The Instruments of Darkness: A Thriller

Chapter IV

I had seen Colleen Clark only in newspaper photos and on television, always surrounded by taller men and women, but I was still surprised by how tiny she was. I doubted she could have nudged five feet, even in shoes, and she was thin in a brittle way that made me fear for her should she take a fall. I doubted she was eating very much, but then I doubted she ever ate a lot, and whatever calories she did consume were burned up just in keeping her alive, if barely. Her eyes were an unusually dark brown and sunk into her skull, suggesting that the pith of her had retreated still deeper into itself for protection. She wore her long auburn hair in a pair of loose plaits that hung over her shoulders, and her feet were bare. Even in the dimness, I could see the veins standing out against the pallor of her skin, like the tributaries of a river in winter.

I followed her into the kitchen. She offered me coffee, but warned that she wasn’t sure how old the jar was; she and Stephen usually drank fruit tea. I told her either would be fine. She didn’t pause or stumble as she spoke of her estranged husband’s name, and had a calmness about her that I might have mistaken for narcotically induced had Moxie Castin not assured me she had declined all offers of sedatives. I watched her boil a kettle of water to prepare two cups of tea. They smelled vaguely of strawberries, and not in a pleasant way. The scent was too strong, overripe. As she placed one cup in front of me, my stomach rebelled, but I drank nonetheless. She had gone to the trouble of making it, and I hoped that sharing it might alleviate the awkwardness of the situation.

“Mr. Castin told me you’d agreed to help,” she said.

“He asked, and I make a point of trying not to refuse him.”

She was gripping the handle of her cup so firmly that her knuckles looked set to erupt from her right hand.

“Why is that?”

“Because otherwise, I’d have to hang out with him for free.”

A smile flickered like a dying bulb and was gone.

“Did he say I’d approached him because of his connection to you?”

“He mentioned it.”

“I’ve read about you. You lost a child. I thought you might understand.”

The quiet of the house was unnerving. Not even a clock ticked. It was, I’d found, one of death’s traits: it muffled the sound in a place of loss, just as it rendered movements awkward and sluggish and made an inconsequence of time. Of course, the boy might still be alive. But, as Moxie had intimated, it felt as though he was gone.

Colleen looked at me, expecting some response, but I was not about to give her access to my pain. It would not benefit either of us.

“I’d like you to tell me about the night your son went missing.”

“I was sleeping. I don’t remember much at all.”

“Nevertheless, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She sipped her tea, lifting the cup to her lips with both hands. She was dressed in an oversized Patriots sweatshirt that might have been her husband’s—the sleeves pushed above her elbows, the hem hanging to thigh level—and a pair of jeans rolled up at the cuffs. Her mode of dress accentuated that sense of withdrawal, of shrinkage, as though these clothes might once have fit her, but no longer, just as the terms “mother” and “wife” were also becoming incompatible with her essence.

“Stephen left on business that afternoon. He’s away from home a lot. He’s trying to get a promotion. He’s very ambitious.” She peered at me over the rim of her cup. “Will you be speaking with him?”

“I’d like to, but he’ll be under no obligation to talk to me.”

“If you do, be gentle. He’s in a lot of pain.”

I searched for traces of anger in her, but could pick up none. Something must have shown on my face, because she added: “We’ve both lost a son, and we both want him back. Stephen’s trying to cope with what’s happened in his own way, but he’s not very good at coping.”

“With life in general?”

“With emotions. Little things get on top of him, so big things…”

She let the implication hang.

“Mr. Castin informed me that you and your husband are temporarily estranged,” I said. “He also suggested that your husband might be holding you responsible for whatever happened to Henry.”

I was choosing my words carefully. There were layers of blame, justified or otherwise, to be mediated here, and many steps between Stephen Clark being confusedly angry at his wife for sleeping too soundly or failing to check the window in their child’s room, and believing her capable of abduction and killing. A memory came to me, unbidden: my mother having her change purse stolen in a restaurant, and my father slapping her hard on the cheek for what he regarded as her part in its loss, even though, as a policeman, he must have dealt with hundreds of such incidents over the years. My mother had not been unduly careless, nor had she conspired with the thieves to deprive our family of money. On one level, she was simply unfortunate, but she was also targeted by individuals who were accomplished at what they did: in this case, a couple who had seated themselves behind her at the restaurant, slipping a hand into the bag between her feet and then leaving before ordering. The combination of one’s own bad luck and the resolve of others can undo even the best of us.

“He thinks I murdered our son,” she said, and again her voice was very even, without recrimination or regret. She might have been communicating her husband’s views on a game in which she had no interest or stake. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I did?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because your answer would be the same either way.”

