Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Sandi reached out and squeezed Donna’s trembling fingers. Donna grasped Sandi’s hand, and awkwardly, gratefully she pressed it to her lips.

  “At least my waiting is over,” Sandi said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Paulina shook the hand of the priest, who stood in foyer of the Henson mansion. “Thank you for coming, Father. I know you’re trying get to to ready leave…”

  Nick shook his head. “It’s all right, Paulina. I wasn’t getting much accomplished anyway.” He thought of Maddy in his arms, their brief embrace that had made him feverish with anxiety. After she had left, he had tried to continue his packing, but it was hopeless. “I welcomed your call,” he said truthfully. He had been grateful for an opportunity to get out of his own head, to get away from his shameful thoughts and try to minister to others as he had promised to do when he took his vows.

  “I haven’t been able reach to her husband. He’s a lawyer and he’s out of the office. So I thought of you. She’s not a Catholic, Father. But she’s a soul in torment if ever I saw one. I thought maybe you could talk to her. You have a good way with people. I’ve come to with my problems you often enough.”

  Nick smiled. “I’ll happy to try. You say she lost her son?”

  “It was many years ago, and she had a breakdown afterward. It’s always been difficult, but this time…It seems like there’s a burden that’s crushing her. I’ve found so in my help faith. I’m not trying to force her to believe anything, but I don’t know any other way to comfort her. I told her I was going to call you, but she didn’t seem to hear me. When she sees you she may just tell you to get out and leave her alone.”

  “She won’t be the first one,” he said with a smile. “All we can do is offer our help.” He gestured for her to lead the way, and Paulina started up the wide staircase ahead of him.

  “That went pretty well,” Doug said cheerfully, loosening his tie. He was seated in a leather chair, next to a mahogany desk in Charles Henson’s office at Henson, Newman and Pierce. The offices were in a handsomely renovated Queen Anne-style house across from the public library; Charles’s private office boasted a fireplace with an ornate mantel, Persian carpets, and Tiffany-style lamps scattered around.

  Charles, who was in the process of opening his briefcase, stopped and stared at his client, who had one arm tossed comfortably over the back of the leather chair. Of course he understood Doug’s relief. Julia Sewell had been unable to identify him in the lineup, and though the police had threatened to produce other witnesses, apparently they did not have any at hand. After Charles threatened a lawsuit for harassment, the police had let him go.

  “I’d keep that tie tight if I were you,” Charles said coolly. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Doug’s self-satisfied expression vanished as he straightened in the chair and fixed his tie. Charles chided himself for sounding so harsh. The young man had every reason to be relieved. Charles wondered if maybe his own anxiety was coloring his attitude. He heard the phone ring in the outer office and wondered if his secretary was back to pick it up. She had not been at her desk when they’d come in. Automatically Charles tensed up, wondering if Paulina was calling. But the light went out on the phone line after a moment, and Charles resumed the hunt through his briefcase.

  “What do you mean, not out of the woods?” Doug asked warily.

  “Well, when we went down there earlier, we had a missing persons situation. Now it’s murder,” he said, referring to the fact that Rebecca’s body had been found. “Chief Cameron would like nothing better than to drag you down there again. He’s got his sights set on you.”

  “Did you mean what you said about filing the harassment lawsuit?” Doug asked.

  Charles tapped his Mont Blanc pen absently on the curving leather arm of his chair. “I think we may have to. As sort of a preemptive strike. Just so he knows he can’t keep dragging you down there for whatever develops.”

  “Are we talking a lot of money?” Doug asked eagerly. “Do you think we can win?”

  Charles could practically see dollar signs lighting up in Doug’s eyes. “Doug, we’re not talking about winning the lottery here. These suits can drag on through the courts for years. So far, we haven’t got a strong case.”

  “But that picture was so vague it could have been anybody,” Doug said indignantly.

