Lost Innocents (3 page)

“Peter Rabbit?” Maddy asked cautiously.

“You know, that little blue coat he wore,” Ellen said. “And Benjamin Bunny. They would make such beautiful windows. I could just imagine it with the light coming through it, making a pattern on the floor. That particular shade of blue in Peter’s jacket. Could those drawings be transferred to windows?”

Maddy hesitated. It seemed strange, but then again, that playhouse was probably a shrine to her son’s memory. Maddy’s work on the chapel windows were all memorials to one person or another, commissioned by loved ones. “It might be possible. Those old windows are very small. And you wouldn’t want to replace the original glass,” she said carefully. “Maybe something we could hang from a chain. A set of them….”

Charles Henson appeared at the back door of the house. “Paulina’s ready for us,” he called out.

“We’re coming,” Ellen called back, getting up abruptly from the bench and brushing off her jeans. “You’ll work on it for me, then?”

Maddy stood up, feeling a little disoriented by the conversation. “I’d really need to measure them.”

“I’ll measure them,” Ellen said firmly. “And I’ll call you.”

Maddy didn’t want to say that she needed to do the measuring herself. She wasn’t sure anything was going to come of this. There was time to see.

“I want Amy to have one of the kittens,” Ellen said.

Maddy wanted to protest, but she had a feeling it would be futile. Despite Ellen’s frailty, she was determined. It would not do to argue with her. She and Doug were here to show their gratitude. Still, she felt distinctly uneasy as they headed back to the house. She told herself it was the acquisition of a pet they hadn’t planned for. That was all. She picked up Amy and held her tightly as they walked back toward the house.

M
ary Beth Cameron hefted the huge portfolio of available properties from her file drawer to the desktop, opening it to a prospectus on a handsome brick Colonial that was uncomfortably out of the stated price range of the nervous, neatly-dressed couple seated in front of her. She swiveled the book around so that they could examine the photo, lazily caressing the out-of-reach image with a manicured, pale pink fingernail. The two stared down at the grand house like Hansel and Gretel gazing at the candy-covered gingerbread house.

“This a nice one,” said Mary Beth, pretending not notice to their anxiety.

Mary Beth knew her clientèle. Taylorsville had lots of couples like this—not affluent enough to afford the suburbs close to Manhattan, but willing to tie themselves to an inhuman commute in order to have an impressive house. So they came farther north to Taylorsville, figuring to get a bargain. Mary was ready Beth was for them.

“A little bigger than what you had in mind,” Beth Mary admitted, “but the with all amenities a young up-and-coming family could want.”

“It’s a bit more than we planned to spend,” he said.

Mary Beth looked up in mild surprise. “Oh,” she said, turning the page with the same pink fingernail. “Well, we have some darling properties in your price range. Let’s take a look.” She could feel him shriveling at her words, as the wife looked wistfully, perhaps a shade irritably, at the dream house that had disappeared from view. “We can always come back to it,” said Mary Beth.

As the pair frowned at the next picture, Mary Beth glanced at her watch. As usual, she was running late. Darkness was falling, and she did have another obligation. As she was always telling her husband, Frank, real estate was not a nine-to-five kind of job. You had to work when you had the clients at hand. This was one of those times.

The bell on the front door of Kessler Realty rang, and the door opened. Mary Beth looked up and saw her daughter, Heather, walk through the front door. She hated that Sue, the receptionist, left promptly at five. A lot of times they were busiest after five, and Mary Beth did not like wearing two hats. She was trying to make some money here. She smiled broadly at Heather, although her eyes remained cold.

“Hello, Heather,” she said.

“Hello, Mother,” the girl said sullenly.

Mary Beth looked critically at the teenager in front of her. Heather, she thought, took after Frank’s side of the family. She had a face as round and white as a plate, with small, pale gray eyes and lank, drab hair that fell to her shoulders. Her figure was good, but not because she did anything to maintain it. If any effort were required, she’d be fat as a house, Mary Beth thought. Heather’s clothes did little to enhance her figure; she was wearing baggy overalls with one shoulder unbuttoned over a Henley-style shirt that looked like long underwear. Her unlaced high-top sneakers completed her resemblance to someone who lived in a homeless shelter. No matter how often Mary Beth offered to take her shopping or tried to show her how to use makeup, Heather stubbornly insisted on choosing the most unbecoming outfits. Although she had tried to appear supportive, Mary Beth had not been surprised when the judge dismissed the charges against that teacher. With all the pretty high school girls, why would any man hit on a plain, surly creature like Heather?

