Bless the Child (8 page)

Hot tears trickled down Maggie’s cheeks as she cast about in her mind for how to explain to the child that she must stay.

“Oh Cody, I want to take you home, so much . . . I love you more than anything in this world. I want you to know that,
in you heart.
That’s where you and I are going to keep everything that’s between us . . . in our hearts, okay? So if anybody asks you what we talked about, or if anybody says she can read your mind, you’ll know our secrets are safe, because they aren’t in your mind, they’re in you heart. Okay?”

“Okay.” Cody bit her lower lip nervously, something she always did when she was frightened.

“Now, here comes the hard part, sweetheart. I can’t take you home with me today.” Cody’s face fell apart and tears squeezed free. “No . . . no . . . listen to me, baby! You must
listen
. I am going to help you, Cody. I give you my word of honor I won’t let anyone hurt you, do you understand? I’ve never ever broken my promise to you, have I? Not once since you were born. Not in anything little and not in anything big. Oh, please baby, tell me you understand that!” Maggie and Cody clung to each other on the beach, their tears turning icy in the cold wind.

“The law says I can’t take you today, sweetheart.” Cody’s arms tightened around Maggie’s neck, terror in the gesture. “But I promise you I will find a way to make you safe again. I just need to talk to some people who’ll know how to do this, and it might take me a little while.”

Cody was crying hard now, the sobs reverberating through Maggie’s coat. But it was silent, unnatural crying for a child. Soundless and despairing.

Maggie could see Jenna and Ghania coming toward them on the strand.

“Listen to me, Cody, they’re coming, so I have to say this fast. I
will
be back for you. No matter what anyone tells you. I will come back to get you. Because I love you. More than anything else in this world! And you love me. Nothing on earth can change that. Everything we’ve said, and everything we are, is in our hearts now, and no one—especially Ghania—can see it, or know anything about it. Do you understand that?”

Cody snuffled and nodded.

“We have to be brave now, Cody, for each other. Remember. I love you. All there is.
And I’ll be back
. I swear to God, I will.”

Maggie scooped up the child and held her in a fierce embrace, deliberately walking past the Amah without a word.

M
aggie drummed her short fingernails on the desk top, at 8:00 A.M. the next morning, and tried to quell her agitation; she’d been up half the night trying to figure out what to do. There had to be someone who could help her get to the bottom of this morass.

Could it be that one of Jenna’s friends from years ago might still be in touch with her? Maybe there was somebody from the past Jenna’d want to show off her new life to. Maggie rifled the Rolodex impatiently, searching for she-didn’t-know-who. She dialed six phone numbers without a successful response . . . no one had seen Jenna in years, or if they had, they wouldn’t say. Discouraged, she tried one final possibility.

Cheri Adams had been with Jenna in the last rehab; they’d gotten pretty close there, and Maggie had liked the girl, enough to enlist her aid in searching for Jenna when she first disappeared. She’d even stayed in contact with Cheri for a while, after the search proved futile, but then had lost touch, until one day she and Cody had bumped into the girl in Washington Square Park.

Maggie dialed her number, afraid to hope. Cheri sounded sober when she answered, subdued and straight. Had Cheri seen Jenna recently? She asked.
Yes.
Jenna doesn’t seem like herself, Maggie said. Do you know if there’s anything wrong? There was a significant pause at the other end of the phone, as Cheri juggled loyalties.

“I’ve seen her twice, Mrs. O’Connor, since she’s living in Greenwich,” she said finally. “She wanted to show off that incredible house and that weird guy she’s married to.” Again the hesitancy.

“I think she’s using, Mrs. O’Connor. Big time,” Cheri explained, her voice troubled, uncertain. “I tried to get her to do something about it, but she really thinks she’s got the world by the tail. I guess she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do, so I didn’t push it. But she said some things that frightened me . . . I mean, maybe drugs aren’t the only thing she’s into. I’m only telling you this because of the little girl. Jenna’s got a right to screw up her own life with that shit if she want to, but kids are different. They’ve got rights too.”

“Cheri, what frightened you at Jenna’s? Is Cody in danger?”

