Thread of deceit, p.9
Thread of Deceit, page 9
The trouble was that no one was as smart as he. People were fools. They imagined their sex offender lists would deter him. How naive. He had simply left the state and changed his identity. Easy enough. He had contacts everywhere. His clients were respectable businessmen who worked in high-level positions. They had made his transition flawless. The authorities had no idea how effortless it was to elude them. Just thinking of this, he felt his anger grow. Idiots! He grabbed the curtain and gave it a jerk. He had intended to close it, but the fabric tore loose from the pins that held the pleats to the rod.
There! he thought, staring up at the dangling drape. That was exactly the kind of thing that infuriated him! Carelessness. Stupidity. People didn’t do things the right way. Someone had failed to properly secure the curtain, just as Stu had failed to set up the safeguards.
Sinking down onto the floor, he held his head in his hands. He thought he was going to vomit.
“Why not, Carl?” Ana set her palms on the city editor’s desk and leaned across it. She could hardly believe it was already Thursday, and she had only six workdays left to complete her assignment. Most of the previous afternoon had been eaten up with her fruitless visits to Haven and Jim Slater’s house. Though she had interviewed health workers, day care supervisors, a variety of public agencies, church youth ministers and the operators of two city recreation centers, the series was not coming together well.
She had worked hard on the stories, trying one angle and then another. But as the hours passed, Ana only grew more convinced that the children—and not the lead paint—needed to be the focus of the series. More important, she felt certain that something was going on behind the scenes at Haven.
Her news nose was rarely wrong, and it was telling her that she was onto a very smelly trail. A frightened child hiding in a corner, a little girl with a fresh bruise on her cheek, guard dogs and a man too free with his affection—Terell Roberts stood out like a blinking beacon on a dark night.
How could Ana ignore an investigation with such news value? Worse, how could she abandon the victims of a possible predator? Despite her trepidation about confronting and pushing Carl Webster—aware the editor could very well fire her and send her back to Brownsville—Ana knew she could not rest if she didn’t at least try.
“It’s the children,” she told him. “They should be the center of attention in these articles.”
Carl rubbed his eyes. “Lead paint, Ana,” he said wearily. “That’s your story. Contaminated paint.”
“Who cares about paint? You said it yourself—children draw readers. This series has everything, don’t you see? The potential for gripping photos. Sidebars on individual victims of lead paint poisoning—I have an interview set up at Barnes Hospital tomorrow morning. It’ll be compelling, Carl. Just give me another week, and I’ll write a package of stories guaranteed to tug on readers’ hearts.”
“Stories that would make strong contest entries. Isn’t that what you mean, Ana? You’re still trying to win awards when what I want is good, solid coverage of an issue affecting this city.”
She straightened. “Fine, if all you want is paint, that’s what I’ll give you. But then no one will ever learn about Tenisha, who has cerebral palsy and is playing basketball for the first time in her life. Or Granny, the elderly deaf woman who teaches Gerald and the other little boys how to crochet. Or Flora, who came here from…from who knows where and can’t speak English and hides in a corner. And that’s just Haven.”
She grabbed a pile of press releases from his desk and straightened them as she raced on. “I’ve got great leads on children in home-based day cares—kids whose dads were murdered in drive-by shootings, kids whose mothers are thirteen years old. And those church basements you mentioned? Carl, there’s a group of grandmothers sitting day after day in a moldy basement with crumbling paint—and they’re rocking babies, reading to babies, singing old hymns—”
“Okay, okay.” He held up a hand. “You’ve made your point. But there’s no time for that. Besides, it’s out of the realm of what we’re looking for. I’ve told you what I want, and I see no reason to change it.”
“Carl, please. I’m all over this story. Just give me another week.”
He sighed and rolled his chair back from the desk. “You drive me crazy, Ana. And quit organizing my desk every time you come into my office.” He grabbed the papers from her hand and tossed them down.
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Goodbye, Ana.” He stood. “We’ve both got work to do.”
Her mouth dry, Ana swung back through the door and returned to her desk. Great. She had failed to win Carl to her point of view about the lead paint series. Now she would have no choice but to make the health department and its regulations the central theme of the series.
