by Alan Russell
Eleanor was standing in the living room with an arm around her daughter; already the two of them looked inseparable. In fact, it almost looked as if they were about to participate in a three-legged race. Talking to them was a fortyish woman who Cheever assumed, from the black bag and stethoscope, was a doctor. Duncan led Cheever forward by the arm.
“Stella,” said Duncan, “I’d like you to meet Detective Cheever. For seven years he’s been looking for you.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally meet you,” he said, his smile so wide his facial muscles actually ached.
The detective found it hard to take his eyes off the girl. Stella had retained the whitish-blonde hair she’d had as a child. She took a step forward to shake Cheever’s hand, and seemed to glide more than walk. He cupped his big hand around her graceful, artistic digits.
“So this is what a miracle feels like,” he said.
Everyone around them laughed; only Cheever knew his words were serious.
Her hand was thin, but her grip was firm. Her skin was milk white, and her complexion was almost opaque. She was tall and thin, and reminded Cheever of a plant that had shot upward, reaching for the sky. Stella didn’t seem delicate exactly, but there was a fragile quality to her, or maybe it was just that she somehow seemed out of place. Like a snowball in summer, he thought, looking at her white skin.
She smiled, but spoke carefully, as if having to consider every word: “I am sorry that I put you to such effort.”
“This happy ending makes it all worthwhile. I’m just glad you’re all right. There’s no place like home, right?”
Stella smiled, but didn’t answer.
Cheever found himself thinking about Diane. He wondered what she would have looked like all grown up, and wished he’d had the chance to see.
“And this is Dr. Jamie Schmitt,” said Duncan, introducing him to the woman with the stethoscope. “She used to be Stella’s pediatrician, and was kind enough to agree to do a house-call checkup on Stella.”
Cheever shook hands with her. The cop in him already wanted answers. “Have you had time to do Stella’s physical?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I think all of us have been too busy hugging.”
“As part of your physical,” he said, “will you be taking DNA swabs?”
Duncan laughed and said to the doctor, “Once a cop, always a cop.”
Then the congressman quoted from the Bible the story of Doubting Thomas the Apostle: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
“Guilty as charged,” said Cheever.
Dr. Schmitt inquired of Duncan with her eyes if it was okay for her to talk freely.
“Please answer any questions Detective Cheever has,” he said. And then he added with a laugh, “And I’m sure he will have a lot.”
Dr. Schmitt turned to Cheever and said, “Even though I understand SDPD already confirmed Stella’s identity through her fingerprints, I will be taking DNA swabs, footprints, fingerprints, blood, and urine. Lab work will include a CBC and lipid panel. I will also be taking DNA swabs from Mrs. Pierce and the congressman. The Pierce family has authorized me to release all my findings to SDPD.”
“Sufficient?” asked Duncan.
Cheever nodded.
“When Eleanor called me with the news,” admitted Duncan, “I was more than skeptical. I wasn’t as smart as Copper here. I’m told all it took for him was one sniff to know it was Stella.”
The old golden had found a place on the floor right next to Stella. Every half minute or so, the girl reached down to scratch the dog’s ear.
“So where was she?” Cheever asked, speaking so that only Duncan could hear.
“Where was she what?” asked Duncan. He looked confused for a moment before realizing what Cheever was asking. “I guess that should have been the obvious first question, but with everything going on, I don’t think Eleanor or I have gotten around to asking it.”
Cheever wondered whether the omission was purposeful. There was some news you didn’t want to hear. Denial was what got lots of people through the day. But it was time to face up to the five-ton elephant in the room.
“Sweetie,” said Duncan, speaking as gently as he could to Stella, “in all the excitement, I never asked you where you’ve been these seven years.”
Cheever watched as Stella reached out with her thin right hand and touched her father’s shoulder. It looked as if she were the one trying to reassure him.
“I was with the Travelers, Daddy,” Stella said.
Cheever had once worked a case involving a group of Gypsies. Early on he learned they preferred to be called Roma, or Travelers. “Are you talking about Gypsies?” he asked.
“No,” said Stella. “Travelers aren’t of this earth.”
The adults were uncomfortably silent for a moment. Cheever could see no one knew quite what to say. In his job he was used to dealing with the mentally ill. When people said crazy things, his colleagues often said of them that they were “gone with the fairies.” Cheever did his best to speak softly. “Then what are they?”
“They are beings that travel the cosmos.”
“Are you saying the Travelers are extraterrestrials?”
“Yes,” said Stella.
“And these aliens took you with them?” asked Cheever.
“They invited me to join them,” said Stella.
“And you traveled around the universe with them?”
“The universe is too broad of a statement,” Stella said, as if this were the most ordinary conversation in the world. She didn’t seem the least bit fazed by his questions. “I will say in my short time of traveling with them, I took part in their pilgrimage to places and planets.”
“Then the Travelers are some kind of religious group?”
“They see holiness in many places, and in many things. They are caretakers of sorts, and teachers.”
