Endless Chain (41 page)

Leon gave a curt nod and sniffed once more.

Sam made the call. Gayle might not be a permanent solution, but nobody knew teenage boys better than she did, and, as Sam had expected, she agreed immediately. He hung up and recounted the conversation.

“She says you’re very welcome to stay as long as you need to. But she recommended we not tell your dad where you’re staying quite yet. Just that you’re safe. If he goes to the police, we’ll have to tell
them,
but we’ll also report the abuse, and George will know that.”

“I don’t want Dad to know where I am. I don’t want to see him!”

Sam knew that would change, but for the time being, this was best.

“I’ll take you over there now and help you get settled. Then I’ll go see your father.”

Leon blew his nose before he stood. “Thanks. But I could have run away. I would have been okay on my own.”

“You’re a guy who can take care of himself,” Sam said carefully. “But there’s no reason to when you have friends. And you do. So you did the right thing by coming here.”

The boy seemed to relax a little. “You ought to have kids. You know?”

Sam thought that under the circumstances, this was high praise indeed.

Jenkins Landscaping looked as bleak as Sam’s rose garden. The driveway up to the parking lot was badly rutted, with ice forming in the hollows. The parking lot itself wasn’t much better. Clearly Jenkins wasn’t using his own equipment to grade his own property. Sam wondered if he was too busy elsewhere or just didn’t care anymore.

Sam could hear voices in Spanish from the area beside the greenhouse where several trucks, at least one with a plow that would have made easy work of the driveway, were parked. Another snowfall was expected tonight, and he supposed Jenkins’ workers were making plans how best to serve their regular customers. He started in that direction, but a shout from the house just above the office saved him the trip.

“What in the hell have you done with my boy!” Despite temperatures just above freezing, a coatless George came charging down from his porch. For the first time in his life, Sam wished he had listened to his father’s advice and become a doctor, maybe a pathologist with no one to talk back to him.

“Shall we go inside?” Sam said, nodding to the office once George was just in front of him. “You’re not dressed for the weather.” His eyes drifted down the man’s stout torso. George’s short-sleeved shirt looked as if it had clung to his body for weeks. He smelled like beer.

“Where’s my son?”

“I will talk to you inside. Take it or leave it.”

George’s scowl deepened. For a moment Sam was afraid he might throw a punch at him, but finally he stomped off toward the office. Sam followed.

The tiny reception area was neat but dusty. In contrast, the office just beyond was a mess. Papers were strewn on the desk, floor and sofa. Dirty coffee cups and heaped ashtrays decorated every surface not covered with papers. The trash can was brimming, and the room was cold. Without permission, Sam flipped on a space heater after clearing away the papers on top of it.

“Your life is out of control, George,” he said with no preamble. He faced the other man. “And don’t tell me how I know. I have eyes, and I’ve spoken to your son today. You’re going to lose everything if you don’t do something fast.”

“Where’s Leon?” The words weren’t quite a shout, but they filled the small room.

“Safe. Safer than he was at home last night.”

“I don’t know what he told you—”

“He told me the truth,” Sam said, cutting him off. “And he showed me the bruises. I could see marks from your fingers, so don’t try to tell me he fell.”

“What did you do with him?”

“I found him a place to stay. He’ll be fine there. No one will get drunk and attack him.”

The bellow became a whine. “I didn’t know where he was. He went to a party without—”

“Leon says you gave him permission. You’re blacking out, George. That happens to alcoholics. The gaps in your memory will get larger and longer. People will stop covering up for you. Your life will slide downhill so fast you won’t be able to hang on for the ride. Is that what you want?”

“I’m not an alcoholic!” George ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I did have too much to drink last night, but I was worried because—”

“You were worried because you’re losing control. Look around.” Sam kicked at the trash can, gestured to the desk piled with papers. “I remember coming in here at the beginning of my ministry. This place was spotless.”

“My damned secretary quit!”

“Why?” Sam held his ground as the seconds ticked away. Finally he nodded. “Because she couldn’t stand your abuse?”

“I just got tired of her incompetence.”

“I bet she got tired of your tirades. Were you coming to work drunk? Are you drinking every morning just to get yourself out the front door? How many drinks have you had so far today?”

“What I do is none of your business!”

“Leon made it my business.”

“I’m going to call the police and tell them you kidnapped my boy.”

Sam gestured to the telephone. “I can’t stop you. But right now the authorities aren’t involved. I have discretion whether to report child abuse or not, and so far I’ve chosen not to report this. Leon’s safe for the moment. But
you
won’t be once that report is made.”

George lowered himself to the sofa without moving the papers beneath. They crackled indignantly. “Child abuse?”

“No one would dispute it. I took photographs of Leon’s arm and back before I came over.”

“What, you’re collecting evidence?”

“That’s right.”

“Why? So I’ll leave you alone and stop trying to get the board to do what they should?”

Sam took a long time to release his next breath. “If you think this has
anything
to do with my ministry, then maybe you really are too far gone to help. If that’s what this comes to, then we may need other professionals to intervene. But what accusations will you make against them? When do you stop blaming everybody else?”

George put his head in his hands. And then, taking Sam by surprise, he began to sob.

Sam knew better than to offer comfort. He stood quietly and waited for the flood to ebb. He wasn’t sure whether it was the situation or early-morning booze that had precipitated the tears, but for the first time in a long time, a hint of compassion for George Jenkins returned.

