The Night Visitors

Chapter Eight Mattie

I’LL GO SPEAK with him,” Sister Martine says, getting to her feet. “You go out the back door and get the boy and his mother away. I’ll call you later to arrange a meeting place.”

This would be a fine plan if Sister Martine could walk at a regular pace, but despite her best efforts (and some very un-nun-like muttering), by the time we get to the front door the officer has already gotten out of his cruiser and is walking toward the rim of the sledding hill.

There’s no way Sister Martine is going across that snow. I tell her I’ll call her later and wade into the drifts, calling Frank’s name. Because of course that’s who it is. Frank Barnes, Delphi’s chief of police. The last man I want to talk to right now.

On the plus side I don’t have to worry about how ridiculous I look. Frank crosses his arms over his chest and watches me wade through the snow. He could come to me, but he’s not going to make this any easier. For him I’ll always be the spoiled brat who grew up in the big house on the hill. Judge Lane’s daughter.

The Little Judge, he’d call me when I accused him of cheating at Monopoly or when I’d balk at some quasi-criminal prank he’d dreamed up, like sneaking into the courthouse at night or dressing up the statue of George Washington in women’s clothing. For a police chief’s son he had remarkably little respect for the law, which I’d always attributed to a contrary streak in his nature. Most things about Frank have changed since we were kids playing pranks—except for that contrary streak. He’s happy to stand and let me make a fool of myself bleating like a stray lamb stuck out in the snow.

I have the urge to give him the finger and turn around, but just past Frank’s bulky shape (he’s put on weight this winter, but then so have I) I spy a flash of Oren’s red jacket and blue cap on the hill. If Frank sees Oren and Alice he’ll know they’re not local. He’ll want to talk to them, and then he might connect them to that mother and son on the run from New Jersey.

“Yoo-hoo!” I call, hating myself for sounding like the dotty old spinster everyone thinks I am. But sometimes it’s better to play the harmless old lady. “Frank Barnes! Just who I wanted to talk to. Do you have a minute? Or are you out here looking to ticket speeding sledders?”

He doesn’t crack a smile. “I don’t know, Mattie, are you planning to sled? If you sled the way you drive I may have to.”

I force myself to laugh as I traverse the last few feet between us. Frank has pulled me over for speeding half a dozen times over the years and once for an illegal U-turn on Main Street at three in the morning. I’ve accused him of lying in wait for me in various alleys and lay-bys throughout the county. “Oh, I think my sledding days are behind me. I’d probably break a hip.” Out of the corner of my eye I see Oren pulling his mother toward the hedge maze. Clever boy. If they can hide in there until I get rid of Frank we’ll be okay.

“I think you’re made of stronger stuff than that, Mattie. What are you doing out here?”

“Just dropping off some donations.” I glance back at the building so I don’t have to meet Frank’s eyes. We’ve known each other since we were kids. Our fathers were friends—the judge and the chief of police—and we used to play while our fathers jawed on the front porch of my father’s law offices. One of the games we’d play was Three Truths and a Lie. Frank always knew what my lie was. “And having a chat with Sister Martine. Is that who you’re here to see?”

“I’m looking for a woman and boy gone missing from northern New Jersey,” he says. “I thought they might have landed here. Unless they turned up at Sanctuary.”

“A woman and boy?” I echo. “How old’s the boy? There was a woman with a three-year-old in two days ago who needed help applying for food stamps.” This is true so I give Frank a steady look, daring him to accuse me of making up indigent women and children.

Frank meets my gaze, unsoftened by my good works. “This boy’s older. Ten. The woman’s in her early thirties. They were spotted getting on a bus in Kingston.”

“What’d they do?” I ask, absorbing the notion that Alice is older than she looks. “Knock over a Stewart’s?”

“I’m just looking for them. They could be in trouble. Have you seen them?”

I shake my head. “Believe it or not, I’m not aware of every runaway woman and child in the Catskills and Hudson Valley.”

“So if I check Sanctuary’s log for last night I won’t find a record of a call from a woman on the run?”

“You’ll need a warrant to see those logs,” I say, bristling. Frank knows full well that he needs a warrant, but he enjoys piquing me on this point. “Unless we believe a caller presents a danger to himself or others, those calls are confidential.”

He shifts his weight, looks away, scanning the sledders for any strange ten-year-old boys, then brings his hand to rest on his hip near his holster. Letting me know what he’s got backing up his point of view. “What if I told you that woman and child were in danger? Would you tell me if you’d been in contact with them?”

