Command of Silence

by Paulette Callen

  My first note was about O’Hagan. Before I even met the family, he was my first suspect. Why? Seen the news lately? I didn’t trust this priest to tell me anything that would shed any light on the situation other than the halo-like glimmer around his own, expensively barbered head. His coming to me oozing concern, Irish charm and ready money only made me suspect him more. We want you to find this monster, he had said.

  I will. Even if the monster is you.

  I hadn’t met the other priest yet: suspect number two. My third note: Maybe they are covering for each other.

  But, as Leo had taken pains to point out, this case was complicated. When a child is missing and there is no ransom note, you can bet it’s a sex crime and that the child will not survive. He or she will either die in the attack, or, if they are old enough to talk, be killed to be kept quiet. A missing infant is different. That could be anything from sex, to a woman with baby hunger, to, as Leo suspected, supplying the black market in babies.

  Ray thought we could handle this case, but I knew I had to be careful. I felt Hawk lurking just behind my eyeballs, to the point where my head hurt. In the course of therapy, while the Company did not integrate, the filters between us began to disintegrate. We began more and more to be aware of, and even to “feel” each other’s feelings. At least, the others do. I don’t feel much, even though I now share many of their memories. I know about their feelings like you would know about them from seeing them on a movie or TV screen, or reading about them in a book. All except Hawk. She remains separate. I do not have her feelings or her memories. Really, I don’t want them. Ray assures us that if we fused, all of these feelings would be mine and none of us would be dying any more than the Missouri and the Ohio rivers die when they flow into the Mississippi. This is her metaphor. So far no one is buying it. Anyway, if a situation calls for feelings to be expressed, one of the others takes over. Hester is the best one for that, really. She is just chuck full of warm fuzzy feelings. Usually, when she’s around I take a nap. She’s too damn perky for me.

  Ryan O’Hagan was now reminding himself to breathe, as Hester, her hand still in mid-air, said, “We haven’t met.”

  He offered her a limp handshake.

  “Nice shoes.” She pointed at his feet. “Armani?”

  “Eh…yes.”

  “Lovely.” She sighed with appreciation and longing, looking down at our unadorned black blazer, navy blue turtleneck and black slacks. “These clothes! They are hideous, but it’s what we have to wear unless one of us gets the night out alone. Dressing like this—it’s in our contracts, you see, because Lance and Cootie hate coming out in drag. And Isadora has absolutely no taste whatsoever so she doesn’t care what we wear. But Olive and I, we suffer. I have some lovely dresses. And a Louis Vuitton handbag that is to expire for. So where are we going?” She beamed and beamed and didn’t seem to notice that O’Hagan twice had to remind himself to inhale.

  “Uh…it’s right up there. That building on the corner.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m glad it’s not a new high-rise. In my humble opinion, the high-rises have grown up just like termite colonies on the Upper West Side since the Eighties, and they have just ruined the neighborhoods. Ray says, ‘Hester, you don’t even remember the neighborhood in the Eighties because you weren’t here then.’ And Sugartime says, ‘Honey people need places to live same as you do.’ But Olive agrees with me.” The cab slowed down and Hester batted her lashes and juiced up the wattage of her smile. “It was so nice to meet you. I hope we meet again soon. I’m sure you’re wasted in the priesthood.”

  O’Hagan cleared his throat as if he had a cat stuck back there, and when the cab came to a stop he bolted out of it. By the time he had paid the driver I was standing next to him. “I should have warned you about Hester. She’s…friendlier than I am.”

  “Among other things,” he said, actually looking relieved to see me.

  The doorman gave O’Hagan a familiar nod. The priest introduced us. “This is Victor.”

  Victor Pasqual. Off duty the day Charlotte disappeared. On duty the day before, when Miriam returned— “Hysterical, with a police officer and another mother for moral support, I guess. They were all pretty upset and it’s no wonder. Cute little girl, that Anna. Shy. But she always said, ‘Hi, Victor.’ A terrible thing. Real terrible.”

  “Victor, this is the detective I told you about. She’s to have access at all times.”

  “Right, Father.” To me he said, his eyes focusing on something just above my right shoulder, “Nice to meet ya.” His dark green uniform coat was unbuttoned. The gold trim around the collar and sleeves gave it a military flair, as did the gold braid on his cap. He reached for the house phone just inside the door. “I’ll let ’em know you’re coming up.”

