Gomez took another bite and chewed, slowly and deliberately.
Mahoney sat and waited.
After he’d finished what was left of the sandwich, Gomez said, “You must think I’m some kind of fool. This isn’t about the kid; it’s about you wanting to play hero.”
Without the backing of Captain Rogers, Mahoney knew there was only one way to right the wrong and he took it.
“Nope,” he said. “You’re wrong. I’ve been pulled off the case.” He handed the sign and pictures to Gomez. “This time you’re gonna have to be the hero and find out the truth. From here on in, it’s your ballgame.”
As he watched Mahoney disappear down the hall, Gomez mumbled, “What the hell was that about?” On the way back to his desk, he dropped the pictures and sign into the trash can.
Mahoney left the Wyattsville station house with discouragement weighing heavy on his heart. This was a part of the job he hated; all too often it made him wonder if he shouldn’t have listened to his father and become an engineer. Engineers had dinner with their family every night. They seldom worked weekends and never carried a burden of guilt for something they could do nothing about. He heaved a regretful sigh, shifted the car into gear, and pulled away from the curb.
Moments after the Wyattsville station house disappeared from sight, he began thinking about what he could do. The most obvious answer was to find a home for Jubilee, because if Gomez didn’t change his viewpoint Paul was not going to be around to look after her. Mahoney knew such a change was none too likely. Men like Hector Gomez were born with a shell around their heart, a shell solid as cement and with about the same amount of flexibility.
He pulled the roll of antacids from his pocket, popped two in his mouth, and headed toward Anita Walker’s apartment. Hopefully she was home.
Mahoney rang the bell for the third time before an answer came through the intercom.
“Go away, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Is this Anita Walker?” Mahoney asked.
“Yeah.”
“Detective Mahoney from the Northampton precinct,” he replied. “I’d like a word with you.”
“If Freddie sent you, I ain’t interested!”
“This isn’t about Freddie, it’s about your niece.”
“Lord God, what now?”
“If you’ll buzz me in, I’ll come up and explain.”
“I doubt there’s anything about those hillbillies I want to hear.”
Mahoney, who by then was weary of this day, said, “Either you let me in, or I’ll come back with a warrant.”
“All right, all right,” Anita answered. Moments later a shrill buzz sounded.
When he rapped on the door of apartment 310, a frowsy-looking redhead answered. “What?” she said impatiently.
“Can we go inside?”
“I’d rather we didn’t; the place is a mess right now.”
“That’s okay,” Mahoney answered and eased past her into the apartment.
Once he was inside she asked, “You want coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, I gotta have some. I’m no good ‘till I’ve had at least two cups.” She poured a cup for herself, then sat at the kitchen table facing Mahoney. “Now what’s this urgent bit of news you’ve got?”
“It’s about your sister, Ruth. Were you aware she’d passed away?”
“Yeah. It was five years ago.”
“So you knew she had two children?
Anita nodded. “Unfortunately.”
Ignoring the comment, Mahoney moved on. “Apparently their father had been caring for the children, but recently he also passed on. Paul, the older of the two, has been caring for his sister since then. However, he’s no longer able to…”
Up until this point Anita had been fairly disinterested, but suddenly the muscles in her face turned hard as stone.
“…which leaves your niece with no one to care for her.”
“What do you mean he’s no longer able take care of her?”
“The boy is only sixteen,” Mahoney said, avoiding any mention of the fact that he was also locked up in the Wyattsville City Jail.
Anita immediately launched into a story of how it would be impossible for her to take in two kids because her apartment was way too small. “It’s just two bedrooms, and that second one’s the size of a closet.”
“It’s just the girl,” Mahoney said. “Paul’s got a place to stay for now.”
Anita didn’t waver from her original position. “Even one child is way too much for me to handle. Surely there’s someone else—”
“No one who’s family. As far as we can tell, Bartholomew has no living relatives.”
“What about friends? Neighbors?”
“Even if one of those people was willing to take Jubilee, they couldn’t. Unless it’s a family member, an orphaned child has to be turned over to the children’s welfare department.”
“Jubilee, huh? Cute name.”
“You didn’t know your niece’s name?” Mahoney said.
She shook her head, “Unh-unh. Ruth and I had quit speaking by that time.” A look of regret settled on Anita’s face. “When somebody ain’t willing to take care of themselves, you can’t tear your heart out worrying. The only thing you can do is close that door and pretend they already died.”
Mahoney sensed a level of sadness that might have been soft and pliable at one time, but through the years had turned rock hard. “It may be too late to mend fences with your sister,” he said, “but it’s not too late to do the right thing by her daughter.”
“You can’t ever go back; only a fool tries to do it.”
“You wouldn’t be going back, you’d be starting over.”
“I don’t think—”
“Jubilee’s a sweet child; I think you’d love her.”
Anita shook her head sadly. She had a faraway look in her eyes, one that Mahoney found impossible to read. They spoke for more than an hour, but she didn’t budge an inch.
