The Judas Child (24 page)

That closed her mouth for the moment. The captain spoke quickly, before she could make a recovery. “Ma’am, you wanted to take over all the public relations crap—fine. I don’t give a shit what the press thinks. And now that I qualify for a pension, I don’t care what you
think
you can do to my career. That was your next line, wasn’t it? The threat?”

Costello was smiling, but not in any kindly way. In the broad sweep of one hand, he included all the law enforcement officers on the grounds. “Every single one of these cops is working overtime. You think they might work better if you threaten their jobs too?”

The lieutenant governor backed off a few steps, but Rouge didn’t read this as retreat. The lady’s eyes narrowed as she shifted the balance of her body; it was almost the dancing stall of a boxer. And now she rallied new anger in a sudden burst of energy for another round with Costello, the only enemy she could identify. “Somebody has to handle the press. You certainly don’t—”

She fell silent as Costello held up the plastic bag containing the broken pager.

“Mrs. Hubble, do you recognize this? It’s an odd brand, isn’t it? And very expensive.”

“It’s not my daughter’s pager. Gwen’s has a brown leather case.”

Costello turned to Sorrel. “Buddy?”

Sorrel was shaking his head and flipping back through his notebook. “I talked to Peter Hubble the day the kid disappeared. I asked him—did the kid have a pager or a beeper? He said no.” Now Sorrel held out the notebook’s scrawled lines to Costello so he could see it in black and white.

The captain waved the notebook away. “What about the other kid?”

“Harry Green told me the same thing,” said Sorrel. “Sadie never had a pager or a beeper. And the kid’s mother was there when I talked to him. No pager.”

“Sadie has one, too,” said Marsha Hubble, “with a black case like that one. I gave pagers to the kids so they could keep in touch when Peter wouldn’t let them play together. Peter was always putting Sadie on probation. It was—”

Costello raised a hand to cut her off. “Any reason why you didn’t let us in on this?”

“No one asked me. I wasn’t thinking—I’m sorry. I gave them the pagers last year. I paid the service a large deposit, so I haven’t even seen the first bill yet. I swear I just forgot—there was so much to do—”

“Buddy, forget the phone trap and check out the pager service.” Costello’s voice had lost its edge when he turned back to the lieutenant governor. “Did anyone else have access—the pager codes, the service number? Maybe you wrote it down somewhere, in a Rolodex or an address book? Could one of your staff—”

“No,” said Marsha Hubble. “It was just for the two of them. No one else had access.”

Sorrel jotted a quick note and shrugged out of his topcoat. “So if Gwen got a printed message on the pager, she’d assume it was from Sadie. Mrs. Hubble, I think we should go over everything one more time. There might be a few other things you’ve forgotten.” And now he draped his coat around her shoulders. “Sometimes weeks go by before people remember things.” Sorrel removed his scarf and tied it about her neck with surprising gentleness. And it was this last small gesture, a little gallantry on a long cold night, that finally broke the woman.

Marsha Hubble only mouthed the words of thanks. Wrapped in Sorrel’s coat, she seemed so much smaller now, making no protest when he put one massive arm around her shoulders and guided her back up the slope toward the parking lot. They had not gone far when she stopped. Sorrel’s hand dropped away as she turned quickly to stare at the boathouse strung with lights and yellow crime scene tape. Her mouth went slack, and Rouge knew she had finally put it all together: Gwen could not have been lured from home by a stranger with an adult voice. The little girl had been tricked by a line of electronic type on her pager—a secret gift from her mother. One white hand drifted up to the woman’s mouth.

To stifle a scream?

Sorrel put his arm around her again, tighter now, clearly supporting her weight as he all but carried her the rest of the way up the hill.

Costello turned to Rouge. “I want you to hang around for a while. Check out the kid’s story about the lock on the boathouse door, and find out who cleaned up the mess.” The captain inclined his head toward the director, Eliot Caruthers, standing on the periphery of the crime scene. “Have another chat with that old bastard. He’s holding out on us.”

