Eyes of a Child (36 page)

‘Oh, sweetheart,' Rosa says, with trembling voice. ‘Oh, sweetheart, that this should happen to you.' It is that which Terri remembers now: she cannot know, and will never ask, to whom it was that Rosa spoke.

She does not know how long they stayed there, holding each other as her father lay on the porch. She only knows that Rosa's next words, steadier and directed to Terri, are: ‘Do not look, Teresa. Do not look at him again.'

Terri never did.

After a moment, her mother leans back from her, hands clasping Terri's elbows. ‘You must listen to me now,' she says. ‘I must call the police. But I do not wish your sisters to see him, or to know until I am ready to tell them. Do you understand?'

Terri is not certain. Mute, she can only nod.

‘Good.' Her mother's grip tightens. ‘I am going upstairs to wake them now. Then I will serve them in the dining room – anything they want from the kitchen, you and I will get. After that, you will go with them to school as early as you can. Tell Sister Irene that there's a problem at home and that I will call to explain. But do not tell her what the problem is.'

Looking into her mother's face, Terri nods again, less in understanding than at the intensity of Rosa's eyes and voice. Her mother would take care of this, as terrible as she thought it: from now on, Rosa would take care of everything.

‘What should
I
do?' Terri asks.

Her mother thinks. ‘Stay at school,' she says quietly. ‘Just until I come for you. It won't be long.'

Terri cannot imagine sitting in class, away from her mother, alone with the knowledge of her father's death. ‘But I want to stay with you,' she says.

Rosa shakes her head. ‘I don't want the police to bother you, Teresa. You help me most by helping your sisters. It will be bad enough for them that your father, filled with drink, has died from a fall on his own back porch.'

Terri cannot answer.

‘Come,' Rosa says softly. ‘Help me with your sisters. From now on, if we are to survive, I will need you.'

Terri takes her mother's hand, turning from the body of her father. Her shock seems deeper now. Only a part of her knows that, hand in hand, they have begun climbing the stairs to awaken her sisters for school.

Harris expelled a breath. ‘You seem to remember quite a bit,' she said after a time.

Terri slumped in her chair; she had the faint, somewhat remote feeling of someone who has gone too long without food. ‘More than I thought,' she finally answered. ‘But nothing about that night, and the days after are just a blur. Except for my father's funeral, and then taking his picture off the wall.'

‘And it was after that when you first had the dream.'

‘Yes.'

Harris was quiet again. Oddly, Terri found herself smiling, not in amusement but in irony.

‘What is it?' Harris asked.

‘The cat. La Pasionaria. She was never the same.'

Harris cocked her head. ‘How so?'

‘She avoided everyone but me.' Terri shook her head. ‘She began to sleep with me at night, to follow me around the house. When I went to college, she stopped eating.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘I had to smuggle her into my dorm at Berkeley.' Terri smiled, again without humor. ‘Actually, you could say that she changed my life . . .'

Even in the dorm, where she is walking contraband, La Pasionaria tries to follow her everywhere. It's as if Ramon Peralta's death unbalanced the cat more than it did his wife or his oldest daughter.

One night, while Terri studies late at the library, her blond roommate, Sue, talking to a boy she likes, becomes careless. By the time Terri comes back, Sue is hysterical: La Pasionaria has escaped to go looking for her owner.

Terri and Sue comb the corridors, the common areas, the basement. It is Terri who, entering the dim dungeon of the laundry room, can hear the cat's faint cries above the spinning washers and the tumble of clothes in the dryers. But the only living thing she can see is the curly-haired boy sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his laundry, reading a computer magazine.

‘Do you hear something?' Terri asks.

He looks up at her; in her anxiety, Terri does not really take him in.

After a moment, he nods. ‘A cat,' he says.

‘
My
cat,' Terri answers. ‘But I can't see her.'

He tilts his head, smiling a little. ‘She's here somewhere.'

Terri, peering behind the washer and dryer shoved against the basement wall, can see nothing. The cries grow louder.

