“It’s not him,” Sean was quick to assure me. He sank down into a chair, his face ashen with exhaustion. “In fact, Mr. Wipple is as nice as they come. And he was quite disturbed to hear about the murders. Says he works with women all day and couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to one of them. He was in the middle of a twelve-hour shift when Mrs. Smythe died and was at the book festival’s costume party with a group of friends when Ms. Plume was murdered.” Sean rubbed his eyes. “And it would have been difficult for him to sneak out seeing as he was dressed up as the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
It was hard for me to contain my relief. The man I thought of as T. J. West hadn’t been stalking Tilly. He wasn’t a killer, but a kind and sensitive writer and caregiver. I no longer had to bear a feeling of responsibility for Tilly’s death. I could also direct my anger where it belonged. “Kirk Mason.” I spoke his name with loathing.
“The phantom festivalgoer who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth!” Sean threw out his hands in exasperation. “I’ve had men watching his house for days and there’s no sign of him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, are you telling me that you’ve identified Kirk Mason?” Picturing his long, lean body, the dark eyes, and his silver piercings winking in the light, fear fed my anger.
Sean shifted uneasily in his chair. “Yes, but there was no sense in sharing that information with you. I didn’t want you to be alarmed that we’d found his residence unoccupied, indicating that he was still at large.”
Indignation uncoiled within me. “I had to read about Tilly’s death in the paper and now this? I’d rather you were more forthcoming instead of trying to keep me in the dark. You think you’re protecting me, but not knowing what’s going on makes me feel much more vulnerable. Kirk Mason’s probably killed two women, Sean. I don’t want to be in the dark when it concerns him!”
“I read you loud and clear, but we don’t have any evidence that the two murders are connected,” Sean replied hastily, and then he took a deep breath and reached for my hand. “You’re right, Lila. If Mason is the murderer he poses a threat to you. After all, you know what he looks like. That drawing you worked on with the sketch artist has been distributed, but no one we’ve spoken with has seen him. The guy doesn’t have a driver’s license. I have no idea how he gets around, but, unfortunately, if he was the shadow outside Tilly’s house the day you were there, he might think that you’re hunting him. Which, in a way, you are.”
I tried to keep my alarm in check, but my fingers started trembling and Sean gripped them tighter.
“An officer has been watching you from a safe distance since yesterday morning,” Sean assured me softly. “No one’s getting near you, sweetheart.”
Nodding, I looked away. Didn’t Sean think I’d like to know that I was officially under police protection? How many other secrets was he keeping from me? I peered at Sean’s concerned face and realized my ire was misdirected. I should focus my anger on Mason. If it weren’t for him, Sean and I wouldn’t be at odds and two women wouldn’t have lost their lives. “What does Kirk Mason do? Does he have a job?”
“He’s a software engineer,” Sean said. “Apparently, he creates programs for smartphones. Works from home and brings in a nice salary. He recently completed some big project and informed his employers that he was taking the week off. He left his cell phone behind, and the neighbors don’t know where he went or the names of any of his friends or family members.”
“Can’t you search his house?” I asked.
Sean shrugged his shoulders and frowned. “We don’t have any evidence. I can’t obtain a warrant without probable cause, and right now, all I have is a name.” He let go of my hand and rubbed his temples. “I’ve called airlines, rental car companies, and dozens of North Carolina residents with the last name ‘Mason.’ This guy is like smoke. I can’t pin him down.”
We fell silent, and I sensed that Sean and I were both feeling angry, helpless, and frustrated. It was the Information Age. People couldn’t just disappear, could they? As I struggled over this question, the smell of hot pizza wafted through the air. “Delivery for Griffiths!” The redheaded cop who’d taken my twenty carried a pizza box in one hand and a plastic takeout bag in the other. “Meat lovers’ supreme and a Greek salad, per the lady’s orders. Enjoy.”
Sean pried back the box lid and inhaled, his eyes brightening for the first time since I’d arrived at the station. “You are a queen among women, Lila.”
