Lost Innocents (26 page)

Maddy backed away from him. “You admit it…”

“Actually, I can,” said Frank. “You see, it’s admissible in court, as long as the police didn’t make the tape.”

“You’re lying,” Doug cried. “You’ve got no right to take me in.”

“We’re not here about the tape. You see, we have a witness,” said Frank, “who saw you involved in a conversation with Rebecca Starnes just before she died. You know, the day you were nowhere near the park. The witness is a baseball fan. He remembered you from your days in the majors.”

Doug’s face was an expressionless mask as he absorbed this news.

Frank smacked Doug so hard against his shoulder that he lost his balance. “So where’s the baby, asshole? What happened to the baby?”

“The baby?” Maddy cried. “No, wait. That’s impossible.”

Frank pushed Doug again, so that he banged into the car. “What did you do to the baby? His mother can’t stand up much longer under the strain,” Frank told him through clenched teeth.

Maddy stared at her husband.

“Don’t just stand there, Maddy,” Doug cried. “Call Charles.”

“Doug,” she said. “You didn’t…you wouldn’t have.” A horrible thought dawned on her. “Do you know where that baby is?”

“You bitch,” said Doug. “Just call my lawyer.”

Frank raised his fist and Pete Millard grabbed his arm to prevent him from smacking Doug across the face. “Don’t do it, Chief,” he whispered urgently. “You’ve said too much already. Don’t give him any more ammunition.”

Maddy turned away from them and doubled over, wrapping her arms around her waist.

Frank nodded to Pete. “Put him in the car.”

Frank planted himself in front of her and waited until she looked at him. “You’re not going to get him back until I find out what happened to Justin Wallace.”

“I don’t want him back,” Maddy said dully.

“I won’t lie to you and say I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” said Frank.

“No,” Maddy mumbled. “I’m sure you’re not.”

“You have a daughter. Maybe you can understand…”

“He wouldn’t have harmed that baby,” Maddy whispered.

“You don’t know him like you think. You don’t know what he’d do,” said Frank.

“You’re not lying about this tape,” she said.

“You’re welcome to look at it, if you want to. You know, according to Heather’s shrink, guys like your husband have a compulsion. In a way, they want to be caught. They like the danger. I mean, this was more than a stupid chance he took with Karla Needham. It was his very first day back at school. It was like he was trying to get caught. Maybe so he could be punished.”

Maddy nodded numbly.

“I’m going to be glad to be the one to punish him. Do you want someone to drive you home? You look a little shaky.”

“I can do it,” said Maddy. She walked over to her car and opened the door.

“It might be safer if one of us drove you,” Frank said.

“I can manage on my own,” said Maddy. “I’m going to have to.”

Frank shrugged, acknowledging the truth of her words. He walked over to the police car, where the others were waiting for him, and got inside. In a few moments the two cars pulled away. Maddy fell to her knees on the ground, the dirt and pebbles gouging into her knees. For a while she knelt there without moving, staring unseeing at the bleak landscape around her.

M
ommy!”

Amy came barreling toward her mother, her chubby little legs pumping. She was wearing Ginny’s Halloween costume, a blue taffeta princess dress, over her clothes.

Maddy scooped her up into her arms and buried her face into her soft hair. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said, trying to keep her voice from quavering. “Time to go home.”

She looked up at Ruth Crandall, who was setting the table in her kitchen. “I’m sorry to be so late, Ruth. Was she good?”

“Good as gold,” said Ruth. “There were three of them today. Sara Harrison was here, too. They all had a lot of fun together.”

Maddy looked at her daughter’s beautiful, untroubled face, her tousled hair, the silly outfit, and felt a terrible sadness. Amy’s life as she had known it was about to end. Her father’s legal fate was now in doubt, but Maddy knew their life as a family was over. The problems of her marriage would never be resolved. I never meant for this to happen to you, she thought. I meant for you to have a happy life, with two loving parents who stayed together. I feel as if I have made a mess of your life.

“Whatsa matter, Mommy?” asked, Amy her face crumpling into a pout as she mimicked the sad expression her mother wore. Kids could always tell.

“Never mind. Go on now, and take off Ginny’s costume and put it back in her room.”

