Where Are the Children? Read online

  “It’s supposed to be like that,” Ray told her. “Put it all behind you, honey. Don’t even wonder what happened anymore.”

  The memory strengthened his decision. He bent over Nancy and patted her hair with a gesture that was at once protective and gentle.

  Nancy looked up at him. The appeal on her face changed to uncertainty. “I don’t think—”

  Michael interrupted her. “How old are you, Mommy?” he asked practically.

  Nancy smiled—a real smile that miraculously eased the tension. “None of your business,” she told him.

  Ray took a quick gulp of her coffee. “Good girl,” he said. “Tell you what, Mike. I’ll pick you up after school this afternoon and we’ll go get a present for Mommy. Now I’d better get out of here. Some guy is coming up to see the Hunt place. I want to get the file together.”

  “Isn’t it rented?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes. That Parrish fellow who’s taken the apartment on and off has it again. But he knows we have the right to show it anytime. It’s a great spot for a restaurant and wouldn’t take much to convert. It’ll make a nice commission if I sell it.”

  Nancy put Missy down and walked with him to the door. He kissed her lightly and felt her lips tremble under his. How much had he upset her by starting this birthday talk? Some instinct made him want to say, Let’s not wait for tonight. I’ll stay home and we’ll take the kids and go to Boston for the day.

  Instead he got into his car, waved, backed up and drove onto the narrow dirt lane that wound through an acre of woods until it terminated on the cross-Cape road that led to the center of Adams Port and his office.

  Ray was right, Nancy thought as she walked slowly back to the table. There was a time to stop following the patterns of yesterday—a time to stop remembering and look only to the future. She knew that a part of her was still frozen. She knew that the mind dropped a protective curtain over painful memories—but it was more than that.

  It was as though her life with Carl were a blur . . . the entire time. It was hard to remember the faculty house on the campus, Carl’s modulated voice . . . Peter and Lisa. What had they looked like? Dark hair, both of them, like Carl’s, and too quiet . . . too subdued . . . affected by her uncertainty . . . and then lost—both of them.

  “Mommy, why do you look so sad?” Michael gazed at her with Ray’s candid expression, spoke with Ray’s directness.

  Seven years, Nancy thought. Life was a series of seven-year cycles. Carl used to say that your whole body changed in that time. Every cell renewed itself. It was time for her to really look ahead . . . to forget.

  She glanced around the large, cheerful kitchen with the old brick fireplace, the wide oak floors, the red curtains and valances that didn’t obstruct the view over the harbor. And then she looked at Michael and Missy. . . .

  “I’m not sad, darling,” she said. “I’m really not.”

  She scooped Missy up in her arms, feeling the warmth and sweet stickiness of her. “I’ve been thinking about your present,” Missy said. Her long strawberry-blond hair curled around her ears and forehead. People sometimes asked where she got that beautiful hair—who had been the red-head in the family?

  “Great,” Nancy told her. “But think about it outside. You’d better get some fresh air soon. It’s supposed to rain later and get very cold.”

  After the children were dressed, she helped them on with their windbreakers and hats. “There’s my dollar,” Michael said with satisfaction as he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. “I was sure I left it here. Now I can buy you a present.”

  “Me has money too.” Missy proudly held up a handful of pennies. “Oh, now, you two shouldn’t be carrying your money out,” Nancy told them. “You’ll only lose it. Let me hold it for you.”

  Michael shook his head. “If I give it to you, I might forget it when I go shopping with Daddy.”

  “I promise I won’t let you forget it.”

  “My pocket has a zipper. See? I’ll keep it in that, and I’ll hold Missy’s for her.”

  “Well . . .” Nancy shrugged and gave up the discussion. She knew perfectly well that Michael wouldn’t lose the dollar. He was like Ray, well organized. “Now, Mike, I’m going to straighten up. You be sure to stay with Missy.”

  “Okay,” Michael said cheerfully. “Come on, Missy. I’ll push you on the swing first.”

