Only Son (10 page)

“Stay,” Carl said. He left him—still crying—on the living room floor. He threw the soiled diaper in the garbage under the kitchen sink. Then he switched on the stove to heat some milk. He'd bought it during his last trip to Seattle four days ago.

He hurried back to the living room to check on the baby. “
Oh, Jesus…
” He ran over and yanked the remote control out of his tiny hand. It was slimy. The baby had been gnawing at it, and he screamed in protest. Carl clicked on the TV, and pressed the volume button until the noise matched the baby's shrieks. “The Flintstones” came up over the tube. “Hey, gonna watch TV! Okay?” he said in a strained, cheerful voice. Then he retreated back to the kitchen.

Carl tested the milk he'd been heating in a saucepan: lukewarm, good enough. He spilled some on the counter as he filled one of the new plastic bottles he'd bought.

Back in the living room, Carl scooped up the boy and carried him to the couch. The baby wiggled and cried. It was as if he didn't want any part of him. “Okay, okay, now,” Carl whispered, showing him the bottle. “Calm down.” He sat back and stuck the nipple in the infant's mouth.

Silence.

It lasted a couple of seconds. The baby started to cry again—louder and more angry than before. Carl shook him. “C'mon, I thought you were hungry…” He tickled his lips with the nipple, but the kid turned his head away and kept screaming. The milk couldn't have been that hot, the bottle was hardly warm. Carl felt his diaper. “You're not wet. What's the matter with you? Hush now…come on…please…” His hand trembled as he poked and poked at the child's mouth with the nipple. He rocked him in his lap. “Take it! C'mon, take it, drink it. What's wrong with you? Please, stop crying, goddamn it!”

Carl was ready to start crying himself. He quickly set the baby down on the cushion, then he took a deep breath. Didn't help much. What did the kid want? Was he sick? God, if the baby was sick, what would he do? He couldn't call a doctor. He couldn't call anyone.

Maybe the baby was used to being breast-fed. Carl examined the nipple, turned the bottle upside down, and shook it. Nothing came out. “What the hell?” he murmured. He twisted off the top and found a disk inside the nipple portion. “Shit, no wonder.” He pried out the disk, then screwed the top back on.

The baby screamed and tried to pull away when Carl reached for him again. “C'mon, c'mon,” Carl pleaded. He poked the nipple in the baby's mouth once more. He waited, counting the seconds of silence and praying it would last this time. The baby's wet cheeks moved. The large, tear-filled eyes blinked.
He was swallowing
.

Carl let out a weak laugh. “Hallelujah.”

The baby still wiggled and kicked a little, but the angry, red color had left his face. His little fingers spread out from the dimpled fists, and he grabbed hold of Carl's shirt.

Carl smiled at him. The loud volume of the TV spoiled the moment and he wished he could get up and turn it off.

The cat was throwing Fred Flintstone out of the house and Fred pounded on the front door as the credits rolled over the screen. Then a newscaster came on, sitting beside a typewriter, his tie loosened. “
Among our stories on KING-5 News
,” he said. “
Authorities suspect that four-alarm fire in Tukwila was arson; in part three of our series on abducted children, Dan Alder is in Portland examining the disappearance of a baby boy today; the Seahawks take it on the chin, and some safety tips for your young trick-or-treaters. All this and more, next on KING-5 News
.”

The baby started to cry. The nipple had slipped out of his mouth. Trembling, Carl stuck it in his mouth again, and the baby took it eagerly.

The headline story was about a fire at some waterbed store. Carl's gaze turned toward the window, to the apartment building across the street. He noticed the flickering light of a TV set in one of the windows. How many others were watching this broadcast right now?

“
In Portland tonight, the search continues for five-month-old Eddie McMurray…
” A fuzzy snapshot of the baby appeared in a box behind the newscaster's shoulder. “
The infant was abducted from his mother's car this afternoon. In a special series on missing children, KING-5 reporter, Dan Alder, has the story from Portland…
”

A windbreaker over his shirt and tie, the thirtyish, mustached man spoke into a handheld mike. He stood in front of the bank's cash machine. “
At one-fifteen this afternoon, Amy McMurray made a transaction at this cash machine at the Hollywood Branch of the First Interstate Bank. She'd left her five-month-old son, Edward, in the car, parked around the corner, just three hundred feet away
.” There was a shot of the Volkswagen, parked by the curb—its door open. “
Mrs. McMurray thought she'd locked the door. The transaction took only a minute, but when she returned to her car, little Edward McMurray was gone…
”

