Where Are the Children? Read online

  The lights in the room flickered, then went off. “That figures.” Jed Coffin propped the microphone on the table and searched for matches. Quickly Ray lighted the antique gas lamps on either side of the mantel. They threw a yellow glow that melted and blended with the vivid red flames of the fireplace, bathing the couch where Nancy was lying in a rosy glow and throwing deep shadows on the corners of the dark room.

  It seemed to Ray that the steady tattooing of the sleet against the house and the moaning of the wind through the pines had intensified. Suppose the children were out somewhere in this weather . . . ? Last night he’d awakened hearing Missy cough. But when he went into her room, she’d been settled again in deep sleep, her cheek cupped in her palm. As he bent over to pull up her covers, she’d murmured, “Daddy” and stirred, but at the touch of his hand on her back she’d settled down again.

  And Michael. He and Mike had gone for milk to Wiggins’ Market—was it just yesterday morning? They’d arrived just as that tenant at The Lookout, Mr. Parrish, was leaving. The man had nodded pleasantly, but when he got into that old Ford wagon of his, Michael’s face had wrinkled with distaste. “I don’t like him,” he’d said.

  Ray almost smiled at the memory. Mike was a rugged little guy, but he had something of Nancy’s distaste for ugliness, and no matter how you sliced it, Courtney Parrish was a clumsy, slow-moving, unattractive man.

  Even the Wigginses had commented on him. After he left, Jack Wiggins said drily, “That fellow’s about the slowest-moving human being I ever bumped into. He meanders around shopping like he’s got all the time in the world.”

  Michael had looked reflective. “I never have enough time,” he said. “I’m helping my dad refinish a desk for my room, and every time I want to keep working on it, I have to get ready for school.”

  “You’ve got quite an assistant there, Ray,” Jack Wiggins had remarked. “I’ll give him a job anytime; he sounds like a worker.”

  Mike had picked up the package. “I’m strong, too,” he’d said. “I can carry things. I can carry my sister for a long time.”

  Ray ground his hands into fists. This was unreal, impossible. The children missing. Nancy sedated. What was she saying?

  Her voice still had that eager lilt. “Daddy used to call Mother and me his girls. . . .” Her voice faltered.

  “What is it, Nancy?” Dr. Miles asked. “Your father called you his little girl? Did that upset you?”

  “No . . . no . . . no . . . he called us his girls. It was different . . . it was different . . . not like that at all. . . .” Her voice rose sharply in protest.

  Lendon’s voice was soothing. “All right, Nancy. Don’t worry about that. Let’s talk about college. Did you want to go away to school?”

  “Yes . . . I really did . . . except . . . I was worried about Mother. . . .”

  “Why did you worry about her?”

  “I was afraid she’d be lonely—because of Daddy . . . and we’d sold the house; she was moving into an apartment. So much had changed for her. And she’d started a new job. But she liked working. . . . She said she wanted me to go. . . . She liked to say that today . . . today . . .”

  “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” Lendon finished quietly. Yes, Priscilla had said that to him too. The day she came into the office after she’d put Nancy on the plane for school. She told him about still waving goodbye after the plane had taxied away toward the runway. Then her eyes had filled, and she’d smiled apologetically. “Look how ridiculous I am,” she’d said, trying to laugh; “the proverbial mother hen.”

  “I think you’re doing fine,” Lendon had told her.

  “It’s just that when you think how your life can change . . . so incredibly. All of a sudden, a whole part, the most important part . . . is ended. But on the other hand, I think when you’ve had something quite wonderful . . . so very much happiness . . . you can’t look back and regret. That’s what I told Nancy today. . . . I don’t want her worrying about me. I want her to have a wonderful time in school. I said that we should both remember that motto: ‘Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.’”

  Lendon remembered that a patient had come into the office. At the time, he’d considered it a blessing; he’d been dangerously close to putting his arms around Priscilla.

  “. . . but it was all right,” Nancy was saying, her voice still hesitant and groping. “Mother’s letters were cheerful. She loved her job. She wrote a lot about Dr. Miles. . . . I was glad. . . .”

