Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(21)

Pine put the photo away and looked expectantly at the woman. Now that she was finally facing a key person in her sister’s life after the abduction, she was not leaving without making significant progress in her search.

Atkins pulled out a Kleenex from her pants pocket and rubbed her eyes and nose, shifting the cannula to the side to do so.

“Didn’t realize how chunky I was back then,” she said. “I’ve lost quite a bit of weight since that picture was taken, but Len is just as bald as ever.” When she saw Pine staring stonily at her she hurried on. “You’re right. Len knew Ito and did save his life. But we had Joe before Len went to Vietnam. And Ito and Len kept in touch over the years. He knew about our having Joe.”

“Then maybe he came to you because you were the only ones he knew who lived close to Andersonville. But I’m more interested in what took place when Ito brought Mercy to you.”

“He showed up in the middle of the night, pounding on the door, waking us up. Scared the hell out of me. I remember it so clearly. Ito was really shaken up, nervous as hell, almost out of his mind with panic.”

“Where did he say he got Mercy?”

“He said Becky, or Mercy, had been abandoned. That she didn’t have anybody.”

“And did he say how he came to have her?”

“He said he found her on the side of the road, just walking along.”

“And she didn’t tell you otherwise? She was six. She could talk. She knew things. She didn’t tell you that her name was Mercy and that Ito had taken her away from her family?”

“Not that I recall, no,” said Atkins, not meeting her eye. “She was very quiet, didn’t say nothing. I tried to get her to eat or drink something but she wouldn’t. She seemed terrified.”

Pine sat back. “And later you didn’t see all the news coverage and flyers and everything with Mercy’s picture on them? You lived barely two hours from where she was taken. The state of Georgia was saturated with news about her abduction.”

Atkins glanced anxiously at her husband. “I . . . I don’t . . . It was such a long time ago and all. And there wasn’t anything about it when Ito showed up with her.”

“Because no one knew she had been abducted at that point. But now comes the big question. Why didn’t Ito, or you, take Mercy to the police? When you find an abandoned child, that’s what you do, right?”

Atkins looked extremely nervous now. “I . . . I asked Ito that. I said, well, we need to call in the authorities, they’ll know what to do.”

“And how did he respond to that?” asked Blum.

Atkins twisted her hands in her lap and sucked heavily on her oxygen. “At first, he . . . he said that he had been in foster care growing up and that it would be a nightmare. He said the authorities would do that to her. And she might be abused and heaven knew what else.”

“But that didn’t have to be the only option. They could try to find her parents and see why they had abandoned her, as he claimed,” countered Pine.

“I said that very thing to Ito. And that they might find other relatives who could take her in.”

“And his response?”

Blum added, “And you said, ‘at first’? Does that mean his story changed?”

“Yes, it did. That’s when things started getting really weird. Ito next told us that she really hadn’t been abandoned. He moved us away from the girl so she couldn’t hear and said that the parents had been trying to kill Mercy when he happened by. He rescued her from them, and they ran off. He said they were probably clear out of the state by now.”

“They were trying to kill their own daughter and Ito just happened to be passing by?” Pine said, her tone full of derision. “And why would he care if she heard that or not? If it had really happened, she would have known her parents were trying to kill her!”

“I know how it sounds now,” said Atkins in a defensive tone. “But we had just been woken out of a deep sleep and had a child dropped on us. We weren’t thinking too clearly.”

“I’m sure no one would have been,” said Blum in a soothing tone.

“Thank you for saying that,” said Atkins with a grateful look. She wiped her nose with the Kleenex. “It was all a nightmare.”

“So you believed what Ito said?” asked Pine.

“He was very convincing. And why would he lie? Why would he show up at our place with a child like that?”

“He lived in Trenton, New Jersey. Did he say why he was in Georgia running around in the middle of the night?”

“He said he was coming to visit us. As a surprise.”

“Andersonville is south of where you lived,” said Pine. “He would never have reached that town if he were simply coming to visit you.”

“But we didn’t know that because he never said anything about Andersonville. He never told us where he’d found her.”

“Okay, so you took Mercy?”

“Yes. We didn’t know what else to do. Len wasn’t thrilled about it, but I couldn’t see any other way.”

“And what happened to Ito? Did he leave that night?”

“Yes, he said he was going back to where he’d gotten Mercy to see what was going on.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what he did,” said Pine. She knew that the next morning Ito Vincenzo had gotten into a fight with Tim Pine outside their house. He had accused Tim of kidnapping and killing his own daughter, even though he knew that was not true.