Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  Paget stood. ‘Humor me, okay? Just for a couple of weeks.’

  In the dim light, he felt her watching him more closely. ‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll just breathe into the phone a lot.’

  Terri sat alone, watching the rise and fall of Elena’s breathing.

  It was past two o’clock. Perhaps an hour before, she had heard her daughter crying. Rushing to the bedroom, she had found Elena rigid and frightened; it had taken the child a moment to recognize her mother, hold out her arms for comfort. But in the moment that she did, there were no barriers between them. Elena was simply a child again, seeking comfort from her mother, the only parent she had.

  Her face was wet. ‘I’m scared, Mommy – so scared. Please, Mommy, hold me.’

  Terri squeezed her as tightly as she could. ‘What is it, sweetheart? In the dream, what happens to you?’

  Elena, did not answer. She buried her face in her mother’s neck. ‘Stay with me, Mommy. I’m afraid to be alone.’

  Elena, Terri knew, would not tell her. But if she did, what difference might it make? ‘Of course I’ll stay,’ Terri said. ‘I’m your mommy, and I will never leave you.’

  She had said this automatically. And then suddenly remembered that it was what her mother had said to her at night, over and over, when Ramon Peralta was alive. Knew that when she herself had said this to Elena, it was in her mother’s voice.

  Now Teresa Peralta, Elena’s mother, watched her daughter’s sleeping face.

  I’ll remember, Terri silently promised her. I’ll remember everything I can. And in time, perhaps I’ll understand.

  Chapter 6

  When Terri arrived at the office the next morning, Charles Monk was sitting at her desk, her telephone propped under his chin.

  Monk listened intently, taking notes. He looked up, stared directly into her face, and then resumed writing as if she were not there. Over his shoulder was Terri’s picture of Elena.

  The room was quiet. Monk’s concentration seemed so total that Terri found herself closing the door with extra care, so as not to break his thoughts. Then she noticed Dennis Lynch sitting calmly by her window with the tape machine and studying the progress of the Sixth Fleet as it moved across the bay.

  Turning, Lynch gave her a small wave. For a moment, Terri felt like a visitor; only the cops looked at home.

  Continuing to ignore her, Monk spoke a few terse words into the telephone, like a lawyer whose time was too valuable to waste. From a couple of phrases, Terri guessed that he was talking to a bank.

  Only when Monk put down the telephone did he look at her again. ‘Would you like your chair back?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  Rising, Monk stopped to study Elena’s picture. ‘When was this taken?’ he asked.

  ‘Last year. For school.’

  Monk turned to her. ‘Was your husband particularly attached to it?’

  Terri paused. ‘He had the same picture in his apartment. If that’s what you mean.’

  Monk did not answer. He walked around the desk and sat down. Lynch pulled his chair up next to Monk’s.

  ‘We have more questions,’ Monk said.

  Terri managed a smile. ‘I was sort of hoping you were going to play a Beatles tape backward. The one where it says “Paul is dead.”’

  ‘“Abbey Road,”’ Monk answered. ‘Never liked it.’

  Lynch switched on the machine.

  Monk gave his preface again, then asked abruptly, ‘Did you ever threaten to kill Ricardo Arias?’

  It startled her. ‘Of course not. Does anyone say I did?’

  Monk ignored that. ‘Did you ever quarrel over Elena?’

  ‘Yes.’ Terri felt the sudden anger of someone whose space had been invaded. ‘That was what the custody suit was about.’

  ‘But you never threatened to kill him? Not even when you were fighting over Elena?’

  This time, there was a faint tingle in Terri’s skin. Much more slowly, she said, ‘I can’t remember saying that. And I certainly can’t remember meaning it.’

  Monk sat back. ‘Did Christopher Paget ever threaten Mr Arias?’

  ‘Not in my presence.’

  ‘Or say that he wished Mr Arias was dead?’

  A slight pause. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have any reason to believe that Mr Paget is capable of violence?’

