Silent Night

  Catherine answered his unasked question. “I’m still waiting,” she said quietly. “Officer Ortiz has been good enough to stay with me. I don’t know why, but I feel as though somehow I’ll find Brian right here.” She turned slightly. “Mom, this is Alan Graham from WCBS. He interviewed me right after I spoke with you.”

  Barbara Cavanaugh saw the compassion on the face of the young reporter. Knowing that if there were anything to tell, they would have heard it by now, she still could not stop herself from asking, “Any word?”

  “No, ma’am. We’ve had plenty of calls to the station, but they were all to express concern.”

  “He’s vanished,” Catherine said, her voice lifeless. “While Tom and I have raised the boys to basically trust people, they also know how to deal with emergencies. Brian knew enough to go to a policeman if he was lost. He knew to dial 911. Somebody has taken him. Who would take and hold a seven-year-old child unless . . . ?”

  “Catherine, dear, don’t torture yourself,” her mother urged. “Everyone who heard you on the radio is praying for Brian. You must have faith.”

  Catherine felt frustration and anger rising inside her. Yes, she supposed she should have “faith.” Certainly Brian had faith—he believed in that St. Christopher medal, probably enough to have followed whoever picked up my wallet. He knew it was inside, she reasoned, and felt he had to get it back. She looked back at her mother, and at Michael beside her. She felt her anger ebb. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that any of this had happened. No, faith—even in something as unlikely as a St. Christopher medal—was a good thing.

  “You’re right, Mom,” she said.

  From the receiver in his ear, Graham heard the anchorman say, “Over to you, Alan.”

  Stepping back from the car, he began, “Brian Dornan’s mother is still keeping watch at the spot where her son disappeared shortly after 5:00 P.M. Authorities believe Catherine Dornan’s theory that Brian may have seen someone steal her wallet and followed that person. The wallet contained a St. Christopher medal, which Brian was desperately anxious to bring to his father’s hospital bed.”

  Graham handed the microphone to Catherine. “Brian believes the St. Christopher medal will help his father get well. If I had had Brian’s faith, I would have guarded my wallet more carefully because the St. Christopher medal was in it. I want my husband to get better. I want my child,” she said, her voice steady despite her emotion. “In the name of God, if anyone knows what happened to Brian, who has him, or where he is, please, please call us.”

  Graham stepped back from the squad car. “If anyone who knows anything about Brian’s whereabouts is listening to that young mother’s pain, we beg you to call this number, 212-555-0748.”

  11

  Her eyes filled with tears, her lip quivering, Cally turned off the radio. If anyone knows what happened to Brian . . .

  I tried, she told herself fiercely. I tried. She had dialed Detective Levy’s number, but when she heard his voice, the enormity of what she was about to do overwhelmed her. They would arrest her. They would take Gigi away from her again and would put her with a new foster family. If anyone knows anything about Brian’s whereabouts . . .

  She reached for the phone.

  From inside the bedroom she heard a wail and spun around. Gigi was having another nightmare. She rushed inside, sat down on the bed, gathered her child in her arms, and began rocking her. “Sshh, it’s okay, everything’s fine.”

  Gigi clung to her. “Mommy, Mommy. I dreamed that you were gone again. Please don’t go, Mommy. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to live with other people ever, ever.”

  “That won’t happen, sweetheart, I promise.”

  She could feel Gigi relax. Gently she laid her back on the pillow and smoothed her hair. “Now go back to sleep, angel.”

  Gigi closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Can I watch Santa Claus open his present?” she murmured.

  * * *

  Jimmy Siddons lowered the volume on the radio. “Your mom sure is flipping out about you, kid.”

  Brian had to keep himself from reaching out to the dashboard and touching the radio. Mom sounded so worried. He had to get back to her. Now she believed in the St. Christopher medal too. He was sure of it.

  There were a lot of cars on the highway, and even though it was really snowing now, they were all going pretty fast. But Jimmy was in the far right lane, so no cars were coming up on that side. Brian began to plan.

