“¿Mercedes está aquí?” whit asked.
The woman shook her head.
Whit launched into Spanish, and they had a short conversation. His command of the language was much better than mine, and he spoke so quickly that I could understand only enough to know that he was pressing her and she was resisting. Finally, she said something about getting her son and backed away, leaving the door slightly open.
A minute passed. A couple of children came to the door and stared at us with big eyes. Then a deep voice from inside growled something, and the kids scattered. A bare-chested, heavily tattooed man appeared. His eyes were puffy from sleep, and his dark hair fell in thick strands into his eyes. He scratched himself and grumbled something in Spanish that sounded like slang. Once again Whit pressed. This time the conversation was even harder to follow. Both of them mentioned Mercedes’s name several times. The man kept shaking his head and saying that he didn’t know where Mercedes was.
It was obvious Whit didn’t believe him. As the tone of the conversation grew tenser, I began to feel scared and was tempted to tug on his sleeve and suggest we leave. But Whit stood his ground. It sounded like he was saying that he was a reporter and was about to run a story about how Mercedes was hiding somewhere here in town and how the police would be very interested in knowing that. And that the only way he wouldn’t run the story was if he could speak to her in person.
Finally, the man said that he had to consult someone and closed the door.
“Who’s he going to talk to?” I whispered.
“No idea.”
The man reappeared with a folded piece of paper and grumbled something threatening about how Whit would be sorry if he didn’t keep his word.
The address was a few blocks away, and when we got there, another heavily tattooed man was sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette. I had a feeling he was waiting for us.
“You from the newspaper?” the man said.
“Yes.”
The man glanced at me, then back at Whit. “And her?”
“I’m Mercedes’s friend. Su amiga,” I said.
The man frowned skeptically.
“She works for my father…trabaja para mi padre…comprende?” I explained.
The man nodded, then turned and called loudly inside.
The door was opened by a heavy young woman with long black hair who led us inside to a small den where Pedro was sitting on the floor, playing with blocks. Mercedes was sitting on a couch next to an old woman with white hair. When she saw me, her eyes widened with surprise.
“Es tu amiga?” the heavy woman asked.6
Mercedes nodded.
“We need to talk with you, Mercedes,” I said, and put my hand on Whit’s arm. “This is my friend. He’s a reporter, and he’s trying to figure out who killed those girls. I trust him. I promise he won’t tell anyone we saw you. We really need your help. We’re not sure Janet is the real killer.”
Mercedes stared at her son and didn’t reply.
“Janet could go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit,” Whit said. “That would be a terrible thing. Not just for Janet, but for those of us who believe she’s innocent.”
Mercedes’s eyes were locked on Pedro. He was wearing a blue sweater my mom had knitted for him the winter before.
“Mercedes, we believe you pretended to disappear because you’re afraid for yourself and Pedro,” I said. “Something is scaring you. If Janet really were the killer, you’d have no reason to hide.”
Mercedes blinked. Was she fighting back tears?
“You heard about Gabriel?” Whit asked.
She nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“So you have good reason to be frightened,” Whit said.
Except for the sounds of Pedro’s blocks knocking against one another, the room went quiet. Even Pedro looked up curiously, as if wondering why the talking had stopped.
Then I thought of something. “Mercedes, there’s one other thing I hope you can tell me. It’s something I really need to know, because I won’t be able to sleep tonight if you don’t.”
She visibly stiffened, then bent down and gathered Pedro in her arms.
“It wasn’t my dad, was it?” I asked. “I mean, I know he did bad things, but please tell me he didn’t kill those girls.”
Stroking Pedro’s head, Mercedes looked up at me with watery eyes. She shook her head and blinked. Tears ran down both of her cheeks. “No, not your father.”
I almost missed it. I was so eager to know that he was innocent that I almost didn’t get what she was saying. Feeling my jaw muscles tighten, I locked eyes with her and said, “Not…mi padre …”
Mercedes covered her eyes with her hand and turned away. My heart began to thud in my chest, and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. The sides of my head felt like they were in a vice. I looked at my watch. It was a little after one thirty p.m. “We have to go,” I said to Whit. “Right now!”
Chapter 41
“YOU KNOW HOW to get to Playland?” I asked in the car.
“I think so, why?”
“Just go, as fast as you can.”
“Why?”
I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t say it out loud. It was only a hunch…maybe a strong hunch, but still not the kind of thing I could share with anyone else. I could have been wrong. I hoped I was wrong. But there was only one way to know. “Please,” I begged. “Just go. Just get us there.”
It probably took less than fifteen minutes to get there, but it felt like forever. Playland is an old amusement park with a small Ferris wheel, a wooden roller coaster, and carnival booths where you can try to win a big stuffed animal. On that cool, late October afternoon, the parking lot was nearly empty. We dashed toward the entrance. Of course, like everyone else, we had to pay. Inside the gates, I ran to a target shooting booth where a guy wearing a gray hoodie sat reading a car magazine.
