Forsaken Trust

by Meredith Doench

  Eventually, though, Harvey and I couldn’t get away from the fact of why we were eating together, and our conversation turned back to the case. Over the course of the day, Detective Richardson had uncovered life insurance policies for the four victims along with insurance policies that covered a portion of their stay in the Heart to Heart sober home. Once Richardson knew the patterns, he uncovered similar insurance scams for other women, not only our four victims. These findings opened up an entirely new line of questioning: Were there more bodies to be found? Had some of the women escaped the Marcos and moved out of the area? Why were some of the women killed and not others? As usual, when this case answered one question, it opened three new ones.

  Henry Marco had been an insurance salesperson for over twenty years. He gamed the system, buying insurance policies for women who couldn’t afford their own and then banking the insurance payouts. The policies covered up to sixty days in a facility like the Marcos’, just enough time for Joan to groom the women and make them emotionally dependent on her, and grateful enough to do as she asked. Gary’s Girls was used as a hunting ground for prostitutes and other women down on their luck and in need of a soft place to land. All the money from the women’s forced prostitution went to the Marcos—modern day pimps hiding in plain sight among the banalities of small-town life.

  “So,” I told Harvey, “we have adequate evidence for insurance fraud and conspiracy charges, but no evidence of murder against Joan and her husband.”

  “Even with another body at the freaking river.”

  “It will be hard without a witness, and you know Joan. She’ll pull the sweet grandmother act to win over the jurors. As long as Henry is missing, she’ll blame everything on him.”

  Proof of murder was easier said than done with a suspect as slippery as Joan Marco. I wanted nothing more than to put an end to her game of destruction and the pleasure she derived from setting into motion her wheel of horror.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Day Thirteen: 11:00 p.m.

  Canal Street Park hugged the edges of Wallace Lake where its docks reached far into the dark water. During the day, the park was filled with families and swimmers with picnic lunches and bright lounge chairs scattered across its sandy beach. At night, though, the park became Wallace Lake’s largest hangout for drug addicts looking to score and prostitutes looking for johns.

  “No one is going to believe I’m a john,” Richardson said looking into my hotel mirror.

  “Keep that comb-over in place, and they will.”

  Richardson turned to face me in his Dockers jacket and khakis creased perfectly over his boat shoes.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Since I’d met Richardson, I’d only seen him in a white button-up and black jeans. He wore stylish eyeglass frames in an array of colors that changed daily. “Perfect. Play dumb and the women will take pity on you,” I teased, shoving my hair into a ball cap. “Besides, you have the perfect cover—you only want the famous hooker. I’m sure Wilma has been very popular since her story made the headlines.”

  We drove separately, and I stopped along the shoulder of the park’s entrance road underneath the spread of a willow tree. Richardson drove slowly past and into a parking lot. From where I sat, I could see the shadowed outline of his car. He turned off his headlights and turned on the parking runners, a signal used to show he was looking for a date.

  Where are they? Why aren’t they coming to the car? he texted.

  Be patient, I texted back. Someone will approach.

  Thirty minutes later, a young woman finally emerged from the darkness. He called my phone and put his phone on speaker before she approached his open window.

  “Hi there,” the young woman said, leaning on Richardson’s truck for stability. “What are you up for tonight?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” he said. “Wilma. You know the one all over the news?”

  The woman laughed. “Wilma, Wilma,” she said. “The celebrity whore. She’s not anything special, buddy.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “I know where she is, but I think you need a young piece tonight. A tail you need to chase, not one that’s already retired.” I imagined her pressing her chest forward into Richardson’s face. “What will you do with that granny anyway, huh?”

  Richardson fumbled on his words. “I’m…I’m only interested in Wilma.”

  Show her the money, I directed him in my mind.

  Finally, I heard him unroll a crisp bill from the roll of twenties he’d been given.

  She sighed. “I haven’t seen Wilma in a while. Try Gary’s.”

  “I just left Gary’s,” Richardson said. “I heard she was here.”

  She took the money. “Well, it’s a big park.”

  Richardson unrolled another twenty. “I’m sure you know your way around.”

  There was silence at the other end, and I imagined the woman looking at Richardson hard, her eyes evaluating him with pupils much too big. When she didn’t move, he counted off a few more bills. “It’s yours if you bring Wilma to me in the next ten minutes.”

  She disappeared back into the blackness of the park, and he shut off the motor.

  “You got that?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, hang tight,” I told him. “I’m moving in.”

  I slipped out of my truck and moved closer to his car along the shadowed tree line. Everything was quiet save for the occasional ding of a buoy against the steel docks.

  “Remember,” I told Richardson, “cuff her as soon as she takes the money.”

  A good twenty minutes later, the familiar shape of Wilma emerged from the darkness with the young woman trailing after her. They approached Richardson’s car cautiously.

  “This is Wilma,” the young woman said, and stepped up to the window. She held out her hand. “Pay up. I got her for you.”

