“The reverend offered to take him home and get him something to eat, but the boy said, ‘No. These people are waiting for the service to begin.’ That sounds too good to be true, I know. But you weren’t there. Everybody who came to church that morning felt so concerned about the boy and so touched by his unselfish attitude that we had a sense of God’s hand among us. We took him inside. I sat next to him and handed him a Bible, but he didn’t open it. I wondered if he was too dazed to be able to read. Imagine my surprise when the congregation read out loud from the Scriptures and the boy recited every passage from memory. I remember that the reverend said something in his sermon about keeping compassion in our hearts and helping the unfortunate. He paused to look directly at the boy. Afterward, everybody said that it was one of the most moving services that we’d had in a long time. The reverend took the boy home. He asked me and a couple of other church members to help. We made a big meal. We got the boy fresh clothes. He did everything slowly, as if in a daze.
“Who was he? we wondered. What had happened to him? Where had he come from? A doctor examined him but couldn’t get him to remember anything. The chief of police got the same results and asked the state police if they knew about anybody who matched the boy’s description and had been reported missing. The state police didn’t learn anything, either.”
That made sense, I thought. Loganville was in Ohio, but the fire had happened in Indiana. The Ohio police had probably decided that the boy’s arrival in Loganville wasn’t important enough for out—of—state inquiries. Even if they had gone out of state, inquiries to the Indiana state police might have been pointless, the fire having been basically a local matter that the state police wouldn’t have monitored.
“Various members of the congregation offered to take the boy in,” Mrs. Garner said. “But the reverend decided that since I’d found him, I had the right to take care of him if I wanted. My husband was the most generous soul imaginable. Five years earlier, we’d lost a son to cancer.” She paused, caught in her memories. “Our only child. If Joshua had lived, he’d have been the same age as the teenager I’d found on the church steps seemed to be. I couldn’t help thinking that God had sent him into our lives for a reason. As a …”
Mrs. Garner had trouble saying the next word.
“Substitute?” I asked.
She nodded, her pain lines deepening. “That’s another reason I believe I was punished. For vain thoughts like that. For presuming that God would single me out and give me favorable treatment. But back then, I couldn’t resist the idea that something miraculous was happening, that I was being given a second son. I told my husband what I hoped for, and he didn’t take a moment to agree. If I wanted the boy to live with us while his problems got sorted out, it was fine. My husband loved me so much and …”
Her voice dropped. She turned her wheelchair slightly so that she looked even straighter at me. “The boy came to live with us while the authorities tried to figure out who he was. He was awfully skinny. It took me days of solid home cooking, of fried chicken and apple pies, to put some weight on him. His burns had healed, but the scratches on his arms and legs, where his clothes had been torn, got infected and needed their dressings and bandages changed a lot. I didn’t mind. It reminded me of taking care of the son we’d lost. I was pleased to do it. But I couldn’t help wondering what on earth had happened to him.
“I left books and magazines on his bedside table so he’d have something to amuse him while he was resting. After a while, I realized that none of them had been opened. When I asked him if they didn’t suit him, if he’d like to read something else, he avoided the question, and it suddenly occurred to me that the boy couldn’t read.”
I’d taken a seat on a porch swing. Now I frowned. “But you said that he could recite passages from the Bible.”
“Any passage I asked him.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“I asked him to read the back of a cereal box. I asked him to read the headline of a newspaper. He couldn’t do it. I put a pencil and paper in front of him. He couldn’t write the simplest words. He was illiterate. As for the Bible passages, there was only one explanation. Someone had taught him the Bible orally, had made him memorize passages that were read to him. It chilled me when I realized that. What on earth had happened to him?”
“That’s one of the few questions I have an answer for.”
Her gaze was intense. “You know?”
Wishing that I hadn’t interrupted, I nodded. “His parents held him prisoner in an underground room.”
“What?”
“As much as I’ve been able to figure out, they believed that the Devil was in him, that the only way to drive Satan out was by filling his head with the Bible.”
Mrs. Garner looked horrified. “But why wouldn’t they have let him learn how to read and write?”
“I’m still trying to piece it together. Maybe they believed that reading and writing were the Devil’s tools. The wrong kind of books would lead to the wrong kind of ideas, and the next thing, sin would be all over the place. The Bible was the only safe book, and the surest way to guarantee that the Bible was the only book Lester knew was to teach it to him orally.”
