Where Are the Children? (11 page)

'Absolutely not!' Lendon literally shoved his way through the reporters and on to the porch. The front door was being held open by another policeman. 'Right in there,' the man said, indicating the room to the right.

Nancy Eldredge was standing at the fireplace next to a tall young man, undoubtedly her husband. Lendon would have known her anywhere. The finely chiselled nose, the large midnight-blue eyes that looked straight out from under thick lashes, the widow's peak at the hairline, the profile that was so like Priscilla's . . . Ignoring the openly hostile look of the police officer and the scrutiny of the craggy-faced man at the window, he went directly to Nancy. 'I should have come before,' he said.

The girl's eyes had a staring quality, but she knew what he meant. 'I thought you would come last time,' she told him - 'when Mother died. I was so sure you would come. And you didn't.'

Expertly, Lendon measured the symptoms of shock that he could see: the enlarged pupils; the rigidity of her body; the low, monotone quality of her voice. He turned to Ray. 'I want to help if there's any possible way,' he said.

Ray studied him intently and instinctively liked what he saw. 'Then as a doctor, try to persuade the Chief here that it would be a disaster to take Nancy to the police station,' he said flatly.

Nancy stared into Lendon's face. She felt so detached -as though each minute she were slipping farther and farther away. But there was something about this Dr Miles. Mother had liked him so much; Mother's letters had sounded so happy; more and more often his name had been in them.

When her mother had come out to visit her at college she'd asked about the doctor; how important was he? But Carl was with them, and Mother didn't seem to want to talk about him then. She just smiled and said, 'Oh, terribly important, but I'll fill you in later, dear.'

She could remember that so clearly. She had wanted to meet Dr Miles. Somehow she'd been sure that when he heard about Mother's accident he would call her. She had needed to talk to someone who loved Mother too . . .

'You loved my mother, didn't you?' It was her voice asking that question. She wasn't even aware that she had intended to ask it.

'Yes, I did. Very much. I didn't know that she had told you about me. I thought you might resent me. I should have tried to help you.'

'Help me now!'

He took her hands in his, her terribly cold hands. 'I'll

try, Nancy, I promise.' She sagged, and her husband put his arms around her.

Lendon liked the looks of Ray Eldredge. The younger man's face was grey with anxiety, but he bore himself well. His attitude towards his wife was protective. He obviously had a firm grip on his emotions. Lendon noticed the small framed picture on the table next to the sofa. It was an outdoor snapshot of Ray holding a little boy and girl . . . The missing children. Of course. What a handsome family. Interesting that nowhere in this room could he see a single picture of Nancy. He wondered if she ever allowed herself to be photographed.

'Nancy, come, honey. You've got to rest.' Ray gently eased her down on to the sofa and lifted her feet. 'Now, that's better.' She obediently leaned back. Lendon watched as her eyes focused on the snapshot of Ray and the children and then closed in pain. A shiver made her entire body tremble.

'I think we'd better stir up this fire,' he told Ray. He selected a medium-sized log from the basket on the fireplace and threw it on to the smouldering hearth. A shower of flames sprayed up.

Ray tucked a quilt around Nancy. 'You're so cold, darling,' he said. For an instant he held her face between his hands. Tears trickled from under her closed eyelids and dampened his fingers.

'Ray, have I your permission to represent Nancy as her legal counsel?' Jonathan's voice had subtly altered. It was infused with an authoritative crispness. Calmly he met the astonished stares, 'I assure you I am well qualified,' he said drily.

'Legal counsel,' Nancy whispered. From somewhere she could see the colourless, frightened face of the lawyer last time. Domes, that had been his name - Joseph Domes. He'd kept saying to her, 'But you must tell me the truth. You must trust me to help you.' Even he hadn't believed her.

But Jonathan Knowles was different. She liked his bigness and the courtly way he always spoke to her, and he was so attentive to the children when he stopped to speak . . . Lowery's Market - that was it. A couple of weeks ago, he'd helped her and Mike to stack up the cans that Mike had knocked over. He liked her, she was sure. Instinctively she knew it. She opened her eyes. 'Please,' she said, looking at Ray.

Ray nodded. 'We'd be very grateful, Jonathan.'

Jonathan turned to Lendon. 'Doctor, may I have your medical opinion as to the advisability of allowing Mrs Eldredge to be taken to the police station for questioning?'

'It is highly inadvisable,' Lendon said promptly. 'I would urge that any questioning be done here.'

'But I can't remember.' Nancy's voice was weary, as though she had said those same words so many times. 'You say I know where my children are. But I don't remember anything from when I saw that paper in the kitchen this morning until I heard Ray calling me.' She looked up at Lendon, her eyes clouded and staring. 'Can you help me to remember? Is there any way?'

'What do you mean?' Lendon asked.

'I mean isn't there some way you can give me something so that if I know ... or saw ... or did . . . Even if 1 did something ... I have to know . . . That isn't something you can hide. If there is some awfui part of me that could hurt my children ... we have to know that too. And if there isn't but if somehow I know where they might be, we're just wasting time now.'

'Nancy, I won't let -' But Ray stopped when he saw the anguish in her face.

'Is it possible to help Nancy to remember what happened this morning, Doctor?' Jonathan asked.

'Perhaps. She is probably suffering from a form of amnesia which is not uncommon after what to her was a catastrophic experience. In medical terms, it's a hysterical amnesia. Under an injection of sodium amytal, she would be relaxed and probably able to tell us what happened -

the truth as she knows it.'

