Harriet had said, “Did you have to threaten them with a shotgun? They were wearing suits and ties, and they were with Hercel. It’s crazy to think they were burglars.”
That’s when he’d slapped her. He hadn’t even warned her first, hadn’t shown his anger. And her anxiety, which had been growing for several months, grew worse.
After Howard Phelps fired him, Carl had taken work closing up, caring for, and repairing half a dozen houses in Hannaquit once their owners had left at Labor Day. He also began working for Hamilton Brantley, mostly as a handyman, but whatever Carl did, he didn’t like it. But whether it was Brantley he didn’t like or the fact that Carl was around other people or because he was squeamish about working at a funeral home, Harriet didn’t know.
So it was in August that she began to see a change. He’d grown quieter on one hand and short tempered on the other. They hadn’t spent as much time together, perhaps because she had been busier with other work once the kids were in school. Lucy had started kindergarten and hadn’t decided if she liked it. At least twice a week, she’d say, “I’ll go today, but I don’t want to go tomorrow.” Harriet talked to her, even tried to bribe her, saying she’d take her to the park or to a movie or they’d have macaroni and cheese for dinner. Lucy was strong-willed, like her father, but that was another story. Hercel was easier and could amuse himself. But his very independence had come to worry Harriet. He didn’t seem interested in having friends and spent too much time alone.
When she thought how good everything had been even in June, it made her weep. Carl had been happy; they’d all gone to the beach. Even though he didn’t spend a lot of time with the children, he seemed to like them, and she hoped he would grow to love them. Then she realized when she first noticed the change. It was when Carl told Hercel he must call him Mr. Krause.
Harriet had protested, but Carl said he needed it as a sign of respect. When Harriet continued to protest, he got angry in a way she hadn’t seen before: accusing her of being a bad mother, of letting the kids get away with stuff, though he didn’t say what kind of stuff. A few days later he had apologized, but it wasn’t long after that they stopped having sex. And it had been so good before then! Some weeks after that he had begun to sleep upstairs, first making excuses—she was too restless in the night; she woke him with her snoring—but soon he didn’t even bother making an excuse. And when she had asked him what had gone wrong, asked what made him so angry and secretive, he had said, “Look in the mirror and ask yourself the same question.” It made no sense to her.
But tonight that’s what she was doing, asking herself what had gone wrong. Not that she was doing it on her own. After Carl slapped her, she had called her best friends, Anita Barr and Amy Calderone. They both said the same thing: “Call the police.”
Harriet argued that Carl might change, that the first year had been great and she couldn’t believe the wonderful man she had married had vanished completely.
“He won’t talk to you,” said Anita. “He’s short-tempered with the kids and he sleeps upstairs. Now he’s slapped you. Personally, I’d tell him to get his ass out of the house. But if you want, make him see a therapist, or you can go to a marriage counselor. But you have to tell him that if he doesn’t do it, then he has to move out. Good grief, how can you live with him if you don’t feel safe?”
Amy had seen no reason to expand on her original advice. “Just call the cops. Perhaps he’ll see a therapist and things will work out, but have it happen with him out of the house. He needs to be away from you and needs to be away from the children. How simply do I have to say it? He’s dangerous.”
Looking at herself in the mirror, Harriet decided to follow Anita’s advice. She would talk to Carl and tell him they had to see a counselor. And when would she talk to him? Harriet decided it would be best to do it tomorrow. She didn’t want to do it when he was upstairs in that spare bedroom by himself. She was afraid to.
• • •
Thursday evening Woody left Brewster and drove to a tavern in Wakefield before going home. He’d been on his feet all day and was exhausted. How Bobby Anderson remained upbeat and energetic in all situations was something Woody could only watch with wonder. Then, in mid-afternoon, Woody had remembered Ajax and called a neighbor kid to take the dog for a walk. Ajax would rather die than pee in the house. Woody had also made the mistake of engaging in Susie-think, imagining she was at home to take the dog out. Now that she was gone, Woody would have to hire the neighbor kid or bring Ajax along in the truck.
Woody found a table in the bar, ordered a cheeseburger and Diet Coke, and turned his attention to the football game being broadcast on four large televisions hanging from the ceiling. But his thoughts remained on Brewster and a day spent identifying dead ends, since nothing he had learned told him who might have taken the baby, nor was there any sign he had been kidnapped. At least no ransom demands had appeared. As far as Woody was concerned, Nurse Spandex was the chief suspect. Then two FBI agents had shown up in the afternoon. The best to be said of them was that they weren’t too pushy. But even the best agents tended to treat the local police as idiots.
Some of Woody’s time had been spent, or wasted, dealing with the media who had descended on the hospital like crows on roadkill, requiring ten cops just to keep them off the property. This began at dawn with Jill Franklin, the reporter from the Brewster Times & Advertiser. He had given her a tongue-lashing, but it hadn’t fazed her. Instead, she’d been focused on what she heard from Peggy Summers.
“She’s glad the baby was stolen,” Jill had said. “She says he’s the Devil’s baby.”
