Stranglehold. Part 35

"Tell me." Her voice sounded strange to her, hoa.r.s.e, as though she'd been shouting.

"The good news is that Arthur gets no unsupervised visits whatsoever. None. Apparently the judge believed the videotape, not the recant. For my money that's the only decent part of any of this. It gives us far more leverage on appeal and ..."

"On appeal? Oh, Jesus. What do we need an appeal for, Owen?"

He glanced at Andrea Stone.

"Because you don't have custody, Lydia. I'm ... I'm really ... I'm very sorry."

She couldn't speak. She couldn't even ask him why, how it had happened. It was as though for a moment her soul had led to some safer ground than this-leaving only the sh.e.l.l of her sitting empty between these people. She could almost view herself seated there, her face pale in the ray of bright warm sunlight streaming through the narrow window.

"Burke's worried about what he called 'a recurrence of the mother's emotional instability.' I can't believe it, but those were his words exactly. He's still hung up on us taking Robert to those d.a.m.n doctors and your denying Arthur visitation if he happened to decide to order it-even though he didn't order it. So what we'll have to do, what we'll have to prove, is that you're anything but unstable. I'm afraid that's going to take some time. I've got to be honest with you, it could be as long as six months before we can make a go at this again. In the meantime you do have visitation. Unrestricted. And Arthur doesn't. We'll doc.u.ment every facet of your life, round up employers, former employers, relatives, friends. One big push in, say, six months' time, and I think we can break this thing for good. We don't have to worry about Arthur anymore, only the judge. That should make things easier."

"Six ... months? Where? In that place ... that shelter? Some foster home?"

Sansom glanced at Stone again.

"No. I know you're not going to be happy with this. Certainly we're not. But Burke's given custody to the grandparents. To Ruth and Harry. To Arthur's parents."

"He can't do that!"

She was aware of Andrea Stone's cool smooth hand on her forearm.

"He's done it, Lydia. With the strict provision that Arthur cannot be living with them or even be allowed to stay there overnight. I still think a foster home would be preferable and both Andrea and I argued that. But it's not at all unheard of when a judge has questions about each parent's fitness for custodians.h.i.+p. He'll prefer, if possible, to keep a child in the extended family. There's plenty of precedent. We argued for Barbara. But Barbara's a single working woman. I think if your own parents were alive, he'd have..."

She felt sudden rage.

"Ruth and Harry brought up a G.o.dd.a.m.n child molester, Owen! What the h.e.l.l is he thinking? Is he out of his f.u.c.king mind?"

Sansom glanced toward the judge's chambers across the hall. The door was closed but Burke was still inside there and the walls were thin.

"I think we'd better get out of here," he said. He looked up and down the empty corridor. "Go get a cup of coffee or something. This is ..."

"I don't want a f.u.c.king cup of coffee!"

"Lydia! This is exactly what we need to avoid right now! Jesus! We need to avoid it for the next six months. Do you understand me?"

She had heard of people going crazy and killing strangers out of sheer frustration and she thought she knew what they felt like now. She would have liked to walk in through that door and break a chair over Burke's face, pummel him until his mouth ran red with blood. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurt somebody. For the first time in her life she could almost want for a gun.

"You've got to stay in control," Andrea Stone said softly. "Lydia, you have to."

She almost laughed. In control. She hadn't had control of anything since the whole thing began.

Andrea was right, though. She would have to do it for Robert.

It was all for Robert and always had been.

If the rage did not subside she at least could bank its fires for the moment.

"Let's go," she said. "Before I walk in there and tear his G.o.dd.a.m.n eyes out."

"Good idea," said Stone, "before I start thinking about helping you."

They walked out into morning sunlight. The sun felt good on her body and for a moment she was almost comforted. Then a thought occurred and she felt her stomach churn.

"Harry and Ruth," she murmured. "What does 'supervised visitation' mean, Owen? I mean, who does the supervising? Who arranges the meetings?"

"As Robert's legal guardians, they do."

''I don't trust them."

h.e.l.l, after all these years she felt she still barely knew them. But she knew they were devoted to Arthur.

"Come on, Lydia. I don't think they'd stand by and let Arthur molest their grandson," Sansom said. "The judge'll inform them that they'd be open to criminal charges if anything remotely like that happened. And after all this ... commotion about it, I'd think they'd be pretty careful. Wouldn't you?"

"I don't know what they'd do."

What she did know was that another measure of power had just pa.s.sed out of her hands. She felt its loss immensely-a loss that matched but in no way exceeded that other loss, the loss of intimacy with Robert, with her son, which would inevitably follow, the loss of all the days and nights-at least for the time it took to return him to her. She felt almost resigned to these losses. Almost, though not quite, cold enough to play the hand being dealt to her.

That didn't mean that she was resigned to being powerless. She'd watch them. And if anything happened to Robert ... anything ...

They'd wish they'd never met her. Ruth and Harry. Arthur. All of them.

Thirty-three.

Survivors

For a day and a half now Duggan had been looking for Arthur Danse and his big black Lincoln-ever since the Bernhardt girl came in off the highway the night before last wrapped in a trucker's blanket, raped and bruised and bleeding from a deep gash in the hand. Ever since she described a car that could easily have been Arthur's Lincoln and sat down with a troopers' composite artist to arrive at a face that, except for the softer rounded shape to the chin and the slightly higher forehead, looked remarkably like him.

He'd been looking. And coming up with nothing.

