Where Are the Children? Page 4

  She grabbed Missy’s mitten, the mitten with the smile face, and staggered toward the lake. She called their names over and over again. She pushed her way through the woods and out onto the sandy beach.

  In the lake a little way out, something was glistening below the surface. Was it something red . . . another mitten . . . Missy’s hand? She plunged into the icy water as far as her shoulders and reached down. But there wasn’t anything there. Frantically Nancy clutched her fingers together so that they formed a strainer, but there was nothing—only the terrible numbing cold water. She looked down, trying to see to the bottom; leaned over and fell. The water gushed into her nostrils and mouth and burned her face and neck.

  Somehow she staggered up and back before her wet clothes pulled her down again. She fell onto the ice-crusted sand. Through the roar in her ears and the mist that was closing in front of her eyes, she looked into the woods and saw him—his face . . . Whose face?

  The mist closed over her eyes completely. Sounds died away: the mournful cackle of the sea gull . . . the lapping of the water . . . Silence.

  It was there that Ray and Dorothy found her. Shivering uncontrollably, lying on the sand, her hair and clothes plastered to her head and body, her eyes blank and uncomprehending, angry blisters raised on the hand that clutched a small red mitten to her cheek.

  6

  JONATHAN CAREFULLY WASHED and rinsed his breakfast dishes, scoured the omelet pan and swept the kitchen floor. Emily had been naturally, effortlessly neat, and years of living with her had made him appreciate the intrinsic comfort of tidiness. He always hung his clothes in the closets, put his laundry in the bathroom hamper and cleared up immediately after his solitary meals. He even had an eye for the kind of detail that his cleaning woman missed and after she left on Wednesdays would do small jobs like washing canisters and bric-a-brac and polishing surfaces that she’d left cloudy with wax.

  In New York he and Emily had lived on Sutton Place, on the southeast corner of Fifty-fifth Street. Their apartment building had extended over the FDR Drive to the edge of the East River. Sometimes they had sat on their seventeenth-floor balcony and watched the lights of the bridges that spanned the river and talked about the time when they’d be retired at the Cape and looking out over Maushop Lake.

  “You won’t have Bertha in every day to keep the wheels spinning,” he’d teased her.

  “By the time we get up there, Bertha will be ready to retire and I’ll break you in as my assistant. All we’ll really need is a weekly cleaning woman. How about you? Will you miss having a car pick you up at the door anytime you want it?”

  Jonathan had answered that he’d decided to buy a bicycle. “I’d do it now,” he’d told Emily, “but I’m afraid some of our clients might get upset if the word was around that I arrived at work on a tenspeeder.”

  “And you’ll try your hand at writing,” Emily had prodded. “I sometimes wish you’d just taken a chance and done it years ago.”

  “Never could afford to, married to you,” he’d said. “The one-woman war against recession. All Fifth Avenue stays in the black when Mrs. Knowles goes shopping.”

  “It’s your fault,” she’d retorted. “You’re always telling me to spend your money.”

  “I like spending it on you,” he’d told her, “and I have no complaints. I’ve been lucky.”

  If only they’d had even a few years up here together . . . Jonathan sighed and hung up the dish towel. Seeing Nancy Eldredge and her children framed in the window this morning had vaguely depressed him. Maybe it was the weather or the long winter setting in, but he was restless, apprehensive. Something was bothering him. It was the kind of itch he used to get when he was preparing a brief and some facts just didn’t jibe.

  Well, he’d get to his desk. He was anxious to start working on the Harmon chapter.

  He could have taken early retirement, he thought, as he walked slowly into his study. As it turned out, that was just what he had done anyway. The minute he lost Emily, he’d sold the New York apartment, put in his resignation, pensioned off Bertha and, like a dog licking its wounds, had come here to this house that they’d picked out together. After the first bleak grief, he’d found a measure of contentment.