Amy obediently ran off down the hallway, calling out to her friend. Ruth stopped, still clutching a handful of silverware, and frowned at Maddy. “Is something wrong, Maddy?” she asked. “You do look terrible.”

Maddy shook her head. It was impossible to put on a cheerful front. She and Ruth were not close friends, but they had spent a lot of time caring for one another’s children, which was a uniquely trusting relationship. Maddy was ashamed to tell Ruth about what had happened. She was vaguely afraid that Ruth wouldn’t want Ginny to play with Amy anymore, although Ruth did not seem like that sort of person. Besides, she would soon know, anyway. Everyone in town would know.

“I’m afraid so,” said Maddy. “Doug…”

“What about him?” Ruth asked, and her disapproving tone made Maddy look at her in surprise.

“More trouble?” Ruth asked.

Maddy nodded. “Serious trouble,” she said.

The two women looked at one another. Ruth sighed and resumed setting the table. “I’m sorry, Maddy,” she said.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

Ruth shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of trouble he’s in. But that thing with the chief’s daughter…”

“He was cleared of that,” Maddy protested.

Ruth looked at her sympathetically. “Well…officially,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Maddy asked. “Am I missing something?”

“I have teenagers,” said Ruth, indicating the place settings that crowded the table. “They talk.”

“You mean they talk about Doug?” Maddy cried.

Ruth looked pained. “The wife is always the last to know.”

“No,” said Maddy, shaking her head against it. Then she looked up at Ruth. “You never said anything. You didn’t seem to mind Amy playing with Ginny. You even came to the hospital to get her.”

“I love Amy. It’s not her fault. It’s not your fault, either.”

Maddy sat there, stunned by this conversation. “How can I have been so blind?” she muttered.

Ruth shrugged. “We always keep hoping things will be okay.”

“Things will never be okay again,” Maddy said.

Ruth came over and put an arm around Maddy’s slumped shoulders. “Now, now,” she said. “Take it easy. You’ll be all right. You have a beautiful daughter, you’re very talented, and you’ll manage. Somehow you’ll manage…”

“I’m so ashamed,” said Maddy. “I feel as if the whole world knew what was going on but me.”

“Hey, the court exonerated him. You believed in him. There’s no shame in that. That’s what you were supposed to do.”

“While the local schoolchildren all knew better,” Maddy cried.

“Don’t waste time thinking about that,” Ruth advised. “Just take Amy home, curl up together, and try to get some rest. Unplug the phone and lock the door. Things will look better in the morning.”

As Maddy tried to process this advice, she thought of Terry and Bonnie, still at her house. Maybe they’d be gone by now. Maybe they just left a note and took off. Oh God, I hope so, she thought. I just want to be alone.

Amy came back into the kitchen, minus the costume, followed by Donny, Ruth’s eldest son. Maddy could not even look him in the eye. He was a teenager. He went to the high school. Was he looking at her pityingly, knowing that her husband tried to seduce the female students at his school?

“Come on, Amy,” Maddy muttered. She lifted the child in her arms and carried her to the door.

Ruth held it open. “Remember,” she said, “Amy is always welcome here. Always. And so are you.”

Maddy did not reply because she was afraid she was going to cry. She held Amy tightly and carried her out to the car.

* * *

As Maddy pulled into the driveway she saw, with a sense of relief, that the Lewises’ car was not there. Oh, thank God, maybe they’re gone, she thought. Bonnie couldn’t have been shopping all that time. Maybe they just packed up and left. Oh, please, God, she thought. She didn’t want any thanks or long good-byes. She just wanted to have her house to herself, so that she could mourn this disaster in peace.

She opened the car door for Amy and lifted her out. “Is Dada home?” Amy asked, and Maddy felt her heart aching. What could she say—that the police suspected her daddy of being a murderer? Maddy couldn’t believe it, but then again, she knew Doug so little. He might be right—that this was Chief Cameron’s revenge for finally having the truth about Heather. Maybe the videotape of Doug with this Karla girl did not prove anything. Maybe the new witness was mistaken. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She would have to wait and see, like everyone else. She was through with being loyal. There was nothing to be loyal to. The man she thought she was married to didn’t exist. Whether he’d killed Rebecca Starnes or not, this marriage was just as dead, Maddy thought.