The picture switched to the McMurray girl and her husband. They sat on a beige couch, a blank, white wall behind them. Carl wasn't sure if they were in their house or not. She still wore the same brown sweater she'd had on at the bank. But she looked as if that had been days ago. Her face was ravaged. “
I just want my little boy back—safe
,” she said in a strained, tearful voice. “
We're praying and waiting…
” She clutched her husband's hand, then looked directly at the screen. Carl felt as if those red-rimmed eyes were staring at him, and he wanted to shrink away. “
Whoever took my boy, you—you have to know…
” She started to break down. “
He's teething now. I've got his teething ring. He's not sick. He—please, don't hurt him
.” She brought a hand up to her face. “
Please…
”

The baby suddenly struggled. He knocked the bottle away and screamed. Carl realized it was the sound of his mother's voice. He wanted her.

“
What in God's name have I done?
” Carl murmured. He clutched the crying infant to his chest. But once again, the child seemed to want no part of him.

Amy was used to the darkness in the nursery. By nightfall, Eddie was always asleep in there. Even when he'd wake up, Amy never turned on the light. She'd grown accustomed to changing diapers, feeding him his bottle, and singing lullabies in the darkness of this room. She didn't turn on a light now; it would have been like violating something. Bad luck.

She stared down into the empty crib. The room still had his smell. Then again, why shouldn't it? Eddie had only been gone eight hours. It seemed like days to her. Their doctor had been by, and he'd given her Valium or something. Whatever it was, the medication made her tired and numb. If the roof were to cave in right now, she'd just stand there watching it come down on her.

She could hear her mother in the kitchen, talking on the telephone to a neighbor. The police had put a tap on the phone though they'd seemed skeptical about anyone calling to demand a ransom. For that, Amy would have been grateful, because it meant they stood some chance of getting her little guy-guy back. There had been dozens of calls: friends, reporters, the police, some cranks. Paul and her mother had taken them all.

The doorbell kept ringing, too: trick-or-treaters. Amy couldn't bear seeing the children in their costumes. Her mother answered the door, giving out quarters and explaining with strained cheerfulness that she'd forgotten to buy candy.

Three baked hams and two casseroles sat in the refrigerator—from concerned friends who had stopped by. There were others who stopped by, but they were strangers who never rang the bell. They crept up to the windows to peek inside. Paul always chased them away. Still, he could do nothing about the dozens of cars that slowed down and stopped for a moment in front of their town house. “Goddamn snoops,” Paul would growl, his voice hoarse from crying. But Amy kept hoping that the driver of each idling car was the one who would bring Eddie back to her.

She stared down at the crib and heard Paul walk into the darkened room. In all this time, he'd hardly said anything to her. He'd held her hand while the TV reporters had interviewed them. He'd spoken to the police and then told her of their lack of any leads, but he never whispered a word about his own grief and confusion. He'd embraced her mother when she'd arrived by airport taxi, but Amy hadn't felt his arms around her all day.

She glanced back at him for a second, and thought she saw tears in his eyes. Then she looked at the crib again. Amy waited for him to hug her, or maybe just squeeze her shoulder. But he didn't touch her. “Paul?” she murmured. She felt him staring at her back.

After a moment, she heard him crying, and he whispered. “Why did you leave him alone like that?”

Amy just shook her head, and Paul left the room.

 

Brushing his teeth, Carl wandered back into his bedroom. He'd moved the crib in there. After weeks of coveting this child, he wasn't about to shut him off in a room alone for the night. As he got ready for bed, Carl kept checking on the baby to make sure he was still there. Everything seemed so tentative—even the sound of his breathing. What if it suddenly stopped? Too many precious things had been taken away from him in the past; he was terrified of losing this child.

Returning to the bathroom, Carl rinsed out his mouth and washed his face. He hurried back to the living room to catch the eleven o'clock news. They were reporting world and national events—Carter supporting a U.N. embargo on South Africa, something about the Concorde. Carl gathered up all the toys that had failed to amuse his new son. He threw the yellow overalls, the shirt, and blue cardigan into the fireplace, then set a match to them. It was a cute little outfit and the clothes looked brand new, but he had to get rid of them.
Destroy the evidence
. A description of these garments was probably on every police file in the Pacific Northwest. He held a match to the baby clothes until his fingers burned. Still, the clothing didn't ignite. He tried again, then finally checked the labels: flame-retardant fiber. He'd bought the baby over three hundred dollars' worth of clothes, and had never checked to see if they were nonflammable. The McMurrays had thought of something he hadn't.