When George began to gain control, Sam fished a box of tissues from beneath a pile of unopened mail and set the box beside him in the same way he had offered tissues to George’s son earlier.

“My life’s a God damned mess,” George said at last.

“Mess, yes. God damned? No.”

“I’m going to lose my business.”

“If you keep on this way.”

“No.” George blew his nose. “I made some bad decisions, bought some land for expansion, then the bottom fell out of the economy and nobody was paying landscapers anymore. By the time things got better, I was in the hole big time and couldn’t sell the land for what it was worth. Then I had to settle a lawsuit, and I wasn’t insured for it. Got hit with taxes. Bad followed worse. I don’t know how to tell Leon. If something doesn’t change by spring, this place is history. And what will I do? Where will we go? How am I going to pay for his college education?”

None of this excused the abuse or the bullying, of course, but Sam finally understood some of what had been driving George. “It’s a lot to handle alone,” he said. “Have you tried talking to the bank or a specialist in debt management?”

“I handle things myself. Always have.”

“You’re not handling this, George. And I don’t just mean the business. You’re about to lose more than your company. You’re about to lose your son. You’re this close.” He demonstrated with his fingers. “And I’m not threatening you. This doesn’t have anything to do with whether I report your behavior last night or not. Leon’s about to give up on you.”

“You’re trying to steal him.”

Sam didn’t respond. He just kept his gaze steady and waited.

“I don’t know what to do,” George said at last, looking away. He slumped back against the sofa.

“There’s an AA meeting every night of the week somewhere in the area. I know there are several every day in Winchester. There’ll be one tomorrow night in Woodstock at the Methodist church.”

“How do you know so much? You hit the bottle, too?”

“I have problems like anybody else, but that’s not one of them. The good news is you’re not alone. We’ve got other people in the church with the same struggle. I can call around and find one of them who will go with you tonight. If you’ll let me.”

“You’ll hold this over my head, won’t you? Keep me from seeing Leon until I go.”

“Don’t make this about me, okay? Don’t even make it about Leon. Make it about you. That’s the only way AA is going to help. Because you know you have to get your life back on track.”

“Yeah, and everything will just come flocking back to me. My son, all the money I lost, my place in the community.” He gave a snort.

“You might get your self-esteem back, George. Isn’t it worth a try?”

George didn’t answer.

“I’d like to pray with you,” Sam said. “Will you let me?”

“I just want you to go away. Just go away.”

Sam knew he had done and said what he could. The rest was up to the man in front of him, although he prayed silently for him as he left the office and started toward his SUV.

He had opened the car door when about half a dozen workers came around the corner of the greenhouse and began to pile into two trucks. He was lost in thought and didn’t pay much attention until he realized that the man who was watching from the sidelines, short but powerfully built, was Diego Moreno, Adoncia’s former fiancé. He remembered Elisa saying that Diego had gotten a job here as a foreman, and even though he’d only met Diego in passing, he recognized him. Sam realized that if everything George had said was accurate, all these men would lose their livelihood along with their boss.

He had one foot on the running board when he noticed a young man trailing behind the others. Sam was struck by how tall he was compared to the men in front of him. He was thin but wiry, with broad shoulders, not quite a man and not quite a boy. His hair was long, tied neatly at the nape of his neck, and his face was fine-boned, almost elegant and definitely striking.

Sam got in, slammed the door behind him and started the engine. He was nearly out of the parking lot when he realized why the young man had attracted his attention. Not because he was tall or particularly good-looking. Because he looked like Elisa.

He told himself not to get his hopes up, but there were two warring voices in his head. One counseled caution, the other prayed.

He stopped at the edge of the lot and got out, as if to check his tires. He kicked one as he waited for the men to finish getting into the trucks. The driver of the first truck slowed and rolled down his window.

“You need help?”

Sam waved a “no.” “Just checking to be sure it’s not going flat. It looks fine.”

The man rolled his window up and continued down the driveway. Sam motioned for the second truck to pass him, noting that Diego was driving. He didn’t see the young man, but once they’d passed, he saw that there were several workers sitting in the back.

He guessed they weren’t going far. It was too cold outside to ride any distance that way, and also illegal. He got back in his SUV and followed at a distance. When the men pulled into the parking lot of a small cluster of businesses about a mile from Woodstock, he realized they’d probably arrived at their destination. Dirty snow was piled ineffectually, creating barriers to decent parking, and the ground had been churned by too many tires. The job looked as if it might last several hours.

Sam passed and went straight to Helen’s. He took the steps to her porch two at a time and pounded on the door.

Helen answered, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “From the racket you’re making, I’d guess the world’s ending and you want us to put on our Sunday best.”

“Is Elisa here?”

Helen stepped back. “She’s upstairs, working on her quilt.”

He took those steps two at a time, as well, and found Elisa at the sewing machine in Helen’s room.

“Put on your coat.”

She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “Sam, I thought you’d be gone all—”

“Do it quickly.”

She searched his face; then she hurried past him and down the stairs. She got her coat and hat from the mudroom. He spent those moments apologizing to Helen. “I promise it’s important,” he told her. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Just so long as it don’t include me putting these old feet into good shoes.” She closed the door behind them with a bang.

“Now you’ll explain,” Elisa said when they were speeding down Fitch Crossing Road.

“I went to Jenkins Landscaping to talk to George about Leon.”

“This is about Leon?”

He didn’t know how to broach this, how to warn her that he was probably wrong and the young man was not Ramon. He hesitated; then he reached out and tenderly cupped her neck for a moment.