The Kindness of Strangers (10 page)

“Can you explain it to us? The bike? Are you sure you know who it belongs to?”

“Yes, I helped her mother buy it. I kept it hidden at our house until Hadley’s birthday. And once, when Hadley was over here, her bike got stolen out of the yard.”

“Over here?” Kramble asked. “Hadley was here at the Kendricks’ house?”

Sarah nodded. “Kids were always over here.”

The pouting officer piped up and challenged her. “But I thought you said the other kids didn’t like Jordan.”

Sarah paused. Everything she said seemed to damn them. “They didn’t,” she admitted. “But the Kendricks had a pool. And a trampoline.” Heat rose to her face again. Even Danny had been aware that the other kids used Jordan, that they came over to play with his parents’ expensive toys and didn’t really care if Jordan were here or not. But never until this moment had that seemed any more suspect than typical kid cliquishness and cruelty.

“Tell me more about the bike,” Kramble said.

“It was missing when she went to go home. And she’d only had it for about a day and a half. She was crying, saying her mom would be so mad.”

“Let me guess,” the pouting officer said. “The Kendricks helped her look for it.”

“We all did,” Sarah said to Kramble.

Sarah didn’t understand the connection. In Courtney’s defense she said, “Mark and Courtney even offered, later, to buy Hadley a new one. They felt so bad it had been taken from their yard. Maybe this is the replacement one, actually. Carol—Hadley’s mom—wouldn’t let her accept it.”

Rodney said in a dull voice, “It still has a ‘Happy Birthday’ tag on the handlebar.”

“Oh.” Did a stolen bike even matter in light of child-pornography charges?

“You refer to Hadley’s mom,” Kramble said. “What about her dad?”

“Well, that’s why we all felt so bad about it. Her parents had just gone through this hideous divorce. Really nasty.”

Kramble nodded, as if affirming something. He picked up a box and handed it to Rodney, who took it, as if he understood.

Another officer entered the room and set a stack of Wright Elementary yearbooks on the glass coffee table.

Iciness numbed Sarah again, made it difficult to draw breath. Did this mean Hadley was abused, too? Did it mean there were other children besides Jordan? Sarah forced her numb lips to move and spoke carefully, as if reading assembly instructions aloud. “There are five adults in the films.” She took a deep breath. “How many children?”

“I can’t give you that information at the moment,” Kramble said.

“Why?” But Sarah knew why. That was a stupid question. Kramble didn’t even attempt to answer it. “How do I find out if—I mean, what if . . . what if . . .” She was afraid to say the words out loud, as if it might make her fear manifest. “I have a son in Jordan’s class. He was friends with Jordan. He was over here all the time. I—Danny liked Mark. I thought his company was good for Danny, with Roy—my husband—gone.”

Kramble knew what she was asking. The lines seemed to deepen on his face, and he asked, “Do you have a picture of your son I could see?”

Of course she did, but Sarah froze. She wanted to know and she didn’t want to know. She couldn’t bear to know and she had to know. She dug through her purse with clumsy, fear-addled fingers and found Danny’s school picture from this year. She looked at his open, sunny grin, the light freckles peppering his nose. Oh, dear God. What if . . . what if the boys’ falling-out had something to do with . . . with
this
?

“Mrs. Laden?” Kramble’s face was open, gentle. Sarah handed him the photo. He glanced at it only briefly, then exhaled and rubbed one hand over his face. He seemed genuinely relieved to say, “No. Your son is not in the films.”

Relief coursed through her, making her light-headed. Then the relief turned to shame, as she realized how quickly she’d thrown away her “it couldn’t be true” at the possibility that one of her own was involved.

But
someone’s
child was in the films. Or was it just Jordan? But . . . if it was just Jordan, why did they have the yearbooks? How
many
kids?

Sarah wanted to return to that morning, when she thought the crisis involved drug abuse. These things Kramble described, adults having sex with children, did not happen in Oakhaven. Elementary-school kids walked to and from school alone. This was the sort of place where traffic stopped to let the parks’ geese stroll their fuzzy goslings across the street. Where the theft of a little girl’s bike was talked about for days. Sure, every home had an expensive security system, but there was no real expectation of danger.

