Acts of Mercy

SIXTEEN

The flight to Nebraska was a tense one, with Sam on the edge of his seat, unable to get through to his brother, and not wanting to explain to his sister-in-law, Kitty, that there was a chance-at least in Sam’s mind-that Tom might be in danger. What if he was wrong? That Tom had been gone for several hours in itself was no cause for concern. Tom was notorious for being chatty. A stop at the gas station to fill up his pickup could last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, depending on who he ran into. On the way to the airport, Sam had tried Tom’s cell phone several times, and had even tried calling their cousin, Greg, to see if he’d talked to Tom at some point this afternoon. Sam had not managed to get through to anyone, and he was becoming more frustrated by the hour.

Sam glanced across the narrow aisle of the small plane to the seat next to him where Fiona slept. He wanted to wake her, wanted to hear her cool reasoning on why he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. One thing he really liked about her was her ability to reason and to think things out logically. He’d spent years with a woman who seemed to be lacking the common-sense gene and whose nature suffered from an overabundance of the impractical. Carly held the world of whimsy by the tail most of the time, and at first, that had been part of her charm. She was so totally unlike anyone Sam had ever met. She was light to his darkness, fun and games to his studious, solemn nature. He’d been told all his life that he was entirely too serious. When he met Carly, he believed that a woman like her would help him to lighten up, and isn’t that what everyone always insisted he do?

Marriage to Carly had sometimes seemed like a too-long day at the fair, a day filled with too many sweet sodas and too much cotton candy. There’d been many wonderful moments, many good memories, and Sam would never deny that they’d loved each other, but for the last eighteen months before she died, he’d been wondering if the lightness of her being wasn’t perhaps a heavier burden than he’d ever imagined. It had become very difficult, after days of tracking a killer who left mangled children in his wake, to come home to reruns of The Simpsons and entertaining her friends over the elaborate dinners she was fond of preparing. There had been times when he wished only to get into the shower and stay there until he could wash the stain away from his soul, but there would be dinner for eight that night.

He’d tried to explain to her how hard it was for him to switch from one mode to the other, but she insisted that it was better for him to socialize with fun people than to retreat to his study where he’d brood and dwell on whatever case he was handling, that all he really needed was some good times with friends to forget about the nastiness of his job. For Sam, those good times hadn’t been so good, and the friends were mostly hers. He’d never once ended one of those nights without a massive headache. He’d never really fit in with her circle of friends, most of whom lived in the same carefree, fun-filled world wherein Carly dwelled. Sam knew better.

Fiona stirred in her sleep, bringing him back to the present. The cabin had grown cool during the flight and she’d wrapped her arms around her midsection as if chilled. Sam found a blanket in one of the overhead compartments, and tucked it around her lightly. She smiled in her sleep, and that alone had made him smile. Her dark hair spilled over her face, and he was tempted to push it back behind her ear. After a moment, he did just that, lifting the heavy silken strands with his fingers and draping it carefully over her shoulder. He leaned back in his own seat and closed his eyes, trying without success to relax.

The first thing Sam did once he climbed down from the plane was to try Tom’s numbers again. It was now two thirty in the morning, and there was still no answer and there’d been no return call.

“They have kids in school,” Sam told Fiona. “You’d think someone would be there to pick up the phone.”

“There could be any number of reasons why no one’s answering, Sam,” she replied calmly. “Some people turn off their ringers at night. If the kids fall asleep with their iPods on, they won’t hear the phone.” She paused. “Does the house have central air?”

“Central air?” He frowned. “The farmhouse is almost a hundred and fifty years old. No, there’s no central air.”

“Then they probably have those window units, right?” When he didn’t respond, she repeated, “Right?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“The newer ones are pretty quiet, but the older ones… those suckers are loud. And if they have them, you know they’re running tonight. It’s pretty damned hot. So chances are they’re not hearing the phone.”

“I’d like to think Tom would have called back if he heard my message.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, all right? First, we need to get out of here.”

“We need a car.” Sam gazed around the private airstrip. “How can we get a car at two AM out in the middle of nowhere?” He frowned. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“Someplace called Afton’s Fork.” She walked around the building that served as a hangar. “As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, the airstrip is private. It’s owned by a friend of John’s who lets him use it when he needs to. Which, from what I understand, is practically never.”

She continued to walk and he continued to follow. In front of the building a dark SUV was parked. Fiona opened the driver’s door and reached under the seat.

“Sam, heads up.” She called and tossed a set of keys in his direction. He caught them in one hand.

“You drive,” she said as she walked around to the passenger side. “You’re more likely to find the way out of here than I am.”

“Well, that remains to be seen,” he told her as he started the engine. “I’ll bet it’s been twenty years since I was in Afton’s Fork.”

“And the last time I was here would have been… let me think.” She fastened her seat belt. “That would have been never. You drive.”

