Major Shields said, “Mary Ann, I’d like you to tell these folks what you told me yesterday, when you called our tip line.”
She glanced nervously at Carl, then back at the major, who nodded his encouragement.
“I work at the Wawa? Going on three years?” She kept looking over at the major, as if he knew her life story better than she did. “About two years ago, a gentleman started stopping by there regular. He would buy a fountain soda and he would mix the Cherry Coke with the Diet Coke. He said it was the best combination-sweet, but not as many calories, and it tasted like the sodas you got at a real fountain? The other girls figured out he liked me before I did.”
“What was his name, Miss Melcher?”
“Charlie. Charlie Chisholm. Like the trail, he’d say, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. Later, he explained. Something about the West and cows. I don’t know.”
“Did you and Charlie”-the major had a delicacy, almost a tenderness, in the way he addressed the young woman-“did you have a relationship?”
“Not at first. He took a real interest in me. I was having problems with my roommate-”
“What kind of problems?” This was Carl, and his voice was as sharp as the major’s had been soft. Something sullen crept into Mary Ann’s face, as if she had heard this tone too many times in her life, had known a few too many bossy bosses.
“She was a little wild. Ran around with jerks. Which was her private business, but I had to put up with ‘em too, and they weren’t my boyfriends. Although some wanted to be. If she only knew-”
“Miss Melcher.” The major’s prodding tone continued soft. “About Charlie Chisholm.”
She tossed her head. Tess wanted to tell her the effect wasn’t as coquettish as she thought.
“He helped me get this place. Lent me money so I would have enough for the deposit, showed me how to get credit. All you have to do is get a little gas card and pay on it regular, he says, and bit by bit you can get everything you need. He also told me I should enroll at the community college, start taking courses so I could do something other than retail.” She smiled at the memory. “He called my job retail. Or the service industry. I liked that.”
Tess was confused. “You liked working in retail?”
“I liked the fact that he give it a name, didn’t look down on me. He said it was hard, doing what I did. He said I had all sorts of talents, if only I’d use them.”
Without warning, the girl broke down and began to cry. She was all of twenty-one, Tess figured, and still quite young in many ways, despite being on her own.
Major Shields was the kind of man who carried a handkerchief. He took this out and handed it to Mary Ann. “What happened to Charlie?”
“He came home one night and told me he wanted to take me to a fancy supper. We went to the Outback Steakhouse up in Waldorf. Come dessert, he took my hand, and I thought this was when I was going to get a ring, in a little velvet box. I thought he was going to propose.”
Tess would have thought so too. But perhaps the fact that he didn’t was the difference between being alive and ending up like Tiffani Gunts and Lucy Fancher.
Major Shields continued to push her gently, as if he didn’t know the rest of the story. But he had talked to Mary Ann on the phone, Tess remembered. He knew where this was leading. “He didn’t? What did he do?”
“He told me he was sick. He said he had been sick for a very long time, but he thought he could cure himself with…”-she groped for the words- “alternative therapies. He said he now realized he wasn’t going to get well and he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. So he was going to go away.”
“Go away?” Major Shields prompted. “Are those the very words he used-go away?”
Mary Ann nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I begged him not to. I told him I would stand by him, take care of him. But he said he was going to go home, let his family care for him. Which was the first I even knew he had family. I asked if he would come back for me if he got well, and he said he would. We didn’t have dessert, of course. We drove home, back here.”
“Did he make love to you that night?” The men looked at Tess, appalled at her tactlessness. But she knew it was important to ask.
“Yes. Yes, he did.”
“Normally?”
Mary Ann lifted her chin. “I’m not sure what you mean by normally, but it was normal as far as I’m concerned.” Then, wistfuclass="underline" “He was the best at that. Very considerate, if you know what I mean.”
Tess did. The men in the room thought they did.
“Did you use birth control?”
“Miss Monaghan!” Major Shields had gone beyond appalled to shocked.
“I don’t have to. I had a baby when I was seventeen and something went wrong. They had to give me an emergency hysterectomy.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“My mama’s got her. Simma’s better off down there, because they live out in the country a little ways, in a good school district, and my mama doesn’t have to work like I do.”
“Did Charlie-” but Major Shields had decided that Tess had asked enough questions. He cut her off with a look, as stern a look as anyone had ever given her, and Tess had been on the receiving end of some pretty harsh looks in her time. He then transformed himself with almost disturbing speed back into the gentle, friendly inquisitor.
“Tell us what happened next, Miss Melcher.”
“Two days later, I leave for work, and Charlie’s here. When I get home at midnight, he’s gone and there’s a note, saying, ”I had to go. Please don’t hate me. This is the only way to say good-bye.“ I’m sad, but I think he’s gone to his family, wherever they are. I never knew. But a week goes by and the police come around. Seems they’ve found Charlie’s car and his boat trailer, the one he had for his boat, at Point Lookout. It’s been there for a week, since just before a big storm come up on the bay. He filled out a float plan-they found it in the little box. He said he was going all the way out to sea to go fishing. Then, at the bottom, he wrote, And I’m never coming back.”
“Did they find the boat?”
“Just p-p-pieces.” She began sobbing. “It was all a lie. Charlie didn’t have any family to go to. He decided to kill himself rather than die slowly, using up all his savings. Turns out he transferred ten thousand dollars into my account the night before he left. It must have been all the money he had in the world.”
It also, Tess knew, was the largest gift you could make to another person without having to pay a gift tax. “What did you do with it?”
“Paid off some bills. Bought a new car. My old one was on its last legs. Know something odd? Turns out that Charlie’s car was in my name. When they found his van at Point Lookout, it was registered to me. So the title was clear, and I was able to sell that too.”
Major Shields turned to Tess and Carl. “We talked to the local police and the DNR police. Charlie Chisholm is missing and presumed dead.”
“Presumed,” Carl said. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s counting on just that. Presumption.”
“It’s been two years,” Major Shields said. “Two years, and we don’t have another open homicide in all of Maryland that resembles the first two. He never faked his death before. Why would he? He just takes another identity and moves on, knowing the real so-and-so-Eric Shivers, Alan Palmer-will seal off the trail. The real Charlie Chisholm, in fact, is in Veterans Hospital in Baltimore. Been there on and off since the Persian Gulf War. Same date of birth as the others, same general description.”
“Another hospital,” Carl said. “Another chronic patient who’s not going to get in the way of anyone who wants to appropriate his identity. It’s not like there’s any shortage of hospitals in the state of Maryland. And there’s a large supply of men born thirty-two years ago.”
Major Shields stood up. “I know, I know. You have a thousand arguments for why this guy is still alive. That’s why you didn’t even bother to pass along Miss Melcher’s name and number when she called you on the tip line last week. If she hadn’t called back, we still might not know about this. We’d be spinning our wheels and wasting our time and money, all because you think you know this guy better than the rest of us.”