Piercing the Darkness (34 page)

She heard a vehicle approaching and ducked into the woods. It was just a farmer in his pickup.

She decided to wait for just a while. She pulled out her spiral notebook and added some quick notes to another letter, first recounting her recent narrow escape, then trying to summarize her troubled, churning
memories.

I’m remembering, Tom, piece by piece. The Omega Center has grown a lot and is double the size it was when I was last there. But the spiritual forces are the same, as are the philosophies and the goals of those people.

It all seemed so utopian eighteen years ago. I can recall the classes in Eastern philosophy and the long sessions in the meadows, sitting for hours in meditation, feeling such a unity with all life, with all that is. What bliss that was. I can remember the special spirit-guides who came to me during my last summer. They opened my consciousness to realize my own divinity, and revealed worlds of experience and awareness I’d never known before. It was like an endless carnival ride through a world of enticing secrets, and my guides promised to remain with me forever.

But the joy of those days eventually soured like warm, aging milk. The bliss of meditation became more and more a form of insanity and escape; the spirit-guides did not remain with me as they promised, but decayed into illusions, ghostly images, tormentors. I had gone to Omega to find, as Mrs. Denning put it, “the meaning behind it all,” but found instead a world of mindless credulity and wishful thinking, a floating, aimless quest for experience in place of rationality. Meaning? No, only self-aggrandizement. And whether a person is a small cosmic accident or a god who fills all that is, that person is still alone.

So it was futile. I can see that now, but of course “now” is too late. I am so much older, and so many fruitless years have passed. Looking back, I find it so very sad to count the years I devoted to that place and what it stands for. I find it even sadder to think that it is still there, still drawing more and more Sally Roes into its nets. I wonder, someday will those bright-eyed and optimistic teens look back across the years and find the futility that I find now? From a better vantage point, will they assess their lives and find as little value?

Those were, as I have said, days of madness. But I must REMEMBER, whatever it takes. There is still more to the story, and I must remember who these people are, where they are, and what
they intend. I must remember who I am, and what I am—or was—to them.

I’ll keep writing as often as I can.

“Yeah, and some very hot places are going to freeze over before I’ll believe that! You heard me!”

Wayne Corrigan slammed down the phone and fumed, “They won’t answer my interrogatories! They’re stalling, playing games!”

“Surprise, surprise,” said Marshall.

Corrigan, Marshall, Ben, and Tom were sitting in Corrigan’s office comparing notes and going over the case.

“How many interrogatories did you send out?” asked Marshall, sitting on the other side of Corrigan’s desk, looking through a stack of copies.

“Just the preliminaries, the basics,” said Corrigan. “But they won’t even answer those, they won’t return my phone calls, and even if I do get through, they stonewall it. You may have noticed the response I got from Brandon’s lawyer just now, that Jefferson character.”

“I noticed the response he got from
you.
”

“Well, I was upset.”

Ben was leaning against the windowsill, just listening to the conversation. “You did just fine. They had it coming.”

Marshall concurred. “They’re just looking out for their own behinds. It won’t hurt to go after them a bit, keep them off-balance.”

Corrigan tried to explain his frustration. “But they keep saying their records are too personal and confidential, and then Jefferson told me they haven’t even assembled their discovery materials yet, and I think that’s baloney. On top of that, I think they’re stalling on taking depositions from our side. They want us to go first so they’ll have more ammunition. I can’t stall like that; we just don’t have the time.”

“Looks like they aren’t going to give you anything without a court order.”

“Yeah, tell me all about it.”

“Hey, listen. Kate’s asking around about this Miss Brewer at the elementary school, and she’s already made an appointment to visit the class on Monday. Maybe when she gets back she’ll have some goods on this Miss Brewer, and you can use that in some depositions.”

“Well, that’s what I need: more leads, more players in this thing. So far I’m in the dark about what the other side is up to.”

Marshall tossed the interrogatories back on Corrigan’s desk. “Well, it’s bigger than it looks, I know that.”

“Moles,” said Ben.

“Huh?” said Tom.

“Get Marshall to explain it to you sometime. It’s a great parallel.”

Corrigan was ready for another topic. “So how about your kids, Tom? Are you going to be able to see them again?”

Tom wasn’t happy about his answer. “Pretty soon, but I’m not sure when. It’s all up to this Irene Bledsoe lady, and she’s . . . well, she’s quite ruthless. I try not to think about it too much.”

Corrigan shook his head and leaned back in his chair, making the springs squeak. For him, leaning back and examining the ceiling was a typical expression of frustration. “She’s feeling her oats, if you know what I mean. Tom, if you were rich and powerful, you’d probably have your kids back by now. But Bledsoe knows she has all the power she needs, and without some real pressure from people in important places, she can do whatever she wants. The laws are just vague enough to allow a lot of leeway from case to case.”

“But she’s so unreasonable!” Tom moaned. “She’s guarding my kids like . . . like she’s afraid to let them out of her sight, like she wants to control them.”

“She is and she does,” said Marshall.

“But you heard about that bump on Ruth’s head, didn’t you?”

Marshall was sitting in a swivel chair. With a simple kick he swiveled around to face Tom. “No. Tell me.”

“Last time I visited the kids, Ruth had a big bump on her head, and both of them said she got it when Bledsoe just about got into a wreck driving them away from our house! Bledsoe’s trying to blame that bump on
me
, suggesting that
I
did it!”

Marshall was hearing some shocking news, it seemed. “A near-wreck?”

