Lost Innocents (21 page)

“Let go of me,” she breathed. Her voice sounded firm, but in her heart she was anything but confident. For a terrifying moment she wondered if he was going to release her wrist or snap it.

In the next minute he dropped her hand as if it were slimy.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “You never did.” He buried his head in his hands.

Maddy felt a sudden weariness wash over her and the desire to close her eyes and sleep for days. She wanted to turn away from him, and his words, and everything they signified.

Rubbing her wrist, she stood up on shaky legs and walked out of his office. Once in the hallway, she leaned against the wall with her eyes closed. He was wrong about her, she thought. It was not that she didn’t understand. What worried her was that she was beginning to think she did.

R
esponding to the sharp rap, Paulina opened the door a crack and looked suspiciously at the cop standing at the front door. “Yes?” she said.

Len Wickes stood on the doorstep, breathing in the crisp autumn morning, his hat pulled low over his brow. He had spent the night doing his own detective work. Way beyond the call of duty. While his wife, Laurie, kept him supplied with of cups coffee, Len had studied his printouts and made his calls. Today he had a few pertinent questions that needed answering. “May I just speak to Mr. and Mrs. Henson, please?”

“Mr. Henson is not here. He’s at work.”

Len had figured as much. He had heard of Charles Henson. Everyone in the police department had heard of the formidable attorney. It wasn’t Charles Henson he wanted to see. “Mrs. Henson, then?” he asked politely.

“Come in,” said Paulina. She opened the door and Len stepped into the house’s magnificent Tudor foyer. He took off his hat and held it in his hands.

“Wait in there,” Paulina said, pointing to the living room. “I’ll see if she’s here.”

She started for the staircase and then turned back. “What is this about?” she asked.

“Just a routine inquiry,” said Len, trying to sound extremely casual.

Paulina was not in the habit of questioning the police. In her experience, the police were people you could trust, people who protected you. Although Ellen’s nerves had been so bad lately, there was a limit to how far Paulina would go to protect her. Clashing with the police was past the limit. She looked back at the policeman anxiously and started up the stairs.

Len went into the living room and looked around. It was a glimpse into another life, one that was foreign to him. He wondered how much a place like this would cost. More money than he would ever see. But Len was not a greedy man. He was curious, not envious. Besides, he thought, looking up at the oil portrait over the mantel of the mother and her long dead son, money truly did not buy happiness. No amount of money could bring that boy back. According to the records of the several agencies, the Hensons’ attempts at adoption had been unsuccessful. Len thought for a moment of Laurie and their hopes for the future. Two or three kids, and he had no doubt that they would be able to have them when they were ready. Yes, there were things money couldn’t buy.

He turned as he heard someone softly clearing her throat. Ellen Henson had come into the room in her stocking feet. She was a delicate-looking woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties, he judged. She had amazing hair, long, curly, and rather wild, a mass of blond and gray. She looked at him worriedly.

“What is it, Officer? What can I do for you?”

“Mrs. Henson,” he said, wondering, as he studied her, if she was the kind of person capable of violence, unhinged by her desire for a child. She didn’t look crazy—maybe a little anxious, but not crazy. But you could never tell just by looking. He had collected the lists from every agency, as well as the town’s birth and death statistics for years back, had taken them home last night and pored over them until he’d found the correlations he was looking for. He had already checked the three other names on his list. He was pretty well convinced that nothing was amiss with the others. He had kept the information to himself, not informed his colleagues as he knew he should. But there was the possibility of a coup here that would finally earn him the respect he deserved. “We are, as you know, investigating the disappearance of little Justin Wallace.”

“Yes,” she said. “I saw it in the paper. Would you like to sit down?”

Len followed her lead and sat poised on the edge of a chair. He hoped he could phrase this delicately enough. “We’re pursuing every avenue, talking to people who might, for one reason or another, be trying to get a baby by any means possible.”

“I don’t understand,” Ellen said.

“Mrs. Henson, I’m sure this is just a coincidence, but we noticed from the county clerk’s records that your late son’s birthdate was the same day that Justin Wallace disappeared. We also know that you have unsuccessfully tried to adopt a child.”

