Perry, Thomas - Jane Whitefield 02 - Dance for the Dead

by Perry, Thomas

  “What happened when you woke up?”

  “The lawyer – Dennis – he was talking on the telephone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he hung up, he and Mona talked some more. He gave her some money. He had a lot of money inside of books on the bookshelf, and some in his pocket. He gave her that too.”

  “Then what?”

  “The phone rang and Dennis answered it, and talked to somebody else. Then we all got in the car and Dennis drove. This time we drove all night and all the next day, almost. Then we got to Jane’s house.”

  “What is Jane’s full name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “We went to her house. She put us in a room upstairs, and we went to sleep. When I woke up, she made us breakfast. Mona was already awake.”

  “I mean about Jane. What was she like?”

  “I was afraid of her at first.”

  “Why?”

  “She was tall and skinny and had long black hair, and she seemed to listen to people with her eyes.”

  Ambrose paused. “I see. What did she do?”

  “She and Mona talked for a long time. Then I heard her say she would make us disappear.”

  “Is that why you thought she was scary?”

  “No… maybe.”

  “How long did you stay with Jane?”

  “A long time. I think Mona said it was three weeks, but it seemed like a year. Then we all got in Jane’s car and she drove us to Chicago.”

  “What did she do then?”

  “She stayed for a day or two, and then one morning I woke up and she was gone.”

  “Was Mona surprised?”

  “No. Mona acted like it was normal, and didn’t talk about her again. Mona and I lived in Chicago after that. Mona was Diana Johnson, and I was her son. She wanted me to be Andrew, but I didn’t like it, so I got to stay Tim.”

  “How did you live?”

  “Like people do.”

  “I mean, did Mona have a job – did she go to work?”

  “Yes. While I was in school.”

  “They called you Tim Johnson at school?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you start – what grade?”

  “Kindergarten. I had already been in kindergarten, so it was the second time.”

  “And you’re in the second grade now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you afraid in Chicago?”

  “At first I was. It was different. I was afraid the bad people would get Mona, and then I would be all alone. But after a while I made some friends, and got used to it, and I didn’t think about that part much anymore. I was sad sometimes.”

  “And Mona pretended to be your mother for over two years?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What else did she do? Did she still see anybody you knew from Washington?”

  “No. She used to talk on the phone a lot.”

  “To whom? Jane?”

  “No. Dennis.”

  “Did you ever hear what she said?”

  “Once in a while, but it wasn’t really okay. She would go in her bedroom and talk to him. Sometimes she would tell me what she said.”

  “Then a little over a week ago something changed, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. Everything.”

  “You found out who you were, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Ambrose.” It was Schoenfeld’s resonant voice again. “Maybe we should let Timmy tell us exactly what happened in his own words from here on. I believe you’ve done an admirable job in laying the groundwork, but now we’re in new territory, and I have no objection to letting Mr. Phillips speak freely and tell us whatever he can that will aid in the possible prosecutions.” Of course not, thought the judge. Schoenfeld could be magnanimous. He had already established that Timmy was Mr. Phillips, and nothing else that anyone said or did from there on was of any consequence for Schoenfeld.

  “Thank you,” said Ambrose. “Timmy, tell us what happened.”

  “I came home from school, and Mona was there, and so was Dennis the lawyer, and so was Jane. Dennis said he had spent two years trying to figure out why anyone would want to hurt my parents and me, and now he knew.”

  “This was in Chicago?”

  “Yeah,” said Timmy. “He told me that when my mother died they had special doctors look at her, and that she had never been to the hospital to have a baby. He said he got to look at a copy of the birth certificate they had at my school, and it wasn’t real. He said I wasn’t adopted. They just drew a picture of a birth certificate and said it was mine. He said that the reason they did that was because they loved me very much and had always wanted a little boy.”

  Judge Kramer stopped the tape and backed it up to listen to the last exchange again. It was a hell of a way to explain a kidnapping. In spite of everything, he had to admire Dennis Morgan. After what he had seen, this little boy was going to be an annuity for the psychiatrists for the next fifty years. There was no reason to make it worse.

  The tape kept running. “Then he told you about your other parents?”

  “Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. They died when I was one.”

  “And your grandma?”

  “I knew about her already, but I didn’t know she had died like all my parents. She had been dead for three years.”

  “Did Mr. Morgan tell you that she had left you some money?”

  “Yeah. He said that when Mr. and Mrs. Phillips died she put all the family money in a big pot and said it could only go to me. And when I was gone she hired a company to take care of the money and keep looking for me forever.”

  “Did she say what they were called?”

  “Trusty.”

  Judge Kramer prayed that Ambrose wasn’t about to drag an eight-year-old on a field trip through a morass of legal terminology. What could the child possibly know about trustees and executors?

  “What happened last week to change that? Did he tell you?”

  “He said that the Trusty had gotten tired of looking and waiting, and they were going to say I wasn’t alive anymore. So he called Jane again.”

  “I’m very curious about this Jane. I understand about Mona. She was your nanny, and she loved you. The lawyer, Mr. Morgan, was a very close friend of Mona’s, right?”

