God Save the Child (10 page)

”Oh, Ma… I know what they said. I heard you talking about it with Mr. Trask this afternoon.“ She drank some Tab.

”Well you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t be hearing that sort of thing.“

”Oh, Ma.“

”what exactly happened, Mrs. Bartlett?“ I asked.

”They called about noon,“ she said.

”Did you record it?“

Maguire said, ”No: They took the recorder off this morning about three hours before the call.“

”Okay,“ I said, ”what did they say? Be careful and get it as exact as possible.“

Dolly said, ”Ma, is there any dessert?“

”I don’t know. Look in the cupboard and don’t interrupt.“

She turned toward me. ”The call came about noon. I was in the study running over my lines. I’m playing Desdemona in a production of Othello we’re putting on in town. And the phone rang and I answered it. Hoping it might be about Kevin, and a girl’s voice said, ‘We got Kevin, now we’re going to even it up with you. We’re going to shoot you in the…“ and she used a dirty word.

It refers to the female sex area. Do you know which one I mean? It starts with c.” She glanced at her daughter.

“Yeah, I know the word. Anything else?”

“No. She just said that and hung up. Why would she say that?”

I shrugged. Dolly Bartlett got a package of Nutter Butter cookies from the cabinet and another Tab from the refrigerator and sat back down at the table.

“And you didn’t recognize the voice?”

“No.”

Maguire poured a stiff shot into the glass, added ice and soda, and gave it to Marge Bartlett.

“When you say girl’s voice, how old a girl?”

“Oh, a girl. You know, not a woman, a teenager.”

Dolly Bartlett said, “Ma, why don’t you ever get Coke. I hate Tab.”

“Dolly, damn it, will you not interrupt me? Don’t you realize that I’m under great stress? You might have a little consideration. The Tab has almost no calories. Don’t you care that I’m in danger? Great danger?” Tears began to form, and her lower lip began to quiver. “Oh, goddamn you,” she said and hustled out of the room without spilling her drink.

Maguire said, “Aw, Marge, c’mon,” rolled his eyeballs at me, and hustled out after her. Dolly Bartlett continued to eat her Nutter Butter cookies.

“My name is Spenser,” I said. “I gather you’re Dolly.”

“Yes,” she said. “My name is really Delilah. Isn’t that a dumb name?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Delilah is kind of dumb.”

“Want a cookie?”

I took one. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Want any Tab?”

“No, thank you.” The cookie tasted like a peanut-flavored matchbook.

“She lied to you, you know,” Dolly said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I listened upstairs on the other phone. I do it all the time. If you pick it up before she does, she never notices.

She’s really dumb.”

“What did the girl really say when she called?”

“She said they were going to punish my mother for screwing her as off all over town,” Dolly said. She offered Punkin a Nutter Butter cookie. He sniffed it and refused.

My respect for him increased. “Then the girl said that about shooting her down there. Isn’t that gross?”

“Gross,” I said.

“Don’t tell my mother I told you.”

“I won’t. Did the girl say anything else?”

“No.”

“Do you think what she said about your mother was true?” That was a nice touch; grill the kid about her mother’s sex habits. Nice line of work you’re in, Spenser.

“Oh sure. Everybody knows about my mother except maybe Daddy. She screws with everybody. She screws with Mr. Trask, I know.”

I wanted to know who else but couldn’t bring myself to ask. Instead I said, “Does it bother you?”

“Yeah, of course, but,” she shrugged, “you get used to it, you know?”

“I guess you would, wouldn’t you.”

“Used to drive Kevin crazy, though. I don’t know if he ever got used to it like I did.”

“It’s harder for boys to get used to, maybe,” I said. It wasn’t too easy for me to get used to. Maybe I should become a florist.

She shrugged again.

Her mother came back into the kitchen, her eyes puffy, with fresh makeup around them. Earl Maguire came with her Was she screwing with him? Screwing with Mr. Trask?

Christ.

Marge Bartlett said, “Dolly, go in the den and watch TV, please, darling. Mommy is upset. It will be better for you to go in there now.” She kissed her daughter on top of her head. Dolly picked up the package of cookies. “Come on, Punkin,” she said, and the dog followed her out of the kitchen.

