Every Trick in the Book (25 page)

“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 of 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:

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!”

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.”

“We believe a clue lies in one of Melissa’s case files.” Sean opened the cardboard
box and grabbed Justyn’s folder while I delighted in his use of “we.” Placing the
file on Glenda’s desk, he opened the cover and pointed at Justyn’s photograph. “Can
you tell us anything about this boy?”

I watched Glenda bring the image closer to her face and then check the name listed
in the file. She nodded empathically. “He paid us a visit. It would have been about
three weeks ago. He filled out a request form to get information on his birth mother.
You see, we’re not allowed to give anyone so much as a first name without permission,
so I had to make sure Justyn’s mother was willing to make contact with
him. He told me he remembered a nice woman from this office named Lissa or Melissa
or something. Because he was a young boy when she helped him, he wasn’t sure of her
name. Well, I’ve been here forever and we’ve only had one Melissa here.”

She replaced the photograph on her desk and stared at it as she continued. “The majority
of our records are computerized, and I could have just looked his mother up on the
spot, but Melissa’s and most of the files from that far back are still downstairs
in Records. Hard copies only, I’m afraid.” She sighed. “We just don’t have the resources
to enter them into the database. We’re underfunded and understaffed.”

“The delights of being a civil servant,” Sean said, earning him a droll smile from
Glenda.

“Oh yeah,” she chortled. “Goes right along with our company jet and twelve weeks of
paid vacation.” Her eyes were once again drawn to Justyn’s photo and she immediately
sobered. “I called down to Records with the young man’s request and explained that
this was one of Melissa Plume’s cases. I didn’t think I’d done any harm by mentioning
her name, but now…” Her eyes grew moist and she gave Sean a pathetic, searching look.

“You’re not at fault, Glenda. Please go on,” Sean said soothingly.