The Sanctity of Sloth Read online

  She knew she should call Carlos, but her thoughts were in turmoil. The outline of her book swam through her mind, chapters jostling for prominence. Which should she focus on? What segments would help her father's case with the investigator most?

  She made herself a pot of coffee, a necessary expenditure of time if she was going to stay awake and get the job done tonight. She wasn't even close to completing a first draft, but she had to pull together what she had into some coherent whole.

  She labored over the keyboard until her eyes began to close of their own accord. Her chin hit her chest, and she jerked awake. The clock said 3:15. She typed two more sentences and saved the file. She'd only completed three chapters, but it would have to do. She had to sleep. Tomorrow, first thing, she'd drop the pages at the police station.

  Abby stripped off her jeans, fell on the bed and into a fitful sleep. The dark shape of the Great Stone Church ruins towered over her, blotting out the moonlight. She followed the path around the corner to the swallow nest exhibit. The anchorhold of her dreams was almost as tall as the church itself. Its stones were brown with age and lichen, the bars of the squint spotted with rust.

  She peered between them. A shape reclining on a pallet of straw was within, half hidden by shadows. "Dad?" The figure moaned and thrashed on the makeshift bed. "Dad?" she said again. He shifted into the beams of light. His eyes were sunken hollows, his skin so white it almost glowed. His emaciated arms jutted from tattered sleeves. He turned his face to hers and cried out in a foreign tongue. It was the same language the girl had spoken.

  "I'll get you out, Dad. I've got you." She sobbed the words, but he didn't seem to hear. The next three hours, until the alarm clock went off, were spent attempting to free him from the anchorhold. But every time she pried a stone from the wall, another would grow in its place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 4:25 PM

  The Wife

  MY SON WAS in his room. He spent most of his time there these days. It worried me. I was afraid for him. Afraid he'd been traumatized by the events of the past week. I'd thought about taking him to a counselor, but we couldn't tell anyone what he'd done. I know all about patient confidentiality, but I didn't think it would extend to a criminal case.

  I checked the clock for the hundredth time. It was getting dangerously close to five, the time people returned home from their offices. But my husband hadn't returned. I'd been frozen in my chair at the kitchen table with the same cup of tea—now as cold as my fingers—for one hour and forty-seven minutes.

  I'd calculated the time. At three in the afternoon, when my husband left, it should have taken him only seven minutes to reach Seb Skandalis's home. It would take longer for him to get home with rush hour beginning—say fifteen minutes. If he walked in the door within thirty seconds, he'd have spent an hour and twenty-five minutes at Seb's. That was too long.

  Every moment he spent on that man's property the risk of being seen by a neighbor, a mailman, or Seb himself increased. I'd wanted him to go in the morning, but Seb wasn't in the office. He hadn't been expected in until after lunch. The secretary had said he was at a client's, but we didn't want to take chances. We took turns calling and changing the timbre of our voices beginning at one-thirty. He wasn't at his desk until 2:45.

  My husband had now been gone for one hour and forty-nine minutes. I began my calculations again. It was the only thing that kept me from leaping from my chair and driving to Seb's house. If my husband walked in the door in the next twenty-two seconds, he'd have been at Seb's house for— I heard the front door open and close.

  I did leap from my chair now, and I ran for the entryway. My husband strode toward me with a broad grin on his face. Relief cascaded over me, weakening my thighs.

  "Here and here." He pulled two green booklets from his jacket pocket and thrust them at me. "Not one, but two. And—" He snatched them away from me, opened one, closed it, opened the other and waved it under my nose. "It's Hannah. Look."

  I darted a glance over my shoulder, worried our son might have come out of his rooms when he heard the door. The hall was empty. "Come into the kitchen. I don't want to talk about this here."

  He fairly danced into that room. He was as buoyant as a soap bubble. As soon as I closed the door behind us, I took the passport from him. It was Hannah. She looked younger and healthier, but I recognized her. The name printed near the picture wasn't Hannah's, but it was her face.