  Terri folded her hands. ‘Chris,’ she said slowly, ‘is the most self-controlled man I’ve ever known. He doesn’t do anything without thinking.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m asking,’ Monk’s voice had a relentless patience, the march of one word after another. ‘My question was whether Mr Paget is capable of violence. Not premeditation.’

  Terri felt herself flush. It was time to preempt these questions. ‘Chris is not a murderer,’ she said coldly. ‘Either in anger or without it.’

  Monk did not blink. ‘Are you?’

  Terri folded her hands. ‘Not even in my dreams.’

  Monk studied her for a moment. Quite softly, he asked, ‘Do you know where Christopher Paget was that night?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was cool now. ‘At home.’

  ‘And how, exactly, do you know that?’

  Terri met his eyes. ‘Because he told me.’

  Monk leaned forward. ‘But you don’t know he stayed home, do you?’

  Terri folded her arms. ‘Not as a matter of literal fact.’

  ‘And how did his health seem the next morning?’

  Fine, Terri thought. And then, although Monk did not know to ask about it, she thought of his swollen hand. ‘All right,’ she answered. ‘He seemed a little tired, like he hadn’t slept well. That’s what flu will do to you.’

  Monk leaned back. ‘Whose idea was the trip to Italy?’

  It was time to collect her thoughts. ‘I need a cup of coffee,’ she said. ‘Would either of you like one?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ answered Lynch. Monk, still watching her, simply shook her head.

  Terri went to the coffee station. Before opening her office door again, she drew a deep breath. Her palms felt damp.

  Reentering her office, Terri walked to the window and gazed out at the bay, ignoring the two policemen.

  They were more than twenty stories up; immediately beneath them, on a tennis court, two tiny figures in white chased an invisible ball. But the gray steel ships of the Sixth Fleet seemed to shear the bay like knives; distance, and silence, lent them a lethal quality. Terri counted a cruiser, a battleship, and two destroyers; it was odd that, having forgotten so much, she could remember so precisely the day that Ramon Peralta had taught her this.

  She had been eight then. The Sixth Fleet had sailed into the bay for Fleet Week; her father, who had served four years in the navy before Terri was born, had decided to leave Rosa and Terri’s sisters at home. For the only day she could remember, Terri had her father to herself.

  He was sober; the day was bright and clear. Terri had on a crisp white dress. She could remember watching the ships on the water from a hill above the bay, Ramon’s rough hand holding hers, listening to him name each ship for her and explain what they did. Being part of this navy, she realized, had been his proudest moment; in the afternoon, when they toured the grim cocoon of a destroyer and Ramon had shown her the kind of cabin he had slept in, Terri did not say how cramped it seemed. What was important was the sinewy feel of the iron ship, the sound of her father’s voice. ‘Teresa,’ he had said simply, ‘ours was the greatest navy in the history of the world.’ She looked up at him, saw his black mustache and white smile, saw beneath it his need for her approval. In that moment, Terri realized why her mother had fallen in love with him.

  The glow of that day had lasted for weeks. Until the next time her father had beaten Rosa Peralta.

  She turned from the window. ‘Did you ever watch those ships come in?’ she asked Monk. ‘Take your kids?’

  Silently, he shook his head.

  ‘You really should,’ Terri said, and sat across fro
m him again.

  ‘Whose idea,’ Monk repeated, ‘was the trip to Italy?’

  Terri sipped her coffee. The cup was a centrifuge of warmth in her hand; her voice was firm and calm now. ‘Both of ours. We needed to get away.’

  Monk waited a moment. ‘Who scheduled the trip?’

  It was Terri’s turn to hesitate. ‘Chris did.’

  ‘Including the plane to Milan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Monk leaned forward. ‘Remind me of the first day you tried to call Ricardo Arias and couldn’t find him.’

  ‘Monday morning. Sunday night, San Francisco time.’

  ‘Did you mention that to Mr Paget?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘To call him again. Which I did. Monday night, and again on Tuesday morning, and throughout the day.’

  ‘And when he didn’t answer, you still didn’t know that Elena was with your mother, correct?’

  Not unless I killed Richie, Terri thought. ‘That’s right,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t know where she was.’

  ‘Did you think about calling the school?’

