Stolen In The Night Part 9

"Now?" said Julie. "We're just about to sit down to dinner."

"Sorry, ma'am," said the older, taller officer. "He wants to see Miss DeGraff right away."

"What for?" asked Jake.

"About the Lazarus Abbott case."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Jake. "I know this is big news, but let's remember-it happened twenty-odd years ago. What's the hurry? Why can't she come in tomorrow?"

"Chief wants to see her tonight," said the younger officer.

"Tasker," said Jake in a friendly voice to the older officer. "You know me. We've known each other for years. At least to say h.e.l.lo. My sister has been through a lot. What's the big rush here? You're treating my sister like a criminal."

The younger officer bristled, but Officer Tasker put a restraining hand on his arm and spoke to Jake in a confiding tone, gazing from Jake to Tess. "There's a lot of pressure coming from the public and the chief is short on answers. The chief was hoping they'd find the real perp when they ran the DNA results through the CODIS database. But they didn't get a match."

"What the h.e.l.l's the CODIS database?" said Jake.

"The FBI has DNA records for every s.e.xual pervert who was ever arrested. But we got the results and our perp wasn't in there. So the chief is picking up the pace a little bit. Miss DeGraff, would you mind?"

Tess did mind. She minded very much. But she did not want to start an argument in front of Erny. "Can I take my own car at least?"

"We'd prefer you come with us. Someone will bring you home afterwards."

Tess shook her head. "Fine," Tess said bitterly. "I'll get my coat."

Tasker tugged discreetly at the sleeve of the other officer. "We'll wait for you outside."

"We'll go with you, Tess," said Dawn as the officers went out the front door and closed it behind them.

"No, stay here and have dinner. I'll be all right," said Tess, picking up her jacket and putting it on.

"Ma, why are you going with the cops? Are you going to go to jail?" Erny cried.

"No, of course she's not," Julie said in a soothing tone.

"That Bosworth is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Jake. "I never liked him. Even when he was a kid he was mean. Remember that, Julie?"

Erny looked up worriedly at his mother. "Why do you have to go, Ma?"

Dawn patted his hand absently. "It's nothing, dear. It's all right," she said.

Erny jerked his hand away from Dawn angrily. "No, it's not," he shouted. The cat, alarmed, leapt from Erny's lap. "They were cops. They're making my mother go with them. That is bad. Stop saying it isn't."

Erny's sharp words were like a slap in Tess's face, a stinging wake-up call. Tess looked at her son, who was glaring back at them all.

"Erny," she cried. She tried to reach for her son's shoulder, but he twisted himself away from her.

"If you go to jail, what happens to me?" he demanded. "Who's gonna take care of me?"

For a moment, Tess was silent, shaken by his angry cry. Then she said, "Erny, I'm not going to jail. Don't even say that."

Erny met her gaze defiantly. "Why not? My real mom did," he said.

He rarely mentioned his biological mother or the chaos of his life with her. He often said that he didn't remember her, but he knew the story of her demise all too well. His words pained her, but Tess did her best to conceal it. "It's not going to happen," she said. "Because I didn't do anything wrong."

Erny slumped down on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest. He muttered something unintelligible.

"What was that?" said Tess sternly. "I didn't hear you."

Erny looked up at her defiantly, his chin trembling. "You did do something wrong. You told the cops that guy Lazarus was guilty. And that was a lie. Wasn't it?"

CHAPTER 10.

Despite the fact that he had summoned her, Rusty Bosworth kept Tess waiting for about twenty minutes. She sat in the wooden office chair outside the frosted-gla.s.s-windowed wall of his office and waited. She could hear the murmur of a voice, rising and falling, inside his office. She presumed that he was talking on the phone, for there were long lapses in the conversation during which there was silence, but she could not make out the content of the conversation.

While she sat there, tapping her toe anxiously, Tess looked around the old station house. It looked very much as it had twenty years earlier when she had been brought here, wrapped in a blanket, and set down, s.h.i.+vering, on a green leather chair in front of the chief's desk. She could still picture Chief Fuller's worried eyes as he gently questioned her and feel the warmth of her father's hand, clutching hers, as she explained all that had happened, describing the man who had stolen her sister in the night.

G.o.d, I hope he doesn't still have that green leather chair, she thought. She was afraid she would pa.s.s out, or burst out crying, if she had to sit in that chair again. Just the thought of it brought every horrible memory rus.h.i.+ng back to her.

Just as she was rea.s.suring herself that she could face it, that she was tougher than that, the office door opened and Rusty Bosworth stepped out, clutching a wad of papers in his meaty fist. Tess stood up, expecting to be invited inside.

Bosworth's mustache twitched, and he looked at her with cold, a.s.sessing eyes. "Let's go down the hall," he said.

Without waiting for a reply, he began to lumber down the corridor. Tess picked up her bag and followed in his wake. His bulky frame took up most of the hallway and his large head seemed to graze the bottom of the light fixtures. When he reached a door that had "Interrogation Room" printed on the frosted gla.s.s, he opened it and gestured for her to go inside.

"Interrogation?" Tess said.

Bosworth's small eyes betrayed no expression. "Means questioning," he said.

Tess took a deep breath. "No kidding," she muttered as she went inside.

"Have a seat," said Rusty, pointing to a wooden ladderback chair on the far side of a battered oak table. Tess walked around the table and sat down. The small room was bare. There was a white plastic carafe on the table and a stack of paper cups. In a nod to the new, a videocamera was mounted in the corner of the room. As Tess looked at it, a red light went on, indicating that it was running.

"Thirsty?" the chief asked.

