The Judas Child

by Carol O'Connell

  “I like it,” said Sadie. “So that’s his name—The Fly.”

  And now for the last bit of madness in her strange odyssey, Gwen heard the sound of raindrops on the leaves of the trees. She looked out between the cart wheels and craned her neck to see a bit of the lightbulb ceiling beyond the cave of the mushroom farm. Great dollops of water were falling from the pipes that spanned the electric sky.

  It was raining indoors.

  “Would you say you’ve always been a little obsessive about the idea of a kidnapping?” Arnie Pyle turned his sad brown eyes on Peter Hubble, but Rouge saw no sympathy or empathy in the agent’s manner.

  Peter Hubble only nodded, agreeing that this was a fact and then tilting his head to say, So? As if every father in America had sewn a transmitter into the lining of his child’s knapsack; and what man did not ink his little girl’s hands and roll the tips of each tiny digit onto the proper square of the card labeled for the impressions of fingers and thumbs; surely every parent had a frozen blood sample in the refrigerator, just in case the need should arise for a DNA match.

  And then there was the pack of cards lying on the conference table, bearing yearly sets of Gwen’s footprints from the day she was born. Delicate loops and whorls described her toes and soles, so tiny, more heartbreaking than any photograph could be. None of the men seated at the long table would look at them again.

  Three federal agents lined up on Pyle’s side. Peter Hubble was flanked by Rouge and Buddy Sorrel. The senior investigator had been silent for the entire time, only occasionally making notes. Another BCI man was slumped against the door, not making any indication that he was even listening to the conversation.

  An hour ago in Captain Costello’s office, Agent Pyle had made it clear that, with the advent of a ransom note and its out-of-state postmark, this was now a federal investigation. The captain had responded with an enigmatic smile. Rouge had to wonder what Costello knew about the ransom note that Pyle did not. None of the parents had seen it yet, for the FBI had taken on the chore of sorting through the Hubbles’ incoming mail. Rouge wondered when the feds were planning to mention this note to the families—and how.

  Agent Pyle had his mouth set in a tight line as he drummed his pencil on the table. “Sir, could your ex-wife have taken Gwen?”

  “Marsha?” Peter Hubble was obviously taking the FBI agent for a lunatic. “No, of course not.” And now the man’s eyes were angry. He was rising from the table. “Pyle, you can’t even get your facts straight. My wife and I are separated, not divorced. Why are you wasting time with this nonsense? Why aren’t you out looking for Gwen? At least let me go out and—”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said Arnie Pyle. “But if you need a lawyer, I can arrange that. Whatever it takes, you’re gonna talk to me.”

  Peter Hubble sank back in his chair, eyes rolling to the ceiling, as if to ask, What next? And Rouge did wonder if Kafka had scripted this interview with the devastated father. Any fool could see this man was in pain.

  “Your wife fought you for custody of Gwen.” Pyle’s words were dry and clipped.

  “That was two years ago.” Hubble spoke to the ceiling. “Marsha and I worked it out.”

  “You take a lot of precautions with your daughter’s security, sir.” There was courtesy in Pyle’s language but not his tone. “You thought your wife would come after Gwen. Isn’t that right?”

  “I’m a wealthy man,” said Peter Hubble, calmer now, or perhaps merely tired. “The reasons for the security should be obvious.” Unspoken were the words Even to an idiot like you.

  Sorrel smiled but never looked up from his notebook. Rouge wished he had the senior man’s eye, for he was confused. No one in the room, not even Pyle, had ever speculated on the possibility that Marsha Hubble had kidnapped the children. She had been in Albany at the time of the disappearance, and in full view of a staff of eight people, all royally pissed off at the loss of their weekend. The alibi of the noncustodial parent was always checked very carefully by the State Police, and the FBI man would know that. So where was the agent going with this line of questioning?

  Arnie Pyle made a small production of receiving a file from the agent next to him. He was slow to open it. He shuffled the papers and extracted one with a boldface heading for family court. “Last summer your wife accused you of child abuse. Were you slapping the kid around?”

