Without a Word (15 page)

His shoulders started to shake and then I heard the sobs. I stepped closer, putting my arms around him, letting him cry, tears he'd been wanting to cry for twelve years and counting. When he stopped crying, I stood back. He wiped his face with his hands, looking down, where the water was swirling around our feet, our feet sinking slowly into the wet sand, the bottoms of our pants cold and wet, pressing heavily against our ankles.

“She must have been every bit as scared as I was.”

“More,” I said. “She was the one who was going to have the baby.”

“I always figured she must have had an abortion. When she didn't come back, I pretty much wrote the whole thing off, wrote her off, until…”

“Until you read my second letter.”

He nodded. “Where did she go? What happened?”

“The reason you couldn't find her is that she got married,” I said, watching his face, watching him take it in.
“They moved to the city. She was using another name, his name, so—”

He turned to face me, grabbing my arms.

“
Married?
You mean I was right? You mean the kid's
not
mine?”

He let go of me. He was nodding now, not the kind of nodding that says he agreed with what I was saying, the kind that said he was nervous, angry, the kind that said if he were a volcano, it would be time to step back, get the hell out of the way.

“All this time, all these years, because she disappeared and I couldn't talk to her again, I figured I really fucked up. I really hurt her. And now it turns out I was right all along. There
was
someone else. Man, she had me fooled. Man, I could have been played for the worst sucker on the face—”

I started shaking my head. It took him a moment or two to notice.

“What?”

“Not so,” I said.

“The guy she married, he's not—”

“He's not the genetic father, Jim. You are.”

“How can you possibly know that? You don't even know Sally. You never even met her.”

“But I have met your daughter.” I reached out, not for his hand this time. I reached out and touched his face, the cheek that was twitching. It had been his eye earlier, when he'd walked into Dean's, the eye that told me he was the man who'd called, the eye that told me why.

He brushed my hand away. “It happens when I'm nervous. It was much worse when I was a kid. Now it's only once in a…” Getting it, understanding how I knew.

“She's got it, too?”

“She does.”

For what seemed like a long time, we stood there, Jim
staring at me, me staring back, both of us rewriting history as we knew it, trying to get it right this time.

Then I just nodded. And he did, too.

“The man Sally married? He knew the baby wasn't his?”

“I'm sure he did.”

“I don't get it.”

“I don't either.”

“Who is he? Who did she marry?”

“Leon Spector.”

“Who…?”
He looked away, then back at me, his face contorted. “Mr. Spector, the history teacher?”

I nodded.

“Mr. Spector married her. I…And they weren't having an affair. Why would he?”

“Maybe he saw the same thing you did, this beautiful creature sitting in his classroom every day, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And now she was in trouble, bad trouble, and he could help.” He could be a hero, I thought. But things never work out the way you think they will.

“So they got married?”

“In Delaware. Parental permission isn't needed there for pregnant teens.”

Jim nodded, trying to absorb it all.

“And Mr. Spector's got her, my daughter?”

I nodded.

“And Sally's gone?”

“That's right.”

“You said she was in trouble, the kid?”

“Come on,” I said, pulling on his sleeve. “Let's sit down.”

We walked back to where Jim had left his jacket. Sitting there on the sand, I told him about Madison, about her decision to stop talking, about the death of Dr. Bechman, about trying to find Sally in the hope that Madison would speak again. I told it all to him, everything I knew. When
I'd finished, we sat there not talking for a while. I was thinking about what he told me, how Sally had come to him, scared, to say she was pregnant, how he'd panicked and rejected her, how she'd disappeared back then, too. Leon said she'd cut herself off from her friends, moved to another borough, changed her name. No one at Lincoln could have possibly guessed that she had married Leon, even though he'd disappeared, too. No one would have put that particular two and two together and come up with four. It was too weird to contemplate. And no one would have been able to find Sally either, no matter how hard they tried.

