by Joy Fielding
“Can we please talk about something else?” Renee begged, her queasiness returning.
“I think this is interesting,” Debbie told her stepmother.
“That was not a request,” Renee informed her curtly, deciding to move the gun elsewhere at the earliest opportunity. She’d always objected to its presence, in any event. Why had Debbie even mentioned it? Did the girl have no sense at all?
Debbie’s hand formed a brisk salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Renee turned toward her sister. “I just think that we could find something else to talk about.”
“My mother tried to kill herself once,” Debbie announced. “Did you know that, Renée?”
“No, I didn’t,” Renee admitted, too stunned to say anything else.
“She was a mess after my father left. Of course, I was just a kid at the time but I guess she must have felt a lot like you feel now.” Debbie smiled at Kathryn, who was watching her intently. “She started drinking and taking sleeping pills to get her through the night. One night she had too many drinks and too many pills. We rushed her to the hospital. They had to pump her stomach. It was pretty gross.”
“Excuse me.” Renee hurried into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, drinking it quickly before reaching into the fridge and tearing another chocolate bar out of its plastic bag, swallowing it in three quick bites. In the living room, she heard Debbie rattling on about her mother, telling Kathryn how beautiful she was, how thin she was, very much like Kathryn, she was saying. Nothing at all like Renée.
It was true. Renee had seen pictures of Philip’s former wife, Wendy. She was beautiful. And thin. And unbalanced as all get-out. Renee couldn’t think of Debbie’s mother without recalling the story that Philip had confided in her early in their relationship. Apparently, she’d once provoked a fight while they were getting ready for bed, and when Philip had insisted that he would spend the night in a hotel rather than listen to any more of her ravings, she had actually run down the street after his car, totally naked. Running after his car like a dog, he had said tearfully, then confessed that he’d never told that story to another living soul, he’d been so ashamed.
“I think that Kathryn should probably lie down now,” Renee said, reentering the living room to find Debbie on the sofa next to her sister, Kathryn wrapped gently in Debbie’s arms, her eyes closed in sleep.
“Don’t worry about Kathryn,” Debbie said sweetly. “I’ll take care of her.”
“That’s very nice of you, Debbie,” Renee said, softening, feeling grateful all of a sudden for her stepdaughter’s presence.
“And then I’ll take care of you,” Debbie said, and turned to stare serenely out at the ocean.
FIVE
The phone had been ringing all morning. Lynn Schuster glanced up from her paper-strewn desk at the well-groomed young woman who stood in the doorway to her small, tidy office. “For you. Line one,” her secretary said, her hands buried beneath a neat stack of files. “I’m going to run these reports down the hall.”
Lynn nodded and picked up the phone, thinking that she hated Fridays. They were always the worst. People seemed to be most desperate just before the weekend, something she had never really understood until Gary left her. Until then, Friday was always a day to look forward to because it meant that—in theory anyway—the family could spend the next two days relaxing and being together. In practice, Gary was more often working than not, the kids were somewhere playing with friends or home fighting with each other, and she was struggling to finish off work which never seemed to meet its deadline. Still, the illusion was there. The possibilities existed. When Gary walked out six months ago, he had taken the possibilities with him. Lynn no longer looked forward to the weekends, which only served to underline the unhappy statistic she had become. “Lynn Schuster,” she announced into the phone.
“Marc Cameron,” came the immediate reply. “And before you hang up on me,” he continued—in fact, the thought had not occurred to her— “I’d like to apologize for my behavior the other night.”
“Apology accepted,” Lynn replied briskly. “Thank you for calling.”
“Don’t hang up,” he said again, this time as she was about to.
Lynn glanced nervously toward her office door. Her secretary was down the hall delivering files. That was good for at least a couple of minutes. “What can I do for you, Mr. Cameron?”
“For starters, you can call me Marc. Then you can have dinner with me tonight.”
Lynn took a deep breath, slowly expelling the air in her lungs and inadvertently blowing several sheets of paper off the top of her desk. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she said, watching the papers float toward the beige carpet at her feet.
“Why not?” His voice was stubborn, provocative.
“I would think that’s obvious.”
“Because of what I said?”
“Because of what you are.”
“A writer?”
She laughed. “Suzette’s husband.”
“Can’t we just forget who we are? Correction,” he said immediately. “Who we were.”
Lynn’s fingers moved nervously to the thick gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand. “I think that might prove difficult.”
“Not if we don’t let it.”
“I’m busy tonight,” she said, then continued when he said nothing. “My father and his wife are coming over for dinner. Really.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“I can’t.”
“Your father again?”
“My better judgment. I’m sorry. I just don’t think it would be a very good idea.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I’m really sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances …”
“Sounds like something you say at a funeral.” He laughed. “Hell, I’m a writer. I’m used to rejection. Look, will you do me a favor?”
“If I can.”
“Get a piece of paper,” he instructed. Lynn reached for her notebook as her secretary reappeared in the doorway. “Write this down.” He dictated a number and Lynn dutifully copied it, repeating it aloud when he asked her to. “My phone number,” he explained. “I’m renting an apartment until all this is settled. If you change your mind about seeing me again, as I sincerely hope you will, give me a call.”
