Fractured, page 30
part #2 of Will Trent Series
“Kayla’s parents were well-off. Why not take her, too? Why kill her if she represents money?”
Will closed the yearbook and held it in his hand. “Are we sure Kayla wasn’t involved?”
Faith glanced at Charlie, who was still checking out the computer files.
Will didn’t seem to mind talking in front of the man. “Kayla Alexander was a nasty piece of work.” He dropped the yearbook and picked up the next one. “We haven’t found one person who’s said otherwise.”
“She’d have to be pretty sick to be screwing Bernard in her car while she knew that her best friend was about to be kidnapped.” Faith considered something. “Maybe Kayla felt threatened by Emma’s affair with Adam.”
Will picked up on her train of thought. “Kayla might know that Adam and Emma were parking in the garage. The nosey neighbor told on the girls last year. They had to find somewhere else to park.”
“I’ve been wondering why Kayla parked her white Prius in the driveway of the Campano house when she knew that the last time they were caught skipping, it was because the neighbor saw a car in the driveway.”
He stopped searching the pages. “Something’s bothered me since I saw the Prius in the parking lot. Everything the killer touched had blood smeared on it: the trunk, the door handles, the steering wheel. Everything except for the duct tape and the rope in the trunk.”
“Do you think Kayla brought them for the killer to use?”
“Maybe.”
“Hold on,” Faith said, trying to process all of this. “If Kayla was involved, why did she get killed?”
“She had a reputation for being nasty.”
“You’ve said all along that the killer must have known her.”
His phone started ringing, and he slid it out of his pocket. The thing was pathetic, the pieces held together with Scotch tape. “Hello?”
Faith picked up one of the yearbooks and thumbed through it so she wasn’t standing there doing nothing. She glanced up once at Will, trying to read his expression as he listened to the call. Impassive as usual.
“Thank you,” he said, then ended the call. “Bernard’s fingerprints don’t match the thumbprint on the letter.”
Faith held the yearbook to her chest. It felt heavy in her hands. “So his accomplice handled the threatening notes.”
“Why send the notes? Why show their hand?”
Faith shrugged. “Could be they were trying to scare away Adam so Emma would be alone in the house.” She contradicted herself. “In that case, why didn’t Kayla just drive Emma to the house? It had to be that they weren’t getting along.”
Will opened the Westfield yearbook from last year and flipped through the pages. “We need to go back to the beginning. There’s a second man out there.” He traced his finger across the rows of student photographs. “Bernard’s not the kind of guy who gets his hands dirty.”
“My friend at Tech said he would probably have news today,” Faith told him, hoping she wouldn’t have to be more specific about the vial of gray powder she had asked Victor to have tested. Will might have been okay speaking freely around Charlie Reed, but Faith didn’t know the man well enough to trust him with her career.
Will said, “Go to Tech. See if there are any results.” He found Kayla Alexander’s class picture and tore out the page from the yearbook. He handed it to Faith. “While you’re there, ask Tommy Albertson if he’s ever seen this girl hanging around either Adam or Gabe Cohen. Ask everybody in the dorm if you have to.” He flipped to another page and found Bernard’s faculty photograph. He tore it out, saying, “Show this one, too.”
Faith took the photographs.
Will opened another yearbook, searching for his own copies of the photos. “I’m going to go to the Copy Right and do the same.”
Faith looked at the bedside clock. “You said the next ransom call is supposed to come at four?”
Carefully, he tore out the right pages. “The killer is probably with Emma right now, getting the second proof of life.”
Faith put the yearbook on the bed. She started to walk away, but stopped, knowing something was different. She fanned out the yearbooks, finding the three that did not belong. They were thicker, their colors not as vibrant. “Why does Bernard have yearbooks from Crim?” Faith asked. The Alonzo A. Crim High School was located in Reynoldstown, a transitional area in east Atlanta. It was probably one of the seedier schools in the system.
Will told her, “At least we know where Bernard taught before he moved to Westfield.”
Faith was silent as she thumbed through the pages. She had never been one to believe in fate or spirits or angels sitting on your shoulder, but she had long trusted what she thought of as her cop’s instinct. Carefully, she skimmed the index in the back for Evan Bernard’s name. She found his photo in the faculty section, but he also sponsored the newspaper staff.
Faith found the appropriate page for the staff photo. The kids were in the usual silly poses. Some of them wearing fedoras that had “press” tags sticking out of them. Some had pencils to their mouths or were eyeballing the camera over folded newspapers. A pretty young blonde stood out, not because she wasn’t hamming for the camera, but because she stood very close to a much younger-looking Evan Bernard. The photo was black-and-white, but Faith could imagine the color of her strawberry blond hair, the freckles scattered across her nose.
She told Will, “That’s Mary Clark.”
ACCORDING TO A very angry Olivia McFaden, within half an hour of Evan Bernard’s arrest, Mary Clark had abandoned her classroom. The teacher had simply taken her purse out of the desk, told her students to read the next section in their textbooks, then left the building.
