Kiss Mommy Goodbye (23 page)

Mel looked sadly at Donna. “What could you have done?” he asked. “There’s no way you could have foreseen any of this, Donna. There’s no way you could have stopped it even if you had.”

Donna felt the first tear starting to fall down her cheek. “You know I’m right, don’t you?” she asked.

“We’ll find out in a few minutes.”

Mel pressed down harder on the accelerator. Donna continued her verbal stream-of-consciousness. “How could I let myself be so fooled? I don’t understand. I remember how he was introduced to me—‘This is Victor Cressy, the best insurance salesman in the northern hemisphere.’ How many times did he tell me he could sell sand to the Arabs, for God’s sake? Don’t you see, Mel? He sold me a desert full of sand! The whole thing was an act. He let us think he’d mellowed—very gradually, of course, that’s why we fell for it. He started out bitter and angry and then he started easing up a little every week. Just enough always to be believable, to make us accept him. And I did. Just like he planned. Like he knew I would. Oh
God, Mel, how long do you think he’s been planning this?”

Mel said nothing. They both knew the answer. Victor had been setting his scheme in motion from the day of the judge’s decision, if not earlier. It was quite possible he’d made up his mind on the evening of Donna’s initial departure. He waited only long enough to make whatever arrangements he deemed necessary. Until everyone was perfectly relaxed. Even happy.

“Annie’s birthday was a little bonus for him,” Donna said quietly, “the salt for the wound.”

They drove past Donna’s rented house in Lake Worth, but it was as Donna had left it and Victor’s car was nowhere around. “He’s not there,” she said, crawling back into the car after a brief look around. Mel threw the car into gear and they continued their drive toward Lantana.

Suddenly, Donna’s voice turned cold with terror. “You don’t think he’s hurt them, do you? Oh God, Mel, you don’t think he’s done something awful to them?” She started to shake.

Mel pulled the car over to the side of the road and quickly hugged Donna to him. Then he moved away from her and forced her eyes to look deep into his. “Look at me,” he commanded gently. “You’re getting panicky. Calm down. We don’t know that there’s anything out of line here at all. Victor could be at home getting the kids ready to bring back to you right now. To start imagining that Victor’s done something to hurt them is nonsense, honey. No matter what kind of man Victor is or isn’t, no matter what he might do or not do to try and hurt you, the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that he would never—never—hurt his children. He loves them, Donna. He may
not always be a very nice man, but he’s not inhuman.”

Donna burst into tears against Mel’s chest. “Cry it out, baby,” he said.

After several minutes, Donna looked up and moved back into her previous position. Mel started the car again and they continued along their way. Donna wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. “Wouldn’t it be something if I’m all wrong?” She started to laugh. “Here, I get myself all worked up for absolutely no reason whatsoever—Victor always used to say that I got myself all worked up for no reason—and we’ll get there and he’ll be there with Adam and Sharon and a perfectly logical explanation for why they ruined Annie’s birthday, made her miss the movie—”

“Would you stop worrying about that movie—”

“And he’ll be there. And he’ll say, ‘What happened to your eyes? Your mascara is running.’” She laughed again, a laugh of desperation, hoping she was right, praying he would be there, Oh God, please be there.

The house was dark.

“Oh, God.”

“Take it easy, Donna. They could be in the back. Or we might have missed them.”

Donna and Mel opened their doors simultaneously, unbuckling their seat belts and running out of the car toward the house. Donna frantically tried the door, but it was locked. She no longer had a key. “Goddamn,” she shouted, throwing her weight against it. Mel ran around to the back of the house while Donna walked around trying to peer into the various windows.

“No one’s out back,” Mel said, upon his return.

“There’s no one here,” Donna said, with quiet resignation.

Mel walked over to the front window and peered inside. “Furniture seems to be all there.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Donna said. “He’d leave it.” She stood lifeless in front of the doorway. “He’s gone. He’s taken my babies.”

“We’ll find him, Donna, I promise you, we’ll find him.”

“Donna?” The voice caught them off guard. They had not seen her approach, had not felt her presence. “I saw you from my garden, and I thought it was you. The old eyes are really starting to go, you know.” Donna turned abruptly to confront Arlene Adilman.

