Where Are the Children? Page 7

  The clatter had brought everyone in the store running, including Lowery himself, who was a sour, disagreeable man. Many young mothers might have been embarrassed and started berating the child. Jonathan had admired the way Nancy said very quietly, “We’re sorry, Mr. Lowery. It was an accident. We’ll take care of it.”

  Then she said to the little boy, who looked stricken and worried, “Don’t be upset, Mike. You didn’t mean it. Come on. Let’s pile them back up.”

  Jonathan had helped with the restacking, after first shooting a menacing glare at Lowery, who’d obviously been about to make some kind of remark. It seemed so hard to believe that seven years ago today that same considerate young woman could have deliberately taken the life of two other children—children she had brought into life.

  But passion was a powerful motive, and she had been young. Maybe her very indifference at her trial had been acceptance of guilt, even though she couldn’t publicly bring herself to admit such a heinous crime. He’d seen that kind of thing happen too.

  The doorbell rang. Jonathan got up from his chair, surprised. Few people visited unannounced at the Cape, and any door-to-door selling was absolutely forbidden.

  As he walked to the door Jonathan realized how stiff he’d become from sitting. To his amazement, his visitor was a policeman, a young man whose face he only vaguely recognized from seeing him in a squad car. Selling some kind of tickets was Jonathan’s immediate thought, but he discarded that idea at once. The young officer accepted his invitation to step inside. There was something crisply efficient and serious about his demeanor. “Sir, I’m sorry to bother you but we’re investigating the disappearance of the Eldredge children.”

  Then, while Jonathan stared at him, he pulled out a notebook. His eyes darting around the orderly house, he began his questions. “You live alone here, sir, do you not?”

  Without answering, Jonathan reached past him and opened the massive front door. At last he became aware of the presence of cars driving down the road toward the lake and the sight of grim-faced men in heavy rain gear swarming through the neighborhood.

  12

  “JUST SIP THIS, NANCY. Your hands are so cold. It will help you. You need your strength.” Dorothy’s voice was cajoling. Nancy shook her head. Dorothy set the cup on the table, hoping the aroma of the fresh vegetables, bubbling in a spicy base of tomato soup, might tempt her.

  “I made that yesterday,” Nancy said tonelessly, “for the children’s lunch. The children must be hungry.”

  Ray was sitting next to her, his arm slung protectively across the back of her chair, an ashtray filled high with ground-out cigarettes in front of him.

  “Don’t torture yourself, dear,” he said quietly.

  Outside, over the rattling of the shutters and windowpanes, they could hear the staccato sound of helicopters flying low.

  Ray answered the question he saw on Nancy’s face. “They’ve got three helicopters scanning the area. They’ll spot the kids if they just wandered away. They’ve got volunteers from every town on the Cape. There are two planes over the bay and sound. Everyone’s helping.”

  “And there are divers in the lake,” Nancy said, “looking for my children’s bodies.” Her voice was a remote monotone.

  After giving the statement to the news media, Chief Coffin had gone back to the police station to make a series of phone calls. When they were completed, he returned to the Eldredge house, coming in just in time to hear Nancy’s words. His practiced glance took in the staring quality of her eyes, the ominous stillness of her hands and body, the facile expression and voice. Approaching a state of shock again, and they’d be lucky if she was able to answer to her own name before long.

  He looked past her, his eyes seeking Bernie Mills, the policeman he’d left on duty in the house. Bernie was standing at the doorway of the kitchen, poised to pick up the telephone if it rang. Bernie’s sandy hair was plastered neatly over his bony skull. His prominent eyes, softened by short, blond lashes, moved horizontally. Accepting the signaled message, Chief Coffin looked again at the three people around the table. Ray got up, walked behind his wife’s chair and put his hands on her shoulders.

  Twenty years disappeared for Jed Coffin. He remembered the night he’d gotten a call at the precinct house when he was a rookie cop in Boston that Delia’s folks had been in an accident and it wasn’t likely they’d make it.

