Mariah Stewart - Acts of Mercy

“How dependable are your informants?”

“About as dependable as everyone else’s,” admitted the detective. “But it’s unusual for no one to have heard anything. You can usually count on someone hearing at least one rumor, even if it doesn’t pan out. This time, nothing, which tells me that the killer wasn’t one of the usual suspects.”

“Have you seen anything like this MO before?”

Coutinho shook his head. “Never.”

“Did a report go in to VICAP?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, but it got in a little late.”

“How come?”

“Someone thought someone else was entering the data, while someone else thought the other guy had done it.” Coutinho shrugged. “It happens.”

“I’d be real surprised if this guy hasn’t killed before,” Sam said, almost as if thinking aloud. “He was really organized, really sure of himself. First-timers are usually nervous, they screw up somewhere. I don’t see any screwups here. I see someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do, and did it without leaving anything behind that would lead you to him. I think the burger in the mouth is important. It’s something he didn’t need to do in order to commit the crime. I think he’s done this at least a time or two before.”

“So you’re saying this was the work of a serial killer?” Coutinho frowned.

“Not in the classic sense.” Sam explained, “Very often serial murders have a sexual undertone. I don’t see that here. There was no assault, and no evidence of any sexual activity on or near the body, right? No semen found?”

“Right. Nothing like that.”

“So you don’t have that motivation, you don’t have that element of fantasy you so often see in serial crimes. But you do have other elements-again, the hamburger, for example-that makes you think there’s something more here than a simple murder.” Sam reflected on his words for a moment. “Not that murder is ever simple.”

“So you think there are other victims somewhere with hamburgers shoved in their mouths?”

“Maybe. But I guess if there were similar cases in the system, you’d have heard from the FBI by now.”

“Oh. We did.”

“You did?” Sam’s eyebrows rose. “When? Who called?”

“About a month ago, I guess. I don’t know the name of the agent. Wanted to look over the file.”

“You have the agent’s card?”

“No. I wasn’t here to take the call. My dad died and I was in St. Louis for about a week, helping my mom tie up some loose ends.”

“I’m sorry about your father.” Sam waited what he considered a respectful amount of time before asking, “Who did the agent talk to, do you know?”

“One of the other detectives. Reid, I think.”

“Is he in?”

“Not till tonight.”

“Would you ask him to call me with the name of the agent?” Sam was curious. Sooner or later, he’d have to deal with whoever the agent was. He hoped it was someone he knew well and trusted.

“Sure. If you’re ready, let’s take that ride.”

The ride through Lincoln was a step back in time for Sam, who figured out he’d attended two reunions, both of them within the first ten years of graduating. After a while, it just hadn’t seemed so important, when there was so much going on in his life. Starting his career, meeting and falling in love with Carly. Marrying her. Losing her…

“How ’bout we stop by Pilgrim’s Place first?” Coutinho asked. “It’s not far from here. Couple blocks down.”

“Sure.”

Three minutes later, Coutinho pulled his unmarked car up in front of the building from which several hundred hungry people were fed every week. Pilgrim’s Place sat in the middle of a row of two-story wooden storefronts, its name painted in red on the glass windows with plain white drapes hanging behind them. The store to the left was unoccupied, and the one to the right had a sign that read SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED.

“The alley runs behind all the buildings?” Sam got out of the car and looked around.

“Yes. But we weren’t able to find anyone who was in the alley that night. There’s not a whole lot going on down here at night, and by the time Mrs. Walker realized her husband was missing, any place that had been open had already closed up.”

Sam followed the detective through the front door. Inside, long tables covered with sheets of white paper lined the room. A man in late middle age came out of the kitchen. He was tall and thin with sparse white hair atop a broad forehead and a bland round face.

He stopped halfway across the room, a smile spreading slowly. “Hey, Detective Coutinho. How are you?”

“Good, good, Bob. How’s everything?”

“We’re okay.” The man’s face clouded. “You here to give us some news about Ross?”

Coutinho shook his head. “Sorry. There’s been nothing new.” He gestured in Sam’s direction and said, “Bob, this is Sam. He’s a private detective who’s working for Mrs. Walker. Sam, this is Bob Taylor. He runs Pilgrim’s Place.”

“You think you can find the guy who did Ross when the police couldn’t?” Bob asked somewhat skeptically.

“I’m only going to be working on this one case,” Sam explained. “Detective Coutinho doesn’t have that luxury. So no promises, but I’m going to give it a go.”

“Anything we can do to help. Ross was a good man.” Bob’s head nodded up and down. “A damned good man. Didn’t miss a Tuesday night in over three years.”

“Ross volunteered here for the past three years?” Sam tried for a conversational tone.

“He was one of the first to sign up. Wondered why a guy like him-good family, lived in one of those nice areas outside of town, had a real good job-why he would leave that nice house and that pretty family to drive down here.”

“You ever ask him?”

“Said he’d been really lucky in his life, that any one of these guys, that could be him. Never wanted to take his good fortune for granted.” Bob nodded again. “Like I said, he was a good man.”

Sam glanced around the room. “This is where you feed everyone?”

“Yeah. Anyone who comes in, we’ll feed. No one is ever turned away from Pilgrim’s Place.”

“You have a pretty regular crowd?”

“Oh, yeah. Times have been tough here for the past few years for some folks. We do have some who have been coming steadily, practically since we opened. Others have been able to move on.”

“So you know most of the people who come in?” Sam asked.

“Most of them, sure. Sometimes we get someone who’s just passing through, but for the most part, we recognize or know the names of just about everyone who shows up.”

“How many each day?”

“Maybe forty for breakfast-we got families bringing their kids in every morning-then about the same for lunch. The older kids are in school but the adults who show up for lunch often aren’t here earlier in the morning. Dinner time, we can feed sixty to eighty on any given night. Sometimes last winter, we’d run close to one hundred on the weekends.”

“Do you have anyone on the door, checking IDs, for example?”

“We do have someone at the door, but no one checks IDs. What would be the point in that?” Bob frowned, the idea clearly foreign to him.

Sam didn’t bother to explain. “What does the person on the door do?”

“Just makes sure there’s seating for everyone. If we’re filled, he’ll chat up the next person in line for a while until there’s an opening. We don’t turn anyone away, Sam.”

“So your doorman would know if someone had come in the night Ross Walker was killed who hadn’t been there before? Anyone who stood out, maybe a stranger?”

“We already talked about that, me and Arnie. He works the door. He said there wasn’t nobody he didn’t recognize. As a matter of fact, we were down in numbers that night. Anyone odd would have stood out.” Bob turned to Coutinho, who stood by quietly. “You talked to Arnie yourself. He tell you anything different?”