Stolen in the Night (7 page)

Dawn brought her own mug over to the nook where Tess was sitting. She sat down opposite
her daughter. “I can see that you’re torn up about these results. Look, whatever happened,
Tess, it wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“No one believes me. It was Lazarus,” Tess said. “You were there. Don’t you remember?”

Dawn sighed and gazed into the past through the steam rising from her mug. “You and
your father talked to Chief Fuller about the man you saw. My only concern that night
was the search for Phoebe. That was all that mattered to me. To be truthful, I don’t
remember anything else.”

Tess bowed her head. She was a mother now. She understood all too well.

“Those days are just a blur to me now,” said Dawn softly.

“I wonder if Chief Fuller remembers,” said Tess. She pictured Aldous Fuller as he’d
looked the first time she met him. A burly man with light brown hair and glasses and
a somber look in his eye. He had treated Tess, treated her whole family, with a respectful
kindness at the time of Phoebe’s kidnapping. Even when Tess’s father, Rob, had shouted,
pressed him for answers, and demanded results, Chief Fuller had maintained his sympathetic,
unflappable demeanor.

Dawn shook her head. “I don’t know. I understand he’s been very sick.”

“Do you think he would talk to me?” Tess asked.

Dawn frowned. “Well, he’s retired now…”

“I could call him at home.”

Dawn’s attention seemed to drift away. “I guess you could,” she said.

“You act as if it doesn’t matter,” Tess said ruefully.

Dawn opened her hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s not that. It’s just…it won’t change
anything.”

Tess blinked back tears and looked out at the smoky twilight. “Maybe not. But I have
to know,” she said.

T
he next morning Tess ducked out the side door of the inn, evading the assembled reporters,
and drove out to the street address given to her by a woman who had answered the phone
at the Fuller house. As she pulled up, she saw a thin, bespectacled man with a fringe
of white hair sweeping the already immaculate front steps of the neat, barn-red Cape
Cod house.

Tess frowned at the numbers on the paper, wondering if she was misreading her own
handwriting. The man stopped and straightened up, leaning on the broom as she got
out of the car and walked hesitantly toward the steps.

“I’m looking for Aldous Fuller’s house?” she said.

The man peered at her. “Tess?” he said.

Tess stared at him, shocked at the drastic change in the former police chief. “I didn’t…it’s
been so long,” said Tess, shaking the cold hand he proffered.

“I know. I look terrible.” He patted his chest. “Cancer,” he said. “The treatment’s
worse than the disease.”

Tess grimaced and shook her head.

Aldous shrugged. “Not much I can do about it.”

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Tess.

“Don’t mention it. It does my old heart good to see you,” said Aldous. “Didn’t you
grow up lovely. Here, come on. Come inside.”

Tess followed him into the house. They went through a formal living room to a cheerful
red-and-white kitchen in the back. Aldous indicated the chairs by the kitchen table.
“Have a seat,” he said.

Tess sat down and looked around the tidy room. “What a nice house,” she said.

Aldous, who was filling a kettle at the sink, turned off the faucet and looked around
at his home. “Well, my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren live with me now. That
was my daughter-in-law you talked to on the phone. Mary Anne. She’s a good girl. My
wife died ten years ago, and then…two years ago I lost my son…” Aldous stared out
the window above the sink.

“I’m so sorry,” said Tess. She’d had enough loss in her life to know that it was best
to be direct about it. “What happened to him?”

Aldous sighed. “He was playing touch ball with some of his old high school friends.
Just a bunch of guys having a game. Their families were there having a picnic. A nice
autumn day…”

Tess could picture the scene, smell the hot dogs, imagine the weather. And she felt
the dread of what was coming.

Aldous took a deep breath. “His heart just stopped. Some…fibrillation something. Twenty-seven
years old.”

“Oh, Chief. That is terrible. I’m so sorry,” said Tess.

Aldous Fuller shook his head. “We never know, Tess. We never know.”

