The Judas Child

by Carol O'Connell

  The dog barked again. Gwen turned toward the trees, the realm of the chained animal. “If he lets that dog loose, there won’t be anyplace to hide.”

  “There’s one safe place.” Sadie led the way to the center of the aisle of tables and pulled out a wheeled cart full of dirt. She pointed under the table to a dark rectangular hole between the cart tracks. Small mounds of soil were piled on the sides of it, and all the dirt in the cart would account for the rest. “That’s it. He didn’t finish filling it in. His beeper went off and he left. But that’s where he buried me.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  Sadie smiled. “That’s my grave. I told you he buried me alive.”

  Gwen covered her ears. “He didn’t.”

  “Hell yes, he did.”

  “Stop, it’s not funny.”

  “He thought I was dead.” Sadie pulled Gwen’s hands away from her ears. “No, listen. It was some of my best work. The trick is the open eyes.”

  Gwen hugged herself and shook her head. “No.” But now she looked at the hole in the ground, and it was very like a small grave.

  Sadie reached into a cart under the next table and pulled out her clothes all caked with dirt—more proof. “I have to put these on first. He buried me in my clothes.” She pulled the purple sweatshirt over her head. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. The best death is with open eyes. Of course it’s harder. You can’t blink. But if I’d closed my eyes, he might’ve listened to my heart.”

  Sadie stepped into her purple jeans and zipped them. “Oh, and another nice touch? I went stiff all over. He came down to check on me later, just enough time for rigor mortis to set in. It was perfect. I didn’t have my parka on, and I was lying three feet down in cold dirt. You see, Gwen? Cold? Stiff?” She sprawled out in the hole and folded her arms across her chest in the best tradition of a movie corpse. She stared open-eyed at the ceiling. “See? Dead.” She grinned. “Neat?”

  Gwen nodded, dumbfounded, not really letting it sink in that Sadie was lying in her own grave.

  “If the dog leads him here, he’ll think the dog just wants to finish what he started in the boathouse.” Sadie sat up and scooped more dirt from the ground, deepening the hole. “This is the best hiding place—the only hiding place.”

  “I’m not going in there.”

  “Well, yes you are, Gwen. It’s the only way.”

  And now they heard the car engine, only faint at first, but it was coming closer. Sadie ran back to the sterile room, calling out to Gwen, “Get into the hole. I forgot to put the bag back in the closet. I have to put it back or he’ll know.”

  Gwen crawled under the table and reluctantly settled into the hole, lying back on the dirt as Sadie had done. It was not so bad really, and it was cooler here. Her eyelids felt so heavy now, closing slowly. She crossed her arms over her chest and wondered if it would be appropriate or helpful to say her prayers while lying in a grave.

  “Now I lay me down to sleep,” she whispered.

  The car engine was directly overhead. Where was Sadie? There was no panic, no urgency in this thought, merely sleepy speculation. Perhaps the next time, she would only take two of the pills.

  “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” And then she remembered a better prayer, an ancient relic of folklore and more powerful. This had been yet another gift from her best friend, a magic charm to stave off the nightmares of a perpetually frightened child—so they might get on with the hard-core therapy of watching horror films. “From ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us.”

  She could hear bare feet pounding back to her. And now Sadie was piling into the grave and scooping the dirt in around them. “He didn’t have time to shovel in much, so it won’t be so bad. Just enough to make it look like I never left, okay?” She pulled Gwen’s shirt up over her face. “This’ll keep the dirt out of your eyes and your mouth.”

  Gwen had heard no footsteps overhead, but she knew the man was in the house. She could feel his presence. In her mind, she followed him upstairs to the bathroom. She imagined his outrage when he saw the open window, the sheets, all the evidence of her escape.

  Bad girl. Oh, he’s so angry.

  Now he would be running down the stairs to search outside the house, perhaps believing that she had made that jump from the end of the sheets to the hard ground, not knowing what a miserable coward she was.

  Bad girl.

