Vanished

“I don't believe that.” Bea Ritter didn't move as she looked at her, and she reached out a tiny firm hand and took a grip on Marielle's fingers. “And I'm going to do everything I can to help them find him. Whatever the press can do, whatever ins I have, I'm going to use them.” She had some very odd underworld connections, she explained, due to a series of articles she'd done, and the local mob boss had loved them. She'd made him a hero in his own way, and he'd promised her that he'd always be there for her, and lately, after talking to Charles, she had wanted to call him.

“What did you want from me?” Marielle asked tiredly. She liked the girl, but it was late, and it all seemed so hopeless. “Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to look you in the eye and see for myself what you believe. I think you don't know …but you're not sure that he did it either.”

“That's true.”

“That's fair enough. Maybe in your shoes I'd feel that way too. He must have given you a pretty rough time when …” They both knew that she meant when their son died.

“He was crazy then,” she smiled sadly, “maybe he still is.”

“A little bit.” Bea smiled. “He'd have to be to fight in Spain.” But she admired him for that, and she loved what he had written. He had showed some of it to her. They had talked for hours at the jail one day, and he had cried when he told her he didn't do it. And she believed him. She had vowed to help him then, and she knew that Marielle was an important key. No matter what they did to her, she was someone who could help him. “I'm sorry about your husband,” she said carefully.

“So am I. It's not going to be pretty in the press tomorrow morning.”

“No, it won't be.” Bea had already seen some of the early tear sheets. “But it raises a little more sympathy for you. They really beat you to death the other day. It made me sick, that's why I wrote the piece I did.” She was kind of a Robin Hood, always defending the underdog, the beaten, the poor, the defeated. She and Charles seemed to have so much in common.

“Why Charles?” Marielle asked softly. “Why him? Why do you care so much?”

“I don't want to see him killed for nothing. I never believed entirely that Bruno Hauptmann was guilty either. I know some of the evidence was there, but so much of it was circumstantial. So much of it was hysteria created by the press. It was my first story, I was twenty-one, and I always felt that I could have made a difference, but I didn't. Maybe this time, I can. Or at least die trying.”

Marielle didn't dare ask her more than that, but there was something more in the girl's eyes, and after a long moment she decided to ask her. “Are you in love with him?” There was no jealousy there, nothing proprietary. It was only a question. And Bea Ritter looked at her for a long time before she answered.

“I'm not sure. I don't want to be. That isn't the issue.” But it was why she cared so much and Marielle knew it.

She smiled at her. “Does he know, or is he as stupid as he used to be?” Sometimes he could be dense when he wanted to be. And of course now he was involved with something much more important. But Bea laughed with her.

“I think maybe he is as stupid as he used to be, but maybe he's a little too busy.” The man was fighting for life. Then suddenly Bea looked worried. “Would you ever go back to him?” But Marielle shook her head without hesitation. Too much pain gone by, too much time, too much sorrow. She loved him, she knew she always would. But he was gone for her now. Marielle thought the little redhead would be perfect for him, if ever the time came, and he was acquitted. He owed a lot to her, but according to Bea, he didn't even know it.

“What are you going to do now, Bea?”

“I don't know …I'm going to call up some debts …talk to some old friends …hang out with some private investigators I know. …” And maybe talk to Tom Armour, if she needed money. Maybe he would be willing to pay for some tips, or special favors. She was willing to do anything, call anyone, go anywhere, pay anyone she had to. “Maybe nothing will turn up, but at least we'll have tried …and maybe it'll lead us to Teddy.”

“You'll let me know if you hear anything, won't you?”

“The minute I do.” The two women stood up and Marielle walked her to the door. She knew they would never be friends. But she liked her. She was an unusual girl, and a smart one. Charles was luckier than he knew to have found her.

Bea Ritter slipped away into the night, and when Marielle went back upstairs, it was long after midnight. And as she turned the light off, she lay in her bed thinking of Malcolm, probably in an apartment on Park Avenue …and her little boy, she prayed, asleep in a bed somewhere, with strangers.