Forsaken Trust

by Meredith Doench

  I rolled my head back and forth a few times, letting my neck pop out the kinks and painful knots from the long night before. No, my gut told me this case had very little to do with the dealing of drugs. Surprising, yes, given the location and the epidemic. Maybe that was what had given the Wallace Lake PD so many problems: they were looking in the wrong direction.

  We all needed to change our point of view and our lens of focus. We needed to let the stereotypes go; if one thing was clear to me during that morning sunrise, it was that this case was everything but stereotypical. Like the BWS Killer, this would be one for the casebooks.

  Sadie emerged from the Marco home just after nine a.m. I trailed her as she drove the large sedan back to her grandmother’s. She pulled the car into the driveway. I thought she’d try to hide it in the garage, but she left it out for everyone to see.

  Remember, my dad had said, you know small towns. I knew that cars in driveways that didn’t belong to the homeowner didn’t go unnoticed. I knew that the neighborhood rumor mill would spread that juicy tidbit of information throughout the community within a few days. It wouldn’t have taken long before someone recognized that car as belonging to the Marcos. I needed to speak to the neighbors, and in order to get a clear picture, I needed to hear about their observations of Sadie.

  Yes, I knew small towns. But it wasn’t until that moment in the truck parked on a stakeout that I finally understood what I was up against, that granite-hard level of loyalty I was trying to shatter.

  *

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Harvey nodded. “Long night, but I’m ready for more.” Her short hair was wet from her recent shower, and she smelled like aftershave. Polo, maybe? Or Tommy Hilfiger? Unlike me, Harvey was impeccably dressed. Her white button-down was pressed clean and tucked carefully against her thin waist. She reached down into one of her cargo pants pockets to check her phone for messages.

  I gave the thick wooden door a strong knock. While we waited, I tucked my own shirt into my khakis where the waist was too big and slipped down on my hips.

  We needed to deal with Cody Allard and soon. The good news was we knew exactly where both Ava and Allard would be until the final school bell at three p.m., but we didn’t know where Joan Marco would be once I left the watch on her house. Therefore, her questioning took precedence.

  Just as I was about to knock again, I heard footsteps approach, the pause as someone peered through the peephole, and then a rasp as the dead bolt unlocked. The door opened to a woman who looked as though she’d just baked a kitchen full of fresh cookies and had a houseful of grandchildren. Her short brown hair was in rollers and she smelled like hair spray.

  “Ms. Marco?” I asked. “Joan Marco?”

  She opened the door a little farther, eyeing both Harvey and me suspiciously.

  “We’re investigating the recent crimes in this area. Do you have time for a few questions?” I flipped open my badge for her to see as did Harvey.

  Marco looked carefully at both badges and then at our faces. “Sure,” she finally said, “but I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk to me.”

  “May we come in?” I asked.

  We followed Joan Marco through her entryway and into the kitchen. She motioned to the table. “Would you like some coffee? I just put a fresh pot on.”

  “Thank you, yes,” Harvey said as we sat down at the table.

  I watched as Joan poured two steaming mugs for us. She caught me watching and gave me a big smile. “Law enforcement must be a hard line of work for young ladies,” she said, handing a cup to each of us. She sat at the head of the table and pushed the sugar our way.

  “We make out all right,” I told her. “What type of work do you do?”

  Joan stirred a spoonful of sugar, then a second into her coffee. “I’m retired now, but I was the school counselor at the high school for twenty-five years.”

  “You’ve seen a lot, then,” I said. “I bet nothing surprises you.”

  She laughed, and I noticed a twinkle in her eye. She was a friendly older woman, unassuming in her beige outfit and rubber-soled shoes. She wore a sweatshirt jacket with Tigger and other Winnie-the-Pooh characters across her ample chest. I doubted many people gave this grandmotherly type more than a second glance.

  “What can I help you ladies with today? Is this about the murders?”

  Harvey waited for me to take the lead. “We have some questions about your car. A green Land Rover is registered to you, correct?” I showed her a photo of her SUV on my phone.

  “That’s mine,” she said. “Has it been stolen?”

  “We questioned a man yesterday who was driving it. Who is this?” I flipped open a photo of Allard that the school district had on file.

  “Oh, that’s only Cody,” she said, reaching for her coffee. “He sometimes drives my car while his is in the shop. He has an old tanker. He’s waiting to pay off his student loans before he buys something else. Did he get a ticket?”

  “How do you know Cody Allard?” Harvey asked.

  Joan crossed one hand over the other on top of the table, her short stubby fingers threading between each other. “I was on the committee that hired him at the high school. I showed him around and helped him find an apartment.”

  “Was that one of your duties on this committee?”

  “Not exactly, although we were supposed to welcome and help him get situated. Cody needed a little extra help, you know, and I can’t help it.” She chuckled. “I’m a nurturing figure, I guess.”

  I nodded. “How is Allard doing so far on the job?”

  “Great! I hear he’s started a new weight-lifting team and the students really like him.” She apparently realized she wouldn’t get many answers from me. Marco turned her attention to Harvey. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “We’re not sure,” I answered. “But he was seen in your car near the site where the victims were found. He was with these two teens. Do you know them?” I split the screen to show images of both Ava and Sadie.

