Vanished

by Danielle Steel

  “Why do you care so much? Is it the story or the man?” She looked at her squarely, and Bea's eyes didn't waver.

  “It's him,” and then in a softer voice, “you still love him, don't you?” Marielle hesitated for a long time, wondering just how far she could trust her, but for some reason she did. And she knew she wouldn't be disappointed.

  “I always have. I suppose I always will. But he's a part of my past now.” Little by little, Marielle was coming to understand that.

  “Charles said that too, when I spoke to him. But he loves you too. I think he's less crazy now. I think all of this has brought him to his senses.”

  “A little late.” Marielle smiled sadly.

  “He thinks the boy is alive somewhere.” She wanted to give her hope, if not the answers.

  “I wish that were true. The FBI think it's getting late. They're afraid …” She couldn't say the words, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned away. It was all so pointless. What purpose would the trial serve? Whatever they did to Charles, it would not bring back her baby.

  “I don't believe that.” Bea Ritter didn't move as she looked at her, and she reached out a tiny firm hand and took a grip on Marielle's fingers. “And I'm going to do everything I can to help them find him. Whatever the press can do, whatever ins I have, I'm going to use them.” She had some very odd underworld connections, she explained, due to a series of articles she'd done, and the local mob boss had loved them. She'd made him a hero in his own way, and he'd promised her that he'd always be there for her, and lately, after talking to Charles, she had wanted to call him.

  “What did you want from me?” Marielle asked tiredly. She liked the girl, but it was late, and it all seemed so hopeless. “Why did you come here?”

  “I wanted to look you in the eye and see for myself what you believe. I think you don't know …but you're not sure that he did it either.”

  “That's true.”

  “That's fair enough. Maybe in your shoes I'd feel that way too. He must have given you a pretty rough time when …” They both knew that she meant when their son died.

  “He was crazy then,” she smiled sadly, “maybe he still is.”

  “A little bit.” Bea smiled. “He'd have to be to fight in Spain.” But she admired him for that, and she loved what he had written. He had showed some of it to her. They had talked for hours at the jail one day, and he had cried when he told her he didn't do it. And she believed him. She had vowed to help him then, and she knew that Marielle was an important key. No matter what they did to her, she was someone who could help him. “I'm sorry about your husband,” she said carefully.

  “So am I. It's not going to be pretty in the press tomorrow morning.”

  “No, it won't be.” Bea had already seen some of the early tear sheets. “But it raises a little more sympathy for you. They really beat you to death the other day. It made me sick, that's why I wrote the piece I did.” She was kind of a Robin Hood, always defending the underdog, the beaten, the poor, the defeated. She and Charles seemed to have so much in common.

  “Why Charles?” Marielle asked softly. “Why him? Why do you care so much?”

  “I don't want to see him killed for nothing. I never believed entirely that Bruno Hauptmann was guilty either. I know some of the evidence was there, but so much of it was circumstantial. So much of it was hysteria created by the press. It was my first story, I was twenty-one, and I always felt that I could have made a difference, but I didn't. Maybe this time, I can. Or at least die trying.”

  Marielle didn't dare ask her more than that, but there was something more in the girl's eyes, and after a long moment she decided to ask her. “Are you in love with him?” There was no jealousy there, nothing proprietary. It was only a question. And Bea Ritter looked at her for a long time before she answered.

  “I'm not sure. I don't want to be. That isn't the issue.” But it was why she cared so much and Marielle knew it.

  She smiled at her. “Does he know, or is he as stupid as he used to be?” Sometimes he could be dense when he wanted to be. And of course now he was involved with something much more important. But Bea laughed with her.

  “I think maybe he is as stupid as he used to be, but maybe he's a little too busy.” The man was fighting for life. Then suddenly Bea looked worried. “Would you ever go back to him?” But Marielle shook her head without hesitation. Too much pain gone by, too much time, too much sorrow. She loved him, she knew she always would. But he was gone for her now. Marielle thought the little redhead would be perfect for him, if ever the time came, and he was acquitted. He owed a lot to her, but according to Bea, he didn't even know it.

