God Save the Child

“In that case, my dear, let me get you another.” I raised my eyebrows and flicked an imaginary cigar.

“Oh, do the funny walk, Groucho,” she said.

“I haven’t got that down yet,” I said. I gestured toward the pitcher, and she shook her head. “No thank you, really.”

I held her chair as she sat down, sat down opposite her, and poured some wine in her glass.

“A self-effacing little domestic red,” I said, “with just a hint of presumption.”

She took a sip. “Oh, good,” she said, “it’s cold. I hate it at room temperature, don’t you?”

I said, “Let’s elope.”

“Just like that,” she said. “Because I like cold wine?”

“Well, there are other factors,” I said.

“Let’s eat first,” she said.

We ate. Largely in silence. There are people with whom silence is not strained. Very few of them are women. But Susan Silverman was one. She didn’t make conversation. Or if she was making conversation she was so good at it that I didn’t notice. She ate with pleasure and impeccable style. Me too.

She accepted another slice of the roast and put sauce on it from the gravy boat.

“The sauce is super,” she said. “What is it?”

“Cumberland sauce,” I said. “It is also terrific with duck.”

She didn’t ask for the recipe. Style. I hate people who ask for recipes.

“Well, it is certainly terrific with pork.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re Jewish.”

“Yes?”

“You’re not Orthodox?”

“No.”

“Serving a pork roast on your first date with a Jewish lady is not always considered a slick move.”

She laughed. “I didn’t even think of that. You poor thing. Of course it is not a slick move. But is this a date? I thought I was going to be questioned.”

“Yeah. That’s right. I’m just softening you up now. After dessert and brandy I break out the strappado.”

She held out her wineglass. “Well then, I’d better fortify myself as best I can.”

I poured her more wine.

“What about Kevin Bartlett? Where do you think he is?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. How could I? Haven’t you got any clues at all?”

“Oh yeah, we got clues. We got lots of clues. But they don’t lead us to anything. What they tell us is that we’re into something weird. It’s freak-land again.”

“Again?”

“That’s just nostalgia, I guess. Used to be when you got a kidnapping you assumed the motive to be greed and you could count on that and work with it. You ran into a murder and you could figure lust or profit as a starter. Now you gotta wonder if it’s political, religious, or merely idiosyncratic. You know, for the hell of it. Because it’s there.”

“And you yearn for the simple crimes like Leopold-Loeb?”

“Yeah,” I grinned. “Or Ruth Judd, the ax murderess. Okay, so maybe there was always freaky crime. It just seems more prevalent. Or maybe I grow old.”

“Maybe we all do,” she said.

“Yeah, but I’d like to find Kevin Bartlett before I get senile. You know about the kidnapping note and the hearse and the dummy?”

“Some. The story was all over the school system when they found the hearse behind the junior high. But I don’t know details.”

“Okay,” I said, “here they are.” I told her. “Now,” I said, and gestured with the wine bottle toward her glass.

“Half a glass,” she said. I poured. “That’s good.”

“Now,” I said again, “do you think he was kidnapped? And if he was kidnapped, was it just for money?”

“In order,” she said, “I don’t know, and no.”

“Yeah, that’s about where I am,” I said. “Tell me about this group he ran with.”

“As I said when you saw me the other day in my office, I really know very little about them. I’ve heard that there is a group of disaffected young people who have formed a commune of some sort. Commune may be too strong a word. There is a group, and I only know this from gossip in the high school, which chooses to live together. I don’t want to stereotype them. They are mostly, I’ve heard, school- and college-age people who do not go to school or work in the traditional sense. I’ve heard that they have a house somewhere around Smithfield.”

“Who owns the house?”

“I don’t know, but there is a kind of leader, an older man, maybe thirty or so, this Vic Harroway. I would think he’d be the owner.”

“And Kevin was hanging around with this group?”

“With some of them. Or at least with some kids who were said to be associated with this group. I’d see him now and then sitting on the cemetery wall across from the common with several kids from the group. Or maybe from the group. I’m making this sound a good deal more positive than it is. I’m not sure of any of this or of even the existence of such a group. Although I’m inclined to think there is a group like that.”

“Who would know?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. Chief Trask, I suppose.”

“How bizarre is this group?”

“Bizarre? I don’t know. I hadn’t heard anything very bizarre about them. I imagine there’s grass smoked there, although not many of us find that bizarre anymore. Other than that I can’t think of anything particularly bizarre. What kind of bizarre do you mean?”