Look Again (25 page)

Chapter Seventy-eight

Ellen opened the door, and police filled the living room and immediately began looking around, hurrying into the dining room and toward the stairs, their shoes heavy on the hardwood. Outside the window, she saw flashlights flickering as cops searched her front and side yards. Will quieted in her arms, gazing wide-eyed at an older cop with wire-rimmed glasses who took her aside, his hand on her elbow.

"I'm Officer Patrick Halbert," he said. Snowflakes dusted the shoulders of his nylon jacket. "You're the homeowner who called 911?"

"Yes." Ellen introduced herself. "Where is the ambulance?"

"On its way. Are you injured, ma'am?" Officer Halbert looked at her coat, and she realized that there was blood all over her.

"No, this isn't my blood. It's my son who's hurt. When will the ambulance get here?"

"Five minutes, tops." Officer Halbert's tone sounded official, but under the wet patent bill of his cap, his eyes looked concerned and they scanned Will, up and down. He asked, "Now, you told our dispatcher it was a home invasion?"

"Yes, it was."

"Is there anyone else in the house?"

"Pat!" one of the cops called from the kitchen. "We got two in here!"

Ellen said, "We need to get going, he's bleeding from the head. Can't you take us to the hospital?"

"It's best to wait, so they can treat your boy on the way." Officer Halbert chucked Will's stocking foot. "No shoes, fella?"

Will recoiled, and the cop plucked a Bic from inside his jacket, slid a notepad from his back pocket, and flipped open the pad. "Ms. Gleeson, why don't you fill me in on what happened?"

"Can't we talk about this after my son is treated? That's my priority, and it's not good to talk in front of him, anyway."

"This won't be your formal statement, we'll talk later at the station house. I know who you are, my wife reads you in the paper." Officer Halbert smiled, more warmly. "We'll talk until the ambulance arrives."

"It's a long story, but there was an intruder in my house. He had a gun. He broke in and tried to kill me and my son. He poured gasoline on him." Ellen glanced at Will, whose gaze remained on the cop, though she knew he was listening. "Then a woman named Carol Braverman came in and interrupted him, and he shot her when she tried to save W. I tried CPR on her but it was too late." Ellen felt a stab of guilt but stayed in control. It wasn't the time to break down. "They're in the kitchen."

"They're the bodies?"

"Yes." Ellen caught a glimpse of bright red lights in the street. It was the ambulance pulling up, spraying snow from its back tires. "They're here."

"Let's go." Officer Halbert quickly put away his pen and pad. "We'll escort you to the hospital, Ms. Gleeson."

Ellen was already out the door, cuddling Will against the storm, and he held her tight as Halbert and some other cops fell in beside them, and they descended the porch stairs into the snowy night. A paramedic jumped out of the cab and flung open the ambulance's back doors, spilling harsh fluorescent light onto the snow.

Ellen hurried down the walk with Will, plowing through wet snow in her boots. "Lots of snow, huh?"

"So much!" Will answered agreeably.

"Already eight inches," Officer Halbert added, steadying Ellen by the arm as the paramedic rushed to meet them.

"This the boy?" the paramedic shouted over the idling engines. He held out his arms for Will, and Ellen handed him over.

"Yes, he's three, bleeding from behind his ear. His head was' pressed from the side."

"You ride in back, Mom." The paramedic hustled Will to the back of the ambulance and climbed inside, and Ellen followed, stepping up onto the corrugated metal floor.

"Here we go, Will," she said, putting a hand on his stocking foot. She must have been crazy not to get him another pair of shoes. "We're riding in an ambulance. Cool, huh?"

"Wait, wait!" came a shout, and they all looked back. A black sedan had pulled up behind the police cruisers, and a man was running toward them in the snowstorm, waving his arms, his sport jacket flapping in the whirling snow. Cops surged toward him, blocking him, but in the light from the open ambulance, Ellen recognized his agonized features.

It was Bill Braverman.

"Stop, wait!" He fought the cops to get to the ambulance, but they held him back, the melee silhouetted in the high beams of the cruisers. A bitter wind picked up, and the snow swirled as Bill struggled free of them and reached the ambulance doors, shouting, "Wait, stop, let me see!

"Mister, get outta here! We gotta go!" the paramedic shouted back, pushing him away, but Bill took one look at Will and his expression filled with joy.

