No Mercy

by Joanna Schaffhausen

  “What if she might be right?” Ellery blurted out before she could stop herself. All eyes shifted toward her, and Ellery swallowed twice in quick succession. “What if Luis Carnevale might be innocent?”

  Myra’s mottled face twisted into a deep frown. “What are you saying? The police caught him right at the scene.”

  “What if he was there, but he didn’t start the fire?”

  Dr. Sunny was frowning, too. “Ellery, where are you going with this?”

  “Nothing . . . I was just reading up on the fires, since they’ve been in the news, and it seems like Carnevale’s niece might be right that there were questions about the case. Carnevale has always maintained he is innocent.”

  “So did Ted Bundy,” Tabitha replied with a snort.

  Myra’s blue eyes watered and her chin trembled. “Of course he did it. He was there, he had a history of setting fires, everyone said so, and he reeked like gasoline . . .”

  “Okay, Myra, okay.” Dr. Sunny’s tone was soothing. She shot a warning look at Ellery. “Myra wasn’t raising the question of guilt or innocence,” she said. “She was talking about how it feels to have the case back in the public eye.”

  Ellery’d had about enough of feelings. “It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? The question is out there whether she likes it or not.”

  The group stiffened in stunned silence, and Myra raised a trembling hand to her face. “Ellery, I think that’s enough on this subject,” Dr. Sunny said steadily. “I am asking you to move on. Who else would like to share today?”

  At that moment, the door opened, and Wendy slunk into the room, her hoodie drawn up over her bald head. She took a seat and fixed her gaze to the floor. Ellery felt relieved at the sight of her, and not just because she had promised Reed to bring him the witness. She was worried about the girl.

  No one else seemed to be leaping at the chance to share, so Dr. Sunny turned to Ellery with an assessing look. “Ellery, since you are in a chatty mood today, perhaps you would like to tell the group a little bit about why you’re here.”

  “I’m here because you asked me to be.”

  “I mean, what circumstances in your life caused you to be suited for a group like this?” Dr. Sunny corrected smoothly.

  Everyone turned to look at Ellery, even Wendy. Ellery tugged the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands and fidgeted in her chair. “I was abducted the night of my fourteenth birthday by a man named Francis Coben,” she recited at last. “You’ve probably heard of him, on account of there were sixteen girls before me. They didn’t make it.”

  “What happened that night?” Dr. Sunny wanted to know, and Ellery felt a flash of irritation because the woman damn sure knew the details by now.

  “I was riding my bike. He stopped me to ask for directions.”

  “What were you thinking, right then, when he stopped you?”

  Ellery faltered. No one had ever asked her this question before. “I, uh . . .” She let herself remember it, the sweltering night and her T-shirt stuck to her chest, how the only way to get a breeze was to pedal fast through the dark neighborhood. She’d wished she had seventy-five cents to get a soda at the corner store. “He had a nice car,” she said wistfully, remembering how naïve she’d been. “That’s what I thought when he pulled over. It was new and shiny and expensive-looking, much nicer than the usual cars in my neighborhood. So when he rolled down the window, I thought he’d be nice. I thought everyone with money had to be nice—if you had money, you’d be happy, right? Maybe if I was nice back, he’d give me a dollar or something for helping him, and I could get a drink.”

  She stopped there, lost in the memory. She saw herself getting off the bike and approaching Coben’s car. Saw his smile and his dark, floppy hair.

  “What happened next?” Dr. Sunny asked softly, and Ellery snapped out of her reverie.

  She sat up straight and went back to the facts. “He grabbed me by the throat and choked me until I went unconscious. I woke up in the closet. And everyone already knows what happened after that.”

  The bare walls reverberated with her furious words. Ellery looked around the circle of faces, defiant, daring them to judge her or pity her over the details of Coben’s torture. One by one, they all slid their gaze away. Coben’s story made for great TV, but no one ever wanted to sit in a room with his living victim and admit they had consumed her pain for entertainment. Everyone in the group had survived a nightmare; only one of them had to do it daily on the public stage.

