Stolen in the Night

by MacDonald, Patricia

Reporters and cameramen shouted her name as Tess scurried, head down, back inside the inn and slammed the door behind her. She leaned against it, her eyes closed, and willed her frantically beating heart to slow down. The visit to Chief Fuller had not made her feel better. If anything, she felt worse.

  “Ma, you’re back,” said Erny.

  Tess opened her eyes and looked at her son smiling broadly at her, his teeth large and white in his thin, brown face. Healthy and happy. Rescued from a terrible life in the foster system. She reminded herself that she was a good person. No matter what anyone thought. “I’m back,” she said.

  “Can you take me down to Blockbuster?” he asked.

  Tess’s spirit seemed to shrivel at the thought of going out again, of being seen. “Can’t you ride your bike?” she asked.

  Erny frowned and looked out the door lights at the clamoring reporters camped outside. “I guess…” he said.

  Tess saw the reluctance in his eyes. It was her fault that they were out there. Her fault that they had to run the gauntlet to get out of the house. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take you. Just give me a minute.”

  The phone in the foyer began to ring. “Go get your jacket,” she said. “Don’t forget that Blockbuster gift card you got from Aunt Julie and Uncle Jake.”

  “I won’t,” he said eagerly, rushing off to find his sweatshirt. Tess picked up the receiver. “Stone Hill Inn,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “Liar,” an insinuating male voice whispered. “Killer.”

  Tess stifled a cry and slammed the phone back down on the hook. She stared at the phone as if it had turned into a live snake in her hand. Who would do that? Bastard, she thought. I’m not the guilty one. She clutched her chest, waiting for her heart to resume a calmer beat.

  No, she thought. This was wrong. She was not going to be bullied. And it was not too late to do something about it. She picked up the receiver again and pushed *69. A mechanical voice recited the last incoming number and Tess instantly dialed it back, but it was the number of a cell phone, which switched directly to voice mail. “Listen, you coward,” Tess declared into the receiver. “Leave me and my family alone or the next time I will call the cops.” She slammed the receiver down again and turned around.

  Erny was standing there in his sweatshirt, looking worried. “Who was that?” he said. “What about the cops?”

  Tess tried to sound calm. “Nothing, honey. Are you ready to go?”

  Erny nodded.

  “All right.” She reached for the doorknob and then hesitated. “No matter what these people out here say to you, just ignore them and stick with me, okay?”

  The Blockbuster was on Main Street, right beside the general store. Tess parked diagonally on the street. “Okay,” she said. “Do you know what you’re going to get?”

  Erny shrugged. “Video game,” he said. “Probably Madden.”

  Tess smiled. Dawn had purchased a PlayStation for her TV, just in honor of Erny’s visits, but she had no games for it and didn’t even know how to work it on her own. But Erny enjoyed having it at hand during his visits. Tess was glad he favored the sports games over the more grisly crime games that were available. “Okay. Well, you go on in and get it.”

  “Aren’t you coming in?” he asked, surprised.

  She didn’t want to run into people asking questions. People who may have seen her face on the news. “I’ll just wait in the car,” she said.

  Erny shrugged. “Okay,” he said. He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Tess looked up the street. She thought about going to the gourmet shop and picking up something for their lunch, but her anxiety kept her trapped in the car. She peered at the Blockbuster window, and between the movie posters in the window she could see a red-shirted clerk gaping at an overhead TV monitor. She knew it would take Erny a while to look over the store’s assortment of games. She could picture her son inside, resting, cranelike, on one leg, frowning intently as he read the game boxes. Tess sighed happily at the thought of him. Everyone told her that once he became a teenager, Erny would only ignore her or grunt at her. She dreaded that day. His smile always made her feel better, no matter what.

  A movement in the doorway of the general store caught her eye and she turned to look. There, stepping out on the sidewalk only a few feet away from the hood of Kelli’s car, was Edith Abbott. The tall, skinny woman was wearing white sneakers, faded plaid pants, and a blouse beneath a baggy blue denim car coat. The white corsage from yesterday, now brown around the edges, was pinned to the coat’s lapel. Edith was going through her purse, looking for something.

