The Judas Child

by Carol O'Connell

  Only one cop seemed to have no appetite this evening, and Ali knew that was her fault, for she had given him Father Marie’s trial transcript. Rouge Kendall sat at his corner desk, solemn as a schoolboy, slogging through a volume two inches thick. He was so absorbed in his reading, he took no notice of Mr. Frund, the file clerk cum psychic.

  Ali turned her attention on this small gray-suited man from Connecticut. He was standing only a few yards away in conversation with Captain Costello. Martin Frund’s weak watery eyes were enlarged by thick lenses. His shoes alternately touched down and lifted again in a light tap dance, as though the floorboards might be hot. Urged by a wave of Costello’s hand, the man gingerly sat down on a chair at the center of the room, but his feet went on dancing. Though Ali could barely hear his small strained voice, she understood the gist of what he was saying to Costello. Frund was claiming to be a virgin in the psychic trade.

  Close to Ali’s chair, two BCI men sat on either side of a desk which doubled as their dinner table.

  “This is a waste of time,” said the younger man, dipping his fork into a plastic container of salad, apparently finding it much more alluring than the psychic file clerk.

  “That depends on what the little guy knows—maybe something he shouldn’t know,” said Buddy Sorrel, a senior investigator with an iron-gray crew cut.

  Sorrel wore a suit, but whenever Ali thought of him, she saw him in an army officer’s uniform, perhaps because his pants were sharply creased, and his suit jacket was not. But the real giveaway to his history was the footwear; his shoes had the high luster of a military spit-shine polish. He peeled back the top layer of rye bread and directed a look of deep suspicion at the mound of pastrami on his sandwich. But then, Ali had noticed that suspicion was Sorrel’s only expression. His gray eyebrows were always arched, as if frozen that way after decades of police work. It was a good trait for a law enforcement officer. One always felt a little off balance with him, and disbelieved from the first word of the most casual conversation.

  “How does the perp do it, Buddy?” The younger of the two men was perhaps thirty-five and genuinely perplexed. “How can anybody control a kid? I can’t control my five-year-old. I told my wife I don’t do baths anymore.”

  “Well, nobody can control wet kids,” said Sorrel, somewhat philosophically, as he bit into his sandwich.

  A smaller voice drifted back to her from the center of the room. “I’ve never told anyone about my visions before,” said Mr. Frund. “But this time, I knew I had to come forward—for the children’s sake.” His tone was full of apology and humility.

  “We appreciate all the help we can get, Mr. Frund.” Captain Costello was very amiable today—not his natural state. Like Sorrel, he usually exhibited a deep distrust of everything that moved and everything that didn’t. Yet now he was almost charming, radiating warmth and good fellowship.

  “It’s Martin Frund, isn’t it? Do your friends call you Marty?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Just plain old Martin.”

  Costello put one hand on the file clerk’s shoulder. “Are you a married man, Martin? Any kids of your own?”

  “No, sir, no wife, no children.” Martin Frund colored as he said this, and Ali guessed that he had not had much luck with women.

  What about small children?

  Was Costello wondering the same thing? Perpetrators sometimes insinuated themselves into police investigations. Some went so far as to join the search parties hunting for their victims. However, in Ali’s own experience, the psychics usually had other agendas.

  For his performance this evening, Martin Frund had dressed up in a brand-new cheap suit, and the opening in his jacket revealed the fold line of a white shirt fresh from a discount-store box. But the footwear was not a recent purchase. When he crossed one leg over his knee, the shoe displayed a sole with wear that threatened to become a hole with every step, and the heel was run down on one side.

  The little man might be in it for all the money the tabloids would pay, or he could have a craving for public notoriety. It was also possible that Frund was a true believer, sincerely deluded in the dream that he was gifted. The need to feel special would be very strong; Ali could see his entire life, past and future, in the nervous darting of his myopic eyes, the constant tapping of one foot, and the exposed sole.

  All around the wide room, armed men and women were stealing glances at the little file clerk, appraising him between bites of dinner, chewing and watching.

