Call the Devil by His Oldest Name

by Sallie Bissell

  At the front door, Mary twisted an old fashioned bell. The raspy sound reverberated through the house, but elicited no response. Ruth twisted it again, making it clear that they would not be ignored.

  Once more, they waited. Mary started to turn the bell a third time when suddenly the whole house erupted in light. Porch lights, driveway lights, even a dazzling chandelier inside, all glit­tered to life. Blinking, Mary held her breath as locks turned and the door swung open.

  A woman stood there. She had impossible auburn hair for someone her age, and wore it pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her lips looked as if smiling might entail some heavy lifting, and she was clad in a too-small beige suit accessorized with diamonds—two at her ears, a flashy solitaire on her right hand.

  “May I help you?” The woman spoke as if she’d just bitten a lemon.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Mary began, reaching in her purse for her IDs. “But we’re with Deckard County Justice. We have information that a woman of Hispanic descent is working here.” She flashed her IDs quickly in front of the woman’s eyes, hoping she wouldn’t notice that Deckard County was in Georgia and that her function in the Justice Department was assistant district attorney rather than cop. “May we come in?”

  Without waiting for the woman to answer, she stepped into the dazzlingly bright foyer, Ruth at her heels. Inside, the house looked more than a refuge for pregnant girls. A red oriental runner carpeted the wide staircase and an elegant Chippendale lowboy stood by the door. To the right, Mary stared into a living room that could have served as the cover of Architectural Digest.

  The woman’s expression soured further as she was forced to close the door behind them. “I’m sorry, what county did you say you were from?”

  “Deckard,” Mary said briskly, trying to imitate the fast, aggressive questioning style of the Deckard County detectives. “We’re looking for a girl who may have some immigration problems. Have you got any Latinos working here?”

  The woman looked at both of them so long, Mary wondered if she wasn’t going to ask to see her IDs again. Finally she answered the question, spitting out her words as if they were carpet tacks. “Two Mexicans.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Paz and Ruperta Gonzalez.” The woman gave up her employees without as much as an eye blink. “Paz takes care of the farm, Ruperta does housework and helps me with my girls.”

  “Your girls?”

  “This is an adoption home, Detective—”

  “Crow,” Mary said, aware that she was breaking every code of ethics applicable to officers of the court. If this woman grew at all suspicious and pressed the case, it could easily result in her being disbarred. “Mary Crow. And you are?”

  “Edwina Templeton. May I ask what kind of immigration trouble Ruperta’s in?”

  “A possible green card violation,” Mary answered vaguely, aware of Ruth standing with increasing impatience beside her. “Is there any chance we might speak with her?”

  “I’m afraid I gave them the night off just moments before you arrived.” The woman gave a polite laugh. “I’m not sure if they’re here or not.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Ruth.

  “Would you mind calling this Ruperta?” Mary overrode Ruth firmly. “If we don’t get this straightened out, INS will.”

  The woman pursed her lips tighter, but nodded for them to follow her into the splendid parlor, where she picked up and tinkled a small silver bell. “If she’s here, that will bring her.”

  “Got her well trained, huh?” said Ruth, the manic gleam returning to her eyes.

  Mary shot Ruth a warning look, then glanced around the ornate room. “You have anybody else working here, Mrs. Templeton?”

  “A security man, but he’s American. He’s away, too, on personal leave.”

  “Any babies upstairs, waiting for new parents?” asked Ruth acidly as Mary gave an inward groan.

  Edwina Templeton looked at Ruth and measured each word of her response as if it were gold.

  “No. My last adoption was six weeks ago.” She rang the bell a second time. This time they waited in an icy silence, but no one answered the summons.

  “I guess they’ve gone for the evening,” Mrs. Templeton said, walking back toward the front door. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “I don’t suppose you would show us Ruperta’s room?” Mary pressed her luck, knowing she was taking a chance with Ruth’s acerbic wisecracks.

  “Don’t you need a warrant to search my home?”

