He told me that at dinner Friday evening. When he came into the visitors’ room at Camp Muggerton on lagging steps, his head down, I felt an uncomfortable parallel to the visitors’ room at Coolis, but when he saw me his face lit up.
I had been afraid he’d blow my cover out of surprise, but after a moment’s confusion he said, “Oh, I thought—oh, it’s you, Aunt Claudia.”
Over chicken and mashed potatoes at a diner in Columbia, he begged me to take him away. I wished I could but told him that would put real teeth into his father’s kidnapping charge and I might not manage an acquittal.
He started crying, apologizing between sobs, but Camp Muggerton was a miserable place, the hazing was horrible, he couldn’t get anything right, he was always last at everything. And they were on strict orders about his diet, did I know that?
I knew that—Major Enderby had stressed it when I was sent to his office for a visitor’s pass. The major was pleased to see a family member paying a visit: most of the boys were home for the holiday weekend, and young Robert felt left out, having to stay in camp, but Commander and Mrs. Baladine thought it better he not be put in the way of the temptation of a big party. I gave my most dazzling smile and nodded gravely when the major told me Robbie was not allowed fat or sweets of any kind—so no Big Macs and shakes, ma’am.
I said that Robbie’s weight was a trial to the whole family and everyone wondered where it came from. Certainly not my sister’s and my side, although Commander Baladine’s mother had been a plump little woman.
I told Robbie about the conversation while helping him decide whether he wanted caramel or chocolate sauce on his sundae. He had lost weight, his soft chubbiness replaced by something worse, a kind of gaunt hunger.
“You’ve lost weight too, Ms. Warshawski. Was that because of being in jail? Was jail as horrible as this camp? You don’t want ice cream?”
I’m not much of a sweets eater, but I got a cone to keep him company. As we ate our ice cream, Robbie sketched a plan of the Baladine house for me—where Baladine’s study was, where the controls for the house security system were, and where the surveillance cameras were trained. I had explained I wanted to know because it had to do with Nicola’s death.
“But I want to use the information to—well, in part to get your father to stop trying to destroy me and my business, and in part to pay him back for the miseries I endured in the prison he runs. I want you to think carefully before you betray your parents to me.”
His tear–streaked face contorted in angry hurt. “Don’t start preaching the Ten Commandments to me like they do here. I know I’m supposed to honor my father and mother, but how come they never think of me? It’s like there’s something horrible wrong with me, I know they wish I’d disappear on them, I wish I could, I wish I was strong enough to kill myself.”
I gave him what awkward consolation I could—not that deep down his parents really loved him, but that deep down he was a fine and unusual person and that he needed to hold on to that idea. After we had talked for a time, I was relieved to see him start to look happier. I asked him if he wanted more time to think over what I wanted to do, but he said it was fine with him, as long as Utah didn’t get hurt.
“She’s kind of a brat, but I like her.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to get hurt. Not physically, anyway, although I’m hoping your father may have to find a new job, perhaps in a different city. That may be hard on your mother.”
He ate another ice cream while he helped me draw up plans of the interior of the house. Afterward we sat and talked, about life and what could lie in store for him after he outgrew Eleanor and BB. I hadn’t noticed the shadows drawing in on the town; we were going to be late for taps. I bustled Robbie into the rental car and drove like mad for the camp.
Before dropping him at the guardhouse I gave him a handful of twenties. “This is enough for bus fare from Columbia back to Chicago, if you decide you can’t stick it out here any longer. Sew it into the waistband of your shorts, but for pity’s sake, don’t use it until I know if your dad is going to drop the kidnapping charge. Or until after my trial, whichever comes first.”