Stranger in the House (3 page)

“You’re sure it’s Paul.”

Buddy nodded. “It’s your boy all right. She still had the little clothes he was wearing when they took him. Pictures of him. The works. Evidently the woman believed that this terminal illness was some kind of punishment for her crime. She wanted to set accounts straight, make sure the boy would be returned to you.”

“What about her husband?”

Buddy grimaced. “Well, that’s a problem. It seems that she told him what she planned to do because he cut out of there before she even died. He’s been on the run ever since. The man is a little disturbed, I’m afraid. From what I understand, he’s had a history of hospitalization for mental illness.”

“Oh, God, no.”

“As far as we can determine, he never hurt the…Paul…in any way. He was just not quite right. The woman apparently was okay. She worked as a nurse and took care of them. Anyway, the police are looking for this guy, Rambo. And the FBI. They’ll find him.”

“Where is Paul now? When can I go there? I have to see him.”

“He’s still being questioned by the Hawley police. They’re trying to find out what they can. Getting the story in bits and pieces. You’ve got to remember, this has come as a real jolt to all of them. They’ve known these Rambos for some years. You should have heard this sheriff on the phone. I could barely understand him for his drawl.” Buddy chuckled.

“Buddy, I need to go to my son,” Anna persisted.

Buddy squeezed her hand. “Anna, I want you to trust me on this. They’re taking good care of Paul. You’ll have him back here with you in a couple of days.”

“I can’t wait a couple of days!” she cried.

“We don’t want a media circus. This is a shock for Paul, too. It would be best to keep it quiet.”

Anna shook her head helplessly. “You’re right. I know that what you say makes sense.”

“There’s a lot we don’t know yet. The boy was too young to remember it. But we’re getting what information we can. The important thing is that he’s alive. And we’ve found him.”

“I won’t really believe it until I’m holding him.”

“Believe it. Before you know it, you’ll have your boy back.”

Anna looked up at him with serious, tear-filled eyes. “I never gave up on him, Buddy. Sometimes I thought I was losing my mind over this. I always believed that he’d come home.”

“You were right,” the detective said.

Tears began to dribble down Anna’s face again. For the first time in eleven years she pictured her son in her mind, and her heart did not twist in agony but was filled with joy. What did he look like now? How would he be? Would he know her, and she him? Suddenly she looked up at the detective. “I have to tell Thomas. And Tracy. I have to find them.”

“Do you know where they are?” Buddy asked.

“They’re over at the tennis courts in the park. I have to tell them.” Anna scrambled to her feet and looked around the room confusedly. “I need the keys. Where did I put the keys?” She wiped her tears away, but they continued to flow.

“Never mind,” said Buddy, standing up. “I’ll drive you over there. You’re in no state to be driving.”

Anna raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “You’re right. Oh, let’s go.”

Anna and Buddy hardly spoke on the way to the park. Buddy glanced over at Anna briefly and felt a wave of apprehension at the sight of her delicate profile. The suffering she had endured was visible in the lines on her face, especially in her forehead. Her soft brown hair was streaked with strands of gray. But her eyes were shining now, and her skin had a high color that had been missing for a long time. These years had taken a high toll on her and her family, he thought. He offered a silent prayer that her ordeal would be over now. He wished he could dispel the uneasy feeling that had plagued him all day, whenever he thought of Paul’s homecoming.

They passed through the stone columns which flanked the entrance to the park. Anna nervously directed him to the tennis courts, which were beyond the baseball diamond. As they pulled up to the courts, Anna could see through the climbing roses and the green chain links of the court walls the neon flash of Tracy’s coltish legs sheathed in purple spandex bike shorts, and the back of Thomas’s compact, muscular figure in white across the net.

“Okay,” she said aloud, as if preparing herself.

“Do you want me to wait?”

Anna stirred and faced him in a daze. Then she shook her head. “Tom will drive home. Buddy, I can never thank you enough.” She leaned over and embraced him fervently for a second. Then she began to slide out of the car. As she put her hand on the door handle, she turned back to him, a worried frown on her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Buddy, I keep thinking about this man, this kidnapper…”

“Rambo?”

