The year She Fell

by Rasley, Alicia

  “No.”

  Jackson waited, and eventually Ellen said, “He’s been a journalist almost twenty years. He’s investigated congressmen and he’s covered corrupt dictators. I suppose he could have made some enemies.”

  “What about kidnapping for ransom?” I was trying to be helpful . . . it was just very hard to figure out what would help Ellen at this point, especially since I wanted to avoid alienating Jackson. “Money’s always a good motive.”

  Jackson didn’t look impressed. “This isn’t South America. And I don’t think your sister and her husband have the sort of wealth that kidnappers would go after. But it’s something to keep in mind, if a ransom demand is sent.”

  He got up to leave. “We’ll get a search party going. Maybe he’s being held around here, though if the kidnapper had any sense, he’d be a couple counties away.”

  “Can you keep Tom’s name out of the paper? Our daughter’s away at camp, and—”

  “We’ll withhold his name. Make it out, at this point, that it’s just a disappearance. Don’t worry.” As he reached the foyer, he looked back at Ellen. “Call me if you hear anything from your husband or the kidnapper. We’ve got a tap on the phone, but he might try another method.”

  I followed him to the front door. “Thanks, Jack,” I whispered. I wanted to kiss him, but it was all so complicated again. I was keeping something from him—at least, my suspicions that Ellen knew something she hadn’t admitted.

  “If she tells you anything important, I want to know.” Jackson had his suspicions too. Cop instinct, I guessed. He hesitated, then bent and kissed me hard, a hand on the back of my neck. “Call me.”

  I managed to get back into the parlor without stumbling.

  Then I glanced out the window to make sure that Jackson had driven away. “All right, Ellen,” I said, turning to my sister. “Tell me what you’re not telling me.”

  It took a half hour to get the story, but finally Ellen leaned her head against the back of the couch and concluded, “So that’s what this is about, I’m pretty sure.”

  “How did he track you down?”

  “The Web, of course. He just had my maiden name, but I guess you put that into Google, and up pops some news article about me being ordained.”

  “And he followed you here?”

  “Well, he already knew my hometown—it’s on the birth certificate. He said he sent a letter to me here, but got no answer, and then he found out where I live now.”

  “But how do you know that boy is here in town?”

  “Because I saw him out on Main Street Sat—” She sat up suddenly. “Oh, God. We need to talk to Theresa. I saw her wave to him that day. And when I asked her later, she just kind of avoided the subject. I didn’t want to push it. I figured he’d found out she was my sister and sought her out. I—oh, I should have pushed it. Should have told her who he was. But I was too . . . embarrassed. I didn’t want her to know.” She sighed and got up from the couch. “I guess I have to tell her now.”

  “She’s gone. She called earlier and said she would be gone all night, and maybe tomorrow too.” Personally, I thought it made it all easier—Mother gone, Theresa gone. We wouldn’t have to explain to them or deal with their objections. We could just figure out what to do and do it. “Do you think he told her? About Tom?”

  Ellen puzzled over this as she paced around the edge of the rug. “I don’t think so. I can’t see her knowing that and not showing it somehow.”

  “She can be very secretive, you know.” But even I couldn’t imagine Theresa would knowingly conceal her contact with a kidnapper. “Wait. This boy. Tom’s . . . son. What did he look like?”

  “Medium height. Buzz cut. Army-navy surplus.”

  It was an efficient description of the boy I’d seen with Theresa in the county square. “I think I actually saw him approach Theresa Friday, at the jail opening. Looked like she didn’t know him then. He came up to her and asked her something, maybe for directions. And then she led him across the street to the recorder’s office. You don’t think she—”

  “No.” Ellen’s voice was firm. “I think he might have used her to find more about our family, maybe. Or where Tom was. But I can’t believe she’d help him do anything like this.”

  “Me neither.” I went to the window and looked out. A single patrol car was parked down at the bottom of the hill, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. But as I watched, it pulled away from the curb. Wakefield PD wouldn’t have enough resources to mount a search and guard our house round the clock too. “But she did walk with him right to the recorder’s office. What’s there?”

