to see where you're headed with this little story of yours.'
'I'm going back to a night five years ago. A boy is killed in front of his four friends. It's a horrible thing, terrifying even for street-hardened kids. But their social worker and their foster parents aren't worried about the fallout from that trauma. All they care about is splitting the kids up as quickly as possible, getting them in new homes so the reporters won't have time to focus on how weird it is for five foster kids to be living in some tiny little rowhouse in a rotten neighborhood where they receive virtually no supervision.'
'The compromises made in order to remove children from truly harmful environments are sometimes difficult for laymen to understand,' Pearson said. 'You can't imagine the conditions that these children had endured. The Nelsons' home was paradise to them.'
'Right.'
'The twins had an addict for a mother, you know. They lived in a basement without electricity or plumbing. They were assigned to me when she almost burned the place down with a candle. They were ecstatic to live in a three-bedroom house with a toilet.
'Donnie-well, you know what his mother did, how she left him alone for days while she went off to Atlantic City. Then there was Eldon. His father caught him hitting a dog with a stick and decided to administer the exact same punishment to Eldon with the same stick. At least, that was the story Eldon's father told the Foster Care Review Board when he petitioned to get him back. My guess is he beat Eldon first, and Eldon turned on the dog. You know, that's actually a good indicator of violence in a family, violence against pets. As it happens, child abuse laws in this country were derived from the old anticruelty statutes. Until the late nineteenth century, there was no legal prohibition against harming one's children.'
Pearson's voice trailed off. He had veered almost automatically into a bureaucratic set piece, the kind of statement he might make before a Senate committee, then remembered his audience. He stared out the window at his undistinguished view.
'What about Sal?'
'Sal?' He looked genuinely confused, as if he couldn't place the name. 'Oh, Sal. He was different, a true orphan, which is rare now. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was eight, and there was no other family, no place for him to go. He was sent to one of our best homes, run by a wonderful woman. A saint, an absolute saint. We could have used a thousand like her. But she suffered a stroke when Sal was eleven, and I had to find a new placement for him. He was the first child I put with the Nelsons.' He paused. 'I always liked Sal, you know. I would have helped him with Penfield under any circumstances. I even gave him a book once, one of my childhood favorites.'
The Kipling, Sal's precious Kipling.
'Did Sal ever tell you?'
'Tell me what?'
'What the children saw on Butchers Hill the night Donnie was killed? Why they had to lie, never mention the car, or the other gunshots?'
Pearson looked at her with something almost like pity, except he didn't like her enough to truly feel sorry for her. 'Miss Monaghan, give it a rest. Yes, the Nelsons and I had a mutually advantageous financial arrangement, not that you'll ever be able to prove it. That doesn't mean Luther Beale didn't kill Donnie Moore or the twins. Face facts. A man who fires a gun at a group of children is capable of anything.'
'Why don't you call Penfield and tell them we're headed there to talk to Sal? Maybe if I threaten to send his benefactor away to prison, Sal's memory will get a lot better.'
'If I do this for you-if I convince Sal to tell the truth, whatever it is, you'll leave us alone?'
'Yes.' Tess figured it wasn't a binding promise. Chase Pearson's fate could be decided later. 'You can put him on the speaker phone, if you like, right now, and I'll be out of your life sooner rather than later.'
Pearson reached for the phone and dialed.
'Chase Pearson. Would you find Sal and ask him to speak to me? I know it's the last day of classes, but it's terribly urgent.'
Several minutes passed. Tess thought of Jackie's shoe store analogy-the longer someone had to look for something, the less chance there is they'll find it. Finally, there was a torrent of mumbling on the other end, rushed and high-pitched.
'Are you sure?' Pearson asked. 'Are you absolutely sure? Well, how long has it been since anyone has seen him? What happened to the body guard? How inept can you possibly be?' The last question must have been rhetorical, for he hung up the phone without waiting for an answer.
'He's missing. Along with one of the groundkeeper's trucks. Apparently he ducked into the lavatory about thirty minutes ago and never came out. They found his school uniform in a stall, so he must have planned this, changing into a worker's clothes. He even left a note, telling them not to worry, that he had to leave in order to be safe, that he would travel faster if he went alone.'
'Jesus.'
'I bet I know where he's gone.' Pearson looked up excitedly. 'There's a place, a place he always goes back to when he's troubled or unhappy-'
'Tell me.'
He narrowed his eyes. 'No. I'll go find him on my own.'
'You mean you want to get to him first, get your stories straight, convince him to keep lying, as he has all these years.' Tess allowed the flap of her knapsack to fall open, so Pearson could see the gun inside. 'Where's Sal?'
'He'll run from you, if you go there alone. He doesn't trust anyone but me.'
'Fine. Then we'll go together.' Pearson started to object, and Tess flipped her knapsack again, showing her gun one more time. 'I'd just follow you anyway, so you might as well take me along.'
Chapter 28
They took Pearson's car, the sleek little 911 Porsche of which Sal had spoken so longingly. Tess had planned to take the wheel anyway, but seeing the Porsche cinched the deal. Was it bought with kickbacks from the foster child trade? She could ask Pearson later.
'So you going to tell me where we're going?'
'Not yet. Not until we're a little closer.'
She drove on. The Porsche was a dream to drive. Eighty felt like fifty-five, and the usual twenty-five minutes from Annapolis to the Baltimore Beltway sped by in fifteen.
'Now?' she said, turning on to Interstate 95.
'Not yet.' She wondered what Pearson was trying to pull, if he still thought he might get to Sal first. If so, he was underestimating her. 'It's in the old neighborhood, I'll tell you that much.'
'Good.' She zipped past the exits for downtown.
'Why are you taking the McHenry Tunnel?' Pearson asked suspiciously.
'I think we can make better time going in Eastern Avenue,' she lied, as they dipped into the belly of the tunnel. Suddenly, she took her foot off the accelerator and let the car drift forward of its own momentum, its speed plummeting. Horns sounded behind them, echoing harshly off the tile walls.
'You'll get us killed,' Pearson yelled, grabbing for the steering wheel, so the car slithered to the left, and then back into the right lane.
'Possibly. I'm more likely to cause a horrible traffic jam, and we won't get out of here for hours, and by then it will be too late to find Sal. Now tell me where I'm going. Exactly.'
'Only if you start driving again.'
Tess tapped the accelerator. The car was up to thirty now, still a little slow for the tunnel, but fast enough to avoid being rear-ended.
'The Kipling is the key,' Pearson said.
'Kipling?'
'Sal made an allusion to one of his poems in his note. He travels fastest who travels alone. It reminded me of