“Yes. You say there’s something wrong with him mentally. We don’t know what he might do….”

Buddy dismissed her fears with a wave of his hand. “I have a feeling that Mr. Rambo is trying to get as far away from you and your son as he can. I’ll call you tomorrow with all the arrangements for bringing him home. We’re going to do our best to keep it low profile. Now, go tell your family the good news. Go on.”

Anna smiled and slammed the door behind her. “Good luck,” Buddy blurted out, not quite knowing why. He watched her pensively as she hurried toward the court, bearing her precious piece of news. He had not told her all the Hawley sheriff had had to say about the severity of Albert Rambo’s mental illness. Nor had he conveyed the sheriff’s disturbing description of the sullen, uncooperative youth whose return Anna was anticipating with such joy. Why worry her? he thought. Things will all work out. But Buddy could not shake off the feeling of anxiety that had crept up on him again.

“Now you’re in trouble,” Tracy cried out as the racket connected with the ball at the sweet spot, with a hum and a thwack.

Thomas watched the ball and leapt for it. He slid into position and drew back his arm to swing, but his concentration was broken by the sight of Anna, who had thrown open the door to the court and was rushing toward him. He smiled and waved when he saw her, and then he frowned as he saw the expression on her face.

“Mo-ther!” Tracy cried in a voice shrill with exasperation. “Get off the court. You don’t belong here.”

Anna did not even seem to hear her daughter. She ran up to Thomas and then stopped short, a foot shy of him. She clasped her hands together and stared into her husband’s baffled face.

“Tom, I have to tell you something.”

“What is it, honey?” he asked worriedly. “What’s the matter?” He took a step toward her.

“It’s Paul.”

Thomas’s mouth tightened, and his eyes narrowed with wariness. “We’re right in the middle of a game, Anna,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Tracy yelled across the court. The players on the adjacent court looked over at them through the mesh wall and then back at one another before resuming their game.

“Tom, Buddy Ferraro was just here. At our house. Thomas, Paul’s been found. He’s been found alive. The woman who kidnapped him died and left a confession. Tom, he’s alive. He’s coming home. Paul’s coming home.” Anna’s face crumpled, and she buried it in her hands.

Thomas stared at his wife in disbelief. “What?” he whispered.

Anna nodded. “It’s true. I’m telling you it’s true. Paul is coming back to us.”

It seemed to Thomas that the pulsing of blood in his ears was muffling the words she was saying. They were words he had never expected to hear. When he tried to picture the boy, there was only a blank spot in his mind, only the black hole with which he had willfully replaced his son’s image through the years.

Anna was gazing at him now, gripping his hands. The warmth of her hands and the intensity in her eyes seemed to revive him. Feeling returned to him, in the form of an acute tenderness for her. She stood bravely before him, like a sapling that had withstood a pitiless gale.

He slipped his arms around her and drew her to his chest, his hands resting awkwardly on her back. “I knew it,” she said, her cheek pressed to his sweaty tennis shirt. “I knew he was alive. I knew he’d come back.”

Thomas stroked her hair, staring out over her head. “Paul’s alive,” he murmured. “You always said that. I never thought…I can’t believe it.”

Anna pulled back and looked into her husband’s eyes. The tears were starting again in her own. “Oh, darling,” she whispered.

Thomas squeezed her arms, wishing he could find his tears, but he felt as if they were trapped in a knot in the pit of his stomach. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “God, it’s unbelievable.”

“Forget it,” Tracy screamed from across the court. She threw down her racket, which clattered to the ground, and started to stalk off the court. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you can find yourself somebody else to play with.”

“No, Tracy,” Anna cried, disengaging herself from Thomas’s arms and hurrying toward her daughter. She grabbed hold of the top of the net and leaned over it. “Tracy, wait. We have to tell you something. Wait for me.” Anna did not want to yell the news out in front of the other players. But Tracy reached defiantly for the door of the court and yanked it open.

