Take the Bait

by S. W. Hubbard

  “Ah. You’re not from around here, are you? Connecticut, I think someone told me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what brought you up to Trout Run? There’s not much here for an eligible bachelor like you,” Frank asked.

  “The same might be said for you,” the minister parried, matching Frank’s lighthearted tone.

  “Oh, I moved here to be closer to my daughter,” Frank confided. “She lives in Chappaqua, but that’s too rich for my blood.” He watched Pastor Bob closely for some reaction, but detected nothing. “You used to be at the Rappahonack Presbyterian church, right near there, huh?” In answer to Bob’s pleasant nod, Frank continued, “I’m surprised you’d want to leave it. Caroline loves that area because it’s so close to the City—museums, concerts, theater. Seems like that sort of thing would be right up your alley.”

  Either Bob Rush was a consummate actor or he had nothing to hide, for he showed not the slightest discomfort at Frank’s questions. “I grew restless ministering to a wealthy congregation. Someone’s got to do it, but that’s not how I wanted to serve the Lord.”

  “Got tired of trying to push those camels through the needle’s eye, huh?”

  “Exactly. I’m happier in Trout Run.”

  “I imagine you are.” Frank suddenly went for the jugular. “There’s no Ashley Manning here.”

  Bob’s handsome face became as solid as marble. All that gave away his shock were his ears, which had turned a vibrant red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said levelly.

  “I think you do. Ashley Manning was a sixteen-year-old girl in your youth group in Rappahonack. She accused you of forcing yourself on her sexually. Nothing was proven, but the congregation decided it was best for you to leave. They gave you a good recommendation so they could get rid of you.

  “Now you come to Trout Run,” Frank continued, “and a year later a pretty seventeen-year-old girl—who I understand was quite taken with you—has vanished into thin air. She had been slipping out to meet someone late at night without her father knowing. What am I supposed to make of that?”

  Any pretense at self-control was gone. “You cannot possibly think I had anything to do with Janelle’s disappearance!” Bob dropped his head in his hands and wove his fingers through his thick hair. “My God, will this thing follow me the rest of my life?”

  “I’d be interested to hear your side of the story,” Frank said, unmoved by Bob’s show of despair.

  “Ashley Manning was a very unhappy young lady, desperate for attention,” Bob began. “She started by making suggestive remarks to me that I tried to ignore. But her behavior kept getting more … inappropriate. I knew I had to speak to her. I should have called her parents, but I didn’t—I just talked to her alone. She was upset—I suppose she perceived it as a rejection. Two days later, she came out with these accusations that I had …” Bob’s voice faltered. “Touched her, come on to her.

  “Everyone who knew me well at Rappahonack knew that these accusations were completely groundless. But the atmosphere of hysteria surrounding clergymen who take advantage of children sexually—well, all it takes is for one kid to say something, and your career is over. I was lucky to be able to leave quietly.”

  Bob shook his head and gazed at the Japanese wood-block prints on his wall. “At first, I felt like I had been exiled to Trout Run. Forced out of a good position and into a little church where I could quickly be forgotten. But in a few months, I began to really enjoy my work here. I feel that I’m making a genuine contribution to people’s lives. So I started to see the incident in Rappahonack as one of the mysterious ways that God guides our lives. I feel that I was meant to come here, and God acted through Ashley to achieve that.”

  Frank regarded the minister dubiously. It sounded like revisionist history to him. Still, many people were unjustly accused of abuse and had no way to defend themselves. But it was just as true that thousands of kids really were abused and their attackers went unpunished. How could he know if Bob was telling the truth?

  “What about Janelle?” Frank asked. “Last time we talked, you said she told you something that you couldn’t tell me. I think you better drop the sacred confession routine now.”

  Too weary to put up an argument, Bob said, “I didn’t really know Janelle all that well, although I could see that she was different from the other kids. More serious, more inquisitive. She did seem drawn to me—but, not in the way Ashley had been,” he hastened to explain.