The technician’s van was pulling away, and the troopers’ cars were heading back to the station house. All the evidence that could be collected had been bagged and tagged. And then the lights went out, one by one, all around the crime scene, as they were disconnected from their battery packs and loaded into a truck. Within twenty minutes, there was not even one uniformed officer to guard what they had left behind. All that marked the activity of the night’s work was the yellow tape rippling in the wind as it stretched from tree to tree, from boathouse to wharf post.

And Mr. Caruthers had disappeared.

“Rouge?”

The voice came from the spot where he had parked the old tan Volvo, and now he made out the shadowy form of a small boy hiding behind it. “You should be in bed. It’s late.”

“There was something I forgot to tell you.” David stood up straight to look around in all directions. Satisfied that they were alone, he came out from behind the car. “Mrs. Hofstra reminded me. She heard it too.”

“Heard what?”

“There was a gunshot. It was out on the lake, or maybe on the other side. I’m not sure. But it was days afterwards, so I didn’t think it meant anything.”

“That’s fine, David. I’m glad you told me. Are you sure it was a gunshot?”

“Mrs. Hofstra was sure. She thought it might be poachers in the woods again. I know she called Mr. Caruthers. He’ll know what it was. He told her he’d take care of it.”

“Thanks. Now you go back to bed and get some sleep, all right?” He watched David’s retreat until the boy was safe home behind the door of Mary Hofstra’s cottage.

He turned back to the main building and the single lighted window. The dark rotund shape of Eliot Caruthers was backlit by a bright lamp. The man lifted one hand in salute as Rouge walked across the lawn, keeping his eyes to the window until the director moved away from the light.

Rouge was about to ring the bell beside the rear entrance, but then he tried the knob instead. The door was unlocked, and this irritated him, for he knew it was no oversight; his visit was clearly anticipated. Mr. Caruthers was expecting a report, as though school days had never ended.

Well, this time, everything would be quite different.

He crossed the lush red carpet of the lobby and walked up the familiar grand staircase and down the hall. The door to the director’s office was also open; he knew it would be. Mr. Caruthers was comfortably ensconced behind a desk in his own element of wood paneling, first-edition books and works of art, all the trappings of wealth and power. He was smiling warmly at his young visitor—his collaborator. In the shadows of a far corner, a bust of Voltaire bore a similar smile—arrogant, superior. Caruthers nodded toward the wooden chair before his desk, granting the young man permission to be seated.

Rouge declined. He stood close to the desk, looking down at the director, wanting this advantage of height. “There was a break-in at the boathouse. You must have ordered the repair work on the door frame. Were you ever going to mention that?”

“Actually, I only learned about the broken lock two days ago. It was hardly a secret. The groundskeeper—”

“Tell me about the gunshot on the lake. David heard it, and so did Mrs. Hofstra. I have to wonder when you were going to tell me about
that
little detail.”

“Not a related matter, Rouge. We’ve had trouble with poachers before. You know there are deer in these woods.”

Rouge looked down at the empty chair beside him. He dragged it around to Eliot Caruthers’ side of the desk and sat down only inches from the old man’s chair. “I’ve got all night.”

And now they engaged in an uncomfortable staring contest which threatened to escalate into a pissing contest, the time-honored method of men, boys and dogs to establish who was boss of the world. After ten seconds had elapsed, Mr. Caruthers only shrugged, but it was a surrender of sorts. He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a black plastic gun.

“A bit clumsy, isn’t it, Rouge? Hardly a lethal weapon. I’m surprised the boys managed to break a window with it. Chief Croft didn’t even see fit to report the incident.”

“Or maybe you asked him not to.”

“It was only a prank of twelve-year-olds. So, I’m afraid this is a dead end for you.” Mr. Caruthers looked down at the gun in his hand. “I doubt that it makes a very loud noise, probably not the shot Mrs. Hofstra heard, but I assure you, this is the only gun I’m aware of. Talk to the village police chief and the medical examiner—they’ll tell you the same thing. Two little boys with a toy gun. Hardly a sinister event. However, when rumors get started in a small town—” He waved one hand in an expansive gesture that drew ugly pictures of the villagers storming the castle with flaming torches in hand.

“Where did this
event
happen, and what was a medical examiner doing there?”