  Tess froze. She wished she could make herself invisible. To anyone else, Edith Abbott must look harmless, but to Tess, she might as well have been a dragon, able to shoot flames toward the windshield of the car. Tess sank down in the seat, hoping not to be seen.

  Last night, when she could not sleep, Tess had thought a lot about Edith Abbott. People had called this woman stubborn and stupid for doggedly pursuing her son’s case, even after his death. But yesterday her determination had paid off. In the lonely hours of the night, Tess had imagined herself in Edith’s position. What if someone had accused Erny of such a crime? What if Erny were sentenced to death as a result? Wouldn’t you be the last person on Earth to give up on him? she had asked herself. And what if he had actually died, and then it turned out to be a mistake?

  Tess had thrashed in her covers, trying to imagine it, but it was too terrible to think about. Somewhere in the middle of the agonizing night, Tess had pictured herself going to Edith Abbott, speaking to her as one mother to another. Begging forgiveness. She had tried to imagine what she would say, but it was impossible. The right words wouldn’t form in her mind. “I regret that Lazarus was executed because apparently he did not kill my sister, although I still do think he was the one…”

  Horrible. There was no good way to say it. She just didn’t want to face Edith Abbott. Not now. Not on Main Street with people watching, and her mind a blank.

  In the few seconds it took for all those thoughts to race through Tess’s mind, Edith Abbott located the item in her purse that she’d apparently been seeking. She pulled out a little round box and popped it open. She extracted something tiny with the tips of her fingers and put it in her mouth.

  A mint, Tess thought. Or nitroglycerin for her heart.

  “Ma,” Erny demanded, rattling the door handle. “Open the door.”

  Edith Abbott looked up, blinking at the boy standing beside the car. Then her gaze traveled through the windshield and settled on Tess. Tess met Edith’s gaze with trepidation, expecting a glare or an outburst. Edith blinked at her from behind her glasses, with absolutely no sign of recognition in her eyes. Then she hung her pocketbook over her forearm and gazed patiently at the general store, as if she were waiting for someone to emerge.

  She doesn’t even know me, Tess thought, with amazement and relief. She doesn’t recognize me at all. How could she not know me? Tess wondered. And then, in the same moment, she realized that for Lazarus’s mother, Tess was frozen in time. Forever a nine-year-old girl, pointing to her son in a courtroom and calling him a killer. And in all the commotion at the governor’s press conference yesterday, Tess must have been just another face in the crowd to Edith. However she might feel about the child who had accused her son, Edith Abbott did not connect her with Tess, the woman she had gazed at through the windshield. That realization came as a welcome reprieve.

  Feeling as if she had dodged a bullet, Tess took a deep breath and pressed the button on the driver’s side to unlock the car door. Erny opened his door to get inside. Tess put the key in the ignition and waited for Erny to slide in. Suddenly a man’s voice called out. “Hey. You there.”

  Erny, who had one foot in the car, looked up, surprised.

  Nelson Abbott had come out of the general store, a roll of burlap under his arm and was walking toward his wife. His gaze had traveled from Erny to Tess, who was behind the wheel. “Tess DeGraff
.”

  At the sound of the familiar name, Edith Abbott began to look around, confused. Nelson pointed at the car and Edith peered in at Tess with a dawning recognition in her eyes. Tess’s heart sank. “Who is that?” Edith Abbott asked.

  “This is her. The one who testified against Lazarus,” said Nelson.

  The older woman’s eyes widened and she clutched Nelson’s arm.

  “What do they want?” Erny asked.

  “Just get in the car,” said Tess, opening her door and sliding out.

  “No, Mom,” said Erny anxiously. “Get back in.”

  “I need to talk to these people,” she said.

  “Why?” he pleaded.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “You should tell him,” Nelson advised her. “Tell him what you did.” Tess did not reply. She understood instantly that the bitterness in Nelson Abbott’s eyes was now focused on her. He was no longer sympathetic, as he had been when he came to the inn the evening before the press conference to express support for her family.

