“Or the details could’ve been withheld for other reasons. I think the story behind the scar is a lot more interesting than this.” He pushed the sheets away and bit into his bran muffin.
And to think she had actually considered mixing water and concentrate to make orange juice for his breakfast. “Okay, there
might
be more to the story. I’ll get back on it.” She unplugged the phone jack from the fax machine and hooked it up to her laptop, saying,
“Cops,”
as if they were still the bane and chief blight of her existence. And now she had bred one and even fed him a damn bran muffin.
“Thanks, Mom. And get some sleep, okay?”
“Yeah right, poor old Mom.” She smiled as he kissed the top of her head. He had not done that in a while. How many years? Too long. “What a good boy you are. When you ship me off to a nursing home, you’ll get me a room with a view, won’t you, babe?” Her generation had pioneered psychedelic drugs, rock music and free love, but was her son impressed? No, he was yawning as he left the kitchen.
“Damn cops.”
The doorbell rang. Rouge’s voice hollered down the hallway, “I’ll get it, Mom.”
Ellen was already deep into the mysteries of making Internet search engines more specific, so they would give her less than a thousand responses to every inquiry. As she was turning the pages of
Internet for Dummies
, she heard a stranger’s voice behind her. She turned quickly to see a man standing in the doorway.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Kendall?” He smiled an apology. “Sorry if I—Well, I’m just waiting for Rouge. He’s still on the phone. Guess I’m a little early.”
She could tell he was at a loss, trying to make a connection and not finding one. He would be reading the signs of recognition in her own expression, though she only found his eyes familiar—and shocking. Rouge had obviously been expecting this man. He should have warned her.
“Ma’am, have we—”
“No, we’ve never met. That’s quite a shiner.” Between her son’s account of the black eye and Julie’s more colorful description of an elegant mutt with Las Vegas style, she had no trouble identifying the man in her kitchen. “Pull up a chair, Special Agent Pyle.”
He sat down at the table, showing no reaction to being called by name and rank, though they had not been introduced. And he offered no explanation for being in her house. The fed must assume she had been told of this appointment. And what else had her son failed to mention? “Wasn’t Rouge supposed to pick you up at your hotel?”
“Yes, ma’am. But I was up early, and it wasn’t much of a walk.”
Good guess. Her son must have been surprised when the fed turned up at the door—and displeased. Whatever the boy was planning, he didn’t want it leaked to the press—more specifically, to dear old Mom.
Damn cop.
So he had probably asked Pyle to wait in the foyer. But the FBI man had wandered down the hall, perhaps led by the sound of tapping keys—or a second agenda.
Another good guess.
Arnie Pyle was spreading a sheet of paper flat on the table. Penciled across the top in capital letters was tomorrow’s headline, “ THE LADY AND THE SHARKS,” followed by a printed synopsis for the political scandal of the year.
Not quite the blackmail story Julian Garret had suggested, it was better—and worse. The opening was a portrait of Marsha Hubble, a strong woman with survival skills handed down from four generations of New York families prominent in political columns and society pages. The lady was born in the arena. With ties of money, politics and blood, she hardly needed blackmail to stave off the top politicians who wanted her resignation. More recently, the lieutenant governor had gained power beyond the state to call out the heavy artillery of federal forces, and she had doubled the full-time BCI contingent over any previous case. But she had done all of this through the offices of her enemies, Senator Berman and his pet governor. It begged the question—How?
The lieutenant governor’s most devoted staff member had been stressed to breakpoint by the time Ellen got to her. The aide had gone rogue, leaking the story and even providing a direct quote from Mrs. Hubble’s recent meeting with the senator. The words were underscored on Pyle’s copy of the summary sheet: “Yes, I’ll do it, if that’s what it takes. Help me find Gwen and Sadie—and then I’ll resign.”
Agent Pyle held up a cigarette, asking for permission. Ellen pushed a saucer across the table to use as an ashtray. “Enjoy.”
“Julie Garret left that bomb at my hotel last night. A little gift, so I could cover my ass with the Bureau.” A plume of smoke twisted up from the side of his mouth. “You do nice hatchet work, lady.”
