Chapter 22
Matt put his arm around Zoé. The passenger in the police cruiser was clearly a woman, and when the older officer opened the rear door he could see no reason for Zoé having been confused.
"This is Velma," the older officer said. "She's here as part of the family support program."
Velma smiled and slid across the wide rear seat to give Matt and Zoé plenty of room. Matt let Zoé go in first so she could sit next to Velma. Seeing Velma smiling and looking so friendly, he wondered why Zoé had even thought the woman look like Wendell. It must have been the dark glass and her unsettled mindset. He was becoming concerned that Zoé was seeing Wendell Harris everywhere they went.
The two officers got into the front, the younger one behind the wheel. As they drove away silently, no siren, no lights, the older officer turned. "It seems our Chief is taking no chances. Velma is here just in case she's needed. It seems like a long shot to me, with very little evidence. But you never know, we could strike lucky."
Striking lucky presumably meant bringing disgrace to the Harding family, not necessarily recovering Jack alive. Matt wondered what the Senator had done to deserve such a level of hostility, but he was glad of it. At times he felt Zoé had acted irrationally in claiming to have heard baby Jack crying on the phone. At other times he clung to the hope that Zoé had used a deep maternal instinct to recognize a cry in a way that only a bonding mother could. But all the time his professional instinct was telling him that Boston could be it. Wendell and Ms. Nosey might be mistaken about where the baby was born.
The older officer turned again. "Look, I'm sorry we had to pull you over yesterday. We received a genuine 9-1-1. Suspicious characters outside the Senator's house. Me, I guess I'm afraid of upsetting the Senator. He's one powerful guy. Our Assistant Chief might want to put one over on him, but I'm coming up for retirement soon. Like any sensible cop, I don't want to jeopardize my pension. Just so you know where we're coming from, Mr. Rider."
"As long as you do a good job, I'm happy," Matt said. "We've had someone called Wendell Harris on this. I can't work out if he's an undercover cop or an ex-cop. I don't suppose you've heard of him."
The two officers shook their heads.
"He went up to Boston," Matt explained. "Seems he thought he was onto something there, but we heard just now that he thinks the family is legit."
A car was passing from the other direction. It was only the second car they'd seen on this street. Zoé jumped and turned in her seat and looked out of the rear window.
"Turn around," she ordered.
The driver touched the brakes and stopped. He turned to his boss. "What do I do?"
"What is it, Zoé?" Matt asked.
"It was Wendell Harris. He was driving that silver car. But he was trying to hide his face."
Matt groaned inwardly. This was Zoé's fourth sighting of the man.
"Boss?" said the driver.
"Is that the man you were talking about? The one who went to Boston?" the older officer asked. And certainly his voice betrayed more than a small amount of skepticism.
"I think we should go on and visit the Senator's house," Matt said, squeezing Zoé's hand gently. "If it was Wendell," and it probably wasn't, "then he has my cell phone number if he's come up with anything important."
"Then why is he here in Washington?" Zoé said quietly.
Matt caught Velma's eye and raised his eyebrows, trying to indicate there was a problem with Zoé's state of mind.
"Honey," Velma said, "let's go first and see Mrs. Harding. Our priority is to get your baby back. If he's not at the Senator's house, then your husband can contact Wendell Harris and check where the man is. He may have a perfectly good reason for being here."
It sounded a bit as though Velma was trying to humor Zoé, but Matt was prepared to let it pass because she calmed down immediately.
The older officer seemed to have taken no notice of Zoé's outburst. "Now here's the plan, guys. Mr. Rider, you stay in the cruiser outside with my partner here. I go in with Velma and Mrs. Rider. And we all try and to be as diplomatic as we can."
"Does Mrs. Harding know we're coming?" Matt asked.
"Of course not." The older officer sounded genuinely surprised. "It's going to be a shock for the woman, so she won't have a prepared story."
"That's good," Matt said. "But surely I can come in as well as Zoé. We both need to look at the baby."
"You're assuming your baby's there," the younger officer said.
"Our baby, he is there," Zoé insisted. "I heard him crying on the phone."
"No, Mrs. Rider, no one is doubting you heard a baby. We're here to establish the identity of that baby. As soon as we've found a baby, and if Mrs. Rider is one hundred percent certain in identifying him as your Jack, Velma here will come out and fetch Mr. Rider in. In the meantime I want Mr. Rider to sit in the car with Junior here. That way everyone stays calm."
