Thief of Souls

by Ann Benson

  I watched her speak. You can tell if people are lying sometimes; their eyes get shifty and their faces really tighten up. We’re trained to look for certain signs when we do interviews. A person who isn’t telling the complete truth will often glance away, because it’s hard to look someone in the eye and speak an outright lie unless you’re a complete sociopath, and contrary to popular belief, they’re pretty rare.

  But in parents whose kids have disappeared, another factor sneaks in—they blame themselves, whether or not that’s appropriate, and that kind of guilt clouds the picture. Ellen Leeds stared down at her hands as she spoke, which made it more difficult to read her.

  “I got home from work this evening at about the usual time. Nathan has a classmate whose mother and I take turns with the kids. Today was his day to go to George’s. His mother and I have our schedules coordinated so one or the other of us is around every afternoon. Thank God we can both work from home. The kids don’t need to be watched directly, they just need an adult available. It’s a good arrangement and it’s worked beautifully. Until now.”

  “How does Nathan get back home from there?”

  “He calls and I go pick him up. Usually around six-thirty or seven, because dinner is included in our setup.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Yeah.” She pulled a tissue from a box on the coffee table that was between us and wiped her nose. “It’s nice not to have to rush home and throw dinner together.”

  I wanted to smile and say, yeah, I know, because that was exactly what I did each day, when I worked my normal day shift. This past week I’d been moved to evenings temporarily because a whole bunch of detectives were out of town for bioterrorism training and we needed the night coverage. I started back on days tomorrow. My own kids were staying with their father for the week and he was rushing home to cook their dinner for a change. It was nice to know that he was going to have to listen to a chorus of but I don’t like meatloaf mac and cheese chicken. Evan is a truly pathetic eater; he hates everything. Frannie eats everything in sight but nothing that’s good for her. Julia I still haven’t figured out. Thank God they’re not allergic to any foods, or I think I’d have to give up.

  It was not the time to drift off into my own troubles.

  “It got to be almost eight,” I heard Mrs. Leeds say.

  “Did he usually call before then?”

  Guilt spread over her face as she nodded yes, clouding her expression even further. “I didn’t call because I was really liking the quiet. Working full time, I get so behind in my life, you know? I don’t have time to do any of the things that make me happy. I took out my needlepoint tonight for the first time in months.”

  Poor woman; she probably would never do needlepoint again.

  “But when it started to get so late I called their house, and George’s mother told me—”

  She choked up for a few seconds; I did nothing, said nothing, just watched.

  “She told me that George said Nathan hadn’t come to school today at all.”

  “Do you generally communicate when that happens?”

  “No. Not usually. I mean, if the kid’s not in school, the automatic assumption is that he’s home sick and the parent knows, right?”

  That was the mistake she would have to live with for the rest of her life. “Right,” I said quietly. “We’ll need to get a time line set up for everyone who saw Nathan today. And everyone who expected to but didn’t.”

  “I called the school principal as soon as I got off the phone with Nancy—George’s mother. He called Nathan’s team teacher and she told him that Nathan had never been in school.”

  “They’re not computerized?”

  “Not yet.”

  Principal, teacher, I scribbled in the notebook. “We’ll need to make a contact list. But go on, please.”

  “That’s it. He just didn’t show up where he was supposed to be.”

  “The school doesn’t have a policy of contacting the parent in that situation?”

  “No.”

  Hard to believe, but the regulations didn’t mandate it yet. The policy would be in place the next day. I would make sure of it.

  Ellen Leeds directed me along the route Nathan would have taken to get to school. I needed her to travel it with me once to get it right, and then I would take her back home again and go over it again without her watching. It took only a minute or two in a car, during which I kept an eye on Mrs. Leeds to see if she reacted to anything in particular. All I could see was that agonizing expression of distress.

  As I brought the car to a stop outside her building, she asked, “Will you be coming up again?”

  It was almost a plea. “Not right now. I have to get some things going right away. But I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow, and as leads develop.” I pointedly did not say if leads develop. “I’ll be calling you for additional details.”

  “But what will you be doing right now, while my son is God knows where, maybe hurt, maybe in the hands of some monster?”

  Scratching my head and wondering what to do.

  “Mrs. Leeds, please don’t jump to conclusions.” Unfortunately, it was a logical conclusion. “I already sent Nathan’s picture back with the patrol officer. He’ll have it out on the cruiser computers within a few minutes along with a description. They’ll also send it out to the other departments in adjacent communities. All those officers will be keeping an eye out for your son.”

  “You’re not going to organize a real search?”

  I took a moment to formulate my response. “In the morning, when it would be fruitful, we’ll get something organized if the leads we develop tonight warrant it.”

  “I’d like to come to the station with you. I want to help in any way I can.”

  No, no, no. “Mrs. Leeds, I don’t think it would be wise for you to do that.”

  “But if something should come up and you need me, then I would be there—”

  “I’ll call and send a car if something develops. Right away. I promise. You probably don’t want to hear this, but the best thing you can do right now is go back to your apartment and try to get some rest.”

