Chapter 35
Matt phoned Zoé to say that Jack was safe, but he was having a compulsory check at the Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. He explained it was going to be a very long night before the full story came out and he and Valdieri were unlikely to be back at the hotel until well after breakfast. Meanwhile, Valdieri phoned Lauren and suggested that she and Zoé took a cab to the hospital to check on Jack for themselves, and they would all meet up in the hotel as soon as they could.
"Matt, you were so brave," Zoé said, back in the Alexandria hotel just after ten o'clock the next morning when they gave a detailed account of their night-time ordeal. She held Jack securely in her arms, as though daring anyone to take him away. "And so were you brave, Steve. Lauren and I were both praying for you when you went off. Both of you were so brave."
Stephen Valdieri laughed. "Perhaps I've never grown up. I've always liked the taste of adventure, just as I did in France with the Holy Father at Tourvillon. And now this, in Washington. Ah, those stressful days in the Vatican. The Italians have an expression for doing what is almost impossible. Taltare I fossi per il lungo. They jump ditches the long way. What Matt and I did, Zoé, was certainly beyond my ecclesiastical remit."
"Teamwork," Matt said. "But, Stephen, Steve, you certainly came up trumps in the end by digging up the casket while the police were arresting me."
Valdieri looked thoughtful for a moment. "I couldn't help thinking about what you said, Zoé, recognizing Jack's cry on the phone to Mrs. Harding. Avere un chiodo fisso in testa."
"Something about having a nail fixed in the head?" Zoé said with a frown. "I know a little Italian, but it does not make sense."
"In English we would say you had a bee in your bonnet. Like the nail, you couldn't get it out of your head. Deep down, I believed in you."
"Look at him," Lauren said. "He looks so sweet."
Matt assumed she was referring to the baby. And indeed baby Jack did look sweet. There was no obvious sign he had been harmed. He had been bottle fed regularly, and had passed a full checkup at the hospital without any problems.
"Steve, I still do not understand who the baby was in the casket." Zoé glanced at Matt and pulled a face. "Sorry, Matt, coffin."
Valdieri said, "I'm sure more will come out. As far as I can gather, the Hardings' baby boy, who indeed had heterochromia, died soon after the Senator showed him off on television. He was not very strong, and it seems Mrs. Harding accidently lay on him in her bed while she was asleep and suffocated him. She couldn't bear to let the dead baby go. Senator Harding didn't report the death in case his wife was in serious trouble for suffocating the baby, so she kept him wrapped in the sheet he was later buried in, lying in a crib in the cabin. She sat there most of every day rocking it."
"Sick," Matt said. "The cabin must have smelled horrible. Presumably Senator Harding didn't want the dead baby in the house. No wonder you thought you could smell death on Mrs. Harding, Zoé. Even a strong perfume wasn't enough to disguise it from you."
Zoé shook her head. "You must have some sympathy for her, Matt. I suppose if Jack died, I too would find it very hard to see him being buried." She frowned. "As soon as they had Jack, they wanted to give their own baby a burial in the expensive casket from the funeral parlor. Yes, I can see that now. Poor Mrs. Harding. "
"Wendell Harris was their security man," Matt explained. "When Mrs. Harding saw little Jack on the television and saw his eyes, she became convinced he was the reincarnation of her own dead baby. She must have felt she had a duty to reclaim him. Okay, so I'm sure we'll find she had some mental problems, but Wendell Harris was up in New York on business when we arrived from England, and he always did what the Senator told him to do."
Zoé nodded in understanding. "And Wendell Harris had to get us as far away from Washington as he could, always chasing the wild goose. Mrs. Harding, she must have been so shocked when we knocked on the door with the police and asked to see the baby."
Matt said, "I'm guessing Wendell Harris had warned her we were on our way. There's going to be a detailed investigation. Almost certainly the baby you saw, the one who was older than Jack, belonged to a friend or relative. Who knows? Whatever, it wasn't hers. The main thing is, we have Jack."
"But Jack would have died soon," Zoé said. "And then Mrs. Harding would have been heartbroken again. It was a cruel thing the Senator made Wendell Harris do. They could not take him to the clinic in New York for proton beam therapy, because the clinic would know it was Jack."
"Israel," Matt said. "I guess that's why they were going to Israel today. The clinic told us DCI and Israel helped fund the development of two proton beam scanners, and the other scanner is in Israel. Once there, they could easily pass Jack off as their own baby. When they came home, no one would notice the switch."