"And what happens then?"
The older officer nodded. "Good question. We call for backup, and we keep with Mrs. Harding and the baby until help arrives. Right, Velma, Mrs. Rider, let's get going."
Matt watched in frustration as the older officer reached the high gates, rang the bell and spoke into the intercom box. Almost immediately the electric gates swung open. It was almost as though they were expected.
He was in no mood for small talk with the young cop, but somehow he got drawn into explaining what has happened in Central Park.
"Terrible situation to be caught up in, sir," said the young driver. "I'm surprised you've both managed to stay sane."
Whether this was a dig at Zoé, Matt wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to get riled.
"So what got you here?"
Matt was about to explain about the phone call, but it seemed so ridiculous now. Here they were, outside an important Senator's house, and the family was about to be accused of baby snatching. The Washington Assistant Chief must have some serious issues with the Senator to even think of going ahead with this.
"You need to excuse me," Matt said. "I'm exhausted. All I want is to get our baby back safely." He felt tears welling up in his eyes.
The young cop turned and faced the front. Fortunately he seemed sensitive enough not to continue with the questions.
It was just over twenty minutes later when the gates opened again and the older officer came out, with Zoé and Velma walking slowly behind. Matt didn't need to see the expressions on their faces to know that their visit had been unsuccessful. If baby Jack had been there, surely Zoé would be holding him now. Or at any rate she wouldn't be crying.
What had he expected to see? Zoé clutching baby Jack? The woman screaming at the gates to hold the baby one last time?
Velma helped Zoé gently into the back seat of the cruiser.
"So what happened in there?" Matt asked when everyone was seated.
"The baby he is not Jack," Zoé sobbed. "I told Mrs. Harding that I had been the one to phone her, and thought I could hear my baby crying in the background. She seemed very nice about it. She wanted us to see her baby."
"Did you look everywhere?" Matt asked.
The older officer took a deep breath. "We made a search of the whole house, Mr. Rider. Mrs. Harding said she was heartbroken to hear about your loss. She let us look in every room. Her own baby boy was sleeping in a crib in the nursery."
"Did the baby have heterochromia?" Matt asked.
"The baby was asleep," Zoé said quietly, now holding back her tears. "She would not let me touch him in case I woke him. But he is not Jack."
"Go back in there and check again," Matt said.
The older officer turned around. "Mr. Rider, Mrs. Harding is the wife of a very important man. She was more than corporative."
Matt wasn't convinced. "And what about the coffin ... casket?"
"That was easy," the older officer said. "Their dog died two days ago, and she wants to bury it in the garden later this afternoon."
"In a fancy casket?"
/> "Yes, Mr. Rider, in a fancy casket. I guess the dog was like family. They're going to have a private burial ceremony when Senator Harding gets back. The gardener has already dug the grave. "
"And she showed you the dead dog?"
"Mr. Rider, your baby is not there. I'd bet my pension on it."
"No, Matt, we did not see the dog that is dead," Zoé added. "I wanted to, but Mrs. Harding said it was wrapped up ready for burial."
"But you saw the grave?"
"Mr. Rider, that's enough. We saw no reason to search the yard. We're going back to Alexandria, and you can return your car and return to New York by train. That's where you say your baby was taken from. My guess is he's still there somewhere."
The cruiser turned quickly in the street, throwing Matt against Zoé as the driver accelerated back the way they had come.
All the way back Zoé kept crying. "Where is our baby? Where is our little Jack?"
Matt kept his arm around her shoulder. "Did Mrs. Harding look at all suspicious? You know, was her behavior odd? Was there a part of the house she wouldn't let you search?"
Zoé shrugged. "No, she did not try to stop us looking into every room. She had a rather vacant smile on her face as she opened each door for us. I think Senator Harding married her for her looks rather than her brains. I know you would call her very attractive, Matt, but there was something rather strange about her."
"Drugs?"
"No, I do not think so, but she was certainly what you would call odd. Distant, I think, is a word that is kinder."
"Oh well, I guess that being attractive and distant doesn't make someone a baby snatcher. We'll return the car and catch the next train back to New York. We can be there after lunch. There's nothing more to be done here."
So his gut feeling was right, and Zoé's maternal instinct was wrong. He couldn't blame her. It was a straw to clutch at, and no harm seemed to have been done. All they had to do now was tell Pete that the job was canceled and make arrangements to go up to Boston.