Concealed in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Another? I hate to think . . . Yes! Oh, this is Mikki—I told you about her yesterday. Shelby, Mikki, T-Bone. Mikki . . . I don’t remember her full name.”

  “Mikki Wendall.”

  “Yes, that’s it. But she was placed back in the parental home. I remember that. I remember because it was right after they’d moved here—or a week or so, I’m not sure. I remember because I came with my grandmother to see this new place. I was so nervous,” she murmured with a small smile. “Seeing everyone again, and I heard—DeLonna told me—both Shelby and Mikki were gone. Shelby to foster, Mikki back home.”

  She’d seen the Wendall paperwork, Eve thought now. But no Missing Persons report had been filed on Mikki by the custodial parent. “Peabody, get the data on Mikki Wendall. Do you know if she had contact with Shelby after they left The Sanctuary?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. I was working hard to turn that corner, to rebuild myself, to keep myself straight so I could stay with my grandmother. I didn’t keep in touch with any of the girls here.”

  With a last look at the printouts, she handed them back to Peabody. “I wouldn’t have with Shelby in any case. She was, and it sounds harsh now, but she was trouble. I’d had enough trouble. Mikki was—it’s easier to see now with adult hindsight and training—she was needy, so wanted to fit in. She’d have done anything for Shelby’s approval, and did. I’m not sure she ever had a friend before Shelby and DeLonna, and T-Bone.”

  “We found it!” Shivitz bustled back in, waving a disc and hard copy. “Oh, Seraphim, I’m just that upset. It all seems like too much.”

  “It’s a difficult time, Matron.” Seraphim rose, wrapped Shivitz in a hug. “Difficult and incomprehensible. But the children depend on us.”

  “I know it, I know it. One was Shelby Stubacker. You must remember her. She was a hard one to forget.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But she was gone,” Shivitz insisted, and pushed the documentation at Eve. “She’d been placed in foster care. It was after you left, Seraphim, and right in the middle of the move. In fact, the paperwork still has The Sanctuary information.”

  “Uh-huh.” Eve studied the hard copies, shook her head. “It’s a half-decent fake.”

  “Fake!” Shivitz bristled with outrage. “What do you mean fake? That’s absurd.”

  “So is spelling borough b-u-r-r-o-w. One of those spell-check errors, I’d guess. A couple of other things, but that’s the big tell.”

  “Let me see that.” Shivitz snatched it away, peered down, and went dead pale. “Oh dear God. Oh Lord. I don’t understand this. I don’t know how this could happen.”

  “Sit down now. Sit down and catch your breath.” Seraphim eased Shivitz into a chair.

  “How did the paperwork come in?” Eve demanded.

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It must just be a mistake. Can’t it just be a clerical mistake?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Seraphim glanced back as doors began to open, voices carried down the stairs, clumping feet sounded above.

  “Can we take this in Mr. Jones’s office? I’ll go find him. He needs to know, he may remember something.”

  “Let’s do that.” She signaled Peabody. Her partner nodded, crossed toward the office while she continued to talk on her ’link.

  “What do you remember?” Eve asked Shivitz.

  “I just don’t, not really. We were carrying boxes and tables and chairs, and so many things. Inside, upstairs, downstairs. Somebody told me—I’m not sure who—Shelby was going into a foster home. I remember thinking we might be able to start off more peacefully in our new home.”

  “What seems to be the problem?” All business, Nash Jones clipped into the room, eased the door closed.

  “The paperwork removing Shelby Ann Stubacker from your care and putting her in foster care is a forgery.”

  “I’m sure that can’t be.” He took the paperwork, carried it around to his desk, sat. “It certainly looks to be in order. I’m not sure what you . . .”

  “Caught it?”

  He leaned forward, pushing at his hair as he studied it again. “How did this get through? This isn’t my signature. Matron, Seraphim, it’s not my signature.”

  Seraphim moved closer, read over his shoulder. “It’s not. It’s close, but it’s not your signature.”

