The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller Read online

  He had an uncomfortable feeling he knew the answer.

  The older woman sniffed her disapproval. "Not like that. He intentionally inflicted pain on himself."

  Paige spoke for the first time. "Don't you recognize them, the same numbers he wrote last night on his Doodle Bear?"

  Wynton had already dismissed the incident. "We don't know he wrote them last night. Besides, he hasn't learned either his numbers or his letters yet. Maybe some other child . . ."

  Mrs. Jennins gave that head shake again. "His teacher saw him do it. Or at least finish it before she could stop him."

  There was an uneven quality to Paige's voice as she added, "Wynton, those are the same numbers . . ."

  Wynton would not have been overly surprised to see a talking white rabbit holding a pocket watch. He was half certain he was in some sort of Wonderland, Lewis Carroll's or someone else's creation.

  "Look," he began reasonably, "I'm sure there's a perfectly normal explanation. Perhaps he saw those numbers somewhere . . ."

  "That hardly explains how a three-year-old learned to write them," Mrs. Jennins interjected, "let alone willfully inflict the discomfort of scratching them into his own skin."

  Wynton picked up the remaining chair, moved it next to Paige's across the desk from the older woman, and sat. He felt the same way he did when negotiations with another lawyer were proving futile. "Okay, so what do you suggest?"

  Mrs. Jennins nodded toward Paige. "I have already given Mrs. Charles the name of a woman, a child psychologist . . ."

  "A psychologist?"

  Wynton's voice was a full octave louder than he had intended.

  "I think it would be advisable," Mrs. Jennins said.

  "But, my son isn't . . ."

  "Your son has shown a definite tendency toward something abnormal, possibly harmful to himself."

  Wynton took a deep breath, suppressing a number of things he wanted to say, none of which would be flattering to Mrs. Jennins in particular or to mental health professionals in general.

  Instead, he glared across the desk. "There's nothing wrong with Wynn-Three."

  The older woman gave that audible inhalation again. "Well, that's certainly your decision to make but for St. Philip's Day Care . . ."

  Paige took Wynton's hand in hers while looking intently across the desk. "Mrs. Jennins, could you give us a few minutes?"

  Mrs. Jennins took a long look at Paige, and then at Wynton. "Certainly. I'll be in the hall."

  She stepped outside shutting the door behind her.

  "Paige," Wynton began, "this is nuts! Just because Wynn-Three makes a few marks on his own arm, maybe not even real numbers . . . I mean, there's nothing wrong with the kid."

  Paige squeezed his hand, gazing intently into his face. "Of course not."

  "But why . . . ?"

  "Wynton," she said with the tone of a teacher addressing a less than bright student, "in a few months we have to apply to all the private schools for admission to pre-kindergarten next year which will mean admission into kindergarten, first grade, and so on. Those schools are intensely competitive, turn down ten or more children for every one they admit. I wouldn't want his record here at St. Philip's to have something unfavorable in it. Public school is not an acceptable alternative."

  No, it wasn't. Not from what Wynton knew of the Atlanta Public Schools system. Assaults, arms, and drugs were more common than literacy. Few of the educators he had seen on TV spoke correct English and Atlanta only missed last place in national test scores thanks to the District of Columbia. A private education was no longer a luxury in the city; it was an educational necessity.

  He began to understand. "You mean if we don't subject Wynn-Three to some head shrinker, he might not get in?"

  "That's exactly what I mean."

  Great. Now in addition to the personality and aptitude tests and interviews of three- and four-year-olds conducted by private schools overwhelmed with applicants, his son would also have to obtain some sort of seal of approval from Psychology Today. Sending Wynn-Three to St. Philip's Day Care had been a mistake, he saw with twenty-twenty hindsight.

  "What happens if the shrink decides Wynn-Three is some sort of a nut case, a serial cookie snatcher, or teddy bear molester?"

  She searched his face, hoping he was only making a bad joke. "He'll be fine."

  Wasn't that what he had said just minutes ago? He nodded in defeat. "Okay, call the woman."

