Ghost on the Case (Bailey Ruth #8)(9)
I felt the prick of tears behind my eyes at the spurt of hope in her face.
She spoke rapidly. “The voice said twelve o’clock. Not midnight. Maybe”—and her tone was feverish—“maybe they wanted to give me plenty of time to get the money. Maybe they’re trying to decide where I should leave the box and how they can let Sylvie go.”
Whether this was fool’s gold or not, she now had hope. I would work fast, learn what I could while she was able to focus on something beyond her fear. I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you will hear by noon tomorrow, and that gives us time to figure out what happened. Let’s go to the kitchen, fix some coffee, have something to eat.”
? ? ?
Susan served a crisp waffle to each plate along with three slices of thick-cut well-cooked bacon. I poured steaming coffee into her mug and mine. I was pleased that she tucked into our post-midnight repast with alacrity.
I drizzled strawberry syrup—earth does have its pleasures—on my waffle. “Tell me about you and Sylvie.” I was quite certain Sylvie’s abduction was not a matter of chance, because the caller knew Susan could obtain a hundred thousand dollars that very night. That revealed several hugely important facts: The caller knew the cash was in Wilbur Fitch’s safe. The caller knew Susan had a younger sister she would do anything to protect. Therefore the caller was someone who intersected the lives of both the wealthy businessman and Susan Gilbert. My task was simple. Discover that link.
Comfortable in her belief that a call would come at noon tomorrow and she could pay the ransom and Sylvie would be freed, Susan managed a quirky smile. “They say all families are dysfunctional no matter how they look from outside. For all anyone knew for years, our family was ordinary. Like they say, move along, nothing to see here, just a postman and his lovely wife with two little girls. Kind of a cottage-in-the-trees perfect life. It sounds bland and boring, but there was a lot of longing and dreams and foolishness.”
I murmured, “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, / Went home and put a bullet through his head.” Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem was a cameo of outward appearances and inward despair.
She put down her fork. Her long face held a mixture of melancholy and ruefulness and understanding. “Sylvie and me. We’re as different as our mom and dad were. Dad was a postman. Never missed a day of work. Not ever. Ice storm. Tornado. Blizzard. Hot enough to blister your feet on the sidewalk. He did his route. A dogged man. Serious. Read history. Loved ancient Greece. Liked to quote Edith Hamilton. A favorite: None so good that he has no faults, / None so wicked that he is worth naught. I guess that’s why no matter what Mom did, he was kind. Mom—well, she must have been gorgeous when she was young. Masses of blonde curls. Just like Sylvie. And a heart-shaped face and huge blue eyes. But she lived in an imaginary world. She waited tables at the Rendezvous, a bar on the outskirts of town, and she was sure in her heart that someday someone would come in and see her and take her to Hollywood. She ran off with a guy when I was twelve and Sylvie was six. We didn’t know where she was for a couple of years, and then we got a call from Reno. She was broke, sick. Dad went out and brought her home, and she died from cancer. After she was gone, he sat us down and said, Your mama did the best she could. Remember how pretty she was and how kind. She was always proud of you girls. So you keep on making her proud. Whenever something happened that was really nice, he’d say, Mama is smiling for you. He never said a bad thing about her, but when he was in the hospital and knew he didn’t have much time left, he asked Sylvie to go down to the little shop and get him a Baby Ruth. When she left the room, he moved his hand, wanted me to come close, and he whispered, Take care of Sylvie. She’s like her mama, doesn’t have the sense God gave a sparrow, but she can fly mighty high if someone takes good care of her.” A deep breath. “And he died. I was holding his hand and suddenly it went slack. So”—she looked at me with luminous eyes—“I have to take care of Sylvie. And she is like Mom. She’s sweet and silly and credulous, but she sees the world in bright colors and she has a gift. Maybe her paintings won’t ever sell. I don’t know how any artist makes a living, but she’s good and the watercolors make her happy. She’s majoring in education so she can get a teaching job.” A rueful smile. “She did that to please me. She wants to please people. I think she’ll make a happy life, because she can paint and she won’t be like Mama, who was sure something magical would happen to her one day. Sylvie lives magic with her paintbrush. I’ve tried so hard to take care of her and now this happens. It will break my heart if Sylvie is frightened, if she comes home scared to go out. She’s never been scared. I’d tell her not to be out past midnight because that’s when the drunks are driving, that bad people do bad things in the dark, and she laughs and says I’m an old stick-in-the-mud. When we were little and Mama wanted to do something on the spur of the moment, maybe run up to the City and eat at Spaghetti Warehouse, Dad would hem and haw and say, Takes a lot of gas to drive up to the City. We can go to the park and the girls can ride the merry-go-round. The merry-go-round is free. And Mama would say, Albert, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.” Tears slipped down Susan’s cheeks.
She cried for her mom and dad as well as for Sylvie and for long-ago days when two little girls were loved by a rock-solid father and a mercurial well-meaning mother.