Defeatedly, he gathered up the evidence of both his crime and his negligence, then stuffed the clothes into a paper sack. Maybe lighter fluid would do the trick. He'd try later.

“
Portland police still have no leads in the disappearance of five-month-old Edward McMurray, abducted from his mother's car
.”

Carl turned up the volume on the TV.

“
KING-5 News Reporter, Dan Alder, spoke to the child's parents, Paul and Amy McMurray…
”

Once again, they showed the tape of the girl. Carl was about to switch off the TV, but—almost masochistically—he forced himself to watch. His heart broke for her. He wished he hadn't spoken to Mrs. Sheehan on the plane, because now he remembered everything she'd said about her girl—especially the part about how hard she tried to be a good mother to the baby.

“
He's teething now…I have his teething ring…please, don't hurt him…
”

Carl shut off the set. He'd have to buy a teething ring in the morning. And if he wanted any sleep tonight, he'd have to call Amy McMurray. She needed to be reassured that the baby was in good hands.

Don't be ridiculous, Carl
, he told himself;
not only is it stupid and risky, but you don't even have a goddamn phone
.

There was a phone booth down the street.

And leave the baby alone here?

Carl went to the bedroom to check on him again. Still asleep, still breathing. He could leave him alone for a couple of minutes. And in that time, he'd alleviate some of that poor girl's suffering, tell her the baby was safe and healthy….

That won't help her at all, stupid. She wants him back. You'd just be stringing her along. She's better off thinking he's dead….

It seemed so cruel. Yet wouldn't it be just as heartless to let her know the baby was all right, then tell her she'd never get him back? So he wouldn't tell her that part. Maybe just hearing that the baby was okay was all she wanted to hear right now, and that was all he'd tell her.

Carl checked his pockets for change. He'd need a lot for long-distance to Portland. He'd have to talk to an operator, too. And there was bound to be a tap on the McMurrays' phone. He wondered how long it took for the police to trace a call.

For the next ten minutes, he paced around the living room. Then he finally came to a decision.

 

“If you're not going to bed, dear, let me fix you a ham sandwich—with plenty of mustard, the way you used to like it…”

“I'm not hungry, Mom,” Amy murmured. She sat at the kitchen table, rubbing her forehead.

But Mrs. Sheehan was pulling one of the baked hams out of the refrigerator. “You haven't eaten all day. Maybe if you had something in your stomach, you'd feel tired enough to go to bed.”

Amy could hear the television set in the living room. Paul was in there. The eleven o'clock news was ending. It was strange to hear her own voice on TV, and not care. “
Police have no leads
,” the anchorman had said, and Amy stopped listening. Now “The Tonight Show” was on. She heard the theme song.

She couldn't go to Paul, knowing how much he must hate her. She didn't blame him a bit.

The telephone rang. “I'll get it, Paul,” her mother called. She grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

Amy had tried to give up hoping each call would be the one to end this wait. But each time the phone rang, she couldn't help herself. And there was always the terrible letdown after the call turned out to be from a reporter or a crank. Biting her lip, she stared over at the empty high chair.

“Hello?” Mrs. Sheehan said again.

“Is this Mrs. McMurray? Amy McMurray?” It was a man's voice.

“No, this is her mother. Who's calling?”

“She doesn't know me. I'm the one who took the little boy. I'd like to talk to her.”

Mrs. Sheehan looked down at her daughter for a second. Amy glanced up at her listlessly. “I'll let you talk to
Mister
McMurray,” she said into the phone.

“No. I'll only speak to the mother. Now, please, put her on. I'll have to hang up soon. I know this call's being traced. I might not call back.”

“She's asleep,” Mrs. Sheehan said. “I—I'll have to go wake her. Can you hold on?”

“Just hurry,” he said.

Mrs. Sheehan put the phone down, then ran into the living room. Amy sat at the table, bewildered. She heard her mother whispering to Paul: “I have someone on the line who says he's got Ed. But he'll only talk to Amy…”

“Put her on,” Paul said. “I'll get the other extension.”