  CHAPTER 15

  480 Lafayette Drive

  An Hour Later

  MARCIE ROLLENS CAME OVER JUST AS Paige parked the SUV in the driveway and was unbuckling Wynn-Three from his car seat. A few years Paige's junior, she and her husband rented a garage apartment a few doors down the street. Having no children of her own, she frequently babysat Wynn-Three.

  "Marwie!" The little boy exclaimed excitedly, arms outstretched. He was unable so far to pronounce the hiss of the C in her name, though there was no problem pronouncing the sound in other contexts. "Marwie come to see me!"

  Marcie leaned down to exchange hugs with him. "I did, I did indeed come to see you!" She turned to Paige. "Actually I decided to take a break from the computer. Seeing my very favorite kid was a bonus."

  Paige shut the door of the BMW. "Things slow in the world of high society?"

  Marcie was a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Living section which included social news. Although Paige surmised the job didn't pay a lot, at least Marcie got to work from home.

  "Marwie come!" Wynn-Three had a two hand hold on her arm. "Come inside!"

  Paige smiled. Marcie was never too busy to play with the child; and, she suspected, spoil him whenever the opportunity arose. "Wynn, Marcie has work to do."

  Wynn-Three reluctantly released his grasp.

  Marcie sighed. "As for society, high or otherwise, there's not a lot happening. The galas for multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, and heart disease are over. The rest of the disease balls will finish up soon. Debutante season hasn't gotten started. Jeez, but I get tired of fat ladies in evening gowns, the divine bovines paying a fortune to elbow each other for space in the society mags. I'd take a pay cut to handle a nice, bloody murder, even a decent fight between city council members."

  "Look! I was bad." Wynn-Three was holding up his arm, impatient with the conversation between adults that excluded him.

  Marcie squatted, sitting on her heels as she winked up at Paige. "Just like a man: can't stand being ignored by women." She took Wynn-Three's arm in her hand. "Oh, my! Did a cat scratch you? Did it hurt?"

  Wynn-Three nodded. "Put num'ers on my arm."

  Her expression went from mock-serious to curious as she cocked her page boy haircut head to get a better view. "Numbers? You put them on your own arm?"

  Wynn-Three nodded solemnly.

  There was a question on her face as she shifted her attention to Paige. "News to me. I didn't know he could do his numbers yet."

  Paige extended a hand to help her neighbor to her feet. "News to me, too. It's weird. If you have the time and can tolerate my coffee, I'll tell you about it as soon as I put Wynn-Three down for his nap."

  Marcie gave a glance in the direction of her house as though her editor might be waiting there for her. "Why not? It's got to beat writing about other people's parties."

  A protesting Wynn-Three tucked away and coffee bubbling in the percolator, Marcie plopped down on a kitchen chair and produced a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of the man's shirt she wore over a pair of jeans. "I suppose your lord and master would not approve."

  Paige snorted derisively as she retrieved a pair of mugs from a cabinet. "Comic understatement. If you recall, he nearly went into orbit when you lit up out in the back yard last summer. Tobacco didn't really bother him before Wynn-Three was born. Now, he's convinced the child will suffer from secondhand smoke if someone in the next county takes a puff. He even worries if he's around someone with the habit, afraid he somehow brings the effects home to his son."
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br />   Marcie chuckled, putting the cigarettes away. "You are married to a male womb."

  Paige was pouring the coffee. "I'm sure he's not the only man overly protective of his firstborn, but it can be a pain in the ass. Sugar or sugar and cream?"

  "Sweetener only." Marcie leaned forward to accept the extended mug. "So, what's the big deal about Wynn-Three scratching himself? Have you told Wynton yet?"

  Paige sat at the kitchen table, slipping off her shoes and extending her legs to put her feet on an adjacent chair. "He knows. The woman at St. Philip's insisted I call him. Talk about overly protective! Anyway, starting last night . . ."

  Twenty minutes later Marcie stood and put her empty mug in the kitchen sink. "That's truly weird. And you have no idea where those numbers came from?"

