Prospect Street (40 page)

“Assassination's the ultimate solution in American politics. Our government killed leaders in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, the Congo. In the secret corridors of Washington, there are plenty of men who believe the end justifies the means. It's not just the Soviet Union where people die without a trial.”

“They tried this?”

“No, no! I'm not sure the plan was anything more than talk all along, a chance to feel they were taking control, even if it was only in a back room somewhere. And too many things went wrong right from the beginning. The Cubans demanded exorbitant sums of money. One of Joe's colleagues changed his mind and threatened to expose them if they went forward. Kennedy's schedule changed.”

“How do you know this?”

“My husband was careless. There are notes in his handwriting, logs of meetings and telephone calls. I found them when I was preparing to move his desk into the middle bedroom. I thought I would remove the drawers to make it lighter. When I took out the first one, I found the file wedged in a crack above the runners, where Joe probably thought no one would ever see it. I'm not sure why he kept the papers after they changed their minds. Maybe he wanted a weapon to use against the others, if any of them ever turned on him. The notes explained who said what and when. They were convincing. And there was a letter from one of the others that he'd kept as evidence, and the draft of a letter to one of the Cubans.”

“You have these papers?”

“Until I told him, he didn't even know they were gone. I forged lookalikes and put those back in the file. I put the originals in a safe deposit box. I'll move them every couple of years, for safekeeping.”

“Why have you told me this?”

“Someday you may have to protect yourself. Someday Joe may come after you. If you have to, you can come to me, and I'll make sure you're safe.”

“And what about
her?
Who will protect our daughter from this man?”

“Joe won't hurt Hope. That's the one thing we can be sure of. He's not a man who would harm a child. Do you think I could stay with him if I thought so? Perhaps he won't love her. Perhaps he'll be cold toward her. But I'm as sure of her safety as of anything in the world.”

“You can't live like this. Come with me. Bring our daughter. Hope. You named her Hope. Do you have hope for us?”

Her heart was breaking. “There's no hope for us. You don't want to leave your wife and son, and I don't want to live in sin with you. We have no future together. The best we can do is pick up our lives and move forward.”

“I saw her. I came to the nursery today during visiting hours and saw her through the window. She looks like my Pasha.”

“Joe's hair is dark. No one will suspect she's not his. In time, maybe he'll think of her that way.”

“You don't believe this.”

She didn't. She knew the most she could hope for from Joe was an absence of overt cruelty, but that would have to be enough.

“I believe I'm doing the best I can,” she said. “If things get too bad, I'll leave Joe and start over. But I'm going to try. I'm going to see if we can make the marriage work.”

He reached through the rail for her hand, clasping it. “Then you want me to go? For good?”

“You have to. Right now Joe doesn't know who Hope's father is. We can't ever give him reason to suspect you. You shouldn't have come here.”

“You will tell her about me?”

Lydia tried to imagine that conversation. She couldn't, in good faith, promise it would ever take place.

When she remained silent, his expression darkened. “She is my daughter, Lydia. I cannot willingly give her up so easily.”

“I'll do what's best for her. I can promise that. She's the one we have to consider now.”

“You must protect her. I don't know how, but I'll be watching. From a distance, I will be making sure.”

“She'll be safe, Dominik.” She lifted his hand to her lips, kissed his palm and folded his fingers over it. “I'll do everything to protect our daughter.”

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he didn't. He withdrew his hand, resting it on the railing for a moment, drink
ing in this last sight of her. Then he turned and left as quietly as he had come. In a moment the room was empty.

“I will protect her, my love,” Lydia said into the darkness.

But, of course, she hadn't.

 

“And with all this, with two men who were torn to pieces by my sister's birth, you actually believed that someone
else
might have kidnapped Hope?” Faith sounded incredulous. “There were two strong suspects, my father and Dominik, but you never told the FBI the real story? They investigated the kidnapping without knowing any of this?”

Lydia wanted her daughter to understand. She had been trying to protect both men, denying the possibility that either could have kidnapped her baby. Joe's future was at stake, because he knew that if Lydia suspected him, she would come forward with the papers in her possession. And Dominik? What reason did he have? He had a wife and son to consider, and nothing material to offer Hope. Besides, at the time, Lydia had been convinced Dominik would never hurt her.

“How could I tell the FBI?” she said. “I didn't believe either man had done it. Both of them had too much to lose.”

“You can say that, knowing the bad judgment my father showed when he went along with this Kennedy plot?”