  “Yeah. They were going to get married when the people came and got my parents. Then they couldn’t because we’d get caught. That was why he looked so hard to find out where I was really supposed to be – so Mona could go back to being Mona and marry him.”

  “But why was Jane doing it? Did she know your parents?”

  “No. Mona had to tell her about them that time when we went to her house. Mona thought they worked for the government, so the people who hurt them must be spies. It took Jane a long time to find out that my parents didn’t work for the government.”

  “Then Jane was Mona’s friend?”

  “I don’t think so. Dennis was the one who called her.”

  Judge Kramer could imagine the F.B.I, agent. He was going to make his career sorting all this out. Not the least interesting question was why a prominent Washington defense attorney had the telephone number of a woman who made people disappear. They would be going over the record of Morgan’s former clients right now to see if there were any on their Most Wanted List.

  Even Ambrose seemed to sense that he had crossed the trail of an unfamiliar creature. “The lawyer knew her?” he repeated. “Did he pay her?”

  “No. Dennis said he tried, but she had decided that so many people loved me that I must be a fine boy.”

  “Hmmmm…”

  Judge Kramer had a vision of Ambrose’s raised eyebrows, as he had seen them during cross-examinations.

  “Did anybody say anything else about her?”

  “Dennis. He said that from then on we had to do everything that Jane said, exactly. It didn
’t matter what anybody else said, we should listen to her.”

  “So she was the boss.”

  “He said that he had done everything he could to find out things, but the only way to solve this was to walk into court and surprise everybody and say who I was. He said the bad people knew I must be alive, so they would be expecting me to come. Jane was the one who knew how to get us past them.”

  “So you all took an airplane to California?”

  “No. Jane said we had to drive all the way or the bad people might see us. Every day we got a new car. She would go to a place where they rented them, and then drive all day and then leave it and rent another one. Then we were in California.”

  “What then? Did you stay in a hotel?”

  “No. Jane said that if people were after me, they would be watching hotels near the courthouse, because they would be expecting us to do that. So we went to the courthouse right away.”

  “What time was it?”

  “About dinnertime. Jane opened the lock on an office and we stayed there all night. I fell asleep on a couch.”

  “What happened when you woke up?”

  “I heard Dennis come into the office. He had been out in the building by himself. He said they had pulled a trick on us, and now we had to go to a different building. So we ran out and got into our car and drove again. Jane said on the way that it didn’t feel right.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She asked Dennis if there was any way of doing this besides actually showing up in court. Could we call and ask for a delay or something. He said that he didn’t know who was honest and who wasn’t. A phone call wouldn’t stop the case for sure, but it would tell the bad guys I was coming for sure. Then he said if they fooled the judge they could do something that day, right away. I don’t know what. Jane drove for a long time without saying anything. Then she said, ‘is there any way to know what’s in the building?’”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “She said, ‘We want to fade in. If Timmy’s the only boy in the crowd, we’re in trouble.’ She said something about adoption and custody.”

  “I see,” said Ambrose. “Did Mr. Morgan know the answer?”

  “We stopped at a phone booth and he looked in the book and made a call. He came back and got into the car and made Jane scoot over, so he could drive. He said he and Mona would be getting a divorce before they got married, and Jane would carry his briefcase like she was their lawyer. But we would go to Courtroom 22 on the fifth floor instead.”

  “Did Jane agree?”

  “At first. But then we got near the courthouse, and Jane said two men in a car were following us. They kept coming faster and faster, and then they tried to get in front of us, and they bumped the car.”

  “What did Mr. Morgan do?”

  “He got all nervous, and kept trying to go fast and keep the car straight. Jane said to him, ‘Well? What’s it going to be?’ and he said, ‘I can’t get them into the building. It’s got to be me.’ He was scared. He looked pale and sick and sweaty.”

  “And Jane?”

  “She was quiet. He drove to the parking lot and stopped. Mona kissed him, and Jane yanked me out the door and we started running.”

  “Did you see what Mr. Morgan did after you were out of the car?”

  “I heard this loud bang, and I turned around and it looked like what he had done was go backwards into the other car. One of the men jumped out and started hitting him. He tried to fight but he wasn’t good at it. And the other man got out of the car and ran after us, so Dennis tried to tackle him, but the man kicked him, and the first one grabbed him around the neck. I didn’t see any more because Jane and Mona and I were running and I tripped, but Jane held my hand and kept me from falling. We ran up the steps.”

  “Did anyone try to stop you?”

  “There was a man on the other side of the glass door, and he saw us and put his foot against it so it wouldn’t open. Jane didn’t stop. She let go of me and hit it with her shoulder and stuck her purse in it when it opened a little. The man put his arm there to push the purse out, but as soon as his arm was in there she jerked the purse out by the strap and shut the door on his arm. When he pulled the handle to get his arm out, she pushed the door into his face and we ran on.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “There were men right by the elevator, and they started coming toward us. We ran up the stairs. I counted four flights, but there was a door and it only had a two on it. We ran through it, and when we passed the elevator Jane pushed the button and ran to another staircase, and we got up to the third floor. We got to the fourth floor, and we heard a door below us slam open against the wall, and some men were running up after us. Mona was breathing hard and then she was crying too. She touched my arm at the top of the next landing and said, ‘This is my stop. Keep going. I love you, Timmy.’”