The paved road wound through endless fields. Sam drove slowly, the headlights the only illumination. They passed a large house, darkened in the dead of night, and it was then that Sam realized that this was actually someone’s home. He tried to think if he’d ever known anyone in the area who had the kind of money that would enable one to have a private airstrip and a home like the one he’d just passed. He was pretty sure he never had.

He gave up and asked Fiona, “Whose place is this, do you know?”

“I have no idea. Someone John knows, that’s all I was told.”

He drove past several barns that looked new, past fenced-in pastures, and finally arrived at the main road.

“Which way is Blackstone?” she asked.

He thought for a moment. “East, I think. If I recall correctly, Afton’s Fork is farther to the west by maybe forty miles or so.” He glanced at the compass above the rearview mirror. “So that means a right turn here. We’ll see where that leads us.”

“At some point there should be a sign to identify the road we’re on. It would help if you knew the name of the road.”

“Big time.” He pointed to the dash. “It looks like we have GPS, but I don’t recognize the system. Would you look in the glove compartment and see if there’s a manual?”

“Yes, it’s here. Give me a moment.” Fiona turned on the interior light and skimmed several pages before activating the system. “Where do we want to go?”

“We’ll go straight to the farm. It’s 731 Old Yellow Creek Road.”

She entered the information.

“Well, it looks as if we’re headed in the right direction, anyway.” She leaned closer to the screen. “You were close. It’s about fifty miles east.” She pointed to the map that had appeared. “We are here.”

He eased off the accelerator slightly and scanned the screen. “I know where we are. We can make it there in less than an hour.”

Fiona settled back and said, “I suppose you don’t need the voice activated directions.”

He smiled. “I don’t need the GPS now at all, thanks. You can turn it off. Unless it amuses you to watch us eat up the miles.”

“I admit there are times when I am amused by my GPS.” She looked over at him. “It isn’t always as accurate as I’d like it to be.”

“Name one other thing that amuses you,” he surprised himself by asking.

“I Love Lucy reruns,” she answered without hesitation. “I have all of the ‘Best of collections on DVD. For me, there’s never been anyone with better timing or who better knew how to use her own natural gifts. How ’bout you? What makes you laugh?”

“Actually, I prefer the more sophisticated humor of the Three Stooges,” he deadpanned.

“Steve Martin as King Tut,” she countered.

“Soupy Sales with a pie in his face.”

“Nothing like those classic comics when you need a good laugh,” she agreed.

“Is Steve Martin old enough to be considered classic?”

“I’m not sure age is the determining factor.”

The road was a straight line ahead of them for as far as they could see, and Fiona commented on it.

“Roads are going to bend when there’s something to go around,” he told her. “There’s nothing out here to go around. Therefore, straight roads.”

A few minutes later, Fiona asked, “So, the plan is to go right to your brother’s and check up on him, then go to Henderson Falls?”

“Assuming my brother is there, and everything’s okay, we’ll bunk there for the rest of the night, then yes, go into Henderson in the morning.”

“It’s almost morning now,” she reminded him. “It’s going on four, and if we don’t get to Blackstone until five, there won’t be any ‘rest of the night.’”

“I need to go there before we do anything else.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we not go. I was just pointing out that-”

The car swerved suddenly to avoid hitting a small herd of deer that fled across the road and vanished like ghosts. Sam hit the brakes so as to not crash into the last in line.

When the animals disappeared into the black night and he resumed driving, he told Fiona what he’d been trying not to think about.

“There’s no better way to get my attention than to target Tom.”

“You think that’s what’s happened? That the killer has your brother?”

“I’m starting to think it might be.”

Fiona took her phone from her bag and dialed the number she’d been given for the Henderson Falls PD.

“This is Special Agent Fiona Summers with the FBI. I’d like to know if there’s been an ID on the victim that was… Yes, I’ll hold…”

She turned her body to face Sam more directly and said, “It should be a capital offense for any governmental entity to play Muzak when they put a call on hold.

“Yes, thank you…” Fiona explained who she was and why she was calling. She took a small pad of paper and a pen from her bag and made some notes. “How do you spell that?”

She scribbled quickly. “What else can you tell me?”

A few more notes, and she said, “Thank you. Please leave a message for your chief that I and a colleague will be there in the morning and we’d like to meet with him. Thanks again.

“The victim’s been identified as Jerry Perillo, age forty-two.”

Sam was embarrassed by the flood of relief he felt when he realized that his brother had not been the victim. For someone else’s family, the news would be heartbreaking.

“Where was the body found?”

“This is a really sick one.” She tucked her notes into her bag. “Perillo was a cancer patient. He was found inside the parking garage at County Memorial Hospital. He’d just come from his chemo appointment.”

Sam pulled to the side of the road. “County Memorial Hospital,” he repeated flatly.

“That’s what he told me, yes,” she replied.

“My sister died in that hospital.”