  If he could open the door real fast and roll out onto the road, he could keep rolling to the side. That way nobody would run over him. He pressed the medal for an instant, and then his hand crept to the handle on the door. When he put faint pressure on it, it moved slightly. He was right. Jimmy hadn’t put the lock on after they stopped for gas.

  Brian was about the throw open the door when he remembered his seat belt. He’d have to unfasten that just as the door swung open. Careful not to attract Jimmy’s attention, he laid the index finger of his left hand on the seat belt’s release button.

  Just as Brian was about to pull on the handle and push the release, Jimmy swore. A car, weaving erratically, was coming up behind them on the left. An instant later it was so close it was almost touching the Toyota. Then it cut in front of them. Jimmy slammed on the brakes. The car skidded and fishtailed, as around them came the sound of metal impacting metal. Brian held his breath. Crash, he begged, crash! Then someone would help him.

  But Jimmy righted the car and drove around the others. Just ahead, Brian could hear the wail of sirens and see the brilliance of flashing lights gathered around another accident, which they quickly drove past as well.

  Jimmy grinned in savage satisfaction. “We’re pretty lucky, aren’t we, kiddo?” he asked Brian, as he glanced down at him.

  Brian was still clutching the handle.

  “Now you weren’t thinking of jumping out if we’d gotten stuck back there, were you?” Jimmy asked. He clicked the control that locked the doors. “Keep your hand away from there. I see you touch that handle again and I’ll break your fingers,” he said quietly.

  Brian didn’t have the slightest doubt he would do just that.

  12

  It was five after ten. Mort Levy sat at his desk, deep in thought. He had only one explanation for the disconnected call: Cally Hunter. The tap from the police surveillance van outside Cally’s building confirmed that she had dialed him. The men on duty there offered to go up and talk to her if Mort wanted them to. “No. Leave her alone,” he ordered. He knew it would be pointless. She’d only repeat exactly what she’d told them before. But she knows something and she is afraid to tell, he thought. He had tried to phone her twice, but she had not answered. He knew she was there, though. The lookouts in the van would have notified them if she’d left the apartment. So why wasn’t she answering? Should he go over to see her himself? Would it do any good?

  “What’s with you?” Jack Shore asked impatiently. “You forgot how to hear?”

  Mort looked up. The rotund senior detective stood glowering down at him. No wonder Cally’s afraid of you, Mort thought, remembering the fear in her eyes at Jack’s anger and open hostility.

  “I’m thinking,” Mort said curtly, resisting the impulse to suggest that Shore try it sometime.

  “Well, think with the rest of us. We’ve gotta go over the plans to cover the cathedral.” Then Shore’s scowl softened. “Mort, why don’t you take a break?”

  He isn’t as bad as he tries to seem, Mort thought. “I don’t see you taking a break, Jack,” he replied.

  “It’s just that I hate Siddons worse than you do.”

  Mort got up slowly. His mind was still focused on the elusive memory of some important clue that had been overlooked, something he knew was there, right in front of him, but that he just couldn’t make himself see. They’d seen Cally Hunter at seven-fifteen this morning. She’d already been dressed for work. They had seen her again nearly twelve hours later. She looked exhausted and desperately wo
rried. She was probably in bed asleep now. But every nerve in his body was telling him that he should talk to her. Despite her denial, he believed she held the key.

  As he turned away from his desk, the phone rang. When he picked it up, he again heard the terrified breathing. This time he took the initiative. “Cally,” Mort said urgently. “Cally, talk to me. Don’t be afraid. Whatever it is, I’ll try to help you.”

  * * *

  Cally could not even think of going to bed. She had listened to the all-news station, hoping but at the same time fearing that the cops had found Jimmy, praying that little Brian was safe.

  At ten o’clock she had turned on the television to watch the Fox local news, then her heart sank. Brian’s mother was seated next to the anchorman, Tony Potts. Her hair seemed looser now, as though she’d been standing outside in the wind and snow. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were filled with pain. There was a boy sitting next to her who seemed to be about ten or eleven years old.

