Chapter 6: The Assistant's Price
Marcus drove. I didn't ask him to but I didn't stop him either. We took his car because mine still had the gala's valet tag on the mirror and I couldn't look at it.
He'd gotten the name from the security log the night manager sent over that morning. Vanessa's assistant. Lena Cho, twenty-four, worked part-time for the foundation and picked up shifts at the Route 9 diner to cover rent. She was clocking out at nine.
"She signed the evidence transfer sheet," Marcus said. He kept both hands on the wheel. "Vanessa told her to clear the hallway before the sheriff could photograph it. Shoe, glass, everything."
"And she did it," I said.
"She did some of it."
The diner sat in a strip between a gas station and a nail salon, neon humming in the window. It was raining again, light and cold. We waited in the car and watched staff come out the side door. I had my arm in a thin wrap the ER had given me. The cut wasn't deep but it throbbed whenever I bent my elbow.
Lena came out at 9:14, hair up, apron folded over her arm, keys already in her hand. She was smaller than I expected. When she saw Marcus she stopped short.
"Mr. Rourke?" she said.
Marcus got out. I got out too. He didn't do the polite introduction thing. He just said her name and said we needed two minutes.
"I didn't do anything wrong," she said right away. Her eyes went to me, to my arm, then down to the wet asphalt. "Mrs. Grant told me to clean the hallway. She said it was foundation property and the sheriff didn't need to make a scene."
We were standing under the awning by the dumpsters. The parking lot lights made everything look yellow.
"Did she tell you to take the shoe?" I asked.
Lena swallowed. She had that look people get when they're deciding which job they're going to lose.
"She handed it to me," she said. Her voice was low. "Outside by the service door. She said, throw it away. Just get rid of it. She was still in the magenta dress and her hands were shaking. She said if anyone asked, the shoe was already gone when I got there."
Marcus didn't interrupt her. He just breathed and let her keep talking.
"She told me to put it in the dumpster behind the tower," Lena said. "I carried it to the bin. I stood there. I couldn't do it. I kept thinking about my name on that log sheet. I kept thinking if this goes to court and they ask where it went, it's me."
"What did you do instead?" I asked.
She looked toward her car, an old gray Civic parked under the far light. "It's in my trunk. I put it in a grocery bag. I didn't touch the inside. I thought if I kept it, at least I wouldn't be lying when they came looking."
Marcus said, "Can you show us?"
She hesitated a second, then nodded and popped the trunk with her key fob. The light came on. Inside was a spare tire, a folded umbrella, and a white plastic bag from the diner.
She stepped back like she didn't want to touch it again.
I reached in and lifted the bag. It was heavier than I expected. I could see the shape through the plastic. The light-colored shoe, the heel, the strap. When I opened the bag, the smell of leather and rain came out. There was a dark scuff along the side where it had hit the floor, and near the edge of the sole a faint reddish smear that hadn't washed off.
My hand started to shake before I could stop it. Marcus put his hand lightly under my elbow, not grabbing, just steadying.
"That blood," I said quietly. "That's mine."
Lena's eyes filled up. "I'm sorry. I should have said something sooner. She told me I'd be fired if I didn't handle it quietly. She said you both would make trouble for me."
"You did the right thing keeping it," I said. I meant it. "Are you willing to tell the sheriff exactly what you just told us?"
She nodded, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Will I get in trouble for taking it?"
"We'll go with you," Marcus said. "We'll explain you preserved evidence."
The sheriff's substation was eight minutes away, a brick building next to the county highway garage. Deputy Reyes was on desk duty and knew my name from two nights before. He brought us into a small interview room with a tape recorder and a paper evidence bag.
He didn't make a show of it. He laid the shoe on a sheet of brown paper, photographed it from four angles with a ruler for scale, pointed out the scuff and the trace without touching it. Lena gave her statement with her hands folded tight, repeating the time, the service door, Vanessa's words exactly as she remembered them. Throw it away. Just get rid of it.
When she said it, Marcus closed his eyes for a half-second.
Reyes sealed the shoe in the bag, signed the chain-of-custody label, and had Lena and me sign as witnesses to the transfer. He wrote the time in block letters: 9:47 PM.
"You did good holding onto this," he told Lena. "This is now sheriff's property. Nobody from the foundation can ask for it back."
On the way out, Lena lingered by the door. She looked at me.
"Is she going to know it was me?" she asked.
I didn't lie to her. "She will. But you're on record now. That protects you more than quiet does."
She nodded like she understood and didn't like it, then pulled her jacket around her and went out into the rain to her car.
Marcus and I stood under the substation awning and watched Reyes carry the sealed bag into the back locker.
"We have it," Marcus said.
May you like
I pressed my good hand against my wrapped arm. The rain sounded loud on the metal roof.
"Yeah," I said. "Now we have to get the other thing they locked up."
