Stranglehold. Part 18

"How's it going over your way?"

"Nothing. What we've got from the school and what friends we've been able to locate so far is that the girl was a pretty good student, not great but not bad either. Kind of erratic. She was a senior, business major, lived with a girlfriend over on Loudon Road near Livermore Falls who says she has no idea where she was last night. Had no current boyfriend that anybody seems to know of. Liked to hang around the joints, probably drank too much now and then, though n.o.body's calling her a drunk yet. Definitely smoked a little dope sometimes. Knew how to balance a checkbook, spent almost nothing on clothing, and had two male cats named Scruffy and Simpson. Her parents are both shrinks, psychiatrists, working out of Hanover. They haven't seen her since Christmas."

"Any luck with the neighbors?"

"n.o.body saw or heard a thing."

"All right. I'll fax these files on up."

"Thanks."

He hung up, thinking that there was really no point yet in mentioning the one really interesting item he'd learned so far-that Arthur Danse had spent last night at his parents' home. Not his own. He did that now and then, Ruth said, especially since the divorce and this "stupid custody thing."

Ruth seemed to think that her son was going to be charged with smacking his kid around or something, not with abusing him s.e.xually. Duggan didn't bother to enlighten her.

But what was really interesting was that Arthur had come in late, without waking them, slept in his bed and then was gone again that morning when they awoke. That too, Ruth said, wasn't unusual. Maybe he just missed his bed, she said. His old room. As though that were perfectly normal in a full-grown man.

She wasn't hiding anything. But she was giving him something to think about all the same.

Arthur Danse. Bad kid. Successful, well-respected businessman who also liked to beat on his wife and had probably been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his eight-year-old son. A guy who owned a bar which Laura Banks probably visited now and then. A guy who traveled on business with some frequency.

Franklin and Conway, Munsonville and Tuftonboro.

He'd have to check on all of it.

Duggan sure wasn't putting it past him.

Not by a long shot.

For Lydia the week trudged by in an agony of dull apprehension while she waited for the hearing. She wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating. She was losing weight and there were unattractive circles deepening under her eyes. Her skin felt slack, older.

Owen Sansom said there was little for her to do beyond trying to get Robert to open up to her. Which still seemed impossible. It was all pretty much in the hands of Robert's attorney now, his guardian ad litem Andrea Stone. So Lydia accepted a job offer to do some private nursing. She needed the money. And the distraction.

Her new patient was Ellie Brest, a seventy-three-year-old childless widow who stood no taller than Robert did-and whose problems were enough to make lesser women fold completely. High blood pressure, circulation so bad her legs and hands throbbed all day and woke her up at night, and an advanced case of osteoporosis. The results of which to date were bones broken in the wrist, left foot, and forearm. None of which had healed nor would heal completely during her foreseeable lifetime despite the shots of calcimar and the Oscal tablets she received from Lydia daily.

Lydia thought her very gutsy.

She seemed to live with pain as though pain were an old, unpleasant relative, one it was unthinkable to embrace but who had to be tolerated.

It wasn't in the job description but Lydia found herself doing more and more for Ellie-things the woman couldn't do for herself and hadn't the money to pay a maid for. Not just administering the shots and pills, changing the bedding, getting her to the bathroom and back, preparing her meals, exercising her limbs to stimulate her sluggish circulation. Her third day on the job she cleaned out the bathroom: Scrubbed the floors and the tiled bath. The fourth day she cleaned the kitchen. There were cans in the cupboard that must have gone back to the 1950's. A box of semolina supported a small but active colony of tiny flying insects. She threw out all of it.

Ellie was delighted. It had been years since she'd had the health and vigor to clean like this.

She kept trying to offer Lydia money. Lydia kept declining. It did her good to feel as useful to Ellie. What did the Jews say? It was a mitzvah, a blessing. And though she knew it was silly she couldn't help thinking that maybe by helping this woman who so clearly needed help, she was making some kind of rent in the fabric of things, a breach in the karmic wall around her through which she and Robert might slip-in danger no longer.

"The court finds sufficient cause to proceed with an adjudicatory hearing. Until then the father shall see the child only under supervision. I'll hear opening arguments ... let's see ..." Judge Burke consulted his docket. "... we'll hear them Wednesday, February twenty-second. Court's adjourned."

It had happened so quickly it was practically shocking.

Andrea Stone had twice been to her home and had talked with both Bromberg and Dr. Hessler. Today she presented her findings. That there was indeed sufficient evidence to suspect abusive behavior by the father in this case.

"Not the mother?" asked the judge.

"No, Your Honor. Not the mother," Miss Stone said. "You're certain of that?"

"I'm morally certain, Your Honor."

"Morally certain?"

Owen Sansom had warned her about the Honorable Thomas J. Burke. He'd been on the bench so long n.o.body could remember when he hadn't. He was a member of the Board of Trustees at Plymouth State College, Chairman of the local Republican Party, and a power in practically every professional and civic organization in the area. He would not like hearing this particular case in his courtroom. Arthur was a businessman. He would not be happy listening to testimony about a businessman abusing his kid.

"Then can't we get a different judge?" she asked.

"Luck of the toss," said Sansom.

Miss Stone wasn't backing off from Burke now, though.

"I've talked to Robert at length, Your Honor," she said. "He considers the notion that his mother might be abusing him a very bad joke."