“Tracy, listen to me,” Anna pleaded. “Your brother has been found. Paul. Paul is coming back.”

Tracy turned around and faced her mother, who leaned toward her, clutching the top of the net between them. Behind her mother, her father stood immobile, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

Slowly the blood drained away from Tracy’s tanned and freckled face. She seemed rooted there, staring at them, her eyes wide and blank. For a moment her hand remained frozen to the door of the cage. Then her hand dropped, leaden, to her side. The chain link gate swung back and clanged shut behind her.

“A
ll right, sleeping beauty, rise and shine.”

Anna forced her eyes open like someone coming out of anesthesia and looked up groggily. Thomas was standing beside the bed in his bathrobe, holding a tray of food, decorated with one of the dahlias from her garden propped up in a juice glass.

She pulled the sheet up over her breasts and sat up with a sleepy smile. “Honey, what’s this?”

Thomas looked down at the tray. “It’s eggs, toast, coffee, and Bloody Marys!” Then he shot her a smile. “I forgot the milk. Here, hold this,” he said, placing the tray on her knees atop the sheets. “I’ll be right back.”

“What time is it?” she called after his disappearing back.

“Almost eleven. I figured you needed the sleep.”

Anna leaned back against the pillows and smiled at the tray on her lap. Then she gazed around the sunny bedroom. The wedding ring quilt was wadded up at the end of the bed, and their clothes were strewn on the bedpost and the floor, the telltale trail of lovers’ impatience.

Yesterday, after they had gotten back from the tennis court, they had spent the balance of the day on the telephone and sharing with family and friends the incredible news. Thomas had gone out for Chinese food and brought it home at about nine o’clock. Tracy had pleaded an upset stomach and closeted herself in her room for the rest of the night. At about midnight Thomas had unplugged the phone and hustled Anna up to the bedroom, where, with an enthusiasm and a sense of urgency she had not seen from him in a while, he made love to her as if it were their last night together. At his moment of climax he had let out a cry so close to anguish that it startled her. She soothed him until he fell asleep, but she was awake most of the night, thinking about the miraculous news with a heart and mind so full that they would not admit sleep. It was nearly dawn when exhaustion finally claimed her.

The door to the bedroom opened again, and Thomas came in, carrying a small creamer of milk. He placed it on the tray and sat down carefully beside her on the bed. “Damn the crumbs, let’s eat!”

Anna reached over and stroked the side of his face. “What a sweet thing to do,” she said.

Thomas shrugged. “I thought we should celebrate. Besides, we hardly had a moment together yesterday. It was so crazy around here.”

“Where’s Trace?”

“She took off early on her bike. She left a note saying she was going to Mary Ellen’s.”

“I think she’s upset by all of this,” said Anna. Thomas stirred the Bloody Mary with a celery stalk and handed it to his wife. Anna obediently took a sip.

“It’s a big change,” said Tom. “It’s a big change for all of us. But she’ll be happy about it when she sees what a difference it’s going to make in our lives.”

Anna sighed and smiled at him. “I think so, too. Our son. Back home with us, and safe.”

Thomas nodded and took a bite of the eggs. “We’ll have a normal life again. Like other families.”

Anna nodded, but she spoke a little defensively. “Well, we’ve had a pretty normal life, under the circumstances.”

“I know,” said Tom quickly. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It will just be that much better a life for having Paul back with us,” she explained.

“I just meant,” said Tom, “you know, that all that awful business will be over. You running off to every corner of the country every time we heard of a child somewhere. Those late nights on the phone and all that endless searching, contacting people. Nuts calling up every hour of the day or night with useless information. Reporters and police and psychics. If I never see another one of any of them, it will be too soon.”

“They were all trying to help,” Anna said.

“I’m sure they were, but they put you through a lot. You have to admit it. Now the…now our boy will be back, and we can stop thinking about it. We can get back to living our lives the way we should.” He reached over and squeezed her arms. “You don’t know how I’ve missed it.”

Anna looked at him seriously. “I missed it, too,” she said. “But what other choice did we have?”

