‘Was he ever suspected of involvement in Ileanna’s death?’ Stevie asked.
‘No. He said he took her home, dropped her off, then went back out. My father backed him up, said he’d seen Buck come in, change out of his tux and take off again. My father was the sheriff, so nobody asked Buck a second time. The girl’s ex-boyfriend was found the next morning. He’d shot himself in the head. The case was closed.’
‘Except that now somebody thinks Buck was involved,’ JD said quietly. ‘Or you wouldn’t be finding bodies. Did Ileanna have family?’
‘She had a dad who was angry.’ Lucy frowned. ‘There was something that she’d been wearing when she died that wasn’t on her body. They accused my father of stealing it. But that was ridiculous.’ She said it hollowly, like she might have believed it ridiculous then, but was no longer certain now. ‘It was a diamond necklace. They made a big deal about it.’
‘Where is the family now?’ JD asked.
‘I’m not sure. I think they moved away. By then things were really bad at home and I don’t remember much of anything.’
‘What was happening at home?’ Berman asked and Lucy shrugged tightly.
‘My mother had a nervous breakdown and had to go away for a while.’
JD’s heart sank. ‘Leaving you alone with your father.’
‘Yeah,’ she said curtly. ‘I kind of checked out the rest of that year.’
‘And then you found the bracelet,’ Stevie said.
Startled, Lucy stared at her wrist. She seemed to have forgotten about the bracelet. ‘Yes. And Sonny Westcott took it from me. Why?’
‘I don’t think he’s going to tell us,’ Berman said practically.
Lucy’s lips firmed. ‘Then let’s find someone who will.’
Tuesday, May 4, 3.30 P.M.
‘Hold on,’ Fitzpatrick said, stopping her before she could walk into the newspaper office. She’d been a woman on a mission, leading them from the cemetery back to Main Street while Fitzpatrick, Stevie and Berman had murmured behind her. ‘We’ve got a motive, Ileanna Bryan. We know Russ, Ryan and Malcolm were involved, or perceived to be. We know Sonny reacted to your bracelet. How many other people might be involved?’
Stevie took the team photo from her briefcase. ‘There are twenty-five boys in this picture. I checked names against the yearbook I found in Janet’s closet and had Hyatt’s clerk run whereabouts on the four other seniors on this team – George Cuzman, Marty Swenson, Randy Richards, James Cannon. Two have moved from the area, one died several years ago in a car wreck and the fourth lives in downtown Baltimore. We’re trying to contact the three still alive.’
‘Bennett didn’t play on the team,’ Lucy said and Stevie nodded.
‘True, so we could have other potential targets. I want the police and coroner reports on Ileanna, but since we’re here, let’s get anything the newspaper has on the night of that prom, both the dance and her assault.’ Stevie opened the door to the newspaper office. ‘Hello?’
A man nearing forty came out from the back room, polishing his eyeglasses. ‘Can I help you?’ His eyes widened when he saw Lucy. ‘Lucy Trask.’
Taken aback, Lucy searched his face for clues to who he was. ‘You know me?’
‘Oh, yes. I’m Bart Higgins. You broke my friend’s nose the first week of the tenth grade.’
Lucy saw Fitzpatrick’s brows raise. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Higgins. ‘I really am.’
‘It’s okay,’ Higgins said. ‘He deserved it for taunting you when you came home from that girls’ school that summer.’ He leaned his elbows on the counter. ‘Why did you come back?’
She introduced the others and let Stevie take the lead.
‘We’re interested in the death of Ileanna Bryan,’ Stevie said.
Again his eyes widened. He went to a file cabinet and was back in less than a minute with a folder. ‘Ileanna Bryan.’
Fitzpatrick and Stevie leafed through the papers in the file, Fitzpatrick looking up with a frown. ‘Why did you have this at your fingertips?’
‘Nobody asks about the Bryan girl for twenty years, then two of you do. A PI came in asking questions and this was what I pulled. Her name’s on the request form on the back.’
‘Nicki Fields,’ Fitzpatrick read. ‘I think we’d like to talk to her.’
‘Shouldn’t be too hard,’ Higgins said. ‘She lives in Baltimore.’
Stevie flipped the folder over, jotted the address down. ‘Thanks.’
‘When did you give this to the PI?’ Fitzpatrick asked.
‘About a week ago. Maybe a little less.’
Stevie checked her cell phone, read a message, then frowned. ‘I need to make a call. Can we get copies of this file?’