Jim picked up his jacket and put it on. We brushed the sand off our feet as best we could, putting on our shoes and socks. Then, still without talking, he picked up the bag with the sandwiches and carried it to the nearest trash can. I'd never asked what he'd ordered. No matter. Neither of us was hungry now.

When we came out from under the boardwalk, he asked me how I'd come.

“Subway,” I told him.

“I should've gone to the city to meet you,” he said. “I'll drive you home.”

I didn't argue. I thought he needed to do something. I thought there'd be more questions, that he'd need some time to formulate them, time to know what it was he wanted to know. But he didn't talk in the car. He drove silently along the Belt Parkway, through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, up along West Street until we got to the Village. I told him where I lived. He turned on all the right one-way streets until we were in front of the gate to the cottage.

“What's her name?” he finally asked me.

“Madison.”

Jim's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He turned away, and when he turned back, he was crying again, this time silently, like his daughter.

“Madison,” he repeated.

I nodded.

“If you think of anything else…” He had my phone numbers, but I gave him my card anyway.

He opened the glove compartment and took out a small pad, writing something on it and handing it to me. “It's my work number.”

“I understand.”

“There're two Jims there, so you have to ask for Jim Russell.”

“Okay,” I told him.

“Do you think you'll find her?”

I shrugged.

“Will you call me if you do?”

“I will.”

I opened the car door but I didn't get out. “Did you and Sally swim when you were down in the Keys?” I asked, visions of Madison's room swirling in my head. “By any chance, did you go snorkeling?”

“Yeah, we did. There was a place where you could rent snorkels, masks and fins just down the road from the motel.”

I leaned over and put my arms around him, holding him tight. Part of it was gratitude, part was that there was something about him that broke my heart the way his daughter did.

The street lamps were already on, the light smoky and diffused. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the gate to my cottage watching Jim drive away. Then I went inside and got Dashiell, going back out with him for his nighttime walk. Barely paying attention to what was around me, I pulled out my cell phone, called Delta Airlines and made reservations to fly down to Miami late the following night. I needed to get ready, but I didn't want to wait a moment longer than I'd have to. I wanted to take Madison's medical records with me. And a picture of her, too, a recent one. I'd have to make arrangements for Dashiell, too. I stopped to wait for a car to pass, glancing down at Dashiell. He was looking up at me with a goofy smile on his puss. If he couldn't be with me, I knew exactly where he'd be happiest. The question was, if I wanted Madison to trust me, how far was I willing to go to trust her? And as soon as I formed the question, I knew the answer. I took out my phone again and called Leon, asking if he and Madison would be willing to take Dashiell for a few days, starting the following evening.

“Sure,” he said. No questions asked. Quintessential Leon.

I was prepared to tell him about the way Dash and Madison had gotten along when she stayed over. I was going to
say that if they spent some time together, it might help her open up, if no one rushed her, if we just let nature take its course. But he probably knew that already. He'd had a dog of his own, one he took everywhere. Anyway, he'd already said yes, so I didn't need to keep selling, did I?

“I need a couple of other things, too,” I said. The car had passed, but Dashiell and I were still on that corner.

“What's that?” he asked.

“I need you to call Ms. Peach and request a complete copy of Madison's records. Everything in the file.”

“Okay.”

“I'm pretty sure she'll ask you to put it in writing, Leon.”

“I'll take care of it.”

“I need it tomorrow. I'll need to get it from you when I come to drop off Dashiell. If she says she can't do it that fast, you're going to have to insist she does. Is that a problem?”

“What are you looking for?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “Sometimes you don't know what you're looking for until you find it.”

The truth was, I wasn't looking for anything at all. I was hoping I'd be able to give the envelope to Sally, to let Madison's medical records do some of the talking for me. But I didn't want to say that to Leon, not now, not before I knew what I was going to find when I got to Florida.

“There's one more thing, Leon. I need your approval to spend some money. The reason I've asked you to take Dashiell is that I'm going to be out of town for a few days doing some research.”

“On the case?”

