by Jane Langton
They pressed forward into the small entry, which contained only a couple of plastic trash barrels. When Homer tried the knob of one of the inner doors, it turned freely in his hand, and they entered the living room of Rosalind Hall’s apartment.
In a moment they were looking at the snapshots on the wall above Rosie’s desk. Homer had seen the big picture of Rosie and Charley on the front page of the Boston Globe. Looking at it again he was unprepared for the sense of pathos. “The baby’s safe enough, I suppose, but where the hell is his mother?”
Alan grimaced, and turned away to the shelf of cassette recorders beside the desk. Their black plastic surfaces were dusty. “I told you about these. They were switched on when I came in. She must have been recording from one to the other. Yes, look, they’ve both got cassettes.”
“Well, go ahead, find out what they are.”
“Got to rewind first.” Alan set the two pairs of spindles whizzing backwards, and led Homer into Rosie’s kitchen. “This is where the blood was. Right there on the floor.”
“All cleaned up, I see.” Homer knelt and looked at the quarry tiles. The uniform dull sheen was everywhere the same. “I suppose every surface has been tested for fingerprints.”
“All I know is what it said in the paper. There weren’t any prints they could match up with anybody in their files, except for the ones that were all over the place. They assumed they were Rosie’s. They were surprised to find they matched a set in the police file.”
Homer was astonished. “They did? Rosalind Hall was fingerprinted before?”
“Juvenile, that’s all it said, with a date ten years back. I suppose there must be a way to find out what her prints were there for. Otherwise what’s the point of having them in the file at all?”
Homer looked at the face of Rosie on the wall. “She must have done something naughty when she was a kid. I’ll look into it. It’s odd, but I don’t see how it helps. Maybe it will come in handy later on. Then again maybe not.”
Alan went back to the tape recorders and touched one of the play buttons. He grinned at Homer as the sober rhythms of a famous organ chorale prelude began pouring into the room.
“Nice,” said Homer, wagging his head in time. Homer knew almost nothing about music.
“Listen, it’s ‘Wachet Auf,’ a chorale prelude by Bach. Every organist plays it. It’s an old warhorse.”
They wandered around the apartment. “What a great place,” said Homer. “She must be rich, Rosalind Hall.”
“I don’t know. According to the paper she inherited the house from her parents, and rented out most of it. I gather she wasn’t working full time as an organist, she was mostly just taking care of Charley. That’s what Mrs. Garboyle told the reporter. Maybe Rosie inherited a lot of money from her family.”
“Mrs. Garboyle? Who’s Mrs. Garboyle?”
“She lives here. The rest of the house is sort of a dormitory for girls at Boston University. Mrs. Garboyle’s in charge, that’s what it said in the paper.”
Homer screwed up his big face, searching his memory. “Mrs. Garboyle—it sounds familiar somehow.”
They inspected the kitchen, Rosie’s bedroom, the bathroom. In the baby’s room Alan was overcome by the memory of Charley’s fat cheek against his own.
They returned to the living room as the steady merriment of the sixteenth notes of the chorale prelude rollicked to a close and the tape recorder fell silent. Alan extracted the tape and read aloud the handwritten inscription, Wachet Auf, Harv. Mem. Church, RH. He looked up at Homer. Once again he felt bereft. “It’s her own performance on the Fisk organ at Harvard.”
Homer watched with inquisitive interest as Alan stroked the cassette and put it back in the tape recorder. “You said you didn’t know her?”
“No. I’d heard of her, of course, but we’ve never met. Let’s hear what’s on the other one.” Alan touched the PLAY button on the second recorder. Homer was amused to see him lean his hands on either side of the picture of Rosalind Hall and stare at her as he listened. There was something a little goofy about his obvious obsession with the woman. Homer controlled an impulse to kid him about it.
Instead he waved his hand at the second cassette recorder. “Isn’t that the same thing?” he said, feeling clever.
“Right, it’s ‘Wachet Auf.’ She must have been copying it.” Alan switched it off.
