The Judas Child (54 page)

“You’re serious? They all
misplaced
you for two days?”

“I never made it to the church door. A bag was pulled over my head. There was this smell—something sweet, probably ether, and then I blacked out. When I woke up, I was lying on the floor of a speeding car. There was the monster in the driver’s seat. A black ski mask covered his head, all of it. But I always remembered him with long sharp teeth. Isn’t that strange?”

Arnie was thinking of the mask recovered from the cellar—the white stitches over the felt mouth—fangs of thread.

 

Sometimes Myles Penny had resorted to taunts of, “The strain will kill you if you don’t tell.” Not once had Dr. Mortimer Cray considered this as evidence that his patient wanted to be stopped, for he would not have known what to do with that information, so rigid was the psychiatrist in the keeping of his own commandments.

Mortimer looked up to the sky beyond the transparent ceiling. Tardy winter had come rushing down upon his glass house, flinging the season everywhere with careless cold winds to rattle the panes, and snow to kill the leaves of every tree and plant outside the protection of his conservatory.

He thought to ring for Dodd when he felt the first pain in his chest, but his hand trembled over the intercom button as he envisioned a stark white hospital bed, tubes of fluid running in and out of his body, machines humming and clicking, mechanizing his demise.

He shuffled to a chair and slowly sat down. Turning his head stiffly, he scanned this domain of delicate orchids and rare violets. The shapely yew tree was tall as a goddess and green with new shoots extending beyond the careful pruning of her rounded shape. On the near tables, young plants pushed up through the soil of shallow beds. Within the shelter of his greenhouse and outside of the proper season, he had forced new life into the world in a heresay of pantheism, though Persephone was the deity he loved best.

It was not the sky growing dim; he knew that. The yew tree was less distinct in form and darker now. The world under glass was an assembly of vague black silhouettes, and one of these shadows was moving toward him. Gentleman that he was, he stood up to receive his anticipated guest, his goddess, the bride of Death.

His heart beat in an erratic rhythm. The pain began in earnest, spreading outward from his breast. He fell quickly, not folding gracefully into soft arms, but slamming into the stone floor, as though he had been struck down with a force of great anger.

 

Though the hospital coffee shop was full, busy and noisy with a multitude of separate conversations and patrons walking to and fro, Arnie Pyle easily spotted Rouge Kendall near the window. The surface of his corner table was covered with a profusion of blooms in bright florist wrapping.

On the other side of the room, a young waitress stood by the cash register. She ignored the other customers to stare at the handsome policeman in blue jeans. Rouge was deep into the sports section of a newspaper and oblivious to the teenager falling in love with him. At Arnie’s approach, the younger man looked up from his paper with an easygoing smile. “How’s Ali doing?”

“Not great.” Arnie pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “She looks a little shaky to me. But they’re letting her go home anyway.”

The wide window gave him a view down a rolling hill to the streets and houses below. Snow was flying over the rooftops, and he could see smoke rising from almost every chimney. Ant-size youngsters were dragging sleds uphill, and some were already screaming their way down on swift running blades. One rider in a pink snowsuit was actually aiming her sled at a helpless little boy on foot. But Arnie still wanted children.

Over the past ten days in Washington, he had missed this little town. He hadn’t realized how much until now. He watched as the law-abiding driver of the only car on the main road stopped for the only traffic light in Makers Village.

Rouge lifted his cup as an invitation. Arnie waved it off. “Nothing for me, thanks. Well, now that you’re rich, I guess you can leave this place.”

“I don’t think so, Arnie. I just bought a baseball field.”

“No shit.”

“Don’t get excited,” said Rouge. “It’s a vacant lot next to the station house. If you come back in the spring, I might let you pull a few weeds on the pitcher’s mound.”

“You got a deal.” He glanced at the waitress, so lovely with her long blond braid. This might be Gwen Hubble in a few more years, glowing with health and merely boy-crazy, coloring her lips bright red in the chrome reflection of a cash register. He rarely thought of Sadie Green. He had sent her to the back of his mind to keep company with all the other children who had not come home alive.