It wasn’t just the betrayal and the lies. It was those girls. What he had done was more than infidelity. It was vile. They were only schoolgirls. Someday Amy would be like them—vulnerable and insecure and attractive to men. Girls that age were supposed to be able to trust their teachers. Instead of being a role model, her husband had been a predator.

Maddy thought again of her own father. She could remember the response she would get from people when she identified herself as his daughter. Former students, men and women both, would tell her what a positive influence he had been on their lives. Tell her she was fortunate to be his daughter. Maddy looked at Amy and felt sad. No one would say that to her. To be Douglas Blake’s daughter would be a source of shame. Maddy felt a hatred for him rise up, but she didn’t want Amy to see it. Not Amy. To Amy she had to appear normal.

“Dada’s not here,” Maddy said. “Let’s go in the house.”

The child was satisfied with this foggy response and led the way to the front door. Maddy sighed when she closed the door behind her. She was glad to have a retreat from the world. The first thing she did was go directly to the phone and take it off the hook as Ruth had suggested. She had called Charles Henson on her way to Ruth Crandall’s, and that was all she intended to do. Charles Henson had sounded a little distracted on the phone but agreed to meet Doug at the police station.

Maddy wondered if Charles Henson had known Doug was guilty when he’d defended him so ably before the administrative law judge. He seemed too honorable for that, but lawyers were widely regarded as sharks these days, and perhaps, behind his patrician exterior, Charles Henson was no exception. Maddy shook her head, as if to put the question out of her mind. It didn’t matter anymore who believed Doug and who didn’t. She didn’t, and that was all that mattered.

Maddy took off her shoes, picked up the mail, and sat down to look at it. Amy had come in and immediately started playing with some of her toys in the living room. The house was quiet. Thank God they’re gone, she thought again.

“I want Big Bird,” Amy announced, sticking out her lower lip.

Maddy sighed and looked around the room. It wasn’t there. “Sean probably left it upstairs,” Maddy said. “We’ll look later.” She fervently hoped that Bonnie had not let the child take Amy’s toy with him, or Amy would be inconsolable. Even as she thought it, she doubted it. Bonnie was meticulous. She would have left everything as she’d found it.

“I look now,” Amy announced.

“Okay,” Maddy said absently. “You go look.”

Amy toddled resolutely toward the staircase as Maddy frowned at the windowed envelopes in her hands. Bills and more bills. They hadn’t yet paid off their debts from Doug’s suspension. Now it would be just impossible. She felt oppressed and, for the first time, afraid. No, she thought. Don’t allow yourself to think about it. If you think about the whole thing, it’ll drive you mad. You’ll just handle each problem as it comes along. What else, she wondered, can you do?

She put down the bills and tried to leaf through a children’s clothing catalog, but immediately put that down, too. There would be no extra money for clothes or anything else. Looking at the prettily dressed children in those pictures only made her feel worse for her daughter. For herself.

“Mommy, come!” Amy’s little voice cried out from the top of the stairs, terror in her tone. Maddy jumped up from her seat and ran to the stairs. Amy pointed down the hallway. “Mommy, come quick!” she shrieked.

Maddy did not stop to ask why. She could tell from the look on her child’s face, the tone of her cry, that it was serious. She took the stairs two at a time, with a force she didn’t realize she had in her, and scooped up Amy at the top of the stairs. “What is it, baby? Are you hurt?”

“Sean’s dada,” she cried.

Sean’s dada. What in the world? Were they still here? There was no car. What was going on? She rushed down the hall to the guest room and stopped in the doorway. Sean was seated on the floor, wearing only a shirt, jangling a rattle that must have rolled under the crib. Beside him, sprawled on the floor, lay Terry Lewis, clutching at his stomach. His face was gray, and his eyes were half-open and rolled back in his head. A wet diaper lay open on the floor beside him.

Maddy put Amy down and fell to her knees on the floor beside him. She lifted his head with her forearm. “What happened? Where’s Bonnie? What are you doing up here?” She looked around frantically, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. There was no blood anywhere, but he looked dangerously ill.

“She didn’t come back yet,” he breathed. “Sean was crying…” His voice was weak, only a whisper.

“Oh, my God,” said Maddy, realizing what had occurred. “So you came up the stairs. Did you lift him? Out of the crib?”

Terry nodded slightly against her arm.