Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

  I hung the pendant around my neck and tucked it inside my flannel shirt. Then I opened FAM HIST, which proved to be the genealogy of the Craig family. But what was most interesting was the list of names typed underneath the chart: Lydia Craig, Rev. Peacedale, Geoffrey Craig, Bruce Craig, Bruce Craig, Jr., Shirley Craig. Could this be a cold-blooded inventory of everyone who stood between Lee and his aunt’s money? If not, why would Wyn’s name be noted on the Craig family page? If Wyn died, the money would be divided between Geof, Bruce, and Lee’s mother, Jean. Geof had no children, but if Bruce died, would his share pass to his children Bruce, Jr., and Shirley? A trust, perhaps? I would have to ask Heather, with her direct pipeline to the firm of Borer, Buckley, and Bangs.

  Did Lee intend to poison all of them so that the whole five million would belong to his doting mother?

  With a little thrill of fear, I brought up SCHOOL REC. Not “recreation,” but “recipes” from Basic Cooking 101, were typed into this file. The recipes were indexed by title. Scrolling down through Eggs Goldenrod, Sloppy Joes, and Gingerbread Cookies, I clicked on “Brownies,” and found not a cooking-class recipe but a recipe titled “Mom’s Brownies Plus.” What followed were the directions for preparing the bar cookies from a Baker Boy Mix, adding two tablespoons of artificial vanilla (ugh! too much) and three tablespoons of chocolate liqueur. The one more odd ingredient: half a cup of chopped “XXX.”

  I didn’t think “XXX” meant confectioner’s sugar. X for the unknown ingredient whose mousy smell would need masking with lots of vanilla and liqueur.

  What more would Stone need to bring a case against the boy? If only we could find him. But how would I explain my possession of this information? Well, I’d work that out later. Meanwhile, I printed out everything and stuffed the pages into an antique atlas of the world’s oceans.

  No sooner had I put the big, clumsy book back on its special shelf when the phone rang. It was Phillipa. “Cass! Please get over here fast! Lee’s taken the children.”

  “What! Taken? You mean…Deidre’s? All of them?”

  “No. Thank Goddess, Jenny and Baby Anne are safe. But he’s got the two boys and Fiona’s little girl. It’s like a hit from the Pied Piper.”

  “Holy Mother! Where’s Fiona?”

  “Outdoors screaming. As far as I can tell, she’s completely undone. So unlike her. Dee’s on the phone with the police, so I’m calling on my cell. I think Dee’s holding herself together by sheer nerve alone. We need you. Maybe you can zero in on where he’s taken them.”

  “See if anyone has a Valium you can pour into Fiona. Who was watching the children when this happened? Fiona or Deidre would never have…Even Jenny…”

  “Deidre’s mother-in-law, just for a few hours while Dee ran to the hospital. It seems that Will fell off the Craig mansion roof.”

  “Will hurt, too? What in the world was he doing there?” I was incredulous at this run of disastrous events.

  “Working with the town crew. Trying to remove the catalpa that caved in the roof so that they could cover it with a tarpaulin. Pryde’s trying to save the goods inside. Maybe Lee was watching for a break to grab the kids, and when Dee went flying out to the hospital, he took his chance.”

  “Did he take them away in the car?” I felt as if my heart had stopped. An earlier vision was surfacing in my consciousness. Some of the details had gone fuzzy. But I remembered the car, the screaming.

  “Yes. His mother’s green Volkswagen. Rather conspicuous. With the Amber Alert up and running, someone will surely spot that vehicle before he gets out of Plymouth.”

  “This is a clever boy. He’ll be allowing for that and stay off the main roads.”

  “Come quickly, then.”

  “We’re on our way. Better see if you can find Fiona’s pistol and hide it.”

  “I already looked. The reticule was full of arrowroot cookies, picture books, and child-care pamphlets. Apparently now that she’s a parent, Fiona’s had the good sense to lock that pistol away somewhere. Just as well. In her present state, she might start shooting up the neighborhood. See you soon, then.”

  By now Joe, who’d been fixing a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen, was leaning on my shoulder, listening intently to our conversation. I guess I had been screaming in an excited fashion. His brawny arm around my shoulders made for one secure place in a crazy world, but I couldn’t rest there.

