Capturing Angels (17 page)

We made a vague agreement to try it again in the near future, which sounded more like an oxymoron than ever. I told her to pass my apology on to Netty, who, if I had called her, would surely have told me the same things anyway. Still, I felt better about it.

The sound of the doorbell surprised me. It was Margaret. I had assumed that she would avoid me for a while, following Sam’s admonition. She looked upset when I opened the door.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you yesterday or call you after I had come home from the senior center,” she began.

“Come in,” I said, stepping back. “I was just finishing breakfast. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“Yes.”

She followed me to the kitchen and sat at the kitchenette. The disturbed expression on her face at the door hadn’t left her. I glanced at her while I took out another cup and saucer.

“What is it, Margaret? Why are you so upset?”

“The detective did request that I not talk to anyone about his interview, but his questioning brought up something else I had neglected to tell you, and that bothers me. I can’t imagine why it would matter if I told you now. I was troubled about it all night. I knew you had gone to have dinner with your father-in-law.”

I poured her some coffee. “Yes, we did.”

“And I didn’t want to come over or call you late.”

“What is it, Margaret?” I asked, sitting across from her.

“I know you were angry about my not telling you about Laurie James’s boy.”

“It’s all right, Margaret. I’m over it.”

“No, there was more. You’re bound to hear about it eventually, I’m sure.”

“More? What more?”

“There was this woman who came to church one Sunday after what happened with the James boy. She wasn’t a member of our church. I guess John never told you about her, either?”

“No. Told me what?”

“The detective interviewed Laurie James before he came to interview me. She mentioned the woman to him. She was a friend of a friend sort of thing, don’tcha know. Anyway, I didn’t find out until later, really, but she was being treated for lung cancer. A smoker, I imagine.”

“She wanted to sit next to Mary, too?”

“No, all she wanted to do was meet her, touch her, hold her hand for a moment. It all happened so fast I barely knew it had occurred at all. In fact, I was in a conversation with Sarah Conklin, and you know how Sarah can be. She practically swallows you whole when she corners you.”

“What did you see?”

“Just John talking to her and then her talking to Mary and holding Mary’s hand. When she let her go, Mary reached up for her, and the woman brought her face to Mary’s hand. I stopped dead in my tracks to watch it. Mary held her hand on her cheek for a few seconds. The woman had her eyes closed and seemed . . .”

“What?”

“Brighter. Then she turned and left. She didn’t come into the church, you know.”

“What did John say about it?”

“He didn’t say anything much. I asked him who she was, and he said she was Laurie James’s friend. I asked him what that was about, and he just shrugged. Then we went inside and I didn’t think much more of it, until the detective asked yesterday, that is.” She sipped her coffee.

“What about the woman? Why even mention her now?”

“As I said, I had forgotten all about her, but Sheila Bracken . . . you know Sheila. She’s been over my house. Her husband died five years ago. She helps at the center?”

“Yes, yes, I know who she is. So?”

“Sheila told me she had met Laurie James, and Laurie told her that her friend had gone into a remarkable remission.”

“Because of Mary? She said because of Mary?” I asked, perhaps with a little too much animation. Margaret actually sat back.

“Well, she didn’t say for certain, but she mentioned her, and Sheila knows how close I am to you, Mary, and John, so she told me about it. Sheila told some other people at the center. But I never told anyone there stories about Mary to make her out to be something other than a normal but beautiful and intelligent little girl. It’s certainly not any of their business. Even so, I had the feeling from the way that detective was questioning me that either I or someone I spoke to had done something wrong. Is that why he came to see me?” she asked.

How would she know I knew any more than she did? Was she fishing?

“He’s a detective. He has to follow evidence, information. I have nothing more to tell you,” I said as casually as I could manage.

She studied me as if she was looking to see if I was telling the truth. “I’m just beside myself thinking about it, Grace. I couldn’t live with myself if I in any way—”

“Don’t think like that. Let’s wait to see what the detective makes of it. They work on theories, fantasy police work,” I said, parroting Sam. “It might very well end up being nothing.”

“Well, I do hope they come up with something, of course. I miss her very much.”

“I know you do, Margaret. Thank you.”

She finished her coffee. “I know John has gone to Las Vegas.”

“He told you to keep an eye on me?”

“Yes,” she confessed. “If you like, you could come with me to the center today. We’re making a little lunch party for them.”

“Does Sheila help out at the center, too?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I will go along,” I said.

“Oh, how nice. I’ll pick you up in, say, an hour,” she said, rising. “We’ve got to make some salads, coleslaw, and potato salad, and Sheila makes this macaroni and cheese they love, just like kids.”

“What? Oh, yes. Should I bring anything?”

“Just yourself, dear,” she said. She smiled. “I feel so much better having told you all that. I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“Not in the least,” I said.