  "Isn't this wonderful? I'd hoped I'd find the passport I'd seen before. Which I did, of course." He brandished that one like a weapon. "But I never dreamed I'd find one with Hannah's picture. This is proof. Absolute proof." He jigged across the kitchen. "Let's celebrate."

  It was good news, of course. Having a passport with her picture was much better than having one with a girl who looked like her. I hoped it could be traced to it’s forger and provide a link from there to Seb. If not, it might not pose much of a threat. Of course there were always fingerprints. My enthusiastic husband had most likely destroyed them all, but Seb didn’t need to know that. Either way this was a gamble, and it seemed too soon to celebrate.

  "It only took me maybe ten minutes, to break into his house." He disappeared into the pantry. "I went around. . .window open. . . Jammed but. . ." His voice was muffled, and his words cut in and out. He returned with a bottle in hand. ". . .slid open as easy as could be," he said with a flourish.

  "That's wonderful, but don't you think—"

  "This was the perfect solution. Skandalis won't dare throw his weight around when he finds out what we have." He rummaged through a kitchen drawer, dumping its contents onto the counter. "I'm just thankful we thought of it when we did."

  We. Interesting choice of words. I moved to another drawer, opened it, removed the corkscrew and handed it to him. He barked a laugh. "You and I, we are on the same wavelength."

  I poured my cold tea into the sink before I took my seat at the table again.

  "I wasn't sure where to look once I got inside. So I said to myself, if I was a dishonest, immoral, conniving son-of-a—" The cork popped from the bottle sounding more like champagne than wine. He placed it on the counter and began opening cupboards. It only took three tries before he found the wine glasses. "Where would I hide the evidence?" He poured two glasses to the rim. You'd think we were drinking soda.

  "In my sock drawer." He handed me a glass and held it up for a toast. "Here's to sock drawers." I clinked glasses and took a sip. I wanted a drink as much as he did, if for a different reason.

  "There they were. Not one, but two passports." He downed a third of his glass and burped.

  "If you found them so quickly, what took you so long?" My voice was subdued. I felt at least one of us should keep our heads clear.

  "Ah, now that's the exciting part." He threw himself into the chair across from me and began a tale of suburban espionage involving stray dogs, neighbor children, and nosy old ladies. My mind wandered to our next steps.

  Seb was certain to discover the missing passports sooner or later, and when he did, we would be the first people he would question. We should act swiftly. Finding the documents missing would be sure to both anger and scare him. He'd feel violated, threatened.

  The man was horrible enough in a placid state. I didn't want to meet him when he was on a rampage. We needed to contact him and let him know what we had in our possession. Reassure him we had no intention of using them unless he forced us to.

  "You're not listening to me." My husband's face was drawn into a pout.

  "I'm a little distracted."

  "By what?"

  "We must call Seb tonight."

  He set his half-drunk glass down with a thump. "Why would we do that? Then he'd know we were the ones who'd taken them."

  "But that was the whole point."

  He blinked at me. "The whole point?"

  "Yes. We wanted them to use as leverage. Remember? He has something on us, but now we have something on him."

  "W
ell, yes. . . I know. . . But. . ." He sputtered.

  "If he doesn't know we have the passports, he'll keep pushing you to," I paused. "Take care of things."

  My husband slumped into his chair. "I guess I thought we wouldn't mention them unless he asked me about Paul Travers again."

  "He will, you know." I took a small sip of my wine.

  "Maybe not. He was upset. He's probably calmed down by now. Forgot he'd even asked me to do it."

  I looked at him over the rim of my glass. Indecision and inaction were my husband's greatest weaknesses. He often slid down the path of least resistance to the swamp at its end. Look where he'd gotten us this time.

  I was sure buying Hannah wasn't his idea. My husband didn't have a diabolical bone in his body. I was sure he'd been complaining about the price of cleaning services, and Seb had offered a solution. Most likely, my husband hadn't wanted to offend. It had seemed easier to accept the offer than reject it and risk upsetting Seb. He didn't like to upset people. Thankfully, he didn't like to upset me either.