  “Did you enjoy school, Nancy?” Lendon asked. “Did you have many friends?”

  “At first, I liked the girls, and I dated a lot.”

  “How about your schoolwork? Did you like your subjects?”

  “Oh, yes. They all came pretty easily . . . except bio. . . .”

  Her tone changed—subtly became troubled. “That was harder. I never liked science but the college required it . . . so I took it. . . .”

  “And you met Carl Harmon.”

  “Yes. He . . . wanted to help me with bio. He had me come to his office and he’d go over the work with me. He said I was dating too much and that I must stop or I’d be sick. He was so concerned . . . he even started giving me vitamins. He must have been right . . . because I was so tired . . . so much . . . and started to feel so depressed. . . . I missed Mother. . . .”

  “But you knew you would be home over Christmas.”

  “Yes . . . and it didn’t make sense. . . . All of a sudden . . . it got so bad . . . I didn’t want to upset her . . . so I didn’t write about it . . . but I think she knew. . . . She came out for a weekend . . . because she was worried about me . . . I know it. . . . And then she was killed . . . because she came out to see me. . . . It was my fault . . . my fault. . . .” Her voice rose in a shriek of pain, then broke into a sob.

  Ray started out of his chair., but Jonathan pulled him back. The oil lamp flickered on Nancy’s face. It was contorted with pain. “Mother!” she cried, “Oh, Mother . . . please don’t be dead . . . live! Oh, Mother, please, please live. . . . I need you. . . . Mother, don’t be dead . . . Mother . . .”

  Dorothy turned her head, trying to bite back tears. No wonder Nancy had resented her remarks about being a surrogate grandmother to Missy and Michael. Why was she here? No one was even conscious or caring of her presence. She’d be more useful if she went out and made coffee. Nancy might want some later too. She should take off her coat. She couldn’t. She felt too cold; so alone. She stared down for a moment at the hooked rug and watched as the pattern blurred before her eyes. Lifting her head, she met the inscrutable gaze of Jonathan Knowles and knew that he’d been watching her for some time.

  “. . . Carl helped you when your mother died. He was good to you?” Why was Lendon Miles dragging out this agony? What point was there in making Nancy relive this too? Dorothy started to her feet.

  Nancy’s answer was quiet. “Oh, yes. He was so good to me. . . . He took care of everything.”

  “And you married him.”

  “Yes. He said he’d take care of me. And I was so tired. He was so good to me. . . .”

  “Nancy, you mustn’t blame yourself for your mother’s accident. That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Accident?” Nancy’s voice was speculative. “Accident? But it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t an accident. . . .”

  “Of course it was.” Lendon’s voice stayed calm, but he could feel the tightness of his throat muscles.

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t know. . . .”

  “All right; we’ll talk about it later. Tell us about Carl.”

  “He was good to me. . . .”

  “You keep saying that, Nancy. How was he good to you?”

  “He took care of me. I was sick; he had to do so much for me. . . .”

  “What did he do for you, Nancy?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Why, Nancy?”

  “I don’t. I don’t. . . .”

  “All righ
t. Tell us about the children. About Peter and Lisa.”

  “They were so good. . . .”

  “They were well behaved, you mean.”

  “They were so good . . . too good . . .”

  “Nancy you keep saying ‘good.’ Carl was so good to you. And the children were good. You must have been very happy.”

  “Happy? I was so tired . . .”

  “Why were you so tired?”

  “Carl said I was so sick. He was so good to me.”

  “Nancy, you must tell us. How was Carl good to you?”

  “He made sure I was getting better. He wanted me to get better. He said I had to be a good little girl.”

  “How did you feel sick, Nancy? What hurt you?”

  “So tired . . . always so tired. . . . Carl helped me. . . .”

  “Helped you how?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “But you must, Nancy. What did Carl do?”

  “I’m tired . . . I’m tired now. . . .”

  “All right, Nancy. I want you to rest for a few minutes; then we’ll talk some more. Just rest . . . just rest. . . .”