  “We can and will have that verified,” Eve told him, “but for now, what the hell happened?”

  “I have no idea. Let me think. Let me think.” He shut his eyes, breathed slow and deep in what Eve assumed was some form of meditation. Another minute of that would, she knew, piss her off. But he stopped, opened his eyes.

  “I remember. Matron—not you, dear,” he said to Shivitz. “Matron Orwin telling me Shelby’s paperwork was on my desk in my office, which had yet to be organized. We were still moving in—we had abbreviated classes and group, we’d divided up staff and residents into teams, so everyone had a part in making up our new space. We were excited, all of us—the newness, the larger space, excited, grateful.”

  “We were.” Shivitz twisted her fingers together as she nodded. “So excited and grateful.”

  “We were so busy,” Nash continued, “but it was a good confusion, if you understand me. I said something to Philly about it—about Shelby, that is. We discussed it as we worked. Both of us had some concerns, but we are, after all, only a temporary haven. Later, Philly and I had a bite to eat in our new quarters—a jumble, but still ours. She mentioned she’d found Mikki Wendall—she and Shelby were friends—she’d found her crying in her room. Because Shelby was gone. We talked about what we could do to make the transition easier for Mikki. I assumed that Philly had taken care of the transfer, but this is an attempt at my signature, not hers.”

  “You didn’t see her leave, didn’t connect with the CPS rep who should have escorted her?”

  “No. I assumed Philly had, or Matron. Or Montclair. Our brother was with us then. Did I ask about the paperwork at some point?” Still pale, he rubbed at his temple. “I must have.”

  “I think Matron gave it to me to file,” Shivitz told him. “That would have been the usual procedure. We were trying to get all the files and comps in order, and I must have filed it. I never really looked at it.”

  “We’ll need to speak to your sister.”

  “Yes, yes. Let me contact her, tell her to come back right away. There were so many people,” Jones murmured as he turned to his ’link. “All the staff, volunteers, the e-company who’d come in to set up the equipment, all the children. It was so busy, so happy. Hopeful.”

  Eve imagined Shelby had had her own hopes—and reaching for them had ended them.

  Eve spent the best part of an hour taking them all back through the steps. Nashville, Philadelphia when she arrived on the run, Shivitz, and two staff members who were there when Shelby walked out the door for the last time.

  She left unsatisfied, and left them in considerable turmoil.

  “I can’t decide if they’re worried about being sued—though who’s going to bother?—about getting fined or cited—and I can’t figure out how that would work, exactly—or if they’re guilty they might have abetted a murderer.”

  “I think it’s some of all of the above.” Peabody settled into the car. “Do you want the line on Mikki Wendall?”

  “I do.”

  “The mother had a substance abuse problem that resulted in neglect, unemployment, and eventually eviction for nonpayment of rent. They ended up on the street where the mother did some unlicensed prostitution for food, shelter, and more often illegals. Got herself bashed up a few times and the kid got busted for stealing. CPS finally stepped in, and Mikki ended up in The Sanctuary with the mother doing a short stint and obligatory rehab.”

  “Where’d you get all this?”

  “From the source, the mother. She d
idn’t put any bows on it, Dallas. She was a junkie, whored herself, let the kid run the streets, encouraged her to steal what she could. She skipped out on the rehab the first round, got busted again, got the shit kicked out of her in jail, and had herself a personal epiphany. Stuck with rehab, did a full ninety days in with follow-up meetings, got a job cleaning offices at night, and worked days in a sweatshop off the books, saved up for an apartment and petitioned to get the kid back.”

  “How quick did they pass the kid back?”

  “It took the best part of a year, with the mother taking regular pee tests, regular counseling, and CPS visits. It sounds like she was one of the success stories.”

  “They’re rare.”

  “Yeah, so it stands out. During the year she was saving up, working, getting the supervision, going to meetings, she met this guy. Worked maintenance at the office building where she cleaned. Straight-arrow type, and they ended up cohabbing.”

  She shifted. “I ran him just to tie up the ends, and he’s clean. He passed muster with CPS, with the court, and they granted her custody. Kid comes home.”