  Disgust was clear in Buddy Sorrel’s eyes. The senior investigator had probably seen this man’s ilk before, when other children had gone missing, when the parents had gone over the moon, all the way crazy with fear, eager for a fake to tell them lies and get them through the days of waiting.

  But Sadie Green’s mother didn’t seem crazy, though both the fathers appeared to be catatonic. Ali looked for Gwen’s mother in the crowd. She spotted Marsha Hubble standing by the rear wall and away from the show, her arms folded against the charade. This woman was definitely not a believer. Ali guessed the lieutenant governor had no faith outside herself and no god but politics. The estranged husband, Peter Hubble, was sitting quietly by a bank of tall windows, his face turned skyward, perhaps looking for omens in the clouds scudding by. Harry Green sat beside him, perusing a map and occasionally drawing lines with a red marker.

  Buddy Sorrel was bent over an open notebook on his desk, making rapid pen strokes, writing disconnected words and phrases. Ali had no difficulty reading them: “water, trees, phone lines, power cables, random letters, numbers, lone man, nondescript car, ambiguous road, purple and other flyer stats.” And now Sorrel put away his pen and pulled out a pocket tape recorder.

  So she had guessed right. This BCI man was definitely familiar with the psychic’s game.

  Captain Costello shouted, “Heads up, people,” and now he had the attention of every law enforcement officer but Rouge. “Let’s get this show on the road. Mr. Frund? Martin? If you would please tell us about your visions?” Captain Costello withdrew to the door and stood there with his arms folded, blocking the only exit from the room.

  “Could I hold something that belonged to one of the children?” Frund wore a weak smile as he addressed the captain, silently apologizing again. “It would help me to focus.”

  Becca Green was dipping into her purse when Buddy Sorrel caught her eye. He shook his head to warn her off. She withdrew her empty hand and snapped the purse shut. Sorrel reached out to one corner of his desk and picked up a sealed manila envelope. Not bothering to stand, he tossed it to the little man. Frund missed the catch and went down on one knee to retrieve it.

  “That belongs to one of the kids.” Sorrel’s words were barked, and Mr. Frund flinched. “Don’t break the evidence seal.” This was an order.

  Frund dusted off his pant leg and returned to his chair. Clutching the envelope to his chest, he looked up to the ceiling of bright lights and removed his glasses. The lenses were so thick Ali wondered if he was legally blind without them.

  “I only see one child. Her hair is short and light brown.”

  Becca Green leaned forward, for Gwen’s hair was long and blond, so this must be a vision of Sadie.

  “I see a name—or part of one—not the child’s name. All that’s clear is the letter S.” Frund was rising from his chair. “The letter S.” He was pausing, waiting.

  Though Buddy Sorrel was seated on the other side of the room, he was holding Becca Green silent with one raised hand and another slow shake of his head, preventing her from feeding the man information. Then he bent down to his list, and Ali watched him make a check mark by his notation for random letters.

  Frund slowly stood up, and he continued to rise on the balls of his feet. He held the pose, creating an uneasy tension in his audience. “The letter S,” he said, and now it was an unmistakable prompt. Frund turned toward the mother in a mute appeal, looking to her for his missing letters. But she was looking at Sorrel.

  The little psychic san
k back to his chair, breathing deeply as he restored his glasses and rallied for another go at Becca Green. This time he stared at her until she turned her face to his. “I see another letter.” Frund’s eyes were squinting, as if the image might be floating out of his sight. One hand rose high over his head, fingers opening and closing, as if to pinch its meaning from the air. “The letter is B.”

  Becca Green kept her silence.

  The psychic lowered his gaze to a patch of the floor beside his chair. “There’s something close by—crawling—so dark, only a shadow in—” A look of fear crossed his face, fleeting, then gone. His eyes were glistening now, and his voice altered slightly, more confident. “I can smell the earth and feel the moisture.”

