“Mac?”
“Kate, you remember Mr. Brant, don’t you?”
She glanced briefly at Dave and away again. “We’re acquainted. That hardly gives him the right to come pounding at—”
“Be quiet and pay attention, Kate. Mr. Brant is here looking for Jessie. Have you seen her?”
“Why no, of course not. It’s after midnight. What would Jessie be doing out at a time like this? He has blood on him,” she added, staring up into Mac’s face. “Tell him to go away. I hate the sight of blood. I won’t allow him inside my house.”
Dave pressed his hands together tightly to prevent them from reaching out and striking her. His voice was very quiet. “I won’t come inside your house, Mrs. Oakley. I wouldn’t be here at all if I could have gotten you on the phone.”
“I have an unlisted number.”
“Yes. I tried to call you.”
“People have no right to call others at midnight,” she said, as if she herself wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. “Mary Martha and I keep early hours. She was asleep by 8:30 and I shortly afterward.”
“Your daughter is in bed asleep, Mrs. Oakley?”
‘Why yes, of course.”
“Well, mine isn’t.”
“What do you mean?” She turned to Mac, touching his coat sleeve with her hand like a child pleading for a favor. “What does he mean, Mac? All little girls ought to be in bed at this time of night.”
“Jessie is missing,” Mac said.
“I’m sure she won’t be missing for long. She’s probably just playing a trick on her parents. Jessie’s full of ideas and she truly loves to be the center of attention. She’ll turn up any minute with one of her preposterous stories and everything will be fine. Won’t it? Won’t it, Mac?”
“I don’t know. When did you see her last?”
“This afternoon. She dropped in to invite Mary Martha to go swimming with her. I didn’t allow Mary Martha to go. I’ve been supervising her extra carefully ever since I received that anonymous letter.”
Mac had forgotten the letter. He put his hand in the left pocket of his coat. There were other papers in the pocket but the letter was unmistakable to the touch. One corner of the envelope bulged where the paper had been folded and refolded until it was no more than an inch square. Mac remembered enough of the contents of the letter to make him regret not taking it immediately to his friend, Lieutenant Gallantyne. Gallantyne had a collection of anonymous letters that spanned thirty years of police work.
Mac said, “Will you describe Jessie to me, Mr. Brant?”
“I have pictures of her at home.” He almost broke down at the word home. His face started to come apart and he turned it toward the darkness beyond the porch railing. “I must get back to my wife. She’s expecting me to... to bring Jessie home with me. She was so sure Jessie would be here.”
Kate was clutching her long wool bathrobe around her as though somebody had just threatened to tear it off. “I don’t know why she was sure Jessie would come here. I’m the last person in the world who’d be taken in by one of Jessie’s fancy schemes. I would have telephoned Mrs. Brant immediately. Wouldn’t I, Mac?”
“Of course you would, Kate,” Mac said. “You’d better go back in the house now and see if you can get some sleep.”
“I won’t be able to close my eyes. There may be some monster loose in the neighborhood and no child is safe. He won’t stop with just Jessie. Mary Martha might be next.”
“Shut up, Kate.”
“Oh, Mac, please don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.”
“I have to. I’m driving Mr. Brant home.”
“Everybody leaves me alone. I can’t stand—”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
The door closed, the porch light went off. The two men began walking in slow, silent unison down the flagstone path, following the beam of Mac’s flashlight as if it were a dim ray of hope.
Inside the car Mac said, “Where do you live, Brant?”
“Cielito Lane.”
“That’s in the Peppertree tract, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The car pulled away from the curb.
“Have you called the police?”
“Virginia — Mrs. Arlington did. She lives next door. She and Jessie are very good friends. My wife thought that if Jessie were in any kind of trouble or even just playing a trick on us, she’d go to the Arlingtons’ house first. We searched all through it and the garage twice. Jessie wasn’t there. Virginia called the police and I set out for Mrs. Oakley’s. I couldn’t think of any other place Jessie would go late at night. We haven’t lived in town long and we have no relatives here.”
“You’ll forgive me for asking this,” Mac said, “but is Jessie a girl who often gets into trouble?”
“No. She never does. Leaving her bicycle in the middle of the sidewalk, coming home late for meals, things like that, yes, but nothing more serious.”
“Has she ever run away from home?”
“Of course not.”
“Runaways are picked up by the police every day, Brant.”
“She didn’t run away,” Dave said hoarsely. “I wish to God I could believe she had.”
“Why can’t you?”
“She had no money, and the only clothes missing from her closet are the pajamas she wore to bed and a bathrobe and a pair of slippers. Jessie’s a sensible girl, she’d know better than to try and run away without any money and wearing an outfit that would immediately attract everybody’s attention.”
That might be the whole point, Mac thought, but all he said was, “Can you think of any recent family scene or event that might make her want to run away?”
“No.”
“Has she been upset about something lately?”
Dave turned and looked out the window. The night seemed darker than any he could ever remember. It wasn’t the ordinary darkness, an absence of light; it was a thick, soft, suffocating thing that covered the whole world. No morning could ever penetrate it.
“Has something upset her?” Mac repeated.
“I’m trying to answer. I — she’s been talking a lot about divorce, fathers deserting their families like Sheridan Oakley. Obviously Mary Martha’s fed her a lot of stuff and Jessie’s taken it perhaps more seriously than it deserves. She’s a funny kid, Jessie. She puts on a big front about not caring but she feels everything deeply, especially where Mary Martha is concerned. The two girls have been very close for almost a year now, in fact almost inseparable.”
Mac remembered the opening sentence of the letter he was carrying in his pocket: Your daughter takes too dangerous risks with her delicate body. He said, “Do you consider Jessie a frail child, that is, delicate in build?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“I have good reasons for asking it which I can’t divulge right now.”
“Well, Jessie might look delicate to some people. Actually, she’s thin and wiry like her mother, and extremely healthy. The only times she’s ever needed a doctor were when she’s had accidents.”
“Accidents such as?”
“Falls, stings, bites. The normal things that happen to kids plus a few extra. Right now her hands are badly blistered from overuse of the jungle gym at the school playground.”
“Does she often play at the school playground?”
“I don’t know. I’m at work all day.”
“Would you say she goes there twice a week? Five times? Seven?”
“All the neighborhood kids go there. Why shouldn’t they?” Dave added defensively, “It’s well supervised, there are organized games and puppet shows and things not available in the ordinary backyard. Just what were you implying?”