The Night Visitors(14)

Do I? I wonder. She’s rushed through the story. Maybe because it’s too painful to talk about, but I think there’s something else. “Where’d you get the knife?”

“What? What does that matter?”

“The police will ask you, so I’m asking you now.”

She turns white at the mention of the police. “I grabbed it off the kitchen counter. I’d been using it to cut up some apples earlier.”

I let her sit with that for a minute. Then I get up, go into the mudroom, and retrieve the bowie knife from under the blankets. I bring it back into the kitchen and lay it down on the kitchen table in front of her. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally pare my apples with a hunting knife.”

“Where’d you get that?” she asks in a hushed whisper. As if she’s afraid that Oren will hear her.

“It was in Oren’s sweatshirt pocket. It had blood on it.”

She stares at it for a long moment and then looks up at me. “It doesn’t now.”

“No,” I concede. “It slipped into the washer. No blood, no fingerprints. Nothing to prove who was holding that knife. But it wasn’t you, was it? It was Oren who stabbed his father.”

She glares at me with such anger and hatred that I’m sure I must be wrong. This is someone who could kill a man; not that sweet boy outside. Or maybe I just want to be wrong. I want to take it all back—why must you poke your nose where it doesn’t belong?—but she’s nodding now, wiping away a tear.

“He did it to protect me,” she says. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them that? Or at least call 911?”

“And let them take Oren? You know they would, even if I told them he was protecting me. They’d put him in juvenile detention. Can you imagine that sweet, smart boy in one of those places?” She says it like she knows what she’s talking about. Like maybe she spent some time in one herself. She wouldn’t be the first foster kid to end up in detention. “It would ruin his life.”

I can’t say I disagree with her, but I make myself ask, “And what kind of life are you going to have on the run?”

She shakes her head and begins to cry. “If you’re going to call the police just give us a head start and we’ll clear out.”

And go where? I wonder, picturing Alice and Oren thumbing a ride on the road, taking a lift from who knows who. “No,” I say. “I can help you. Give me a day and I’ll make arrangements. I can find a place that will be safe for you and Oren.” She’s crying harder, so I add, “You can trust me.” But she knows that. We both know I made up my mind to help them when I tossed that knife in the washer.

THE FACT IS I’ve helped people who were wanted by the law before. Parents who were defying court-ordered custody arrangements that they believed put their children at risk, women who had struck out against violent partners, teenagers who had run away from abusive parents. Doreen and I had an agreement that when these cases came up I would handle them without involving Sanctuary, so that we wouldn’t give the local police department an excuse to shut us down. I’m going to need help, though, finding a safe place for Alice and Oren. They can’t stay long at St. Alban’s—but there is someone at St. Alban’s who can help.

I take Alice into the parlor and tell her to choose from the piles of clothing whatever she and Oren need. She doesn’t ask me where we’re going, for which I’m grateful. The boy won’t be so easy. I go outside and find him crouched on the newly shoveled path. He’s carved a straight-edged tunnel from the porch steps to the driveway, and then from the driveway to the barn, piling the snow in neat walls on either side. Now he’s scooping a shallow niche out of the snow wall. He takes something out of his pocket and places it inside the niche. When I step closer I see it’s a plastic action figure of Han Solo.

“Ah,” I say, “Han Solo frozen in carbonite ice in Cloud City. Are you sure you want to leave him there?”

He nods and stands up. “Luke and Leia and Chewbacca are on the way to rescue him.”

“And R2-D2 and C-3PO, don’t forget,” I say, reminding myself to grab the figure before we leave. “You did a good job on the path.”

He shrugs, trying not to look too pleased. “It was easy. Can we go sledding now?”

I’m about to tell him no, we’ve got more important things to do, but then I think of all the promises he’s seen broken. “Absolutely. I know a great hill. Go pick out a sled. There are a couple in the barn.” I point across the yard to the barn and watch him tear up the newly shoveled path. Does he know his father is dead? Does he even remember stabbing him? I hope the moment has been absorbed into some fantastical story of bravery and valor, of heroes and villains. He saved the princess from the evil Darth Vader. Maybe in his version he also saves Darth Vader.

WHEN OREN SEES the extra pack his mother’s carrying he looks once at me and then away. He’s silent for the drive into town, staring out the window at the snow-covered pines and then Main Street, where people are out shoveling their sidewalks. Delphi almost looks cheerful and bright with everything trimmed in new-fallen snow. Even the shabby Sanctuary office looks pretty nice. Doreen’s put up some Christmas lights and cleaned up the donation piles on the porch, something she usually does when she’s anxious. Last night’s call must have brought up some ugly stuff for her; I’ll stop there on my way back to visit with her and tell her that I’ve sent mother and son safely on their way. I won’t tell her about the knife or the dead man in Ridgewood. She thinks they came from Newburgh, so if she hears the story on the news hopefully she won’t connect it to them.