  “What did Jane say?”

  “Nothing. She just looked at her, and then we ran up to the fifth floor. Just when we got to the top, I looked back and saw Mona on the stairs. She was holding on to both railings and kicking at these men. I saw one of them reaching out like he was trying to hug her. But right then, the door that said five swung open right in front of us. It was one of the men that was by the elevator. He looked surprised, and Jane just punched him and kept going.”

  “She hit him in the jaw?” The judge could sense Ambrose’s raised eyebrow again.

  “No. In the neck. Then we were on the fifth floor, and we ran down this long hallway. When we got to the corner I could see ‘twenty to thirty’ painted on the wall with an arrow pointing to the left, but the door we had used to get there opened up again and three big men were running after us. Jane jerked me around the corner and said, ‘Run to the room that says twenty-two. Don’t stop for anybody until you’re right in the front where the judge sits, and yell, “I’m Timothy Phillips.”‘ I tried to say something, but she said, ‘Don’t talk, just run.’”

  Judge Kramer pushed the stop button and sat in his dark office. He had been on the bench when the little boy had burst through the doors and run up the aisle screaming. The bailiff had made a reasonably competent attempt to head him off, but he had actually touched the bench and yelled, “I'm Tim Phillips.” What had happened in the hallway Judge Kramer had heard from one of the policemen who had piled out of the adjoining courtrooms to quell the disturbance.

  Judge Kramer pressed the intercom button on his telephone.

  “Yes, Judge?” came his assistant’s voice.

  “Where are they holding this ‘Jane’ woman?”

  “I think they took her for medical treatment to County-USC. I’ll find out if she’s in the jail ward and let you know.”

  “No,” Kramer said. “Just call the precinct and tell them I want to see her.”

  “Would you like a conference room at the jail?”

  “Have them bring her here.”

  The male police officer was tall and rangy, and the female was short and blond with her hair drawn up in the back and cinched in that way they all knew how to do. The department never had all-male teams transport a female prisoner anymore, so the judge should have been used to it, but the pairs still seemed to him like married couples from a planet where people wore uniforms. They ushered the prisoner into his chambers. When her face came into the light he felt his breath suck in. He had never gotten used to seeing a young woman’s face with bruises and cuts and blackened eyes. He tried to see past them.

  She was not quite what he had heard described on the tape. She was tall, as tall as he was if he stood up, and this realization made him intuit that it was better not to, so he stayed down behind his big desk. Her hair was black and hung loose to a place below her shoulder blades, but that probably wasn’t the way she wore it; they had combed it out because they always searched women’s hair. He could see that Timmy’s description was not wrong, just uninformed. This woman had the strange, angular beauty he associated with fashion models: it was striking,
but geometric and cold. The judge’s taste ran more to women like his late wife and the little policewoman, who looked round and soft and warm. The woman’s hands were cuffed in front of her instead of behind, which meant they weren’t taking all the precautions, but the police officers were wary: the policewoman kept a hand at her left elbow, and the man was a step behind and to her right, leaving just enough room to swing his club.

  Judge Kramer said, “Thank you very much, officers. We’ve got some coffee in the outer office, and I keep soft drinks in the little refrigerator under the water cooler. I’ll be finished with the prisoner in about fifteen minutes.”

  The policewoman said, “Your Honor, we should mention – ”

  He interrupted, “I know. I spoke with the arresting officer. Has she hurt anyone since she’s been in custody?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll chance it.”

  The prisoner held out her hands, and the male officer unlocked the cuffs, took them off, and said to no one in particular, “We’ll be right outside.”

  When they had closed the door, Judge Kramer said to her, “Sit down, please.”

  The woman sat in the chair in front of the desk.

  Judge Kramer probed for a way to break the silence. “I hear you’re one of those people who could kill me with a pencil.”

  She said simply, “If I am, then I wouldn’t need a pencil.” She looked at the tape recorder on his desk. “Is that running?”

  He said, “I want to assure you that no record will be made of this conversation. I just listened to a deposition of Timothy Phillips, and I decided that the only person left who can answer the questions I have is you. Mona Turley and Dennis Morgan are dead.”

  She nodded silently and watched him.

  “What do you know about the child’s situation?”

  “Who are you? Why are you the one who has questions?”

  His eyes widened involuntarily, as though someone had thrown a glass of water in his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “When you’ve been a judge for a few years, you’re used to being the only one in the room everyone takes at face value. My name is John Kramer. I’m the judge who was presiding in Courtroom 22. We hadn’t gotten to the petition to declare Timothy Phillips legally dead when he ran in and disrupted my court. For the moment, the matter is still undecided, and I’ve left it that way.”