The Cries of the Butterfly - A LOVE STORY (47 page)

He desperately needed help and his mind automatically went to Rochelle. But he quickly realized this was just too big even for her. Then his thought went to Savannah. Far from coming to his aid, she would only be a difficulty, such was the poor woman’s situation. He thought of Stanley Knott. What could he do when he was struggling for
his
very survival? And then Wolf realized he had run out of options. Keith McKenzie? He shook his head. He needed a human being right now, not a lawyer. With a shaking hand he finally called Maddy Witcher.

“Who’s it?” The careless bark was distinctive.

“I…I need your help.” His voice was a pathetic croak.

“Holly-boy?”

“Y…yes…I’m sorry I bothered you, but I need you. I’ll pay your charges…” He could feel the bitter taste of fear on his tongue.

“Don’t be a prick! What’s it?”

So Wolf told her. His speech was wobbly and incoherent, but somehow he conveyed it.

“Pick me up right away. You know my place?” she said.

How the hell was he to know? “No.”

She gave him instructions. Then she had to repeat them three times. “I’ll be waiting.”

It didn’t occur to him to change—he dashed out of the house in his night-clothes.

Maddy lived on Elphinstone Beach, about four miles southwest of Dias Apartments, and overlooking the ocean. She was waiting as promised and as Wolf reached her, she jumped into the jeep beside him.

The vehicle lurched and almost hit the kerb.

“Okay, get down, let me drive!” she said, then pushed him out and they swapped places.

As she drove, she put one hand on his thigh. But he remained heedless of it.

The St. Teresa Children’s Home was teeming. The main gate was shut and the jeep was stopped at the entrance.

A police constable walked over. “You cannot go in, ma’am.”

Maddy flashed her Press card without getting out of the jeep.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but no one is allowed in. Orders.”

“What are
those
people doing in there?” Maddy demanded, pointing to the many vehicles and people outside the Girl’s Hostel.

“Police, ma’am.”

“Please don’t lie to me, sir. Those aren’t all police.”

“The others are the Home staffers.”

“Do you recognize this man?” Maddy pointed at Wolf.

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Well, he’s the President’s son. So let us in.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She reached forward and put her weight down on the horn of the vehicle. Enough to blast the birds in the trees out of their slumber and into cacophonous wakefulness. Enough to turn a million heads in their direction. She jumped out of the jeep and flashing her Press ID high above her head, strutted to the gate.

“What’s going on here?” she yelled. “What’re you guys hiding?”

For a second, they just stared at her from inside the Home premises. Then an uniformed copper rushed over.

“What are you doing here?” he thundered, trying to intimidate her.

“No, what are
you
doing here? What’s going on?” she thundered back.

The officer inspected the ID and his face softened. “A little theft, Miss Witcher. Nothing serious. Routine.”

Maddy’s face hardened. “A little routine theft and the President’s here? Look, sir, I hate being bluffed.”

The officer’s gaze fell on Wolf and his eyes went a little big.

“Just a second.” And he sprinted back to the assembled gathering. He whispered to someone and a second officer came running.

The main gate was thrown open and the jeep waved in.

“Wolf!” Grant Butcher exclaimed. “What is wrong with your face? Goodness gracious, you have hurt yourself!” There was great concern in his eyes.

“Where’s Robin?” Wolf half shouted.

Grant’s eyes narrowed. “That is what we all have been wondering. She just disappeared.” He hesitated for a second. “Perhaps she is…with you?”

“What?!”

A tall, thin man with a gray pencil moustache came over.

“Mr. Butcher, I’m Wyatt Hart, Chief of Police,” he said to Wolf. He didn’t extend his arm. “Is Robin with you?”

“What do you mean…of course not! Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?” Wolf shouted full-throated, undisguised menace in his voice.

“You tell us, sir.”

“Are you crazy?”

Two more officers joined the Chief. The three moved aside and whispered amongst themselves for a moment. They came back to where Wolf and Grant were standing.

“You’ll have to come to the police station with us, Mr. Butcher,” one officer said to Wolf. “We have some questions of you and need clarifications, sir.”

“WHERE IS ROBIN? What do you people mean she disappeared? How can a little girl disappear just like that? What have you done to her?”

“No point getting hysterical, Mr. Butcher.” Then one officer took his arm. “Please come with us.”

Wolf jerked his arm free. His eyes flashed. Three constables rushed over and took positions around him.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Butcher. For obstructing the law,” Chief of Police, Hart said quietly. “And for the kidnapping of Robin.”

“Wh…” Wolf’s eyes darted frantically to Grant, but he had turned away. A hush had fallen over the assembly and they were collectively staring at Wolf. He looked wildly for Maddy. He couldn’t see her at first. Then someone in the crowd moved and he saw her. Her face was distant and she was scribbling away crazily in a little ‘Notes’ book.

“Maddy!” he shouted as they began dragging him away. “MADDY!” She glanced up once, then went back to her scrawling. “Maddy! Hey, Maddy! Maddy…help me. Help me, Maddy!” His voice was a despairing plea in the night.

But her face remained impassive and she didn’t look up again. Wolf might as well not have existed.

.

“
I
t would be in your interest, Mr. Butcher, to reveal Robin’s whereabouts,” an officer said in his face. It was seven-thirty am on this Wednesday, April 30th, and it was the zillionth time they had said that.

Wolf shook his head tiredly. He could barely keep his eyes open. His body ached, especially the sutured wounds. They had been at him now for countless hours and short of waterboarding or other physical torture, they had tried everything to break him.

“I want my lawyer,” he babbled, for the millionth time.

“We called him, but he’s too busy sleeping. Now, we repeat…”

“I have nothing to say.”

