Bonnie

by Iris Johansen

  “We have a few more counselors to question,” Father Barnabas said. “I told you that we wouldn’t get much more help from the administrator.”

  And he had been correct. Max Daltrop had been pleasant, busy, and noncommittal, with the emphasis on busy. He had said that he had barely known Ted Danner but that he’d had good reports on him from the supervisors. Then he’d hesitated before requesting that they be careful about leaking any information about an alleged criminal who had acted as a counselor here. Joe couldn’t blame him. As far as he could tell, this camp did good work, and all it would take would be a hint of scandal to have a rush of bureaucrats pouring in to investigate closing it.

  The priest’s gaze was on Joe’s face. “Max is a good man. He’s trying to cooperate.”

  “I know. I won’t cause him any trouble unless I have to do it.” He looked down at his list. “We have three names left. Two supervisors, Bob Kimble, Dory Selznik, and a counselor, Ben Hudson.”

  “Suppose you take Kimble and Selznik, and I’ll take the counselor, Ben Hudson. I believe that might be the most efficient path.”

  “Why? Any reason?”

  “Ben Hudson is twenty but has the mental capacity of a child of ten. I have the background to deal with him.”

  “Ten? And he’s a counselor here?”

  “Why not? A job makes any man feel worthwhile. Max put him in charge of teaching weaving and leather crafts. He’s almost an expert at it, and he does a good job of showing the kids how to do it.”

  “And why does Daltrop think that we could get any information out of him? It doesn’t seem likely.”

  “You never know. Danner spent a lot of time with him while he was working here. The kid trailed around the camp behind him like a puppy dog.”

  Joe stiffened. “He did? Then that might mean he trailed him outside the camp.”

  “And it might not. Max thought that it could be possible. But he asked me to do the questioning.”

  Joe’s lips twisted. “Because he didn’t want me to be rough on one of his protégés? I’m not that much of a hard-ass. I don’t target problem kids.”

  “No, but you could be impatient. According to Max, Ben is kind of special. He doesn’t want him hurt. Ben’s had a rough enough life. His father is a thief and a drug runner who is in jail right now for hitting his landlady and knocking her down a flight of stairs. Ben tried to stop him and ended up at the bottom of the stairs, too. The father has a record a mile long and evidently only kept Ben with him to get welfare payments. The state took Ben away from him twice, citing abuse, but let him go back. Our wonderful DEFACS wanting to give a parent every break. Even when it breaks the kid.” He turned and headed for the door. “I’ll talk to you after you finish with Kimble and Selznik. I believe they’re in the mess tent.” The next moment, he’d left the office and was striding toward the tents.

  Joe didn’t move from the window, watching him as he reached a large tent on the perimeter and squatted beside a slim, sandy-haired young man sitting on a camp stool. The boy’s fingers were flying over a leather belt, and he looked up with a smile as Father Barnabas began to speak to him.

  Special, the priest had called him. Perhaps in more ways than one. That smile was joyously luminous and touched his face with a radiant gentleness. There was something vaguely familiar about that smile.…

  Then it came to him. It was reminiscent of the sketch of Bonnie that Eve had drawn and hung in the hallway of the house on Brookside. Strange that this boy would remind him of Bonnie.

  Perhaps not so strange. This boy, too, had been captured in forever childhood.

  He tore his gaze away and headed for the door. He was wasting time standing here staring at the kid, but there was something about him that had riveted him. Forget it. Ben Hudson seemed to be talking to the priest, and Joe should be heading toward the mess tent. He’d probably make much more progress questioning the two supervisors about Ted Danner.

  And perhaps a few questions about Ben Hudson.…

  * * *

  HE CALLED FATHER BARNABAS over an hour later. “I’m coming up with nothing. Neither of the supervisors had much to do with Danner. They both said that he was a loner and didn’t encourage company. They remembered he would go away almost every weekend, but they assumed he just liked camping. What about you? Did Hudson know anything?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe. I’m not sure. The kid is willing to talk about Ted Danner. He said that Ted is his best friend. It’s clear he cares for him.”

  “Then if he’ll talk, what’s the problem?”

  “He talks about how Danner taught him to make leather vests as well as the belts. He tells me how Danner played cards with him every night. Not what we want.”

  “What about Danner’s weekend trips?”

  “He says he doesn’t remember. He freezes up.”

  “Then he knows something.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t remember.”

  “And maybe he does. I’ll be over there in five minutes to question him.”

  “I’m staying while you do it,” the priest said quietly.

  “I’m not arguing.” His tone became mocking. “Maybe we can play good cop, bad cop.”

  “No bad cop. Not with this kid.”

  “That would be your answer regardless. I’ll see you.” He hung up. He could feel a tingle of excitement as he headed for the door of the mess. It might be a mistake to feel any stirring of hope. This was a special kid, and he might only be confused.

  But his every instinct was humming.

  * * *

  BEN HUDSON WAS INDEED a special kid, and he was not confused.