  Ray had built a swing for the children. It was suspended from a branch of the massive oak tree at the edge of the woods behind their house.

  Nancy pulled Missy’s mittens over her hands. They were bright red; fuzzy angora stitching formed a smile face on their backs. “Leave these on,” she told her; “otherwise your hands will get cold. It’s really getting raw. I’m not even sure you should go out at all.”

  “Oh, please!” Missy’s lip began to quiver.

  “All right, all right, don’t go into the act,” Nancy said hastily. “But not more than half an hour.”

  She opened the back door and let them out, then shivered as the chilling breeze enveloped her. She closed the door quickly and started up the staircase. The house was an authentic old Cape, and the stairway was almost totally vertical. Ray said that the old settlers must have had a bit of mountain goat in them the way they built their staircases. But Nancy loved everything about this place.

  She could still remember the feeling of peace and welcome it had given her when she’d first seen it, over six years ago. She’d come to the Cape after the conviction had been set aside. The District Attorney hadn’t pressed for a new trial because Rob Legler, his vital prosecution witness, had disappeared.

  She’d fled here, completely across the continent—as far away from California as she could get; as far away from the people she’d known and the place she’d lived and the college and the whole academic community there. She never wanted to see them again—the friends who had turned out not to be friends but hostile strangers who spoke of “poor Carl” because they blamed his suicide on her too.

  She’d come to Cape Cod because she’d always heard that New Englanders and Cape people were reticent and reserved and wanted nothing to do with strangers, and that was good. She needed a place to hide, to find herself, to sort it all out, to try to think through what had happened, to try to come back to life.

  She’d cut her hair and dyed it sable brown, and that was enough to make her look completely different from the pictures that had front-paged newspapers all over the country during the trial.

  She guessed that only fate could have prompted her to select Ray’s real estate office when she went looking for a house to rent. She’d actually made an appointment with another realtor, but on impulse she’d gone in to see him first because she liked his hand-lettered sign and the window boxes that were filled with yellow and champagne mums.

  She had waited until he finished with another client—a leathery-faced old man with thick, curling hair—and admired the way Ray advised him to hang on to his property, that he’d find a tenant for the apartment in the house to help carry expenses.

  After the old man left she said, “Maybe I’m here at the right time. I want to rent a house.”

  But he wouldn’t even show her the old Hunt place. “The Lookout is too big, too lonesome and too drafty for you,” he said. “But I just got in a rental on an authentic Cape in excellent condition that’s fully furnished. It can even be bought eventually, if you like it. How much room do you need, Miss . . . Mrs. . . . ?”

  “Miss Kiernan,” she told him. “Nancy Kiernan.” Instinctively she used her mother’s maiden name. “Not much, really. I won’t be having company or visitors.”

  She liked the fact that he didn’t pry or even look curious. “The Cape is a good place to come when you want to be by yourself,” he said. “You can’t be lonesome walking on the beach or watching the sunset or just looking out the window in the morning.”

  Then Ray had brought her up here, and immediately she knew that she would stay. The combination family and din
ing room had been fashioned from the old keeping room that had once been the heart of the house. She loved the rocking chair in front of the fireplace and the way the table was in front of the windows so that it was possible to eat and look down over the harbor and the bay.

  She was able to move in right away, and if Ray wondered why she had absolutely nothing except the two suitcases she’d taken off the bus, he didn’t show it. She said that her mother had died and she had sold their home in Ohio and decided to come East. She simply omitted talking about the six years that had lapsed in between.

  That night, for the first time in months, she slept through the night—a deep, dreamless sleep in which she didn’t hear Peter and Lisa calling her; wasn’t in the courtroom listening to Carl condemn her.

  That first morning here, she’d made coffee and sat by the window. It had been a clear, brilliant day—the cloudless sky purple-blue; the bay tranquil and still; the only movement the arc of sea gulls hovering near the fishing boats.

