Acts of Mercy: A Mercy Street Novel

by Mariah Stewart

“Yes.”

  Finally, they were almost there. Sam leaned forward and craned his neck to look out the driver’s side window.

  There. There it was, the white house with the black shutters and the red door, the color having faded a bit since the last time he’d been here. The grass was patchy and unkempt, and weeds grew up through the cracks in the walk that led from the street to the front door. The Realtor’s sign was still out front, but Sam suspected there’d been precious little interest in the house.

  Fiona slowed.

  “Sam, did you want to stop …”

  “No. That’s okay. Thanks.”

  Fiona accelerated and drove on.

  “Thanks,” he said again, and he knew from the look on her face that she knew without asking that the house they’d just passed had been the house he’d shared with Carly, the house in which she’d been tortured and killed.

  They rode the remaining six miles to the prison in silence.

  FOURTEEN

  There’s the crime scene.” Fiona slowed down and pointed to the bright yellow tape that marked off a long rectangle from the side of the road to well past the middle of the field.

  “I guess you can park anywhere along here. We’ll walk out,” Sam said.

  “Walk all the way out there?” She frowned.

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “No reason,” she mumbled.

  She pulled to the side of the road and parked, then got out and looked across the field. The grass and weeds were almost knee-high. Sam was already in the field. He turned and looked back at her and stopped. “Are you coming?” he called.

  “Sure.” She stepped into the grass and felt it tickle the bare skin under her pants legs. She shuddered and tried to decide which was worse. Not looking, and therefore not knowing what manner of creature lurked in the tall grass, or watching every step and therefore possibly avoiding anything that might be there. And anything could be under the grass and weeds. Snakes. Mice. Ticks. Spiders. Rats.

  She reminded herself that she’d read somewhere that field rats were nothing like city rats, that they were smaller and much less aggressive. She decided to follow in Sam’s footsteps—literally. She walked the path he’d made into the field and prayed that he’d scared off anything that might be living there.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she told him, feeling more than a little foolish. She’d faced serial killers and child murderers and kidnappers, but the thought of some unseen furry or crawly thing making its way up her leg made her blood run cold. “We all have our little quirks,” she muttered.

  “What?” Sam turned to her as he stepped over the yellow tape.

  “I said, I guess it’s impossible to tell exactly where Wilke was killed. Since he was strangled here, there’s probably no physical evidence. All the blood would be over near the fence, where he was stabbed.” With one arm she brushed away the low-flying squadron of insects that had been flushed out of the grass.

  She caught up with Sam in the middle of the section that was cordoned off. “Well, I suppose even as late as last week it would have been easier to see where the killer parked the car. This much later, there’s nothing.”

  “I’m surprised the tape is still in place,” he remarked. “I’d have thought between the press and the curiosity seekers, it would have been down by now.”

  “Maybe people are just being respectful. I suppose it does happen now and then.”

  “Or maybe they’re concerned about him.” Sam turned toward the prison.

  “Who?” She followed his gaze to the watchtower that overlooked the field. “Oh. Him.”

  “I wonder why the killer wasn’t too worried about being seen the night of the murder,” he said. “We’re standing, what, fifty feet from the outer fence, and the tower is another fifty feet from the inner fence. That’s roughly one hundred feet away.”

  “And the guard would have been elevated, so it would have been easy for him to see a car from that distance.”

  “The killer would have had his headlights off, and probably would have turned off the interior lights as well. Still …”

  Fiona nodded. “The guard should have seen something.”

  “Do you have a copy of his statement?”

  “No, but we can get one.”

  “Maybe we should get our own statement.”

  “An even better idea. I’m sure we can get his information easily enough.”

  “Let’s take a walk over to the fence.” Sam motioned to her to follow him. “Let’s see how long it takes the guard up there to come to the window to see what we’re doing.”

  “He already knows. John called the prison and told them we’d be out here.”

  “All the same, you’d think he’d be curious.” Sam forged ahead and sure enough, before they reached the fence, they could see the guard standing and looking down at them.

  “There you go, see?” He pointed upward. “He’s expecting us but he still wants to see what we’re up to. So the question is—”

  “How come the guard who was on duty the night of August fifteenth didn’t bother to check out the movement he must have seen in the field?”

  “Well, he could have been asleep, or drunk, or reading a really good book.”

  “Any of the above would work. The problem is getting him to admit to it.”

  “Sometimes you don’t need an admission to know, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Sam stopped and nodded toward the ground, where a small, white makeshift cross was planted in the dirt. He knelt and inspected the heavy wire fence immediately behind it. “This is where the killer left Kenneth Wilke’s body. There are still traces of blood on the wire here.”

  Fiona looked back over her shoulder at the distance they’d walked from the field to the fence.

  “So we’re to believe that the killer carried a body from fifty feet in that field, propped it up here, then stabbed it forty or so times, and no one saw or heard anything?” She shook her head. “I’m not buying it.”

