When Jay finally broke through the fog that had shrouded him since they left her office, he could not contain his bitterness. "Is there someplace we can talk? Away from the crowds?"
Relieved to hear his voice, Leah said, "We can go back and pick up my car."
* * *
Leah was glad to be heading away from the festive waterfront. The cab driver sensed his passengers' urgency and darted in and out of traffic, paying minimal homage to boulevard stops along the hilly route back to Mission Street Garage. Leah's body wedged close to Jay's, but she ached for Walter, whose presence she felt more intensely with every San Francisco landmark the taxi passed.
It had been a long time since she felt the old anger at her husband for dying. She thought she had resolved her bitterness at having to be mother, father--everything--to Teddy and Monica. With the cab's sudden turns jostling her against Jay's side, her rage boiled. Why in God's name aren't you here to protect us?
They transferred to Leah's station wagon and drove out to Golden Gate Park. She found a deserted grassy area. "Let's try this."
Her own dark mood had worsened in the shadow of Jay's depression. The openness of the park and the absence of people gradually thawed her companion.
"I murdered those children," he began.
"Jay!"
"Don't interrupt me! Please, Leah." His voice scolded and pleaded at the same time. "If I stop now, I may never speak again the rest of my life."
Apprehension clutched Leah by the throat. A hard lump rolled in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't known what he would say in his defense, once he found words again, but she was unprepared for so candid an opening.
"I didn't commit those cowardly acts, believe me, Leah, but I must have led the killer right to his victims' doorsteps." Jay lapsed again into an autistic gaze at the tree-lined horizon. A dozen seagulls soared overhead, eager to glean a few scraps of garbage the humans might leave behind.
Leah's relief was instantaneous. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him how scared she had been that Montenegro had corrupted him, turning him into something evil and vicious. By nature, she was more of a thinker and problem-solver than Jay. She had demonstrated that in Santa Teresita, when it had been up to her to foresee the implications and consequences of their relationship. This time it wasn't the private dilemma of two star-crossed lovers that required solution. An international plot had cost the lives of two innocents and may not have yet run its full course of terror and death.
"It doesn't make sense," she said. "If Montenegro wanted to kill someone at home or abroad, he could do it without you."
"That's what's so puzzling. I'm implicated in the Pontieri and Vander Hoorst murders and I don't know why." He stopped pacing and turned to her. "Should I go to the police? I may have evidence that will help them. Sooner or later, the authorities are going to put two and two together. I'm afraid the numbers will add up to Javier de Córdova. I must be the only common link to those two families in recent days."
Leah turned the pros and cons of this strategy over in her mind like a jeweler studying the different facets of a cut gem. She slipped her arm around his. "Eventually, yes. It's inevitable." The police had to be informed of Jay's connection to the murders. "First, we need more time to talk."
She snuggled as close to his side as she dared; not as close as she needed to. The tight, long muscles in his arm yielded to the warmth of her touch. Leah and Jay resumed their walk, which became a reflective, thought-sharing stroll. "Speaking of links," she said, still studying the individual puzzle pieces in an attempt to fit them into some rational pattern, "what do you make of the fact that a religious object was found with each body?"
"I hadn't thought about it," Jay admitted. "What was it again?"
"Some kind of medal." She retrieved the clipping from her purse. "An angel with a sword."
"Oh God!" The color drained from Jay's face. "Angel!"
"What?"
"I've got to get back to my hotel. Right away!"
"I can't keep up with all this!" Leah was losing the battle to hold herself together. How could she be a source of strength and comfort to the Pontieris and Vander Hoorsts, now that the shadow of their grief had bled the color from her own well-ordered life? "I've been on a roller coaster all day. My friends have lost a son and a daughter, murdered probably by some religious fanatic. You say you're implicated in the affair, but innocent. Now, you're rushing off to your hotel in a cloud of double-talk. I need to get to Amsterdam as soon as possible. I was putting it off until you left town. Are you telling me not to wait? Is this good-bye?" She waited for a reasonable answer.
