Mary Clark - Where are the children?

Twenty years disappeared for Jed Coffin. He remembered the night he'd gotten a call at the precinct house when he was a rookie cop in Boston that Delia's folks had been in an accident and it wasn't likely they'd make it.

He'd gone home. She'd been sitting in the kitchen in her nightgown and robe, sipping a cup of her favourite instant hot chocolate, reading the paper. She'd turned, surprised to see him early but smiling, and before he said one word, he'd done just what Ray Eldredge was doing now – pressed his hands on her shoulders, holding her.

Hell, wasn't that the guts of the departure speech stewardesses used to rattle off on airplanes? 'In the event of an emergency landing, sit straight, grip the arms of your seats, plant your feet solidly on the floor.' What they were saying was 'Let the shock pass through you.'

'Ray, can I see you privately?' he asked brusquely.

Ray's hands contined to steady Nancy 's shoulders as her body began to shake. 'Did you find my children?' she asked. Now her voice was almost a whisper.

'Honey, he'd tell us if he found the kids. Just sit tight here. I'll be right back.' Ray bent down and for an instant laid his cheek on hers. Without seeming to expect a response, he straightened up and led the Chief through the connecting foyer into the large living-room.

Jed Coffin felt an unwilling admiration for the tall young man who positioned himself by the fireplace before turning to face him. There was something so gut-level self-possessed about Ray even in these circumstances. Fleetingly he remembered that Ray had been decorated

for outstanding leadership under fire in Vietnam and given a field promotion to Captain.

He had class, no doubt about that. There was class inherent in the way Ray stood and talked and dressed and moved; in the firm contours of his chin and mouth; in the strong, well-shaped hand that rested lightly on the mantel.

Stalling to regain his sense of rightness and authority, Jed looked slowly around the room. The wide oak floorboards shone softly under oval hooked rugs; a dry sink stood between the leaded-paned windows. The mellow, creamy walls were covered with paintings. Jed realized that the scenes in them were familiar. The large painting over the fireplace was Nancy Eldredge's rock garden. The country-graveyard scene over the piano was that old private cemetery down the road from Our Lady of the Cape Church. The pine-framed painting over the couch had caught the homecoming flavour of Sesuit Harbour at sundown as all the boats came sailing in. The watercolour of the windswept cranberry bog had the old Hunt house -The Lookout – barely outlined in the background.

Jed had occasionally noticed Nancy Eldredge sketching around town, but never dreamed that she was any good. Most women he knew who fooled around with that sort of thing usually ended up framing stuff that looked like exhibits from Show and Tell.

Built-in bookcases flanked the fireplace. The tables made of heavy old distressed pine weren't unlike the ones he remembered they'd donated to the church bazaar after his grandmother died. Pewter lamps like hers were on the low tables next to comfortable overstuffed chairs. The rocker by the fireplace had a hand-embroidered cushion and back.

Somewhat uncomfortably, Jed compared this room with his own newly-decorated living-room. Delia had picked out black vinyl for the couch and chairs; a glass-topped table with steel legs; wall-to-wall carpeting -thick yellow shag that clawed at the shoes and faithfully preserved and displayed every drop of saliva or pee their still-untrained dachshund bestowed on it.

'What do you want, Chief?' Ray's voice was cold and unfriendly. The Chief knew that to Ray he was an enemy. Ray had seen through his routine admonition to Nancy about her rights. Ray knew exactly how he felt and was fighting him. Well if a fight was what he wanted…

With the ease born of experience garnered from countless similar sessions, Jed Coffin sought out the weakness and directed his attention to it. 'Who is your wife's lawyer, Ray?' he asked curtly.

A flicker of uncertainty, a stiffening of the body betrayed the answer. Just as Jed had figured, Ray hadn't taken the decisive step. Still trying to pretend his wife was the average distraught mother of missing children. Christ, he'd probably want to put her on a television news show tonight, handkerchief twisting in her hands, eyes swollen, voice pleading, 'Give me back my children.'

Well, Jed had news for Ray. His precious wife had done that scene before. Jed could get copies of the seven-year-old film the newspapers had called 'a moving plea'. In fact, the assistant district attorney in San Francisco had offered to provide it during their telephone conversation only half an hour ago. 'It'll save that bitch the trouble of going through her act again,' he'd said.

Ray was speaking quietly, his tone a hell of a lot more subdued. 'We haven't contacted a lawyer,' he said. 'I hoped that maybe… with everyone searching…'

'Most of that search is going to be suspended pretty soon,' Jed said flatly. 'With this weather, there isn't going to be anyone able to see anything. But I've got to take your wife down to the station for questioning. And if you haven't arranged for a lawyer yet, I'll have the court appoint one for her.'

'You can't do that!' Ray snapped the words furiously, then made an obvious effort to control himself. 'What I mean is that you would destroy Nancy if you took her to a police-station setting. For years she used to have nightmares, and they were always the same: that she was in a police station being questioned and then that she was taken down a long corridor to the mortuary and made to identify her children. My God, man, she's in shock right now. Are you trying to make sure that she won't be able to tell us anything she may have seen?'

'Ray, my job is to get your children back.'

'Yes, but you see what just reading that cursed article has done to her. And what about the bastard who wrote that article? Anyone vile enough to dig up that story and send it out might be capable of taking the children.'

'Naturally we're working on that. That feature is always signed with a fictitious staff name, but the articles are actually free-lance submissions that if accepted involve a twenty-five-dollar payment.'

'Well, who is the writer, then?'

"That was what we tried to find out,' Jed replied. He sounded angry. 'The covering letter instructed that the story was offered only on condition that, if accepted, it would not be changed at all, that all the accompanying pictures would be used and that it would be published on November seventeenth – today. The editor told me that he found the story both well written and fascinating. In fact, he felt it was so good that he thought the writer was a fool to have submitted it to him for a lousy twenty-five dollars. But of course he didn't say so. He dictated a letter accepting the conditions and enclosing the cheque.'

Jed reached into his hip pocket for his notebook and flipped it open. 'The letter of acceptance was dated October twenty-eighth. On the twenty-ninth the editor's secretary remembers receiving a phone call asking if a decision had been reached about the Harmon article. It was a bad connection and the voice was so muffled she could hardly hear the caller – but she told him – or her -that a cheque was in the mail, care of General Delivery, Hyannis Port. The cheque was made out to one J.R. Penrose. The next day it was picked up.'

'Man or woman?' Ray asked quickly.

'We don't know. As you have to realize, a town like

Hyannis Port has a fair number of tourists going through it even at this time of the year. Anyone requesting something from General Delivery would only have to ask for it. No clerk seems to remember the letter, and so far a twenty-five-dollar cheque hasn't been cashed. We can work our way back to J.R. Penrose when it is. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if the writer turns out to be one of our own little old ladies in town. They can be just wonderful at digging into gossip.'