Caught. Part 31

"Do you want the list in alphabetical order? As you somewhat proved, he was a s.e.xual predator."

"Okay, I get that. But in this case, well, so what? Haley McWaid was seventeen years old. The age of consent in New Jersey is sixteen."

"Maybe he was afraid she'd talk."

"About what? She was legal."

"Still. It would be devastating to his case."

"So he killed her to keep it quiet?" She shook her head. "Did you find any sign of a previous relationship between Mercer and Haley?"

"No. I know you tried to peddle that at the park--that maybe they met at his ex's house and started something up. Maybe, but there is absolutely no evidence of that, and I'm not sure I want to go there for the parents' sake. Best bet is that, yeah, he saw her at the Wheeler house, became obsessed with her, grabbed her, did whatever, and killed her."

Wendy frowned. "I just don't buy that."

"Why not? You remember the maybe-boyfriend Kirby Sennett?"

"Yes."

"After we found the body, Kirby's lawyer let him be more, shall we say, forthcoming. Yes, they dated secretly, though it was rocky. He said she was really wound up, especially when she didn't get into Virginia. He thought that she might have even been on something."

"Drugs?"

He shrugged. "The parents don't need to hear about this either."

"I don't get it though. Why didn't Kirby tell you all this right from the get-go?"

"Because his lawyer was afraid if we knew the nature of his relationship with her, we'd look at the kid hard. Which, of course, is true."

"But if Kirby had nothing to hide?"

"First, who said he has nothing to hide? He is a low-level drug dealer. If she was on something, my guess is, he provided it. Second, most lawyers will tell you that innocence doesn't necessarily mean anything. If Kirby had said, yeah, we had this rocky romance and she was maybe popping or smoking something I gave her, we would have crawled straight up his a.s.s and built a tent. And when the body was found, well, we'd have really started probing, if you know what I mean. Now that Kirby is in the clear, it makes sense he'd talk."

"Nice system," she said. "Not to mention a.n.a.l a.n.a.logy."

He shrugged.

"Are you sure this Kirby didn't have anything to do with it?"

"And, what, planted her phone in Dan Mercer's hotel room?"

She thought about that. "Good point."

"He also has an airtight alibi. Look, Kirby is a typical rich-kid punk--the kind who thinks he's bada.s.s because maybe he toilet-papers a house on Mischief Night. He didn't do anything here."

She sat back. Her gaze found the picture of Tremont's dead daughter, but it didn't stay there long. She looked away fast, maybe too fast. Frank saw it.

"My daughter," he said.

"I know."

"We're not going to talk about it, okay?"

"Okay."

"So what's your problem with this case, Wendy?"

"I guess I need more of a why."

"Take another look at that picture. The world doesn't work that way." He sat up. His eyes bore into hers. "Sometimes--most times maybe--there isn't any why."

WHEN SHE GOT BACK TO HER CAR, Wendy saw a message from Ten-A-Fly. She called him back.

"We may have something on Kelvin Tilfer."

The Fathers Club had spent the last several days working on locating the Princeton cla.s.smates. The easiest to find, of course, was Farley Parks. Wendy had called the former politico six times. Farley had not called her back. No surprise. Farley lived in Pittsburgh, making a drop-by difficult. So for right now, he was sort of out.

Second, Dr. Steve Miciano. She had reached him by phone and asked for a meeting. If she could help it, Wendy didn't want to tell them what it was about over the phone. Miciano hadn't asked. He said that he was on shift and would be available tomorrow afternoon. Wendy figured that she could wait.

But third, and in Wendy's view, the big priority, was the elusive Kelvin Tilfer. There was nothing on him so far. As far as the Internet was concerned, the man had simply dropped off the planet.

"What?" she asked.

"A brother. Ronald Tilfer works deliveries for UPS in Manhattan. He's the only relative we've been able to locate. The parents are dead."

"Where does he live?"

"In Queens, but we can do you one better. See, when Doug worked at Lehman they did big business with UPS. Doug called his old contact in sales and got the brother's delivery schedule. It's all computerized now, so we can pretty much track his movements online if you want to find him."

"I do."

"Okay, head into the city toward the Upper West Side. I'll e-mail you updates as he makes deliveries."

Forty-five minutes later, she found the brown truck double-parked in front of a restaurant called Telepan on West Sixty-ninth Street off Columbus. She parked her car in an hour s.p.a.ce, threw in some quarters, leaned against the fender. She looked at the truck, flashing to that UPS commercial with that guy with long hair drawing on a whiteboard, and while the message "UPS" and "Brown" did indeed come through, she didn't have a clue what the guy was drawing about. Charlie would always shake his head when that commercial came on, usually during a crucial time in a football game, and say, "That guy needs a beat-down."