  Paige turned the faucet on, rinsing out her own mug. "None."

  "You sure he can't write any other numbers?"

  Paige transferred both mugs from sink to dishwasher. "His teacher at St. Philip's tried that as soon as she saw the marks on his arm. He has no clue as to numbers or letters."

  "I'd be surprised if he did. Most kids don't start learning to read or write until kindergarten at the earliest. But he's a smart little boy."

  Paige looked at her friend, uncertain if the remark was sincere or only offered out of kindness. "Mother's pride aside, he's not that smart, not enough to teach himself. He had to have seen those numbers somewhere."

  "I guess."

  Marcie's attention was drifting toward the kitchen table where a box of crayons lay next to a coloring book. "Wynn-Three's work station?"

  "From last night. Keeps him in sight and out of trouble while Wynton and I fix dinner. I should have made him take it back to his room but we were running late this morning."

  Marcie was thumbing through the book. "Smart or not, Rembrandt he ain't."

  The she stopped flipping, staring at a single sheet.

  Paige stopped wiping the counter top. "What?"

  Before Marcie could answer, Paige took the two steps that brought her beside the younger woman. Her eyes followed Marcie's to the page where Dick and Jane were broadcasting huge smiles as they played in a sand box. The only color Wynn-Three had applied to the page was yellow, a large spot of it on the boy's shirt.

  "Looks like some sort of sheriff's or law enforcement emblem to me," Marcie observed.

  "More like just a blob," Paige said.

  Marcie pointed. "No, not a blob. See, it has six points like some cops' badges."

  Paige was surprised at the relief she felt. Marcie's sudden interest in Wynn-Three's coloring book had sparked some sort of irrational fear as to what her son might put on paper next.

  "Blobs, badges, whatever," she said a little more airily than she felt, "it's only a kid's coloring book."

  Marcie took a long last look before closing the cover. "I guess so. Well, thanks for the coffee. It's back to the society pages, the social climbers, and Parvenu Avenue."

  Through the window in the kitchen door, Paige watched Marcie walk down the driveway and turn toward her house. Something in Wynn-Three's coloring book had startled her, Paige had seen it in her face.

  But what?

  Paige turned back to the sandbox scene. Other than the burst of yellow on the boy's breast, nothing else had been colored. She leafed backwards, noting nothing but scribbles from every crayon in the box.

  Whatever Marcie had seen was eluding her.

  CHAPTER 16

  498 Rear Lafayette Drive

  A Few Minutes Later

  AT HOME, MARCIE STARED BLANKLY AT the mountain scene from last summer's vacation that occupied the computer screen when not in use. Only a part of her attention was on the e-mails that had arrived during her short absence. A major exhibition of works by some contemporary abstract artist she did not recognize was coming to the High Museum of Art, the opening to be kicked off with a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate black-tie dinner. The attachment provided a preview of some of his works, "art" that seemed to consist of canvasses painted a single color with titles like "Rage" or "Depression." People paid thousands of dollars for what any reasonably competent house painter did to Sheetrock every day! Her natural cynicism told her that if P. T. Barnum's maxim still applied, the High Museum would be filed with suckers that night. She scrolled through two more announcements, hardly reading either. Something else was occupying her thoughts, something unidentifiable that skulked around the shadows of her consciousness. From experience, she knew if she concentrated on something else, it would come to her.

  She called up the draft of an article on local women executives, a puff piece she had written a few weeks ago to hold in reserve for the time there really wasn't anything else to write about. She moved a paragraph and changed a couple of words here and there. What sounds good at the time sometimes seems a little lame later. She saved the file and frowned at the icons displayed until the screen returned to the Appalachians.

  Finally, she got up from the table that served as her desk and stepped over to a bookcase. She ran her finger along the shelf until she came to a series of scrapbooks in which she had chronologically saved a copy of everything that bore her byline. When she had begun the process, she had told herself the articles would serve as a sort of continuous resume in case she ever considered a job change. The newspaper, of course, had an easily accessed online archive, but somehow the actual paper clippings seemed more real. Now she recognized the scrapbooks as small offerings to the ego fueled by the urge to see one's own words in print.

