Stranger in the House

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Where was he? Immediately she remembered the cat. He had been fascinated by that kitty. He must have tried to follow it into the woods. He can’t have gone far.

  Running now, Anna plunged into the trees, crying out hoarsely for her child. She ran crazily in one direction, then another. A flash of waving brown-gold caught her eye. “Paul,” she cried. A dried-out fern swam before her tear-filled eyes. She continued on, tripping through the mossy, leaf-strewn ground cover, her glance darting behind every tree. She could hear the sound of traffic beyond, on the highway, as she stumbled along. “Please, God,” she whispered. “Please. Let him be all right. Paul, Paul, Mommy needs you.” She could hear the choked bubbling of tears in her voice as she called out to him. The trees were silent in reply.

  All at once she saw a sudden movement through the trees. Heart leaping with hope, she whirled to face it. There, beside a tree, sat the fluffy black-and-white cat, staring edgily at her.

  Anna’s lips and chin began to tremble violently. She could feel the shaking spread down her arms to her hands, in her knees, all the way to her feet. She was bathed in sweat. She stared at the unblinking cat. Tears began to spill down her cheeks.

  “Where is my baby? Paul!” she shrieked. Her anguished cry drowned out the intermittent drone from the highway, the rustle of the trees. It seemed to settle there on the dense, oppressive summer air.

  “First thing in the morning,” said Detective Mario “Buddy” Ferraro, neatly smoothing down his dark blue tie and buttoning his gray sports jacket over it. “We’ll be here early, and we’ll keep looking until we find your boy, Mr. Lange. I promise you. We’ll do everything we can. Everything. But it’s late now. We can’t see anything, and these people need to get some sleep.”

  “I understand,” Thomas said dully. He stared out the window at the motley group of men and women who were milling about in his backyard, waving flash-lights and talking quietly together. They were policemen, neighbors, people in town who had heard about Paul’s disappearance on the local television station. Even a bunch of teenagers, members of the high school key club, had volunteered to help in the search. Their numbers had swelled since three, when the search had started. Thomas gazed blankly at them, his face ashen above his white shirt. He was still wearing his suit, now rumpled and dirty from crawling in the woods and alongside the highway. His loosened tie hung like a slack noose around his neck.

  “They need some rest, and so do you,” advised the handsome olive-skinned detective. “Especially your wife. Did the doctor give her something to help her sleep?” he inquired.

  “He was here a few hours ago,” Thomas replied. “He gave her some pills to take. He would have given her a shot, but with the baby…” Thomas’s voice trailed away.

  “Try to get her to sleep,” the detective urged. “We’ll be back before she even wakes up. We’ll find your boy, Mr. Lange. We will.” The detective gripped the stricken father’s shoulder for a brief second and then released it. “Let me say good night to your wife, tell her we’re going now.”

  The detective nodded in the direction of the dining room. In a fog Thomas led the way.

  Anna sat at the dining room table, her head resting on her arms in front of her. Iris Stewart sat beside her friend, her hands clenched together in her lap. Her plain face was distorted by a worried frown as she stared sadly at Anna. Her husband, Edward, dressed in a perfectly tailored pin-striped suit, hovered behind them, a solemn expression on his face. Both the Stewarts looked up anxiously as Thomas and Detective Ferraro entered the dining room. Anna kept her head lowered on her arms.

  Thomas answered the question on their faces with a curt shake of his head.

  “Mrs. Lange,” the detective said softly. Slowly Anna raised her head. Her face was puffed up; her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She flattened her trembling hands on the table.

  Buddy Ferraro’s stomach twisted at the sight of her face. “Mrs. Lange, I’m going to have to call off the search for tonight. Just for tonight. It’s after two. We’ll start again first thing in the morning.”

  “It’s so late,” she said. “We have to find him.”

  “We’ll find him, Mrs. Lange. Tonight we need to get some rest.”

  Anna raised herself up shakily out of her seat. “I have to keep looking,” she said. “You’re giving up.”

  “Oh, no, Anna,” Iris protested. “You mustn’t think that.”