  She closed her eyes and held on to Sadie, who was reaching up to pull the cart back into place over the open hole, their coffin lid on wheels. Gwen was feeling light-headed again, and breathing deeply. The ruthless need for sleep was overtaking her entire body, relaxing every muscle. But now her eyes shot open in the dark. Things were moving in the earth beneath her. The ground was alive with insects, and they were inside her clothes and crawling on her flesh. She wanted to scream, but at the height of terror, her foot kicked out with an involuntary stumble, falling into sleep. And then her fast-beating heart settled into the gentle rhythm of an exhausted child.

  Ellen Kendall removed her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. At the center of the kitchen table lay the bound trial transcript awash in the first light of morning. She turned to look out the window. Noisy blackbirds were gathering around the garbage can in the yard, flapping their wings and screeching. A lean starling alighted on the windowsill. Grease glistened on his feet, and now it smeared the sill.

  Filthy little beast.

  She waved her hand at the glass to shoo him away. But the scavenger only cocked his head and glared at her, fearless and oblivious to warnings.

  Well, what could one expect of a bird too stupid to fly south for the winter?

  She looked down at the transcript. Hours ago, when it was still night, she had closed the heavy volume, retiring to her bed and the warm comfort of a down quilt. But compulsion had killed her only chance for sleep and called her back to the kitchen, cold and barefooted, to finish her reading. Now her eyes were sore, and her mind was flooded with odd thoughts.

  What if the priest was innocent?

  She had not seen Paul Marie since the day a jury had found him guilty of murdering her daughter. He had been dressed all in black, but for the white of the priest’s collar.

  The starling flew off.

  Ellen turned to her son. Rouge sipped his coffee as he leaned against the door frame. He was dressed in jeans and one of his father’s old pin-striped shirts. A red tie hung around his neck, undone, and his smile was wry. She admired her handsome child and envied his youth; young faces were indestructible and never showed wear or sag. Ah, but then Rouge had slept soundly, hadn’t he? And perhaps that was what his smile was about—an apology for ruining her entire night.

  Ellen tapped her reading glasses against her teeth. “You were right. The defense attorney was definitely dirty.” She opened the transcript and riffled the pages. “It’s all here, babe. A first-year law student would’ve put on a better show in court. Too bad the priest’s lawyer is dead. You could’ve fried him with the receipt for the police reports on the bogus witness.”

  “So somebody bought him off.”

  She nodded. Not somebody, though, not just anybody. “The most likely suspect in that maneuver is your dad. He was obsessed with nailing the priest. But Paul Marie was really convicted in the family newspapers—all three of them. The courtroom debacle was only a formality.”

  Doctors had kept her heavily sedated for most of that year, and she had also self-medicated with alcohol, but something of the carnival atmosphere had sifted through the curtain of Valium and whiskey fumes. As she recalled, it had been a good year for priest bashing all over the country.

  “You want me to track down the payoff?” Years ago she would not have asked; she would have run with this story. But she was no longer in the game, not a reporter anymore. Oh, and this time, she was the widow of her prime suspect.

  Rouge stood at the counter and filled his coffee mug again. He bro
ught the carafe back to the table. “I’m more interested in Dad’s financial arrangement with Oz Almo.”

  “Sorry, babe. I was kept out of that. I only know your father paid an enormous amount for the ransom.” But her son would know more about the dollar-and-cents details of Bradly Kendall’s affairs. Rouge, at nineteen, had settled the estate and done the financial planning to save the house and keep them both afloat. She had been sober by then, but of little use to her son.

  Rouge tipped the carafe to fill her cup with an aromatic stream of black coffee. Ellen smiled at this small service her son had once performed by habit. It reminded her of the old days when she had been too drunk to be trusted with the pouring of hot liquids. She sometimes wondered what passed for nostalgia in less dysfunctional families.

  “I know the amount of the ransom money,” said Rouge. “But a lot more disappeared from the stock portfolios, and all the real estate holdings were mortgaged to the hilt. I couldn’t account for half of what was missing when Dad died.”

  “So you figure he was giving money to Oz Almo? Bribes for the lawyer? That might work.”