“But he
didn't
go along with it. In the end he spoke against it and severed his ties with the others. When Kennedy was assassinated the following year, I was absolutely sure your father had nothing to do with it. He was a hothead, yes, but a politician first and foremost. The whole thing scared him so badly he learned his lesson. “

“You believed or you hoped?”

“Faith, try to understand. I didn't know what to do. For a long time I believed the FBI would find Hope and return her. And what if they had, but by then the whole world knew she wasn't really Joe's daughter? Can you imagine how that scandal would have followed her for the rest of her life? I was trying to protect her. I was trying to protect Joe. I was trying to protect Dominik.”

“You were trying to protect yourself.”

“I don't deny it.”

Faith was at the stove now, pouring herself a cup of wassail. She added Scotch, but she stood with her back against the counter to drink it. She looked shaken. “When did you begin to realize you'd never see her again?”

“Months.” Lydia set her mug on the table. “I didn't give up for a long, long time.”

“And afterward, Mother? Why did you stay married to Dad? Why did you have another child?”

Lydia fumbled for words. “When Hope was taken…your father seemed genuinely sorry. I was so in need of comfort, I believed what the public saw. I…I believed that he had forgiven me.”

Faith shook her head in disbelief.

“You weren't there,” Lydia said. “The newscasts, the pleas for her to be returned. He put on a tragic face. Even at home, where there were no reporters…he was solicitous and kind. I was in no condition to think rationally about what was happening. Then, in December, Dominik killed himself.”

She cleared her throat. “What was left of my world fell apart, but your father was the Rock of Gibraltar. I…I clung to him, and as the months went by we drifted back into a real marriage. I set out to help him, the way he had helped me through the worst. I forced myself to rejoin the world at his side.”

“And you had me.”

“I owed Joe a child of his own.”

“He told you that?”

“Faith, I was a hollow shell. For a long time I simply gave up. I let your father tell me what to do, and I was grateful when he did. Besides, I desperately wanted another baby. Hope was only one week old when she was stolen from me.”

“So you got pregnant. With me.”

Lydia had no desire to continue. “That's everything. You know it all now.”

“I don't think so.”

Lydia didn't look at her. “I don't have anything else to add.”

“Just one more question, Mother. I grew up in that house, remember? You say you wanted me. You say you wanted to give my father a gift for all his support. But I was
there.
There was no warmth or gratitude in that house. What happened? You say you were making a new start? When did it end?”

“I've told you too much already.”

“What happened? You owe me the rest of it. This was my life.”

Lydia considered the table in front of her. The faint ring where a child had set a wet glass and forgotten it, the crack in the finish at the edge of one panel.

She traced a finger along the crack. “When I was eight months pregnant, your father asked me why I'd had the courage to have another baby. We'd had a fight about something, just a silly spat. The pregnancy was difficult so soon after the last one, and I was tired. I challenged him, stood up to him again, the way I had before Hope disappeared. I told him I was having this baby for him, because I wanted to start a new life together and create a family.”

She paused, remembering. “He was smiling a little. I'll never forget that. And he said he was glad that this baby didn't belong to the handyman, too.”

“Then he knew all along who Hope's real father was?”

“I don't know how or when he figured it out. Maybe it was only a guess. But when I didn't deny it, he said that of course a baby's parentage doesn't have any effect on fate. Lightning isn't supposed to strike in the same place twice, but I should never let folk wisdom guide me. Wouldn't it be a tragedy if I lost his baby, too?”

She looked up. “I asked him what he meant, and he said that obviously it hadn't been a difficult matter to make Hope disappear. Someone had taken her, somebody with everything to gain, and I should be careful.”

Faith was pale now. “He as much as said he kidnapped Hope?”

“No, that was the beauty of it, of course. He didn't say it. He just hinted at the possibility, and, worse, that you wouldn't be safe, either, unless I did what I was told.”

“But you had evidence against him. You had the Kennedy evidence. My God, the Warren Commission would have been all over it!”

“It was a standoff, Faith. I had the papers, but could I really tell the world the father of my new baby had once plotted to kill Kennedy? And Joe had you. He never
said
he would harm you or make you disappear, but the threat was there. Dominik was right to worry about Hope's safety. With one twist your father let me know I'd been a fool, that I'd never had any reason to trust him or depend on him. I'd been weak, and because of it, I had lost my chance to be free. If I left him, you would be in danger forever. Perhaps only in a custody battle, but the threat was imminent.”