Jay took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. She, in turn, searched his troubled gaze. "I couldn't say this in front of your staff, but you mustn't go anywhere, especially not to Amsterdam or Rome and not with Teddy and Monica. Don't do anything unusual. It could be dangerous. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do. I'll get back to you later." Jay brought his face close to hers. She felt his breath on her lips. "I don't blame you for suspecting I'm implicated in this horrible affair, but you've got to trust me." He relaxed his grip on her arms. "You've just got to."
Without responding to his plea, she scribbled her home phone number on the back of a business card. When he reached for it, she slid it between his fingers but held onto it. As the terrible truth became clear to her, Leah's eyes filled. Tears tumbled down her cheeks. "My children. They're in danger, aren't they? The Barton kids are next. Tell me. Who will it be? Teddy or Monica? Or both?"
"The pattern seems set. I'm afraid it's--" They spoke the name together as the final piece fell into place. "Teddy."
"He's only a kid!" Leah moaned. "Save him, Jay. Please. Help me save him!"
"I will," he vowed, "or I'll die too."
21
Leah nudged her son awake at seven-thirty the next morning. Teddy looked at the digital display on his clock radio and growled, "Why so early?"
"I know. I'm sorry. I have to run downtown to pick up my friend." She tried not to make it sound urgent or unusual. "He's going to stay with us for the weekend. I want you and Monica to go with me."
"What friend?"
"The priest from Santo Sangre. The one we talked about last night. Remember?"
Teddy's face registered displeasure. "Does he have to stay here?"
Although resenting having to justify her decision, Leah refused to let Teddy draw her into an argument.
"Not 'have to.' I invited him." She kept her voice at a level pitch.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to. Any more questions, young man?"
Just one. "Why do we have to go? I can stay home by myself."
"Not this time, cowboy. I want you with me."
Teddy looked puzzled. "You afraid of this guy?"
"No!" she laughed. "I'm not taking you along to protect me." Just the opposite.
* * *
Teddy occupied the front passenger seat, when they pulled up to the Powell Street entrance to the hotel. Jay was waiting on the sidewalk. He hopped into the back seat with Monica and introduced himself.
Teddy surveyed the priest warily. "Pleased to meet you." His voice contradicted his words.
As the car pulled into the morning traffic, Monica silently studied the man her mother had invited to their home. Jay, too, seemed unable to find an appropriate way to make contact with Leah's children. When he mumbled, "You're both sure grown up for your age," Leah rescued him.
"Have you eaten?"
"No."
"Good. We can have a hot breakfast at home."
The siblings groaned their disapproval. "You mean we came all the way downtown, and we can't even go out for breakfast?" Monica asked.
"Not today." The disruption of the Bartons' tidy life had begun. Where will it end? Leah wondered.
She reached for the sunglasses in the glove compartment and put them on to hide the tears she fought back. Will we ever have another normal Saturday
morning? Will we ever see another Saturday morning? She couldn't imagine life without Teddy. That guy will have to kill me first!
* * *
Over pancakes and bacon, Teddy interrogated Jay. "Are you really a priest?" he asked, doing his best imitation of a TV trial lawyer.
"Teddy!" Her son's harsh tone embarrassed Leah.
Jay smiled and replied with a straightforward, "Yes, I am."
"You don't look like one," Monica piped, with an accusatory edge to her usually sweet voice.
"Enough!" Leah turned to Jay. "You don't have to put up with this."
Jay put up a hand to quell her parental concerns. "They're honest questions." He faced his accusers. "I'm sort of on vacation. Most priests don't dress in black when they're on vacation."
When Teddy withdrew into silence, Monica leapt into the vacuum. "Do you preach like those guys on TV?"
"Yes, when I'm in my parish church." Jay looked at Leah and smiled. "I don't know if I'm like 'those guys on TV.' Let's watch them together some time. Then, I'll tell you."
Teddy squirmed in his chair at the suggestion of such an intimate family sharing.
