For Better or Worse

by Donna Huston Murray

  The first item I found was the current couple’s wedding notice, which I already knew occurred in Minneapolis without Father George in attendance. The item was short and useless except for providing Michael's middle initial, K, and the fact that the newlyweds planned to reside locally.

  For lack of specifics, looking into Mike’s original marriage took longer, but I eventually learned that he and Claire wed in Bowler, Minnesota. Logical, since someone stuck in a bad marriage usually found comfort in nearby arms. Also, the newspaper write-ups confirmed that the weddings occurred three and a half years apart, a reasonable amount of time for a couple to become disenchanted, get divorced, and give it another go.

  After that, I ricocheted from one website to another, partly due to natural curiosity, mostly due to my questionable research skills. I watched an interview about a celebrity bowling match that focused primarily on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich the sports figure was eating. I found a company that built bowling alleys, and a pediatric cardiologist named Bowler. I took a virtual tour of a resort offering fishing and campfires under the stars, and learned that the temperature in Bowler was presently a cool sixty-four degrees. Crisp for summer, but northern Minnesota was, after all, north.

  Another hour of perusing useless newspaper archives for crimes Michael Costaldi might have committed gave me a headache and one more idea.

  Implementing said idea, however, required phoning Bowler, Minnesota, and one of my many shortcomings is time zones. I once tried to wish Didi happy birthday while she was vacationing in Hawaii at what—for her—was three-thirty in the morning. Since then, I’ve been extra careful calling anywhere west of Pittsburgh. Eleven AM tomorrow seemed a safe enough hour for Minnesota, but I still wasn't entirely sure.

  Then I remembered that police stations are always open.

  "Bowler Police. What is your emergency?"

  "I, uh, don't have an emergency. Is there another number I can call to ask a question?"

  A moment later I had a bored sergeant on the line who almost sounded happy to chat. I told him my suspicions about Michael Cotaldi and what Susan described as his “paranoia.”

  "Interesting," remarked the sergeant, whose name was Ringwald. "But lots of people are cautious after a divorce. That doesn't make him a criminal."

  "He also changed the family name after Jacksonville, and I think he might be following me."

  There, I'd said it all.

  In the ensuing silence I could hear Ringwald breathe. "How are you connected to these people?" he asked.

  "I'm babysitting their son." I explained about meeting George and how that led to the job.

  "Give me your cell number," Ringwald instructed. "I'll get back to you."

  ***

  THE NEXT DAY’S forecast called for eighty-five degrees with a low stratus cloud cover, which meant exercising outdoors would soon feel as if you were trapped under a bowl that just came out of the dishwasher. Since dogs have needs regardless of the weather, I herded Fideaux into the car and arrived at the park’s lower path before nine.

  "Here you go, sport," I said as I unleashed him thirty yards in. He would stop and go, stop and go as he paused to read his p-mail, while I maintained a steady pace for whatever cardio-vascular benefit that had to offer.

  The greenery seemed especially beautiful today. A broad swath of skunk cabbage adorned the creekside with its wide, rhubarb-like leaves. Overhead, the oak and beech trees canopied the underbrush fifty feet below. I especially enjoyed the dappled white trunks of a stand of sycamores and the wild white roses at their feet.

  A few other cars had parked before me, so I would not have the place to myself. Still, the path was far from crowded. I passed one woman and her two gray-muzzled mutts near the first bridge over the creek.

  "Good morning," we said in turn. "Aren't we smart to beat the heat?"

  Fideaux had bounded ahead, nose high, his short, curly gray coat almost ghostly in the morning light. He flashed me his best doggy smile from twenty yards away, and I knew he would be happy for the rest of the day.

  After the sycamores and the third bridge, we approached the opening in the boxwood hedge. I thought I saw motion on the other side; but behind me Fideaux sniffed a weed unperturbed, and that was good enough for me.

  I sidled through the opening and, wham, fell to the ground. My head hit a rock. Sparklers flared behind my eyes, then the world went black.

