Stolen in the Night

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Could have been a hunter,” said Dawn. “Or just a guest. Out walking.”

  Tess shook her head. “No, he looked weird. I thought it might be a reporter.”

  “Those bastards,” said Jake.

  Dawn sighed. “It’s public property back there.”

  “I know,” said Tess. This place will always scare me, she thought.

  Jake cleared his throat. “I brought Kelli’s car,” he said. “I thought you could use it while you’re here. Julie’ll come pick me up when she’s done at the hospital.”

  “Oh Jake, that’s really nice. Thanks,” said Tess.

  “No problem. Kelli doesn’t need it where she’s at.”

  “Have you heard from her lately?”

  “She calls her mother like clockwork every Sunday,” he said. “She’s still at Fort Meade. No marching orders yet.”

  “I wish she could just stay there,” said Tess.

  Jake shook his head. “She had to go into the army. Nothing else would do. She says she can go to college for free when she gets out.”

  “Well, that’s true,” said Tess. “That’s pretty responsible of her.”

  “She’s a good kid,” said Jake. “Anyway, you can drive her car around for a few days. It’ll do the engine good. I took it out to Julie’s dad at his garage. Had the oil changed and all. She’s good to go.”

  Tess nodded as Erny returned and proudly placed a plate piled with pancakes in front of her. Dawn sat across from Tess, apprehension written on her face and in her sad, anxious eyes.

  “Do you want me to call you from there when it’s over?” Tess asked her mother.

  “You don’t need to,” said Dawn, shaking her head. “We all know what the results will be. Just get back as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” Tess promised.

  “Ma, try ’em,” Erny insisted.

  “They look great,” Tess assured him. Even though her stomach was in knots and she had no appetite, she picked up her fork and knife and began to slice through the stack.

  Neither Tess nor Jake spoke a lot on the drive from the inn to the Stone Hill Record’s offices. Tess looked out the window at the quaint but severe-looking New Hampshire town with its well-kept Colonial-era houses and the brilliant foliage now past its peak and fading. They traveled past the shops on Main Street. The center of Stone Hill looked pretty much the same. The general store, which sold everything from paper lanterns and plastic glassware to pliers and bags of nails, still anchored the block. But a few trendy new shops had storefronts in the old, austere buildings. There was a gourmet deli and a video store and a shiastu massage studio called Stressless. Tess raised her eyebrows. “Shiatsu massage?” she said. “How New Age.”

  Jake chuckled snidely. “Yeah, a massage parlor. And guess who runs it? Charmaine Bosworth. The wife of the police chief. Former wife, I should say. I guess the chief wasn’t man enough for her.”

  Tess was just about to insist that shiatsu was therapeutic, not licentious, when she was struck by what her brother had just said. “Bosworth? What about Chief Fuller?”

  “He’s not the chief anymore, Tess.”

  “He’s not?”

  Jake shook his head. “He had some health problems. He had to retire.”

  “Oh no,” said Tess. “I was hoping he would be here. He was so…good to us.”

  Jake shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”

  Tess nodded and lapsed into silence as they rode along. The newspaper offices were in a relatively new building several blocks past Main Street. The building had its own parking lot, which was now overflowing with television news vans and people with sound and video equipment milling around, their cables crisscrossing the lot. A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered outside of the plate-glass façade of the Record’s offices.

  “Don’t talk to anybody,” Jake said as he pulled into a parking space at the edge of the lot. “Just keep your head down and hang on to me.”

  Tess nodded. Together they picked their way through the milling crowd to the door. A few people called out questions to them, but Jake’s jaw was set. “’Scuse us,” he said, leading with his shoulder and pressing his way through the crowd. Tess did as he had told her and kept her head down. She wondered if they were going to be exiled at the back or even outside of the room, where the press conference was taking place, but as Jake managed to reach the door of the conference room, a murmur went through the crowd and immediately Tess heard a voice saying, “Let these people through. Stand aside. Let them through.”