  Lendon got up. Chief Coffin immediately took his arm and jerked his head toward the kitchen. As soon as they were out of the room, Chief Coffin spoke abruptly. “This isn’t leading us anywhere. This could take hours and you’re not going to find anything out. The girl blames herself for her mother’s accident because the mother had made the trip to see her. It’s that simple. Now, if you think you can find out anything else about the Harmon murders, get to it. Or else I question her at Headquarters.”

  “You can’t force . . . She’s starting to talk. . . . There’s a great deal that even her subconscious doesn’t want to face.”

  The Chief snapped: “And I don’t want to face myself if there’s any chance those kids are still alive and I’ve wasted precious time here.”

  “All right, I’ll get to questioning her about this morning. But first, please, let me ask her about the day the Harmon children disappeared. If there is any link between the two, she may reveal it.”

  Chief Coffin looked at his watch. “God, it’s almost four already. Whatever visibility there was all day will be gone in half an hour. Where is a radio? I want to hear the newscast.”

  “There’s one in the kitchen, Chief.” Bernie Mills, the patrolman on guard in the house, was an earnest, dark-haired man in his early thirties. He’d been on the force twelve years, and this was by far the most sensational case he’d ever known. Nancy Harmon. Nancy Eldredge was Nancy Harmon! Ray Eldredge’s wife. It showed. You never knew what was going on inside people. Bernie had played on the same ball team summers with Ray Eldredge when they were little kids. Then Ray had gone to one of those fancy prep schools and Dartmouth College. He had never expected Ray would settle on the Cape when he finished service. But he did. When he married the girl who’d rented this house, everybody said that she was some looker. A few people commented that she kind of reminded you of someone.

  Bernie remembered his own reaction to that talk. Lots of people look like someone else. His own uncle, a deadbeat and drunk who made his aunt’s life miserable, was a dead ringer for Barry Goldwater. He glanced quickly out the window. The television news guys were all still out there, with their trucks and all their gear. Looking for a story. He wondered what they’d think if they knew Nancy Eldredge was injected with truth serum right now. Now, there was a story. He was anxious to get home to tell Jean about it. He wondered how she was doing. The baby had been teething last night; kept both of them up.

  For a single, terrible minute Bernie wondered how it would feel if the little guy was missing on a day like this . . . out there somewhere . . . and he not knowing. The prospect was so awful, so breathtaking, so mindshattering that he rejected it. Jean never took her eyes off Bobby. Sometimes she bugged Bernie the way she was always fussing about the kid. Right now her need to never take her eyes off their baby reassured him, assuaged his apprehensions. The little guy was fine—trust Jean.

  Dorothy was in the kitchen filling the coffeepot. Bernie reflected that Dorothy bugged him a little. She had such a—well, guess you’d call it reserved—way. She could be nice and friendly—but, well, Bernie didn’t know. He decided that Dorothy was just a little too highfalutin for his thinking.

  He turned on the transistor radio, and instantly the voice of Dan Phillips, the newscaster for WCOD in Hyannis, filled the room. “The case of the missing Eldredge children has just taken a new twist,” Phillips said, and his voice was pulsing with somewhat unprofessional excitement. “A mechanic, Otto Linden from the Gulf Station on Route Twenty-eight in Hyannis, has just phoned us to say that he can positively state that this morning at nine A.M. he filled the gas tank of Rob Legler, the missing witness in the Harmon murder case of seven years ago. Mr. Linden said that Legler appeared nervous and volunteered the information that he was on his way to Adams Port to visit someone who probably wouldn’t be glad to see him. He was driving a late-model red Dodge Dart.”

  Jed Coffin swore softly. “And I’m wasting my time here listening to this claptrap.” He started for the phone and picked it up just as it rang. After the caller identified himself, he said impatiently, “I heard it. All right. I want a roadblock on the bridges going to the mainland. Check with the FBI deserter file—find out what they may know about the latest whereabouts of Rob Legler. Put out a bulletin about a red Dodge.” He slammed the receiver back onto the hook and turned to Lendon. “Now I’ve got a simple, direct question for you to ask Mrs. Eldredge. It’s whether or not Rob Legler got here this morning . . . and what he said to her.”

