The lieutenant governor’s most devoted staff member had been stressed to breakpoint by the time Ellen got to her. The aide had gone rogue, leaking the story and even providing a direct quote from Mrs. Hubble’s recent meeting with the senator. The words were underscored on Pyle’s copy of the summary sheet: “Yes, I’ll do it, if that’s what it takes. Help me find Gwen and Sadie—and then I’ll resign.”
Agent Pyle held up a cigarette, asking for permission. Ellen pushed a saucer across the table to use as an ashtray. “Enjoy.”
“Julie Garret left that bomb at my hotel last night. A little gift, so I could cover my ass with the Bureau.” A plume of smoke twisted up from the side of his mouth. “You do nice hatchet work, lady.”
“There’s nothing like a cup of coffee with a morning cigarette.” She reached back over the edge of the countertop and pulled a mug from the collection on wall hooks. “I used to smoke myself. Now I live vicariously.” Was the agent running a bluff? Given only what Pyle had in his hand, absent a byline, he should have assumed the article was Julie’s work. Ellen filled the mug and set it in front of him. She smiled. The agent didn’t smile back.
He knew.
But her own son didn’t—or he would have been angry with his mother for holding out on him. Someone must have read Pyle the byline off the galley. So the fed had other sources on the same Washington newspaper, probably a night-shift worker. She doubted that Julie was aware of that, but he soon would be.
Ellen glanced down at the penciled headline and shook her head sadly. “It’s a pity Julie didn’t give you the story before you got that black eye.” She set down the carafe and picked up a pencil, threatening to make notes. “Did the lieutenant governor throw a right hook? I like to be accurate.”
“She’s left-handed.” He held up the summary sheet. “Oh, and this wouldn’t have stopped me from going after Marsha Hubble. I know the story is a crock.” He wadded the paper into a ball. “It was planted. Give me the name of your source, and I’ll prove it. Could be embarrassing for you if—”
“Pyle, does that line ever work?”
“On women? No, I never have any luck with women.” One finger pointed to his bruised eye. “You probably guessed that.” He pocketed the crumpled sheet. “But it could be a deliberate press leak. The lady might have ambitions to run for higher office. Your story’s gonna kill the governor’s chances for another term. Or maybe Marsha’s after the senator’s job. Fat chance he’ll get reelected after—”
“Now I am impressed, Pyle. You’re even more cold-blooded than me.”
“Thank you, ma’am. That’s high praise coming from a reporter.”
She understood why Julian Garret liked this man so much, why he spoke of Arnie Pyle with the same tenderness and adjectives usually reserved for his golden retriever. So the agent’s night shift snitch had not known about the tapes. Bless Peter Hubble’s paranoid heart and all the electronic bugs in his mansion.
Now where was Pyle going with her son this morning? They were using one car—a trip out of town? If she had pegged this man right, the direct approach would fail. “You two were wise to get an early start. It’s a long drive, isn’t it?”
“Not so long, maybe forty minutes. I guess if Rouge does the legal speed limit, it might take us an hour. But I never met a cop that law-abiding.”
As the agent drank his coffee, Ellen did the math for time and distance. The coordinates would best fit one map point along the main highway. A last-minute arrangement? That would explain why Rouge was taking so long to make a phone call. She glanced at the wall clock. The switchboard should be open. Such places did not close on holidays. “Visiting relatives, Agent Pyle?”
He grinned, taking this for a joke. So their destination was definitely the prison. She wondered if Pyle knew what was in store for him. Probably not.
Rouge was standing in the doorway with his jacket slung over one arm. He was not at all happy with this warm and cozy kitchen tableau. Ellen donned her best maternal attitude and smiled sweetly at her beloved young son, pride of her life. Gotcha, babe—upstart, rank beginner. Mom is still the master of deception.
The water was warm, and its current gently lulled Gwen into a deeper sleep as she floated along the river between darkness and light. A small white ghost of a girl was running along the shore, waving her arms. “Wake up!”
Gwen opened her eyes. Her face was wet, not from the river but the rain. Great dollops of water were falling from the ceiling again, pattering the leaves and dampening her clothes. The flashlight beam darted about as Sadie pulled her up to a stand. Gwen fell back against the rough bark of a tree. The pain in her leg jolted her with sharp surprise. Sadie’s arms held her upright as they moved slowly through the darkness and the rain. The flashlight beam picked out the path in front of them as Gwen dragged one useless leg behind her.
“The dog?”
“Don’t know,” said Sadie. “He hasn’t moved. No noise either.”
When they entered the area of the mushroom tables, the rain had ceased, but the pumps above the tables continued to spray the air with a cold mist.
“What time is it?”
Sadie opened the door to the white room and flashed the light on the clock. “Eight-thirty.”
“But, it never rains at night.”
“It’s morning, Gwen.”
The air conditioner was blowing on them. Sadie flashed the beam into the drawer of pills. She picked up bottles, read the labels and discarded them. Now she found one that she liked. “Take off the parka, it’s wet.”
Gwen removed the red down jacket they had shared when the temperature began to drop. She spread it on the back of the chair, and then accepted the glass jar and a pill from Sadie’s hand.
