I was tired, tired of the discussion, the Bysens, the heavy furniture, and when Mrs. Bysen announced that we had talked long enough I was as glad as her son to bring the evening to a close. William went over to collect his wife, announcing gruffly to his mother that it was time Annie Lisa was in bed. Jacqui followed them. While Mildred and Linus Rankin conferred with Buffalo Bill, I asked Mrs. Bysen if their detectives had searched Billy’s room.
“His room, his computer, his books. Poor boy, he tries so hard to live a Christian life, and it’s not always easy to do that, even in a Christian family. I am proud of him, but I have to confess it hurts me that he wouldn’t turn to me. He must know I would help him.”
“He’s confused right now,” I said. “Confused and angry. He feels betrayed in some fundamental way. He didn’t say anything to me about this, but I wonder if he thinks you would tell Mr. Bysen anything he confided in you.”
She started to protest, but then gave a watery smile. “Maybe I would, Ms. Warshawski, maybe I would at that. Bill and I have been married sixty years now—you don’t turn off a lifetime of confiding. But Bill, for all his tough talk and tough business measures, is a fair and good man. I hope Billy hasn’t forgotten that.”
She took me to the hall, where her son Gary was standing with Jacqui. When she sent them to find Sneedham to take me to my car, I asked if there was a back way out of the compound.
“Your son’s detectives are trailing me, and I would like to go home alone if I could.”
She cocked her head, her curls stiff, but her face showed a faint trace of mischief. “They are somewhat heavy-handed, these men, aren’t they? There’s a service drive behind the house—it will take you out onto Silverwood Lane. I’ll release the lock from the kitchen, but you must get out of the car to open the gate. Please close it behind you; it will relock itself.”
As the butler came toward us, she suddenly clasped my hands between her own. “Ms. Warshawski, if you have any idea at all where my grandson is, I beg you to tell me. He is—very dear to me. I have a private telephone number for my children and husband to use; you may call me on that.”
She watched me anxiously until I’d written the number down in my pocket diary, then turned me over to her butler.
38
Primitive Art
Mr. William and his wife were climbing into the Hummer when I got outside. The Porsche belonged to Jacqui and Gary, not surprisingly. The third car, a Jaguar sedan, probably belonged to Linus Rankin. The other children seemed to feel energetic enough, or safe enough, to come on foot.
I waited until Gary and William had driven off before leaving myself—I didn’t want William to see me using the drive behind the house that led to the service road.
What a lot of friction builds up over the years in such close quarters. The conflict between William and his father was the most obvious, but William had told me the brothers fought with each other; Jacqui, who spent lavishly on her wardrobe and worked slavishly on her figure, inspired her own share of hostility in the family. No wonder Annie Lisa had checked into a dreamworld, and her daughter into sex and drugs. Poor thing, how was Candace dealing with life in Korea?
I made it through the back gate without anyone seeing me. Out on Silverwood Lane, I kept my lights off, moving slowly down the unlit road until it merged with a larger artery. When I got to a service station, I pulled in to fill the Mustang and to check my maps. I was a couple of miles from a major expressway here that would ultimately take me into the city. It seemed easier to take a fast route home than to trek cross-country to Morrell’s, especially since I’d be sharing the evening with Don. I took out my cell phone to call Morrell and then remembered my own advice to Billy: my phone, too, had a GSM tracking signal. That was how Carnifice, or whoever, was keeping track of me, of Morrell, of all of us.
I turned it off. I thought about finding a pay phone so I could call Morrell on a landline, but if they were bugging his phone they’d pick that up, anyway. I pulled out of the gas station, feeling oddly liberated by my anonymity, gliding through the night, no one knowing where I was. As I slid onto the expressway, I began belting out “Sempre libera,” although I could tell I was woefully off-key.
There was so little traffic now that I pushed the needle up to eighty, coasting from expressway to Tollway, slowing only for the inevitable knot of traffic around O’Hare, and cruising to my exit in the city in twenty-seven minutes. Keeping time like that, I could replace Patrick Grobian, monitoring his truckers down to the second. I grinned to myself, picturing the family’s reaction if I suggested it.