Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Read online

  ‘No,” I said.

  “You know, as I get older, I have less tolerance for cruelty, the strong preying on the weak.”

  “I didn’t think you had much to begin with,” I said.

  “Probably not,” Clair said. “Always thought there was good and there was evil.”

  “And nothing in between?”

  “You’re the exception,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “So if it turns out this guy who followed you—”

  “Marty.”

  “Right. If it turns out Marty is forcing Mandi to do this, coercing her in some way, I’d feel an obligation to stop him,” Clair said.

  I looked at him.

  “Not kill him?” I said.

  “No, just persuade him.”

  “To leave her alone?”

  “Last night, we heard her crying out,” Clair said, “like she was having a terrible dream. I mean, it gave you chills.”

  “She definitely has her demons,” I said.

  “Doesn’t need any more,” Clair said.

  Roxanne got home at 5:30. I was in the kitchen, cutting vegetables for chicken pie. Sophie was asking if the chicken in the pie was like the chickens at Clair’s and Mary’s. I said it was but it had died of old age. Roxanne put her briefcase down, kicked off her shoes, kissed me once, and swung Sophie up in to her arms.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “How’s my little chick?” Roxanne said to Sophie, hugging her, and clucking into her neck. Sophie guffawed, said, “Do it again.”

  Roxanne did and I watched her, saw the relief in her expression, something you could see in her eyes. I knew it was the look that came after a difficult day, helping families you knew you probably couldn’t save. Home was her respite. Sophie was her joy.

  “What the heck?” Roxanne said, peering at Sophie’s head.

  She picked something out of Sophie’s hair and said, “What’s this?”

  “Cookie dough,” Sophie said. “Me and Mary made chocolate chips.”

  “You are a messy cook, little girl,” Roxanne said. “Into the tub.”

  She put Sophie down and gave her bottom a pat. She trotted out of the kitchen, started up the stairs. Roxanne turned to me.

  “You are, too.”

  “What?”

  “A messy cook.”

  “The tub?”

  “Maybe the shower.” She smiled, and her eyebrows twitched, a come-hither flick. “Later,” she said.

  “Just say the word,” I said. “How was your day?”

  “Long,” she said, and started for stairs. I could see her pull herself up.

  Some days Roxanne was like that. She’d shake off the weight of her work as she came in the door, throw herself into the rest of her life. Hold Sophie tightly, and tell her crazy, funny stories. Kiss me so hard it knocked me off balance. Open a bottle of the best wine for no other reason than it was time to celebrate. Make love with me with a fierce intensity that left both of us breathless.

  Then there were other days, when the burden was too much to throw off, when the sadness clung to her, when all we could do was hold her close and wait for the clouds to lift.

  This wasn’t one of those days.

  I heard the water running, Sophie chattering. Then there was the sound of toys splashing into the tub: one, two, three. Roxanne said, “Hey, there won’t be any room for you.”

  I smiled, cut chicken into pieces, and tossed them into the pan to brown. Then onions, put the pie crust into the plate and spooned in the vegetables. I was mixing the sauce, holding the measuring cup up to the light, when it rang.

  Roxanne’s cell phone, in her bag. I walked over and took it out, looking at the number.

  “Damn,” I said. The office, never good.

  I loped up the stairs, the phone still ringing. Roxanne was on her knees, in her skirt and bare feet, arms over the tub, lathering Sophie’s hair. I saw Roxanne’s shoulders fall. Sophie scowled, suds on her face.

  “Mommy has to go?” she said.

  I grabbed a towel, handed it to Roxanne. She sighed as she wiped her hands. Took the phone and, with weary resignation, said, “Hello.”

  She listened, concentrating. Sophie was making a plastic frog swim through the soapsuds. I remembered the chicken, hurried back down to the kitchen. The chicken had stuck to the pan, so I scraped it loose, turned down the flame.

  “Damn,” I said again.

  “Jack,” Roxanne called, urgency in her voice.