Tess nodded.

“Well, what am I telling you that for?” Aldous said with a trace of sheepishness in
his voice. “So, anyway, it’s been tough for Mary Anne to make ends meet.” He did not
mention his own illness, although Tess suspected that it must also have been a factor
in their decision to share the house.

Aldous lifted the kettle. “I was just going to make myself a cup of coffee. Can I
interest you in one?”

“Oh, no. No thanks,” said Tess. “One cup a day is my limit.”

Aldous sighed. “The doc says I should cut back on it. I’ve cut back on everything
else but…I can’t seem to give up my coffee.” He shook his head and reached for a mug
in the cabinet.

“I thought I might see you at the press conference yesterday,” Tess said.

Aldous sighed. “I wanted to be there. But I wasn’t feeling too well yesterday…”

Tess nodded and watched him as he poured his coffee and searched in the refrigerator
for milk. Then he sat down at the opposite end of the table and set the coffee cup
down on a paper napkin. She kept thinking of how he had been twenty years ago. A strapping
man who spoke softly, but whose very bulk was a kind of reassurance to her. She felt
sorry for him and, inexplicably, sorry for herself, as well.

“So, I hear
you
have a son,” said Aldous, stirring the coffee in his cup.

Tess nodded and smiled. She reached into her bag for her wallet and pulled it out.
She opened it up and showed Aldous Fuller a picture. “His name is Erny. I adopted
him. He’s ten now.”

“Oh, he’s a fine-looking boy,” said Aldous, gazing at the photo.

Tess beamed and nodded, looking at the school picture. “Well, he’s the best thing
that ever happened to me.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Tess. Mustn’t be afraid to live your life.”

Tess folded up her wallet and put it back in her bag. Then she placed her hands on
the scarred wooden surface of the table. “I haven’t been. I don’t think,” she said.
“At least, not so far.”

“So, enough fatherly advice. You wanted to see me. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m sure you heard about the announcement yesterday. The DNA results.”

Aldous Fuller’s eyes were weary behind his glasses. “I know this is tough on you,
Tess. Hell, it’s been tough on me. These reporters calling. It gets to you.”

Tess nodded. “I couldn’t sleep last night. All these years I’ve been so sure…then
I ran into someone who told me something that shook me up. I have to admit it. This…person
said that experiments had proved eyewitnesses were wrong about fifty percent of the
time. Did you know that?”

Aldous Fuller nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing a lot of those theories.”

“I keep thinking, what if that’s what happened. What if I was wrong?”

“Do you want me to tell you what I remember?” asked Aldous.

“Please,” said Tess.

Fuller inhaled deeply. “Well, when we arrived at your campsite that night, I asked
you to describe for me the man who took your sister. You remember that?”

Tess shook her head. “To be honest, not really. It’s all a jumble.”

“Well,
I
remember. You never hesitated. You gave me an absolutely dead-on description of the
guy. Every detail. Here. I took my personal files home with me when I retired. After
Mary Anne told me that you were coming by this morning, I pulled these out for you
to see. These are the notes I made based on what you told me. Have a look.”

Tess reached across the table and took the notebook. The entry read, “Tessa DeGraff,
the victim’s sister, 9yrs old: white man, filthy dirty. Bumps and scars on his skin.
Glasses. Black rims. A greasy black ponytail. A broken front tooth.” Beneath his notes,
Chief Fuller had written
“LAZARUS ABBOTT!!!”

Tess looked up from the notebook. “I didn’t know his name at that time,” she said.

“I wrote that,” Aldous said. “While you were describing him, Lazarus came instantly
to my mind. It was as if I had asked you to describe Lazarus Abbott for me. Plus he
was a known pervert—a Peeping Tom and a flasher. His mother protected him. Always
bailing him out. That’s the only reason he wasn’t in jail that night.”

“So you were sure right away, too?” she asked hopefully.

“Damn right,” said the chief.