  Now writing the book was a fascinating and absorbing experience. When he’d gotten the idea for doing it, he had asked Kevin Parks, a meticulous free-lance researcher and old friend, to come up for a weekend. Then he had outlined his plan to him. Jonathan had selected ten controversial criminal trials. He’d proposed that Kev take on the job of putting together a file of all available material on those trials: court transcripts; depositions; newspaper accounts; pictures; gossip—anything he could find. Jonathan planned to study each file thoroughly and then decide how to write the chapter—either agreeing with the verdict or rejecting it, and giving his reasons. He was calling the book “Verdict in Doubt.”

  He’d already finished three chapters. The first was called “The Sam Sheppard Trial.” His opinion: not guilty. Too many loopholes; too much suppressed evidence. Jonathan agreed with the Dorothy Kilgallen opinion that the jury had found Sam Sheppard guilty of adultery, not murder.

  The second chapter was “The Cappolino Trial.” Marge Farger, in his opinion, belonged in a prison cell with her former boyfriend.

  The just-completed chapter was “The Edgar Smith Trial.” Jonathan’s view was that Edgar Smith was guilty but deserved his freedom. Fourteen years constituted a life sentence today, and he had rehabilitated and educated himself in a grisly cell on Death Row.

  Now he sat down at his massive desk and reached into the file drawer for the thick cardboard folders that had arrived the previous day. They were labeled THE HARMON CASE.

  A note from Kevin was stapled to the first envelope. It read:

  Jon, I have a hunch you’ll enjoy getting your teeth into this one. The defendant was a sitting duck for the prosecutor; even her husband broke down on the stand and practically accused her in front of the jury. If they ever locate the missing prosecution witness and try her again, she’d better have a stronger story than last time. The District Attorney’s office out there knows where she is, but I couldn’t get it from them; somewhere in the East is the best I can do.

  Jonathan opened the file with the accelerating pulse that he always associated with the beginning of an interesting new case. He never allowed himself to do much speculating until he got the research all together, but his memory of this case when it was being tried six or seven years ago made him curious. He remembered how at that time just reading the trial testimony had left so many questions in his mind . . . questions he wanted to concentrate on now. He recalled that his overall impression of the Harmon case was that Nancy Harmon never had told all she knew about the disappearance of her children.

  He reached into the folder and began to lay out the meticulously labeled items on the desk. There were pictures of Nancy Harmon taken during her trial. She certainly was a pretty little thing with that waist-length hair. According to the papers she was twenty-five at the time the murders were committed. She looked even younger—not much more than a teenager. The dresses she wore were so youthful . . . almost childish . . . they added to the overall effect. Probably her attorney had suggested that she look as young as possible.

  Funny, but ever since he’d started planning this book he’d felt that he’d seen that girl somewhere. He stared at the pictures in front of him. Of course. She looked like a younger version of Ray Eldredge’s wife! That explained the nagging resemblance. The expression was totally different, but wouldn’t it be a small world if there was some family relationship?

  His eye fell on the first typewritten page, which gave a rundown on Nancy Harmon. She had been born in California and raised in Ohio. Well, that let out any possibility of her being a close relative to Nancy Eldredge. Ray’s wife’s family had been neighbors of Dorothy Prentiss in Virginia.

  Dorothy Prentiss. He felt a quick dart of pleasure at the thought of the handsome woman who work
ed with Ray. Jonathan often stopped by their office around five o’clock, when he picked up the evening paper, the Boston Globe. Ray had suggested some interesting land investments to him, and they had all proved sound. He’d also persuaded Jonathan to become active in the town, and as a result they’d become good friends.

  Still, Jonathan realized that he went into Ray’s office more often than necessary. Ray would say, “You’re just in time for an end-of-the-day drink” and call out to Dorothy to join them.

  Emily had liked daiquiris. Dorothy always had Jonathan’s favorite drink—a Rob Roy with a twist. The three of them would sit for a half hour or so in Ray’s private office.