Leah had heard only a few of Jay's sermons, but those few scenes from her Santa Teresita past were vivid in her memory. She had also observed him at the bedside of the dying and comforting the parents of Alicia Gomez. Recalling what he looked that one magical afternoon on the road back from Piedra Blanca, she pushed away an incriminating grin that might have triggered questions she had no desire to answer. "I said that's enough! Leave the poor man alone."
"I'd like to be a priest," Monica chimed. "Then, I could tell people what to do."
"Shut up, Mon!" Teddy snapped. "You don't know what the heck you're talking about."
"Hold on, pardner! Your sister can be anything she wants." Remembering that only men were accepted into the Roman brand of priesthood, she added, "Well, almost anything."
After breakfast, Monica and Teddy went upstairs to change into their uniforms.
"What do you think of my kids?" Leah said.
"Meeting them gave me an unexpected jolt. Teddy is you in male form. Handsome, intelligent, sensitive. Monica's a stranger. I feel like I've met your husband. I can understand why you married him."
Leah couldn't help but think that if circumstances been different a decade-and-a-half ago, Teddy and Monica might be Jay's son and daughter now, instead of Walt's.
"To answer your question, your kids are great," he said. "When we were having breakfast, a paternal feeling swept through me. It was a physical force. I've never felt anything like it before."
Leah's inquiry had returned much more than she expected. "All I asked was a simple question. I'm touched." She wanted so much to hold him and assure him that he still had time to have children of his own and, if not of his own flesh and blood, then through adoption. Leah studied Jay's earnest eyes. Would I be willing to bear your children? Unable to think past the blackness of a perilous today, how could she contemplate the major life issues of a distant, uncertain tomorrow?
"It's fine to wax poetic about parenthood. Now, are you ready for your introduction to the hectic life-style of a woman who combines a career with single-parenting?" Before Jay could respond, she laid out the routine. "Teddy has soccer practice. Monica goes to gymnastics. I'm the chauffeur."
"When do you have time for yourself?"
Leah rolled her eyes and fished the car keys out of her purse. "You've got a lot to learn about parenthood." When Teddy and Monica appeared, she hustled them out the door and into the car. Jay waved from the front steps, as Leah revved up the engine. "Make yourself at home," she called while edging the station wagon out of the narrow driveway. "We'll talk when I get back."
* * *
Teddy glared out the passenger-side window, giving Leah only the blue number three on back of his gold jersey to look at.
"Okay, Teddy. Can you say it in twenty-five words or less?"
Without looking at his mother, he offered an unsolicited judgment, "We don't like him."
"I did not say I don't like him!" Monica contradicted. "I said 'I don't know if I like him.'"
"You don't have to like Jay--Father de Córdova." Leah recalled a strategy Dr. Martha Lovejoy had suggested to a parent, during her afternoon talk show on KGO radio. "Your vote's been heard and counted."
Teddy fired a second shot. "Why'd you have to bring him home?"
So much for Dr. Lovejoy. "You make him sound like a stray cat I found in an alley."
"Good, Mom," Monica chirped. "Very funny."
By the time they reached Teddy's De Anza Park practice site, Leah still hadn't gotten to the core of her son's animosity. Teddy opened the car door. With one rubber-cleated foot in the street, he turned to his mother. "You like him, don't you?"
"He's a friend. I like my all friends."
"I mean you really like him. The way you used to like Dad." He almost spat the words.
"Now wait a--" Leah caught herself, just before plunging off the steep cliff of lost control. "C'mon. Let's not fight about this. Not today."
Teddy bolted from the car and ran across the soccer field toward his teammates. His muscular structure only flirted with manhood, but already Leah saw Walt's form and lines in his physique. She recognized in his objections the roar of a proud king of the jungle, protecting his threatened territorial rights and the females in his care.
Watching Teddy disappear into a huddle of identical uniforms, Leah's heart turned to lead. She didn't blame him for being confused. She was, too. All she wanted was to see him safely into manhood. It was the only thing on her mind.
Adolescence was taking its time blossoming within Monica. Her mom didn't mind a bit.
"What's he got stuck in his ear?" Monica said.