  “Did you ever meet her alone at night?” Frank asked.

  “Good Lord, no!” Bob said. “I never saw her outside youth group. She liked to ask me challenging questions about the Scripture passages we were studying. Or about ethical issues like capital punishment or euthanasia. She was grappling with the realization that right and wrong are not always so easy to determine. Then one evening after youth group, she said she needed to speak to me privately.”

  “When was this?” Frank asked.

  Bob paused to think. “Early February, I would say. It was clear she wanted to stay behind to talk after the other kids had left. But I was so spooked by Ashley’s accusations, that I had no intention of being left all alone with Janelle at night. So I told her to stop by my office after school the next day, when I knew Melba and other people would be around.”

  “And did she come?” Frank inquired.

  “Oh, yes.” Bob sighed, reluctant to go on.

  “Well, what happened?” Frank prompted him.

  “I’m not proud of the way I treated her. I felt the need to maintain some distance between us—physically and emotionally. When she came in, she closed the office door behind her, but I got up and opened it again. I made some excuse that I had to keep an eye out for Mr. Enright, the handyman.”

  “What did she say?” Frank asked, trying to hold his exasperation in check.

  “She started out by asking me what to do when God didn’t hear your prayers. I said God always hears our prayers, we just don’t always understand his answers. I explained that God doesn’t always give us what we ask for.

  “Janelle seemed very dissatisfied with my answer,” Bob continued. “But I really believe what I told her. When I was going through my ordeal with Ashley, I prayed constantly that God would reveal the truth and my name would be cleared. But instead he answered my prayers by bringing me here. At first I didn’t see the wisdom in that, but now I do.”

  “But you were hardly in a position to share that example from your life with Janelle,” Frank responded, unconcerned by how callous he sounded.

  Bob seemed to think he deserved whatever Frank had to dish out. “No, I didn’t do a very good job of helping Janelle to understand God’s ways. She blurted out that she didn’t believe in God anymore, because if there were a God, he wouldn’t let terrible things happen.”

  Finally, something of substance! Frank leaned forward. “What terrible things?”

  Now it was Bob’s turn to pace around the room. He stood looking out the window with his hands buried in his pockets. “Then Melba popped her head in to ask what kind of rolls she should order for the men’s breakfast, and Janelle ran out,” Bob answered flatly.

  Frank kicked the tasteful little wicker wastepaper basket beside Bob’s desk and sent it skittering across the floor. “And you didn’t think any of this was worth mentioning until now?”

  Bob shrugged defensively. “She kept coming to youth group and she seemed okay. I suppose in retrospect, she was a little cool to me, and I was subconsciously relieved. But if I really thought she was having a personal crisis, I would have reached out to her,” Bob pleaded.

  Compassion was not forthcoming. “But she said, ‘God wouldn’t let terrible things happen.’”

  “I thought she meant things like famines in Africa or terrorism attacks, not something in her own life. I presumed she was just coming to terms with the central mystery of faith—how to reconcile a loving God with the existence of evil.”

  “Oh, spare
me the theological claptrap,” Frank said in disgust, as he rose to leave. “That kid was crying out for help and you ignored her.”

  15

  FRANK STALKED ACROSS the green with his gaze fixed on the patrol car parked in front of his office. If he could just make it there without anyone stopping him to offer advice, or complain, or seek his services, he could get away for a minute and think. The sound of the door slamming and the engine starting brought Doris to the door, but Frank pulled out fast, ignoring her waving arm in the rearview mirror.

  Cruising out of town, oblivious to the glories of the Verona Range reflected in the clear, still waters of Diamond Pond, Frank let his mind wander. As irritating as he found Bob Rush, the minister’s story had the ring of truth. If Bob wasn’t the other man in Janelle’s life, who was? Was there even another man? Why did he believe a sullen, glue-sniffing kid with a chip on his shoulder, when Kim, Melanie, and Jack all claimed it wasn’t so? What if the mystery man was the blind alley, the false lead?