Faith found the woman easily enough. Mary’s beat-up Honda Civic was parked outside her family’s home on Waddell Street in Grant Park. People took good care of their homes here, but it was nothing like the richer climes of Ansley Park, where professionally manicured lawns and expensive gray-water reclamation tanks made sure the lawns stayed green, flowers kept blooming, all through the summer. Trashcans lined the road, and Faith had to idle the Mini while the garbage truck slowly made its way up the hill, emptying the cans and crawling along to the next house.
Grant Park was a family-friendly neighborhood that managed to be barely affordable while still being in the city limits of Atlanta. Trees arched overhead and fresh paint gleamed in the afternoon sun. The houses were a mixed variety, some shotgun style, some Victorian. All of them had seen a whirlwind of remodeling and renovation during the housing boom, only to find all their paper equity gone when the boom went to a bust.
Still, a handful of houses had been passed by in the race for bigger and better—single-story cottages popped up here and there, neighboring homes looming two and three stories above them. Mary Clark’s house was one of these poor cousins. From the outside, Faith guessed the house probably had two bedrooms and one bathroom. Nothing about the house overtly pointed to disrepair, but there was a certain air of neglect to the place.
Faith walked up the stone steps. A large two-toddler stroller of the type used for runners seemed to be taking up permanent space on the front porch. Toys were scattered about. The porch swing looked weathered from its place on the ground. The hardware and chains rusted in a pile beside it. Faith gathered someone had started the weekend project with great intentions but never followed through. The front door was painted a high gloss black, the window curtained on the other side. There was no doorbell. She raised her hand to knock just as the door opened.
A short, bearded man stood in the doorway. He had a small child on either hip, each in various states of oblivious happiness at the prospect of a stranger at the door. “Yes?”
“I’m Detective Faith Mitchell with the—”
“It’s okay, Tim,” a distant voice called. “Let her in.”
Tim didn’t seem to want to comply, but he stepped back, letting Faith come into the house. “She’s in the kitchen.”
“Thank you.”
Tim seemed to want to say something more to her—a warning, perhaps?—but he kept his mouth closed as he left the house with the twins. The door clicked shut behind him.
Faith glanced around the room, not knowing whether she was expected to stay here or to find the kitchen. The Clarks had chosen a post-college eclectic style for the living room, mixing brand-new pieces with old. A ratty couch sat in front of an ancient-looking television set. The leather recliner was modern and fashionable, but for faint scratches on the legs that showed signs of a recent visit from a cat. Toys were scattered all over the place; it was as if FAO Schwarz had fired off a bunker-buster from their New York headquarters.
A quick glance into the open doorway of what must have been the master bedroom showed even more toys. Even at fifteen, Faith had known not to let Jeremy have every room of the house. It was no wonder parents looked exhausted all of the time. There was no space in their homes that belonged completely to them.
“Hello?” Mary called.
Faith followed the voice, walking down a long hallway that led to the back of the house. Mary Clark was standing at the sink, her back to the window. She held a cup of coffee in her hand. Her strawberry blond hair was down around her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a large, ill-fitting T-shirt that must have belonged to her husband. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed.
Faith said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Faith sat down at the table, a 1950s metal and laminate set with matching chairs. The kitchen was cozy, far from modern. The sink was mounted onto a one-piece unit that had been painted a pastel green. All of the cabinets were the original metal. There was no dishwasher, and the stove tilted to the side. Matching pencil marks on either side of the doorway celebrated each growth spurt Mary’s twins had experienced.
Mary tossed her coffee into the sink, put the cup on the counter. “Tim said that I should stay out of this.”
Faith gave her back her earlier comment. “Do you have a choice?”
They both stared at each other for a moment. Faith knew the way people acted when they had something to hide, just as she knew how to spot the cues that they wanted to talk. Mary Clark showed none of the familiar traits. If Faith had to guess, she would say the woman was ashamed.
Faith clasped her hands in front of her, waiting for the woman to speak.
“I guess I’m fired?”
“You’ll have to talk to McFaden about that.”
“They don’t really fire teachers anymore. They just give them the shittiest classes until they quit or kill themselves.”
Faith did not respond.
“I saw them take Evan out of the school in handcuffs.”
“He admitted to having sex with Kayla Alexander.”
“Did he take Emma?”
“We’re building a case against him,” Faith told her. “I can’t tell you details.”
“He was my teacher at Crim thirteen years ago.”
“That’s a pretty bad neighborhood.”
“I was a pretty bad girl.” Her sarcasm was loud and clear, but there was pain underneath the boast, and Faith waited her out, figuring the best way to find the truth was to have Mary lead her there.
The woman slowly walked over to the table and pulled out a chair. She sat down with a heavy sigh, and Faith caught a whiff of alcohol on her breath. “Evan was the only bright spot,” Mary told her. “He’s the reason I wanted to be a teacher.”
Faith was not surprised. Mary Clark, with her pretty blond hair, her piercing blue eyes, was exactly Evan Bernard’s type. “He molested you?”
