Guilty as Sin

by Tami Hoag

  She trailed off, Wilhelm looking at her as if she had just hopped off the spaceship.

  “It's not your fault, Phoebe,” Ellen said. “You didn't do anything wrong. What I want to know is when that son of a bitch was in my office.”

  No stranger could have wandered in during the day without drawing notice, which meant he had somehow managed to slip in during the night. So much for Rudy's argument that they didn't need better security. The idea that it might have been days ago somehow disturbed her. It added to the sense of vulnerability, suggested a certain omnipotence in their adversary. He could reach out and touch whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, wherever they were.

  “Have you noticed anything missing?” Wilhelm asked.

  “No.”

  “He could have been looking for files about the case.”

  “I keep my notes with me. Obviously, we don't keep any physical evidence here. Anything left in these offices regarding the case, Wright's attorney has legal access to. What would be the point in stealing it?”

  She shook her head. “It's just another part of the game. Another taunt.”

  Wilhelm slipped his notepad into his shirt pocket and zipped his parka. “We'll see what we can find. We've bagged the card and the note. The fingerprint guys should be done in an hour or so.”

  Leaving their grimy black dust behind, marking every surface, making sure Ellen wouldn't forget anytime soon that her sanctuary had been invaded.

  “So now you're going to try to blame me for Enberg's killing himself?” Paul ranted in the dining room. “Or do you think maybe I killed him for no earthly reason?”

  Mitch jammed his hands at the waist of his trousers. “I'm not saying either of those things, Paul. If you'd spare the histrionics for five minutes, we could get this over with.”

  “You come into my house, accuse me of God-knows-what— I think I have a right to be upset!”

  “Fine, but you know your children are in the next room, Paul. Do you have the right to upset and frighten them, too? Is that what you want? Haven't they been through enough?”

  “Haven't we all?”

  “Two clerks at the Donut Hut both say they saw a Celica that matches yours to a T.”

  Paul looked dumbstruck. “Doughnut helpers. Doughnut people come forward days after the fact and you beat a path to my door.”

  “They've been out of town.” Mitch advanced, forefinger drawn to thrust at Paul. “We just located them this afternoon. They saw what they saw. I don't care if they sell doughnuts or donkey dicks. They both saw a car at the side lot of Enberg's office that sounds remarkably like yours. Now, I'm asking you nice here, Paul. I'm giving you a chance to tell me your side. Quit jerking me around before you piss me off and I haul your ass down to the station.

  “Start talking, Paul,” Mitch ordered. “And don't try to tell me you weren't there if you were. The fingerprints will be back Monday.”

  Paul slumped down onto the chair at the head of the table. “I went to see him . . . on a personal matter. He was drunk. I left.”

  “You went to consult the lawyer who had once represented the man who stole your son. Interesting choice of attorneys.”

  “He was my attorney first.”

  And now that attorney was dead.

  Hannah heard it all as she stood in the hallway, and hours later, with the clock ticking off the minutes to midnight, she still felt wrung out. She wished there was something mundane to occupy her, but the ruined dinner had been disposed of, the remnants of the frozen pizza thrown out. Lily's toys were in the trunk, Josh's videos neatly stacked.

  The children were tucked in bed. Lily had gone down with a fight, overtired and out of sorts. Hannah tiptoed into her room. The night-light cast a soft pink glow that just touched her daughter's face. She was sleeping hard, sweat dampening her golden curls, a frown furrowing her little brow.

  What impact would all this have on her? Hannah wondered. She was just a baby. Would she remember any of it? Would all of it linger in the dim reaches of her memory, haunting her forever?

  Josh was out, too, sleeping flat on his back, utterly still. He had always been as active in his sleep as he was awake, kicking off his covers, sleeping in all known positions all over the bed, dragging stuffed animals with him, dropping them off the top bunk to the floor between bedtime and morning. Since his return he had slept only on the lower bunk with just a favorite old stuffed monkey snuggled next to him.

