Crimson Rain

by Meg O'Brien

  “Well, as I said, she was seventeen and apparently mentally ill. A mind in that condition doesn’t work logically. In her torment, Rose might have been able to convince herself that if she ‘accidentally’ fell down the stairs and aborted, that would be all right.”

  “Even though it wasn’t really an accident.”

  “Even though.”

  “That’s appalling,” Paul said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe a mother could do something like that.”

  “Well, for all practical purposes, she wasn’t a mother then,” Mrs. Ewing pointed out. “She was a young girl with something growing inside her, something she didn’t want. To be blunt, she did everything in her power to get it out.”

  Paul thought of Rachel, and how empty his and Gina’s lives would have been if she’d never existed.

  “What happened after the babies were born?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  “For the most part, Rose pretended they weren’t there. She…are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Well, she was living in an abandoned house. One night a neighbor called the police and said there had been cats crying in that house, day and night. She couldn’t stand it any longer and wanted them to do something about it. The police were going to turn it over to the animal control people, but one officer who was on duty and didn’t have much to do that night said he’d go check it out. He found the babies alone, in a bedroom with the door shut, whimpering like little kittens. That was what the neighbor had heard.”

  She sighed. “When Rose came home the house was full of police and welfare people. She told the investigating officers that she had kept the babies in cardboard boxes since they were born, and every other day or so she would go into the room and…clean up their ‘mess,’ as she put it. She seldom fed them or talked to them, just cleaned them up. Not nearly enough, however. When the police found them, they were filthy, lying in their urine and feces. An ambulance was called, and the babies were taken to the hospital. They were judged to be about two months old. It was hard to tell, because they weighed only four pounds each—probably not much more than the day they were born.”

  “Oh, my God,” Paul murmured. “What happened to the babies after they were found?”

  “They were in foster homes for a few weeks, and they could have been adopted. Rose gave up all parental rights, and the father, apparently, was a vagrant who’d raped her and then moved on. No one, however, after hearing the story of how the twins had been found, would take them. Not that they didn’t sympathize, but the child welfare people had to tell them honestly that the girls could end up with severe emotional problems. Finally, when they were three months old, it was decided to place them here at Saint Sympatica’s for long-term care.”

  “But then we came along a few months later and adopted them,” Paul said. “And you never told us any of this. You said they had been left here on the steps.”

  “To be honest, I was afraid to tell you,” Mrs. Ewing admitted. “You and your wife looked like just the right people to adopt the girls, and I hoped they’d have a good life with you. I did tell you, if you recall, that they might need psychological care, and that they never had a chance to bond with anyone during their first few months.”

  “True,” Paul agreed. “You told us that, but nothing about how terrible their circumstances were.”

  “Mr. Bradley,” Anita Ewing sighed again. “Would you and your wife have taken them, if you’d known?”

  He hesitated only a moment. “Yes. At least, I think we would have.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “I…I suppose not. We might have been afraid they would be too much responsibility.” His tone took on an edge. “On the other hand, if we’d known what we were really up against, we might have been able to protect Rachel from Angela. Now our daughter is missing, and possibly in danger. Or worse.”

  “You’re quite right,” Mrs. Ewing said, meeting his eyes. “I really am very, very sorry for the trouble you’re having now. My husband and I have tried so hard to do the right things for our children. I wonder if you can understand how difficult it is at times to know what’s right and what isn’t. Not that I’m making excuses, but it isn’t always possible to give our children the kind of attention we would like to give them. We started out with a dream, Rodney and I, and I’m afraid we weren’t very practical about it. We never allowed room, for instance, for a lack of funds and not enough staff—”

  She broke off. “Well, that’s neither here nor there now, I’m afraid. Mr. Bradley, I hope you find Rachel soon. And I pray she’s all right.” She stood and held out both her hands, and Paul took them in his. “I don’t know if any of this will help,” she said. “But I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not being more forthcoming with you when you adopted the twins.”