Leah was sure her daughter harbored other questions, too. Apparently she had chosen to cork them for the moment. Leah pulled the Volvo back into the street and headed for the gymnastics studio. In the light Saturday morning traffic, she let her thoughts drift to the two men in her life today. They seemed on a collision course, regardless of any other perils threatening them.
When she dropped Monica off, Leah said, "I'll be back in plenty of time to pick you up, so don't call and tell me someone else is bringing you home. Got it?"
"Got it," Monica echoed.
On the way home, Leah marveled at the perception of children. "Out of the mouths of babes," she sighed, quoting one of the few Bible verses she knew by heart. There was no denying the accuracy of Teddy's insight. What she had to deny was an impulse to respond outwardly to her feelings for Jay. Doing so would only add to the children's confusion--and her own.
* * *
Juan de los Reyes watched from fifty yards away, as the Barton boy and his mother exchanged angry words. He smiled when the boy slammed the car door and raced across the wet grass to join his teammates. He had parked the rented Chevrolet Cavalier in a spot facing the soccer field. The blue compact drew no attention to his presence.
Too bad Mrs. Barton's last conversation with her son will leave her with guilt and unpleasant memories, he reflected, almost as if he cared.
Although pregnant morning clouds had yet to yield a drop of rain, he reached for his umbrella on the back seat and checked the discharge mechanism. It was still in good order after a successful performance in Rome. Among the disguises and ploys he used in his work, he had liked using the umbrella best until his recent experience in Amsterdam.
Usually, his missions brought little personal enjoyment. The rape of Elli Vander Hoorst proved an unplanned bonus from which he had derived a surprising amount of pleasure, far more than he received from his stable of over-rated, over-paid call girls.
She was so pure and inexperienced, yet fully woman. The memory or her big eyes and warm, milk-white breasts aroused him sexually, even as he replayed the event. He shifted in the seat to accommodate the expansion in his crotch. If only she had been more cooperative.
His
gift for disguises and make-believe was a talent rediscovered only after his entrance into Special Branch. As a child, he had an active imagination. Unfortunately, the interior of Santo Sangre offered the tiniest of stages on which to perform. A young boy always had chores to do. Besides, his mother hated theater and show people.
"They're in league with the Devil," she insisted. With her son's eternal salvation at stake, she thought it important to stamp out prideful tendencies before they took root in his all-too impressionable mind.
De los Reyes felt old and tired. Soccer practice would last an hour or so. He had to question the Barton boy--and inject him--before his mother came back. He tilted the seat back and picked up the morning paper. He searched the Chronicle for a follow-up story on the POCI case. There was none. Generally, he enjoyed reading news of his own making. Today, he was glad the story had vanished from the local press. It simplified his job.
Watching the coach put his team through their drills, de los Reyes recalled a long-forgotten incident from his childhood. He was seven, just a month away from his First Communion. Playing a solitary game of pirate king, he dueled with an imaginary foe in front of the cracked, dusty mirror in his parents' bedroom. The five children occupied the only other room, which served also as living room, kitchen, and dining room.
Late in the afternoon, the north-side room was already in shadows. Sra. de los Reyes covered herself with a full-length black veil and crept into the room behind him. "Keep it up, child. When you die I, Satan, will take you to hell with me. That's where play-actors go, or didn't you know?"
Terrified, Little Juanito ran into the thick brush to hide from the demon. Just before dark, his remorseful mother sent his brothers and sisters out to find him. When they brought the boy home, she listened attentively to the tale of his "vision."
"Now that you have seen the Devil yourself, do you believe me?" She never admitted to being the Devil-in-the-mirror, the Prince of Darkness.
That night, Juan lay in bed too terrified to close his eyes in sleep. He buried all fantasies of becoming an actor in the capital's Teatro de Bellas Artes.
He was Todd Barton's age before his oldest sister, Estrella, confided the true story of the satanic apparition, as she had heard it from her mother. The next day, Juan left home without saying good-bye and went to live with an aunt and uncle in another village.