Pete rolled up the wooden door of the truck, and the grating noise brought Helen to the door of the shop. She waved through the glass, and Pete waved back before climbing into the back. The boxes had shifted during the hundred-seventy-mile drive. The largest box, filled to the brim with chocolate products for Helen, had moved to the corner. Pete felt the truck rock beneath his weight as he worked his way toward the box. He started to reach for it—then yelled out when the box actually moved toward him.
“Who’s there? Show yourself! C’mon out right now!”
Pete cautiously leaned forward to peer over the top of the box— and he saw a green cap skimming above some dark hair and large brown eyes. The little boy was crouched behind the box, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.
“Holy cow! What’cha doing in here, kid?” Pete reached down and hauled Jack up by his armpits. “You’re frozen like a hare in the headlights.”
The boy stared back at him.
“Where in the wide world did you come from?”
“C’mon, now—the jig’s up. Let’s at least have a name.”
Nothing. Pete sighed and gripped the boy’s arm to walk him to the edge of the truck. When Pete jumped out the back, he offered the small hitchhiker a hand, but the boy ignored it as he jumped down and immediately started to walk away.
Pete snagged his arm again. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going anywheres till I get some answers.”
Helen must have seen what was happening and came out the door. “Let’s get inside, where it’s warmer,” she said after Pete started to give her the story.
“You’re cold as an icicle, honey.” Helen laid a hand on the child’s red cheek as she led them both to a small dinette. Pete finished his account, and the woman turned again to the boy. “Won’t you please tell me your name? I’m Helen—and that’s Pete.”
“He’s sure not talkin’,” Pete said. “Probably better call the police.”
After Helen returned, she asked, “How long do you s’pose he was in the back of the truck?” Then, directing her attention back to the boy, “Where are you from, sweetie?”
Pete shook his head at the silence. “I sure got no idea. I didn’t see him when I made my stop at Evanston—and I coulda swore he weren’t in there when I unloaded at Waukegan and Milwaukee.” He looked at Jack. “But he had to climb in somewhere, and I know it wasn’t here.”
“Let’s get you warmed up, then maybe you’ll feel more like talking.” Helen hurried around a counter, its glass front filled with chocolate candy bars and all kinds of other delectable treats.
Pete called, “I’ ll feel more like talking if you can dredge up a cookie or two—maybe some hot cocoa? Made with Bloomer chocolate?” he added with a grin.
Helen nodded absently, her eye on the mysterious visitor. “I’d guess he’s a runaway. Seems awful young, though. Are you running away from something, hon?”
“I ran away once,” Pete commented. “Caught a ride in the back of a sugar beet truck, but the smell had me leaping out at the first stop!” He looked at the small boy, still sitting stoically with his eyes taking in Helen’s every move. “At least this kid picked a better load to travel with—a truck filled with chocolate!”
Helen returned with a tray holding a plate of cookies and two mugs. “This’ll help thaw you out.” She placed the mugs in front of her two guests. “Here—do you like hot chocolate?” she asked the boy, pushing his mug closer.
Helen sat down at the table and watched the little boy bring it to his lips and carefully take a sip. She propped her elbows on the table. “I guess he does,” she said, then pushed the plate of cookies toward him. “Have a cookie. Have two.” She shook her head. “Your mamma must be worried half to death about you. We need to let her know you’re all right. Won’t you please tell us your name?” She lowered her face to look directly into his.
Pete finished off another cookie, staring at the boy. “I’d be out of my mind if one of my kids went missing.” He looked out the front window of the shop to the dark street. “Shouldn’t somebody be here by now?”
Helen nodded, picked up another cookie, and held it out to the boy. “It’s been—what?—twenty minutes since I called the station,” she said, adding wryly, “Makes me hope I’m never robbed.”
They heard the sound of a police siren in the distance. Pete’s brows arched. “Did you tell ’em you were being robbed?”
She chuckled and shook her head. Both Pete and Helen looked toward the front window and the scream of the siren. The flashing light on the police cruiser lit the shop as it pulled up.
“Oh, that’s loud,” she said with a shake of her head as the siren suddenly went silent. Pete turned back and glanced at the boy.
“He didn’t look.” Pete frowned, watching the boy quietly chewing his cookie.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t look when we heard the siren. What little boy doesn’t look when he hears a police car coming?”
Helen’s eyes grew wide. “It’s not that he won’t talk to us—it’s that he can’t. He’s deaf.”
Officer Sheldon Leonard hated working nights—not so much about the hours, but because his pretty little wife was at home alone. She’d been clear that being alone wasn’t something she relished. Bottom line—Sheldon was worried. He loved her, and he knew he’d married up when he’d tied the knot with Diane. He was pretty sure their union had left her disappointed, and Sheldon felt in his gut that she’d walk out on him given the right circumstances. And working nights was making that a lot easier.
He entered the Kopper Kettle and inhaled the sweet scents permeating the air.
“Hello, Helen.” He moved toward the table where the boy sat with Helen and a man dressed in a delivery uniform. “I’m Officer Leonard,” he told the man. “You called about a boy?” stating the obvious.