They left by the rear entry. On the way out Homer obeyed a nosy instinct and lifted the lid of the trash barrel. “Trash is always so revealing,” he said softly. “Hmmmm, how strange.” He pawed in the barrel with a big hand. “Candles. A lot of perfectly good wax candles. And ashtrays. Look, a lot of ashtrays. And a couple of unopened packs of cigarettes.”
“Maybe it’s not trash. Maybe she was going to give that stuff away. To the Morgan Memorial or something. Maybe she stopped smoking and decided to give away all her ashtrays.”
“But there’s trash in here too. See?” Homer picked up a wad of greasy paper towels and dropped them again. “It was all supposed to be thrown out. Wasteful, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, you know how people are when they make a vow to quit smoking. Everything connected with it seems dangerous.” Alan opened the outer door and they went out into the cold air. “I ought to know. I quit smoking myself a couple of years ago.”
This time Homer managed to get over the brick wall without incident, and they parted on Clarendon Street. “I’ll see what I can find out about those old fingerprint records of Rosie’s,” said Homer. “I doubt it will help, but I’ll look into it. And maybe I can throw my weight around in the Department of Social Services and find out what’s happened to the baby.”
Alan thanked him, surprised at the strength of his gratitude, and hurried off in the direction of the Public Garden.
Homer made for the subway in Copley Square, striding along Commonwealth Avenue past a young couple walking their Dalmatian, a pair of Boston ladies bundled up in fur coats, and an old woman stepping timidly along the sidewalk with a cane, avoiding the slippery places.
He couldn’t help smiling at the way young Alan had revealed his interest in the missing mother and child so nakedly. The kid was fond of the baby, that was obvious, but his attachment to the missing Rosalind was also absurdly apparent. And he didn’t even know the woman! She might not be lovable at all. Who could tell? Rosalind Hall might be a genuinely ghastly girl.
CHAPTER 12
… thus the strong member may serve the weak, and we may be sons of God.
Martin Luther
As it turned out, Homer didn’t need to throw his weight around at the Department of Social Services. Alan discovered the whereabouts of young Charley Hall on his own.
After his meeting with Homer at Rosie’s apartment, Alan crossed Clarendon Street and glanced down at the excavation, where the pile driver still sat idle on its treads, its crane reaching high in the air, its hammer poised to fall. It pained him to think of the day when it would begin its work, dropping the hammer again and again to pound a thousand pilings into the ground, kerwham, kerwham, kerwham. How would he hear the subtle variations in the sound of his pipes with that racket going on across the street?
The cold had increased with the afternoon. Alan walked fast. At the Public Garden he started to run—past the frozen duck pond and the equestrian statue of George Washington, kitty-cornered to the intersection of Charles Street and Beacon, straight along Charles to Mount Vernon and up the steep hill to Louisburg Square.
And there he found Charley Hall.
Alan didn’t recognize him at first. Charley was just a blob in a rickety stroller. But when a ray of low winter sunshine streaked through the narrow opening of Walnut Street and landed on his face, Alan was reminded of the baby in the Three Kings window in the Church of the Commonwealth. This infant too was a bright object against a shadowy background. A thin girl pushed the stroller up the hill, struggling to maneuver the small wheels on the uneven bricks of the sidewalk. Another child dragged after her
, clinging to her parka.
Something about the baby brought Alan to a halt. He stared at it curiously, then crossed the street and passed in front of the stroller as if he were heading for one of the handsome doorways on the other side. To his delight he saw that the child was indeed none other than the baby he had rescued from the traffic on Clarendon Street two weeks before Christmas.
The baby recognized Alan. His solemn expression brightened. He gurgled and threw out a mittened hand. Alan smiled at him, then climbed the steps of the house as though about to enter. The girl pushing the stroller frowned and increased her speed, bumping the little buggy over a cavity in the sidewalk. The child at her side whimpered and fell back. The girl spoke to her sharply, “For shit’s sake, Wanda, come on.”
Alan waited until the three of them were several yards ahead of him, then followed. He feared that if he spoke to the girl she might be just as suspicious as Mrs. Barker in the Department of Social Services, but if he followed them home, he would know how to find them again.