“Just across the lake. An old house. The occupant had died some days before—in her sleep. Nothing sinister there either. So when the boys broke the window, they actually assisted the village police in finding the body. In fact, Dr. Chainy even thanked them for their help.”

“How did the boys get across the lake? By canoe?”

“Yes.”

“The lock on the boathouse door was broken with a rock. But you already knew that. You saw the rock by the door, didn’t you, Mr. Caruthers?”

“I can’t imagine what that has to do with your investigation. You know how boys are, just—”

“Just boys playing games—with guns.” Rouge looked down at the piece of black plastic lying on the desk blotter.

“Hardly a gun.” Mr. Caruthers was smiling again, as though he found this laughable. “A plaything made by two little boys in their free time.”

“Right.” Rouge picked up the gun. It did look rather like a badly made toy, except for the barrel—too large for ordinary bullets, much less pellets. Only one shot had been heard on the lake, and the crude revolving chamber was made to hold two rounds. He looked at the heavy marble bust of Voltaire perched on its pedestal in the corner. “So the pellet should just bounce off most any surface, right?”

“Well, I know it’ll break glass at close range. The boys have already demonstrated that.”

Rouge took careful aim, squeezed the trigger, and Voltaire’s head exploded into a hundred fragments of hard stone. The noise had deafened him, and so he never heard the scrape of Caruthers’ chair as it was pushed back from the desk, nor the thud of the chair tumbling to the carpet when the director stood up abruptly, his face full of alarm.

The ringing noise in Rouge’s ears had abated, and now it was replaced by the ringing of the telephone on the desk. All the call buttons were lit up, one for each housemother. They probably wanted to ask if a bomb had gone off, for real guns were not so loud as this toy.

Mr. Caruthers touched a button and silenced the telephone. He found his composure and restored the chair to an upright position. “I believe I did mention that we had no ordinary students here.” He stared at the gun in Rouge’s hand. “You know what would happen if word got out about that thing.”

“Yeah, I do.” Rouge set the gun down on the blotter, and it quickly disappeared into the director’s top drawer. Another deal had been struck.

“I have to wonder what else you might be holding back.” Rouge put his feet up on the desk. It was just possible that Mr. Caruthers was more shocked by this act of unparalleled rudeness than by the destruction of Voltaire. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Rouge’s slow eyes roved over the debris of the marble bust. “Maybe you’re shielding somebody? Someone who knew the girls—or maybe only Gwen. Beautiful little girl—
you
said that just the other day.”

“Am I a suspect?”

Rouge nodded. “Let’s talk about the shooting party at the house across the lake. I want every damn detail. I could question the boys, but I know you already did that.”

“I note that you’re concentrating on Gwen Hubble. Reasonable—but only if you’re thinking in terms of ransom. But now you seem very sure that it’s a pedophile. Rouge, if I were the type to fall in love with a child, it would’ve been Sadie Green. She’s a rare little person. You don’t—” Caruthers had finally learned to read Rouge’s face, and now the man winced. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Rouge said nothing, and Mr. Caruthers dropped his eyes, nodding his understanding of that silence.

“You know everything that goes on here—everything.” Rouge swung his feet off the desk, for his point had been made. “The break-in at the boathouse happened on the same day the girls were kidnapped.
Before
the boys shot out the window.”

“I swear I didn’t know that. I assumed the boys had done it when they took the canoe.”

“Assumed? They gave you another story?”

“They said they found the canoe beached on the rocks downshore by an access road. You know the one. It leads to the foundations of a house that burned down years ago. I swear I thought the boys were lying about the broken lock and the canoe. I thought they were trying to avoid more punishment. You must understand why I had to keep that entire shooting incident quiet.”

The man stumbled about in the silence, losing his composure again, for he must have realized that Rouge did not understand, nor did he forgive. Caruthers stared into the young man’s eyes and found something there to be afraid of. He had said it himself: St. Ursula’s Academy had no ordinary children—and Rouge had come from that lot.

 

The hamper’s chain slithered and clanked to the floor tiles. Gwen sucked in her breath, afraid to move as she listened to the house. But there were no sounds of rushing footsteps or sliding furniture beyond the bathroom door. And now she dared to breathe again.