  Joe knew from the moment that the boy looked at him after the priest’s introduction that there was not confusion but a simple, almost pure, clarity about Ben Hudson. The impression was largely due to Ben’s wide-set blue eyes and that smile, which seemed to hold a kind of joyous wonder.

  “I’m very glad to meet you, Ben,” Joe said quietly. “I won’t take very much of your time, but I have to have some questions answered. You know I’m a detective?”

  Ben nodded tentatively. “Father Barnabas told me. That means you’re with the police. Are you going to put me in jail?”

  “Why would I do that? Have you done something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so. But my father used to say that he never did anything wrong but that the police were always after him.”

  “Why did they arrest him? What were the charges?”

  He shook his head vaguely. “Lots of things. Selling drugs, stealing stuff, hitting the woman who rented us the apartment. But he told the police he didn’t do any of it. That it was all lies.”

  “And you think he was telling the truth?”

  He looked away. “I wanted to believe it. Our landlady was a nice woman. She hurt herself bad when she fell down the stairs. I went to the hospital to see her.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “No. She cried. She told me to run away.”

  “And did you do it?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t leave my father. He needed me. He said it was a son’s duty to take care of his father. He wasn’t well and couldn’t work. But I was strong.”

  And the leech had fastened onto the kid and hadn’t let go.

  “Then how did you end up here?”

  “They took him away and put him in jail. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so my landlady found this place. Mr. Daltrop said I could stay for a little while.” He smiled. “That was eight months ago.”

  “Evidently, you earned a place for yourself if you managed to stay this long.”

  “They think I’m smart, that I do a good job. They like me here. Everyone likes me.”

  An entry.

  “Did Ted Danner like you?”

  His smile faded. “Yes.”

  Back off a little. “Why do you think that?”

  “He would come to my tent and talk to me. He taught me how to play checkers. He had a big knife, and he’d take me into the
woods and show me how good he could throw it. Sometimes, he’d let me go with him when he camped out.”

  Yes.

  “Where was that? Where did he go?”

  Ben moistened his lips but didn’t reply.

  It would have been too great a piece of luck if Ben had answered that question, Joe thought. “What did he talk about?”

  He frowned. “Just stuff.”

  “Not people?”

  “He talked about John. He liked him a lot. I think he was a relation.” He stopped, troubled. “I don’t want to talk about Ted. Do I have to do it? Will you arrest me if I don’t?”

  Say the words, and he’d get what he wanted. The boy would probably believe him.

  “No, I won’t arrest you. But why don’t you want to talk about him? He seems to have been very nice to you.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why, Ben?”

  “He told me not to talk about him,” he said in a low voice. “Before he left, he told me that I mustn’t tell anyone anything about— He told me not to say anything. So I can’t do it even if you put me in jail.”

  Don’t tense. Don’t show any sign of the excitement that was beginning to grip him, or the boy would sense it. “I’ve told you that I won’t put you in jail. I just wonder why he wouldn’t want you to talk about him when you said he was such a good man. Did he do something wrong?”

  “No.” He jumped to his feet. “I don’t want to talk anymore. I want you to go away.”

  “Joe,” Father Barnabas said.

  He was afraid Joe was going to browbeat the kid. He had to admit that he was tempted. The stakes were too high and the time too short.

  He couldn’t do it, not if there was any other way.

  “I can’t go away,” he told Ben. “I have to stay until you decide to answer my questions. If I don’t, then someone I love very much could get hurt. Your friend might hurt her.”

  “Ted? Ted wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t try to hurt him.”

  Joe jumped on that last sentence. “And did you see him hurt someone who did try to hurt him? Is that what you can’t tell anyone?”

  “I didn’t say that.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  Joe drew a deep breath. “Listen carefully, Ben. You don’t believe your friend, Ted, could hurt anyone. You may be right, but sometimes people can be kind to some people and unkind to others. Particularly if they’re sick inside. One minute they seem okay, then the anger comes.”

  Ben nodded. “Like my dad.”

  The boy had completely leapfrogged the explanation Joe had been trying to make. Try to bring him back around. “Was your father like that, too? Like Ted?”

  “No, not like Ted. Ted never hurt me. Ted said my dad didn’t have a right to hurt me. He said he wouldn’t let him do it again.”

  He stiffened. “Wait a minute. Danner knew your father?”

  “No, he only said that when I told him my dad was on his way here to take me away from the camp. He’d gotten out of jail and wanted me to go back and help him.”

  “But how would Danner stop him?”

  Ben shook his head. “He said he’d tell him to go away.”

  “And that would do it? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re wrong. My dad never came to see me here. Ted met him before he got here and made him change his mind. He made him go away.”

  Joe and Father Barnabas exchanged glances.

  “Have you heard from your father since then?” Joe asked.

  He shook his head. “But he might come back now that Ted has gone away.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that happening,” Joe said. He would leave it at that. The kid’s father was obviously a bastard who would use and abuse a boy like Ben, but the kid didn’t need to be made to feel any guilt about what had probably happened to him. “I think Danner probably frightened him away. That’s what I was trying to tell you about your friend, Ted. Sometimes, he can frighten people. If he frightened my Eve, she might try to run away and hurt herself. Some people deserve to be frightened, but not Eve. We have to find her and make sure that Danner doesn’t do anything to cause anything bad to happen to her.”

