Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

She laughed. A bright, uncomplicated laugh.

  “But…at your…age. The odds. So much could go wrong.” He didn’t want to start imagining it. All he could feel was terror.

  Indulgently she grasped his hands. “I know how you feel. I’ve been feeling it for weeks. But I’m past all that now,” she said. “I’ve had every fear that there is to have. But you know,” she whispered, “all of a sudden it’s gone. The doctor called this morning, just after the policeman left. He said everything looks good. I need to take extra hormones. Can you imagine? As simple as that? Just some hormones. And vitamins, of course. It’s amazing. Isn’t it amazing? I’ve been sitting in this playhouse since then. Remembering. Remembering everything. And making plans. You know what, Charles? I’m not afraid anymore. I feel at peace. I’m certain. This is our miracle, darling.”

  “Ellen, what if…we can’t know.”

  “What is there to know?” she said sensibly. “All will be revealed to us in time. We have to go forward and see what God has in store for us. I have to have all those tests they give to women my age. To find out if the baby is all right. I know in my heart the baby is all right. In no time at all we’ll be able to watch on a screen. They have this machine called a sonogram. The doctor said he could tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. I said I wouldn’t want to know. Is that okay?” she asked him gently. “I said it didn’t matter at all to us.”

  For a moment Charles sat there, feeling stunned, disembodied almost. If she had told him she was going to die, he doubted he would feel any stranger. He crawled into her arms and let her hold him as his fears and hopes began to flash through him, shaking him like a fever. They came in waves, crests and troughs, one after another, rolling over him. Through it all she held him, and rocked him, and crooned to him that she understood, and promised him that everything would be all right.

  Chapter Thirty

  Len Wickes, still in uniform, zipped up his leather jacket and began to walk down the winding pathways of Binney and Park. The park was a study in deep green gray, quiet except for the occasional cry of a bird and the thud of runners’ feet as a couple jogged by. Len did not meet their eyes. He felt as if they might look at him and shake their heads sadly. He felt as if the whole world knew of his humiliation.

  He had returned to the station house, all set to communicate his suspicions about Ellen Henson, only to find Chief Cameron having an apoplectic fit. Not only Charles Henson but some of the other women he had interviewed had called to complain to the chief. Instead of kudos for his extra effort, he had received a blistering condemnation and a week’s suspension without pay.

  How am I ever going to tell Laurie? Len thought. She was still at work at the beauty shop, but when she got home and found him there…

  Len sighed. She had been so excited when he’d brought home copies of the lists and started working on them. She thought it was admirable the way he did that extra bit that wasn’t actually required. She looked up to him for being a cop, and a good cop at that. It pained him to think how she’d feel when she found out. She was always so proud of him.

  He still couldn’t understand why what he had done was so wrong. He was not used to being reprimanded. If anything, people teased him for being something of a Boy Scout, but he didn’t mind. He had joined the police force to help people. When something happened, like the death of Rebecca Starnes and the disappearance of the Wallace baby, it upset him more than it did some people. It was an insult to everything he was trying to do with his life. All he wanted to do, with every fiber of his being, was solve this case.

  Len walked aimlessly beside the duck pond, not knowing where else to go. He saw a green-headed mallard gliding lazily across the surface. A mother sat on a park bench, watching her little son play with a sailboat at the edge of the pond. Len and the woman smiled at each other, and Len stopped for a minute to gaze at the boy. Someday, he thought, I hope I have a son. He and Laurie would be good parents. Len was sure of that. Thinking of Laurie made him feel sad and frustrated again. God, he hated to have to tell her this.

  The kid was having a little trouble keeping the boat from turning over. Len crouched beside him, showed him how to right the boat and keep it from tipping, then straightened up again. He nodded to the woman on the bench and walked on. Maybe I’ll go over to the 7-Eleven, he thought, and get a cup of coffee. He didn’t feel like going home. He was a cop. What was there to do at home?