They kept going, on and on, up and up. The little stroller bumped and rattled on the uneven bricks, making its way out of the fashionable part of Beacon Hill, jolting past Alan’s own street and jouncing all the way through the tunnel beside the State House, where parking places were reserved for THE GOVERNOR, THE CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE, THE STATE AUDITOR and other luminaries of the political establishment in Massachusetts. At last the girl tipped up the buggy on two wheels and careened left on Bowdoin Street and started down the steep hill with the tearful child toddling in her wake.
Alan too had an appointment on Bowdoin Street, in the church of St. John the Evangelist, where the organist was troubled by a ciphering pipe. Was the girl heading for the same church? What a coincidence!
She was not. She pushed the stroller past Joe and Nemo, Hot Dog Kings, and made a sharp left into a yellow brick building called Bowdoin Manor.
Following her half a block behind, Alan grinned to himself, and noted the name of the place in his head. Now he would know where to find Charley. Satisfied, he went on down the hill, leaning backwards on the steep slope.
St. John the Evangelist was not like the other Episcopal churches in the neighborhood—nothing like Trinity, Emmanuel, Advent or Annunciation. It was a distinguished but shabby edifice catering to the poor, lavishing its funds on the hungry and homeless rather than on its soot-darkened interior. Under the church steps four elderly men were accepting sandwiches and soup from a woman who carried on a joshing exchange with her old regulars. Alan grinned at them and went inside.
The organist was glad to see him. Alan apologized for being late, and got to work at once on the ciphering reed. It turned out to be a simple matter. A cockroach had wedged itself under the pallet of the pipe, fixing it in the open position, so that it sounded all the time whenever the oboe stop was pulled. Alan repaired it, and urged the organist to do something about the infestation. “There ought to be something you could try. Oh, I know they’re incorrigible on Beacon Hill, migrating from one house to another. How does the church usually handle cockroaches?”
The organist rolled his eyes upward. “We pray for them.”
“Oh, I see.” Alan laughed and packed up his tools. It was time to find Charley.
CHAPTER 13
I should have no compassion on these witches; I would burn all of them.
Martin Luther
The door of Bowdoin Manor was open. The hall smelled of lavatory disinfectant. Alan wandered past a Pepsi machine and a row of doors, listening for children. All was silent. He climbed the worn rubber treads of the steep stairs. At once he was rewarded with the sound of a television and a crying child behind the first door. A slip of paper was taped to the door, with the name Deborah Buffington scribbled on it in pencil.
He knocked. The cries increased. In a moment the door opened a crack. It was still held by a chain. A thin child with a sharp face looked out at him. “What do you want?”
It wasn’t a child, it was the girl who had been pushing the stroller. Alan was ready with his story. “I’ve come to see Charles Hall. I’m a friend of the family.”
“Oh, sure, a friend of the family! An inspector, you mean, from Social Services. Well, I’m busy right now.”
“No, no. My name’s Alan Starr. I just want to see the baby.”
The pale eyes narrowed. “Are you the father?”
“No, no, the father’s dead. I told you, I just want to see the baby.” He had to speak up because the television was making a racket and Charley was bellowing.
The girl did not unchain the door. She stared at him sourly. “Why would you want to see the baby? What the hell for?”
Exasperated, Alan tried to explain. “I’m just interested in him, that’s all. I was the one who found him on the side-walk after his mother disappeared. I’m fond of him. I just want to be sure he’s all right.”
The girl was insulted. “Why shouldn’t he be all right?” She turned her narrow face aside and shouted, “Shut up. Just shut up.” She had been driven past some point of endurance. Relenting, she wrenched at a bolt, pushed back a bar, undid the chain and opened the door.
At once Alan went to Charley, lifted him out of his playpen and held him at arm’s length. Charley stopped crying with a final hiccuping sob, and smiled.
A scrawny little girl in pink tights stared at Alan, then turned back to the tumbling cartoon animals on the television screen. Excited music scrambled around the room.
“He knows you,” said the foster mother in surprise, folding her skinny arms across her chest.
“Of course he knows me. We’re old buddies.” Alan held Charley against his shoulder and looked anxiously at the girl. “How’s he doing?”