  Joan was more hesitant this time. “Ava is a student at the high school now, but Sadie graduated last year.”

  “And what is your relationship with the girls?”

  “I worked with both of them and have tried to offer guidance in terms of careers for after high school.”

  I took a sip of coffee and let Joan’s words settle. She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, appearing casual and calm.

  “Do you regularly offer your home to past advisees?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sadie spent the night here last night and drove your car to her grandmother’s. That’s quite a close relationship with an ex-advisee.”

  My bluntness didn’t faze Joan at all; in fact, she’d been ready for it. “She was one of my best students, and I’ve continued to help her since I retired. She’s had a rough time, Special Agent. Her mother went missing yesterday, and she needed someone to talk to.”

  “Sadie’s grandmother wouldn’t have listened to her granddaughter?” I asked.

  “She needs my help, and she trusts me. I’ve worked with her for five years now, and Sadie has had many problems at home. Her mother lost custody, you know the type. She didn’t deserve the title of Mother in the first place. And her dad…”

  I nodded. “You seem to be the person many people come to for help.”

  “Yes,” Joan said. “It was my job for twenty-five years. I can’t suddenly turn that switch off.” She smiled sweetly, the kind of calculated smile someone gives before delivering a harsh put-down. “By the way, have you found Wilma Henderson?”

  Harvey informed Joan that we hadn’t found Wilma yet. As the search for her grew closer to the forty-eight-hour mark, we expanded the BOLO from Ohio law enforcement to the entire tristate area. We’d sent both an arrest photo along with a more recent picture provided by Sadie to all the agencies. And, as a precaution, we had local PD officers staked all along the Powell River, as well as the continuing search of the
clearing and road Bennett and I had stumbled upon. Nothing had been reported yet. It wasn’t unusual for sex workers and addicts to go missing for periods of time, sometimes even years, as they kicked around the country living off people’s generosity. Goodwill was surprisingly easy to find, and addicts were gifted in locating it. If it hadn’t been for Wilma’s job and her daughter, we probably would not have heard so quickly about her disappearance. Gary most likely wouldn’t have called the police if it weren’t for this case.

  There was something that bothered me about Wilma’s disappearance, though. She’d vanished. Generally, people who know they’ll be leaving for a length of time say good-bye in some sort of way to those they love and tie up loose ends. Wilma had done the opposite by requesting extra hours for the following week at work and planning to see her daughter over the weekend. It didn’t make sense.

  Harvey pointed to Joan Marco’s wedding band. “I see you’re married. Does your husband live here with you?”

  “He does,” Joan said. “But my husband is disabled. Henry mostly stays on the second floor, and I bring him what he needs.”

  “He’s bed-bound, then?” Harvey asked.

  “Mostly, yes. Old age can be cruel,” she said, with a shake of her head.

  Since Joan didn’t volunteer the information, Harvey asked about his illness. Joan answered vaguely, alluding to the symptoms of both Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

  I scanned the kitchen for any of the usual accoutrements for the disabled, for anything that indicated a bed-bound person lived here, and saw nothing. The SUV didn’t have disabled plates and didn’t appear to be equipped to transport anyone with special needs, nor did the sedan. Richardson hadn’t reported any other vehicles registered to the couple. But there was something else I noticed about the kitchen: boxes of food in large quantities from a wholesale store.

  “Is it just the two of you living here?” I asked.

  “Yes. For whatever reason God saw fit, we never had children of our own.”

  I nodded to the large stack of food boxes in the corner: macaroni and cheese, crackers, oversized jars of peanut butter. “Are the two of you preparing for a zombie apocalypse?” I teased.

  Joan looked over at the stack of food. “Oh, I’ve started buying food in bulk. It saves us quite a bit. The problem is the pantry won’t hold it.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “That’s quite a bit of food for two people.”

  While Harvey talked with Joan about the murder case, I considered the layout of the house. Richardson had emailed me the architectural plans. The house had a walkout on the lower level, although you couldn’t see it from the front of the home. And the house was almost 5,000 square feet. What did a retired woman and her handicapped husband need with a home this big? Something wasn’t adding up.

  My cell buzzed against my hip.

  “May I use your restroom?” I asked.

  I followed Joan’s directions down the hallway and closed the door behind me.

  The text was from Captain Riley. He and Richardson were finishing up at the scene along the river. He’d attached an image with the text, Flyer found in the wooded area around the clearing. The attached image looked to be a wrinkled nine-by-twelve sheet of paper. The flyer looked like it had been printed on a home printer. It read, Trying to kick a bad habit? Lost all your family and friends because of drugs? Need help and support? Heart to Heart Recovery is hear for you! Underneath the email address—a Yahoo account named alottahearts—was the image of the tattoo I’d seen on the victims’ wrists, double hearts combined with the number two.