  “Do you think I’m actually going to be able to sleep?”

  I didn’t. “I know this is difficult, Mrs. Leeds. But you’ll have to just wait now.”

  “Just wait.”

  “Yes. And if Nathan should call—”

  She cut me off. “So I’m supposed to go back upstairs into my apartment, where my son lives with me, and I’m supposed to just wait there for him to show up or call.”

  “Ma’am, I’ll be back in touch with you as soon as I can. But there are things I have to do to get this investigation rolling properly.”

  She got out of the car, but before she closed the door, she turned and glared accusingly. “What am I supposed to do right now, will you tell me that? I’m going to go up there and look around my home and nothing will look familiar to me, because everything has changed.”

  “Mrs. Leeds, I’m sorry, I truly am, but we do have procedures in place—”

  The door slammed. She ran toward the main entry to the building. I watched as she unlocked the outer lobby door, and then the inner one. The big modern building swallowed her.

  It was midnight. Too late to call my children at their father’s apartment to tell them that I love them like crazy. Their father, Saint Kevin, would be righteously indignant, and their own belief that Mom was just a little whacked would once again be reinforced. So I did the next most satisfying thing I could do—I got to work.

  I called for two units to join me in the parking lot. We left our cars there and, flashlights waving, searched both sides of that first street. What we were looking for I couldn’t really say; if there was minuscule evidence or blood, we weren’t going to see it until daylight. But we all knew the scene wasn’t going to get any fresher than this, if it was in fact a scene. That needle-in-a-haystack feeling crept through me again. Hurtling through the universe in search of one speci
fic asteroid. It always makes me feel so small and stupid.

  But we have to start somewhere. We picked up a lot of paper scraps, but nothing that looked like it would have anything to do with a middle-school student, no official school notices, nothing that might be discarded homework. But we tucked the papers into an evidence bag anyway, because you never know. A decent detective is almost always a pack rat—I certainly am, even if I am neat about what I gather.

  There had been little or no wind over the last day—thank God it was too early for the Santa Anas, but we were all complaining anyway. Right at that moment I was grateful for the dead air, or whatever was there might have blown away.

  We turned onto the second of the three streets. From where we stood I could still see the upper two-thirds of the apartment building Nathan had left that morning, which meant that someone could have seen something.

  This street was more residential than the first one we covered—fences, bushes, wider sidewalks. We divvied up the territory and separated. I poked my light into brush and moved branches around with one hand as I looked into little spots where squirrels are usually the only observers. My back hurt from bending so low, but I denied the ache and concentrated. Once or twice I saw the red glow of eyeballs reflected back. There were little scurrying sounds as assorted quadrupeds headed for cover. A June bug screamed and put a crack in the thin veneer of calm I’d managed to maintain. I shoved aside the dried palm husks that invariably got swept under covering brush, but carefully, because they can have sharp razor edges. They rustled like peanut shells.

  It all went silent when one of the patrols yelled out, “I got something.”

  three

  It had been many years since the evil day on which my Michel had simply disappeared at the flower of his youthful vigor and beauty, and I had only succeeded—through nearly constant flagellation of my own soul—to dull the ache somewhat. One never forgets the agony of losing a child; one can only hope that the memories will diminish in time. That is as it should be—the spirit of a lost child should remain forever in the hearts of those who loved him, so it may be kept alive. Often I have wondered why it was that God put this task to me, that the essence of the boy who was Michel la Drappiere should have been given to me to preserve. How is one to preserve the sweet innocence, the lovely curiosity, the growing depth of his character? I had not even one portrait of him, save the one that parades daily through my waking mind on its way to my dreaming heart. He is tall and slender, but his limbs show the promise of later strength. He has eyes the color of a clear sky in April. How does one capture his warmth, the tenderness of his embrace, the humor of his cracking voice? There have been many moments when I feel that I am simply not strong enough.

  Madame le Barbier at first gasped when I told her, then swore the bitterest of oaths; she clutched my hand so fiercely that I feared for the bones in my fingers. The tattered woman embraced my shoulders with surprising violence as tears of unspeakable grief poured out, for me, for herself, for our lost sons, for all the tortured days that I had known and she would come to know. A swoon overtook her to the point that I began to fear she would collapse. I guided her inside to a cushioned bench, where she fell against my shoulder and allowed the sobs to claim her. When her will to weep actively was spent, she laid her head in my lap and hitched in a long series of uneven breaths until she finally dozed.

  I knew, though others might not, that there were no words to ameliorate her pain, no expressions of sympathy to soothe the ache that began in the moment of her loss and would never, if my own journey had revealed any truth, come to a proper end. What Madame needed was someone to sit silently by her side while she endeavored to empty her soul of its misery, which might seem to her a fruitless effort for a very long time. A similar kindness had been done for me in my own desperate hours, ironically by a bride of Christ who had entered into service (though voluntarily, unlike myself) when her husband died. She was known for her generosity and proved it with her gift of uncritical time to me; when the other ladies of the castle had no more patience for my weeping and lamentations, when even Etienne’s tolerance was growing brittle, she was the one in whose presence I could always find solace. She compelled me to enter the light I so dearly loved once again by simply refusing to allow me to vanish into the sweet, uncomplicated darkness that beckoned after Michel’s disappearance. To live in the light seemed too much then; I felt I would always wear the mark of unspeakable shame, one that would separate me from the fellowship of those who were not similarly scarred.