  The walls of the cavernous lobby alternated between yellow-beige paint in need of a brush-up and old crackled mirrors hazily reflecting the shabby elegance of worn red velvet chairs and loveseats. The ceiling was ornate with scrolled plaster, and the border of tiled floor around the almost threadbare oriental carpet boasted a high polish.

  In contrast to the spaciousness of the lobby, the elevator was surprisingly cramped and dark. Cootie didn’t need an invitation. As he stepped in, I told him to keep his mouth shut. He slumped against the wall with his hands in our jacket pockets and gave the priest a goofy grin. O’Hagan pressed the button several times with unmistakable urgency, and we rose to the tenth floor. I followed him down a carpeted hallway whose walls were dark with blue flocked paper.

  O’Hagan tried the door of 10C. It was open. As we stepped into the foyer, we were greeted by several things at once: raucous barking, a rhythmic thumping that came from down the hall to our left, a frisson in the atmosphere that was a palpable mix of fear, grief and confusion, and a big, love-worn, purple dinosaur smiling at us from the corner. On the wall to the right of the door, a red pegboard was festooned with children’s jackets, sweaters and hats and a couple leashes. Beneath our feet was a multicolored braided rug. A Jack Russell terrier was charging up the steps, and Hester was awestruck. What a place! What do you call it? What do you call this place?

  A duplex, Hester. It’s a duplex.

  Right. A duplex. Oh, I wish we had a duplex.

  Shut up.

  The dog hurled himself at the priest, who laughed, picked him up, holding him at arm’s length to escape a snaking tongue, and then set him back on the floor. “Bungee,” he said. “He is psychically connected to the doorknob.” The animal sniffed my trouser legs and gave me a look of warning, I’m watching you.I thought, That’s fair. Satisfied, he trotted away, and we followed him down into the sunken living room, which, like the foyer, gave the general impression of being lived in and child-friendly. Bungee took a direct route to the sofa, leapt up and curled quietly beside a small woman. He lowered his head onto her lap, but his ears were pricked, and his bright eyes never left me. She rested her hand on his back. Claudia.

  The woman who sat next to her had to be Miriam.

  Don’t hurt the doggy. Please don’t hurt him.

  Bethy-June’s whimpering was soothed by Sugartime: Shhh, the doggy is fine. No one is going to hurt the doggy.

  The thumping continued unabated above us, like a distant heartbeat.

  Claudia was petite with wavy light brown hair that didn’t quite touch her shoulders. Given the shine, I assumed the wave and the color were natural. I saw, behind small glasses, blue, intelligent eyes. Her thin lips and nose gave her an elfin quality. Next to her, Miriam seemed lumpish, her dark hair sagging in a slept-in ponytail. Her sallow skin was smudged with fatigue. From experience, I knew that a drug-induced sleep can be as bad as no sleep at all and only prolongs the inevitable. She would have to experience the full onslaught of her grief sometime. Later was not usually better than sooner. Perhaps they had kept her drugged hoping that Anna would be found. But everyone knew the odds. If a child wasn’t found within twenty-four hours, the chances were slim she’d be found at all. It had been thr
ee days. The nanny was just waking up and finding herself in hell.

  “Thank you for helping us,” Claudia said in a thin, breathy voice. Except for some fine lines around her eyes that showed her to be in her thirties, she had a childlike air.

  My alters clamored in sympathy. Sugartime did her job. Quiet! They don’t need sympathy, they need their children.

  If there are any children left to be found, said Olive.

  Shut up, said Hester.

  All of you shut up and let me work. “Let me work,” I said out loud. The priest stopped breathing again, but recovered faster this time. He was learning that he’d have to get either a grip or an oxygen tank.

  The man in the chair across from the two women rose. He had been leaning toward them with his elbows on his knees, engaged in an earnest conversation. Michael Keating. I knew that from the dog collar and black suit, though the rest of his appearance surprised me. He was not cut from the same pattern as O’Hagan. He took a step toward me with his hand extended. I couldn’t take it and didn’t want to switch right now. Glances passed between him and O’Hagan. He withdrew his hand subtly and quickly clasped it in front of him in a priestly, but not fussy, gesture. He appeared to be anything but fussy.