  With her fingers wrapped around the coffee cup, she’d sipped and watched. The warmth of the coffee had flowed through her body. The sunbeams had warmed her face. The tranquillity of the scene enhanced the calming sense of peace that the long, dreamless sleep had begun.

  Peace . . . give me peace. That had been her prayer during the trial; in prison. Let me learn to accept. Seven years ago . . .

  Nancy sighed, realizing that she was still standing by the bottom step of the staircase. It was so easy to get lost in remembering. That was why she tried so hard to live each day . . . not look back or into the future.

  She began to go upstairs slowly. How could there ever be peace for her, knowing that if Rob Legler ever showed up they’d try her again for murder; take her away from Ray and Missy and Michael? For an instant, she dropped her face into her hands. Don’t think about it, she told herself. It’s no use.

  At the head of the stairs she shook her head determinedly and walked quickly into the master bedroom. She threw open the windows and shivered as the wind blew the curtains back against her. Clouds were starting to form, and the water in the bay had begun to churn with white-caps. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Nancy was enough of a Cape person now to know that a cold wind like this usually blew in a storm.

  But it really was still clear enough to have the children out. She liked them to have as much fresh air as possible in the morning. After lunch, Missy napped and Michael went to kindergarten.

  She started to pull the sheets from the big double bed and hesitated. Missy had been sniffling yesterday. Should she go down and warn her not to unzip the neck of her jacket? It was one of her favorite tricks. Missy always complained that all her clothes felt too tight at the neck.

  Nancy deliberated an instant, then pulled the sheets completely back and off the bed. Missy had on a turtleneck shirt. Her throat would be covered even if she undid the button. Besides, it would take only ten or fifteen minutes to strip and change the beds and turn on a wash.

  Ten minutes at the most, Nancy promised herself, to quiet the nagging feeling of worry that was insistently telling her to go out to the children now.

  2

  SOME MORNINGS Jonathan Knowles walked to the drugstore to pick up his morning paper. Other days he pedaled on his bike. His outing always took him past the old Nickerson house, the one that Ray Eldredge had bought when he married the pretty girl who was renting it.

  When old Sam Nickerson had had the place it had begun to be rundown, but now it looked snug and solid. Ray had put on a new roof and had painted the trim, and his wife certainly had a green thumb. The yellow and orange mums in the window boxes gave a cheerful warmth even to the bleakest day.

  In nice weather, Nancy Eldredge was often out early in the morning working on her garden. She always had a pleasant greeting for him and then went back to her work. Jonathan admired that trait in a woman. He’d known Ray’s folks when they were summer people up here. Of course, the Eldredges had helped settle the Cape. Ray’s father had told Jonathan the whole family line right back to the one who had come over on the Mayflower.

  The fact that Ray shared enough love for the Cape to decide to build his business career here was particularly exemplary in Jonathan’s eyes. The Cape had lakes and ponds and the bay and the ocean. It had woods to walk in, and land for people to spread out on. And it was a good place for a young couple to raise children. It was a good place to retire and live out the end of your life. Jonathan and Emily had always spent vacations here and looked forward to the day when they’d be able to stay here the year around. They’d almost made it, too. But for Emily it wasn’t to be.

  Jonathan sighed. He was a big man, with thick white hair and a broad face that was beginning to fold into jowls. A retired lawyer, he’d found inactivity depressing. You couldn’t do much fishing in the winter. And poking around antique stores and refinishing furniture wasn’t the fun it had been when Emily was with him. But in this second year of his permanent residency at the Cape, he’d started to write a book.

  Begun as a hobby, it had become an absorbing daily activity. A publisher friend had read a few chapters of it one weekend and promptly sent him a contract. The book was a case study of famous murder trials. Jonathan worked on it five hours every day, seven days a week, starting promptly at nine-thirty in the morning.

