“He’s gone. Girl came for him thirty, forty minutes ago. Had to be the girl-one arm bound up inside her clothes. She asked the guard for Benji bold as brass-said he was her cousin from Morocco. Guard sent her to the principal, principal called Benji in, says kid was thrilled to see the girl, walked off with her. Idiots all, principal, guard, the lot. None of them sent for me.”
His Popeye cheeks swelled larger with anger, but I felt only cold. If Catherine had taken Benji back to her grandmother-as I’d counseled this morning-if Renee had put Marc Whitby in the Larchmont Pond, he was as good as dead.
Dully, I followed Father Lou to the principal’s office. I went through the motions with the guard and the principaclass="underline" Had either of them seen how the kids left? Taxi? Bus? They didn’t know-the school was an old building, put up when windows were built high off the ground to keep you from looking at the street.
Father Lou ordered the principal to summon any teachers or staff still in the building to her office. One of the janitors, moving cartons in from a supply truck, had seen a girl with one arm bound up inside her jacket leave with an older student. He was pretty sure they’d gotten into a white SUV, but he hadn’t been paying close attention.
The old priest was furious. After having the FBI in yesterday looking for Benji, he couldn’t believe the principal would let the youth leave without even trying to discuss the matter with Father Lou.
“We’re trying to make a safe place here. If anyone can come in this school, ask for any kid without you blinking an eye, what’s to stop gangbangers, kidnappers, the whole lot from destroying our peace?”
The principal turned red, angry in her turn: Was she supposed to know that a girl Benji was thrilled to see constituted a menace? If Father Lou wanted to run the school, he should take over-she’d be glad to resign on the spot.
The principal’s red face broke into wavy lines, her mouth moving up and down, as if she was a puppet. The cabinets behind her began moving, too, in the same unsteady waves. It seemed so funny that I started to laugh. The floor began moving, which seemed funny, too, and I was still laughing when I fell over.
My head was wet. Father Lou was wiping water from my neck and face with a rough gym towel.
“No fainting from you, my girl. Need one working brain around here besides mine. Sit up and pull yourself together.”
I sat up. The priest hoisted me to my feet with only a mild grunt. Hundred-and-forty-pound women are nothing to an old boxer. He held a cup to my mouth and I swallowed hot tea, choked, then drank down the rest. I put my head between my knees and willed the gray cloudy pieces of my mind into some kind of order.
“Where would the girl go?” He spoke to me roughly to make me concentrate.
“It depends partly on why she ran away.” My voice wobbled. I steadied it and continued. “She turned hysterical this morning when I asked her to talk to Benji. I also suggested she confide in her grandmother. I just hope she didn’t follow that piece of advice.”
I pulled out my cell phone and called the Bayard apartment. Elsbetta answered.
“Why are you making trouble here?” she demanded. “Mr. Edwards, he wants to fire me because you came this morning. Now Miss Catherine has run away, all because of you.”
“Is Renee or Edwards there?” I ignored her outburst. “I want to talk to them about Catherine.”
“You cannot be bothering them. They have ordered no phone calls.” “Tell them I’m reporting Catherine’s disappearance to the Chicago police,” I said coldly. “If they want to speak to me, they can call me on my cell phone: I’ll give you the number.”
At that, she put me on hold. Within a minute, both Renee and Edwards were on the phone, each trying to order the other to leave the conversation to them.
“Do you have Catherine?” Renee demanded. “Isn’t she with you?” I said.
“She’s run away,” Edwards said. “Without leaving a note.”
“You acted like a Victorian father, Eds, ordering her to pack for Washington and no argument allowed. Elsbetta phoned me at my office, but-” Edwards shouted over her voice. “If you’d thought she deserved half as much attention as Calvin and your goddamned publishing empire-“
“If you listened to anyone but your-“
“Knock it off, both of you,” I said savagely. “When did she leave and what was she driving?”
“You cannot call the police,” they said in chorus.
“I can damn well do what I want. Someone reported seeing her in a white SUV Do you seriously imagine she’s safe driving a three-ton vehicle with one arm?”
That briefly united them: they wanted to know who had seen her. I grew angrier, pushing on them until they admitted Catherine had taken Renee’s white Range Rover, that they knew she hadn’t shown up at the New Solway house, that she’d left around three-thirty, after her fight with her father.
“Have you called Julius Arnoff to see if she’s gone back to Larchmont?” I asked. It didn’t seem likely to me, because she and Benji had been flushed from the mansion once already, but neither teenager was probably thinking much right now.
“My first thought,” Edwards said. “While Renee was still cursing you for taking Trina to her Arab boyfriend, I had a guard stake out the house. She isn’t there.”
“When you came uninvited to the apartment this morning, did you or did you not arrange an assignation for Trina?” Renee demanded.
“Grow up,” I snapped. “I don’t know where Benji is, nor Catherine. Stop casting around for who to blame for her disappearance and tell me what you’re doing to find her.”
“Edwards is using his private security connections,” his mother said bitingly. “They’re likely to shoot her if they see her. If you were looking for her, where would you start?”
“Nowhere I’d tell either of you,” I said nastily, and closed my phone. “They have a private security force out looking for her,” I turned to Father Lou. “That really scares me.”
“Girl adored her grandfather, isn’t that what you told me the other day? Maybe they had some special place. Everyone goes to ground where they feel secure; place connected to her grandfather would feel secure to her.”
“He’s got advanced Alzheimer’s. He won’t be able to tell me-never mind. I know who can. I’ll call you from the car.”
I ran from the school.
CHAPTER 50
North of Madison, Wisconsin, a freezing rain began to fall. The interstate turned glassy on the overpasses; I had to keep my speed down to stay in control. Except for the occasional giant rig charging through the slush at eighty, we had the road pretty much to ourselves.
Geraldine Graham was snoring lightly in the seat next to me. She had insisted on coming: she still had keys to the cottage-she had found them easily, in a drawer in her bedroom, and put them into a black Hermes bag that rested now at her feet. I tried to force her to stay home, but she said she knew the route, which I didn’t, and more important, at least to her, she needed to make sure Benji and Catherine were all right. “If I’d told you these things last week, they might not be in danger now.”
When I’d reached Anodyne Park, Lisa had answered the bell-bustling, officious: you can’t come in, Madam is resting. I pushed her aside and strode down the hall, opening doors. I found Geraldine dozing on her bed with a reading light on and a book open beneath her fingers.
Lisa darted in under my arm. “Oh, madam, this detective is here, breaking in. Shall I call Mr. Darraugh or Mr. Julius?”
Geraldine sat up with a start. “Lisa! Stop dithering. The detective? Mr. Darraugh’s detective is here? Oh, there you are, young woman. Wait while I collect myself.”
I knelt next to her. “Something urgent has come up. I need your help; I don’t need you to put your clothes on.”