“I’ll do that,” Lynn said, motioning for her secretary to come in and sit down. “Thank you for calling.”
“A pleasure, as always,” he said, and was gone. Lynn replaced the receiver, smiling perhaps a little too hard at the blonde, ponytailed young woman who sat before her.
“Something wrong?” her secretary asked, bending forward to indicate her willingness to listen. “You look like you’re in pain,” she continued, and Lynn forced her mouth to relax. Her secretary, whose name was Arlene and who was somewhere in her late twenties, lifted a slim file folder from her lap and reached it across the top of the desk toward Lynn.
“What’s this?” Lynn pushed Marc Cameron into the back corners of her mind, concentrating on the file her secretary dropped into her hands.
“It’s from McVee,” Arlene said, standing up, about to return to her own desk just outside Lynn’s office door. “Suspected child abuse. He wants it handled very carefully. All files are to be kept in his office. Strictly confidential. Apparently we might be treading on some very big toes. Check out the address.”
Lynn opened the folder and glanced at the few lines typed across the first and only page. By the time her investigation was concluded, she knew, there would be many such pages. Too many. Keith and Patty Foster, she read, not recognizing the names; daughter, Ashleigh, age seven.
Lynn’s eyes shot automatically to the framed photographs of her own two children, which were all but hidden by the stacks of paper on her desk. Impatiently, she shuffled the papers around until they afforded her a clear view of the two smiling figures which when last seen boarding their bus for day camp that morning, were gl
aring in barely concealed fury at each other’s recent transgressions. Megan, who had been nine years old at the time her picture was taken, looked shy and quietly beautiful, the woman already visible behind the child’s delicate features, whereas Nicholas’s photo, taken last January on his seventh birthday, was one big, toothless record of self-congratulation.
Lynn closed the file folder and rested her chin against the palms of her hands. She didn’t want to read about seven-year-old children who were the possible victims of parental abuse. In her twelve years of front-line work for the Department of Social Services in Delray Beach, this was the one aspect of her job to which she had never grown accustomed. Reluctantly, she reopened the file, checking out the address as her secretary had suggested. Harborside Villas, she read, then shook her head. Not the usual address for this sort of thing, but then she had learned long ago that money and social standing had little bearing on matters such as these, although they obviously had a great deal to do with the careful way this case was being handled.
The suspected abuse had been reported by a neighbor, she read, a Mrs. Davia Messenger, who lived in the town house next to the one owned by the Fosters. Lynn understood that she would have to drive out to the Harborside Villas to interview the woman as soon as possible. She looked around for her appointment book, and saw only the notepad with Marc Cameron’s phone number scrawled boldly across it. “Arlene, what’s my schedule like today?”
“You have a meeting at two o’clock.”
“And this morning?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
A few minutes later, Lynn was in her car heading south on Federal Highway toward the Harborside Villas, a Mrs. Davia Messenger, and a story she didn’t want to hear.
The Harborside Villas were part of a horseshoe-shaped complex situated on the Inland Waterway, boasting a private marina, two large swimming pools, and four tennis courts. Prices started at a quarter of a million dollars for a one-bedroom apartment, and went up from there, the most expensive units being the row of eight identical, white, two-story town houses that ran parallel to the main building and directly overlooked the Inland Waterway.
Davia Messenger lived in the second-to-last house next to the corner unit owned by the Fosters. Lynn walked steadily across the curving sidewalk of interlocking red bricks, her eyes casually perusing the luxury that was everywhere around her, to the Messengers’ front door. She barely had time to lift the bronze dolphin-shaped knocker before the door was opened by a tall, thin, slightly stooped woman whose sharp, irregular features had long ago cemented themselves into a look of anxiety.
“She didn’t see you come in, did she?” the woman greeted Lynn nervously in the entranceway of her designer-perfect town house. Lynn made a mental note of the woman’s age—late fifties—and flaming red, geometrically shaped hair. She said nothing as the woman shut the front door behind her and ushered her inside the spotless living room, awash in shades of glistening yellow and gray. Lynn walked carefully toward the matching pale yellow love seats situated in the middle of the large room, which afforded a most spectacular view of the Inland Waterway. She had the distinct feeling that this was not a room that was used to visitors.
“I’m sorry I’m a bit late. I got stuck in traffic. You have a beautiful home,” Lynn remarked almost in one breath, seeing Mrs. Messenger wince as she sat down and took out her notebook and pen.
“You will be careful,” the woman stated, more than asked, “with that pen.”
“Of course,” Lynn told her, and tried to look reassuring, although she felt as she imagined her children must feel when told to get their crayons out of the living room. “How long have you lived here, Mrs. Messenger?”
“Six years,” came the rapidly delivered reply. “We’re the original owners. We bought when the units were still under construction. We knew how beautiful they were going to be. We have an eye for beauty, my husband and I.” She tried to smile but the corners of her lips only twitched, and so she abandoned the attempt. “I don’t enjoy doing this, you know,” she said. “You will keep my name out of it, won’t you? The man I spoke to, he assured me that my name would be kept out of it.”