  “I’m not in any position to judge you, Mrs. Ewing. When we find Rachel, I’ll have a lot of making up to do.”

  On the way home to Seattle in the plane, one thought kept running through his mind: What might Angela, daughter of Rose, have done to her sister? Was life of no value to her? Had she inherited a soul bereft of any conscience at all?

  Paul was back in Seattle by ten o’clock that night. He had kept in touch with Gina by cell phone while he was gone, and he knew from his last call, made the moment he disembarked at Sea-Tac, that Rachel had still not been found. She had now been gone two days, and his steps were as heavy as his heart as he pulled into the driveway on Queen Anne Hill.

  The silver Crown Vic that was almost the same as Gina’s was parked on the street. Duarte was here, then. Paul had called him from the airport and asked if he was free, and whether, as a favor, he might meet with him and Gina at the house.

  “I’m just now getting off a twelve-hour day,” Duarte had said, “and I’m bushed, but I’ll stop by for a few minutes on my way home.”

  Dropping his keys onto the mahogany table in the hallway, Paul found them both in the kitchen. Duarte was drinking coffee and Gina was feverishly rolling out dough for a pie, her movements rapid and jerky. There were sliced apples in a white enamel bowl, blueberries in another, and the scent of chocolate chip cookies drifting from the oven. Flour coated Gina’s arms and nose and, as he walked in, she barely looked up.

  He hadn’t seen her this way since the week they’d taken Angela back. There had been pies, cakes, cookies all over the kitchen the morning after they’d returned from Saint Paul. “I couldn’t sleep,” Gina had said, exhausted and hollow looking. In the following weeks this pattern was repeated so often he finally begged her to see someone. She had begun to go for therapy with Victoria, who had put her on medication. From then on, the nightly baking raids had stopped.

  That was when Gina first began to be “quiet,” as he thought of it. She withdrew into herself and stopped talking to him, except for the times when they had to work together. Then she would be brief. Businesslike. Later, when Paul looked back, he thought that this was when their marriage first began to dissolve.

  His heart melted, however, seeing her this way again. Despite the cheery cotton apron she wore, she looked frail and small and seemed to have lost weight in just these past twenty-four hours. There were dark circles under her eyes. Paul walked over to her, took the rolling pin from her hands and gathered her up into his arms. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise you, we’ll find her. It’s going to be all right.”

  Gina wiped away tears with the back of her hand, smearing flour around her eyes. Paul reached for a paper napkin on the counter and wiped it and the tears away.

  “I’m so afraid,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said softly. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  She pulled away, saying, “I have to finish up here.”

  “No. No, you don’t. Come sit down, honey. This can keep.”

  At the word of endearment she looked at him briefly, blinked, t
hen gave in. He led her over to the kitchen table and poured them each a cup of black coffee. Only then did he nod to Duarte and say, “Thanks for coming. I’m so exhausted I didn’t think I could make it to the precinct.”

  “No problem,” Duarte said. “I went home during a break and fed my cat. Funny thing about that cat. She’s got food there all day, the dry stuff. Won’t eat, though till I get home. You ever hear of that?”

  Paul shook his head, staring down into his coffee.

  “Anyway, I’d just be sitting around watching the eleven o’clock news,” Duarte said conversationally. “Hell, I see the news in front of my face all day long. No point in watching it on a screen.”

  When neither Paul nor Gina responded, he sighed and said, “Okay, let’s get down to business. What did you learn there?”

  “Well, first off, I brought the original of the photograph, in case your crime lab can enlarge it and bring out some more details.” He took the photograph from his briefcase and handed it to the detective.

  Then he told them both about Dr. Chase—including the awful details about the way he was murdered. Gina’s face paled, and he hated having to tell her all this, but she needed to know what they might be up against.