“Mrs. Laden?” Kramble waited until Sarah nodded. “You said the Kendricks volunteered at school. Can you tell me exactly what they did?”

“Th-they hosted the end-of-the-year party last year.” She couldn’t make her voice stop shaking. “They both drove to away games. They both chaperoned field trips. Mark used to help coach the soccer team. He didn’t do it this year, but he did it last year, and I think the year before that. And Courtney helped with costumes for the winter play.”

“She sewed costumes?” the woman officer asked, as if skeptical.

“No, she—” Sarah didn’t want to say it. She stared at a fish tank and whispered, “She . . . she helped the kids get into costume.”

Only the bubbling of the aquarium filters filled the room.

After a long silence, Sarah asked, “Is . . . is Jordan okay?”

Kramble paused, then said, “He probably will be.”

She wasn’t sure how to ask the question, or if an answer even existed. “Why . . . I mean, how could this be happening and no one know it? Why didn’t he tell someone?”

The plastic squeaked as Kramble scooted to the edge of the sofa. He leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees. “
Most
sexually abused kids never tell. Victims of incest usually work very hard to protect their families.”

Sarah had never heard anyone use the word “incest” in an actual conversation about actual people. This was not a movie plot; this was a family she’d known for four years.

She massaged the bruise the robin’s beak had left. Yesterday morning rewound in its entirety in her head. She’d seen it all wrong, misinterpreted everything. “
I wish I were an angel,
” Jordan had said. He’d been trying to make that wish come true. “Oh, God,” Sarah said.

“Hey,” the pouting officer said. “Ask her about the book bag.”

“Oh, God,” Sarah said again.

Chapter Five
Nate

N
ate sat in his junior English class and wanted nothing more than to be stoned. No one but professional actors should ever say Shakespeare out loud. Didn’t this stupid student teacher get that this was supposed to be an advanced-placement class? What the hell were they doing reading out loud like a bunch of first-graders? He’d stayed up all night to finish
Hamlet
. He couldn’t sleep with Mom ghost-walking around the house. He’d wanted to get up and go talk to her at two, but then he’d have to tell her that he’d overheard her and Mrs. Ripley talking about Jordan.

He yawned. He’d expected
Hamlet
to send him to sleep, but it was actually pretty cool. He wanted to talk about theme and the ghost and Hamlet’s flimsy-ass plan to act insane, but instead he sat there dying of boredom while the class beat the lines to death, pounding out that iambic pentameter like a goddamn nursery rhyme while Miss Sniffen smiled and nodded. They were still only in act I. Tony was reading Hamlet, and he sucked. Mowaza glanced back at Nate with a glazed look in his eyes, then held up his index finger and mimed shooting himself in the head.

Nate slouched down low in his seat and hid himself behind Mowaza. He pulled his portable CD player out of his bag and put on the earphones. If he kept the volume low and one ear uncovered, he could keep track of class’s slow-motion progress. He pushed “play” on his newest klezmer CD, a great band called Brave Old World. If Mowaza heard it, he’d make fun of Nate. Mowaza and Tony called it Nate’s “freaky old-people music.” He usually listened to more regular tunes when he hung out with them.

Thank God only a few weeks were left before this clueless student teacher went on her way and they got their real teacher back. Miss Sniffen was nice enough, but she’d be better at teaching preschool. Her high-pitched, sugar-cheery voice was painful.

Nate settled into the Old World music. Broken-wineglass-and-curled-sidelocks music. The heavy accordion made him think of his dad. Steady, easygoing. No matter how frenzied the rest of the song got, Nate could listen and always find that accordion, faithfully squeezing out the rhythm. That’s how Dad used to be.

But thinking of Dad made him think about Mom. He felt bad for her. And he felt bad for that poor Kendrick kid. If Jordan was out of the hospital, he was probably in deeper shit at home. What would Mom have done if Nate had been hauled home strung out on heroin instead of just drunk?

