Vanished

him either, if he didn't deserve it. She was still having a hard time with that, and the FBI had been able to shed no new light on the case. There had been a sighting in Connecticut earlier that week, a little boy who supposedly looked just like Teddy. But like all the other leads they had had, when it was checked out, it turned out to be bogus.

“You look tired.” Taylor spoke softly as she poured him a second cup of coffee.

“It's been a rough week.”

“Not nearly as rough as next week's going to be, and the week after.” He knew what was coming, he knew the people involved. The U.S. Attorney was a tough son of a bitch and he wanted to win this case. He knew the whole world was watching, even FDR, and he wasn't going to let the defense win, no matter what it cost him. And Armour was tough too, but in a cleaner, crisper way, he went right for the gut, and then he destroyed you. And the kinds of things they were going to drag up and remind her of, weren't going to be pretty. “Are you ready for it?” He worried about her, as resilient as she was, she was frail too, and he hated to see her go through that kind of pain. He remembered what it had been like when she told him about Andre. But she was holding up fairly well, considering the fact that she had gone three months without Teddy. “Whatever happens,' he tried to warn her now, “don't let them frighten you…don't let them make you feel it's your fault.” He knew that was the ghost that haunted her most, and had for years. “You know it isn't.” He tried to reassure her.

“I wish Malcolm felt that way too. He still blames me for everything. For bringing Charles back in our lives, and costing us Teddy.”

“You didn't want that any more than he did.” What a fool the man was, and he didn't like him any better when he swept through the hall a little while later with Bill Palmer. John was talking to one of his men and Malcolm snapped his fingers at him like a dog, which didn't sit well with John Taylor.

“The U.S. Attorney is going to need some help from you, Mr. Taylor,” he said. He had very little respect for him. He certainly hadn't been very effective in finding Teddy. “We need some information.”

“About Delauney?” Palmer nodded.

“Why don't we go talk somewhere?” the attorney suggested, but when they did, Taylor didn't like what he heard. It was smear campaign stuff, ugly business about the past that had nothing to do with Teddy, and Taylor objected. The attorney wanted him to help dig up facts about Marielle and Charles that he knew would be painful to her.

“What does that have to do with this?”

“It's character stuff for chrissake, man. Don't get prissy on me now. We're talking about winning.”

“Winning what? The conviction of an innocent man, or actually nailing the guy who did it? If he's guilty, you don't need this kind of shit, Palmer.”

“If you don't get it for me, someone else will.”

“Is that what this case is about now? Get him at all costs? And what about her? What are you going to do to her with this?” It had to do with Andre's death in Geneva and her time in the sanatorium afterward and Taylor knew, as Palmer did, that if Charles was guilty, they didn't need it.

“Mrs. Patterson is not my problem, Taylor. And her own husband wants it. Look, if it's no good to us anyway, we won't use it.”

“How nice,” Taylor said sarcastically, thinking to himself that he liked Tom Armour's tactics better. He was a lot cleaner. And he couldn't believe that Patterson was willing to sacrifice her just to nail Delauney. But Malcolm was convinced Delauney had kidnapped and killed his son, and he was willing to do anything to get Charles convicted. Maybe in some ways, Taylor told himself as he started making the calls, you couldn't blame him. At least if he got the information himself, he could figure out Palmer's next move and he could warn her what was coming. But what he didn't know was that Malcolm was making calls too, and he was going after the big stuff.

The weekend passed too quickly for her. And on Monday morning, they were back in court, and the trial began in earnest.

11

The following week, the opening statements seemed very dry, compared to their friendlier remarks previously to the jury. But some of the ugly things the two attorneys said were also very effective.

In his opening statement, the U.S. Attorney assured the jury and the courtroom at large that what they were dealing with here was very certainly a kidnapper, maybe even a baby killer, a man who had assaulted women in the past, killed men without batting an eye, a liar, a Communist, and a threat to all Americans. He told them that little Teddy Patterson had been torn from his parents' home in the middle of the night, in the dark, and the people who cared for him had been chloroformed and bound and gagged and might easily have been killed as well, and the child had disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again, and was probably dead, buried somewhere in a ditch, in a field, but for those who loved him, gone forever.

Marielle clutched her chair as she listened to the words, and he seemed to drone on for hours about what an evil man Charles had always been, what a sweet man Teddy would have become, and how we had all been robbed because this one child had died, and for nothing. And if it was true, if he was never to return, then Marielle had to agree with him. But it was still so painful to believe him gone for a lifetime.

Tom Armour's statement to them was only slightly more reassuring. He told them that Charles Delauney was a decent, honest, in some ways deeply troubled man, who had lost his own son nine years before, in fact his unborn daughter too, his entire family, and knowing how great the pain of that had been, he would never have hurt any child, or taken any man's children from him. He had fought honestly in the Great War and in the fight in Spain since then. He was no Communist. He was a man who believed in freedom. Educated, intelligent, decent, yet heartbroken by the shattering of his youthful dreams, he was admittedly misguided in some of his behavior, or even his words, but this was not a man who could kidnap anyone's son. And the defense was going to prove that he hadn't. Furthermore, he reminded everyone, Mr. Delauney was on trial for kidnapping here, and not for murder. And if the jurors listened to the evidence carefully, he was sure they would acquit him. As he spoke to them, Tom Armour walked slowly before the jury, looking each one in the eye, speaking directly to them, not in a condescending way, but as equals, as friends, making sure they understood and believed him. He was masterful at what he did, and it was fascinating to watch him. He also explained to them that the U.S. Attorney would be presenting his case first, from beginning to end, and Tom would be cross-examining his witnesses, of course, but he would not present his case until the prosecution had completed theirs. And he reminded them again that it was up to the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Charles Delauney had kidnapped the Patterson boy, and if the prosecution could not convince them of that, whether they liked Charles or not as a man, they had to acquit him. But Tom assured them that by the time he finished his case, they would understand that he had been wronged by these charges.

There was a long silence when they were both through, and Judge Morrison instructed the U.S. Attorney to call his first witness, and Marielle was stunned when she heard her name. She had no idea he was intending to call her as his first witness. She raised an eyebrow as she walked past John, and he tried to look reassuring, but he was worried about what Palmer was going to do. He knew what had turned up in the calls he made, and none of it was very damaging. But he had no idea what Palmer and Malcolm had dug up without him.

She took the stand, and carefully smoothed down the plain black dress she had worn. She nervously crossed her legs as she glanced around the courtroom, and then uncrossed them again. And all the while, Bill Palmer strutted around the courtroom and watched her. He watched her as though there were something strange about her, as though he were suspicious of her, and more than once he glanced from her to the defendant, as though there was something he didn't understand about them. It was as though he was trying to