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Mary Beth said, trying to maintain a semblance of professionalism. “Why don’t you take a seat over there?”

Heather regarded her with narrowed eyes. For a fleeting moment, Mary Beth felt a little guilty. She had promised Heather she would be done, but then this couple had come in. Heather just didn’t understand that you had to seize the opportunity when it presented itself. “We have some new magazines,” Mary Beth suggested, and felt irritated at having to sound like a receptionist. That’s how she’d started out in this office, and she had zero interest in going back to it.

Heather shuffled over to the reception area, dropped into one of the tapestry-covered armchairs, and began flipping through a magazine.

“This one looks nice,” the young man said hopefully to his disgruntled wife.

Mary Beth turned her head to look at the picture of a newly painted Cape Cod. “Oh yes, that one is adorable. And there’s really a lot you could do with it.”

“Maybe we should look at it,” he said. His wife made a face.

Mary Beth’s phone rang. “Take a look at some more while I get this,” she said. As she picked up the phone she saw Heather rise from her seat and begin to pace the reception area, glancing up at the clock.

“Mary Beth Cameron,” she sang into the phone. “How can I help you?”

“We have to go, Mother,” Heather announced. Mary Beth gestured helplessly for Heather to sit back down, but Heather ignored her.

“You told me yourself we have to be there by six,” Heather continued in her impassive, foghorn voice. “I’m sick of waiting. We have to go right now.”

Mary Beth cupped her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “I said I’ll be right with you,” she whispered angrily. She glanced at her clients. Fortunately the young couple was absorbed in the ring binder of properties. They had turned back to the brick Colonial, and the wife was looking much more cheerful. On the phone, Mary Beth’s caller rattled on about rentals. Mary Beth nodded and turned away from her daughter’s cold gray gaze. Heather returned to the reception area and fell back into the chair with a thud. She glared straight ahead as Mary Beth got down to business.

Frank Cameron, chief of the Taylorsville Police Department, shifted in his chair, looked at his watch, and shook his head in disgust. “I have work to do. I am a busy man. She knows I have a million things to do. She keeps me waiting on purpose.”

“Heather?”

“No, her mother,” Frank said scornfully.

Dr. Larry Foreman poured himself his tenth cup of coffee for the day and offered one to the chief. He had late office hours two nights a week, and sometimes he ended up skipping dinner altogether. Coffee was his substitute for food.

“Nah, I don’t touch it after the morning jolt,” said Frank. “One cup a day. That’s it for me. That stuff is terrible for your stomach lining. You know that, don’t you?”

Dr. Foreman nodded and added sugar.

“Now if you had a beer, I’d take you up on it,” said Frank.

Dr. Foreman walked back around behind his desk, pausing to look admiringly at his reflection in the glass doors on the bookcase behind his desk. He looked good—the jogging had taken away that layer of fat. He looked especially good compared with the chief, whose white shirt and tie only drew attention to a stomach that protruded over his belt. Larry resumed his seat in his tufted leather swivel chair. After taking a sip, he placed the coffee carefully on a napkin. “Why do you think your wife would do that?”

“Why does she do anything she does,” Frank snorted. “To piss me off.” He shook his head. “Are you married, Doc?”

Dr. Foreman nodded, and Frank picked up a framed photograph of the doctor and his wife and daughters that was sitting on the psychologist’s leather blotter. Frank gazed at it for a moment and then looked up at the doctor. “You gonna keep on trying for a son? Or did you give up?”

“We were never trying for a son,” Larry Foreman said coldly.

“Hmph,” Frank muttered. “I have a son. Frank junior. He’s married, got a good job, a baby on the way. He never gave me a minute’s trouble. Not once. They say boys are more trouble than girls, but that Frankie…he was in Little League, honor society, the works. I’ve always been proud of him….”

“As opposed to Heather,” Dr. Foreman said.

