“If you’ve got my Lucy Jenner with you, then you’ll see the ring,” Dart said. “It’s a thin gold band, with the words ‘LOVE, Mom and Dad’ inscribed inside. She wears it on her pinky. Took it right off my daughter Callie’s nightstand, in the bedroom they shared, when she left for New York.”
I was racking my brain to think if I had noticed any jewelry on Lucy’s hands.
“It’s been five years, Ms. Dart. She may not have that ring anymore.”
“Last time Lucy posted a picture of herself on Facebook a couple of months ago, it was still there on her finger. Makes my daughter crazy mad,” Dart said. “I can bet everything I got that there are three things Lucy won’t part with till she’s dead.”
A dark thought, but I wanted Hannah Dart to speak again.
“That little gold band, a handkerchief that her mother embroidered for her just before she died—which is the only thing of my sister’s that Lucy was left with—and a two-dollar bill that her grandfather, my father, gave to her when she was ten,” Dart said. Then she added, “For good luck. He always said the Jefferson two-bucks was for luck. That’s why Lucy won’t let go of it.”
Grandpa Jenner might have been surprised to know that the rare bill had not proved all that lucky for its recipient.
“You’re telling me that this girl has been through every kind of hell I can imagine, and she’s still hanging on to things? To material things?” I asked.
“Those three things are her only connections to what once was a family—that each represent people who loved her very much,” Dart said. “They’re what gives me a spark of hope that there’s some humanity left within her.”
“But even so, you won’t consider bringing her in from the cold?” I said, borrowing a phrase from le Carré.
“Callie idolized Lucy,” she said. “Lucy’s three years older than my daughter, and was so bold and so strong that Callie thought everything Lucy did was worth looking up to. Till she stole that little gold ring and ran off.”
She paused for a few seconds. “If she’s ready to apologize to Callie, and if she still really has that ring to return, I’ll give it some thought.”
“Ms. Dart, you said that Lucy’s head isn’t on straight. Exactly what did you mean?”
“Why? You think it’s right to steal from family?” she asked. “To lie and steal, then come back here, looking for mercy?”
I thought of the young woman’s life and how every part of it had been fractured. A mother she seemed to adore who died way too young, a man who fathered her but played no role in her life, friends murdered in her presence for hanging out with her, and quite possibly a law enforcement official in whom she had put her trust at such a critical time in her life who might well have betrayed her.
“Stealing is one thing,” I said. “Can you tell me what Lucy has lied about?”
“How long have you known my niece?”
“Today. I just met her today.”
Hannah Dart laughed for the first time. “Well, that goes a long way to explaining things to me. She can suck you in like a riptide going out to sea, if you let her.”
It didn’t sound like Lucy would be welcomed back to Winnetka any time soon.
“There’s the front door opening now. My husband or one of my girls,” Dart said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut you off, Ms. Cooper.”
“May I call you tomorrow?” I said, anxious not to lose the only connection to Lucy Jenner’s past that I had.
“I’ll get back to you when I can talk,” Dart said. “But you watch yourself, Ms. Cooper. That girl is the most manipulative creature I’ve ever met.”
It was my turn to be silent. My gut was churning.
“Lucy has the face of an angel,” she said, “but she’s got the soul of a viper, too. You can go to bat for her like you’re telling me you are, but I’m warning you—you’re doing so at your own risk.”
SIX
“Would you please try to get Mike on the phone?” I said to Laura as I headed past her desk to find Max.
I pounded the hallway down to the executive lounge where Lucy was resting—my too-high heels for the kind of day it had become clicking on the floor like the steady beat of a metronome. Max was still at the desk outside the door, keeping herself busy with paperwork.
“Is Lucy wearing any jewelry?” I asked.
“Not that I recall,” Max said. “I can open the door and look.”
“Better still, did the Brooklyn cops voucher any of her property?”
“Yeah, it’s here with the arrest report.”
I grabbed the arraignment folder from the desktop and flipped through the paperwork.
There was a voucher listing the possessions taken from Lucy Jenner for safekeeping while she was in custody. I scanned the list. A driver’s license, a MetroCard, a train ticket receipt from Washington, DC, to Penn Station in Manhattan, dated a week earlier, one gold band with an inscription on the inside, one cotton handkerchief, and eighty-two dollars in cash. The breakdown of the denominations showed that one of them was a two-dollar bill.
“Any of the other paras loose this afternoon to do something for me?” I asked.
“I’ll find you someone.”
“Great,” I said. “Laura can Xerox the voucher and I’ll write a note requesting the release of this stuff from the property clerk at headquarters.”
“You mean after Lucy’s arraignment?” Max asked.
“I mean right now,” I said. “I might need some of those items to coax her to open up.”
“Okay,” Max said. “And I’ve got good news for you. I’ve been trying to reach the complaining witness who owned the clothing store in Tribeca where Lucy did her shoplifting.”
“And?”
“It went out of business seven months ago.”
“Who signed the complaint?” I asked.
“The owner,” Max said. “I’m running her down but it’s a very common name.”