  The anchorman was saying, “You may have heard Catherine Dornan’s appeals for help in finding her son Brian. We’ve asked her and Brian’s brother, Michael, to be with us now. There were crowds of people on Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street shortly after five o’clock this evening. Maybe you were one of them. Maybe you noticed Catherine with her two sons, Michael and Brian. They were in a group listening to a violinist playing Christmas carols, and singing along. Seven-year-old Brian disappeared from his mother’s side. His mother and brother need your help in finding him.”

  The anchorman turned to Catherine. “You’re holding a picture of Brian.”

  Cally watched as the picture was held up, listened as Brian’s mother said, “It’s not very clear, so let me tell you a little more about him. He’s seven but looks younger because he’s small. He has dark reddish brown hair and blue eyes and freckles on his nose . . .” Her voice faltered.

  Cally shut her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at the stark agony on Catherine Dornan’s face.

  Michael put his hand over his mother’s. “My brother’s wearing a dark blue ski jacket just like mine, ’cept mine is green, and a red cap. And one of his front teeth is missing.” Then he burst out, “We gotta get him back. We can’t tell my Dad that Brian is missing. Dad’s too sick to be worried.” Michael’s voice became even more urgent. “I know my dad. He’d try to do something. He’d get out of bed and start looking for Brian, and we can’t let him do that. He’s sick, real sick.”

  Cally snapped off the set. She tiptoed into the bedroom where Gigi was at last sleeping peacefully and went over to the window that led to the fire escape. She could still see Brian’s eyes as he glanced over his shoulder, begging her to help him, his one hand in Jimmy’s grasp, his other holding the St. Christopher medal as though it would somehow save him. She shook her head. That medal, she thought. He hadn’t cared about the money. He followed her because he believed that medal would make his father get well.

  Cally ran the few steps back into the living room and grabbed Mort Levy’s card.

  When he answered, her resolve almost crumbled again, but then his voice was so kind when he said, “Cally, talk to me. Don’t be afraid.”

  “Mr. Levy,” she blurted out, “can you come here, quick? I’ve got to talk to you about Jimmy—and that little boy who’s missing.”

  13

  All that was left of the snack Jimmy had purchased when they stopped for gas were the empty Coca-Cola cans and the crumpled bags that had held potato chips. Jimmy had thrown his on the floor in front of Brian, while Brian had placed his in the plastic wastebasket attached under the dashboard. He couldn’t even remember what the chips had tasted like. He was so hungry that, scared as he felt, being hungry was all he could think about.

  He knew that Jimmy was really mad at him. And ever since the time they’d nearly crashed and Jimmy realized that he had been planning to try to jump out of the car, he’d seemed real nervous. He kept opening and closing his fingers on the steering wheel, making a scary snapping sound. The first time he did it, Brian had flinched and jumped, and Jimmy had grabbed him by the shoulder, snarling at him to stay away from the door.

  The snow was coming down faster now. Ahead of them someone braked. The car swung around in a circle, then kept going. Brian realized that it hadn’t slammed into another car only because all the drivers on the road were trying to keep from getting too close to other cars.

  Even so, Jimmy began to swear, a low steady stream of words, most of which Brian had never heard, even from Skeet, the kid in his class who knew all the good swear words.

  The spinning car confirmed Jimmy’s growing sense that near as he was to escaping the country something could still go wrong any minute. It didn’t sound as though that prison guard he shot was going to make it. If the guard died . . . Jimmy had meant it when he told Cally that they wouldn’t take him alive.

  Then Jimmy tried to reassure himself. He had a car that probably nobody even realized was missing yet. He had decent clothes and money. If they’d been stuck back there when that crazy fool caused the accident, the kid might have managed to jump out of the car. If that jerk who just spun around had hit the Toyota, I might have been hurt, Jimmy thought. On my own, maybe I could’ve bluffed it, but not with the kid along. On the other hand, nobody knew he had the kid, and in a million years no cop was on the lookout for a guy in a nice car with a bunch of toys in the backseat and a little boy beside him.

  They were near Syracuse now. In three or four hours he’d be across the border with Paige.