  I took the stairs two at a time. She was standing in the bathroom, wiping her hands and arms.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “No, Mommy,” Sophie said. “We have to play games.”

  “When I get home,” Roxanne said. “Promise.”

  Sophie smacked the frog into the water, splashing the floor and the wall. Roxanne tossed the towel down onto the puddle, moved into the hallway. “The Wiltons found the foster home,” she said. “They called them.”

  “How did they find them?”

  “I don’t know. Followed me, maybe. I was there this morning.”

  “So why do you have to go? Can’t the foster parents just hang up? Take the phone off the hook?”

  “He said Satan would kill them if they didn’t let the kids go.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Except he didn’t say kill. He said smite.”

  “Close enough,” I said. “What are you supposed to do?”

  “The parents are afraid, it wasn’t a good fit from the beginning. They want them out. We’re moving them tonight.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “No, Jack. You stay with Sophie.”

  “I’ll call Mary and Clair. They’ll come over.”

  “You can’t be with me, Jack.”

  “Then I’ll follow you.”

  “There’ll be another worker. I’ll be okay.”

  “Not with this guy,” I said. “No way.”

  The foster parents lived in an in-town ranch house in Galway, a block up from the city park. The street was just a quarter mile from the courthouse, where Wilton’s wife had made her appearance and Wilton had started to tail Roxanne.

  It was almost seven, still light, but the foster parents had put all of the outside lights on. Lamps by the front door, spotlights over the garage. I followed Roxanne until she pulled her Subaru into the driveway and parked next to a minivan, close to the side door. She got out and a tall gray-haired man opened the door and waited for her. He looked grim, a do-gooder who had gotten more than he’d bargained for. Roxanne hurried over, and he held the door as she went inside.

  I drove to the end of the street, eyeing every car. There was an entrance to the park, which fronted the bay. I drove in, made a loop past the playground, the swimming pool. There were a few kids in the pool, parents sitting on folding chairs watching them. A few teenage guys were playing pickup soccer on the lawn beside the pool. A woman pushed a little boy on the swings.

  There was a man in a small silver car, parked down by the water. I drove up, slowed. He was parked facing the bay, which was gray and monotonously calm. I went past the silver car once, circled back, looked him over as I passed.

  The car was a new Toyota, Maine plates. He was fiftyish, smoking a cigarette, one arm out the window. He turned and looked over at me, hopefully. He wasn’t there for the Wilton kids.

  I drove back up the street. An official-looking white Taurus sedan had parked behind Roxanne’s Subaru. I drove up to the main street, made a loop around the block. I saw a young couple, the guy pushing a baby in a stroller; a boy on a skateboard; an old white-haired woman slowly walking an old white dog.

  There were cars parked but nobody inside them. A van, a white Ford with a painted-over contractor’s sign on the back doors, pulled out as I passed. I drove a block north, took a left on a side street, and the van continued on. I saw a woman at the wheel but little else. I drove back and parked at the corner, with the house in view, lit up l
ike a riverboat casino.

  Cars passed. None of them passed twice. Nobody turned onto the street. Every ten minutes, I drove two blocks up, two blocks back. I looped through the side streets. I was thinking of going back to the park when someone came out the side door of the foster home and walked to the Taurus.

  It was a small guy, dark slacks and a white polo shirt, a deputy’s summer uniform. He got something out of the car and went back in the house. Five minutes later, he and Roxanne emerged, the two kids with them: a boy about eleven, in baggy shorts and big sneakers, a smaller boy, in shorts and a T-shirt, too. The guy had his hand on the older boy’s shoulder. Roxanne was holding the smaller boy’s hand. In the other hand, the boy was carrying a drink.

  They walked to the driveway, then the kids got in the back seat of Roxanne’s car. The younger one waved the drink back at the foster parents, who were standing in the doorway. They waved back.

  Roxanne shut the car door and then got in herself. The guy got in the Taurus and pulled out into the street. He waited for Roxanne to back out and then followed her up the block toward me.