“Got all your answers, Arnie?”

“Yeah, Ali cleared up some loose ends.”

“Not too many of those left. We identified the last of the bodies from the cellar. Penny must’ve been using the Vickers place for years.” Rouge finished his coffee and signaled the girl for his check. “Now we’re looking at all the summer houses with dirt cellars. Maybe we’ll find the rest of the kids on Ali’s list.”

The young waitress strode boldly across the room, faking more confidence than she could possibly possess. This was almost painful to watch, for her mouth was freshly painted, and her bright eyes were set on Rouge. She presented herself at the table, small breasts thrust out as far as a training bra would allow, an offering to the handsome cop. But he only laid a few dollar bills across the check in her hand, then turned his full attention to the chore of folding a newspaper.

The girl stood there, very still and tightly clutching the money. Her cheeks were a deep crimson flush, as though she were suddenly naked in public. And she was.

So exposed—nowhere to hide.

Arnie extracted one long-stemmed rose from Rouge’s bouquet and handed this tribute to the pretty teenager. She smiled, only a little disappointed that it had come from the hand of the wrong man, for a conquest was a conquest.

And a rose is a rose.
Well, not always. Arnie believed that more experienced females used flowers to divine the most embarrassing things about men—their true intentions toward women. But this girl was too young to suspect him of kindness, and he got away with it.

“Ali has something to tell you.” He sat back in his chair, watching the waitress walk away. He was unwilling to meet Rouge’s eyes. “I know it’s going to be hard on her, so—”

“It isn’t necessary.” Rouge gathered up his bouquet. “I know.”

“No, I don’t think so, kid. You might have guessed right about the scar, but there’s more to it.”

Rouge set the roses down again. “The only thing I don’t know is whether he threw Ali in that ditch
before
or
after
the Morrison family crashed their car.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, he did know.
“It was before the accident and after he cut her,” said Arnie. “If the Morrisons hadn’t crashed, no one would’ve found Ali in time. The kid lost that much blood.” Penny had intended a slow death and a lonely one. “But now she—”

“Ali was only ten years old,” said Rouge. “She doesn’t have anything to apologize for.”

And how did he put that together?

The young policeman leaned forward to make his next point very clear. There should be no misunderstanding between them. “My mother is starting a new life in Washington. I don’t want this following her around. It’s over.”

Arnie put up his hands. “Understood. Nothing in writing, okay? Just tell me how you worked it out. And you can skip all the billboards and neon signs—like why Ali devoted her life to tracking pedophiles.”

Rouge shrugged to say that this was really very simple. “She was tying my sister into her pattern.” He was apparently crediting Arnie with the intelligence to know that this required a second little girl. But Susan Kendall had died alone—just the one small body bag.

“Another odd thing,” said Rouge. “Most people see pedophiles as
little
men.”

Arnie nodded. All his experience backed up that profile on so many levels.

Rouge continued, “But Ali—an expert in the field—she always called this one a monster. Not a technical term, is it? Not very accurate, either. I had to wonder about that. Maybe the last time she saw him, he was monster size.”

“He was a grown-up,” said Arnie. “And she was only ten years old.”

“Right. And then there’s
kids
and
guilt
. If she met up with this man, why didn’t she tell somebody?”

“She was ashamed.” Arnie stared at his hands, following the reasoning now. According to Ali’s case notes, the Judas child was never sexually molested. So Rouge would know that wasn’t the reason. She was ashamed of what she had done to Susan Kendall.
Oh, Ali
. Every time he had badgered her about that scar—

“It’s all child’s play for you, isn’t it?” Emotions under control, Arnie looked up to meet the younger man’s calm hazel eyes. Would Rouge be so understanding if he knew
how
Ali had called his sister out? Or did he know already? The young cop had everything he needed to work it out. The Judas child was always a best friend to the true target, the little princess. But the Kendall twins had no close friends, only one another. Susan would never have come out at the invitation of Ali Cray—the invisible child who had blended into every wall she leaned against.