  “Property deeds. Birth and death certificates.”

  “So he was looking for his birth certificate? But you said he already had it.”

  “Yes, and it wasn’t from here.” Ellen stopped pacing by the phone table. She picked up the receiver, listened to the dial phone, and then set it back down. “He was born in Pennsylvania, across the state line.”

  “So what would he be looking for? Your birth certificate?”

  “Why? I’m not his mother. And Tom was born in Ireland.”

  “Maybe he wants to see what this house is assessed at, wants a cut of the inheritance. We just need to tell him that the college gets it all, and maybe he’ll go away.”

  I knew Ellen was really worried when she took my facetious comment seriously. “He has no claim on anything Wakefield. I’m not his mother. And I might not be Tom’s wife much longer, so he can just forget about—”

  “Ellen.” I went to her and put my arms around her. “You need to stay calm and just focus on the essentials. What does he want from Tom?”

  “His mother’s name. As far as I know.”

  “And Tom won’t tell him?”

  “Tom says he doesn’t know. But obviously neither the boy nor I believe that this happened and he never found out her name.”

  Hmm. I’d always respected my brother-in-law as a man of character, etc., etc. Nonetheless, I could certainly believe that as a young single fellow, he might have had at least one encounter with a woman whose name he didn’t quite catch. And it was entirely possible that he made more of an impression on her, hence her keeping track of him enough to know that he married soon after. But Ellen was relaxing a bit in my embrace, sighing, and this didn’t seem the moment to say that her husband might have, indeed, once been a typical hound dog.

  Finally she pulled away. “You think I should tell Jackson.”

  I had to choose my words carefully. “Well, I think it might help him find Tom more quickly. And that’s important if you think the boy will hurt him.”

  She shook her head. “He won’t. I don’t believe that. He just wants one thing—the mother’s name.”

  “But to get that name—”

  Ellen gave me a sharp glance. “Tom is his birthfather. He’s not going to hurt him. And maybe he’ll get what he wants. The truth.”

  I’d never seen this before in her—this ruthlessness. This anger. I almost understood . . . but I didn’t quite. She loved Tom. She had to love him. “You want the name too, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Now, granted, I’m not one of those open, candid people. I keep my own counsel, and I have my secrets. I would even go so far to say that some things are better left unsaid, and some knowledge better kept concealed. If Tom thought the mother’s name shouldn’t be spoken, he probably had good reason for it. I didn’t know what that reason was, but I found myself trusting his judgment. He would know better than anyone else, after all, what the cost of the truth might be.

  But that didn’t reckon on his being kidnapped. “Maybe the boy won’t hurt him, but it’s got to be driving Tom crazy, to be held hostage again. Think of that, Ellen.”

  “I am thinking of that. And I’m thinking, if it bothers him so much, he just has to say her name.”

  “Ellen, honey,” I started, then stopped. I wasn’t sure what to say. I regarded her helplessly. She was looking back at me w
ith stormy eyes and her usually sweet mouth set in a hard line. “What makes you maddest? That he slept with her, or that he won’t tell you who it is?”

  She actually gave this a moment’s consideration. “I’m not happy about him sleeping with her. Obviously. But we weren’t going together then. But he should have told me before we got married.”

  I knew it wasn’t helping, but I sympathized with Tom for reasons Ellen wouldn’t understand. I had my own secrets, that’s why. I also had a name I never said aloud. I kept quiet about something a braver person would have revealed. “I think that would be asking a lot of a twenty-two-year-old who already screwed up pretty badly. I mean, yes, he should have said something. But he was probably afraid you’d reject him.”

  “And what’s his excuse now?”

  Same thing, I thought. Only worse, after almost two decades of silence. “This boy— it’s so ruthless. Doesn’t that worry you? I mean, kidnapping. Chloroform. He had to have planned this out.”

  “He won’t hurt him.” Ellen’s voice wavered a bit. She wouldn’t look at me as she went to the window and started fiddling with the drapery cord. “Okay. In 24 hours—if he hasn’t let Tom go—I’ll tell Jackson everything. But not until then.”