  He’d gone home. She’d been sitting in the kitchen in her nightgown and robe, sipping a cup of her favorite instant hot chocolate, reading the paper. She’d turned, surprised to see him early but smiling, and before he said one word, he’d done just what Ray Eldredge was doing now—pressed his hands on her shoulders, holding her.

  Hell, wasn’t that the guts of the departure speech stewardesses used to rattle off on airplanes? “In the event of an emergency landing, sit straight, grip the arms of your seats, plant your feet solidly on the floor.” What they were saying was “Let the shock pass through you.”

  “Ray, can I see you privately?” he asked brusquely.

  Ray’s hands continued to steady Nancy’s shoulders as her body began to shake. “Did you find my children?” she asked. Now her voice was almost a whisper.

  “Honey, he’d tell us if he found the kids. Just sit tight here. I’ll be right back.” Ray bent down and for an instant laid his cheek on hers. Without seeming to expect a response, he straightened up and led the Chief through the connecting foyer into the large living room.

  Jed Coffin felt an unwilling admiration for the tall young man who positioned himself by the fireplace before turning to face him. There was something so gut-level self-possessed about Ray even in these circumstances. Fleetingly he remembered that Ray had been decorated for outstanding leadership under fire in Vietnam and given a field promotion to captain.

  He had class, no doubt about that. There was class inherent in the way Ray stood and talked and dressed and moved; in the firm contours of his chin and mouth; in the strong, well-shaped hand that rested lightly on the mantel.

  Stalling to regain his sense of rightness and authority, Jed looked slowly around the room. The wide oak floorboards shone softly under oval hooked rugs; a dry sink stood between the leaded paned windows. The mellow, creamy walls were covered with paintings. Jed realized that the scenes in them were familiar. The large painting over the fireplace was Nancy Eldredge’s rock garden. The country-graveyard scene over the piano was that old private cemetery down the road from Our Lady of the Cape Church. The pine-framed painting over the couch had caught the homecoming flavor of Sesuit Harbor at sundown as all the boats came sailing in. The watercolor of the windswept cranberry bog had the old Hunt house—The Lookout—barely outlined in the background.

  Jed had occasionally noticed Nancy Eldredge sketching around town, but never dreamed that she was any good. Most women he knew who fooled around with that sort of thing usually ended up framing stuff that looked like exhibits from Show and Tell.

  Built-in bookcases lined the fireplace. The tables made of heavy old distressed pine weren’t unlike the ones he remembered they’d donated to the church bazaar after his grandmother died. Pewter lamps like hers were on the low tables next to comfortable overstuffed chairs. The rocker by the fireplace had a hand-embroidered cushion and back.

  Somewhat uncomfortably, Jed compared this room with his own newly decorated living room. Delia had picked out black vinyl for the couch and chairs; a glass-topped table with steel legs; wall-to-wall carpeting—thick yellow shag that clawed at the shoes and faithfully preserved and displayed every drop of saliva or pee their still-untrained dachshund bestowed on it.

  “What do you want, Chief?” Ray’s voice was cold and unfriendly. The Chief knew that to Ray he was an enemy. Ray had seen through his routine admonition to Nancy about her rights. Ray knew exactly how he felt and was fighting him. Well if a fight was what he wanted . . .

  With the ease born of experience garnered from countless similar sessions, Jed Coffin sought out the weakness an
d directed his attention to it. “Who is your wife’s lawyer, Ray?” he asked curtly.

  A flicker of uncertainty, a stiffening of the body betrayed the answer. Just as Jed had figured, Ray hadn’t taken the decisive step. Still trying to pretend his wife was the average distraught mother of missing children. Christ, he’d probably want to put her on a television news show tonight, handkerchief twisting in her hands, eyes swollen, voice pleading, “Give me back my children.”

  Well, Jed had news for Ray. His precious wife had done that scene before. Jed could get copies of the seven-year-old film the newspapers had called “a moving plea.” In fact, the assistant district attorney in San Francisco had offered to provide it during their telephone conversation only half an hour ago. “It’ll save that bitch the trouble of going through her act again,” he’d said.

