Stolen in the Night

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Tess turned and saw that there was a cane propped against one of the wide-backed wing chairs. Sally Morris’s tiny frame was huddled in the wing chair, her clogs lying by one of the chair’s claw-feet. “Sorry, I didn’t see you,” said Tess. “I was just looking at…” She gestured to the painting.

  “Chan’s mother,” said Sally with a sigh. Then she turned her head and stared blankly into a tiny fire in the hearth that Tess had not noticed from the door of the room

  Tess nodded. “She was very pretty,” she said.

  Sally nodded and pushed her hair back off her face. Tess saw that there was a healing gash along her hairline on the right side of her face. Tess had not noticed it earlier, at Charmaine’s, although when she looked at Sally���now swathed in baggy pants, socks, and a bulky sweater—she couldn’t help remembering all the bruises she had seen on her wasted body when she’d been lying on the massage table. Sally looked up at her. Her eyes were shadowy in the gloomy room.

  “I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing,” said Sally. “I realized as soon as I hung up that it was a mistake. I tried to call you back but I got no answer.”

  Tess looked at her blankly.

  “Aren’t you the woman from SHARE?”

  “Share?” said Tess.

  Sally’s eyes widened in alarm and she drew back against the chair back. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m Tess DeGraff. Don’t you remember? We met at the airport.”

  Sally looked at once puzzled and then disappointed. “Oh. What do you want?”

  “I’m, um…I’m looking for something. Uh…” Tess realized that she had not prepared an adequate explanation. “My son…was here the other day and I think he left something.”

  “His fishing pole,” Sally said in a dull voice. “Your brother already came for it.”

  Tess pressed her lips together. “He left a jacket, too. My brother was supposed to be taking care of him, but, you know men…”

  Sally looked back into the tiny, dwindling fire in the hearth and did not reply.

  “Anyway, would you mind terribly if I looked around for it? He was down by your pond and in the fields.”

  “I don’t care,” said Sally, her voice a dull monotone.

  “Thank you,” said Tess, starting to back out of the room. “I really appreciate it.”

  Sally lifted her hand a few inches and waved it, as if to wave her away. Suddenly Tess heard the front door slam. It must be Chan, she thought. He would immediately realize that this had something to do with Erny’s disappearance, and while she could use his help, she had to be careful what she said because she was not ready for it to be all over the news. But before she could think of how she might explain things to Chan, a large woman with thick brunette hair and high color, wearing a voluminous gray tweed coat, appeared in the door.

  “There you are, Mrs. Morris,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Gwen. I’m here from SHARE.”

  Sally looked at Gwen in alarm. “No. I don’t need you. You have to leave.”

  Gwen ignored the panic in the woman’s voice. She turned to Tess and extended a hand. “Are you a friend of Sally’s?”

  Tess shook her hand but also shook her head. “No. No. I just came to ask Mrs. Morris if I could look for something…on her property.”

  Gwen’s smile faded. She went over to the chair where Sally was sitting and pulled up a chair beside her. She looked pointedly at Tess. “Could you excuse us?” she asked. “I need to talk to Mrs. Morris privately.”

  Sally began to cry and put a limp hand on the forearm of Gwen’s tweed coat. “Really…” she said. “I am grateful to you for coming, but I shouldn’t have bothered you. I was just feeling…a little weak. If I can just get some rest, I know I’ll feel better.”

  “You were right to call,” Gwen insisted.

  Tess backed quietly out of the room and then hurried toward the front door. She realized that this must be another medical crisis for Sally. Maybe SHARE was an organization for people with muscular diseases.

  Tess walked out on the porch. A maroon van with the SHARE logo on its side was parked directly at the foot of the front steps. Otherwise, the vast farm seemed deserted.

  Where? she thought. Where, on this property, had Rusty Bosworth hidden her son? She got into her car and began to drive slowly. She passed a barn and horse pasture. Several horses grazed in the shadow of the white-capped mountains. The barn? she thought. She got out of the car and walked toward it.