He fell on his lunch, devouring a slice laden with sausage, ham, pepperoni, bacon, mushrooms, and green peppers. Once his initial hunger had abated, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Dig in,” he offered, sliding the box toward me.
“Maybe later,” I said. “While you were gone, I did a Google search on Wipple and I also tried to come up with a list of things Melissa and Tilly had in common. They were both involved in the world of books and they both had ties to Dunston.”
Popping open a can of Coke, Sean hesitated before taking a drink. “If the murders are connected, then there has to be something more linking the two women besides books.”
My mind rifled through the limited facts I had on the two women. “Tilly wrote books about a kid in search of his parents,” I began. “And Melissa specialized in signing authors who wrote about families. What if that’s the common denominator?”
He considered my theory. “So you think that an element in Tilly’s writing is pertinent to Melissa in some way, and that this theme or subject matter led to both of their murders? That seems a little dubious. We don’t have any evidence pointing to the fact that their deaths are linked. The MO is different, the—”
“But the teddy bears!” I blurted.
Sean shook his head. “That’s not enough.”
I ripped off a piece of crust and absently nibbled at its crisp brown edge. “It may not be enough to be conclusive, but I feel it in here.” I pointed to my chest. “Melissa and Tilly were murdered by the same person. I know it. We just need to dig deeper to find the reason.”
Sean opened the salad container. “Many cases are solved because gut instincts lead us to a discovery of the facts, Lila, and your instincts are better than most. I, too, have a feeling there’s a connection between these women, but we need evidence to solve cases, not just hunches.”
I sat on the edge of my chair and considered the possibilities. “The other day, Tilly vaguely alluded to being a different person once. What if, in her past, she knew the murderer? And what if Melissa had some kind of connection with him, too? Maybe, years ago, the three of them were linked somehow.”
His lunch all but forgotten, Sean got up and brought the file box to the table. With a fresh burst of energy, he lifted the lid. “When Melissa lived in Dunston twenty years ago, she worked with the Department of Social Services. The person I interviewed at the agency didn’t work there when Melissa did, so she couldn’t tell me much. I do have an appointment to see one of Melissa’s former coworkers this afternoon, though. In the meantime, I got these old case files, which I’ve been reviewing to see if I might find something.” He indicated the box full of manila folders. “It appears that Melissa had lots of high-risk kids in her caseload.” He lifted out a pile of folders. “I still have to go through this bunch.”
“I can help,” I offered as I reached for part of the pile. Sean clasped my wrist.
“This is confidential information, Lila. You can’t see these files.”
I pulled back my hand and sighed. “I understand, but with my help, you could get through twice as many. I wouldn’t breathe a word about what I see. To anybody.”
Our eyes held each other’s briefly, and then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” He handed me his pen and notepad. “But you could write down the similarities I discover as I read them. That would be helpful.”
“Okay,” I replied as I opened to a blank page and clicked the pen.
He leafed through the folders and intermittently read aloud tidbits o
f information that seemed random and unconnected to the case. I dutifully recorded them, not discerning any kind of pattern. The details he revealed were vague, yet it struck me that many of the children were victims of unfortunate or violent circumstances, requiring removal from their homes and being taken from their mothers.
I wondered how these kids, who would all be adults now, had turned out. Had their placement in foster care or adoptive homes allowed them to grow into responsible adults with fulfilling lives? I doubted that was the case for all of them, and it was entirely possible the murderer was one of these unfortunate souls who had suffered within the system and blamed Melissa for his misery. But then, how did Tilly fit into that picture?
“Something happened between Ms. Plume and the killer that caused him to snap,” Sean said, drawing me out of my musings. “Hitting a woman with a brick in a semipublic place is indicative of a rash act, one that was likely triggered by emotion. This feels more like a crime of passion than a premeditated act of violence.”
I nodded. “And the reason for his rage might be in one of those,” I said, pointing to the few remaining folders.
