THE WORD OF A CHILD Read online

  Shoving through the double doors to let himself outside, Connor told himself it was time he found another job.

  One that let him sleep at night.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

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  Zipping the small pink-and-purple suitcase, Mariah called, "Zofie, Daddy will be here any minute. Are you ready?"

  Her six-year-old daughter appeared in the bedroom doorway, her small face set in a pout. "Do I hafta go?"

  Mariah felt a familiar mix of potent emotions. Petty exultation—she loves me best—swirled with fear—is she afraid of him?—and finally a parent's familiar impatience.

  "You know you do." She hesitated and added carefully, "You can always talk to me about Daddy and anything he says or does when you're with him. Sometimes there are reasons kids can't visit their parents, but as long as you don't have a special reason besides missing Renee's birthday party, you do have to go. Your dad loves you and wants to spend time with you, too."

  Her daughter hung her head. "It's not just Renee's party. It's … sometimes Daddy…"

  Mariah's heart jerked as if she'd touched a live wire. She fought to keep her voice calm. "Sometimes what?"

  "Sometimes he's boring." The first-grader sighed heavily. "He doesn't do stuff with me."

  Mariah sagged. Of course Zofie would have told her if Simon had touched her like that. She had to quit scaring herself by reading something into nothing!

  "I can't always do stuff with you, either," she pointed out, her voice only slightly shaky.

  "Yeah, but then I can go to a friend's house or something," Zofie argued. "Or I have my toys."

  "I know perfectly well you have toys at his house, too." Mariah raised her eyebrows and nodded at the bag in the hall. "Not to mention everything you just packed."

  Zofie squirmed. "Yeah, but…" She flung herself at her mother and hugged her hard. "I like being with you!"

  Mariah dropped to her knees on the throw rug in front of her daughter's bed and hugged back. Tears stinging her eyes, she said, "Oh, sweetie, you know I like being with you, too."

  Zofie sniffed and nodded hard. "But Dad loves me, too," she mumbled.

  "That's right." Mariah hoped and prayed Simon did, that he would always put the child they shared first.

  One more sniff, and her petite daughter straightened, lifted her chin and said with resolution, "I'm okay."

  Mariah smiled, hoping her tears didn't show. "Good."

  Zofie cocked her head. "Is that Daddy? Did you hear a knock?"

  "No, but let's go see." Mariah grabbed the child's suitcase from the bed and hurried with Zofie to the front door.

  Opening it, her daughter cried, "Daddy!" with complete delight, as if she hadn't just been bemoaning the necessity of seeing him.

  Mariah stood back watching as he bent and lifted Zofie into his arms, a grin warming his saturnine face. For a moment he was the handsome man she had married, his dark hair tousled, his thin nose and wonderful cheekbones making him movie-star handsome. She had the jarring sensation of a temporal shift, as if this was once-upon-a-time, and he was just coming home from work, and he'd be looking up and smiling at her any minute…

  Instead, over Zofie's dark curls, his cold gaze met hers. "I take it she's ready?"

  Mariah forced a smile. "Yup. Zofie's all packed."

  "Wait!" She wriggled in his arms. "I've got stuff to play with. I left it in the hall."

  "Run and get it." He let her down and bent to pick up her suitcase.

  The silence felt uncomfortable. Trying to sound friendly, Mariah asked, "Do you have any plans this weekend?"

  Simon straightened to stare at her with an emotion near hate. "Are you asking whether this is the weekend I'm going to molest my daughter?"

  She closed her eyes for a moment. "You know that's not what I meant. I was just making conversation."

  "Yeah." His mouth curled. "Sure you were."

  "Really…"

  From the rear of the apartment, Zofie called, "I'm going to get something else, Daddy! I'll hurry."

  If he heard, he didn't show it. His glittering eyes never left Mariah's. "Let's not play games. I know what you think about me. I'm not going to let you steal my kid from me, too. She'll be spending every other weekend with me for the next thirteen years. So get over it."

  Mariah gritted her teeth, anger saving her from shame. "'Get over it?'" she echoed in a low, furious voice. "I'm to quit worrying about my child? Don't you want me to worry about our daughter?"