  Dorothy had a penetrating humor that he enjoyed. Her family had been show-business people, and she had countless great stories about traveling with them. She’d planned a career too, but after three small parts Off Broadway she had gotten married and settled down in Virginia. After her husband died she’d come up to the Cape planning to open an interior-decorating shop, then had gotten started working with Ray. Ray said that Dorothy was a hell of a real estate saleswoman. She could help people visualize the possibilities in a place, no matter how seedy it looked at first glance.

  More and more often lately Jonathan had toyed with the idea of suggesting that Dorothy join him for dinner. Sundays were long, and a couple of Sunday afternoons recently he’d actually started to dial her number, then stopped. He didn’t want to rush into getting involved with someone he’d run into constantly. And he just wasn’t sure. Maybe she came on a little too strong for him. All those years of living with Emily’s total femininity had made him somewhat unprepared for reacting on a personal level to a terribly independent woman.

  God, what was the matter with him? He was so easily diverted into woolgathering this morning. Why was he letting himself get distracted from this Harmon case?

  Resolutely he lit his pipe, picked up the file and leaned back in his chair. Deliberately he picked up the first batch of papers.

  An hour and fifteen minutes passed. The silence was unbroken except for the ticking of the clock, the increasing insistence of the wind through the pines outside his window and Jonathan’s occasional snort of disbelief. Finally, frowning in concentration, he laid the papers down and walked slowly to the kitchen to make coffee. Something smelled about that whole Harmon trial. From as much of the transcript as he’d read through so far it was evident that there was something fishy there . . . an undercurrent that made it impossible for the facts to hang together in any kind of reasonably cohesive way.

  He went into the immaculate kitchen and absently half-filled the kettle. While he waited for it to heat, he walked to the front door. The Cape Cod Community News was already on the porch. Tucking it under his arm, he went back into the kitchen, poured a rounded teaspoon of Taster’s Choice into a cup, added the boiling water, stirred and began to sip as with the other hand he turned the pages of the paper, scanning the contents.

  He had almost finished the coffee when he got to the second section. His hand with the cup stopped in mid-air as his gaze froze on the picture of Ray Eldredge’s wife.

  In that first instant of realization, Jonathan sadly accepted two irrefutable facts: Dorothy Prentiss had deliberately lied to him about having known Nancy as a child in Virginia; and retired or not, he should have been enough of a lawyer to trust his own instincts. Subconsciously, he had always suspected that Nancy Harmon and Nancy Eldredge were one and the same person.

  7

  IT WAS SO COLD. There was a gritty taste in her mouth. Sand—why? Where was she?

  She could hear Ray calling her, feel him bending over her, cradling her against him. “Nancy, what’s the matter? Nancy, where are the children?”

  She could heard the fear in his voice. She tried to raise her hand, then felt it fall loosely by her side. She tried to speak, but no words formed on her lips. Ray was there, but she couldn’t reach him.

  She heard Dorothy say, “Pick her up, Ray. Take her to the house. We have to get help looking for the children.”

  The children. They must find them. Nancy wanted to tell Ray to look for them. She felt her lips trying to form words, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Oh, my God!” She heard the break in Ray’s voice. She wanted to say, “Don’t bother with me; don’t bother with me. Look for the children.” But she couldn’t speak. She felt him pick her up and hold her against him. “What’s happened to her, Dorothy?” he asked. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Ray, we’ve got to call the police.”

  “The police!” Vaguely Nancy could hear the resistance in his voice.

  “Of course. We need help finding the children. Ray, hurry! Every moment is precious. Don’t you see—you can’t protect Nancy now. Everyone will know her from that picture.”

  The picture. Nancy felt herself being carried. Remotely she knew she was shivering. But that wasn’t what she had to think about. It was the picture of her in the tweed suit she’d bought after the conviction was overturned. They’d taken her out of prison and brought her to court. The state hadn’t tried her again. Carl was dead, and the student who’d testified against her had disappeared, and so she’d been released.

