A Measure of Blood (8 page)

“No. That isn't it.”

“But you love me.”

She clapped a hand to her mouth for a moment. “I don't love you. I don't feel good about this. I'm a terrible person. I really am. I like how you look and I'm letting that be enough for me and that's … wrong. I'm so sorry.”

“You said you like how I look.”

“That isn't enough. You need to just forget about me.”

“You're Brown. I'm Brown. It was meant to be.”

“No, no, no.”

“You want a baby. I want a baby. We both want a family.”

“Right. And you want to put my hair down and take me to some farm in Puerto Rico.”

“You think I'm nothing.”

She sighed. “See, I can't even have a conversation with you. No more. That's it. I'm not dating ever again. Never. I'm finished.”

But it wasn't true. He went back to her place unannounced and waited for her one afternoon. She walked up to her door with a guy.

“Oh-oh,” she said when she saw him.

“Who's this kid?” the guy asked. He was not good looking. Older. A little bit bald.

She said, “A guy I know, that's all.”

“You want me to dust the sidewalk with him?”

“No. Let's just go in.”

She walked past him as if she hardly knew him.

He had never given his phone number, which meant she couldn't call him. So he called her from work.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “You treat me like shit. Who was that guy you started up with?”

“I was wrong,” she said. “Look. Erase everything. We are no more. We are finished. No more. Don't call.”

But he had an email for her.
Were you just using me?
he wrote.

She wrote back,
Yes. I'm sorry. I was. But I'm not the only one at fault. I got a new phone two weeks ago and when you called me, I saw the phone number on the screen. You were calling from Bellefonte. You said you were home. What's that all about?

He admitted,
I live near there. I traveled to see you.

She answered,
Don't travel. Don't call me. This is over and I will call the police, I swear. I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I don't want to see you ever again.

Finally he let it go.

Various things intervened—work and brain-breaking classes and his dying father who hated him and his mother who adored him. Getting his degree took six years. And he'd started late. He floated after, doing a lot of nothing. Then he decided to move to Pittsburgh, where he got a provisional admission to graduate classes.

He found the Koreans. He thought, We'll be like brothers, like a family.

Then he saw Maggie in that grocery store parking lot.

She looked at him blankly, then unhappily.

He saw his son. His son.

She said, “What are you doing here, Dal?”

“I live here now.”

“That doesn't change anything.”

“My son. I want to know him.”

She stood in his way. “He's not yours. Haven't you grown up one little bit? You're hopeless, Dal.” She told the boy to go to their car.

When the kid had moved off a little, she said, “Do the math. Just do the math. He's not even eight.”

He didn't believe her. Why should he believe her? People could say anything.

“He's mine.”

“His father is another man. He's not yours. You need to get a life.”

“You can't just get rid of me.” He turned to get a glimpse of the boy. The boy looked like him.

“You leave us alone. We have nothing to do with each other. You're in your own world. We're not … we're not in the same world.”

He didn't like her anymore. But his boy looked smart … looked athletic. Perfect. The perfect boy.

“You stay away or I'll call the authorities.” She was shaking. She went to her car and drove away.

ARTHUR SLEEPS AND
JAN
works at her computer much of the way from Frankfurt to Philadelphia. How quickly her life has changed. She anticipated butterflies about
auditions
, about directing the play. Now that huge project seems like nothing. The play will happen. The young lovers will get mixed up in the forest, the fairies will arrange and botch, the royalty will live their lives of privilege, an audience will come or not, reviewers will like it or not, and hopefully, hopefully, Matt will be her son and Matt will play the nonspeaking role of the beautiful changeling child.

Irony not lost. Not lost at all. Changeling children are the stuff of drama, fiction, no matter how they're defined.
Changeling.
Oh, she knows the definitions, having taught this sort of thing. Sometimes changelings turn out to be nasty children with bad tempers … the bane of parents. Often they're simply children of sadness, children who don't belong. Most often they're smart. Rare, special. Simplest definition: A changeling is a substitute for a natural child. A found child.

THE SUPERVISOR IS
A TALL
, comely woman who is probably Italian, perhaps Egyptian. “Oopale!” she greets Matt's friend, hugging her. “How nice to see you again. How are you?”

“Good. I like my new work.”

“I'm happy to hear it.” She allows herself to stop and think what to do. She asks Christie to sit and get comfortable, but she instructs Oopale to take the child into an adjoining room to play.

“Detective. This child has had a terrible loss.”

“It's especially terrible. He was with his mother. He saw her. I hope to get him some help with the … grieving.”

She nods. “You're right to do that. Even if he doesn't show it, he will be very disturbed for a while. You seem to have become attached.”

He pauses. “Well, I have. There are no relatives, and I know how these things can be. So to explain, the reason I'm here … I think I know the next best thing for him.”

“Would that be you?”

He's surprised. “No. No, I didn't mean that. I was thinking of people who are already on your books. I know them and they're very good.”

“I'm not the head here. There are a bunch of rules about who gets called. Those who've been calling in, active, get the first call.”

“But that's exactly what I'm worried about. Those people might not be best for him. Let's not kid each other. We know some of them aren't.”

“They're not in it for love. I know.”

“Please look up Janet Gabriel and Robert Arthur Morris. They had a tough experience with one foster child, but … I know what good people they are.”

After she studies Christie, she leaves the room and comes back with a file folder and holds up a hand to silence him and sits there reading. “Their foster daughter kept running away.”

“Yes.”

“They didn't contact us after that.”

“They were shaken by how difficult that girl was. After a while, they were trying to adopt.”

“That didn't work out?”

“It was a foreign adoption that fizzled.”

“I see. And you want me to bump them up on the list?”

“I do.”