  Hannah slipped into his room and sat down on the floor at the foot of the bed, where she could watch him sleep, where she could be near him physically if in no other way. She had spent so much time in this room when he had been gone because it helped her feel spiritually closer to him, and now that he was home, she felt a distance between them that couldn't be bridged.

  She wanted to gather him close and by the will of her love alone drive out the darkness that had settled over him like soot. But she only sat there, feeling helpless and alone. For someone who had always taken charge of her life, it was like being cast adrift in the ocean.

  She thought of all the other times she had done this—sat with him in the dark, watching over him, dreaming for him. Before he was born, when the discomfort of pregnancy had kept her awake, she had spent long quiet hours in the night sitting, her hand on her belly, thinking of the future. How she would love him, teach him, protect him. What a sweet young man he would grow to be, with her sense of duty and Paul's sensitivity, and a solid foundation of love and stability.

  She looked around the room, cataloguing the familiar. A friend had painted murals depicting different sports on each wall. The small desk between the windows was stacked with books and action figures and the photo albums she had brought in here when Josh was missing, as if concentrating on the memories of the happy times might conjure him up like a spirit from another dimension.

  His backpack leaned against the nightstand, flap rolled back so it could accommodate his new Think Pad along with everything else he had packed inside. Hannah inched toward it, one eye on Josh. She wouldn't touch it, wouldn't give in to the overwhelming desire to see what he had put into the notebook she had given him. She had promised it was his, that he wouldn't have to share it with anyone until he was ready. All she wanted was to peek into the bag, to see if she could get some idea of what he had been carrying with him. Maybe if she knew what he carried with him to feel secure, she could do something to give him that security, give him some kind of assurance.

  The illumination from the night-light was too faint to see well. She shifted onto her knees and tilted her head to a better angle, but all she could make out was the Think Pad and pen, one of the walkie-talkies he had got for Christmas, and a scrap of bright knit fabric tucked behind it. A stocking cap or mitten the blaze-orange of a hunter's garb.

  Odd. There hadn't been any gear like that in the house since Paul had come out of his manly-hunter phase two years ago. They had got rid of all the equipment and clothing at a rummage sale to benefit the conservation club. But Josh was carrying a piece around with him. Carrying it as if it were a long-treasured possession he couldn't bear to do without.

  The peculiarity of it jarred her. She had taken pains to make everything in the house seem as normal, as familiar, to Josh as possible. Then to find something out of time, out of place . . . She sneaked another peek at Josh. He sighed in his sleep and turned his face away from her.

  Ignoring her conscience, she reached for the backpack. It could be important that she know . . . It could break Josh's trust in her if he woke up and saw her.

  If she could just tip it, get a better look . . .

  The walkie-talkie shifted. Josh stirred, mumbled, turned onto his side, curling into a fetal position beneath the covers. Hannah held her breath and counted to ten, then pulled the bag a little closer to the night-light.

  The rib pattern of the knit came into focus, and a wedge of a patch that had been sewn in place—an insignia of some sort, a brand name or a club name arching over the silhouette of a
deer. She could make out only some of the letters:

  P I O N.

  Campion.

  Fear snaked through her, coiling in her throat, squeezing her heart. Campion.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Her mind formed the words, but she didn't know if she spoke them aloud. With a shaking hand, she reached into the pack and caught hold of the fabric between her fingers. A stocking cap. Small and nubby with wear. She pulled it from the bag while revulsion roiled inside of her. The shaking traveled up her arms, into her chest, until her whole body was jerking, as if giant unseen hands had her by the shoulders. She wanted to drop the cap, to throw it out of the house as if it were a carcass crawling with maggots. Instead, she held it to the light and read the patch.

  Campion Sportsmen.

  She twisted the cap inside out.

  Printed in block letters on the laundry tag was a single name.

  DUSTIN.

  Journal entry

  Friday, January 28, 1994

  We have thought out a cunningly conceived plot.

  Deep and dark.