“There’s nothing like a cup of coffee with a morning cigarette.” She reached back over the edge of the countertop and pulled a mug from the collection on wall hooks. “I used to smoke myself. Now I live vicariously.” Was the agent running a bluff? Given only what Pyle had in his hand, absent a byline, he should have assumed the article was Julie’s work. Ellen filled the mug and set it in front of him. She smiled. The agent didn’t smile back.
He knew.
But her own son
didn’t
—or he would have been angry with his mother for holding out on him. Someone must have read Pyle the byline off the galley. So the fed had other sources on the same Washington newspaper, probably a night-shift worker. She doubted that Julie was aware of that, but he soon would be.
Ellen glanced down at the penciled headline and shook her head sadly. “It’s a pity Julie didn’t give you the story before you got that black eye.” She set down the carafe and picked up a pencil, threatening to make notes. “Did the lieutenant governor throw a right hook? I like to be accurate.”
“She’s left-handed.” He held up the summary sheet. “Oh, and this wouldn’t have stopped me from going after Marsha Hubble. I know the story is a crock.” He wadded the paper into a ball. “It was planted. Give me the name of your source, and I’ll prove it. Could be embarrassing for you if—”
“Pyle, does that line ever work?”
“On women? No, I never have any luck with women.” One finger pointed to his bruised eye. “You probably guessed that.” He pocketed the crumpled sheet. “But it
could
be a deliberate press leak. The lady might have ambitions to run for higher office. Your story’s gonna kill the governor’s chances for another term. Or maybe Marsha’s after the senator’s job. Fat chance he’ll get reelected after—”
“Now I
am
impressed, Pyle. You’re even more cold-blooded than me.”
“Thank you, ma’am. That’s high praise coming from a reporter.”
She understood why Julian Garret liked this man so much, why he spoke of Arnie Pyle with the same tenderness and adjectives usually reserved for his golden retriever. So the agent’s night shift snitch had not known about the tapes. Bless Peter Hubble’s paranoid heart and all the electronic bugs in his mansion.
Now where was Pyle going with her son this morning? They were using one car—a trip out of town? If she had pegged this man right, the direct approach would fail. “You two were wise to get an early start. It’s a long drive, isn’t it?”
“Not so long, maybe forty minutes. I guess if Rouge does the legal speed limit, it might take us an hour. But I never met a cop that law-abiding.”
As the agent drank his coffee, Ellen did the math for time and distance. The coordinates would best fit one map point along the main highway. A last-minute arrangement? That would explain why Rouge was taking so long to make a phone call. She glanced at the wall clock. The switchboard should be open. Such places did not close on holidays. “Visiting relatives, Agent Pyle?”
He grinned, taking this for a joke. So their destination was definitely the prison. She wondered if Pyle knew what was in store for him. Probably not.
Rouge was standing in the doorway with his jacket slung over one arm. He was not at all happy with this warm and cozy kitchen tableau. Ellen donned her best maternal attitude and smiled sweetly at her beloved young son, pride of her life.
Gotcha, babe—upstart, rank beginner. Mom is still the master of deception.
The water was warm, and its current gently lulled Gwen into a deeper sleep as she floated along the river between darkness and light. A small white ghost of a girl was running along the shore, waving her arms. “Wake up!”
Gwen opened her eyes. Her face was wet, not from the river but the rain. Great dollops of water were falling from the ceiling again, pattering the leaves and dampening her clothes. The flashlight beam darted about as Sadie pulled her up to a stand. Gwen fell back against the rough bark of a tree. The pain in her leg jolted her with sharp surprise. Sadie’s arms held her upright as they moved slowly through the darkness and the rain. The flashlight beam picked out the path in front of them as Gwen dragged one useless leg behind her.
“The dog?”
“Don’t know,” said Sadie. “He hasn’t moved. No noise either.”
When they entered the area of the mushroom tables, the rain had ceased, but the pumps above the tables continued to spray the air with a cold mist.
“What time is it?”
Sadie opened the door to the white room and flashed the light on the clock. “Eight-thirty.”
“But, it never rains at night.”
“It’s morning, Gwen.”