‘Of course,’ Higgins said. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Higgins disappeared in the back and Fitzpatrick and Stevie went outside, Berman following. Lucy was right behind them when her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was a text from Craig.
Tried to call, keep getting your v/m. CALL ME. It’s critical
.
Her phone was getting only one reception bar in the office. Apparently all her calls were going to voicemail, but luckily texts came through. She continued reading Craig’s messages and her stomach rose to clog her throat. She rushed outside to where Stevie was having some trouble with her cell phone too.
‘Stevie’s talking to the detective looking for Ryan Agar,’ Fitzpatrick told Lucy before she could speak. ‘He was on the hotel’s security video from this morning, leaning on another man who took him to the elevator, and looking kind of sick. They went to the parking garage where Ryan got pushed in a wheelchair to a black Lexus.’
‘Like the one following us before,’ Lucy said. He’d been close.
So close
. A shiver ran down her back.
He was following us. Me
.
‘Is the man pushing him identifiable?’ Berman asked.
‘No,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘He’s wearing a tweed hat that covers part of his face.’
‘Like the one he left on Russ Bennett’s head,’ Lucy said.
‘Exactly,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘The Lexus exited from the self-pay lane. The camera caught a mustache on the driver’s face, but that’s it.’
‘The license plate?’ Lucy asked, but Fitzpatrick shook his head.
‘Stolen. We put a BOLO out anyway, but it’s likely he’s changed the plates.’
In which case the be-on-the-lookout wouldn’t help at all, Lucy thought.
Stevie hung up her cell. ‘We need to find that PI. I’ll get Debbie looking.’
Lucy held up one hand. ‘Don’t bother. I know exactly where she is.’
Fitzpatrick’s face fell. ‘No way. Don’t even say it.’
‘She’s dead,’ Lucy said. ‘Craig finished the cut on the Jane Doe and was reviewing the new cases. Nicki Fields was brought in this morning. Her throat was slit with that little curve around the ear, just like Kevin and Jane Doe.’
‘Shit,’ Fitzpatrick hissed.
‘Oh dear,’ Berman murmured.
‘Craig says it appeared she’d been dead in her apartment for several days.’
‘I wonder if the file was what got her killed,’ Stevie said. ‘And I wonder why she was looking for this information to begin with. What else did Dr Mulhauser say, Lucy?’
Lucy scrolled through the text messages. ‘She was found in an apartment in Laurel. The call was put in to 911 by one of her co-workers who was worried when she didn’t check in. Two Laurel detectives are assigned to the case. Wenzel and Graham.’
‘I’ll call them,’ Stevie said. ‘We need to talk to the person who made the 911 call.’
‘What was in the file?’ Lucy asked.
‘Mostly what you already told us,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘The suicide was an eighteen year old named Ricky Joyner.’
‘Who’d gotten into it with Buck Trask after a football game earlier that season,’ Higgins said from behind them and all four of them jumped. In his hand he held an envelope that he extended to Stevie. ‘The copies you asked for. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.’
Stevie glared at him. ‘Yes you did,’ she said.
Higgins shrugged. ‘Okay, I did. Call me curious. There are events that have an impact on a kid’s life. Ileanna Bryan’s murder was one of those for me. Buck’s accident was another. Every kid I knew had wanted to be him. Including me.’
‘What did you mean?’ Fitzpatrick asked. ‘About Ricky Joyner and Buck?’
‘Joyner played for another team. Rival school. He’d sacked Buck with a dirty hit in one of their games. Afterward, some of Buck’s pals worked him over. Lots of folks thought that’s what made him lose it, finding out his girl dumped him to go to the prom with Buck of all people. Of course, all the crack he’d smoked sure didn’t help.’
‘What about Ileanna?’ Berman asked. ‘What do you remember about her?’
Higgins sighed. ‘You have to remember, this was years ago. I remember people saying that girls who “dressed like that Bryan girl” were asking for trouble.’
‘Asking to be raped,’ Stevie said flatly.
‘I know,’ Higgins said, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘And I agree with you.’
‘What happened to Ileanna’s family?’ Fitzpatrick asked.
‘They moved away somewhere,’ Higgins said. ‘I didn’t know any of them. Ileanna was older than me and her brother was younger.’
Lucy’s blood went cold. ‘Younger brother? She had a younger brother?’
‘His name was Evan. That’s who the PI was originally checking on when she requested the articles.’
#1 Sister
. Lucy stared at the bracelet on her wrist, her stomach beginning to churn. She looked up and saw that Fitzpatrick had come to the same conclusion. She slipped her hand into her pocket, hoping her action was subtle and knowing it was not.