  Tess spoke quietly to Nelson. “Look, I don’t think this is necessarily the time or place, but I really would like to sit down with you both—” she said.

  Nelson sneered at her. “And say what? How sorry you are?” Nelson peered at her through cold, black eyes. “My stepson was executed because of you.”

  “All I did was…I tried to tell the truth,” Tess protested.

  “Did you hear what those results said yesterday? Lazarus didn’t do it. You really don’t want to own up to what you did, do ya?” Nelson said, shaking his head.

  Tess was trembling. “Excuse me, but didn’t you tell us that even you thought…?”

  Nelson’s beady eyes flashed at her, warning her not to complete that sentence. He began to speak, drowning out her words. “The facts have changed everything.”

  Edith, still clinging to Nelson’s arm, cocked her head and looked at Tess sadly. “Why did you say those things about my son?” Edith asked in a tremulous voice. “You didn’t have to do that. I know someone took your sister, but why did you have to blame my Lazarus?”

  Tess turned to Edith. She still didn’t know what to say to this aggrieved mother. But there was no escaping her questions. “Mrs. Abbott, I have wanted to speak to you about all this. I’m sure you blame me for what happened to your son…”

  Edith nodded. “Well, you were only a child at the time. But child or not, that’s no excuse. You’re the one who lied,” she said.

  Tess felt her face burning. “Look, I told the police the truth about what I saw at the time. That was all I could do…”

  The other pedestrians on the sidewalk were slowing their steps, aware of an argument and trying to catch the gist of it. Tess tried to ignore their curious faces.

  Edith shook her head and began to sniff. She opened her purse and peered into it.

  Nelson fumbled for a hanky in his pants pocket and handed it to his wife. “She’s never going to own up to it, Edith. She thinks because she was a kid when she did it that nobody’s going to hold her accountable. We’ll just see about that.”

  “What do you mean?” Tess asked him in a quivering voice. “Is that a threat?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you,” Nelson sneered.

  Tess thought of the voice on the phone, whispering “liar” into her ear. She wondered, for a brief second, if it had been Nelson Abbott, trying to intimidate her. She drew herself up. “I have to go,” she said. “And take my son home.”

  “My son will never come home,” said Edith indignantly.

  Tess slid back behind the wheel and slammed the door. She did not look at Nelson or his wife as she pulled out.

  Erny hunched his shoulders up around his ears. “What’s the matter with that dude?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Tess shook her head, not trusting her voice to answer. She clamped her hands on the wheel and drove, although her arms were trembling and her insides were jumping. Erny was quiet beside her, looking at her warily out of the corner of his eye.

  When they reached the inn, Tess pulled up to the front door. “Go inside.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  The lounging reporters were stirring, suddenly aware that the newcomers were prey. They began to surge forward. “It’s okay. I’ll park the car and come right in.”

  Erny jumped out of the car, ran to the front door of the inn, and started to open it. Tess tried to keep her face impassive and not look into the eyes of any of the newspeople who were surrounding her car. All of a sudden, just as Erny was slipping through the front door, out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw something fly through the air, hit the front door with a thud, and tumble to the welcome mat at Erny’s feet.

  Erny turned around, startled, and then looked down at the missile. He bent over and picked it up.

  Tess opened the car door and jumped out. “Erny, what is that? Are you okay?” She shoved aside the people in her way and rushed up to her son.

  Erny examined the granite chunk in his hand. “It’s a rock,” he said, bewildered.

  Tess turned and looked around slowly at the faces in the crowd. Some of them showed consternation, others were impassive. Tess took the rock from her son’s hands.

  “Who did this?” she said, holding up the rock. “Who threw this stone? Are you crazy? You could have killed an innocent kid.”

  The crowd was quiet. Tess searched their eyes boldly, looking for a furtive glance, for someone who looked guilty in a sea of defiant or indifferent faces.

  Hidden in the back of the crowd, a hollow-cheeked man in a gray parka quickly ducked his head so as not to allow her to catch his eye. Tess did not notice this as her blazing gaze swept over the assemblage. For a moment there was no reply and then a voice drawled, “Hey, Tess, how’s the view from that glass house you’re living in?”