"Timothy, it's you! Thank God, it's you!" Bill held out his arms, and Will burst into terrified tears.

"Mommy!" he screamed, and Ellen jumped up, blocking the way.

"Bill, we'll sort this out later. I have to get him to the hospital. He has a head injury."

"You!" Bill went wild with outrage. "You're the one! You're the woman who adopted our son!" He started to climb into the ambulance, hoisting himself up by the open door, but the cops pulled him back and the paramedic held him off. He shouted, "That's my boy I That's Timothy! Where's my wife? What did you do to my wife?" He turned angrily to the cops flanking him. "I'm Bill Braverman! Where's my wife, is she here? Is she all right?"

"She's right here," the paramedic answered, gesturing in confusion at Ellen, who had turned to calm W.

"Mommy! Mommy!" Tears spilled from his eyes, his lower lip shuddering.

Officer Halbert put a hand on Bill's arm. "Sir, is your wife Carol Braverman?"

"Yes, where is she? Is she all right?"

"Sir, please come with me," Officer Halbert said. "I need to speak with you." The other cops crowded around, clearing the ambulance as snow whirlpooled around them all.

"But that's my son! My son! Is he hurt? Where's my wife? That's our son!"

"Mommeeee!" Will screamed, confused, and Ellen smoothed the hair back from his head. Blood leaked down the back of his neck, and bright red drops stained his hoodie.

"It's all right, baby, it's all right."

"We gotta go!" the paramedic shouted, buckling Will onto the gurney, then he shifted over to shut the back doors and twisted the handles closed. He climbed around Ellen and leaned toward the driver in the cab. "Locked and loaded, Jimmy!"

"It's all right," Ellen kept saying, holding Will's hand. She looked back through the windows, and just before the ambulance pulled away, she heard an anguished cry through the howling storm. Bill Braverman had lost his wife on the very night he'd found his son.

"Okay, little man, this won't hurt a bit," the paramedic said to Will, wrapping a child-size pressure cuff around his arm.

"It's all right, honey," Ellen said, holding his hand, but Will cried harder. "It's all right, everything's going to be all right."

Through the back window, the cops became stick figures against the whirling white, and Ellen felt a wrench of deep sadness. For Bill, for Carol, and for herself.

And especially, for W.

Chapter Seventy-nine

Ellen slumped in the cloth-covered chairs of the waiting room of the emergency department, ignoring the back issues of People and Sports Illustrated. The place was empty except for two young cops, who watched TV on low volume. The doctor had sent her out to the waiting room while Will was taken up to MRI and X-ray.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back on the hard edge of the chair, trying to block out the images. Will, with gasoline on his snow-suit. Rob Moore, looking excited as he aimed his gun at Carol. Carol, raising her arms to protect W. Bill, screaming against the snowstorm. The blood on her shirt.

Ellen looked down numbly, and the blood had dried to a stiff, oddly shiny patch of red-black. For some reason, it bothered her that she didn't know whether the blood was Moore's or Carol's.

She sank deeper into her chair. She had set out to find the truth, and she had her truth. She'd have to give Will up, when the time came. She understood it on an intellectual level, but couldn't begin to let herself feel it. That would come later, after she finally handed him over. Then she could lose it, after she knew he was alive and well. Healthy, again. She heard a noise and looked up.

The doors of the emergency room whooshed open, and through the glass she could see Bill Braverman, his sport coat bloodied, entering with Officer Halbert and another cop. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as they spotted her, then came into the waiting room.

"Ms. Gleeson?" Officer Halbert's smile was wearier than earlier. "How's your son?"

"Not sure yet."

"The docs here are great, you'll see." Officer Halbert pulled up a chair opposite her, while the other cop took a seat to the side. Bill Braverman sat with them, glaring at her. His eyes flashed with hostility, and his mouth became a straight line. He had probably gotten the blood on his coat holding Carol, and Ellen couldn't help meeting his eye.

"I'm so sorry about your wife," she said to him.

"Thank you," Bill answered, hoarsely, but his dark eyes, puffy and red, didn't soften. "I'd like an explanation from you."

Officer Halbert raised a hand. "Mr. Braverman, we'll get her statement later, as I told you."

"I'd like to know now," Bill shot back. "She's sitting here, my son is in the hospital, and my wife is dead. I want to know what happened."

"That's not our procedure, Mr. Braverman."

