"The next night…" She couldn't get the words out. Her eyes glistened, close to weeping. "May I see the photograph of your wife and son again, please?"
Puzzled, I took out my wallet.
She studied it even longer than the first time. "Such a wonderful-looking family. What are their names?"
"Kate and Jason."
"Are you happily married?"
"Very." Now I was the one who had trouble speaking.
"Is your son a good boy?"
"The best." My voice became hoarse.
"How will this help you find them?" Moisture filled her eyes.
If Kate and Jason are still alive, I thought. What I'd learned from Reverend Benedict filled me with despair.
"I'm betting that he has habits." I struggled to hide my discouragement. "If I can understand him, I might be able to follow his trail."
"A trail that started nineteen years ago?"
"I don't know where else to go."
"He raped me."
The porch became deathly silent, except for her sobs as tears trickled down her cheeks.
I felt paralyzed, trying to get over my shock. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to talk about it."
"Don't talk about it?" Her tears made scald marks on her cheeks. "God help me, I've been holding it inside all these years. That's the torture. My husband was the principal of the school where I taught. Around dark, the janitor called about a water pipe that had burst. My husband hurried down to learn how serious the damage was. I got ready for bed. The boy… The rotten son of a bitch bastard-"
The torrent of what for Mrs. Garner were the crudest of obscenities shocked me.
"He came into my bedroom while I was undressing, threw me on the floor, and… I couldn't believe how strong he was. He was so frail-looking, and yet he overpowered me as if he had the force of the Devil. He kept calling me Eunice, but he knew very well that my first name is Agnes. I tried to fight him off. I scratched. I kicked. Then I saw his fist coming at me. Twice. Three times. I almost choked on my blood, lying there half-unconscious while he…"
Her voice faltered. She pulled a handkerchief from her dress, raising it to her cheeks.
"Afterward…" Some of her tears dripped from her chin. "After I vomited… After I found the strength to stand, I saw drawers open and realized that he'd stolen anything of value that he could stuff into his pockets. But that was the last thing on my mind. I staggered to the phone to call the police and get an ambulance, and all at once, I realized that I couldn't do that. I thought of the congregation and the town and the high school where my husband and I worked, and I imagined everybody staring at me. Oh, sure, they'd be sympathetic. But that wouldn't stop them from telling everybody they knew about what had happened to Agnes Garner. Being sympathetic wouldn't stop them from staring, and it wouldn't stop word from getting around to the students, who would stare even more than their parents. Rape. Rape. "I wavered in front of the phone. I remember telling myself that I had to call for help, that I was close to passing out. Instead, I forced myself into the bathroom. I used all my strength to get in the tub and wash myself where he'd…" She wiped more tears from her face. "Then I got dressed. Then I called the police. And no doctor ever had a chance to examine any part of me except my smashed lips and my bruised cheeks. I told everybody that I'd come into the bedroom and found him stealing money and jewelry. Not that I had much jewelry. I'm not that kind of a woman. All told, he took about three hundred dollars, which could be replaced, but a simple necklace that my grandmother had given me could never be replaced.
"My husband got home just after the police car arrived. The police searched for the boy but never found him. Maybe he slept in the woods. Maybe he hitchhiked and got a ride out of the area. The next day, Reverend Benedict arrived from Brockton. I learned that the boy's name was Lester Dant. I learned about the fire that had killed his parents. But I never told Reverend Benedict or Reverend Hanley what had really happened in my bedroom. I never told my husband. I never told anyone. When word got around, people stared, yes, but it was a kind of staring that I could tolerate. We'd taken a boy into our home. He'd repaid us by beating me and stealing from us. I was the kind of victim that the town could deal with."
"I can't tell you how sorry I am," I said.
"Eunice." She sounded anguished. "Why on earth did he call me Eunice?"
I didn't answer.
"You know about the underground room where his parents kept him prisoner. What else do you know? Have you any idea why he called me Eunice?"
Her tone was so beseeching that I found myself saying, "Yes."
"Tell me."
"Are you sure you want the answer?"
"The same as you need answers."
I hesitated. "Eunice was his mother's name."
Mrs. Garner moaned.
"It sounds as if he was punishing…"
"His mother. Punishing his mother. God help me." Her voice cracked with despair. "Hurt him. Remember your promise. When you find him, hurt him."
"You have my word."
4
All the way to my car, I tried not to let Mrs. Garner see my discouragement. "When you find him," she'd said. But I no longer believed that I would. With no information about where Lester Dant had gone that night, I hadn't the faintest idea what to do next. Worse, I didn't see the point of trying. Lester was far more disturbed than the FBI's information about him had revealed. I couldn't imagine him keeping Kate and Jason alive.
Grieving for them, I slumped behind the steering wheel. Hate fought with grief. "Hurt him," Mrs. Garner had pleaded. Yes, hurt him, I thought. Furious, I drove past well-maintained lawns and neatly trimmed hedges. I reached a four-way stop and turned to the right. At the next four-way stop, I turned to the left. No reason. No direction.
I went on that way, at random, for quite a while, driving through the prosperous farm town until I realized that I was passing certain homes and stores for what might have been the fifth or sixth time. Fatigue finally caught up to me, making me stop at a motel called the Traveler's Oasis on the edge of town.
It was almost five, but for me it felt like midnight as I carried my suitcase and backpack into a room that faced the parking lot. Too exhausted to survey the Spartan accommodations, I returned to the car for my printer and laptop computer. I wondered why I'd bothered to bring them. They took up space. I hadn't used them.
Maybe it's time to go home, I thought.
In Denver, it was two hours earlier. I picked up the phone.
"Payne Detective Agency," a man's familiar voice said.
"Answering the phone yourself?"
Payne didn't reply for a moment. "Ann had a doctor's appointment." Ann, his receptionist, was also his wife. "How are you, Brad?"
"Is my voice that recognizable?" I imagined the portly man next to his goldfish tank.
"You've been on my mind. When you called the last time, you were in South Dakota. You said you'd get back to me, but you didn't. I've been worried. What are you doing in…" I heard Payne's fingers tapping on a computer keyboard. "The Traveler's Oasis in Loganville, Ohio."
"Sounds like you've got a new computer program."
"It keeps me distracted. What are you doing there?"
"Giving up."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I figured that as long as you were in motion, you wouldn't do anything foolish to yourself. You didn't learn anything, I gather."
I sat wearily on the bed. "The opposite. I learned too much. But it hasn't taken me anywhere."
"Except to the Traveler's Oasis in Loganville, Ohio."
Payne tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn't work. "I was hoping to find a pattern," I said into the phone.