“I feel like I’m betraying Jenna’s trust even talking to you like this, Mrs. O’Connor, but you’ve always been real nice to me and I remember thinking, when we met that day at the park, how good you were to Jenna’s kid. I could see you really loved her and all . . .” She paused again and Maggie heard the in-drawn breath at the other end, the girl getting up her courage.

“Look, Mrs. O’Connor, please don’t ask me why I’m saying this, but I think you’d better get that baby out of that house.”

“Why, Cheri? What’s wrong there?” Maggie’s heart beat faster.

“I can’t tell you, Mrs. O’Connor. Honest to God, I can’t! It’s just that I think I know what she’s into, through some friends of mine. I’m not really sure, and I don’t want to make trouble for her, if I’m wrong . . . but if I’m right, it’s real dangerous for Cody.”

“Please, Cheri. Please tell me what you mean! I can’t just take Cody away from there without some explanation. It’s against the law.”

“If I’m right, Mrs. O’Connor, Jenna and Eric are into things a lot more against the law than you could ever be. Just please get the kid out of that house . . .” Cheri’s voice was strained, agitated now, with the weight of what she wasn’t saying.

“Just
listen
to me and get that baby out of there, will you? Even Jenna would want you to, if she were in her right mind. But there’s something wrong with her . . . more than just the drugs. She’s like somebody else, not Jenna. I don’t know how to describe what I mean, but it’s spooky. I can’t say anymore, Mrs. O’Connor. Honest to God, I can’t!” The phone clicked off and Maggie stood with the receiver in her hand, the dial tone making its lonely, persistent sound.

Maybe the private detective agency she’d used to trace Jenna could help in some way, she thought frantically, as she dialed. The director, Bill Schmidt, was an ex-FBI man; he listened, occasionally breaking into her hurried explanation, then he responded.

“Look, Mrs. O’Connor, I like you, and I don’t want to mislead you. It’s not like you see in the movies. We can’t go breaking into people’s estates like the cops on TV. If you want us to check this out for you on a fact-finding mission, we’ll do it, but to get the goods on anyone in a place that well protected, we’ll need electronic surveillance. Trucks, men, recording equipment . . . it’ll cost you at least a thousand bucks a night, and I gotta be honest with you, the courts don’t like to accept recorded surveillance from a PI, because they say it could be doctored. And it’s not as if we could go storming in there like John Wayne and pull the little girl out for you, either. I’m really sorry, Mrs. O’Connor, that you’re in this kind of trouble, but my advice is it would be a big waste of money for you to hire us. Why don’t you try Child Welfare or the police.”

The Bureau of Child Welfare was just as drab as every other bureaucratic office in the huge municipal complex. Dreary yellow and institutional gray, no Disney characters in evidence. Maggie chided herself for being repelled by the place; it didn’t matter what it looked like, only what it could accomplish. Surely, someone here would care about a little child in danger.

A woman dressed in a blue, shapeless suit ushered her into a small cubicle with a metal desk and sat down.

“What can I do for you?” she asked with the weary expectation of one who runs a complaint window.

“My daughter is a heroin addict,” Maggie began, cringing internally at the words. “She had a baby three years ago, and left her in my care while she went back to the streets. I didn’t hear from her until a month ago when she arrived back, married, with a house in Greenwich—”

“If she has a house in Greenwich,” the woman interrupted, with the first hint of animation, “you’re in the wrong place. We have no jurisdiction over Connecticut.”

“But
I
live here in the city,” Maggie countered. “The baby—Cody’s her name—lived her whole life in New York City. She’s only been in Connecticut for a month.”

“Be that as it may, Mrs. O’Connor, if the parents live in Connecticut, the case is out of our jurisdiction.”

“Please . . . if you’ll just let me tell you my story . . .” she persisted. “I’m terrified that my granddaughter may be in some kind of danger. I think her mother may be using drugs again . . .”

“Can you prove that allegation? Has she been tested recently?”

“No. I mean, I don’t really know. She’s twenty-one years old, so I can’t force her to be tested against her will.”

The woman wagged her head disapprovingly. “Even if she is on drugs, Mrs. O’Connor, the state won’t consider heroin addiction alone a reason to interfere in you daughters child rearing.” She looked annoyed that Maggie was wasting her time. “Are there physical signs of abuse? Scars, burns, unexplained bruises?”

