Marcia Talley - Through the Darkness

On a shelf over the door, a TV was playing CNN with the sound turned off. I watched the closed captioning, fascinated as typo after typo scrolled by. CNN was reporting on a funeral. Someone was singing “The Impossible Dream,” “writing unwritable wrongs” all over the place, and pining about loving “pure and chased” from afar while she was about it. I had to smile.

When an ad came on, I pulled the envelope of photos from my purse and spread its contents out on the table in front of me:

Timmy.

Joanna.

Madam X.

The FBI’s Identikit technician had drawn a sketch based on Chloe’s description of the woman who’d approached them in Ben and Jerry’s. I put the sketch side by side with the photo I’d taken of Joanna Barnhorst. The woman in the sketch wore a hat and sunglasses. It looked like Joanna Barnhorst, I supposed, but it also looked like me, or Connie, or any one of the thousands of female tourists who flock to Annapolis each summer dressed in sunglasses and hats bought at Target.

I stared at the TV, thinking about summer, when Paul had no classes and the hot, lazy days seemed to spread out endlessly before us. Family time, spent relaxing on the farm, or sailing the Chesapeake Bay on Connie’s boat, Sea Song . Last summer had been Timmy’s first, and I prayed it wouldn’t be his last.

Suddenly, a familiar face filled the television screen. Bette Keating, the idiot reporter with the helmet of improbable red hair who had been camped out at Emily’s, dogging our every move for the past several days. I checked my watch. We weren’t due for another press conference until two o’clock. What the heck was going on?

The camera panned back, and I could see that Bette wasn’t alone. She was standing on Emily’s lawn, damnit, and beside her was Montana Martin, the psychic. And beside Montana-my heart did a quick rat-a-tat-tat in my chest-there stood Dante.

“I feel quite certain that Timmy is alive,” Montana informed the television audience. “I have the impression that he’s being held on, or near the water, and that there may be some sort of Asian connection.”

I smiled grimly. Asian connection . Whatever happened to the “Chinese, Japanese, or Korean” she’d shared with the press corps from our doorstep the other day? CNN had obviously vetted Montana’s “vision” for political correctness, cleaning it up to avoid offending the opponents of racial profiling.

“Yes, I know it’s controversial…” Those were my son-in-law’s words crawling by on the closed captioning. “… but Ms. Martin has an amazing track record-you may remember the Lonnie Edwards case-so we’re taking what she tells us quite seriously.”

I rolled my eyes. Was this another publicity stunt cooked up by Dante and his Haverford chums? If we looked into a certain Ms. Montana Martin’s background, would there be a Haverford connection there, too?

In spite of Montana’s recent conversation with my dead mother, the whole psychic business was beginning to creep me out. Then the CNN reporter reminded everyone-with accompanying video clips from the CNN archives-that Scott Peterson had called in a pet psychic to interview the family dog about his wife, Laci’s, disappearance. My heart turned to stone. Was Dante up to no good, too?

Montana disappeared and another head filled the screen, Professor Avery K. McMasters, if the label to the right of his head was to be believed. McMasters was a professor at Rice University, an expert in-I squinted, but didn’t catch what-and, naming no names, he was clearly taking Montana to task. “Such charlatans can be pretty clever.” The professor grinned, Sphinxlike, into the lens. “They hook you, reel you in slowly, until you lay at their feet, flopping and gasping, with an empty bank account to prove it.”

I hoped Dante was listening.

With her usual impeccable timing, just as the hamburgers arrived, Agent Crisp slid into the booth across from me. “Thanks for coming.”

I tore the top off my packet of chips. “You look tired.”

“I am. We’re working Timmy’s case 24/7. With kids, it’s triply hard.”

“I have some information for you that may help us both,” I said.

“Well, Hannah, that’s exactly why I called you. It’s this both business that’s troubling me.”

“What do you mean?”

Amanda made no move to touch her food. “Since it’s your grandson who’s been kidnapped, and you understandably have a deep, personal interest in the progress of this investigation, I was willing to cut you a little slack. But now, I have to tell you, you’re getting in the way.”

A lump began to form in my throat, and as delicious as it had seemed only seconds ago, I suspected my burger would remain uneaten.

“Do you know how incredibly lucky you are?”

I shook my head, fighting back tears. I refused to cry in front of Amanda Crisp.

“If the child you saw is actually Timmy, after your daughter’s outburst in the mall the other night, you’re lucky the Barnhorst woman didn’t head for the hills with him.”

“I didn’t think of that,” I admitted sheepishly. “Emily was so certain it was Timmy, at least at first. I just couldn’t let the woman get away.”

“If she suspects that you’re tailing her, she may still get spooked and run off with him.”

Once again Agent Crisp had taken me by surprise.

“Are you following me?”

“Let’s just say that I wish you’d leave us alone to do our job. Will you promise me that?”

“Do you know that she bought suitcases at Sam’s Club?”

Agent Crisp simply smiled. “Promise me you’ll stop following Joanna Barnhorst.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Have a chip,” she said, sliding her bag across the table.

“Thank you,” I said, still feeling a bit miffed, “but I’d rather smoke my own.”

After a respectable silence, during which Amanda tucked into her burger and I nibbled on the chips from my bag, I said, “I took some pictures,” and slid the envelope of photos across the table.

Amanda laid her hand on the envelope. “Thanks. But that’s it , right? As of right now, you are off the case.”

“Your hamburger’s getting cold,” I said.

After Amanda left, I stayed in the booth, finishing my ice tea. Then I headed for the colorful restroom where someone had painted enormous bird tracks on the wall. They snaked up and around, before disappearing into a ragged hole in the acoustical tiles. From the opening overhead a demonic Tweetie Bird peered down at me as I sat on the toilet and dialed my sister-in-law’s cell. I needed to give Connie a heads-up: watch out for the Feds.

When I made that promise to Agent Crisp, after all, I didn’t say anything about Connie.

I certainly didn’t set out to wreck my daughter’smarriage, but the look of pure loathing she sent Dante’s way when the words “Joanna Barnhorst” passed over my lips will be tattooed on my brain forever.

Emily tossed the picture she was holding across the table at her husband. “So this is your former girlfriend,” she sneered. “I always wondered what she looked like.”

Dante turned the photograph face down without even looking at it. “She means nothing to me, Emily. After seven years of marriage and three beautiful children, surely you know that.”

“I once had three children,” Emily whispered in a long, long ago and faraway tone of voice, as if she were reading the first line of a Victorian novel.

Across the table from his wife, Dante paled.

“If she means so little to you, darling, honeylamb, sugarpie , how come you were so hot to give her a job at Paradiso?”

“Correction. FranÇois was lobbying to give her a job, not me. He said he felt sorry for her.”