  * * *

  When the meeting broke up, Wendy hurried over to Ellery. “Did you talk to him? Did you find anything out?”

  Ellery nodded and started walking the other woman toward the door. “I talked to Detective Manganelli, and he hasn’t forgotten about your case, not at all. But more importantly, Agent Reed Markham from the FBI has agreed to take a look at your case and possibly related incidents to see if he can offer some insights. He’s waiting outside to talk to you, if you’re willing to speak with him.”

  Wendy looked uncertain, but she said, “Yeah, sure, whatever will help get this guy.”

  Outside under the cover of a gunmetal sky, Reed stood by the lamppost, looking like some sort of caped avenger in his black overcoat. Ellery led Wendy over to him and made the necessary introductions. Reed extended his hand in greeting but Wendy would not touch him. Reed retracted his hand and cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry that you’ve had to endure all this, Ms. Mendoza,” he said with genuine warmth. “I have just a few quick questions for you.”

  Wendy nodded and hugged herself. “Go ahead.”

  “It seems likely that the offender had some knowledge of the layout of your apartment. Did you have any workmen through the place in the few months before the attack? Repairs, a cable installation—anything of that nature?”

  Wendy shook her head. “No, nothing. The cops already asked me that. There was a plumber who did some work in the downstairs apartment, but he was an old white guy with a bunch of missing teeth. The guy who came in my window was young and built like a tank.”

  “Did you have the sense of anyone following you or watching you prior to the attack?”

  Wendy looked at Ellery, who gave her an encouraging nod. Wendy took a long, ragged breath. “I don’t know. If you’re a woman living on your own, you kinda always feel like you’re being watched. Guys whistle at you on the street. You feel their eyes on your body.” She shuddered. “You almost never feel 100 percent safe.”

  Ellery looked away from the conversation and saw Myra’s husband, Patrick, wheeling Myra down the ramp from the hospital. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured before darting off in their direction. “Myra, wait up just a second?”

  Patrick stopped in his tracks, his gaze bleak as it settled on Ellery. “We’ve got to get home. Myra can’t take bein’ out in the cold.”

  “Please,” Ellery said. “I just wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have badgered you like that during the group, and I’m sorry.”

  Myra drew her mitten-covered hands together as if gathering up her dignity. “I accept your apology,” she said stiffly. “I know you come from law enforcement, so you have different views.”

  Ellery hesitated, not sure whether to press the old woman any further. “If Carnevale isn’t guilty,” she said, “it means someone else was—someone who has gotten away with it for years.”

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Patrick said, pushing Myra past Ellery. “We need to get going now.”

  “They said he was the one,” Myra said helplessly as Ellery scrambled along next to the wheelchair.

  “They may have lied,” Ellery told her. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”

  Myra covered her face with her hands. “I just want it to be over,” she said. “Twenty-six years now, and Bobby still can’t rest in peace.”

  “Leave her alone!” Patrick snapped, pushing the wheelchair so fast he nearly ran over Ellery’s foot in the process. “She’s been through enough.”

  Elle
ry backed away then and let Patrick help his wife into the car. Myra was crying softly now, and Patrick’s eyes shot daggers in Ellery’s direction. Ellery turned back, intent on rejoining Wendy and Reed, but Miles materialized at her side. He had apparently been waiting to talk to her.

  “That took guts today,” he told her. “Speaking up in group like that.”

  Ellery glimpsed the disappearing taillights of the Gallaghers’ car and was not so sure that Myra would agree. “I shouldn’t have pushed her,” she said.

  “What? No, I mean what you said about your past, about what happened to you.” He looked up at the sky for a moment. “Listen, I just wanted to say . . . I teach fourteen-year-old kids, you know? They’re funny and crack wise and they’re tryin’ to be so tough all the time, but really, they’re just babies. Barely figuring things out. For someone to grab a kid like that and do those things . . .” He shook his head as if to clear it. “You should own the shit out of your story, Ellery, because to have survived and thrived the way you have, you must be one amazing lady.”