I notice he doesn’t threaten me with breaking the law by concealing Alice and Oren’s location. He knows that won’t sway me, that I’m more likely to talk if I think I’m protecting them. And it does give me pause. Frank might be a bit officious, he might throw his weight around like most men, and our history predisposes him against me, but he’s not a bad man. If he thinks Alice and Oren are in danger . . . but then I recall that the man who threatened Alice and Oren is dead.

“Of course if I thought a client was in danger I’d do whatever was necessary to keep him or her safe,” I answer, holding Frank’s gaze steadily. We both know this to be true.

Frank gives me a thin-lipped smile. “Always the judge’s daughter, eh, Mattie?” My carefully evasive wording hasn’t gotten past him.

I know I should laugh it off, but I can’t help thinking about the other time he said the same thing to me. The remembrance makes me mad. And as Doreen has often pointed out, I don’t have a filter when I’m mad. “Always the police chief’s son,” I answer back, “snooping into other people’s business.”

Frank’s face flushes red as if I’d slapped him. I’d like to take the words back, not only because they sound like something my mother would say, but because it’s thanks to Frank’s father’s snooping that I’m alive. I start to apologize but he cuts me off. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

I’d almost forgotten saying that and for a moment my mind is completely blank. But then I think of something. “There were some rednecks giving Atefeh a hard time last night in Stewart’s. Some hunters—Jason and Wayne—in a souped-up plow truck.”

Frank nods. “That would be Wayne Marshall,” he says. “You don’t remember him? He was in school with us, a year ahead of me.”

I shake my head, ignoring the implied criticism that I was too stuck-up to take notice of most of the locals.

“Yeah. He lived downstate for a while, divorced, moved back here to take care of his mother when she had cancer. He works for the DEP now and does some snow plowing on the side.”

“Wow,” I say. “Do you know his shoe size too?”

He scowls. “It’s my job to know what people are like. Wayne’s a nice guy. He was giving Atefeh a hard time?”

“No,” I admit. “It was Jason, who Wayne said was his—”

“Dumbass brother-in-law. Yeah, I know him. He is a dumbass. And a racist homophobe. Half the reason I think Wayne sticks around is to keep an eye on his sister and her kids. You can’t pick your family, can you?”

For a moment this sentence hovers in the air between us. We’re both thinking, I imagine, just how little we would have chosen our own families. Except for Caleb. I would always choose Caleb.

Frank narrows his eyes at me, suspicious cop again. “What were you doing at Stewart’s last night?”

“You caught me,” I say, holding my hands up. “I was jonesing for a bear claw.”

He holds my gaze for a long moment, but before he can challenge me someone calls his name. We both look toward the convent and see the unlikely sight of Sister Martine making her way through the snow, the aluminum prow of her walker breaching the drifts like an arctic dogsled. Frank sighs. “I’d better stop her before she breaks something. But seriously, Mattie, if you know the whereabouts of this woman and boy you should tell me. There are things about this case you don’t understand . . .” He looks like there’s more that he wants to say but either he’s afraid Sister Martine is going to fall or there’s information he’s not willing to share with me, and he storms off without another word. I watch him take Sister Martine’s arm and steer her back toward the convent. I can count on Sister Martine to keep him distracted long enough to get Alice and Oren out of here.

I look down the hill and see that Oren and Alice have come out of the maze. I hold up my hand, fingers splayed wide. Then I point to the lower drive, which won’t be visible from Sister Martine’s office. Will they understand that I want them to meet me there in five minutes? When Oren holds up his hand in the same gesture I’m pretty sure he does.

I walk back to the car, keeping an eye out for Frank and going over our conversation in my head. I shouldn’t have let him get me ruffled, but even when we were kids playing on the porch of my father’s law offices, he could rile me up just by looking at me cross-eyed. I shouldn’t have told him about being in Stewart’s last night, but if he warns that idiot away from Atefeh it will be worth it. It occurs to me, though, that I should stop at Stewart’s and ask Atefeh not to mention that I was meeting the bus last night. I hate asking her to lie, but she of all people will understand. I’ve just got to keep Alice and Oren hidden for one night and then they’ll be out of my hands. Which is probably for the best. There was something about Frank’s face when he told me that I didn’t understand the case that makes me think it will be better for everyone when Alice and Oren are gone.