Cheever watched unease flicker across the faces of the adults. No one knew how to reply. They were spared from answering when the front door was thrown open, and Michael stomped inside.
“What the hell are all those reporters doing outside?” he asked.
Michael suddenly noticed his father was in the room. Wasn’t he supposed to be on his way back to DC? Maybe that explained all the texts and phone calls from his mother. He hadn’t bothered to read or listen to any of them. The smallest thing put his mother in a tizzy.
For a moment Michael thought about offering up the excuse that his phone had run out of juice, but since being accepted into the Air Force Academy, he’d been trying to live by their cadet creed: We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.
“Sorry I didn’t respond to your calls and texts, Mom.”
Michael took notice of the others in the room, nodding at Cheever, looking at Dr. Schmitt with surprise, and then trying to identify the girl his mom was clinging to. He felt his expression shift from incomprehension to disbelief to denial that he could be seeing what he thought he was. And finally to an incredulity that yielded to shocked certainty.
“No fucking way,” said Michael.
For once his mother didn’t lecture him on cursing.
He started walking toward Stella; she met him halfway and threw her arms around him.
“Stella?” he said. “Stella?”
“I am so glad to see you, Michael.”
Like most pediatricians, Dr. Schmitt seemed to have a talent for putting people at ease. She was obviously used to working with the toughest critics of them all—the young. After all the extraordinary announcements and reunions, the doctor showed the good sense to let everyone take a breath.
“I’m afraid the clock is ticking, Michael,” she said after the siblings had embraced for a good long while. “Do you mind if I take Stella away for a few minutes so that I can conduct a physical?”
“Sure,” said Michael, awkwar
dly releasing his sister and stepping back. He still looked as if he was in a state of shock.
“Is it all right if I sit in on your physical?” Eleanor asked Stella.
The girl nodded, then extended her hand to her mother. It was hard to tell if she needed reassurance, or was giving it, or both.
The women went upstairs to Stella’s room; the men adjourned to the living room. Because of the detective’s frequent visits over the years, Michael sometimes jokingly called him “Uncle Cheever.”
“Hey, big guy.” Cheever squeezed Michael’s arm. “Are you still driving all the girls crazy?”
“Just most of them,” said Michael, still looking in the direction Stella had gone.
“It’s not fair,” Cheever said to Duncan. “When I was in high school, I was fighting off acne, not girls. What’s this guy got that I don’t have, besides good looks and smarts?”
Cheever stopped talking for a moment, making sure the women were out of hearing range. Then he turned to Michael and said, “Just before you stepped through the door, Stella made the rather startling announcement that for the last seven years she’s been traveling around space with extraterrestrials.”
Michael looked from Cheever’s face to his father’s. “You’re kidding.”
“He’s not,” said Duncan.
“That’s crazy,” said Michael, shaking his head.
He might as well have been saying, “She’s crazy.” That’s what his body language was saying.
“You ever hear anyone refer to coping mechanisms or defensive mechanisms?” Cheever asked.
Michael nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s like how people deal with things like stress. Some people might exercise; others might go to a movie or have a drink. They try to find some way to cope.”
“That’s right,” said Cheever. “And in some instances they have to do a lot more than that. In order to survive something bad, people have been known to trick their own minds. Sometimes they even supply themselves with a different reality and alternate history just so they don’t have to deal with what happened to them. I suspect your sister did that. I think it’s likely your sister’s alien story is a coping mechanism.”
“You think bad things happened to Stella?” asked the boy.
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” said Cheever. “Unfortunately, when children are abducted, that’s generally the case. She might not want to think about what happened to her. Of course I might be all wrong about that. There could be other reasons for Stella concocting a story. It’s possible she wants to protect her abductors.”
“Why would she do that?” asked Duncan.
“Have either of you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome?” asked the cop.
Both father and son shook their heads.
“Long story short,” said Cheever, “half a century ago there was an attempted bank robbery in Stockholm. During the six-day standoff, the robbers and their hostages got friendly with one another to the point where the hostages sympathized with their captors. Since that time there have been a number of other abduction/hostage relationships where the same thing happened.”
Duncan frowned. “So you think Stella came to sympathize with her captors?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Then I guess it’s good we have a mental health professional on his way over here. I had my office arrange for that even before Stella started telling her little-green-men story.”
“Did she really say there were little green men?” asked Michael.
“No, she didn’t,” said Duncan. “That was your father using humor as a defense mechanism. Stella didn’t describe her aliens other than to call them Travelers.”
“If anyone had kidnapped me,” Michael said, “I’d want to see them nailed.”
“Given a little time, that might be what Stella wants as well,” said Cheever, “but in the meantime, I’d ask that you be supportive, especially because it’s likely your sister will have a tough time adjusting.”
“Why?” asked Michael. “She’s home now.”
“You would think that would solve everything,” said Cheever, “but that hasn’t been the case.”
His grim expression was noticed by both father and son.
“What aren’t you telling us?” asked Duncan.