"I see," he said. "All right. Then we can keep the child in the home. I'd prefer to do that anyway. And obviously your office will be responsible for monitoring the situation there."

"Yes, Your Honor."

And then he made the ruling.

And that was that.

She stood waiting in the hall while Sansom talked privately with Miss Stone a few feet away.

She saw Arthur leave the courtroom with his lawyer, Edward Wood.

She knew Wood. He dined often at the restaurant and even more often held his own kind of high-profile court toward the back of the bar. It figured that Arthur would hire him. And in some ways she thought that unfortunately it was a pretty good decision on his part.

Wood knew everybody. Lawyers. Professionals. Politicians. He bought drinks for them all too, although he was very discreet about it. His tab was enormous. His secretary paid it out on a regular monthly basis.

He was smooth and he was intelligent. She had never seen him drink even the slightest bit too much while at the same time managing to get half the men around him loose-lipped and half-soused.

She guessed there were things to be learned that way. Arthur always said Wood knew where the bodies were buried.

As they stepped out into the hall he smiled at her.

It was a tolerant smile. Poor Lydia.

Poor woman.

Screw you, she thought. We'll see if you're still feeling sorry for me two weeks from now. We'll just see.

Arthur noticed her too.

In the courtroom she'd avoided looking at him. Only enough to note the new blue pinstriped suit-nearly a ringer for Wood's own. Now she saw that his face looked thinner, drawn, pale.

Good, she thought. If I'm not sleeping you sure as h.e.l.l shouldn't be.

He stopped and for a moment she was afraid he had it in mind to approach her. He looked as tired as she'd ever seen him and almost as anxious as she was. His jaw was set so tight she thought it must hurt. The dark eyes glared at her. She took an involuntary step backward, heard the click of her high heels echo in the corridor.

The eyes softened. He mouthed something to her and then he turned away.

It took her a moment to register what he'd said.

And then she did. The hall began to spin.

Mine, he'd said.

Seventeen.

Crimes Against the Public

It was only a couple of lines in the Manchester Union Leader's weekly courts summation.

"Arthur W. Danse, Plymouth restauranteur, was charged by his ex-wife, Lydia Danse, in State Superior Court on Tuesday with abuse of a minor. Hearings begin February 22nd."

It was a rainy evening but still it was a Friday and The Caves was crowded. Everywhere he looked he seemed to see the newspaper. At the tables in back, sitting on top of briefcases, one of them folded beside a woman's elbow at the bar.

He kept thinking they'd all read it. Everybody. Of course they had. They were all snickering at him behind his back.

b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"I'll be back in the office if you need me," he said to Jake.

Jake nodded and gave him a wave. The second barman, Billy, just glanced at him.

Jake at least was loyal.

Not like the rest of them.

He made his way through the loud party of office workers and college kids to the back of the bar. Normally he'd have taken his time, greeting familiar faces, stopping to talk. He was good at that. Now he just cut his way through. To h.e.l.l with them.

At least business hadn't fallen off yet.

He closed the door behind him and sat down at the big mahogany desk. The desk was practically empty. He kept it that way. Neat and tidy.

He listened to the sounds filtering in from outside. Happy voices, lots of them, male and female. Laughter. Music. The tinkle of gla.s.ses. These sounds had always pleased him. They meant money and success and status within the community. Things he'd always known he'd have someday. Things he deserved and needed.

And now she was threatening to take them away from him.

Child abuser.

If she made it stick they'd be gone.

Let's go eat at that place, you know the one I mean, the guy who owns it f.u.c.ks his kid. You know the place.

It would all be over. Finished. Even if he didn't go to jail, which was still a possibility despite what Edward Wood said, he'd still have to sell The Caves eventually-a place he'd built from nothing, sell it probably for a song-and then move on.

Again.

d.a.m.n her, he thought. G.o.dd.a.m.n them all.

He poured himself a short Glenlivet and belted it back. Then another, larger one, sipping it slowly.

He sat back in the heavy brown leather chair and listened and stared at the walls. Hung there were images from his past. A framed poster from a Who concert at the Boston Garden. A bronze plaque from the State Chamber of Commerce and another from the Rotary Club. The first painting he'd ever bought, right after The Caves began turning a profit-a painting by a New York artist named McPheeters of a slouched, exhausted man walking the beach at night under a blood-red moon, a smiling figure riding on his shoulders, somehow blending into him. A photo by Ansel Adams depicting a dark road through deep woods at the end of the day.

He could picture packing up none of these.

He'd leave them there.

No. Smash them. Leave her nothing. Nothing.

There was a knock at the door. Then it opened.

Billy. f.u.c.king Billy. Jake would have waited for him to say come in.

"Someone to see you, Mr. Danse."

"Tell them I'm busy."

"It's Ralph Duggan, Mr. Danse."

Like that was some big f.u.c.king deal to him.

"Jesus Christ. All right. Okay. Send him in."

Duggan. The ending to a perfect day. The guy had been on his case since he was a kid and showed no signs of stopping. What the h.e.l.l was it with these cops? All this holier-than-thou s.h.i.+t. Even the courtroom bailiff had looked at him as though he'd crawled out from under a rock somewhere.

Duggan was the worst of them. Duggan thought he was so d.a.m.n smart. But he wasn't smart.

If he were smart he'd have learned a lot of things long ago.