Rouge might only be missing a few details in the lie told to Susan, that her brother had run away from military school, that he was waiting for her at the church. This had been Ali’s work. Oh, the things a little girl would do—just to make a grown man stop whittling on her face with a knife, to end the blood flow, the pain and the panic.

“Ali wants to see you. She has to—”

“No, she doesn’t. Here, take my car.” Rouge pushed the keys to his Volvo across the table. “I’ve got a police cruiser picking me up in a few minutes.”

“You have to see her. She needs to tell you.”

“No, that’s what she
wants
, and it’s not going to happen. Give her what she needs, Arnie.” Rouge put the roses into his arms. “Give her these, and tell her they’re from me.”

Arnie stared at the flowers. They meant something to him, some forgotten thing. He couldn’t recall the words of the sentiment, though his favorite poetry revolved around roses. Their scent was intoxicating; his favorite adjectives revolved around alcohol.

“I got her a cactus.”

“Interesting. But I’m sure Ali knew you were lying.” Rouge smiled. Apparently, he also understood the dangers of plants talking to women.

When Arnie left the coffee shop, he took the stairs because the elevator was too fast. Climbing step by slow step, he tried to recall the text for these roses. Every florist had a cheat sheet for clueless men, a list of the correct blooms and the right colors to say to the fair sex, “Let me back into the house.” For other occasions there were flowers to say, “Hello,” and with a change of color, “Goodbye.” Because Ali was a psychologist, he had always given her a mixed bouquet to confuse her.

Arnie paused on the landing. A single bloom from Rouge’s bouquet could stand for, “I am jealous,” but that didn’t fit. “I wish you joy” was another line. No, not that one. Rouge was anything but cliché. Arnie opened the stairwell door, still determined to divine their meaning before he carried the flowers to Ali. If there was something subversive in the bouquet, he would dump it.

When he entered the sterile corridor on Ali’s floor, he dragged his feet all the way toward the door at the end. “Let us be friends” was the last thing he could think of in his floral lexicon. It was a harmless sentiment that would at least not cause her any pain. But now he recalled that only men read the instructions for flowers. Women knew how to operate them without manuals.

The door to her room was open, and she was still sitting on the edge of the high bed, feet dangling like a child perched on grown-up furniture. The child in stiletto heels slipped down to the floor and walked toward him, looking over his shoulder to the hallway beyond, slow to understand that Rouge was not coming.

Arnie had botched her errand, the only thing she had ever asked of him. What could he say to ease her disappointment? He held out the bouquet, old reliable mainstay of men in deep trouble with women. “These are from Rouge.”

Ali accepted the roses and carried them to the better light of the window. He followed close behind, prepared to fling himself on her if she tried to jump from the third-floor balcony—or if she cried. “Rouge said to thank you for the flowers you left on Susan’s grave. A hyacinth and a peony?”

This startled Ali. Had he screwed up? Had he missed another meaning?

Cradling the bouquet in one arm, she tore away the wrapping, the better to study the individual blooms, as if each one were the separate word of a very important message.

And now the forgotten thing was remembered—the text in the roses, the last line from the cheat sheet, “Let us forget.” Arnie leaned his head against the cool window glass and called himself a fool.

Of course she had no use for his own fumbling attempts at comfort. She had wanted pain, and lots of it, for this was the stuff of atonement. And it could only come from Rouge Kendall, survivor of the pair that had been ruined, killed by half. But instead of hurting her, Rouge had given Ali something fine and good. Now her arms were flooded with the color of morning sun born out of darkness, symbols of purification by its fire—yellow roses of forgiveness.

She was smiling, healed and whole. Of course, she still had the scar and a twisted mouth—Rouge was good, but not that good. Yet somehow the prescient young cop had known exactly what Ali needed and precisely when she would be ready to receive it.

As the locals were fond of saying—all of St. Ursula’s children were strange.