"Ask me if I care about your procedure."

Officer Halbert was about to reply when Ellen raised a hand.

"It's okay," she said. "He has a right to know and there's no reason to stand on formality."

Halbert pursed his lips. "We'll still need your statement. Later."

"Fine." Ellen took a deep breath and shifted in her chair to face Bill. "It all started with a white card I got in the mail, about a kidnapped boy." She filled them in on what she'd figured out about Amy Martin and Rob Moore while Officer Halbert took notes, and she brought them up to date, telling them how she'd rushed home tonight. "I was worried that Moore might come after Will and me, and I was trying to get us out when he showed up."

Officer Halbert broke in, "We were wondering, how did Rob Moore get into your house? There was no sign of forced entry."

"I think the back door was left open. The cat goes in and out a lot, and we leave it unlocked sometimes. It's Narberth, after all."

"I hear that." Officer Halbert smiled. "We've never had a murder in the borough."

"Now you have two," Bill interjected, but Officer Halbert continued:

"If I may get a few things out of the way, did Moore attempt to rob you?"

"No, he was there to kill me and W. He had us taped up and was pouring gasoline over my son."

"We saw the plastic jug." Halbert checked his pad. "Now, can you tell us what happened earlier, when Carol Braverman came over?"

Bill said, "Yes, do tell."

Ellen nodded, suddenly shaky. She hated him to find out this way, but it couldn't be helped. "Well, evidently, they had planned to kidnap the baby together. Carol paid Moore to do it."

Bill reddened. "What?" it's true.

"The hell it is!" I swear it,

"How do you know?"

"Carol said so. She said Moore was supposed to give the baby back but he didn't. That she had gambling debts and had to use her son's trust fund to pay them off."

"That's not possible!" Bill shot back, and Officer Halbert looked over at him, but didn't say anything.

Ellen said, "I was surprised, too, but she did. Moore said it was all her idea."

"How would she even know Moore? There's no way she knew such trash."

Ellen thought a minute, remembering the ugly scene, her stomach tense. "She said they met at a casino. Miccosukee, I think they said. Does that name mean anything to you?"

Bill blinked.

"What is Miccosukee?" Halbert interjected.

"It's a casino, on an Indian reservation outside of Miami," Bill answered, and Ellen breathed a relieved sigh.

"Moore said he was a parking valet there."

Bill asked, "He said she had gambling debts?"

"Yes." Ellen could see he didn't believe her, but something she said had hit home, she just didn't know what. She continued and told them every detail of what had happened, from Carol's entering the house to when Moore pulled the gun on them in the dining room. "He said that Carol had used up her trust fund money to pay her gambling debts and that she wanted to use Will's, er, Timothy's money."

Bill's eyes narrowed. "Who said that?"

"Moore did, and she didn't deny it. How else would I have known it?"

Bill had no reply, and Officer Halbert remained silent, watching the two of them.

Ellen continued, "She said you didn't know anything about the plan. She said you were so upset when he kept the baby that it almost killed you, and that it ruined your marriage."

Bill scoffed. "We have a wonderful marriage."

Ellen hesitated. "I saw you catch a plane a few days ago, from Miami to Vegas."

Bill's eyelids fluttered when he got her meaning, and he raked a hand through his hair. "Okay, well, we did have problems. We tried so hard to have Timothy, and after we did, it was like Carol didn't want anything to do with him. She had postpartum depression, I guess that's what it was. She'd always gambled, poker on the computer, but then it got worse. I confronted her, and she told me she was going to casinos. She told me she would stop. I thought she had." Bill's eyes glistened, and he hung his head. "I told her if she kept gambling, I'd leave her and take Timothy."

"Maybe that's why she kept it from you."

"I'm sure," Bill said, suddenly subdued, and Ellen saw a change in him, as if together, they were solving a puzzle, each providing some of the pieces.

She asked, "I'm curious, how would she pay the debts off with the ransom? How did that work?"

Officer Halbert and the other cops seemed to wait for his answer, and Bill rubbed his face.

"Lemme think. The kidnapper, when he phoned, this Moore, said that no FBI or police could be involved, and we went along with it. He also said the mother had to deliver the money. I said no, I was worried about her safety. I didn't want to send my wife out there to meet a killer." Bill's lips flattened. "But Carol said she wanted to do it by herself. She said she felt responsible because she didn't get Timothy out of the car in time, and I believed her."