  Tess kept her eyes down and clung to a corner of Jake’s buffalo-check shirt as someone, whom she could not see, escorted them to a pair of seats toward the front. As they went past the rows of chairs filled with onlookers, she could see the head table where all the lights and microphones were set up. Seated at the table was Governor Putnam, looking official in a gray suit and a red tie. He was talking with the man she had met at the airport, the publisher, Channing Morris. Chan was wearing a white shirt and tie today and leaned against the table, his arms crossed over his chest.

  At the other end of the table, on the governor’s right, was Edith Abbott conferring with a man whom Tess assumed was her attorney. Edith was a tall, sinewy woman with frizzy, brown hair and glasses. She was wearing a purple polyester suit that swam on her bony frame and had an improbably large white corsage pinned to the lapel, as if today were Easter or Mother’s Day. She appeared to be Lazarus Abbott’s sole supporter. As promised, there was no sign of his stepfather, Nelson, in the room.

  Edith’s attorney, athletic-looking and dressed in pinstripes, had a square jaw and a handsome, unlined face, but his perfectly groomed hair was prematurely silver. He was listening intently as Edith spoke rapidly, unceasingly into his ear. For a moment, he looked in their direction and his impassive, porcelain-blue eyes met Tess’s cool stare. Their gazes locked for an instant and Tess felt an unexpected jolt of sexual electricity pass between them. Upset by her own response, Tess blushed. She felt as if she had, in that moment, consorted with the enemy. She quickly looked away.

  She turned her gaze across the aisle to a ruddy-faced man with reddish hair cut into an old-fashioned crew cut and a brushy auburn mustache. He was wearing a navy blue police officer’s uniform with a tie that was too tight for his fleshy neck. He sat stiffly, drumming his fingers impatiently on the taut crown of his hat, which he held in one hand.

  “That’s the new chief,” Jake said, indicating the police officer she was looking at across the aisle. “Rusty Bosworth.”

  “He looks kind of…impatient,” Tess observed.

  “He’s a bully,” said Jake. “I never liked him. He’s Lazarus Abbott’s cousin, you know.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Tess, staring at the chief with renewed interest.

  “Welcome to a small town. His mother was Nelson Abbott’s sister.”

  “Really,” said Tess. “And does he agree with his uncle? Does he think Lazarus was guilty?”

  “Everyone around here does,” said Jake.

  As if he could hear their conversation, Rusty Bosworth turned his basketball-size head and studied them. Tess immediately looked away and met Chan Morris’s gaze. Channing excused himself from the governor. He loped over to where Tess and Jake were seated and bent down to talk to them.

  “Would you two like to be seated up here at the table?” Chan asked. “It seems to me that you have as much right as these others—”

  “No, really,” said Tess before Jake could give some hostile answer. “Thanks anyway. We’ll stay put.”

  “Okay,” said Chan. “Thought I’d ask.” Stepping over wires and cables, he made his way back to the table.

  “That was nice of him,” said Tess to Jake.

  “Yeah, he’s a peach,” said Jake disgustedly.

  “I thought it was nice,” said Tess.

  “He just wants to plaster our picture on the front page to sell newspapers,” Jake scoffed.

  “Does everybody have to hav
e an ulterior motive?” Tess asked.

  Jake slid down in the chair with his feet extended and crossed, his arms over his chest. “Yes,” he said.

  The governor turned to the audience, stood up, and tapped on the microphone in front of him, lifting it off of its stand. The noisy conversations in the room immediately ceased and the governor invited the assembled newspeople to come in closer. “Can everybody hear me?” he asked, speaking into the mike.

  A murmur of assent passed through the crowd.

