Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(13)

“We were able to reach her,” Philadelphia continued. “To help her turn off that dark path, back into the light, to reunite her with her family. Ms. Bittmore came to see us, saw what we were trying to do, and what we were up against. She gave us this building as a tribute to her granddaughter, who happens to be one of our counselors now. We’re very grateful to both of them, and to the higher power for bringing us all together.”

“Is Seraphim in-house today?”

“I’m not absolutely sure of her schedule, but I think this is her afternoon off. I’d be happy to check with Matron.”

“We’ll get to that. As I was saying, during demo on the building on Ninth, several false walls were discovered.”

“False walls?” Philadelphia’s brows drew together. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Walls constructed a short distance out from the originals, leaving a gap between the two.”

“Is that why it was so drafty?” She shook her head. “We could never afford much more than emergency repairs, and even then we had to jury-rig more than we should have. I suppose someone might have built out the wall as the original was in such poor shape.”

“I don’t think so, but concealment was the purpose.”

“We painted, tried some minor—very minor,” Nash emphasized, “updating in the baths and kitchen, but we never put up walls. Concealment, you said? Hiding valuables—ill-gotten valuables? I can assure you if we’d had anything valuable we’d have spent it to keep The Sanctuary above water rather than hiding it away. What did you find? Cash, jewels, illegals?”

“Bodies,” Eve said flatly, and watched both for reaction. “Twelve.”

The teacup slipped out of Philadelphia’s fingers so the cup bounced on the rug and pale amber liquid ran out in a thin river. Nash simply stared, his face going pale and absolutely blank.

“Twelve.” Philadelphia choked it out. “You said—when I thought—you said a dozen. Do you mean, oh, merciful Jesus, did you mean twelve bodies?”

“What are you talking about?” Nash demanded.

“Twelve bodies,” Eve said, “found between the original wall and the one constructed to conceal them. More accurately, twelve skeletal remains, preliminarily identified as females between the ages of twelve and sixteen.”

“Girls?” As the kid on the bench had done, Philadelphia slid her hand into her brother’s. “But how? When? Who could do something like that? Why?”

“All good questions. I’m working on getting the answers. Again, preliminarily, we calculate the victims were placed in that concealment, all wrapped in plastic, approximately fifteen years ago. About the time you left the building and moved into this one.”

“You think that we—” Philadelphia leaned forward now, eyes intense. “Lieutenant, Detective, we’ve dedicated our life to saving young people. From themselves, from their environment, from destructive influences. We could never . . . we could never.”

“It couldn’t have been done while we were in there.” Still pale, Nash picked up a teacup he’d refused, gulped down the cold contents. “We’d have seen. And if that isn’t enough, there were residents, staff. It couldn’t have been while we were in there. No.”

“How did you leave it?”

“We just walked away on the advice of our attorney. We took what was ours. Furniture, equipment—what little we had. The extra clothes we kept on hand for those who came to us with little to nothing. That sort of thing. We just packed up, and moved everything we could here.

“You cried,” he said to his sister. “Even though the place became a disaster, a stone around our necks, you cried leaving it.”

“I did. It felt like a failure. It wasn’t. We did good work there, with what we had. People would say we lost our investment, and we could ill afford it. But I believe we gained more than we lost. And then we were given this amazing gift. This terrible thing had to have been done after we left.”

“Who had access, after you moved out the residents?”

“We did, for a short time.” Nash rubbed his hand over his face as a man might when waking from a strange dream. “I suppose some of the staff or even some of the kids could’ve gotten in if they’d wanted to. Our security there wasn’t very good. Another reason we needed to relocate.”

“Again, on legal advice we didn’t surrender it immediately to the bank.” As she spoke, Philadelphia rose, took some napkins from a drawer. She blotted up the spilled tea, set the teacup aside. “We had to file papers, and we were told to simply let the bank foreclose. That it generally took some time to do so. We were actually still there for nearly six months after we stopped paying the mortgage. We could’ve stayed longer, but it felt like . . .”

“Stealing,” Nash murmured. “You said it was like stealing. We were preparing to close up, thinking we were finished with our mission, then Ms. Bittmore offered us this building. It was like a gift from God. We believe it was, God’s work through her.”

“How long before the bank shut the place up?”

“I think at least six or eight months after we left. At least,” Philadelphia repeated. “We’d have the notification of foreclosure, all the paperwork on file.”