  Mary gave her best cop smile. “If you’d prefer to do it that way, I can come back with one.”

  Again Templeton hesitated, as if deciding between the lesser of two evils—having her house searched now, in the dark of night, or tomorrow, when her friends and neighbors might drive up to see. Finally she made her choice.

  “Not at all,” she said, her eyes glittering like a cornered rat’s. “Come this way.”

  She led them briskly down a long hall fur­nished just as elegantly as the living room, with another oriental runner and a tall case clock ticking away the hours. At the end of the hall they turned right and crossed a high-ceilinged kitchen, finally stopping at a closed door. With a smug nod at Mary, she knocked on the door.

  “Ruperta? Paz? Open the door. Someone wants to see you.”

  No answer. Templeton knocked again, this time louder. “Paz! Ruperta! Abra la puerta!”

  Again, no response. Edwina tried the knob. The door opened easily to reveal a small, neatly kept room. Though it held a bed covered in a bright patchwork quilt, a chest of drawers, and a small TV, it stood empty of its occupants. Just to make sure, Mary crossed the room and peeked into an equally empty bathroom.

  “They aren’t here,” Edwina Templeton said, sounding surprised. “I wonder where they went?”

  “Hard to tell,” said Mary, exchanging a glance with Ruth. “People like that could be anywhere.”

  With no illegal aliens to be found, Edwina Templeton escorted them snappily out of Ruperta’s room and back into the foyer. “Anything else I can help you with tonight?” she asked, opening the front door with a grand, exaggerated swoop.

  Mary shook her head. “Please don’t mention our visit to your employees. These people have a way of disappearing when they get wind of us.”

  “I understand completely. Good night.” Edwina Templeton gave a tight smile as they stepped through the door, then she closed it with a resounding slam. An instant later, every light in the house went out just as quickly as they’d come on. Once again they stood in darkness.

  “What the hell?” said Ruth.

  “Come on,” Mary whispered, her anger at Ruth forgotten. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Edwina Templeton was lying.”

  “What do you mean?” Ruth hurried after Mary, trying not to stumble down the stairs.

  “There was a half-empty bottle of formula beside the living room sofa. If her last adoption was six weeks ago, why was that there?” She reached in her pocket for her cell phone. “We need to call Jane Frey, and we need to call her now!”

  “It’s much too late for that, Señorita,” came a husky voice from the shadows as she felt a rough hand grab her shoulder. “It’s too late for anything like that at all.”

  Forty-one

  MARY SWUNG AROUND. A Latino couple stood in the shadows, ghost-like in the darkness. A small man who looked remarkably like the drawing of Joe Little Bear gripped Mary’s shoulder while an equally petite woman stared at Ruth, her eyes big as an owl’s.

  “Take your hands off me,” Mary snarled, hoping she sounded more threatening than she felt.

  The man loosened his grasp. “We know where your baby is.”

  “You what?” Ruth lunged forward and grabbed the little man as if she might shake the words
out of him.

  “She got adopted,” Joe Little Bear gasped, his forehead glistening with sweat. “Just a few hours ago.”

  “Adopted?” cried Ruth. “Who adopted her? And how do you know it was my baby who was adopted?”

  “We saw you at the manifestación,” the man explained breathlessly, “We hid in the bushes and watched you leave your baby in the care of a young woman. You told her to play music so the baby would not cry.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Ruth screeched.

  Mary grabbed Ruth. The man’s companion started speaking Spanish, too rapidly for Mary to understand. She did notice, however, that be­neath the woman’s denim jacket, a crucifix dangled from her neck and small turquoise earrings studded her ears. Finally Joe Little Bear shusshed her, and keeping well away from Ruth, began talking to Mary.

  “We need to leave here, Señorita. Pronto!” he said, his gaze darting between her face and Ruth’s. “If you will take us with you, we will help you find your baby. I swear it upon my mother’s grave.”

  “But you took my baby in the first place!” cried Ruth.

