Lynn opened the folder and glanced at the few lines typed across the first and only page. By the time her investigation was concluded, she knew, there would be many such pages. Too many. Keith and Patty Foster, she read, not recognizing the names; daughter, Ashleigh, age seven.
Lynn’s eyes shot automatically to the framed photographs of her own two children, which were all but hidden by the stacks of paper on her desk. Impatiently, she shuffled the papers around until they afforded her a clear view of the two smiling figures which when last seen boarding their bus for day camp that morning, were glaring in barely concealed fury at each other’s recent transgressions. Megan, who had been nine years old at the time her picture was taken, looked shy and quietly beautiful, the woman already visible behind the child’s delicate features, whereas Nicholas’s photo, taken last January on his seventh birthday, was one big, toothless record of self-congratulation.
Lynn closed the file folder and rested her chin against the palms of her hands. She didn’t want to read about seven-year-old children who were the possible victims of parental abuse. In her twelve years of front-line work for the Department of Social Services in Delray Beach, this was the one aspect of her job to which she had never grown accustomed. Reluctantly, she reopened the file, checking out the address as her secretary had suggested. Harborside Villas, she read, then shook her head. Not the usual address for this sort of thing, but then she had learned long ago that money and social standing had little bearing on matters such as these, although they obviously had a great deal to do with the careful way this case was being handled.
The suspected abuse had been reported by a neighbor, she read, a Mrs. Davia Messenger, who lived in the town house next to the one owned by the Fosters. Lynn understood that she would have to drive out to the Harborside Villas to interview the woman as soon as possible. She looked around for her appointment book, and saw only the notepad with Marc Cameron’s phone number scrawled boldly across it. “Arlene, what’s my schedule like today?”
“You have a meeting at two o’clock.”
“And this morning?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
A few minutes later, Lynn was in her car heading south on Federal Highway toward the Harborside Villas, a Mrs. Davia Messenger, and a story she didn’t want to hear.
The Harborside Villas were part of a horseshoe-shaped complex situated on the Inland Waterway, boasting a
private marina, two large swimming pools, and four tennis courts. Prices started at a quarter of a million dollars for a one-bedroom apartment, and went up from there, the most expensive units being the row of eight identical, white, two-story town houses that ran parallel to the main building and directly overlooked the Inland Waterway.
Davia Messenger lived in the second-to-last house next to the corner unit owned by the Fosters. Lynn walked steadily across the curving sidewalk of interlocking red bricks, her eyes casually perusing the luxury that was everywhere around her, to the Messengers’ front door. She barely had time to lift the bronze dolphin-shaped knocker before the door was opened by a tall, thin, slightly stooped woman whose sharp, irregular features had long ago cemented themselves into a look of anxiety.
“She didn’t see you come in, did she?” the woman greeted Lynn nervously in the entranceway of her designer-perfect town house. Lynn made a mental note of the woman’s age—late fifties—and flaming red, geometrically shaped hair. She said nothing as the woman shut the front door behind her and ushered her inside the spotless living room, awash in shades of glistening yellow and gray. Lynn walked carefully toward the matching pale yellow love seats situated in the middle of the large room, which afforded a most spectacular view of the Inland Waterway. She had the distinct feeling that this was not a room that was used to visitors.
“I’m sorry I’m a bit late. I got stuck in traffic. You have a beautiful home,” Lynn remarked almost in one breath, seeing Mrs. Messenger wince as she sat down and took out her notebook and pen.
“You will be careful,” the woman stated, more than asked, “with that pen.”
“Of course,” Lynn told her, and tried to look reassuring, although she felt as she imagined her children must feel when told to get their crayons out of the living room. “How long have you lived here, Mrs. Messenger?”
“Six years,” came the rapidly delivered reply. “We’re the original owners. We bought when the units were still under construction. We knew how beautiful they were going to be. We have an eye for beauty, my husband and I.” She tried to smile but the corners of her lips only twitched, and so she abandoned the attempt. “I don’t enjoy doing this, you know,” she said. “You will keep my name out of it, won’t you? The man I spoke to, he assured me that my name would be kept out of it.”