  The email address looked suspicious to me. A lotta hearts? What kind of business would use that as an email contact? It would only take Richardson a few minutes to track down the IP address from the person who registered the email. I texted him and leaned against the sink to wait for his answer. My thoughts ran through what we’d found in the last twelve hours. Bennett and I had been right about Heart to Heart as a place for sobriety, and the flyer verified the meaning of the tattoo. Richardson, however, had found no traces of a Heart to Heart recovery center in the state of Ohio.

  There was something else about the flyer: the misspelling, hear for here. A common mistake. But it seemed like a young mistake to me.

  My cell dinged with Richardson’s response. Ava Washington. Email address was set up about a year ago from her personal laptop.

  Me: Pull any emails sent or received from that address.

  What did Ava Washington have to do with all of this? Could she have been the one who developed the flyer for Heart to Heart? Joan Marco didn’t look like the technically savvy type to me, not that you exactly needed to be in order to print out a flyer. But I couldn’t let go of the spelling mistake. There was also Cody Allard to consider, since I’d seen him with the two teens. Was it possible Joan used Cody Allard, Ava, and her friend Sadie to help find women for Heart to Heart?

  I looked around the corners of the bathroom and into the shower stall, kneeling down to listen into the drain. Suddenly, it hit me. Joan Marco’s home could be the Heart to Heart recovery center we were searching for. It was possible she’d set up her home address as a sober living home. If that was the case, then where were the women who were supposedly recovering from drug abuse? I thought about the stacks of bulk food in the kitchen—Joan certainly could be feeding the women with that, but I couldn’t get around the fact that the house was eerily quiet.

  I texted Captain Riley, Pull Allard out of class ASAP. Bring him in for questioning. Hold him until we arrive.

  The second Harvey and I left this house, Joan would warn Cody Allard. We had to get to him first. Somehow, someway, Allard was mixed up with Joan Marco. My instincts told me he’d be the first of the two to break.

  “Mrs. Marco?” I called down the hall. “Do you mind if I take a look around?”

  She waited to answer until I reached the kitchen. “I’m sorry, dear,” she smiled. “Henry isn’t feeling well, and it’s not a good time.”

  “Another time then.” Without Marco’s verbal consent, I couldn’t search the home. We didn’t have a warrant, and anything I found would be inadmissable.

  I smiled on my way out of Joan Marco’s home and thanked her when she handed us to-go cups of coffee. I assured her we were doing all we could to find the killer and Wilma Henderson. Joan watched from her doorstep as Harvey and I loaded into the truck and cheerfully waved as we drove away. I waved back and realized what my dad had been trying to tell me. I’d been expending so much energy to force the case into the shape of columns in the murder board, pushing every bit of evidence into its perfect little boxes. But this case had a new shape—a circle. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Harvey and I had just stepped into that ring and found Joan Marco as its center. The matriarch. All the others—Allard, Wilma Henderson, the victims, and the teens were mere satellites to Joan, her own constellation. As we drove away from the Marco home, I was certain that it was going to be a battle to take Joan Marco down. A center, however, is nothing without its constellation. If we could knock down enough of the spokes, it would eventually collapse.

  Chapter Eleven

  Day Three: 2:30 p.m.

  I watched Cody Allard through the double-paned window of the interrogation room while he waited for questioning. The metal handcuffs chained him to the edge of the table, and every few minutes he leaned his head down to wipe away a tear. Allard had been arrested earlier at the high school for statutory rape of a minor, and Riley hadn’t been kind about it. He’d cuffed Allard and paraded him down a busy hallway and out the main entrance of the school. Ava held on to her story that she was only good friends with her coach until Richardson got Ava to admit she’d seen questionable behavior between Allard and other girls on the team.

  “So you probably aren’t his only girl,” Richardson said. “No matter what he’s told you, you aren’t the only one.”

  Ava finally confessed the affair to Detective Richardson while inside the principal’s office. Once sh
e saw Harvey’s photographs, particularly the one of her kiss with Allard, she caved. Her main concern since the confession had been whether or not Allard would get in trouble. She said he didn’t deserve trouble, and that he loved her. Now Ava and her mother sat in the conference room next to Allard’s, neither speaking to the other. Through the window, I watched as Ava wept, and her mother ignored her.

  “Do you think he thinks he really loves her?”

  I turned to find Harvey behind me. “I’d say love has nothing to do with this.”

  Harvey stepped up to the window beside me. “She’s a cute girl. This will damage her.”

  “How long are we making him wait?”

  “Until I say so.” Captain Riley came down the hall and stood with us. “Allard is nervous. I want that anxiousness to build.”

  Riley was in a foul mood. He’d spent the morning juggling a talk with the fourth victim’s next of kin. A detective had finally located an estranged son living in Maine. He had a lengthy record and had once been arrested with his mother for drug possession. Despite the extended questioning by phone, nothing new came from the interview. No one, it seemed, knew any reason why our four victims would have crossed paths with our serial killer.

  “Richardson ran a few more searches,” Riley said. “Nothing came up on Cody Allard but a few old parking tickets at the University of West Virginia, his alma mater.” He rubbed his temples. “I hate dealing with guys like this. I’m sure he’s done this before, but there doesn’t seem to be any record of it.”