“I’ve always held out hope that Stella would one day return,” Cheever said. “Because of that, I’ve done a lot of reading on victims who survived their abductions. There’s no single profile. But when you’ve been to hell and back—and that’s what happened to too many of these individuals—it’s not easy adjusting.”
Cheever stopped talking. He thought about those who’d been abducted, and later had turned up alive. None were unscathed; all of them were damaged in one way or another.
“Anyway, I don’t mean to be a buzzkill here,” he said, “especially given the circumstances. After seven years, Stella has returned, and that’s a cause for celebration. Time will sort out her stories. Right now she might not be ready to deal with what happened to her; she might not be ready to even admit it to herself.”
The detective let his words sink in. He wanted the Pierce family to realize how psychologically fragile Stella might be.
“Today I’m not planning on questioning Stella for very long,” said Cheever. “My goal is to try and establish a rapport with her, and show her that I am on her side. I’m not going to challenge her alien story, especially if it’s her security blanket. The human mind finds a lot of ways to cope. I expect Stella’s aliens will vanish over time, and the truth will surface, but right now that version of events might be what’s keeping her . . . intact.”
Duncan and Michael both nodded.
They heard voices and footsteps coming down the stairs. All three women were laughing and talking.
“Who’s ready for cocoa?” asked Eleanor.
“I am!” said Stella.
Cheever caught sight of Stella’s smile. The cop couldn’t help but remember how his own little girl had loved cocoa. Her time on the planet had been short, but Diane loomed large in his memories.
Since her death, he wondered, have I had hot chocolate? He didn’t think so. Drinking cocoa was an activity he had done just with his daughter. It wasn’t something he had ever wanted to do by himself, but the prospect suddenly appealed to him. Apparently he wasn’t alone. Everyone seemed to want some.
“Who wants marshmallows?” asked Eleanor.
“I do,” said Stella. She turned and noticed Cheever’s eyes on her.
“Cocoa is really good that way, Detective Cheever,” she said.
Diane had liked it with marshmallows, too, he remembered.
“Marshmallows sound good to me,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cheever took stock of all that was going on. Eleanor was in the kitchen. She’d gone from making cocoa to making macaroni and cheese; apparently it had been Stella’s favorite dish when she was a girl.
Duncan collected the empty cocoa cups and joined Eleanor in the kitchen, where she was humming happily. Cheever watched Duncan looking at his wife and smiling while she hummed and whistled. Her back was turned to him, but she must have sensed his presence because she turned around. She smiled, and as Duncan put the used cups on the counter, she surprised him with a kiss.
Stella isn’t the only one who’s returned, thought Cheever.
Michael and Stella were talking with Dr. Schmitt. Anyone looking at the siblings would never know they’d been apart for seven years. Stella seemed as comfortable around her family as if she’d never left. Cheever caught Michael’s eye and gave him a nod. Michael responded to the prearranged signal and said to Stella, “It’s been a long time since I beat you in Ping-Pong. Want to play?”
Cheever suspected the girl knew she was being herded away so the adults could talk, though she smilingly followed her brother out of the living room.
Duncan came out of the kitchen and looked at Dr. Schmitt expectantly. “How is my daughter doing?” he asked.
/> “Physically, Stella appears very healthy,” she said. “Given the circumstances, I know you must be concerned as to whether there was sexual trauma; in my examination I didn’t find any sign of that.”
“Thank God,” said Duncan.
The doctor continued, “I asked Stella whether she’d ever had any sexual partners, and she told me that she hadn’t.”
“Did you need to qualify, or explain, your inquiries?” asked Cheever.
“No. Stella seemed acquainted with human biology.”
Dr. Schmitt continued with her rundown. “Stella’s vision and hearing are exceptional, and her pulse and blood pressure are both good. Her height seems to be following the expected curve. She’s on the thin side, but seems quite fit. When I get to the office, I’ll have her blood work and urine samples processed, but I expect everything will be fine.”
“Her physical didn’t reveal any surprises?” asked Cheever.
Dr. Schmitt shrugged. “Pending lab results and further tests, Stella appears to be a healthy young woman. In terms of statistical norms, she exhibits a few slight deviations, but nothing too out of the ordinary.”
“Can you offer specifics?”
“Stella hasn’t begun menses yet, whereas most girls her age have. Her extreme paleness is also something I want to monitor. Of course it could simply be explained by her having spent very little time in the sun.”
“If that’s so, it suggests she was confined,” said Cheever.
“That’s one possibility, but there are many others. In a winter climate with little sun, many people are pale. Or individuals who are bedridden for as little as a week frequently lose their color.”
“You heard what Stella had to say about the Travelers,” said Duncan.
She nodded.
“What are your thoughts on that?”
“I am not a mental health professional,” said Dr. Schmitt, “and don’t feel that I am qualified to comment other than to say patients make up stories for any number of reasons.”
“Can we count on doctor/client privilege that you will not divulge what you heard?”