  “On the other hand, it could have been you. It did look like you. It’s not as if the witness described a short, bald, swarthy man…”

  “She didn’t recognize me,” Doug protested.

  “No, she didn’t. Let’s hope that’s an end to it.”

  “Well, then why did you say that about the lawsuit?” Doug asked, disappointment in his tone.

  “You have just been exonerated from some extremely serious charges, and you are trying to rehabilitate your reputation. We all know how the papers will trumpet a man’s disgrace and give only the slightest lip service to his exoneration.”

  “That’s the truth,” Doug said.

  “Now, you suddenly find yourself back in the headlines, back on the TV news, and if it’s merely because this chief of police is having trouble accepting the fact that his daughter lied about you…”

  “That’s how I see it,” Doug said.

  “Well, a lawsuit may be the only recourse we have to fight back. I mean, if he intends to pillory you.”

  “So we probably should go for it,” Doug said.

  “No. Actually I’m hoping that the threat of it will be enough to bring the man to his senses. I’m hoping that from now on he will leave you alone. You don’t want to drag your family through any more of this, do you?”

  Doug chewed his lip absently. “No…”

  Charles glanced at his watch and then at the telephone.

  Doug spread his hands wide apart. “But I don’t see what else I can do. How else am I going to stop him from hauling me in there every time some teenage girl thinks she hears a noise on her front porch? I’m like the bogeyman now. I want to put a stop to this. I can’t imagine how a lawsuit could be any worse for my wife than this.”

  Charles sighed. “Well, as I said, I’m hoping that a word to the wise will be sufficient. If not, we have to weigh our options. You have to realize that if we get involved in a lawsuit against the police department, you’re going to find yourselves under a microscope for the foreseeable future. I know that Maddy was looking forward to everything getting back to normal.”

  “But it isn’t normal,” Doug insisted. “It isn’t normal to be dragged down to the police station at the chief’s whim. Maddy will understand that.”

  “Agreed,” said Charles, feeling a little exasperated. “But threatening the lawsuit is a tactic that may prevent that from happening. So far, the chief is not out of bounds on this.” He leaned toward Doug. “A girl is dead. A baby is still missing. He has to try everything, do everything he possibly can, no matter whose feelings get hurt. You file a lawsuit right now just because you had to answer some questions and I guarantee you, you’re going to look like Public Enemy Number One.”

  Doug slumped back in his chair. “All right,” he grumbled. “I suppose you’re right. For now.”

  The phone buzzed on Charles’s desk and the attorney jumped. “Excuse me a second,” he said. When he picked up the phone his secretary told him that Paulina was calling. “Put her through,” he said.

  Doug peered at a broken fingernail on his right hand and seemed lost in thought as Charles listened to the shrill voice of his housekeeper.

  “How is she?” Charles asked. “Is she all right?” He listened for a moment and then said, “I’m on my way.” He put down the receiver carefully in the cradle and stood up. “Doug, you’ll have to excuse me. I have to go. Right now.”

  Doug stood up awkwardly and extended his hand. “I just want to thank you again, Charles.”

  Charles shook his hand briefly and pushed past him toward the door. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said. Doug took the hint and hurriedly p
receded him out of the office.

  Charles raced for home, dodging the sluggish rush-hour traffic, risking a speeding ticket whenever he found a straightaway. He did not put on the radio or his CD system. His nerves could not stand the extra input. He concentrated on driving the quiet car and tried not to give in to panic. He tried to tell himself that nothing was wrong, but a little niggling voice inside of him knew better.

  Last night he’d noticed that the old rusty padlock on the playhouse door was in the trash and had been replaced with a shiny new one. Flakes of paint on the walkway indicated she had been scraping the clapboards in the front. She’d said everything was fine. He knew she wasn’t fine. He’d known it for days.

  Charles reached home and pulled the Mercedes behind Ellen’s red Jeep and a black Buick that he didn’t recognize in the drive. He threw open the front door and called for Paulina as he tossed his briefcase on the marquetry-inlaid hall chest. The homey smell of cinnamon and apples baking filled the elegant house.