  Ray was speaking quietly, his tone a hell of a lot more subdued. “We haven’t contacted a lawyer,” he said. “I hoped that maybe . . . with everyone searching . . .”

  “Most of that search is going to be suspended pretty soon,” Jed said flatly. “With this weather, there isn’t going to be anyone able to see anything. But I’ve got to take your wife down to the station for questioning. And if you haven’t arranged for a lawyer yet, I’ll have the court appoint one for her.”

  “You can’t do that!” Ray snapped the words furiously, then made an obvious effort to control himself. “What I mean is that you would destroy Nancy if you took her to a police-station setting. For years she used to have nightmares, and they were always the same: that she was in a police station being questioned and then that she was taken down a long corridor to the mortuary and made to identify her children. My God, man, she’s in shock right now. Are you trying to make sure that she won’t be able to tell us anything she may have seen?”

  “Ray, my job is to get your children back.”

  “Yes, but you see what just reading that cursed article has done to her. And what about the bastard who wrote that article? Anyone vile enough to dig up that story and send it out might be capable of taking the children.”

  “Naturally we’re working on that. That feature is always signed with a fictitious staff name, but the articles are actually free-lance submissions that if accepted involve a twenty-five-dollar payment.”

  “Well, who is the writer, then?”

  “That was what we tried to find out,” Jed replied. He sounded angry. “The covering letter instructed that the story was offered only on condition that if accepted, it would not be changed at all, that all the accompanying pictures would be used and that it would be published on November seventeenth—today. The editor told me that he found the story both well written and fascinating. In fact, he felt it was so good that he thought the writer was a fool to have submitted it to him for a lousy twenty-five dollars. But of course, he didn’t say so. He dictated a letter accepting the conditions and enclosing the check.”

  Jed reached into his hip pocket for his notebook and flipped it open. “The letter of acceptance was dated October twenty-eighth. On the twenty-ninth the editor’s secretary remembers receiving a phone call asking if a decision had been reached about the Harmon article. It was a bad connection and the voice was so muffled she could hardly hear the caller, but she told him—or her—that a check was in the mail, care of General Delivery, Hyannis Port. The check was made out to one J. R. Penrose. The next day it was picked up.”

  “Man or woman?” Ray asked quickly.

  “We don’t know. As you have to realize, a town like Hyannis Port has a fair number of tourists going through it even at this time of the year. Anyone requesting something from General Delivery would only have to ask for it. No clerk seems to remember the letter, and so far the twenty-five-dollar check hasn’t been cashed. We can work our way back to J. R. Penrose when it is. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the writer turns out to be one of our own little old ladies in town. They can be just wonderful at digging into gossip.”

  Ray stared into the fireplace. “It’s cool in here,” he said. “A fire will feel good.” His eye fell on the cameos on the mantelpiece that Nancy had painted of Michael and Missy when they were babies. He swallowed over the stinging lump that suddenly closed his throat.

  “I don’t think you really need a fire in here now, Ray,” Jed said quietly. “I asked you to step in here because I want you to tell Nancy to get dressed and come with us to the station house.”

  “No . . . no . . . please . . .” Chief Coffin and Ray whirled to face the archway leading into the room. Nancy was standing there, one hand leaning against the carved oak archway for support. Her hair had dried, and she had pulled it into a bun caught loosely against the nape of her neck. The strain of the past hours had turned her skin a chalky white that was accentuated by the dark hair. An almost detached expression was settling into her eyes.

  Dorothy was behind her. “She wanted to come in.” Dorothy’s voice was apologetic.

  Now she felt the accusation in Ray’s eyes as he hurried over to them. “Ray, I’m sorry. I couldn’t make her stay inside.”

  Ray pulled Nancy against him. “It’s all right, Dorothy,” he said briefly. His voice changed and became tender. “Honey, just relax. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Dorothy felt the dismissal in his tone. He had counted on her to keep Nancy away while he spoke to the Chief, and she couldn’t even do that much. She was useless here—useless. “Ray,” she said stiffly. “It’s ridiculous to bother you about this, but the office just phoned to remind me that Mr. Kragopoulos, who wrote about the Hunt property, wants to see it at two o’clock. Shall I get someone else to take him up there?”