  “Well, then, let’s scout up the guard who was on duty that night and see if he can explain how all this could have gone on under his nose without him knowing.”

  “I’ll put in a call”—Fiona took her phone from her pocket—“and see if we can meet with him this afternoon.”

  “Have you eaten here before?” Fiona asked when they’d been seated at the first restaurant they came to on their way back from the prison. Sam nodded. “A few years back, but I think it’s under new management now. Let’s hope so. It wasn’t very good.”

  “So why didn’t we look for another place to eat?”

  “One, because I’m starving, and two, because, like I said, new management.” Sam smiled at the waitress who brought them their menus, and the waitress smiled back as she listed the lunch specials.

  “I’ll give you a minute,” she said, her eyes still on Sam.

  Fiona studied the menu and pretended she hadn’t noticed. Sam did the same. Within minutes, the waitress was back.

  “Have you decided?” she asked.

  “I’ll have the turkey club, whole wheat toast. Iced tea. Unsweetened.” Fiona closed the menu and handed it over. “Are your tomatoes local?”

  “Sure.” The waitress turned to Sam. “And for you?”

  “Hamburger. Medium rare. Fried onions, Order of fries.” He slid his menu toward her. “Water’s fine.”

  Fiona’s phone rang and she answered it.

  “We can see the guard at two o’clock back at the prison,” she told him after she completed her call. She turned her wrist to check the time. “Which doesn’t give us too much time.”

  “We’ll eat fast.”

  She could feel his eyes on her, and finally asked, “What?”

  “You look like someone.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t know. It will come to me, though. I guess if you’d lived in Nebraska at some time in your life, you’d have mentioned it by now.”

  She smiled.r />
  “So where are you from?” he asked.

  “Kansas, originally.”

  “And after that?” He tilted his head. “You said Kansas originally, which means you’re from somewhere else after that.”

  “I grew up in California.”

  “One of my favorite states. Which part?”

  “Around L.A.”

  Sam appeared to be studying her face. “You don’t really strike me as an L.A. type of girl.”

  She merely smiled and leaned back as the waitress served their drinks.

  “So,” Fiona said as she added sweetener to her tea, “have you given any more thought to what Annie said, about maybe the killer being someone from your past?”

  “I’ve thought about nothing else, but I just can’t see anyone. Unless it’s something really overt, you just don’t think about someone holding a grudge for that long. What could be that important?” He shook his head. “You know, you could look back on your childhood, your teen years. Is there someone there who’d wish you harm or who’d want to repay an old debt? Someone so unhinged that they’d kill to get even with you? I’ll bet you wouldn’t even know, couldn’t name them if you tried.”

  Bet I could. In a heartbeat …

  Aloud, she said, “Maybe you should consider hypnosis. Maybe something will come to you that way.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Their sandwiches came and they ate with one eye on the clock. At one forty-five, Fiona said, “We need to go.”

  They made it back to the prison with three minutes to spare. By the time they went through their checkpoints and waited for George Cranshaw, the assistant warden, it was twenty past two.

  “Lee’s waiting for you in the conference room,” Cranshaw told them as he led them down a short hall.

  “Lee?”

  “Lee Watkins, the guard you wanted to talk to.” He stopped in front of a closed door. “Right in here, folks.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Lee, the people from the FBI are here.”

  To Fiona’s eye, Lee Watkins looked to be no more than twenty years old, but she was pretty sure he had to be older than that.

  “Sam DelVecchio.” Sam introduced himself without bothering to correct the assistant warden. “How are you, Lee?”

  “I’m okay.” Watkins looked from Sam to Fiona and back. He was clearly not okay about being there.

  “Did you need me to stay?” Cranshaw had one hand on the door handle, as if ready to flee.

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ll be fine.” Fiona smiled at Watkins who looked as if he was about to bolt. She patted the young guard on the shoulder as she passed behind him, glancing down at the backpack that sat at his feet. It bulged all the way around, the contents squaring the material.

  She sat directly across from him, the better to maintain eye contact with him.

  “Lee, how old are you?” she asked.

  He glanced at Sam before answering. “I’m twenty-six.”

  “You’re young to have such a responsible position here,” she said.

  “Not really.” He still appeared leery.

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Seven? So you were nineteen when you started?”

  He nodded.

  “Have you been on the night shift all that time?”

  “No, ma’am. I started out first on one of the medical wards, the afternoon shift. I didn’t get the night shift until I went on the tower.”

  “Was that a promotion?” She continued to question him in a conversational tone, holding his eyes, making it difficult for him to look away without seeming evasive.

  “Sort of. Well, actually, I asked for it.”

  “You wanted to work at night?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I wanted to go to school during the day, so I could only work at night.”

  “Working a full-time job and going to school at the same time?” Fiona raised one eyebrow. “Very impressive, Lee. That’s a rough way to get an education. I admire your determination.”

  “Thank you.” He seemed to relax slightly.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Eastern Virginia College.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “I want to be a history teacher.”