Thomas picked up a napkin and wiped his lips. “Right. Right,” he said. “Now you eat those eggs,” he ordered, “before they get cold, and then I think I might just crawl back under those sheets with you.”

Anna laughed and picked up a forkful of eggs. “These look good,” she said. “I may let you have this job since you do it so well. Has Buddy called yet? He was going to arrange for us to talk to Paul today. I’m surprised we haven’t heard from him.”

“I don’t know if he tried,” Tom said. “I’ve still got the phone unplugged.”

“Tom,” Anna protested, “Paul may be trying to reach us.”

“I wanted you to sleep,” he said ruefully. “You were so tired.”

Anna put the tray to one side and leaned over to the phone on the bedside table. “Plug it in for me, will you, darling? I’m going to call Buddy right now.”

“Why don’t you eat first?”

“Just let me find out.”

Thomas removed the tray from the bed with a soft sigh and placed it on the floor. Then he bent down beside the night table and plugged the phone into the jack.

Anna leaned over the edge of the bed and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks.” She picked up the receiver and started to dial.

The arrangements, red tape, and waiting seemed interminable to Anna, but finally they passed. Now, by the light of the early-morning sun through her kitchen window, Anna sat planning the homecoming dinner. The butcher-block surface of her table was littered with open cookbooks. She could feel her cotton shirt already beginning to stick to her back. The August day had started to heat up early. There was usually a breeze that ran through the house, keeping it comfortable, and there were only a few days a year that she even thought of air-conditioning. She hoped to herself that this would not be one of them. She wanted everything to be perfect for Paul’s first night home. She wanted him to like it here.

Anna returned her attention to the cookbooks. He was not coming until about nine tonight. She had to make something she could keep warm, or cook at the last minute. It was hard to know what to make, what he liked to eat. There was a recipe for lobster that looked good. Lobster was something special, and cool. But what if he had allergies to seafood? Lots of people did. She realized that she had no way of knowing about her own son.

She rested her chin on her hand and gazed out over the profusion of plants on the kitchen windowsill. She wondered what he was like now, how he looked. During the last eleven years she had seen him everywhere. On every playground, swinging on the swings, at street corners as she whizzed by in her car, coming toward her down the corridors at Tracy’s school. Her heart would leap to her throat as she spied him, sure it was Paul. His name would be on her lips when, as she looked harder, the vision of his face would dissolve, and she would see before her some strange child with honey-colored hair whom she did not recognize at all. She would turn away quickly, before the little one could see the horror and woe in her eyes.

But tonight she would open the door and he would be there. Tonight.

Tracy, wearing zip-up black spandex and sneakers, entered the kitchen and slumped into a chair without a greeting. Anna pushed the cookbooks aside.

“Did you sleep well?” Anna asked.

“It’s been so noisy around here it woke me up.”

“Oh, I hope I didn’t disturb you, darling. I got up early because I had so much to do,” said Anna, ignoring Tracy’s gloomy expression. “I dusted, waxed the furniture, and then I baked this.” She got up, walked over to the counter, and lifted the lid on the cake dish. She held up the cake she had baked for her daughter’s inspection. It read “Welcome home, Paul” in blue letters arching around the top half of the cake’s chocolate icing. “I made chocolate. I figured all you kids like chocolate. Well, what do you think?”

Tracy stared at the blue writing and then looked up at her mother. “You made that?”

Anna nodded. “Does it look good?”

Tracy folded her arms across her chest and stared sullenly in front of her. “Yeah. Sure.”

Anna returned the cake to the counter and replaced the lid after one last look. She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to Tracy. “What do you want for breakfast, sweetheart?”

“Nothing,” said Tracy.

“Well, you should have something. You can’t go out on an empty—” “Juice.”

“How about some cereal? I can get you some—”

“No! I said juice.”

Just then Thomas walked into the kitchen, still buttoning a cuff on his shirt. He stopped short and looked at his daughter. “It’s too hot to eat,” Tracy insisted to him.