  "When she's with me, she's mine. Not ours." His dark eyes now held satisfaction and, perhaps, pain.

  Mariah's fingernails bit into her palms. "Simon, please," she begged. "This isn't a competition. Can't we do our best together to raise Zofie?"

  "Together?" He took a step forward, familiar fury twisting his face. "If you wanted us to raise her together, why are we divorced? It's because you didn't want to raise her with me at all. Did you? So now I have to take what I can get—two days out of every fourteen." His voice was a whip. "And, no, we're not raising Zofie together." He looked past her. "Ready to go, kiddo?"

  "Sure." Zofie paused to hug her mom briefly. "Bye."

  How badly Mariah wanted to hold on and not let go! Reluctantly she lifted her hand from her daughter's fragile shoulder, touched her soft hair and forced a smile and light tone. "See you Sunday, sweetie."

  They were gone with a slam of the door and the sound of Zofie's high chatter receding. Mariah stood just inside, her hands knotted at her side, trembling all over.

  In the early years, she'd been afraid every minute when Zofie was with Simon. But she'd talked to Zofie often about inappropriate touching, emphasizing it could come from anyone, asking her to promise to tell no matter what if anything like that ever happened. And now three years had passed, and Zofie had never even hinted that her daddy was anything but a regular daddy.

  As time passed, Mariah felt relief. Surely if Simon had abused three-year-old Lily, he wouldn't have been able to resist Zofie. So her safe passage into elementary school must mean he hadn't been the one to do those terrible things to Lily Thalberg. That meant Mariah didn't have to worry. He loved his daughter. He would take good care of her when she was with him.

  But shame followed on the heels of relief, because that must mean Simon was innocent all along when she, Mariah, had doubted him, her own husband. She'd left him so that he couldn't hurt their daughter, a terrible insult to a man she had promised to cherish and obey for as long as they both shall live.

  He was always angry now, and she didn't blame him. Wasn't the whole foundation of marriage trust? A husband saw his wife without makeup and in childbirth and complaining about her mother and her best friend, and she trusted him not to betray her and to respect and love her despite her petty weaknesses. Just as she knew that he had fears he would never confess to his friends, and that his hot, brief anger meant nothing, and that he was embarrassed by his father's crude manners, but she would never tell. A husband knew you, as no one else ever had or would, just as a wife knew him. She should know, on a deep, instinctive level, whether he would ever have committed such a crime.

  Only Mariah hadn't known, not with the certainty she should have felt. At first, she'd told herself it was Simon's fault; if only he had talked to her, she never would have wavered. But why had she needed the words, I didn't do it? Why hadn't she loved him enough to trust him?

  Mariah still couldn't answer that and was ashamed every other weekend when she saw in Simon's eyes what her doubt had done to him.

  Worse yet, she was still afraid every minute when Simon had Zofie. Not as afraid; she could shop, clean house, go out with friends, without fear tearing at her nonstop. But the worry was there, a nagging, quiet ache that never left her until Zofie came running in the front door, singing, "I'm home!"

  This weekend, the anxiety was more acute. Meeting that police detective again had brought it all back. She saw the way he frowned and said in consternation, "He gets unsupervised vi
sitation?" And when she asked whether he had believed Simon to be guilty, he said, "Yes," without even a heartbeat of hesitation.

  Once again, his certainty worked at eroding her confidence in what she should believe unshakably to be true: that Simon would never molest his own child.

  And so she stood and shook until she heard Simon's car drive away, and she faced the fact that she would be alone in this apartment for almost forty-eight hours. She couldn't race after him and demand Zofie back, or shadow them and lurk under the windows of his rented house peering in windows.

  She could only endure the weekend, as she had endured so many others, and try to convince herself that Zofie was safe, her daddy loved her, that he was angry because he felt betrayed and not because he also felt guilty.

  On a breath that hitched in her throat and might almost have been a sob, Mariah turned away from the door that had closed behind a cheerful Zofie going off with Daddy, and went to the kitchen to make a dinner she didn't want to eat.