Sean nodded as he put a folder aside and flipped open the next, silently reading its contents. Suddenly his eyes widened in amazement. “Oh my god, Lila, this could be something!”
I caught my breath. “What?”
“Melissa was seeking a permanent home for this young boy named Justyn. Apparently, he’d already been passed around a few different foster homes because of behavioral problems. But here’s what caught my eye.” He shifted in his seat. I leaned forward as he began to read:
Justyn had been abandoned as a newborn, left in a plastic laundry basket on the steps of a church with only a note indicating his name. He was wrapped in a sweatshirt, and tucked beside him was a small teddy bear.
Sean looked up from the page, his cheeks flushed. “A teddy bear, Lila.”
My pulse began to race. “That’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?” We were getting close; I knew it.
“Maybe.” He scanned the rest of the page. “A few weeks later the police found his birth mother, a fifteen-year-old crack addict named Mattie, in Dunston. She was living in squalor in a condemned three-story apartment building on Fuller Street. Melissa got her into rehab, but when she turned eighteen she disappeared, having relinquished all parental rights for Justyn.” He scraped back his chair. “This is definitely worth looking into.” Closing the file, he stood. A small square photograph slipped out of the folder and fluttered to the floor.
We both bent to retrieve the photo, but I got to it first. I picked it up and found myself staring into the face of a young boy who looked to be about eight or nine. He had curly black hair and unsettling, piercing eyes. The child’s gaze seared into mine, and I was instantly transported to the moment at the festival when a much older Justyn had laid a black feather on my table. No, not Justyn. I knew the true identity of the man with the sinister gaze.
“Sean, this photo…” I handed it to him, dumbfounded by what it revealed. “Justyn is Kirk Mason!”
Chapter 13
SEAN EXAMINED THE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE BOY WITH the intense stare carefully, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
“I know you’re looking at a picture of a little kid,” I said. “And Kirk Mason may be in his late twenties, but those are his eyes. I’d know them anywhere.” I pointed at Justyn’s face for emphasis, and suddenly, my mind took me back to the book festival. There I was, standing in the shadowy corridor of the old town hall while the looming figure of the young man with the dark eyes crept toward me. Those eyes were hypnotizing. They were like twin black holes, swallowing all traces of light and hope.
I couldn’t climb out of the memory until I heard Sean say my name and felt his hand on mine. And when I fixed my gaze on Justyn’s photograph again, another realization struck me. “Oh, Lord. Is it possible?” I turned from Sean and sat down in front of the computer. “There’s something I need to see.” Typing “Tilly Smythe” into Google’s search box, I struck the return key and waited for the results. Within seconds, I’d enlarged the image used on her latest book jacket so that it filled the screen. “Look. Tilly has the same eyes. I knew there was something hauntingly familiar about them, but I couldn’t make the connection at the time.”
Stunned, Sean raised the photo of Justyn, held it alongside Tilly’s, and said, “He’s got her nose and mouth shape, too. The resemblance can’t be chalked up as mere coincidence.”
Sean pulled out his notebook and flipped to a page covered with writing. “There’s a gap in Tilly’s history. We can trace where she lived, worked, and traveled all the way back to her early twenties, but before that, she doesn’t seem to exist. Not on paper, anyway.”
Things began to click into place. I compared the two faces before me. “She’s the right age…”
“To be Justyn’s mother.” Sean completed my thought.
The possibility filled up the room, compelling us to fall silent.
Questions ricocheted like pinballs in my head, but I kept coming back to one truth: We needed evidence or none of our brilliant deductions would bring the murderer to justice.
“What happened during your interview with Tilly’s husband?” I asked Sean. “Couldn’t he tell you anything about her childhood?”