“Yes,” she said, “I suppose it would. And you’ll make your own determination, won’t you?”

“That’s not the reason Mr. Castin has engaged my services. My main responsibility is to ensure that all relevant information to aid your defense has been uncovered or discovered. That means gathering evidence and witness statements, among other tasks.”

“But there are no witnesses,” said Colleen, “and the only evidence is the blanket.”

“So far.”

“I didn’t do this, Mr. Parker. I didn’t hurt Henry. I never would.”

“I understand that. Now our job may be to prove that to a jury.”

“If I didn’t take him, someone else did.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to look for that person? Because if you do, you might find Henry.”

“That may arise,” I said neutrally, “but I can’t let it distract from trial preparation. We don’t want to see you put behind bars, Mrs. Clark, because once you’re there, it’ll be very hard to get you out again. Now, can we return to the night in question?”

She set the cup down. Some of the hot tea spilled on her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice, even as I watched the skin redden.

“I fed Henry before putting him down at about eight. I watched some TV, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I went to bed. I mean, I brushed my teeth, if that’s important, but I didn’t do a very good job of it, because I still had toothpaste stains on my chin and nightshirt when I woke up. That’s not unusual. I can’t recall the last time I took off clothes that weren’t stained. Like weariness and worry, it comes with motherhood.”

“Did you eat or drink anything before you turned in for the night?”

“I reheated some pasta and drank a glass of red wine.”

“Large or small?”

“Small. The police asked me that, too. I wasn’t drunk, Mr. Parker, only tired. I told you: I’m tired all the time. People warned me that parenting would be exhausting, but I didn’t really get what that meant until Henry arrived.” For the first time, she looked doubtful. “I don’t want you to think any of that would make me want to harm him.”

“Take that as given.”

“I was just grateful when he slept and the house was calm.” She raised her right hand and waved her long, thin fingers vaguely, like the conjuration of a spell. “But not like this. This is wrong. It’s too final.”

“Do you usually drink alcohol in the evenings?” I asked.

“Is that relevant?”

“It might be. Should this go to trial, and you testify, you may find yourself being forced to reply to questions you consider troubling or hurtful, or that are designed to paint you in the worst possible light. Consider this practice.”

“I have a glass of wine most evenings,” she said. “I don’t smoke, don’t drink coffee, and don’t eat candy. A glass of wine is my reward for getting through the day, but often I’m too exhausted to finish it.”

“Did you check on Henry before you went to bed?”

“Yes.”

“The window in the room, was it open or closed?”

“Open, but less than an inch, with the security cable in place. It was a stuffy night, uncommonly so for the time of year, and I prefer fresh air to the AC.”

“Did you wake at all?”

“No.”

“Is that normal for you?”

She frowned.

“No. I don’t often sleep so soundly, but Henry is still teething, and he’s had a couple of bad nights recently. I think my body was waiting to go into shutdown. I do recall feeling uncommonly heavy as I went to bed. I could barely lift my feet, and I was out cold as soon as my head touched the pillow.”

“Tell me about waking.”

“I woke at seven, but it took me a while to get going. I didn’t want to leave my bed, but somehow I managed.”

“Did you head straight to Henry’s room?”

“Yes. I didn’t go to the bathroom first, even though I kind of needed to.”

“Why was that?”

“I suppose I was worried, as Henry wasn’t making any noise. And it was cool, cooler than it should have been. I could feel the breeze. I went to his room. The bed was empty and the main window was open. I remember not being able to move. I kept thinking I was dreaming, and if I realized that I was, I’d wake up, and everything would be okay. But I wasn’t, and it isn’t.”

“What did you do next?”

“I ran outside. I didn’t even stop to put on a robe. For some strange reason, I thought Henry might somehow have managed to open the window and climb out, even if there was no way he could have done that, none at all. I was calling his name, and Livvy came out to see what was happening.”

“Mrs. Gammett, the woman who lives in the house on the left? I’ve met her.”

“She’s a kind soul, but deaf, so I must have been shouting loudly for her to notice. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her Henry was gone. She said I should call the police, but I called Stephen first.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Well, I do, but you’ll think it’s foolish.”

“Nothing concerning what took place here is foolish.”

That smile ghosted across her face again, one wraith visiting another.

“I rely on Stephen a lot,” she said. “I’ve battled eating disorders over the years, and I suffered badly from postpartum depression until just a few months ago, when it finally began to ease. Stephen has been very patient with me, and considerate in his way. My instinct is to turn to him whenever there’s a problem. Not very feminist of me, is it?”