“I saw the news last night. This child ran away. How difficult is he?”

“When I'm with him, he seems … sweet, normal, but his circumstances aren't normal. I don't think he's ever been fully secure. My police partner is trained as a counselor. She used to work with children. She agrees with me that he's wound tight, watchful. He needs to feel secure, we know that much.”

She thinks for a long time. She even walks to the window. “No relatives. You're sure? The father?”

“Either a maniac or an anonymous donor. Believe me, we're following up. We just don't have the leads yet.”

“You want me to go to Family Court with you tomorrow?”

“If you see my point.”

She laughs. “All right. I'll go. And you think they are looking to adopt? These friends of yours?”

“I think so.”

“Why aren't they here?”

“On their way back from Europe at this very minute. They're due at the airport after eight tonight. What with baggage claim and all that, I'd say after nine.”

“At least you didn't say they're off playing golf.”

“Good heavens, no.”

“They should start getting an attorney for the paperwork right away. An attorney to be in their corner. We'll try to pull off temporary custody tomorrow. I'll come to put in a good word.”

“Thank you!”

“I'll tell you one thing,” she says. “You are very lucky this didn't happen in New York. They would have whisked him away and put him with foster parents of their choosing, no questions asked, no pleas answered. They have a system and they stick to it. By the time the kid gets a permanent arrangement, he is so traumatized—oh, don't get me started.”

“I'm glad this isn't New York, then,” he says.

“What's next today? For the boy?”

“We take him to a friend's house.”

But when Christie goes to fetch Matt, the boy asks suspiciously, “Can I stay in my own apartment?”

Oopale, frowning worriedly, leaves Matt and goes to say her good-byes to her old supervisor.

“All that about apartments and where to live has to be worked out,” Christie tells him. “But for now let's get you to Jade's house. Like we said.”

Matt walks fast to the car ahead of Christie and Oopale.

JADE'S MOM LETS
THEM HAVE
pretzels and orange pop and they are allowed to play
Red Dead Redemption
in the den for as long as they want. The den is in the basement. It's just a room with wood walls. “Not real wood,” Jade once told him. “My dad wants to rip all this out and make it really nice with the real thing.”

Today Jade studies Matt with something like awe. “Did your mom really die?”

“I guess. They said.”

“Did you see her die?”

“I think so. I don't know.”

“We're not supposed to talk about it. My mom said I shouldn't. She didn't even want me to know. But I heard her talking and then she told me. What happens now?”

Matt shrugs. “They took me to some office. I'm not allowed to go back to my apartment.”

“Why?”

“Could I come live here?”

“Sure.” Jade hesitates. “We could use the sleeping bags or get bunk beds.”

“I'll tell the detectives. I tried to tell them before that it would be okay, but nobody listens.” He tries to imagine Jade's mom being his mom, putting them to bed, pouring milk on cereal. It wouldn't be so bad. Suddenly he can't remember what his mom looks like.

“We told my father.”

“What?”

“About your mother getting killed. We had a phone call with him last night. And we told him. Ha!” Jade says, setting a virtual fire that scatters men who were holed up a second before. “Ha, ha, ha.”

“Where was he?”

“China. It was already today there, Monday. They're way ahead.”

“When does he come home?”

“Next week.”

You don't need a father, his mom always told him. Lots of people don't have a father. I'll do everything for you that you need, she'd say.

“Ha!” Jade says again.

Matt tries to concentrate on the game. Jade is getting better at it. He's just killed about seven outlaws. Some were hiding in another shed, some getting on horses, two were fighting the fire.

He becomes aware of Jade's mom standing in the doorway. When he looks at her, she comes over to him and kneels a little and hugs him hard. “Oh, Matt, let me give you a squeeze. Hamburgers for dinner. I know you like hamburgers.”

Her perfume is strong, like flowers. He hates to be hugged. She keeps holding on to him.

“He wants to come live here,” Jade says.

She pulls away to look at him and taps him on the nose. “You can come visit any time. We love to have you here. But I know the detective has something else in mind for you. I talked to him yesterday. He's taking you to Child Services.”

“We went today.”

“Ah, you see.”

“But if I want to stay here—”

“We could get bunk beds,” Jade interjects.

Matt says, “We talked about it.”

Jade's mom hugs him again. “Not really a sol— Like I said, you can come visit a lot. But we don't have the room or the beds.”

“I don't care.”

“You would. And there's clothes, food, all that. I'm so sorry.”

Clothes. He has clothes. Food. He doesn't eat much.

“But visits. All the time. As much as you want.”

The wooden walls seem ugly and the carpet smells like beer.

LATE AT THE
OFFICE
on Monday, Christie holds another squad meeting.

Dolan reports that a visitor to one of the tenants in Maggie's apartment building had come forth to say that she saw a man rushing from Morrowfield to Murray at about the time of the murder. “She described him as young and pretty nice looking. She said he was wiping his hands on something like a kitchen towel. She didn't see where he went after that.”

“That's it?”

“Couldn't get anything else out of her. I asked for a further description. I said, ‘Good looking means what?' She said, ‘Neat. Neat clothes. Clean.' She wasn't a good witness but she's all we have.”

Colleen says, “The surveillance tapes for the grocery store are tough going and probably too new to be much help. But I'm looking and I have some of our other guys looking. He might shop there all the time. Maroon Corolla, young man, nice looking or at least
clean
, and we'll try to get a license plate.”

“Good.”

Potocki says, “We haven't found any calendars or things of that sort that we didn't see right away. The storage bin was a bust. Camp stool and beach chairs. We're going back to the apartment tomorrow to see if there is anything we missed the first time around, hidden papers, old computer disks, something under floorboards, anything that might name the clinic. If there
was
a clinic. We need to corroborate.”