The Bluest Blood (7 page)

We’d gotten so far off the track we couldn’t even hear the trains anymore. We’d already been deflected from talk of family counseling. Psychology, it seemed, didn’t fit Harvey’s religious beliefs. He counseled people, and the Lord counseled him. End of story.

After half an hour of dead ends and evasions, Rachel and I had switched to Plan B: finding out whether Jake could take a breather from the local tension and spend time with his natural father. And here we were, stonewalled again by Ms. Helplessness.

“Harvey was humble. Considerate. He paid attention.”

The sexiest thing a man could do, as well as the easiest, even though many of them found it daunting. I wondered if more men would give it a whirl if they realized that even a pudding-faced clod like Harvey Spiers became irresistible simply by paying attention.

“Then we moved here and it changed. He changed. Thought only about himself, about what he wanted, needed, had to have. Got involved with…that group. And with her. Her fault, I’m sure. Hate the sin, not the sinner, I know—but she is an evil woman. I’m so unlucky with men. Why does this keep happening to me?” Her voice was on the upswing again, much like a firehouse siren.

She should have hired a “romantic detective” before marrying either one of them. I’d get my mother on her case. And off mine.

My determined parent had made a second phone solicitation for detectivation during dinner last night, interrupting a far more serious discussion.

There’d been another book and effigy burning, this time within city limits, near Masterman School, where rigorous academic standards presumably meant the inclusion of “pollutants” in the curriculum.

The shadow of the night at Glamorgan still hung over me, and I couldn’t believe that nothing could be proven about who was setting the fires. I knew these weren’t homicides and so weren’t Mackenzie’s business, but apparently, they weren’t clearly anybody’s first order of business.

“Arson’s the malicious burning of somebody’s property,” Mackenzie explained, before my mom called. We were eating takeout Chinese. I had forgotten to buy food. I’d make up for it later this week, prepare a feast—unfortunately of the farewell variety, because Mackenzie had to leave town to retrieve a prisoner. “Even though somebody owns the empty lots where they set these fires,” he said, “or the right-of-way across from the Roederers’, the fires don’t destroy the property. An’ nobody’s ever claimed the books that burned, nor has anybody tried to collect insurance for them or for the lots. So even though there’s apparently malice involved, it isn’t the highest priority crime, and it’s murky. Not a hate crime. And nobody’s ever there by the time it gets noticed. See what I mean?”

“Maybe the antiterrorism people have to claim it, then,” I said as the phone rang and my mother launched into her rent-a-detective-to-spy-on-him pitch.

I looked at the good guy across from me, thought about the real problems of the world, and as gently as possible—and as obliquely, because I didn’t want Mackenzie to know precisely how my mother can hog-tie me in her would-be safety net—I told her to please never again mention the subject. Not ever.

The voice of Jake’s mother, not mine, pulled me back to the present. “He wanted the easy life,” she was saying of her current husband. “The American way. He thought this minister stuff—” She looked wildly from Rachel Leary to me. “Not that he doesn’t believe in it, but he didn’t go to a seminary or anything. One day, an insurance clerk and the next day, the call and he’s a reverend. But people accepted it right away. They send him money, and the more extreme he is, the more money they donate to his cause.” She managed a feeble laugh. “His
cause
! His only cause is Harvey Spiers! Not me, that’s for sure, because if he cared, would he be out there in public humiliating me with that…with that
floozy
! But what can I do? He says I’m his wife until death, and he’s a minister. I couldn’t leave. What would I do?”

Rachel cleared her throat and leaned forward. “There’s a note on Jake’s file that says you’re paying his tuition, and that Mr. Spiers is to be kept under the impression that Jake is here on a scholarship.”

Betsy nodded. “Harvey wouldn’t want the money spent on…he has so many other important causes that…” She didn’t bother to finish the sentence. Instead, she studied her nails. Then she looked up. “I’m
trying,
do you understand? Do you see how much pressure I’m under?”

“The thing is—you have an independent income.”

