Chapter Eighteen #5
Emmy escorted them to her office. “Talia, I promise I’ll make this as easy as I can.
I know you’d rather be home right now.” Talia didn’t respond.
She slumped into her mother on the couch.
Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she appeared to be more lucid than yesterday.
Dark circles ringed her eyes. Her hair looked unwashed.
She was having trouble looking Emmy in the eye.
Emmy assumed she knew that Skylar had provided Emmy with some details that Talia had left out.
Emmy shut the door. Sat down in one of the hard wooden chairs.
“Talia, I want to start by telling you that based on my investigation, I still haven’t seen anything that indicates if you had told someone about Mandy’s abuse, it would’ve changed what happened in that house yesterday. None of it was your fault.”
Talia looked up, eyes desperately searching for any sign that Emmy was lying.
She whispered, “Really?”
“Really.” Emmy knew that people who lied tended to lie again to assuage their guilt. Taking away the blame might help her open up. “I know you love Mandy, and you want to protect her, but that’s my job. Understood?”
Talia slowly nodded.
“Good. Let’s get started.” Emmy held up her phone, showing the photo of Shane Marcus Russell. “Do you recognize this man?”
Talia wiped her eyes. “No, ma’am.”
“You’ve never seen him at school or around your house or Mandy’s house?” Talia shook her head. “How about the outlet mall?”
“No, ma’am.”
Emmy showed Valerie the photo. “No,” Valerie said.
“Okay.” Emmy turned the phone face down on her desk. She leaned toward Talia, trying to hold her in confidence. “You told me before that there was an older man in Mandy’s life. That he would buy her things sometimes. Can you tell me more about that?”
Talia flashed a guilty look at her mother. “Yeah, five hundred dollars’ worth of stuff from Nike. She had a gift card.”
“Did she tell you who the gift card was from?”
Talia bit her lip. “The older man.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Emmy smiled to indicate that she wasn’t in trouble. “When did the man give Mandy the card?”
“She had it the month that school started back.”
Emmy guessed that was confirmation enough on the UnSub’s identity. The timing lined up with Shane Russell’s release from prison. “Talia, the man in the photo I showed you. I think that’s the man who gave Mandy the gift card. I’m gonna call him Russell, okay?”
Talia nodded.
“Were there any other gifts that Mandy got from Russell? More clothes? Shoes?”
“He started with chocolates,” Talia said. “The nice kind. Not from the Good Dollar. And sometimes Mandy had cash to pay for stuff like ice cream in town. But the gift card was the most money.”
Emmy carefully phrased her next question to keep it open-ended. “I saw the bruises on Mandy’s back.”
Talia stared at the floor. She’d clearly seen them, too.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you about them before.” Emmy tried to shoulder the blame. “I didn’t know about the bruises when we talked yesterday. Can you tell me how Mandy got them?”
“She said it was an accident.” Talia shrugged.
“That he—that Russell—got mad, and he didn’t mean mean to hurt her that bad.
He apologized and everything. But that wasn’t the first time.
He’d hit her before, just never like that.
That’s usually when he’d buy her things like to apologize?
But it started happening a lot more lately, where he’d hit her really hard, and finally I asked Mandy why he kept hurting her and she said it was because he loved her so much, and he was worried Mrs. Vickery would take her away. ”
Valerie sucked in a stream of air between her teeth.
“Talia.” Emmy cut the woman off from speaking. “You said you finally asked. When did this happen?”
“The night before—” Talia paused. “Before it happened.”
“Mandy called you Friday night?” Emmy tried to keep her tone even. The girl could very well be the last person who had spoken to Mandy Vickery before she’d been shot. “What did she say?”
Talia wiped her nose again. “That her mom was on the way to the motel to take Bill his golf clubs.”
Emmy had seen the clubs in the back of Bill’s truck at the baseball park. “Mrs. Vickery took them to the motel?”
“Yeah,” Talia said. “Mandy was super upset, ’cause she felt stupid for believing Mrs. Vickery when she said they were gonna leave on their own, just the two of them. Mandy knew when Mrs. Vickery drove to the motel that she was gonna ask Bill to go with them.”
“Why did Mandy think that?”
“’Cause that’s what Mrs. Vickery always did?
Like, Bill would really hurt her, then they would make up and Mrs. Vickery would tell Mandy it was gonna be different this time.
Only, Bill was never different for long.
He would be nice for a little while. Then he’d go back to hurting her worse than before.
Mandy said the worst part was when she was waiting for Bill to stop being nice and to start being mean again.
She said it would’ve been easier if Bill had just hurt her mom all the time, ’cause then Mandy wouldn’t have the hope in between. ”
Emmy knew the bitter taste of that hope turning to resignation. She couldn’t imagine how helpless Mandy had felt to be a child and have a front-row seat to Allison’s self-destruction. “Did Mandy say anything else on the phone call?”
