Acts of Mercy Read online

  Acts of Mercy

  Mariah Stewart

  Former FBI agent Sam Delvecchio brings the keen skills of a profiler to his new position as a Mercy Street Foundation operative-and not a moment too soon. His first assignment, the cold-case murder of a local soup kitchen volunteer, has all the telltale signs of a serial killer’s work. That grim suspicion is confirmed when FBI agent Fiona Summers shares the details of two other killings with eerie similarities to Sam’s case: The bodies in all three cases have been carefully posed. And when a fourth victim is discovered, the two investigators realize they’re pursuing the same twisted quarry.

  Local parish priest Kevin Burch, Mercy Street founder Robert Magellan’s cousin, recognizes the posings for what they are: The killer is staging the church’s seven Acts of Mercy (‘Feed the hungry, clothe the naked…’) with the bodies of his victims. But as Sam and Fiona race to prevent the final three murders, taunting messages from their target lead to the most chilling realization of all.

  Mariah Stewart

  Acts of Mercy

  A book in the Mercy Street series, 2009

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, the wonderful team at Ballantine Books deserves huge thanks for their endless support-Kate Collins, Linda Marrow, Libby McGuire, Scott Shannon, Kim Hovey, Theresa Zoro, Sarina Evan (with congratulations-such a beautiful bride!), Kelli Fillingim, Nancy Delia, Crystal Velasquez-and apologies to anyone I may have forgotten!

  Once again, several charities have benefited from donations made by the generous souls who won raffles or silent auctions entitling them to lend their name to a character in this book:

  Carole Woolum (who requested that her character be “bad but not horrible”), whose donation benefited California’s Citrus College;

  Chris Coutinho’s donation to the Woodlawn School in North Carolina bought him a “good guy” role;

  Don Holland wished for himself and his wife, Laurie Heiss, to be villains (and Don, I took you at your word!)-and so they are, by virtue of their donation to Union Hospital, Elkton, MD.

  I hope you all are happy with the characters that bear your names.

  I must also thank Trula Comfort for once again lending her name to the recurring character who lends so much color and, well, character to this book.

  Mary Corcoran for letting me use her name once again in this book, which is known in some circles as “Mary III.”

  And thanks, as always, to my family for putting up with me.

  ONE

  Her high heels clicking across the hardwood floors, Mallory Russo walked through the quiet foyer of the handsome Tudor mansion that served as home to business mogul Robert Magellan, as well as being her place of business. Uncharacteristically silent, the house seemed to reflect the sad spirits of all who’d come under its roof today. Earlier that morning, Mallory and her coworkers had gathered here before filing into the limousines that would take them to Our Lady of Angels Church a few miles away in Conroy, Pennsylvania, where Father Kevin Burch, Robert’s cousin, conducted the memorial service for Robert’s late wife, Beth.

  Mallory removed the wide-brimmed black hat she’d bought for the occasion and walked the length of the hall to the wing of the house where the Mercy Street Foundation offices were located. She snapped on the overhead fan as she entered the room and went straight to her desk. She tossed the hat on a nearby chair and tried to remember if she’d ever owned such a thing before. Under the desk, her feet kicked off the heels she seldom wore and her cramped toes wiggled in the hopes of bringing back the circulation.

  She wasn’t sure when the others would be back but she hoped to get some work in between now and the time those who’d been invited back for a luncheon began to arrive. No one had seemed in much of a hurry to leave the cemetery after the service, gathered around chatting as they’d been, but she’d been ready to leave even before the priest had begun to speak. There was something unsettling about holding a funeral for a woman who’d been dead but not buried for well over a year, so when Charlie Wanamaker, her fiancé and a detective with the local police force, had whispered in her ear that he’d be taking off, she asked him to drop her off on his way to the police station.

  One would expect that, as a former detective herself, Mallory would be beyond the point where death had the power to spook her, but there was something about this death that rattled her right to her soul. Beth Magellan and her infant son had been missing for many months, but the car they’d been in had only recently been found in a deep ravine in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. Beth’s remains still were strapped into the driver’s seat when the car was discovered, but there’d been no trace of the baby other than his car seat. That someone had come upon a dead or dying woman and had walked away without calling for help was beyond Mallory’s comprehension, but the knowledge that this same person had most likely been the one who’d walked away with the woman’s child was haunting her. Had Beth been alive, even conscious, when Ian had been taken? Had her last breath been spent calling for her son? Had Beth been aware that she was dying? The horror of it sent a chill up Mallory’s spine. Robert was a good man, and she’d grown very fond of him. He didn’t deserve to suffer like this. She suspected that the only thing that kept him going now was the knowledge that Ian most likely was still alive. Somewhere.

  It was this last part that added an extra layer of sadness to the morning’s service: where was somewhere?

  Robert Magellan had founded-and funded-the Mercy Street Foundation to provide private investigative services to those for whom law enforcement agencies were making little or no progress finding missing loved ones. Robert knew the pain of not knowing what had happened to the two people he loved above all others-his wife and his son-but circumstances had blessed him with the means to hire professionals to search for them. That they had failed hadn’t diminished the fact that he could afford to take those steps.

