The Blood Lie (7 page)

By the turn of the century, fancy guesthouses circled the springs. Entire families checked in with their servants for a week or two at a time, bathing in the rank water and glopping on the rotten mud. Soon, laborers moved in to work as cooks, housekeepers and maids. Local boys made extra money on weekends as dippers, lugging large canisters of sulfur water to the bathtubs of guests who were too rich or too lazy to go outside.

Then the craze passed. The laborers left town, and the guesthouses stood mostly empty. Massena was no longer special, no longer noticed. Colorless, featureless, bland. Just another pit town on the river.

The Bentley School will be my ticket out of here
, Jack told himself, gripping the
shofar.
First to Syracuse for two years, then maybe to a conservatory in New York City or Boston. After that, anything would be possible.

“
Birds do it, bees do it, even lazy jellyfish do it. Let's do it…let's fall in love,
” he sang absently. “
I'm sure sometimes on the sly you do it. Maybe even you and I might do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love
.”

Jack took up his cello again, but the doorbell rang before he could begin. He thought it might be Abe Goldberg, or maybe Mrs. Kauffman delivering her famous cheese blintzes, or even his own father, who sometimes forgot his house key. But when he heard his mother saying, “Yes?” in the same wary tone she used with traveling salesmen, he knew it must be a stranger.
But at 8:15 in the evening? That's odd
. Setting his cello aside, he went downstairs to see who it was.

“Can I help you?” Mrs. Pool was asking. She was talking to a cop—a tall man with a red mustache, a dark uniform shining with brass buttons, and a sheath of stubble starting to shadow his cheeks.

Jack's chest clamped. What was a cop doing at his house? Where was his father?

“Evening,” the officer said. “Trooper Victor Brown here. I'm calling for some help with the missing girl.”

“Missing girl?” Jack and his mother asked in unison, stepping out of the doorway to let him in.

“It's been on the radio—and the street—all day.”

“I don't play the radio on the Sabbath,” Mrs. Pool said.

“It ain't Sunday yet, ma'am,” Victor said.

“Yes, but our—” She pressed her lips shut. “What girl?”

“Daisy Durham. Mrs. Jenna Durham's daughter.”

“Daisy?” Jack said.

“What? How long has she been gone?” Mrs. Pool asked.

“Since around one,” the trooper said. “A long time. Half the town is out looking for her. Her mother's been trying to get you all afternoon.”

“I don't answer the phone on the Sabbath, either,” she said. “Daisy did spend the morning with us. My son walked her home—she went straight home. Oh, this is terrible. How can I help?”

“Actually, ma'am, the reason I'm here is, I'd like to talk to your son. Is this him here?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

“Your name is Jack?”

“Yes.”

“I'd like to ask you a few things, if you don't mind.”

“Why?” Mrs. Pool asked.

“Just fact-checking, ma'am, that's all. Sort of retracing Daisy's steps.”

“I guess that would be all right. Come in.” She led him to the kitchen table and then stood by the stove, pretending to watch over the already-cooked soup. The trooper glanced around the kitchen, sniffed a few times quickly, grimaced, and swallowed—all so quick, you wouldn't have noticed unless you were watching. Which Jack was.

He took a seat. The trooper straddled the chair opposite him. “So then, you weren't aware that Daisy's gone missing?” he asked.

“No. I walked her home right at noon and haven't heard anything since. I worked all afternoon and part of the evening, then I came back here.”

“That so? I'm told you were down at the diner this evening.”

“Oh, yeah. I was. I stopped at the Sit Down for a bite on my way home from work.” He paused. “I didn't know that was important.”

“I'm told you were talking about Daisy there. So I'm just wondering—”

Mrs. Pool slammed the lid on the soup pot and started toward the table, but Jack motioned for her to wait. “I didn't talk to anybody about Daisy,” he said. “Why would I, when I didn't even know she was missing?”

The trooper didn't say anything.

“I don't know where Daisy is, Officer,” Jack went on. “If I did, I'd tell you.”

“I believe you, Jack. Of
course
you don't know where Daisy is. But let me ask you this. Do you have any guesses—just
guesses—about how she might have disappeared?”

“Now listen here,” Mrs. Pool said. “You have no right—”

“Okay, listen, both of you,” the trooper said. “Jack. Mrs. Pool. I'm gonna give it to you plain. I'm told you people believe a sacrifice—a blood sacrifice of a Christian child—is proper in celebrating your holidays. You have a holiday coming up, right? And now we have a Christian child missing out of the blue. So it's only logical for me to suppose…”

Jack and his mother stared at the trooper. Blood sacrifice?
Blood sacrifice?

Jack wished his mother would start to cry. Someone needed to cry, and he didn't want to be the one. Then for an instant, he thought he might laugh. He thought his churning belly and his burning throat might erupt in a full-out spasm of laughter. But that instant passed quickly, giving way to gagging fear.

“
Oh my God!
” he heard his mother roar. “Get out of my house! Take your horrid lies and get out of here!”

“Ma'am, easy.” Victor stood up. “I'm just checking out possibilities.”

“
Out!
” she shouted, grabbing her broomstick from the corner and pointing the handle at him. “Get out of my house!”