  Today she hoped they would serve another purpose.

  She pulled out a volume and checked the carefully typed index of contents before exchanging the book for the one next to it.

  This time she found what she wanted, an interview four years ago. The photograph at the top showed an old man extending his left arm with the sleeve rolled up. She squinted at the picture but the coarseness of the newsprint camouflaged whatever she was looking for.

  Leaving the scrapbook open on the floor, she crossed the room and pulled out a drawer of the file cabinet where she stored her old notebooks. Most interviews today were tape recorded, but Marcie took notes of dates, spellings of names, and other material that might somehow get lost in the audio. She was pleased by the neat and efficient indices she had prepared to locate the notes for each story. It took less than a minute to find the one she sought.

  Flipping a couple of pages, she came to a phone number. Notebook in hand, she fished in the pocket of her jeans for the cell phone that had replaced the land line in her home two years ago. Holding the notebook up to the afternoon light streaming through the window, she keyed in a number. Impatiently, she endured one, two, three rings before a woman's voice announced no one could come to the phone at the moment but that the call would be returned if a message was left.

  She tried again with the same result. This time she left her name and number along with a message that she was a reporter with the Journal-Constitution. That usually produced a call back. Most people liked to get their names in the paper.

  Taking the scrapbook to her table, Marcie read over the article she had written. She remembered most of it but she wanted to make sure she had the details right. The notion in her head was gaining definition like a figure emerging from the morning's mist. She could make out the general form but the details were still blurred. The shape, though, was enough to make her shiver. A theory to be investigated, a thread to be pulled without any certainty where it would lead, and an opportunity to leave the Living section behind her.

  She may have had some crazy ideas, but this was the nuttiest yet. But years of working with the media had taught her that events occurred without regard to the conventional concept of sane or normal in much the same way tornados touched down pretty much where they pleased. Sane or insane, if this thing in her head, this almost-born idea, could be explained . . . that was only the first problem. The second was trying to meet even the minimalistic standards of verification common to the industr
y. If she could, she would have a story that would take her away from charity balls and social aspirants forever.

  But she needed proof beyond mere hypothesis, some evidence that would merit the attention of the reputable media, a possible oxymoron. Short of evidence, any evidence, her story would belong in the checkout line at the grocery store next to headlines such as SPACE ALIEN IMPREGNATES TEENAGER or DRACULA'S BODY FOUND IN NEW YORK SUBWAY. That would be a fate worse than the backwaters of the society pages.

  She was thinking about her next step when her pocket beeped. As she pulled the phone out, she noted the number.

  "Marcie Rollens."

  "Ms. Rollens, Rebecca Silverstein returning your call."

  The voice was that of an older woman. Just how much older, Marcie could not tell.

  "Thanks for calling me back, Ms . . . ."

  "Mrs."

  "Mrs. Silverstein. About four years ago I did an article on an Alik Grituchlik. This was his phone number. Do you know how I might contact him?"

  There was a pause before an intake of breath. "Alik Grituchlik was my father. He died almost two years ago."

  "Oh, I'm sorry . . ."

  "It's all right, thank you. He was quite ill long before that. Might I ask what you wanted with him?"

  Marcie thought fast. She couldn't very well explain what she had in mind without sounding like a candidate for the asylum. "Oh, I just wanted a follow-up on the first article. He was a wonderful person to interview, so lucid as to facts from so long ago. Again, I'm so sorry . . ."

  "Odd thing," Mrs. Silverstein interrupted. "I remember your interview; he was living here at my house. That's why the phone number you called is mine. But what I was going to say, not six months after your article, someone from Washington came down here and did a video interview. He, my father, was quite thrilled by it."

  "Washington?"

  "They were from the Holocaust museum, called what they were doing an 'oral history,' trying to interview as many survivors as they could find. They're getting more scarce every day, you know."