“Your identity will be kept strictly confidential, Mrs. Messenger.” Lynn watched as the woman made repeated circles around the second love seat, picking up imaginary pieces of lint from the obviously expensive material.
“They’re important people, the Fosters. He’s with Data Base International. Quite the big shot.” Davia Messenger’s eyes darted nervously around the room. She reached down and swept up a suspected speck of dirt from the pale Drury rug at Lynn’s feet. Lynn obligingly lifted her heels off the floor, lowering them only after the woman’s attention had been diverted elsewhere.
Lynn made a quick note describing the woman’s highly agitated state, which she suspected was aggravated, but not defined, by her visit. The woman was starting to make her nervous as well.
“Why don’t you tell me what prompted you to call our agency, Mrs. Messenger.”
Davia Messenger seemed surprised by the question. “Well, the little girl of course. Ashleigh. She’s why I called. So many Ashleighs these days, don’t you think?”
“You suspect her parents are abusing her?”
“Not suspect. Know.” Davia Messenger swooped hawklike toward Lynn, her long fingers outstretched and shaking. “How else do you explain why that poor little thing is always covered with bruises? Last week she had a black eye. A few weeks before that it was a broken arm.”
“Children have accidents, Mrs. Messenger.” Lynn felt Davia Messenger’s gaze shift from her face to the area just to the left of her cheek above her shoulder. Before she had time to wonder what exactly Davia Messenger was staring at, the woman reached over and snapped up a stray hair which had been dangling from the side of Lynn’s head, and which had obviously offended her strict aesthetic sense.
“No accidents. Patty Foster is abusing her daughter.”
“Have you actually witnessed this abuse?” Lynn was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. She wished Davia Messenger would sit the hell down.
“I’ve witnessed the results. I’ve heard the child crying at all hours of the day and night.”
“But you’ve never personally witnessed Patty Foster physically mistreating Ashleigh?”
“I’ve already answered that,” the woman snapped.
“What specifically prompted your phone call, Mrs. Messenger?”
“I don’t understand. I told you …”
“You indicated that this has been going on for a number of months, yet you waited until now to phone us. Did something happen last night?”
“If you’d heard that child crying, you wouldn’t have to ask. I just couldn’t take listening to it anymore.”
“Did your husband hear the crying as well?”
“Well, of course.”
“Could I speak to him?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Mrs. Messenger trilled, her hands fluttering wildly in front of her. “Leave him out of this. He doesn’t want to get involved. He told me not to call you. He said that nobody would believe me. That Mr. Foster is an important man in the community. No, no, no. Leave my husband out of this.”
Lynn lowered her pen to her lap, aware that Mrs. Messenger seemed to be holding her breath. “What makes you so sure that it’s
Mrs.
Foster who’s abusing her daughter, and not Mr. Foster?”
“Oh no, no, no,” the woman said again, this time with conviction rounding out the vowels. “Mr. Foster is a gentleman. He would never do anything to hurt a child. It’s his wife. She’s much younger than he is. Young enough to be his daughter. His granddaughter, even. Pretty enough, I suppose. She doesn’t do much. Sits around the pool all day in her bikini. Don’t know why she had children. They’re not allowed, you know. At least that was my impression when we bought the place, bought it while it was still under construction. We have a real eye for beauty, my husband and I. Decorated it ourselves. Please be careful with that pen.”
Lynn put the cap back on the black felt pen, closed her notebook, and returned both to her briefcase. It was obvious she had already received whatever worthwhile information she was going to get from Mrs. Davia Messenger, and she was afraid that if she stayed any
longer, the woman might break into hives. “Thank you, Mrs. Messenger. I think I’ll talk to the Fosters now.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t you see? She’ll see you came from my house, and she’ll know I was the one who reported her. She’s a very vindictive person.”
Lynn Schuster stared deeply into the eyes of the woman who was squinting in her direction, watching them narrow further to emphasize her point, aware that she was not the most credible of witnesses, but aware also that each report of suspected child abuse had to be investigated fully.