“If I wanted kids, I would have had them years ago,” she said. “It’s too late to start now.”
Before he left, Mahoney suggested Anita sleep on the idea.
“With something this important, you don’t want to make a decision you’ll regret forever,” he said.
She rose from the table and dumped the remainder of her coffee down the drain. “I’ll think about it, but I seriously doubt I’ll change my mind.”
As Mahoney left the building he reached into his pocket and pulled out the last of his antacid chews. He also doubted Anita would change her mind.
Ethan’s Gift
When Mahoney left Anita’s apartment he couldn’t stop wondering what angry words had torn the two sisters apart. Anita’s bitterness was so thick you could almost see it seeping from her skin. Surely, he thought, there was some way to reach inside and find the heart that had long ago stopped caring. Maybe if Anita met Jubilee—saw the child, heard the lilt of her laugh, and felt the touch of a tiny hand in hers. Even as he considered the possibilities, a nagging voice in the back of his mind kept asking, Is that what’s best for Jubilee?
Mahoney knew he was far too involved in this case. It was no longer a situation where he was trying to locate a missing aunt. He had segued into trying to piece together broken lives. He needed to stop, take a breath, and think things through.
He’d planned to visit Olivia and tell her of his conversation with Anita, but once he did that—once it was an established fact that Jubilee’s aunt was unwilling to lay claim to her—Jubilee would be put into the system. It was what it was. Through no fault of those who ran it, the child welfare system was without a heart. When a child was freefalling through life the system was the safety net, a paper-thin layer of protection that prevented them from splatting against a concrete bottom. It provided a home, food to eat, and a place to sleep. Period. Once in a while a kid got lucky and ended up with a family who cared. But that wasn’t an everyday occurrence; it happened once in a while. A very
long while.
Mahoney didn’t need to close his eyes to see Jubilee’s face. It was right there. For a fleeting moment she was visible in the rearview mirror. He thought back to the image of a bewildered Paul stretching his arm to curl his sister inside. She was not an unwanted child; she was loved.
In that instant Mahoney knew he was not ready to give up. Right now the situation seemed impossible, but he would find a way. He had to. At the end of the block, he made a U-turn and headed for the ferry.
Tomorrow he might have to be the bearer of such bad news, but tonight he would simply be a father. He would spend time with his own children and hold them to his heart with a prayer of thanksgiving.
Almost a full two hours before he normally arrived home, Jack Mahoney walked through the front door of his house and called out, “Honey, I’m home.”
There was no answer.
“Christine?”
Still no answer.
He walked through the house, a house that was usually filled with noise and laughter—so much noise, in fact, that he often wished for just such a silence. But today, on a day when he was hungry to hear the laughter, to be smack in the middle of all the noise, there was nothing.
He snapped on the television and dropped down on the sofa. Images moved across the screen and spoke words, but what those words were he couldn’t say. Jack Mahoney’s thoughts were elsewhere. He looked at the clock. Five-forty. He would have thought Christine would be starting dinner by now. Peeling vegetables, setting the table, fussing about the kitchen, doing whatever it was she did to make the nightly dinner seem such a momentous event.
He stood, walked into the backyard, and looked around. There were no kids anywhere. Not next door, not two houses over. Even the troublesome twins who lived cattycorner were missing.
Mahoney shook his head. How sad, he thought. All these nice yards and no kids playing in them. He returned to his spot in front of the flickering television, then sat and watched the minutes tick by.
It was five minutes before seven when Christine and the kids burst through the door in an explosion of laughter. She looked over at Jack. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“But you never come home this early.”
“I’ve been home for over an hour-and-a-half.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Christine said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to—”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” he answered and left it at that. There was no reason to start explaining something that was almost unexplainable anyway.
Jack followed Christine into the kitchen and listened as she and all three kids spoke at the same time. “It was so much fun,” Jack Junior said. “I got to ride on the Ferris wheel.”
“I wasn’t tall enough,” Chrissie pouted. “I had to go on baby rides.”
“Oh, I wish you had been with us,” Christine said. “The whole neighborhood was there, even the twins.”
Only after several minutes of listening to the fun they’d had at the Saint Vincent’s festival did Jack remember Christine mentioning it weeks earlier. At the time it was something he was too busy to care about, but today he found himself wishing he’d been there.
After dinner Jack dried the dishes, played checkers with his son, and once again told the story of Sleepy Hollow to all three children. He would have thought the girls might ask for something sweeter—Cinderella or perhaps Sleeping Beauty, but no. On the all-too-infrequent occasions when he was home to tell a story, they repeatedly asked to hear about the headless horseman.
That evening after the children were tucked in their beds, he and Christine sat in the backyard and talked.
“When did we get so busy that we stopped doing this?” he asked.
“We didn’t,” Christine answered. “You did.”
It was a full minute before Jack answered. “That will change,” he said, and he meant it.
That night while his family slept, Mahoney tossed and turned. By the time sunrise crawled across the horizon, he had decided that first he would tell Olivia of the conversation he’d had with Anita and then he’d speak with Anita again. There had to be a chink in her armor. Everybody had one. It was up to him to find it.