  Unlike the house, the faded red structure looked as if it had not been painted in years. There was an air of neglect about the place. She went inside and looked around, but apart from a barn cat who stared at her indignantly, the barn was filled with dingy tackle, hay, and little else. Besides, the barn doors were opened on both sides. No one would try to hide someone and leave the doors open, she thought.

  On one side of the barn was a closed door and the sign on the door read “Office.” Tess tried the doorknob and jiggled it. It did not open. “Erny,” she cried, twisting the doorknob. She leaned all her weight against it and the door, not locked but swollen shut with moisture, opened. Tess stumbled into the room. The walls were papered with feeding schedules written in a careful hand, a calendar of pin-up girls on tractors, and other farm machinery and lists of chores and equipment maintenance. The desk was piled high with receipts and reminders. This has nothing to do with Erny, she thought. She was about to turn away when it occurred to her to open the desk drawer and see if there were keys inside there. She did not want to have to break down every locked door of every outbuilding on the property. She tugged at the drawer and it opened. But there were no keys inside. Dammit, Tess thought. Just as she was about to close it again, something pink and lacy caught her eye. Tess reached into the drawer. Tucked away in a corner, under a couple of equipment operating manuals, was a pink envelope. Tess pulled it out and looked at it. The envelope was torn open and the lacy edge of a valentine was visible. Tess pulled out the card, which was worn and creased from having been handled many times. In that same neat hand that had made the feeding charts, someone had written “Valentine’s Day, 1961.” Inside the card, beneath the lovelorn message, it read: “To N. Always and forever, M.”

  A noise behind her made Tess jump. She whirled around and saw a barn cat staring at her. Tess stuffed the card back into the envelope and replaced it beneath the pile of manuals. Then, she left the barn and went back to her car. As she turned out onto the winding road that led through the farm, she saw the maroon van sailing toward the entrance gates with the tweed-coated Gwen at the wheel.

  Tess turned Kelli’s car up one of the network of dirt maintenance roads that crisscrossed the property. Slowly, like a fishing boat trolling the water, she drove slowly past an orchard, the ground around it littered with rotting apples the color of dried blood, past fields knee-deep in brown grass, past gardens with bushes now wrapped for the winter in burlap, past the pond where Erny had fallen from an overhanging tree branch.

  She peered around her as she drove, searching for a building, but not knowing what it was exactly that she was looking for.

  And then, when she was beginning to wonder if she had drawn another erroneous conclusion, Tess came over a rise and saw before her, half-hidden by trees, a long, low, one-story wood building. Beside it was a worn, dirt patch that had obviously long served as a place to park a truck or a car. Tess’s heart started to race. She pulled her car onto the worn spot and got out. She walked slowly down the length of the building. The near end of it had two open bays where a riding mower and a small tractor were sheltered from the weather. At the far end was a shed with a large windowless door, padlocked at the hasp. A shed where someone might keep supplies and equipment, like tomato stakes and twine. A gardener’s shed. The structure on this farm that was the most familiar to Lazarus Abbott. The place where he and Rusty and Nelson always began their day’s work.

  Tess licked her dry lips and began to walk toward the padlocked door. Her
legs felt wobbly beneath her. There was no light emanating from inside the shed. She approached it quietly, holding her breath. Please God, she thought, let him be in there. Please. Let him be alive.

  She walked up to the shed, made a fist, and rapped on the door. “Erny,” she said urgently. “It’s Mom. Are you in there? Erny?”

  There was no reply. Tess’s heart sank. She had been so sure that she was right about this. So sure again. So wrong again. She wondered disgustedly when she would stop turning every hunch she had into a belief. Her son was not here. He was gone. Gone and she would probably never see him again.

  Tess felt an agony in her heart of regret and self-hatred. Why did I take you to that godforsaken spot in the woods? Hadn’t I lost enough there already? Why didn’t I watch over you? How could I have let it happen? She felt herself sinking into darkness, as if water were closing over her head, and she struggled to breathe against the blackness weighing her down. The end of her hope. And then, all at once, she froze. She heard a soft, small voice whisper from behind the door.