“So you stayed with him?”

“He never threatened me again, but of course he never had to, did he?”

Faith's eyes glistened with tears. “Maybe I'll be able to understand this someday, I don't know, but, Mother, I've been an adult for twenty years. I've been safe for decades. And you're
still
with him. You can't blame me for that.”

Perhaps this was the hardest part to admit, the part where Lydia had no good excuses. Not passion, not a desperate need to protect a child. Simply, ultimately, cowardice. She looked away from her daughter.

“I've considered leaving him a hundred times or more. But I'm old. All I have left is the life Joe and I made together. As much as I despise him for what he did and said that day, my roots in that life are too deep to untangle. And it was all such a long time ago.”

“Please tell me that if you'd
really
believed he'd kidnapped Hope, you wouldn't have stayed with him for any reason. Tell me that much.”

Lydia didn't know anymore. “Joe had reasons to kidnap
Hope but more reasons not to. He tortured me with the possibility by not denying it, but it was one conversation in the heat of anger. There's never been one bit of evidence he was involved.”

Faith's tone softened. “Then you don't think he did it?”

Tears filled Lydia's eyes now, tears that had never really disappeared. “Once upon a time there were
two
men who were unhappy my beautiful baby daughter came into this world. So many years later, and still, that's all I can be sure of.”

H
am had never had a Christmas tree. He was Jewish by birth and a humanist by conviction, two strikes against celebrating the holiday. But when David arrived home from an interview with the dean of admissions at Wesley Theological Seminary, he found a tree—a living tree, of course, since that was more environmentally acceptable—sitting in a galvanized pail in the corner of the apartment.

“You needed something familiar,” Ham said. “But I draw the line at decorating it. I borrowed some ornaments from a friend who isn't putting his up this year. They're under the table.”

David stared at the little Norfolk pine. Burlap peeked from the top of the pail. Clearly Ham had been to a nursery, not a Christmas tree lot. “What's next? Speaking in tongues? Baptism?”

“Sure, and I'm the new Messiah. Dream on.”

David embraced him. “You didn't have to do this.”

“It's a pagan ritual. I'll pretend I'm a Druid if you will.”

“I'll let Alex decorate it this afternoon.”

Ham stepped back to get a better look at David's expression. “You're bringing him here?”

Alex would be spending Christmas day with his mother and grandparents, but David had booked a cabin in western Maryland for the weekend so he and Alex could have their private celebration in the country. They were going to hike, cross-country ski if the weather cooperated, and play chess in front of a roaring fire. He hadn't told Ham the rest of it.

“I spoke to Faith last night and told her I wanted to bring him here before we head out of town. I want him to see where I'm living.”

“And she said yes?”

“Without a struggle.” David had considered that his first gift of the season.

“I'll make sure I'm gone.”

“No, I told her you'd be here. She said that was fine.”

“She didn't warn you not to have sex in front of the kid?”

“I think she's giving me some credit for good sense. Maybe she's even giving you some, too.”

“You'd better be careful. Someday I might learn to like that woman.”

“You
would
like her, if you had the chance to know her. Maybe you will yet.”

“Miracles of the holiday?”

“She's had a hard time.”

“And you still care about her.” It wasn't a question.

“Would you want me to say no?” David asked.

“No, that's who you are.”

 

Faith was trying to help Alex pack for his weekend with David, but her mind wasn't on it. Last night, as she'd tossed and turned, she'd thought of nothing except Lydia's visit. This morning, just after dawn, she had come to a decision. She had to tell Pavel what she'd learned. She had promised she would tell him if she discovered anything new about the kidnapping, but even if she hadn't promised, Hope was Pavel's sister, too. Faith and Pavel shared a half sister they had never known.

“Mom, I don't need six pairs of underwear. Let me pack my
own stuff.” Alex grabbed the briefs and socks out of her hands, embarrassed.

She didn't point out that she still did her son's laundry, that she had washed, dried and folded these particular items approximately one million times in his young life. She just nodded, as if his was the most sensible protest in the world.

“Go ahead. You know what you'll need better than I do.”

“Dad's not coming till three. I don't have to be packed till then.”

“Why put it off until the last minute?”

“Because that's the way I want to do it.”

She wondered what life was going to be like with two teenagers in the house. Alex had just turned twelve. She was on the brink of discovery. “Fine, you take care of it. Just don't forget Dad's Christmas present, all right?”

