Chapter 24 - Forty-Seven Missing Names
Grand Rapids police sealed Leonard Price’s street before sunset.
Detectives recovered two rifle rounds from the house.
No plates had been visible on the SUV.
No useful security footage.
Price was placed under protective custody.
For the first time in thirty years, he appeared willing to cooperate.
Graham returned to the Ellison house after ten that evening.
Mara was waiting at the kitchen table.
Arthur sat beside her.
Elaine had fallen asleep in the living room.
Owen remained at the police station giving a statement.
Graham removed his coat.
Arthur immediately noticed the small cut along Graham’s cheek from flying glass.
“What happened?”
“Nothing serious.”
“That’s blood.”
“It’s barely blood.”
Arthur stood.
“Sit down.”
Graham almost argued.
Then remembered Arthur had once raised three stubborn children if he counted Graham.
He sat.
Arthur cleaned the cut with the same gentle concentration he had probably used thirty-two years earlier.
Mara watched.
“Price gave the police enough to open a criminal investigation.”
Arthur’s hand stopped.
“Into Sterling?”
“Into something bigger.”
Graham spread Judith Harper’s records across the table.
Forty-seven names.
Some had birthdays.
Some had handwritten notes.
Some had only case numbers.
“These teenagers were transferred between 1992 and 1997.”
Arthur read the list.
“What happened to them?”
“We don’t know.”
Mara opened her laptop.
“I found eleven.”
Graham looked at her.
“Eleven?”
She nodded.
“Public records. Social media. Obituaries.”
She turned the screen.
“Three are dead. Two served prison sentences. One is homeless in Toledo. Five appear to be alive and stable.”
Arthur’s face twisted with pain.
“They were children.”
Graham looked at the names.
“So were we.”
Mara touched one entry.
“Daniel Mercer. Age seventeen. Transferred three months before you.”
Graham read the handwritten note.
Skilled mechanical aptitude. Appropriate for industrial placement.
“He lives in Indiana,” Mara said.
“Did you call him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He hung up when I mentioned Midwest Youth Transition.”
Graham leaned back.
Mara continued.
“Then he called me again twenty minutes later.”
Arthur looked up.
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether Graham Foster still had the scar.”
Graham went still.
Arthur whispered, “He remembers you?”
Mara nodded.
“He wants to meet tomorrow.”
The following afternoon they drove south.
Daniel Mercer lived in a modest farmhouse outside South Bend.
He opened the door wearing work boots and a mechanic’s shirt.
At fifty years old, he still looked powerful.
But when he saw Graham, he covered his mouth.
“Jesus.”
Graham stared at him.
Recognition came slowly.
Then all at once.
“Danny?”
Daniel laughed once.
Then pulled Graham into a fierce embrace.
“You made it.”
Graham’s throat tightened.
“So did you.”
Inside, Daniel told them everything.
After Graham boarded the bus to Detroit in 1994, he had spent one night sleeping in the terminal.
Daniel had found him the next morning.
Daniel had already been working for one of Sterling’s contractors.
“They called it vocational placement,” Daniel said.
“It was slavery with lunch breaks.”
Teenage boys poured concrete twelve hours a day.
No overtime.
No safety equipment.
The state checks went to the placement company.
The contractor paid Sterling.
The boys received cash envelopes.
Sometimes.
“Why didn't you report it?” Mara asked gently.
Daniel laughed without humor.
“To who? Leonard Price? He visited the site every month.”
Graham stared at him.
“Why didn't they take me?”
Daniel’s expression softened.
“I warned you.”
Graham remembered.
A bus station bathroom.
A skinny teenager telling him not to trust anyone offering work.
“You told me to go south.”
“I gave you forty dollars.”
“You had forty dollars?”
“I stole sixty from the foreman.”
For the first time that day, Graham smiled.
Daniel smiled too.
Then his expression changed.
“There’s something else.”
He walked into another room and returned with an old metal lunchbox.
Inside was a photograph.
A dozen teenage boys stood outside a concrete plant.
Behind them was a younger Thomas Sterling.
Beside Sterling stood a man Graham had never seen.
Mara turned the photograph over.
A company name had been stamped on the back.
NORTHSTAR MUNICIPAL SERVICES.
Graham frowned.
“I know that name.”
Daniel nodded.
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because Northstar is still operating.”
Mara opened her phone.
Thirty seconds later, her face went white.
“They’re one of the contractors bidding on the new convention center.”
Graham stared at the photograph.
May you like
The past had not returned.
It had never left.