  Black and brilliant.

  They cannot outmaneuver us.

  Because their minds are so small.

  We despise them.

  CHAPTER 23

  Josh sat, body drawn into a tight ball, arms wrapped tight around his knees, back pressed up against a corner post of his bed. He kept his head down, peeking up only occasionally. There were too many people in his room. He didn't want any of them to be there. His room was his space, not theirs. His things were his things; he didn't want them touched by outsiders.

  His mom stood near the door, crying. Josh hated that. He hated hearing her cry and he hated knowing that it was all his fault. He had hardly ever seen his mom cry or get hysterical like other kids' moms sometimes did—until lately. Since Dad had started getting more angry and they fought all the time. But she cried only in private then. This was different. This was because of him.

  She never should have gone into his backpack. He never thought she would. Mom was big on respecting people's privacy. It hurt him that she had looked. It hurt him more that he couldn't answer her questions. He couldn't tell her about the Taker, or bad things would happen. Worse things than what were already happening. The idea scared him so much he wanted to cry himself, but he didn't dare do that either.

  “Josh? Can you tell us anything at all about how that stocking cap got into your backpack?”

  Chief Holt sat on the edge of the bed, looking at him with a really serious face. Josh glanced up at him; then his gaze darted to the humongous police officer standing by the dresser. Handcuffs glinted on his thick black belt. Maybe the cops would arrest him and throw him in jail. Maybe they thought that other kid was a Goner because of him. Fear lumped in his throat and he tried to swallow it down.

  “Have you ever seen this boy, Josh?” The other cop in regular clothes held out a flyer with a picture of the Goner. Josh put his hands over his face and peeked out through the narrow cracks between his fingers. This cop looked kind of like Tom Hanks, only he didn't seem like he would be funny at all. He looked impatient.

  “Did someone give you the hat, Josh?”

  “Did you find it someplace?”

  “It's really important for you to tell us.”

  “You could save that little boy's life.”

  They didn't understand. They didn't know about the Taker or what it was like to be a Goner. There were so many things they didn't know about at all. Josh squeezed his eyes shut tight. In his mind he opened the door to his secret place and went inside, where no one could touch him or frighten him or ask him questions he had been told not to answer.

  Wilhelm turned away from the bed, flapping his arms at his sides in frustration. Mitch rose slowly, as worn out as an old, old man.

  “Isn't there something we can do?” Wilhelm whispered urgently. “Hypnosis? Sodium pentothal?”

  “Yeah, Marty,” Mitch muttered. “I'm certain it's okay to drug small children in order to coerce answers out of them.”

  He turned to Hannah. She was shaking, and her eyes were red-rimmed and wild. It would not have surprised him at all to have her fall apart, but she held herself together, toughing it out when she had to have precious little strength left. She pushed past him and went to Josh, pulling him into her arms and rocking him, probably as much to comfort herself as to comfort her son.

  At least they had managed to keep the press away, Mitch thought. For now. Because Hannah had called him at home, he had been able to order radio silence and gather his people through less trackable means. It wouldn't last, of course. By the time they left the house, there would probably be reporters camped on the lawn. But for the moment that burden was off.

  Another burden absent was Paul. No one had called him. He would have argued that he had a right to be there, and he probably did, but he was a complication no one needed. Especially not Hannah, and especially not after his performance earlier in the evening. She needed an emotional anchor, someone to calm her, and to that end they had called Father Tom. He stood in the bedroom doorway looking like a vagrant—unshaven, his brown hair sticking up in spots.

  “If you've got any clout with the Man Upstairs, Father, we could use a break here,” Mitch said.

  “If I had any clout, we wouldn't be here.” His gaze on Hannah and Josh, he crossed the small bedroom and bent down to touch Hannah's shoulder and murmur something in her ear.

  “What do you think?” Ellen North asked, backing into the hall.

  Mitch followed her. He could feel Wilhelm at his heels and wished Megan were here instead.