Mrs. Garner’s eyes wavered as if she’d become dizzy. She lowered her head and massaged her temples.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“The things people do to one another.”
“I’ve told you what Lester did to my family. What did he do to you?”
Seconds passed. Gradually, she looked up at me, the pain in her eyes worse. “He was the politest boy I ever met. He was always asking to help around the house. At the same time, I’d never met anyone so troubled. Some afternoons, he’d lie in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, reliving God knew what. In the nights, he couldn’t go to sleep unless his closet light was on. He often woke screaming from nightmares. They seemed to have something to do with the fire that had burned his arms. I’d go into his room and try to calm him. I’d sit holding him, stroking his head, whispering that he was safe, that nothing could hurt him where he was, that he didn’t have to worry anymore.”
She paused, rubbing her temples again.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“So long ago. Why does the memory still hurt so much?”
“I don’t mean to upset you. If you need to rest for a while, I can come back when—”
“I never spoke about this to anyone. Ever. Maybe I should have. Maybe it wouldn’t keep torturing me if I’d told someone, if I’d tried to explain.”
“Do you want to explain it to me?”
She looked at me in anguish for the longest while, searching my eyes. “To a stranger. Yes. Someone whose judgments I’ll never have to face again.”
“I don’t make judgments, Mrs. Garner. All I want is to get my wife and son back. Do you know anything that can help me do that?”
She struggled with her thoughts. “One night, he kissed me on the cheek. Another night, after one of his nightmares, after I held him and calmed him, he pecked my cheek again. Or tried to. He grazed my lips, as if he’d aimed for my cheek and missed. It was an awkward moment. I stood as soon as I got him settled in bed. I felt uncomfortable, but I kept telling myself that I was imagining things, that the boy hadn’t meant anything.”
“Mrs. Garner, you don’t need to—”
“I have to. Somehow I have to get it out of me. I wanted to take care of the boy so much that I was in denial. Each intimacy seemed innocent. Like when I tried to teach him to read and write. That’s what I used to be: a teacher at the high school. This happened at the end of summer. School hadn’t started yet. I had time to try to teach him. I used the Bible, since he already knew the words. We sat together at the kitchen table. Our chairs were close. There was nothing wrong. We were just a teacher and a student sitting at a table working on a school problem, and yet, in retrospect, I realize that he sat closer than he needed to. When he helped me make dinner, our han
ds would touch briefly. I didn’t think anything of it. One of the reasons I haven’t told anybody about this is that I’m afraid it’ll seem as if I took some kind of”—she had trouble saying the word—“enjoy—ment… . That’s the furthest thing from the truth. I know that there are a lot of twisted people in this world, Mr. Denning. But I’m a churchgoing, God—fearing woman, and I assure you that I am not capable of enjoying the touch of a teenager whom I considered to be like a son.”
An uncomfortable silence gathered. I made myself nod, encouraging her to continue.
“But it’s because I wanted so desperately to take care of him that everything happened. One night, after another of his nightmares, when I held him, he grazed my …” Self—conscious, she looked down at the front of her dress. “It seemed accidental, yet I finally admitted that too many accidental gestures like that had happened, and I told him that certain kinds of touching weren’t appropriate. I told him that I wanted the two of us to be close but that there were different kinds of closeness. He said that he didn’t know what I meant but that if I wanted him to keep a distance, he would.”
“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 over powered 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 mome
nt. “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.
“Sometimes a pattern’s there. We just don’t recognize it.”
“Yeah, well, my pattern’s been aimless.” Something Payne had said caught up to me—the somber way he’d said it. “Ann had a doctor’s appointment? Is everything okay?”
“We’ll see.”
“… Oh.”
He hesitated. “A lump on her breast, but it might just be a cyst. The doctor’s doing a biopsy.”
I took a tired breath. “I’ll say a prayer.”
“Thanks.”
“Before all this began, that isn’t something I’d have said.”
“That you’d pray for somebody?” he asked.
“The last few days, I spoke to a couple of ministers and a very religious, very decent lady. I guess some of their attitudes wore off on me. The trouble is, I also learned about a man whose parents turned him into a monster. Lester Dant.”