  When I came to, everything looked blurry, and the noise in my ears sounded like water rushing through a pipe.

  Also, a man lay across me as if he were doing push-ups and I was his matt. His face was way too close, and his hands...What was he doing with his hands?

  "Rape!" I shouted. "Rape!"

  I tried to push him off, but he was way too heavy. Also, we were stuck between the dense boxwood branches the huge rock on my right.

  Where was everybody else? Where was Fideaux?

  "Yeeow!"

  Fideaux had quit growling in order to bite the man’s leg.

  “Oof.” That was me.

  Shaking his leg had caused the man’s arms to give out, which dropped his dead weight entirely on me. I averted my head trying to breathe.

  Curly blond hair brushed my lips, and black-rimmed glasses bumped my nose.

  The Hunter. I vaguely remembered distrusting him.

  "Rape!" I shouted again. "Rape!" Or was I supposed to shout "fire" so people wouldn't run the other way?

  "I'm not . . ." the man protested. "You were...I just..."

  I’d taken a self-defense class, but the advice regarding rape escaped me. Something about women desperately fighting to remain upright when we had better strength available on the ground—our legs.

  Except how do you kick an attacker away when he’s on you like ham and cheese on rye?

  I did the next best thing. I reached between us for his most convenient—and most vulnerable—body part. Being shorts season, the fabric was thin and pliable, probably cotton, not even permanent press. Soft, in other words. I cupped the body part in question and...

  The scream the man emitted was unlike anything I had previously heard. It was loud enough to carry into the next county, for one thing, and gut-wrenching in its fervor. And, even though the self-defense instructor recommended squeezing as long as possible, ideally until your attacker passes out, I let go.

  So, apparently, had Fideaux, allowing my attacker to right himself to a mostly standing position.

  "Jeez, woman," The Hunter complained. "I was trying to give you mouth-to-mouth, and you damn near killed me."

  I doubted that mouth-to-mouth was actually recommended for someone who was still breathing, so I had to wonder. Did he just make that up because he had other intentions?

  Hearing footfalls up ahead, I sat up in time to see another man lope away, chased by The Hunter's German Shorthaired and my scruffy, clueless mutt.

  I'd gotten it wrong. Very, very wrong, and it chilled me to think what my real attacker might have done if no one else had come along. Nothing good, that was for sure.

  Still breathing hard, The Hunter gallantly helped me to my feet. He had also seen the other man leave, and he was smart enough to whistle his dog back.

  “You dizzy or anything?” he asked.

  “I think I’m okay.”

  “Got your phone?”

  “Forgot it.” A mistake I would never make again.

  “You?”

  He plucked at this athletic shorts. “No pockets.”

  I arranged my face to look like abject contrition. "I'm sorry," I said. "Really, really sorry. I was scared."

  "No shit." The former New Yorker doubled over to finish catching his breath, and I noticed blood from my dog’s bites dripping down his leg into his white gym sock.

  "You want to sue me or anything?" I asked, tactless as ever.

  My rescuer remained hunched over, but he had begun to breathe normally.

  "That depends," he responded from his lowered position. "You charging me with at
tempted rape?"

  I smiled. "Nah. It was the most action I've had in years."

  The man did not smile back. He turned and limped away, his dog whimpering at his side.

  Among my thoughts as I watched them depart? "I am so not ready to date."

  Chapter 35

  I THOUGHT maybe The Hunter had a point, and I should call the police when I got home. The trouble was I had no description of my attacker and couldn’t remember my “witness’s” name. I chose to table that dilemma until after I got my head checked. Maybe by then I’d know what to say.

  My cell phone rang while I was waiting my turn at the drugstore’s Urgent Care Clinic. I stepped into the empty vitamin aisle to answer.

  "Ms. Barnes? Bowler police. Sergeant Ringwald speaking."

  With my aching head, my first thought was that one of my kids had been in a terrible accident. Garry, perhaps, washed overboard from a yacht off Nantucket. Chelsea, mugged by an irate next door neighbor.