  As Joe Little Bear tried to formulate a response, the woman stepped forward, her hands clasped in supplication.

  “Por favor, Señoritas. It is not as it seems. We are not secuestradors. Just let us come with you, and we will explain.”

  Mary looked at the pair. Though they gave a good impression of people in desperate trouble, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were true Latinos at all, or just ethnic-looking con artists milking a lift. Both seemed suspiciously anxious to talk about the child they’d stolen.

  “Señoritas, I beg you,” the woman pleaded again. “We must leave now. Men—bad men are chasing us. We have no more time!”

  “Okay” Mary agreed, against her better judgment. “But once we get inside that truck, you’ve got one minute to tell us where the baby is.”

  “Gracias, Señorita. You will not regret this.”

  “You might, though,” Ruth warned, her mouth a snarl. “Because if you’re lying, those bad men chasing you are going to be the least of your worries.”

  The man introduced himself as Paz Gonzalez, the woman as his wife, Ruperta.

  “Where’s my baby? Why did you steal her?” Ruth faced backward, leaning against the dashboard, glaring at the two while Mary drove back to the more public area of the shopping mall.

  “We work for Señora Templeton. Young girls who are encinta with no husbands come to her house. She finds their babies good homes.”

  “Lily had a good home.”

  “Sí, Señorita. But another man wanted your baby. He too works for Señora Templeton, as a guard. His name is Duncan, but we call him Gordo—the fat one. He has a limp, eats candy all the time.”

  Mary gasped, dumbfounded. Edwina Templeton’s security guard! It was Logan! She listened as the man continued.

  “Last week, Señora Templeton asked us to go with Gordo to pick up a baby. He told us the child was his, but Ruperta and I did not think so.”

  Ruperta began to cry again; Paz shushed her. “We drove to a campground far away, in Señora Templeton’s van. Gordo told me he would turn us over to the cops if I didn’t help him. He told me what to say and drove me to your campsite.” Paz lowered his eyes in deference to Ruth. “The woman who tended your baby was with a man. She gave her…willingly.”

  Ruth’s lips curled. “That was my former cousin,” she said. “Go on.”

  The man shrugged. “After she gave me the baby, I walked back to the van and we drove away. Nobody said a word.”

  “Dile lo demás!” wailed Ruperta.

  “I’m telling her, Ruperta! After we took the baby, Gordo began to do crazy things. He drove us to graveyards, took pictures of the baby. We drove around and he took more pictures, of us holding the baby, as if she belonged to us.”

  “Like at the mall?” asked Ruth bitterly.

  “Sí, Paz replied, shamefaced. “But we took good care of your little one the whole time,” he added softly. “Twice Gordo came close to killing her, but Ruperta talked him out of it.”

  “So where is Lily now?” asked Mary.

  “A rich young couple came and adopted her this afternoon. They paid a lot of money for her, I think.”

  “What was their name?”

  “I never heard their names, Señorita. The wife was a pretty blond Anglo. Ruperta thinks the husband was Arab.”

  “Oh, my God!” Ruth looked at Mary, pan­icked. “An Arab! What if they’ve taken her to Saudi Arabia? Or Iran? Once they take children over there, you can never get them back!”

  “Hang on, Ruth. Let’s hear the rest of the story.” Mary asked Paz, “Do you know where they went? Did they live near here?”

  Paz shook his head. “I listened when they called to change their airplane reservations. They asked for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.”

  “What time was that flight leaving?” asked Mary.

  “I think they said seven.”

  Mary glanced at her watch. It was seven twenty-two. The flicker of hope she was beginning to feel died. If these two were telling the truth, the couple who’d adopted Lily were probably on their way to Florida. The jurisdictional squabbles involved in finding a North Carolina baby who was illegally adopted in Tennessee and then relocated to Florida would be a nightmare. Florida courts were notoriously erratic in their dispensation of child custody disputes, and Lily’s affluent new parents would surely fight any action every step of the way. It wasn’t quite Saudi Arabia, but Ruth’s panic was justified. Lily could well be grown before her real parents ever saw her again.