  “Excellent. We always need good teachers. Good luck with that.” She smiled. “So, are those your books there in your backpack?” she asked.

  He glanced down at his feet, then nodded.

  “I guess you need to study whenever you can, right? Coffee breaks, that sort of thing?”

  He nodded again, his eyes shifting to one side.

  “It must be hard to keep up with all the reading.” Fiona rested her elbows on the table as if chatting with a friend. “I used to tape-record the lectures so I could listen to them later. Have you tried that?” Before he could answer, she continued, “Of course, you wouldn’t use a tape recorder. The technology is so much better these days, isn’t it?”

  “I guess,” he mumbled.

  “Sam, did you have any questions for Lee?” She pushed her chair back from the table.

  “About the night that Kenneth Wilke was murdered out there in the field.” Sam paced off to the left.

  Fiona slid her phone from her pocket, pretended to look at the screen and said, “Will you excuse me for a moment? I have to return a call …”

  Sam nodded and turned back to Watkins. “You were about to say …?”

  “What did you want to know?”

  “I want to know what time you first noticed the car in the field,” Sam told him.

  “I never saw the car.” Watkins shook his head. “I told the cops, I never saw the car, I never heard anything.”

  “How is that possible? You were sitting right there, maybe a hundred feet from where the car was parked. How could you not see or hear what was going on down there?”

  Watkins shrugged. “He must have not had the lights on. I don’t know.”

  Fiona activated the Internet connection on her phone, and opened a search engine, and typed in the name of the college Lee Watkins said he attended. When she found what she was looking for, she closed the phone and returned to the table, where Sam was still interrogating Watkins.

  She listened quietly to his questioning for a few moments, then said, “Sam, you can ask him the same questions fifty different ways, but if Lee didn’t hear or see anything, that isn’t going to change, regardless of how many times you ask.”

  Sam turned to look at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

  “You’re right, Agent Summers.” Sam sighed deeply. “All right, Lee. Unless you have something else to add, I suppose we’re finished here.”

  “I don’t have anything else to add.” He shook his head firmly, side to side. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Thanks for your time, then.” Fiona opened the door and held it for Sam. “And good luck with school.”

  They checked out at the front desk and walked through the automatic doors to the visitor’s parking lot.

  “Okay, so what did you find out that made further questioning unnecessary?” Sam asked as they walked toward her car.

  “Eastern Virginia College video-records many of their professors’ lectures and makes them available to their students on the college website,” she told him. “So if you miss a class, or get distracted, or come in late, or whatever, you can still catch the entire lecture online. You can watch them at any time that’s convenient for you.”

  “So while Watkins is sitting in the tower, he’s catching up on the day’s class work on his iPhone.”

  “Sure. He had the phone in his shirt pocket. I saw it when I walked behind him. He probably has to leave the back pack in his locker, but I’ll bet no one’s ever questioned him about the phone. Can’t you just picture him sitting in his chair, maybe with his feet on the desk, the earplugs in, listening to a lecture, maybe playing certain parts over several times to make sure he’s getting it right, maybe
taking notes?”

  “So he isn’t lying when he says he didn’t hear or see anything in the field that night,” Sam nodded.

  “Right,” Fiona agreed, “because he wasn’t looking. So at least we know he wasn’t lying.”

  As they left the parking lot, she asked, “Do you want to go back the same way we came?”

  “No.” Sam shook his head. “But thanks for asking.”

  When they arrived back at Fiona’s, she asked, “It’s too late to go in to the office. Want to come in for a beer?”

  “You must have read my mind.” Sam followed her up the front walk. “I could seriously use a beer right now.”

  She unlocked the front door and walked straight through to the kitchen and went right to the refrigerator. She took out two bottles and put them on the counter.

  “I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything to snack on with that,” she told him. “I don’t keep much food in the house.”

  He was staring at the open refrigerator. “It looks like you don’t keep any food in the house. I haven’t seen a cupboard that bare since I read about Old Mother Hubbard.”

  Fiona laughed. “I never know what time I’m going to get home. I did used to try to buy stuff to make for dinner, but it always went bad because I was too tired to cook once I got home. So I started doing takeout.”

  “You do takeout every night?”

  She nodded. “It works for me.”

  “I’m impressed. Most people who do a lot of takeout are overweight. You certainly are not.” He opened both their bottles and handed one back to her. “You look terrific.”

  “Let’s go sit out back on the steps,” she suggested, trying not to read anything at all into his comment.

  She unlocked the back door and they went outside. There was a landing that could not be considered a porch, but the stairs were wide enough to serve as comfortable seating. They sat side by side on the top step, the distance between them not enough to keep them from bumping arms or shoulders from time to time.

  “I sit out here every night,” she told him. “Rain, snow, whatever. I like to watch the trees turn with the seasons.” She pointed to a wooded area at the end of her long narrow back yard. “The deer come out most nights, if I time it right.”