Alex had made a screen saver for David's computer from a lifetime of school photographs of himself and Remy. Faith suspected she might have a copy under the tree, too.

“You think he'll like it?” Alex asked. “You don't think having Remy's pictures in it will make him sad?”

“Of course he's going to want her pictures, too.”

“I asked her to go with us to Maryland.”

Faith was certain of the outcome. “That was nice.”

“You're going to let her go to Megan's?”

Alex wasn't given to policing family rules or wanting to exact just punishment for his sister. But now he sounded unhappy that Remy, too, was going away for the weekend.

“She needs to get away, just like you do. And school's out, so she won't be missing any schoolwork.”

“You'll be here all alone.”

“I'll be fine. Remy hasn't seen Megan in ages, so they'll have lots to catch up on. I'm going to finish my Christmas shopping and clean the house. Hey, I might even bake those peppermint swirl cookies you like so much.”

“I've already got a whole tin of cookies to take this weekend.”

“I need to bake more so I can take them to all the neighbors.”

“Maybe Remy ought to stay home and help.”

“Are you afraid I'll be lonely?”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes at my age a quiet house is nice.” She left him to pack and worry alone. She was sure once he left with David, his mind would be on other things.

Next she stopped by Remy's room to see if she needed help. From the doorway it appeared Remy was no further along than her brother. “Got everything you need? I have a tin of cookies for Megan's mom.”

“Megan's mom makes a million Christmas cookies every year. She doesn't need yours.”

Faith heard more than rejection. “It's a hostess gift. Aren't you glad to be getting together with Megan and your other friends, sweetheart? You said you wanted to go.”

“I don't care.”

Faith hoped Remy would go back to McLean, renew old friendships and turn back into the happy young teen she had been. Of course Faith also believed in a virgin birth, wise men bearing gifts and angels appearing to lowly shepherds.

“You can stay home,” she offered, knowing she would be turned down. “There's still a lot to do around the house. I could use the help.”

“You're so obvious. I'm trying to get ready, okay?”

Faith went downstairs. Off duty for a few minutes, she called the Scavenger office and asked for Pavel. His secretary agreed to take a message but warned her that he probably wouldn't be in for the rest of the day.

She tried him at home and left a message on his voice mail. She was staring at the narrow wall beside the telephone, adorned only by a calendar, when the day's date suddenly clicked. Back upstairs in her room she shuffled through her copies of the newspaper articles from the library scrapbook until she found the one she was looking for.

Thirty-eight years ago on this date, Dominik Dubrov had hung himself from a Georgetown rafter.

She dropped to the edge of her bed and wondered if Pavel knew. Did he ignore the date of his father's suicide, or did he commemorate it in some way? She wondered what she would do under the circumstances.

A few minutes later she was dressed in her warmest coat, although she was only going next door. “I'll be back in a few minutes,” she called upstairs. “I'm taking Dottie Lee some cookies.”

Although she had salted them twice that morning, the steps were icy. She took a moment to scrape off an accumulation of snow before she gingerly descended. Next door, Mariana welcomed her and took her coat.

Dottie Lee's holiday decorations were unorthodox but festive. Multicolored origami animals were strung in doorways. Pysanky eggs from Eastern Europe adorned a tabletop Christmas tree. A papier-mâché witch rode a broomstick across the opening of the fireplace.

“La Befana,”
Dottie Lee said from the stairs. “On twelfth night she brings candy to good Italian children and coal to bad ones.”

“I'm not sure my children could wait that long to see which they were getting.” Faith held out a colorful tin when Dottie Lee joined her. “For you and Mariana. And an invitation. We'd like you to come for Christmas supper. We'll be going to my parents' house early in the day, but we'll be home in time for a celebration of our own.”

Dottie Lee considered. “Why don't you come here instead?”

“I don't want you doing the work. I want you to be our guest for a change.”

“I don't often go out, you know.”

Faith assumed she was talking about the winter weather. “If it snows, Alex and I will come and get you. I don't want you slipping on the ice.”

“Faith, dear, the only times I've been out of my house and yard in years and years were the brief times I've been in yours.”

“Oh…” Faith was chagrined that she hadn't understood. She
had missed all the signs that Dottie Lee was housebound. “I'm so sorry. Are you afraid to leave?”

“I suppose I am.”

“But you did come that once. And you've been to my front door.”

“Both visits seemed imperative.”

“Do you want to try again?” Faith asked gently.