  "I looked into that guy, Michael Cotaldi," the sergeant from Bowler, Minnesota, reported.

  “Omigod!” I exclaimed. “What did he do?"

  Ringwald said it would take a few days to verify the facts.

  “Fine, then tell me what might he have done.”

  I could hear the man’s mental wheels clicking from cog to cog. “You’re a civilian,” he said aloud. “If you don’t know what Cotaldi allegedly did, you can’t accidentally tip him off.”

  “Wouldn’t it be safer if I knew what not to say?”

  Ringwald sighed.

  “Just stay away from the guy. Okay? Don’t go anywhere near him.”

  “Why not? Is he dangerous?”’

  I imagined Ringwald clenching his teeth, his jaw muscles rolling.

  “You can trust me,” I argued. “I called you first.”

  Ringwald snorted out a skeptical grunt, but he finally told me what I wanted to know.

  Simultaneously, the nurse called my name, so I stuck my head around the corner to give her a wave.

  "...But you do nothing, you hear me?” Ringwald insisted. “Nothing! Let the professionals handle this. Stay away from the Cotaldis or Swensons or whatever they're calling themselves these days. You got that? I mean it."

  “Right," I agreed because he was in Minnesota, and I was here. However, I was pretty sure if I begged off babysitting Jack, paranoid Mike would be absolutely certain I was onto him.

  Onto his past, that was. Although it seemed pretty likely Cotaldi was watching, aka stalking, me. I had yet to see that person’s face—not even today—so I couldn’t swear it was him. One might even argue that The Hunter had actually knocked me down and, arriving late, the running man chose to steer clear. Not everybody sees themselves as a rush-in-to-rescue-the-lady hero. And come to think of it, it was a man’s scream everybody in the vicinity heard.

  "Thank you for your concern, Sergeant,” I told Ringwald. “And thank you for looking into this so quickly."

  "Tell you the truth, I thought you were nuts, no offense. But I got a buddy in Minneapolis, so I rang him up. Uh, one more thing," he prompted. "Cotaldi's address. Nothing’s on the books."

  "Oh dear,” I stalled, “I’m not home right now, and I don’t want to get it wrong.”

  “You don’t remember?” Ringwald sounded appropriately surprised.

  “If you knew where I am right now you’d understand.”

  “Where are you?”

  I waved to a woman reaching for a bottle of cough medicine. “Will you please tell this man where I am?” I held out my phone.

  “The drug store?” she said toward my fist.

  Urgent Care, I mouthed then showed her the lump on the back of my head.

  “Uh, Urgent Care,” the woman repeated with mounting distress.

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I fell walking in the woods this morning. Until a doctor checks me out I wouldn’t be confident telling you my mother’s name.”

  “But you’ve got the address, right?”

  “Written down at home. Yep.”

  “You’ll call me back as soon as you can.”

  “MS. BARNES,” the store intercom announced.

  “You bet,” I assured Ringwald.

  “Promise?” I think he asked just as I hung up.

  He had claimed they needed a couple days to verify the facts, but what if they didn’t? With luck I’d just bought myself enough time for a quick face-to-face with George Donald Elliot.

  Chapter 36

  STRIDING TOWARD ME from his car, George’s face made Mt. Rushmore look like a sandcastle.

  No greeting. No eye contact. Did he already know what I was going to say, or was he merely worried to death?

  “Let’s sit here,” I suggested, gesturing toward some empty picnic tables shaded by red and white umbrellas. Inside the pizza place would be air-conditioned, but this conversation required privacy.

  “How do you like your pizza?” I asked as I deposited my purse and phone on the table.

  No answer.

  After knocking on the sliding glass window displaying a menu, I told the woman who responded, "A plain personal pizza and one with all your vegetables. And two Cokes, please, lots of ice." Ice wouldn't last long out here. I was flushed and perspiring already.