  The girl cast Connor a frightened glance before bowing her head again and mumbling to the floor, "Tracy said he gave her the creeps."

  The girl's father was staying out of it, just listening from his seat on the piano bench behind his daughter.

  Connor dutifully noted, Gave her the creeps in his notebook. "Did she say why?" he asked.

  Her brow crinkled. "Whaddaya mean, why?"

  "Did she say whether Mr. Tanner had said something? Touched her?" Connor spread his hands as if to suggest other possibilities.

  She shook her head.

  Stifling a sigh, he asked, "What were you talking about when Tracy said that about Mr. Tanner? Did it just pop up at lunch? 'He gives me the creeps'? Or did something lead up to it?"

  She mumbled something else.

  Most cops tried to wring the truth out of scumbags at a biker bar. Connor's fate was to politely coax it from shy or sly teenagers.

  "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you."

  She stole another look up, making him realize momentarily that she might be a pretty girl if she'd brush her hair back from her face and smile.

  "We were, um—" she rolled her eyes toward her father "—talking about whether any of the teachers who are guys—you know, the male teachers—are hot." She drew a deep breath and launched into a spate, her cheeks pink. "Just, you know, talking. Because lots of the girls think Mr. Garrow, who teaches choir, is really cute. I mean, he's old, but not that old. It's like his first year of teaching."

  Translation: he was twenty-two. Connor made an encouraging sound.

  "And we were trying to think of all the guy teachers, and somebody said Mr. Tanner, and Tracy said, 'Eeew, he gives me the creeps.' Like that."

  "And she didn't say anything more?"

  She gazed anxiously at him. "I don't think so."

  "She's never talked to you about Mr. Tanner otherwise."

  She shook her head.

  "Do you know whether Tracy has had a boyfriend recently?"

  This provoked another burst of speech. Tracy didn't really have a boyfriend, not like they were actually going together, but Jesse Rodriguez liked her, and last week she said this junior at the high school was flirting with her and said he'd sneak into the next dance. So guys liked her, see?

  Too well, apparently.

  Feeling he'd learned all he could, Connor thanked the girl and her father and left.

  In the car, he looked at his notebook. Amy Weinstein was next. She lived, by coincidence, in the same apartment complex as Mariah Stavig.

  Which meant nothing. He wasn't going to casually drop in at her place and say, "Hi. Just happened to be in the neighborhood."

  Connor did, however, note her apartment as he wended his way through the complex looking for Building D. Mariah was in B103: ground floor, with a small patio. The first two were bare concrete slabs; hers was a small, luxuriant garden. Big wooden half barrels held topiary trees or boxwoods or something, below which ivy tumbled out. Terra-cotta pots and urns crowded the edges of the patio, flowering plants cascading out and clambering upward on wire trellises. He thought there was a round table and chairs in the midst, but his slowly cruising car took him past the corner of the building, and he lost sight of her oasis.

  Amy's parents were less enthusiastic about their daughter being interviewed by a police officer, although they conceded the necessity.

  Sitting to each side of her on the couch, they started answering for her almost immediately.

  "Amy doesn't really see Tracy that much," Mrs. Weinstein assured Connor. "I don't know why anyone suggested her at all."

  He smiled vaguely at them, then carefully watched the pale, thin girl as he asked, "Has Tracy ever mentioned Mr. Tanner to you? Beyond complaining about homework or whatever?"

  She gazed back at him with odd composure. "She hates him."

  Her parents rushed into speech, the mother first. "I can't believe Tracy hates anyone!"

  Mr. Weinstein said loudly, "Not liking a teacher is hardly 'hating' him."

  "Why does she dislike him?" Connor asked.

  The girl gave a cool shrug. "Most of the teachers take late assignments, and he won't. Plus he doesn't like what she wears. Once he made her change. She says he picks on her."

  The parents tried to downplay her every word—of course Mr. Tanner didn't pick on Tracy! Why would he? Just because he expected the best of his students was no reason for them to dislike him. Why, they should be grateful that he cared! They certainly hoped Amy was.

