She goes quiet after that, making me think I've spoken with too much candor. Then suddenly her face breaks into the warm smile that makes her so effective on TV.
"I wish like you I'd come here on a quest," she says, "instead of to cover some scummy trial." She locks eyes with mine. "Like I said, David, you're a pretty interesting guy."
We grin at one another, slurp up our spaghetti, devour our salads, work our way methodically through our bottle of wine. The, like lovers, we slowly make our way back to the Townsend along lonely Riverwalk lit by gracefully turned streetlamp candelabra, breathing air that smells of iron and dead flowers, arms loosely embracing one another's waists.
3
A man and a woman are making love…
The phrase haunts me, seems to follow me around like a shadow. I want to put faces to these people. All I'm drawing now are their heads lost in shadow. I want to see them clearly, hear their voices, the rhythm of their breathing, the thumping of their hearts. Most of all, I want to see their eyes.
This morning I ask Townsend Hotel management to move me to a lower floor. The desk is happy to oblige as most guests prefer the upper floors with views. But I want the sound of the streets and the strange play of light that comes from passing traffic in the night.
I'm delighted when they offer me a room on the second floor. It takes me but fifteen minutes to move. After stowing my clothing, I post several of my drawings of the lovers on the wall facing the window.
Tonight, with the rooms lamps off, I study them as cars come and go, casting headlight beams into the room. These beams hit the eyes on my drawings filled in with graphite pencil. The graphite reflects the light, the eyes glow, and then, as the cars pass and the headlight beams cross the space, the eyes move, they come alive!
The Fulraine kidnapping: I'm sitting in the local archives room of the Calista Public Library across from Danzig Park, going through old file folders containing yellowed clippings culled from The Calista Times-Dispatch.
An odd aspect, one I'd forgotten, was that the Fulraine infant was not kidnapped in the traditional sense. There was never a demand for ransom. Rather Belle Fulraine disappeared at the age of three, along with a recently hired au pair, never to be seen again.
This au pair, Becky Hallworth from Dorset in England, turned up dead a week later, her nude torso (missing head and hands) washed onto the eastern shore of Delamere Lake. For several days her torso remained unidentified, causing the police to dub her the ‘Lady of the Lake.’ When, finally, an ID was made, based on freckles and birthmarks viewed in a pornographic film in which Becky, unbeknownst to her agency and employers, had recently performed, the implications of the kidnapping grew grave.
Could little Belle have been rented or sold by Becky to purveyors of child smut and Becky killed because, due to the prominence of the Fulraine family, her collaborators in the crime were frightened by the unexpected heat? If so, where was little Belle now? Had she too been killed? Would films or photographs turn up on the underground pedophile market in which the innocent child would be shown abused?
I read all the clippings, then carefully study the accompanying photographs.
The Fulraines were quite a pair. In one picture of the couple, Barbara, though in grief, exudes extraordinary glamour. Her haunting, almond-shaped eyes and well-modeled mouth, pale skin, and luxurious wavy, dark hair make her appear more like a movie star than an aggrieved local socialite. Standing beside her, Andrew Fulraine exhibits matinee idol looks. Steady eyes, squared-off jaw, hair meticulously combed back, his physiognomy speaks of willfulness and power, a refusal to be broken no matter the depth of his pain.
Little Belle is appropriately cute and vulnerable, while the older Fulraine sons, my schoolmates, six-year-old Robin and seven-year-old Mark, combine the manly demeanor of their father and the soft, exotic beauty of their mom.
In another photo of Barbara alone, she's handsomely dressed in a light cashmere crewneck sweater with a single strand of pearls about her graceful neck – so different from her garb in a photograph in my possession that shows her in quite a different frame of mind.
Finally, there's Becky Hallworth in whose lightly freckled countenance I detect the seeds of the Fulraines' misfortune. There's definitely something ‘off’ about the girl, a glint of craziness in the eyes, of slutty fiendishness in the mouth, of come-hither-and-be-damned in the grin. I ask myself how closely the Fulraines interviewed her and whether they were so dazzled by her schooled British accent and peaches-and-cream complexion that they neglected the most elementary of precautions – checking the girl's references.
Strangely Waldo Channing's column on the subject is the most poignant in the folder. I say ‘strangely’ because Waldo's columns tended to be pretty superficial stuff. Yet every so often, particularly when people he cared about were involved, he managed to rise to the occasion:
It's been a year since my dear friends, Andy and Barb, lost their child. When I write that word ‘lost’ I feel a great throb in my chest, for of course little Belle Fulraine wasn't lost at all. She was taken. And therein lies the tragedy.
‘Tragedy’ is a term I don't use lightly. Those of you who regularly drop in on This Department know I generally concern myself with the lighter side of life. Who's who, who's been seen with whom, who's been doing what. I write about theater, film, and cabaret, love gained and lost, weddings and divorces, tales of our Fair City, its bars and clubs, fun and froth, and, occasionally, its underbelly too. But rarely tragedy. Tragedy, you see, is really not my beat. But today is different. Today is an anniversary no one wants to celebrate, an anniversary that brings tears to my eyes.
A greatly adored girl child just three years old is taken by the caregiver in whom her parents placed a sacred trust. No note is left behind, no ransom demand is made. The little girl seems literally to disappear off the face of the earth. Later the body of the cruel betrayer is found, horribly mutilated as if to conceal her identity. Numerous theories are spun, but in the end neither the police, the FBI, nor private detectives hired by the Fulraine family can come up with an explanation.
A child disappears, a year passes, and there is no explanation. Think about that. Think, most particularly, about what that would mean to you, were you the parent of the stolen child.
It would surely mean indescribable grief. Despair, terror, also anger, blind fury, and yet more grief.
Someone once wrote: "That which does not kill me can only make me stronger." I think the person who wrote that was a fool. For to be a victim in a situation like this is to face what is perhaps even worse than death.
Andy and Barb live separately now. Their friends, though hopeful, do not believe their marriage can be saved. I have recently spoken to them both. There is only one thing, they assure me, in their hearts: a prayerful wish that their stolen daughter will one day be returned home safe. Experts in these matters do not hold out much hope, but hope is all the Fulraines have. So they cling to it. And we must too. For at this point, a year later, hope is all there is.