Vanished (28 page)

“Please …just listen … I want to help find your son's kidnapper, and Charles isn't it. I believe that.”

“Does he know you're calling?”

She blushed beet red at her end of the phone and shook her head. “He hardly knows me. I've been to see him a few times, but he's terribly distracted. But I think he's innocent and I want to help him.”

“I want to find my son. That's all I want,” she said sadly.

“I know …so do I …you deserve it …please see me …just for a few minutes.”

“When?” Just a meeting between them would cause a furor in the press, and probably a scandal. And they had enough scandal on their hands, with the revelation of Malcolm's affair with Brigitte.

“Could I come over right now? I mean … I know …it's a terrible imposition.” She was scared to death, but she had to see her.

“I … I just don't think …”

“Please …” The girl was almost in tears, and finally Marielle relented.

“All right. Come.'

“Now?”

“Yes. Can you be here in half an hour?” She would have gladly been there in half a minute.

When she arrived, Marielle was dressed and waiting downstairs, and as Bea Ritter walked in, the young reporter actually looked almost frightened. She was twenty-eight years old, and suddenly her brash, bold style seemed to have melted and she was almost childlike. She was a tiny girl, much, much smaller than Marielle, and she was wearing slacks, a heavy sweater, and a raincoat.

“Thank you for seeing me,” she said in a voice filled with awe, as Marielle walked her into the library and closed the door. She herself was wearing black slacks and a black cashmere sweater. Her hair was pulled back and she had no makeup on, and there was something very clean and pure about her, which was exactly what John Taylor had fallen in love with.

“I don't know what you expect from me,” Marielle said quietly as they sat down. “I told you on the phone, there's nothing I can do to help you.”

“I don't even want your help,” Bea Ritter admitted to her as she looked at her thoughtfully. She had wanted to see this woman again for weeks, and now she was here, and it felt strange sitting there like two friends, two women who wanted the same thing for different reasons. Bea wanted the boy found so Charles would be cleared, and Marielle just wanted her son back. “I just want to talk to you, to know what you think …like this …not for the newspapers … or in a courtroom…. You don't think he did it, do you?”

“I was honest in court yesterday,” Marielle said with a sigh, wondering why she had let her come here. She was so energetic, so high-strung, it almost made Marielle nervous, yet she had felt she owed her one. But what good would it do to rehash it all with her again? “Is this for the press?” Bea shook her head, and Marielle could see that she meant it.

“No, it's for me. I have to know. Because I don't think he did it either.” She acted as though Marielle believed the same thing, but she sensed that was the case, no matter how she denied it.

“Why?”

“Maybe I'm crazy, but I believe him. I trust him. I admire everything he stands for. I think he's a damn fool, he's done some awfully stupid things, and he never should have said the things he said to you that day in the park, but if he'd meant to take the boy, he'd never have said them.”

“I thought so too …until they found the baby's pajamas …”It was funny, she still thought of him that way …”the baby” … at four …the baby she might never see again. She had to fight back tears suddenly as they sat there. “How did the pajamas get there if he didn't take him?”

“Mrs. Patterson …Marielle …may I call you that?” They were from two different lives, two different worlds, but for a brief moment they were friends, with one common goal, to find her baby. And Marielle nodded in answer. “He swears they were planted. He thinks someone was paid to put them there …maybe even someone from here, from your own house.”

“But those were the pajamas he wore. I saw them. The embroidery on them is little trains, and those are the same ones he was wearing the night they took him.”

“Does he have other pajamas like them?” Marielle shook her head.

“Not exactly.”

The young reporter shook her head with a look of despair. She wanted so desperately to help him, and Marielle wanted to ask her a question.

“Why do you care so much? Is it the story or the man?” She looked at her squarely, and Bea's eyes didn't waver.

“It's him,” and then in a softer voice, “you still love him, don't you?” Marielle hesitated for a long time, wondering just how far she could trust her, but for some reason she did. And she knew she wouldn't be disappointed.

“I always have. I suppose I always will. But he's a part of my past now.” Little by little, Marielle was coming to understand that.

“Charles said that too, when I spoke to him. But he loves you too. I think he's less crazy now. I think all of this has brought him to his senses.”

“A little late.” Marielle smiled sadly.

“He thinks the boy is alive somewhere.” She wanted to give her hope, if not the answers.

“I wish that were true. The FBI think it's getting late. They're afraid …” She couldn't say the words, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned away. It was all so pointless. What purpose would the trial serve? Whatever they did to Charles, it would not bring back her baby.

“I don't believe that.” Bea Ritter didn't move as she looked at her, and she reached out a tiny firm hand and took a grip on Marielle's fingers. “And I'm going to do everything I can to help them find him. Whatever the press can do, whatever ins I have, I'm going to use them.” She had some very odd underworld connections, she explained, due to a series of articles she'd done, and the local mob boss had loved them. She'd made him a hero in his own way, and he'd promised her that he'd always be there for her, and lately, after talking to Charles, she had wanted to call him.

“What did you want from me?” Marielle asked tiredly. She liked the girl, but it was late, and it all seemed so hopeless. “Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to look you in the eye and see for myself what you believe. I think you don't know …but you're not sure that he did it either.”

“That's true.”

“That's fair enough. Maybe in your shoes I'd feel that way too. He must have given you a pretty rough time when …” They both knew that she meant when their son died.

“He was crazy then,” she smiled sadly, “maybe he still is.”

“A little bit.” Bea smiled. “He'd have to be to fight in Spain.” But she admired him for that, and she loved what he had written. He had showed some of it to her. They had talked for hours at the jail one day, and he had cried when he told her he didn't do it. And she believed him. She had vowed to help him then, and she knew that Marielle was an important key. No matter what they did to her, she was someone who could help him. “I'm sorry about your husband,” she said carefully.