  The detective cleared his throat. “We are not giving up,” he said. “We are just going to take a break, and we’ll be back at it as soon as there is light.”

  An expression of exquisite pain suffused the mother’s face. The tears began to stream silently down her cheeks again.

  “Try to get some sleep,” said the detective helplessly. “I’ll let myself out.”

  “You two should go, too,” Tom said to his neighbors.

  “Let me spend the night here on the couch,” Iris implored him.

  Edward said, “Come along, Iris. We’ll only be in the way here.”

  “It’s okay,” Thomas assured her. “You go on.”

  Iris hesitated and then clasped Anna’s white hand in her own. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” she promised.

  “Thanks for everything,” said Tom. Edward shook his hand and then ushered Iris through the dining room doors.

  The house was silent for a few moments. Anna moaned and hid her face in her hands. Then, without uncovering her face, she spoke softly. “I was gone for only a few minutes, Tom.”

  Thomas sat across the table from his wife, staring at the wall. “I know,” he said in a choked voice. Then he looked over at her. “It’s not your fault, darling. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Anna did not reply. They sat in silence. After a few minutes he spoke again. “We’d better get to bed.”

  A feeble cry wafted down from upstairs. Anna started at the sound of the tiny wail. For a second she stiffened, and then she slumped over.

  “Tracy’s up,” said Thomas. He watched his wife for a reaction, but she didn’t move. “Do you want me to go?” he asked.

  Anna avoided her husband’s eyes. “If you don’t mind,” she said. “I want to clean up here.” She waved a hand vaguely over the empty, stained coffee mugs that littered the table, left there by shifts of searchers.

  “Don’t bother with that, darling,” Thomas said. “Come upstairs now.”

  “No, I want to.” She got up from her chair and began to collect the cups and crumpled napkins with trembling hands.

  Thomas opened his mouth to argue and then stopped. He lifted himself wearily from his seat and started to walk through the darkened living room toward the stairs. Suddenly there was a crash.

  “Ahhhh…” Anna cried out. Thomas rushed back into the dining room. Anna was bent over double, clutching her stomach, pieces of broken china on the table and at her feet.

  “Honey, what’s the matter?” he cried, hurrying to support her in his arms. “What is it?”

  All the color had drained from her face. She breathed shallowly, her arms crossed at her waist.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “Is it the baby? Should I call the doctor?”

  Slowly Anna shook her head. She breathed more deeply. She began to straighten up. “It’s better now. It’s passing.”

  “Please come and lie down,” he pleaded.

  “I will. As soon as I’m finished here.” Glancing briefly at her husband’s troubled eyes, Anna turned away from him. Tracy wailed out, more insistently now.

  “Anna?” he asked.

  “I will,” she said. She gestured at the mess around her. “I’ll be right up.”

  Reluctantly Thomas released her and started again for the stairs. From the darkness of the living room he looked back at her fearfully. Unaware of his gaze, she sank onto one of the dining room chairs and stared beyond her own lonely reflection in the window into the yawning blackness of the yard.

  “What a night.” Buddy Ferraro sighed, opening the door
to his car and sliding in.

  “What time tomorrow?” asked a patrolman, leaning against the open door of the detective’s car.

  “Say seven,” the detective suggested. “I’ll probably be here six or six thirty.”

  “I don’t guess half an hour’s gonna make much difference to this kid,” said the patrolman, shaking his head.

  The detective glared at him. “It could make a lot of difference,” he snapped.

  “Hey, no offense,” said the young man. “I feel the same way you do. I’ll be here early.”

  Buddy gave his young colleague a conciliatory wave as he started his car. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  The young cop tapped on the detective’s hood as the car rolled backward down the Langes’ driveway.