  “No!” Peter Hubble was on his feet again. “Why are you twisting this, Pyle? My wife claimed psychological abuse, and I think you know the difference. She said I was overly protective.” Hubble leaned over, both hands on the table. He was looking less like a victim now and more like a man about to stomp another man into the ground. Rouge wondered if any of the cops in the room would stop Gwen’s father from decking the fed. He thought not. But it would further complicate Hubble’s life if Arnie Pyle filed charges for assault.

  Rising from the table, Rouge put one hand gently on Hubble’s shoulder, and though his touch was light, it was sufficient to settle the man back into his chair. “Your wife’s a politician, sir. So I’m guessing that she fights dirty, but I don’t know what the feds have. Will you tell me about the abuse charge?”

  Hubble seemed to respond better to Rouge’s more reasonable voice. “Marsha took me to court to force an issue. The charge was dropped when I allowed Gwen to go to summer camp with Sadie Green. I had plans to take my daughter on a tour of the Greek Islands. Apparently, my wife thought a summer with Sadie would be more educational. And she was right about that. Gwen can now quote lines of dialogue from horror films verbatim. And sometimes her language is objectionable.”

  Rouge repressed a smile. “I gather you don’t approve of Sadie.”

  “No, I don’t—never did.” His face softened. “But I have always liked her tremendously. So would you—if you knew her.” His words trailed off.

  Rouge could see the sniper shot coming from Pyle, for this was a moment of extreme vulnerability. He warned the agent off with a slow shake of the head.

  But Pyle’s voice was no more civil when he said, “We found your daughter’s prints on the button pad for the security alarm. Gwen turned the system off so she could leave by the back door without anyone knowing. Who besides your wife could have called her out? Any friends of the family, people your wife works with?”

  “Only Sadie. She’s the only person in the world who has more influence over my daughter than I do.”

  Arnie Pyle leaned forward, his face all suspicion now. “We know it wasn’t Sadie. Anyone else? Mrs. Hubble has a lot of enemies between the governor’s office and Senator Berman’s camp.”

  Hubble shook his head, more in wonder over the far-fetched political motive than as a negative response.

  “I know you have the reputation of being a recluse,” said the agent. “But your wife does a lot of socializing. Could you give us a list of people who—”

  “You’re wasting time with this.” Peter Hubble pushed his chair away from the table, giving Rouge a clear view of Sorrel, and this time he did catch the older man’s eye. Sorrel nodded. Now they both knew where Pyle was headed with this interview. It was a seek-and-destroy mission in the political arena, and nothing to do with apolitical little girls. Sorrel shook his head to reiterate Peter Hubble’s sentiment that this was a waste of time.

  “I’m looking for names in the family’s inner circle, someone who knew your kid.” Arnie Pyle slammed both hands flat on the table. “We know Gwen was in the habit of slipping past the nanny and sneaking out.”

  “Well then, you know more than I do. This is news to me.” And it was clear that he did not believe Agent Pyle.

  Rouge nodded. “It’s true, Mr. Hubble. We got that from a little boy—the one who spotted Sadie’s bike at the bus stop. He says Gwen used to sneak out to meet her friend at the boathouse when you wouldn’t let them play together.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Peter Hubble seemed genuinely startled and perhaps a bit foolish. Even Pyle could have no doubt that th
is man of a thousand locks and state-of-the-art monitoring equipment was truly ignorant of his daughter’s secret life.

  Rouge leaned forward, ignoring Pyle’s sign language to back off, and speaking only to Peter Hubble. “The last time David Shore talked to me—”

  “David actually spoke to you?” Peter Hubble was incredulous as he sat back in his chair, digesting this new information. There was a sardonic twist to one side of his mouth, only the suggestion of humor. “When she was eight years old, Sadie told me David Shore’s tongue was cut out at birth. Some strange religious ritual, she said. Sadie thought he might be a Protestant.”

  Now Gwen’s father and a table full of investigators and agents were smiling against their will.

  The insane indoor raining had ceased, and the door opened. The man was back. The dog cried out in pain once more, and the thick metal door closed with a bang. The children stayed in the ground until they heard the sound of the car engine starting up and then fading away in the distance.