  Ellery felt her face go pink again. “Oh. Well, thanks. I think.”

  He smiled and touched her lightly on the arm. “Same time, next week?”

  “Uh, yeah. We’ll see.”

  “I’ll bring the hot cocoa.”

  Miles wandered off in the direction of the T, and Ellery jogged back to where Reed was standing. Wendy had given him a wide berth, about three people’s worth of personal space, but she hadn’t run off. “How’s it going?” Ellery asked them.

  He nodded at Wendy. “Wendy remembered something she left out of her original narrative. The offender tasted sweet.”

  Ellery looked to Wendy. “Tasted sweet? Like how? Like he had sugar on him, or are we talking about some sort of metabolic disease here?”

  Wendy shrank backward. “I don’t know. He—he had gloves on, but when I turned my head away his wrist kind of ended up in my mouth for a second. He tasted sugary, I guess, like breakfast cereal.”

  “Wendy,” Reed said, “do you recall if he was wearing a watch or a bracelet of some kind?”

  Wendy searched herself and came up looking surprised. “Actually, yeah, on his right hand. It got stuck in my hair when he held me down and he cursed me out for it, like it was my fault. Why? Is that important?”

  “Maybe,” Ellery said, trying to match Reed’s neutral tone. “We don’t know yet.”

  Wendy clenched her hands and sucked in her bottom lip. “When will you know? When?”

  Reed and Ellery exchanged a look, and Ellery reached for Wendy’s shoulder. The other woman drew away. “We’re doing everything we can,” Ellery said softly. “I promise you.”

  “Promises are great,” Wendy replied, her voice bitter. “But I need something quicker than that.”

  “We’ll get him,” Ellery said. Reed turned his head away at her words, like he wouldn’t be party to this lie. He didn’t understand that sometimes the lie was necessary to make it through one more day.

  “Sure, you’ll get him,” Wendy said, like she no longer believed it, either. “That’s what Manganelli told me, too.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and jogged off toward the street, disappearing into the dark.

  * * *

  Reed and Ellery met up with Manganelli that night at a different pub, one closer to home for Ellery, but the change in venue came at the behest of Manganelli. “I may’ve mentioned to the guys that you were here to look at the case, and now they all want to meet you,” the detective explained to Reed. “I figured they might all try to show up at the regular bar to get a look-see.”

  “I appreciate your discretion,” Reed replied solemnly. “I have the files for you, if you’d like them back.”

  “Nah, keep ’em. I have copies. Did you get anything?”

  Reed explained his theory about their daring, athletic rapist, and Manganelli frowned.

  “That’s it? He’s a guy who likes to break into second-story buildings or higher? What am I supposed to do—put out a BOLO for a guy carrying around Architectural Digest?”

  “I warned you not to expect miracles,” Reed replied. “I can offer you this profile of your offender, based on what we know so far.” He slid a piece of paper across to the detective. “He’s young, probably early-to mid-twenties, physically strong, and flexible. He probably works out regularly at a gym and is known to show off feats of strength for friends and family. He lives in the area and is familiar with the general outlay of multifamily homes. He may have grown up in one or resides in one now. I’ve indicated on the list there those incidents that have a high probability of being committed by this same offender, but it’s almost certainly not comprehensive. I would urge you and officials from the surrounding towns to compare notes again to turn up any similar cases, especially ones where physical agility seemed to be a strength of the offender.”

  “Great, yeah. I’ll get right on that.” Manganelli sounded deflated. “I want this guy bad. I do. But I have six other cases on my desk right now. I was hoping for something a little more concrete to go on.”

  “Well, according to Wendy Mendoza, he tastes sweet.”

  Manganelli made a face. “What the hell does that mean? He’s candy-flavored or what?”

  “I couldn’t get any more detail from her,” Reed said with a sweep of his hand. “Maybe it will become clearer with additional context.”

  “Right now, it makes no goddamned sense,” grumbled Manganelli.