  Buddy Ferraro wondered if he would get any sleep at all that night. The sight of Anna Lange’s face weighed down his heart. Her anguish had seeped into him, raging within him, giving the search an intensity that he had rarely felt in fourteen years on the force. To lose a child. It was a nightmare. The kid seemed to have just vanished into thin air. He thought of Sandy and of their own two boys, little Buddy and Mark. If anything ever happened to them…

  He decided to take the Millgate Parkway home. It was faster than the back roads, even this late at night. He’d get off in two stops and nearly be at his door. He had called Sandy at around ten o’clock, ostensibly to tell her when he’d be home, but as the phone gave its third ring, he’d realized, by the tightening in his chest, that he just wanted to be sure they all were safe.

  Following the signs for New York, Buddy crossed the overpass and drove down the curved entrance ramp to the full-stop sign. He braked automatically and sat for a moment, lost in thought. They hadn’t found a trace of the boy, nothing. There had to be something, some lead they had missed. If it were there to be found, they would find it. He was determined not to lose this one. It mattered too much. He realized with a start that he was waiting for no reason. There was no other traffic on the parkway. He pressed his foot on the gas, and the car shot forward into the night.

  Unnoticed by him not far from where he had stopped to yield, a child’s baseball cap was wedged in a drainage ditch beneath the lip of the road. The low-hanging boughs of a hearty evergreen helped to hide the little hat from view. There were dark patches of dirt on the bent brim. And something else as well. A grimy Scooby-Doo winked and waved while across his smiling face and the balloon letters of his name, creases began to stiffen as the bloody fabric dried.

  1

  ELEVEN YEARS LATER

  “How do you like your tea?” Iris asked.

  “It’s great,” said Anna. “Fresh mint. Is it from your garden?”

  The two women were sitting at one end of the plant-filled conservatory of the Stewarts’ opulent home. The sun streamed in on them, and a breeze from the open doors riffled the leaves of the plants.

  Iris nodded. “Henry brought it in this morning.”

  “I always mean to put some in my garden, and then I forget.”

  “I’ll tell Henry to dig some up for you,” Iris said eagerly.

  “Would you? That would be great.”

  Iris and Anna relaxed in their chairs, enjoying the sun and the breeze. Anna leaned over the glass table and picked up a pile of envelopes that were lying beside the bowl, addressed in Iris’s careful hand. “What are you up to here?” Anna asked.

  A pained look crossed Iris’s face. “Oh, we’re giving a party. For the Hospital Guild. It’s going to be rather a large affair, to raise money for the new cardiac wing.”

  Anna nodded. “I read about it in the paper. I didn’t know the party was going to be here.”

  “Well, Edward is the chairman of the fund-raising committee, you know.”

  Anna nodded, noting that Iris was clenching her hands together in her lap. “You’re good at organizing things,” Anna reassured her. “It will be a great success.”

  Iris gave a small sigh. “I hope so,” she said. “There’s one for you in there.” Iris pointed to the stack of envelopes.

  Anna found the envelope addressed to the Langes and smiled. “Tracy, too?”

  “Older children.” Iris shrugged. “That was my idea, I thought they’d pep things up.”

  “Great,” said Anna. “When’s the party going to be?”

  “A week from tomorrow. The thirtieth. I hope you’re free. I’m a little late with the invitations.”

  “The thirtieth,” said Anna softly, staring down into her glass of tea. “That’s Paul’s birthday.” She looked up at Iris. “He’ll be fifteen this year.”

  Iris’s eyebrows rose slightly. For a moment she regarded her friend thoughtfully. “Is that so?” she murmured. “Well…that’s good. Where’s Tom today?”

  “With Tracy. They’re playing tennis. Is Edward home?”

  “Oh, no. He had a business lunch today. He just bought another company. The Wilcox Company, I think it’s called. They have something to do with helicopter parts.”

  Anna stirred the ice in her glass and looked up under her eyelashes at Iris. You would never know to look at her, Anna thought, that her husband was a millionaire. Edward, whose company manufactured private aircraft, was always a model of correctness and elegance in his appearance, while Iris dressed simply and seemed to give only the minimum attention to her hair and makeup.

  Nonetheless, they seemed to get along together, and Anna had always ascribed it to opposites attracting.

  “Well, I’ve got to be getting back.” She placed her empty glass down on the end table and got up.