And then Tess was struck by a sobering thought. “So you never really…considered anybody
else?”

“Did I?” asked the chief. “No. Not really. We just went out and picked up Lazarus
Abbott, and brought him into the station. Do you remember that? You started screaming
when you saw him.”

Tessa nodded slowly. “Yes. That I do remember.” She remembered it vividly now—how
terrifying it had been to see him walk in—the man she had seen in the tent.

The chief shrugged. “His only alibi was his mother, whom I gave no credence to. His
stepfather didn’t offer any corroboration. Lazarus had a record. A history of public
indecency. We had no DNA testing at the time. Antigen testing was what we used. When
we found Phoebe, the blood types were a match. The rapist was a secretor, type A,
just like Lazarus. That wrapped the whole thing up with a bow. And you may have been
only nine years old, but no DA ever had a better witness than you. The jury saw it
the same way we all did. There was no one else it could be.”

Tess sighed. “But the DNA says that I couldn’t have been right. My brother thought
maybe they made a mistake with these tests at the lab.”

Aldous Fuller shook his head. “They were pretty thorough in their procedures. Rusty
Bosworth told me he had to sign about a hundred documents when they came to get the
old evidence. They checked and rechecked, just to be sure there was no possibility
of error.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know. But I do know this. They’re going to try and make you recant, Tess.
Rusty Bosworth and his bunch need someone to blame. They need you to say that I—or
somebody else—put this idea in your head about Lazarus Abbott. That you were just
a gullible child and I was willing to pin this crime on an innocent man, just to have
a suspect.” He wagged a bony finger at her. “But you know and I know, that’s not the
way it was.”

Tess suddenly realized that Chief Fuller was worried about his own reputation. His
recollections had been consoling to her, but now she felt a sort of defensive chill.
“I’d never say that,” she said stiffly. “Because it wasn’t true.”

Aldous Fuller looked relieved. “No, it wasn’t.”

For a moment there was an awkward silence between them. Tess couldn’t help thinking
he wanted to distance himself from this horrible mistake and make sure the blame fell
on her shoulders.

“Well, okay,” she said coolly, standing up. “I should go.”

Aldous Fuller reached out and took her hand in his. His palms and fingers were cold
and Tess shivered involuntarily. “Look here, Tess. It does seem as if there was some
mistake. Perhaps the killer was someone who strongly resembled Lazarus Abbott.”

“Resembled?” Tess echoed the word.

“But neither one of us has anything to be ashamed of. I mean, I did the best I could
with what you told me. And you told the truth as best you could.”

“I did tell the truth,” she insisted.

Chief Fuller dropped her hand. “In any case, these perverts rarely stop with one,”
said the chief. “I spoke to Rusty this morning. Those DNA results have already been
sent to the FBI’s CODIS database.”

“What’s that?” Tess asked.

“It’s a…a national DNA index system of people who have been arrested or convicted
of a sex or other violent crime. They may find Phoebe’s killer rotting away in some
prison.”

“And if they do,” Tess said, “that means the death of Lazarus Abbott will be on my
conscience forever.”

She expected him to agree and understand, to say that it would be on his conscience,
too. Instead, he shook his head. “That would be hard, Tess,” he said.

R
eporters and cameramen shouted her name as Tess scurried, head down, back inside the
inn and slammed the door behind her. She leaned against it, her eyes closed, and willed
her frantically beating heart to slow down. The visit to Chief Fuller had not made
her feel better. If anything, she felt worse.

“Ma, you’re back,” said Erny.

Tess opened her eyes and looked at her son smiling broadly at her, his teeth large
and white in his thin, brown face. Healthy and happy. Rescued from a terrible life
in the foster system. She reminded herself that she was a good person. No matter what
anyone thought. “I’m back,” she said.

“Can you take me down to Blockbuster?” he asked.

Tess’s spirit seemed to shrivel at the thought of going out again, of being seen.
“Can’t you ride your bike?” she asked.