  Paulina emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel and shaking her head. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “Father Rylander’s up there with her right now.”

  “Father Rylander? Who’s that?”

  Paulina motioned for him to come into the study. He followed her into the darkly formal room. Heavy silk drapes and custom-made bookshelves lined the walls. An arrangement of mums, day lilies, and asters on the library table provided a burst of color against the mullioned windows. “Father Rylander is my priest,” Paulina explained.

  “Is she all right?” Charles demanded. “Why is there a priest here?”

  “I couldn’t reach you at first. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had a heck of a time finding her. I drove all over looking for her. You know, the places she goes. There aren’t too many.”

  Charles understood what she meant and nodded. He briefly laid a hand on the housekeeper’s sturdy shoulder. “Thank God for you, Paulina.”

  “When I couldn’t find her, I was about to give up and head for home. Then I spotted her car on the River Road. Parked on the shoulder.”

  “What was she doing on the River Road?” Charles asked.

  Paulina frowned. “She said she was looking for that cat. The one she gave the people the other night. I found her in the woods there, down on her hands and knees. She’s all scraped up.”

  “They were in an accident and the cat ran away,” Charles explained.

  “She said something about that,” said Paulina.

  “What was this you said on the phone about the children’s shop?” he asked.

  “When we got back, someone called from the children’s shop and said she left her wallet there this morning,” said Paulina.

  Charles shrugged impatiently. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe she had to buy a shower gift or something.”

  Paulina shook her head. “The girl at the shop told me that she bought about five outfits.”

  “Sometimes she’s extravagant,” he protested, casting about in his mind for someone they knew who might be needing such a gift.

  “She told the girl that the clothes were for a baby—named Ken.”

  Charles felt as if something icy had been poured down his back.

  “I found this in her car,” said Paulina. She held up a shopping bag with “Precious Littles” written on it in florid script and white curling ribbon cascading from the handles. “It was empty. She had it hidden under the seat of the car. When I asked her about it, she got angry and said she didn’t know what I was talking about. Then she went upstairs.”

  Charles turned away from the housekeeper and stared through the mullioned windows out at the property behind his house. Ellen’s gardens were dead now. Only the occasional burst of pink or scarlet showed through the brown leaves where a bunch of impatiens persisted or an errant rose still clung to the bare branches of its bush. In the midst of her gardens stood the playhouse, dark and still, with its empty windowboxes, its peaked roof, and its peeling clapboard sides, large enough for a covey of children to play in. Empty, sad, going to ruin. Charles felt his eyes well up as he looked out and saw a briefly shining past darken in front of his eyes.

  “Oh, Paulina,” he whispered. “What is happening to her?”

  Paulina stood up and briskly wiped her hands on the tea towel. “You’d better go up to her. I thought she might get mad that I’d called the priest, but he’s been up there with her for a while.”

  Charles nodded as he went out into the foyer and looked up the staircase. Religion. That was Paulina’s answer to everything. And it seemed to have worked well enough for her and her family. But Ellen had not been to church since the day of Kenny’s funeral. He sighed as he climbed up toward the second floor where their bedroom was.

  He accepted his wife’s foibles. He knew better than anyone else how she had suffered. He had suffered, too. But he had gone back out into the world, into the fray, because he had to. They had a house and a life to support, and he had work to do. Ellen had made her life here, around this house, with their son, and so here she had stayed. After a while he had tried to nudge her out, but she’d insisted that she was all right as she was. After a long while it began to seem that she was all right. Not perfectly normal. But who among us is perfectly normal? he said to himself.

  As Charles reached their bedroom door, it opened, and Father Rylander emerged.

  “Father?”

  “Mr. Henson?” said Nick, extending his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve been talking to Ellen. She sings your praises.”