Maggie shook her head. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. The damage seems to be mostly psychological. Cody’s frightened . . . withdrawn. She was never, ever like that before. She isn’t allowed to play with other children, she’s only permitted to play with her nanny, who’s like a character out of
Dark Shadows.
She’s being threatened and made to drink some kind of concoction—”

“Look, Mrs. O’Connor,” the woman broke in impatiently, “let me save us both some time. A lot of grandmothers are coming in here lately, with similar tales. A drug addict kid drops off a baby and comes back to pick it up years later, after the grandmother has become attached. The law is very clear on this issue. You’ve got no rights whatsoever. The child belongs to your daughter, and the courts are very determined to keep babies with birth mothers, unless there’s documented evidence of physical abuse. So, I’m afraid there really isn’t anything you can do but stay out of the picture. If you insist on pursuing this, my advice would be to let your daughter keep the child for while and abuse her, and then bring it to the attention of the authorities.
Then
you’ll have a case.”

Maggie sat bolt upright in the chair, genuinely shocked. “Let my daughter
abuse
her . . . then I’ll have a case? I suppose if I let my daughter
kill
her, I’ll have a better case!”

The woman behind the desk sat back a moment and glared at Maggie. When she spoke her voice was under tight control. “Look, Mrs. O’Connor, I’m sure you’re under a lot of pressure, so I’ll try not to take offense at that last remark. But here’s the reality I deal with every day. There are thirty thousand cases in my files, of children who
do
show physical signs of abuse . . . kids who’ve been burned or tortured or chained in a bathtub. Kids who
are
in my geographic jurisdiction. I do not have the resources, or the investigators, or the available court time, to deal with one third of those children, let alone your granddaughter. By the time the system gets around to most of them it will be too late to help.” She took a deep breath and sighed audibly; she had frustrations, too.

“
You
have no case. Even if your suspicions are correct,
you have no case.”

Maggie stood outside the municipal building staring, unseeing, at the pigeons for a while, before she decided to go to the police, first thing in the morning.

The
living room couch where Maggie sat was piled high with papers. She’d been trying hard to concentrate all evening with minimal success. Her once wide world had narrowed to a tiny focus. Cody was gone. Cody was in danger. Those two thoughts blotted out all else.

“
Oh God, baby, how I miss you!”
A sudden flash flood of longing surged through Maggie like an unexpected wave that hits when you’re nearing shore, drowning her in loneliness . . . sucking her out past the markers, into fathomless fear.

She fought her way back through the icy torrent, shocked by it’s magnitude. The taxes won’t wait past tonight, she chided herself forcefully. The IRS doesn’t give a damn if my heart is broken.
Life goes on; I forget just why
.

Emphatically, she pushed her glasses up on here nose one more time, hating their damnable reminder of middle age. Another vulnerability. “You can see the grass grow, child,” her grandmother always said when she was small; she’d thought it would remain so forever. Instead, she was doomed to these wretched little Ben Franklin spectacles, that slalomed down her nose, and were never where she needed them to be.

The telephone was a welcome diversion; Maggie padded barefoot across the carpet to answer the call.

“I know what your daughter is doing, Mrs. O’Connor,” an anonymous female voice whispered hoarsely. “Your daughter’s involved with Maa Kheru, God help her.” Maggie’s brain shifted gears to sudden alert.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you know about my daughter?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is Maa Kheru!”

“What on earth is Maa Kheru?”

“It’s a high-priced cult full of powerful people. They control things! The police . . . the newspapers . . . You don’t know how dangerous they are. Oh, God . . . I wish I didn’t know either!” The voice sounded semi-hysterical. “They worship Satan, Mrs. O’Connor. They’ve sold their souls to get success and money.”

“Who are you?” Maggie shouted, really frightened, now. “How do you know all this?”

“I used to live with Maa Kheru . . . you don’t know what they’re capable of . . .” There was a strangled sob, then, “They killed my baby! I’m in hiding . . . they’re after me, and they’ll get me, too—it’s only a matter of time till they kill me. I only called so you could do something to save that child. Please don’t let them sacrifice her like they did my Stacy.
They skinned her alive
, Mrs. O’Connor, do you understand? The skinned my baby
and they drank her blood!”
Before Maggie could recover enough to reply, the phone went dead.