Helen nodded and pointed at the child, who had yet to turn and look at Sheldon. “This is him. We don’t know his name or where he’s from—nothing at all about him. Well, except we think he might be deaf.”
Sheldon came up beside the boy and slapped his hands together loudly, but he didn’t even flinch. “Deaf, huh?” He took a knee, and the boy’s eyes grew large. “What’s—your—name—son?” Sheldon asked loudly.
The man and Helen exchanged a glance. “Uh, he can’t hear you. He’s not talking,” the man said.
Sheldon sighed and got to his feet, pulling a pad from his back pocket. “I need your name,” he said.
“Why? I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Just for my report,” the officer replied. “Tell me your name and what happened.”
When Pete finished his two-minute account, Sheldon shook his head at the scant details he had. Helen had added a few comments, but basically . . . he had nothing. “Anybody want to volunteer to keep him until we find his parents?” Sheldon asked.
Pete quickly shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I’m in the middle of a shift. . . .”
Sheldon glanced at Helen, who looked down at the floor. “I wish I could . . . I really do . . . but . . .” She hesitated, then brought her eyes up to meet his. “I’m living in the back of my shop right now. I’ve only got a cot back there, and there’s no place for a little boy.”
“Helen, you never said anything,” Pete said, honest surprise in his tone.
“It’s fine.” She forced a little smile. “At least I’m always here for deliveries.”
Sheldon sighed. “Okay, I guess the kid’s coming with me.”
“Do you think you’ll find his parents?” Helen asked anxiously. “I just hate that he’s all alone—”
“I dunno. That’ll depend on if anybody’s filed a report about a missing kid,” he said. “If not . . . well . . . I dunno.”
“Somebody’s got to be worrying about him,” Pete said.
“Or somebody cut him loose because he’s too much trouble,” Sheldon replied in a low voice.
“I can’t believe anyone would do that,” Helen
exclaimed. “I just can’t believe it! Especially somebody so defenseless—”
“You’d be amazed at what people will do,” Sheldon said cryptically. “It would flat-out floor you.”
The three stood there contemplating the nameless little stowaway.
Sheldon sighed again and looked across the front seat of the squad car. His little passenger meant he’d be facing mountains of paper work. He’d need to fill out reports, make phone calls, check the Teletype for bulletins about missing kids. This was going to take him hours, probably the rest of his shift. Which meant if he was going to take a drive past his house, check on things, he’d better do it now. It wasn’t as if the kid was going to voice any objections.
Sheldon cautiously made the turn onto his street and cut the headlights of the car. He motored slowly down the shadowy block, keeping the engine just above idle, until he was only a house away from his own driveway. He turned the key and the engine silenced completely while he rolled to a stop at the curb.
The porch light was off, and Sheldon frowned. He always told his wife that a lighted entry was a good deterrent to crime. Burglars weren’t going to stand under a light and pry open a locked front door. He made a mental note to be patient when he reminded Diane again to be more careful. The curtains were pulled across the front window, some lacy things that Diane had insisted on but Sheldon had argued didn’t provide enough privacy from the street. In the end she’d gotten her way, and even now Sheldon knew he’d been right as he watched her silhouette pass behind the curtains. At least she’s home, he thought with satisfaction—until he noticed she wasn’t alone. Another form—this one definitely male, leaned over and their shadows met for a kiss. Stunned, Sheldon stared as the two broke apart and stepped out of view.
Fury replaced his surprise as Sheldon fumbled for the car door handle and yanked it open—just as the interloper in his house slipped outside to the front porch. The man kept close to the porch wall, moving silently, until Sheldon’s angry yell punctuated the quiet night. Cursing a blue streak, Sheldon broke into a run, and the man leaped off the porch and darted into the dark shadows around the house. Sheldon veered toward the side yard in time to hear an engine start, realizing too late that the man’s car had been parked in the rear out of sight. He changed direction and ran back toward the street just as the car careened around the house, missing him by only a few feet. Sheldon made a valiant attempt to chase down the car, logic and reason a distant second to the adrenaline-fueled anger that kept him moving until the taillights of the car disappeared at the end of the block.
Diane! You lying, cheating floozy—and in my own house!
He stomped his way back toward the house, intent on confronting Diane, but his own rage actually worried him. I could kill her. . . . I’m so mad right now I could actually kill her. . . .
His hand went to his holstered gun as he looked at the front window. No sign of his wife behind the curtains now. He started toward the door but then stopped, acutely aware that he didn’t trust himself right then. Better to take a drive and cool off before he went inside. She woulda heard me—better still, let Diane stew in her own betrayal.
Sheldon arrived back at his car. The door stood open, and he slid inside and slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. He looked across the seat at the kid he’d totally forgotten.
“What are you lookin’ at?” he demanded.
He couldn’t go back to the station now—he couldn’t take any of the joking and sarcastic asides that he normally shrugged off. Tonight he’d snap if anyone dared to bring up Diane’s name. And by now maybe they already knew about his tart of a wife. Knew that he’d not been man enough for her. Maybe that rat who ran out of his house was at the local bar right now shooting off his mouth about his little dalliance with the good cop’s wife, then slipping right past him at his own door.