“Who, him? Oh, Jesus, like he eats everything in sight.”
“No, I mean, how are his spirits? Having his mother disappear like that, it must be hard on a little guy.”
“Oh, Christ, he never stops crying. God.”
“Well, you can’t blame him.” Alan kissed Charley’s damp cheek.
“And he’s stupid,” said the girl vindictively. “He doesn’t even talk or walk.”
“Well, isn’t he pretty young for talking and walking?”
“My daughter Wanda”—the girl jerked her head at the pale child in front of the TV—”she’s been walking since she was a year old, and talking too.”
Alan wanted to stick up for Charley’s intelligence, but he didn’t know anything about babies. “Well, he looks pretty smart to me,” he said lamely.
“Well, he’s not. He’s probably retarded. I’ll bet his mother left because she couldn’t take it any more. God!”
“Look,” said Alan, anxious to give Charley a vacation from this poisonous atmosphere, “may I take him for a walk?”
It was obvious that the girl was torn. How could she let a stranger go off with the child entrusted to her care? On the other hand, with Charley out of the house she’d have a few moments of peace. Alan watched her wrestle with her conscience. Lighting a cigarette, she hurled the match into the sink, took a deep drag and opted for peace.
On the street, with Charley snugly tucked into the stroller, Alan made for 115 Commonwealth Avenue. They were going home. It was a long walk, but it never occurred to him to take the baby anywhere else. He wanted to surround him with his old familiar life and show him his mother’s face on the wall.
Up the hill they rushed toward the State House with its gold dome, and turned left on Myrtle Street. Alan bounced the stroller past a mattress leaning against a street lamp and a burlap bag that looked as if it might contain body parts, then turned onto Joy Street. Here seediness gave way to intense refinement and Bostonian charm, at—God!—how much per month?
The ascent was steep. Alan had to drag the stroller behind him all the way up to Mount Vernon Street at the crest of Beacon Hill, but from there it was downhill all the way. The stroller jounced on the cold bricks of Louisburg Square and raced past the shops on Charl
es Street. As they crossed the Public Garden, Alan ran the little stroller around the Ether Memorial on two wheels, and the baby squealed with joy.
In the alley behind 115 Commonwealth he had to face the problem of getting the baby over the wall. The problem was solved at once. There was a woman in Rosie’s garden, a thin old lady with dyed black hair. She was manipulating a trash barrel, dragging it through the open gate into the alley.
She recognized the baby at once. “Oh, it’s little Charley!” she cried with delight. Bending down, she cuddled his face with her hands. “Such a lamb. Where is your sweet mama, Charley dear?” She stood up and looked sadly at Alan. “Such a tragedy, that sweet girl! You’re taking care of him now? How nice that he has a foster father!”
Alan cobbled up a lie. It was remarkable how easily it came to him. “No, no, I’m not the foster father. I’m just a friend of Rosie’s. I thought I’d keep an eye on the baby, and bring him back home now and then. My name’s Starr, Alan Starr.”
The old woman put out her hand. “Doris Garboyle.” Mrs. Garboyle’s eyes were enmeshed in wrinkles, but they were clear and frank.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Garboyle. You’re a housemother here, isn’t that right?”
“Upstairs, yes. The ground floor is all Rosalind’s. She grew up here when it was a real house. An elegant home.” Mrs. Garboyle sighed, and a tear ran down one cheek. “Have you heard anything from the police?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well, I hope they find her soon.” Mrs. Garboyle leaned down and kissed Charley. “This little chickabiddy needs his mother.”
“Is it all right if we go in? The police gave me a key to the back door.” Once again Alan was surprised at his easy disregard for the truth. “Oh, Mrs. Garboyle, I don’t suppose you have an extra key for the gate?”
“Of course, dear! I’ll get one at once. I’ve got four or five extras.” She hurried ahead of him, hugging her skinny arms to her sweater in the cold. The back entry was open. Mrs. Garboyle bustled through the second of the inner doors, and Alan caught a glimpse of the hall he had entered with the wandering baby on that eventful night before Christmas. “Back in a minute,” promised Mrs. Garboyle, closing the door behind her.