‘I heard Ileanna was missing some jewelry,’ Fitzpatrick said.
‘A diamond necklace, shaped like a heart,’ Higgins said. ‘It was supposedly an heirloom.’
‘Supposedly?’ Stevie asked.
‘Nobody had ever seen it before that night. Mr Bryan was a hard-working waterman. He worked the channels for crabs and whatever else he could pull from the Bay. People said that if they’d really owned a diamond necklace they would have sold it long ago to have a better life. The Bryans said they kept it in the mother’s jewelry box, that nobody wore it.’
‘But Ileanna was wearing the necklace that night,’ Fitzpatrick said.
‘Yes. That’s a fact. It was in the prom picture and it’s heart-shaped. Whether it was diamond is anybody’s guess, because it never turned up. Apparently Ileanna had wanted to wear it to the prom, her mother had refused, and Ileanna snuck it out anyway. Her family made a big fuss about it.’ He glanced at Lucy uneasily. ‘They even went as far as to accuse the police and coroner of stealing it.’
‘What was the response?’ Berman asked and Higgins shrugged.
‘The police said the guy who’d killed her and then himself had probably taken it and who knew where it had gone? Then Buck crashed and died and people were happy not to focus on the murder of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks anymore.’
‘Do you have a copy of the prom pictures?’ Berman asked.
‘Yes. My uncle took the pictures for the paper. He took homecoming and graduation photos too. They’re stored in the basement, but I can find that year’s box.’
‘How long will it take you to get it?’ Fitzpatrick asked. ‘We need to get back to the city.’
‘An hour, tops. If I can get it faster, I will.’
Fitzpatrick gave Higgins his card. ‘One more question. A few weeks ago Russ Bennett requested copies of the articles on Lucy’s trial. Do you know why?’
Again Higgins glanced at Lucy uneasily. ‘It wasn’t Russ. It was Jason Bennett.’
Lucy flinched, feeling like she’d been punched in the gut. ‘Russ’s father? Why?’
‘He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. I’ll call you when I’ve found the pictures.’
Lucy stared after him, barely breathing, and when Fitzpatrick put his arm around her she leaned into him without hesitation. Shoving furious tears back down, she fumbled with the clasp on the bracelet, bile burning her throat. ‘I want this
off
.
Now
.’
‘Whoa,’ Stevie said quietly. ‘Let me help you.’ She took it off Lucy’s wrist and placed it in a plastic evidence bag. ‘Number One Sister,’ she said grimly.
‘Which was not me.’ And it hurt, a lot more than she’d thought possible. ‘I think we have a more specific question to ask my father now. What did Buck do
to Ileanna Bryan
?’
‘We have questions for a lot of people,’ Stevie said. ‘I want to go back to the sheriff’s office and get the official report on Ileanna’s death.’
‘I want to ask Jason Bennett why Russ asked for those articles,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘They’re probably connected to the “client” he was meeting the day he disappeared.’
‘And I want to talk to my mother,’ Lucy said grimly. ‘I want to know what she meant by “What did Buck do?” ’
Tuesday, May 4, 3.55 P.M.
Ah. They were here. It paid to have a good memory. He’d played on this section of beach once upon a time. Before his world was smashed to oblivion by the Trasks. He tied Ron Trask’s boat to the dock and went below.
Trask had come to, muffled grunts coming from his mouth. He shoved in more of the gag. If the old man fought, he’d throw up. Then he’d choke on it and die. Which was too good for him. Taking the cell phone from Trask’s pocket, he scrolled through the contacts until he found the one he wanted, then dialed.
‘Hello?’ a woman asked.
‘Hi, I’m trying to reach Mrs Kathy Trask.’
‘This is she. Who is this and why are you calling from my husband’s cell phone?’
Because I’m going to kill you
. ‘I was fishing when your husband’s boat hit my dock. He kind of staggered out of the bridge and collapsed on the deck. At first I thought he was drunk, but he doesn’t look so good. I’m no doctor, but I think he’s sick.’
‘Oh dear God. Oh no. Did you call 911?’
‘I was going to but he asked me not to. He got really upset and asked me to call you first. He said you’d know what to do.’
‘Of course. He hates hospitals. Where did you say you were again?’
He smiled down at Ron, who seemed to have just caught on to what was going on. The man’s eyes were almost bugging out of his head. ‘I’m renting a place about two miles up the shore. It’s a little cottage with blue shutters. The mailbox says “Turlington”.’