His client did not have a good explanation for why she took out a $100,000 insurance policy on Joshua at the same time his medical problem started surfacing. When Will had questioned her about it in their previous conversation, her only response was that she’d thought the policy was only $10,000, the premiums were rather cheap, and the insurance broker was a friend, who was starting out in a new job. She thought she was doing him a favor. She honestly had no idea—or so she explained it to Will—that the face value of the policy was actually $100,000, not $10,000.
In addition to this, the forensic evidence from the scene showed hydraulic brake fluid in the kitchen and on Joshua’s cup. There were several potential explanations for how the toxic fluid might have accidentally ended up in the kitchen. Mary Sue might have had it on her hands, or detective Tracher and the other officers might have picked up some of the fluid while searching the garage and then inadvertently contaminated the kitchen. Or finally, the forensic lab might simply have been mistaken in its finding that the substance was hydraulic brake fluid and not something else. The latter option, while possible, seemed the least likely. And though detective Tracher might have contaminated the kitchen, it was very unlikely he would have thoughtlessly touched Joshua’s cup—a prime piece of evidence in such a case—with hands or gloves that had already been exposed to another substance.
That left only the first option—accidental exposure by Mary Sue. Up until now, Will’s client could not remember any instance, in the time frame shortly before Joe’s arrest, when she would have handled brake fluid on the farm.
Will considered the final piece of evidence was the most powerful. The Delphi Community Hospital had concluded that Joshua’s blood contained poisonous amounts of ethylene glycol, one of the main ingredients in hydraulic brake fluid.
Before driving out to the houseboat, Will had taken a side trip to this hospital. It was relatively new and surprisingly up-to-date for a small community. In the medical library, he’d done some preliminary research on ethylene-glycol poisoning. The results, at least initially, were not promising.
Ethylene glycol was most commonly associated with child poisoning by engine coolant—antifreeze. Will reviewed the Index Medicus, but a quick check revealed no medical-journal articles dealing with hydraulic brake fluid poisoning.
Will also knew that law enforcement officers would occasionally make errors by contaminating or misinterpreting forensic evidence. But as a general rule, the rate of error among medical personnel was even smaller. Personally, he had found that particularly true when the evaluation was done, not by a lab technician, but by the chief pathologist.
According to the affidavit of Dr. Parker, the pathologist, the levels of ethylene glycol in Joshua’s blood could not be accounted for by incidental exposure, such as a small amount of brake fluid on the fingers, that was then ingested by a child. The amount consumed had to be substantial in order to account for the levels he had measured in Joshua’s blood sample.
Will’s concentration was interrupted as he crested a hill. The road dropped down steeply to a sloping boat ramp at the lake. A sign off to the right read simply “Private Piers.” Will turned right and glanced quickly at his scribbled directions. Coming to the third landing, he slowed down and saw a houseboat. He pulled into the short driveway that dead-ended where the aluminum pier began.
The houseboat was a simple affair with a walk-around deck and square living quarters in the center. There was a small wheelhouse on top. Parking his car, Will boarded the houseboat and looked out over the lake. It was clear, with a cloudless sky, and the lake was a deep blue. As a light breeze rippled over the water, Will took a minute to gaze out, listen to the lapping of the water, and enjoy the gentle swaying of the pine trees that rimmed the lake.
It all took him back to his days as a boy, when he would spend his summers on a lake in Maine. His father, an editor of a Massachusetts newspaper, would come up to the little cabin and join Will and his mother on Thursdays and then leave again on the train the following Monday.
Though Will was just a “summer kid,” over the years he’d developed close relationships with the “townies.” He would spend his summers fishing, hiking through the white-pine forest, or hanging out at the little log-cabin store.
Somehow the houseboat on this lake was bringing those idyllic summers back to him. This, he thought to himself, was a beautiful and peaceful place to spend his time while he was preparing for Mary Sue’s case.
After a few minutes, he unlocked the door and brought in his bags. He’d just begun unzipping them, when the phone rang. Picking up the phone, he recognized Mary Sue’s voice at the other end. No doubt she’d been relayed by his office.
“I heard you’re staying on a houseboat—that sounds nice. Eden Lake?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s beautiful out here. How are you and Joshua doing?”
“Pretty good, considering the circumstances. He’s not throwing up nearly as much, and he’s eating a little bit better. I’ve tried to keep a diary of what we’re feeding him out here—it might be different. Maybe that’s a factor.”
“Are you going to get him to a doctor soon?”
There was a pause. “I’m working on that.”
Will knew that his time was running out regarding Judge Mason’s order, and he had to confront Mary Sue about it.
“I’ve been ordered to discover your location and reveal it to the court, or to produce you and Joshua to the authorities.”
There was a silence on the other end for close to a minute.
Finally Will spoke.
“Mary Sue, I can’t encourage you or assist you to disregard an order from the court, no matter what my personal feelings may be about the inappropriateness of that order. Will you tell me where you are, or will you surrender yourself and Joshua to the court or to the police?”
Mary Sue sighed at the other end and cleared her throat. When she spoke her voice was quiet but firm.