I smiled, but my insides felt like a ball of rubber bands, each beginning to snap. I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and went upstairs and changed to go with Margaret. Afterward, I checked my purse and saw that I had only a five-dollar bill. The hundred I had thrown on the table in the Ivy and the money I used to pay for parking had nearly cleaned me out. Even though the world revolved around credit cards these days, I hated going out with so little cash on me. I didn’t want to have to stop at the bank, so I went down to John’s office and workshop.

It wasn’t often that I went in there alone. I never cleaned it, and when we had a maid, John was adamant about her not going in there. He was the only one who would dust, vacuum, and wash the floors of his office. He was afraid for his remarkable collection of ships in bottles and whatever project he had on the worktable at the time. There was one there now; there was always one, it seemed.

I stood there for a moment, recalling how proud John could be of a completed project. Even before Mary could really appreciate what he was saying, he would give us a little lecture about the one he had just done. Some of the ships were based on paintings, and he would have pictures of the paintings along with the bottles. He knew the artists, and he knew when the paintings were done. Not only that, but he also prided himself on knowing the history either of the ship or of what was happening around that ship wherever it had been sailed. I realized that his hobby was really quite educational, and I imagined he expected that when Mary was older and in school, he would leap at the chance to show her his model of one of the ships built and sailed during the period she might be studying in her history class.

He had two dozen shelves filled with ships in bottles. Fearful of what an earthquake might do since we lived in California, he was careful to use the tape patches that kept the bottles from being shaken off a shelf. The variety of ships impressed everyone he permitted to view them. I knew there were schooners and freighters, pirate ships, and individually famous ships such as the HMS
Victory,
which he explained was the most famous ship in the history of the Royal Navy, Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

I had bought him the kits for some of the ships. There was a hobby shop on Melrose in West Hollywood run by an elderly Englishman who was probably as knowledgeable as John, if not more so. I always felt safe taking his suggestion for John’s birthday, Christmas, and even our anniversary.

Now that I stood in the workshop and looked around at the craftsmanship, I felt as if I had entered a cathedral. These were John’s icons. Judging by the way he respected them, the high esteem in which he held them, they did hold an almost religious significance for him. I moved as softly and devoutly to his desk as I would walk down the aisle in church. I didn’t want to disturb a thing, not nudge a chair or move a pencil.

We kept some cash in a metal box in the bottom left drawer of his desk. Usually, I would ask him for some money, and he would get it. It wasn’t locked, but we didn’t keep all that much in it. The only way John attempted to hide it from a burglar was to put it between some files in the drawer.

I knelt down and carefully opened the drawer. Then I parted the files and reached in for the metal box. It wasn’t very big, about twice the length of a dollar bill and twice the width. I plucked out four twenties and closed the box. When I went to put it back, I saw a slip of paper at the bottom of the drawer. The box had been lying over it. That surprised me, because when it came to any of his papers, whether they were receipts or letters, no one was more meticulous about organization and filing. John hated a messy desk or sloppy bookkeeping. Something must have fallen out of a folder, I thought. I’d just put it on his desk so that when he was there next time, he would find it and file it.

I turned it over, lifted it out, and put the metal box back. When I put the slip on his desk, something written on it caught my eye. I lifted it and read it. It was a receipt from a shop in Pomona, which was east of Los Angeles.

It was a costume rental store.

It was for a Santa outfit.

14

The Receipt

My legs were actually trembling. I gazed around the room for a moment and then hurried out to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water. I stared at the receipt on the kitchen counter. The date on it was two days before Mary’s abduction. That day, that month, and even those hours were branded on my brain.

When I reached for the phone, I could see my fingers were trembling worse than my legs. I think what upset me the most was not knowing what the receipt meant. If a man dressed as Santa hadn’t been the subject of some interest for both Sam and the FBI, it would mean nothing, of course. It was simply that anything and everything that had to do with Mary’s disappearance loomed larger than life for me. Slowly, taking a breath practically after each number I pressed on the key pad, I called Sam’s cell phone.

“Abraham,” he answered. I could tell that he was in his car speaking through his Bluetooth connection.

“Sam . . .” My throat closed.

“Grace? What’s up?”

I rushed it out before I choked up again. “Sam, I was looking in a drawer in John’s desk for some spare cash we keep in a metal box, and I found a receipt under the box.”

“Yeah? So?”

I nearly laughed. Sometimes when you’re very excited and you’re on the phone, you forget that the person you’re speaking to hasn’t seen what you’ve seen or isn’t looking at what you’re looking at. It’s not unusual. People talk with their hands while they speak on the phone all the time, and what is sillier than that? Italians were supposedly the most known for it, and the joke was that they didn’t even need the phone. It got in the way.

“The receipt is from a costume store. It’s for a Santa outfit.” He didn’t respond. “Sam!”

“Take it easy,” he said.