“Where is Victor?” Donna asked, hearing the panic behind her words.

“Oh, he left yesterday,” the woman replied casually. “Got eighty-five thousand for the house. Sold it with the furniture and everything. Some nice, young couple. They’ll be moving in tomorrow. Apparently they bought the place over three months ago. Paid all cash from what I understand. Didn’t even know he’d had it up for sale till he came over to say goodbye and to give me this.” She held out a small white envelope. “He said you’d probably come by tonight.”

Donna grabbed the envelope from the startled woman’s hands. She fumbled around impotently for a few seconds, unable to open it, her hands shaking almost uncontrollably. Mel took the envelope from her and quickly tore it open, handing it back to Donna immediately without looking inside. “Where did Victor go?” Mel asked, as Donna quickly perused the few shorts words Victor had written.

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Adilman said. “Don’t you know?”

A low wail began slowly to fill the surrounding air. It started as a hum, became stronger, a definite tone, growing,
growing, getting higher and higher until it thrust itself into the open air and exploded. Mel quickly threw his arms around Donna, holding her neck tightly against him, but nothing could muffle the intensity of her cry. The final, agonizing death wail of an animal caught in a hunter’s trap. The sound had no beginning and no end. It sprang from the belly like a newborn infant and escaped into the air a full-grown demon.

Mel reached down and prodded the note away from Donna’s tightly clenched fist. Holding the note up behind Donna’s back, he read the brief message that Victor had earlier penned:

The point is learning to live with it.

Mel crumbled the note in his hand and threw it angrily to the ground.

“W
hat were they wearing the last time you saw them?”

Donna stared into the golden-flecked eyes of the moonfaced police lieutenant. He was a short man, intensely muscular but surprisingly neutral in appearance, as if the exaggerated curve of his chin and jowls had wiped out any remaining traces of character that might have earlier existed. It was a face that betrayed nothing. Probably the ideal face for a police lieutenant, Donna thought absently.

She was so weary. They’d had no sleep the night before, the police having asked them to come back in the morning, Sunday night being no time to cope with anything other than the kind of dire emergencies that Palm Beach County seldom had. Their phone calls—to Danny Vogel and others of Victor’s friends and acquaintances—had proved useless. Each knew nothing or claimed to. Donna suspected it was the former. Victor would take no chances. Never having been one to confide in his friends, he would not be about to start now. His disappearance would be well
planned, clean, and total. They had called both Ed Gerber and Mr. Stamler. Neither lawyer was able to be of much help, though they had appointments set up with both men for later in the day.

“Adam was wearing a white-and-blue striped jersey,” Donna said softly, picturing her little boy as he sat proudly on the toilet, beaming over in her direction. “And white shorts. No socks. Blue sandals.”

“And the little girl?”

The tears immediately began to fall down Donna’s cheeks, her eyes already swollen almost shut from crying. “She was wearing a red-and-white checked sundress,” she said slowly, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “With matching underpants with ruffles. And white sandals.” She stopped, feeling her daughter’s small arms around her neck. Mmm, you’re delicious, she had told the child. “And a white ribbon in her hair,” she added. “Her hair is very curly.”

“Yes, we have their photographs,” the lieutenant reminded her gently, holding up the pictures she had brought in. “They’re beautiful children.”

“Yes, they are.” Donna reached over and grabbed Mel’s hand. They sat side by side across from the police lieutenant. The small sign on his desk identified him as one Stan Robinson. Donna estimated his age at around fifty. He was staring at her, probably trying to organize what he was about to say, but Donna got no clues from the set of his features. She felt only that whatever he was about to say, she was not going to like it.

“I hate cases like this,” he began. Donna caught her breath. “We’re seeing more and more of them lately. Like an epidemic. One parent gets custody; the other one runs
off with the kids.” He shook his head. “It’s about the meanest thing you can do to somebody.” He paused. “And there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

“What do you mean there’s not a lot you can do about it?” Donna demanded.