Woody hadn’t believed her till he talked to Peggy, and although she said nothing about any Devil, the girl didn’t seem to care that her baby was gone. Instead she seemed relieved and only wanted to go home. Woody, however, had held her in the hospital just to keep an eye on her, while police fanned out to discover whether she might be involved in the theft of her own child. One of the FBI agents suggested this was a possibility and reeled off statistics to prove it. While it might be true, no evidence had so far been found. Another difficulty was that Peggy wouldn’t identify the father.
Later, when Woody found Jill leaving the hospital cafeteria, he had asked, “What did you mean by that remark about the Devil’s baby?”
“She said it was like the movie Rosemary’s Baby. Remember? The baby was the Devil’s baby. Maybe DNA would show something about that.”
“Is that a joke?”
Jill faced Woody with her legs slightly apart. Like a linebacker, he had thought. Though she certainly wasn’t built like a linebacker. He had to make himself not look at her breasts.
“It wasn’t meant to be funny. It might help to identify the father. Are you glad the FBI’s here?”
“Are you asking as a reporter?”
Jill left the question unanswered.
Afterward he had sent Bonaldo to make sure the baby’s placenta was still available. Maybe DNA would turn out to be an issue. Then he had meant to talk to Peggy Summers again, but she was with the FBI agents and he hadn’t had the chance.
Woody was finishing his cheeseburger when he noticed a woman by herself glancing at him from a table across the room. He looked away but then realized he knew her. She was the head of Morgan Memorial, Dr. Joyce Fuller. When he looked back, she stood up, none too steadily, and approached his table.
“May I join you?”
Woody invited her to sit down, trying to look more welcoming than he felt. He had hoped his workday was finished.
Dr. Fuller brought her drink, something colorful with vodka, and sat without speaking, drawing a circle with her finger in the drops of water on the table’s surface. She was older than Woody by about five years and not quite as perfect in her appearance as she had been that morning, which, to his mind, made her more attractive. He had never trusted women who never had a hair out of place.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” Dr. Fuller continued to look at the table. “I jus
t need another human being right now.”
Woody kept silent.
“You must think I’m a fool.”
“Why’s that?” The noise from the TVs made it hard to hear.
Dr. Fuller didn’t answer his question. “My career’s over. I’m grieving for my career.”
Woody started to make a consoling remark, but what could he say, “Oh, you can get another”? He knew perfectly well that she had been wrong not to equip the hospital nursery with an infant protection system. Basically, it was bad luck, since the odds of having a baby stolen were maybe a trillion to one. But none of that helped now.
Dr. Fuller shook her head as if clearing it of dark thoughts. “Did you learn anything useful today?”
Woody began to say he couldn’t discuss an ongoing investigation, but then he shrugged. “We learned where the snake came from.” He told her about the theft of the snake from Hercel McGarty. The crime investigation unit had gone over the basement, and various bits and pieces were sent to the lab at URI to join the bits and pieces found in the nursery.
“Anything that helped?”
“I don’t know, a bit of mud.”
“You must be glad the FBI came down from Boston.”
Why did everyone assume he’d be glad? “You bet.”
She pushed her hair away from her forehead. “You know, everything’s been easy for me. I think that’s turned into a curse.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“School, money, jobs—they’ve come easily. The curse is that because things have gone well, I made the mistake of assuming they’d keep going well. I guess I believed I was blessed with good fortune. But it’s as if my whole life was ordained to lead to this one irreversible mistake: a baby was stolen. When I learned last night that labor and delivery would be understaffed for four hours, I decided it didn’t matter. I believed nothing would go wrong because I felt nothing was fated to go wrong. Now a baby’s gone. And like a fool I keep wishing I could go back and do it all over again, except this time I’d do it right. Isn’t that stupid? I hear these words coming out of my mouth and I’m appalled.”
“It’s human,” said Woody. It wasn’t stupidity she suffered from, it was arrogance, but perhaps that in itself was a form of stupidity. He realized Dr. Fuller had had a lot to drink.
“Are you married?” she asked.
“No.” Was it possible to tell her he’d been engaged, more or less, but his fiancée moved out a week ago? But Woody couldn’t imagine telling such a thing to a stranger. He hadn’t even told Bobby.
Dr. Fuller laughed without humor. “I’ve been nearly married three times. On each occasion, I put my career first. The last time was before moving to Brewster. I turned away from marriage, turned away from having babies. Isn’t it ironic that my career should be destroyed by a lost baby?”
Woody didn’t respond.
Dr. Fuller drank some of her drink. “I could really use a cigarette. Does it shock you that a hospital administrator still smokes?”
“I don’t shock that easily.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Woody thought she had nice eyes, almond-shaped and dark brown. “First off, you have to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Dr. Fuller burst into tears. Woody frowned. Should he apologize? He saw no reason for it. “You won’t be able to do anything until you do that,” he added.
She wiped her eyes. “You’re right, you’re right. I just can’t help it.”
“Then try harder. You can’t make this go away. You’ve got to come to terms with it and move on. Otherwise you’re screwed.”