  “Where it doesn’t end up a little happy family.”

  “Nope. Kid won’t go to school, won’t pull her weight. Sasses, sneaks out at night, steals from them. The mother found illegals—which she flushed—and a knife hidden in the kid’s room. The knife scares her, but they’re going to stick it out, get more counseling.”

  But the kid’s done with that, Eve thought. Done with all of that.

  “And the mother finds out she’s pregnant. Sees it as another chance. She’s going to do it right this time. She’s clean, going to stay clean.

  “She catches the kid coming in stoned, middle of the night, still has a twist of zoner on her. They fight about it, and the kid runs out, mother runs after her. Tries to pull the kid back upstairs, and the kid shoves her down them.”

  “The kid pushed her pregnant mother down the stairs?”

  “She didn’t know she was pregnant, but yeah. Left her there, and just kept going. She was hurt pretty bad. I checked on the medical, and she told me straight. It was touch-and-go on the baby for a couple days, pretty touch-and-go all around. And she said she made a choice, and let Mikki go. Hated herself, but she was afraid of her own kid. She didn’t file a Missing Persons, didn’t file charges because she didn’t want the kid sent back to juvie. She said Mikki said they weren’t family, that she had family and she was happy with them, to leave her the hell alone.”

  “So she did.”

  “Yeah, she did. She spent two weeks in the hospital, another four on doctor’s orders bedrest at home. The guy went out looking for Mikki when he could, but they never saw her again. They’ve got two kids now, a boy about the age Mikki was, and a girl a couple years younger.”

  “She fucked the kid’s life.”

  “And she knows it. She tried to fix it, Dallas, and she couldn’t. Now she’s got to live with knowing her daughter’s been dead all this time.”

  “Mikki didn’t go back to the new home—to HPCCY—so they weren’t the family she spoke of. Shelby, I guess. And the old building where they formed that family. Shelby, DeLonna, and T-Bone. We need to find the other two, dead or alive.”

  “They’re off the grid. I can’t track either of them. Records show they were with The Sanctuary, then with HPCCY. DeLonna got into a work/study program at sixteen, then poofed. So unless that’s bogus, she wasn’t one of the remains. T-Bone stayed until he hit eighteen, then just vanished into the city. No data on him after he left.”

  “Pass them to McNab,” Eve ordered. “If he can’t find them, I’ll give them to Roarke.”

  “I’m all over that. Are you buying this clusterfuck deal with Shelby?”

  “I haven’t decided. I can see how it could happen—shoddy, but the kid had some smarts. Timed it when everything was messed up, mixed up, and the doc looked legit if you didn’t look real close. I want to verify the signature. If it’s not his, Jones looks a little clearer on it.”

  “You have to wonder why she wanted out all of a sudden, getting better digs and all that.”

  “Better digs, but not hers. Not her rules.” She’d had decent digs in the state facilities, Eve remembered. Mostly three squares. And she’d wanted out as much as she’d wanted to live.

  “Somebody offered her something she wanted more. Or she saw the chance to take what she wanted more. Freedom. No rules but her rules, do what she wants when she wants. Eat what she wants when she wants. It’s not like family, Peabody—most of where you end up if you’re a kid without a safety net—it’s okay, it’s decent, and they’re trying to help. But it’s not family. It’s two slippery steps up from prison.”

  “Did you ever run?”

  “In the early days, yeah. And I know I was lucky they caught me. I’m lucky I realized pretty quick juvie’s only a half a slippery step up from prison. So why not take the extra steps, do the time, take what you can out of it?”

  Eve shook it off. “But she risked getting caught, getting dumped in juvie instead of a group home because it was all shit to her. I knew plenty like her, and most of those, I can guarantee, ended up slipping down that half a step into a real cage.”

  “I guess some of it is shit,” Peabody considered. “It’s just the best shit we’ve got.”