  Not that any of the PI’s Robert hired had had any success, Mallory reminded herself. It had been Susanna Jones, a member of Robert’s own staff, who’d eventually found Beth’s missing car. But the point was that he could afford to hire an army of investigators. Most people were not that fortunate. The Foundation was intended to do for them what they could not do for themselves: get the best investigators on the case.

  While still in its infancy, the Foundation had taken only two cases, but both of those had met with success. There’d been an overwhelming response to their solicitation of applicants for their services, as well as their call for experienced law enforcement personnel to add to their staff. Mallory was charged with the task of sorting through all the applications and pulling out those cases that might best benefit from their services. She was also responsible for reviewing hundreds and hundreds of resumes to find those individuals she thought might best meet the Foundations needs.

  On her desk, she had both their next case and, she hoped, their next hire.

  The letter from Lynne Walker had captured her imagination even before she’d read through the news articles that accompanied it. Lynne’s husband had been murdered under very odd circumstances, and the cop in Mallory couldn’t help but be enticed by the challenge. Even now, she couldn’t stop herself from reading through the file again: the body of Ross Walker, a construction supervisor, had been found behind the soup kitchen where he and Lynne volunteered one night every week. The torso had been stabbed repeatedly and left posed, seated against the fence with a very large hamburger from a fast food restaurant stuffed into his mouth.

  The police investigation had been at a standstill almost since the very beginning. Whoever had murdered Ross Walker had been careful to leave no trace of himself, and interviews with the folks who’d been in and out of the kitchen had proved fruitless. No one had seen or heard anythi
ng.

  Yet someone had gone to a lot of trouble to kill Ross Walker and leave his body in plain sight. The man’s widow had submitted it to the Foundation for consideration. After more than a year, she wanted to move on, wanted her children to be able to start a new life. But not knowing who had killed her husband and why was keeping them all stuck in that moment when the doorbell rang and her seven-year-old son had opened it to find two police officers standing on their front porch.

  Yes, this case would do nicely. Mallory hoped the others on the selection committee would agree.

  Mallory turned her attention to the second folder on her desk and opened it. Over the past several weeks, she’d reviewed hundreds of resumes from law enforcement officers from every agency and just about every state. She’d been separating them into two piles: interview and toss. At the top of the interview pile sat the resume of Samuel J. DelVecchio, who had spent the past sixteen years with the FBI, most recently as a profiler.

  A resume like that moved Sam DelVecchio to the very top of Mallory’s most-wanted list.

  For one thing, she reasoned, a former FBI agent would have a lot of contacts within the Bureau, contacts that could prove invaluable, not only for this case, but for future cases as well. For another, he’d worked just about every kind of crime imaginable, and would bring a wealth of experience to the Foundation. Kidnappings, sex crimes, white slavery, serial killers-Samuel DelVecchio had seen them all.

  Mallory went back to Ross Walker’s folder and pulled out a newspaper article that included part of an interview the local chief of police had given three months after the murder. That the body had been posed carefully suggested that the killer was sending a message, he was quoted as saying, but what that message was and who was supposed to receive it, well, no one had figured that out. Mallory figured an FBI profiler might be able to do exactly that.

  Yes, Samuel DelVecchio looked like he just might be the right guy.

  Sam DelVecchio stopped at the gate that blocked entry onto the grounds owned by Robert Magellan and waited for the guard to wave him through. The gate swung aside and Sam drove his rental car along the drive that wound past an island of newly planted trees. When Magellan’s Tudor mansion came into view, Sam hit the brake. Although he’d seen pictures of the house on the Internet, he hadn’t been prepared for how impressive it was.

  “Nice.” He whistled appreciatively. “Very, very nice.”

  He parked on the right side of the drive, as he’d been instructed, and got out of the car, pausing to put on his suit jacket and straighten his tie. It had been a long time since he’d been on a job interview, and he wanted to make a good impression. What, under the circumstances, could be more appropriate than basic FBI black? He walked to the door and rang the bell. Almost as an afterthought, he removed his dark glasses-perhaps a little too MIB?-and tucked them into his jacket pocket as the wide front door opened.

  A woman of indeterminable age stood at the threshold.

  “Samuel DelVecchio?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Come on in. You’re early. But promptness is a virtue not everyone appreciates. Can I take your jacket for you? Must be warm out there.” The woman barely seemed to take a breath before adding, “Late summer around here can be really toasty. Not to mention humid. You want to go right on up those stairs, second door to the left. Conference room. Mallory should be in there. If she isn’t, give a shout and I’ll find her for you.”

  She held out a hand for his jacket, and for a moment, he was tempted to hand it over. But he was meeting with one of the nation’s most successful businessmen, and he wasn’t sure the casual look was the way to go.

  “I’m fine,” he told the woman-the housekeeper, he assumed.

  “Suit yourself.” She smiled and waved and set off toward the back of the house, and Sam headed up the steps as he’d been directed.