  He stood up again, this time with a grace of movement that Ali would not have suspected from him. Behind Frund, the wall of windows made a dramatic backdrop of white clouds sailing across the dark blue sky. Across the road, a streetlamp came on, refracting off his lenses, and for a moment, his eyes seemed lit from within.

  Ali turned to Becca Green. The woman’s eyes were fixed on Frund, and she was ignoring Sorrel.

  “A man is nearby, and she knows this.” Frund’s hands began to spin in frantic circles. He turned to his left, eyes cast to the floor and focused on some middle ground of vision. “Her eyes are closed—she isn’t moving.”

  “She’s playing dead,” said Becca Green with great enthusiasm. “Good girl!” The woman stood up, unable to contain herself in the chair any longer. She stepped lightly at the fringes of the wide circle of chairs and desks surrounding the psychic.

  Frund paced back and forth in short steps, as though he had lost his way in the circle, and then he stopped abruptly, and so did Becca Green.

  “I can see it now!” One hand shot straight out, his pointing finger directed at no one, at nothing but the blank wall over a filing cabinet. “There! I see the water. It’s so dark.” His eyes were squinting. “It might be a lake.” His fingertips went out to touch the air surrounding him. “I can feel the moisture.”

  This time Sorrel made several check marks beside the words on his list.

  Becca Green was staring at the wall, as though she too could see through the psychic’s window. The energy level in the room was humming as Frund resumed his walking to and fro. At the rim of the circle, Sadie’s mother was matching his pace to keep up with him on this journey of four steps right and four steps left.

  Frund stopped again, and the mother froze. His head went back, his eyes closed as one finger wrote upon the air, describing a curving line. “There’s a side road with no sign.” Both hands went up to his eyes, perhaps to shield them from the yawn of a detective seated at a nearby desk. “And there are wires in the sky. I see a building—maybe a house. I can smell the water now.” Frund sank down to the chair and draped himself over it, giving the appearance of sudden pain and exhaustion.

  Becca Green settled into a chair next to Sorrel’s, but she sat on the edge of it, as though waiting on a starter’s gun, set to run a race in the next moment. Sorrel was making more marks in his notebook.

  “The little girl is crying. She wants her mother. That feeling is very strong.” Frund curled his body inward, making it smaller.

  Child size? Yes.

  And now Ali heard the sound of a small strangled cry coming from his throat—a child’s cry.

  You son of a bitch.

  Ali quickly turned to the mother to gauge the effect on her; it was cruel. The woman’s right hand was clawing at the front of her dress, and beneath that hand, the heart would be quickening. With deep empathy, Ali sensed a thickening in the woman’s throat, something welling up from within, from the silent, slow-motion destruction of Becca Green.

  Frund was perspiring, and Ali noted wet stains where his fingers touched the envelope.

  “The little girl is very weak.”

  She’s dead, you bastard.

  “I see something else. I can’t make out the color. It might—” His hand waved about in frustration. He lifted his head, and Mrs. Green did too. She was leaving her chair as Frund stood up; she was on her toes, reaching upward as Frund’s hand rose higher and higher.

  “The color—it’s gone now,” he said. “Too many trees.”

  No one rushed to make notes on this, perhaps because the county was dense with trees of every species. Only Sorrel’s pencil moved. Unknown to the senior investigator, Becca Green was looking down at the page in his open notebook, watching with a trace of horror as he made another check mark beside a word on his list. So far, except for the color Sadie loved best, the BCI investigator had predicted most of the items described by the psychic.

  Becca Green looked up from the notebook page, utterly destroyed. She turned back to Frund, who might have mistaken her devastation for his own personal handiwork.

  “The color—could it be powder-blue, like my daughter’s sweatshirt?”

  “Yes, I see it now,” said Frund. “She’s wearing a light blue garment.”

  Blue? Not purple? Evidently, none of the first batch of flyers had crossed the border into Mr. Frund’s home state of Connecticut. Well, they had only appeared in the store windows for a few hours. A bad gaffe, little man.

  Mrs. Green was calmer now, but there were tears in her voice. “And those letters you mentioned? S and B? Could you have them backwards? Is that possible?”