The air conditioner was blowing on them. Sadie flashed the beam into the drawer of pills. She picked up bottles, read the labels and discarded them. Now she found one that she liked. “Take off the parka, it’s wet.”
Gwen removed the red down jacket they had shared when the temperature began to drop. She spread it on the back of the chair, and then accepted the glass jar and a pill from Sadie’s hand.
“This is the only dry place in the cellar, but I can’t block off the air conditioner.” Sadie covered Gwen’s shoulders with layers of dry towels. “The vents are too high up. All those plant misters outside are still working, but the dirt under the tables should be dry. We’ll—”
“I’m not going into that hole again. I can’t. I won’t.” Gwen held the flashlight while Sadie changed her bandage. The swelling had not gone down any, and the wound was leaking more of the yellow-green pus. The odor was foul and the skin was darker. She turned her face away from it. The pill was already working on the pain, but the air conditioner was killing the fever warmth. She could feel the cold in all her bones now.
Sadie finished tying off the new bandage and pulled Gwen up from the chair. “We have to go back to the hole. It’s dry under the table.”
“No, I don’t—”
“You’ll like it better now. Very homey. You’ll see.” She circled Gwen’s waist with one arm, and they made their way down the aisle to the mushroom table covering the hole. The cart had been pulled back. Sadie shined the flashlight on the grave. It was lined with plastic and magazines for insulation. A pile of batteries lay in one corner on top of the stack of journals.
“See? You can read all you want. It’s not so bad now, is it?” Sadie settled her friend into the hole, then climbed in and lay down beside her. Holding out a journal, she said, “Read to me?”
Gwen trained the flashlight on the book pages. “This entry was written a long time ago, when Miss Vickers figured out that the trees would never be normal, no matter how much light she gave them. ‘There is retribution in the world, and justice. I never doubt that anymore. My hands are full of knots, my fingers are misshapen. I have come to resemble my poor trees. This is punishment for the way they twist and bow, stunted in this unnatural world. The advancing arthritis assuages my guilt. Pain is my penance. I am so sorry.’ ”
Sadie’s head lay on the pillow of one arm. Her eyes were closed. She had been tricked into sleep by the false night of failed electricity.
Gwen leaned into the space between table and cart to shine the yellow beam on the oaks, one by one, reaching out to them with this feeble nourishment of light. She felt sorry for the trees, imagining their panic on this first morning when all their artificial suns failed to shine. They could not wring their hands and scream; they could only endure in silent fear and wonder. She clicked off the flashlight and sat in absolute darkness, listening to Sadie’s even breathing and endeavoring to be more like the oak trees.
The priest had been surprised when he was told about this interview outside the regular hours. It could only be the police or the FBI. Most visitors over the years had come from these two groups, and all their questions were predictable. But to come on a holiday? It must be related to the missing children.
He sat at the table in his chains, prepared for a quiet hour of no more surprises. As the guard manacled his legs to the chair, two men were being ushered into the room. The man in the suit was engaged in filling out forms as he spoke to another guard at the door.
The younger man who faced him now wore faded blue jeans and an old fleece-lined jacket, not the typical FBI wardrobe. So this must be a police officer, and Paul Marie had no trouble recognizing him, so close was the resemblance to Susan. He also had his father’s dark red hair and hazel eyes.
Years ago, the elder Kendall had come to the prison once a week without fail, steadfast as a lover. Susan’s father had always seemed gratified to see fresh bruises on the priest’s face, a cut lip, or a swollen eye. But there had been a lingering disappointment, an expression to Bradly Kendall’s face, which said at each meeting,
What? Not dead yet?
Only a month-long punishment of solitary confinement had saved the priest. Other prisoners had come out of the isolation cell with aching limbs from lack of exercise, and weak stomachs from the slop that passed for food. Paul Marie had emerged with the idea that he might survive, with the regimen to do it and an enemy with a face.
Over subsequent visits, Bradly Kendall had charted the priest’s progress by the expanding muscles of the torso and thickening arms. It must have been difficult for the distraught father of a murdered child to watch his nemesis increasing in size as he grew smaller and weaker. And then Kendall had sickened; his visits ceased.