by Peter Israel
God, what am I doing, apologizing to Georgia for television?
Just feeling a little crazy, that’s all.
We hit this great motel yesterday, great in terms of TV anyway. It has channels I’ve never even heard of. I’ve just had my first real night’s sleep in … well, my first real night’s sleep, and now it’s morning, I’m awake, and he’s curled up in the next bed, all cozy, and finally I can say to myself, Well, you’ve done it, Rebecca Dalton, it looks like you’ve really done it! It gives me gooseflesh all over. I think back over every detail, and I think, even if he’s on our trail, which I imagine he is, how is he going to find us? Even if he’s already found the garage, and the man has told him Florida, and he thinks that was just something I said to fool him, and he’s bought maps, poring over them (with his reading glasses on), thinking Minnesota probably, and how far could she go in a day? Four hundred miles, five hundred miles?
I picture him in his usual chair, the living room, book open on his lap, reading glasses down his nose. Or playing solitaire, long fingers snapping the cards. Waiting for me to do something. Waiting for me to grab the cards, or his glasses, dump the table over, any damn thing. Waiting for me to go to the bar, why don’t you go pour yourself a drink, my nude and lovely bitch, watching me go, the big 1.75-liter Dewar’s, filling the damn tumbler while his eyes follow me, spilling a little, mopping the spill, sipping, shuddering from the raw bite, he likes—
“Hi, Becca.”
From the next bed.
I jump sky-high.
“Well, good morning, Sir Danny. How’d you sleep?”
“Great.”
Rubbing his eyes with his fists.
He’d have given anything to see me jump like that.
I was never allowed to wear clothes in the house, that was a rule.
Well. But isn’t that the past?
Good morning, Danny Dalton.
We go in little steps, Danny and I. That’s the thing about quests. When there’s danger, you slip away in easy stages. Fifty miles a day, no more than a hundred.
I’m going to have to leave him this morning to find a supermarket. He’s awfully small to be left alone, but you do what you have to do. I’m determined that we be seen together in public as little as possible.
“You’re going to have to be a big kid, Danny,” I tell him later. “A grown-up practically. I’ll be back as fast as I can, but while I’m gone, you can do your coloring, watch TV, whatever you want, but you’re not to open the door to anybody, understand?”
He nods seriously.
“No matter what?”
Nods again.
I make sure he’s plugged into cartoons, lock the door on my way, drive off.
I top off the gas tank en route. What I have in mind is: We’re safe for the minute, maybe, just maybe, we can stay in the great motel another day. And tomorrow is Christmas. I’ve been worried about Christmas, even though he hasn’t mentioned it. I still think my best bet is to try to skip it. On the other hand, I’d better have a present for him just in case. And one for him to give me.
I find the supermarket. It’s jammed. I pick out a giant canned ham, pasta and potato salad and cole slaw from the deli, hard rolls, canned cranberry sauce, a mammoth apple pie for dessert—enough, anyway, for two days of feasting. I scavenge the coloring-book rack for Danny and splurge on the sixty-four Crayola set and a box of fat, nontoxic Magic Markers. For him to give me, I choose a card of brightly colored barrettes and a selection of velvet hair ribbons. And then I look for the end of a checkout line.
It’s totally surreal. All the lines snake back from the cash registers into the narrow aisles, and every cart in front of me is filled to the top. Obviously—why didn’t I think of it?—people are shopping for two days. I’ve been telling myself—told him—that I’ll be gone no more than an hour, and it’s already been forty-five minutes. But if I abandon the cart and leave, what will we eat?
The line inches forward. Finally, I’m up level with the magazine rack. I reach for People, anything to take my mind off my watch, and glancing down at a pile of newspapers underneath, I see … his picture.
I clap my hand to my mouth, I can’t help myself. I don’t think anybody’s noticed. Newspapers are stacked on the floor, under the magazines. Pretending that I’m just passing the time, I stoop, pick one up as casually as I can.