“There’s no need to yell,” said Thomas.

“She tries to force me to eat when I’m not even hungry,” Tracy muttered.

Anna placed a glass of juice in front of her daughter and turned to Thomas. “You had such a restless night,” she said. “I hope I didn’t wake you getting dressed this morning.”

“I woke up for a minute. It was pitch-black out. What time was it anyway?” he asked.

“It must have been about four thirty, quarter to five. I couldn’t sleep,” said Anna. “I was too excited.”

Thomas put his arms around her and squeezed her, kissing her on the forehead.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Anna asked.

“I’m running late. I’ll get something off the cart.”

“Oh, Tom…”

“What’s all this?” he asked, glancing at the pile of cookbooks.

“I’m looking for something to make tonight. I guess I should look through some of those magazines of mine, right?”

“I thought you were saving those for a special occasion,” he said.

Anna smiled happily at the appropriateness of one of their standard jokes. “I’m so worked up I can’t even think straight.”

Tracy scraped back her chair and stood up.

Anna tried to get her daughter’s attention. “What do you think we should have, Tracy?”

“I’m leaving,” Tracy announced.

“Playing tennis this morning?” Anna asked.

“Mmmm…” Tracy mumbled.

“Before you go, dear, I want you to go upstairs and take your stuff out of the guest…out of Paul’s room so I can clean up there.”

“I’ll do it later,” said Tracy. “Bye, Dad.”

Thomas smiled at her. “Good luck,” he said.

Anna picked the glass up from the table. “I want you to do it now. I need to get into that room.”

Tracy stiffened in the doorway. “I have a game this morning.”

“It won’t take you long,” Anna insisted. “You’ve known you had to do this all week. There are things more important than your game. Your brother is coming home tonight.”

Tracy turned on her mother, her small jaw hardening stubbornly. Her hazel eyes were icy with rage. “I don’t care,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

Anna was momentarily speechless, stung by the cold defiance in her daughter’s eyes.

“Tracy,” Thomas ordered, “Do as you’re told.”

“Shit!” Tracy exclaimed, stamping out of the kitchen. “You both stink.”

Anna shook her head and sat down. “God, she is really in a state about this thing. I don’t understand it. Have you tried to talk to her? She just puts up a wall with me.”

Thomas sighed, putting his newspaper in his briefcase. “No,” he admitted. “It’s the same with me.”

“Maybe she’s jealous of all the attention to Paul. You know, she feels usurped,” Anna speculated.

“Well, it does seem to be the only thing anyone has talked about all week,” he said.

“I know,” said Anna, “but that’s only natural. This is a miracle. Of course we’re all excited about it.”

“She might be feeling it’s going to stay that way once he gets here,” said Thomas.

Anna looked at her husband quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Thomas, dismissing it.

He looked at his watch. “She’ll come around,” he said. “Listen, Anna, we’d better run.”

Anna nodded, even though she wished they could continue the conversation. She got up and found her car keys in the little teacup she kept beside the sink. Their second car was in the garage for repairs; that meant she had to drive him to the station.

Thomas shrugged into his jacket and picked up his briefcase.

“I wish you didn’t have to go in today,” she said wistfully.

“It’ll keep my mind occupied,” he said. “Besides, I better not lose this job. I’ve got another kid to put through college now.”

Leafy limbs of ancient maples canopied the quiet back roads of Stanwich. Stately houses overlooked manicured lawns, separated by orchards and stone fences. Few cars passed to disturb the tranquility.

Anna drove and Thomas rode in silence. He had his briefcase open on his lap and was leafing through the reports it contained.

“Tom…” she ventured. “Are you looking forward to tonight?”

Thomas rested his hands in the open briefcase and nodded slowly. “Yes, of course I am.”

“I still can’t believe it. It’s incredible, really,” she continued. “Our son finally coming back to us. We’ll all be together again, the way it used to be. I’m just afraid…I hope that Paul will be…all right.”

Thomas looked at her warily. “Why shouldn’t he?”

Anna twisted her lip and did not reply immediately.