  Both cars turned left. I sat and waited, counted to ten slowly. When I was sure nobody else was following them, I pulled out, punching the throttle to catch up.

  We drove south on Route 1, through Northport and Lincolnville, into the shadow of the mountains north of Camden. On the edge of town, we took a left, and Roxanne and the cop drove down to the end, by the water, and pulled into a driveway.

  Another house, this one pretty grand: a big split-level overlooking the bay. I saw the kids staring up as they walked to the door, like it was the castle at Disneyland. They wouldn’t go hungry here.

  I was just down the street, pulled over to the side of the road. Roxanne and the detective followed the kids inside. There was a BMW in the driveway, parked alongside a new Suburban. People with money who had decided to give back.

  Sitting there in the truck, I was thinking that this was the silver lining in this sad story. I made a mental note to look into it. Were they retired, looking for something more meaningful than golf and a sailboat? A lead emerged: John and Jane Smith worked hard to be able to retire to Maine, in a big house overlooking Penobscot Bay—with lots of room for the foster kids they take in.

  Maybe it was a trend. I could find a few examples, pitch it to the Times. My pledge to make more money to give Roxanne a break had been interrupted by Mandi, and no story had come of that, either. Maybe I could find a few new companion ads, see if I could do the same story without her. Or maybe use a very real pseudonym—Mandi, not her real name.

  And then there was that park in Galway. Maybe a story on how few places there were for the public to have access to the ocean, how the Maine coast was becoming more and more the property of the prosperous. I smiled at the alliteration, reached for a notebook to write that phrase—

  My cell phone rang. I picked it up, answered. “Jack,” Clair said. “Everything’s okay but you’d better get back here, pronto.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Mary answered. A woman was there, in her thirties, poor looking. Sunglasses and odd hair that looked like a wig. Just down the road was a beat-up white van, its hood up.

  The woman asked to use the phone, said her cell phone didn’t get reception there. They needed a wrecker. The van had broken down, overheated. Her husband thought it was the water pump.

  Mary turned to get the phone and the woman waited at the door. When Mary came back, the woman said it was a nice house. Mary said she didn’t live there, she was babysitting. The woman said they’d been visiting her sister on the Horseback Road, decided to take a shortcut, head back to Albion. And here they were.

  Mandi was in the kitchen, immersed in Newsweek. Clair was reading to Sophie upstairs. He heard the voices, told Sophie to finish the story, about a family of squirrels, one who is afraid of heights. Sophie said she would read it to her animals.

  Clair eased down the stairs. He heard the woman in the hallway by the side door, talking about the water pump. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward the kitchen, went out the back through the sliding door. He circled the house, moved along the edge of the woods to the road. The van was pulled over on the far side of the house; the front doors were open.

  Clair crossed to the far side of the road, walked slowly in the shadow of the trees. Approaching the truck, he noticed there was no rear license plate. The hood was up. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. The van was an old Econoline, the motor covered by a canopy between the front seats. The water pump was under there, but the canopy still was in place.

  Clair moved up on the driver’s side. “Hey,” he said.

  The guy turned. “Hey.”

  He was tall, thin, almost gaunt, a stretched-leather face out of the Depression. Clair looked inside, saw the engine cover in place, three coffee cups on top of it. A can of Skoal, an empty Pepsi bottle for the spit.

  “Water pump?” Clair said.

  “Yeah,” the man said, turning and facing front. “Shit the bed.”

  “Overheated?”

  “Needle went right off the chart.”

  Clair sniffed silently. There was no smell of coolant. He took a step back and looked at the ground under the truck. There was no puddle of anti-freeze.

  “Yeah, old lady went into that house there, use the phone,” the man said. “Figure it’s better to have it hauled than have the motor seize up. She’s been pretty reliable, too.”

  He patted the steering wheel. On the top of his left wrist was a tattoo. A snake. Clair looked at it. The three cups. He turned and ran.