  I sighed, went to her, took the hopelessly twisted cord out of her fingers. “Ellen. I’m scared for you. And for Tom.”

  “You’re not going to tell Jackson about this, are you?”

  “I should,” I said firmly. I gave her a light shove away from the window and worked on untwisting the cord. “But that would mean the boy gets prosecuted. If he’s over eighteen, that means criminal court and possibly jail. And . . . okay. I agree, this is a family problem. Not really a criminal problem. But if I think he’s going to hurt Tom—”

  “I don’t want Tom hurt either,” Ellen said. “But we’ve lived a lie long enough. Maybe this is what it’s going to take for him to face the truth.”

  She was making me very nervous. This was so not the Ellen I knew. Ellen was a minister, for God’s sake. A wonderful mother. A devoted wife. I couldn’t reconcile that with the narrowed eyes and the clenched fists and the throw-Tom-to-the-wolves attitude.

  But then, no one in this house was making any sense. I was beginning to imagine demonic forces at work, except of course, I was the same as ever. But here Ellen might be wishing torture on her beloved husband, Theresa conspiring with a teenaged kidnapper, and my mother simpering whenever she thought about her new protégée.

  Only I wasn’t possessed by demons. Just a bit terrified about what would happen when (not if, alas) Jackson found out that I’d taken him to bed and then straightaway started deceiving him, if only for my sister’s sake.

  I regarded my sister with resignation. I’d just have to keep trying to talk some sense into her. But now she looked too weary to work over now. “Your hands are all dirty,” I said. “I bet that window hasn’t seen a rag since Merilee left. Why don’t you go take a shower, and lie down for a bit? You’ll feel better.”

  I was washing up myself in the kitchen when the phone rang. When I heard Theresa’s voice leaving a message, I sprinted out into the hallway and grabbed the receiver. “Theresa! Don’t hang up!”

  Then I remembered what Jackson had said about a phone tap. Improvising, I said, “I’m on my way out. Call me back on my cell phone.”

  I gave her the number, and hung up. I wasn’t sure how wiretaps worked, but I figured it wasn’t a great idea to be in proximity to the phone. So I got my little cell phone and retreated to the sun porch.

  She called back right away. I could hear traffic in the background, and imagined her in some gas station parking lot, hunching over the receiver, breathing in the gasoline fumes as she spoke. “I just wanted to tell you,” she said in a rush, “that I won’t be back tonight either.”

  “Theresa, if you’re helping that boy—”

  “What boy?” She wasn’t any good at lying. I guess they didn’t teach that in the convent.

  “The boy I saw you with Friday, walking into the recorder’s office. Are you with him now?”

  “No! What are you talking about? He just wanted to know where birth certificates were recorded. And we started talking.”

  “About what?” I didn’t know how long she’d let me interrogate her this way before she figured out she had no obligation to answer. But I kept my tone sharp and authoritative, like a police detective. “What did you talk about?”

  “About—being adopted. He was looking for his birthparents. And so I told him that I was adopted too.”

  “Did he tell you who his birthparents were?” A trickle of sweat started down my forehead and I wiped at it impatiently. I wanted back in the air-conditioning, but I didn’t want any official eavesdroppers, not when I was trying to find out if yet another sister was obstructing justice. “And why he sought you out in particular to ask for directions?”

  “No, I—” Theresa went silent.

  “He knew you were a Wakefield.” I was figuring this out as I spoke. “That’s why he went after you. He already knew you were adopted, and that he could use that to manipulate you into helping him.” When she did not answer, I plunged on. “He asked you about the family, didn’t he? About your mother and your sisters—and your sister’s husband?”

  She’d gotten back her voice. “He was just trying to help me. So yes, I told him about the family.”

  “You told him about Tom and Ellen fighting.” I was harsher than I might have been, because I remembered drunkenly raising that very point during our little party. I should never have said anything at all. But I did, and Theresa heard it. “About Tom staying at the Super 8.”

