Vanished

“Be patient, Counsellor. Mr. Armour, proceed, but not too much nonsense please, we have a great deal of testimony to hear, and our friends on the jury don't want to stay at a hotel at the taxpayers' expense forever.” There was a titter of laughter in the courtroom and Tom Armour smiled. Compared to what Marielle had seen of him before, he suddenly looked surprisingly easygoing. But that appearance was deceptive. Inside him was a coil of incredibly well controlled tension.

“Mr. Patterson, will you please point out your wife to us.” Malcolm did so. “She is here today, and yesterday certainly could not have been easy for her, talking about the death of her children, and the kidnapping of your son, or her time in the clinic in Switzerland … or her marriage to Mr. Delauney…. But she's here. She looks sane to me and in good control of herself.” Marielle looked calm as she sat beside John Taylor. Malcolm was furious but he was trying hard to conceal it. “Would you agree with me, sir? She looks quite normal to me, and probably to everyone else here. Would you say she's holding up, in spite of everything?”

“I suppose so,” he conceded halfheartedly.

“Would you say her previous problems are a thing of the past?”

“I don't know,” he snapped. “I'm not a doctor.”

“How long have you been married?”

“More than six years.”

“Has she ever been in a hospital, for mental problems, during that time?”

“No, she hasn't.”

“Would you say that she has ever done anything to endanger your child?”

“Yes.” He almost shouted at Tom, and this time the defense attorney looked startled, and he wanted to clear it up quickly now, before he damaged her further. But Malcolm's answer had surprised him.

“What did she do that endangered your child?”

“She consorted with Charles Delauney. She even took him to the park and exposed him to that man! And then he took Teddy!” He was shouting and waving a hand, and Tom was relieved.

“Mrs. Patterson says the meeting was unplanned, that she ran into Mr. Delauney by accident.”

“I don't believe her.”

“Has she ever lied to you before?”

“Yes, about her mental history and her marriage to Delauney.” Tom knew that was a lie but chose not to challenge him at this moment.

“If that's true, Mr. Patterson, has she lied to you at any other time?”

“I don't know.”

“All right, other than that meeting in the park the day before Teddy was kidnapped, has she ever done anything to endanger the child? Taken him somewhere dangerous …left him somewhere unattended …even alone in the bathtub?”

“I don't know.”

“Wouldn't you remember it if she endangered your child?”

“Of course!” Malcolm was slowly burying himself and John Taylor loved it.

“Do you believe your wife was faithful to you, sir?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you ever have reason to suspect her of infidelity?”

“Not really.” He shrugged, almost as though he didn't care.

“You travel a great deal, don't you, sir?”

“I have to. For business.”

“Of course. And what does Mrs. Patterson do when you travel?”

“She stays at home.” He blazed. “With a headache.” A few people in the courtroom laughed, but the jury looked serious. They were trying to follow everything he was saying.

“Does she ever travel with you, Mr. Patterson?”

“Rarely.”

“And why is that? Did you prefer not to have her along?”

“No. She preferred to stay at home with our son.”

“I see.” The bad-mother portrait was slowly crumbling at Tom's hands and in spite of the fact that as an FBI agent he was part of the prosecution, John Taylor was relieved, for her sake. “And you, sir, do you travel alone?”

“Of course.”

“You take no one with you?”

“Of course not.” He looked highly irritated at the impertinence.

“Not even a secretary?”

“Of course I take a secretary. I can't do my work alone.”

“I see. Do you take the same one, or different ones?”

“Sometimes I take both of my secretaries.”

“And if you only take one, is there a preference?”

“I frequently take Miss Sanders. She has been with me for many years.” Something about the way he said it suggested that she was a hundred years old, but Tom Armour had done his homework and he knew better.

“How long has she been with you, sir?”

“For six and a half years.”

“And are you involved with her, Mr. Patterson?”

“Of course not!” he roared. “I never get involved with my secretaries!”

“And who was your last secretary before Miss Sanders?” He was done for and he knew it.

“My wife.”

“Mrs. Patterson was your secretary?” Tom Armour's eyes grew wide in surprise, as though he hadn't known, and the judge looked amused by the question.

“Only for a few months until we were married.”

“Is that how you met her?”

“I suppose so, although I vaguely knew her father.”

“Do you know Miss Sanders's father too, Mr. Patterson?”

“Hardly.” He looked superciliously at Tom Armour. “He's a baker in Frankfurt.”

“I see. And where does Miss Sanders live?”

“I have no idea.” But even Marielle was intrigued now.

“You've never been to her home?”

“Perhaps a few times …for meetings …”

“And you can't remember where she lives?”

“All right, all right. I remember. On Fifty-fourth and Park.”