Sufficient Ransom (4 page)

Eighteen months ago, with Ann’s help, Nora March had carted the modern art collection her late husband, Peter March, had amassed
to a Los Angeles auction house that specialized in the sale of such work. Nora hated some of the pieces so much—especially Chuck Blackmart’s—she insisted on selling them below market. Anything to undermine the creators of such trash, even if it meant receiving less money. Ann was proud of her subsequent role in helping transform her friend’s home into what Nora had always wanted it to be—a sanctuary filled with treasures.

Moving through the gallery, Ann noted the layout of the artwork with a practiced eye. “You’re right,” she called to her assistant. “The floor needs de-cluttering.” She stopped in front of a life-size bronze of a man holding a book in one hand, a pen in the other. The figure gazed intently ahead as if he were pondering a serious problem. Ann reached up and patted his smooth face, a lingering smile on her lips. One of these days she would have this piece installed in her own house.

On with her survey of the gallery floor. “The sculpture of the little boy and dog should be moved to—”

Travis whipped by. Veering away, before she could catch him, her son disappeared behind a Renaissance etching mounted on a moveable wall.

“Careful, honey. You’ll break something!”

A man emerged from behind a mirrored pillar.

Ann stepped back startled. The man was in his early forties, well dressed, with a straight nose and firm jaw. His right eye drooped a little, giving his otherwise handsome face a sinister appearance. A flush of embarrassment warmed her face. “I didn’t know we had a visitor.”

The man smiled. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.” He spoke with a heavy Mexican accent. “You have some beautiful pieces. I was trying to decide what to get my girlfriend for her birthday.”

Travis tugged at her hand. “Mom, come look at the boy and his dog over here.”

The man bent down to Travis. “You have a dog at home?”

Travis’s face lit up. “Mom says we’re getting a dog as soon as Dad gets home from his trip.” His beautiful face looked up at her. “Right, Mom?”

Smiling, she gently pushed the hair back from his son’s face. “We’ll go to the shelter this weekend and you and Dad can pick out a dog together.”

Ann liked dogs, and especially cats. But cats were out of the question because Richard was allergic to them. An only child herself, Ann had wanted a pet when she was his age, but her parents wouldn’t let her have one. Now that Travis was old enough to help care for a dog, he would have one for sure.

The man’s voice was gently teasing. “Shouldn’t you be in school, young man?”

Travis’s smile was smug. “I don’t go to school any more.”

The visitor glanced up at Ann apparently unsure whether Travis was joking.

Ann stood rooted to the floor unsure whether
she
should be pleased at this stranger’s interest in her son. “We’re in the process of finding him a new school. Meanwhile, Travis does his lessons at home with me.”

A wistful smile on his lips, the man patted Travis’s head. Straightening his back, he indicated the far end of the gallery. “I need to think over which of those Elijah West paintings I like best.”

His phone rang.

“Excuse me.” Turning slightly, he lifted the phone from his pocket.

Eager to continue his exploration of the gallery, Travis pulled away from his mother.

Ann studied the man’s profile as he took the call. His brow drew down into a frown as he listened. After a few hastily spoken words in Spanish, he hung up. “I’ll be back for one of those paintings,” he said as he moved quickly toward the door.

Eloise pressed the gallery’s guest register into the visitor’s hand, as he was about to leave the gallery. She flashed him a smile. “Please. If you could sign this.”

Distracted, the man signed the register, handed it back to Eloise, and sprinted out the door. Eloise looked down at the guest book. “Boy is Max Ruiz from Tijuana good looking. Even with that funny eye.”

Ann stood at the window to get a parting look at their visitor. He was sliding into the back seat of a shiny black Mercedes. As the car pulled away, she glimpsed a driver with brown skin.

“Did you notice how he honed in on Travis?” she whispered to Eloise.

Her assistant’s eyes twinkled with affected impatience. “Relax, Ann. Mr. Handsome was just being friendly. Boy, that phone call must have been important. See how he ran out of here?”

Nodding vaguely, Ann turned away. Her ordeal with CPS had made her suspicious of strangers and a little jumpy.

