Mary Clark - A Cry In The Night

The sheriff phoned again at noon. “Jenny, I played that tape for Dr. Philstrom. He thinks we’d better take the chance of going public in search for the children. But it’s your decision.”

“Let me think on it.” She wanted to ask Mark.

Rooney came over at two. “Want to sew a little?”

“I suppose so.”

Placidly Rooney took a chair near the iron stove and got out the pieces she was working on.

“Well, we’ll be seeing him soon,” Rooney commented.

“Him?”

“Erich, of course. You know that promise Caroline made that she’d always be here on his birthday. Since she died twenty-six years ago, Erich has been on this place on his birthday. Pretty much like you saw him last year. Just kind of wandering around as though he’s looking for something.”

“And you believe he’ll be here this year?”

“He never missed yet.”

“Rooney, please help me, don’t remind anyone… Not Clyde or anyone about that.”

Seemingly pleased to be treated as a conspirator, Rooney nodded eagerly. “We’ll just wait for him, won’t we, Jen?”

Jenny could not trust even Mark with the information. When he phoned to urge her to let the sheriff get help from the media, she declined. Finally she compromised. “Give it one week more, please, Mark.”

The week would be up March 9. And Erich’s birthday was March 8.

He would be here on the eighth. She was sure of it. If the sheriff and Mark suspected he was coming, they might insist on trying to hide some policemen around the farm. But Erich would know.

If the girls were still alive, this was her last chance to get them back. Erich was losing whatever grip he had on reality.

In the next week, Jenny moved in a near trance, her every thought a continuing prayer. Oh, Lord in mercy, spare them. She dug out the ivory case that held Nana’s rosary beads. Jenny closed her hand around the rosary. She could not concentrate on formal prayer. “Nana, come on, you say it for me.”

The second… the third… the fourth… the fifth… the sixth… Don’t let it snow again. Don’t let the roads be impassable. The seventh. On the morning of the seventh the phone rang. A person-to-person call from New York.

It was Mr. Hartley. “Jenny, so long since I talked to you. How are you, the girls?”

“Fine, we’re fine.”

“Jenny, I’m sorry, we’ve got a terrible problem. The Wellington Trust, remember they bought Minnesota Harvest and Spring on the Farm? Paid a lot of money, Jenny.”

“Yes.”

“They were having the paintings cleaned. And, Jenny, I’m sorry to tell you this but Erich forged his name to them. There’s another signature under his, Caroline Bonardi. I’m afraid there’s going to be a terrible scandal, Jenny. The Wellington people are having an emergency board meeting tomorrow afternoon. They’ve called a news conference after it. By tomorrow evening there will be a big news story.”

“Stop them! You have to stop them!”

“Stop them? Jenny, how can I? Art forgery is serious business. When you pay six figures for a new artist… When that artist wins the most prestigious awards in the field… You can’t keep quiet about a forger, Jenny. I’m sorry. It’s out of my hands. Right now they’re investigating to find out who Caroline Bonardi is. In friendship I wanted you to know.”

“I’ll tell Erich. Thank you, Mr. Hartley.” Long after she put the phone down, Jenny sat staring at the receiver. There was no way to stop the story. Reporters would be here looking to talk to Erich. It wouldn’t take too much investigation to find that Caroline Bonardi was the daughter of the painter Everett Bonardi and the mother of Erich Krueger. Once they started examining the paintings carefully they’d be able to determine that all of them were over twenty-five years old.

She went to bed early in the hope that Erich might be more likely to come in if the house was dark. She bathed as she had that first night, only this time she used a handful of pine crystals in the tub. The fragrance of the pine filled the room. She let her hair trail in the water so that it too absorbed the scent. Each morning she rinsed out the aqua gown. Now she put it on, slipped a dry cake of soap under the pillow and looked around the bedroom. Nothing must be out of place, nothing must disturb Erich’s sense of orderliness. The closet doors were closed. She moved the brush of the silver dressing set a half-inch nearer the nail buffer. The shades were drawn exactly even. She folded the cranberry brocade spread over the lace-edged sheets.

At last she got into bed. The walkie-talkie the sheriff had given her that she carried in the pocket of her jeans made a outline under her pillow. She slipped it in the night-table drawer.

Hour by hour she listened as the clock chimed the night away. Please, Erich, come, she thought. She willed him to come. Surely if he were in the house, if he crept down this hallway, the scent of pine would draw him in.

But when the first light of the sun began to filter through the drawn shades, there was still no sign of his presence. Jenny stayed in bed until eight o’clock. The coming of the day only increased her terror. She had been so sure that during the night she would hear faint footsteps, that the door would start to move, that Erich would be there looking for her, looking for Caroline.

Now she had only the hours until the evening news broadcast.

The day was overcast, but when she turned on the radio, them was no forecast of snow. She was not sure how to dress. Erich was so suspicious. If he came upon her in anything other than slacks and a sweater, he might accuse her of expecting another man.

She barely bothered to look in the mirror anymore. This morning she studied herself, saw with shock the prominent cheekbones, the haunted, staring look in her eyes, the way her hair had grown past her shoulders. With a clip, she caught it at the nape of her neck. She recalled the night she had looked in this mirror and, as she wiped away the steam, had seen Erich’s face, Erich’s outstretched hands holding the aqua gown. Her instincts had warned her about him that night but she hadn’t listened.

Downstairs she scrutinized every detail of every room. She washed the surfaces of the kitchen counters and appliances. She’d barely used the kitchen for more than a can of soup these past weeks but Erich wanted everything mirror-bright. In the library, she ran a dustcloth over the bookshelves and noticed that the third shelf, fourth from the end, did have a vacancy, as Erich had said.

How odd that she had resisted truth so long, refused to face the obvious, lost the baby and maybe the girls because she didn’t want to know what Erich was!

Clouds darkened the house at noon; a wind began to blow at three, sending a moaning sound through the chimneys but driving the clouds back so that the late-afternoon sun burst out, shining on the snow-crusted fields, making them glisten as though with warmth. Jenny walked from window to window, watching the woods, watching the road that led to the riverbank, straining her eyes to see if anyone was lurking under the protective overhang of the barn.

At four she watched the hired men begin to leave, men she’d never really gotten to know. Erich never let them near the house. She never went near them in the fields. The experience with Joe had been enough.

At five o’clock she turned on the radio for the news. The briskly crisp voice of the commentator reported on new budget cuts, another summit meeting in Geneva, the attempted assassination of the new president of Iran. “And now here’s an item just in… The Wellington Trust Fund has just announced a stunning art forgery. Prominent Minnesota artist Erich Krueger, who has been hailed as the most important American painter since Andrew Wyeth, has been forging his name to the work he has been representing as his own. The true artist is Caroline Bonardi. It has been determined that Caroline Bonardi was the daughter of the late, well-known portrait painter, Everett Bonardi, and the mother of Erich Krueger.”