by C. J. Lyons
“We loved Charlotte,” Pierce said. “She was more than a co-worker, she was our friend. She is dearly missed. But really, Ms. Guardino, I don’t think we have any information that might be helpful.”
Between the two of them Lucy felt like she was playing Red Rover. Time to tag someone else. She chose Wainwright, who seemed the more pliable of the two. “I’m not asking you to break any confidences. But we all know that every now and then a woman leaves an abuser who has the resources to find her despite the protective services you offer. And every now and then, those women need a little extra, off the record, type help. Like cash, disposable phones, maybe transportation, a way to start a new life. You both know Charlotte spent her last day buying disposable phones and collecting a nice nest egg of cash. Any idea who it was for?”
“The police seemed to think it was for herself,” Pierce said.
“Really? I thought she was your friend. Surely she would have come to you if something was wrong at home.”
“Confidentiality precludes me from—”
“It doesn’t preclude you from answering a simple question. Did she come to you or give you any hint that she might be leaving her husband?”
Pierce’s mouth twisted as tight as a lock missing its key. But Wainwright finally looked up from whatever had fascinated her at the bottom of her coffee mug and met Lucy’s gaze. “No. She did not.”
“If you knew the police believed that she was leaving her husband, why didn’t you—”
Pierce shifted her glare from her younger subordinate to Lucy. “Because we can never be suspected of breaking confidentiality. These women have placed their faith in us—they trust us with their lives. We cannot break that trust. Not ever.”
“Not even to help find whoever killed your friend?”
“Not even—” Pierce stopped herself, her cup rattling in the saucer. “Wait. Killed?”
“We think we found Charlotte’s body. Decomp would put her time of death at about a year ago.” Lucy wasn’t basing that on any official report—much too early for that at this point—but she’d seen enough dead bodies to make an educated guess. “So while the police were chasing a false trail, thinking she left voluntarily and covered her tracks…”
“The killer had her.” Wainwright’s eyes went round, and her hand stroked her throat. “Was she killed right away? Could she have been alive? I mean—did we, could we have—”
“It’s not our fault,” Pierce said, enunciating each word precisely. “We had no indication of what happened to Charlotte then, and we certainly don’t now. I’m sorry it’s ended this way. She will be missed.” She stood to leave, waiting for Wainwright to follow.
“I need a moment,” Wainwright said.
“Very well. I’ll see you on Thursday at the regular staff meeting. We can discuss a memorial for Charlotte at that time.”
“Actually, please wait until the police release the information to the public,” Lucy said. She couldn’t help but add, “I’m sure you understand how important confidentiality is in these cases.”
Pierce gave her a stiff nod, then pivoted on her heel and stalked away.
Wainwright held her coffee cup in both hands but didn’t drink any of it. She simply stared for several long moments. “You’re right, you know.”
“About what?” Lucy asked softly, approaching her as timidly as she would a wild doe.
“About the clients who sometimes need extra services. Thelma doesn’t like or want to know about them—she needs to keep everything aboveboard for the state regulators. But there’s a group of us who have banded together to help them.” She finally looked up. “It’s ironic. Most of them are afraid for their lives because their husbands are in law enforcement.”
“Which means you can’t use any of the official procedures to change their identity or address.”
“No. Government officials, the courts, and law enforcement still have access to those records. They’re sealed from the public, of course, but sometimes even banks and other private institutions can access them. Heck, in some counties, it doesn’t matter if the woman gets a new name and the judge seals the records. They’ll just cross out her old name on the birth certificate and write in all her new info—where anyone can access it if they know where to look. Happens more often than you’d think.”
“So around the time Charlotte went missing, was she helping one of these special clients?”
“Because the police know the locations of the shelters, clients like these tend not to come in in person. They’ll make contact via phone, and we’ll give them advice on how to best stay safe.” She glanced up and met Lucy’s gaze. “We don’t break the law. It’s just circumventing standard procedure.”
“Did Charlotte mention anyone who might need extra help?”
“Well, a few weeks before she left, she was asking a few of us questions.”
“Questions?”
“More like scenarios. Hypothetical worst cases.”
“Like?”
“Like what would we do if we were helping a client and the abuser was someone with access to law enforcement databases. Or, our absolute nightmare scenario—an IRS agent.”
Of course. You could change your name, address, get a new driver’s license and social security number, but none of that would hide you from the tax man. If Charlotte was facing a challenge like that, she might have been forced not just to bend the rules, but even break the law to help her client. A good reason for her not to share details with anyone else.
Lucy tried a different approach. “Where would you meet someone who needed help?”
“We’ve each set up a few bank accounts so we can access cash without arousing any suspicion. Bankers have a ton of access to information, so we try to be very circumspect. We’ll gather what cash and supplies we can, like disposable cell phones, and arrange to meet the client at a pre-arranged location. Usually someplace public but out of the way where three women chatting wouldn’t be noticed. And we always go with a partner to watch out for trouble.”
“So a convenience store off a highway might be used to meet a client?”
“Exactly. A lot of clients want to meet in really private places, but we have to protect ourselves. I mean, what if they weren’t for real and it was an abuser trying to get to us?”