  She was absolutely stunned. “What difference does it make?”

  “He kidnapped Tom.”

  When Theresa didn’t speak, I said, “Tom is his birthfather. That’s why the boy was so nice to you. Because he wanted to find out where Tom is, and how to get him back. And he used you to get the information. So now you have to tell me everything the boy said about his birth and adoption.”

  It wasn’t much. Theresa stumbled through an account of their meetings, but recalled mostly his encouragement of her own new obsession, finding her own birthparents, the Prices. Where did that come from? His example, I supposed. I didn’t bother to ask.

  “Do you think he would hurt Tom?”

  Theresa seemed shocked by this. “He’s just a boy. And he just wants to find out who his real parents are. And to help me find out. About my own birth family.”

  I had to turn to block the glare of the sun off the river’s surface. “Theresa, you know who your birth family is.” Or at least her original family. “You lived with them until you were six.”

  “I didn’t know where they went. He was helping me find out. That’s what I’m doing now.”

  Oh, great. Not enough that Tom was being held by his heretofore unknown son. Not enough that Mother was hying off after some rosebush or some ex-wife or some something. But Theresa had to go searching for her long lost family—the one that let Mother basically purchase her on contract. Or maybe they were just returning her for a refund. “Where are you?”

  She didn’t want to tell me. But finally, reluctantly, she said, “Webster County.”

  That was south of Canaan, way up in the most rugged mountain area, where the hill people live. It was West Virginia the way Walker Evans photographed in the Depression—still a place of plank shacks and outhouses and scrawny children with rickets. It was the West Virginia a nice town like Wakefield always scorned.

  I couldn’t imagine what Theresa wanted to find up there. I remembered her family as more urban, or as urban as West Virginians got, coming here from the coal fields around Charleston when Mr. Price got sick.

  I forced myself to return to the problem at hand. “Is that where the boy is? Brian? Is he with you?”

  “No.” Her voice was puzzled. “He just helped me decide. He was looking in town for the address he wanted, not up here.”

  “Where?
” I demanded.

  “I don’t know.” After a moment, she said, “He did talk about staying out by Highway 21. Look, Laura, he’s a nice boy. I can’t believe he means any harm.”

  “I hope not,” I said coldly. “But the fact he knocked Tom out and dragged him away doesn’t speak real well for him.” I started to say something more about Theresa’s part in all this, but cut myself short. I wanted to tell Ellen what I’d learned, which wasn’t much— how the boy found out where Tom was, and the reference to Highway 21. “Do you know where he was staying? Out on Highway 21?”

  “I don’t know.” She was defensive again. “He didn’t tell me. I think he was sleeping in his car. I saw him drive away yesterday.” She made it sound like it was my fault, somehow, that the boy was homeless.

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “Blue.”

  Great. I would never make a good detective, not when my only witness was a nun who had never owned a car. “Old? New? Four door? A mini-van, a sedan?”

  “Just a regular car. Sort of old, but not banged up. Four doors. He had blankets in the back. That’s why I think he was sleeping there.”

  I wasn’t likely to get much else from her. “I’ve got to go. If you hear from Brian, call me.”

  After that phone call, I was full of suppressed tension. But I couldn’t leave—someone else could call. And I couldn’t wake Ellen up, because she needed the rest. So I grabbed a rag and some Windex from the pantry and started cleaning the dirty window in the parlor. Windows— or any other kind of housecleaning—isn’t something I’ve done since I became a regular on the series, so I was almost enjoying the novelty. We used to have to wash these big windows every week, Cathy and Ellen and I. Oh, I was too little to do much more than rub away at the lower part of the pane on the inside. But outside, Cathy used to prop me up on the porch rail and hold my legs so I could stretch up to the fanlight at the very top.

  Today, as I swiped away at the streaks, I watched the street at the bottom of the hill—for Tom’s black jeep, for Jackson’s patrol car, for Mother’s anonymous sedan, for some unknown car bearing a boy with a grudge. But the cars just passed by, none turning up into our long driveway.