  A few minutes later, we were hurtling along Route 3A toward Deidre’s house. Joe had insisted on taking the wheel of the Jeep, and a good thing, too, since I was in a strange, otherworldly state—beyond agitation, bordering on coma.

  “Why was Laura Belle at Deidre’s?” Joe asked.

  “It’s a shared babysitting deal. What I wonder is how Lee wormed his way in there.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “Right.” That vision I’d seen. The Volkswagen on top of a slope, water below, children screaming. And something else. What? Where? Who would know?

  My hand found the cell phone in my bag. I punched Tip’s number.

  “Hi, Cass. What’s up?”

  I told him.

  “If people hadn’t let that kid slime his way out of trouble so many times, maybe he wouldn’t have turned into a monster. We gotta stop that sonofabitch now.”

  “I knew you’d want to help. Maybe there’ll be some tracking down the line, I don’t know. Right now he’s driving his mother’s Volks. Do you think you could meet us at Deidre’s? The trouble is, Joe and I are almost there now and can’t turn back for you. Is it too far for your bike?”

  “Nah. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  We weren’t quite prepared for the scene of utter chaos around Deidre’s house. Police cars pulled up at all angles, the fire chief’s red car on the lawn, off-duty firemen’s SUVs, and, of course, all of us.

  “M&Ms had Valium. She took two and got Fiona to take one, also. I think it smoothed the edge off her hysteria, that’s all,” Heather warned me as soon we got in the door. “And then, to make matters worse, a few minutes ago Fiona took off in her Town Car to find Lee and the kids. She’s too agitated to dowse them effectively, though. Oh, and she left a message for you.”

  “What?”

  “Ironically, she said you should get control of yourself. Now what did she mean by that?”

  “I think I have an idea. But tell me, how’s Deidre?”

  “Cool as ice. I don’t know how she does it, but I’m betting there’ll be a nervous breakdown coming down the line. Personally, I’m clinging to the idea that we can stop Lee. I won’t be able to stand it if those children are harmed.” Heather was beginning to sound a little hysterical herself. “Anyway, you’ll find Dee in the living room, directing operations.”

  Joe had been standing on one foot and then the other, listening to all this. “I’ll go outside and see what I can find out. Maybe I can help.” That glint in his eye said “spoiling for action.”

  “Okay, but please don’t go off searching. We may want to follow some lead ourselves, and I’ll need you.”

  He nodded, then trotted outside to where a cluster of men huddled together, looking at a map.

  “Phillipa?” I asked.

  “Upstairs with Jenny and Baby Anne. Phil’s reading them stories. I have to say this is a side of her I’ve never seen. Jenny’s terribly upset, too. Apparently, M&Ms had just gone to get Baby Anne up from her nap. Jenny was supposed to stay downstairs with the other children but instead she followed to fetch some books. Lee came to the door at that fortuitous moment, with what ploy we don’t know, but the children went with him. They didn’t even put on their coats. M&Ms looked out the upstairs window and saw the Volks leaving the driveway with three little faces looking out the back window.”

  “Okay. I’m going to Dee. Tip’s going to be here soon on his bike. Tell him to find me. Somehow I’ve got the wild idea that he’s the key.”

  “Tip is the key?”

  “Well, maybe a key.”

  Deidre was s
itting cross-legged on the floor in front of the round oak coffee table, the phone in the crook of her neck, while she made notes on a pad of paper. Other pages of neatly printed notes were lined up on the coffee table. “Of course you can arrest them,” Deidre was saying in a tone of icy fury. “I demand you arrest those two women. They know where that miserable bastard has taken the children, I’m sure of it. Just let me get my hands on them. I’ll have the truth out of them.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes completely without expression. For a moment, I thought I was looking at one of the Stepford wives. Hoping to break the spell before she cracked in two, I held out my arms. Suddenly she put down the phone with a low cry of such anguish as I hope never to hear again, and she let me hold her. “How’s Will?” I whispered. Heather came into the living room, and I motioned her over to us.

  “Broken leg, cracked ribs, and concussion. Doesn’t have a clue. His buddies are all out on the roads looking for the Volks,” Deidre said, sobbing.