Yikes!
They’re calling it the “Christmas Kidnapping.” But it isn’t even Christmas yet! And there’s his picture, “Justin Coffey” underneath, and in the short article a description of both of us. Police in six states on special alert.
Which six states?
It doesn’t say.
Nothing much about me. I’m just Harriet Major, the baby-sitter.
I fold the paper and put it back, picture-side down, reach instead for People. I thumb through it without seeing anything. When someone taps me on the shoulder, I freak, but it’s only the woman behind me in the line, telling me to move forward because there’s room now on the moving belt.
I pay cash, flustered lest someone see how much cash I’m carrying in my purse. By now I’m convinced everyone is staring at me. I flee into the parking lot, throw my bags into the car, fight my way through traffic onto the unfamiliar road.
By the time I get back to the motel, I’ve been gone almost two hours. The door to our room is wide open. I can see it from behind the wheel.
I leave all the stuff in the car and run for it.
A woman has him clutched in her arms. I’ve never seen her before. She has a kerchief tied around her head, and she’s scolding him in some language—Spanish?—and he’s kicking, flailing, pointing, and his little face is all splotchy.
The TV is blasting.
“Let him go, goddamn you!” I scream at her. Then I grab him away from her, feel him clutch me hard, and shove at her with my free arm while she shrills at me in whatever the language is.
A cleaning woman. I slam the door in her face.
I understand what happened even before he gets it all out. He didn’t open the door for her, she had a key. And he had to go, and he couldn’t get his pants down, and he was afraid of the big potty in the bathroom, and finally (all contorted) he thought I wasn’t coming back.
“Look, Danny,” I say. I put him down, kneel, hold onto his shoulders. “Whatever else happens, I’ll always come back for you. You have to understand that. Becca will always come back.”
He nods, but even after we’ve cleaned him up, he’s still clutchy, and he starts to wail again every time I put him down. I end up yelling at him—the wrong thing. And then I hear the door open behind me, and I all but jump out of my skin.
I jerk around, still holding Danny. A youngish man is standing in the open doorway, in a tweed jacket, with a sweater underneath. He says he’s the assistant manager.
“Is everything all right, Miss?” he asks.
The cleaning woman must have reported us.
“Oh yes,” I get out. I’m trying to rid myself of Danny—to get him down and behind me—but he won’t let go. “I’m just having a little trouble with my kid brother, that’s all.”
“You sure?” he asks. “Nothing I can do for you?”
“Oh no, we’re fine really. Please. We’ll be leaving in a little while.”
Still he lingers in the doorway, looking us over. He acts as though he expects us to skip out on the bill, but didn’t I pay in advance—cash—when we got there?
“Don’t forget to leave your key in the room when you go,” he says.
“I won’t,” I answer. “And thank you. Thanks a lot.”
Finally this seemed to satisfy him. He leaves. But the minute the door shuts behind him, I put Danny down and start stuffing our belongings into the Gap bags. For God’s sake, I’m shouting in my mind, his picture is in the papers! Don’t motels sell newspapers? Doesn’t this mean we’re going to have to change cars again?
I grab Danny, grab the Gap bags, out the door, into the Chevy. Off. But e
ven as we drive out past the motel office, I can see the assistant manager watching us from the doorway.
A little later, from the backseat, his small voice: “Don’t be scared, Becca. It’s okay.”
“Don’t be scared about what?” In fact I’m so jittery, or scared, or whatever I am, that I realize I’ve just missed the turnoff to the interstate.
“Them won’t find us.”
“They won’t find us. But who’s they?”
“Back there.”
“Back where? At the motel?”
I force myself to concentrate on my U-turn, then head back in the direction we came from.
“Her wasn’t a ’itch.”
“She wasn’t a witch. Who, the woman at the motel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, you’re probably right. How could you tell?”
“Her ’air.”
“Oh? What about her hair?”
“Not blond.”