“Your identity will be kept strictly confidential, Mrs. Messenger.” Lynn watched as the woman made repeated circles around the second love seat, picking up imaginary pieces of lint from the obviously expensive material.
“They’re important people, the Fosters. He’s with Data Base International. Quite the big shot.” Davia Messenger’s eyes darted nervously around the room. She reached down and swept up a suspected speck of dirt from the pale Drury rug at Lynn’s feet. Lynn obligingly lifted her heels off the floor, lowering them only after the woman’s attention had been diverted elsewhere.
Lynn made a quick note describing the woman’s highly agitated state, which she suspected was aggravated, but not defined, by her visit. The woman was starting to make her nervous as well.
“Why don’t you tell me what prompted you to call our agency, Mrs. Messenger.”
Davia Messenger seemed surprised by the question. “Well, the little girl of course. Ashleigh. She’s why I called. So many Ashleighs these days, don’t you think?”
“You suspect her parents are abusing her?”
“Not suspect. Know.” Davia Messenger swooped hawklike toward Lynn, her long fingers outstretched and shaking. “How else do you explain why that poor little thing is always covered with bruises? Last week she had a black eye. A few weeks before that it was a broken arm.”
“Children have accidents, Mrs. Messenger.” Lynn felt Davia Messenger’s gaze shift from her face to the area just to the left of her cheek above her shoulder. Before she had time to wonder what exactly Davia Messenger was staring at, the woman reached over and snapped up a stray hair which had been dangling from the side of Lynn’s head, and which had obviously offended her strict aesthetic sense.
“No accidents. Patty Foster is abusing her daughter.”
“Have you actually witnessed this abuse?” Lynn was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. She wished Davia Messenger would sit the hell down.
“I’ve witnessed the results. I’ve heard the child crying at all hours of the day and night.”
“But you’ve never personally witnessed Patty Foster physically mistreating Ashleigh?”
“I’ve already answered that,” the woman snapped.
“What specifically prompted your phone call, Mrs. Messenger?”
“I don’t understand. I told you …”
“You indicated that this has been going on for a number of months, yet you waited until now to phone us. Did something happen last night?”
“If you’d heard that child crying, you wouldn’t have to ask. I just couldn’t take listening to it anymore.”
“Did your husband hear the crying as well?”
“Well, of course.”
“Could I speak to him?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Mrs. Messenger trilled, her hands fluttering wildly in front of her. “Leave him out of this. He doesn’t want to get involved. He told me not to call you. He said that nobody would believe me. That Mr. Foster is an important man in the community. No, no, no. Leave my husband out of this.”
Lynn lowered her pen to her lap, aware that Mrs. Messenger seemed to be holding her breath. “What makes you so sure that it’s Mrs. Foster who’s abusing her daughter, and not Mr. Foster?”
“Oh no, no, no,” the woman said again, this time with conviction rounding out the vowels. “Mr. Foster is a gentleman. He would never do anything to hurt a child. It’s his wife. She’s much younger than he is. Young enough to be his daughter. His granddaughter, even. Pretty enough, I suppose. She doesn’t do much. Sits around the pool all day in her bikini. Don’t know why she had children. They’re not allowed, you know. At least that was my impression when we bought the place, bought it while it was still under construction. We have a real eye for beauty, my husband and I. Decorated it ourselves. Please be careful with that p
en.”
Lynn put the cap back on the black felt pen, closed her notebook, and returned both to her briefcase. It was obvious she had already received whatever worthwhile information she was going to get from Mrs. Davia Messenger, and she was afraid that if she stayed any longer, the woman might break into hives. “Thank you, Mrs. Messenger. I think I’ll talk to the Fosters now.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t you see? She’ll see you came from my house, and she’ll know I was the one who reported her. She’s a very vindictive person.”
Lynn Schuster stared deeply into the eyes of the woman who was squinting in her direction, watching them narrow further to emphasize her point, aware that she was not the most credible of witnesses, but aware also that each report of suspected child abuse had to be investigated fully.
“I assure you your identity will be kept confidential.”
“She’ll try to fool you, of course. She can be very persuasive. You mustn’t underestimate her,” Mrs. Messenger continued as she followed Lynn to the front door, then hid behind it as Lynn stepped outside into the hot sunshine.
Davia Messenger was an unpleasant, possibly even unbalanced woman, Lynn was thinking as she cut across the narrow strip of lawn to the house next door. She would make a most unreliable witness in court. With that in mind, Lynn knocked tentatively on the Fosters’ door, and was relieved to discover that no one was home.
A few minutes later, she was sitting in her car in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam. It was extremely hot, and already cars on the busy highway were starting to overheat. Motorists who were stranded on the side of the road, their faces polished in sweat, their mouths distorted with agitation, stood beside raised hoods, steam shooting from overheated engines. Lynn observed them dispassionately, reaching over and flicking off her own air conditioning to spare herself the same fate, lowering her window instead, feeling the immediate attack of hot air as it quickly clambered in through the open window, as if it too was looking for a place to escape. Lynn rested her elbow on the car door, withdrawing it almost instantly, feeling her flesh burn as if she had pressed it against a lit torch.