  Now Frund seemed pleased. At last, he was getting some cooperation. He rewarded her with his widest smile. “Yes, that sometimes happens.”

  “Maybe it’s not a name, like a person’s name—but a thing?”

  “Yes,” said Frund. “It’s not a person, but something—something—” His eyes closed tightly with deep concentration, waiting for her to finish his sentence.

  “Something warm and moist?” she offered, helpfully.

  He was nodding his head with great enthusiasm. “I definitely feel those things.” One hand covered his face. “It’s clearer now, more like—”

  “Bullshit?”

  Frund’s hand dropped to his side, and his lips parted as he stared at the mother. He could see that she was angry now, that he had erred, but it was too late to backtrack to that place where things had gone wrong. He looked around him, seeking friendly faces in the crowd.

  There were none.

  Becca Green had a terrible determination in her steps as she walked to the psychic’s chair and hovered in front of him. Investigator Sorrel began to rise, no doubt in the belief that she was about to strike Frund, and she would need some help with that.

  All the other men and women sat motionless, unblinking, utterly fascinated by this softly rounded little mother who now controlled Frund, making him flinch as she bent down to his face and forced him to look at her. And though she whispered, the room was so quiet, no one failed to hear the words, “Cheap trick.”

  Sadie’s mother walked away, heading for the door in pin-drop silence. The faces all around the room no longer showed disinterest in the little man at the center of the circle. They were done feeding from their paper bags and plastic trays. They turned their eyes to him.

  Ali left the door ajar as she followed the distraught mother into the next room and found her sitting in the stairwell. She sat down on the top step and put one arm around Mrs. Green’s shoulders. It seemed only right and fair to caution this woman against all hope, to warn her of what lay ahead. Becca was living for the moment when the police would find Sadie, never considering the possibility that they might bring her a dead child. She must consider it. Someone had to prepare her. How to begin?

  Sadie is at rest. She’s not in any pain, not frightened anymore. She’s been gone a long time now, days and days. But Ali’s throat went dry. She lost her voice, her professional distance—all her defenses. Becca Green was facing her with an openhearted smile, so vulnerable to Ali’s good intention—this ugly act of kindness, the truth telling.

  “I know, I know,” said Mrs. Green. “You thought I was so desperate I’d believe anything. I
suppose it’s nuts to listen to that crap, but you’ve gotta try everything, right?”

  Through the open doorway, Ali could see Sorrel walking toward the defrocked psychic at the center of the room. The investigator was smiling, and Frund smiled back, apparently taking the man’s expression for sympathy.

  He was wrong about that.

  Becca was saying, “Well, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. At least they won’t forget Sadie, will they?”

  And now Ali understood the true purpose of today’s exhibition. Thanks to Arnie Pyle, Becca had the fixed and frantic idea that her child would be written off as an extraneous error in a larger plan. So this woman had used the only tool that came her way, a phone call from a fake psychic; she had used him and all the men and women in that room, leaving every cop and fed crazed and bleeding from the heart. The focus had changed. Brilliant woman, desperate woman.

  People were rising from their desks as Costello led Marsha Hubble and the fathers into his private office.

  Ali turned back to Becca Green. Behind the mother’s eyes was a mind at work, not disassembling, but weighing her losses and speaking in a disturbingly practical manner.

  “They’re little girls—and it’s cold outside. You have to try everything.”

  Ali watched the FBI agents quitting the room en masse, not wanting to witness what came next, nor to stop it. The remaining BCI investigators circled Frund, and some of them were removing their jackets. No one was smiling anymore. Frund was trying to run backward while seated in his chair, feet working furiously. The chair legs only retreated by inches. He opened his mouth, and beyond the bank of windows, a siren screamed.

  Rouge swiveled his chair around, paying no attention to what was going on a few yards away from him. He faced the windows and watched the clouds ganging into a pearly gray overcast, promising the first snow of winter. The old transcript of Paul Marie’s trial lay open on his desk, and he was wondering how the prosecution had obtained a conviction.