‘Here,' the boy says. Leaning against the wall, he begins pushing a dryer toward Terri. The boy is slim but strong: the dryer begins to move. And then the boy reaches suddenly behind the dryer and pulls forth a trembling, mewing calico bundle.

The cat struggles to escape his grasp. ‘This must be yours,' the boy says, and hands the cat to Terri.

La Pasionaria calms in her arms. It is only then that she looks at the boy. He has bright black eyes and a thin face; from the cast of his features, he is Hispanic like Terri. But her first thought is a strange one: the boy looks nothing like Ramon Peralta.

‘Thanks,' she tells him. ‘I really love this cat.'

‘I like cats too,' he says. ‘They're independent, and they take care of themselves. Like we have to.'

Terri is not sure what this means. But he seems nice enough, and he has just rescued her cat. And she feels, if forced to admit it, a little lonely: most people she meets here seem to have more money and more time.

‘I'm Terri Peralta,' she says.

He looks into her eyes. ‘Ricardo Arias,' he says, and smiles at her. ‘My friends call me Richie.'

Chapter
15

Paget's telephone rang.

He had been enjoying a peaceful breakfast with Carlo, their first in days. They had talked about easy things – pro football, Carlo's new basketball coach, and Katie's parents' refusal to let her drive – and Paget felt his son accepting, warily and with deep reservations, the idea that their life might still be normal. They did not speak of Monk or of the fact that, when Carlo came home five nights before, the kitchen they now sat in was still a shambles. But their knowledge that this was deliberate did not devalue this time together – if anything, it was enhanced. So that when the phone rang yet again, Paget was tempted not to answer.

It was Carlo who changed his mind. ‘Better get that,' he said; when Paget looked at him, he saw the concern in his son's eyes again, as if even the telephone ringing carried the threat of something unpleasant and unexpected. Paget doubted this – the police would not call, nor was Terri or Caroline likely to report bad news by phone. But the only way to reassure Carlo was to answer.

‘It's Katie,' Paget predicted, ‘wanting a ride to school. Her parents have decide to save on gas until you graduate.'

When Paget answered the phone, Carlo was smiling.

‘Mr Paget? Jack Slocum.'

The thin voice was intrusive, almost insinuating. Paget knew the voice at once: the reporter who had found – or been led to – the
Inquisitor
article on Ricardo Arias. ‘I'm over in Alameda County, at the family court,' Slocum went on. ‘There are some files in
Arias versus Peralta
that the clerk won't let me have. Apparently, they're sealed.'

Slocum's tone – bewildered and a little righteous – was as transparent as his pretense that Paget would wish to help him. Paget said nothing.

‘Mr Paget?'

Carlo was watching now, his spoon poised over his cereal.

‘Yes?' Paget responded.

‘I was hoping you could help me. See, from what I understand now, Mr Arias is the one who wanted them sealed. And he's dead.'

Paget fought to control his anger. ‘That makes him a little hard to reach, doesn't it. Have you tried the 510 area code?'

Carlo put down his spoon and folded his hands; he had heard the edge in his father's voice. Slocum himself sounded nettled. ‘I hear you might have copies.'

At that moment, looking at Carlo, Paget despised the press with the fierceness of a man who loved his son. ‘Oh,' Paget said quietly. ‘And where did you hear that?'

Slocum ignored the question. ‘Actually, I hear the files involve you, Mr Paget. And some members of your family.'

Turning from Carlo, Paget made his answer soft. ‘Does that excite you, Mr Slocum? Is it
that
slow a day in Bosnia?'

A pause, and then Slocum let his aggression show. ‘Look, are you going to give me copies or not?'

‘No. But I'll try explaining health care to you. Have a minute?'

‘This is
news,
Mr Paget. Your character is news. As is your family.' Pausing, Slocum tried to make his voice sound careless. ‘Maybe the police have a copy. I hear they're looking into Arias's death.'

‘I doubt the police will open their files. Anyhow, you'd have to do some work, and why pretend? Why not just go to the person who fed you this tidbit and get a copy from him?' Paget's tone was quieter yet. ‘You know, from the man who was feeding your predecessor, the late Mr Arias?'