“Not really. Said she was an only child and her parents had passed away before he and Tilly met. She told him she’d grown up in a trailer park on the outskirts of Dunston and that her childhood wasn’t a pleasant one and she didn’t want to talk about it.” Sean shrugged. “So they didn’t. Tilly has a blog and I’ve read through a bunch of her posts. More than once she says that her life with her husband and kids has allowed her to erase bad memories from her past and given her leave to focus on being happy.”
A vision of Tilly waiting for her children’s school bus rose up before me, and I distinctly remembered the way her face glowed with joy when she saw her son and daughter racing toward her. “I believe she was happy. Until Mason began to stalk her, that is.”
Glancing at his watch, Sean gathered the files together and stuffed them back into the cardboard box. He tucked the box under his right arm and said, “I’m going to head over to the Department of Social Services. If any of our theories are going to be substantiated, it’ll take a caseworker with a long, accurate memory to provide us with the details we need. I’ll call you if there’s a break in the case.”
I shook my head. “No way. Like you said, these are our theories. I’m a part of this case, Sean, and unless it’s illegal, I think I’ve earned the right to come along with you on this interview.”
“What about your work?” he asked, and I knew he was grabbing at straws.
“I’ll explain my absence to Bentley if necessary.” Grabbing my purse, I put on my most obstinate expression, and he shrugged, gesturing for me to follow him out the door. “So the woman you’re meeting today used to work with Melissa?”
He nodded, moving down the hall with quick, determined strides. “Her name’s Glenda and she was at home sick when I visited the offices earlier this week. From what I hear, she’s been battling the flu for over two weeks. But she’s back today, and the moment she heard that I’d been asking about Melissa’s case files, Glenda called me. I was at West’s house at the time, but she assured me that she was prepared to help and invited me to drop by this afternoon.”
Outside the station, a cold November breeze snuck beneath my collar and a riot of shriveled brown leaves whooshed by on eddies of crisp air. I was going to have to buy a thicker coat or I’d freeze riding around on my Vespa during the winter months.
I scuttled into the passenger seat of Sean’s police cruiser, relieved to escape the biting wind. We didn’t speak as he drove through town toward the government complex, and the silence between us was both familiar and comfortable.
The lull of the road moving under the car wheels and the slow blur of buildings passing beyond my window allowed my mind to zero in on
the connection between Justyn and Tilly. Tilly had told me that she was a different woman now than she’d been in the past. Did that mean that she was ashamed of things she’d done when she was a young woman? And if so, what were those things? How could she abandon her baby, leaving him helpless and alone? There was a note stating that his name was Justyn, but no explanation, just a blanket and a teddy bear to keep him company as she turned her back on him for the rest of his life.
Ten minutes into my ruminations, Sean pulled in front of a sprawling brick building in the midst of a dozen similar structures and grabbed the cardboard box from the backseat. He led me to a bland waiting room filled with outdated magazines, nervous adults, and several subdued children. Approaching the harried-looking receptionist, he showed her his badge and explained that I was assisting him with a case. While I flushed with pride over having been called Sean’s assistant, the woman gestured to a closed door to her left.
“Go on through,” she said in a weary but courteous voice. “Glenda’s down the hall. Last door on your right.”
Glenda was seated behind a desk in a minuscule office crammed with filing cabinets, photographs of smiling children, and an ancient computer. She was a homely woman with mousy brown hair and eyes the hue of roasted chestnuts. Her voice was soft and gentle and she welcomed us warmly.
“I called after I heard my friend Jillian mention Melissa’s name,” she said after introductions had been made. “I had no idea what happened to Melissa until two days ago. I’ve been out of the office for two weeks now, fighting this awful stomach bug. I’ve been watching all these classic movies on TV to try to take my mind off how bad I’ve been feeling, so I didn’t see the news reports.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “In a way, I’m glad I didn’t, because now I can remember her as she was. Melissa was a lovely person. Devoted to her job, her friends, and her family. At least, that’s my impression. We didn’t keep in touch after she moved to New York, but she couldn’t have changed too much. I can’t understand why anyone would have done this to her.”
Every Trick in the Book Page 18