  Ben shook his head. “He told me not to talk about him.” He turned and went into the tent.

  “Very deftly handled. You were more diplomatic than I thought you’d be,” Father Barnabas said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’m not, I didn’t get what I needed. You thought I’d tear him up just to get what I want? Fate and life have done enough to that kid. For an instant, I was actually in full sympathy with Danner. I would have wanted to take down that bastard of a father, too.”

  Father Barnabas shook his head.

  “I didn’t expect you to agree,” Joe said. “But you’ll admit that Ted Danner could have been tempted to rid the boy of his father?”

  “I’ll admit that Ted Danner has many temptations, and it’s difficult for him to know how to handle them.” His gaze went to the tent. “But it appears that the boy could be a help to us. He’s more familiar with Danner than anyone here. I was surprised that he said Danner took him when he went camping. All those people we interviewed were right. Danner was always a loner.”

  “That’s what I’ve been hearing from everyone,” Joe said. “But maybe Ben didn’t represent a threat to him.” He remembered the boy’s luminous smile, which had reminded him of Bonnie’s in Eve’s sketch. It would have been hard for anyone to believe that smile hid anything threatening. “And Danner did have a relationship with Gallo when he was a boy. Perhaps he made some kind of connection.”

  The priest smiled. “You’re analyzing. Would it be too difficult for you to accept that God might have brought them together for a reason?”

  “But then that would mean that God wanted Danner to take out Ben’s father. Not exactly a merciful plan. How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t. God has many faces, and I wouldn’t presume. I just believe that it’s easier to look at the big picture than try to take it apart. Though I’ve noticed you have a mind that tries to decipher at every turn. Since God gave you that brain, it would follow that He wants you to use it.” He glanced back at Ben’s tent. “So what’s your next step?”

  “I go after him, I keep after him. There’s not much time. I have to find out where Danner is taking Eve.”

  “You’ll be careful?” His gaze never left the tent. “I have a … feeling about him.”

  And Joe knew what he meant. He’d been fighting that same protective instinct that Father Barnabas was experiencing. It was weird as hell. Ben was … unusual, like a light shining in the darkness. You wanted to make sure that light was never dimmed. In a way, that instinct was incomprehensible. The rough life the boy had evidently lived had never managed to extinguish that inner glowing. Why did Joe feel as if he had the responsibility of taking care of Ben? Was that what Danner had felt when he decided to guard the boy in his own lethal way?

  Dammit, he didn’t want to worry about this kid. He had to find a way to use him to find Eve.

  “I’ll be as careful as I can be.” He followed Ben into the tent.

  The boy was cutting lengths of suede and didn’t look up when Joe stopped before him. “Go away.”

  “I can’t do that. But I won’t try to persuade you to do what’s right. I’ll let Eve do that.” He reached in his pocket and drew out his wallet. “It’s hard to think of people if you only have a name. I thought you should have a face, too. This is one of my favorite photos of Eve.” He thrust the photo in front of Ben’s face. “It was taken at our home on the lake. She looks a little dreamy but there’s nothing really dreamy about her. She’s always thinking, always feeling. She had the dreams blown away a long time ago. I guess that’s why I like this picture. I want to give her back those dreams.”

  “Dreams? I have dreams.” His gaze was on the photo. “They used to be bad. But now it’s different.”

  “Is it? B
ecause your father went away?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He put down the strip of leather and took the photo and stared at her. “She looks … nice. I think I know her.”

  “You’ve probably just seen a photo of Eve. She’s in the papers a lot. She helps find lost kids.”

  He shook his head, his brow knitted with a puzzled frown. “No, that’s not right. I know her.” He gave Joe back the photo. “I’ll remember. Sometimes I forget things, but I always remember.”

  “You said she looked nice. She is nice, Ben. You don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “Ted wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “But he won’t let her go. What if she fights him? What if she can’t persuade him that she—”

  “You said that you wouldn’t talk about it.” He reached down and turned on his portable radio, and music suddenly blared. “I’m not listening to you.”

  “Then I’ll wait until you decide to do the right thing for Eve.” Joe set the photo on the bench beside the boy. He dropped down on the floor and crossed his legs. “But there’s not much time, Ben. Accidents can happen very quickly.”

  “I want you to go away.”

  “I can’t do that. She needs me. You have to help the people who need you. You have to do what’s right.”

  “Then stay. I don’t care.”

  “I believe you do, Ben,” Joe said gently.

  Ben lowered his eyes and began to work on his weaving.

  Would the photo of Eve do it?

  It was possible that it would. That photo moved Joe every time he looked at it. But Joe loved Eve, and she was a stranger to this boy.

  Yet he had said she was not a stranger. Who knew what went on in the mind of a boy like Ben? Joe could only hope and risk a little time. Far better than using force and brutalizing the boy as his father had done.

  But, as he’d told Ben, time was running out.

  CHAPTER

  13