The Deep End of the Ocean (35 page)

“Mrs. Lockhart,” the judge put in gently. “Do you need a moment?”

“No,” she said firmly.

Perrault, dazed, seemed to recover herself and said, “Well. Then. Mrs. Lockhart, then, as you told police, you believed when Cecilia showed up in 1985 with…Sam, that he was her child. How is that possible if you thought she’d lost her baby?”

“Please!” Sarah Lockhart pleaded. “I loved her dearly, I love her still. Don’t you understand? If I asked Cecilia a question she didn’t like, she would threaten to kill herself, or never to speak to us again…and we knew that she meant it.” She glanced down at her hands. “When she said she and Adam had actually gotten back together and had a child, but then split up, it seemed possible. When she said the court had given custody to Adam because she was too ill to care for him…well, what was I to believe? She seemed so ashamed.”

“But if she was too ill to care for him?” Perrault ventured.

“Then, well, she got better! She seemed fine, and she seemed to be a good mother, even though the child was shy with her…well, I assumed that was because he was only getting to know her all over again after spending so much time with his father.”

“And why didn’t you confirm all this with Adam?”

Sarah Lockhart looked at the attorney with pure scorn. “Miss Perrault, I had never even met the man. He had left my daughter alone, and…and expecting, and then taken her child from her. Why would I have talked to him?”

“To know,” Perrault fumbled helplessly. “To be sure…”

“Cecilia said Adam was ill, that he had multiple sclerosis. Which I now know is really true. He actually does. You don’t understand. She could be very convincing. And…then, I just…I didn’t dare.”

“Why?”

“Because Cecilia said that if I called Adam, ever, she’d never let me see the boy again. And I…I wanted a grandchild. I wanted a healthy, loving child who loved me. I wanted to…believe her. And he was so big, I believed he was four, not three….” She turned her gaze on Beth, and Beth felt her own eyes tug and itch in response. “Beth, I swear to you on my honor, he was always such a big boy. And not red-haired. We all saw in the papers that Ben was red-haired. His hair got reddish when he got big, of course—and when Cecilia married George, of course, we saw Sam all the time.”

Sarah Lockhart leaned forward, gripping the polished rail. “Beth, she never spanked him. She never hurt his feelings. When Cecilia was well, she was gentle and tender to Sam; she always read to him; she taught him songs. They played this little game where she taught Sam to pretend he was the echo from the well in the wishing song from
Snow White
, and he knew all the words….”

Beth was nodding, nodding, transfixed, when she felt Pat bury his face roughly against her shoulder; she turned almost casually to cradle his head and felt, rather than heard, the whirr of cameras that would make the big color shot that would splash above the fold next morning. What Pat was thinking, of course Beth understood—his beloved baby in the arms of the serpent, Ben’s lips forming words the witch pronounced for him. But what, Beth thought angrily, suddenly, was the difference? Would it have been better to hear that Cecil was a bad, absent, crazy mother, who smacked Sam or called him stupid, as she, Beth, had done to Vincent, and even Kerry—and more than once? Would Pat feel more righteous had he known that Cecil had forgotten to wipe Sam’s nose or give him Triaminic when he coughed? If Sam were not strong, healthy, bonny, would that further authenticate their grief?

Then Beth noticed Candy, turned in her seat as if studying Beth’s face for a lost coin or a dropped stitch. What, Candy, Beth thought, what? She glanced at her watch—wouldn’t court break soon?

“Then George and Cecilia were divorced,” Mrs. Lockhart murmured.

“Cecilia and Adam?” Perrault asked.

“No, Cecilia and George—George Karras. They are legally divorced.”

“Right. Yes. Was this because George wished to pursue other relationships?” asked Perrault, who knew better.

“No, oh my goodness, no,” said Mrs. Lockhart. “He loved Cecilia with his whole heart. No one could have put up with…well…” George’s small construction business did well, explained Mrs. Lockhart, but the insurance he had could not begin to cover the magnitude of costs associated with Cecilia’s long hospitalization. And disability programs were limited if a woman had a healthy, working husband. “George was afraid her illness, if it went on forever, would eat up everything. That he’d have to sell the house and not be able to take care of Sam.” She glanced again at Beth. “I’m sorry, Beth.”

