God Save the Child

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, “right away.”

I hung up, looked at my watch, 5:20, got up, closed the window, and headed for Smithfield. It was 6:15 when I got there. A Smithfield police cruiser was parked facing the street in the driveway. Paul Marsh, the patrolman I’d met before, was sitting in it, his head tipped back against the headrest, his cap tilted forward. The barrel end of a pump-action shotgun showed through the windshield held upright by a clip lock on the dashboard. I could hear the soft rush of open air on the police radio in the car as I stopped at the open side window near the driver.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Phone call. Mrs. Bartlett answered and was threatened. Something about evening the score. I didn’t talk to her. Trask did. He knows the details. I don’t. This was my day off.”

“You eaten?”

“No, but one of the guys’ll bring me down something in a while.”

“I’ll be here if you want to shoot out and get something.”

Marsh shook his head again. “Naw, Trask would have my ass. I think he’s hot for Mrs. Bartlett.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go in and see what she can tell me. Her husband home?”

“Nope. He’s still working. I guess. Just her and her daugther and the lawyer, Maguire.”

They were in the kitchen. Maguire, small, neat, and worried, let me in. Marge Bartlett in a green crepe pants suit and white shirt with ruffled cuffs was standing against the kitchen counter turning a highball glass in her hands. She was very carefully made-up. At the kitchen table was the same young girl I’d seen going for a swim on my first visit. The Bartletts’ daughter, I assumed. She was eating a macaroni and cheese TV dinner and drinking a can of Tab. Her bones were small, her face was delicate and impassive. Her black hair was long and straight. She was wearing a faded yellow sweat shirt that said Make Love Not War in black letters across the front. The Lab sat on the floor by her chair and watched every mouthful as it moved from the foil container to her mouth.

Marge Bartlett said, “Spenser, where the hell were you?”

“You already asked me that,” I said.

Maguire said, “Glad you got here, Spenser.”

Marge Bartlett said, “They threatened me. They said they’d...” She glanced at her daughter. “Dolly, why don’t you finish your supper and go watch TV in the den?”

“Oh, Ma... I know what they said. I heard you talking about it with Mr. Trask this afternoon.” She drank some Tab.

“Well you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t be hearing that sort of thing.”

“Oh, Ma.”

“What exactly happened, Mrs. Bartlett?” I asked.

“They called about noon,” she said.

“Did you record it?”

Maguire said, “No. They took the recorder off this morning about three hours before the call.”

“Okay,” I said, “what did they say? Be careful and get it as exact as possible.”

Dolly said, “Ma, is there any dessert?”

“I don’t know. Look in the cupboard and don’t interrupt.” She turned toward me. “The call came about noon. I was in the study running over my lines. I’m playing Desdemona in a production of Othello we’re putting on in town. And the phone rang and I answered it. Hoping it might be about Kevin, and a girl’s voice said, ‘We got Kevin, now we’re going to even it up with you. We’re going to shoot you in the...’ and she used a dirty word. It refers to the female sex area. Do you know which one I mean? It starts with c.” She glanced at her daughter.

“Yeah, I know the word. Anything else?”

“No. She just said that and hung up. Why would she say that?”

I shrugged. Dolly Bartlett got a package of Nutter Butter cookies from the cabinet and another Tab from the refrigerator and sat back down at the table.

“And you didn’t recognize the voice?”

“No.”

Maguire poured a stiff shot into the glass, added ice and soda, and gave it to Marge Bartlett.

“When you say girl’s voice, how old a girl?”

“Oh, a girl. You know, not a woman, a teenager.”

Dolly Bartlett said, “Ma, why don’t you ever get Coke. I hate Tab.”

“Dolly, damn it, will you not interrupt me? Don’t you realize that I’m under great stress? You might have a little consideration. The Tab has almost no calories. Don’t you care that I’m in danger? Great danger?” Tears began to form, and her lower lip began to quiver: “Oh, goddamn you,” she said and hustled out of the room without spilling her drink.

Maguire said, “Aw, Marge, c’mon,” rolled his eyeballs at me, and hustled out after her. Dolly Bartlett continued to eat her Nutter Butter cookies.

“My name is Spenser,” I said. “I gather you’re Dolly.”

“Yes,” she said. “My name is really Delilah. Isn’t that a dumb name?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Delilah is kind of dumb.”

“Want a cookie?”

I took one. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Want any Tab?”

“No, thank you.” The cookie tasted like a peanut-flavored matchbook.

“She lied to you, you know,” Dolly said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I listened upstairs on the other phone. I do it all the time. If you pick it up before she does, she never notices. She’s really dumb.”

“What did the girl really say when she called?”