  “I’m going to try something. Here’s Heather, now. I want you to sit with her quietly, no more phone calls, while I go upstairs for a few minutes. I need to concentrate. I can do this, I know I can.”

  I nodded to Heather, and she took my place holding Deidre. Upstairs, I heard Phillipa’s voice reading aloud in the girls’ room. Baby Anne was laughing. I closed myself in Deidre’s workroom and sat in her rocking chair, surrounded by her handiwork, a phantasmagoria of dolls. They all seemed to be looking at me with beseeching eyes, as if I were Gepetto and could wish them into reality.

  I thought, If you have spirits, join with my spirit now in finding our children.

  A fronds-of-fern candle, one of Heather’s creations, was standing on the bookcase with a box of matches beside it. Exactly what I needed! I lit its wick and fixed my eyes on the light in the unthinking way that had often triggered clairvoyant episodes in the past. Always before I had been an unwilling participant, dragged into some fearful knowledge or frightening experience. Now I reached for the source of all-knowing love. I asked to return to the vision I’d had earlier—the car and the screaming children—then I allowed all thought to cease. The images seemed to form slowly, but it may have been only a few moments, because such episodes are as timeless as dreams.

  Again I found myself in a woodland setting looking down at an earthen track that sloped toward water. Ocean or lake? It rippled quietly in the sunshine. I could see boats moored below, some of them shining. Half-filled with freezing water. Wooden canoes with hand-hewn surfaces. It was all coming back to me. I tried to look around within the vision for some sign that would reveal where I was, but all I could see was a packed earthen path with dark pines looming overhead. Far at the end of that path, opposite the water, I caught sight of a kind of lean-to hut beside a campfire site, cold and lifeless. At that instant, the green Volks came sputtering up over the hill’s crest. This time I could see the driver and the passengers. It was Lee, no mistake, and the three screaming children were our children. The car screeched down the slope, heading toward the water.

  I shook myself out of the vision, feeling faint and nauseated. Then I realized that Tip was in the room with me. Had he opened the door without my even hearing him? “Put your head between your knees. I’ll get you a glass of water and be right back,” he said.

  I did as he suggested, and a minute later he was back with a glass in his hand. Sipping the cold water did help, but there was no time to waste. As if in answer to that thought, Joe came bounding up the stairs and joined us, looking at me with a worried expression, from which I gathered that I appeared somewhat wild-eyed. The Sibyl run amok.

  “I’ve seen the car, Lee, and the children, and I have this setting in my mind’s eye. I’m going to describe it.” The words tumbled out of me with great urgency. I needed to get everyone moving. But where? “Must be in Myles Standish State Forest, maybe somewhere near College Pond. I hope that what I saw has not happened yet and we still have time to stop him.”

  There was a drawing pad and colored pens on the table. Joe handed me paper and a blue pen. “Give me a green and a brown one, too,” I said.

  I talked, I drew. When I started to sketch the boats and tried to show how they were hewn, Tip cried out. “I know! I know! That’s not College Pond. That’s Eel River Pond. It’s Plimouth Plantation. Paw and me worked there some summers. Come on—I can take you to that exact spot, where they show how Indians made canoes out of logs.”

  The three of us raced down the stairs. Heather looked up startled as we clattered by. “Plimouth Plantation, Eel River,” I whispered hastily. “Tell Stone to send help—he’ll know how to handle things—avoid a tragedy. It won’t do to have that whole herd of firemen crashing in there, maybe panicking Lee. But keep Dee here—in case it’s bad. Oh, and don’t forget to send us some good white light.” With that, I ran after Joe and Tip, and we all jumped into the Jeep. Plimouth Plantation was only a few miles down Route 3A, closed for the winter, but that wouldn’t stop us.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I don’t think I took a full deep breath during that whole wild ride. At the speed he was traveling, it took Joe only a few minutes to reach the plantation. A steel gate obstructed the main entrance. Closed until March 27, the sign said. No trespassers. Police take notice. Without hesitation, Joe rerouted the Jeep off-road around the gate and rammed it through the bushes, following a track that appeared to have been made by past trespassers. Was that Lee’s work? Or had resourceful teenagers found their way in here earlier?