After paying the bills and instructing Eloise where to hang the newly arrived art, Ann and her son left the gallery, and headed home.

3:00 P.M
.

K
ika Garcia kissed the Madonna and Child again, then again. “Mother of God,” she whispered. “Please give me the strength to get through this.” She squeezed the gold medallion once more before slipping it inside her blouse. The weight of the ornament between her breasts comforted her. Since she was fourteen years old, she had never once removed her mother’s gift from her neck. The Madonna and Child meant more to Kika than the expensive jewelry her boyfriend showered on her, and more than the house she bought with her inheritance after her mother died.

Kika rolled her chair back from her desk and stood up. She felt like Joan of Arc heading into battle. Petite frame erect, eyes flashing, she walked to her supervisor’s office at the far end of the communal office space.

Several of her fellow social workers snickered as she passed.

What does it matter if they gape like monkeys? Holgazanes!
The lazy bums despised her because she was dedicated to her work. Not a one of them really cared for the children they were supposed to protect.

Her lips pursed, Kika’s supervisor, Cathy Winckle, handed Kika a sheet of paper. “We’ve re-assigned you to desk duty, in Juvenile on the fourth floor, behind Court C. Please clear your desk and report to your new supervisor in the morning.”

Kika’s face pulled into a combative frown. Her boss was caving in again, this time to the threat of a lawsuit from the Olsons’ big mouth lawyer. “What about our new mandate?” Kika said, her voice brimming with sarcasm. “Did you forget that already?”

Her eyes averted, Cathy continued re-arranging the papers on her desk.

“I listened to you once, Cathy,” Kika continued, her voice rising. “With a terrible result. Frankie Barton would be alive if you hadn’t been intimidated by his mother’s millions.”

Frankie Barton was a little boy with an infectious smile, and a pampered, prescription drug-addicted mother. Nine months ago, CPS had
opened a neglect case against the family. The mother, a wealthy widow, had hired the best lawyer in Southern California to fight the charges.

When the agent who investigated the incident quit unexpectedly, Kika was assigned the case. After researching the situation, Kika concluded that Frankie was indeed being neglected and that the mother needed CPS services to get her back on track.

When Mrs. Barton balked at Kika’s plan, Cathy Winckle had intervened. “We have too many cases to give them all the attention they need,” she reasoned. “Spend your time on the more critical ones.”

Though Kika had serious misgivings about Mrs. Barton who was a cunning liar, she did as her boss advised. After a second more serious charge of physical abuse was lodged against Mrs. Barton, Kika swore she would bring the woman to justice. Again, her boss had stepped in. “You must be careful not to give the appearance that you’re on some kind of crusade, Cristina. As it stands, her lawyer is making all kinds of threats.”

Kika had pushed back. “Frankie’s mother will hurt him again. He should be placed in a foster home until Mrs. Barton proves she is well enough to care for him.”

“I’m not convinced the child’s needs are best served by removing him just now,” Cathy had answered. “A full investigation of the situation will take some time.”

A week later, when Frankie was rushed to the hospital with a brain injury that would be the cause of his death, and Mrs. Barton was charged with his murder, Kika was devastated. If she had listened to her conscience and fought for Frankie’s placement in a foster home, Frankie would still be alive.

The public backlash against Frankie Barton’s death was so intense that CPS was forced to re-evaluate their policies. Already underpaid and overworked, CPS caseworkers stepped up their efforts to remove at-risk children from their homes, flooding the courts in the process.

Vowing never to let a child entrusted to her care be harmed again, no matter the circumstances, Kika started working sixty hours a week. She didn’t even bother putting in for overtime.

Bad parents—Kika had encountered every type. Parents pretending that the bruises that covered their children’s bodies had somehow appeared out of nowhere; none of the marks on their small, defenseless bodies were ever
their
fault. There were parents who screamed at their children for no reason. Parents who left their young children home alone all night, while they got drunk in the bars and did drugs. Parents who punished their children by forcing them to eat spicy hot sauce. These cowardly so-called-parents were the most capable of deceiving, and the quickest to protest that child protection laws impinged on
their
rights.