  “Okay,” said Governor Putnam. “Now, we all know why we are here today. Nearly twenty years ago in this very town, a young girl”—he stopped and clarified—“an innocent young girl named Phoebe DeGraff, who was visiting here on a vacation with her family, was raped and murdered. Lazarus Abbott was convicted of her murder and ultimately put to death for the crime. His mother, Edith…” The governor leaned over and indicated the woman in the purple suit. “Even long after her son’s execution, hoped to prove his innocence. Her attorney, Mr. Ramsey, knew of my feelings about the death penalty. He insisted we get together and discuss the case. He pointed out to me, very cogently during that meeting, that Lazarus Abbott was convicted mainly on the eyewitness testimony of a child. And it is now a well-established fact that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.”

  Tess’s face flamed. She thought she could feel Ben Ramsey’s gaze on her, but she deliberately did not look at him. She kept her eyes focused to a point over the governor’s head.

  “Mr. Ramsey convinced me that I should order a retesting of the evidence. Fortunately, the evidence in this case had been preserved by the Stone Hill Police Department…”

  “Fortunately?” said Tess under her breath as the governor continued to explain the course of events. She felt a little frisson of anxiety.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jake whispered. “He’s just a politician enjoying the spotlight. He’s going to drag this out for all it’s worth.”

  “…and despite their obvious reluctance to reopen this case, the police were finally prevailed upon to produce this evidence for testing,” the governor continued.

  Tess glanced over at Chief Bosworth, who was staring at the people seated at the microphones with narrowed eyes. His face appeared to be flushed with anger and he looked as if he were ready to explode.

  Tess looked back at the governor, who was taking a deep breath.

  “Now, as you know, there has never been a case to date in the United States where a person executed for a crime was later proved innocent of that crime by virtue of DNA evidence. But many people have walked free from death row. And those of us who oppose the death penalty have always feared that such a day would come. We are here to determine if this is, indeed, that dark day.

  “The results of these tests, which were delivered to me yesterday in the strictest confidence from the Toronto lab that tested the DNA, can now be revealed to you. This was the report which was sent to me.” He held up a few pieces of paper stapled together in the upper right-hand corner. “I’m going to read it to you now.” He cleared his throat and began to read aloud. “‘The evidence in this case which was presented by the prosecution at the trial, namely the semen and the traces of blood on Phoebe DeGraff’s undergarments, and the skin collected from beneath her fingernails, has partially degraded over the years because of the conditions of storage…’”

  A groan of frustration traveled around the room. “All this crap for nothing,” Jake said to Tess in disgust. The governor held up his hand for silence and, when the noise in the room simmered down, he continued. “Because of this decomposition, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to definitively call this sample an exact match to a suspect’s DNA. However, the DNA samples from the evidence are more than adequate to rule out a particular suspect. We have determined that all of these samples belonged to the same person. An unidentified male.”

  The governor lowered the report he was reading, cleared his throat, and looked slowly across the audience of people assembled there. His expression was grave. Then he lifted the paper again and resumed reading. “The DNA did not, in any particular, match the sample from the man who was convicted and executed for this crime—Lazarus Abbott.”

  CHAPTER 5

  There was a wail from Edith Abbott as she rose from her seat and, with a feeble cry, collapsed. A cluster of people surrounded her, trying to revive her.

  “NO,” Tess whispered. The room had erupted into chaos with reporters shouting and shoving. While the people in the room surged around her like a wave, Tess sat immobile, frozen in shock, remembering the face of the man who had ripped the tent open those many years ago. Ripped their lives apart. Her heart was racing out of control.

  Edith came around quickly, although the color of her skin remained pasty. Clutching her attorney’s arm, Edith resumed her seat at the table. The police chief, Rusty Bosworth, was on his feet, demanding to be heard. The governor recognized him.

  The chief lumbered up to the table and took the microphone from the governor. He glared out at the assemblage. “All right. As many of you already know, Lazarus Abbott was my cousin. But I never questioned the verdict in his case. Neither did anyone else in this town. Everyone figured he was guilty.”

  A murmur of disapproval went through the crowd.