  “What are you going to do now, Bea?”

  “I don't know …I'm going to call up some debts …talk to some old friends …hang out with some private investigators I know. …” And maybe talk to Tom Armour, if she needed money. Maybe he would be willing to pay for some tips, or special favors. She was willing to do anything, call anyone, go anywhere, pay anyone she had to. “Maybe nothing will turn up, but at least we'll have tried …and maybe it'll lead us to Teddy.”

  “You'll let me know if you hear anything, won't you?”

  “The minute I do.” The two women stood up and Marielle walked her to the door. She knew they would never be friends. But she liked her. She was an unusual girl, and a smart one. Charles was luckier than he knew to have found her.

  Bea Ritter slipped away into the night, and when Marielle went back upstairs, it was long after midnight. And as she turned the light off, she lay in her bed thinking of Malcolm, probably in an apartment on Park Avenue …and her little boy, she prayed, asleep in a bed somewhere, with strangers.

  The trial went on for weeks after that, as Hitler seized Memel on the Baltic. The trial seemed to have pushed the world news off the front pages, in New York anyway. But Britain and France had announced that they stood ready to support Poland. And at the end of March, much to Charles's chagrin, the Spanish Civil War ended at last, when Madrid fell to General Franco. There were over a million dead by then, in three years an entire population had fallen. It was a tragedy to Charles, as he knew it would be to his friends in Europe. The fight was over. The war was lost. But Charles Delauney had his own war to fight now, the battle for his survival.

  Marielle never heard from Bea Ritter again after her late-night visit. But she continued to read her articles in the paper, and was touched by her sympathetic viewpoint.

  Predictably, there had been a huge hue and cry in the press about Malcolm and Brigitte for several weeks, but despite constant inquiries, Marielle stayed aloof about it, and made no comments. She and Malcolm had scarcely spoken to each other in weeks, and she had only seen Brigitte once since then. The girl had covered her guilt by looking haughtily at Marielle, and clinging to Malcolm, as though trying to prove that she was the winner. It seemed a poor defense to Marielle, and she didn't envy her awkward position. She felt betrayed by their lies, and Brigitte's false kindness, but she was hardly even angry anymore, or even jealous. He hadn't been hers in a long time, but she was deeply hurt by Malcolm's long-distance deception. Her only attempt to discuss the matter with him had been rebuffed, and Malcolm had pretended to be “outraged.” He told her that after her behavior with Charles he owed her no explanations, which told her absolutely nothing, except to confirm his guilt. But that fact had already been established.

  She reminded him coolly that if he continued to stay at the apartment with the girl, the press would continue to hound them. After that, she noticed that he stayed at their house again, and not at Brigitte's apartment. But in spite of that, she still scarcely saw him.

  The tension between them was unbearable, but so was the trial, as a trail of expert witnesses, detectives, and irrelevant people took the stand, endorsing Charles's guilt, and one by one being attacked by Tom Armour.

  It was three full weeks before the defense had their chance. And Tom Armour called Marielle as his first witness. At first he led her ac
ross the same terrain carefully, rebuilding her where Bill Palmer had destroyed her. And the portrait that began to emerge at his hands was far different from the one colored by Malcolm and Bill Palmer. Instead of a mentally ill invalid, a woman not to be trusted with her own child, he showed more clearly what had really happened, how destroyed she had been at the death of her son, and the loss of her baby, and then her husband. Tom Armour admitted openly that Charles had been more than a little crazy, and had treated her badly. They were both racked with pain, he explained, and there was not a dry eye in the courtroom when he asked her to describe groping for Andre beneath the frozen ice of Lake Geneva. She explained how she had been able to save the two little girls, but not her own son, because he had slipped farther under the ice, and how he had lain lifeless and gray in her arms when she found him. She had had to stop several times as she described the scene to him, and then the hospital that night and losing the baby. In one fell swoop, they had lost their family, and Charles hadn't been equal to it, Charles even more than she. Then she had snapped, and all she wanted for months afterward was to die and be with her babies.