“So am I. It's not going to be pretty in the press tomorrow morning.”

“No, it won't be.” Bea had already seen some of the early tear sheets. “But it raises a little more sympathy for you. They really beat you to death the other day. It made me sick, that's why I wrote the piece I did.” She was kind of a Robin Hood, always defending the underdog, the beaten, the poor, the defeated. She and Charles seemed to have so much in common.

“Why Charles?” Marielle asked softly. “Why him? Why do you care so much?”

“I don't want to see him killed for nothing. I never believed entirely that Bruno Hauptmann was guilty either. I know some of the evidence was there, but so much of it was circumstantial. So much of it was hysteria created by the press. It was my first story, I was twenty-one, and I always felt that I could have made a difference, but I didn't. Maybe this time, I can. Or at least die trying.”

Marielle didn't dare ask her more than that, but there was something more in the girl's eyes, and after a long moment she decided to ask her. “Are you in love with him?” There was no jealousy there, nothing proprietary. It was only a question. And Bea Ritter looked at her for a long time before she answered.

“I'm not sure. I don't want to be. That isn't the issue.” But it was why she cared so much and Marielle knew it.

She smiled at her. “Does he know, or
is
he as stupid as he used to be?” Sometimes he could be dense when he wanted to be. And of course now he was involved with something much more important. But Bea laughed with her.

“I think maybe he is as stupid as he used to be, but maybe he's a little too busy.” The man was fighting for life. Then suddenly Bea looked worried. “Would you ever go back to him?” But Marielle shook her head without hesitation. Too much pain gone by, too much time, too much sorrow. She loved him, she knew she always would. But he was gone for her now. Marielle thought the little redhead would be perfect for him, if ever the time came, and he was acquitted. He owed a lot to her, but according to Bea, he didn't even know it.

“What are you going to do now, Bea?”

“I don't know …I'm going to call up some debts …talk to some old friends …hang out with some private investigators I know. …” And maybe talk to Tom Armour, if she needed money. Maybe he would be willing to pay for some tips, or special favors. She was willing to do anything, call anyone, go anywhere, pay anyone she had to. “Maybe nothing will turn up, but at least we'll have tried …and maybe it'll lead us to Teddy.”

“You'll let me know if you hear anything, won't you?”

“The minute I do.” The two women stood up and Marielle walked her to the door. She knew they would never be friends. But she liked her. She was an unusual girl, and a smart one. Charles was luckier than he knew to have found her.

Bea Ritter slipped away into the night, and when Marielle went back upstairs, it was long after midnight. And as she turned the light off, she lay in her bed thinking of Malcolm, probably in an apartment on Park Avenue …and her little boy, she prayed, asleep in a bed somewhere, with strangers.

The trial went on for weeks after that, as Hitler seized
Memel on the Baltic. The trial seemed to have pushed the world news off the front pages, in New York anyway. But Britain and France had announced that they stood ready to support Poland. And at the end of March, much to Charles's chagrin, the Spanish Civil War ended at last, when Madrid fell to General Franco. There were over a million dead by then, in three years an entire population had fallen. It was a tragedy to Charles, as he knew it would be to his friends in Europe. The fight was over. The war was lost. But Charles Delauney had his own war to fight now, the battle for his survival.

Marielle never heard from Bea Ritter again after her late-night visit. But she continued to read her articles in the paper, and was touched by her sympathetic viewpoint.

Predictably, there had been a huge hue and cry in the press about Malcolm and Brigitte for several weeks, but despite constant inquiries, Marielle stayed aloof about it, and made no comments. She and Malcolm had scarcely spoken to each other in weeks, and she had only seen Brigitte once since then. The girl had covered her guilt by looking haughtily at Marielle, and clinging to Malcolm, as though trying to prove that she was the winner. It seemed a poor defense to Marielle, and she didn't envy her awkward position. She felt betrayed by their lies, and Brigitte's false kindness, but she was hardly even angry anymore, or even jealous. He hadn't been hers in a long time, but she was deeply hurt by Malcolm's long-distance deception. Her only attempt to discuss the matter with him had been rebuffed, and Malcolm had pretended to be “outraged.” He told her that after her behavior with Charles he owed her no explanations, which told her absolutely nothing, except to confirm his guilt. But that fact had already been established.

She reminded him coolly that if he continued to stay at the apartment with the girl, the press would continue to hound them. After that, she noticed that he stayed at their house again, and not at Brigitte's apartment. But in spite of that, she still scarcely saw him.

The tension between them was unbearable, but so was the trial, as a trail of expert witnesses, detectives, and irrelevant people took the stand, endorsing Charles's guilt, and one by one being attacked by Tom Armour.

It was three full weeks before the defense had their chance. And Tom Armour called Marielle as his first witness. At first he led her across the same terrain carefully, rebuilding her where Bill Palmer had destroyed her. And the portrait that began to emerge at his hands was far different from the one colored by Malcolm and Bill Palmer. Instead of a mentally ill invalid, a woman not to be trusted with her own child, he showed more clearly what had really happened, how destroyed she had been at the death of her son, and the loss of her baby, and then her husband. Tom Armour admitted openly that Charles had been more than a little crazy, and had treated her badly. They were both racked with pain, he explained, and there was not a dry eye in the courtroom when he asked her to describe groping for Andre beneath the frozen ice of Lake Geneva. She explained how she had been able to save the two little girls, but not her own son, because he had slipped farther under the ice, and how he had lain lifeless and gray in her arms when she found him. She had had to stop several times as she described the scene to him, and then the hospital that night and losing the baby. In one fell swoop, they had lost their family, and Charles hadn't been equal to it, Charles even more than she. Then she had snapped, and all she wanted for months afterward was to die and be with her babies.