighed again, flushing slightly at the harsh judgment of the young man. “But Marcus thought it would help him feel more secure. That it would help him step up. He wanted to help out, at any rate.”

  “Has it?”

  Nancy studied her coffee. “I think so. Linus is still shy, but on normal days, he does appear to smile more.”

  Autumn changed courses. “Would you say Marcus Webster was a good man?”

  Nancy looked up and met Autumn’s gaze. “He was working on it. He was working on his marriage too. Too much damage done, in my opinion. But they both tried, longer than I would have. They finally just got too tired to drag it out any longer. I think they would have been friends afterwards, if they’d both had time…” Her eyelashes fluttered, and she grabbed one of the boxes of tissues and carefully dabbed her eyes, somehow leaving behind only the barest trace of mascara. “I still can’t believe that they’re gone.”

  “Who else knew about the divorce?” Autumn asked gently.

  “Oh, everybody knew. It’s a small town. There was no chance of keeping it quiet, either, the way the two of them shouted at each other. It had always been that way between the two of them, though. It was when the truth first came out about how badly he was abusing drugs and how much money he’d lost that things got quiet and we were worried.”