  Blinking away her own tears of frustration, Mary chanced one last question. “Do you know what airline they were on?”

  “Pardon?” Paz frowned.

  “Do you remember what airline they called?”

  Paz put a protective arm around his wife. “I’m supposed to pick up Señora Templeton’s car seat tomorrow morning at the Delta counter.”

  Delta! The airline that served the South! The airline that routed nearly half its flights through Atlanta! If this flight was like most Delta flights that originated south of Cincinnati, the couple who’d adopted Lily were probably at Hartsfield right now, bouncing their new baby girl and waiting to board the next plane to Florida.

  She pulled off the road and screeched to a stop, throwing Ruth and the Mexicans hard against the dashboard. If she could get in touch with Danika before that plane took off, she might be able to stop the couple who adopted Lily before they reached Florida. If she could keep just them in Atlanta, they might be able to sort everything out! Grabbing her cell phone, she punched in Danika’s number, knowing that this might well be their last chance to get Lily Walkingstick back home.

  At that same moment, Danika Lyles was enduring yet another poke in her breast from her boss, Hobson T. Mott. As opposing centers in a pickup basketball game, Danika and Mott had battled each other for the better part of an hour. Danika was taller and faster, but not as strong. Hobson was a moderately good shot, playing the way a lot of men played against women, trying to intimidate them with bulk, then sneakily copping feels of their breasts and asses, all in the name of sport. Though Danika had long accepted it as the price of playing with boys, tonight Mott’s constant mauling of her left breast was getting old. In the first place, it hurt. In the second place, she loathed Hobson T. Mott. Never would she forgive him for firing Mary Crow.

  “This time, you’re mine, boss man,” she murmured, loping into position as Mott’s team brought the ball down court. Hobson stood at the top of the key, waiting for the pass. She stood in front of him, her long, spider-like arms ruthlessly effective at keeping the ball away from him. He rubbed up against her backside, his hand on her ass. She moved up; he followed. The point guard dribbled back and forth, ignoring Hobson, looking for an opening under the basket. Suddenly he threw c
ross-court, a line drive that she could almost reach. She leaped. Hobson leaped too, but too late. She grabbed the ball and pulled it in, coming down with elbows out. Immediately she pivoted on her left foot. She felt her elbow crack against some kind of bone, then watched as Hobson crumpled to the floor, clutching his jaw.

  “Sorry, Mr. Mott,” she gushed as she began to dribble away. “Guess I forgot you were there.” As the horn sounded for the dazed Mott to leave the court, Danika stood with her face lowered, trying to hide her grin. She was still gazing at the mid-court line when the cell phone that she kept stashed in her sock rang. Tossing the ball to her point guard, she dug the little phone out and answered the call.

  “Danika Lyles.”

  “Danika?” The voice was hard to hear in the cavernous gym.

  “Mary?” Danika frantically motioned her substitute into the game as she hurried off the court, holding the phone tight against her ear. She’d been desperate to talk to Mary all day, but she’d only been able to reach Mary’s voicemail. “Girlfriend, what’s going on? Have you found that baby?”

  “That’s what I’m calling about, Danika.”

  Five minutes later Danika had the particulars. “A racially mixed couple with a baby traveling to Fort Lauderdale on Delta,” she repeated back to Mary. “Any names? Flight numbers? ETAs?”

  “Nope.”

  “How am I supposed to stop them? You gotta have a name to get a warrant.”

  “Call Hartsfield Airport Security as soon as we get off the phone. Call Diane Hart, the ADA in Clayton County. Tell them these people are suspects in an ongoing kidnapping investigation in Nikwase County, Tennessee.”

  “Okay.” Danika scribbled notes on the back of a chewing gum wrapper. “Anything else?”

  “I want you out there, too, Danika. Get a squad car. Tell whoever’s driving that you needed to be there ten minutes ago.”