  Claiming a spot in the umbrella’s shadow a discreet distance from my guest, I tried to gather my thoughts.

  My cell phone went off. Chelsea. It killed me to do it, but I hung up.

  When I leaned toward George, he finally looked my way.

  No reason not to be blunt.

  "Jack is Mike's son," I stated. "His natural son. Mike took him from the mother right after he and Susan married. The day they left for Indiahoma to be exact."

  George’s narrowed eyes squinted off into the distance. “And how do you know this?”

  “Internet.” The shortest answer would do for now. "Is it what you suspected?"

  Susan’s father drew in a deep breath, blew out the word "No" with his exhale.

  “Do you think Susan knows?”

  George’s angry glance said, "Of course not,” “How dare you?” and “What are you playing at here?” all at once.

  I tented my fingers in front of my lips. Watched a blue pickup roll by on the road. Noticed a single cloud dangling in the noontime sky.

  “Susan will be viewed as an accomplice, you know. She’s going to need an attorney."

  “Is that what the police told you?”

  I hesitated long enough for him guess the answer.

  “You haven’t called them have you? You want Jack to stay here just as much as I do.”

  Not exactly.

  Well, maybe.

  Oh, sure.

  My face must have conveyed all that, but George didn’t notice.

  "What if I paid you to forget about this?” he offered. “A private business transaction just between you and me."

  Since no bookmaker in his right mind would believe Susan bought Mike’s adoption story, whatever it was, I wasn’t surprised that her father didn’t trust the vagaries of the court. The surprise was that he tried to buy me off.

  I waved my head no, but George wasn’t finished. "If Jack really is Mike’s son, wouldn’t he be just as entitled to the boy as Claire?"

  I was still waving my head. Couldn’t seem to stop. "I don't know the circumstances of the divorce, but I do know the judge’s ruling. Mike broke the law, George. He took Jack from his mother and transported him across state lines. I looked it up. That's parental kidnapping, in Pennsylvania 'interfering with the custody of a child'. He'll do jail time for that, either in Minnesota or here, whatever the authorities work out.”

  George closed his eyes. His knee began to bounce.

  I said I really wished I could help Susan, “but even if Mike kept her in the dark with some phony adoption paperwork, she’s still going to need a good lawyer."

  George was up and moving.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Warning Susan.” The same foolis
h thing I would do. His cell phone was probably back in his car, charged up and ready to go.

  “Don’t!” I shouted, awkwardly extricating myself from the picnic bench. “Please don’t. They’ll run. You might never see Susan or Jack again.”

  Ding! The one-note text alert from my phone shot my heartrate into the stratosphere. Had to be Chelsea trying another way to reach me, but what could I do from here? I squeezed my eyes shut for a millisecond and willed her to be okay.

  George had arrived at his car. I hustled closer to be sure he’d hear.

  “It’s too late,” I told him. “I already called the police.”

  “Yo, you down there!” The pizza lady trying to deliver our lunch.

  George opened his passenger door and reached inside.

  “Please, George, don’t. I think I can fix this, but you just...”

  “Hey!” The pizza lady sounded pissed. Of course she did. Her customers seemed to be running out on her.

  “Oh, hell...Give me a minute."

  George shut his door, and I dared to breathe.

  Still, I was scared. What if I hadn’t hooked him with my “think I can fix this” malarkey?

  I turned back. Patted the air. Assured him one more time. “I’ve got this. Don’t phone. I’ve got this.”

  He folded his arms, no phone in his hand that I could see.

  While digging pizza money out of my purse, I sneaked a glance at my message. Chelsea’s name and “URGENT!!” showed on the screen. I was dying to call her back, but I’m no Super Hero. One crisis at a time for me.

  “No change,” I told the lady at the window.

  Curiosity must have won George over, because he strolled back toward me, chin high, hands in his pockets.

  “Exactly how are you going to fix this?” he demanded when we stood face to face.

  Looking up into those gray, insurance-salesman eyes, the first thought that came to mind was, “Excellent question.”