“It's a really old lead,” I told him. “Not much chance I'll find anything helpful, but I figured you'd want me to…”

There was a silence on the line. I heard the phone hit the desk, as if it had been dropped. I waited, but nothing hap
pened. I couldn't hear Leon walking away. He might have been wearing sneakers. Or socks, kicking off his shoes the minute he walked in the door the way I always did. Or he might have been standing right there, afraid to hear what else I might have to say, afraid not to hear it, too.

“What have you found out?” he asked.

“I know it's asking a lot, Leon, but I'm asking you not to ask. I'm asking you to trust me on this. Please. Just let me do my job and tell you things when I'm ready, when it's right to do so.”

There was another silence. Then, “You found her?”

“No,” I said. I crossed the street, turned left, Dashiell staying close. The last thing on earth I wanted was to tell him what I'd learned tonight, not yet anyway, maybe not ever. “I didn't find her. But I'm still working on it.”

“Then…”

“The records, the trip, it's all part of the research I need to do. I can't say yet if anything will pan out. If the money's a problem, I'll—”

“No. It's not about the money. Spend whatever you have to. And tell me when you can. I've waited this long,” he said, “I guess I can…” I waited for the end of the sentence but it didn't come.

“Thanks, Leon. I know this isn't easy.” I was heading back to the cottage, no one else along the street I'd taken. “I'll come by with Dashiell at around six, if that's okay,” thinking I'd have to leave from there to get to the airport on time. “If you have any trouble getting Madison's records…”

“There won't be any trouble.”

“Swell. So I'll see you then. I'll have Dash and all his stuff with me. If it's okay, I'd like to talk to Madison about taking care of Dash. She knows how to prepare his food and she seemed to like doing it,” thinking he ate better than she
did, than most kids do, living on Happy Meals, sodas and processed food.

“Sounds good. We'll be here. I'll tell Madison you're coming and that Dashiell will be staying over. She'll be pleased.”

I was back at the cottage. I thanked Leon again and ended the call. Then I unlocked the gate, walking into the tunnel, locking the gate behind me.

It was late and it was cold out, but instead of going inside, I sat on the stone steps while Dashiell investigated a pile of dead leaves in the far corner of the garden. Madison's room had been painted as if it were underwater, the fish circling her bed and desk and dresser the brightly colored ones you'd see if you were snorkeling, red and yellow and blue, nothing like anywhere else. Despite the chill in the air, I sat there a long time thinking about Madison's room, about her mother's past, about what I was hoping I might find in Florida.

Even when I went inside, sleep was out of the question for a long time. I packed a small bag, tucking Madison's picture of her mother carefully into the zippered pocket. I took my new digital camera, small enough to fit into my jacket pocket. I packed a bathing suit, too. If I found the place I was looking for, perhaps that shop would still be there and I'd be able to rent a snorkel, goggles and fins, the way Sally and Jim had. Maybe whoever owned the shop would recognize Sally from her picture. Maybe he'd say, “Yeah, sure, I know her. She comes by from time to time, lives in the area, lives right down the road.” Maybe.

I zipped the bag closed, then opened it up again and tucked in the copy of the picture Madison had drawn, the one found on Bechman's desk right after his body was discovered. If I found Sally, if things were going well, she might want to see that, too.

Still wide awake, I got Dashiell's food packed, leaving the bag in the refrigerator. Then I made a fire in the fireplace and sat on the floor with my dog, watching the flames, feeling calmer than I'd been since I first took on this case.

Later, way later, fish swam through my dreams. There were fish with spots like friendly dogs, fish with undershot jaws, fish that swam in schools, all facing the same direction one moment, just hanging in the water as if suspended by invisible wires, then miraculously, the turn unseen, all looking another way. There were rocks in my dreams, too, coral, grasses waving gracefully one way and then another as the current moved them, huge turtles with powerful claws, creatures I couldn't name, not all of them real. The water seemed to be made of light. No matter how deep I went, I could see everything around me, everything, at last, was clear.