Daylight (Atlee Pine #3)(28)

Pine said, “And Evie’s neighbor didn’t like Bruno, either. And she said Evie hated him. Wouldn’t allow him in the house. And Ito didn’t object to that. The neighbor said Ito didn’t like Bruno.”

“Exactly my point.”

“Then why go down to Georgia at all and do what he did?” said a puzzled Pine.

“It might come down to what we read in the letter. It didn’t say much, but it did tell us that Bruno had maybe tried to do the decent thing for once in his life—not turn in a mole that was going after the Mafia families—and he ended up getting screwed. Maybe that just snapped something inside Ito. That sounds more plausible than trying to make Ito some cold-blooded killer on a rampage. Because that does not square with what everyone has told us about him.”

Pine sat back and pondered all of this. “I checked the police records. Before Ito came down to Georgia, Teddy was charged with grand theft auto and got prison time.”

“So Ito perhaps had in his mind that Teddy was going down the same path that Bruno had?”

Pine said, “It’s possible. And that might have fueled his fire to do what he did. Remember what he told Castor, that he’d done something that ‘shocked him.’ ”

“So it was a confused and perhaps conflicted man who came down to Georgia, then?”

“I can’t feel sympathy for him, Carol. Never.”

“I’m not asking you to. But we need to understand the man at that moment in time because it will help us better arrive at what he might have done with your sister.”

Pine’s expression became agitated. “To finish our line of reasoning, if he didn’t kill her or abandon her, he might have given her to someone, like you suggested.”

“Human trafficking, then?”

“No, to take a page from your book, in coming to understand the man, I doubt Ito knew anything at all about human trafficking. Now, his brother might have, but he was dead by then. And I don’t see Ito gabbing it up with the dregs of the organized crime family his brother once worked for in order to get input on where to sell little kids.”

Blum said, “But if he gave her to, say, a family, wouldn’t Mercy just tell the family who she was and that she had been kidnapped? The account of what happened I’m sure made the press all over Georgia, if not the country. Her picture was probably everywhere. They either would have taken her in and then called the police, or just called the police right off the bat when Ito came by with her.” She hesitated and then plunged on. “So maybe Ito gave her to someone by prearrangement.”

“We just discussed that—human trafficking.”

“No, not human trafficking. Just a family perhaps in desperate need of a child.”

Pine looked at her. “What? But they would know—”

“They would know only what Ito told them. He could have lied about her background, how he came to have her. Maybe they thought they were doing good by taking her in.”

“But wouldn’t Mercy have rebelled at that? Told them who she was, what had happened to her, just like you said, Carol? Now you’re arguing against your own position.”

“No, I’m just trying to look at it from different perspectives. Now, even a precocious six-year-old can be made to believe and accept things that no adult ever would,” said Blum. “We don’t know what Ito told her. That her life could depend on her accepting her conditions. Or he could have threatened harm to you or her parents if she didn’t do as she was told.”

Pine sighed and slumped back against the car seat. “All of that makes perfect sense. Maybe more sense than any other explanation.” Pine fell silent, but as she sat there her expression changed, evolving from hopeless to curious.

“What?” said Blum, who knew her so well.

“Two questions. First, in the letter Bruno Vincenzo said he got screwed over. What do you really think he meant by that?” When Blum shook her head, Pine said, “I think he didn’t rat my mom out because he wanted to cut a deal and save himself. Only that deal didn’t happen. I wonder why.”

“And the second question?”

“One I’ve voiced before: How the hell did Ito Vincenzo know we were in Andersonville, Georgia?”





CHAPTER





18





THIS SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. You shouldn’t be dead.

John Puller was staring down at the body of CID Special Agent Ed McElroy.

My agent, my responsibility. Buck stopped with no one other than me. No excuses.

His wife, and now widow, had been notified of his death and was on her way here to confront the absolute worst reality a spouse would ever have to face.

Puller left the facility and returned to his car. He drove across town to the police building, where he had been informed the investigative unit that was handling the shooting and Jerome Blake’s death was stationed. He met a stonewall at the front reception desk despite showing his creds, badge, clear connection to the case, and earnest manner in wanting to understand what was going on with the local side of the investigation.

The sergeant, who was called in to handle the situation when Puller had deemed the first two officers insufficiently senior and uninformed, seemed finally to take pity on him.

“Army, huh?” said the man, giving Puller the once-over with a pair of scrutinizing eyes.