  I had convinced myself beyond all doubt that Michel’s disappearance must have been the result of some fault of mine, some dire failing, and that the tragedy could have been averted had I only been more vigilant, more attentive, a better mother, a hawk to my fledgling son. To believe that it had simply been a random occurrence, that God for some reason had spared Milord Gilles and had laid his hand upon my son instead, was too much to bear, for it took away all hope of safety in this world. It was so much more comforting to tell myself that there was a reason for it and that my own failure to be watchful was the cause. We must always find someone to blame, after all. But my dear sister in God made me understand that what He sets in motion cannot be altered, despite our desperate efforts to thwart His will with our own good actions. In time, I have been able to forgive myself to some degree, but it has been brutally slow in coming.

  My hand rested on Madame’s head; I half-expected to feel those same self-incriminations through her hair. I was determined to do for her what had been done for me so many years before, as we were but two links in a long, unbroken chain of sorrow. I sat while she slept, her head heavy in my lap, and considered how there were days when my own grief still felt fresh to me, though it was ancient to everyone else.

  When she finally stirred and raised herself up, her face was stained and streaked with tears and her eyes were pitifully swollen. With one corner of her apron I wiped away what wet remained. She stared at me as I did this, her eyes begging to know, Will this ever end? I wished I could have told her yes. But it would have been a lie.

  She got up from the bench and began to pace. I watched her in silence, though there were many things I wanted both to say and to ask. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky, though in and of itself this did not alarm me greatly—it was many months after my son’s death before my voice was firm enough to sound beyond my own ears. Etienne was always telling me to speak up, sometimes rather more brusquely than I thought kind. He seemed through the natural characteristics of his sex to recover more quickly than I did, though there was a hardness to him after Michel’s death. I could never seem to break through it entirely, the armor that men often put up around themselves to ward off deep emotions that do not serve them well in the tasks they are required to do, most especially the unsavory task of war. How can a man feel sorrow for the warrior whose head he must remove and still make the bloody cut? It would be impossible.

  “Your son, what was his name?” I heard her whisper.

  “Michel,” I answered. “La Drappiere.”

  I waited; she gave no indication that she knew me. After a few moments I said, “You do not remember me, then?”

  She looked at my face. “No,” she said. “I regret to say I do not. Do we know each other, Mother?”

  Of course we both looked very different—thirteen years takes its toll by the natural order of things. God does not want us to be as attractive as the younger widows, who might yet bear children and ought to have first claim on what men the wars have not taken. “We met now and again when my husband served at Champtocé, and I with him,” I told her.

  Though my fingers were stiff from Madame le Barbier having clutched them, I reached up and removed my veil. I set it on Madame’s table and smoothed back a few errant strands of hair.

  She looked at me, and slowly came the spark of recognition. “Madame la Drappiere,” she breathed. “Of course.”

  “Oui,” I said. “C’est moi. Once you called me Guille
mette.”

  “But . . . I would not have thought you—”

  —could tolerate a life of service in the church, I thought in my own mind. Strangely, that sentiment felt like a compliment.

  “It is not a life entirely of my choosing.” I clenched and unclenched my fingers a few times to restore the feeling to them. “My husband died from his wounds after Orléans.” I did not need to explain any further.

  Madame le Barbier shook her head slowly back and forth as she continued to sniff. “Well, at least you are provided for.”

  “That I am,” I said. “And I am not as lonely as I was in my last days in Milord’s service. Everyone I knew and cherished there—by then they were all gone. The abbey is a pleasant place where I can be useful; I am a confidante of his Eminence, who depends on me in small ways.”

  “Indeed. I saw that last night.”

  It surprised me to learn that she had observed anything in her state of distress, but once her memory was prompted by recognition, she began to recall other things as well.

  “I remember your son . . .” she said, “but he was older than what I would have thought him to be.”

  “You are thinking of my firstborn, Jean,” I told her. “He is—was—older than Michel. He is a priest now. In Avignon.”

  “A priest?” Her surprise was marked. “This was allowed?”

  Unthinkable, Etienne had said when Jean first voiced his desire to enter the priesthood. It will not be considered. You will soldier as I have. Let your brother, Michel, enter God’s service, as befits his secondary position.

  “He had no aptitude for the arts of war,” I said, “nor a whit of interest. . . .”

  Michel would gladly take up the sword. I beg you, Etienne, for the good of our sons, let Jean take the cloth instead.

  “It was a mountainous task, but I did manage to prevail upon my husband to allow Michel, instead of our firstborn, to be the one to learn weapons. In time he came to see that the arrangement suited them both well. Michel was only just beginning to practice with armaments when he—”