  “Reed has given up his time to come all the way up here and look at the cases,” Ellery reminded him. “He’s offered you some new angles.”

  “What I really need is new suspects,” Manganelli said, sounding defeated. “But yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  Later, as they left the bar and climbed back into the truck, Reed threw his scarf across his lap with a sigh. “I have a feeling that once Manganelli relays our conversation, the local law enforcement would not be so keen to turn out to visit me if I were to make a return visit to the great city of Somerville.”

  “He’s frustrated,” Ellery said. “He wants results and he wants them yesterday. Once he stops and thinks about what you’ve told him, he’ll realize it’s more helpful than it seemed initially.”

  Reed chuckled. “I can’t tell if you’re supporting me or damning me with faint praise, Hathaway.”

  She gave a half-shrug. “You know how it goes. Profilers always look best in hindsight.”

  “Oh-ho! Now I know I’ve been burned. You’re doubting my abilities now, are you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Let me see if I can redeem myself then. That gentleman you were talking to tonight after the meeting . . .”

  “Miles?”

  “Miles. Yes. He’s going to ask you out.”

  Ellery coughed in surprise and clutched the wheel a bit tighter. “He wasn’t asking me out.”

  “I said he will ask you out. I can’t tell you when. I’m not actually a fortune-teller, you know.”

  “Obviously not,” Ellery replied, striving to keep her tone light. “Or you would know—I’m never going on a date with Miles.”

  There was a beat of silence and she could feel Reed stewing on the other side of the cab. Finally, his leg jerked and he sat up straighter. “Okay, I’ll bite: why are you never going on a date with Miles? Is he unattractive? Uncouth? Allergic to hounds?”

  “He seems very nice,” Ellery allowed. “I just don’t date.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t date?”

  “I’ve never been on a date. Don’t have any plans to start, either.” They arrived at her building and she parked the truck. Reed was looking at her strangely as she came around and joined him on the sidewalk.

  “What about Sam Parker?” he asked, referencing her old boss.

  “That was sex,” she replied. “Not dating. He was married.”

  “I noticed that part,” Reed replied with a scowl as she let them into the building. “But surely there are suitable men in the greater Bosto
n area who are not married.”

  She eyed him as they waited by the elevators. “Why do you care?”

  “I—I don’t. Not really. I just hadn’t heard this ‘no dating’ philosophy of yours before and I’m curious to know more about it.”

  “It’s not possible for me to go on a date like a normal person,” she said. “You of all people should know that.” She unlocked her front door and pushed inside, leaving him standing in the hall. He came sputtering in a few moments later.

  “What? Me? I don’t see what my opinion has to do with anything, but since we’re on the subject, I don’t think—”

  She didn’t get to find out what he thought because Speed Bump came skittering over to them with something stuck to his left front paw. “Hey, boy, what’s this?” she asked as she bent to free him. It was a folded piece of paper, now wrinkled and covered in dog slobber.

  “What is it?” Reed asked as he moved to stand near her shoulder.

  “I don’t know.” She opened it up and then sucked in a sharp breath. The printed note had just one line: GET BACK IN THE CLOSET WHERE YOU BELONG.

  4

  Reed watched as Ellery crumpled the hateful note in one hand and sent it sailing into the trash can across the room. “And there you have the answer as to why I can’t date,” she said, not looking in his direction. “Come on, boy, let’s go out.” She bent to clip on Bump’s leash as the dog wagged his tail happily, unperturbed by what had just taken place.

  “What are you doing?” Reed blocked her path to the door. “You can’t just go back out there.”

  The look she gave him was both tired and resigned. “I have to go out there every damn day,” she said. “Tonight is no different.”

  She stepped around him and Reed followed her back out into the dimly lit gray corridor. His gaze swept up and down, probing for anyone lurking in the shadows, as Ellery marched toward the elevator without a backward glance. He hurried to catch up with her before the elevator doors closed. She leaned against the metal wall, studying her fingernails, while Reed just stared.

  “That’s not the first one,” he said finally. “Is it?”