Acts of Mercy: A Mercy Street Novel

by Mariah Stewart

  Robert was in acute pain, and it showed on his face.

  “I know how hard this is for you.” Susanna stroked his back, her voice soothing. “But it’s going to be worth it. We’re going to get him back. Just be patient a little longer.”

  “He’s going to need the fingerprints.” Robert did not even attempt to hide his anguish. “She isn’t going to give them to him.”

  “Then we’ll have Luke Parrish get a subpoena, or a warrant, or whatever it is we need to force her to let him be printed,” Kevin said. “A court order, maybe.”

  “All right, yes.” Robert nodded and patted his pockets for his phone. “I’ll ask him to get started on that right away.”

  “He sounded really busy earlier,” Kevin reminded them.

  “He can get unbusy. What’s the number?”

  Robert began to dial the number Kevin recited, but the call went straight to voice mail. Robert left a message and hung up.

  “I’ll call him every hour on the hour if I have to,” Robert grumbled.

  “Rob, maybe you should call Noah Goodman,” Susanna suggested.

  “That’s not a bad idea. I’m going to need him before this is over anyway.” Robert began to dial his lawyer’s number. “Do any of us really expect her to admit outright that she took the baby from the car?”

  When the attorney picked up, Robert explained the situation. When the conversation ended, he told the others, “Noah thinks we need to file a court order today, to force Carole Woolum to permit us to obtain Ian’s fingerprints. He’s contacting a friend of his who has a practice up here. He’ll know the judges, and he’ll know exactly what to file and with whom.”

  The door to the back room opened and all three of them lunged forward, but it was Collier calling for Officer Duffy to do something. Susanna and Kevin sat down again, but Robert began to pace. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling powerless. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t see his son. And he thought the chief was being overly cautious and taking too long.

  Another twenty minutes passed, and Duffy went down the hall and waved the chief out. They conferred for several minutes—“Are you sure? You’re positive?” they heard Collier ask, and Duffy nodded emphatically.

  “What the hell are they doing down there?” Robert looked like he was close to snapping. “What is taking so damned long?”

  Duffy went into the room with Carole Woolum, and the chief went into his office. Several minutes later, he came back out, went across the hall again.

  A scream reverberated through the station, bringing everyone to their feet. The door to the room at the back of the hall opened, and Collier walked out, holding the child.

  “No, you don’t understand!” Carole Woolum fled into the hall, struggling with Duffy and the other officer, who were trying to restrain her. “God gave him to me. He’s my gift from God! You can’t take him!”

  “Mommy!” Ian cried, and the knife twisted in Robert’s heart.

  “Mr. Magellan, the FBI is on the way,” Collier told him. “There’s going to be some paperwork, there will be some details to resolve. But there’s no question in my mind that this is your son, and I can’t see any reason to keep him from you.” He handed the frightened child to Robert, who eagerly reached out for him with tears in his eyes. But Ian—Matthew—began to cry.

  “Let me try,” Susanna said. “Maybe he isn’t used to men …”

  She took the boy from Collier.

  “There now. It’s all right, little guy.” She brushed the dark curls from his face. “You’re a little scared right now, aren’t you? It’s going to be all right soon. I promise.”

  He rested his head on her shoulder, and she began to sway slightly from side to side. Just like Beth used to do, Robert thought. Just like every other mother he’d ever seen.

  “What convinced you?” Kevin asked Collier.

  “I got his prints off the paper cup, had Duffy compare them electronically. There’s no question in my mind who that boy is.” He shook his head. “Folks, that is one mixed-up lady back there.”

  “Chief Collier, perhaps I could have a word with her,” Kevin said.

  “It may not help, but it probably won’t hurt, either. Go on back,” the chief told him.

  Kevin walked down the hall to the door where Carole Woolum waited to be booked for kidnapping and other charges. He opened the door and went inside.

  “What happens now?” Robert asked. “And when can I take my son home?”

  “It would sure help if the padre can get Carole Woolum to admit that she found the boy.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll have another whole mess to deal with. In the meantime, I’m going to have to call in Children’s Services. Might as well do that now.” Collier headed back to his office.

  Robert was aching to hold Ian, but every time he came too close, the child began to cry and clung to Susanna, burying his face in her neck. At least he seemed comfortable with her. It would be a long trip home if Ian continued to cry.

  It would be longer still if they had to go home without him.

  “Ms. Woolum—Carole,” Kevin took her gently by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Will you sit and talk with me for a few moments?”

  The woman’s sobs were huge, wracking cries. “They took my baby away. They took my son …”

  Officer Duffy met Kevin’s eyes, then stepped off to the side.

  “Do you remember me, Carole?” He kept his voice soft, and forced a calm he didn’t feel. “We met earlier today. I’m Father Burch.”

  “Yes … yes. I remember.”

  “I told you I’d spoken with Mother Joseph at the convent.” He held the woman’s hands, and she grasped onto them.

  “I remember.”

  “You were going to tell me about the last time you were at the cabin.”