Ellen’s eyes blazed at him, but he blundered on. “Now, I did a little further checking. I learned that you spent some time in the psychiatric wing of the Shady Groves Hospital, and I wonder if you could tell me what condition you were suffering from.”

“I was suffering from depression,” said Ellen. “It was brought on by the death of my only child.” Her voice was even, but her whole body had begun to tremble. “Does that seem strange to you, Officer Wickes?”

“No, ma’am, not necessarily,” he said doggedly. “Now, could you give me an account of your whereabouts on the day Justin Wallace disappeared?”

Ellen sat absolutely still. Len thought perhaps he had hit pay dirt. He watched her contorted face with a fleeting sense of triumph, that he had figured it out. This woman was hiding something. He could tell. He could feel it. If she wasn’t able to respond in a minute, he was going to ask to search the house. She probably knew about warrants, what with her husband being a lawyer, but sometimes people just cracked and spilled their guts. And she looked so brittle, so pent up, sitting there, that he had a distinct feeling the breaking point was near at hand….

“Mrs. Henson,” he said in a stern but sympathetic tone.

Finally she took a deep breath. “Young man,” she said, “I realize you are only doing your job, and whatever pain you are causing me is insignificant compared to the torment of those parents.” She paused for a moment, as if struggling to maintain her composure. Then she continued. “Those poor young people who are suffering so, wondering…” She closed her eyes, her face tragic. “I can’t think about it,” she said. “I cannot think about it,” and she said it not to him, but to herself. Like a warning.

“Mrs. Henson, would you please answer the question.”

She stared at him, as if there were so much she wanted to say but couldn’t bring herself to blurt it out. “I was here all day,” she said finally. “I never left my house. My housekeeper can tell you. If you have any other questions, you may refer them to my husband.” She stood up. “Now, get out of my house.”

“I would like to take a look around,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. You may not take another step into this house without getting a warrant. You may not,” she said. “Now, go. Before I start screaming.”

Len found her behavior very suspicious. He didn’t think he’d have any trouble convincing the chief to get a warrant. Not when he told him about this. “All right,” he said. “But I expect we’ll be back.”

Ellen walked woodenly to the door and closed it after him without a word. Paulina tiptoed down the stairs and saw her standing there, like a little broken doll, her face pressed against the front door. “Are you all right?” she asked worriedly.

Ellen nodded.

“What did he want?” Paulina asked.

“He wanted to know if I kidnapped the Wallace child. The baby who is missing.”

“God in heaven,” Paulina exclaimed, grasping her chest as if to shield herself from such a horrifying thought. “Is he crazy? Oh, my Lord. Why in the world would he come to you?”

“The child disappeared on Ken’s birthday.”

“So what?” said Paulina.

“And they know we’ve been unsuccessful in adopting.”

“Lots of people have trouble adopting,” Paulina said staunchly.

“He checked up on me. He found out I’d spent some time in a psychiatric hospital after Kenny died.” Ellen turned and smiled at Paulina, but her eyes were filled with tears. “He thinks I’m crazy. Maybe he’s right.”

“Don’t go on like that,” Paulina said sharply.

The phone began to ring. “I’ll get it,” Ellen said. She walked over to the phone and picked it up. Paulina could not hear what she was saying, but she could see Ellen’s narrow body tense up when she heard the voice on the phone, and then she saw Ellen sag and curl in on herself.

Paulina went to the front door. She watched as the police car pulled away, shaking her head and thinking how Charles Henson would make the police department pay for this when he found out.

Ellen hung up the phone. For a moment she stood very still. Then she stepped away from the phone carefully, as if the floor were made of glass. “I’m going outside…to the playhouse,” she said.

“Why?” asked Paulina. “There’s nothing out there.”

Ellen did not reply.

“Wait,” Paulina pleaded, hurrying after her. “Come and have something to eat.”

Ellen continued to walk, as if she heard nothing. Paulina followed her through the house and watched as she opened the back door. “Wear a jacket,” she called after her.

Ellen did not respond. She crossed the yard and unlocked the padlock to the playhouse. Paulina hesitated for a minute, watching her anxiously as she disappeared inside the little building. Then she turned back and hurried to the phone.