  “Mom?” Erny said.

  CHAPTER 29

  Tess’s heart leaped. She flattened herself against the door of the shed. “Erny?” she cried. “Is that you? Are you all right?”

  “Ma!” he said. “Open the door. Hurry up!”

  Tears sprang to Tess’s eyes and she offered a silent, fervent prayer of thanks. “Just a second,” she said. “It’s locked. I’m going to get it open.”

  Tess jerked the padlock up and down, rattling it with all her might, but it did not budge. It’s all right, she thought. It’s all right. You can do this. “Just a second, honey,” she called to him. “I’m going to get something to break the lock. Just…sit tight.”

  She glanced into the shed where the tractor was, but there was nothing in there that she might use to break the padlock. Her gaze swept the desolate surroundings and fell on Kelli’s car. The jack. She could use the jack to smash the hasp. She ran to the car and opened the trunk, praying there was a jack in the wheel well. She fumbled through the jumble of golf clubs, ski boots, and rock-climbing gear in Kelli’s trunk, opened the wheel well holding her breath, and then let out an exultant cry. The jack was right there where it was supposed to be. Of course it was. Kelli was a soldier. Of course she would have the right equipment. Tess wrested it from the trunk and ran back to the padlock.

  “Okay, Erny,” she called to her son. “Listen to me. Stand back. Get away from the door. I’m gonna smash this thing.”

  “Ma, you rock!” Erny yelled back at her.

  Tess laughed, in spite of herself. “Thanks.”

  As she lifted the jack, her heart felt as if it would fly out of her chest with joy. Erny was all right. Must be all right. His voice was strong. He could never sound that chipper if Rusty Bosworth had hurt him. History was not going to repeat itself. She knew she should probably go up to the house and ask Sally, or call Chan Morris and ask him if there was an extra key to the padlock, or call someone for help, but she was not about to wait. She was not going to leave this spot without Erny’s hand in hers. She was going to free her son, even if it meant breaking the door down.

  Tess swung the jack down on the padlock with a mighty force. The padlock leaped and spun, but was unscathed. The dry, wooden door of the shed, however, splintered around the hasp. She lifted the jack and brought it crashing down again on the spot where the screw fastened the hasp to the door. Paint and wood splinters flew. She raised the jack again and again, smashing at the door until there were deep gouges in the wood around the hasp. She threw the jack to the ground and tried to pull the hasp, its screws, now slightly exposed, free from the door. She still could get no purchase on the hasp to break it free.

  “Hurry, Mom!” Erny cried from inside the shed.

  “I am, honey,” she insisted. She needed something to lever it out. A crowbar or even the claw of a hammer, to wedge behind the hasp and pull the screws from the wood where they were embedded. She ran from the tractor bay to the bay for the riding mower, but there was nothing there that she could use. She looked at the car, thinking about the contents. Then she had an idea. She rushed over to the trunk and pawed through the jumble of Kelli’s sports equipment until she dislodged the small, lightweight golf bag. She rummaged through the few clubs that Kelli kept on hand. A putter. A driver. And then she found it. Two irons. A five iron. That’ll do, she thought. She tugged it free, rushed back to the door, held the iron upright, and wedged the angled metal head of the club between the hasp and the door. Now, she thought, as she reached up and settled her grip on the shaft of the club. Pull that sucker off. She jerked the shaft of the club down toward her shoulder. After two tries, there was a loud splintering sound. The screws were pulled from the wood and the hasp hung off the door, the padlock hanging uselessly there.

  Tess tossed the club down and put her fingers around the edge of the door, pulling with all her might. The door started to open and Erny let out a cry and began to push from inside the shed. In a moment he was free, and he barreled into her arms, knocking her off balance. Together they crumpled to the ground, Erny holding on for dear life.

  “Are you all right?” she said. “Are you hurt?”

  He was filthy from head to toe, his dirty face streaked with tears. He shook his head and clung to her, shivering, his skinny chest heaving.