  Sadie pushed back the cart and climbed out of the hole. She ran to the end of the aisle of shelf tables. “Look.” She was pointing into the trees where the dog sprawled in the dirt, not moving. Gwen was limping on her wounded leg and slow to catch up. Now she could see the bundle on the ground near the prone body of the chained animal. Inside the clear plastic bag was a wad of bright red material.

  “Gwen, that’s your parka, isn’t it?”

  “He must have gone to look for me outside. That’s why he took the dog and the parka—it has my scent. Maybe he thinks all dogs can track. Mr. Stuben says it takes a long time to train a dog that way.”

  The animal rolled over on its side and moaned.

  Gwen was poring through the bags in a near cart. One was labeled for dog biscuits. Another was a familiar brand of dry mix that had to be blended with hot water to make something approximating meat and gravy. She pushed her hand deep into the cart and extracted a can of dog food. This was what she fed to her poodle Harpo. Mr. Stuben had said it was the best money could buy.

  The dog was on his feet again and in motion, paws hitting the ground in the wobbling gait of a weak and badly injured animal. He stopped short of his chain, having learned his limitations by the painful choke at the end of his tether.

  “The chain won’t reach this far,” said Sadie. “Don’t be afraid.”

  But Gwen wasn’t afraid of the dog anymore, and this was not due to the calming effect of the pills. The savage, barking animal before her sounded the only familiar note in a brand-new world of alien mushrooms and tall oaken dwarfs, where it rained indoors while a multitude of electric suns burned bright—and a monster roamed.

  The dog she understood.

  There was no hate between them; the child held no grudge for the bite, for it had been nothing personal. A starving animal had to find his meals where he could. The dog was behaving normally, predictably, and the rest of the world was not. She entertained the odd idea that they might become friends, for she already knew so much about him. The silent attack had proved that he was professionally trained, perhaps as a police dog. He had only barked once before the lunge. And this told her the dog had been frightened too.

  Of course he was. He had sensed the fear in her, and instinct told him that every frightened animal was dangerous. Now she was also wounded, and thus she was twice as dangerous, a double threat to the dog. He was terrified this very minute, even as he curled his black lips back over his fangs and snarled. The animal was injured and afraid for his life, but he was no coward. Mr. Stuben would have said this creature had great heart.

  In the dog trainer’s opinion, there was much to be learned from animals—specifically, the great distinction between cowardice and fear. In training sessions, he took advantage of the dog’s duality, the love and fear of humans, but he never beat an animal. If the dog’s survival was threatened by cruelty, the great heart would overrule fear, and the dog would even turn against his master. Gwen stared at the animal, finally connecting with his terrified eyes.

  Yes, it was all about survival now. But she had Sadie on her side; the dog was alone.

  Gwen was ten years old and lived in fear of the whole world, all except this snarling animal, straining to get at her again. Far from fearing him, he became her only bridge to all that was left that she could understand and control. “We might be able to do something with the dog.”

  “I’m working on it.” Sadie reached into a cart filled with tools and pulled out a long blade with a circular handle. It was a gardener’s shear, one half of a broken pair. “It’s not sharp enough yet.” She walked to the stone wall and rubbed the metal against a rough outcrop, honing the blade carefully, lovingly.

  “You’d never get a chance to use that,” said Gwen. “It’ll only take him a second to rip out your throat. Wouldn’t you rather have the dog for a friend?”

  “Gwen, he’d rather have me for dinner.”

  “You said you always wanted a dog.”

  “I don’t want to lose a hand petting him, okay?”

  “He does look pretty weak. Wanna give him some food?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention?” Sadie looked at the other child, as though her old friend might be addled. “I hate the dog. And look at what he did to you.”

  Gwen looked down at the bandaged leg with a curious detachment. This time, she had only taken two pills. Her head was a bit clearer and the pain was still kept at bay. There was more weight to the leg now, as if she carried some small and heavy object inside her calf muscle. But there was no pain, and now she regarded her own leg as some alien thing attached to her body.

