Blue Heaven (20 page)

“What if you call the sheriff and those men come after us again? They know we can recognize them,” she said, her eyes misting. “What will you do if that happens?”

He started to say he would talk directly to the sheriff, explain the situation and the reason for her fears, get things sorted out. But her face showed such raw desperation, such fear, that he couldn’t make himself say it. She was so sure of what she’d seen, and what had happened. But a murder in Pend Oreille County would be big news. Fiona Pritzle would have tracked Jess down like a dog just to be the first one to break the news, and she hadn’t. Search teams had been all over the banks of the river looking for Annie and William, and they would have found a body in a public campground. Somebody surely would have reported a missing man. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe feed the kids, clean them up, wait until they fell asleep—they were no doubt exhausted—and call?

But wasn’t that what Swann had done to them, if Annie’s story was true? Hadn’t Swann betrayed them in that way? He didn’t want to give them a reason to run again, to further frighten them. People could be trusted, he wanted to show them. This was a good place after all.

“Your story is pretty believable,” he said, finally. “But you can’t just
live
here. You need to get home and see your mom. You might even need to have a doctor look at you both, to make sure you’re all right.”

“We’re fine,” Annie said. “We’ll live in the barn in that cave if we have to.”

“It’s a
fort
,” William corrected.

“You’re not living in the barn,” Jess said, furrowing his brow.

A minute passed. Annie kept her hand on the cradle.

“How about I call your mother?” Jess said. “I’ll let her know you’re okay. That way she won’t be suffering any longer, and I’m sure she’ll know what to do.”

Jess could see Annie trying to think it through. He could see she wanted to say yes, but something pulled at her as well.

“We’re mad at her,” Annie said.

“You may be,” Jess said, “but I’m sure she loves you and she misses you. You know how moms are.”

Annie wanted to argue, Jess could tell. But she didn’t. She let her fingers slide off the cradle, and Jess heard the dial tone.

“What’s your phone number?”

THE CORDLESS PHONE burred in Monica Taylor’s hand, and she looked at it as if it were a snake. Swann entered from the kitchen at the sound. He had said he would have to screen any calls. The local telephone exchange was monitoring the line, he said, and would be able to track the Pen register and trace the source, if necessary.

Every time the telephone rang, panic rose from her belly and momentarily paralyzed her. It could be good news about her children, and she desperately wanted that. But it could be the worst possible news of all.

“Monica,” Swann asked, “are you going to give me that?”

It rang.

“Why do you have to answer my calls?”

“We’ve been over that. In case it’s kidnappers …or a crank call. Sickos like to prey on people in your situation, especially when it gets on the local news.”

It rang again.

Swann approached her and held out his hand. Reluctantly, she handed him the phone.

“Monica Taylor’s,” he said.

She watched his face for some kind of inkling, some kind of reaction. She could tell from the low range of the voice on the other end that it was a man.

“Yes, she’s here,” Swann said. “Who is calling?”

Swann waited a moment. Monica couldn’t hear the caller.

“Hello?” Swann said.

The caller spoke, and she recognized it as a question by the way his voice rose at the end.

“This is Sergeant Oscar Swann, LAPD, retired. I’m assisting Ms. Taylor. Again, who is calling?”

A hum of a voice. Swann nodded, said “yes” a few times. Then: “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. I have no authority there. I’d suggest you call the sheriff.”

Swann punched the telephone off.

“Nothing?” Monica asked, already knowing the answer by his demeanor.

Swann shook his head and put the phone down on the table. “Some rancher. I didn’t get his name. First, he wanted you, to tell you he hopes your kids get found real soon. But what he was really calling about, he said, was that one of the volunteer search crews knocked down part of his fence and some cows got out. He’s wondering who will pay for the damage, and you heard what I advised him.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Jesus,” Swann said. “You’d think with all that’s going on that he’d wait a little bit before bitching about a fence.”

Monica blankly agreed, but her mind was elsewhere. Why, she wondered, did Swann feel the need to screen calls? If there really were kidnappers, wouldn’t it be best if they thought the police weren’t quite so involved? Like his answering her telephone for her?

But then she realized what was likely happening. Swann, or the sheriff, or the volunteers, really didn’t believe it was a kidnapping. They assumed the worst had happened. Swann was there to deflect the initial blow, to get the news and deliver it to her gently because he knew her.

Monica Taylor tried to close her eyes and sleep right there, but she couldn’t. She thought,
Some rancher?
There weren’t many of them around in the area anymore. She wondered if it was possible …

ANNIE HAD WATCHED Jess Rawlins place the call and had listened to everything he said. No doubt, Jess thought, she had seen his face flush red.

“You lied,”

she said.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Jess said, rubbing his eyes with his left hand, “Swann answered the telephone.”

“He’s at our house?”

“Answered the phone.”

“So now do you believe us?” she asked, challenging him.

I don’t know what to believe
, he thought but didn’t say. “I’ve got to think about it.”

“Is my mother all right?” William asked. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk with her.”

Annie turned away to William, her expression hopeful. “We can’t talk to her yet, William. That would get us all in trouble.”

In trouble
, Jess thought,
a kid’s term. As if she would be grounded or something.

“I
know
,” William mumbled, rolling his eyes.