She shrugged. “Not enough to live decently on my own. I have no choice!” She wept again. “I’m so unlucky,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.

“Mrs. Spiers, we’ll help as much as we can with your domestic problems. But I’m Jake’s teacher and Ms. Leary is his counselor, and we’re concerned about finding a solution for him, too.”

“Don’t you think I’m worried sick myself?” she whispered. “To get a call like that from you? My blood pressure skyrocketed. I thought I was having a heart attack.”

“We promised Jake we’d be brief, and we haven’t yet dealt with his depression, or what we can do to help it.” Rachel spoke softly, but firmly.

Betsy Spiers looked confused, as if processing who Jake might be, what problems he could possibly have, and most of all, why she should be concerned about them.

Rachel cleared her throat and spoke again. “He wants to return to Canada.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“I can’t. I’m married. I live here, now. I made
promises
.”

The woman had mirrors for eyes.

I tried again to redirect her attention. “We were considering Jake’s prospects. Jake’s ability to live with his father. And while I know it would be difficult to be separated from your son, maybe it’s worth a try, given his unhappiness.”

Her eyes widened and she clutched the tissue to her chest. “Oh, no!” she said, with more emphasis than I’d heard thus far. “Not possible. Not at all.” Once again, tears welled from her eyes.

I braced myself for reasons why it was not possible—heartlessness or depravity or other disqualifying traits on the part of Loren Ulrich.

“I couldn’t bear it!” Betsy said. “I need Jake.”

“But he—” Rachel began.

“Oh, no.” Betsy Spiers’ voice had gained strength and altitude again. “I’m not a strong woman, I’m in an unfamiliar city, I have no friends. If Jake weren’t with me… No! He can’t. Did you tell him he could? You have no right to do that, you know. He’s still a minor.”

She was an iron-willed woman, for all the putty and fluff stuck on as disguise, and she controlled by means of hysteria.

“And Loren,” she went on. “He’s probably with somebody else, having another child for all I know, leaving that wife and baby alone, too, and I wouldn’t send any—”

To my relief, even though it further complicated the dynamics, the door was knocked upon and opened in one motion, and Jake entered. “He caved,” he said flatly.

Betsy stood up. “Harvey?” she asked. “Gave in? Went away?”

“Yes and no.” Jake lounged against the door in what I was sure he considered the insouciant, sophisticated pose of He Who Knows. In reality, he looked like an awkwardly hinged set of adolescent parts. I still wished I could give him a hug.

“What do you mean, Jake?” Rachel asked quietly. “What’s yes and no?”

“Yes is that Harvey’s gone,” he said. “He went away.”

Hooray! Havermeyer would relax, we’d return to the ordinary level of insanity that preceded Open House, and—

“Because Havermeyer caved. Said he’d remove the books and is doing so right now. For all I know, he’s giving them to Harvey to burn. Can we write an article about it for the paper? Or an editorial? Or both?”

We could headline the story OUR PRINCIPAL: A MAN OF NO PRINCIPLE.

It was, indeed, quiet outside. But inside, it crackled with tension. Jake looked from his mother to me, back again, and then his glance flitted to Rachel Leary, who took the plunge. “Your mother doesn’t seem to think your leaving Philadelphia is feasible.”

“Mom!” Jake said. “I thought for sure…” His voice cracked. “You know how much…” He swallowed, hard.

So there it was, one boy’s options needlessly narrowed, his hopes dashed. Less than an eye blink in the cosmic scheme, which is not to say it didn’t matter.

“It doesn’t make sense, Jake,” his mother whined. “Your father’s undependable. He forgets about you all the time.”

Jake winced. I looked away.

“—and he’s not—not a
good,
a
moral
man, he’d be a bad influence on—”

“Not good! Like Harvey’s good! Or moral! My God, he’s so immoral his own followers hate him—his
partner—”

“Vivien isn’t his partner, she’s—”

“She started—oh, who cares. Forget Vivien. He’s the one who’s immoral. I
heard
him. That wasn’t the way a good man talks. Those were threats.”