“This is the only dry place in the cellar, but I can’t block off the air conditioner.” Sadie covered Gwen’s shoulders with layers of dry towels. “The vents are too high up. All those plant misters outside are still working, but the dirt under the tables should be dry. We’ll—”
“I’m not going into that hole again. I can’t. I won’t.” Gwen held the flashlight while Sadie changed her bandage. The swelling had not gone down any, and the wound was leaking more of the yellow-green pus. The odor was foul and the skin was darker. She turned her face away from it. The pill was already working on the pain, but the air conditioner was killing the fever warmth. She could feel the cold in all her bones now.
Sadie finished tying off the new bandage and pulled Gwen up from the chair. “We have to go back to the hole. It’s dry under the table.”
“No, I don’t—”
“You’ll like it better now. Very homey. You’ll see.” She circled Gwen’s waist with one arm, and they made their way down the aisle to the mushroom table covering the hole. The cart had been pulled back. Sadie shined the flashlight on the grave. It was lined with plastic and magazines for insulation. A pile of batteries lay in one corner on top of the stack of journals.
“See? You can read all you want. It’s not so bad now, is it?” Sadie settled her friend into the hole, then climbed in and lay down beside her. Holding out a journal, she said, “Read to me?”
Gwen trained the flashlight on the book pages. “This entry was written a long time ago, when Miss Vickers figured out that the trees would never be normal, no matter how much light she gave them. ‘There is retribution in the world, and justice. I never doubt that anymore. My hands are full of knots, my fingers are misshapen. I have come to resemble my poor trees. This is punishment for the way they twist and bow, stunted in this unnatural world. The advancing arthritis assuages my guilt. Pain is my penance. I am so sorry.’ ”
Sadie’s head lay on the pillow of one arm. Her eyes were closed. She had been tricked into sleep by the false night of failed electricity.
Gwen leaned into the space between table and cart to shine the yellow beam on the oaks, one by one, reaching out to them with this feeble nourishment of light. She felt sorry for the trees, imagining their panic on this fi
rst morning when all their artificial suns failed to shine. They could not wring their hands and scream; they could only endure in silent fear and wonder. She clicked off the flashlight and sat in absolute darkness, listening to Sadie’s even breathing and endeavoring to be more like the oak trees.
The priest had been surprised when he was told about this interview outside the regular hours. It could only be the police or the FBI. Most visitors over the years had come from these two groups, and all their questions were predictable. But to come on a holiday? It must be related to the missing children.
He sat at the table in his chains, prepared for a quiet hour of no more surprises. As the guard manacled his legs to the chair, two men were being ushered into the room. The man in the suit was engaged in filling out forms as he spoke to another guard at the door.
The younger man who faced him now wore faded blue jeans and an old fleece-lined jacket, not the typical FBI wardrobe. So this must be a police officer, and Paul Marie had no trouble recognizing him, so close was the resemblance to Susan. He also had his father’s dark red hair and hazel eyes.
Years ago, the elder Kendall had come to the prison once a week without fail, steadfast as a lover. Susan’s father had always seemed gratified to see fresh bruises on the priest’s face, a cut lip, or a swollen eye. But there had been a lingering disappointment, an expression to Bradly Kendall’s face, which said at each meeting, What? Not dead yet?
Only a month-long punishment of solitary confinement had saved the priest. Other prisoners had come out of the isolation cell with aching limbs from lack of exercise, and weak stomachs from the slop that passed for food. Paul Marie had emerged with the idea that he might survive, with the regimen to do it and an enemy with a face.
Over subsequent visits, Bradly Kendall had charted the priest’s progress by the expanding muscles of the torso and thickening arms. It must have been difficult for the distraught father of a murdered child to watch his nemesis increasing in size as he grew smaller and weaker. And then Kendall had sickened; his visits ceased.
Paul Marie had felt a profound sense of loss when the publisher stopped coming to the prison. At the time, he had wondered—was it the man’s company he missed, or the challenge of slowly destroying the publisher by merely surviving, and then astonishing Bradly Kendall by actually thriving in this place. Years later, the priest had experienced genuine sorrow when he learned of the publisher’s death; he had come to understand the true nature of his own loss—the end of his most intense relationship with another human being. His old enemy was the only man he had ever mourned.
Now Paul Marie assessed the younger Kendall, whom he had once known as a choirboy. He sensed great damage in this man. And it was unsettling that Rouge was making his own measurements of the priest, sizing him up with calm hazel eyes as he sat down in one of the empty chairs on the other side of the table.
The second visitor remained with the guard by the door. This slender man had his back turned as he signed forms and took his own paperwork back from the guard. The cover sheet on the man’s clipboard carried the familiar crest of the FBI.
So it was to be business as usual. They would ask for his assistance in analyzing the new Monster of Makers Village. He settled back in his chair to await the inevitable questions of—
Now the FBI man was walking toward the table, eyes locked on the face of Paul Marie. Both men were equally shocked and disoriented as each looked into the mirror image of his own eyes.