  “Thank you, God,” Tess breathed as she squeezed him in her arms. “Oh baby, I am so glad you’re all right.”

  They rocked there for a moment, awash in relief and mercy. Finally, Tess caught her breath and spoke into his grimy ear. “Erny, listen to me. Listen to me,” she said. “Look at me.” She managed to persuade him to loosen his grip just enough to look at her. Her heart ached to see the haunted look in his eyes.

  “Erny, we have to go before the man who put you in there comes back. Okay?”

  He nodded, his eyes widening. His skinny little frame was still trembling. “How did you know where to find me?” he asked.

  Tess smiled at him, her eyes welling up. She pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to cry. Not now. There would be time for that when they were safe. “You left me a clue. On your fishing pole.”

  Erny frowned at her. “My fishing pole? No way.”

  Tess nodded. “The medal you used as a lure? It was actually a medallion from a necklace that belonged to my sister. A long time ago, she was hidden in this same shed apparently.”

  “Your dead sister?” he asked.

  Tess avoided the question. The implications were obvious, and sickening. “I figured if you made the fishing pole here, you must have found the medal here. So I came here to look for you.”

  “Leo found it,” Erny exclaimed. “I was using a long stick and some string I found in that shed to make the pole,” he said eagerly, gesturing behind him toward the open door of his erstwhile prison. “Leo was digging around in the dirt and he found it.”

  Tess pushed his dusty hair back off his forehead. “Wow,” said Tess. “I owe that dog a bone.”

  “A really big bone,” said Erny, nodding.

  “Come on,” said Tess. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

  “I’m shivering. It was freezing in there.”

  “I’ll put the heat on in the car. Here, take my jacket.” She took off her wool jacket and put it over his narrow shoulders as she hustled him toward the car. He climbed into the front seat, pushing her leather sack to the floor, and pulling the jacket around him. “Hurry up with the heat, Ma,” he said.

  Tess did not need to be urged. She rushed around to the driver’s side, slamming the trunk as she passed by it. She got in, leaned over and locked the doors, turned the engine over with the ignition key, and pushed the heat up to its maximum. She started to untie the wool scarf from around her neck. “Here, take this, too,” she said.

  Erny recoiled. “I don’t want that. It’s pink. You wear it.”

  Tess smiled in spite of herself. “It’s not pink. It’s cranberry. But okay. Okay,” she said, h
alf to Erny, half to herself. “We’re going to be okay now.” She began to back out onto the maintenance road. “We’re going to go and call someone we can trust.”

  “You should call the cops, Ma,” he said. “Tell them.”

  “I can’t call the cops,” she said grimly as the car began to bump down the dirt road. “The guy who took you is a cop. He’s actually the police chief.”

  Erny stared at her. “No way,” he breathed.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Tess.

  “He killed that guy?” said Erny. “The guy at the campground?”

  “Apparently, he did.”

  Erny was silent for a moment. “Why?” he asked.

  “That’s a good question. I don’t really know.”

  “Wow,” said Erny.

  Tess looked over at him, huddled under her jacket, wedged up against the car door. His eyes were huge, like black checkers. “Erny, did you see him kill the guy?”

  Erny shook his head gravely. “No. He was digging in the ground when I saw him. I was looking for firewood and I saw him digging a hole.”

  “Where was the…body?” Tess asked.

  “In the back of the car,” Erny explained eagerly. “I didn’t know it, but it was in the backseat. When I looked in the car, I yelled. That’s when the guy who was digging came after me with the shovel.”

  “Did he hit you with the shovel?” Tess asked.

  Erny shrugged. “I pretended it hurt more than it did.”

  “Where?” she demanded.

  “Right there in the woods,” Erny said.

  “I meant where on your body did he hit you?”

  Erny feigned nonchalance and gestured vaguely toward his side. “Along here somewhere.”

  Tess made a mental note to have a doctor check him over thoroughly when they got back to the inn. “I’m so sorry, Erny. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry you had to see that body. I’m sorry he hit you. I’m sorry he locked you up like that.”