“I assure you your identity will be kept confidential.”
“She’ll try to fool you, of course. She can be very persuasive. You mustn’t underestimate her,” Mrs. Messenger continued as she followed Lynn to the front door, then hid behind it as Lynn stepped outside into the hot sunshine.
Davia Messenger was an unpleasant, possibly even unbalanced woman, Lynn was thinking as she cut across the narrow strip of lawn to the house next door. She would make a most unreliable witness in court. With that in mind, Lynn knocked tentatively on the Fosters’ door, and was relieved to discover that no one was home.
A few minutes later, she was sitting in her car in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam. It was extremely hot, and already cars on the busy highway were starting to overheat. Motorists who were stranded on the side of the road, their faces polished in sweat, their mouths distorted with agitation, stood beside raised hoods, steam shooting
from overheated engines. Lynn observed them dispassionately, reaching over and flicking off her own air conditioning to spare herself the same fate, lowering her window instead, feeling the immediate attack of hot air as it quickly clambered in through the open window, as if it too was looking for a place to escape. Lynn rested her elbow on the car door, withdrawing it almost instantly, feeling her flesh burn as if she had pressed it against a lit torch.
She peered out her front window, trying to make out what was causing the delay, but a large yellow van with bright flowers painted across its back window blocked her view. In the car to her right, a man and a woman were fighting. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could tell by the way their narrow faces were distorted that they were blaming one another for the futility of their current situation. “I told you not to come this way,” she understood the man was saying, “but no, you knew better.”
Lynn looked across the highway divider, caught the sardonic smile of a young man in a sports car as he continued unimpeded in the opposite direction. He reminded her of Marc Cameron, she realized, wondering for a minute if it had, in fact, been him. But no, Marc Cameron had a beard, she remembered. The man in the sports car had been clean-shaven. And he was at least ten years younger than the man who had visited her home earlier in the week. He didn’t look anything like Marc Cameron at all. What was the matter with her? What was she thinking about?
She heard the car behind her honk, and noticed that the van ahead of her had inched forward almost
imperceptibly. Grateful for the diversion, she traveled the requisite several inches, then stopped, putting the car into neutral. She couldn’t afford to waste valuable time thinking about men like Marc Cameron. So what if she found him appealing? So what if he was the first man since Gary had walked out—the first man since Gary, period—who had stirred these kinds of feelings inside her? She hadn’t had sex in over six months. She needed these kinds of feelings like a hole in the head. Who needed feelings like these, feelings that made you squirm and fidget and lose sleep? Especially when she wasn’t prepared to act on them.
Was
she prepared to act on them? She had his phone number. All she had to do when she got back to the office was pick up the phone and dial. “Hello, Marc Cameron? This is Lynn Schuster. I know this great motel for dinner.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said out loud. You’re already having dinner. With your father and his charming wife, Barbara, the one he married three years ago, the one who’s given him back his youth, that new lease on life and all those other glorious clichés she never gets tired of trotting out. Life is what you make it; when God hands you a lemon, make lemonade; it’s always darkest before the dawn. The woman was a walking encyclopedia of superficial words to the wise. Lynn had never understood how her father, an intelligent, well-read man, had allowed himself to get involved with such a woman. Not that there was anything wrong with her. Barbara was attractive and well-mannered, but her reading consisted solely of self-help tomes and diet books, and her conversation began with quotes from Leo Buscaglia and ended with the words of Rollo May. In between was
advice from everyone from Richard Simmons to Dr. Ruth. Lynn doubted that the woman had ever had an original thought in her life. And yet her father seemed to hang on every silly syllable. Even after three years, he continued to smile benignly at his wife’s pronouncements, adding a few well-chosen observations of his own, commenting lovingly on Barbara’s latest accomplishments. It was always “Barbara this” and “Barbara that” and “Did you see Barbara’s name in the paper the other day? She’s running that new charity drive.” “Charity begins at home,” Barbara would say. Home is where the heart is. Anywhere I hang my hat is home. Home, home on the range.