All Around the Town Read online

  * * *

  Distressed, Grant watched as an usher carried Laurie from the nave of the church, Sarah beside him. The organist began to play the recessional hymn. The pallbearers, led by the monsignor, started to walk slowly down the aisle. In the row in front of him, Grant saw a man making his way to the end of the pew. “Please excuse me. I’m a doctor,” he was saying, his voice low but authoritative.

  Some instinct made Allan Grant slip into the aisle and follow him to the small room off the vestibule where Laurie had been taken. She was lying on two chairs that had been pushed together. Sarah, her face chalk white, was bending over her.

  “Let me . . .” The doctor touched Sarah’s arm.

  Laurie stirred and moaned.

  The doctor raised her eyelids, felt her pulse. “She’s coming around but she must be taken home. She’s in no condition to go to the cemetery.”

  “I know.”

  Allan saw how desperately Sarah was trying to keep her own composure. “Sarah,” he said. She turned, seemingly aware of him for the first time. “Sarah, let me go back to the house with Laurie. She’ll be okay with me.”

  “Oh, would you?” For an instant gratitude replaced the strain and grief in her expression. “Some of the neighbors are there preparing food, but Laurie trusts you so much. I’d be so relieved.”

  * * *

  “ ‘I once was lost but now am found. . .’ ”

  A hand was coming at her holding the knife, the knife dripping with blood, slashing through the air. Her shirt and overalls were soaked with blood. She could feel the sticky warmth on her face. Something was flopping at her feet. The knife was coming. . .

  Laurie opened her eyes. She was in bed in her own room. It was dark. What happened?

  She remembered. The church. The caskets. The singing.

  “Sarah!” she shrieked, “Sarah! Where are you?”

  11

  THEY WERE STAYING at the Wyndham Hotel on West Fifty-eighth Street in Manhattan. “Classy,” he’d told her. “A lot of show business people go there. Right kind of place to start making connections.”

  He was silent on the drive from the funeral mass into New York. They were having lunch with the Reverend Rutland Garrison, pastor of the Church of the Airways, and the television program’s executive producer. Garrison was ready to retire and in the process of choosing a successor. Every week a guest preacher was invited to co-host the program.

  She watched as he discarded three different outfits before settling on a midnight blue suit, white shirt and bluish gray tie. “They want a preacher. They’re gonna get a preacher. How do I look?”

  “Perfect,” she assured him. He did too. His hair was now silver even though he was only forty-five. He watched his weight carefully and had taught himself to stand very straight so that he always seemed to stand above people, even taller men. He’d practiced widening his eyes when he thundered a sermon until that had become his usual expression.

  He vetoed her first choice of a red-and-white checked dress. “Not classy enough for this meeting. It’s a little too Betty Crocker.”

  That was their private joke when they wanted to impress the congregations who came to hear him preach. But there was nothing joking about him now. She held up a black linen sheath with a matching jacket. “How’s this?”

  He nodded silently. “That will do.” He frowned. “And remember . . .”

  “I never call you Bic in front of anyone,” she protested coaxingly. “Haven’t for years.” He had a feverish glitter in his eyes. Opal knew and feared that look. It had been three years since the last time he was brought in by local police for questioning because some little girl with blond hair had complained to her mother about him. He’d always managed to scorn the complainant into stammering apologies, but even so it had happened too often in too many different towns. When he got that look it meant he was losing control again.

  Lee was the only child he’d ever kept. From the minute he spotted her with her mother in the shopping center, he’d been obsessed by her. He followed their car that first day and after that cruised past their house hoping to get a glimpse of the child. He and Opal had been doing a two-week stint, playing the guitar and singing at some crummy nightclub on Route 17 in New Jersey and staying in a motel twenty minutes from the Kenyon home. It was going to be their last time singing in a nightclub. Bic had started gospel singing at revivals and then preaching in upstate New York. The owner of a radio station in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, heard him and asked him to start a religious program on his small station.