  “Anna, I meant to ask you. How’s Tracy’s job at the vet’s working out?”

  Anna frowned, thinking of her daughter. “Oh, she loves being around the animals. She doesn’t get paid for it, but she seems to enjoy it.”

  “There, you see! That’s great,” said Iris. “I had a feeling that all she needed was an interest.”

  “It’s helped,” said Anna absently, although she felt a twinge of annoyance at Iris’s simplistic solution to the problems she had with Tracy. Her shy, introverted daughter was turning into a moody, difficult teenager who seemed to resent her mother more each day. But Iris always acted as if a little change in the routine would solve everything. And perhaps in Iris’s pampered, childless life, that was all the solution she needed, Anna thought ruefully.

  “Why don’t I ask Henry to get you those mint plants right now?” Iris suggested, opening the glass door to hail the gardener in a straw hat, who was crouching in a flowerbed beyond the pool. Anna realized that she had been unconsciously staring at him.

  “No, no,” she protested hurriedly. “Don’t bother him.”

  “It’s no bother,” Iris insisted.

  Anna shook her head but smiled at her friend’s kindness. She felt guilty for her uncharitable thoughts about Iris, remembering how often she had taken comfort in Iris’s confidence in Anna’s ability to make things right. Often, when she had been down, it was a visit from Iris that had forced her up. She gave her friend a brief impulsive hug. “Not today,” she said. “I’d better be getting along.”

  “If you have to,” said Iris. “Don’t forget. Put that party on your calendar.”

  “I will,” said Anna. She walked out the door and down the steps, then headed down the incline past the pool, greeting Henry, the gardener, as she went by. Her route home through the Stewart estate was long and meandering but it was a walk she always enjoyed. She followed the path through the gardens, skirted the frog pond, and wandered in the grape arbors until she came to the high hedges and the narrow stream that separated their properties.

  Anna decided, before she went in the house, to get a few vegetables from her garden for dinner. She was proud of her garden this year. She had culled a few tips from Henry and had raised a bountiful crop of vegetables. Everything had grown vigorously, probably because much of the garden plot had lain fallow for so many years. After harvesting two lustrous inky eggplants, a few tomatoes and a b
unch of beans, Anna headed back toward the house. Sometimes, especially when the fall came, and Tracy returned to school, Anna thought about going back to work. She always decided against it, although she never admitted her real reason to Thomas. She wanted to be home, just in case. Just on the unlikely chance that Paul found his way back to them, she wanted to be there. Anna walked past the spot where the children’s play yard had been. She stopped and sank down on the rusty glider, staring dully at the patch of lawn. It was green now and planted over with flowers. I’d better not mention Paul’s birthday, she thought. Tom will only get upset.

  She knew how much he didn’t like to talk about it. But each year she felt compelled to bring it up, as if it were somehow vital that his parents speak his name aloud, acknowledge his birth. Every year Thomas would turn away from her with a grim look on his face. She didn’t do it to pain him. It just seemed that it was important. Then, last year, when she mentioned it, he had suddenly gotten angry.

  “Anna, I can’t stand it when you say that. Every year it’s the same thing. ‘Paul is eleven today. Paul is twelve today. It’s Paul’s thirteenth birthday.’ Why do you always have to mention it?”

  “Because it is his birthday,” she insisted. “Because I want to remember it.”

  “It’s like some grisly joke. Paul’s birthday. As if he were still alive and about to walk in that door.”

  “But, Tom,” she protested, “I do believe that he is alive. Don’t you? I mean, we don’t know any different. We need to have hope, darling.”

  But Thomas had turned away from her without another word, and the subject was closed between them once again, as it had been for most of the years since Paul was gone. She could not pinpoint the time when they had stopped discussing it. But the child’s disappearance had been like an amputation on the body of their marriage. Tom wanted to cover it, to hide it and pretend it hadn’t happened. Or so it seemed to Anna, as she restlessly sought help, advice, some reassurance that she would one day reattach what seemed irretrievably lost. As if by agreement, they avoided talking about it. It was the best they could do.