To her shock, Beth said, clearly, “That’s all right.”

When Sakura called a recess, reporters crouched all around Beth and Pat like elves, as they rose to leave the room—Pat was genially telling them, “I never really knew Cecilia but now, God, she’s pitiful. You can’t hate someone so absolutely pathetic.” (“Ben’s Father Forgives,” Beth imagined the headline, inwardly smiling as she recalled the way Ellen had begun calling Pat “the quotable saint.”)

Candy motioned to Beth then, and with that unearthly ability to part the press like the Red Sea, led her out the door into the corridor of the jail, where the bailiff stood sucking a Tootsie Pop just beyond the door.

“Elvis, baby,” Candy said to him in her best flirty growl, “don’t make me want you….” Beth saw his name now, clearly: Elmer. He moved aside to let them pass.

“This is probably against some law,” Candy explained in a whisper. “But I want to see her. You want to see her. Perrault is with her. You want to come in?”

Beth nodded. She could feel all her pulses, the backs of her knees, the underside of her chin. In a pen of what looked like chicken wire, Cecil was alone with her nurse and her lawyer.

“Cecilia,” the nurse said, with the kind of respect Beth knew she could never summon over and over again, in the face of a clay figure, “Chief Bliss is here to see you. Is that okay?” Cecil didn’t even blink. When a stray bottle fly lighted on her upper arm, the muscles didn’t quiver. Candy knelt down in front of Cecil’s beefy knees.

“Cecil,” she said. “Listen. Cecil. Please tell me. Where is the baby’s grave? Where is the baby buried?”

The baby? Beth’s unease erupted in a flutter—another child? A murdered child?

“Have you checked?” Candy asked Michele Perrault. “Did you find a death certificate?”

Flustered, Perrault replied, “A death certificate? How could I check for something I didn’t even…listen, Detective, you have to know that this came from left field for me. My client’s mother never said one word about a pregnancy, though I can’t imagine what she was thinking…I mean, in keeping it back.”

Musingly, Candy said, “I don’t think she needed a reason, Michele. Or at least, a reason that would make sense to you and me.”

“But to lie!” Perrault caught herself, with a guilty look, as if hearing how she sounded for the first time. “I mean, to forget such a seemingly important detail. Of course, Sarah Lockhart has been under enormous strain. It’s not entirely unexpected.”

“It’s not at all unexpected,” Candy replied, wryly. “I fully expect people to try to protect their children. They do it all the time. They do it in much more outrageous ways. In her mind, Mrs. Lockhart was clinging to the fact that with Cecil, she could never be sure.”

“You know,” Perrault said, “a miscarriage sometimes triggers an abduction. I mean, no one disputes the facts of what took place here. We’re talking…what, four years after the fact, probably, but it still might have given us something to go after. Something in the way of a cause for Cecil’s actions.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lockhart probably understood that, somewhere deep down.”

“So, are you saying then that she really did suspect Cecilia’s child was Ben? Maybe without realizing it? Because I never got the impression she was being deliberately untruthful,” Perrault said.

“Nor did I.”

“Then why not talk about this miscarriage thing?”

“She probably told herself it was a long time ago. And that it didn’t matter…” Candy paused, pressing her finger against the line between her eyes. “Or maybe…maybe, she sensed something about the whole thing,” she went on, more slowly. “The way I do.”

“What?” Perrault asked.

“I mean, it isn’t as though I’ve never heard of people who got knocked off their pins by a miscarriage—or even by thinking they had a miscarriage. And this isn’t a normal woman. But something…maybe there really wasn’t a miscarriage. Maybe there was actually a baby.”

Beth broke in then, “What baby? Her baby?”

“Wouldn’t that even be more of a reason to be absolutely forthcoming?” Perrault fumed. “Her having a grandchild out there somewhere? Dead or alive? Or is that what you’re saying at all?”

