Stranglehold. Part 31

He was the storm. Unstoppable. The wind that blew them all away and out of here like autumn leaves. It was better than he'd ever expected. He shook his lawyer's cool smooth hand and smiled.

His son was his again.

Twenty-six.

Change of Heart

"I won't do it. I'm running. That's all there is to it. His school's two blocks away. I'm taking him out of there right now and we're getting out of here."

They were walking through the parking lot, Lydia flanked by Sansom and Andrea Stone. The day was warm and sunny. Her hands felt like ice.

"You don't want to do that, Lydia," Sansom said, "believe me. For G.o.d's sake, they'll arrest you. You'll go to jail. You think the courts are going to look at you any more favorably as a custodian for Robert with a jail sentence hanging over your head? You'd risk never seeing him again."

"Listen," said Andrea Stone, "I can buy us some time. Let me appeal the judge's decision as Robert's attorney and guardian ad litem. I can get him into a foster home within a day or two at most, and in the meantime ..."

"A foster home?"

"... and in the meantime I can go over Arthur's house with a fine-tooth comb, find reasons-make reasons if I have to-why Robert shouldn't stay there. You can hire an investigator, see what you can dig up on him. We can draw this out for a long time, believe me."

"She's right, Lydia. Do it our way. Do it through the system."

"The system stinks," she said.

She got to the car and fumbled the keys into the door, aware that they were watching her, as though they were afraid for her. Well, she was afraid for herself. And Robert.

She'd run if she had to.

She'd wh.o.r.e the streets.

For all their good intentions, f.u.c.k them. They were the system and the system was s.h.i.+t. The system was nothing but betrayal.

There was one more card to play.

"You sure you don't want me to drive you?" said Andrea Stone.

"I'm fine," she said and started the car. "I'm going to Robert's school. I'll call you."

When she saw him at his desk through the window of the schoolroom door she almost cried, almost lost it. The cla.s.s was silent. Taking a quiz. The s.h.i.+fting in seats. The scuffle of shoes. And that was all. She took a deep breath and walked on in.

He glanced up and saw her and she managed to smile at him and then whispered her intentions to Mrs. Youngjohn, who nodded-trying, she knew, not to show concern and not to pry. Mrs. Youngjohn walked over to Robert and spoke to him and pointed to his mother. He collected his books and quietly got up and she put a hand on his shoulder as she walked him out the door.

She knew he wanted to ask her what was going on, but he didn't dare-not here. There was something about the quiet of the empty hall which was denying him permission with each echoing footfall, urging him outside where it was possible to speak in the open air.

She led him to the car.

The air felt even warmer to her now. She was sweating. She felt empty inside, as though being with Robert had calmed her but somehow at the same time had blocked off all emotions but the simple feeling of being alive and in his presence.

She was aware of him staring at her.

She started the car and began to pull away.

"You going to tell me, or what?" he said. His voice was a little angry with her-and frightened.

She braked and turned to him and then turned off the ignition.

"The judge said that you have to go and stay with your father, Robert," she said.

She could think of no other way to do this than to say to him directly.

She was trying not to cry and she could see that so was he. She could feel the tension running through him electric with fear and uncertainty.

"When? For how long?"

He didn't understand. She had never hated anything more than this.

"Robert, the court said you have to go and live with him."

It was as though she'd slapped him. He flung himself back against the car door, he was halfway up on his knees. He looked like something trapped there.

"No!"

"Robert ..."

"I won't! They can't make me! Why won't you help me?"

And now she was crying. Because it was true. She hadn't helped him. Not enough. Not nearly.

"Robert, I can't help you. None of us can. Not if you won't say what he does to you. Not if you won't tell."

"I'll tell! I swear I will! I can't go live with him! I can't."

He was terrified. Pressed back against the door and trembling, sobbing.

She slid over on the seat and reached for him, put her arms around him and held him, rocked him, both of them letting the tears come freely, her breast wet and warm with them, the musky scent of tears filling the car until finally after a good long while they subsided.

She whispered, "Why not before, Robert? I know you love your daddy but ..."

"I don't love him. I hate him."

She looked into his eyes and saw that it was true. "Then why ...?"

"... going to kill you," he murmured into her blouse. He was clutching at the blouse in back, holding onto her like he wanted to burrow deep inside her.

"What? Say that again?"

And then it all came out in a rush.

"He had this rabbit, he killed it. He pulled off its skin and cut off its head and its feet and he said that's what he'd do to you if I told and I knew he wasn't kidding and that he'd do it because he hates you, really hates you and now I am telling and he'll ..."

"Hey," she said, hugging him close.

His fear was a kind of ozone in the car and she felt she could barely breathe as what he'd said sunk in. She hugged him tighter.

So that was it.

He'd been telling the truth when he denied to her and to Andrea Stone that his father had threatened to hurt him. It was her he was protecting.

Not his father. Or himself.

He'd been doing what he thought he had to do all along. Protecting her life by coming within an inch of destroying his own.

"He's not going to kill me, Robert," she said. "He's not going to hurt me or you at all. I don't care what he said. He's a liar and a coward and he's never going to hurt either of us ever again."

He looked at her. He wants to believe me, she thought.

He almost-but not quite-does.

"Do you know how much I love you?" she said. "Do you know how brave I think you are? I love you, Robert. And we'll go through this the two of us together, and then we'll see. Then we'll see who does what to whom, okay? Okay, big guy?"

His smile wasn't much but at least it was there.

She smiled too. Because now there was something to do. Now there was somewhere to go with this.

She needed to get to Owen Sansom and Andrea Stone immediately.

Everything's changed now, she thought.

We sprung the trap.

We can beat this G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. We can win.

Twenty-seven.

Transcript

"Here's what we're going to do," Sansom told her on the phone. "We're going to drive him down to Concord. I know one of the police psychologists there. I've already spoken with Andrea and she knows another. She's arranging things with them as we speak. These guys are good, Lydia. We'll have him go through it with both of them, run it through twice, and we'll get it all on videotape. Let Edward Wood argue with that."

"G.o.d. Thank you, Owen."

"We'll be over in about an hour. Until then don't let him out of your sight, you hear me?"

"I won't."

She hung up. She looked out the window and saw that the sun had slipped behind a cloud. It was going to be hard for Robert, she thought, very hard. But to her mind the day was growing better and brighter by the second.

Concord, New Hamps.h.i.+re February 25, 1995 4:45 P.M.

Excerpt from the transcript of a videotaped conversation between Lt. D. A. Sweeney, Ph.D., of the New Hamps.h.i.+re State Police and Robert Philip Danse, age eight, resident of 145 East Cedar Street, Plymouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re Q: What do you call this part, right here? (Points to rag doll, p.e.n.i.s area.) A: The private parts.

Q: The what?

A: The private parts.

Q: The private parts. (Turns doll.) What would you call this part right here?

A: The rear.

Q: Now you told me that you didn't like your dad messing with you. Can you show me, using these dolls, what you mean? What he does to you?

A: He messes with me back here (pats b.u.t.tocks, ignoring doll) with this (pats p.e.n.i.s).

Q: He does what?

A: He messes with me back here with his privates.

Q: He messes with your rear with his privates? And who does this to you?

A: My dad.

Q: Your dad. And what's your dad's name?

A: Arthur Danse.

Q: Only your dad?