  Amy didn't say a word. She sat between them, a shadow, yet they seemed not to exist for her. She waited politely for the next question, her hands folded on her lap.

  "Are you in her computer class?"

  Amy was.

  "Does it seem to you that he treats her differently than the other students?"

  She gave it serious thought. "Um, I don't know. I sit on the other side of the room."

  "Has she stayed after class to talk to him?"

  "A couple of times, I guess."

  "Did she say what they talked about?"

  "She doesn't turn stuff in. And we're doing keyboarding, and you take these tests, and you're supposed to take so many a week, but I know she doesn't."

  "Have you seen her right after she's stayed to talk to him?"

  "You mean, like, when she comes in to lunch?"

  He nodded.

  Amy shrugged. "I guess."

  "Did she seem upset? Excited? Anything different?"

  Amy didn't even blink. "I don't know. I guess she was kind of quiet or something."

  He had the feeling she was lying, but he couldn't tell whether she hadn't noticed anything different about Tracy or whether she'd seen more than she wanted to say to him. Or wanted to say to him in front of her parents.

  On the subject of boyfriends, she was more relaxed. A couple of guys had asked Tracy "out," but she wasn't interested.

  "I hope her parents wouldn't let her date any more than we would you!" Mrs. Weinstein said indignantly.

  "I don't think they actually date when they go out," Connor said.

  But Amy's mother sniffed. "They're twelve years old! They're barely getting interested in boys."

  Amy said quietly, "Tracy is thirteen."

  "Big difference," her father scoffed.

  Connor's eyes met the girl's, and they shared a moment of silent astonishment at her parents' naiveté.

  "There was this older guy at the dance," Amy offered. "Tracy said before that she might make out with him."

  Over her parents' cries, Connor probed. "Older?"

  "I don't know. Like, a high school kid?" She sounded uncertain. "I didn't really see him."

  Connor eventually thanked her, handed her a business card and said, "If you hear anything, think of anything, please call me."

  Her mother snatched the card and said, "Of course we will, Detective, but I can't imagine what Amy would hear. As we've been trying to explain, she and Tracy aren't really friends."

  And wouldn't be in the fu
ture, if she had anything to do with it.

  He nodded and left them all gathered in the open doorway, young Amy still calm, watching him gravely as he thanked them and left.

  If he was going to hear from any of Tracy Mitchell's friends, Connor thought, it would be Amy Weinstein. The kids he'd interviewed at the school that afternoon hadn't offered any useful clues. If they were to be believed, their friendship with Tracy was casual. Lucy Carlson had insisted she hardly knew Tracy.

  "We were just in a group when she started asking if there were any teachers you could really trust, if you had to tell something big. I said Ms. Stavig."

  Now dusk was settling as he backed his car out of the parking slot. Driving out of the complex, Connor slowed again as he passed Mariah Stavig's building. This time, lights were on inside the greenhouse kitchen window and the sliding glass door. He saw movement inside, and his foot touched the brake.

  The next second, he gritted his teeth and deliberately speeded up. He couldn't knock on her door and ask her out to dinner. So he sure as hell wasn't going to peep in her windows.

  Frowning, jaw still clenched, he turned onto the road without looking in the rearview mirror.

  Time to grab another wholesome meal on the job, courtesy of Burger King, and go visit Tracy Mitchell herself one more time.

  The policeman tried to act really nice, but Tracy knew better. He was hoping to trick her into saying she was lying, but she wouldn't. It wasn't fair! she thought resentfully. Teachers could do anything, and everybody believed them. Nobody believed a teenager.

  Her mother the traitor let him in when he rang the doorbell, even though Tracy had cramps and was scared and sad and had been huddled in her bed most of the day.

  "Tracy!" Mom called. "Put on your bathrobe and come talk to Detective McLean."

  "I don't feel good!" Tracy yelled back.

  There was a murmur of voices. Ten seconds later, the bedroom door shot open.

  "Tracy Ann Mitchell," her mother hissed, "when a policeman comes to talk to you, you drag yourself out of bed even if you are sick." Her tone made plain that she knew perfectly well Tracy wasn't.

  "I already told him everything," she mumbled.