“It’s probably nothing,” Candy said, kneeling, putting her hand on Cecil’s leg. “I just…I don’t know.” Cecil’s eyes began to dart down then, down and up, over and over. Her head began to follow the eye movements, as if a string were being jerked ever more vigorously.

“Don’t think she really heard anything,” the nurse said smoothly. “She’s perseverating. She’ll do the same movement over and over sometimes, unless you stop her. There, there, now, Cecilia…” She caught Cecil’s bobbing chin in her hand. “That’s good.”

“Cecil. Help me find your baby’s grave,” Candy murmured again.

Beth was sure, later, that she imagined it. After all, Candy, utterly fastened on Cecil’s face, said she never saw a thing. But Beth heard a tiny shushing sound and believed she saw Cecil’s lips draw back and her teeth align the way an ordinary person’s would before she made the sibilant sound of an
s
.

Candy got up off her knees. “Bethie,” she asked, “you want to take a ride with me?”

“Now?”

“Tomorrow. Maybe, you know, maybe even tonight if this all goes down as fast as I think it will. All Sakura’s going to do is ask for another independent psychiatric evaluation and a physical, with periodic reviews of her condition…After all, this is a serious charge. But I think he’ll basically dismiss, you know that, don’t you?” Beth nodded. “Because even if she knew what she was doing nine years ago, she clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing now. And she probably never will. So, you want to take a ride?”

“Sure,” said Beth. “Where?”

“Well, there are really two things I’m concerned with. You remember way back when I called Bender the first time, the coupon shopper who spotted Ben in the mall with the old lady?”

“In Minneapolis.”

“Yeah,” Candy said, her finger pressed against her forehead line. “I want to go see that little old lady. I think she wants to talk to me.”

“I thought you wanted to find out about a baby.”

“That, too,” Candy replied, suddenly straightening up, and surprising Beth by smiling. “Try to keep up with me here.”

Pat was only mildly miffed when Beth asked him, outside the courthouse, about going up north with Candy.

“What am I going to do with the kids?” he asked.

“Oh Pat, don’t be tedious,” Candy said. “Take them to the Six Flags of Italian restaurants—isn’t that what
Bon Appetit
called it? We’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Why don’t you take your own husband instead of my wife if you want company?” Pat mock-whined, but smiling now.

“Chris is a babe,” Candy admitted, “but would you want to drive nine hours in a car with a corporate lawyer?” She glanced at Beth. “Me and Beth, we’ll sing the country Top Forty, okay?” Her voice dropped, suddenly directed, serious. “This is a thing that I just think I want Beth to see too. Okay?”

They drove in Candy’s own car, a sleek new black Toyota Beth had never seen, not the chief’s squad Beth could still not get used to seeing her drive. Chief Bliss. Crackerjacker cracker of the Cappadora case. Beth sighed. If those Florida bartenders could see her now. Candy swilled Coke and sang along with dirges about faithless men and woebegone women, doomed to meet when everything but the light of their love was extinguished by circumstance.

“No wonder they drink,” Beth said after two hours of unrelieved longing in two-part harmony.

“Don’t you like?” Candy asked, giving Beth a half-elbow to the ribs. “Aren’t you a romantic?”

No, thought Beth, that I am assuredly not. “Are you?” she asked.

“Yes, I think I am. I think that all the bad things in the world, including wars and religion, and all the good things in the world, including Shakespeare and country music, come from love. That’s what I think.”

“I’d have to agree, especially with the first bit. But I also think there’d be electric cars and a cure for AIDS and I don’t know what all else if people didn’t have to crack up over love about six times a lifetime or feel like they were missing out on something.”

“Not you,” Candy said. “At least not you. Not over that.”

Not me, thought Beth, oh my goodness no, not faithful little Elizabeth Kerry Cappadora. And Beth almost told her, then, about the day at the hotel, which had softened for Beth, become a kind of little romantic shrine she went to tenderly, without the scalding splash of guilt, now that Sam was home. Even when she woke wet from dreams of Nick, she was grateful for Pat’s untainted presence beside her.

Sam, she thought, had raised them all up, and for all her anguishes and regrets, Beth liked to think that he might lead them all to a higher place where they could stand.