“I’m glad you don’t take chances.”
“Well, I don’t. But Charlotte—sometimes we had clients who were just so terrified, truly fleeing for their lives, that she’d bend the rules.”
“Could she have been helping a client like this the day she died?”
“That’s what I don’t understand. If she was, why didn’t she tell anyone? That’s why we work together, so we can watch each other’s backs.” She gave a shake of her head. “I don’t think she could have been. Unless…”
Lucy raised an eyebrow and waited.
“Unless she thought the abuser was someone so dangerous that it might put us at risk. Then I can see her going it alone.”
“Has that ever happened before? Charlotte helping a client on her own?”
“Not that I know of—and certainly someone would have said something after she went missing if they’d suspected it.” Her lips tightened as if she was debating with herself. Finally she glanced up. “No. I think maybe Thelma was right. Charlotte’s disappearance has nothing to do with her work with the shelter.” She pushed her cup and saucer away and slid out of the booth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. Please tell her family they’re in our prayers.”
Chapter 32
THEY ARRIVED AT the Zone 3 police station on the Southside, an old brick building that squatted on a busy corner wedged between a coffee shop and a vacant lot. Burroughs led Tommy upstairs to an interview room, explained the recording procedures and that he could leave at any time, had him sign paperwork saying he understood everything, asked if he wanted coffee—he didn’t—then left.
The wait began.
Tommy sat in silence with nothing to distract him. Memo
ries of the last time he’d been in a room like this kept flooding over him, swamping him as the past filtered over the present for a few moments, coloring it gray. Different room, he thought, yet exactly the same, except for the graffiti scratched into the plaster walls. Same molded plastic chair that felt rickety and was too lightweight and flimsy to ever use as a weapon. Same steel table bolted to the floor with a bar across it to secure handcuffs to if necessary. Same fluorescent light with its interminable buzz that would drive any man to confess any sin if he were left confined with it for long enough.
Same silence. With nothing to fill the void except memories.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d been interviewed those first days, and then re-interviewed when the trail went cold, over and over and over again. Good cop, bad cop, kind cop who came to the house and sat at his very own kitchen table hoping for a confession, competent cop, foolish cop, polite cop, angry cop… he’d met them all, played all their cop games.
Last time he was here—maybe in this very same room—last time, he’d been so anxious to leave, had felt like a caged animal, filled with the need to be out there, searching, doing something, anything to find Charlotte.
This time, there was nothing more to be done. So he sat. And waited.
Finally, Burroughs returned, accompanied by a petite dark-skinned woman who, despite being dressed in civilian clothing like Burroughs, had a military-like bearing. “You remember Corporal Harding from the state police?”
Tommy nodded. A year ago, it had been “call me Liz” as Harding sipped Charlotte’s favorite tea at his kitchen table.
They both regarded him in silence for a moment—the way a surgeon studied a patient one last time before he plunged his scalpel into the patient’s flesh.
Harding broke first, stepping forward to toss a stack of photos onto the table, face down.
“Do you recognize anything from those photos, Dr. Worth?” She scraped the seat out across from him, pulled it around so they were sitting side by side instead of opposite each other, and sat down, leaning forward so close he could smell her shampoo. Nothing floral or exotic, just simple and clean.
He slid a finger toward the photos, itching to turn them over, yet dreading what they would reveal. They had to be from the mountain grave. He pulled back, crossing his arms over his chest and pushing away from the table. It was a childish impulse, this deep-seated fear that once he saw, he could never go back to the way things were before the photos, before this evidence of the truth invaded his world. But it was an impulse he could not conquer.
Harding reached forward, selected a photo—seemingly at random, but Tommy was certain it wasn’t—and turned it over.
He’d braced himself for a view of a decomposing corpse. But that’s not what she showed him. Instead, it was the tattered remains of a yellow baseball jersey. The Falcons, his old softball team from Three Rivers’ ER.
“Do you recognize this jersey, Doctor?” Unlike Burroughs, Harding always used Tommy’s title.
“Yes. That’s the softball team I played on—until last year when I left the hospital.”
She flipped another photo over. Once again Tommy clenched his muscles and relaxed again when he saw it was simply the back of the jersey, where his name and number were imprinted. “Is it your shirt?”
“Yes. I had several. Charlotte often wore them to my games. We had one that night, the day she… but you already know that.” He glanced to Burroughs for confirmation.
“That’s all right. Feel free to repeat anything you already told us.” All the better to trip you up and hang you with, Burroughs’ expression said.
“Last time you saw your wife, she wasn’t wearing this jersey?” Harding asked, catching Tommy off guard by flipping another photo over. Again, he tensed and relaxed when he saw it was simply a close-up of his name on the back of the jersey.
They were conditioning him, he knew. He had to guard against it, because those photos hid much, much worse than an old softball jersey.
“No,” he answered. “She was dressed for work. Blue slacks, ivory colored blouse. Like I’ve told you.”
“What time was your game that day?”