“I wasn’t aware that suffering was a feminist issue,” I said.

“I can offer you some books if you care to read up on it.”

I suspected she was serious.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ll pass.”

We went through the rest of what occurred that morning: the arrival of the police; her husband’s return from New York within hours; the evidential statements taken from her and Stephen; the subsequent appeals via the media; and the support from neighbors and the larger community, followed by its gradual diminution because of the perceived deficiencies in Colleen Clark’s response to the trauma of her son’s disappearance.

“There was—is—this numbness,” she said. “I can’t explain it, except to guess that the pain was so great, my mind wanted to shield me from it. It felt like everything was happening to someone else. Obviously, I knew it was happening to me, and Stephen, and Henry, but it seemed both real and unreal at the same time. Even though it’s all recent, I struggle to remember details. Hours, even days, are missing. It’s a blur of absence, with Henry at its heart. And then the blanket was found.”

“By your husband.”

“Yes. I had a flat tire, and as you can imagine”—she raised one slender arm—“I struggle with lug nuts. Stephen went outside to change the tire, and when he came back a few minutes later he was so ashen, I was sure he was going to faint. I went to help him, but he put up his hands to ward me off. I thought at first that he’d heard some news about Henry, bad news, but I couldn’t see any police, and they’d have come in person if anything had changed. I asked Stephen what was wrong, but he couldn’t speak. It took him three tries before he was able to produce any words.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I found the blanket.’ Naturally, I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me what he’d discovered in the trunk. I asked to see it, and he said we should wait for the police. I tried to get by him. I wanted to take a look for myself, but he made me go into the living room. Initially, I believed he was trying to protect me from the sight of blood, and possibly there was a part of that to it, even then. I hope so.”

“What did you do while he made the call?”

“I waited. I didn’t have much choice. He’d locked me in. I figure he didn’t know what else to do with me. It’s not like it was a situation with which he had a great deal of experience.”

“Didn’t he ask for your side of the story?”

“He didn’t, but he got it anyway.”

“Through the locked door?”

“No, later, when the police came.”

“Mr. Castin told me that you agreed to speak to them without a lawyer present.”

“I didn’t have anything to hide,” she said. “Stephen and I both talked to them.”

She wouldn’t have been Mirandized, of course, because she hadn’t been under arrest, yet every statement she made was now part of the record. We’d find out at the discovery stage how the recording officer had chosen to parse her testimony.

Once again, I was struck by her solicitousness toward her husband. In her position, I might have been less forgiving of someone who had locked me in a room before throwing me to the police, not to mention his subsequent determination of my guilt. The benefit of the doubt might have been polite, at the minimum.

“May I ask, Mrs. Clark—”

“Call me Colleen, please. Right now, the only people who call me ‘Mrs. Clark’ mean me harm.”

“Colleen, then. I’m not going to sugarcoat this pill, but it strikes me that your husband has very quickly assumed an antagonistic position in this case, even allowing for the circumstances. It raises questions about the state of your marriage.”

She took a long time to answer. The gloom of the house drew tighter around us. She couldn’t keep living like this, surrounded by loss and mired in adumbration. Before too long, her sanity would begin to crumble.

“Stephen had an affair,” she said at last, “shortly after I became pregnant. It was a woman he met through work. It didn’t last very long—it was barely more than a one-night stand—but it’s hung over us ever since.”

“How did you feel about that?”

She laughed for the first time. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

“Angry. Betrayed. And then, weirdly, sorry for him. It was a difficult pregnancy from the beginning, and I can’t have been easy to live with. Stephen was working too hard, and drinking too much in hotel bars far from home. He faltered. It hurt—it hurt a lot—but it happens.”

“And after?”

“I told him I forgave him. I haven’t, of course. I never will, not completely, but I wasn’t about to let it destroy our marriage, not with a baby on the way. I suppose you think I’m an idiot for doing that. My mother certainly does.”

“I’m not here to judge you,” I said.

“Aren’t you? I don’t believe that. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.”

“You might be surprised.”

“I’m hard to surprise. The worst has already happened. There’s not a whole lot left.”

I had to resist the urge to reach out to her, to tell her that I had some inkling of what she was going through. Grief is like cancer: near-universal in its reach, but specific in its grasp. No two people experience it alike, so to claim I knew how she was feeling would have been a lie, yet some aspect of it had also taken root in me, triggering a transformation both visible and unseen. That process did not end, merely ebbed and flowed. If her child was gone, the loss would define her for the rest of her days, just as my losses defined me.

“Do you know the name of the woman with whom your husband had his affair?”

“Mara,” she said. “Mara Teller.”