  “It took longer than ten minutes,” Richardson said, but handed her the cash. I heard the shake in her voice, a clear indication she was in need of her next fix. The money would soon be shot up her arm. She took off into the park, but Wilma remained.

  “What can I help you with, handsome?”

  “I’m looking for a date with the infamous woman who took down Cooper.”

  Wilma smiled. “You found me.” She eyed the wad of cash in Richardson’s lap. “Two hundred fifty bucks for the full experience.” She rubbed her hands over her wide hips and breasts.

  “Two hundred.”

  “Not for this piece.”

  “Two fifty is a lot of dough.”

  Wilma shrugged. “Celebrity inflation.”

  When Wilma turned to walk away, Richardson called after her. “Deal. I only pay this much for celebrities, though.”

  The moment her hand closed over the money, Richardson showed his badge and held tight to her wrist. He hadn’t been quick enough with the cuffs. I charged through the shadows and had Wilma’s hands cuffed behind her back before she realized another person was even there. Her tight skirt rode up over her thighs and she wobbled on the stiletto heels, leaning into me for balance.

  Wilma spewed a thread of curse words at us, and then at herself for falling for it.

  “Get in,” I told her and led her to the passenger door. Once I closed her inside, I climbed in the back behind Richardson so that I could see her.

  Wilma Henderson took one look at me and cursed again. “You’re that agent, aren’t you? The one that questioned me at Gary’s?”

  “I have some more questions for you, Wilma.”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “That depends on you. If we get your cooperation and honest answers, then no.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong out here,” she pleaded. “Jackie, the other girl, told me a guy in the parking lot needed some help, so I was just checking on him. I was worried he was sick or something.” Her eye makeup was smeared and her bottle-blond hair a pile of knots.

  Richardson held up his cell. “All recorded.”

  It was
late, and I didn’t have the patience for games. “Will you help us or not?”

  Wilma spilled over in the passenger seat, her heavy arms resting on the console with her legs spread wide. She smelled of marijuana and stale cigarette smoke. “Let’s go for a drive,” she said.

  Once the car rolled out onto a main road, I asked, “Why didn’t Joan Marco kill you?”

  “Huh?”

  “You went through the Heart to Heart program. The Marcos hold a life insurance policy on you. And, I’m sorry, but you couldn’t have been bringing in that much with prostitution. Why didn’t they kill you like the others?”

  “I don’t know what you heard, but I didn’t have anything to do with killing anyone.”

  “That wasn’t my question, Wilma.”

  When she didn’t answer, I directed Richardson to head to the station. “Wilma, the media’s love affair with you is ending. You’re on the tail end of your fifteen minutes of fame. What do you think would happen if I told reporters you weren’t cooperating with our investigation?”

  Wilma’s jaw tightened. She’d been feeding off the media attention and didn’t want it to go away. “I wasn’t bringing in enough to stay at the Marcos’ and I hadn’t made up what I still owed them,” she finally said. “They let me go because I was established at Gary’s and was able to send johns their way.”

  “There are a lot of other women who could have done the same thing.”

  Wilma shrugged. “Henry had a thing for me. We went to high school together, and he had this crush. He was the one who wanted to let me go.”

  “Speaking of Henry. Where is he?”

  Wilma chuckled. “Probably ran far away from his wife. She bossed him all around and beat the crap out of him when things didn’t go as planned.”

  “Wilma”—I was tired and done with the conversation—“are you really telling me that this man, who Joan smacked around and belittled, convinced his wife you should live because of a high school crush?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like!” Wilma cried. “I’ve got no one. My mom took Sadie, and I’m alone. The Marcos are my family.”

  “I’ll let the reporters know,” I told Richardson.

  Wilma Henderson cried as the car neared the station house. When Richardson flipped on his blinker to enter the lot, Wilma caved.

  “Wait. I’ll tell you, okay?”

  “You have two minutes,” I said.

  “I had this ginormous debt and my tally sheet only got bigger. No matter what I did, I’d never be able to pay it off. I needed to get out from under Joan, so I traded. I brought in three young girls who could milk johns for all their cash.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “What do you mean, you brought three girls in?”

  “You can’t just walk away from Joan. I had to give her something worth more than me.”

  “Where did you find these girls? And why did they agree?”

  “At Gary’s. You sleep long enough on the streets and starve, you’ll do just about anything for a bed and hot food.”

  “When was this?”

  “A few years ago.”

  “Where are these girls now?”

  “Where all the other girls go—they disappear into the night. Some run, some pay the Marcos off, and some are killed. But most just go away and hope they stay hidden from Joan Marco forever.”

  Richardson turned the car around to head back to Canal Street Park. The road was empty. Even with the headlights on bright, we could only see a few feet in front of us in the darkness.

  “Why were some of the women killed?” I asked. “What made them different?”

  Wilma sighed—she was tired of all of this, too. “They refused to pay back the debts on their tally sheet. They wouldn’t do what was asked of them even though they signed the contract when they came in.”

  “Contract?”

  Wilma nodded and held out her wrist to me. The double-hearted tattoo: a permanent contract and constant reminder of that promise etched into the skin.