By this time, Harry and Martha had abandoned their spy post in the next room and were gaping in the kitchen doorway. “Mama?” Martha asked, wide-eyed.

“I said get out.” Mrs. Pool's voice turned quiet and low, like a growl, and she raised the broom a little higher. “But tell me one thing first. What does Jenna Durham have to say about this stupid idea of yours?”

“She doesn't know. Not from me, anyway. She took to bed some time ago.”

“Good. Now go.” She took a step closer and shoved the broomstick under his nose.

“This isn't over,” Victor said, taking a step back. “Not nearly.” He turned around and strode quickly out of the house. Jack heard the click of the door lock and the thump of the broom returning to the corner, and then his mother was sitting next to him at the table, her hands clenched and her cheeks crimson.

“Back upstairs, both of you,” Mrs. Pool ordered Harry and Martha. “You can take down my Chinese checkers set if you wish, but don't come down until I call you. Hurry now.”

Mrs. Pool asked Jack, “Are you all right?”

Jack folded his arms on the kitchen table and let out an unsteady breath. “I guess.”

“Jack, what happened at the diner?”

“Nothing. I sat at the counter, and Gus asked me why I was working so late. I told him we were trying to get a shipment unpacked before the holy day. That's all. Then I ate my eggs and left.”

“Are you certain that's all?”

“Don't you believe me?”

“Of course I do. I'm just trying to figure out who the liar is—the real Jew-hating liar. Who else was there?”

“I don't know, there were a bunch. Roy Royman. Old Man Claghorn. Bucky Sanborn. A bunch. Mama, what did I do?”

“You didn't do anything. And don't you worry—we won't be seeing any more of that trooper, not if he knows what's good for him. But that poor child. And Jenna. The worst thing that could happen to a mother.”

“I need to go help look for Daisy.” He started to stand up.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Absolutely not! They'd sooner see you hanged than let you help.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You stay put. Don't you have some potatoes to peel?”

“Potatoes?”

“A basket of them. In the sink.”

“But shouldn't we—”

“No. Go on now. Do as I say.” She got up and went straight to the telephone in the hallway, where she asked the operator to put her through to Jenna Durham. “Hello, Durham residence?” she said. “Eva Pool calling. Who is this? …Oh, Clarisse. I just heard. I'm so very sorry. Is Jenna available? …I see. Poor dear. Well, I don't want to disturb her if she's resting, of course. I'll try her again later…I shouldn't?…Yes, I understand. I'll wait to hear from you, then. You will let me know if there's anything, anything at all, I can do, won't you?… Yes, of course. Good night, Clarisse.”

Next, Mrs. Pool asked the operator for Pool's Dry Goods. As Jack listened to her whisper into the receiver, he knew the truth. If his mother couldn't wait to talk until Mr. Pool got home, then she was plenty worried.

“Let's head back,” Lydie said when they reached the river. “Daisy's not around here anywhere.”

Emaline hesitated. She listened to the water break on the rocky bank and wondered how fast the current could carry a little girl's body. Maybe Daisy's bloated corpse would get so
far downriver before washing up that the people who found her wouldn't know about her. Maybe they'd bury her in an unmarked grave, and she'd never be laid to rest next to her own father.

The Sacred Heart bells rang nine. “Why isn't anyone out here helping?” Emaline asked impatiently.

“I don't know, but we should really head back.”

“If you think so,” Emaline said, but she didn't move. “Do you want to hear something awful?”

“No.”

“This morning I told Daisy she was a great big pest. She got into my beads, the ones I'm using for Ma's birthday bracelet, and I was so cross, I said, ‘Daisy Elizabeth Durham, if I were rich, the first thing I'd do is get my own house.' I think that might've been the last thing I ever said to her.”

“Hush now.” Lydie pulled her close. “It might've been the last thing you said to her this morning, but you'll have plenty of chances to make up with her.”

“How do you know?” Emaline squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears escaped anyway, rolling down her cheeks to her lips, where she licked them away.

Lydie reached into her coat pocket and brought out a handkerchief. “You know, you're just punishing yourself. And I'll bet your mother is sitting at home doing the same thing, going over everything she said today, everything she didn't say. Where's that getting her? I ask you. More important, where's it getting Daisy? We've got to keep ourselves pulled together now, for Daisy's sake.”

“I don't think I can anymore. I'm all balled up, and my legs are so tired, they feel like applesauce.”

“Come on, then. Let's get you home. A hot bath and a hot drink will do you good.”

“Okay, but I'm going barefoot. My heels are screaming with blisters.”

“Good idea.” Lydie stepped out of her shoes and picked up one in each hand. “The ground's nice and cool. All right, let's go.”

“Look,” Emaline said as they walked. “Even fewer flashlights than before. They're giving up. Just like us.”

“We're not giving up. We're just giving up on this one course. Besides, look at us. We can hardly walk.”

“I don't think I've walked this much all year,” Emaline confessed. “But if we've traveled so far, then why can't we find her?” There, she said it. The dreaded question.

“We'll figure that out when we get to your house. Come on, our flashlight's fading.”