  “Do you feel that way now?” Tom asked her quietly, as several jurors blew their noses.

  “No,” she said sadly.

  “Do you believe Teddy is still alive?”

  Her eyes filled with tears again, but she went on, “I don't know … I hope he is … I hope it so much …” She looked at the press then and into the courtroom. “… If anyone knows where he is …please, please bring him home … we will do anything …just don't hurt him …”A photographer ran up, and a camera exploded in her face as she said it, and the judge ordered the bailiff to throw the photographer out of the courtroom.

  “And if anyone does that again, you'll go to jail, is that clear?” Judge Morrison boomed as Marielle regained her composure. He apologized to her, and she waited for Tom's next question.

  “Do you believe that Charles Delauney took your son?” It was a dangerous question, but he wanted the world to know what she thought because he didn't think she was convinced that he took him.

  “I'm not sure.”

  “Do you think he would do a thing like that? You know him better than anyone here. He has loved you, and hurt you, and cried with you …he's even hit you … he has probably done worse things to you than to anyone he knows.” Charles had admitted that to Tom himself, and yet what Marielle had told Tom of him told him that Marielle did not believe him guilty. “Knowing what you do of him, Mrs. Patterson, do you believe that he took Teddy?”

  She hesitated for an eternity, and then finally shook her head and dropped her face into her hands, and Tom Armour waited.

  “Are you still in love with this man, Mrs. Patterson?”

  She looked at Charles sadly. What terrible things had come to them. What misery they had shared, and yet long ago, they had been so happy. “No,” she said softly. “I love him. I probably always will. He was the father of my children. I loved him very much when I was young …but now … I am only sad for him, and if he has done this terrible thing, then I hope he returns my son safely. But I am not in love with him anymore. We've caused each other too much pain for too long.” Tom Armour nodded, and he respected her more than she knew. She was one hell of a terrific woman. She had held up under questioning, shared her guts, her life, her soul, she had lost two children to the hands of fate, and now one more, and she was still standing. He admired her more than anyone he had ever met, but nothing showed in his face as he went on with his questions.

  “Have you had an affair with Mr. Delauney since your marriage to Mr. Patterson?”

  “No,” she said calmly.

  “Have you had an affair with anyone? Have you ever been unfaithful to your husband?” He looked her straight in the eye, and as her eyes met his, they did not waver.

  “No, I have not.” It was true. She had kissed John Taylor but that was all, and by now her marriage was over.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Patterson, you may step down. I have no further questions.” He helped her from the stand, and, feeling drained, she went back to sit down, but she didn't have the beaten feeling she'd had when she'd been interrogated by Bill Palmer.

  Tom called Haverford to the stand next, their butler. He described her as decent, fair, and intelligent, a woman of integrity, and a true lady, he said proudly, which touched her. He said she'd been wonderful to her son, and he, Haverford, had always been shocked by how badly she was treated by Mr. Patterson's servants. It was as though everyone felt they owed nothing to her, and only to Mr. Patterson. Haverford himself felt that Mr. Patterson never stood behind her. He acted as though she was not in charge, and simply a guest, and that was how she was regarded. He said Miss Griffin had been abominable to her, the housekeeper was worse, and Edith stole her clothes, and everyone, including Mr. Patterson, knew it. He said that all of the servants ridiculed her in the kitchen.

  “Are you saying there was no respect for Mrs. Patterson in her own home?” Tom Armour pressed him, to make sure the jury understood it.

  “I am, sir,” Haverford said, looking dignified in a dark suit that had been tailored for him in London.

  “Would you say that her own behavior led to that attitude, Mr. Haverford? Is she, as has been suggested in this courtroom earlier, an irresponsible, weak woman, essentially without merit?” The old butler bristled visibly at the suggestion, thinking Tom had misunderstood him.

  “What I said, sir, is that she is one of the finest people I've ever known. She is wise, kind, fair, decent, good, and after what she's been through, I don't see how anyone can call her a weak woman.” It was Miss Griffin who had had the vapors and fainting spells, and had to have tablets prescribed by her doctor, ever since the kidnapping.