  Back to the problem of the dog. “Well, Sadie, as Mr. Caruthers would say—let’s approach this with logic. Wouldn’t it make more sense to be friends with the dog?”

  “Oh, sure it would. But I’m gonna kill him.”

  “Do you know the dog’s name?”

  “The Fly never calls him by name. Never feeds him much, either. I bet the dog didn’t eat anything today.” The knife blade made a grating noise on the stone as she moved it back and forth with definite relish. “This is gonna be real easy.”

  Gwen spotted the shiny metal bowl at the base of the nearest tree. “There’s no water in the dog’s bowl.”

  “He gets water when it rains from the pipes in the ceiling.”

  But the bowl was so close to the tree trunk, the thick leaves would prevent any water from accumulating. “I think the man wants the dog to be mean. Mr. Stuben says an animal that’s crazy with hunger and thirst is a good watchdog because he hates the world. We could give him water. That’s a start.” She picked up the broom and got down on her hands and knees.

  “I told you I’m gonna—” Sadie broke off her honing. “What are you doing?”

  Gwen stretched out the broom to reach the dog’s bowl. “What do you think?” The animal was watching her, crouching now, set to spring as she maneuvered the broom handle to move the bowl, sliding it in a wide arc away from the tree trunk.

  “Gwen, get back! You don’t—”

  The moment she grabbed the bowl, the dog came running. And now Sadie was dragging her back by the heels. Gwen had underestimated the limits of the dog-chain circle, and his massive jaws were within a foot of her hand when Sadie finally dropped her feet in the dirt on the safe side of the invisible line of demarcation. But Gwen had held on to the bowl and felt enormously proud.

  Sadie hunkered down beside her. “I think you’re drunk. It’s those pills.”

  “Stoned,” Gwen corrected her. “Drunk is for alcohol, stoned is for drugs.” But now she did wonder how much of her newfound bravery was owed to the pharmacy bottles.

  Sadie shook her head as she took the bowl from Gwen. “You almost lost your hand for this stupid piece of tin. And now you want to give him water?”

  “Not giving him water is like torture.”

  “What if that creep sees the dog’s water bowl filled? You want The Fly to know we’re down here?”

 
“And what about that?” Gwen pointed to the sharpened blade lying on the ground where Sadie had dropped it. “When he finds the dog with that thing stuck in his heart—you don’t think he’s going to suspect something? Or were you planning to make it look like a suicide?”

  Sadie was very quiet as she stood up with the bowl in her hands. Her face was grim when she turned her back on Gwen and walked down the wide aisle between the mushroom tables.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the sink, to get your damn water.”

  Gwen caught up to her, limping on the injured leg. “I’m sorry.” But she was not. She was still pleased with herself, feeling less the coward now. She stood by the sink in the white room while Sadie filled the bowl with water. “Do you remember any words the man used with the dog? Command words?”

  “He does it with Indians,” said Sadie. “When he set the dog on me, he said, ‘Geronimo.’ When he called the dog off, he said, ‘Sitting Bull.’ ” She turned toward the door with a full bowl of water in her hands. Her tongue stuck out between her teeth as she concentrated on not spilling any.

  They walked slowly back to the edge of the small forest. Gwen stopped to grab a handful of biscuits from the dog food cart while Sadie put the tin bowl on the edge of the magic circle, the outer limit of the dog chain, and pushed it forward with the broom handle. The dog came creeping forward on tender feet, ears high, nose pointing.

  Gwen studied the mongrel’s aggressive family tree in the characteristics of three fierce breeds of biters. “Here, take one of these.” She handed Sadie a biscuit. “Throw it to him.”

  “You want him to get his strength back? Are you nuts?”

  “All right, throw him half a biscuit.”

  The dog had drunk the contents of the bowl, almost inhaling the water. His head went up, and his ears flattened back with renewed suspicion. Sadie broke one biscuit in half and threw it to the dog. He fell on the morsel and devoured it. When he raised his head again, something like a human crying came from his throat, dogspeak for, More please.