Funny what occupies the mind.

Ronald Tilfer--at least, she a.s.sumed the man in the brown UPS uniform was him--smiled and waved behind him as he exited from the restaurant. He was short with tightly cropped salt 'n' pepper hair and, as you noticed in these uniforms with shorts, nice legs. Wendy pushed herself off her car and cut him off before he reached the vehicle.

"Ronald Tilfer?"

"Yes."

"My name is Wendy Tynes. I'm a reporter for NTC News. I'm trying to locate your brother, Kelvin."

He narrowed his gaze. "What for?"

"I'm doing a story about his graduating cla.s.s at Princeton."

"I can't help you."

"I just need to talk to him for a few minutes."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

He started to move around her. Wendy slid to stay in front of him. "Let's just say Kelvin is unavailable."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He can't talk to you. He can't help you."

"Mr. Tilfer?"

"I really need to get back to work."

"No, you don't."

"Excuse me?"

"That's your last delivery today."

"How do you know that?"

Let him dangle, she thought. "Let's stop wasting time with the cryptic 'he's unavailable' or can't talk or whatever. It is hugely important I talk to him."

"About his graduating cla.s.s at Princeton?"

"There's more to it. Someone is harming his old roommates."

"And you think it's Kelvin?"

"I didn't say that."

"It can't be him."

"You can help me prove that. Either way, lives are being ruined. Your brother may even be in danger."

"He's not."

"Then maybe he can help some old friends."

"Kelvin? He's in no position to help anyone."

Again with the cryptic. It was starting to p.i.s.s her off. "You talk like he's dead."

"He may as well be."

"I don't want to sound melodramatic, Mr. Tilfer, but this really is about life and death. If you don't want to talk to me, I can bring the police in on it. I'm here alone but I can come back with a big news crew--cameras, sound, the works."

Ronald Tilfer let loose a deep sigh. Her threat was an empty one, of course, but he didn't have to know that. He gnawed on his lower lip. "You won't take my word he can't help you?"

"Sorry."

He shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"I'll take you to see Kelvin."

WENDY LOOKED at Kelvin Tilfer through the thick, protective gla.s.s.

"How long has he been here?"

"This time?" Ronald Tilfer shrugged. "Maybe three weeks. They'll probably let him back out in a week."

"And then where does he go?"

"He lives on the street until he does something dangerous again. Then they bring him back in. The state doesn't believe in long-term mental hospitals anymore. So they release him."

Kelvin Tilfer was writing furiously in a notebook, his nose just inches from the page. Wendy could hear him shouting through the gla.s.s. Nothing that made sense. Kelvin looked a lot older than his cla.s.smates. His hair and beard were gray. Teeth were missing.

"He was the smart brother," Ronald said. "A freaking genius, especially in math. That's what that book is filled with. Math problems. He writes them all day. He could never turn his mind off. Our mom worked so hard to make him normal, you know? The school wanted him to skip grades. She wouldn't let him. She made him play sports--tried everything to keep him normal. But it was like we always knew he was heading in this direction. She tried to hold the crazy back. But it was like holding back an ocean with your bare hands."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's a raging schizophrenic. He has terrible psychotic episodes."

"But, I mean, what happened to him?"

"What do you mean, what happened? He's ill. There is no why." There is no why--the second time someone had said that to her today. "How does someone get cancer? It wasn't like Mommy beat him and he became like this. It's a chemical imbalance. Like I said, it was always there. Even as a kid, he never slept. He couldn't turn off his brain."

Wendy remembered what Phil had said. Weird. Math-genius weird. "Do meds help?"

"They quiet him, sure. The same way a tranquilizer gun quiets an elephant. He still doesn't know where he is or who he is. When he graduated from Princeton he got a job with a pharmaceutical company but he kept disappearing. They fired him. He took to the streets. For eight years we didn't know where he was. When we finally found him in a cardboard box filled with his own feces, Kelvin had broken bones that hadn't healed properly. He'd lost teeth. I can't even imagine how he survived, how he found food, what he must have gone through."

Kelvin started screaming again: "Himmler! Himmler likes tuna steaks!"

She turned to Ronald. "Himmler? The old n.a.z.i?"

"You got me. He never makes any sense."