  “Would you venture an opinion as to why no one in the Patterson household respected her then? Was there any logical reason?” Bill Palmer started to object, and then decided it wasn't worth the trouble. The old man was harmless.

  Haverford nodded, anxious to tell the jury. “Mr. Patterson let us know early on that …”he tried to remember the exact words, but couldn't “…she wasn't all there, well, not precisely that. But he told us she was very frail and very nervous. And he implied that her orders were to be listened to politely, but basically disregarded. Said she didn't know anything about running a house, and later, about children. That let all of us know where she stood with Mr. Malcolm.” It led Marielle to know it too, as she listened. But she still didn't understand why he had done it. He had made her an object of disdain and ridicule right from the beginning. Maybe he just wanted to keep control of everything, and there had never been a real place for her in his house, except as Teddy's mother, and even at that, they hardly let her be useful.

  “Were you aware of Mr. Patterson's affair with Miss Sanders?” Tom asked him then.

  “I was, or at least I suspected it,” Haverford said with an air of frigid disapproval.

  “Did you ever mention your suspicions to Mrs. Patterson?”

  “Certainly not, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Haverford.” Tom offered his witness to the prosecution, but Bill Palmer chose not to ask him any questions. He didn't consider him of any importance. But Marielle had been touched by his testimony, and so had the jury.

  She felt avenged somehow after what he'd said. But it was embarrassing to hear it all spelled out, and also comforting to realize that what she'd felt was real and not delusions. What she still didn't understand was why Malcolm had undermined her with everyone. There had to be a reason. Or was it that he'd been in love with Brigitte almost since the beginning? Was he trying to get rid of Marielle? Did he hope she'd run away, or just give up and leave Teddy with him? She would have died first. But why humiliate her, lie to her, cheat on her? Why bother to marry her in the first place? Had it all been a lie from the beginning? But remembering their sweet, early days, she couldn't believe that.

  The next witness Tom called to the stand was Brigitte Sanders. And there was a consi
derable stir in the courtroom as she came forward. She was a beautiful girl, there was no denying that, and there was an air of definite sexuality about her, more than Marielle had ever noticed before. Perhaps it was because she had nothing to hide now. Their secret was exposed, and in some ways, Brigitte seemed proud of it. She wore a sleek black dress, and Marielle noticed that it looked expensive. Her hair was perfectly coifed in the familiar bob, and she wore the usual bright red nails and lipstick. And everyone agreed that she was very striking. She made Marielle feel like a small brown wren in comparison, but what she didn't understand was how cold Brigitte seemed, how calculating, and how hard she seemed to everyone in the courtroom in comparison to Marielle. Tom Armour thought she was unbearably German in her manner. And there was an insolent tone to her voice as she answered his questions. It was a style Marielle had never seen her use before, and she wondered if she was feeling defensive, now that the secret was out, and she'd been exposed to the whole world as Malcolm's mistress.

  She admitted that Malcolm spent most of his evenings with her, and some nights, and said that he had never been happy with his wife, and he had married her only to have children. What she said gave Marielle a jolt, and she wondered if it was true. Was that it then?

  “She couldn't even do that easily,” Brigitte said with derision. Gone the warmth, the concern, the Kindness she had always shown Marielle, and Teddy. She was ready to tell all, and Malcolm looked strained as he watched her.

  “Would you care to explain that last remark, Miss Sanders?” Tom asked politely.

  “It took her a long time to get pregnant.” Tom Armour refrained from suggesting that perhaps Mr. Patterson was spending too many nights at her apartment. “In fact, he was so tired of waiting, that he was thinking of divorcing her right around the time she got pregnant.” There was a murmur in the crowd, and Marielle cast her eyes to the floor, as the judge rapped his gavel. She could feel herself blush, as she sat next to John Taylor. He didn't move, or say anything, but he felt sorry for her, knowing how private she was, and how discreet. This couldn't have been easy for her.