  He went on to tell them the way Angela had responded, or rather not responded, to Dr. Chase’s death before leaving Saint Sympatica’s shortly after, in the dark of night and without a goodbye. When Gina bent over and covered her eyes, he knew she was doing her best to deal with the thought that Angela might well have murdered the doctor, and that she might now do the same to Rachel. He reached over and touched her shoulder.

  “What’s your take on this Dr. Chase’s murder?” Duarte asked after glancing over the photograph.

  “Well, I think Mrs. Ewing suspects Angela did it. But there wasn’t any proof, and the investigation never went anywhere.”

  “And this girl who heard the argument between her and Chase?”

  “I asked where I could find her, and she didn’t know. She left there when she turned eighteen, and she’d be in her early twenties by now. She could be anywhere.”

  Duarte sipped his coffee, then sniffed the air. “I think your cookies are burning, Mrs. Bradley.”

  Gina nodded but didn’t move.

  “You want me to take them out?”

  “Okay,” she said dully.

  Duarte heaved himself up from his chair. Going over to the stove, he picked up an oven mitt and used it to take the sugar cookies from the oven.

  “They’re burnt around the edges,” he said, “but not too bad.”

  Taking a spatula, he lifted each one carefully and put them on a plate.

  Paul shook his head and gave him a half smile. “Do you always do these sorts of things for people when you’re investigating a crime?”

  “Only when those people have a kid missing,” Duarte said, putting the plate of cookies on the table between them and sitting down again with a heavy sigh.

  “Look, folks,” he said, “I think we have to agree that this isn’t a typical kidnapping. Up to now there’s been the possibility that anything could have happened. Your daughter could have been grabbed at an ATM, for instance, on the way to her friend’s house. Or, there could have been a carjacking. But carjackings are usually witnessed by someone, and no one’s reported any in the last day or two. We’ve checked all the hospitals, and she hasn’t been seen at any of them, so we can rule out that she got sick and passed out, and that someone found her and called the paramedics. Also, we checked the streets between here and the friend’s house. They’re all residential, and we’ve gone over them twice now. She’s not there in her car unconscious, or anything.”

  Gina began to cry, and Paul reached over automatically and took her hand, holding it tight.

  “Detective, what you’re saying is that you think Angela’s done something to her.”

  “No. All I’m saying is that we have to take a serious look at that now. We’ve got to find this twin, see where she is and what she’s doing these days. If we discover she’s in the Seattle area…well, we’ll rev up the investigation, smoke her out and take it from there.”

  He picked up a cookie, took a bite off the edge and said, “Not bad. I think I might even like them better this way.”

  Then, setting it down, he added, “There’s one other possibility, of course.”

  “Oh?” Paul said.

  “Well, it could be that Rachel, for some reason, went somewhere on her own.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Gina said, coming to life. “Rachel would never worry us that way. She would let us know she was all right.”

  “That may be,” Duarte said. “But I have to tell you, it’s been known to happen.”

  The next morning, Paul knew he should call Lacey and bring her up-to-date about what was going on, but he wasn’t up to it. They had just told Gina’s mother about Rachel, and that hadn’t gone well.

  “What do you mean, she’s missing?” Roberta had nearly yelled into the phone. Paul and Gina were on separate phones in the kitchen and study, so they could both talk to her.

  “We haven’t seen or heard from her since the day before yesterday, Mom,” Gina said.

  “Did you do something?” Roberta asked, lowering her voice.

  “Do something?” Paul asked wearily.

  “Yes, do something!” Roberta snapped. “Like maybe she got tired of the two of you barely talking to each other and decided to go back to school.”

  “Mom, that’s ridiculous!” Gina said. “Of course she didn’t go back to school. She wouldn’t do that without telling us.”

  “This is serious, Roberta,” Paul said quietly. “The police are looking for her.”

  There was a small silence.

  “You really think something’s happened to Rachel?”

  “Mom, we tried to tell you yesterday, but your machine said you were away for a few days. Where did you go? We haven’t seen you since Rachel came home.”