“Yes. You should have seen how Mrs. Bledsoe tried to keep the kids from saying
anything
about that, but Josiah told me about it anyway. He said she went through a stop sign and almost hit a blue pickup truck. She stopped too fast, the kids must not have been belted in, and
Ruth—”

Ben interrupted. “Wait a minute! Did you say a blue pickup truck?”

“Yes, that’s what Josiah said.”

“When was that?” Ben started thinking back.

“I’m not sure . . .” Now Tom started recalling. “Evidently the evening when she came and took them away . . .”

Ben brightened with recollection. “The same evening when we checked out that so-called ‘suicide’ at the Potter place! Listen: Cecilia Potter told me that Sally Roe drove a blue pickup truck—a ’65 Chevy, to be exact—and when I was there checking out the scene later on, the truck was gone. We were wondering about that.”

“The truck was gone?” asked Marshall.

Ben was getting excited. “Gone. Now listen. According to Mrs. Potter, Roe always drove that truck to work and came home in it every day. So if Sally Roe did commit suicide like Mulligan and the medical examiner said, who drove her truck away?”

“Whoever Mrs. Bledsoe almost ran into, that’s who!” said Tom.

Marshall was sitting up straight in his chair. “Did your kids see who was driving that truck?”

“I don’t know. I suppose . . . somehow . . . I could ask them.”

Marshall looked at Ben. “You ordered that criminal check, right?”

“I’ve got Chuck Molsby working on that. He’s that friend of mine with the police in Westhaven.”

“I hope we get a mug shot or something.”

“I hope she’s a criminal,” said Tom.

“Yeah,” said Marshall, “there is that little detail. But if we can get a photo of her, and if we can get it to the kids and have them identify her . . .”

“The fur would hit the fan!” said Ben. “It would prove Sally Roe is still alive, that it wasn’t her suicide that we found!”

Marshall stood to his feet. “Moles.”

“There’s that word again,” said Tom.

Corrigan straightened up in his chair and leaned over his desk. “Hey, guys, anytime you want to explain all this to me, I’d be glad to listen. I
am
supposed to be your lawyer, you know.”

Marshall took a piece of scratch paper from Corrigan’s desk. “Just like a mole in your yard and somebody else’s yard . . . well, in three
yards, actually. Three molehills, but all the same mole.” He took out his pen and drew a small circle. “Here’s the first molehill: the lawsuit against the Christian school, Lucy Brandon, the ACFA, that whole ball of wax.” He drew another circle. “Here’s the second molehill: The ACFA uses the child abuse hotline to report Tom and get the CPD into it. Irene Bledsoe gets the pickup order and takes the kids. That connects the two molehills . . . sort of.” He drew a connecting line between the two circles.

“Maybe,” said Corrigan. “I mean, you know it and I know it, but proving it is another thing.”

“That comes later,” said Marshall. “But now . . .” He drew a third circle. “Here’s the third molehill: the mysterious death of Sally Roe—or somebody else. Somehow, possibly, the real live Sally Roe crossed paths with Irene Bledsoe right after the point in time when she was supposed to be dead.” He drew another connecting line between the second and third circles. “Now you have two kids who might be—
might be
—witnesses to that, and so . . . possibly . . . Irene Bledsoe is withholding them, hiding them, dragging her feet all she can, to keep them quiet. Now she might just be protecting her own position, waiting for Ruth’s bump to heal, or for both kids to forget what happened. Or . . .”

Ben took his own pen and connected the third circle with the first, forming a closed triangle. “Or she’s helping to cover up whatever happened at the Potter farm, which means this Sally Roe thing could be in some way connected with the attack on the Christian school, which we know is connected with the taking of Tom’s kids.”

“None of which you can prove,” Corrigan reminded them again.

“That comes later,” said Marshall again. He smiled. He felt good. “But that’s what’s happening. We’ve got moles—spiritual powers and human counterparts—under all this, and they’ve pushed their way to the surface in these three areas.”

Tom stared at the three circles. “If you want to talk about underground spiritual activity . . . how about the mileage Satan’s gotten out of this whole CPD deal? They’ve got me branded as some kind of child abuser, and the whole church is falling apart over it. We can’t win any fight of any kind in the shape we’re in.”

Marshall nodded. “Exactly. Now you’re catching on.”

Tom wanted to believe it. “But . . . I don’t see any
direct
connection
between what happened to Sally Roe and what’s happening at the school. There’s nothing there.”

“There is,” said Marshall.

“There isn’t!” said Corrigan. “You can’t prove a bit of this!”

“We will. Call me a fanatic, but I think God’s showing this to us. He’s giving us the outline; all we have to do is fill it in.”

Ben was getting stirred up. “You’ve got something, Marshall!”

“But nothing
I
can use!” said Corrigan.

Marshall put his pen back in his pocket and just looked at that little diagram. “We’ll get you something, Wayne. I don’t know what, but we’ll get it.”

THE MUSIC WAS
soft, steady, compelling, with a relaxing rhythm and tone. Miss Brewer, a young and pretty teacher with a disarming smile, read from a script in a soothing, almost hypnotic voice.

“Feel the breeze drifting through your hair, feel the warm sun on your skin, the firm, inviting earth under your body. You’re just a rag doll, totally limp, filled with sawdust . . .”

Kate Hogan sat quietly in the back of the classroom, trying to surreptitiously jot down notes as she watched the twenty-three fourth-graders go through the exercise. The desks were arranged to provide floor space for an activity area at one end of the room, and now the children lay flat on their backs on the floor in that area on blankets, pillows, or coats, their eyes closed, their breathing slow and deep, their arms limp at their sides.