  I finally understood what happened with Rhonda. She helped Joan Marco kill the person we found buried along the river in order to fulfill her contract. Rhonda was let go with the understanding she would continue to bring in business. The minute Rhonda talked, though, she broke the contract and lost her life. The victims were the rebels, the ones who refused to prostitute themselves, kill, and keep quiet about the atrocities going on in that house. This new information brought me to the very real concern that the latest rebel against the Marcos was sitting with us in the car.

  “How can we help you stay safe?” I asked.

  Wilma gave a sad laugh. “Keep the Marcos in prison. That’s the only way to keep all of us safe.”

  “How many others are we going to find, Wilma?”

  Wilma shrugged. “I’d say most of them have already been found.”

  I started to question Wilma, and then it clicked for me. Of course—the bodies needed to be found in order to claim the insurance money. We needed to go back through the death records from the area for the past several years and look for deaths that appeared on the surface to be overdoses, accidents, or unsolved homicides.

  I also understood why Joan Marco hadn’t killed Rhonda earlier. Rhonda, and only Rhonda, knew the location of the woman she’d killed. She withheld that information from Joan—it was Rhonda’s trump card, and the only card that kept her alive. Until she decided to talk to me.

  Another large piece of the case fell into place. Because Joan used different women to kill for her, the manner of death regularly changed. It was possible the same woman had killed all of the four victims I was called in for, but Rhonda had killed the woman by the river. And the almighty Joan Marco had killed Rhonda Betterly in a show of her power.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Day Fourteen: 12:00 p.m.

  I stopped by the hospital on my way to the station. Albert Finley had been admitted for dehydration and shock. By the time I arrived, he was well on his way to recovery. He gave me a big smile when I walked in the room and finger-combed what was left of his hair that stuck up in a variety of angles.

  “They’re springing me loose in a few hours,” he said. “I’m in need of some real food.” He pushed away the untouched lunch tray in front of him.

  I laughed and pulled up a chair next to his hospital bed. “You had yourself quite a fright yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Albert agreed and told me how he’d found Rhonda, all the while running his fingers through his iron-gray beard and mustache.

  “Once the officer told me it was Rhonda, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. She was such a good girl and ran that bar like no other. Does she have family?”

  I nodded. “A child.”

  “Poor baby. I wish I’d found her in time to do something.”

  “You did what you could, Albert.”

  I listened while he talked about Gus, his sweet dog, who was staying with a neighbor. Albert’s eyes lit up when he talked about the mutt—Gus with the big nose that had to investigate everything along their walking trails. “I might not have seen her if it wasn’t for Gus.”

  I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. There was a purpose to my visit other than to check on his health. I’d spent a good deal of time thinking back to how I’d met Albert and my observation of his familiarity with the women who worked at Gary’s. “I need to ask, Albert. Why did you call me yesterday?”

  Surprised, he said, “I needed help.”

  “I’ve spent the last thirteen days of my life piecing together the crimes of the Marcos. They were running a business, Albert, something they couldn’t have done alone. It would have been difficult to keep their business a secret in such a small community, particularly from the folks who frequented Gary’s Girls.”

  The monitors beeped around us. Albert looked closely at me. “And?”

  “And I’m wondering if you were a part of the Heart to Heart business.”

  Albert laughed incredulously. “Me? I called you,
remember? If I was in on their crimes, why would I call the state police out to a murdered body?”

  “I don’t think you were involved with Rhonda’s death,” I said. I decided to take a gamble and then gauge his reaction. “I do think you were involved with the conception of Heart to Heart. I think you helped with the prostitution of the women. You called me for help because you knew it had gone too far. You didn’t know how else to stop it.”

  Albert leaned back against his stacked pillows and stared at the game show on TV.

  “Tell me what went down here, Albert. I’ll help you the best I can.”

  He appeared to be watching TV, but I knew his mind was spinning. Albert was working through the consequences of what his words might bring. I waited him out.

  Finally, Albert spoke. “I was born in Wallace Lake, and I never left except for short summer vacations to the South. I always loved it here. People used to ask me when I’d retire and move to Florida to become a snowbird like the other retirees from the Midwest.”

  “Sounds like a good retirement,” I said.

  “Not for me. I can’t imagine my life without Wallace Lake. Even when the factories closed and the drugs moved in, I couldn’t leave my home. There are so many good people here, Special Agent. The young ones deserve a clean place to grow up, and I want people to respect my town again. It needs to end.”

  I handed him a tissue from the side table. “I’ll help you in any way that I can—you have my word. How can we finally end this, Albert?”

  “It’s a great start with Joan in jail, but you need to find Henry.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  Albert continued his empty stare toward the television, and I saw the slight shake of his head.

  “I need your help, Albert.”

  “If I help you, I will most likely be killed. I will be the next one you find hanging from a six-foot fence.”

  I moved in closer to the bed. “I know you’re scared. I would be, too, given your situation. Trust me, Albert. When we take them both down, the Heart to Heart business will crumble.”