“I was sixteen. I knew what I was doing.”
Faith wouldn’t let her get away with that. “Did you really?”
Tears came into the woman’s eyes. She looked around for a tissue, and Faith got up to get her a paper towel off the roll.
“Thank you,” she said, blowing her nose.
Faith gave her a few seconds before asking, “What happened?”
“He seduced me,” she said. “Or maybe I seduced him. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Did you have a crush on him?”
“Oh, yeah.” She laughed. “Home wasn’t exactly nice for me. My father left when I was little. My mother worked two jobs.” She tried to smile. “I’m just another one of those stupid women with a father fixation, right?”
“You were sixteen,” Faith reminded her. “You weren’t a woman.”
She wiped her nose. “I was a handful. Smoking, drinking. Skipping school.”
Just like Kayla, Faith thought. “Where did he take you?”
“His house. We hung out there all the time. He was cool, you know? The cool teacher who let us drink at his place.” She shook her head. “All we had to do was worship him.”
“Did you?”
“I did everything he wanted me to do.” Mary shot her a searing look. “Everything.”
Faith could see how easily Mary had probably played into Bernard’s hands. He had given her safe harbor, but he was also the person who could bring it all to an end with one phone call to her parents.
“How long did it last?”
“Too long. Not long enough.” She said, “He had this special room. He kept the door locked. No one was allowed in there.”
“No one?” Faith asked, because obviously, Mary Clark had seen it.
“It was all done up like a little girl’s room. I thought it was so pretty. White furniture, pink walls. It was the kind of room I thought all the rich girls had.”
The man certainly was a creature of habit.
“He was sweet at first. We talked about my dad leaving us, how I felt abandoned. He was nice about it. He just listened. But then he wanted to do other things.”
Faith thought of the handcuffs, the vibrator they had found in Bernard’s special room. “Did he force you?”
“I don’t know,” Mary admitted. “He’s very good at making you think that you want to do something.”
“What kinds of things?”
“He hurt me. He . . .” She went very quiet. Faith gave her space, not pressing the woman, knowing that she was fragile. Slowly, Mary pulled down the collar of the baggy T-shirt. Faith saw the raised crescent of a scar just above her left breast. She had been bitten hard enough to draw blood. Evan Bernard had left his mark.
Faith let out a long breath of air. How close had she come as a kid to being just like Mary Clark? It was the luck of the draw that the older man in her life had been a teenage boy instead of a sadistic pedarest. “Did he handcuff you?”
Mary put her hand over her mouth, only trusting herself to nod.
“Were you ever afraid for your life?”
Mary did not answer, but Faith could see it in the woman’s eyes. She had been terrified, trapped. “It was all a game for him,” she said. “We would be together one day, and then the next, he would break it off with me. I lived in constant fear that he would finally leave me, and I would be all alone.”
“What happened?”
“He quit in the middle of the year,” Mary told her. “I didn’t see him again until my first day at Westfield. I just stood there like a gawking teenager, like it was thirteen years ago and he was my teacher. I felt all these things for him, things that I shouldn’t feel. I know it’s sick, but he was the first man I loved.” She looked up at Faith, almost begging her to understand. “All the things he did to me, all the humiliation and the pain and the grief . . . I don’t know why I can’t break this connection I have with him.” She was crying again. “How sick is that, that I still have feelings for the man who raped me?”
Faith looked at her hands, not trusting herself to answer. “Why did Evan leave your school?”
“There was another girl. I don’t remember her name. She was hurt really badly—raped, beaten. She said that Evan did it to her.”
“He wasn’t arrested?”
“She was a troublemaker. Like me. Another kid stood up for him, gave him an alibi. Bernard could always get kids to lie for him, but he still quit anyway. I think he knew they were onto him.”
“Did you ever see him again? I mean, after he left school, did he try to get in touch with you?”
“Of course not.”
Something in her tone made Faith ask, “Did you try to get in touch with him?”
The tears came back, humiliation marring her pretty features. “Of course I did.”
“What happened?”
“He had another girl there,” she said. “In our room. My room.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I screamed at them, threatened to call the police, said whatever stupid thing I could think of to get him back.” She stared at the markings on the doorjamb, the milestones of her children’s lives. “I remember it was pouring down raining, and cold—cold like it never gets here. I think it actually snowed that year.”
“What did you do?”
“I offered myself to him, whatever he wanted, however he wanted.” She nodded her head, as if agreeing with the memory that she had been willing to debase herself in any way for this man. “I told him I would do anything.”
“What did he say?”
She looked back at Faith. “He beat me like a dog with his hands and fists. I lay there in the street until the morning.”
“Did you go to the hospital?”
“No. I went home.”
“Did you ever go back?”
“Once, maybe three or four months later. I was with my new boyfriend. I wanted to park in front of Evan’s house. I wanted someone else to fuck me there, like I could pay him back.” She chuckled at her naiveté. “Knowing Evan, he would’ve stood at the window, watching us, jerking himself off.”
“He wasn’t there?”