  It had been bad luck that he’d insisted on driving past the house one last time on their way back to Pennsylvania. Lee was outside alone. He’d scooped her up, brought her with them, and for two years Opal lived in a state of perpetual fear and jealousy that she didn’t dare let him see.

  It had been fifteen years since they dumped her in the schoolyard, but Bic had never gotten over her. He kept her picture hidden in his wallet, and sometimes Opal would find him staring at it, running his fingers over it. In these last years, as he became more and more successful, he worried that someday FBI agents would come up to him and tell him he was under arrest for kidnapping and child molestation. “Look at that girl in California who got her daddy put in prison because she started going to a psychiatrist and remembering things best forgotten,” he would sometimes say.

  They had just arrived in New York when Bic read the item in the Times about the Kenyons’ fatal accident. Over Opal’s beseeching protests, they’d gone to the funeral mass. “Opal,” he had told her, “we look as different as day and night from those two guitar-playing hippies Lee remembers.”

  It was true that they looked totally different. They’d begun to change their appearance the morning after they got rid of Lee. Bic shaved his beard off and got a short haircut. She’d dyed her hair ash blond and fastened it in a neat bun. They’d both bought sensible clothes at JC Penney, the kind of stuff that made them blend in with everyone else, gave them the middle-American look. “Just in case anyone in that diner got a good look at us,” he’d said. That was when he’d warned her never to refer to him as Bic in front of anyone and said that from now on, in public he’d call her by her real name, Carla. “Lee heard our names over and over again in those two years,” he’d said. “From now on I’m the Reverend Bobby Hawkins to everyone we meet.”

  Even so she’d felt the fear in him when they hurried up the steps of the church. At the end of the mass as the organist began to play the first notes of “Amazing Grace,” he’d whispered, “That’s our song, Lee’s and mine.” His voice soared over all the others. They were in the seats at the end of the pew. When the usher carried Lee’s limp body past them, Opal had to grab his hand to keep him from reaching out and touching her.

  “I’ll ask you again. Are you ready?” His voice was sarcastic. He was standing at the door of the suite.

  “Yes.” Opal reached for her purse, then walked over to him. She had to calm him down. The tension in him was something that shot through the room. She put her hands on the sides of his face. “Bic, honey. You gotta relax,” she said soothingly. “You want to make a good impression, don’t you?”

  It was as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He murmured, “I still have the power to scare that little girl half to death, don’t I?” Then he began sobbing, hard, dry, racking sobs. “God, how I love her.”

  12

  DR. PETER CARPENTER was the Ridgewood psychiatrist Sarah called ten days after the funeral. Sarah had met him occasionally, liked him, and her inquiries justified her own impressions. Her boss, Ed Ryan, the Bergen County prosecutor, was Carpenter’s most emphatic supporter. “He’s a straight shooter. I’d trust any one of my family with him, and you know that for me that’s saying a lot. Too many of those birds are yo-yos.”

  She asked for an immediate appointment. “My sister blames herself for our parents’ accident,” she told Carpenter. Sarah realized as she spoke that she was avoiding the word “death.”
It was still so unreal to her. Gripping the phone, she said, “There was a recurrent nightmare she’s had over the years. It hasn’t happened in ages, but now she’s having it regularly again.”

  Dr. Carpenter vividly remembered Laurie’s kidnapping. When she was abandoned by her abductors and returned home, he had discussed with colleagues the ramifications of her total memory loss. He was keenly interested in seeing the girl now, but he told Sarah, “I think it would be wise if I talk to you before I see Laurie. I have a free hour this afternoon.”

  As his wife often teased, Carpenter could have been the model for the kindly family doctor. Steel gray hair, pink complexion, rimless glasses, benign expression, trim body, looking his age, which was fifty-two.

  His office was deliberately cozy: pale green walls, tieback draperies in tones of green and white, a mahogany desk with a cluster of small flowering plants, a roomy wine-colored leather armchair opposite his swivel chair, a matching couch facing away from the windows.