  All at once, Terri saw how clever Monk was. His face looked calm, almost bored – like Chris, she realized, when he wished to hide his thoughts. ‘I thought about it,’ she answered. ‘Then I decided to call my mother first.’

  ‘Why not call the school? They would know for sure if Elena was there.’

  ‘I didn’t want to seem panicky.’ Pausing, Terri tried to make herself believe she had thought this on her own. ‘I thought my mom might have talked to Elena.’

  The last phrase sounded halting: the answer did not help her, but any other did not help Chris.

  Monk studied her. ‘Did you discuss that with Mr Paget? Whether to call the school or call your mother?’

  Don’t you know? Terri thought silently. Chris and I talk about everything: he’s the first man, ever, who has truly been a part of me. Putting down the coffee, she looked directly at Monk. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Monk’s voice was soft now. ‘And after you called your mother, and found Elena there, you decided not to look for Mr Arias.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you discuss that with Mr Paget?’

  Let him rot, Chris had said.

  Terri hesitated. ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And what was the substance of that conversation?’

  Suddenly Terri could see the scenario Monk was building in his mind. A trip to Italy, planned as cover. A night alone, hours before they left. And all the days after that, knowing he was dead, letting his body decompose in that apartment. Until no one could tell if he had died before they left.

  ‘It was my decision,’ she told Monk, ‘not to call Richie. We were in a custody dispute, and I was willing under those circumstances to let him be neglectful. Because in my mind he was very much alive.’

  In the quiet, Terri watched the tape, silently winding her answer around a plastic spindle. ‘Thank you,’ Monk said politely. ‘We hope this wasn’t an inconvenience.’

  Something in Terri would have preferred him to accuse her. It was so unnatural: a civil conversation with a tape recorder playing, a word of thanks at the end, with Monk noting the hour and minute. As if people did this all the time.

  They packed up their tape machine and left.

  Terri waited until she was certain they had caught the elevator, then she went to Chris’s office.

  He was putting down the telephone. ‘That was the phone company,’ he told her. ‘The cops have a search warrant for my phone records. Bank records too.’

  ‘I know.’ Terri sat across from him. ‘I just had a visitor. Chris, I think they’re serious about this.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘My mother took care of me,’ Terri told Harris. ‘The best way she could. And how could my childhood affect Elena’s?’

  ‘There could be lots of ways,’ Harris answered. ‘Tell me, why do you think your mother didn’t leave?’

  Terri found herself staring at a print on Harris’s wall, two fawns in a lush African landscape with surreal birds and multiple suns, their displacement all the more striking because of the innocence with which they grazed. Chris admired the same artist, Jesse Allen; contemplating the fawns seemed to make it easier for her to talk.

  ‘Money,’ Terri answered automatically. ‘I mean, that’s what kept a lot of marriages together then, wasn’t it? The women couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Doesn’t your mother work now?’

  ‘Uh-huh. As a bookkeeper.’ Terri reflected. ‘Somehow, I remember her working for a while. Then it stopped. I don’t know why.’

  Harris was watching her, Terri discovered, with a thoughtful half smile. ‘Did something else occur to you?’

  Terri hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Just that I was thinking that it was hard for me to cope, too, because of money. Not because I didn’t work, but because Richie wouldn’t.’

  ‘Do you think that Richie set it up that way?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Terri resumed looking at the African landscape. ‘When I agreed to marry Richie, I told myself that he wasn’t like my father at all. That he wasn’t abusive. That he never lost his temper. That he wouldn’t mind having a wife who’d accomplished something. I couldn’t see any parallel between Richie and my father.’

  ‘And that was important to you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Terri’s voice was firm now. ‘I didn’t want Elena to be afraid. Of her father, or of anything.’

  Harris touched her chin. ‘Were you afraid, Terri?’

  Terri had folded her arms, she realized.

  ‘Terri?’

  In her mind, Ramon Peralta’s face was contorted with drunken fury. Her mother’s mouth was swollen; her eyes shone with tears. Still she refused to cry.

  He raised his hand to strike –

  ‘Did he beat you, Terri?’