Erny frowned and looked out the door lights at the clamoring reporters camped outside.
“I guess…” he said.

Tess saw the reluctance in his eyes. It was her fault that they were out there. Her
fault that they had to run the gauntlet to get out of the house. “All right,” she
said. “I’ll take you. Just give me a minute.”

The phone in the foyer began to ring. “Go get your jacket,” she said. “Don’t forget
that Blockbuster gift card you got from Aunt Julie and Uncle Jake.”

“I won’t,” he said eagerly, rushing off to find his sweatshirt. Tess picked up the
receiver. “Stone Hill Inn,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“Liar,” an insinuating male voice whispered. “Killer.”

Tess stifled a cry and slammed the phone back down on the hook. She stared at the
phone as if it had turned into a live snake in her hand. Who would do that? Bastard,
she thought. I’m not the guilty one. She clutched her chest, waiting for her heart
to resume a calmer beat.

No, she thought. This was wrong. She was not going to be bullied. And it was not too
late to do something about it. She picked up the receiver again and pushed *69. A
mechanical voice recited the last incoming number and Tess instantly dialed it back,
but it was the number of a cell phone, which switched directly to voice mail. “Listen,
you coward,” Tess declared into the receiver. “Leave me and my family alone or the
next time I will call the cops.” She slammed the receiver down again and turned around.

Erny was standing there in his sweatshirt, looking worried. “Who was that?” he said.
“What about the cops?”

Tess tried to sound calm. “Nothing, honey. Are you ready to go?”

Erny nodded.

“All right.” She reached for the doorknob and then hesitated. “No matter what these
people out here say to you, just ignore them and stick with me, okay?”

The Blockbuster was on Main Street, right beside the general store. Tess parked diagonally
on the street. “Okay,” she said. “Do you know what you’re going to get?”

Erny shrugged. “Video game,” he said. “Probably Madden.”

Tess smiled. Dawn had purchased a PlayStation for her TV, just in honor of Erny’s
visits, but she had no games for it and didn’t even know how to work it on her own.
But Erny enjoyed having it at hand during his visits. Tess was glad he favored the
sports games over the more grisly crime games that were available. “Okay. Well, you
go on in and get it.”

“Aren’t you coming in?” he asked, surprised.

She didn’t want to run into people asking questions. People who may have seen her
face on the news. “I’ll just wait in the car,” she said.

Erny shrugged. “Okay,” he said. He got out of the car and slammed the door behind
him. Tess looked up the street. She thought about going to the gourmet shop and picking
up something for their lunch, but her anxiety kept her trapped in the car. She peered
at the Blockbuster window, and between the movie posters in the window she could see
a red-shirted clerk gaping at an overhead TV monitor. She knew it would take Erny
a while to look over the store’s assortment of games. She could picture her son inside,
resting, cranelike, on one leg, frowning intently as he read the game boxes. Tess
sighed happily at the thought of him. Everyone told her that once he became a teenager,
Erny would only ignore her or grunt at her. She dreaded that day. His smile always
made her feel better, no matter what.

A movement in the doorway of the general store caught her eye and she turned to look.
There, stepping out on the sidewalk only a few feet away from the hood of Kelli’s
car, was Edith Abbott. The tall, skinny woman was wearing white sneakers, faded plaid
pants, and a blouse beneath a baggy blue denim car coat. The white corsage from yesterday,
now brown around the edges, was pinned to the coat’s lapel. Edith was going through
her purse, looking for something.

Tess froze. She wished she could make herself invisible. To anyone else, Edith Abbott
must look harmless, but to Tess, she might as well have been a dragon, able to shoot
flames toward the windshield of the car. Tess sank down in the seat, hoping not to
be seen.