  “Take the right road at the fork.” Tip gave urgent instructions. “Up ahead it’s meant to be a footpath, but it’s probably wide enough for you to get the Jeep through. Yes, that’s it. Now bear left. The hill slopes down to the water where the dugouts are moored. They’ll be sunk for the winter, so the wood won’t crack—keeps them watertight.”

  Suddenly we were there, and Tip had been right, as I knew he must be. I was looking at the same scene I’d seen in my vision—the lean-to, the cold fireplace. Joe slammed to a stop at the track to the water, and we jumped out of the Jeep.

  As soon as I looked down the slope, I began to scream. The Volks was already in the river. The water was up to the windows. The children’s frightened faces were pressed against the glass, their cries soundless.

  At the same instant I was seeing this, Joe was already in motion, running for the water as if his clothes were on fire. Hard on his heels, Tip was shouting something. Without hesitation, Joe jumped into the river and struggled with the door of the Volks. Either it was locked or held tightly closed by the weight of water. Tip, behind him, was waving a dark object. The big, old hammer I keep under the floor mat in the Jeep in case I ever need to break a window myself. When Tip got close enough, he tossed the heavy object ahead of him and Joe grabbed it in midair. Then Joe pulled his jacket off, wrapped it around the hammer, and smashed the window.

  I could see the river water pouring into the Volks now. Still screaming, I was no help at all. Joe was still struggling with the door. Now he reached in through the broken glass and unlocked it. He and Tip together pulled it open. The children’s voices could be heard, choking and crying, so I knew they would live, praise Goddess. Joe came back out of the car holding Bobby and Laura Belle, one in each arm. He passed the children to Tip and half-waded, half-dove back for Willie. Now that river water was filling it, the Volks was sinking fast.

  My feet finally moved, and I rushed down the slope to take the children from Tip, then back to the Jeep to get the blankets I keep there for Scruffy. I would strip the drenched children and wrap them in the dry blankets, still warm from the car.

  Lee was standing in front of the Jeep! He was holding a tire iron and grinning at me. The smile didn’t reach his eyes; they were like ice.

  “Get away from us,” I said with all the authority I could muster. “You tried to drown these children, and I’ll see you prosecuted for it, and for all those poisonings as well. You’re a sick, sick boy.”

  “I was
trying to save the children, but you guys got in the way. I was going to break the windows with this iron.”

  “You grabbed those children with the intention of killing them,” I protested.

  “Hey, the kids begged me to take them for a ride. That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “Yes, it is, Lee. It’s called kidnapping.”

  He raised the iron in a menacing gesture. Bobby screamed, and I half-turned away to protect the children with my body.

  I felt rather than saw something rush by me like a streak of blurred colors. I looked back at Lee to see his gloating expression instantly changed to dismay. He dropped the iron and ran for the woods. Tip was running after him. Two boys who had contested with each other in track were now running for their lives, but I couldn’t watch. I was in the back of the Jeep wrapping up the children. Joe came running up with Willie. They were both wet right through, but Joe’s smile was triumphant. In the distance, we heard the sirens. More blankets, I thought. We need more blankets. And Joe needs to get out of those wet clothes, too.

  “Joe! Willie! Are you all right? Hear that noise, Willie? That’s help on the way. Oh, here, Laura Belle, you stay wrapped up tight now, and hold on to Bobby.” Laura Belle’s huge violet-blue eyes gazed at me fearfully. What further damage would this trauma do to the child’s psyche?

  Joe was looking around in surprise. “Where’s Tip? If he hadn’t brought that hammer, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

  “Lee,” I said. I couldn’t seem to talk very well. “Lee was here. Tip chased him into the woods.”

  “Which way?”

  I pointed, as just a minute later, I was pointing out the same route to the three uniformed cops who’d come in the squad car with Stone. One of them, a petite blonde who looked as if the gun at her belt might topple her over, stayed to help me comfort and warm the children while Stone and the other two raced after Tip and Lee. I noticed that Stone outdistanced the rest, his tall, rangy form seeming to melt through the trees effortlessly. For a scholarly type, he sure could sprint.