“It was hard to understand her ’cause she was crying so hard.
Even though she knew it was coming, she was, like, devastated when her mom left.
She begged her not to go. Like, on her knees begging.
They got into a big fight and Mrs. Vickery said she’d come back, but it was, like, midnight and she still wasn’t back. ”
Emmy couldn’t fathom how Allison had left her child in such distress. “Was there ever a point when Mandy thought she was going to leave with Russell?”
“No, Mandy kept hoping he’d ask her to go, but he never did.” Talia shrugged. “She said she had to accept that nobody was gonna save her.”
Emmy needed a moment to put her heart back together. “Talia, you know all this is wrong? No one who loves you should ever hurt you.”
“I know, ma’am.”
Emmy hoped like hell that she did. “Was there anything else Mandy told you during your phone call?”
“That she didn’t know what she was gonna do if—when—her mom took Bill back. She was really destroyed. Like, Mrs. Vickery had promised her things would be different. That they would go somewhere new and start over again. That was the only reason Mandy was holding on.”
Emmy knew that the girl had been desperate. “What do you mean by ‘holding on’?”
Talia shrugged. “I guess until college? She only had two more years, then she was gonna go somewhere far away, like where her mom wouldn’t visit that much. Like Australia or something.”
Emmy leaned forward again. “Skylar told me Mandy called her mom all the time. That doesn’t sound like she wanted to get away from her.”
“She did,” Talia said. “But she knew if Mrs. Vickery came to visit, she’d bring Bill.
You don’t know how gross it was watching him, ’cause he knew Mandy hated him, but that just made him get in her face more.
Mrs. Vickery kept telling her to play along and protect Bill’s feelings, that he’d be better if she smiled at him more or listened to his stupid stories, but why would she do that?
He’s, like, an old man. Mandy’s only sixteen. It’s not her job to be his friend.”
Emmy tried not to think about all the times she had pressured Cole to placate Jonah to keep the peace.
“Talia, is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Just that I’m sorry. I know I should’ve told you all of this before.”
“You know what? That’s fine, baby. I understand.”
Talia sniffed again.
“Okay,” Emmy said. “Thank you both for coming in. I think that’s all I need.”
Valerie helped her daughter stand. “Thank you, Sheriff.”
Emmy followed them to the lobby. She watched Talia lean into her mother for support.
Emmy remembered being that age, pushing away your mother every chance you got, pulling her close when you really needed her.
It was so damn hard to grow yourself into a woman.
Especially with men like Bill Garrison and Shane Russell around.
“Boss?” Julian came up behind her. “I talked to Sonny Singh. Texted him Shane Russell’s photo. He says the guy goes by Carl. Started working there three months ago. Saturday was his day off, so Sonny can’t alibi him for the shooting.”
“Did Louis recognize him?”
“No, but the old guy doesn’t talk to anybody in the store much on account of his dementia,” Julian said. “You were right about the Singhs paying cash off the books, though. All Sonny’s got is a phone number that goes to a prepaid phone.”
Emmy took the scrap of paper he handed to her. The area code was local. “Put a subpoena together for the number.”
“Already on it.”
“Tell dispatch to blanket motels, liquor stores and bars off the highway in Clayville. Send a cruiser to Clifton Gardens. Show Russell’s photo door-to-door. See if anybody noticed him hanging around the neighborhood.”
“You want me to peel Gregg off Bill Garrison?”
Emmy had forgotten about the tail. “Give it another hour, then put him on the manhunt.”
“Yes, boss.”
Emmy dialed Russell’s number as she walked into her office. She heard the sharp tone, then a recording saying the number had been disconnected.
She looked at her desk, her laptop, her chair.
She was filled with a frenetic kind of energy that had nowhere to go.
Emmy put on her duty vest. Checked her gun.
She couldn’t sit around all night while her deputies looked for the suspect.
She was going to drive up and down every street in Clifton County until she found Shane Russell herself.
She had made it as far as the parking lot when Cole buzzed her phone.
She answered, “Hey, what’s up?”
“I’m at the nursing home where Grandma died.”
Emmy heard a ticking sound. She turned around to see where it was coming from. “I told you to call. You didn’t have to go there.”
“You know they change shifts at six. I thought I’d catch the night nurses. They usually have more time to talk.”
The ticking grew louder. Emmy looked up at the building, wondering if the gutters were clogged again. The sound was steady, like water dripping—
Tick-tick-tick.
“Mom?”
She pressed her hand to her chest. Was she hearing her own heartbeat?
“You need to get over here. I think I found something.”
Was she hearing static from the phone?
“Mom?” Cole’s voice was raised. “Can you hear me?”
Emmy sucked in a deep breath. The sound disappeared. “I’m on my way.”