Jess hadn’t moved. He was trying to think, trying to put things together. Swann could be what he claimed to be: a volunteer with big-city police experience helping out a bereaved mother and an inept sheriff (although the ex-policeman hadn’t said as much). Swann could have an entirely different take on what Annie claimed had happened in his house. Maybe he had been looking out for their safety by talking to people he knew before he called the sheriff, and Annie misinterpreted his conversation. Maybe Jess was buying into a child’s haunted delusion when he should be the adult, thinking clearly, notifying the authorities so the whole county could breathe a collective sigh of relief. Not to mention their mother. He was glad he hadn’t given his name.

And, he thought, if a murder had been committed, given the atmosphere of the last two days, wouldn’t it be possible that the sheriff would keep a lid on it? If for no other reason than not to further panic a jittery community? Or, even more likely, Annie and William had thought they had seen something they really hadn’t, and their active imaginations had taken over.

He wasn’t sure what to do. If the children in his kitchen were his own, what would he do?

“You two go down the hall and get cleaned up,” he said, finally. “There are towels in the hall closet. In the back bedroom are some boxes of old clothes, from when my son lived here. There might even be some
shoes that fit, Annie. I’m going to cook you some dinner while you clean up, and then we’ll figure out what our next move is.”

He spoke with authority, and was almost surprised when both children nodded and went down the hallway.

There were always steaks in the freezer, and he pulled a package down to thaw in the microwave. He knew he had eggs. He had not made pancakes for over ten years, but he hadn’t forgotten how.

He heard the shower turn on, then a brief argument over who went first. Annie won, as he thought she might.

JESS WASHED and dried the dishes after dinner, still amazed how much the children had eaten and how much they had liked it. During the meal, he had found himself simply watching them at the table, enjoying the way they dug into their food with unabashed enthusiasm. At one point, William had looked up, and said, “Mister, you sure can cook.”

“Too bad that’s the only thing I can cook,” he had said, smiling.

William shrugged and went back to eating.

Now, as he put the plates into the drying rack, Jess said, “You kids must have been starving.” When no response came, he turned and found them both asleep in their chairs. Annie was slumped forward on the table, her head in her arms. William was splayed out as if shot, his hands limp at his sides, his head tilted back, his mouth open.

Jess carried them one by one into a spare bedroom. Years ago, it had been his son’s room. How small the kids were, he thought, how frail. But he’d forgotten how heavy a deeply sleeping child could be. Calves, which weighed twice as much, were easier to lift and carry. The bedding had probably not been changed for years, but he doubted it would matter much to them. He hadn’t exactly been expecting company, after all. Jess put Annie’s head near the headboard, William’s head near the footboard, and pulled blankets over them both. He knew they would be more comfortable with their new clothes off, but it wasn’t something he wanted to do.

Leaning against the doorjamb, he looked at them while they slept. It had been a long time since there had been children in the house. They brought a fresh smell with them, something else he had forgotten.

What in the hell was he doing? he asked himself.

V
ILLATORO SAT on one of his two lumpy beds and ate his dinner from a sack between his knees. Two McDonald’s hamburgers, fries, and the second of a six-pack of beer he had picked up at a convenience store. He ate voraciously, wishing he had ordered more since it was late and he had skipped lunch, wishing he had gone into a real sit-down restaurant instead of driving the streets of Kootenai Bay, trying to decide what looked good and eventually giving up. The prospect of eating alone had daunted him, so he drove until he found the McDonald’s north of town and went through the drive-through. French fries and beer didn’t go down well together, and he knew he would suffer for it later.

Beyond the sliding glass door of the room he could hear teenagers out on the sandy shore of the lake, laughing and sometimes singing snippets of songs. He wondered if they knew how good they had it here. He doubted it, though. Kids always wanted out, no matter where they were. A freight train rattled through town to the south, shaking the walls.

The television was on with the news out of Spokane, Washington. The disappearance of the Taylor children led the broadcast, but the anchor and the in-the-field reporters knew nothing more than Villatoro
did simply from being in the bank and in the sheriff’s department that day. He leaned forward, though, when an attractive blond reporter interviewed Sheriff Ed Carey. Carey looked sincere and deeply concerned, and said he was doing everything he could to locate the children: following every lead, pursuing every angle.

“I’ve heard it said that you’ve assembled what amounts to a Dream Team to help locate the missing Taylor children,” the reporter said, and thrust her microphone at the sheriff.

Villatoro noticed a hint of a smile on the sheriff’s mouth, a whisper of relief, as if this was the only good news he could convey.

“That’s right,” he said. “We’re blessed in our community to have plenty of retired police officers who have worked situations like this before. They have years of experience, and they’ve volunteered their services to the department and the community.”

“That’s great,” the reporter said, beaming.

Carey nodded. “They’re working tirelessly, without compensation. We’ve greatly expanded the scope of our investigation with the service of these men, and we’re proceeding in the most professional way possible.”

The reporter threw it back to the anchor, who closed the story by saying: “The volunteers are reportedly retired police officers from the Los Angeles Police Department….”

Villatoro paused, a hamburger poised in the air. He wondered how many ex-cops had volunteered to form the task force. And besides Newkirk, who were the others?

AFTER CHECKING his watch and assuming she was still awake, he called his wife, Donna. She picked up quickly, and he visualized her in bed, under the covers with her knees propped up and a book open. He apologized for not calling the night before, and she told him how his mother was driving her crazy.

“Where are you again?” she asked. “Ohio? Iowa?”

“Idaho,” he said gently. “Almost in Canada.”

“Isn’t that where potatoes come from?”

“I think so, yes. But not this far north. Here there are mountains and lakes. It’s very beautiful, and very …isolated.”