  Terri closed her eyes and slowly shook her head.

  ‘What are you remembering?’ Harris asked softly.

  It is night.

  Terri is fourteen now; she can no longer hide beneath the covers or inside the closet, as she has taught her younger sisters to do. Her mother’s cries have drawn her from the bedroom.

  Terri creeps down the stairs. Unsure of what will happen, afraid of what she will see. Knowing only that, this time, she must stop him.

  The first thing she sees is her mother’s face.

  In the dim light of a single lamp, it is beautiful and ravaged, drained of hope. Her mouth has begun to swell.

  Ramon Peralta steps into the light.

  His hand is raised. Rosa backs to the wall. Her eyes glisten with tears. By now Terri knows that the tears will never fall; it is Rosa’s pride that she endures this without crying. But she cannot stifle the sounds when he hits her, cries from deep within her soul.

  ‘Whore,’ Ramon says softly.

  Helpless, Rosa shakes her head. Her shoulders graze the wall behind her.

  ‘I saw you look at him,’ Ramon prods. His accusation is sibilant, precise; Terri can imagine his whiskey breath in her mother’s face. Ramon comes closer.

  Watching, Terri freezes.

  She stands there, trembling, ashamed of her own cowardice. No one sees her; there is still time to run away.

  Her father’s hand flashes through the light.

  Terri flinches. Hears the crack of his palm on Rosa’s cheekbone; the short cry she seems to bite off; the heavy sound of his breathing. In the pit of her stomach, Terri understands; her mother’s cries draw him on for more. Rosa’s lip is bleeding now.

  ‘No,’ Terri cries out.

  Tears have sprung to her eyes; she is not sure she has spoken aloud. And then, slowly, Ramon Peralta turns.

  Seeing her, his face fills with astonishment and rage. But Terri cannot look away.

  ‘You like this,’ she tells her father. ‘You think it makes you strong. But we hate you –’

  ‘Teresa, don’t!’

&nbs
p; Her mother steps from the wall. ‘This is our business –’

  ‘We live here too.’ Without thinking, Terri steps between them. ‘Don’t ever hit her,’ she tells her father. ‘Ever again. Or we’ll hate you for the rest of your life.’

  Ramon’s face darkens. ‘You little bitch. You’re just like her’

  Terri points at her chest. ‘I’m me. I’m saying this.’

  His hand flies back to hit her.

  ‘No.’ Her mother has clutched Terri’s shoulders, pulling her away from him. Her father reaches out and jerks Terri by the arm.

  Blinding pain shoots through Terri’s shoulder. She feels him twist her arm behind her back, push her face down on the sofa. Terri wills herself to make no sound at all.

  ‘What,’ her father asks softly, ‘would you like me to do now?’

  Terri cannot be certain whether he asks this of Rosa or of Terri herself. Can sense only that her mother has draped both arms around her father’s neck.

  ‘Let her go, Ramon.’ Rosa’s voice is gentle now. ‘You were right. I shouldn’t have looked at him that way.’

  Terri twists her head to see. But she can only see her mother carefully watching Ramon as she whispers, ‘I’ll make it up to you. Please, let her go.’

  In her anguish, Terri senses her father turning to Rosa, sees the look on her mother’s face. The look of a woman who has met the man she was fated for. Lips parted, eyes resolute, accepting her destiny.

  With a sharp jerk, Ramon Peralta releases his daughter’s arm.

  ‘Go,’ Rosa tells her. ‘Go to bed, Teresa.’

  Standing, Terri turns to her mother. Her legs are unsteady, but Rosa does not reach for her. She leans against her husband now, one arm around his waist. Two parents confronting their child.

  ‘Go,’ Rosa repeats softly. ‘Please.’

  Terri turns, walking toward the stairs. Knowing that, in some strange way, her father has accepted Rosa as a substitute for Terri. Her arm aches, and her face burns with shame. She does not know for whom.

  At the top of the darkened stairway, Terri stops. She cannot, somehow, return to her room.

  She stands there. It is as if, from a distance, she is standing guard over Rosa.

  From the living room below, a soft cry.