N
ick awoke in the dark of the motel room, turned over, and looked at the clock. He was surprised at the hour. He hardly ever slept this late. Freedom, he thought wistfully, and his heart hurt again.

He looked toward the windows, shrouded by heavy drapes, and saw a crack of gray light where they met. Rubbing his face with his hands, he got up and walked over to the window to get his first look in daylight at the place where he had stopped. He pulled the curtains open a crack and gazed out. The parking lot of the motel was almost empty. Not too many road travelers midweek this time of year. In a few weeks it would be Thanksgiving, and there would probably be more people on the road, but right now the place looked deserted. All there was to see was the bleak sky and the deep blue-green of spruce trees that formed a jagged horizon on the hillsides. He was only a few hours from Taylorsville, but it certainly looked like the country.

He had not gotten far yesterday. After he’d left Maddy’s he had gone home, figuring he was packed and could just load up the car and go. But it was not that simple, of course. People kept stopping in to say good-bye, and Jim Warren, his replacement, had a lot of questions for him. Besides, Nick kept finding things in the parish house that he’d forgotten to pack or dispose of. It seemed to take forever. It was almost five by the time he got going, and he drove until past dark, when hunger and a lot of yawning at the wheel convinced him it was time to stop. After all, there was no hurry. No one was waiting for him. He was not expected at the monastery until the end of the week. Nobody was waiting for him anywhere.

Nick dropped the curtain and decided to take a shower. As he passed by the phone he glanced at it, wondering automatically if it would ring while he was in the shower, as it usually did, then realizing that no one knew where he was. No one would call him here. He tried to tell himself how great that was—just the freedom and anonymity he was seeking.

But as he ran the water, climbed into the tub, and pulled the curtain, he found himself listening anyway. It was a habit. He had become used to the constant demands of his job: the way people were always looking to him for hope, for a miracle, for something he just couldn’t give. He took his time lathering himself, feeling the sting of the water on his body, trying to enjoy the privacy of this motel, this liberation from the needs of others. But there was not much pleasure in it. He found himself wishing, imagining, that he was not alone here. That he was in this dark, anonymous place, far from everywhere and everyone he knew, with the one person…

The ache of it was almost unbearable. Deliberately, out of long habit, Nick put the thought out of his mind. He knew he didn’t have to pretend he didn’t love her anymore. He could shout it to the world, here in this lonely motel. After all, she was part of the past now. She would never know the misery she had put him through with her gaze and her smile and the odd, unfinished conversation. He pictured her yesterday, in her kitchen, making him tea as if they belonged together. He could run the picture of it in his mind, like a video. She moved restlessly about the kitchen, thinking of other things, absolutely unaware of him as a man. He was just Father Nick, there to answer a few questions, ease a troubled mind. And then he recalled her words as they parted. Not good-bye, but “I’m sorry.” Why had she said she was sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry, as he was, that they had met each other a lifetime too late? No, he told himself. You are indulging the fantasies of a schoolboy. You are building castles in the air, based on two innocuous words from a woman who never gave you a second thought.

But he didn’t really believe it. He was not a complete novice with women. Before he’d entered the priesthood, he’d had limited, unsatisfactory encounters with a number of women. Enough to know the difference between indifference and possibility. That was partly why he’d had to leave Taylorsville. If he’d stayed much longer, he might have been compelled to find out. He was afraid that sooner or later he would brush against her, look for her response, say something he shouldn’t. She was a married woman, and he was still a priest. Whatever sins he may have committed in his mind and heart, he wasn’t about to try to woo her into adultery. Flawed as he was, he would not surrender to temptation, betray his collar willingly.

Nick got out of the shower, toweled himself off, and got dressed. He looked at a yellow, two-sided card perched on top of the television set, announcing there was a free Continental breakfast in the lounge. He figured he’d better load up the car and stop in to have a cup of coffee before he hit the road. He packed up his overnight bag and carried it out to the car. As he unlocked the trunk and rearranged his belongings, he noticed, with a complete sense of his own stupidity, that his briefcase was not among them.