When Olivia answered the door the next day, she was tearful and red-eyed. “Shhh,” she warned Mahoney. “Jubilee doesn’t know yet, so don’t mention a word.”
Mahoney, a bit taken aback, cautiously asked, “Don’t mention what?”
“About Paul.”
Although he wondered how Olivia could have known about Paul, Mahoney followed behind as she tugged him through the living room, past where the kids were playing, and into her bedroom. Once inside Olivia closed the door, then pulled a newspaper from beneath the mattress.
“How could you let this happen?” she said and handed him the newspaper.
The headline read, “SHOOTING SUSPECT CHARGED!” Below the boldfaced headline was Paul’s mug shot. He had the expression of a deer standing nose to nose with a hunter’s rifle. The small bandage was still taped to the right side of his head.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Mahoney sputtered. “It came as a surprise to me also.” He explained how he’d learned of it yesterday when he visited the hospital. “I’ve since gone to see Gomez and given him everything I had. Hopefully he’ll do something with it.”
“Doesn’t he have to—”
“Sometimes there’s a grey area between evidence and opinion.”
“But those things you found out, aren’t they evidence?”
“All circumstantial. They point to the fact that Paul might have been an innocent bystander, but they prove nothing.”
He looked for a more positive note on which to end the conversation, but there was none. When the words stopped and there was little but silence, the sound of Jubilee’s laugher pierced the air. It was followed by Ethan Allen’s voice, “Aw, nuts,” he complained. “You got another straight.”
Mahoney’s eyebrows went up. “Are they playing—”
“Poker.”
“Poker?”
“I know.” She gave a shrug of resignation. “I used to think it was something kids shouldn’t be doing, but then I listened with my heart.” She explained how Ethan Allen could win a poker game even if he was blindfolded. “He’s letting her win. It’s his way of making her happy.”
They stood and talked for several minutes, about nothing and everything. Mahoney searched for a way to say what he’d come to say, to tell her about his conversation with Anita. As it turned out, he didn’t have to broach the subject. Olivia did it for him.
“Anything new on Anita?” she asked. Her words were casual, a throwaway question that hopefully would not be answered.
“Actually, yes,” Mahoney said. “I met with her yesterday.”
His answer caused Olivia’s heart to skip several beats, and she immediately regretted asking the question. Ten days ago she would have welcomed such news, but not now.
“It’s not good news.” Mahoney spoke like a man apologetic for what he had to say. “There was apparently bad blood between Anita and her sister, so she wants nothing to do with either of the kids.”
Olivia’s lips curled. “Well, then, Jubilee is welcome to stay here.”
“Here?” The shock in Mahoney’s voice was apparent.
She nodded. “It’s the most sensible solution. You see how well the children get along, and I’ve already fixed up a little nook where she can—”
“Olivia, stop right there. I can’t leave Jubilee with you. If she’s not with family, she has to be turned over to the child welfare department. It’s the law.”
“Nonsense,” Olivia argued. “This is exactly the same situation we had with Ethan Allen, and there was no law that said I couldn’t keep him.”
“It isn’t the same. Ethan Allen was related to you.”
“Not really,” Olivia said. “I’d never even heard of the boy before he showed up here. I was almost a total stranger.”
�
�His grandfather was your husband, so there was a legal relationship.”
“Well, that just doesn’t make sense. If Anita doesn’t want the child and I’m willing to take her…”
Although Mahoney could easily sympathize with the situation as it now stood, he had a responsibility to abide by what the law mandated. There might be a certain amount of give and take, but it only stretched so far. Move beyond that point, and something would snap.
They spent close to twenty minutes going back and forth, arguing the fine points of what could or could not be considered a legal relationship. In the end, Olivia had to accept that she had no ground to stand on.
“I’ve given Anita a few days to rethink what she wants to do,” Mahoney said. “Until then Jubilee can stay here.”
A few days seemed like such a small amount of time. They’d already had thirteen days together, and now there were just a few more. How sad, Olivia thought. She counted the hours Ethan Allen would have to spend with Jubilee—how many more poker games he’d let her win, how many peanut butter sandwiches… Then she caught something that shed a new light on the situation.
“I thought my bringing Jubilee with me might change Anita’s way of thinking,” Mahoney said. “The girl is her sister’s child, so she’s got to feel something.”
Olivia’s face brightened. She knew she’d found the opportunity she’d been looking for. “That’s a wonderful idea,” she replied.
The Awakening
On Wednesday morning Carmella Klaussner did exactly as she had been doing for the past two weeks. She climbed out of bed, went down on her knees, and prayed. “Please, God, save my Sidney. Make today the day he opens his eyes.”
Those were the same words she repeated every morning, but each day she added something, an extra pledge or promise that might entice God to answer her prayer.
“Return my Sidney to me,” she said, “and from this day forth I’ll care for the orphans and provide shelter for the homeless.”
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