Ridley Pearson - Beyond Recognition

She stayed as far to the edge of the property as possible, not wanting to be seen. Susan would wait to knock on the front door.

Daphne felt heavy and sad. The gray and the drizzle weighed her down that day. She wanted out. She wanted to be somebody else-a woman with a different past, a different job, a different life. Mrs. Owen Adler? She wasn’t sure anymore, and one had to be sure. She was sick of herself, of the predictability of things.

Take a boy from someone willing to love and protect him and turn him over to the custody of the state? Life sucked. Susan knocked loudly. The sound bounced off the trees like gunshot reports. Daphne tensed, pulled her hands from her pockets, and climbed the back porch, placing herself immediately before the door. Pressure. It could be used to drill tunnels through mountains of solid rock; it could push people out backdoors.

She heard the muted sounds of a heated conversation between Susan and Emily. It started low but quickly grew to shouting. It was strange how, without hearing the actual words spoken, Daphne nonetheless could predict the conversation down to the punctuation. Susan represented herself as the authority that she was: City of Seattle Human Services, Child Custody. Emily mounted a quick but useless defense, objecting, interrupting, raising her anguish and decibel level to the point that Daphne clearly distinguished the words, “You cannot take him!”

Daphne spread her feet apart a little wider, like a boxer in a stance, braced for the collision that seemed imminent. She had mild cramps. She hadn’t eaten anything all day. The two cups of morning tea sat in her stomach like a pool of acid. She had her period. A little nausea. It was a day to be in bed with the covers pulled up, or in a hot bath with some music playing. She decided she had been spending too much time at Owen’s, not enough time on the houseboat; her priorities were all screwed up. Flat out hated herself. Bad time to be doing business.

“So there I was,” Daphne said. “He came through the back door like a train running downhill, head down and hell bent.”

Stretched out on the bed in Boldt’s hotel room, Daphne was into her second beer. The room wasn’t much-paid for by the city until Boldt was allowed to return to his house. He wanted back badly. He didn’t feel right about Daphne stretched out like that. She wore tight black jeans and a white button-down shirt. She toyed with her watchband, spinning it around and around.

“I caught him in my arms, and he squirmed like … I don’t know, a fish or something. Fought like hell. Poor kid. And of course she couldn’t prove he was hers-because he isn’t-which was all Susan required in order to take him. And now it has backfired. We know exactly who he is, but he won’t say one word to us. So … you know ….” Her voice trailed off.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he advised. He was staying pretty much in the room’s pullman kitchen, keeping his distance.

“Listen, if you’d been there,” she said. “He was crying for her. She was crying too-begging us. It was awful.”

“You’re killing yourself over this,” he said.

“It backfired,” she repeated. She was beginning to sound a little drunk, to slur her words. “You want to stay out of trouble, don’t mess with kids.”

Boldt leaned forward.

“Don’t lecture me,” she cautioned, anticipating him. “I’m a big girl, and I want another beer.”

“You drink it, and I’m driving you home.”

“Promises, promises,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just sleep right here.” She asked too loudly, “What are those?”

Boldt felt caught. He’d been about to attempt to talk her out of a third beer. She patted the edge of the bed, for him to sit closer, but he declined.

“Dorothy Enwright bought this from a hardware store the day of the fire. John pieced it together.” It was a can of compressed air, a roll of silver tape, a can of Drano and a pair of rubber gloves.

“Susan’s letting let him stay with me-the boy,” she stated.

“A hardware store,” Boldt said, not wanting to look at her. “Might be a connection.”

“It’s that or some halfway house till things are sorted out, and I just can’t do that to him. They have this thing called a Big Sister sponsorship. Susan has to bend the rules a little, but by tomorrow afternoon he’s mine. And he won’t run away, because we’ve told him that if he does, Emily Richland goes out of business, maybe to jail. He won’t do that to her. See how good I am at my job? I thought you’d be proud. It’s down to threatening twelve-year-olds.”

“It’s never easy,” he answered. “Especially where kids are involved. Remember Justin Levitt?”

“They look so innocent. That’s the thing. It’s hard to get around the way they look at you.” She added, “You miss them, don’t you? Your kids?”

“Sure I do.”

“She’s got you forever. That’s the thing. The day Miles was born I knew I’d lost you forever.”

This was exactly where he didn’t want the conversation straying. “What will Owen think about the boy?”

“I’ll stay at the houseboat,” she answered. “Owen and I …” she didn’t finish, electing to drink the beer instead. “Really quite good,” she said.

“You haven’t lost me,” he said.

“Of course I have.” She wouldn’t look at him. “We had our chance,” she reminded him. “I’m not sour grapes.” She said thoughtfully, “Maybe it wouldn’t have worked with us. Who knows?”

They both knew better, he thought; it would have worked. It had always worked between them. He was thinking that, but he said, “I was separated at the time. Married.”

“Don’t remind me. Believe me, I remember that night well. Funny, what sticks with you and what doesn’t. I’m the one who’s supposed to be able to explain all that, right? All this training. But when it’s my life? Forget it. That’s the thing: objective, subjective. ‘Tangled up in blue.’ Was that Dylan or Joni Mitchell? Probably both. Hey,” she added playfully, “did you grow up liking jazz, or was there a transition period? Folk rock? Rock? Or were you jazz right from the crib?”

“There may come a day when we’re old, and our spouses have died off. For us, I mean.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying any of this.

“Like Love in the Time of Cholera , you mean?”

“Never read it.”

“Your loss.” She said dreamily, “That’s us, I suppose. Maybe you’re right.” She added, “It’s a little morbid, though.”

“The thing of it is,” he said, changing the subject, “the boy may break this open.”

The way she positioned herself on the bed-rolled up on one hip, her legs split, up on an elbow with her hand supporting her head-was too much. That lush hair, eyes a little drunk and dreamy. She said, “I wonder why I’m so hung up on you.”

“You’re not.”

“Oh, but I am. We both know it.”

“We’ll place Richland under surveillance,” Boldt said. “Garman also, I think.”

She added, “I see the way you look at me sometimes. You don’t think I feel that same stuff? Right down to my … bones,” she said.

“She’ll call us if he shows up?” he stated.

Without missing a beat, Daphne answered, “As long as we have the boy, she will. If I’m her, my big worry is that the state gets him in their system and never lets him out.”

“Will Human Services ever let him go back to her?” Boldt inquired dubiously. “There’s no blood relation, is there?”

“He loves her,” Daphne said painfully. “And she him. Does it really matter?”

A cellular phone rang. Boldt stood and reached for his, but it was hers, coming from her purse. She answered and listened. She mumbled, “Yes, I heard you.” She flipped the phone shut. To Boldt she said, “We used the last name of the crawl space suspect. Susan cross-checked school enrollment. We know the boy’s name: It’s Benjamin Santori.” She misted. “Nice name, isn’t it?”