  When Sarah was ushered in by his secretary, Carpenter studied the attractive young woman in the simple blue suit. Her lean, athletic body moved with ease. She wore no makeup, and a smattering of freckles was visible across her nose. Charcoal brown brows and lashes accentuated the sadness in her luminous gray eyes. Her hair was pulled severely back from her face and held by a narrow blue band. Behind the band a cloud of dark red waves floated, ending just below her ears.

  Sarah found it easy to answer Dr. Carpenter’s questions. “Yes. Laurie was different when she came back. Even then I was certain she must have been sexually abused. But my mother insisted on telling everyone that she was sure loving people who wanted a child had taken her. Mother needed to believe that. Fifteen years ago people didn’t talk about that kind of abuse. But Laurie was so frightened to go to bed. She loved my father but would never sit on his lap again. She didn’t want him to touch her. She was afraid of men in general.”

  “Surely she was examined when she was found?”

  “Yes, at the hospital in Pennsylvania.”

  “Those records may still exist. I wish you’d arrange to send for them. What about that recurring dream?”

  “She had it again last night. She was absolutely terrified. She calls it the knife dream. Ever since she came back to us, she’s been afraid of sharp knives.”

  “How much personality change did you observe?”

  “At first a great deal. Laurie was an outgoing sociable child before she was kidnapped. A little spoiled, I suppose, but very sweet. She had a play group and loved to visit back and forth with her friends. After she came back she would never stay overnight in anyone’s house again. She always seemed a little distant with her peers.

  “She chose to go to Clinton College because it’s only an hour-and-a-half drive away and she came home many weekends.”

  Carpenter asked, “What about boyfriends?”

  “As you’ll see, she’s a very beautiful young woman. She certainly got asked out plenty and in high school did go to the usual dances and games. She never seemed interested in anyone until Gregg Bennett, and that ended abruptly.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know. Gregg doesn’t know. They went together all last year. He attends Clinton College as well and would often come home weekends with her. We liked him tremendously, and Laurie seemed so happy with him. They’re both good athletes, especially fine golfers. Then one day last spring it was over. No explanations. Just over. She won’t talk about it, won’t talk to Gregg. He came to see us. He has no idea what caused the break. He’s in England this semester, and I don’t know that he’s even heard about my parents.”

  “I’d like to see Laurie tomorrow at eleven.”

  The next morning Sarah drove Laurie to the appointment and promised to return in exactly fifty minutes. “I’ll bring in some stuff for dinner,” she told her. “We’ve got to perk up that appetite of yours.”

  Laurie nodded and followed Carpenter into his private office. With something like panic in her face, she refused to recline on the couch, choosing to sit across the desk from him. She waited silently, her expression sad and withdrawn.

  Obvious profound depression, Carpenter thought. “I’d like to help you, Laurie.”

  “Can you bring back my mother and father?”

  “I wish I could. Laurie, your parents are dead because a bus malfunctioned.”

  “They’re dead because I didn’t have my car inspected.”

  “You forgot.”

  “I didn’t forget. I decided to break the appointment at the gas station. I said I’d go to the free inspection center at the Motor Vehicle Agency. That one I forgot, but I deliberately broke the first appointment. It’s my fault.”

  “Why did you break the first appointment?” He watched closely as Laurie Kenyon considered the question.

  “There was a reason but I don’t know what it was.”

  “How much does it cost to have the car inspected at the gas station?”

  “Twenty dollars.”

  “And it’s free at the Motor Vehicle Agency. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

  She seemed to be immersed in her own thoughts. Carpenter wondered if she had heard him. Then she whispered, “No,” and shook her head.

  “Then why do you think you broke the first appointment?”

  Now he was sure she had not heard him. She was in a different place. He tried another tack. “Laurie, Sarah tells me that you’ve been having bad dreams again, or rather the same bad dream you used to have has come back.”

  Inside her mind, Laurie heard a loud wail. She pulled her legs against her chest and buried her head. The wailing wasn’t just inside her. It was coming from her chest and throat and mouth.

  13

  THE MEETING with Preacher Rutland Garrison and the television producers was sobering.