  “Whatever Dad was up to, he was using cash—no paper trail. Almo is the logical go-between for payoffs.”

  “God, I despised that nasty little bastard, but your father had a lot of confidence in him. Oz was still on the force then, and he did make a great prosecution witness. Of course, with the defense attorney working for the prosecution—”

  “Why didn’t the church get Paul Marie a decent lawyer?”

  She let this oxymoron slide. “They got him the best shark that money could buy. But the priest fired that one.” She lifted up the transcript, and beneath it lay her late husband’s grisly scrapbook containing every public detail of their daughter’s murder in yellowed strips of newsprint. “It’s all in there. The first attorney wanted to plea-bargain, but Father Marie kept insisting he was innocent.” She made rough notes on a yellow pad. “I can trace some of Oz’s financial history with a credit report. It’s a start. I can probably get the rest through a bank officer in Manhattan. She owes me one. The banks are all hooked up to one big goldfish bowl.”

  “And could you look into Almo’s business clients over the past fifteen years? He seems to have a lot of money—nice clothes, big house. I wonder if it comes from casework—”

  “Or ransom money?” And now she could see that Rouge had also thought of this ugly little possibility. “Consider it done.” She understood her son’s need for the help of an outsider. The State Police would not take kindly to their brand-new rookie investigator going after an ex-BCI man. “I’ll start calling in my markers today. Anything else?”

  Rouge nodded. “Ali Cray thinks someone screwed up Paul Marie’s paperwork to put him in the general population. Considering the crime, that would border on attempted murder. That might account for some of the missing money. If Oz Almo had to bribe the prison—”

  “No, babe.” Ellen shook her head. “As conspiracy theories go, that angle is a real yawn. And it shows a certain naı̈veté about our screwed-up penal system.”

  “That prison has a segregation policy for sex offenders. I checked.”

  “And this is the logic supporting Ali Cray? Pay attention, Rouge. Mommy’s going to educate you. People get lost in the shuffle all the time—it’s a common event. So beware of logical deduction. No, let me put it another way—screw logic. Stick to the facts. Operate in real time, in real life. Don’t get caught up in anybody’s conspiracy theories.”

  “If she’s right, the priest might—”

  “Forget the just and noble cause, okay? There isn’t any justice. You want the truth? Then you can’t afford to become a believer—not in anybody’s cause. Not the priest’s—not your own.”

  Rouge lightly slapped the transcript binder. “You’ve got the proof that Oz was a dirty cop. That bracelet—”

  “No, babe. I’ve got a lead on a possible payoff. And suppose it pans out? This is proof he planted evidence? No. But what if he did? So what? Cops do this kind of thing all the time—another yawn. When I was a reporter in Chicago, cops used to carry spare evidence in their damn cars—usually drugs.”

  “The silver bracelet—”

  “That was Susan’s bracelet. Your father gave it to her on her last birthday. And she was wearing it that day. Oz did not get it from your father so he could plant it. These are facts.” She flipped through the pages of the transcript. “The priest didn’t get a fair trial, but there’s nothing here to say he’s innocent—so that’s not a fact. Don’t touch Oz till you get something solid.”

  “Suppose I question Oz—alone.”

  “No. Bad idea. Don’t listen to your heart or your gut, babe. They’re both pickled in testosterone. Listen to your mother.”

  “I’m not going to hit him. I just want to—”

  “Rouge? Take notes.” She held up the transcript as an exhibit. “You can’t put your faith in the cops or the courts.” Now she held up the scrapbook of clippings, exhibit number two. “And you can’t believe what you read in the newspapers. So, if you won’t trust your own mother—who’s left?”

  At last she had the sense that they were in accord. He leaned back against the slats of his chair, smiling as he finished his coffee.

  They were a team.

