The Battered Body (26 page)

Because Kyle Mills was headed in the opposite direction with both dogs, James agreed. “But let’s hurry. We don’t need to make Mr. Mills suspicious, or we might never hear from him again.”

He and Lucy trotted over the rough path, which wound through the pines and sloped gently downhill. Irritated at how quickly he became winded as he jogged behind Lucy’s fleeter form, James vowed to be more disciplined about hitting the gym after work.

Now that Bennett’s done with his studying, we can work out together again
, he thought and decided to e-mail his friend as soon as he got back to the library so that they could schedule some cardio and weightlifting sessions.

“Look!” Lucy stopped abruptly as a small cabin came into view. “This has
got
to be where Russ stayed.” With a burst of speed, she ran down the remainder of the path. By the time James joined her, she had knocked on the front door, tried the knob, and peered in all four windows.

“I can’t see a thing!” She sighed in frustration. “Dark curtains, a locked door. Damnation! I don’t dare force my way in. I’ll have to do things the right way and come back with a warrant to search this cabin.”

Relieved that Lucy was refraining from hurling a rock through the nearest window, James also tried to see inside, but the navy curtains were tightly closed, leaving no line of sight into the one-room cabin. He and Lucy walked around the perimeter once more, looking everywhere for clues. Aside from a stack of firewood, there was nothing of note near the cabin.

“It would have been nice to find a bloodied shovel right here.” Lucy frowned as she gestured at the wood pile.

James noticed an object resting on the top of a stack of kindling. “Turtle shell,” he said, passing the tawny hull to Lucy. “And here’s another one.”

Accepting the shells, Lucy inspected them carefully and then returned them to the wood pile. Grabbing James by the elbow, she said, “We’re done here, but we’re not leaving empty handed. We’ve got a lead, James!
A lead!
I need to get back to my computer right away!” She winked at James, her face flushed with excitement and hope. “Good work, my friend. I’m going to run to the Jeep now. See if you can keep up.”

Back at the library, James had trouble focusing on his regular tasks. As he assisted patrons in finding books or directed students to helpful periodicals and Internet sites so they might effectively research their latest school project, part of his mind kept trying to conjure an image of Russ DuPont.

What did this mysterious young man look like? Did he have a bulky, muscular body and an angry face with a pair of black, hate-filled eyes? Was he quiet to the point of brooding while he spent hours plotting acts of violence as he went about his tasks on the Cornflower Goat Farm? How did he tie into the murders? He couldn’t have known Paulette when she was a child in Natchez. He wouldn’t even have been born by the time she left the town for good, destined for Paris and a future of fame and wealth.

Yet he tried to raise laying hens
, James thought.

During a lull in activity shortly after four in the afternoon, James settled down at one of the computers in the Tech Corner and began to search for articles on salmonella. Several of the resources he found concentrated on how to avoid being exposed to the harmful bacteria, while others described the physical symptoms one experienced once one was infected.

“Ugh,” James grimaced as he read. “What a messy illness. You’re going to experience vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, or all three if you ingest that nasty bug. You’d better come down with salmonella in the privacy of your own home.”

“Excuse me, Professor,” Scott interrupted apologetically as he peered over his boss’s shoulder. “I’ve gotta know what you’re investigating over here. You’re making all sorts of funny faces and you’re talking to yourself.”

Tapping the computer screen, James replied, “I’m wondering how eggs get tainted by salmonella. I know that the bacteria can be found in eggs and poultry, meat products, unprocessed milk, and even in water, but
why
are some eggs more susceptible than others?”

Fascinated, Scott’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Unhealthy chickens can lay eggs with thin shell walls,” he read from an online medical encyclopedia. “If the chickens live in an unclean environment, such as, um, sitting around in their own feces, they lay eggs with thinner-than-normal shell walls. That makes it easier for the bacteria to pass through the shell and into the egg.” He grimaced. “Gross.”

“So if someone bought sick laying hens, and
deliberately
kept them in a polluted environment, the chickens would produce infected eggs,” James mused to himself.

Scott was completely absorbed by a microscopic image of the bacteria. “Man, I’ll have to remember not to eat raw turtle or lizard eggs if I end up stranded on a deserted island.” He turned to whisper to Francis, who was wiping off the computer screens using a specialized cleanser. “Do you think any of those
Survivor
contestants ever got salmonella? They eat wacko stuff on that show. I’m sure at least one of them has eaten undercooked lizard.”

Intrigued by the subject, Francis paused in his cleaning and told his brother to search for exotic foods eaten by the reality show’s contestants. As the twins groaned in distaste over the idea of consuming crickets, beetles, and maggots, James decided someone should return to man the vacant chair at the information desk.

“But I’d never eat a grasshopper!” Scott whispered in horror. “Way too crunchy.”

“Crunchy’s better than gooey,” Francis argued. “You could pretend a grasshopper was a potato chip with legs or a granola cluster, perhaps. I don’t think you could talk yourself into believing larvae were anything
but
larvae. Totally revolting.”

“Totally,” Scott said in agreement.

James filled the copier and sundry printers with fresh supplies of paper, took care of a few transfer requests, and tidied up the bookmark displays and a stack of schedules detailing the library events for the month of January. That done, he spent a few minutes assisting a young mother track down several cookbooks featuring meals that could be made in thirty minutes or less.

“Now, if only there were a book that could teach me to put my kids in a harmless trance for half an hour,” she joked, and James pretended to take her request seriously.

“I’m sure we have a book or two on hypnotism,” he said with a grin. He patiently listened to her describe how chaotic her household was between the hours of four and eight. She then declared that by the next time he saw her again she might need a reference book on battling fatigue
and
insanity.