“That accounts for more than seventeen hundred dollars’ worth of the larceny, right?”
“Exactly.”
“How did Lucy get it out of the store?” I asked.
“She wore it,” Max said.
“Wait a minute. She wore a small fortune in clothes out of the boutique?”
“She went into the dressing room, took all her clothes off, and put on three layers of silk underwear. A thong and two pairs of panties, three bras, a camisole under a long-sleeved silk blouse—de la Renta, of course—and leather leggings,” Max said. “Then she put on her own baggy jeans and sweater over the good stuff, and walked out with a stolen leather jacket tossed over her arm, carrying a Longchamp tote.”
“Sensors set off alarms?” I said.
“Nope. Lucy carried one of those devices that removes the sensors,” Max said. “They were all on the floor in the dressing room when the saleswoman went back in to clean up.”
“Was that the call to 911?”
“Yes. But she didn’t get very far. She was only half a block away, in a gourmet food shop, stuffing the tote bag full of pricey cheeses and fancy chocolates.”
I leaned against the wall and tapped the back of my head against it. “It doesn’t exactly sound like a street kid’s survival kit, does it?”
“Nope,” Max said. “Sounds to me like she was pregaming a sexy soiree by treating herself to some tempting new affair-wear.”
“How about the food shop?”
“Still in business. The manager who swore out the complaint affidavit is now the owner,” Max said. “But Lucy never made it out of the shop.”
I reached out and tapped her on the crown of her head. “Thanks, Max. Now I’ve got a plan after all. We can get this dismissed without even bringing up the sensational case at the hearing, and I shouldn’t be the one who appears in front of the judge on the matter.”
“Overkill, ri
ght? It’ll call too much attention to Lucy if you show up on a grand larceny warrant.”
I started back toward my office and Max followed. “I’ll get someone to have the case tossed. Five years, no witness anymore on the underwear heist,” I said with a smile, “and Lucy never actually stole the food because she didn’t set foot out of the premises. No other criminal record, there’s really nothing to hold her on.”
“What’s next?” Max’s short legs were straining to keep up with my long paces.
“I’ll get Kerry O’Donnell up here. I think Lucy will really like her,” I said. “Wake her up in a few minutes, I’ll make the intros. Then I can slide across to Forlini’s, keep my date with Catherine for a quick bite, and once the case is dismissed, I’ll spend the evening getting to the bottom of Lucy’s story.”
We had reached Laura’s desk.
“What about a place for Lucy to stay tonight?” Max asked.
“Call Safe Horizon for me,” I said. The organization was the best and biggest victim-advocacy nonprofit in the country and partnered with us regularly. “See if there are any open spots in their Streetwork program. Lucy qualifies on every level.”
Safe Horizon ran domestic violence facilities that were far more sophisticated and safe than city shelters; child advocacy centers that co-located pediatricians, social workers, prosecutors, and detectives under one roof to ease the process of disclosing abuse for underage kids; and the Streetwork Project, designed to engage with homeless youth—up to the age of twenty-five—to offer stability and options, whether the cause of the homelessness was abuse or rejection or violence.
“Good idea,” Max said. “It offers everything to get Lucy back on her feet while we work with her. Meals, showers, mental health services.”
“Counselors instead of jailers, young women and men in like circumstances,” I said. “And a strictly observed curfew.”
“Would you please call Kerry O,” I said to Laura, “and ask whether she can come up to my office?”
“Sure.”
Mercer was sitting in the chair opposite my desk when I walked back in. “Did you get Aunt Hannah?” he asked as he spread out a stack of paper in front of himself like a deck of cards waiting to be cut.
“That’s not exactly going to be the homecoming I was expecting,” I said. “Lucy’s got a tendency to snatch what doesn’t belong to her—and also to lie.”
“Ouch!” Mercer said. “Just when we were counting on some truth telling.”
“What did you find?”
“Tons of online media about Welly’s cases,” Mercer said. “I printed out a copy for each of us. The first set is about Lucy’s friends—the two victims.”
He passed me some printouts from the Des Moines Register in the first week after the murders. Buster’s and Austin’s school photos told the story without words—heartbreaking images of Buster taken at the end of the school year just weeks earlier, and Austin pictured with a big smile with his regional-winning school softball team, in pinstripe uniforms.
“Here’s Lucy,” Mercer said, handing me more pages.
I looked at the close-up of her mournful face as she walked out of the police station from her first official interview, clinging onto the arm of Buster’s mother. She had spent four days in the hospital for her injuries.
“Lots of stories about Lucy being a runaway and such,” Mercer said. “I’ll take them home tonight and read the whole thing. I haven’t even downloaded the crimes in the other cities yet.”
I flipped through the section about Lucy and came to a stop at an article dated eight months later. The federal prosecutors had been successful in their motion to consolidate all the cases, and the trial venue had been set in Salt Lake City.
On the front page of the Deseret News, before the start of the trial, was a photograph of four detectives standing on the courthouse steps. Mercer leaned in and tapped the picture, which bore the caption: NEW YORK’S FINEST IN SEARCH FOR JUSTICE.
I squinted at the small print to read the names.