Her anger made her eyes glitter. “Haven’t you made mistakes?”
“Everyone makes mistakes. Yours is a particularly bad one.”
Dr. Fuller leaned back and again pushed her hair off her brow. “I ordered those devices this morning—baby LoJacks, the nurses call them. The board of trustees wants my resignation. I was on my way home to write the letter, but I came in here instead. They can’t decide whether to dump me right away or wait until the baby is found. They’re worried about lawsuits, which is to be expected. I tried to talk to Alice Alessio to get a clearer idea about what happened, but I couldn’t find her.”
“She was sent home in the afternoon.”
“I know. I went to her apartment, but she wasn’t there. Then I went to her mother’s, but she didn’t know where she was. She said Alice had turned off her cell phone; either that or it was out of battery. I went back to her apartment, but she hadn’t come home. Then I came here.”
“Excuse me a moment,” said Woody.
Before he was out the front door of the tavern, he had taken out his phone and punched in Fred Bonaldo’s number. Bonaldo answered on the second ring. “Yes?” Woody heard a cringe in his voice, the tone of a man who expects to be yelled at.
“Were you keeping a watch on Alice Alessio, and do you know where she is?”
Bonaldo cleared his throat. “Yes, I assigned a man to it.”
“And?”
Bonaldo made more throat-clearing noises. “He lost her.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
The acting police chief was silent, and then said, “He was parked in front of her apartment; then he left for a bit to go to the Subway for a grinder.”
“So how long’s ‘a bit’?”
“I don’t know how long. When he got back to her apartment, she was gone. He and some other men are looking for her right now. I really yelled at him.”
“That’ll do a shitload of good.” Woody took hold of himself before he began to yell. “Call me if you find her. I want to know immediately.” He cut the call and went inside to Dr. Fuller. As he’d said, people make mistakes, but that didn’t make it better. Bonaldo deserved a serious dope slap.
The woman had stood up and put on her jacket. “What happened?”
“The nurse disappeared. Bonaldo doesn’t know where she is.”
“I think I’d better go home.”
Woody had been afraid of this. “Sorry, you can’t drive.”
“Of course I can. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Lady, I’ve spent years looking at the wreckage caused by drunk drivers.” Woody lowered his voice. “If you get in your car, I’ll arrest you. You want that in the newspaper, too?”
Briefly, she looked about five years old. “How’ll I get home?”
This Woody had also foreseen. “I’ll have to drive you.”
“What about my car?”
“You’ll have to get it tomorrow.”
Woody paid his bill, and they walked out to the Tundra. He started to apologize for the dog hair on the passenger’s seat, and then didn’t. She wore a dark coat. The golden retriever’s fur would make a mess of it. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt her to be less perfect in her appearance. “Put on your seat belt.”
“Are you always such a tough guy?”
He was surprised. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re brusque and unsympathetic.”
A range of answers occurred to him, beginning with “Do you like tough guys?” and ending with “Fuck you.” Instead he said, “Sorry, I’m just tired.”
She lived in Narragansett and gave him directions. “Who’re Alice’s friends?” This time he tried to soften his voice.
“I’m not sure she has many. The other nurses don’t seem to like her, though I hadn’t noticed she was inefficient in any way . . . until now. They call her Nurse Spandex. She flirts with the doctors.”
She talked about the hospital on their fifteen-minute drive—the quality of the medical staff, the changes and improvements she had hoped to make. Left unsaid was that none of those improvements would happen now, at least on her watch.
Dr. Fuller lived in a new condo overlooking the bay. It was the sort of place Woody expected her to live in. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.
“I’ve got to get home. I’ve got pets.” Woody felt foolish saying th
at last part.
“I’m sorry, you must think I’m terrible. I’m not making a pass.” She paused, then added, “I’m afraid.”
This, too, surprised him. “Of what?”
She didn’t answer.
“Of other people or yourself?”
“Of myself, I guess.”
The ocean, which Woody saw a piece of between buildings, appeared abruptly ominous. “Don’t be silly.”
She opened the door of the truck. “I’m sorry. I’m taking up too much of your time.”
So he’d gone inside. Soon he was sitting at the kitchen table drinking ice water, while she made herself coffee. The kitchen and living room were like Dr. Fuller herself, classy and nothing out of place.
She talked about her fears, about her father, who’d been in the military, reaching the rank of colonel and ashamed he hadn’t made general. She talked about the weight of failure, the oppressive feel of it. Whenever she thought she was descending into self-pity, she apologized. Woody said little about himself; briefly he described his years with the state police. At one point, he wondered what she’d be like in bed. I’m an idiot, he thought. He tried to tell her she could do other things. The words felt false in his mouth. She looked at him ironically.
“I can’t say it right,” he told her, “but it’s true. Until you can make yourself believe you can still do something, your life’s going to be a mess.”
It was past midnight when he left. Bobby Anderson teased him about it later. “Dr. Woody,” he called him. Then: “She’s an attractive woman. Were you tempted?”
“Don’t even think it,” Woody had said.
• • •
The Burn Palace Page 9