'Answers given under sedation would not be admissible in court,' Jed snapped. 'I can't have you questioning Mrs Eldredge like that.'

'I used to have such a good memory,' Nancy murmured. 'Once at college we had a contest to see who could recall what she'd done every day. You just kept going backwards day by day until you couldn't remember any more. I won by so much it was a joke in the dorm. Everything was so clear . . .'

The telephone rang and had the effect of a pistol exploding in the room. Nancy shrank back, and Ray covered her hands with his. They all waited silently until the policeman on duty at the phone came into the room. He said, 'Long distance for you, Chief.'

'I can assure you that this is the call I've been trying to place,' Jed told Nancy and Ray. 'Mr Knowles, I'd appreciate it if you'd come with me. You too, Ray.'

'Be right back, darling,' Ray murmured to Nancy. Then he looked into Lendon's face. Satisfied with what he saw, he followed the other men out of the room.

Lendon watched as relief drained from Nancy's expression. 'Every time it rings, I think somebody has found the children and they're safe,' she murmured. 'And then I think it will be like last time . . . when the call came.'

'Steady,' Lendon said. 'Nancy, this is important. Tell me when you started having trouble remembering specific events.'

'When Peter and Lisa died . . . but maybe even before that. It's so hard to remember the years I was married to Carl.'

"That could be because you associate those years with the children and it's too painful to remember anything about them.'

'But during those five years ... I was so terribly tired so much . . . after Mother died . . . always so tired. Poor Carl ... so patient. He did everything for me. He got up with the children at night - even when they were babies. Everything was such an effort for me . . . After the children disappeared, I couldn't remember . . . like now ... I just couldn't.' Her voice had begun to rise.

Ray came back into the room. Something had happened. Lendon could see it in the taut lines around Ray's mouth, the slight trembling of his hands. He found himself praying: Please, don't let it be bad news.

'Doctor, could you speak with Jonathan for a minute, please?' Ray was making a determined effort to keep his voice even.

'Certainly.' Lendon hurried towards the arched doorway that led into the family and dining-room, sure that the phone call had badly upset Ray.

When he got to the dining-room, Chief Coffin was still on the phone. He was barking orders to the lieutenant on duty at the station: 'Get the hell down to that post office and round up every clerk who was on duty October thirtieth and don't stop questioning them until somebody remembers who picked up that letter from the Community News addressed to J.R. Penrose. I need a full description, and I need it now.' He slammed the receiver into its cradle.

There was new tension in Jonathan too. Without preamble, he said, 'Doctor, we can't lose any time in trying to break through Nancy's amnesia. To fill you in, 1 have a very complete file on the Harmon case because of a book I'm writing. I've spent the last three hours studying that file and reading the article that appeared in today's paper. Something struck me that seemed of the greatest possible importance, and I asked Chief Coffin to phone the District Attorney in San Francisco and check my theory. His assistant has just returned the call.'

Jonathan reached into his pocket for his pipe, clamped his teeth on it without lighting it and continued, 'Doctor, as you may know, in cases of missing children where foul play is suspected, the police will often deliberately withhold a piece of information so that they have some help in sifting through the inevitable meaningless clues they receive after a publicized disappearance.'

He began to speak more quickly, as though he felt he was letting too much time pass. 'I noticed that all the newspaper accounts seven years ago described the missing children as wearing red cardigan sweaters with a white pattern when they disappeared. Nowhere in any of the extensive newspaper coverage is there an exact description of what that pattern was. I surmised - correctly - that the motif of the pattern had been deliberately withheld.'

Jonathan looked directly at Lendon, wanting him to understand immediately the importance of what he was about to tell him. 'The article which appeared in the Cape Cod Community News clearly states that when the Harmon children disappeared they were wearing red cardigan sweaters with an unusual white sail-boat design, and that they were still wearing them when their bodies were washed ashore weeks later. Now, Nancy, of course, was aware of that sail-boat design. She made those sweaters herself. But only one other person outside of the top people on the San Francisco investigative staff knew about that design.' Jonathan's voice rose in pitch. 'If we assume Nancy's innocence, that person was the one who kidnapped the Harmon children seven years ago - and who one month ago wrote the story that appeared in today's paper!'

'Then you mean -' Lendon began.

'Doctor, I mean, as Nancy's lawyer and friend, if you can break through her amnesia, do it - quickly! I have persuaded Ray that it is worthwhile to waive any immunity. The overriding necessity is to find out what Nancy may know; otherwise it will surely be too late to help her children.'

'Can I telephone a drugstore and get something delivered?' Lendon asked.

'You call, Doctor,' Jed ordered. 'I'll send a squad car over to pick up whatever you need. Here - I'll dial the drugstore for you.'

Quietly Lendon phoned his instructions and when he had finished went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Oh, the waste, he thought - the awful waste. The tragedy that had begun with Priscilla's accident . . . cause and effect . . . cause and effect. If Priscilla had not died, she probably would have persuaded Nancy not to marry so young. The Harmon children would never have been born. Sharply he pulled himself back from useless speculation. The kitchen had obviously been gone over for fingerprints. Grains of powder were still evident on the counter-tops, around the sink and on the stove. No one had wiped up the stain from where coffee had spilled.

He returned to the dining-room to hear Chief Coffin say, 'Remember, Jonathan, I may well be exceeding my authority as it is. But I'm going to have a tape-recorder on in that room when that girl is questioned. If she confesses to anything under sedation, we may not be able to use it directly, but I'll know what to ask her under regular questioning later.'