  At the second door on the left, he knocked lightly. When there was no answer, he pushed it aside slightly and took a step inside. A woman stood looking out the back window.

  “Excuse me,” Sam said, and she turned around as if startled.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m Sam DelVecchio. I was told to come up here and…”

  The woman laughed and waved away his apology.

  “I’m the one who should apologize. I was daydreaming. Sorry. Please, have a seat.” She walked toward him, her hand out in greeting. “I’m Mallory Russo. We spoke on the phone.”

  He shook her hand, then sat in the chair she’d pointed to.

  “I have your resume here…” She sorted through a pile of papers in a fat folder at the head of the table. “Just give me a second… here we are.”

  “Excuse me, but I thought Mr. Magellan-” Sam began, and Mallory waved him off.

  “I conduct the interviews. I am responsible for the hiring,” she said without taking her eyes from the resume she was scanning. “If I think you’re the right fit, I’ll discuss it with our committee for their input. But the final decision is mine.”

  She raised her head and met his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No, of course not. I just assumed that Mr. Magellan would be-”

  “So.” She brushed his explanation aside. “May I ask why you left the FBI after sixteen years?”

  He’d expected the question, but hadn’t expected it to be the first one. “Well, truthfully, I just had enough.”

  Might as well just toss it out there.

  Mallory raised an eyebrow.

  “If you’ve read my resume, you know I’ve worked with the Behavioral Analysis Unit for the past several years,” he said in answer to her unspoken question.

  “That was what made your resume stand out from the others. I thought that someone with profiling experience would be an asset to the Foundation.” She paused, then asked, “You do understand what the Mercy Street Foundation was established to do, don’t you?”

  “It’s my understanding that your purpose is to help find people who have gone missing. Cases that the local law enforcement agency had to put aside for one reason or another. People who have been lost, and never found.”

  “Well, we haven’t ruled out cases where we know death has occurred but the case was never solved. Those families need closure, too. Robert likes to think of us as a facilitator or catalyst for finding the truth, but our focus so far has been on missing persons. Some of those people will be found alive-our first case involved two missing teenagers who we did in fact find and return to their families. Our last case did not result in a happy ending. We did find the young woman we were looking for, but unfortunately, we were too late by months to save her. The case I’d like to handle next involves a homicide. The bottom line is that we’re searching for answers. What happened to this person? Dead or alive, what caused them to go missing? If we know from the outset the person was a victim of a violent crime, our job is to find out who and why, if law enforcement hasn’t been able to do so.”

  “I think your website describes your work as private investigation with a twist,” he said.

  “The twist being that if we decide to take on a case, it’s because there’s something about it that interests or speaks to us, and therefore our services are free.” She sat back in her chair, her arms crossed against her chest. “Do you see where a profiler’s skills might come in handy to an organization like ours?”

  “Well, yes, but-”

  “Did you think the cases we take on would be easier than the cases you worked for the Bureau?”

  “I thought they were mostly missing persons cases.” He shifted a bit uneasily in his seat.

  “You mean, ‘Someone is missing-here, track them down’?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”

  “And that appealed to you?”

  “To some extent,” Sam admitted sheepishly.

  She closed the folder. “Mr. DelVecchio, I think you’d be better off working for another private investigative firm, if that’s what you’re looking fo
r.”

  “Miss Russo, maybe we should start this interview again from the beginning. I’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot.”

  “I’ve already told you that your experience as a profiler made your resume stand out, so that cat’s already out of the bag. Why don’t we cut to the chase and you just tell me flat out why you left the Bureau and why you’re reluctant to sell yourself on your profiling skills.”

  Sam nodded.

  “For the past six years, I’ve been on call to several of the Bureau’s top investigative units. That meant every time a child was found raped and murdered, every time a body was found and there appeared to be a pattern to the attack, every time serial crimes were identified, I was one of several people who could be called in to study the crime and try to interpret the behavior in a manner that would help our agents get a handle on the killer.” He hesitated momentarily while he debated with himself how much of his personal story to add, then decided to omit it. If he came on board with the Foundation, it would come up sooner or later. Right now, for the purpose of this interview, he decided he was more comfortable leaving it out.

  He leaned forward, not liking what he was about to say, but knowing he’d say it anyway. “Miss Russo, the things I’ve seen over the past few years are the stuff of nightmares. When I say I’ve had enough, I mean I’ve had enough of children who have been tortured and degraded and had any sense of humanity stolen from them. I’ve had enough of young women who have been sold or slaughtered, of bodies that had been hacked beyond recognition as anything human. I’ve had enough of destroyed lives.”

  Mallory held up a hand to stop him from continuing. “I was a cop for nine years,” she said softly. “I’ve seen my share. I understand.”

  Sam hesitated, rethinking his decision to not bring up Carly. He suspected that Mallory, as a former cop, would understand. But before he could speak, Mallory went on.

  “Your references are impeccable. The recommendations couldn’t be better. Your superior at the Bureau has made it clear that he’d take you back in a heartbeat. Very unusual for the FBI, I’d say.”