  What terrible thing had happened before Janelle ran? Certainly it wasn’t some petty squabble with Craig, or even her father’s refusal to let her go away to college—she wouldn’t have laid that at God’s feet. No, it had to be something really big that made her desperate to get away. Everyone she knew claimed not to have the slightest idea what could have been troubling her. But one of them—Tommy or Jack or Dorothy or Kim or Melanie—must know, had to know.

  And why wouldn’t that person tell? Because he—or she—was part of the problem? What was Janelle was running from?

  That line of reasoning seemed to take him right back where he didn’t want to go. To Jack, and this matter Miss Noakes had brought up. Of course he didn’t think running off was “in the blood”—but abusiveness tended to be passed down from generation to generation. Despite carrying on about how terribly Tom Pettigrew had treated Dorothy, had Jack been just as cruel to Rosemary? And had he then transferred the cruelty to Janelle? Oh, he didn’t beat her—that much Frank knew. But sexual abuse could underlie the devotion everyone spoke of.

  And then there was that odd business with Petey the cat. Miss Noakes thought he had been stolen, and someone else had recently claimed their pet had been stolen. Who was that? Frank tried to think but came up blank. Someone had cut through that pen at Harlan Mabley’s petting zoo, but nothing had been stolen.

  Pens … cages … something was coming to him. Yes, the little boy he’d nearly run over, Jeffrey Maguire. He’d kept insisting that he hadn’t left his rabbit’s cage unlocked; that someone had come along and stolen him. Why would anyone want a cat, an emu, and a rabbit? He wondered if Jeffrey’s rabbit had ever turned up—he’d have to call.

  A huge flatbed truck carrying part of a prefabricated house interrupted the seamless flow of Frank’s thoughts. Pulling onto the road ahead of him, the truck moved at a snail’s pace and blocked his view. Someone in Verona must be getting a new house, and Frank had no intention of following it all the way there. Passing on the twisting road when you couldn’t see oncoming traffic could be deadly, so Frank simply turned off on a side road at his first opportunity, figuring he’d find a way to wind through back roads to his destination.

  He found himself on Blascoe Road—a funny name, and one that stuck in his mind, for some reason. Then it dawned on him. Celia Lambert lived along here somewhere; talking to her was on his “to-do” list. A woman out working in her garden told him Celia’s place was four more houses down, on the right.

  He might have found the house even without the directions. Bird feeders and birdhouses of every size and shape hung everywhere—from the house, from poles in the yard, nailed to trees. And Celia herself stood among them, filling one with tiny black seeds from a large sack at her feet.

  She smiled and waved as Frank approached. “Thank you for sending me that copy of the coroner’s report,” she said. “You don’t know how reassuring it was to find out my uncle died instantaneously and didn’t lie there suffering.” Frank nodded and let her natter on about what a good job Bob Rush did at the funeral and all the nice cards she’d been receiving.

  Finally she paused for a breath, and Frank could get a word in. “Celia, your uncle sometimes visited the Nature’s Way gift shop, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, do you know I even got a card from …” Suddenly it seemed to strike her odd that Frank should ask that question. Odd that he had even come to call. The wariness of their last meeting returned. “Why?”

  “A young man who works there told me he once saw your uncle get up unassisted and change the CD in the player.”

  “That’s ridicu—”

  Frank held up his hand for silence. “The coroner discussed your uncle’s case with me. He said it was possible that with a brain injury like his, sight could start to come back.” Frank omitted all Hibbert’s qualifiers and disclaimers. “Your uncle could see, couldn’t he?”

  Lying didn’t come naturally to Celia Lambert. Presented with a direct challenge to her story, she dropped the ruse without a moment’s hesitation.

  “I told him he could never keep it up! I knew he’d slip up and it would all come out!” Celia began to cry. “He was blinded by the accident,” she said through her sobs. “He did have pain and suffering. But about three years after it happened, his sight gradually started coming back. He was afraid if he admitted it, no one would believe that he’d ever been blind, and that he’d have to give back the eight hundred thousand dollars from the lawsuit. And by that time, most of it was already gone.”