  Ray looked over Nancy’s head as he held her firmly against him. “I don’t give a damn,” he snapped. Then quickly he said, “I’m sorry, Dorothy. I would appreciate it if you showed the place; you know The Lookout and can sell it if there’s real interest. Poor old Mr. Hunt needs the money.”

  “I haven’t told Mr. Parrish that we might be bringing people in today.”

  “His lease clearly states that we have the right to show the house at any time with simply a half hour’s telephone notice. That’s why he has it so cheap. Give him a call from the office and tell him you’re coming.”

  “All right.” Uncertainly, Dorothy waited, not wanting to go. “Ray . . .”

  He looked at her, understanding her unspoken wish but dismissing her. “There’s nothing you can do here now, Dorothy. Come back when you’ve finished at The Lookout.”

  She nodded and turned to go. She didn’t want to leave them; she wanted to stay with them, sharing their anxiety. Ever since that first day when she’d walked into Ray’s office, he’d been a lifeline for her. After nearly twenty-five years of planning her every activity with Kenneth or around Kenneth’s schedule, she’d been so rootless and, for the first time in her life, frightened. But working with Ray, helping him to build the business, using her knowledge of interior decorating to spark people to buy the houses, then invest in renovating them had filled so much of the void. Ray was such a fair, fine person. He’d given her such a generous profit-sharing arrangement. She couldn’t have thought more of him if he’d been her own son. When Nancy had come, she’d been so proud that Nancy trusted her. But there was a reserve in Nancy that didn’t permit any real intimacy, and now she felt like an unnecessary bystander. Wordlessly she left them, got her coat and scarf and went to the back door.

  She braced herself against the wind and sleet as she opened it. Her car was parked halfway around the semicircular back driveway. She was glad she didn’t have to go through the front drive. One of the networks had a television van parked in front of the house.

  As she hurried toward her car, she saw the swing on the tree at the edge of the property. That was where the children had been playing and where Nancy had found the mitten. How many times had she herself pushed the children on that swing? Michael and Missy . . . The awful possibility that something might have happened to them—that they might be dead
—gave her a terrible choking sensation. Oh, please not that . . . almighty and merciful God, please not that. She’d joked once about being their surrogate grandmother, and then the look of pain had been so unmistakable on Nancy’s face that she had wanted to bite her tongue off. It had been a presumptuous thing to say.

  She stared at the swing, lost in thought, unmindful of the wet sleet stinging her face. Whenever Nancy stopped in the office, the children made a beeline for her desk. She tried to always have a surprise for them. Just yesterday when Nancy had come in with Missy, she’d had tollhouse cookies she’d baked the night before as the special treat. Nancy had been on her way to look at drapery material, and Dorothy had offered to mind Missy and pick up Michael at kindergarten. “It’s hard to select material unless you can really concentrate,” she’d said, “and I have to pick up some title-search papers at the courthouse. It will be fun to have company, and on the way back we’ll get some ice cream, if that’s all right.” Only twenty-four hours ago. . . .

  “Dorothy.”

  Startled, she looked up. Jonathan must have cut through the woods from his house. His face was deeply creased today. She knew he must be nearly sixty years old, and today he looked every bit of it. “I just heard about the Eldredge children,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to Ray. Possibly I can help.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Dorothy said unsteadily. The concern in his voice was oddly comforting. “They’re inside.”

  “No trace of the children yet?”

  “No.”

  “I saw the article in the paper.”

  Belatedly, Dorothy realized that sympathy was not being offered to her. There was a coolness in Jonathan’s tone, a reproof that clearly reminded her that she had lied to him about having known Nancy in Virginia. Wearily, she opened the door of her car. “I have an appointment,” she said abruptly. Without giving him time to answer, she got in and started up the engine. It was only when her vision blurred that she realized that tears were swimming in her eyes.