Only Rouge Kendall seemed unfazed by this striking resemblance between the agent and the priest. Had the younger man set them up for this confrontation? Could Rouge be that convoluted? Oh, yes, certainly. His sister had been a very complex little human being, and they were twins, weren’t they?
But whenever Susan had come to him, her small deceits were harmless parts of the game they played together.
The FBI man with the familiar eyes was mute while Rouge was introducing him as Special Agent Arnie Pyle. The agent did not take the third chair at the table, but remained standing. Arnie Pyle had recovered some of his composure, but the shock remained with him. He was listing slightly to one side, as though he had just suffered an injury that threatened to bring him down at any moment.
When the FBI agent spoke, his voice was accusing, “What kind of contact did you have with Ali Cray?”
This was not the question Paul Marie had anticipated. “She came to see me a few days ago. She had questions on the murder of Susan Kendall.”
If Rouge found this information interesting, he gave no sign of it. The agent placed both hands flat on the table, perhaps for support. “Before that—before Susan Kendall died. Did you have a thing for Ali?”
And now Rouge Kendall did show some interest in the conversation, but it was fleeting.
“Ali was a little girl when I knew her,” said Paul Marie. “I’ve been here for—”
“Same question, you son of a bitch.” Agent Pyle pulled back. His face was reddening with anger. “Did you touch her?” He turned his back and walked off a few paces toward the door, only to turn and walk back to the table. Tremendous energy was building in this man, and he seemed to have no way to contain it. His next words had the force and velocity of gunfire. “You did it, didn’t you?” He shouted, “And Susan Kendall too! You creep, you miserable lowlife! Did you give Ali that scar? Were you the one?”
So this was a friend of Ali’s, a close friend, someone who loved her. “You believe she was attracted to you because of the resemblance to me? You’re probably right about that.”
Arnie Pyle flew across the table to put his hands around the priest’s neck. Paul Marie was quite capable of breaking this man’s back, even given the limited range of movement in his chains, but he did nothing to stop the assault. He only sat there, passive, while Rouge Kendall pried the agent’s hands away. Now Rouge and the guard stood on either side of the FBI man and pulled him back, struggling, feet dragging, toward the door at the other end of the room. Only Agent Pyle was facing him when Paul Marie said, “Maybe she went to you for comfort, for peace and shelter. Did she get it?”
The man seemed shocked anew, and he ceased to struggle. His mouth hung open, and his eyes gave away enormous pain. The two men released him. Pyle’s hands rose in a useless, helpless gesture. The guard was at the intercom; the door was opening.
The priest called out, “Agent Pyle? Ali is still in need of comfort.”
Pyle was pushed out of the room, and Rouge Kendall came strolling back to the table. So the young man had yet another question. The priest sat back, no longer confident of his ability to predict the day’s events. “What can I do for you?”
“My sister had a chain with a small oval of gold. The letters AIMM were engraved on it. I know she was in the habit of losing things during choir practice. My mother would like to have this little piece of jewelry back—it’s very important to her. Did you ever find anything like that? Maybe you saw it in the lost-and-found box?”
“No. The silver bracelet was the only thing of Susan’s that ever made it into the box. Usually, she’d come back after choir practice to tell me what she lost—always something tiny, hard to find. We’d search the cloakroom and the pews. Once I helped her hunt for a gold book-mark —small, thin as paper and very fine engraving. I remember it well. She said it was your birthday present to her when she was eight. Another time it was a little silver ring you gave her for Christmas. But then, everything she ever lost was something you had given her. This was her way of opening a conversation. Susan would thank me for helping her find it, and then she’d tell me why it was so important—because it came from you. You were always in her mind. That’s the way Susan put it.”
And now he had a reaction from Rouge, and he knew he had struck on some old memory that hurt him. Paul Marie continued, “I think talking about you eased the pain of the separation. But she had no experience with confiding in other people. This game was the only method she could devise. I never saw the necklace you described. I would�
�ve remembered it.”
“It wasn’t a necklace. It was an ankle chain.”
“Nothing like that either. Tell your mother I’m sorry I can’t help. I would if—”
“When did you find the silver bracelet?”
“A few hours after the last choir practice. I found it in the snow near the church steps.”
“Did you expect Susan to come back later and look for it?”
“That was the pattern. Though she always lost things inside the church. I thought she’d outgrow this habit eventually. Or maybe you’d come home from military school, and she wouldn’t need me anymore. When she didn’t return to church that night, I figured the bracelet belonged to one of the other children. So I put it in the lost-and-found box. Was this something that you gave her?”
“No, the bracelet was a present from my father.”
“Then it wouldn’t have been part of the game. She probably dropped it by accident.”
“It was never in your room? Oz Almo testified that—”
“He lied.”
Did Rouge believe that? There was nothing in the handsome young face to say what judgment he had arrived at. With no goodbye, his young visitor was rising to leave.
There was a rattle from the chains of the leg irons when the priest stood up—as any gracious host would do. The policeman was almost to the door when Paul Marie called out to him. “Rouge? The ankle chain was from you, wasn’t it?”
Rouge said nothing.
“The inscription you mentioned, AIMM—always in my mind?”
There was the barest inclination of the young man’s head.
The Judas Child Page 31