Chương 15 - The Last Bus to Bluewater
The photograph from the storage facility reached Alyssa Voss before we reached the highway. I knew because she called me personally.
"Ms. Mercer," she said warmly, "you've inherited a complicated legacy. I'd like to make sure you understand it."
"I usually understand things better when strangers stop watching me."
"That camera belongs to the storage company."
"I didn't say which camera."
There was a pause. A small one. I cherished it.
Voss explained that Northlake had acquired several old charitable accounts, including the trust supporting my mother's storage unit. She claimed she wanted to reconcile historical records and perhaps fund the free-care programs Elaine once advocated. Her voice was composed and persuasive. If I had met her over coffee without knowing anything else, I might have liked her.
"Then give the records to an independent auditor," I said.
"Those records contain sensitive information."
"Exactly. So stop asking to see mine."
She invited us to the gala again. I said our attorney would respond and ended the call.
Ross met us at his office that afternoon. He had changed little since the federal case that cleared my name, except that he now looked tired before I even said Dante's name. He reviewed the red notebook and agreed that it deserved a formal investigation. But Northlake's suspicious billing might cross several regulatory jurisdictions, and Elaine's observations alone could not establish who authorized the claims.
"What about Tomas?" I asked.
"We're coordinating with the detectives. His ambulance being located is a lead. It doesn't tell us whether he's missing voluntarily."
That was the maddening part of legitimate investigations. People wanted proof instead of the certainty I felt in my bones. Unfortunately, I had learned why that mattered. Last year's certainty had nearly destroyed innocent people.
We drove to Bluewater Annex the next morning after its property manager confirmed we could inspect the exterior grounds. The building sat beside an old bus terminal on Chicago's South Side, a brick structure with faded green trim and plywood across some windows. My mother had worked there. Dante's father had helped pay for it. People had once lined up outside hoping for something as ordinary as an inhaler.
A woman in a transit-worker uniform watched us from the bus-stop shelter. She approached only after Marco stepped away.
"You're Elaine's girl," she said.
"Did you know her?"
"She used to bring hot coffee for drivers. Said we were the only people who got up earlier than nurses."
Her name was Teresa Wynn. She remembered Tomas and the final weeks before Bluewater closed. Patients had been told their files were being transferred to Northlake. Several later received bills for procedures they had never undergone. Teresa had complained when her elderly mother was charged for a visit dated after her death. Nobody followed up.
"Tomas came here Tuesday," Teresa said. "He asked whether the old night bus still stops behind the annex."
"Why would that matter?"
"Because he used to move the records at night when the front doors were watched. Your mother didn't trust the management."
She described an old postal drop used by employees.
Teresa showed me the bench where she and Elaine used to share breakfast on early shifts. The bench was missing two boards and the remaining paint had surrendered to the weather. Teresa told me my mother once organized volunteers to deliver food to patients who had been missing appointments because they were choosing between transit fares and groceries. Northlake had announced the initiative in a glossy report, then stopped funding it a month later. Elaine had continued with donated supplies until Bluewater closed.
"She wasn't always pleasant," Teresa said. "She argued about everything. But if she told you she'd come, she came."
I laughed. "That's the most accurate description of her I've heard all week."
Teresa looked toward the street. "She wanted more than proof. She wanted a way for the program to keep working after the people in charge were gone. Do you have that now?"
I thought of our independent trustees, the uncomfortable board meetings, and the contract clause protecting my clinical authority. "We're trying," I said.
"Then she would have liked your answer." The surviving metal slot was still attached to a wall inside the covered bus shelter. It had been sealed for years, but an inspection panel remained beneath it. Marco examined the panel without touching it. Teresa called the transit authority supervisor, who came with the maintenance key and agreed to open it in front of us.
Inside was a weatherproof pouch. It contained a transit pass, a note to Eva, and a receipt for a safety-deposit box. There was no intake book.
Eva's note said: I'M SAFE FOR NOW. STAY WITH AUNT MARIA. DON'T TRUST ANYONE WHO SAYS I ABANDONED YOU.
I exhaled so sharply that Dante turned. Tomas was alive when he left the note, or somebody very carefully wanted us to believe that.
The receipt carried a bank name and the date of a deposit made just two days earlier. It also carried a handwritten word: ELAINE.
"We have a location," Marco said.
"We have a lead," Meredith corrected over the telephone. "And you're bringing it to the detectives, not starring in another warehouse incident."
I agreed, reluctantly. While we waited for the police to collect the pouch, I noticed a man across the terminal holding a newspaper. He was watching Teresa, not us. When our eyes met, he walked away quickly.
Teresa gripped my arm. "I know him. He came around right before Bluewater closed. He was working for Voss even then."
"What's his name?"
She glanced toward the street, terrified. "He called himself Mr. Cross."
Dante went still beside me. I recognized the expression from the night he learned Victor had betrayed his father.
"Dante?"
May you like
"Harlan Cross," he said. "He used to manage contracts for the Moretti Foundation. My father dismissed him two months before he died."
The man across the street climbed into a waiting sedan. It drove away before Marco could read its plate. I stared at the empty place he had occupied and finally understood that Northlake was not merely interested in an old notebook. Somebody from the first scandal had been waiting for us to find it.