“Do you know any of these guys?” I asked.
“Mostly old-timers,” Mercer said. “A lot of years of investigative experience in that quartet. The two on the left are Hate Crime unit, one dead for five or six years now, the other one retired to Scottsdale.”
“And these two?” I asked, pointing to the other pair.
“Major Case Squad at the time, not Homicide. The tall guy at the end is a lieutenant in the Robbery Squad now. That leaves Manny Cabela. He worked for months at the dig at the Twin Towers, on his own time, like so many other guys. Manny died two years ago of 9/11-related lung cancer.”
I put my hand to my face and rubbed my eyes. The enormity of the World Trade Center tragedy would haunt all of us forever, and was still claiming lives to this day—most of them cops and firefighters.
“You’ve got to slow this train down, Alexandra,” Mercer said. “I’m willing to believe there’s something this girl wants to tell you, but people’s lives—”
“I know that,” I said. “I get it.”
“There are reams of articles about these crimes and about the trial,” Mercer said. “It was covered by every newspaper in the country. It will take you all week to catch up with them, and yeah, just maybe some little factoid in a feature story by a beat reporter will help you get to the bottom of this. But most important is that you sit down and talk to Lucy nice and calm tomorrow—”
“Tonight. I’m starting with her tonight.”
“Suit yourself,” Mercer said, shaking his head at me. “Nobody promised me that if you took a little time off these last few weeks, you’d be any less stubborn when you came back to work.”
“Anything else in this stack I should be aware of?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Two more photos, way near the bottom of the pile,” he said, sorting through them for me. “This one was taken on the steps of city hall with the mayor greeting them, when the guys returned from Salt Lake after the trial.”
It was the front page of the New York Post, headlined ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELLY—GUILTY VERDICTS PUT END TO GUNMAN’S RACE WAR.
“This is the kind of shot that could have been hanging in the station house,” I said. “This is the sort of thing that could have set Lucy off.”
“Sort of, could have, might have, maybe did,” Mercer said. “I’ll check out whether any of these guys even had a connection to that precinct or squad. If not, there are too many other news stories that would earn heroes a place on the wall.”
“One more?”
Mercer pulled it out of the pile.
It was a photo taken after the trial, on the courthouse steps in Salt Lake. The back row were detectives from every city represented in the prosecution case, standing together as the symbol of law enforcement victory. Below them—a much shorter line—were the survivors who had witnessed the killings. Lucy Jenner, the shortest and youngest of them, was on the end of the line. I picked up the page to give it a closer look, and saw that Manny Cabela’s hand rested on Lucy’s shoulder.
“Now, don’t go reading tea leaves,” Mercer said. “That touch is just a momentary act of compassion, okay?”
My door was open but Kerry O’Donnell knocked anyway. I smiled and waved her in.
“Did I hear someone say the word ‘compassion’ in Alex’s office?” she asked. “Or has an impostor slipped in, in your place?”
“You’ve got me back.”
“That’s happy news. What do you need from me?”
I gave her the shortest take on Lucy’s case—not the history of the Weldon Baynes murders, but the possibility that she was going to disclose a past sexual assault to me, once the warrant was cleared. No drama. No need for me to show up in court.
“Let me introduce you to Lucy—she’s with Max—and Max will give you all the facts you need for the judge. Short and
sweet.”
“I don’t know about the sweet part,” Kerry said, “but I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“I’ll be right here. I’m having dinner with Catherine and Mercer across the street,” I said. “Don’t tell Lucy, but truth or consequences begins this evening.”
We walked down the hall together. Max and Lucy were chatting with each other. Lucy looked better rested, and comfortably dressed in clean jeans and a pale blue turtleneck sweater.
She liked Kerry, which I had counted on, and she was happy about the news that they would go to court shortly to have all the charges dropped.
I told her about Streetwork and gave her the printout that described the program. She was pleased that she was going to a place with other young people who were as rootless as she, and no longer being held or confined to the Toyota in which she’d been living.
“What about my stuff?” she asked.
“What stuff?” I feigned ignorance of her personal treasures.
“My cash,” she said. “My MetroCard, and the things I had with me that the cops took.”
“I’ll have that back in my office by the time Kerry brings you upstairs, okay?” I said. “The property clerk’s office is just down the street at headquarters.”
That would ensure her return to me after the judge let her go.
I watched as Kerry and Lucy set off toward the elevator.
“Okay if I take off now?” Max said. “It’s five forty-five.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ve got to go soon, too. Thanks for everything. Did Lucy talk about anything I should know?”
“Chitchat only. I wasn’t planning to step on your toes and talk about the case.”
“I count on you to keep me up to speed,” I said. “I want to take you to lunch on Friday to thank you for covering my tail while I was off.”
“Don’t be silly,” Max said. “That’s my job. See you tomorrow.”
I went back to my office so that Mercer and I could close up for a couple of hours to go to dinner.
“No more calls, ladies and gentlemen,” Mike said. He had returned—much to my surprise—while I was down the hall with Lucy and Kerry. “No more calls, folks. We have a winner!”
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