  “Now if these results are right, it seems maybe Lazarus was railroaded. I’m not making excuses for the police work involved because I wasn’t chief at the time. I wasn’t even on the force when this crime happened,” Bosworth continued. “But I personally want to assure everyone here that this case will be reopened, and the police department will not rest until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “Thank you, Chief Bosworth,” said the governor as the chief took a deep breath and appeared ready to elaborate on his promise. “That’s very reassuring.”

  The florid-faced chief frowned and gave the microphone back to the governor, then resumed his seat.

  Tess stared straight ahead. Her hands were clammy and her face felt stiff, as if it were not real, but a plaster cast set over her human face. The noise around her scarcely registered. She felt light-headed and her stomach was churning.

  “The chief is quite right to remind us, and the officers of the police department of Stone Hill, that this case is now offically unsolved once again. I want to turn this over,” said the governor, “to the woman who worked so hard to bring this day about, and I refer, of course, to the mother of Lazarus Abbott, Mrs. Edith Abbott.”

  “This is bullshit,” Jake muttered. “Pure bullshit.”

  The governor tried to hand the microphone to Edith, but she was holding a large, white handkerchief to her face and was shaking her head. The governor looked to the attorney in the navy pinstripe suit. “Mr. Ramsey?”

  The silver-haired attorney stood up and took the mike from the governor.

  “Thank you, Governor,” said Ben Ramsey. The mike amplified a deep voice that was perfectly modulated. “I want to thank the governor for having the courage to allow these tests to go forward, so that the truth, as terrible as it is, could finally come out. Our worst fears have been realized. The wrong man has been executed and there is no way to bring him back. With all due respect to the good intentions of the police department, this wrong can never be righted. There will be no justice for Lazarus Abbott.”

  “No justice, my ass,” Jake swore.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” said Tess.

  Jake looked at her. “Really? Like, puke?” he asked.

  Tess nodded.

  “You don’t look good. All right, hang on. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Jake stood up and helped his sister to her feet. Tess felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if the room were spinning around her. A number of reporters swung cameras and microphones in their direction.

  “Move,” said Jake. “Get out of my way. Give my sister some air.”

  A wall of reporters blocked their way. Chan Morris saw them getting up to go and leaned over to whisper in t
he ear of the governor. Governor Putnam rose to his feet again and indicated to Ben Ramsey that he wanted the mike.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Ramsey. For just a moment. Folks, before you go…I want to say to the family of Phoebe DeGraff that we haven’t forgotten their sister. Her death was a tragic loss…”

  Jake, who was attempting to lead Tess toward the door, elbowing reporters out of the way, stopped and turned. He looked daggers at the governor and the people assembled at the front. “You hack. Keep your fake sympathy and go to hell…”

  “Jake, don’t,” Tess whispered, clinging to his arm. “Let’s just go.”

  Reporters shoved their microphones at them, but Jake batted them away like greenhead flies. “Get away from me,” he growled, “I swear to God…” Jake pulled his sister’s arm through his own and lifted his shoulder, ready to batter his way through the crowd if necessary.

  “Let those people alone,” the governor insisted, his voice booming in the mike. “All of you. Just get out of their way.”

  Reluctantly, the newspeople began to part to make a pathway and let them pass. As Jake pushed open the plate-glass door of the newspaper office, Tess extricated her arm from his and rushed out, gulping in the fresh air.

  “There,” said Jake. “Now you’ll feel better.”

  But Tess shook her head. Clutching her jacket closed, she ran toward the car. When she reached it, Tess was gasping. She steadied herself with one hand on the car’s front fender and willed the spasms in her stomach to stop. It was no use. With a horrible gagging cry, she bent over and threw up her breakfast into the brown grass bordering the parking lot.

  Dawn was watching at the front window of the inn’s library when Jake pulled up and a white-faced Tess climbed out of the car on wobbly legs. Dawn rushed to the front door and held her arms out. Tess entered her embrace like a small child.

  “Come inside. Come in,” said Dawn.

  Tess stiffened. “I can’t sit out here. It’s too…public.”