Last night, when she could not sleep, Tess had thought a lot about Edith Abbott. People
had called this woman stubborn and stupid for doggedly pursuing her son’s case, even
after his death. But yesterday her determination had paid off. In the lonely hours
of the night, Tess had imagined herself in Edith’s position. What if someone had accused
Erny of such a crime? What if Erny were sentenced to death as a result? Wouldn’t you
be the last person on Earth to give up on him? she had asked herself. And what if
he had actually died, and then it turned out to be a mistake?

Tess had thrashed in her covers, trying to imagine it, but it was too terrible to
think about. Somewhere in the middle of the agonizing night, Tess had pictured herself
going to Edith Abbott, speaking to her as one mother to another. Begging forgiveness.
She had tried to imagine what she would say, but it was impossible. The right words
wouldn’t form in her mind. “I regret that Lazarus was executed because apparently
he did not kill my sister, although I still do think he was the one…”

Horrible. There was no good way to say it. She just didn’t want to face Edith Abbott.
Not now. Not on Main Street with people watching, and her mind a blank.

In the few seconds it took for all those thoughts to race through Tess’s mind, Edith
Abbott located the item in her purse that she’d apparently been seeking. She pulled
out a little round box and popped it open. She extracted something tiny with the tips
of her fingers and put it in her mouth.

A mint, Tess thought. Or nitroglycerin for her heart.

“Ma,” Erny demanded, rattling the door handle. “Open the door.”

Edith Abbott looked up, blinking at the boy standing beside the car. Then her gaze
traveled through the windshield and settled on Tess. Tess met Edith’s gaze with trepidation,
expecting a glare or an outburst. Edith blinked at her from behind her glasses, with
absolutely no sign of recognition in her eyes. Then she hung her pocketbook over her
forearm and gazed patiently at the general store, as if she were waiting for someone
to emerge.

She doesn’t even know me, Tess thought, with amazement and relief. She doesn’t recognize
me at all. How could she not know me? Tess wondered. And then, in the same moment,
she realized that for Lazarus’s mother, Tess was frozen in time. Forever a nine-year-old
girl, pointing to her son in a courtroom and calling him a killer. And in all the
commotion at the governor’s press conference yesterday, Tess must have been just another
face in the crowd to Edith. However she might feel about the child who had accused
her son, Edith Abbott did not connect her with Tess, the woman she had gazed at through
the windshield. That realization came as a welcome reprieve.

Feeling as if she had dodged a bullet, Tess took a deep breath and pressed the button
on the driver’s side to unlock the car door. Erny opened his door to get inside. Tess
put the key in the ignition and waited for Erny to slide in. Suddenly a man’s voice
called out. “Hey. You there.”

Erny, who had one foot in the car, looked up, surprised.

Nelson Abbott had come out of the general store, a roll of burlap under his arm and
was walking toward his wife. His gaze had traveled from Erny to Tess, who was behind
the wheel. “Tess DeGraff.”

At the sound of the familiar name, Edith Abbott began to look around, confused. Nelson
pointed at the car and Edith peered in at Tess with a dawning recognition in her eyes.
Tess’s heart sank. “Who is that?” Edith Abbott asked.

“This is her. The one who testified against Lazarus,” said Nelson.

The older woman’s eyes widened and she clutched Nelson’s arm.

“What do they want?” Erny asked.

“Just get in the car,” said Tess, opening her door and sliding out.

“No, Mom,” said Erny anxiously. “Get back in.”

“I need to talk to these people,” she said.

“Why?” he pleaded.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“You should tell him,” Nelson advised her. “Tell him what you did.” Tess did not reply.
She understood instantly that the bitterness in Nelson Abbott’s eyes was now focused
on her. He was no longer sympathetic, as he had been when he came to the inn the evening
before the press conference to express support for her family.

Tess spoke quietly to Nelson. “Look, I don’t think this is necessarily the time or
place, but I really would like to sit down with you both—” she said.

Nelson sneered at her. “And say what? How sorry you are?” Nelson peered at her through
cold, black eyes. “My stepson was executed because of you.”