  “She wanted out, and she knew how to bargain, probably blackmail, cheat, steal, whatever it took. But somebody helped her get out, and I’m going to take a leap and say the probability’s high the person who helped get her out killed her.”

  “Well, here’s a thought. If Jones or his sister are psycho kid killers, they’ve had their pick from a garden variety for years. Unless those specific kids were specific targets, or there’s some meaning in the number twelve.”

  “Yeah, I’m going around on that. The brother was there.”

  “The dead brother? The lion lunch brother?”

  “That’s the one. Try this on,” Eve said with a glance at Peabody. “Say he’s a psycho kid killer. He has access to the vics, at least we can be sure he had access to the ones connected to the home. He had access and knowledge of the building. They dropped that he helped with repairs now and then, so maybe he can build a few walls.”

  “Then why did he go to Africa, unless he wanted to become an international psycho kid killer? We should check to see if any kids went missing over there before he got eaten.”

  “We’ll do that. But as to why, what if they caught him? The siblings—the do-gooders? Or maybe it doesn’t go that far, but they catch him behaving inappropriately with one or more of the girls. Can’t have that. Ship him off, time for a missionary stint. And the king of the beasts takes care of him.”

  Eve didn’t like the ending. “We’re sure he and the lion went a round?”

  “I verified the report, the death certificate, the cremation, and the transportation of the ashes back to New York.”

  “Rather have a body,” Eve muttered. “Better, I’d rather have a live killer so we can bag his sorry ass. But we’re going to play with psycho dead brother some.”

  “It’s hard to see either one of them covering for him if they found out he’d killed those girls.”

  “Blood. Water.”

  “Okay, maybe so. But they don’t strike me as stupid, or as gamblers. Would they just leave the bodies there?”

  “Not if they knew about them, and I’m tripping over that one, too,” she admitted. “So, like I said, maybe it didn’t go that far. And maybe this is a dead end and the dead brother was just another do-gooder who provided a lion with a tasty meal.”

  “Like the Christians. You know how the Romans fed them to lions to the cheers of the crowd?”

  “Why did they do that?”

  “Bloodthirsty?”

  “I don’t mean the Roman guys, that I get.”

  Peabody blinked. “You do?”<
br />
  “Bloodthirsty,” Eve repeated. “Better you than me. Power. But I don’t get the Christian guys. Why not say, why yes, Roman asshole who can feed me to the lions, Luigi or whoever is a very fine god.”

  “Luigi?”

  “Whoever—then run away to the—what do you call them, the caves.”

  “Catacombs?”

  “Yeah, those. Run off there and have some wine, plot out your rebellion, and organize to kick some Roman ass.”

  “I’m still kind of stuck on the god Luigi, but I think they were peaceful.”

  “Yeah, and where did that get them? Lion dung.”

  “Eeww.”

  “Exactly.” She turned to the dash ’link when it signaled. “Dallas, on screen.”

  The next girl smiled out at her.

  “There’s a missing on her,” Eve said. “Cross-check it. I remember seeing her.”

  “Cross-check going. Kim Terrance, age thirteen. Runaway from Jersey City, New Jersey. Filed by the mother. Father incarcerated at the time for assault.”

  “Get the current data.”

  “It’s coming up. Mother remarried, two years ago, relocated with spouse to Vermont where they run a small resort. Spouse has two grown offspring. Quick background shows pattern of abuse by first husband, and a restraining order. He’s doing another stretch now—assault and rape, second wife. She’s got a regular flag in her file for the Missing Persons, with comp-generated age enhancements.”

  Peabody brought the latest one up, showing a woman in her late twenties.

  “She’s still looking, Dallas.”

  “I’ll make the notification. Let’s see if we can dig out any connection to The Sanctuary, HPCCY, any staff or residents.”

  “This makes seven of them,” Peabody said as Eve pulled into Central’s garage. “Five more left. It doesn’t get easier.”

  Eve added the new faces to her board. The last, Terrance, hadn’t had a chance to grow into the comp-generated face. She’d been stuck forever at that awkward between-stage when the teeth seemed too big, the eyes too wide.