“Jake,” I said. “This probably isn’t the place for whatever you’re talking about.” My mind and energy were mostly out in space trying to absorb the idea that a school principal had agreed to remove good, even classic, works because a fanatic said so. But a part was here, increasingly worried about this boy-man, who was having the air crushed out of him.

Betsy, who wasn’t concerned about the future of the world, or anything except herself, seized my message and ran with it.
“Jake!”
she said in her fire-engine siren tone, “she’s
right.
What we talk about in our home is
private
!”

But Jake was two steps beyond propriety. He wheeled toward me. “He said some guy was a
pervert
and he—Harvey—would make him pay for pretending to be what Harvey calls normal.” He turned back to his mother. “That’s blackmail. You call that good and moral? Is that who I have to live with? Is that what I’m supposed to become?”

“You’re deliberately misunderstanding. Again.” Betsy sighed.

“He said!”

“He said pray. He meant prayer, repentance.”

“Pay, not pray. People don’t pray through the nose!”

“You might want to get us back on track here,” Rachel said softly. “See if we can find a—”

Betsy Spiers ignored the counselor. “He was talking about a hypocrite, a person pretending to be what he is not. That’s the immorality and the problem that needed to be addressed, but you do that all the time. You deliberately misunderstand Harvey and you cause trouble, and you never consider what you’re doing to me.” She dabbed at her eyes again.

Poor-Li’l-Me’s give women a bad name, and leave me with a bad taste. I wanted to remind her that not every happening on the planet was a chapter in the epic saga
How Betsy Was Victimized,
that she had a vulnerable, stranded son begging for attention.

“Don’t preach to me about
good
,” Jake said. “My father doesn’t burn books or blackmail people or run around—why can’t I
talk
to him, okay? Or visit.”

“It’s too far, Jakey,” she said in a new, wheedling voice. “A foreign country…he might kidnap you, and I’d never get you back.”

“It’s Canada, for God’s sake! I’m taller than he is! I’m not a baby!”

She sat immobile. I’d bet she had been one of those kids who held her breath and turned blue until she got what she wanted.

“It’d be all right for Mr. Ulrich to visit Jake here, wouldn’t it?” Rachel Leary’s voice was like a therapeutic tool, a sort of trowel smoothing down rough emotions. “When it fits both their schedules,” she added, heading Betsy off at the pass.

“Loren won’t want to.” Betsy pursed her lips. “If he’d wanted to, he’d have done so, long ago.”

“For Christ’s sake—”

“You stop using the Lord’s name in—”

“—he didn’t know our address! You wouldn’t let me write to him. If I hadn’t gotten onto e-mail, I wouldn’t have ever—”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Betsy asked Rachel and me. “Why did you drag me here to create a situation, make trouble. Do you see what you’ve done? Why?”

“But if Mr. Ulrich does want to?” Rachel persisted. “Jake, if he does, if he can, would you like that?”

He nodded. It wasn’t a solution, but it was something.

“This is a ploy,” Betsy said. “You think Loren will sweet-talk me into giving up my son, don’t you? Take him out of the only stable environment he’s ever known.”

“Stable!’ The veins on Jake’s neck showed. “Like where animals live! Why are you pretending to be so blind, when I
heard
you fighting with him about her? Is it stable when Harvey says he can’t control Vivien? If she throws him out before he can—”

“
He’s
the organization. Nobody’d let her—”

“—then he won’t have a job and that won’t be stable, will it? Or what if he splits from you instead and makes Vivien his partner, will that be stable? Even now, when he’s blackmailing somebody, or when you fight every night, and cry, is that stable?”

Sing hey for the family values, for which Harvey Spiers so loudly proselytized.

“Eavesdropping is a sin!” Betsy snapped. “Why do you hate us so much? Why won’t you call him Dad, the way he asked? He provides the roof over your head! I get one last chance at happiness and look what you do to it! What did I do to deserve treatment like this?” She was winding up like a tornado, and we were supposed to flee.