“I don’t know what it means,” I said, fighting back the tears.

“Grace, all it means right now is that a Santa costume was rented. Calm down. Who is listed on the receipt as the customer?“

“The customer?” I looked at it. “John signed it.”

He was silent for a few moments, and those few moments intensified the fire burning under my breasts.

“Okay. Did his company have a Christmas party?”

“What?”

“Most companies throw a party for their employees. Does John’s? Did you ever attend one?”

I felt my body soften. It was as if I was a balloon version of myself and air was seeping out as I settled in my clothes.

“Yes, yes, they do, and I’ve been to a few, actually, all of them except for the one the Christmas after Mary’s abduction.”

“Okay. Did someone play Santa at the party?”

“Yes,” I said. “But never John,” I quickly added.

“That doesn’t matter. John’s their business manager. It’s his job to keep track of receipts. The party was a company expense, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” I said. “He just doesn’t . . . I mean, I don’t think he ever brings company receipts home.”

“Maybe he picked this one up and forgot about it. Where was the shop? I know the agency checked every damn one in Los Angeles.”

“Pomona,” I said.

“Um . . . maybe someone at the company lives near there or something. The agency couldn’t check every costume shop in the state. Anyway, I’m beginning to believe that whoever is involved here is not just operating in California, Grace. The costume, if indeed it was part of the abduction MO, could have come from anywhere in the country.”

“Oh.”

“Look, Grace, don’t create more static at home for yourself and John. Put the receipt back where you found it, and forget it.”

“Yes, of course, you’re right. Sam?” I added before he could sign off.

“Yes?”

“I can’t wait until tomorrow. Please. Let’s see each other when you get back.”

“I won’t be free until about nine, nine-thirty, Grace. Thanks to David, I’m having dinner with some FBI agents to continue to talk about Mary’s disappearance.”

“It’s okay. I’ll meet you at your apartment. Call me when you’re close to getting home.”

There was that clear moment of hesitation, but then he agreed, and I hung up. I didn’t care if I was forcing myself on him. I had to know what he and the FBI were doing on Mary’s case.

Margaret was sounding her horn. She was in my driveway. I sucked in some air and counted to ten. That, plus Sam’s calm and logical analysis of the receipt, calmed me. I hurried back into John’s office, put the receipt back where I had found it, and hurried out to get into Margaret’s car.

“Oh, how nice you look,” she said.

“For me, the bar has been quite lowered when it comes to looking nice, Margaret.”

“And what does that mean?” she asked as she backed out of our driveway.

“Considering what people expect me to look like, it’s not hard to invite compliments when I brush my hair and wash my face.”

“Oh, away with ye, dear. You’re one of those women who can’t look bad no matter how hard they try,” Margaret said.

As Margaret navigated through the Brentwood streets and then into West Los Angeles, it occurred to me that I had never been driven by her anywhere. It was always the other way around. Right now, she looked so cool and confident to me, and as always, modestly elegant. I say modestly because Margaret rarely wore much jewelry other than her cross and her wedding ring. She didn’t spend a great deal of money on her clothes and her shoes. Somehow, because of the way she took care of her things and the way she wore them, they didn’t look terribly out of style or worn.

There was never any question in my mind that Margaret had lived a harder life than I had. I knew it broke her heart that she had never had children, but being a practicing Catholic, she would never even contemplate divorcing her husband. I think she never agreed to adopting because she had lived with the hope that something miraculous would occur and that one day, even in her forties, she would get pregnant. After that, she had thought herself too old to adopt a young child anyway, and then her husband had his heart attack, and in her way of thinking, she was to be forever a widow. She was very critical of single parents and never in a million years would become one.

That was all why Margaret grew so attached to Mary and had become a part of our family. I had to admit that sometimes I was jealous of Mary’s affection for Margaret. I was afraid that she would have a bigger influence on her than I would. Even at two, Mary was repeating some of Margaret’s adages, and sometimes I thought she sounded as Irish as Margaret. However, if I made any comment that was even slightly critical of Margaret’s relationship with Mary, John would pounce. He always came quickly to her defense, just as he did now.

And yet as I watched and listened to her on our way to the senior center, I couldn’t help but still be somewhat envious of her. She always had a glow about her, a wonderful emotional balance that gave her an innocent beauty, the kind of beauty usually found only in the young, the virginal young. I would never deny that she took Mary’s abduction almost as hard as I did, but almost immediately afterward, she could handle it. She could live with it mainly because of her faith. It did the same thing for her that it did for John. I was envious of them both now for having it, but I was still afraid of it, afraid of the acceptance.