Not at Arthur's house. Not at his parents' house. And not at The Caves. There was an APB on the Lincoln but nothing had come of that yet either. His lawyer hadn't even been able to reach him with the results of the latest hearing.

Arthur Danse had disappeared.

And that wasn't like him.

Jake over at The Caves said that the business could pretty such run itself at this point, at least for quite a while, but Arthur was a hands-on guy when it came to his restaurant. He was in there almost every night. So why the sudden change of habits? Stress over the court's decision-which had practically branded him a baby-f.u.c.ker? That was Ruth's pinion. The lady was bitter. Was he unable to show his face around town because of the publicity?

It was possible.

But just as possible-more possible as far as Duggan was concerned-it was because of Marge Bernhardt.

Maybe his first survivor.

He got a list from Jake on the distributors and retailers for the product line and called each of them, but they hadn't heard from Danse either.

Without a car to search or a suspect to question he was left with going over the minutiae of the victim's story. There was no doubt in his mind that whoever grabbed her was the same guy who'd killed the rest of these women. a.n.a.l and v.a.g.i.n.al rape, bondage, the peeled switch which-lucky for her-he didn't get around to using, and finally the nail to the hand. Practically his signature.

That and the Van Helsing bit. Which he hadn't got to either.

Trouble was that the girl didn't know cars or guns or knives or tenpenny nails for that matter.

All they had was her composite.

In case he was wrong about Danse they were running that through the computers down in Concord for a possible match. Whoorly'd suggested that maybe he'd sold the car and they were working on that angle too.

He had plenty of other work to do right here on his desk but none of it was holding him and he had to fight the urge to just climb into his car and go cruising, go hunting for a big black Lincoln. Maybe drive by Harry and Ruth's place again. h.e.l.l, he'd do that every hour on the hour-be glad to-if he thought it would do any good.

Got to have patience, he thought. Police work is patience. You know that.

But he didn't like having Arthur among the missing.

He wanted him in a lineup with Marge Bernhardt sitting there in front of a two-way mirror.

And what if the disappearing act meant that Arthur was totally losing it? Losing the handle on what pa.s.sed for his f.u.c.ked-up life. There was no way of knowing what he'd do. Because the guy was dangerous. Whether he'd done the women or not he was dangerous.

He was certified now. The system had already judged him a man who was dangerous to others, at least to his son. Though Duggan hadn't needed the system to tell him anything about Arthur Danse and hadn't for a long time.

The h.e.l.l with it, he thought. It's a pretty nice day for a ride. Get your b.u.t.t out to the car.

So he did.

Thirty-four.

Visitation, Part Five

Ellsworth, New Hamps.h.i.+re It kept nagging at her.

She'd been to Ruth and Harry's every day, twice over two days with this afternoon being the third time. Her reception was cold and distant but that was to be expected. That didn't bother her. What bothered her was Robert.

He acted as though he were hiding something again.

She pulled into the pitted dirt driveway, got out of the car and walked toward the house. It was just after three and the day was gray and chilly and felt like rain. She'd gone back to work for Ellie Brest but Ellie had thrown her out early today, saying she didn't want to see her get caught in a rainstorm-even though the woman was in pain, having broken yet another of the small bones in her wrist while Lydia was away.

She knew that rain had nothing to do with it. She'd voiced her concerns to Ellie about Robert's behavior and as a result she thought it possible that Ellie was nearly as worried about him as she was. She'd phoned ahead from her house and Ruth said begrudgingly that it was all right for her to come over.

Harry's getting sloppy, she thought-or else he's just getting old-because the wooden porch badly needed fixing. The broad gray plank of the second step was cracked through most of its length. All the way across to the rusted tenpenny tail on the right-hand side, and it gave beneath her foot.

At the door she knocked and waited.

It was yesterday, mostly, that disturbed her. It was nothing specific, nothing she could put her finger on. Just a silence about him which she didn't feel could be accounted for by the situation he was in, away from her and all the familiar aspects of home, not even by the uncertainty of his future.

Because two days before, on Thursday, he'd seemed to have adjusted more or less. He had a room of his own and all his things were there, including his television and all his toys and books and video games. He seemed to accept what was going on as best as you could expect him to. For his sake she'd been happy to see it.

And then yesterday, complete sullen silence.

As though he blamed her.

She'd asked when they were alone if it was something that had pa.s.sed between him and Ruth or between him and Harry but all he did was shake his head no and continue working on the math homework she was helping him with. She'd asked if he'd seen his father. No again. So what's the story then? she said. What's the matter? You mad at me?

No, he said. Nothing was the matter. But he said it too loudly so that it felt as though he were annoyed with her. No. As though she ought to have known that something was wrong. As though she were stupid for asking.

She asked if he'd even heard from his father and got another denial.

He wouldn't talk again.

He wouldn't open up again.

That was what was bothering her.

She was about to knock a second time when Ruth appeared at the door. Behind her the first drops of rain were falling. She realized she hadn't rolled up the window on the driver's side.

"Wait," she said. "One minute."

She dashed for the car. Suddenly the rain was coming down for real. So she'd gotten caught in it after all. She rolled up the window and slammed the door and ran back toward the house, glancing up just before she hit the porch to see a lace curtain close in one of the bedrooms on the second floor. Ruth's room, she remembered. She and Harry had separate rooms. Had for years now.

Her blouse was soaked by the time she made it past Ruth and through the door, her thin white lace bra showing.

She flushed seeing Ruth glance down at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I'll get a towel," Ruth muttered. "Boy's in the kitchen, workin' on a puzzle."

"Thank you," Lydia said.