Matt thought Zoé looked surprisingly bright. The medication was working wonders. "We are taking Jack straight to the clinic in New York this afternoon," she announced. "I have already telephoned them and they are confident the treatment will be a success if we get him there quickly. My parents, they will be so pleased to see him safely back with us, Matt, although I still think my mother blames you for what happened."
"Your parents!" Matt gave a groan. "I'd forgotten they were coming with Florian. Where are they now? Still stuck in Paris?"
Zoé shook her head. "My parents they have phoned me to say they are in the hotel we stayed in by Central Park for the first night."
"And Florian? Sleeping rough in Central Park I hope."
"Florian, I am glad to say, he is not with them. He was stopped from boarding in Paris. It seems he has a criminal record that he did not declare. A small case of embezzlement when he started his first job."
"Did your parents know about that when they tried to get you to marry him?"
"No, Matt, they did not. My mother has told me on the phone that she is glad I did not marry Florian."
"I hope it means she's glad you married me instead."
Zoé held Jack tightly in her arms and leaned forward to give Matt a long kiss on the lips. "Ah." She drew back, shook her head and smiled. "Pas nécessairement. You are, I think, perhaps hoping for too much."
Epilogue
Because Jack had been well cared for by Mrs. Harding, the clinic was able to start his therapy immediately. After three weeks the prognosis was promising, and Matt and Zoé returned to England with Jack, but without risking his exposure at the top of the Empire State Building. That would have to wait till the next time they were in New York. Steve and Lauren said there was always a place for them to stay if they did come back.
The local hospital in England where Zoé worked agreed to carry out monthly checks on Jack's left eye, and the clinic in New York made an open offer to give any further treatment that might be considered necessary.
The baby boy in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was traced to a drug addicted couple who had never wanted him in the first place. While the mother slept, the father had taken the baby to the cemetery for what he said was a decent funeral, which consisted of cutting the baby's throat and leaving it behind the gravestone of Henry Mattison who died in October 1876. Detective Chavez took great pleasure in telling Matt that there was no family connection.
Zoé quickly got over her postnatal depression. Whether it was the medication or the relief of finding Jack, Matt wasn't sure. The main thing was Zoé was over it, and he could leave Jack with her without having to worry when he returned to work.
The hostage situation was finally resolved with all the hostages saved in a rescue mission by US Special Forces. When they realized they had been outsmarted, the terrorists preferred to blow themselves up rather than be caught and give away vital details of their cell and possible future attacks planned in the city.
Ken phoned to say that Matt's initial surveillance using the Habgood Securities' Coke cans had done the job. The photographs and sound recording were sufficient evidence for the men to be sacked from their respective organizations. Matt said K
en sounded relieved that he did not need to continue the job by himself with the "Habgood Securities' Coke cans."
Belinda is the ninth moon of Uranus, part of the Portia group of satellites.
The little baby who had been on life support at the clinic died while Lauren was there, and his grieving teenage mom was helped greatly by the thought that two desperately ill babies were being saved by her allowing transplants. Lauren invited her to stay at the church until she felt ready to move on.
Matt and Zoé did very little sightseeing, preferring to stay at the clinic to be with Jack, even though there was no longer a risk to his safety. The situation with the Hardings had received no mention in the media, leaving Matt and Zoé to assume that Senator Cyrus B. Harding still had some clout, although surely that would change very soon. A prosecution for the Hardings and Wendell Harris was pending.
Lauren became Mrs. Valdieri at a wedding ceremony in their little church. Two former colleagues of Steve's came over from the Vatican, looking embarrassingly overdressed in clerical outfits. The rest of the congregation seemed relaxed both in their clothing and in their manner of worship. The little band performed enthusiastically, and whoops and cheers were shouted all around as the happy couple tied the knot.
Simon Urquet used to his influence to obtain Matt and Zoé complete exoneration from any criminal charges. He even managed to get a rather grudging apology from the police for their suspicions, although as Simon Urquet said, they were lucky to escape charges for the disturbances at several locations in their overzealous attempts to find Jack. He also made a generous personal contribution to Valdieri's church. When he warned Matt to keep out of trouble in future, Zoé rolled her eyes.
Zoé's parents, Monsieur and Madame Champanille, stayed for five long days, which was more than enough time for Zoé's mother to constantly berate Matt for his carelessness in allowing Jack to be kidnapped. Florian's name didn't get mentioned once.
THE END
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