“Do you know where a girl named Ashley Walsh works?” I asked.
He scrunched up his face as if trying to place the name.
“She’s tall and thin with dark hair and a red streak,” I said urgently.
“Oh yeah.” The guy pointed down a row of booths. “She works the octopus.”
I sprinted to the octopus, where a short, stocky girl with blonde hair and a stud in her nose was sitting on the fence, looking bored. She glanced up curiously as I rushed toward her with Whit lumbering behind.
“Does Ashley Walsh work here?” I asked, breathing hard.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Where is she?”
“Why do you want to know?” the girl asked suspiciously.
The answer burst out of me. “For God’s sake, her life’s in danger! Where is she?”
“Are you—”
“I’m serious!” I yelled.
I’m not sure which of us was more surprised by my outburst, but the girl straightened up. “She said she was going to go meet someone. She took a break.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe ten minutes?”
“Where did she go?” I asked.
The girl pointed at a fence separating the amusement park from some woods. “There’s a hole,” she said, “where people go to smoke.”
I ran toward the fence and found the gap in the chain link. On the other side were woods and a lake. I squeezed through and turned to watch Whit crouch down and try to follow.
“Come on!” I urged.
“I’m trying,” he said. “Whoever made this hole wasn’t thinking of people my size.…Darn it!”
The back of his shirt was caught, and he couldn’t reach behind to free himself. I had to go back and press against him, reaching around to free the material.
I could feel him breathing hard from running. For a moment our eyes met. Then I unhooked the shirt and turned quickly into the woods. The ground under the trees was thick with brush and thorny brambles, but we came to a trail that circl
ed the lake.
“Where are we going?” Whit panted.
“Look for a cave or an opening in the rocks,” I said. “Anyplace where someone could hide a body.”
“You think the killer’s got Ashley?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t we call for help?”
“There isn’t time….”
“We’re talking about a killer, Shel—”
I heard a sickening crack and turned just in time to see Whit collapse to the ground in a heap.
Chapter 42
BEHIND HIM STOD my mother clutching a long black metal flashlight. She was facing me, looking right at me, but her eyes had that strange blankness I sometimes saw at home, completely devoid of recognition.
“Mom,” I said, my heart racing so fast I felt light-headed.
No reaction. I couldn’t tell if she’d even heard me. Whit lay still on the ground between us.
“Mom, where’s Ashley?”
Still no response.
“Is she alive, Mom? Tell me you didn’t kill her.”
Still clutching the flashlight, she stepped over Whit’s body toward me, her eyes as empty as a dead fish’s.
“Mom? Mom, it’s me.” I couldn’t help thinking how weird it was to hear myself say that. It was stupid. She had to know it was me. The day before, we’d laughed and washed the car and cooked together. “I know why you killed those girls. They were the ones Dad fooled around with, and you felt like they’d ruined everything. You just wanted everything to be nice and perfect for us.”
Mom took another step. I didn’t know where she was in her mind, but I hoped I could bring her back if I kept talking. “Somehow, you figured out which girls Dad was fooling around with. My guess is you got hold of his password and read his e-mails, right? Part of the information every girl gave in her file was her e-mail and—”
“If it hadn’t been for them …” Mom said in a flat voice.
She’d heard me. I was starting to get through. “But it wasn’t them, it was Dad,” I said.
“He couldn’t help himself.” Her eyes were still dull and her steps almost zombielike.
“You can’t really believe that,” I said.
She was close now. Her eyes as opaque as marbles. She raised the flashlight. My heart was drumming. “What are you going to do? Kill me, too?”
She didn’t answer, just took another step closer.
I was trembling, but I couldn’t run away. This had to stop.
Now.
“Mom!” I shouted as loud as I could.
She raised the flashlight like a club.
Smack! I slapped her in the face as hard as I could.
She stopped.
And blinked.
The right side of her face turned pink where I’d hit her.
She lowered the flashlight and looked around for a moment as if she wasn’t sure where she was.
Then her eyes came back to me, and I saw recognition.
Chapter 43
A BREZE BLEW through the trees, rattling the leaves. Mom and I faced each other. She frowned down at the flashlight in her hand as if she didn’t know why it was there, then looked around with a perplexed expression on her face.
“Where’s Ashley?” I asked.
She pointed at a gap between some big gray boulders. The opening was just large enough for a person to squeeze through. I hurried to it and called into the dark. “Ashley?”
A desperate muffled sound came out of the inky stillness.
Thank God she was alive!
“It’s Shelby. It’s okay.”
I took the flashlight from Mom and crawled into the gap between the big rocks. Ashley lay in the shadows, gagged, her hands and feet tied. When she saw me, her eyes widened in terror, as if for a moment she didn’t know whose side I was on.
“Please,” she begged when I undid the gag.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Nothing bad’s going to happen.”
