The gang of three stuck to their prefabricated story, of which happily enough many details were true. They had first taken pity on the urchin, they said, after a random meeting on the set of Boulder Langon’s film some months before. When the detective asked if she had been accompanied by anyone on that day — for example a “large-built bearded man”—the gang’s denial was in easy unison. Did you invite her to the house? Naturally not! came their nearly indignant response. Did she contact you? Not until way later, said Lucy — we never gave her the wherewithal. She showed up at school, said Edward. A servant poured coffee for the detective and replenished a tray of Le Marmiton sweets. Edward offered that the girl told them she had learned about Four Winds from a magazine profile of the aforementioned Ms. Langon. (“I believe,” said the braided gumshoe-in-training, “the periodical goes by the name of Twist.”) Samson asked where the runaway had gotten her dress and Lucy confessed she had been the culprit. A quick glance at her mother revealed the woman looking rather charitable; even a homeless child deserved to look her best.
“You see, Detective,” said Lucy, “I’ve been working on a project about the disenfranchised — our whole class has. We’re creating mobile environments for ‘urban nomads.’ The goal is to legitimize the status of the homeless in their communities. The house I designed has sleeping quarters and a receptacle for scavenged cans and bottles. But when I saw this girl, my project went out the window! I just wanted her to have cool clothes!”
Edward asked if they had done anything wrong — i.e., did they stand accused of aiding and abetting a crime? No, said the detective — that was a bit harsh. What you should have done was come to your parents and told them about the girl so that she could be properly helped. Samson turned to Toulouse, who’d been clucking and nodding his head in consternation and agreement with the others, and asked how long she had been in the group’s “custody.” Well, said Toulouse, not very long. The children looked from one to another, and the detective read their secrets.
Edward said to his sister through the veiclass="underline" “Would you say two days or three?”
“Oh, maybe three — no more than three!”
The detective wanted to know where the girl had been staying. Edward said in the sukkah, but instantly regretted it, for that placed her at Stradella House a number of weeks back. He corrected himself by adding somewhat ridiculously that she had stayed in the remains of the sukkah, because, homeless as she was and accustomed to sleeping under the stars, she had declined their invitation to come indoors. Samson sipped his coffee and asked where the girl was now. We don’t know, said Toulouse. Do you mean, said the detective, that in the last few hours she ran away?
Yes! said Lucy mindlessly.
Tull spoke up: “She didn’t say anything — I mean to us—but she probably recognized you. When she saw you at the maze. My mom said that you — and she … [he couldn’t bring himself to say “Amaryllis”] — well, that you knew each other. From some sort of detention place. So that was probably why she ran away again.”
Lucy frowned while staring at her hands in remorse: “I told her I was making her a character in my new book — I’m writing a book you know, called Mystery of the Blue Maze. Though maybe it should be Mysteries. Mr. Hookstratten’s already sent some chapters to a publisher in New York. He said he thought it could be big as Harry Potter!” Joyce admonished her daughter to answer the question. “Well, when I told her that I was creating a character loosely based on her … well I don’t think she was very happy. Maybe that’s why she ran away.”
Edward said the orphan was already displeased at being the reluctant, somewhat humiliating subject of a school project on the indigent, to which his civic-minded sister spontaneously made a spirited defense.
In the middle of this staged ruckus, the children were startled to see Dodd smoothly if belatedly emerge from the shadows, rather like a nerdy vampire.
“You’d better tell the truth,” said the billionaire, “because if you’re still harboring her, then that is a crime. Am I correct, Sam?” The detective tilted his head ever so slightly as if to concur that, yes, by all laws of God and the land, the gentleman was correct indeed. “And if you are not providing the girl safe harbor,” he continued, “then any vital information you withhold — information that could prove helpful to the detective in his efforts to find her — the very act of withholding such information may ultimately prove harmful, even fatal, to the child. This, a vulnerable girl whom you purport to have real feelings for! And that, I believe, would be a felony.”
The collective pangs of guilt (each seconds long) aroused by his oration only weaved the gang’s resolve into a more tightly knit revolutionary cell. They would not give her up.
Oddly, Joyce chose to accompany Edward back to Olde CityWalk, in the buggy. She knew better than to grill him further, instead remarking on how well he looked of late and how buoyant seemed his mood. She caressed the nape of his neck, and he shivered with delight.
Lucy and Toulouse sprinted to the Boar’s Head like advance scouts. They rushed upstairs, to warn that they might be having “company.” But this never came to pass, Joyce choosing to stroll back to the house after planting a kiss on Edward’s veiled forehead.
Dodd walked the detective to his car. He suspected that Samson was dating his sister, but would never think of discussing such a thing directly; he preferred to get his gossip from his wife. They talked about the terrible business with Bluey and how Mr. Trotter was taking it — not so well — and where she might end up if home care became too “challenging.” They could simply keep her at Saint-Cloud the way his father said Jennifer Jones had kept Norton Simon at the beach house during his decline; the luxurious “assisted-living” environments probably would not do. She was past all that now. The Alzheimer’s facility at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills loomed hazily on the horizon, the irony being that Trinnie had almost finished the garden there.
Before Samson drove off, he expanded upon the reason for today’s visit: Amaryllis Kornfeld. Her mother had been murdered, he said, and the perpetrator was probably someone who had befriended the child. The man was still at large, and that’s why it was imperative that the runaway be found; if the two were in touch, she might lead him to the killer.
It occurred to Dodd that if what his old friend said was true — that the girl was “in touch” with her mother’s attacker — then the children themselves might be in danger. It disturbed him that Samson hadn’t played this bit of logic through. He was probably just exaggerating; it sounded like a TV thriller. Still, he would inform his staff of the situation and have them on the lookout.
He entered the house, replaying Dr. Janklow’s words in his head. Was the whole world beset with memory disease? He decided not to tell his wife the details of the fiasco at Michael’s. He could hardly tell himself.
They both went to bed with secrets, for that morning Joyce had gotten a call from the police about a baby found in the trash. She would name him Isaiah — the first soul the Candlelighters would lay to rest in Westwood Village.
When the cousin stepped from the elevator into his apartments, Toulouse and Lucy were literally wringing their hands in despair. The ladder dangled down from the attic; Amaryllis had fled.