  I wouldn’t say Michael Keating had a sad face. Rather, his was the face of a man who had known sadness. In fact, he had probably hit rock bottom and crawled up out of the pits hand over hand. His skin was rough and ruddy, like he had spent more time in the outback than church. He was small and stocky with dark hair brushed back without a part from a rather low forehead which gave him kind of an Old World aspect, or that of an earlier era, say the thirties or forties. Nothing like the fashion forward appearance of the youthful, well-kept O’Hagan.

  Michael Keating’s priestly garb, unlike the dapper clerical threads of his superior, was definitely off the rack, yanked off in a hurry and a long time ago. “Thank you for coming.” He did not lower his gaze or turn away when he met my eyes. This almost never happens, even among those who have been forewarned of my…what Ray refers to as…lack of affect. She means that my face, my eyes in particular, lack the sort of expression that most people take for granted when they look at a human face. That expression changes and varies from happy to sad, anguished to ecstatic, or even bored or spaced out. Almost every human face has some recognizable expression on it, even in sleep. She says, with no disrespect, that I have a somewhat reptilian gaze that is off-putting. That’s because, like I said, I, Isadora, don’t have the feelings that are the possession of the other people that share this body. I get only their echo. I’ve seen the grief and the tragedies that come to people because of feelings, their own and other people’s. I am better off without them.

  I heard voices from above and several people appeared on the landing. An older couple, a man around thirty and a boy who was munching a cookie. They all paused to stare down at me.

  Apparently, the priest had done some good prep work with these people. They were curious and they studied me a bit, but no one ran screaming from the room. So far, so good.

  I could sense a general nervousness wash over the pool of feelings that had already collected in this place. I make people nervous. And not just because of my face. I don’t do the things that primates, and Homo sapiens in particular, do to put their fellows at ease. The smile, the handshake—Ray says that the point of these things is not to express how you feel, necessarily, but to signal I’m not going to hurt you. Small talk is to humans, she says, what grooming is for howler monkeys. She says if we were howler monkeys, I’d be scratched and bitten and driven from the troop. I guess it’s a good thing we’re not, then, because I can no more make small talk with a stranger than I could pick fleas out of his hair.

  Chapter 5

  Manfred Burke had staged his entrance, of that I was sure. Descending the stairs, he said expansively, “We welcome you— to lead us out of our despair.”

  He spoke with moderately accented English. More pronounced than his accent was the note of mockery that permeated his tone.Perhaps it was habit and by now unconscious. Born in Russia.Family moved to Paris when he was three or four.They came to America when he was about twelve, changing their name from Berkowitz to Burke.They did not enter the country as poor immigrants but with jewels sewn into their clothing and money tucked up in a Swiss bank. Manfred attained early acclaim as a designer and, with the business acumen of his younger brother Spencer, grew Manfred Designs into an enterprise that drew royalties from manufacturers of everything from dry goods to furniture, housewares to the high-end ice buckets and trays bearing the gold Manfred signature found in luxury hotels the world over. Manfred Burke was King of the Coordinates. He was Martha Stewart before she was a gleam in her daddy’s eye and without the public persona. His was not a household name, but any buyer in the gift and housewares industries knew a Manfred design, whether his signature was on it or not.

  Hester piped, He’s got money he doesn’t even know he has. House on Montauk, apartment in Gramercy Park, not to mention that villa in Umbria.

  I know, Hester, be quiet.

  At the time of Anna’s disappearance, he had been in his office, approving designs for his new spring line and browbeating his staff. I was surprised Leo even counted that as an alibi. This wasn’t the sort of man to get his hands dirty. He gave orders.

  He apparently hadn’t noticed or had just ignored my momentary loss of focus on him. “…lead us out of our despair. Can you do that? My niece—you see she is suffering.” No sympathy for the nanny. No feeling wasted on the peasantry. A sea change swept through the room when he entered. I sensed immediately that things would be different if he were not here. He was used to controlling and dominating any situation. He wouldn’t have intimidated Leo, and he didn’t intimidate me, but I was quite sure he did intimidate the other people here that I wanted to talk to. Then I wondered why he, the uncle, was here, and Spencer Burke, Claudia’s father, was not.