  They had eaten lunch in the private dining room of Worldwide Cable, the company that syndicated Garrison’s program to an international audience. Over coffee, he made himself very clear. “I began the ‘Church of the Airways’ when ten-inch black-and-white TVs were luxuries,” he said. “Over the years this ministry has given comfort, hope and faith to millions of people. It has raised a great deal of money for worthwhile charities. I intend to see that the right person continues my work after me.”

  Bic and Opal had nodded, their faces set in expressions of deference, respect and piety. The following Sunday they were introduced on the “Church of the Airways.” Bic spoke for forty minutes.

  He told of his wasted youth, his vain desire to be a rock star, of the voice the good Lord had given him and how he had abused it with vile secular songs. He spoke of the miracle of his conversion. Yea, verily, he understood the road to Damascus. He had traveled it in the footsteps of Paul. The Lord didn’t say, “Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou Me?” No, the question hurt even more. At least Saul thought he was acting in the name of the Lord when he tried to blot out Christianity. As he, Bobby, stood in that crowded dirty nightclub, singing those filthy lyrics, a voice filled his heart and soul, a voice that was so powerful and yet so sad, so angry and yet so forgiving. The voice asked, “Bobby, Bobby, why do you blaspheme me?”

  Here he began to cry.

  At the end of the sermon, Preacher Rutland Garrison put a fatherly arm around him. Bobby beckoned to Carla to join him. She came onto the set, her eyes moist, her lips quivering. He introduced her to the Worldwide audience.

  They led the closing hymn together. “ ‘Bringing in the sheaves . . . ’ ”

  After the program the switchboard came alive with calls praising the Reverend Bobby Hawkins. He was invited to return in two weeks.

  On the drive back to Georgia, Bic was silent for hours. Then he said, “Lee’s at the college in Clinton, New Jersey. Maybe she’ll go back. Maybe she won’t. The Lord is warning me it’s time to remind her of what will happen if she talks about us.”

  Bic was going to be chosen as Rutland Garrison’s successor. Opal could sense it. Garrison had been
taken in the same as all the others. But if Lee started remembering . . . “What are you going to do about her, Bic?”

  “I got ideas, Opal. Ideas that came to me full blown while I was praying.”

  14

  ON HER SECOND VISIT to Dr. Carpenter, Laurie told him that she was returning to college the next Monday. “It’s better for me, better for Sarah,” she said calmly. “She’s so worried about me that she hasn’t gone back to work, and work will be the best thing for her. And I’ll have to study like crazy to make up for losing nearly three weeks.”

  Carpenter was not sure what he was seeing. There was something different about Laurie Kenyon, a brisk matter-of-fact attitude that was at total variance with the crushed, heartbroken girl he had seen a week earlier.

  That day she had worn a gold cashmere jacket, beautifully cut black slacks, a gold, black and white silk blouse. Her hair had been loose around her shoulders. Today she had on jeans and a baggy sweater. Her hair was pulled back and held by a clip. She seemed totally composed.

  “Have you had any more nightmares, Laurie?”

  She shrugged. “I’m positively embarrassed remembering the way I carried on last week. Look, a lot of people have bad dreams and they don’t go mewing around about them. Right?”

  “Wrong,” he said quietly. “Laurie, since you feel so much stronger, why don’t you stretch out on the couch and relax and let’s talk?” Carefully he watched her reaction.

  It was the same as last week. Absolute panic in her eyes. This time the panic was followed by a defiant expression that was almost a sneer. “There’s no need to stretch out. I’m perfectly capable of talking sitting up. Not that there’s much to talk about. Two things went wrong in my life. In both cases I’m to blame. I admit it.”

  “You blame yourself for being kidnapped when you were four?”

  “Of course. I was forbidden to go out front alone. I mean really forbidden. My mother was so afraid that I’d forget and run into the road. There was a teenager who lived down the block, and he had a lead foot on the accelerator. The only time that I remember my mother really scolding me was when she caught me on the front lawn, alone, throwing a ball in the air. And you know I’m responsible for my parents’ death.”