“All I did was…I tried to tell the truth,” Tess protested.

“Did you hear what those results said yesterday? Lazarus didn’t do it. You really
don’t want to own up to what you did, do ya?” Nelson said, shaking his head.

Tess was trembling. “Excuse me, but didn’t you tell us that even you thought…?”

Nelson’s beady eyes flashed at her, warning her not to complete that sentence. He
began to speak, drowning out her words. “The facts have changed everything.”

Edith, still clinging to Nelson’s arm, cocked her head and looked at Tess sadly. “Why
did you say those things about my son?” Edith asked in a tremulous voice. “You didn’t
have to do that. I know someone took your sister, but why did you have to blame my
Lazarus?”

Tess turned to Edith. She still didn’t know what to say to this aggrieved mother.
But there was no escaping her questions. “Mrs. Abbott, I have wanted to speak to you
about all this. I’m sure you blame me for what happened to your son…”

Edith nodded. “Well, you were only a child at the time. But child or not, that’s no
excuse. You’re the one who lied,” she said.

Tess felt her face burning. “Look, I told the police the truth about what I saw at
the time. That was all I could do…”

The other pedestrians on the sidewalk were slowing their steps, aware of an argument
and trying to catch the gist of it. Tess tried to ignore their curious faces.

Edith shook her head and began to sniff. She opened her purse and peered into it.

Nelson fumbled for a hanky in his pants pocket and handed it to his wife. “She’s never
going to own up to it, Edith. She thinks because she was a kid when she did it that
nobody’s going to hold her accountable. We’ll just see about that.”

“What do you mean?” Tess asked him in a quivering voice. “Is that a threat?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you,” Nelson sneered.

Tess thought of the voice on the phone, whispering “liar” into her ear. She wondered,
for a brief second, if it had been Nelson Abbott, trying to intimidate her. She drew
herself up. “I have to go,” she said. “And take my son home.”

“My son will never come home,” said Edith indignantly.

Tess slid back behind the wheel and slammed the door. She did not look at Nelson or
his wife as she pulled out.

Erny hunched his shoulders up around his ears. “What’s the matter with that dude?”
he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Tess shook her head, not trusting her voice to answer. She clamped her hands on the
wheel and drove, although her arms were trembling and her insides were jumping. Erny
was quiet beside her, looking at her warily out of the corner of his eye.

When they reached the inn, Tess pulled up to the front door. “Go inside.”

“What about you?” he asked.

The lounging reporters were stirring, suddenly aware that the newcomers were prey.
They began to surge forward. “It’s okay. I’ll park the car and come right in.”

Erny jumped out of the car, ran to the front door of the inn, and started to open
it. Tess tried to keep her face impassive and not look into the eyes of any of the
newspeople who were surrounding her car. All of a sudden, just as Erny was slipping
through the front door, out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw something fly through
the air, hit the front door with a thud, and tumble to the welcome mat at Erny’s feet.

Erny turned around, startled, and then looked down at the missile. He bent over and
picked it up.

Tess opened the car door and jumped out. “Erny, what is that? Are you okay?” She shoved
aside the people in her way and rushed up to her son.

Erny examined the granite chunk in his hand. “It’s a rock,” he said, bewildered.

Tess turned and looked around slowly at the faces in the crowd. Some of them showed
consternation, others were impassive. Tess took the rock from her son’s hands.

“Who did this?” she said, holding up the rock. “Who threw this stone? Are you crazy?
You could have killed an innocent kid.”

The crowd was quiet. Tess searched their eyes boldly, looking for a furtive glance,
for someone who looked guilty in a sea of defiant or indifferent faces.

Hidden in the back of the crowd, a hollow-cheeked man in a gray parka quickly ducked
his head so as not to allow her to catch his eye. Tess did not notice this as her
blazing gaze swept over the assemblage. For a moment there was no reply and then a
voice drawled, “Hey, Tess, how’s the view from that glass house you’re living in?”