Amy reached for the phone, but her mother grabbed it out of her hands. She covered the mouthpiece. “Wait for Paul to pick it up in the bedroom,” she whispered. “It might be just another crank, honey…” She listened to the receiver for a click. “I'm hanging up now,” she said into the phone. Then she pressed down the cradle for a second and handed the receiver to Amy.

“Hello?” she said. Her heart was racing.

“Is this Amy McMurray?” the man asked.

“Yes…”

“I saw you on the news tonight. I'm the one who took your baby.”

“Is he all right?” she asked, her voice cracking.

There was silence.

“Please, tell me if he's okay…”

“I have your little boy here right now…”

“Then he's all right?”

The man on the other end made a strange snickering sound. “I cut off his head. Shall I send it to you?”

The receiver dropped out of Amy's hand and she collapsed to the kitchen floor.

 

An hour later, she woke up startled—the phone again. Amy found herself on top of the bed, still dressed, but covered with her robe. That was her mother's work. Back in her high school days, she'd often woken from an afternoon nap to find her mother had crept in and laid a robe or blanket over her.

She heard Paul talking on the kitchen extension now. Then he must have hung up. He was mumbling something to her mother.

Amy squinted at the clock on the nightstand: 12:45 a.m. Her mother tiptoed into the room. “You awake, honey?”

“Who was it on the phone?” she asked.

Mrs. Sheehan sat down on the bed. “The police.”

“He's dead, isn't he?”

“Oh, no, no.” She smoothed back her daughter's hair. “They just wanted to tell us, that call earlier, they traced it. They've got the man in custody. It was just a crank, honey, a very sick man. He didn't have Eddie. Try to go back to sleep now. I'll be here, darling. Just go to sleep….”

Amy closed her eyes.

Mrs. Sheehan moved to the easy chair at her daughter's bedside. She didn't tell her what the police had also said. A woman had phoned headquarters saying she'd been outside the bank that afternoon. She'd seen a man with a baby, getting inside a car, and it had looked very suspicious to her. The police were following it up now.

There was no use in building up Amy's hopes right now. The lead might not pan out. This news was the kind of thing that might get her through the day tomorrow, but it would have kept Amy awake tonight. And her daughter needed sleep.

Mrs. Sheehan decided to stay with Amy until Paul came to bed. She waited an hour, then got up and padded out to the living room. He was asleep, facedown on the sofa. A nearly drained glass of scotch sat on the coffee table nearby.

She went to the linen closet and pulled out a wool blanket. Mrs. Sheehan gently laid it over Paul. He stirred. “Who is it?” he asked, squinting up at her.

“I thought you might be cold,” she whispered.

“Oh.” He rolled back over. “Thanks, Lauraine.”

“Amy's asleep in the bedroom. Maybe you should join her?”

“It's okay,” he mumbled, waving her away. “I'm fine here.”

Mrs. Sheehan wandered back into the bedroom and sat down beside her daughter. She cried before falling asleep in the chair.

 

“It's good news,” Paul said. “I really think so. I feel it. I wouldn't be surprised if they found this guy today, and—and we get Eddie back by tonight.”

They sat at the breakfast table. Amy's mother set two cups of coffee in front of them. “Thanks, Mom,” Amy said, looking up only for a moment. With her thumbnail, she scratched at some dried baby food on Eddie's high chair tray. Working up a smile, she nodded at Paul as he spoke.

“The lady gave the cops a complete description of him—and his car. She even remembers part of the license plate number. They got it in the afternoon editions of every newspaper in the Pacific Northwest. The guy won't get far…”

Amy nodded some more, but she refused to think it could happen that easily. Why set herself up for more disappointment? Paul was wrong to invest all his hope in this one lead. Then again, maybe he was just placating her; part of his “crisis duty,” along with handling the police and reporters. Meanwhile, her mom had taken it upon herself to cook and clean. Between the two of them, they left her with nothing to do but worry—and replay in her mind that awful moment outside the bank, when stupid carelessness had cost her the most precious thing in her life.

Amy sipped her coffee. “We can't expect the police to do everything,” she said. She couldn't quite look at her mother or Paul, so she stared down into her coffee cup. “Don't you think we ought to be
doing
something? At least, let's hire a private detective, someone whose business is finding missing persons.”

Paul let out an exasperated sigh and glanced at Amy's mother. She met his gaze for only a second, then turned away, busying herself over a pan of scrambled eggs on the stove. “Let's just let the police handle it,” he said, his voice strained. “They know what they're doing, Amy. I feel good about this lead, I really do.”