Little Deaths(23)
HELICOPTERS JOIN SEARCH FOR BOY, 5, IN QUEENS ABDUCTION
By Staff Reporter Peter Wonicke
QUEENS, July 16—A search by hundreds of police officers yesterday failed to turn up any clues to the whereabouts of 5-year-old Frank Malone Jr. The boy disappeared along with his 4-year-old sister, Cindy, from their Queens apartment early on Wednesday morning.
Cindy was found dead in an abandoned lot about one mile from her home at noon on Wednesday. Tests are being carried out to determine the cause of death.
Three police helicopters joined the search for the boy yesterday, hoping to spot from the air the white T-shirt he was wearing when he disappeared.
The children lived with their mother, Mrs. Ruth Malone, a 26-year-old cocktail waitress. Her husband, Frank Malone Sr., an airline mechanic at Kennedy International Airport, has been living apart from the family since the couple separated last year.
A senior police official said yesterday that hope of finding the boy alive was fading. “This hot weather means that dehydration is a real risk, the longer the search goes on.”
The children’s father spent yesterday with detectives at the 107th Precinct Station in Fresh Meadows, waiting for news of his son.
Mrs. Malone, slim, red-haired, and wearing a fashionable black dress, was escorted to the station house yesterday afternoon by detectives. She was questioned for over two hours and then returned to her home.
Neighbors of Mrs. Malone said they knew very little about her. Her children had played with other children in the neighborhood, but their mother “kept to herself.” One neighbor volunteered that Mrs. Malone often worked long hours, especially at night, and that her lifestyle was “chaotic” as a result.
“We certainly never had no trouble like this around here before now,” said a mother of three preschool children, who wished to remain anonymous.
The wake for Cindy was held on July 19 at O’Rourke’s Funeral Home. On one side of the room, Monsignor Contri presided, his wrinkled brown face placid under a halo of white hair, his voice a soft murmur. Cindy was in Heaven now, her soul was at peace. On the other side, Ruth stood tall wearing her new black dress and half-veil, black heels, and straight-seamed stockings, the best part of an eighth of vodka inside her and a trembling cigarette in one hand. To everyone who came to offer their condolences, she put out her other hand, her amber eyes bright and unblinking through black chiffon, her voice harsh from smoking and from the effort of keeping the tears back.
She wanted to break down. To fall to her knees, to scream, to beg, to bargain.
“They’re all I’ve got. You can’t have them both—they’re all I’ve got!”
Instead she lifted her chin and swallowed and said to everyone: “My children are very religious, you know. Every night, they say their prayers before bed. Every night.”
An image came to her: Frankie and Cindy kneeling by their beds in the safe glow of the nightlight, their soft voices rising and falling, stumbling over the familiar words. And then an image of Frankie alone, kneeling on a bare floor, eyes squeezed shut in terror, his voice a whispered plea. Begging. Bargaining. I’ll be good. Please God. Please. Please. I won’t talk back to Mommy no more. Please.
Ruth blinked. And then took a long dry suck on the cigarette, and her lips set perfectly, and she moved onto the next guest.
They had to wait ten more days before the cops would release Cindy’s body. Ten more days before they could hold the funeral.
For Ruth it was ten days of waiting for her baby to come back to her. Waiting for news of Frankie. Ten days of Devlin’s questions.
They blurred together, those days. Each one was stifling. Each was a listless shimmer over slow-moving streets, full of brown and yellow dust, the kind that gets into your eyes and throat and thickens your thoughts.
One morning she woke on the living room floor: her mouth dry, her head pounding. There was a warmth against her back and for a moment she let herself lean against the weight and the softness of the small body beside her. She let herself imagine: even as the tears leaked from her swollen eyelids, she let herself hope.
And then the dog yawned and stretched and grunted beside her and Ruth could no longer pretend, so she gave herself up entirely to weeping. She pressed her fists against her sore eyes and sobbed, hunched into a tight ball against the pain. She heard a gentle snuffling near her face and felt Minnie’s wet, curious nose and her rough tongue licking the salt from her skin. She heard her worried whine and reached blindly for the dog’s reassuring bulk, and pulled Minnie against her. She buried her face in the warm, familiar smell of her, rubbed her skin against the soft fur. Minnie whined again and she held her tighter and tried to give and take what comfort she could.
One afternoon she started to make coffee, realized the Folgers can was empty. She checked the pantry and saw there was nothing in there except a jar of pickles and half a box of stale graham crackers. The sight of them reminded her that she hadn’t eaten that day. She couldn’t remember eating the day before. She couldn’t imagine wanting to eat again—but some sense of what was right, what was normal, made her slide her feet into her shoes, made her pick up her purse and keys.
As though it were that easy to leave one world behind and enter another, she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
Dust clung to her sticky skin and lost itself in her strawlike hair and in the creases of her cotton dress. Her white cuffs were stained the color of old blood. Behind her sunglasses, dust scratched her swollen eyes, bringing her close to tears.