“Seven. I was working the eight to four shift, but it always runs late, so we’d planned to meet there, at Frick Park. Her folks had Nellie, so we were going to make a night of it, go out with the team after.” He hadn’t made it; a multicar pileup on 376 involving a school bus and twenty-two kids had kept him until almost eight.
“When did you realize Charlotte was leaving you?” Burroughs asked, his tone matter-of-fact when he had no facts.
Tommy twisted away from Harding to glare at the detective. “She wasn’t leaving. She wouldn’t. If she was wearing this jersey, doesn’t that prove it? She would never have worn it anywhere else, certainly not if she was trying to run away.”
Burroughs leaned against the wall, arms crossed, tossing away Tommy’s alternative theory with a flick of his eyes. “Unless she didn’t know you knew. Thought she still had a few days to finish preparing. Maybe you convinced her to leave the game, meet you somewhere else. Wait until you got there. And then…”
Then it hit Tommy. Eyes wide, he looked up, first at Harding, then at Burroughs. “Leave the game?” Based on the time Charlotte had been seen at the convenience store and the time it would have taken to drive to where her car was found, the working theory had been that she’d never come back into the city or made it to Frick Park. “Does this mean—she was there?”
Harding waited a long moment before answering. As if hoping Tommy would fill the silence with words of his own. “We’re not sure.”
“One of the private investigators we hired, they talked to everyone at the game,” Tommy said. “No one saw her.”
“We know. We spoke to them as well. In addition to shop owners in the area.” Regent Square was a haven for coffee shops, cafes, and eclectic art galleries.
“But, if she was there and her car ended up thirty miles away at the Youghiogheny, and…” His voice trailed off as he stared at the backs of the other photos.
“Now that we’ve tied Charlotte to the area around Fiddler’s Knob, we accessed the CCTV for anywhere near there. A Toyota Pathfinder with a partial plate matching her vehicle’s was headed south on Route 51 at two thirteen that morning.”
Seven hours after he was supposed to meet Charlotte at Frick Park. Tommy couldn’t make sense of it; he stared at them both bleary-eyed. “You think she was taken at the game? While waiting for me?”
If so, then it was all his fault. She’d been there, alone, without him to protect her. Because of some stupid softball game on a warm spring night with no reason to rush home. It was supposed to have been a romantic timeout from adult responsibilities; instead it had turned into a nightmare.
“The Pathfinder spotted by the traffic camera was driven by a man.” Burroughs nailed the coffin shut. “Unfortunately, it was too foggy to get a good look at him.”
“Where were you at that time, Dr. Worth?” Harding asked in a gentle tone.
“You know where I was. At home, waiting.” He’d called the police after he’d gone to Frick Park, the game almost over, and hadn’t found Charlotte or been able to reach her cell. “Exactly where the police told me to be. In case she called or came back.”
More silence as they waited. He filled in the blanks for them—even though he knew they already knew the answer. “And no, no one can prove it. I didn’t talk to anyone or see anyone.”
Not until the next morning when he’d driven over to the police station— to this very building—and insisted on them updating him with everything they’d found during that long, long night. But it had boiled down to nothing. They promised to keep looking, but reminded him repeatedly that Charlotte was a grown woman, free to come and go as she pleased, and that there was no evidence of foul play or any criminal activity. They’d told him that even if they found her, if she didn’t want him to know, she had a right to privacy and they wouldn’t be
able to tell him anything.
He’d left feeling more alone than ever. Frustrated and frightened and with no idea what to do to find his wife.
Now, both detectives remained silent. Harding eased back in her chair as if in no rush—as if the truth was sitting right in front of her and all she had to do was listen.
Interrogation 101: give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves. He was so damn tired of their games, treating his life, Charlotte’s life, as if they were puzzles with pieces missing.
He wasn’t going to play anymore. If that was Charlotte up on that mountain, then everything changed. Right here, right now.
Tommy stretched out his hand and whipped one photo over, then another, flipping them onto the table so fast they became a whirl of dirt and bones and more clothing, a tire iron, close-ups of a wedding band and the claddagh ring, and finally, a skull and the full skeleton. Shot in situ, just the way it had been buried.
Face down. Arms and legs shoved together to take up less room. Like garbage tossed aside.
Then he turned over the last photo. The skull alone, a frontal view. Nothing of Charlotte’s face remained, the soft tissues long ago rotted away. A few wisps of hair clung to the skull, lackluster and robbed of their coppery shine. The bones were broken; even in this view he could see the gaping cleft of a wound to the right temporal region, along with a shattered zygomatic arch—cheekbone—and eye socket.
Someone had hit her. Over and over. Venting their rage.
His entire body trembled with fury. At the animal who’d done this. At the police with their callous mind games. At God, at Fate, at life itself.
How could this have happened? To Charlotte, beautiful, joyous Charlotte, who’d spent her life helping people?
He swept the photos off the table, banishing them to the floor, refusing to acknowledge the truth they held. Except one truth. The one he could no longer avoid.
“It’s her. It’s Charlotte.”
Burroughs ignored the photos to step forward and press his palms on the tabletop, leaning forward until he filled Tommy’s vision. “How do you know? How can you be so certain? DNA testing isn’t back.”