  He started to cut across the clearing on the other side of the pond, his head down, his hands stuffed in his pants pockets, and nearly collided with a man who was standing on one foot, his hands and arms creating the shape of an L in the air.

  “’Scuse me,” Len mumbled, moving to skirt the man. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. The man had shifted to another, less precarious posture. Len watched him in amazement, as if he were a phantom. The police had scoured this park at all hours and looked up every person of Asian extraction in the town of Taylorsville, to no avail. Every person they spoke to had heard about the abduction, the death of Rebecca Starnes, and some even acknowledged an interest in tai chi, but not one had ever done exercises in Binney Park at all, much less on the day in question.

  It’s him, Len thought, and the excitement hit him like an electric shock. He’s the one. He’s here. Carefully Len turned back and walked up to the man. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to keep his voice casual. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  The man’s broad, calm face crinkled into a frown, and his black eyes looked suspicious. He stood up very straight, but his hands and arms were slightly bent in a stance of readiness. “Yes,” he said in a deep voice.

  “My name is Officer Leonard Wickes of the Taylorsville Police Department,” said Len, crossing his fingers since technically he was off the force as of this moment. “I’d like to ask you a few questions that concern the death of Rebecca Starnes and the abduction of Justin Wallace.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” protested the man.

  “Is that tai chi you’re doing?” Len asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you do these exercises in this park very often?”

  The man nodded. “When I’m in town. I travel a lot on business.”

  “Well, Mr. urn…”

  “Ishikawa,” the man said a trifle reluctantly.

  “Mr. Ishikawa…is that a Chinese name?”

  “Japanese. My parents are Japanese. I am an American,” the man said pointedly with just a hint of impatience.

  “Japanese, then,” said Len. “Do you live here in Taylorsville?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I live in those apartments over there.”

  “So you must have heard about what happened here Tuesday.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t know much about what’s been going on in town lately. I’ve been away. What happened?”

  Out of town, Len exulted to himself. That explains it. No wonder he didn’t come forward. He’s been out of town. Len felt his heart lifting, soaring. He’d found the missing witness. He could hardly wait to tell the chief. They’d put him back on the force right away. They’d have to. “So you’ve been away on business,” Len said in a friendly manner.

  “No, actually,” the man said, “I had tickets to the last game of the Series.”

  Lens mouth dropped open, his problems and his purpose for the moment forgotten in his amazement at this piece of news. “The World Series? You got tickets? You went?”

  Mr. Ishikawa nodded a little sheepishly, acknowledging the admiration in the other man’s tone. “I’m a big baseball fan,” he said.

  “Wow,” Len said solemnly. “Wow.”

  Donna and Johnny Wallace sat stolidly in the chairs in front of Frank Cameron’s desk and stared at the police chief with angry, bleary eyes. Frank, who had had almost as little sleep as the distraught parents, tried to reassure them that he was doing everything that could be done.

  Johnny Wallace jumped up in the middle of Frank’s reassurances and
started screaming. “We don’t want excuses,” he cried. “We want our baby back!”

  “I understand,” said Frank. “We want the same thing. But all we can do, unless we hear from the kidnapper, is to proceed as we are doing. Checking out every possible suspect. Every possible lead. Now, my question is, what are both of you doing here? What if the kidnapper should call with a ransom demand while you are both here?”

  “I couldn’t stand to sit there anymore,” Donna said apologetically.

  “Don’t try to make out like this is our fault,” Johnny cried.

  “It’s not my fault, either, sir,” said Frank, just barely keeping a lid on his hostility.

  “He’s right,” Donna said wearily to her husband. “One of us should be at home.” She got up from her seat, fresh tears running in well-formed tracks down her cheeks. “You’ll call us, right, Chief?” she asked in a dull voice.

  “If there’s anything…anything at all,” Frank said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. He really did feel for her. For both of them, whether they knew it or not.

