Vanished

The trial went on for weeks after that, as Hitler seized Memel on the Baltic. The trial seemed to have pushed the world news off the front pages, in New York anyway. But Britain and France had announced that they stood ready to support Poland. And at the end of March, much to Charles's chagrin, the Spanish Civil War ended at last, when Madrid fell to General Franco. There were over a million dead by then, in three years an entire population had fallen. It was a tragedy to Charles, as he knew it would be to his friends in Europe. The fight was over. The war was lost. But Charles Delauney had his own war to fight now, the battle for his survival.

Marielle never heard from Bea Ritter again after her late-night visit. But she continued to read her articles in the paper, and was touched by her sympathetic viewpoint.

Predictably, there had been a huge hue and cry in the press about Malcolm and Brigitte for several weeks, but despite constant inquiries, Marielle stayed aloof about it, and made no comments. She and Malcolm had scarcely spoken to each other in weeks, and she had only seen Brigitte once since then. The girl had covered her guilt by looking haughtily at Marielle, and clinging to Malcolm, as though trying to prove that she was the winner. It seemed a poor defense to Marielle, and she didn't envy her awkward position. She felt betrayed by their lies, and Brigitte's false kindness, but she was hardly even angry anymore, or even jealous. He hadn't been hers in a long time, but she was deeply hurt by Malcolm's long-distance deception. Her only attempt to discuss the matter with him had been rebuffed, and Malcolm had pretended to be “outraged.” He told her that after her behavior with Charles he owed her no explanations, which told her absolutely nothing, except to confirm his guilt. But that fact had already been established.

She reminded him coolly that if he continued to stay at the apartment with the girl, the press would continue to hound them. After that, she noticed that he stayed at their house again, and not at Brigitte's apartment. But in spite of that, she still scarcely saw him.

The tension between them was unbearable, but so was the trial, as a trail of expert witnesses, detectives, and irrelevant people took the stand, endorsing Charles's guilt, and one by one being attacked by Tom Armour.

It was three full weeks before the defense had their chance. And Tom Armour called Marielle as his first witness. At first he led her across the same terrain carefully, rebuilding her where Bill Palmer had destroyed her. And the portrait that began to emerge at his hands was far different from the one colored by Malcolm and Bill Palmer. Instead of a mentally ill invalid, a woman not to be trusted with her own child, he showed more clearly what had really happened, how destroyed she had been at the death of her son, and the loss of her baby, and then her husband. Tom Armour admitted openly that Charles had been more than a little crazy, and had treated her badly. They were both racked with pain, he explained, and there was not a dry eye in the courtroom when he asked her to describe groping for Andre beneath the frozen ice of Lake Geneva. She explained how she had been able to save the two little girls, but not her own son, because he had slipped farther under the ice, and how he had lain lifeless and gray in her arms when she found him. She had had to stop several times as she described the scene to him, and then the hospital that night and losing the baby. In one fell swoop, they had lost their family, and Charles hadn't been equal to it, Charles even more than she. Then she had snapped, and all she wanted for months afterward was to die and be with her babies.

“Do you feel that way now?” Tom asked her quietly, as several jurors blew their noses.

“No,” she said sadly.

“Do you believe Teddy is still alive?”

Her eyes filled with tears again, but she went on, “I don't know … I hope he is … I hope it so much …” She looked at the press then and into the courtroom. “… If anyone knows where he is …please, please bring him home … we will do anything …just don't hurt him …”A photographer ran up, and a camera exploded in her face as she said it, and the judge ordered the bailiff to throw the photographer out of the courtroom.

“And if anyone does that again, you'll go to jail, is that clear?” Judge Morrison boomed as Marielle regained her composure. He apologized to her, and she waited for Tom's next question.

“Do you believe that Charles Delauney took your son?” It was a dangerous question, but he wanted the world to know what she thought because he didn't think she was convinced that he took him.

“I'm not sure.”