  “He went through all that in three years?” Frank asked. There certainly had been no sign of extravagant living at Lambert’s little house.

  Celia sighed. “The lawyer got a big chunk of it. Then Uncle Dell put me through college, paid for my brother to go to podiatry school, and bought my other brother a truck. He gave my father money to pay him back for what my father called his freeloading. And he invested money in some stupid real estate deal in Florida. He never could hold on to money—that’s why he lived with our family all those years.

  “Finally, the lawyer set up a trust fund so my uncle would have something to live on. That’s all that was left. That and the house. He was terrified of losing the house; it would have meant going back to live with my dad. I told him to talk to his lawyer about it—that he probably wouldn’t have to give the money back, in any case. But Uncle Dell was too scared even to tell the lawyer. I’m the only one who knew.”

  “So if he had seen what happened to Janelle, he wouldn’t have admitted it, would he? He had too much to lose,” Frank said.

  Celia squirmed “I told him if he saw something, we could write an anonymous note. But he swore to me he didn’t see anything.”

  Frank caught her eye and held her gaze for a long moment. “But you can’t be positive he was telling the truth.”

  Celia shrugged and gnawed on her thumbnail. “There’s, there’s something else. Ever since New Year’s, he’s been a nervous wreck. He was convinced that Ned Stevenson suspected he could see and was spying on him, watching for him to slip up.”

  “Why did he think that?” Frank asked.

  “He saw Ned’s SUV driving past his place a couple of times a week.”

  16

  FRANK AWOKE before the alarm went off on Monday. Instinctively he reached out for Estelle, but his hand came up empty. It had been nearly eighteen months now, and still there were times that he forgot she was dead.

  Morning had been their special time. Both early risers, they would lie in bed in the gray predawn light and talk—the gutters that needed cleaning, the friend who had cancer, Caroline’s math test, Frank’s latest investigation. Sometimes, after listening for any sound of Caroline stirring, they made love.

  Now, lolling in bed had lost all its pleasure for him. The rising sun seemed to reproach him for all the things he’d left unsaid and undone in twenty-five years of marriage. He hadn’t appreciated Estelle enough—never told her what a fine job she’d done raising Caroline, making a comforta
ble home for them, earning money teaching heavy-handed children the piano, and playing “I Honestly Love You” at countless weddings so that Caroline could go to Princeton.

  And he’d never given Estelle flowers—never once in twenty-five years. Half the time he forgot their anniversary altogether, but occasionally when signs in store windows reminded him of the approach of Valentine’s Day, he’d go into the florist’s to inquire. When informed of the price of a dozen roses, he’d stagger out again, determined not to be manipulated into paying high holiday prices. He’d just wait and surprise her with them some other time. But he never got around to it. And now it was too late.

  Frank escaped the bed before his demons got the better of him. Unable to face the prospect of yet another bowl of Cheerios, he headed out to Malone’s diner. He arrived so early that the glass door was still locked, but he could see Marge in there, making coffee and filling creamers. His persistent knocking finally gained him entrance.

  “The grill’s not hot yet,” Marge said, in lieu of good-morning. “So don’t be clamoring for eggs.”

  “I’m in no hurry. I’ll just sit here and read the paper and drink coffee until you’re ready to feed me,” Frank said. Somehow, just sitting in the steamy brightness of Malone’s with Marge and Regis going about their routine lifted his spirits. Nearly half an hour passed and the sun was fully up when the next customer entered.

  Ned Stevenson came in and took a seat at the far end of the counter from Frank.

  Marge glared at him. “Do you have to sit clear down there, Ned, and make me trot back and forth when there’s just the two of you?”

  Ned forced a smile. “Why sure, Marge, I’d be happy to move down next to Frank. He just looked so absorbed in his paper, I hated to disturb him.”

  Frank patted the empty stool next to his. “Make yourself comfortable, Ned.”