  We would handle this my way. I'd allow him his evening of celebration. His moment of glory. But soon, we'd call Seb Skandalis and explain our new position.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 7:45 AM

  ABBY SAT ON steps of the porch and closed her eyes. Her lids were sheets of sandpaper. She was so sleep deprived it was hard to think, but the night's work had paid off. At least, she was fairly sure it had. Sylla had been working the early shift, so Abby was able to hand the manuscript directly to her. The skepticism on the investigator's face seemed to lift when she saw it. Optimism might even call the new expression sympathetic, or understanding.

  Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome? A nauseous chill rolled through Abby every time she thought of the accusation. The memory had kept her writing until three. She was determined to erase that idea, wipe it away as if it had never been.

  "Abby."

  Her eyes sprang open. Her father leaned on the old wooden rocking chair. She hadn't heard him come out. He didn't look well. His face was pale. A thin line of sweat beaded his forehead despite the chill in the air. "How did you sleep?" she said.

  "Like the dead." For a brief moment, his lips lifted in an imitation of a smile.

  "You don't look well."

  "Neither do you."

  "I'm just tired," she said. His eyebrows raised in question. "I was up half the night, writing."

  He sank into the rocker. "I'm sorry I'm so high maintenance. I'm keeping you from your work."

  Consternation welled up in her. "No. It's not that at all. I pulled together the first three chapters of the book. I wanted to do more, but I kept falling asleep. I gave them to Detective Sylla this morning, so she'd understand. So she'd believe me that the anchorhold was my idea."

  "Did she?"

  "I don't know. She didn't read them in front of me. She looked them over, and thanked me. But I think she was softening." Abby searched for a phrase. "Open to persuasion." She lowered her voice. "What did you tell her?"

  "I told her what happened. I told her I built the anchorhold at your request, but that I also believed it was good for the Mission. I told her when it came down to it, I was against the scheme, and probably should have refused to help you. But daughters and fathers and little fingers and all that."

  "Did you say anything about that night?" Abby wondered if Sylla had accused him of keeping the dead girl in the cell.

  He shook his head. "If I tell her I lied, I'm a liar. Why put that in her mind? If she asks me, I'll tell her the truth, but she didn't ask yesterday."

  "Good." Abby was relieved. She didn't want her father to know what was in the investigator's mind. It would horrify him.

  "We can't tell more lies, Abby."

  Abby's throat closed. Tears sprang up behind her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dad."

  "We'll get through this, honey." The half-smile returned. "I'm supposed to be the wise one, the old sage. I went along with it. It's as much my doing as yours."

  Abby swiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.

  "Don't cry. They don't have anything against me. Building the anchorhold wasn't illegal. I had permission. And as far as I know, bringing you food and water wasn't illegal either."

  His optimism was uninformed. He didn't know what was in Sylla's mind, and Abby wasn't going to tell him. It seemed every time she recovered from one blow, another came. She'd protect him from them as long as she could.

  "I have a favor to ask," he said.

  "Of course. Anything."

  "Tomorrow is the Swallows Day Parade. I have the first shift at the Mission kiosk. I can't make it. I'm not in any shape—"

  "Dad." Abby interrupted him. "No one is going to expect you to be there. I'll call and let them know, but I'm sure they realize you can't attend."

  "You didn't let me finish. When Tallulah came by with the fava beans, I told her I'd be there. I guess I was being overly ambitious, but it's too late for her to find someone to replace me now."

  Abby understood what he was asking. "So you want me to go?"

  "Yes."

  "Who'll take care of you?" Abby couldn't keep the note of panic from her voice.

  "I'm not a child. I can stay home alone for a couple of hours."

  Neither spoke for a long time. The soft creak, creak of the rocking chair on the worn wood slates and the songs of birds filled the silence. The sun climbed over the Jacksons' roof and warmed the porch.