  “It’s been a while. I … I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Was it summer, winter …?”

  “Winter,” she said readily. “It was cold. I had to build a little fire there in the fireplace. There was a lot of wood outside, stacked up.”

  “Why had you gone to the cabin by yourself in the cold of winter?”

  “I needed to think.” She pulled her hands from his and covered her face with them. “I needed to be alone to think.”

  “How long ago had you left the convent?”

  “Three years. It’s been three years. I was Sister Jerome then. Jerome, after my father.”

  Kevin took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. She nodded her thanks and began to dry her face.

  “I wasn’t sure, you see. The first time I went to the cabin, it was to think things through. Did I want to stay in the order, or should I leave? Had I lost my vocation? Was there something else God wanted me to do?” She shook her head. “I didn’t know. But I thought if I was questioning it that much, then maybe I didn’t have a true calling. So I did leave. I went home. My father was gone, my mother was dying … she did die while I was home that time. I stayed in the house for a couple of months afterward, but I started thinking that maybe I should call Reverend Mother, maybe I should go back. I really didn’t know where I belonged, do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do.” Kevin had had his period of doubts, too. He couldn’t think of anyone who’d taken Holy Orders who never questioned their decision.

  “I remembered that when I was at the cabin the first time, it had been easier to think, it had been so quiet, so peaceful. I believed I would find my answer there. So I went back.”

  “How did you get inside?” he asked.

  “The owner had given me the key when I stayed there the first time. I was so afraid I’d lose it and I wouldn’t be able to lock the door, so I had another one made. I just kept it.” The crying had stopped completely and she appeared to be thinking things through rationally. “Do you think that was a sin? That I had a key made for a place that wasn’t mine? That I trespassed?”

  “I think the owne
r will forgive you.”

  “I hope so.” She appeared to be fixated on this point, so Kevin tried to move the conversation forward.

  “Tell me about the day you heard the crash.”

  “It had been so quiet all morning. There was snow on the ground and it was cold. Then all of a sudden, there was a sort of thunderclap. I went outside to see what it was, but nothing was there. Later that day, though, when I went for a walk, I saw the car in the ravine, and I heard the baby crying. I opened the door, and there he was, my precious boy. My Matthew. My gift from God.” She looked up at Kevin, and he could see in her eyes that she was losing her grip on reality. “That’s what Matthew means, you know. Gift from God. I had prayed and prayed and prayed for a sign. What should I do? What was my calling? Then God sent me this child, and I knew that he was supposed to be mine. That God wanted me to have him. That was my calling, I could see it then. I was meant to be his mother. I took him back to the cabin and fed him—there was baby food and bottles and diapers and clothes in the diaper bag that I found in the back seat. Everything he needed was there. All I had to do was take him home. See? God had provided everything.” She smiled. “That’s how I knew he was meant to be my son.”

  “What about the woman behind the wheel?” Kevin asked.

  “What about her?” Carole seemed confused by the question.

  “What was she doing when you opened the car door?”

  “She wasn’t doing anything. She was just lying there.”

  “Did you check to see if she was breathing?” Kevin asked.

  “No,” she replied calmly. “She wouldn’t have been. God sent her to bring the baby to me, then he let her die because she wasn’t needed in this world anymore. Don’t you see? She was an angel, sent to do God’s will. When she was done He brought her back to heaven.”

  Kevin nodded slowly, made eye contact with Officer Duffy, then stood. “Thank you, Carole.”

  He cleared his throat and walked slowly, as if burdened, down the hall, to the lobby to where Robert and Susanna waited with Ian.

  “I think you need to get a lawyer for her,” Kevin told Chief Collier.

  “What did she tell you?” Collier asked.

  Kevin took a tiny recorder from his pocket and handed it over. “It’s all on here. We’d like a copy, though.”

  “Did she admit she took Ian from the car?” Robert asked anxiously.

  “Yeah.” Kevin sat down next to his cousin. “She believes God put him there for her. That he was meant to be her son.”

  “Sounds like she got real smart over the past half hour,” Collier said. “That sounds like her defense to me. ‘Yeah, I took the baby, but God told me to.’ Right. Sounds like she just made that up because she knows we can prove he’s not her son and she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life in prison.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t think it’s an act. I think she really believes it. I think she’s believed it since the minute she came across the car in the ravine and heard him crying. She’d been praying that God would guide her, and she believes He guided her right to that car.”

  “Maybe He did, but I doubt He meant for her to keep a child that didn’t belong to her,” Robert snapped.

  Kevin turned to Robert. “Remember this: if Carole Woolum hadn’t found him and taken him from the car that day, he would have died there. When you are hell-bent to see her behind bars, remember that she did save his life …”

  TWENTY-NINE

  I think I want to drive back east,” Sam told Fiona. “There are some things I need to think about.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” she assured him.

  So he’d taken Fiona to the airport and watched her board a plane to DC and felt empty inside the minute she was gone. But there were things he needed to sort out that would be much more difficult if she was there, and things that needed to be done that only he could do. He rented a car and headed east on I-80 through Council Bluffs and straight across Iowa into Illinois. At Rock Island, he dropped south and headed toward Indiana, where he made his way toward Terre Haute. There was something he had to do there.