  “Hannah says Josh hasn't been out of her sight any waking moment since he came back. No one could have given the thing to him without her seeing. And Josh hasn't let the backpack out of his sight, so . . .”

  “Someone came into the house in the dead of night and planted it in Josh's backpack? Without Hannah's knowing?” she said. “That seems pretty far-fetched.”

  “If you've got another explanation, let's hear it.”

  “Wright is back home just down the block,” Wilhelm said.

  “He'd never risk coming near this house,” Mitch insisted. “But we'll need a list of everyone else who has been here in the last few days.”

  “The key is the boy,” Wilhelm said. “He's got the answers to all our questions locked up in his head. I say we try hypnosis.”

  Mitch looked to Ellen. “Would anything he revealed under hypnosis be admissible in court?”

  “It would be a fight. Even if we got it in, the defense would tear into it big-time. In general, the testimony of small children isn't considered very reliable. Children are highly suggestible, susceptible to having ideas planted in their minds—conscious and subconscious. But if Josh could reveal something that would put you on track to finding Dustin Holloman, or tell us who the accomplice is, or point us toward more solid evidence, that would certainly be worthwhile, whether it was admissible or not.”

  Mitch weighed the pros and cons. “I'll talk to Hannah about it.”

  “Did you find anything else in the backpack?” Ellen asked.

  “It's in the dining room.”

  The pack lay open, the items pulled from it strewn across the cherry table like the entrails of a gutted animal. Sadness settled in Ellen's chest as she looked at the things Josh had packed, as if he were afraid he might be taken again and this time wanted pieces of his life with him. There were several small, obviously cherished toys, and a Cub Scout pocket knife. A flashlight to ward off darkness. A walkie-talkie to call home. A child-size travel toothbrush with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the handle. A snapshot of him with his mother and baby sister at the baby's baptism—Josh in a miniature blue suit, his hair slicked into place, a proud grin on his face as he held the baby.

  “Poor kid,” Wilhelm mumbled, running a finger along the seam of an old grass-stained baseball.

  “Like his life isn't bad enough right now,” Mitch growled, “we have to come i
nto his house and violate what little privacy he has.”

  Ellen stared down at a spiral notebook. Josh's New Think Pad. To Josh From Mom. A carefully drawn heart punctuated the sentiment. Mitch was right. It felt as if they were reaching dirty hands into Josh's childhood and soiling it forever. These things were his private possessions, pieces of his boyhood. And they would rub the glow of innocence from them and call them evidence.

  She pulled a slim Cross pen from her purse and used it to lift the cover of the notebook. The action was old habit, meant to keep her fingerprints off potential evidence, but in her mind she also thought of it as prevention against tainting the book in a more intimate way. This had been a special gift from a mother to her son. No one else should have touched it, ever.

  She knew what she wanted to find: the names of Josh's abductors, drawings of the place they had held him. What she found were small, strange pictures of black squares and sad faces and thin, wavy lines. On one page he had written When I was a Goner, and beneath the words the tiniest pinpoints of ink made eyes and a mouth. There were no admissions, no revelations, just the fractured thoughts of a damaged child.

  “I don't see any point in holding this stuff,” she said. “Dust what you can for prints, for all the good that'll do us.”

  The front door opened and closed, bringing in a gust of cold air and animosity. Sheriff Steiger's voice grated like sandpaper over asphalt.

  “Where the fuck is Holt?”

  “Chief's in the dining room, Sheriff.”

  Mitch made a sound between his teeth.

  Ellen drew her coat around her. “I'm gone. Call me if you need me.”

  Steiger nearly bowled her over on his way into the room, his craggy face set in furious lines. Ellen dodged him, wanting no part of the jurisdictional skirmish that was about to take place. The Holloman case belonged to Park County, not City of Deer Lake. Mitch had pulled an end-around on Steiger, calling Wilhelm instead on the argument that the BCA was overseeing all the investigations. Russ Steiger wouldn't see it that way.