  The housekeeper, for that is whom I assumed the thirtysomething man to be, said, “I’ll make some more coffee,” and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Manfred Burke was poised on the middle step. He had big teeth and watery blue eyes that were magnified behind his brown-rimmed glasses. His overtanned and spotted skin was stretched over his face and bald skull. A pinkish gray fringe of hair brushed his collar. Cuffed and creased slacks perfectly matched his beige silk shirt and picked up the lighter threads in his tweed jacket. His wattled neck emerged from the folds of a russet paisley silk scarf.

  “My beloved, my beauty.” He addressed the little woman who stood to the side and just behind him. “This is Ms. Shiloh. Father O’Hagan was kind enough to bring her. She is helping the police.”

  His beloved stepped forward like a little hen who’d just found herself in the wrong coop, and the two of them, hand in hand, continued their descent into the living room.

  Bungee raised his head and yipped twice to announce their approach. The boy slipped by the older couple and past me and went to sling his leg over the arm of the sofa next to his mother. He finished his cookie and Bungee readjusted himself to lick the crumbs off the boy’s pant leg. Seeing there would be no more, the Jack Russell turned around again to lay his head on Claudia’s lap, alert to the movements of everyone in the room.

  “Danny?” I took a guess that this was the oldest son, the ten-year-old.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like you to show me the apartment.”

  He appeared reluctant but not nervous, and he didn’t check with his mother. “Sure,” he said, dismounting the sofa arm. Claudia patted his back, a gesture of Go ahead and you’re a good boy. A loving gesture. The boy hardly noticed. He was used to being touched so by his mother.

  “But we are all here.” Burke made a dramatic gesture that encompassed everyone. “We were told you needed to speak to the family. You see, we have gathered.”

  “Mrs. Keating’s father is missing,” I said.

  “He called,” said Michael Keating. “
He got caught in crosstown traffic. He is on his way.”

  “I will speak to you,” I said to Manfred Burke. “But first I’d like Danny to show me the apartment. Wait here. Please.” I looked down on the boy who was standing in front of me.

  “Well, uh, this is the living room. What do you want to see next?”

  “How about the other rooms on this floor.”

  He led me through a narrow archway off the living room into a dark hall, not bothering to switch on a light. The first room was a laundry room that housed a washer, dryer and a tall, narrow, metal cabinet. I opened it to find detergents and bleach, rinses, stain-removers and fabric softener sheets. An ironing board and iron were set up in the corner. On a table was a small television and a stack of folded clothes. On the floor was a plastic basket full of dirty clothes. The next room was just a tiny storage room piled high with old clothes, toys and winter gear. Everything was in boxes and bags and plastic modular bins, like you can buy in city closet stores. The last room was larger than the first two.

  “This is Vin’s room,” said Danny. Vin Parrish. The housekeeper.

  This is a man who knows how to Feng Shui! exclaimed Hester.

  The room had dove-gray walls and a darker shade of plush wall-to-wall carpet, vertical silver-gray blinds over a window that seemed to open out to just a shaftway; a futon with a brilliant red cover; a comfortable looking, ergonomically correct, black leather chair under a halogen floor lamp; a sleek black metal desk with a small notebook computer on it. Books, CDs, a CD player and some black-framed photographs were neatly arranged on the metallic gray, matte finish shelves on the wall above the desk. Decent-sized speakers were attached to the walls on either side. A full-length mirror was affixed to the outside of his closet door adding the illusion of space and reflecting what little light there was coming through the window. A poster on the wall from a production of Kiss Me Kate added a kaleidoscope of colors and attested to the fact that in Shakopee, Minnesota, Vin Parrish had strutted his stuff as Petruchio. On the opposite wall next to a black speaker box was a wall hanging of the theatre masks, one smiling, one crying, done in pink and turquoise sequins. The masks gazed at themselves in the mirror. Looking back and forth between them I got dizzy and sat in the desk chair. The room was perfectly tidy and spotless, contemporary and comfortable, stamped with a completely different personality than the rest of the apartment I’d seen so far. I got up again and checked the bathroom—tiny, with sink and a shower stall, but no tub. The tiles were black and white and the towels and the rug on the floor were red.