“I’m confused. I thought you said your sister was married and lived in Blackstone.”

“That’s Andrea. My younger sister, Eileen, died when she was eighteen. Right after she graduated from high school. She had a summer job in Dutton at an ice cream shop. She thought that was so cool.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was on her way home from work one night and one of her tires went flat. Eileen was not the type of girl who wanted to be bothered learning how to change her own flat. She was sure that she’d always find someone else to change it for her, that someone would come along to help her. And for most of her life, that held true. She was the kind of girl the guys fell over themselves just to talk to.” He smiled sadly. “But that night, no one came along, so she started walking. She was only about a hundred feet from her car when she was struck from behind. Hit and run. The vehicle that hit her never stopped. Just left her there to die in the road.” Sam shook his head. “How do you do that to a kid? How do you leave someone lying in the road to die all alone?”

“Sam, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, someone eventually did come along, and they called for help, but it was too late. She was taken back to County Memorial but they couldn’t bring her back around.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Fifteen years ago.”

Sam never thought back on that night without his throat tightening. “She was a really good kid. And the thing is, she always thought she was invincible. She always said she’d cheated death once so she was good until she reached her old age.”

“What did she mean by that?”

“When she was, oh, eight or nine, I guess, a bunch of us went ice skating on one of the lakes outside of town. Me, Eileen, a couple of my buddies, and their little sisters. The big brothers-we were all about five years older than the girls-were supposed to be keeping an eye on the girls. Our parents all thought we’d be responsible enough to look out for them. Well, you know how that goes. Some other guys came along and we started playing hockey, and the game got pretty intense and we… well, we…” Even now, all these years later, the words were hard to get out.

“You forgot about your sister and she got hurt?”

“It was so much worse than that. We were really involved in the game, like I said, so when the kids started screaming, we barely even heard it. Then someone grabbed me from behind and swung me around and was yelling in my face that the girls had fallen through the ice. They’d skated onto a section where a stream feeds in, the ice was thinner there. Anyway, three of them went under the ice. We all panicked.

“The ice was too thin to hold us, so we made a chain, you know, the kind where you lay down and hold on to the legs of the person in front of you. I was first in the chain. I got to the hole in the ice and I could see them down there, all of them thrashing around. You couldn’t tell who was who. I just reached in and grabbed the hair of the girl who was closest and pulled her out. It just happened to be Eileen. The guy behind me took her to the ambulance that someone had called and I reached in and grabbed the next girl. But the third girl panicked and got stuck under the ice. I went into the water but I couldn’t get to her in time. I couldn’t save her.”

Fiona reached across the console for his hand.

“Anyway, after that, Eileen thought she was immortal.” He turned to Fiona. “Can you imagine surviving something like that only to be run down ten years later by some cowardly asshole who couldn’t even be bothered to call an ambulance?”

He jammed the car into gear and pulled back onto the roadway a bit faster than he should have. The tires spun and the back of the car fishtailed.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He eased up a little on the accelerator, and tried to will away the image of the churning water, the colors of the girls’ woolen hats just under the icy surface, the arms and legs thrashing, the frenzied gasping for air. His own desperate attempts to save that last girl. He’d discussed the incident once with Annie McCall, and she’d given him the only advice that had stayed with him over the years.

“Maybe there are some things we’re not supposed to forget,” Annie had told him. “Not to assure that we carry the guilt with us forever, but so that we remember that sometimes our very best effort isn’t going to be good enough. It’s a hard lesson but an important one, one we all have to learn. We’re not always going to win. We won’t always save the day. There are some things that are simply out of our hands. All we can do is to try with everything we have to make things turn out right. But if we succeed even half of the time, we should consider ourselves very fortunate.”

The words hadn’t eased his guilt or soothed his conscience over the child who had died, but it had made sense to him and had turned out to be true. He hadn’t always been able to save the day, but he never stopped trying.

“Heal the sick,” Fiona said after they’d driven a few miles, shaking him from his reverie.

“What?”

“Heal the sick,” she repeated. “It’s one of the remaining acts of mercy. Perillo was sick, he was at the hospital for treatment. But he’s broken his pattern. It’s a long way until February.”

“The whole thing with the dates was to get me to make the connection. He probably knows I’ve noticed. He doesn’t have to bother with the details anymore.”

“He’s really escalating.”

“Well, why wait when you don’t have to?” Sam turned to her. “Besides, I don’t think he can. I think he’s reaching that point where he can’t wait to kill again.”

“Only two more acts, Sam,” she reminded him. “Two more victims. Then what?”

“Then it will be over, one way or another.” Sam stared straight ahead at the dark stretch of road that led him home. He knew who the last victim was supposed to be, and he’d deal with it when it came to that. He wasn’t afraid of facing the killer. But he was afraid of who the next victim might be.

He pressed down on the gas and prayed that he’d get to his family in time.