  The prosecuting attorney had said to her, “Don’t think this is over. If I spend the rest of my life, I’ll find a way to get a conviction that sticks.” And with his words beating against her, she’d left the courtroom.

  Afterward, when she’d received permission to leave the state, she’d had her hair cut and dyed and gone shopping. She had always hated the kind of clothes Carl liked her to wear and had bought the three-piece suit and brown turtle-neck sweater. She still wore the jacket and slacks; she’d worn them shopping only last week. That was another reason the picture was so recognizable. The picture . . . it had been taken in the bus terminal; that was where she’d been.

  She hadn’t known that anyone was taking a picture of her. She’d left on the last evening bus for Boston. The terminal hadn’t been crowded, and no one had paid any attention to her. She’d really thought that she could just slip away and try to begin again. But someone had just been waiting to start it all over again.

  I want to die, she thought. I want to die.

  Ray was walking swiftly, but trying to shield her with his jacket. The wind was biting through the wet clothes. He couldn’t shield her; not even he could shield her. It was too late. . . . Maybe it had always been too late. Peter and Lisa and Michael and Missy. They were all gone. . . . It was too late for all of them.

  No. No. No. Michael and Missy. They were here a little while ago. They were playing. They were out on the swing and then the mitten was there. Michael wouldn’t leave Missy. He was so careful of her. It was like last time. Last time, and they’d find them the way they found Peter and Lisa, with the wet seaweed and bits of plastic on their faces and in their hair and their bodies swollen.

  They must be at the house. Dorothy was opening the door and saying, “I’ll call the police, Ray.”

  Nancy felt the darkness coming at her. She began sliding back and away. . . . No . . . no . . . no. . . .

  8

  OH, THE ACTIVITY. Oh, the way they were all scurrying around like ants—all milling around her house and yard. He licked his lips anxiously. They were so dry when all the rest of him was wet—his hands and feet and groin and underarms. Perspiration was streaming down his neck and back.

  As soon as he got back to the big house, he carried the children in and brought them right up to the room with the telescope. He could keep an eye on them here and talk to them when they woke up and touch them.

  Maybe he’d give the little girl a bath and dry her off in a nice soft towel and rub baby powder on her and kiss her. He had all day to spend with the children. All day; the tide wouldn’t come in until seven tonight. By then it would be dark, and no one would be nearby to see or hear. It would be days before they’d be washed in. It would be like last time.

  It was so much more enjoyable touching t
hem when he knew their mother was being questioned by now. “What did you do with your children?” they’d ask her.

  He watched more police cars swarm up the dirt road into her backyard. But some of them were passing the house. Why were so many of them going to Maushop Lake? Of course. They thought she had taken the children there.

  He felt wonderfully gratified. Here he could see everything that was happening without risk, perfectly safe and comfortable. He wondered if Nancy was crying. She had never cried once at her trial until the very—end after the judge sentenced her to the gas chamber. She’d begun sobbing and buried her face in her hands to cover the sound. The court attendants had snapped handcuffs on her, and her long hair had spilled forward, covering the tearstained face that looked hopelessly out at the hostile faces.

  He remembered the first time he’d seen her walking across the campus. He’d been immediately attracted to her—the way the wind blew her strawberry-gold hair around her shoulders; the delicately formed face; the small, even white teeth; the enchanting round blue eyes that looked gravely out from thick, sooty brows and lashes.

  He heard a sob. Nancy? But of course not. It was coming from the girl. Nancy’s child. He turned from the telescope and stared resentfully. But his expression changed to a smile as he studied her. Those damp ringlets on her forehead; the tiny, straight nose; the fair skin . . . she looked a lot like Nancy. Now she wailed as she started to wake up. Well, it was just about time for the drug to wear off; they’d been unconscious nearly an hour.

  Regretfully, he left the telescope. He’d laid the children on opposite ends of the musty-smelling velour couch. The little girl was crying in earnest now. “Mommy . . . Mommy.” Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her mouth was open. . . . Her little tongue was so pink! Tears were running down her cheeks.