There was silence. ‘I see,' Paget continued. ‘Your source prefers anonymity. So you'd like to get copies from somewhere that can't be traced to him. Just in case there's a lawsuit and his name came out.'

Another pause. ‘Are you
blackmailing
me, Mr Paget?'

Paget gave a short laugh. ‘No. Just talking about something you
do
understand.'

There was more silence. ‘Our paper,' Slocum retorted angrily, ‘can go to court and get those papers unsealed. Most courts believe that the public interest outweighs personal privacy. Especially for people who think we should elect them to something.'

‘I'll remember that,' Paget said, ‘if I ever find you crawling through my sock drawer. Anything else?'

Now Slocum tried sounding aggrieved. ‘Look, I'm giving you a chance here, out of fairness, to come down on the side of being open about your life. If you don't cooperate, I'll have to write that you refused me. And
this
time no one will keep me from printing that.'

‘Fine. But when you do, be sure to mention that you're
not
on the list of people I discuss my life with.' Paget's voice went cold. ‘Perhaps you think you're damaging me politically. Perhaps you're right. But I suggest to you, very seriously, that you leave my
son
alone.'

Paget hung up.

Carlo had walked to the window and was staring out at the bay. Without turning, he asked, ‘That was a reporter, wasn't it?'

Paget rested both hands on his son's shoulders. ‘They're trying to dig up Richie's molester stuff. And dirt about Terri and me, real or imagined.'

Carlo faced him, worry filling his eyes. ‘Can they?'

‘Probably. The only way to stop them is to give up on the Senate. As quickly and as gracefully as possible.'

There was hesitancy on Carlo's face. Paget could read his thoughts: Carlo already imagined the shame of being labeled as a child molester – his name in the newspapers, the snickers of peers and even friends, the questions of reporters for whom, indifferent to Carlo, Richie's accusation was a fact in itself. ‘I don't want you to give up, Dad. It's not right.'

But this was said without conviction. It was Carlo's own life that was most real to him: whether his father became a senator was not something he would carry with him, day to day. And Paget understood this.

‘What wouldn't be right,' he told Carlo, ‘is to sacrifice you to my ambitions.' To ease the moment, Paget tried self-mockery. ‘I mean, what kind of father would do that?'

‘About any politician I ever heard of.' Carlo gave his father an awkward hug. ‘So maybe you're not one, Dad.'

‘Maybe I'm not.' Paget spoke softly now. ‘I'll have to take care of this reporter right away. The best way I know how.'

But Carlo's thoughts had moved past Slocum. ‘What about the police, Dad? What about Richie?'

Paget looked into his face. ‘All that I can tell you, Carlo, is what I've said before. Because I didn't kill him, they can't prove that I did. It really is that simple.'

The boy was silent, still watching his father for cues. Paget smiled a little. ‘I've got to deal with this now, okay? It may take me a few hours to make life perfect again. And you've got school.'

Carlo hugged him once more. This time it was very tight. He hurried to his car without saying more.

There was, Paget thought, one call to make. If only to satisfy his doubts.

From Los Angeles information he got the telephone number of James Colt's office. When a secretary answered, Paget identified himself and asked for Colt.

For over five minutes, Paget was on hold. More tense with each moment.

‘Mr Paget,' a crisp voice said. ‘This is Jack Hamm. I'm Mr Colt's chief of staff. Can I ask the nature of your call?'

‘It's personal,' Paget said mildly. ‘You might tell him that it concerns my family.'

There was silence. In a cool tone, Hamm answered, ‘Please wait a moment.'

Taut now, Paget waited for several moments.

‘Mr Paget?'

It was Hamm again. ‘Yes,' Paget said calmly. ‘I'm still here. Waiting.'

‘I'm sorry.' A long pause. ‘At the moment, Mr Colt does not consider it appropriate to speak to you.'

‘Might I ask why?'

Paget felt the man choose his words with care. But the answer, when it came, had a rehearsed quality. ‘These personal matters are not something Mr Colt should be involved in.' The voice slowed for emphasis. ‘Particularly when you may be seeking public office, as he will be. Like it or not, Mr Paget, candidates pay a price.'