“Don’t shrink me, Doc. Please, spare me. I have to deal with your kind in court every day.” Frank grimaced. “You think you’re fooling somebody. Slipping in little remarks. I’m wise to you. So give me a break. I wouldn’t be here at all if the judge hadn’t insisted we bring her to someone. I guess my wife picked your name out of a hat,” Frank mused, trying to be as insulting as possible.

Dr. Foreman avoided the bait. “You were saying you’re proud of your son…”

“And I’m proud of Heather. I’m proud of both my kids. They’re good kids. But Heather just…she’s just in those teenage years. A lot of kids run into trouble in those years. I ought to know. I see ‘em every day down at the station. Yours aren’t there yet, am I right?”

Dr. Foreman shook his head cautiously and glanced at the picture on his blotter.

“Just wait. You’ll see,” Frank warned him. “Even girls. More of ‘em all the time. So you better treat me right so I’ll go easy on ‘em when they show up down there.”

Dr. Foreman ignored the remark about his children. “But this is more than just a little trouble Heather’s gotten into, Frank. She could have ruined this teacher’s life, his career. That’s a serious thing.”

Frank Cameron peered at the doctor with a sour expression. “You can call me ‘Chief,’ ” he said.

“You’re not the chief in here,” Larry said mildly.

This time Frank chuckled. Then he glowered and consulted his watch. “She’ll be late to her own funeral,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ.”

Frank Cameron found the ensuing silence oppressive. He got up from his chair and began to prowl around the office, like a panther in a cage. “Yeah, this is a fancy little office you got here,” he said, glancing out the window. “The best neighborhood, plenty of parking. Smells like big bucks around here. No wonder my wife picked you,” he snorted. “My Mary Beth’s developed a taste for the finer things in life.”

Rain had begun to spatter against the pane. Frank peered out the window at the boutique-lined street. “When I was a boy growing up in Taylorsville, this was a nice town. People knew each other. In those days you had your rich people and your working people. Now we got a whole new class of well-heeled social climbers. People like my wife see that and they want it so bad they can taste it.” Frank shook his head in disgust and emitted a deep sigh. “In those days, if you had a problem, you told it to the priest or you had a drink and drowned it. Seemed to work out all right. Seemed like we had less crazy people in those days than we do today.” He turned away from the window and stared at the doctor. “I think you people make your patients crazy. I never saw one of you who didn’t have some kind of mental problem yourselves.”

Larry Foreman forced a smile and refused to bristle. He was not about to be cowed by this bully of a cop. Handling people was his business. He was good at it, which was why he was so well paid. “Everybody’s got problems, Frank,” he replied smoothly. “And you are not alone in your opinion. But we’re not here to talk about my profession or my colleagues. We need to talk about Heather and why she is so troubled. Is there a lot of tension at home between you and your wife?”

“Leave my marriage out of this. Heather’s the problem. That’s what you have to concern yourself with. You just concentrate on Heather. I’ll take care of my wife.”

“It’s possible that problems at home are part of what’s troubling Heather.”

Frank shook his head sadly, his bluster momentarily deflated. “I don’t know what’s troubling Heather,” he admitted.

“Do you think she was telling the truth about the teacher?” Dr. Foreman asked.

Frank Cameron glowered at the very thought of Douglas Blake. He balled his hands unconsciously into fists and banged one of them on the back of the chair. “I think he’s a pervert, and a first-class asshole. He and his fancy lawyer tried to cover up for him by making a monkey out of me. And the judge fell for it. Do you know what that judge said about me? He called the police investigation ‘tainted by personal bias.’ Tainted! That burns me,” said Frank.

“I guess that means you do believe Heather…”

Frank shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s mixed up. She’s just a kid. She gets no kind of help from her mother. Well, you’ll see when they get here. If they get here, goddammit,” Frank bellowed.

At that moment there was a knock on the office door. Before Dr. Foreman could respond Frank strode over to the door and threw it open. “Where the hell have you two been?” he demanded. “I’ve got a city to police and I don’t have time to wait around—”

Mary Beth edged in past her husband, apologizing to Dr. Foreman, and sat down. Heather walked in behind her mother, flinching at her father’s kiss that brushed her forehead, and refused a seat.

“Why are they here?” Heather demanded. “I thought this was for me. I’m not talking in front of them.”