To her, the desperate mother, it was certainly proof. The man had taken Marissa, he knew where Marissa was. The truth had to be wrung from him before it was too late.
On her knees she would beg to see Zallman promising not to become emotional and they told her no, for she would only become emotional in the man’s presence. And Zallman, who had a lawyer now, would only become more adamant in his denial.
Denial! How could he... deny! He had taken Marissa, he knew where Marissa was.
She would beg him. She would show Zallman pictures of Marissa as a baby. She would plead with this man for her daughter’s life if only if only if only for God’s sake they would allow her.
Of course, it was impossible. The suspect was being questioned following a procedure, a strategy, to which Leah Bantry had no access. The detectives were professionals, Leah Bantry was an amateur. She was only the mother, an amateur.
The wheel, turning.
It was a very long Friday. The longest Friday of Leah’s life.
Then abruptly it was Friday night, and then it was Saturday morning. And Marissa was still gone.
Zallman had been captured, yet Marissa was still gone.
He might have been tortured, in another time. To make him confess. The vicious pedophile, whose “legal rights” had to be honored.
Leah’s heart beat in fury. Yet she was powerless, she could not intervene.
Saturday afternoon: approaching the time when Marissa would be missing for forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours! It did not seem possible.
She has drowned by now, Leah thought. She has suffocated for lack of oxygen.
She is starving. She has bled to death. Wild creatures on Bear Mountain have mutilated her small body.
She calculated: it would soon be fifty hours since Leah had last seen Marissa. Kissed her hurriedly good-bye in the car, in front of the school Thursday morning at eight. And (she forced herself to remember, she would not escape remembering) Leah hadn’t troubled to watch her daughter run up the walk, and into the school. Pale gold hair shimmering behind her and just possibly (possibly!) at the door, Marissa had turned to wave goodbye to Mommy but Leah was already driving away.
And so, she’d had her opportunity. She would confess to her sister Avril I let Marissa slip away.
The great wheel, turning. And the wheel was Time itself, without pity.
She saw that now. In her state of heightened awareness bred of terror she saw. She had ceased to give a damn about “Leah Bantry” in the public eye. The distraught/negligent mother. Working mom, single mom, mom-with-a-drinking-problem. She’d been exposed as a liar. She’d been exposed as a female avid to sleep with another woman’s husband and that husband her boss. She knew, the very police who were searching for Marissa’s abductor were investigating her, too. Crude tabloids, TV journalism. Under a guise of sympathy, pity for her “plight.”
None of this mattered, now. What the jackals said of her, and would say. She was bartering her life for Marissa’s. Appealing to God in whom she was trying in desperation to believe. If You would. Let Marissa be alive. Return Marissa to me. If You would hear my plea. So there was no room to give a damn about herself, she had no scruples now, no shame. Yes she would consent to be interviewed on the crudest and crudest of the New York City TV stations if that might help Marissa, somehow. Blinking into the blinding TV lights, baring her teeth in a ghastly nervous smile.
Never would she care again for the pieties of ordinary life. When on the phone her own mother began crying, asking why, why on earth had Leah left Marissa alone for so many hours, Leah had interrupted the older woman coldly, “That doesn’t matter now, Mother. Good-bye.”
Neither of the elder Bantrys was in good health, they would not fly east to share their daughter’s vigil. But Leah’s older sister Avril flew up immediately from Washington to stay with her.
For years the sisters had not been close. There was a subtle rivalry between them, in which Leah had always felt belittled.
Avril, an investment attorney, was brisk and efficient answering the telephone, screening all e-mail. Avril checked the Marissa Web site constantly. Avril was on frank terms with the senior Skatskill detective working the case, who spoke circumspectly and with great awkwardness to Leah.
Avril called Leah to come listen to a voice-mail message that had come in while they’d been at police headquarters. Leah had told Avril about Davitt Stoop, to a degree.
It was Davitt, finally calling Leah. In a slow stilted voice that was not the warm intimate voice Leah knew he was saying A terrible thing... This is a... terrible thing, Leah. We can only pray this madman is caught and that... A long pause. You would have thought that Dr. Stoop had hung up but then he continued, more forcibly, I’m sorry for this terrible thing but Leah please don’t try to contact me again. Giving my name to the police! The past twenty-four hours have been devastating for me. Our relationship was a mistake and it can’t be continued, I am sure you understand. As for your position at the clinic I am sure you understand the awkwardness among all the staff if...
Leah’s heart beat in fury, she punched erase to extinguish the man’s voice. Grateful that Avril, who’d tactfully left the room, could be relied upon not to ask about Davitt Stoop, nor even to offer sisterly solicitude.
Take everything from me. If You will leave me Marissa, the way we were.
“Mommy!”
It was Marissa’s voice, but muffled, at a distance.
Marissa was trapped on the far side of a barrier of thick glass, Leah heard her desperate cries only faintly. Marissa was pounding the glass with her fists, smearing her damp face against it. But the glass was too thick to be broken. “Mommy! Help me, Mommy...” And Leah could not move to help the child, Leah was paralyzed. Something gripped her legs, quicksand, tangled ropes. If she could break free...
Avril woke her, abruptly. There was someone to see her, friends of Marissa’s they said they were.
“H-Hello, Mrs. Branty... Bantry. My name is...”
Three girls. Three girls from Skatskill Day. One of them, with faded-rust-red hair and glistening stone-colored eyes, was holding out to Leah an astonishing large bouquet of dazzling white flowers: long-stemmed roses, carnations, paperwhites, mums. The sharp astringent fragrance of the paperwhites prevailed.
The bouquet must have been expensive, Leah thought. She took it from the girl and tried to smile. “Why, thank you.”
It was Sunday, midday. She’d sunk into a stupor after twenty hours of wakefulness. Seeing it was a warm, incongruously brightly sunny April day beyond the partly-drawn blinds on the apartment windows.
She would have to focus on these girls. She’d been expecting, from what Avril had said, younger children, Marissa’s age. But these were adolescents. Thirteen, fourteen. In eighth grade, they’d said. Friends of Marissa’s?
The visit would not last long. Avril, disapproving, hovered near.
Possibly Leah had invited them, the girls were seated in her living room. They were clearly excited, edgy. They glanced about like nervous birds. Leah supposed she should offer them Cokes but something in her resisted. Hurriedly she’d washed her face, dragged a comb through her snarled hair that no longer looked blond, but dust-colored. How were these girls Marissa’s friends? Leah had never seen them before in her life.