  Her father rose from the chair with a small groan.

  "Dad." Abby leaped to her feet.

  He waved her off. "I'm okay. Stop fretting. I need to rest for a bit." He shuffled to the door, his pain obvious.

  "Dad," Abby said again.

  He placed one hand on the doorframe for a moment. "I bet you another bottle of that Ravishing wine you and Carlos drank this whole thing is going to blow over." The screen door slapped shut behind him.

  "I love you," Abby called after him.

  "Love you too, honey."

  She sat in the rocker he'd just vacated and stared at nothing. She hoped with all her heart he was right but braced herself for the next blow anyway.

  ***

  Her father went to bed, and Abby went to the kitchen to scrub out Mimi's soup pot. She'd dumped its contents. Steven had said Mimi was there when he might, or might not, have mentioned he'd seen Abby's father at the police station. Abby was paranoid. Officially and clinically certifiable. But she was also frantic.

  At first, she'd hoped to find out who'd left the dead girl at the Mission to protect her father from them. But there were other ways to do that. She could have someone she trusted with him at all times, keep pepper spray handy, buy a dog, dump out soup and fava beans that might contain poison.

  But everything had changed. The stakes had been raised. She had to know who'd committed the crime to save him from suspicion, shame, and the wagging tongues that almost destroyed him years ago.

  When her mother died, Abby's father had a breakdown. While Molly was alive, he'd kept his anxiety and rage on a short leash. When she died, grief stole his ability to hold them. They escaped and tore him to shreds.

  He'd been hospitalized for a month, only a month. But that was long enough for the town to make up its mind. There was something wrong with the Travers family. The superstitious believed they were bad seeds. The scientific minded thought there was a genetic defect in their line. The mockers said they had a screw loose.

  She wondered now why they hadn't moved. But her father had been out of work for quite a while in the years after her mother died. Abby assumed he didn't have the money to start over. And maybe he didn't want to leave the home his son had lived in.

  It had taken years, but through long-suffering, kindness, goodwill, and generosity her father had changed local perception. If this scandal came to light, it would undo everything he'd worked so hard for. Abby couldn't bear that. She had to find those men she'd seen that night at the Mission bef
ore the rumors began.

  A wheel of possibilities revolved through her mind. Anyone who was there the day Steven let it slip was suspect. She racked her brain to come up with the names of ethnic-looking volunteers or employees the right age to have a teenage son. There were two. Tallulah and Mimi. Of course, there must have been strangers present, and anyone in the room that day could have shared what he'd said. But Abby had to start somewhere.

  Between Tallulah, who she'd known her whole life, and Mimi there was no contest. She knew the Jacksons were a nice middle-class family. How they would know the girl, never mind why they would leave her to die at the Mission was a complete mystery. And, most likely, she was grasping at imaginary straws.

  But every time she talked herself out of believing it could be them, her thoughts would spin again. The wheel's flapper would slow at each damning bit of evidence. Click, Chad's eyes. Click, Bradley's cultured accent. Click, his Middle East connection. Click, Mimi's volunteer position at the Mission. Then Abby's mind would settle to a stop on the Jacksons again. She had to know the truth.

  She could see the driveway where Mimi and Bradley's cars were parked under the outer branches of one of the huge oaks. Sunlight shone through the leaves and dappled them like an impressionistic painting. She was going to return the pot as soon as they left. As long she was there, she'd take a look around. She didn't know what she was looking for. She hoped she'd recognize it when she saw it.

  She shook water drops off her hands and retrieved a dish towel from the oven door. When she turned back to the sink, movement through the window caught her eye. Bradley strode toward the cars, briefcase in hand. He got into a white sedan and headed down the gravel drive. Abby glanced at the kitchen wall clock—8:10.

  What time did Mimi take the boys to school? At Saint Barnabas, where Abby worked, student drop-offs started around 7:30, and first classes at 8:00. It seemed late. But the boys were in high school and high school schedules varied.