“Will, I can’t do that. I’m absolutely innocent. Joshua has some medical problem that is not going to be diagnosed properly if they grab him from me and put him in a foster home. You are simply going to have to prove my innocence so I can return. I want my family back together again. I want my husband out of jail…” At that point Mary Sue’s voice began trembling.
“You realize how difficult this is going to be for me? Your case is going to be hard to defend with an empty chair next to me in court rather than my client.”
“I know that, Will. But I have to do what is right. I have to do what I believe God wants me to do. I have to take care of my son and my family. Just protect me, please. Be my defender. Deliver me out of the hands of those who are after me.”
In the background, Will could hear the sound of an occasional car or truck roaring past his client. It sounded as if she were at a phone booth on the highway somewhere.
He glanced down at the phone and suddenly noticed it had caller ID. He saw an area code on the display.
His heart sank.
“Mary Sue, I want you to listen very closely to this next question.” Then he thought through what he was going to ask her.
“This phone has caller ID,” Will said. “I see your area code right here in front of me, as well as the number. Are you instructing me not to divulge your whereabouts to the court? Are you demanding that I withhold that information?”
“I can tell by what you’re saying—by your voice—that this is an important decision, isn’t it?” Mary Sue replied. “What I tell you next is going to have an impact on you, isn’t it, Will?”
“I’m not the issue here—you and Joshua are. I need you to tell me straight—what is your decision?”
“Okay, then.” There was another pause, and then Mary Sue gave Will his marching orders.
“Will Chambers, you are my attorney. I am instructing you not to tell the court anything about my telephone number or where I called from, or where I might be located. That’s my order to you.” She paused and then add
ed, “And may God help you when you deliver that message to the judge.”
Will then said his goodbyes and hung up. He thought of the old black-and-white adventure shows he’d watched on Saturday mornings as a child. The ones where the hero is caught in some forbidding dungeon—and the walls are being cranked closer and closer together as the hero holds his hands and feet out in a vain attempt to stop the slow, massive pressure of inevitable doom.
Head down, he stepped out onto the deck of the houseboat and put his hand on the railing. Feeling the breeze from the lake wash over his face, he looked up. Off in the distance, a gull flapped its wings, then dove down into the water, grabbed something with its beak, and accelerated up with aerodynamic ease.
Will sensed the walls slowly grinding in toward him. If he were going to escape, he would have to learn how to fly. Somehow—some way—he needed to find some wings.
17
INSIDE THE CORRAL, Tommy White Arrow was leading a pinto stallion by a rope around the inside of the ring. On its back, a young woman with blond pigtails was studiously erect and poised in the saddle. Her mother, on the outside of the ring, was watching her intensely.
On the other side of the corral, about forty feet away, Mary Sue Fellows was sitting on the ground with Joshua cuddled in her lap. Her son was staring, bug-eyed, at the horse in the ring. His little arms were raised up as if grasping the reins and were bouncing methodically with the movement of the horse. Though his dad ran a few head of cattle on his farm and once had had some goats, Joshua had had very limited contact with horses. But since he and his mother had come to the ranch, Joshua had been enthralled with those of Tommy’s.
Mary Sue turned and noticed the tall, lanky frame of Andrew striding toward her. Katherine was next to him, along with Danny, who was doing “cat’s cradle” with his yo-yo. Suddenly he blurted out, “Yogi’s Pizza—It’s Better than Yum!” Andrew smiled and explained it to Mary Sue. “That’s the newest one Danny heard on TV. Now he’s doing it ten times an hour!”
“Mary Sue, why not let Joshua go with Danny to get a closer look?” Katherine asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“Oh, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Mary Sue replied. “I don’t think that Tom appreciates us watching him.”
“Don’t let Tommy’s gruff ways fool you,” Andrew said. “He’s like a cactus—prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside when you get to know him.”
“If you’d like, I’d be glad to keep an eye on him so he can stand next to the corral and watch Tommy work with the horses,” Katherine suggested.
Joshua’s face lit up, and he shouted out, “By the horses, Mommy!”
Mary Sue smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and nodded to Katherine, who scooped Joshua up and walked with him to the training ring, with Danny close behind.
Andrew reached down and helped Mary Sue up off the ground. He suggested they go sit down at a picnic table that was about a hundred feet away. Mary Sue could tell that there was something on his mind.
“How’s Joshua doing?” he asked.
“All things considered, very well. He’s eating better, he’s not throwing up as much, even though he’s still running a low-grade fever. But he’s very happy—although he asks for his daddy a lot.”
“There’s a doctor in town—he’s semiretired and runs the medical mission for the reservation. Dr. Kendoll. He’s a very learned man, the kind that really loves to try to solve medical mysteries. You ought to take Joshua in to see him.”
Mary Sue looked skeptical but nodded politely.
“I bet you miss your husband too,” Andrew added.
“Very much. I’ve just realized that in the years we’ve been married, this has been the longest we’ve ever been separated. I long for the sound of his voice. His hugs. His sense of humor. His strength. And now I can’t even call him or talk to him.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought about the future—what you’ll do depending on how the case turns out,” Andrew commented, obviously moving toward a point.