  Charles frowned. “Did she say…did you get any idea of what’s troubling her?”

  Nick hesitated. “I’m a stranger to her, of course. We talked a little bit about how God gives and God takes away, and how difficult it all is to understand. I don’t know if it was any help to her.”

  “Thank you for coming, Father,” said Charles.

  “I was glad to come.” Nick squeezed Charles’s arm encouragingly as he passed him in the hallway. Then he started down the stairs.

  Charles hesitated outside the bedroom door. In this room they had lived much of their life together. In the beginning they had laughed and loved, then mourned, and often escaped. Now he was filled with fear. There was no denying the turn she had taken. He could manage everything else, except that…. He didn’t even allow himself to think it. He pushed open the door and looked in.

  She was lying on the bed, curled up in a fetal position beneath the satin comforter. He tiptoed in. She turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes looked dark and fearful.

  “Sweetheart?” he asked. “Are you okay? I just met Father Rylander in the hall.”

  “He was very kind,” she said.

  “Yes, he seemed so.”

  “I couldn’t find the kitten,” she said.

  He came over to the bed and sat on the edge beside her. He reached out and ran his hand gently over her mass of luxuriant, graying curls. He remembered when they were golden. “It’s all right,” he said reassuringly. “It will be all right.”

  He knew he had to bring up the children’s shop. He tried to phrase it delicately. “I’ll go pick up your wallet tomorrow at the children’s shop,” he said.

  Ellen turned her head away. “They must have found it on the street,” she insisted. “I stopped at a newsstand outside the store. Paulina thought I was in the children’s shop. What would I be doing in a children’s shop?”

  What about the bag? he wanted to cry out. Where are the clothes? Why would the salesgirl lie? He kept silent. A relentless interrogator in the courtroom, he sat still on the bed and said nothing. He did not want to eviscerate what was left of his hope by forcing her to answer.

  Ellen turned back and gazed at his gray head, his troubled countenance. She grabbed his large, strong hand in her own fragile, weathered one. “I’m sorry, Charles,” she whispered. “It’s just that I’m afraid. I’ve never been so afraid
in all my life.”

  Charles stroked her hair with his free hand. His own heart shrank from the meaning of her words. “Why are you afraid?”

  She hesitated, then decided not to speak. She lay there, shivering under the warm quilt.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he crooned. “Try and rest. Nothing at all.” His voice was calm and soothing. His heart, however, was saying, Please God, not this. Haven’t you taken enough from me? Please, oh, please. Not this, too.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The following morning Doug and Maddy stood in their driveway, shivering in the day’s early chill, watching Amy gather up a bouquet of autumn leaves. Doug sighed. “What a long night,” he said.

  Maddy sipped from her coffee mug and stared out over the rim at their peaceful neighborhood. Another night of lying awake listening to Sean’s fussing and wailing had left dark circles under her eyes. She and Doug had lain side by side, neither one sleeping nor acknowledging the other’s wakefulness. She knew he blamed her for the miserable night. She didn’t want to discuss it.

  “So where are you off to?” she asked.

  “I’m going to goo over to the garage,” he said, “and see if their car is ready. They said they’d have it this morning.”

  Maddy nodded. “They got ours back to us right away. Let’s hope they do the same with theirs.”

  “I’m going to stand over them until it’s done,” said Doug grimly. “I can’t take another night of this. I have to start work again tomorrow, Maddy. We need to get them out of here so I can get some rest.”

  “I know,” said Maddy.

  “Its going to be hard enough walking back into that school. Trying to ignore the stares and the whispers. As if things weren’t bad enough, now they haul me in and grill me about that missing kid and the baby-sitter. You think the whole school’s not going to be talking about that?” Doug shook his head. “I’ll tell you, Maddy, I look forward to bringing that lawsuit against the police. I am sick and tired of being their whipping boy.”

  “You were vindicated,” Maddy said tonelessly.