In spite of my nerves, I laugh aloud. I remember telling him that some witches have dyed blond hair. Certainly the meanest one I ever met did. And speak in deep-down voices like this. I also remember telling him that you can never be a hundred percent positive, because some witches wear disguises.
He never forgets a thing.
I swing us onto the interstate ramp, heading west.
From the backseat: “Was he a oarlock?”
“Who? Oh, you mean the man at the motel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I guess he might have been. I’m not sure, it really didn’t occur to me. Do you think he was a warlock?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How could you tell?”
“’neakers.”
He was wearing sneakers, I noticed it too. But have I ever said warlocks don’t wear sneakers? I don’t know, maybe I have.
“Don’t be scared, Becca. Them won’t find us.”
I want to stop the car, hug him.
Instead I say: “Relax, Max.”
And from the backseat: “Take a chill, Phil.”
25 December
He knows what day it is from TV. At one of the breaks between his morning shows, the announcer wishes everyone a very merry Christmas.
I half-hear it. I’m lying in bed, awake, wishing I had a cup of coffee and gearing up for some more explaining, but the next thing I know, he’s kneeling on my bed.
“Is it Chris, Becca?” he says.
For once, I don’t correct him.
“Yes, it is.”
He’s gazing down at me gravely. Maybe, for all I know, he’s thinking about his mommy and daddy and the tree in the living room. Presents under the tree. He hasn’t mentioned them once, though, since we left—not once. Damn, I think, here it comes.
Instead:
“It’s okay, Becca. Quests. No time for Chris.”
Out of the blue, I feel myself close to crying. I don’t want him to see that. I turn my head away, get up, retrieve our presents from one of the supermarket bags.
I hold out his to him, keep mine.
“You’re absolutely right,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t wish each other Merry Christmas, does it? Merry Christmas, Danny.”
“Merry Chris’mas, Becca,” pulling at the crayon box.
But it’s time to get rolling again.
24 December
Police Bulletin (Mock-up)
MISSING
Suspected Abduction
(photo Subject tk)
JUSTIN ELGIN COFFEY
Date of Birth: 6/21/87
Height: 37” Weight: 31 lbs.
Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown
Last-seen date: 12/21/90 in vicinity of St. George, NJ
NOTE: Subject probably accompanied by Harriet Major, age 21, white female, height: 5’4”, weight: 110 lbs., hair: blond, eyes: blue.
CONTACT POLICE DEPARTMENT,
ST. GEORGE, NEW JERSEY
TELEPHONE: 1-800-tk
Georgia Levy Coffey
27 December
The aerial shot looks almost as though the Goodyear blimp took it. I’ve seen it over and over. It shows the twin chimneys of my roof sitting over their steep gables, bare trees, the pool covered for winter and Justin’s swings and sandbox set, the Robinsons’ tennis court, then, lower down, cars and television vans parked on our road, the front lawn and my trellised rose arbor, the porte-cochère, the white columns of my front porch.
Probably some news helicopter took it. Every time I see it, I think the same thought: If only they could lift the roof off, then they’d have me, a fish in the fishbowl.
I’ve become addicted to my own story.
I’ve done whatever’s been asked of me. I’ve met several times with Capriello, “Detective Lieutenant Robert Capriello of the St. George police.” He belongs to the deli family. Everybody in St. George shops at Capriello’s, and there are branches now in several neighboring towns. I’ve always heard it said that the sons who don’t work behind the counters are mafiosi, but this Capriello reminds me more of an aging small-town accountant, with ruddy cheeks and small, rheumy eyes and shirt collars too tight for his neck. He said: “I don’t think we need get carried away, Mrs. Coffey. Ninety percent of these cases are resolved in a couple of days. Either the kids’ll come back by themselves, or we’ll find them safe and sound.”
This was the first morning, Sunday. I wasn’t reassured. In front of Larry, I told Capriello my version of what happened. Essentially, that the Great Seducer I’m married to drove Harriet away, and she took my son out of spite or revenge.