  Lendon stared. “You mean . . .”

  “I mean that Rob Legler is the person who could dump Nancy Eldredge back into the middle of a murder trial. The Harmon case has never been closed. Now, suppose he’s been hiding out in Canada for six years or so. He needs money. Didn’t it come out at the Harmon trial that Nancy had inherited a fair amount of money from her parents?—some hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, suppose Rob Legler knows about that money and somehow finds out where Nancy is. The District Attorney’s staff in San Francisco know where she’s been. Now, suppose Legler decides he’s sick of Canada and wants to come back here and needs a stake. How about going to Nancy Eldredge and promising to change his testimony if he’s ever caught and there’s a new trial? That’s the same as making her give him a blank check for the rest of her life. He gets here. He sees her. The deal sours. She doesn’t go for it . . . or he changes his mind. She knows that at any moment he may be caught or turn himself in and she’s back in San Francisco on a murder charge, and she cracks. . . .”

  “And murders her Eldredge children?” Lendon’s voice was scornful. “Have you thought about the possibility that this student who nearly put Nancy in the gas chamber was in the vicinity when both sets of children disappeared?

  “Give me one more chance,” Lendon pleaded. “Just let me ask her about the day the Harmon children disappeared. I want her to describe the events of that day first.”

  “You have thirty minutes—no more.”

  Dorothy began pouring coffee into cups that she’d already placed on a tray. Quickly she cut up a coffee cake that Nancy had baked the day before. “Perhaps coffee will help everyone,” she said.

  She carried the tray into the front room. Ray was sitting in the chair Lendon had drawn next to the couch. He was holding Nancy’s hands in his, gently massaging them. She was very still. Her breathing was even, but as the others came into the room, she stirred and moaned.

  Jonathan was standing by the mantel, staring into the fire. He had lighted his pipe, and the warm smell of the good tobacco he used had begun to penetrate the room. Dorothy breathed it in deeply as she set the coffee tray on the round pine table by the fireplace. A wave of pure nostalgia washed over her. Kenneth had smoked a pipe, and that had been his brand of tobacco. She and Kenneth used to love stormy winter afternoons like this. They would make a roaring fire and
get out wine and cheese and books and sit contently together. Regret swept over her. Regret because you really can’t control your life. Most of the time you don’t act; you react.

  “Will you have coffee and cake?” she asked Jonathan.

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Please.”

  She knew he took cream and one sugar. Without asking, she prepared the coffee that way and handed it to him. “Shouldn’t you take your coat off?” he asked her.

  “In a little while. I’m still so chilled.”

  Dr. Miles and Chief Coffin had followed her in and were helping themselves to the coffee. Dorothy poured another cup and carried it over to the couch. “Ray, please have some.”

  He looked up. “Thank you.” As he reached for it, he murmured to Nancy, “Everything is going to be all right, little girl.”

  Nancy shuddered violently. Her eyes flew open and she threw up her arm, knocking the cup from Ray’s hand. It fell and broke on the floor, spewing hot liquid over her robe and the blanket. Splashes of it spattered on Ray and Nancy. Simultaneously they winced as Nancy cried out in the desperate tone of a trapped animal, “I am not your little girl! Don’t call me your little girl!”

  17

  COURTNEY PARRISH TURNED from the small unmoving figure on the bed, sighing heavily. He’d taken the adhesive from Missy’s mouth and the cords from her wrists and ankles, and they made an untidy pile on the quilt. Her fine, silky hair was matted now. He’d been planning to brush it when he bathed her, but now there was no point. He needed her response.

  The little boy, Michael, was still on the floor of the closet. His large blue eyes were terrified as Courtney picked him up and hugged him against his massive chest.

  He laid Michael on the bed, undid the bindings on his ankles and wrists and with a quick pull yanked the adhesive off his mouth. The boy cried out in pain, then bit his lip. He seemed more responsive—infinitely wary, apprehensive, but with some of the courage of the trapped animal.