“Sure. I think about that all the time. And I go back and forth. I can’t stand to be separated from Joe. This has to end soon. But I’m terribly worried about Joshua and a legal system that seems to be blind to the truth. I can’t allow them to steal my baby away from me. I don’t care what their motives are—I don’t even care why they did what they did. I will not allow them to take Joshua away.”
Andrew was quiet for a minute. He and Mary Sue watched Tommy while he exerted his expert control over the horse with the young woman rider. Then Andrew spoke up.
“My brother Tommy says something about the horses he breaks. He says that all wild horses first look at every human as just another predator. They look at you and size you up, and they try to determine whether you’ll attack them—whether you are an enemy.”
Mary Sue studied Andrew’s face as he pressed his lips together. He thought a moment before he continued.
“But once a horse decides you’re no longer a predator, they’re willing to accept you as a friend. I think that’s a little bit like you, Mary Sue. You feel that the legal system—that the police and the lawyers and the judges are all predators. You see them as the enemy because they came after your child and they’re coming after you. Maybe that’s so, but there’s a big difference between you and that pinto in the ring.”
Mary Sue tilted her head a bit and smiled thoughtfully. She had an idea where Andrew was going.
“You are a child of the great God. You can’t just divide the world into friends and foes. It isn’t like that. You know what I’m saying. You love Joshua—I watch you with him and I know that in my head, my heart, and in my soul. All of us here know that, even Tommy. He watches you, and he sees the way you want to protect your son. But you have to take your orders from the King of heaven. God says to trust him. And he also says, with only a few exceptions, that you must obey the laws of the government, because he has established government and laws.”
Mary Sue’s face became animated. “When Peter and the other disciples were forbidden by the religious establishment of their day from preaching the gospel—did they obey that law? No! They continued to preach and to teach boldly, in the marketplace, in the streets, everywhere. Some laws cannot be obeyed,” Mary Sue declared.
“I know that well,” Andrew responded. “In the comparative religion class that I teach, we study how the various religions answer this simple question: How should I live my life? Every religion has beliefs and principles, and many—if not most—have a sacred text that the believers accept as binding and authoritative. But there is one difference with Christians.”
Mary Sue had narrowed her eyes, and they were riveted on Andrew.
“Only the Christian has the indwelling Spirit of the great God. Like the reins on a horse, the more trained you are by the Holy Spirit in obedience to God, the less he has to yank your head or snap the reins against your haunches. Read his Word—study it—keep your mind and your heart pure. Listen to the quiet voice of his Spirit within you. Be prepared to take chances. Be ready to be surprised by the High King of the universe.”
The two of them fell quiet as they continued to watch Tommy work the pinto. Joshua was standing on the fence, with Katherine grasping him tightly from behind. As Tommy strode past, without breaking so much as a glimmer of an expression he swept the cowboy hat off his head and plopped it on top of the head of a delighted Joshua. Joshua whirled his head around to show his mother and waved wildly, grinning hugely with joy and excitement.
Mary Sue waved back energetically and then threw him a kiss. Then she clasped her hands, prayerlike, in front of her mouth, and bent her face against them. She closed her eyes and sighed. Andrew reached across the picnic table and put his right hand over her hands, enclosing both of hers in his palm.
“Your husband, Joseph, gave me his blessing—to be your protector, along with Will Chambers, in his absence—until he is released from jail. That is what I will do,” Andrew said. “You are like family here. But
we always tell the truth to family. We don’t always agree—but we tell the truth.” He rose and walked back to his cabin.
Mary Sue knew how a simple decision could change everything. She could make one phone call—and Joshua would be apprehended and placed in a foster home, and she would be placed in jail. Perhaps it was her lack of faith that was keeping her from making that phone call.
Or—on the contrary—was she obeying some greater call from God? She could not resist the conviction that a process had been set in motion by dark forces that she neither understood nor was able to deter. She knew that the legal system, the social workers, and police all had their roles. As a nurse she had seen abused and neglected children—children with cigarette burns, and malnourishment, and severe, unexplained fractures. She was repulsed by the thought that any adult could victimize a helpless child.
But this was different. Now she felt like the victim. Though innocent, she felt incapable of stopping the great, grinding machine that seemed inclined to deprive her of her son and find her guilty of a crime she had not committed.
Was she lacking in faith? If Daniel, the prophet of the Old Testament, was willing to face man-eating lions, what right did she have to resist confinement in a jail and a trial on criminal charges?
Then Mary Sue’s thoughts turned to Will Chambers. She knew that she had placed Will in a dilemma. In two days—unless she changed her mind—her lawyer might be defending her cause from the inside of a jail cell.
18
SO THE BOTTOM LINE, Joe Fellows, is that you really don’t know where your wife, Mary Sue, is, or your child, Joshua?” Crystal Banes asked.
Joe Fellows squinted under the glare of the camera lights that had been set up in the jail conference room. Spike, the cameraman, stood with his shoulder-mounted camera pointing at the imprisoned man. Joe thought about the question and then answered.
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