James recalled hearing this complaint from other patrons raising small children. Rushing to the stacks, he grabbed the book he had heard several moms praise and hurried back to the checkout computer with a copy of
Time Out for Mom
. “I think you need this one too.”

“Oh, I sure do!” The woman looked delighted. Thanking him, she left the library with a lightness to her step.

Feeling pleased with himself, James surveyed his peaceful kingdom and was once again shocked to recognize the face and figure of his ex-wife standing near the Children’s Corner. As though sensing he was watching her, Jane looked up from the book she held, smiled, and walked over to him.

“Sorry to pop up like this again,” she whispered. “It was so great to talk to you the other night, but I felt like I had really picked a bad time to seek you out.”

“Yes, there were quite a few things going on,” James admitted. “But for you to just disappear …,” he trailed off, no longer feeling angry about her behavior, merely puzzled.

She reached across the desk and covered his hand with hers. “I wasn’t trying be dramatic, I assure you. I have some things to tell you, but it’s a conversation that requires a bit of quiet and privacy. And it so happens, this is the perfect setting.”

More mystified than ever, James could merely nod.

“First of all, I wanted you to know that I’m no longer teaching at William & Mary. I’m at James Madison now.” She smiled. “I love it. What a gorgeous campus!”

“Wow. You’re so close,” he replied dumbly. “Did you change colleges because you and Kenneth broke up?”

“Partially,” she replied enigmatically. “But like I told you before, Kenneth’s been out of the picture for quite a while. I moved to Harrisonburg to start a new life. Getting rid of Kenneth was just the first step toward that goal.”

James stared at Jane as she talked, noting how she spoke with so much more calm than when they were married. There was a serenity and contentedness to her expression, as though she had discovered the secret to happiness and now guarded it with careful devotion. He couldn’t believe she was the same woman he had once known. She seemed so approachable, so comfortable in her own skin, and so incredibly lovely.

Stop it!
He chided himself.
You’ve got enough going on without falling for your ex-wife all over again!

Still smiling, Jane squeezed his hand and said, “Follow me for a moment, would you?”

James came around the desk and gazed at her searchingly, but she said nothing. She led him toward the Children’s Corner, where a young boy who looked to be about four years old was slowly turning the pages of an oversized picture book about animals in the zoo. Jane took James by the hand and nudged him toward a wooden chair.

“Hold on to the back of that chair,” she commanded in a friendly tone.

Utterly confused, James glanced at the boy again. He had light brown hair and was dressed in jeans and a gray sweater. His scarf was covered with racecars and his bright green rubber boots were shaped like frogs. Suddenly, he looked up from the book and looked right at James.

“My God,” James breathed as he stared at the child. From the warm, brown eyes to the slight smattering of freckles across the nose, to the kind, rather serious face—he was the spitting image of James as a four-year-old boy.

“This is Eliot Henry,” Jane whispered so softly that James could barely hear her. “I named him after my favorite poet. He’s your son.”

At those words, James felt as though his world had instantaneously turned upside down. His heart began to beat in hummingbird time and a buzzing sound rang in his ears, as though hundreds of bees had swarmed around his head. Somehow, he sank into the chair. Reaching down, he gripped the wooden seat in an effort to keep himself from floating away, his knuckles white with shock.

“James?” Jane grasped his shoulder. “Are you breathing?”

Blinking, James could not take his eyes off the boy. Even as his mind started to question the validity of Jane’s statement, his heart stopped the thought from fully developing, for it knew she spoke the truth. His eyes confirmed what his heart felt. The boy was a Henry through and through.

“Eliot,” James murmured, spellbound by the name, by the sweet, young face, by the sheer joy that coursed through his body and threatened to cause him to violently explode like a balloon filled with too much air.

“I found out I was pregnant soon after I left you,” Jane whispered into his ear, careful to make sure that the boy couldn’t overhear. “I didn’t know if the baby was yours or Kenneth’s. You and I had had that one night together a week or so before I left you, so I couldn’t be sure. I’m sorry James. I handled
so
many things badly. It wasn’t until Kenneth and I were on the rocks that I finally had a DNA test done. A part of me had always known that Eliot was yours, but I was a fool and I wanted things to work out with Kenneth. I thought having his baby would instantly make us a happy little family.” She shook her head regretfully. “Like I said, I was a fool.”

She paused, her voice trembling. “It wasn’t until Eliot was two that I realized you must be his real father. Kenneth became aware of it too. It wasn’t just that they looked nothing alike, but they never formed a bond either. That’s when things really changed between us. He …,” she struggled to speak the words, “began to be cruel to Eliot. At first, the attacks were all verbal, usually occurring after Kenneth had been out drinking with his law partners. But one day …”

James tore his eyes away from the little boy and looked at Jane in horror. “He didn’t!” His fists clenched in wrath. “He couldn’t have!”

Swallowing hard, Jane continued. “Kenneth slapped him for spilling a glass of red wine. It was a simple accident. Eliot has always been a polite and well-behaved child. Always kind and sympathetic and affectionate.” Jane’s face twisted in anguish. “Kenneth said that Eliot had done it on purpose and smacked him so hard across the face that I thought Eliot lost all his baby teeth then and there. That’s what it took for me to wake up. Eliot paid the price for my insecurity and stupidity, but he’ll never suffer because of me again.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “We moved out that night when Kenneth went out for drinks with the guys. Since we weren’t married and had separate bank accounts, it was a quick and final break. And we’ve never looked back. Eliot doesn’t even remember Kenneth.”

As though fearing the boy might disappear if he looked away from him for too long, James returned his focus to his son. He couldn’t stop drinking in the sight of the sweet face, the small hands, the relaxed limbs, the curious eyes darting over the images in the book.