  “What does that mean?” Erny asked.

  Tess reddened. “Nothing. He’s a jerk,” she said. “Ignore them. Let’s go in.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Tess, pay attention, honey,” said Dawn. “This is their driveway.”

  Startled, Tess made a sharp right turn into the long driveway that led to Jake and Julie’s house. It was six o’clock and darkness had already descended on Stone Hill and its outskirts. Julie had called to invite them to their house for dinner and Tess had gratefully accepted. She wanted to get away from the inn and the reporters who were still camped there. Tess had been unprepared for the level of hostility she would encounter after the DNA results. For years everyone in Stone Hill outspokenly agreed that justice had been done. Now the DeGraffs’ suffering seemed to be forgotten, as people hurried to disassociate themselves from the injustice to Lazarus Abbott. It was almost as if the whole town blamed Tess for this blot on its reputation.

  Tess drove slowly, gravel crunching under her tires, up the winding drive between a bank of trees. The house, secluded from view by the trees, sat on a slight rise, surrounded by a lawn now brown from the early frosts. It was a small house with yellow clapboard siding, dark green shutters, and a metal chimney for their gas fireplace. Jake’s white van, ladders fastened to the top, was parked next to Julie’s neat little compact. On the lawn was a cement statue of a wood nymph holding a lantern, which illuminated the path to the front door.

  Tess, Dawn, and Erny piled out of the car and Erny ran to the door, opened it without knocking, and charged inside. Tess and Dawn followed at a slower pace. They walked in and were greeted by rich aromas from the kitchen warring with the sweet, cloying fragrance of potpourri. Erny flopped down on the plump, flowered sofa, a pink knitted afghan draped behind him. One of Julie’s four cats jumped up on his lap. The beige walls of the living room were covered with framed prayers bordered by pastel drawings of children and doilylike crosses embroidered with flowers and leaves. There were a number of framed photographs atop the television, including a wedding photo of Julie and Jake, Julie looking blonde and doll-like in her cinch-waisted w
edding gown. There were several of Kelli at various milestones in her life—in mortarboard and gown, in a prom dress, and in an army uniform. Erny smiled broadly from an eight-by-twelve print of his school photo with its royal blue background, framed in silverplate. Over the mantel of the gas fireplace was a copy of a Thomas Kincade painting of a Cotswolds cottage amidst a bower of roses. Julie came out of the kitchen and greeted them, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “Oh, I can hear Sassy purring from here,” she said. “That cat likes you, Erny.”

  Erny smiled. “I know.”

  “How’s your cat?” Julie asked him.

  “Good,” he said, nodding. “My friend Jonah is taking care of him.”

  Julie smiled at him. “Well, I’m sure he’ll miss you while you’re gone.”

  Erny shrugged. “Can I watch TV?”

  “Go ahead if you want,” Julie said.

  Erny, still clutching the uncomplaining, seemingly boneless cat, leaned over eagerly to get the remote from the coffee table and turned on the set. Tess thought to protest, but then decided against it. At home, she limited his TV viewing, but during these visits to New Hampshire there were no children Erny’s age around, and he ended up watching more television than normal. There’s no harm in it, Tess reminded herself; he also did a lot more bike riding and exploring than he did at home.

  “You two come in and talk to me while I cook,” Julie said. “Jake’s taking a shower.”

  Tess followed her mother through the tiny dining area and into the warm kitchen. “It smells great,” she said.

  “Chicken pot pie,” said Julie.

  “You make the best chicken pot pie,” said Dawn.

  Julie turned to Tess. “What kind of mother-in-law actually likes your cooking?” she asked incredulously.

  Tess smiled.

  “So, I hear you’ve had a rough day,” Julie said as she pulled rolls from the oven to check them and then slid them back in.

  Tess sighed. “Well, I feel like public enemy number one. We’ve had anonymous phone threats and somebody threw a rock at us when we came back to the inn this afternoon. It nearly hit Erny in the head.”