“There’s a term for what your husband’s done,” Lieutenant Robinson said evenly. “It’s called legal kidnapping. A parent kidnaps his own kids. It’s not really kidnapping because it’s a parent. There’s no ransom. The object isn’t to hurt the child. There’s no law against it. They keep talking about bringing in a law but,” he shrugged, “frankly, even if they do, it would be a pretty hard law to enforce. I can’t see it doing much good.”

“But he’s in defiance of a court order,” Mel argued.

“Yeah, that’s true. So, we got something there. You find him, we’ll slap him with a court order.”

Donna felt a strange buzzing sound behind her ears. “You won’t help us?”

“We’ll help you as much as we can,” the lieutenant said, “but I don’t think it’ll do you a lot of good. Look, Patty Hearst disappeared for how many years? And we had the whole country out looking for her. You’re talking about a man and two kids who nobody knows and nobody cares about except the two of you, and you’re talking about a whole globe he could be hiding in. The kids got passports?”

“What?”

“You got the kids registered on either your or your ex-husband’s passports?”

Donna looked frantically at the ceiling, then back at the police lieutenant. “I have them on mine,” she said with some excitement. “When I went to have my passport
renewed last year, I had the kids registered on it, I don’t know why.”

Mel’s free hand reached over and squeezed their already interlocking other hands.

Stan Robinson stood up and moved around the desk. “Well, then, at least we know they can’t leave the country.” Donna let out a deep breath. “That leaves fifty states and probably Canada.” He paused long enough to let the hopelessness of his words sink in. “I don’t think you need a passport to get into Canada,” he continued. “We can check with immigration, but I doubt it’ll turn up anything.”

“What else can you do?” Mel asked.

“Basically, just tell you what you can do.”

“Which is?”

“Call all the airlines, see if they have a record of Mr. Cressy and the kids on any of their recent flights. I’d also call the Tampa and Miami airports. That’s a hell of a job because there are so many airlines and thousands of flights he could have taken, if he took a plane at all. Probably he did, but then he probably also used a phoney name and paid cash for the tickets. You could check with whatever banks Mr. Cressy used, see if he closed out or transferred any accounts, but I doubt they’ll tell you anything. Check where he worked. Maybe he got a transfer. Call your lawyer. Call anyone who knew him. Any relatives. Send pictures to all your friends and family who live out of state, if you have any. You can hire a private detective, but that gets pretty expensive, and usually they don’t turn up much unless you can give them lots to work with. Try and remember any place he might have mentioned that he’d like to live. What does he like to do? Any particular sport?”
He leaned against the desk. “We had a case here not too long ago where the mother got custody and the father took off with the kid—a little girl. Six years old, I think. The mother hired lawyers, detectives, the works. Couldn’t find her. Took a year. They finally found them in Colorado. Husband liked to ski. But it wasn’t the lawyers or the detectives or even the wife who clued in. They got a phone call one day from a friend who lived in South Africa, of all places. He’d been to Aspen skiing on a holiday and he saw the guy lining up at one of the slopes.”

“Victor doesn’t like to ski,” Donna muttered numbly, hearing the buzzing sound once more behind her ears.

“The point is—” Lieutenant Robinson said.

Mel cut him off. “She got the point, Lieutenant.”

Stan Robinson walked back behind his desk. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I really wish there was more we could do.”

“So do we,” Mel said, standing up and helping Donna to her feet.

The buzzing sound grew louder. Before they had walked several steps, Donna felt her legs buckle beneath her, was aware that Mel’s arms had prevented her from falling, but was aware of nothing else except the persistent buzzing. Then she fainted, and the buzzing stopped.

The woman had Victor’s eyes and full mouth, but aside from these two features, there was little to connect Lenore Cressy with her son. The woman was blonde, although this was undoubtedly aided by artificial coloring, and was quite short, where Victor was tall and dark. She was somewhat top heavy but she dressed tastefully, even meticulously, and her makeup was cleverly, almost artfully, done, to disguise
the unwanted wrinkles and creases of age. Donna looked hard at the woman, estimating her age, from what she knew of her background, at close to seventy, although she looked easily ten years younger. Except for the sadness around her eyes she was still an amazingly attractive woman.

“I haven’t seen my son in over eight years,” she said with simple directness. Donna felt her heart sink. It was a feeling she had become increasingly familiar with in the last five days.