Mariah Stewart - Acts of Mercy

“No.” The detective shook his head. “I spoke at length with him about who was here and who came in when, when they left. It’s all in the report, Sam. There’s a copy in the file I gave you.”

“Appreciate it.” Sam turned back to Bob. “Mind if I take a look at the kitchen?”

“Right this way.”

Bob led them through an open doorway into the back room, where two large stainless steel stoves stood side by side. Two refrigerators and one upright freezer took up most of the space on the opposite wall, and down the center of the room was a stainless steel counter. The room was, as Coutinho had told Sam, L-shaped, with oversized double sinks in the short leg of the L .

“What was Walker’s job?” Sam asked.

“Everyone’s job changes from night to night. The volunteers arrive, they look at the menu, see what has to be done, they’ll just start to work. You come in first, you start the thing that takes the longest, see?”

“What did Walker work on that night?”

“He and Lynne were a little late that night, only maybe by ten minutes, but most of the entrée and dessert work had already been taken up by someone else. Ross started on the salad, washed up some veggies. I think we had squash that night. Someone brought in a basket of yellow and green from their garden. In the summer and late fall, we get a lot of donations from private gardens,” Bob explained. “Lynne didn’t cook that night. She served.”

“Anyone working back here with him?”

“No. He worked pretty fast on his own.”

“So no one noticed exactly when he went missing?” Sam continued.

“Everyone was doing their own thing. The best we can figure out, when he finished with the salad prep, he put it out on the counter here for the servers to take, and then he must have taken the bag of scraps out to the Dumpster.”

“He always take out the trash?”

“No,” Bob told Sam. “Everyone cleans up after themselves. If you have scraps or garbage, you take it out yourself. At the end of the night, everyone helps out with the general cleanup.”

“The bag of scraps was found in the Dumpster,” Coutinho added, “so we know he made it that far. We’re thinking the killer was hidden behind it, waiting.”

A flicker of a frown crossed Sam’s face as he gestured to the back door. “I’m assuming this is the way?”

“Yeah. He would have gone out here…” Sam and the detective followed Bob through the door. “There’s the Dumpster out there by the fence.”

“That’s where it was that night?”

“That’s not the same Dumpster, but it’s always in the same place, yeah.”

“And the light there over the back door is the only light there is out here at night?”

“Yeah. It’s only about seventy-five watts, I think.” Bob pointed to the brass socket with the bare bulb.

“And nothing at all back there, by the Dumpster?”

“Nothing. It’s really pretty dark out here at night. I mean, you can see the Dumpster, and make out where to toss stuff, but if someone was back there hiding, you wouldn’t see them.”

A worn dirt path ran through the yard of straggly grass dotted with dandelions and chickweed and led straight to the Dumpster, and Sam followed it. He turned to the detective and said, “Show me where you found Walker.”

Coutinho walked around the back of the Dumpster and pointed to a section of fence. “He was here. Back against the fence, legs straight out in front of him. You saw the photos, so you know how he was posed.”

Sam bit the inside of his cheek and scratched the back of his neck, looked back toward the house, then back at the Dumpster again.

“We might be wrong about something,” he told the detective.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure the killer came here looking for Walker. How could he have known that Walker would be coming out to the Dumpster that night, or that he’d be alone?”

“I thought we agreed that the nature of the attack, the preparedness of the killer, all indicated that this was personal, a revenge killing.”

“Oh, it’s personal,” Sam told him. “Personal to the killer, but not to the victim. We know that he came totally prepared to kill that night, but he wouldn’t have known who would be coming out here. I think what mattered was that he was able to kill that night in the manner he’d prepared for. I don’t believe it mattered to him who his victim was.”

“You think he would have killed whoever came out back?” Bob frowned.

Sam nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“But why? You think this guy has an ax to grind with someone here?” Bob was clearly shaken and confused. “We do good things. We feed hungry people. That’s all we do here. Why would someone want to hurt someone-anyone-here?”

“I can’t answer that yet,” Sam said.

“Yet?” Coutinho raised an eyebrow. “You think you will find the answer?”

“If I look in the right place, chances are I will.”

“You sounded pretty sure of yourself back there,” the detective said after they’d said their good-byes and were back in the car.

“It’s all a matter of interpreting the evidence, of paying attention to what the killer is saying.” Sam rolled down his window and rested his right arm. “And no, right now, I don’t know what he’s saying. Right now, I don’t hear him at all.”

“Well, you be sure to let me know when you do.” Coutinho turned the key in the ignition. “What time is your appointment with Lynne Walker?”

Sam glanced at his watch. “In about ten minutes.”

“You’re going to be a little late.”

They rode in silence for several minutes. Finally, “You have any ideas on why Pilgrim’s Place?”

“No. It could be there’s a connection to the killer. Like maybe he ate there on a regular basis at one time. Maybe someone there pissed him off.” Sam sighed. “Or maybe this guy just got up that morning and said, ‘I think I’ll kill someone today’ and went off looking for a place where he could find a victim.”

Sam caught the sharp glance the detective gave him, so he added, “And no, I’m not being a smart-ass. I don’t know why he did what he did because I don’t know him.”

There was another period of silence, during which Coutinho pulled up in front of a pale yellow bungalow and turned off the engine.

“Maybe I’ll try looking at this from a different angle,” he told Sam. “We’ve been looking for a connection between the killer and the victim. Maybe the connection is to the facility. Maybe we’ll take another look at the regulars and the former regulars. Arnie can probably help me out there.”

Sam nodded. “Sometimes you just have to step back and look at things from a different viewpoint. The bottom line is to find out what happened.”

Sam got out of the car before the detective could respond. The front door of the house opened, and a woman in her midforties stood on the top step. As the two men approached, the woman extended her hand first to Coutinho.

“Chris, it’s good to see you again.”

To Sam, she said, “Detective DelVecchio. I’m happy to meet you.”

Sam took her hand and noticed that it trembled. He figured it had to be hard for her to be still dealing with the details of her husband’s death, all the questions and no answers. He hoped to make this as quick and painless as possible, but looking in her eyes, he realized that painless was a long shot. Quick was probably doable.

“The kids are all with their grandparents this week,” she explained as she showed them into the living room. “When they’re all here and they’re loud and fighting, you wish for just a little bit of peace. Then they all leave at the same time, and the silence rips you apart.”