coming to the house this spring and summer?'
'Oh, no threats!' Toni exclaimed, immediately, brightening a little because she at least had some information, even if it was negative. 'No one called here with any threats-or at least they didn't call the house line. Rod has a private line for business in his office, of course. I wouldn't know if he got any threatening calls on that line, although he didn't act as if there was anything different going on. He was tense, but not the way he'd be if there was anyone threatening him.'
And how I'd love to get into that office, Jennie thought, greedily. If there are any deep, black secrets about Rod Calligan, that's where they II be, I'll bet.
Grandfather was right about one thing, at least; something was protecting Rod Calligan. Here she was, mere feet away from that office, yet she might just as well have been thousands of miles away. She was unable to sense anything there; it was a complete blank in the middle of the otherwise ordinary house.
She would have given her hopes of ever being a pipebearer for the key to that office or the chance to get inside.
But the possibility of that, at least at the moment, was pretty remote.
'I wasn't thinking of threatening calls, actually,' she said, slowly. 'The kind of people who have been implicated in the bombing have-I suppose you'd call it a sense of honor. They would never threaten a woman or a child, so you would never hear any threats. No, what I was thinking was simply strange calls. An inordinate number of people, who hang up when you answered the phone, people who wouldn't identify themselves or give a number for a return call. People you didn't recognize. That kind of thing.'
Toni's brows creased as she thought. 'Not-that I noticed,' she said, hesitantly. 'But-are you certain these people wouldn't consider hurting a child?'
The strange tone in her voice made Jennie's senses move to full alertness. She picked her words very carefully. 'I said that the people who had been implicated would never consider doing such a thing, but I don't suppose it will come as any shock to you that there are some people who would consider a child a very good target; children are very innocent, very vulnerable.' Carefully, Kestrel. Don't say anything that could be taken as disapproval of her husband. And don't blurt out anything about the Little People. 'I'm sure you realize that your husband is in a business where people collect enemies, and it is possible that one of those people has become angry enough with him to decide to attack him personally, rather than through business channels.'
Toni paled, just a little. 'He's been-very tense, lately,' she said. 'Very on edge, and his temper has been awfully short.' She laughed nervously. 'Sometimes he kind of takes it out on me and the kids. Not Little Rod, but Ryan and Jill. Little Rod is a lot like his dad, but Ryan and Jill are like me.'
Suddenly there was an explanation for Toni's long-sleeved sweatsuit, on a hot June day. Bruises. Welts. In other words, Rod was indulging his temper by beating his wife.
Taking it out on you, hmm? Jennie kept her anger tightly under control. She'd handled enough abuse cases to know that the women involved in an abusive relationship did not want anyone noticing it, much less saying something about it. They would not admit that it was abuse to themselves. They would not listen to anyone who told them it was abuse.
'This must be something new, or you wouldn't have mentioned it,' she replied, after taking a sip of coffee. 'Right?'
'He's always had a temper, but it's been a little worse lately,' Toni said, with another nervous laugh. 'Of course, we all provoke him; it's summer, so the kids are rowdy, and I can't always keep up with their messes, but it's also his busiest time of year and he doesn't have time to be patient. . . .'
She'd heard all that before. They always had excuses. Most of the excuses had been hand-fed to them by the very spouses who were abusing them. Great. So now I have a classic case of spouse abuse on my hands along with everything else.
'Everything else' was the miasma of hatred so thick in the kitchen that it was difficult for Jennie to sit there calmly sipping coffee. Only the fact that it was not directed at her made it possible for her to chat pleasantly away, and not take to her heels.
The hatred of the mi-ah-luschka hung heavily over this house. If they could not have Rod Calligan directly, then they would make him suffer through his family; that was the feeling Jennie got. Not a feeling that Toni was involved at all, but that she was as good a target as a bulldozer.
One thing Jennie was certain of; Toni Calligan was innocent of any wrongdoing. Which added yet another complication to an already complicated situation.
First, Jennie would have to get them out of the line of fire; take them away as targets for the Little People. Right now they might simply be causing the same kind of accidents that were happening at the mall site, but it was not very likely things would remain that way for much longer. Not with the blood-hunger she sensed here. The Little People wanted someone hurt.
Purely and simply, getting Toni and her kids into safety meant removing them from Rod Calligan's life.
'Kids sure are a handful once school closes, aren't they?' she said, changing the subject to one Toni would immediately feel more comfortable with.
This was going to take time and patience. To be certain of protection, all ties to Calligan would have to be destroyed. That could mean a mundane divorce as well as a purification ceremony. Could she talk Toni Calligan into so drastic a step?
Maybe. She did not speak as a woman who loved her husband, but rather as a woman who thought she should love her husband. There was a real and distinct difference. And if Calligan was abusing her-there was a chance.
Time, and patience, dammit. Both of which, she thought wryly, as Toni brightened and began talking about her kids, I have always been in short supply of! It just figures...
Jennie was seeing more of Toni Calligan now than of David and Mooncrow. She began coming over after Rod Calligan had left for the day, and stayed at the house for as long as she dared. For one thing, while she was there, the mi-ah-luschka weren't playing their tricks, so at least she was keeping them from hurting anyone for several hours at a time. For another, Toni wasn't just hungry for adult companionship, she was starving for it. It made Jennie angry with Calligan all over again. How he could reduce an intelligent woman to this state. . . .
To avoid any trouble for Toni, she pitched in on the daily 'decontamination' chores. She couldn't call it 'cleaning'; the space shuttle went through less thorough scrubdowns! It soon became clear that all this ultracleanliness was at Rod's insistence. Only the childrens' rooms and the kitchen and laundry were allowed to look 'lived-in.' Everything else must look as if it was ready for a 'House Beautiful' tour. At all times, regardless of anything else.
Toni's explanation was that Rod might have to bring a client in at any moment, and that client had to be impressed from the moment he walked in the door. But Jennie figured that even Toni knew better than that, just from the hesitant way in which she offered the rather lame explanation. This was just one more way that Rod controlled his wife and proved his control to others.
Only one room was off-limits; the locked office. Toni didn't even have a key to it. Every time she came, Jennie surreptitiously checked the door, but it always remained locked, and behind that door there was nothing to Medicine Senses but a black hole. Frustrating. Very frustrating.
Still, if she could not get into the office, she nevertheless had the mission of getting Toni and her kids out of Rod's influence so that the mi-ah-luschka would leave them alone. She had a foreboding feeling that the Little People were losing what little patience they possessed, and would start something soon. Toni started at every odd sound, and kept looking for something out of the corner of her eye. She might just have started to see them . . . which would mean they were preparing to work some revenge.
Slowly, she began planting hints. How 'normal' husbands might lose their tempers once in a while, but they didn't blame their wives for everything that went wrong. And that adult human beings did not take out their frustrations on other humans beings. When Toni seemed, tentatively, to be receptive, she planted a few more hints, describing the Women's Shelter and some of the women she had taken there for help.
She began planting other hints as well; especially after she learned that Toni had some remote Cherokee blood in her. She told stories over coffee, about spiritual or supernatural experiences of any number of people she'd known. Harmless stories, mostly, involving brief glimpses into the Spirit Worlds and the like, and stressing how people who might think they were hallucinating could very well actually be seeing things that those with less open minds could not.