  He was too late.

  A second guy, wearing a red ski mask, had approached the house from the back, come up onto the deck. The sliding glass door was locked but he slipped a screwdriver into the crack and, after a minute, popped the lock.

  He eased the door open. Stepped inside, the screwdriver held low against his leg.

  And Mandi, pressed against the wall, pivoted on her good foot and stabbed him with a paring knife.

  Clair heard the scream as he ran from the truck. He dashed across the lawn, past the woman peering into the open door.

  “What’s the matter?” she said, as he pushed her aside.

  The man had run back out the door, Mandi said. Clair followed, running toward the woods. And then he heard the van start, a scrabble of tires clawing at the gravel. By the time he got back out front, the van and the woman were gone.

  He ran back to the house, where Mary had called 911. Mandi said the guy had fled with the knife still stuck up to the wooden handle in his right upper arm. Sophie had come down the stairs with her bear in her arms.

  “I want Mommy and Daddy,” she said.

  Chapter 21

  That was the story, told to me as I sat at the kitchen table, Sophie on my lap, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. I got up and eased her off of me, made a plate of crackers and cheese and fruit, set her up in the den with The Jungle Book on television. And then, with Mowgli and Ballou singing in the background, Roxanne on her way home, they told the story again.

  This time the audience was Trooper Ricci, who arrived and told us a BOLO was out on the Wiltons and the van. I told her to check the gravel pit. She looked at me and said, “Right.” Then Ricci took off her trooper hat and put it on the table, took out a notebook and a pen.

  Clair leaned against the counter and Mary sat on the arm of the big chair by the woodstove. Mandi was perched in the chair, rocking slowly, arms wrapped around herself protectively. Mary kept patting Mandi’s hand, the right hand, the one that had plunged the knife in.

  “So he gained entry by breaking the lock on the sliding door?”

  We all waited. Mandi didn’t seem to have heard the question, but then she said, in an exhausted voice, “Yes.” She nodded, eyes half closed.

  “And then what happened?”

  Another long pause. “He had a screwdriver,” Mandi said. “It was long and it had a yellow and black handle. Stripe
s.”

  “How was he holding it?” Ricci said, looking up from her pad.

  “Low but sticking out, like it was a knife.”

  “And you—”

  “When I heard the glass door rattle I got over to the counter and there was a knife. It was just there.”

  This time Ricci just waited.

  “So I kinda leaned against the wall right there, next to the bird picture.”

  She looked to the wall in front of her, the Audubon print of a great blue heron hanging there.

  “And then what?” Ricci said.

  “I couldn’t let him hurt Sophie. I couldn’t let him touch her.”

  “So you—”

  “I just—” Her voice trailed off and her eyes were focused on something inside her.

  “I stabbed him,” she whispered. And she started to cry, the tears welling, then spilling over and running down her cheeks. Mary handed her a tissue, but Mandi just held it and rocked and didn’t wipe her face. A tear crossed the bruise on her chin and dripped onto her leg.

  “It’s okay,” Mary said.

  “But just once,” Mandi said. “It was only once.” She said it defensively, like she had done something wrong.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You did the right thing.”

  “Did he attack you or attempt to defend himself?” Ricci said.

  “No. He just yelled. When you see it, when you see the knife go in you, it’s more like shock than real pain. It’s just—” She paused. “—the way it works.”

  Mandi suddenly wiped her eyes, like she’d looked down and realized she was holding the tissue. Clair was studying her, Mary watching her closely as she patted Mandi’s hand.

  “And he just left?”

  “I let—” Mandi paused and swallowed. She ran her hands up and down her thigh. “I let go. And I tried to back up and he just stood there, looking at it.”

  “At what?” Ricci said.

  “At the knife sticking out,” Mandi said. “And then it started to bleed, running down his arm and . . . and dripping.”

  We looked to the blood spots on the pine floor. “And he just turned and ran,” Mandi said.