“Well, Mr. Spenser, I see you’ve met my Dolly. Did you and she have a nice talk?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Chief Trask has left a patrolman here to guard the house. But I’d feel much safer if you’d stay too.”

Earl Maguire said, “We’d expect to pay you extra, of course. Mrs. Bartlett has already talked to her husband, and Rog has authorized payment to you.”

“What can I do the cops can’t?”

“You can stay close to me,” Mrs. Bartlett said. “You can go with me when I shop and go to parties and play rehearsal and things. You can be right here in the house.”

“We’d be employing you as a bodyguard,” Maguire said.

“While I’m guarding your body, I can’t be looking for your kid,” I said.

“Just for a little while,” she said. “Please? For me?”

“Okay. I’ll have to go home and pack a suitcase. You’ll be all right with Marsh here. Just stay close till I come back.

This may just be a crank call, you know. Kidnappings and disappearances bring out a lot of crank calls.”

One of the good parts of living alone is when you move out no one minds.

It’s also one of the bad parts. I went home, packed, and was back at the Bartletts’ in an hour and a half.

Roger Bartlett was home from work, and he installed me in a bedroom on the second floor. It was a big pleasant room, paneled in pine planking stained an ice-blue, The ceiling was beamed in a crisscross pattern; there was a wide-board floor and a big closet with folding louvered doors and a bureau built in behind them. There was a double bed with a Hitchcock headboard and a patchwork quilt, a pine Governor Winthrop desk, and a wooden rocker with arms and a rush seat that had been done in an antique-blue and stenciled in gold. There was a blue and red braided rug on the floor, and the drapes on the windows were a red and blue print featuring Revolutionary War scenes. Very nice.

“You eat supper yet?” Roger Bartlett asked.

“No.”

“Me either. Come on down and we’ll rustle up a little grub. Gotta eat to live, right?” I nodded.

“Gotta eat to live,” he repeated and headed downstairs.

A portable TV on the kitchen counter was showing a ball game. The Sox were playing the Angels, and neither was a contender. It was nearly the end of the season, and the announcers and the crowd noise reflected that fact. There is nothing quite like the sound of a pointless ball game late in the season. It is a very nostalgic sound. Sunday afternoon, early fall, car radio, beach traffic.

Bartlett handed me a can of beer, and I sipped it looking at the ball game. Order and pattern, discernible goals strenuously sought within rigidly defined rules. A lot of pressure and a lot of grace, but no tragedy. The Summer Game.

“What do you think about this stuff, Spenser? What’s going on?” Bartlett was cutting slices of breast meat from a roast turkey. “I mean, where’s my kid? Why does someone want to kill my wife? What the hell have I ever done to anybody?”

“I was going to ask you,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this whole thing smells of revenge. It smells of harassment. It just doesn’t feel right as a kidnapping. The time between the disappearance and the ransom demand.

The peculiar note. The peculiar phone call. The trick with the coffin—someone put a lotta work into that. Now the threatening phone call—if it’s not just a crank. Someone doesn’t like you or your wife or both.”

“But who the hell…” Marge Bartlett came in carrying the highball glass. Her lipstick was fresh and her hair was combed and her eye shadow looked newly applied.

She poked the glass at her husband. “Fill ’er up,” she said and giggled. “Fill ‘er up. Or is there a fuel shortage?”

“Why don’t you slow down, Marge?” Bartlett said. He took the glass.

“Slow down. Slow down. That’s all you can say. Slow down. Well I’m not going to slow down. Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse. That’s my motto.”

She did a pirouette and bumped against the counter.

“Everything is slow down with you, Roger. Old slow-down-Roger, that’s you.”

Bartlett gave her a new drink.

“You want mayonnaise?” He asked me.

“Please,” I said. He put a plate of sliced turkey, a jar of mayonnaise, some bread-and-butter pickles, and a loaf of oatmeal bread on the table. “Help yourself,” he said.

“My God, Roger,” Marge Bartlett said. “Is that how you’re going to feed him? No plate? No napkins? Can’t you even make a salad? We have those nice mugs for beer that Dolly and I bought you.”

“It’s a lot better than the way you’re feeding him,” Bartlett answered. “Or me.”

“Oh, certainly. I should be cooking a big meal when my very life has been threatened. I should be keeping your supper warm in the oven when you won’t even come home from work to protect me.”

