Mariah Stewart - Acts of Mercy

“I remembered that when I was at the cabin the first time, it had been easier to think, it had been so quiet, so peaceful. I believed I would find my answer there. So I went back.”

“How did you get inside?” he asked.

“The owner had given me the key when I stayed there the first time. I was so afraid I’d lose it and I wouldn’t be able to lock the door, so I had another one made. I just kept it.” The crying had stopped completely and she appeared to be thinking things through rationally. “Do you think that was a sin? That I had a key made for a place that wasn’t mine? That I trespassed?”

“I think the owner will forgive you.”

“I hope so.” She appeared to be fixated on this point, so Kevin tried to move the conversation forward.

“Tell me about the day you heard the crash.”

“It had been so quiet all morning. There was snow on the ground and it was cold. Then all of a sudden, there was a sort of thunderclap. I went outside to see what it was, but nothing was there. Later that day, though, when I went for a walk, I saw the car in the ravine, and I heard the baby crying. I opened the door, and there he was, my precious boy. My Matthew. My gift from God.” She looked up at Kevin, and he could see in her eyes that she was losing her grip on reality. “That’s what Matthew means, you know. Gift from God. I had prayed and prayed and prayed for a sign. What should I do? What was my calling? Then God sent me this child, and I knew that he was supposed to be mine. That God wanted me to have him. That was my calling, I could see it then. I was meant to be his mother. I took him back to the cabin and fed him-there was baby food and bottles and diapers and clothes in the diaper bag that I found in the back seat. Everything he needed was there. All I had to do was take him home. See? God had provided everything.” She smiled. “That’s how I knew he was meant to be my son.”

“What about the woman behind the wheel?” Kevin asked.

“What about her?” Carole seemed confused by the question.

“What was she doing when you opened the car door?”

“She wasn’t doing anything. She was just lying there.”

“Did you check to see if she was breathing?” Kevin asked.

“No,” she replied calmly. “She wouldn’t have been. God sent her to bring the baby to me, then he let her die because she wasn’t needed in this world anymore. Don’t you see? She was an angel, sent to do God’s will. When she was done He brought her back to heaven.”

Kevin nodded slowly, made eye contact with Officer Duffy, then stood. “Thank you, Carole.”

He cleared his throat and walked slowly, as if burdened, down the hall, to the lobby to where Robert and Susanna waited with Ian.

“I think you need to get a lawyer for her,” Kevin told Chief Collier.

“What did she tell you?” Collier asked.

Kevin took a tiny recorder from his pocket and handed it over. “It’s all on here. We’d like a copy, though.”

“Did she admit she took Ian from the car?” Robert asked anxiously.

“Yeah.” Kevin sat down next to his cousin. “She believes God put him there for her. That he was meant to be her son.”

“Sounds like she got real smart over the past half hour,” Collier said. “That sounds like her defense to me. ‘Yeah, I took the baby, but God told me to.’ Right. Sounds like she just made that up because she knows we can prove he’s not her son and she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life in prison.”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t think it’s an act. I think she really believes it. I think she’s believed it since the minute she came across the car in the ravine and heard him crying. She’d been praying that God would guide her, and she believes He guided her right to that car.”

“Maybe He did, but I doubt He meant for her to keep a child that didn’t belong to her,” Robert snapped.

Kevin turned to Robert. “Remember this: if Carole Woolum hadn’t found him and taken him from the car that day, he would have died there. When you are hell-bent to see her behind bars, remember that she did save his life…”

I think I want to drive back east,” Sam told Fiona. “There are some things I need to think about.”

“All right.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” she assured him.

So he’d taken Fiona to the airport and watched her board a plane to DC and felt empty inside the minute she was gone. But there were things he needed to sort out that would be much more difficult if she was there, and things that needed to be done that only he could do. He rented a car and headed east on I-80 through Council Bluffs and straight across Iowa into Illinois. At Rock Island, he dropped south and headed toward Indiana, where he made his way toward Terre Haute. There was something he had to do there.

He’d called his former boss and asked for a favor, which John, upon hearing what Sam had to say, immediately agreed to.

Several hours later, Sam DelVecchio sat in the visitor’s room and waited for the guards to bring in the prisoner he’d come to see.

The door opened and an older, thinner Don Holland shuffled in, his shackles restricting his movements. He sat in the chair provided for him, and stared at Sam for a long moment before asking, “What do you want?”

“I want to apologize.”

Holland’s laughter was as dry as leaves in late November.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll bite. Why?”

“Because I owe you one. Because you told the truth and I didn’t believe you.”

Holland’s laughter faded, then ceased altogether.

“What brought this about, this change of heart?” Holland asked.

“My wife’s killer confessed. He set it up so that I wouldn’t suspect…” Sam shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter why he did it. Suffice it to say that I’m sorry for blaming you for something you didn’t do.”

“I tried to tell you, man. You could have maybe caught him before, instead of letting him run free all this time.”

“No,” Sam shook his head, “if he hadn’t confessed, no one would have ever known.”

“Why’d he confess, then, if he’d never be caught?”

“Because he knew it would hurt me to know,” Sam told him.

“Like killing your wife didn’t hurt?” Holland scoffed. “What was gonna make that worse than it was?”

“He was an old friend,” Sam said simply.

Holland studied Sam’s face, then asked, “Did you pop him?”

“No. The FBI did.”

“I thought you were FBI.” Holland frowned.

“I was.”

“You was? You quit?”

When Sam nodded, Holland laughed. “Why’d you go and do that? You were good at what you did, my man. Brought me down, and I was the best at what I did.”

Sam rubbed the back of his neck, not wanting to think about what Holland had laid claim to being the best at.

“You should think about going back.” Holland stood, ready to return to his cell. “There are a lot of bad boys outside. A lot of bad, bad boys who need to be caught…”

Sam stood and watched Holland shuffle back out of the room. When he reached the door, he turned and said, “Thanks, man. That was decent of you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, actually, I did.”

Holland’s comment stayed with Sam all the way to the Ohio border, where he had to decide which way to go: through Pennsylvania to Conroy and the Mercy Street Foundation, or through Virginia to Fiona and the FBI.

Once he made his choice, he felt lighter. He called both John and Robert and explained his position. Then he called Chris Coutinho, as he’d promised he’d do once the case had been solved. His last call-and by far, the toughest-was to Lynne Walker, who deserved an explanation of why her husband had to die, and at whose hands. To Sam’s everlasting gratitude, she’d not blamed him, but blessed him for bringing peace to her family, and justice to her husband.