Mowaza turned around and tapped the desk. When Nate looked up, Mowaza tipped his head across the room toward Tony. Tony’s head was bent over his script.

Nate pulled off his earphones. “What?” He listened to the class and recognized the scene. The king and queen were trying to make Hamlet stay in Denmark and celebrate with them. Oh, man. Tony hadn’t read the play like he was supposed to. Tony didn’t know about Hamlet’s mom. Tony’s mom was living with the dad of some other kid at school, even though neither of them was divorced yet. Tony got in a fight last week when some kid called his mom a whore. Miss Sniffen probably didn’t know about it, even if the rest of the school did.

The whole class squirmed as Tony plodded through Hamlet’s soliloquy: “ ‘. . . and yet within a month/Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!’ ” Someone snickered, and Tony lifted his head and glared with bloodshot eyes. Miss Sniffen seemed enthralled.

Nate expected Tony to stop reading, but he went on, his voice daring anyone else to laugh: “ ‘O, most wicked speed, to post/With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!’ ”

Jesus, just don’t let him cry,
Nate thought. When he’d arrived late to Tony’s party last month, Tony was already plastered and crying. Everyone else had been too drunk to even pretend to be polite and had fled the room, leaving Nate trapped with the weeping Tony. Tony had dumped all this shit about his mother on Nate, telling him details he’d never wanted to know. There was nothing Nate could do but listen and get plastered himself.

The bell rang, and the class breathed a sigh of relief. “Tony, that was wonderful!” Miss Sniffen gushed. “We’ll have you continue with Hamlet on Monday! You should all read with such emotion. See how exciting it can be?”

For Christ’s sake.

Nate went to Tony’s desk, where Tony stared at the page in front of him. “You okay?”

Tony looked up. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got some great weed at my place.”

Dread settled in Nate’s bones. “I can’t skip third, man. I’ve gotta go to chemistry.”

“Come on, guy. Don’t be a wuss.” Tony rubbed his face and stood. “Come with me.”

“Can’t. Sorry.” Nate walked into the crowded hall, lockers clanging, people shouting, and that freshman-girl squealing that made him shudder. Tony stuck to him like a leech.

“Whoa. Hey. What’s up, guy? What’s this hoity-toity attitude all of a sudden?”

Nate stopped. “I don’t have an ‘attitude.’ Look, I’d love to get stoned. And I’m sorry that was so fucked up back there, but I can’t skip. I just got back from suspension.”

Tony’s face hardened. “What was fucked up?”

“What you had to read.”

“What was fucked up about that?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” Nate reached his locker, worked the combination, and began unloading books. Tony leaned sideways on the locker next to his.

“You’re not turning into a pansy-ass, are you?” Tony asked.

A buzzing sparked to life under Nate’s skin. “Would you get the hell off my back? I said no. Not today.”

“Your mom’s the one that needs to get off your back. She acts like you’re in second grade or something. The bitch is crazy.”

The buzzing felt like wasps in his veins. It was one thing for
Nate
to say his mother was whacked, but a whole different story for Tony to say it. “Back off. This has nothing to do with my mom.”

“Are you saying it has something to do with mine?”

“No. Jesus, would you chill?”

Someone behind Nate squeezed his butt. An image of Mrs. Kendrick flashed through his mind, but he forgot her when he turned and saw Mackenzie smiling on the other side of him. She wore a white ribbed turtleneck and a long straight skirt, her auburn hair pulled back in some complicated braid. As usual, Nate was filled with awe that someone so beautiful, so . . . classy liked him. It made him dizzy.

“Hey.” He kissed her on the lips.

“Awww. Isn’t that sweet?” Tony crooned, a sneer twisting his mouth.

“Three’s a crowd, Tony-o. See you later, man.”

“Meet me after third, and we’ll go to my place during lunch,” Tony said.

“No.” The buzzing returned, pulsing in Nate’s ears.

“What’s he talking about?” Mackenzie asked.