The officer made a signal and Wolf was taken by the arms. They locked him in a tiny cell, eight feet by six. He was its only occupant right now.

Where is my girl…what have they done to her?
Anxiety and dread made him feel sick.

That afternoon, he was swamped. Except for Grant, the entire Butcher family visited. Rochelle was the first. She called around two pm.

“Did they find her?” he asked anxiously, grabbing her hands.

She shook her head. “And neither is she at my old house,” she said.

“You went out and checked?!” Wolf blurted in disbelief.

She nodded, her face serious.

“Oh, my god…you don’t trust me either!”

“I trust you, Wolf, but a desperate man can sometimes…”

“Spare me! … I thought I had at least one true friend left.”

“Please don’t think like that, Wolf, I
am
your true friend and a friend you can trust.”

He looked between his knees at the floor and shook his head. Oh, how utterly helpless he felt. He was sitting here locked up and out there somewhere his girl was… He trembled violently. Rochelle tried to gently hold him but he shook her off.

“Okay, at least have some food now. You’ll feel better.”

“Take it away, I don’t fucking want it,” he spat.

Art was the last Butcher to call on Wolf. He was greatly concerned about Wolf’s injuries.

“It isn’t too late, my brother. Tell them where Robin is and I’ll see to it that the charges are dropped right away. I want you back home. We miss you very much. Let’s put this whole sorry issue behind us. It’s gone too far already.”

Wolf could only gawk back at him.

Ian Cass visited next. He was kind and gentle, as usual…and as usual there was nothing counterfeit about his kindness and gentleness. And he seemed genuinely pained to see Wolf in this condition.

“There ain’t need for any of this, son. I know we had given you an ultimatum, but let’s forget about it. I’ll talk to Grant and see to it that you get to have Robin at your home right away. For the first time in my life I’ll compromise the rules, although it’ll kill me,” the little big man said. “But first you need to clean your hands off this. This ain’t any way to go.”

Again, Wolf could only gape.

After Cass it was Stanley Knott. Rochelle had sounded him about it. The man was inconsolable. To see Wolf in this state was beyond sufferable. He told Wolf that he had gone to President Butcher and had pleaded on his behalf. But he had been thrown out. Wolf scolded Knott severely for being so presumptuous.

He thought of Savannah. The poor girl didn’t even know what was going on. His cellphone must be ringing, and ringing, and by now she must be half out of her mind.

“I want you to do something for me, Stanley,” Wolf said. He gave him Savannah’s address and asked him to speak to her. “Explain everything to her. Most of all, see to it she does not freak out. Can you manage that?”

Oh, of course he could. Anything else, sir?

“And then take my jeep and go look for Robin. I don’t care where you look…turn the whole island upside down—every nook, every street, under every bridge, places the homeless inhabit, every public park, every beach, under the ocean waters…just look. I promise you I’ll remain in your eternal debt if you find her. If you need money, take it from my wallet. It’s in the first cupboard, the new one. Take whatever you need…all of it. But please find her for me, I beg you.”

Oh, please do not say that, sir!
I
am in your eternal debt.
He promised he would search for her all evening and all night and not return until he had found her.
I solemnly swear, sir, I’ll find her.

All the while, there were countless reporters, print and electronic, waiting patiently outside.
The fucking vultures,
Wolf thought,
waiting for something worse to happen to me, as if this isn’t enough…perhaps waiting for me to die.

Around six-thirty pm, Savannah finally visited Wolf. She seemed composed and stable, but no sooner she noticed his wounds, she went ballistic.

Wolf at last managed to calm her down an hour later, and convinced her of the
accidentally jumped into the thorn bush by the Home wall
fib.

“How can they even think that you could have abducted Robin?” Savannah said, her only question on the matter.

Of course, Wolf had no answer. In fact, he had no answers to anything anymore. His body, his mind, his soul, were big balloons of fear and pain.

“Your lawyer’s here, Butcher,” a copper announced when Savannah had gone.

“I don’t want to see him!”

“Tell that to him yourself.” And before Wolf could say anything more, Keith McKenzie was before him.

“Fuck off, McKenzie!”

“I rushed over as soon as I heard.”

“What do you mean? I’ve been chanting your name since three last night.”

“May the world be cursed! Your fellow, Knott, called me only a half hour ago.”

Wolf felt something creepy run down his legs—as if unseen hands were playing a vast Machiavellian game with him. A game to knock him down for good. A game that… He sat up sharply.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he’d had a brainwave. A brainwave that said that Robin might not be out there on the streets at all; that she may have been hidden by someone, someone working for these powerful people. That this was all an elaborate shenanigan to break his resolve and make him realize how very important Robin was to him, and in that realization make him give up Savannah and return to the fold.

In a weird way, that notion also greatly reassured Wolf—at least Robin was someplace safe. They wouldn’t hurt her; they wouldn’t let her come to any harm. This abrupt new thought felt good…felt so good in fact that suddenly he felt himself begin to relax.

“The first thing is to get you out on bail,” McKenzie was saying.

“Sure,” Wolf said absently. There was a new spirit to him now.

It wasn’t lost on McKenzie. “Something happened?” he asked suspiciously.

Wolf smiled. For the first time since the crisis had broken, he smiled. “Nothing that a lawyer would understand.”

McKenzie studied him for a moment. Then perhaps because he couldn’t really read him, he shrugged and continued, “If I am to help you, Wolf, I need absolute honesty on your part. And I need your complete trust. Okay?”

Wolf nodded.

“Okay,” McKenzie added. “I’ll ask you once, just once. Did you have anything to do with Robin’s disappearance?”