“You’ve never seen him at school or around your house or Mandy’s house?” Talia shook her head. “How about the outlet mall?”
“No, ma’am.”
Emmy showed Valerie the photo. “No,” Valerie said.
“Okay.” Emmy turned the phone face down on her desk. She leaned toward Talia, trying to hold her in confidence. “You told me before that there was an older man in Mandy’s life. That he would buy her things sometimes. Can you tell me more about that?”
Talia flashed a guilty look at her mother. “Yeah, five hundred dollars’ worth of stuff from Nike. She had a gift card.”
“Did she tell you who the gift card was from?”
Talia bit her lip. “The older man.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Emmy smiled to indicate that she wasn’t in trouble. “When did the man give Mandy the card?”
“She had it the month that school started back.”
Emmy guessed that was confirmation enough on the UnSub’s identity. The timing lined up with Shane Russell’s release from prison. “Talia, the man in the photo I showed you. I think that’s the man who gave Mandy the gift card. I’m gonna call him Russell, okay?”
Talia nodded.
“Were there any other gifts that Mandy got from Russell? More clothes? Shoes?”
“He started with chocolates,” Talia said. “The nice kind. Not from the Good Dollar. And sometimes Mandy had cash to pay for stuff like ice cream in town. But the gift card was the most money.”
Emmy carefully phrased her next question to keep it open-ended. “I saw the bruises on Mandy’s back.”
Talia stared at the floor. She’d clearly seen them, too.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you about them before.” Emmy tried to shoulder the blame. “I didn’t know about the bruises when we talked yesterday. Can you tell me how Mandy got them?”
“She said it was an accident.” Talia shrugged. “That he—that Russell—got mad, and he didn’t mean mean to hurt her that bad. He apologized and everything. But that wasn’t the first time. He’d hit her before, just never like that. That’s usually when he’d buy her things like to apologize? But it started happening a lot more lately, where he’d hit her really hard, and finally I asked Mandy why he kept hurting her and she said it was because he loved her so much, and he was worried Mrs. Vickery would take her away.”
Valerie sucked in a stream of air between her teeth.
“Talia.” Emmy cut the woman off from speaking. “You said youfinallyasked. When did this happen?”
“The night before—” Talia paused. “Before it happened.”
“Mandy called you Friday night?” Emmy tried to keep her tone even. The girl could very well be the last person who had spoken to Mandy Vickery before she’d been shot. “What did she say?”
Talia wiped her nose again. “That her mom was on the way to the motel to take Bill his golf clubs.”
Emmy had seen the clubs in the back of Bill’s truck at the baseball park. “Mrs. Vickery took them to the motel?”
“Yeah,” Talia said. “Mandy was super upset, ’cause she felt stupid for believing Mrs. Vickery when she said they were gonna leave on their own, just the two of them. Mandy knew when Mrs. Vickery drove to the motel that she was gonna ask Bill to go with them.”
“Why did Mandy think that?”
“’Cause that’s what Mrs. Vickery always did? Like, Bill would really hurt her, then they would make up and Mrs. Vickery would tell Mandy it was gonna be different this time. Only, Bill was never different for long. He would be nice for a little while. Then he’d go back to hurting her worse than before. Mandy said the worst part was when she was waiting for Bill to stop being nice and to start being mean again. She said it would’ve been easier if Bill had just hurt her mom all the time, ’cause then Mandy wouldn’t have the hope in between.”
Emmy knew the bitter taste of that hope turning to resignation. She couldn’t imagine how helpless Mandy had felt to be a child and have a front-row seat to Allison’s self-destruction. “Did Mandy say anything else on the phone call?”
“It was hard to understand her ’cause she was crying so hard. Even though she knew it was coming, she was, like, devastated when her mom left. She begged her not to go. Like, on her knees begging. They got into a big fight and Mrs. Vickery said she’d come back, but it was, like, midnight and she still wasn’t back.”
Emmy couldn’t fathom how Allison had left her child in such distress. “Was there ever a point when Mandy thought she was going to leave with Russell?”
“No, Mandy kept hoping he’d ask her to go, but he never did.” Talia shrugged. “She said she had to accept that nobody was gonna save her.”