Sheldon could feel his blood pressure rising with every new thought. They’ll all figure they were right. The Sheldon Leonards of the world didn’t end up with women like Diane. At least not for long.
“Officer Leonard?” the voice of the dispatcher scratched out into the air.
Sheldon picked up the radio mike. “Leonard.”
“You make that call to the Kopper Kettle?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yeah.” He looked across the seat at the kid. “A false alarm. They found the kids’ parents.”
“Roger.”
That would be the story he’d feed Helen Gaines the next morning when he made a quick run to the Kopper Kettle. The kid’s folks had been found in—maybe Evanston, he’d say—and no one would be the wiser.
“Life ain’t perfect, kid. Fact is, it downright stinks. There’s a place I know where you’ll fit right in,” Sheldon said out loud, reaching for the ignition. “I can’t promise you’ll love it . . . but since you ran away from the last place you were, it’s probably not any worse.”
He shook his head at the quiet voice nagging him from the inside. “Actually, kid,” he said as he put the car in gear, “what would they do with you back at the station? Probably the same thing.”
Less than an hour later, after mentally running through more scenarios than he could count about what to do when he got home, Sheldon coasted the last few yards to stop in front of a large brick building with two wings jutting out on either side. In the gray light just before dawn, the building presented a façade that seemed stately— until one looked closer at the bars on every window and the high fence running the perimeter of the place.
The wind moaned through a copse of tall pines behind the building and gave Sheldon just the sound cover he needed to get out of the car, open the boy’s door, and hustle him to the front of the building. Looking around under the small umbrella of light provided by two sconces on either side of the door, Sheldon found what he was looking for.
“Don’t move, kid,” he said. “Someone will be right with you.” Sheldon pressed the buzzer, holding his finger on the button for a count of ten—then dashed back to the squad car. The engine caught, and he was rolling away from the building within thirty seconds.
Moments later the door to the Rock River Poorhouse opened, and a woman in a white uniform looked down at a little boy standing alone in the cold. She saw the glow of red taillights at the end of the long driveway. Shivering, she reached out to grab his arm and draw him inside.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chicago, Illinois
CHARLES AND JERRY STOOD ON ONE SIDE of a dusty glass window and peered into a room holding a table and two chairs. The light cast an unnatural yellow haze on the tiled floor and white brick walls. A door on the right wall was closed.
“What’s takin’ so blasted long?” Jerry was more than irritated. “That old woman could be halfway to Timbuktu by now! With my son.”
A uniformed officer came into the room carrying two cups of coffee. He handed one to Charles. “Here ya go, one sugar, no cream.” The other went to Jerry. “Two sugars.”
The door in the small room was opening. “They’re bringing her in now,” the cop said.
Charles nodded. “Her attorney here?”
“Yeah. Just arrived.”
As if on cue, a man in a dark suit entered the small room and looked straight at the glass—or from his side, the mirror—and arched an eyebrow.
“Okay, we get you’re a genius and know we’re here,” the cop said with a shake of his head. “Lawyers. They’re all the same. All flash and show—you know? This one’s named Patrick something or other. O’Sullivan, I think.”
Charles cast a sidelong glance at the cop. “I’m a lawyer,” he said with a glance at the man’s badge, “Officer Roark.”
The policeman choked on his coffee. Charles hid a smile, noting the man had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Right, sorry, Mr. Westerly. I guess I just think of you as governor— or, you know, almost governor.”
Jerry scowled through the glass. “What kind of a lawyer defends someone who’s kidnapped her own
son? Doesn’t he have a conscience?”
Charles gave Jerry a quick glance. He had to ask himself why he was sticking around. He didn’t really need to hear the interrogation— but even as he told himself that, he knew he wouldn’t leave. When all was said and done, Mary Godwin Sinclair hadn’t really been what he’d expected—and it bothered him.
“It’s about time,” Jerry said. Charles turned his attention back to the interrogation room as the door once again opened. He watched as Patrick O’Sullivan stood while another uniformed officer led Mary inside. The cop with Charles pressed a button near the glass, allowing them to hear the conversation in the room. Charles heard O’Sullivan greet his client.
“Hello, Mrs. Sinclair,” he said. “How are you?”
“Sneaky—that’s how,” Jerry muttered under his breath, fogging the glass in front of his mouth.
Watching as Mary looked around the small room, Charles took note that though her hands were bare, she kept her fingers curled into her palms and pressed close to her sides.
“I’m wondering what’s going on,” she said, her voice sounding shaky even through the metallic hum of the microphone.
Charles was struck once again by how pretty she was, even in the washed-out artificial light.
“There are some questions they want you to answer,” Patrick said. “Someone should be along shortly.”
A man in a three-piece suit entered the room with a leather briefcase. He nodded curtly to Patrick and Mary. “I’m Robert Nevins from the district attorney’s office,” he said importantly, putting his briefcase down on the table and flipping the latch. “Why don’t you have a seat, Mrs. Sinclair.”
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