Dottie Lee chewed her lip.

“The houses are connected,” Faith pointed out. “If there was a doorway right here—” she tapped the wall that separated them “—then my house would be your house, too.”

“There is no doorway.”

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable. It's just that you feel like part of our family now.”

Dottie Lee thought about it, then nodded. “No, we'll come. I might leave a bit early. Would that be all right?”

“We can make it a progressive dinner. If you get tired of being at our house, we'll follow you over here.”

“Does your mother know what a blessing you are?”

Before Dottie Lee sidetracked her with flattery, Faith shifted to the most immediate reason she had come. “Dottie Lee, I've got something else to discuss.”

“I'm delighted to leave my neuroses for the moment.” She gestured to the sofa, but Faith shook her head.

“I'll launch right in. I know my mother had an affair with Dominik Dubrov. And I know Dominik is Pavel's father. I'll bet you've known that for a while, haven't you?”

Dottie Lee didn't seem surprised by either fact. “Does your mother realize you know?” When Faith nodded, Dottie Lee sighed. “Good.”

“I also know Dominik Dubrov killed himself thirty-eight years ago today.”

“Yes. A tragedy.”

“I'm trying to find Pavel. And I wondered, well, if you happen to know where his father is buried?”

“You think Pavel might be there?”

Faith knew it was a long shot, an impossibly long shot. But Pavel himself had said he visited his father's grave. What better day for it?

“I think it's a possibility,” Faith said. “And even if he isn't…” She had no reason to visit the grave. Her mother's affair with Dominik Dubrov had set the stage for her own unhappy childhood. At the same time, she was drawn to his story. He had become a tragic figure in her mind, a man left with nothing, who, in the end, had taken his own life to escape the pain.

Dottie Lee interrupted her thoughts. “Do you have something you need to say to him? To Dominik, that is?”

Faith supposed she did, although she didn't know what. “I know what you told the police, but are you sure he didn't kidnap Hope?” She didn't add that Hope had been Dominik's daughter. For all she knew, Dottie Lee had figured it out already, but that was Lydia's secret to share.

“I believe in the end you'll find everything is tied together, dear. I never thought a stranger wandered in and took the baby.”

“But you were Dominik's alibi,” Faith probed.

Dottie Lee didn't confirm that the alibi had been genuine, a fact Faith made note of. “If I hadn't told the police what I did, perhaps Dominik would still be alive. They might have arrested him, and he would have found it harder to kill himself in jail. So when no one claimed his body, I did. I buried him in my family's plot at Oak Hill, with senators and statesmen. He deserved better than a pauper's grave. No matter what you think of him now, Dominik was a good man. Tell him I still believe it, will you, when you visit today?”

 

Remy didn't want to go to Megan's house. All her old friends were coming for a sleepover, and they would be talking about things Remy had no part in anymore. She had seen some of them at the horse show, and although they were friendly, she just knew what kinds of things they'd said about her after she left.

Besides, they seemed so young now. Some of the guys they talked about weren't even in high school yet. She hadn't told
Megan much about Enzio, afraid Megan would tell her mother and she would call Faith. So far Remy had been able to keep that particular secret.

For weeks now her mother had made it nearly impossible for her to see Enzio, but Remy had found ways. The easiest was to sneak away when her mother went out and left her at home with Alex.

Alex knew Remy was sneaking out and around, of course. He also knew that if he ever told Faith, Remy would hate him for the rest of his life. Alex wanted to be cool and grown-up. He liked to think he was both, which was pathetic, of course, but something she used in her favor. So far he had kept his mouth shut.

She'd gone to see Enzio directly from school, too. Once she left early and went to Enzio's house while the other eighth graders spent the afternoon at an assembly. She'd returned to school, exhausted from jogging most of the way, just in time for Faith to pick her up.

She even skipped classes to go to Lawford's. The first time she was nearly caught, but she lied and said she was in the library doing research. Luckily, before her teacher could check, he was distracted by a fight in the hall.

The second time, when she found out Enzio wasn't working that day, she went down the street to visit Ralph, because there wasn't time to go to Enzio's house. Ralph remembered her from the shopping trip with her mother and asked why she wasn't in school. When she told him, he'd been really cool about it, listening and nodding his head as if he actually understood. He'd said that he had hated school, too, because he was different, but now he was going to college part-time, and that she ought to stick it out. He said that finding new friends could be hard, but if she looked she would find people who liked her the way she was, that
he
had.