Even then she gave me a look like she wasn’t sure. As soon as I undid the rope around her hands and feet, she scrambled away through the opening like a terrified animal and then ran. By the time I crawled out, she was fleeing as fast as she could through the woods, back to the fence and Playland on the other side. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to stick around.
Whit was sitting on the trail with his hands on his head. This time, there was blood. Mom stood beside a rock and stared at the water. The whole scene felt surreal. I don’t know how I managed to keep it together enough to call the police. Mostly, I think, by trying to make sure Whit was okay. Unlike the last time he got hit, he didn’t have much to say. He just sat holding his head and grimacing in pain.
When the police arrived, I told them everything I knew. But when they handcuffed Mom and took her away, I broke down. It was too much. Still, I managed to wait with Whit until the EMS people arrived and put him on a stretcher. The police found Ashley and insisted that she also had to go to the hospital, just to be safe.
They drove me to the police station, where a detective named Payne took my statement. I was numb with disbelief. When we got to the part about Dad and the girls he’d fooled around with, Detective Payne paused and gave me a sympathetic look. “Listen, Shelby, we’ve been working with the police in Trenton, Scranton, and Hartford. And other cities, too. So we know this part of the story and who some of the girls are. You don’t have to go into this if you don’t want to.”
“I know,” I said.
He studied me. “We’re pretty sure at least one of those girls was under seventeen. If you’re going to tell me what I think you are, I want to warn you that, when a girl is underage, it’s considered statutory rape. That’s a felony, and in some cases, punishable by time in prison. I just want to make sure that you understand what you’re doing by giving this statement.”
I understood that Dad would get into serious trouble. He might even go to jail. Even if he didn’t, his career as a photographer was probably over.
But then I thought of those girls, and of Ashley, and how he took advantage of them.
I gave the statement.
Chapter 44
ON A GRAY morning in November, Roman drove me out to the airport to meet Mom’s sister, Beth, who was flying in from China. I was now living with Roman’s family and no longer had my Jeep. It had been sold to help pay for Mom’s lawyer.
“Thanks for doing this,” I said.
“No prob,” Roman said. “It’s too bad Beth has that flight to Boston in a few hours. We’d be happy to have her come to our house.”
Not only had Roman’s parents been fantastic about taking me in, but Roman herself had been incredibly supportive about everything. When the story broke and reporters found out that she was my best friend, all sorts of magazines, Web sites, and even TV shows had offered her money to tell what she knew. But she’d refused them all.
At the airport, we waited for Beth to come through security. My temples began to hurt, and I realized I’d been clenching my jaw. I massaged the sides of my head with my fingertips.
“Nervous?” Roman asked.
“You mean, because I’m massaging my head?” I asked.
“You’re also tapping your foot a mile a minute.”
I hadn’t realized I was doing that. “I don’t know. It’s just…so strange. I mean, she’s Mom’s sister. They’ve always been really close.”
“Shels!” a voice called out. Beth came through the crowd, wearing a bright red scarf. I jumped up and we hugged, and I felt tears rush out of my eyes.
“It’s so good to see you,” Beth said, holding me tight.
“You, too.” Relief radiated through me.
Roman came over, and I introduced them. Beth thanked her for being so kind to me and such a good friend.
“She’s worth it,” Roman said, squeezing my arm. “So I’m going to go do some window shopping in these fabulous airport stores. How about I come back in an hour?”
She left, and Beth and I sat down in a St
arbucks and talked about her flight and teaching in Shanghai and my living with Roman’s family and my plans for the future. Beth seemed genuinely glad to see me. Still, it was hard to relax when there was so much we hadn’t talked about.
Finally, the inevitable awkward silence came, and it was time.
“I’m so sorry,” Beth said.
I nodded. I’d heard those words a lot, and there were plenty of moments when I felt sorry for myself. But it didn’t make anything better, and I always tried to get past it.
“There’s something I think I should tell you,” Beth said. “I think it may help you understand your mom….”
I nodded. In her e-mails, Beth had hinted that there were aspects of Mom’s story that I still didn’t know.
“You know that she never really got over your brother’s death,” Beth said. “What you probably don’t know is that she always felt responsible for what happened….”
“But he died of pneumonia….”
“She took him outside. It was winter, and she bundled him up and went on one of her hikes. She used to do that with you, too. Put you on her back and walk in the woods for hours.”
“And…that’s how he got pneumonia?”
“It’s hard to know,” Beth said, “but that’s what your mom and dad thought.”
“So…Mom thought it was her fault?”
Beth nodded. “And so did your dad.”
“He…blamed her?”
“Yes.”
I tried to imagine what that must have been like. Mom blaming herself for the death of her child, and Dad doing nothing to disabuse her of the idea.
“If you want to understand what happened…both to your mom and to your parents’ marriage,” Beth said, “I think that’s where you have to start.”
“That’s why Mom suddenly stopped all the outdoor stuff?” I asked.