  The wind bit against him. He pulled out his muffler, grateful for the watery sunshine he felt on his face as he glanced in the direction of the bay. With the shrubbery stripped, you could see clear to the water. Only the old Hunt house on its high bluff interrupted the view—the house they called The Lookout.

  Jonathan always looked at the bay right at this point of his trip. This morning again, he squinted as he turned his head. Irritated, he looked back at the road after barely registering the stormy, churning whitecaps. That fellow who rented the house must have something metallic in the window, he thought. It was a damn nuisance. He felt like asking Ray to mention it to him, then ruefully brushed the thought away. The tenant might just suggest that Jonathan check the bay somewhere else along the way.

  He shrugged unconsciously. He was directly in front of the Eldredge house, and Nancy was sitting at the breakfast table by the window talking to the little boy. The little girl was on her lap. Jonathan glanced away quickly, feeling like an intruder and not wanting to catch her eye. Oh, well, he’d get the paper, fix his solitary breakfast and get to his desk. Today he’d begin working on the Harmon murder case—the one that he suspected would make the most interesting chapter of all.

  3

  RAY PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR of his office, unable to shake the nagging sensation of worry that like an unlocated toothache was throbbing somewhere inside him. What was the matter? It was more than just making Nancy acknowledge her birthday and risking the memories it aroused. Actually, she’d been pretty calm. He knew her well enough to understand when the tension was building about that other life.

  It could be triggered by something like the sight of a dark-haired boy and girl together who were the ages of her other children, or a discussion of the murder of that little girl who’d been found dead in Cohasset last year. But Nancy was all right this morning. It was something else—a feeling of foreboding.

  “Oh, no! What does that mean?”

  Ray looked up, startled. Dorothy was at her desk. Her hair, more gray than brown, casually framed her long, pleasant face. Her sensible beige sweater and brown tweed skirt had an almost studied dowdiness and signaled the wearer’s indifference to frills.

  Dorothy had been Ray’s first client when he had opened this office. The girl he had hired didn’t show up, and Dorothy had volunteered to help him out for a few days. She’d been with him ever since.

  “You do realize that you’re shaking your head and frowning,” she told him.

  Ray smiled sheepishly. “Just morning jitters, I guess. How are you doing?”

  Dorothy immediately became businesslike. “Fine. I have the file all together on The Lookout. What time do you ex
pect that fellow who wants to see it?”

  “Around two,” Ray told her. He bent over her desk. “Where did you ever dig out those plans?”

  “They’re on file in the library. Don’t forget, that house was begun in sixteen-ninety. It would make a marvelous restaurant. If anyone is willing to spend money renovating it, it could be a showcase. And you can’t beat that waterfront location.”

  “I gather Mr. Kragopoulos and his wife have built up and sold several restaurants and don’t mind spending the dollars to do everything the way it should be done.”

  “I’ve never yet met a Greek who couldn’t make a go of a restaurant,” Dorothy commented as she closed the file.

  “And all Englishmen are fags and no German has a sense of humor and most Puerto Ricans—I mean Spics—are on welfare. . . . God, I hate labels!” Ray took his pipe from his breast pocket and jammed it into his mouth.

  “What?” Dorothy looked up at him bewildered. “I certainly was not labeling—or I guess, maybe I was, but not in the way you took it.” She turned her back to him as she put the file away, and Ray stalked into his private office and closed the door.

  He had hurt her. Stupidly, unnecessarily. What in the hell was the matter with him? Dorothy was the most decent, fair-minded, non-biased person he knew. What a lousy thing to say to her. Sighing, he reached for the humidor on his desk and filled his pipe. He puffed thoughtfully on it for fifteen minutes before he dialed Dorothy’s extension.

  “Yes.” Her voice was constrained when she picked up the phone.

  “Are the girls in yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Coffee made?”

  “Yes.” Dorothy did not ask him if he was ready to have some.

  “Would you mind bringing yours in here and a cup for me? And ask the girls to hold calls for fifteen minutes.”

  “All right.” Dorothy hung up.