Ellen could see why he'd believed her. She looked like the perfect wife and mother. The Mother Goose outfit; the children's theater at Charbonneau House. After her scheme had gone awry, Carol must have been expiating the guilt of a lifetime.

Bill shook his head. "We got the money from Timothy's trust, which was set up by my in-laws. They were very wealthy. The executor is a lawyer in town and he approved it, and before Carol made the delivery, she must have taken some cash off the top. God knows how much or where she hid it. That must be what she used to pay off her debts."

Ellen considered it, and it made sense. "She skimmed the money before she turned it over, and Moore must have agreed. How did she deliver it?"

"In a gym bag, he specified that."

"Did you check the bag?"

"No, why would I?" Bill kept shaking his head. "We packed it, she took it, and she left with it."

Ellen had no answer. It was an ingenious scheme, until it wasn't.

"If Moore had given Timothy back, the plan would have worked. It would have been fine. But he killed our babysitter and he kept Timothy. God knows why."

Ellen told him that Amy wanted the baby because she couldn't have one herself, and Bill's eyes widened in disbelief.

"So why not keep him then?"

"He got sick, as you know. Carol said she'd read my articles about him."

"I read them, too."

"So when I wanted to adopt him from the hospital, Timothy Braverman became Will Gleeson."

Bill's upper lip curled in disgust. "Someone can put a baby that isn't theirs up for adoption and get away with it? You'd think that somebody, the state or some agency, would catch that. You think they'd do background checks or something so this doesn't happen."

Ellen agreed. "They do background checks on the adopting parent, like me, but they don't do them on the women putting their baby up for adoption. Funny, huh?"

Bill sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I just cannot believe that Carol did this to me and Timothy. For money."

"Desperate people do desperate things." Ellen paused, feeling an odd sort of peace that came either from perspective or exhaustion. "She's beyond judgment now. She came up with a terrible solution to a terrible problem, one that resulted in a murder, and eventually, even her own."

Officer Halbert interjected, "I'm looking at two parents, and both of you love the same boy. Neither of you did anything wrong. It's a lose-lose situation, and I'm sorry for you both."

"Thanks," Ellen said, having nothing better to say, and Bill sighed again, looking at her with new eyes. He had learned the truth, and his truth was as terrible as hers.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment, and Ellen nodded, trying not to cry.

"Me, too." Then she added, because it needed saying, "It sounds awful now, but I want to tell you how Carol died, because she redeemed herself. She gave her life, for W. For Timothy. She saved his life."

"What happened?" Bill's lip trembled, and Ellen told him the story, after which he heaved a great sob, then collapsed into hoarse, choking sounds that hunched his broad shoulders, collapsing his frame and driving his face into his hands, in his own private hell.

There was a soft knock at the doorway, and the emergency-room nurse appeared, leaning into the room. "Ellen, your son is back from X-ray."

"How is he?" she asked, rising.

"The doctor will give you a full report," she answered, and Ellen went to the door.

"No, wait." Bill looked up from his hands, his eyes red and his cheeks tear-stained. He gave a mighty sniffle. "I'm his father. Can I go in, too?"

Ellen turned to him. "If you don't mind, Bill, would you not? It might upset him. I'll be sure to come out and tell you."

"He's all I have, now. For God's sake, I just lost my wife."

"This isn't about you or me. It's about W."

"Timothy," Bill corrected, rising. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"Whatever his name, he needs comfort now. He needs me." Ellen watched as Bill's eyes hardened, even wet. "Please, be realistic. He doesn't know who you are yet. You're a stranger to him."

Officer Halbert stood up, too. "Mr. Braverman, she adopted him, and she's still his mother."

"She was never his real mother," Bill shot back, and Ellen swallowed hard, but the ER nurse raised an authoritative hand in Bill's direction.

"Sir, are you listed as next of kin on the intake form?"

"No."

"Well, Ms. Gleeson is. She's on the form as his mother, and only she can be admitted to the unit, per this hospital's regulations. You are not permitted back with us."

Ellen turned to go. "Bill, I'll ask someone to come out and tell you how he is," she said, following the nurse, who led her to the emergency-unit door, pressing in the code to unlock the door.

"What was that all about?" the nurse asked.

"It's a long story." Ellen only shook her head. "I just want to see if my son is all right."