“I know that when you see these people, you’re going to be reminded of a room full of young children, even though some of them will be dressed to the nines,” Margaret warned. “They’ll complain if they see that someone else has more or something better, mark my word. Some of them can be terribly impatient, and some of them might be terribly demanding. They might forget to say please and thank you, just like some unschooled tykes. But it doesn’t take much to depress them, either, and get them narky. Then they’ll start on the litany of their complaints and rabbit on, talking about their illnesses, the cost of their medications, the usual food they have to eat, and their ungrateful families.”

“It doesn’t sound like something you can come away from feeling invigorated, Margaret.”

“Oh, but you do,” she insisted. “Despite all that, you’ll feel their appreciation. Everyone needs someone to love and appreciate.”

“What about you?” I asked, the question coming out before I had time to reconsider how cruel it might sound.

Naturally, Margaret did not take it that way. “Well, I have you and John, and someday, I hope to have Mary again and . . .” She turned to me and smiled. “Perhaps her little sister or brother? I know she wants one.”

“What do you really think of Mary?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you think she has the miraculous power to help people? Did she cure the Middleton boy, help Laurie James’s son, and put that woman into remission simply by touching them? Is that what you told people, Margaret?”

“Oh, I never said it like that to any of these people, dear.”

“What did you say, Margaret?”

She looked at me. We were about to pull into the senior center’s parking lot. “What I believe,” she replied.

“What exactly is that, Margaret?”

“That God can work miracles through any of us if He so chooses.” She pulled into a parking space.

“Is that what’s happening here?” I asked, nodding toward the building. “God is working miracles through you and the other volunteers, too?”

“Oh, no, dear,” she said, smiling. “Everyone in there still has his or her backaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis, believe me. No one has regained a breath of youth. There’s been no laying on of hands here, except to do something mercifully charitable. It makes you feel better, even better than they do,” she added. “Give it a try.”

She opened her door. I hesitated.

“I hope I’m not going to hear a lot of consoling, Margaret. I’ll feel trapped in there.”

“Don’tcha think I know that, dear? Everyone knows what you’ve suffered, but no one is going to dwell on it. I can guarantee that.”

“What did you do, warn them I was coming and tell them to mind their p’s and q’s?”

“Of course,” she said.

I had to laugh, and then I stepped out into the bright sunshine. It was funny how more often than not these past months, I was unaware of whether it was overcast or sunny when I stepped out of the house. The joke about people in Southern California was that they were oblivious about the weather because, except for the June gloom at the beaches, it was always the same. The weatherman could tape his report a week before sometimes.

“When days are as glorious as this,” Margaret said, seeing me squint, “you can’t help but believe there’s good about.”

She reached toward me as if I were adrift and she could pull me to safety. I took her hand.

“Try to have faith, dear,” she said. “No matter how long the day, the evening will come.”

“Not my day,” I said. “And I don’t look forward much to evenings anymore.”

She ignored that, kept her smile, and led me to the entrance. The senior center had a small lobby brightened by a skylight window, but the center itself was really just one big room with long tables now covered with white paper tablecloths. There was a kitchen behind it. The settings on the tables consisted of paper plates, paper cups, and plastic forks, spoons, and knives. To take away from the austere appearance, vases of fake colorful flowers were spaced along the tables. The walls had clean light brown paneling, and the floor was a dark brown Spanish title. The walls held plaques given out at senior events, pictures of presidents and governors, and pictures of philanthropic benefactors. Two women were putting jugs of water on the tables. They waved to Margaret and waited for us to enter.

“This is my neighbor, Grace Clark,” Margaret said. “Grace, this is Sheila Bracken and Delores McMann.”

Both wiped their hands on their aprons and held them out at once. I greeted them both but kept my gaze on Sheila. I was expecting them to look uncomfortable, not knowing what to say, but neither lost her smile. Margaret apparently had given them firm orders that included “not a drop of sadness splashed on your face.” I could hear her say it.

“Welcome to the feed,” Delores said. “Just watch your hand if you put something on the table in front of one of our guests. Some of them are downright cannibals.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Margaret said. “Don’t go turning her into a Nervous Nelly. She’ll move so much on her toes that she’ll look like she’s in a ballet.”

They both laughed.

“Irma and Mr. Packwood are in the kitchen,” Delores said. She widened her big brown eyes and lifted her eyebrows, deepening the furrows in her forehead. “Someone forgot the napkins.” She swung her eyes toward Sheila.

“No one told me in so many words,” Sheila said in her defense.

“How many words does it take?” Delores retorted. “You know how we go through them. Anyway, I sent Mr. Huber out for a couple of cases. Mr. Huber looks after the building,” she told me. “We do lunches five times a week, and every other weekend, we hold a dance with refreshments.”

“A dance?”

“Slow,” Sheila said. “Five steps a minute.”

The two of them laughed.

“Blarney. I’ve seen a few of them tear up a rug,” Margaret said. “How about Mr. Martin and that Mrs. Stern? She taught ballroom dancing, you know.”

“I thought she might have done that,” Sheila said.