  The phone on his desk rang, and Frank looked at it warily. In between busting his butt trying to get a lead on the fate of Justin Wallace, he had been wasting his precious time on damage control as one irate citizen after another had called to complain about Len Wickes’s outrageous interrogations. Frank was half waiting to hear from Charles Henson again. Frank had chewed out Len Wickes sixteen ways from Sunday when he’d found out about how Len had taken it upon himself to correlate the adoption data and use strong-arm techniques on the people who had tried hardest, and with the least success, to adopt a baby. As much as Frank needed every available officer, he could not let that kind of hot-dog behavior go unpunished. Len had slunk out of the station house, almost slope shouldered in disgrace.

  Frank picked up the phone as if it were a hand grenade minus the pin and barked out his name and rank. To his relief, he heard the voice of Pete Millard on the other end. Pete had been out checking up on the efforts of the diving team that was searching the lake in the state forest, looking for the little body of Justin Wallace. So far, nothing. Frank didn’t know whether he wanted to convey this information to the Wallaces or not. As long as there was no body, there was still hope. But the image of a baby drowned and tangled in the muddy grass of a lake bed might be more than Donna Wallace wanted to contemplate right now.

  “When are we ever going to get a break on this?” Frank demanded irritably.

  Pete knew it wasn’t an actual question. “I’m going to get back to it,” he said.

  “Keep me posted,” said Frank, hanging up as Delilah Jones stuck her head in the door.

  “What is it?” he growled at the cadet.

  Delilah smiled like the Cheshire cat. “Len’s here,” she said.

  Frank pushed himself up from his chair. “I told that ignorant—”

  “You’re going to like it,” she said, beckoning to him with one polished fingernail.

  Frank never could get used to those red nails with the severe blue uniform. He scowled, but his heart lifted. Delilah would never dare to announce that Len Wickes was back in the station house unless she was absolutely sure this was good news. Frank assumed his steeliest expression and strode out of his office.

  Len Wickes was standing next to Rocco Belmont’s desk. He winced slightly at the sight of the scowling chief but held his ground. Seated next to him, in Detective Belmont’s chair, was a good-looking Asian man in his late twenties, wearing a warm-up suit. Frank glared at Len.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Chief, I’d like you to meet Mr. Tom Ishikawa. I found him in Binney Park doing his tai chi exercises.”

  “You’re suspended,” Frank reminded him. Then he turned to Mr. Ishikawa, who had risen politely from the chair, and said gruffly, “How do you do?”

  “Mr. Ishikawa was in the park the day Rebecca Starnes and Justin Wallace disappeared,” said Len. “He saw them.”

  Frank turned his laser gaze on the witness. “Is that right?”

  “I saw them.”

  “We’ve been looking for you. Don’t you read the papers?”

  “He’s been away,” Len said apologetically.

  “So, did you see them talking to anyone?” Frank demanded.

  Mr. Ishikawa nodded. “A man.”

  “Can you describe the man?”

  Len and Delilah exchanged a glance. Len took a deep breath, and Delilah smiled broadly, ready for the piece de resistance.

  “Well, actually, I know him,” said Tom.

  Frank stared at him in disbelief.

  “Well, I don’t exactly know him. But I know who he is. He played two years on a farm team and one full season at first base for the Philadelphia Phillies. His name is Doug Blake.”

  Frank felt the blood drain from his face as he leaned over against the desk. “Are you sure about this?” he said quietly.

  “Positive,” said the baseball fan.

  “Son of a bitch,” Frank muttered.

  “He told us he wasn’t there,” Len said proudly.

  Frank straightened up and nodded. “Thank you for coming forward, Mr. Ishikawa. Please be sure and leave a number where we can reach you.”

  Tom looked uncertainly at Len, as if to say, “Is that all?” Len nodded, and Frank went back into his office, barking orders out the door. “Jones, get me Pete Millard on the phone. Now. Wickes, you’re back on duty. Don’t fuck up again. You can come with me. We’re going to go out and pay a call on Mr. Douglas Blake.” His voice dripped venom at the suspect’s name.

  “Dad, Dad,” cried Heather.

  Frank, who was pulling on his jacket, looked up to see his daughter in the doorway, flanked by two other teenagers.