  There was a McDonald’s sign on the right. Jimmy was hungry, and this would be a good place to get something to eat. It would have to last him until he reached Canada. He’d pull up to the drive-in window, order for the two of them, then get back on the road fast.

  “What’s your favorite food, kid?” he asked, his tone almost genial.

  Brian had spotted the McDonald’s sign and held his breath, hoping that this meant they were going to get something to eat. “A hamburger and french fries, and a Coke,” he said timidly.

  “If I stop at McDonald’s, can you look like you’re sleeping?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Do it then. Lean against me with your eyes closed.”

  “Okay.” Obediently Brian slumped against Jimmy and squeezed his eyes shut. He tried not to show how scared he was.

  “Let’s see what kind of actor you are,” Jimmy said. “And you’d better be good.”

  The St. Christopher medal had slipped to the side. Brian straightened it so that he could feel it, heavy and comforting against his chest.

  It was scary to be so close to this guy, not like being sleepy when he was driving with Dad and curling up against him and feeling Dad’s hand patting his shoulder.

  Jimmy pulled off the highway. They had to wait on line at the drive-in window. Jimmy froze when he saw a state trooper pull in behind them, but had no choice except to stay put and not draw attention to himself. When it was their turn and he placed the order and paid, the attendant didn’t even glance into the car. But at the pickup spot, the woman looked over the counter to where the light from behind her shone on Brian.

  “I guess he just can’t wait to see what Santa Claus is going to bring him, can he?”

  Jimmy nodded and tried to smile in agreement as he reached for the bag.

  She leaned way forward and peered into the car. “My goodness, is he wearing a St. Christopher medal? My dad was named after him and used to try to make a big deal of it, but my mom always jokes about St. Christopher being dropped from the calendar of saints. My dad says it’s too bad Mom wasn’t named Philomena. She’s another saint the Vatican said didn’t exist.” With a hearty laugh the young woman handed over the bag.

  As they drove back onto the highway, Brian opened his eyes. He could smell the hamburgers and the french fries. He sat up slowly.

  Jimmy looked at him, his eyes steely, his face rigid. Through lips that barely parted, he quietly ordered, “Get that goddamn
medal off your neck.”

  * * *

  Cally had to talk to him about her brother and the missing child. After promising to be right over, Mort Levy hung up the phone, stunned. What possible connection could there be between Jimmy Siddons and the little boy who disappeared on Fifth Avenue?

  He dialed the lookout van. “You recorded that call?”

  “Is she crazy, Mort? She can’t be talking about the Dornan kid, can she? Want us to pick her up for questioning?”

  “That’s just what I don’t want you to do!” Levy exploded. “She’s scared to death as it is. Sit tight until I get there.”

  He had to inform his superiors, starting with Jack Shore, about Cally Hunter’s call. Mort spotted Shore leaving the chief of detectives’ private office, was out of his chair and across the room in seconds. He grabbed Shore’s arm. “Come back inside.”

  “I told you to take a break.” Shore tried to shake off his hand. “We just heard from Logan in Detroit again. Two days ago a woman whose description matches Siddons’s girlfriend got a ride from a private car service over the border to Windsor. Logan’s guys think that Laronde told her girlfriend about California and Mexico to throw them off her trail. The girlfriend was questioned again. This time it occurred to her to mention that she offered to buy Laronde’s fur coat because it wouldn’t be needed in Mexico. Laronde refused.”

  I never bought that Mexico story, Mort Levy thought. He didn’t relinquish his grip on Shore’s arm as he shoved open the chief’s door.

  Five minutes later, a squad car was racing up the East Side Drive to Avenue B and Tenth Street. A bitterly frustrated Jack Shore had been ordered to wait in the lookout van while Mort and the chief, Bud Folney, went upstairs to talk to Cally.

  Mort knew that Shore would not forgive him for insisting that he stay out of it. “Jack, when we were there earlier, I knew there was something she was holding back. You’ve scared her to death. She thinks you’d do anything to see her back behind bars. For God’s sake, can’t you look at her as a human being? She’s got a four-year-old child, her husband is dead, and she got the book thrown at her when she made the mistake of helping the brother she’d practically raised.”