Tess shook her head.

The police chief cleared his throat. His florid complexion and his rust-colored hair and mustache seemed to flame in the dun-colored room. "All right, Miss DeGraff, let me explain the situation to you."

I think I understand the situation, Tess wanted to say, but she restrained herself.

"I know you're probably wondering why you're here," said Chief Bosworth. "When those DNA results came back yesterday, it became obvious that a mistake had been made somewhere along the line. Now, it seems to me that there are two possibilities. Only you can tell us which one applies. Either you were mistaken in your identification of Lazarus Abbott..."

"I was not mistaken," Tess insisted.

Bosworth continued as if she had not spoken. "Or you were deliberately lying."

"Deliberately lying?" Tess cried. "I was nine years old. Why would I lie about such a thing?"

Rusty waited impa.s.sively. "I don't know. I'm asking you that."

Tess shook her head. "Lying? That's ridiculous."

The chief stared at her with steely eyes.

Tess looked at him impatiently. "Is that your theory? That I was lying?" Tess shook her head. "That makes no sense."

"Let me just give you a 'what if,'" said the chief, glancing down at the sheaf of notes that he had placed on the table. "What if, say, someone you knew entered the tent that night."

"Someone I knew!" Tess exclaimed. "The tent was slit down the side by an intruder with a knife."

"Well, if someone wanted to make it appear that it was an intruder..."

Tess looked at him and shook her head. "What?"

"You were just a child at the time. What if someone you loved...someone you were accustomed to obey, told you to say that the tent had been slit by an intruder..."

"What are you talking about?" Tess demanded.

Chief Bosworth cleared his throat. "I'm trying to consider every possibility."

"You've lost me," said Tess.

Chief Bosworth raised his voice and hardened his tone. "We need to clear this matter up, Miss DeGraff. And if you have been...protecting someone all these years, it's time to admit it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Tess.

"The truth can't hurt him anymore, Miss DeGraff. He's beyond all that now."

"Hurt who?" said Tess.

Rusty Bosworth cleared his throat. "You may think that we are just small-town cops. But let me tell you, I've seen more than my share of the unsavory. The downright repellent...I know perfectly well that sometimes parents...fathers, in particular...have unnatural appet.i.tes..."

Tess's eyes widened and she jerked back in her chair as if his words had slapped her face. "My father? You are accusing my father?"

"I'm not accusing anyone," he said. "I'm asking you to tell the truth."

Tess shook her head. "No. I don't have to listen to this. That is the most disgusting-"

Rusty Bosworth leaned toward her. "More disgusting than putting an innocent man to death?"

"You keep your filthy accusations to yourself!" she said.

Rusty Bosworth stood up and slammed his hands, palms down, on the table. "Listen, Miss DeGraff, this police force is under attack. We are taking the blame for your mistake and I've had enough of it. Now, I intend to explore all the options this time around. Including the possibility that you lied to cover up your father's crime."

For a moment Tess was too outraged to even form a sentence. Finally she took a deep breath and said, "My father was a wonderful man whose life was destroyed by what your cousin, Lazarus Abbott, did..."

Rusty's eyes narrowed. "No need for you to remind me of my relations.h.i.+p to the victim," he said.

"The victim?" she cried.

"As you have pointed out, the victim of this miscarriage of justice was my cousin. But I think I can still be objective. You, on the other hand, were an impressionable child when all this happened. Now, I want to make this clear. You were a little girl. A good little girl. If someone told you not to tell...someone you cared for...like your father..."

Tess put her hands up. "All right, that's it. That's enough. You can say that until you're blue in the face. It won't make it true. It was not my father."

"Your brother, Jake, perhaps?"

"My brother Jake was at a dance in town that night," Tess snapped. "You know that. Every kid in Stone Hill was there."

"I'm aware of your brother's alibi," said Bosworth.

"Alibi!" Tess yelped.

"But your father had no such alibi. Perhaps he was lying awake while his exhausted wife slept. Lying there wondering if he could coerce one daughter into cooperation. And the other into silence."

Outraged, Tess glared at the chief. "Not in a million years. The only person who coerced me into being silent was Lazarus Abbott."

"That is not possible, Miss DeGraff," Rusty Bosworth said coolly. "Everybody knows that now. You have to stop saying that."

Tess felt her outrage ebbing, being replaced by confusion.

"Now, either you mistook someone else for Lazarus or you were lying," he said. "Which was it?"

Tess stared back at him. "I didn't lie. But...I...don't know...I can't explain it."

"Can't or won't?" he persisted.

Tess shook her head.

"If you lied about it, that's perjury, Miss DeGraff. That's a felony. It's called a delinquent act and you can still be arrested for it."

Tess stared at him in disbelief.

"It's time to tell the truth, Miss DeGraff."

"I told the truth," she said.

"I'll remind you again," he said in a menacing tone. "That is not possible. Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it was an honest mistake. Perhaps you were saying that you saw someone who looked a certain way...and the adults around you jumped to an incorrect conclusion."

Tess immediately remembered her conversation with Aldous Fuller. The former chief was afraid that blame would fall on him and now it seemed that Rusty Bosworth was suggesting exactly that. It was Lazarus, she wanted to say. Lazarus. But the words stuck in her throat. The chief was not going to listen to that. He was not going to listen until she at least acknowledged the possiblity that she had been mistaken. Tess thought again of her college boyfriend. The one she thought she saw leaving the dorm, when he was actually several states away. What was the point of insisting on the impossible? She thought of Erny, and shame swept over her as she remembered his words: You told the cops that guy was guilty, and that was a lie.