  “Not now, Heather,” he said. “I’ve got something important to do.”

  Heather’s face fell at being dismissed without even a word of greeting, but Richie Talbot had no emotional hangups about Chief Cameron. “I think you’re going to be interested in this, sir,” he said.

  Frank frowned at the videotape in the boy’s hand. “What is that?” he demanded suspiciously.

  Richie Talbot waved the videotape in the air as if Frank were about to grab at it. “It’s a special feature,” he said.

  “I don’t have time for games, boy,” Frank said menacingly.

  “It’s Mr. Douglas Blake. Caught in the act.”

  Frank looked greedily at the black plastic box. “What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked.

  “Have you got a VCR?” Richie said with a broad smile. “I think you’ll find it very interesting.”

  Frank Cameron rubbed his jaw and looked at Delilah and Len, who were crowded behind the teenagers in the doorway. “I think we have time for this,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Maddy opened the back door to the house and walked in. It was no use trying to work. She had been out in her studio, staring at the templates, trying in vain to concentrate. She and Doug had gone to bed at separate times last night, without speaking. This morning he had seemed contrite and asked her to wish him well as he headed back to school. She had tried to summon up some sincere wishes for his difficult reentry, but all good she could think about was his fingers tightening on her wrist, the malevolence in his eyes when he’d turned on her.

  “Mrs. Blake?”

  Maddy jumped at the sound of the voice behind her as she hung up her jacket. It was Terry Lewis. Bonnie had gone off to buy diapers and baby food at the grocery store and to check out some of the nearby motels for possible places to stay. Maddy looked anxiously Terry. The man was an ex-con after all, at and Maddy did not feel entirely comfortable being alone with him.

  “What?” she asked defensively.

  “Sean fell asleep on the couch,” he said. “And I can’t really lift him. Would you mind carrying him up to his crib?”

  Maddy felt a huge sense of relief at the normalcy of his request. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be happy to.”

 
; She went into the living room, Terry creeping slowly down the hall behind her. Sean was fast asleep on the couch, his mouth open as he breathed through his rosebud lips. His long eyelashes fluttered on his cheeks. His short, soft hair was damp and curly. When she reached down and picked him up, he fell heavily against her.

  “I thought I would rest awhile, while he’s sleeping,” said Terry.

  Maddy rubbed Sean gently on the back and started for the stairs. “That’s a good idea,” she said. She carried Sean up to the guest room and laid him down gently in the crib. The room was tidy, the bags were packed. Bonnie had seen to that before she went out. Sean grasped a wad of quilt in his tiny hand and slept on peacefully.

  Maddy closed the door on him and started back down the hallway. Suddenly she heard Terry calling her name again, this time in an urgent whisper from the foot of the stairs. “What is it?” she asked, hurrying, responding to the anxiety in his voice.

  “The police are here,” he said. “What are they here for?”

  Maddy came down the stairs, her face drawn and angry. “I don’t know,” she said, although she was filled with apprehension.

  “I don’t really want to tangle with the police anymore,” said Terry.

  Maddy nodded. “It’s probably about the accident,” she said, trying to reassure him and herself.

  “I’ll go in there,” he said, pointing to the little TV room down the hall.

  Maddy didn’t care where he went. All her attention was focused on the banging at her door, the black-and-white car she could see in her driveway. She composed herself as best she could and opened the door. Chief Cameron stood there, accompanied by a detective in a rumpled suit and a uniformed officer.

  “Chief Cameron,” Maddy said coldly. “Not again.”

  “Oh yes, again,” he said, pushing his way into the foyer.

  “Hey,” Maddy protested. “I didn’t ask you in.”

  “Where is your husband?” the chief demanded.

  “I don’t know,” said Maddy. “Probably working late at school. But I think I’m going to call my lawyer, because you cannot keep on harassing us like this.” She sounded defiant, but she felt a hard little knot in her stomach. Where the hell was Doug? she wondered. Why didn’t he come home right after school?