“Christ! Trask was here and Paul Marsh and Earl. I was way the hell and gone out past Worcester on a job.”

“Well, why don’t you work closer to home, anyway?

You’re never around when I need you.”

“I can’t find enough work close to home to pay for all the goddamned scotch you drink.”

“You bastard,” she said and threw her drink at him. A little scotch spattered on my turkey sandwich. Not a bad combination.

“Oh, stop showing off for Spenser,” Bartlett said. He got a paper towel and wiped up the moisture on the table. She made a new drink.

“i’m sorry, Mr. Spenser. It’s just that I’m under great strain, as you might imagine. I’m an artist. I’m volatile; I’m quick to anger.”

“Yeah,” I said, “both those things. You got a lousy arm, though. You got scotch on my sandwich.”

She drank half her drink. Not only her face but her whole body seemed to get progressively slacker as she drank. Her voice got harsher, while her language got more affected. I wondered if the progress continued until she sank to the floor screaming nonsense. I didn’t think I’d find out. I was pretty sure I’d crack first.

“Can you think of any connection between this death threat and Kevin’s disappearance?” Slick how smoothly I changed the subject.

“I think someone is out to get us,” she said. Oddly, I agreed with her. It made me nervous.

“Who the hell would be out to get us?” Bartlett said.

“We haven’t got any enemies.”

“How about in business? Got anyone mad at you there?

Fire anyone? Out-shrewd someone?”

He shook his head. His wife said, “Not good old Rog.

Everybody likes good old Rog. Everyone thinks he’s so terrific. Everyone feels sorry for him married to a bitch. But I know him. The bastard.”

“How about you?” I said to her. “Anyone you can think of that has reason to hate you? Or hates you without reason?” She looked at me blankly. The booze was weaving its magic spell. “Any old boyfriends, disappointed lovers?”

“No”—she shook her head angrily—“of course not.”

“Can either of you think of anyone at all who hates you enough to give you this kind of trouble?” Blank stares.

“There must be someone. Maybe hate is too strong a word.

Who dislikes you the most of anyone you know?”

In a voice thick and furry with booze she said, “Kevin.”

Bartlett said, “Marge, for God’s sake.”

“It’s true,” she said. “The little sonova bitch hates us.”

“Marge, goddamn you. You leave my kid alone. He didn’t kidnap himself.”

“The little sonova bitch.” She was mumbling now.

“She’s drunk as a goddamned skunk, Spenser I’m putting her to bed. Drunk as a skunk.” He took her arm, and she sagged protestingly away from him. “Sonova bitch.” She began to giggle. “He’s the little sonova bitch, and you’re the big sonova bitch.” She sat down on the floor still giggling. I got up.

“You need any help?” I said.

He shook his head. “I’ve done this before.”

“Okay, then I’ll go to bed. Thanks for supper” As I went. out of the kitchen I saw Dolly Bartlett scuttle up the stairs ahead of me and into her room. Pleasant dreams, kid.

The next morning, Saturday, Kevin’s guinea pig turned up. I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Globe when I heard Marge Bartlett scream in the front hall. A short startled scream and then a long steady one. When I got there the front door was ajar, and she was holding an open package about the size of a shoe box. I took it from her.

Inside was a dead guinea pig on its back, its short legs sticking stiffly up. I looked out the door. A young Smithfield cop I didn’t know came busting around the corner of the house with a shotgun at high port.

“It’s okay,” I said. Marge Bartlett continued to scream steadily. Now that I was holding the package her hands were free, and she put both of them over her face. The cop came in holding the shotgun down along the side of his leg, the muzzle pointing at the floor. He looked in the box and made a face. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

“It came in the mail,” I said. “I suppose it’s the same one the kid took with him when he disappeared.”

Marge Bartlett stopped screaming. She nodded without taking her hands from her face. The cop said, “I’ll call Trask,” and headed back for the cruiser in the driveway. I took the box and wrapping paper and dead guinea pig into the kitchen and sat down at the table and looked at them.

There was nothing to suggest what killed the guinea pig.

The box said Thom McAn on the cover, and the brown paper in which it had been wrapped looked like all the other brown paper wrapping in the world. The box had been mailed in Boston, addressed to Mrs. Margery Bartlett.

There was no return address. They’re too smart for me, I thought.