Ann Olson was a case in point. When confronted with her abusive behavior, she had the nerve to act like
she
was the victim. The constant lies and evasion made Kika sick to her stomach.
Parents?
A dirty word.

Now, despite all her grand promises to change, Cathy Winckle was once again shrugging off Kika’s concerns about Ann Olson. Kika’s fist came down on the desk, upsetting a coffee mug. The liquid, reddish-brown like day-old blood, licked at the papers in its path. “A child died, Cathy! We could have prevented it. Can’t you see the Olson case is like Frankie all over again?”

Her boss’s eyes flickered.

In that instant, Kika saw her internal conflict over whether to allow her to pursue the family or to shut the whole thing down. Kika pressed on. “
Please
Cathy. Let me bring the woman to justice. If anything happened to the child you would never forgive yourself.”

Cathy Winckle’s mouth set in a firm line. Apparently her struggle over what to do about the Olson case had been decided. “You applied for a warrant to remove the Olson child without going through the proper channels. Their attorney informed me you’ve been going to their house. You’ve kept all of this from me, Cristina. We have no choice now but to drop all charges against them. The case is closed.”

“Mary, Mother of God,” Kika whispered. “Give me strength to do what is right.”

5:30 P.M
.

A
nn stepped into her house and locked the front door. The shades were down and the air smelled stuffy. “Travis!” she called. “You can play after you put your things away.”

Travis’s bedroom door slammed shut.

Her husband would be home from the airport soon. Ann was especially eager to placate him after he cut his trip short on her account. “Let’s wait for Stewart first,” Richard had said when she called him in Hong Kong for the umpteenth time. “We’re about to cut a deal with a new partner. I can’t afford to leave in the middle of negotiations.”

When Ann begged her husband to reconsider, he tried to explain that his job was on the line. She pleaded with him. “Kika came at night! She must have known you were away. This is our son we’re talking about. You have to come home.” When she called Richard with the good news that CPS had dropped all charges, it was too late. He had already boarded his plane.

Now, the house needed airing. Dishes left over from the other night were still stacked in the sink. There were Travis’s toys to pick up, dinner to make—so much to do and so little time. Ann dropped her handbag on the mail table and kicked off her shoes.

Travis had chucked his sneakers and backpack across the entrance hall. They had landed in front of her favorite sculpture, a four-foot reproduction of Michelangelo’s Pietá in the center niche of the wide space. Ann could hear her son behind the closed door of his room making shooting sounds—a clone trooper battling commando droids. Realizing things would get done more quickly if she did them herself Ann walked over to the statue and picked up his shoes. Her back straightened, she studied Mary holding the body of her grown son, Jesus, on her lap, her sorrow carved into every aspect of the soft marble.
How could Mary be so calm and accepting of her son’s death?

The front door lock turned.

“Richard!”

Her husband entered the house and placed his laptop bag and suitcase on the floor.

Ann sprinted across the floor and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m so happy you’re home.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “You’re early.”

“Good old tail winds,” Richard said, returning her embrace with, she noticed, a little less passion.

When they separated Ann stood back, smiling. “We just got home from the gallery. I was about to make dinner.”

Richard leaned against the wall and kicked off his running shoes. He was dressed comfortably, as usual—faded Levi’s and a long-sleeved, navy tee shirt stamped with his company’s name and logo, a green molecule design.

“Where’s Travis?”

She pointed to the stairs. “Fighting a war.”

Travis’s bedroom door opened. “Daddy!” He tore down the stairs into his father’s arms.

Ann knelt and hugged her boys to her, happy her little family was together again.

When Travis ran back to his room to finish his battle, Ann turned to her husband. “You look tired.”

“I haven’t slept for two days.”

Ann felt a pang of guilt. “You’re still mad, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “Don’t be surprised when Robert fires me for risking this deal.”

Ann tried to sound reassuring. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Everything turned out fine here, Annie. It always does.”

“It could just as easily have gone the other way.”

“You get so worked up,” he said.