  How many years had passed since she had felt so close to her son? And now she realized this was revisionist history. When her daughter was alive, Ellen had left the twins largely to the care of other women and not worried over them. Her children had always been so self-sufficient, wanting no company but their own. After Susan’s death, she had been immersed in guilt for the botched parenting. And she had never gotten any better at the mother’s trade, drinking heavily and utterly oblivious to her small son when he was the most needy. Had she frightened Rouge in the days when she slurred her good mornings as well as her good nights? What had it been like for a ten-year-old to see his mother fall asleep in a stupor, hours before the bedtime of a little boy?

  But now she had a second chance: her surviving child needed a covert source of facts, the help of a dirty, backdoor invader, a professional destroyer of private lives, who well understood the loathsome workings of the world’s worst scum.

  So this is motherhood.

  Gwen woke to the sounds of crashing glass. The thing was in the basement with them—searching the white room, and very close to the hiding place beneath the cart. She could hear the clipped barks of the dog; she could feel the footsteps walking down the aisle of mushroom tables. Sadie was on top of her, both hands furiously working more dirt around Gwen’s body. The dog was more excited now, barking louder, and she could imagine him straining at the leash as they came closer. The barks subsided to small cries from deep in the dog’s throat, heavy breathing and snorting.

  Gwen listened to the man’s footsteps and the panting of the dog. She flinched when the cart was kicked, and her jersey slipped down under her chin, letting dirt into her eyes and her mouth. She was gagging. She could hear the cart wheels rolling back. Her eyes were shut tight against the crumbles of dirt spilling from Sadie’s sweatshirt. And then the cart was slammed back into place under the table. The dog barked once, but the sound ended abruptly and was followed by a yelp of pain.

  “Stupid animal,” said the whispery voice outside.

  So he had seen what he expected to see—the one dead child lying in her grave, all stiff, eyes wide and staring in the dim light under the table.

  Now the panting of the dog was trailing back toward the far side of the cellar with the man’s footsteps. The cellar door slammed shut, and finally there was silence.

  Sadie rolled off to one side. Gwen tried to sit up, bumping her head on the wood of the cart as she spat out the dirt. The pain in her leg was back, and it was worse now. More pills. I need more pills. She was climbing out of the hole and pushing against the rolling cart when Sadie stopped her.

  “Not yet. He hasn’t gone away. The car’s still here. Wait for the sound of the engi
ne.”

  “Sadie, I have to have those pills. I can’t—”

  “You stay here. I’ll get them.” And then she was working her way out of the ground, the grave, crawling between the wheels of the cart.

  Gwen sat alone in the dark. Light streamed under the cart, petering out above the wound and the torn-away denim. Swollen flesh bulged around the edges of the bandage. The damage was spreading beyond the wound. She stretched her leg into stronger light and untied the knot in the gauze.

  And now she was frightened.

  The skin around the puncture marks had turned from bright red to a dusky color. She touched the small holes from the dog’s teeth, and her body was shot through with a searing-hot skewer. She screamed in one long continuous cry, unaware that Sadie was back with her, climbing into the hole. Sadie forced the pills into her mouth and chased them down Gwen’s throat with water from a jar.

  They sat in silence for a little while, time enough for the pain to dull. A beetle crawled out from the sleeve of Gwen’s jersey, and she slapped it away, suddenly cold and clammy in her skin.

  “Lie down,” said Sadie. “Just till we hear the car pull away.”

  “I can’t do this. It’s the bugs.” Gwen covered her face with dirty hands. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. Bugs never bothered me before.” She was crying now. “Remember the games, the bug races?”

  “We were eight.” Sadie smiled as she stroked Gwen’s hair. “Your bugs always won.”

  “But now I’ve got them in my clothes, and I can’t stand it. What’s happening to me?”

  “You’re becoming a woman.” All the resignation in Sadie’s voice said that this was fated, and there was nothing to be done about it.

  “And that man, Sadie. It’s the same feeling, like the big mosquito model at the museum—a big bug.”

  “The Fly.”

  “The original movie from 1958? Or the remake in 1986?” Gwen had automatically slipped into the old game of film trivia. This was deep long-term conditioning. Studying for Sadie’s horror quizzes had taken precedence over her homework assignments for years.