This brought on our last shouting match, while Capriello stared at the floor. Larry swore that he never slept with Harriet. He admitted to trying but claimed Harriet had turned him down.
“If that’s true,” I hurled at him, “then she’s got goddamned better taste than I do!”
I’ve hardly spoken to him since.
There was more, though. He admitted to breaking down the door on the third floor, trying to get at her. (This, oh, yes, was on a night when his wife was in the hospital, having just had her baby. And with my son in the next room!) He told it with his head in his hands, red-faced, claiming he’d been crazed by other stuff going down in his life.
Some seducer.
He swore he’d exchanged no more than two words with her after that. And that had been Tuesday. They’d disappeared on Saturday.
Even if what he said was true, though—and I have my doubts—it still fits my version. He couldn’t keep his paws off her. In the end, he drove her away.
My husband, for God’s sake!
But guess what? Not even a hint of it, so far, has gotten into the media. No “Second Love Nest Uncovered in Christmas Kidnapping,” although it would be a juicy follow-up to the one in East Springdale, where Harriet lived with her “stepfather.” This has got to be Larry and Capriello in collusion, protecting the Bereaved Daddy as well as the sacred honor and reputation of St. George.
Instead, to the extent that there’s a villain of the piece, it’s me. That’s right. I’m the one in seclusion, The Negligent Mommy.
I’ve also met, once, with a Special Agent Karnishak of the FBI. He’s attached to some kind of missing children information center in Washington. Apparently it’s the law now that any missing child has to be reported to the FBI. I guess the reason I liked Karnishak better than Capriello is that he didn’t set out to reassure me.
But I can’t stop watching the so-called news. Even when they trash me. My friends call it morbid fascination. So does my father, who’s genuinely worried about what’s happening to me. I’ve let everything else drop, except for Zoe. My parents moved in last Sunday, and my father canceled all his appointments for the next day, which was Christmas Eve. My mother has taken over the household—she was the one who hired Clotie’s replacement when it turned out Clotie had lied to me (to hide the fact that she didn’t show up at the house till almost ten last Saturday, by which time they were long since gone)—and my father has taken over dealings wit
h Larry. Together they do the police, “media control” (for one thing, nobody’s allowed on our property), and they’ve hired some local lawyer, another Italian name, who argues with the police about things like the wiretap they want to put on our phone.
Conforti—that’s his name—says they can do it with a warrant, whether we like it or not. Well, I say, let them get a warrant. I don’t want them listening in when I’m talking. And I certainly don’t want them around when Harriet calls.
She will. I know it. But I think I’m the only one who does.
One of the first things they wanted was pictures, photographs of Justin and Harriet for some police flyer. I know I took a roll, or part of one, last October, but the only shot I could find, after turning the house upside down, showed Harriet kneeling behind Justin on the front lawn, her face in shadow. I had plenty of Justin for them. They tried a police composite for Harriet, but the more I corrected the artist’s sketch, the less it looked like anybody I recognized. I think they’ve finally sent out the flyer with a picture of Justin only.
The same thing happened with the phone numbers. The day I first met Harriet, she gave me a list of references—people I think she said she’d sat for in Minnesota. I know I made one call, got an answering machine, but then she was already here, and I forgot about it. For a while—a few days anyway—I’d had her list stuck to the refrigerator door by magnet. Maybe it got thrown out. But once the subject came up, I pulled the kitchen apart obsessively, drawer by drawer, cupboard by cupboard, and the sideboard in the dining room where I sometimes stick things, and my secrétaire, my dresser, and no, goddamn it, I couldn’t remember the name of the people I did call, either.
Then someone suggested the phone bill. The phone bill? I found that—the bill for September—and there it was, September 22, 612 area code. Colwell was the name—that was it!—but the Colwells turned out to be a middle-aged couple, no kids. He was some kind of surgeon. They spent a month every fall on a European trip. They’d never heard of Harriet Major.