Charles took a large gulp of coffee. What Cathryn said made sense. He knew that if the police came in force, they could get him out of the house. That was one of the reasons he’d boarded up the windows so carefully; afraid of tear gas or the like. But he thought they probably would have other means which he hadn’t wanted to consider. Cathryn was right; the police would be real trouble.
“All right,” said Charles, “but you’ll have to use the rental van in the garage. I don’t think the station wagon has any windshield.”
Putting on their coats, they walked hand in hand through the inch of new snow to the locked barn. They both saw the charred remains of the playhouse at the pond’s edge and both avoided mentioning it. The still-smoldering ashes were too sharp a reminder of the terror of the previous night.
As Cathryn backed the van out of the garage, she felt a reluctance to leave. With Michelle ostensibly feeling better and despite the vandals, Cathryn had enjoyed her newly found closeness with Charles. With some difficulty, since driving a large van was a new experience, Cathryn got the vehicle turned around. She waved good-bye to Charles and drove slowly down their slippery driveway.
Reaching the foot of the hill, she turned to look back at the house. In the steely light, it looked abandoned among the leafless trees. Across the front of the house, the word “Communist” was painted in careless, large block letters. The rest of the red paint had been splashed on the front door, and the way it had splattered and ran off the porch made it look like blood.
Driving directly to the Boston Police Headquarters on Berkeley Street, Cathryn rehearsed what she was going to say to Patrick O’Sullivan. Deciding that brevity was the best approach, she was confident that she’d be in and out in a matter of minutes.
She had a great deal of trouble finding a parking spot and ended up leaving the van in an illegal yellow zone. Taking the elevator to the sixth floor, she found O’Sullivan’s office without difficulty. The detective got up as she entered and came around his desk. He was dressed in exactly the same outfit as he’d had on twenty-four hours earlier when she’d met him. Even the shirt was the same because she remembered a coffee stain just to the right of his dark blue polyester tie. It was hard for Cathryn to imagine that this seemingly gentle man could muster the violence he obviously needed on occasion for his job.
“Would you like to sit down?” asked Patrick. “Can I take your coat?”
“That’s okay, thank you,” said Cathryn. “I’ll only take a moment of your time.”
The detective’s office looked like the set for a TV melodrama. There were the obligatory stern photos of some of the police hierarchy on the chipped and peeling walls. There was also a cork bulletin board filled with an assortment of wanted posters and photographs. The detective’s desk was awash with papers, envelopes, soup cans full of pencils, an old typewriter, and a picture of a chubby redheaded woman with five redheaded little girls.
O’Sullivan tipped back in his chair, his fingers linked over his stomach. His expression was entirely blank. Cathryn realized she had no idea what the man was thinking.
“Well,” she said uneasily, her confidence waning. “The reason I came is to tell you that I’m not interested in pressing charges against my husband.”
Detective O’Sullivan’s face did not alter in the slightest detail.
Cathryn looked away for a moment. Already the meeting was not going according to plan. She continued: “In other words, I don’t want guardianship of the child.”
The detective remained unresponsive, augmenting Cathryn’s anxiety.
“It’s not that I don’t care,” added Cathryn quickly. “It’s just that my husband is the biological parent, and he is an M.D., so I think he’s in the best position to determine the kind of treatment the child should receive.”
“Where is your husband?” asked O’Sullivan.
Cathryn blinked. The detective’s question made it sound as if he hadn’t been listening to her at all. Then she realized she shouldn’t have paused. “I don’t know,” said Cathryn, feeling she sounded less than convincing.
Abruptly O’Sullivan tipped forward in his chair, bringing his arms down on the top of his desk. “Mrs. Martel, I think I’d better inform you of something. Even though you initiated the legal proceedings, you cannot unilaterally stop them before the hearing. The judge who granted you emergency temporary guardianship also appointed a guardian ad litim by the name of Robert Taber. How does Mr. Taber feel about pressing charges against your husband in order to get Michelle Martel back into the hospital?”
“I don’t know,” said Cathryn meekly, confused at this complication.
“I had been led to believe,” continued Detective O’Sullivan, “that the child’s life was at stake unless she got very specific treatment as soon as possible.”
Cathryn didn’t say anything.
“It’s apparent to me that you have been talking with your husband.”
“I’ve spoken with him,” admitted Cathryn, “and the child is doing all right.”
“What about the medical treatment?”
“My husband is a physician,” said Cathryn, as if stating Charles’s qualifications answered the detective’s question.
“That may be, Mrs. Martel, but the court will only agree to accepted treatment.”
Cathryn marshaled her courage and stood up. “I think I should go.”
“Perhaps you should tell us where your husband is, Mrs. Martel.”
“I’d rather not say,” said Cathryn, abandoning any pretense of ignorance.
“You do remember we have a warrant for his arrest. The authorities at the Weinburger Institute are very eager to press charges.”
“They’ll get every piece of their equipment back,” said Cathryn.
“You should not allow yourself to become an accessory to the crime,” said Patrick O’Sullivan.
“Thank you for your time,” said Cathryn as she turned for the door.
“We already know where Charles is,” called Detective O’Sullivan.
Cathryn stopped and turned back to the detective.
“Why don’t you come back and sit down.”
For a moment Cathryn didn’t move. At first she was going to leave, but then she realized she’d better find out what they knew and more importantly, what they planned to do. Reluctantly, she returned to her seat.
“I should explain something else to you,” said O’Sullivan. “We didn’t put out the warrant for your husband’s arrest on the NCIC teletype until this morning. My feeling was that this was not a usual case, and despite what the people at the Weinburger said, I didn’t think your husband stole the equipment. I thought he’d taken it, but not stolen it. What I hoped was that somehow the case would solve itself. I mean, like your husband would call somebody and say ‘I’m sorry, here’s all the equipment and here’s the kid; I got carried away…’ and so forth. If that happened I think we could have avoided any indictments. But then we got pressure from the Weinburger and also the hospital. So your husband’s warrant went out over the wires this morning and we heard back immediately. The Shaftesbury police phoned to say that they knew Charles Martel was in his house and that they’d be happy to go out and apprehend him. So I said…”
“Oh God, no!” exclaimed Cathryn, her face blanching. Detective O’Sullivan paused in mid-sentence, watching Cathryn. “Are you all right, Mrs. Martel?”
Cathryn closed her eyes and placed her hands over her face. After a minute she took her hands down and looked at O’Sullivan. “What a nightmare, and it continues.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the detective.
Cathryn described Charles’s crusade against Recycle, Ltd. and the attitude of the local police, also the police’s reaction to the attack on their house.