  “I, uh…decided to spend Christmas with a friend,” Roberta said.

  “But we always spend Christmas together,” Gina said.

  “Well, this year we didn’t!”

  “I just don’t…” Gina began.

  “That doesn’t matter now,” Paul said briskly. “What does matter is Rachel. And Angela.”

  “Angela?” Roberta’s tone changed. “What about her?”

  “We think she may be back,” Gina answered, her voice cracking. “We think she might have done something to Rachel.”

  “Oh, my God.” A longer silence this time.

  “Mother? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m here,” Roberta said quickly. “Why do you think this? Have you seen Angela?”

  “No, but Rachel found a note in her pocket that we think is from her. And on Christmas Eve we were run off the road. Mom, Paul went back to Minnesota and talked to Mrs. Ewing at Saint Sympatica’s. Angela ran away from there when she was sixteen. No one’s seen or heard from her since.”

  “Well, one can hardly blame the child for running away! It’s not as if she had a real home there, after all.”

  The criticism was clear.

  “Roberta,” Paul said, trying to calm himself, “she ran away shortly after the psychiatrist there, Dr. Chase, was murdered.”

  Roberta made a soft sound of exclamation. “Murdered! Are you telling me Angela murdered this man? No, I don’t believe it! I mean, when she was five and hadn’t any self-control yet…but surely she outgrew—”

  “That’s not what I was saying,” Paul interjected. “In fact, there was never any evidence that anyone at Saint Sympatica’s was involved. But Mrs. Ewing had a feeling—”

  “A feeling!” Roberta exploded. “A feeling? Is that supposed to be some kind of proof that poor child has done something to Rachel?”

  “Mom,” Gina said quietly, “we all know how you felt about Angela. But please.” She caught back a sob. “Rachel is missing! Don’t you even care?”

  “Oh,
God, of course I care,” Roberta said softly. “I love that child more than you’ll ever know.” Her voice filled with tears. “I’m just afraid, I guess. Oh, God. What are you doing to find her?”

  “As I said,” Paul answered as patiently as possible, “we have a police detective looking into it. He’s keeping it quiet for now because we don’t really know what’s happened, and if Rachel has just gone off somewhere on her own, we don’t want to embarrass her. But if she doesn’t turn up soon…” He left the rest unspoken.

  “What can I do?” Roberta asked, clearly gathering herself together. “Tell me what I can do.”

  “Just let us know if you hear from Rachel,” Gina said. “Or Angela, though that probably isn’t likely. And if you think of anything that might give us a clue about where Rachel is, call us right away.”

  “I’ll do better than call,” Roberta said. “I’m coming over there. And don’t even begin to argue with me about it.”

  “I’m not about to argue,” Gina said tiredly. “I’ve been up all night baking, and I haven’t the energy for it.”

  Roberta made it to Queen Anne Hill from Gig Harbor within the hour. While she and Gina sat at the breakfast bar and picked halfheartedly at the crusty edges of pies that would probably never be eaten, Paul took his shower. It was an oversized shower, and he recalled the way they had designed it, when they bought the house—big enough for two, so that he and Gina could use it together, and with a view of the Space Needle. They’d had many romantic nights in this shower that first year, before the twins came. After that, things changed. At first he had felt left out, almost jealous of the time Gina spent with them. But he’d come to love them so much, their roles became almost reversed. He was the one who taught them how to walk, played with them, read to them at bedtime. The romantic showers together became less and less frequent, and finally, after Angela was gone, they stopped altogether.

  Did he stop spending time with Rachel then, too? He couldn’t remember. It seemed as if he and Gina were both home less, desperately trying to lose themselves in their work. From the time Rachel was five until she was twelve, Gina had hired a full-time housekeeper and nanny. She was a wonderful woman, and he and Gina had relied on her for just about everything. Had they done so to the point that they’d neglected Rachel—emotionally, if not physically?