  He’d called his former boss and asked for a favor, which John, upon hearing what Sam had to say, immediately agreed to.

  Several hours later, Sam DelVecchio sat in the visitor’s room and waited for the guards to bring in the prisoner he’d come to see.

  The door opened and an older, thinner Don Holland shuffled in, his shackles restricting his movements. He sat in the chair provided for him, and stared at Sam for a long moment before asking, “What do you want?”

  “I want to apologize.”

  Holland’s laughter was as dry as leaves in late November.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll bite. Why?”

  “Because I owe you one. Because you told the truth and I didn’t believe you.”

  Holland’s laughter faded, then ceased altogether.

  “What brought this about, this change of heart?” Holland asked.

  “My wife’s killer confessed. He set it up so that I wouldn’t suspect …” Sam shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter why he did it. Suffice it to say that I’m sorry for blaming you for something you didn’t do.”

  “I tried to tell you, man. You could have maybe caught him before, instead of letting him run free all this time.”

  “No,” Sam shook his head, “if he hadn’t confessed, no one would have ever known.”

  “Why’d he confess, then, if he’d never be caught?”

  “Because he knew it would hurt me to know,” Sam told him.

  “Like killing your wife didn’t hurt?” Holland scoffed. “What was gonna make that worse than it was?”

  “He was an old friend,” Sam said simply.

  Holland studied Sam’s face, then asked, “Did you pop him?”

  “No. The FBI did.”

  “I thought you were FBI.” Holland frowned.

  “I was.”

  “You was? You quit?”

  When Sam nodded, Holland laughed. “Why’d you go and do that? You were good at what you did, my man. Brought me down, and I was the best at what I did.”

  Sam rubbed the back of his neck, not wanting to think about what Holland had laid claim to being the best at.

  “You should think about going back.” Holland stood, ready to return to his cell. “There are a lot of bad boys outside. A lot of bad, bad boys who need to be caught …”

  Sam stood and watched Holland shuffle back out of the room. When he reached the door, he turned and said, “Thanks, man. That was decent of you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah, actually, I did.”

  Holland’s comment stayed with Sam all the way to the Ohio border, where he had to decide which way to go: through Pennsylvania to Conroy and the Mercy Street Foundation, or through Virginia to Fiona and the FBI.

  Once he made his choice, he felt lighter. He called both John and Robert and explained his position. Then he called Chris Coutinho, as he’d promised he’d do once the case had been solved. His last call—and by far, the toughest—was to Lynne Walker, who deserved an explanation of why her husband had to die, and at whose hands. To Sam’s everlasting gratitude, she’d not blamed him, but blessed him for bringing peace to her family, and justice to her husband.

  The sun had already set when he pulled in the drive at the bungalow. There were no lights on inside and no car in sight, so he turned off the engine and got out and walked to the front steps, where he sat and waited.

  It was after ten when she drove up. She slowed when she saw the strange car, but she parked next to it and walked with no apparent concern to the porch. She sat next to him on the step for a while before saying, “Nice night.”

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “How are you, Sam?” she asked softly.

  “Better than I’ve been in a long time.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s good.”

  “I
stopped to see Don Holland on my way through Indiana,” he told her.

  “Oh? How’d that go?”

  “It went pretty well, all things considered.” He turned to her. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Apologizing, that is.”

  “You apologized to him?” Fiona frowned. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “He’s done a lot of really nasty things, but he didn’t kill Carly. He told me that over and over, and I didn’t believe him. For that, I owed him.”

  “You’re a better man than I am. I couldn’t have done it.”

  “I wasn’t sure I could either, but it worked out all right. One thing he said, though …” Sam leaned back, his elbows resting on the steps behind him. “He said I should go back to the Bureau, that there were a lot of bad boys out there who needed to be caught.”

  “Oh, there’s a news flash.” Fiona rolled her eyes. “I picked up a case today—boy howdy, it’s a killer. Pun intended.”

  “There’s no end to it, you know?” He exhaled deeply. “I left the Bureau because I had enough of the Don Hollands of this world. I’d seen them all, I’d studied them all. I wanted out so I got out. I used Carly’s death as an excuse to walk away.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself? Sam, your wife was murdered in your home, and at the time you believed she was killed by someone you were tracking. I think you were entitled to take a walk.”

  When he didn’t respond, she said, “Did your travels help to clear your head?”

  “Some.” He nodded. “It was good to get away, to leave everything behind me. I thought going to all those places, most of them for the first time, would help me to feel again.”

  “Did it?”

  “Mostly I felt responsible. That I’d let Carly down. That’s pretty much all I felt,” he said. “The best part of the trip was when I got to Italy and spent some time with my parents. They’re happy in their lives and with each other, and it was a very good visit. My mom invited a neighbor—a divorcée—to dinner one night to meet me, and I was not very happy with my mother for doing that.”