Sure, she could sprinkle in a few examples of local agencies in trouble. But the real children would take a backseat to droning quotes by politicians and physicians. And any hope of uncovering a scandal behind the scenes at Haven must go right down the drain, along with the dream that her writing could ever make a difference in this world.
Dropping onto her chair, Ana once again reflected on Sam Hawke and his military-style activities center. His dedication to the place appeared genuine. His long-term friendship with Terell Roberts gave a seemingly healthy impetus to the program. But something nagged at her. What lay behind that relationship? Why had two bright young men forsaken careers and financial security for a group of needy children whose problems were mind-boggling?
Sam said his Christian faith had motivated him. But was that really it? She sat staring at her computer screen, trying to absorb what he’d said, wanting to believe Haven was all it seemed, aching to trust that Sam was telling her the truth—yet skeptical all the same.
Ana’s experience with God had been different in so many ways. And yet, in essence, it was similar. She had wanted to die. And He had saved her. She trusted God and followed His guidance—at least she tried to. But was her passion for her life’s work actually self-driven, while Sam’s was God-driven?
Did they even believe in the same God? Why was her image of Him steeped in love while Sam’s was angry, hostile, a commander of forces armed for battle? Suddenly she wasn’t sure she knew God’s true nature or was even following Him.
Ana thought of the volunteers she had met in the past week. Young Caleb—why had the teenager relinquished a carefree summer to try to repair an ancient computer? How did an old woman who could hardly hear benefit from teaching crochet to a bunch of rowdy kids? Those grandmothers in the church basement? What did they get out of rocking babies day after day? Was God behind all this? Or was something else motivating these people?
Ana felt certain that her articles needed to focus on more than the lead paint. Her writing had to capture the plight of the children who might accidentally ingest it. But she also sensed a need to write about the adults who chose to work in these run-down old buildings, helping youngsters who probably never would utter a word of thanks. Dare she defy Carl and tell the stories her way?
The thought of the consequences that would surely follow made Ana’s stomach clench. As she absently cleaned up her desk, she reflected on the Texas home in which she had spent her teenage years and the latest phone call from her parents. They had sounded so forlorn, the sadness and blame echoing behind their words.
Ana took the letters and memos that had collected in her in-box and sorted through them quickly, tossing most into the trash. As she scanned the file of lead paint articles that the archives librarian had laid on her desk, tears sprang to her eyes. During that brief time as a reporter for the Brownsville Herald, she had made such huge errors. She had failed. Failed her parents…her sister…herself. Her brilliant series about drug traffic in the city won first place for investigative writing from the Texas Press Association. Despite what others thought, the award had been meaningless to Ana.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she opened the desk drawer and lifted her file of current assignments. She picked up the small framed picture and gazed at her family. The parents smiled into the camera, so pleased with themselves and their two lovely little girls. And the children—missing teeth, countless freckles, gangly legs—forced hollow grins to cover the pain they could tell no one but each other.
As Ana gazed into the eyes of the child she had been, another child’s eyes stared back at her. Flora. They shared the same silent, haunted terror. The dark secrets. The unspoken fear.
Do you know La Ceiba? The words bubbled up inside Ana’s head, sounding like tiny echoes, barely audible.
La Ceiba. La Ceiba.
Propelled by a sudden need, Ana switched on her computer and clicked open an Internet search engine. She typed in the name of the silk-cotton tree that grew in Brownsville, then she chewed her thumbnail and waited for the screen to fill with information.
Hunching over, she scanned the entries. La Ceiba was a popular tag, it seemed. Ana found several hotels and spas in Mexico, a lodge in Costa Rica and a luxury resort on the Amazon, all named after the tropical tree. Had Flora’s parents worked at one of these hotels before coming to the United States?
As Ana stared at the computer screen, her confusion only grew. Flora’s mention of La Ceiba could mean any number of things. A hotel, a condominium, a town, a tree. It could mean a place in Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Honduras, or on the lengthy course of the Amazon River.
Frustrated, she turned over the information in her mind. Had little Flora, who hid in the dark corner of a downtown St. Louis activity center, come all the way to St. Louis from Central America? But that region was half a continent away.
Mexico seemed the most likely place the child might have lived. Ana found she could sympathize with those who crossed the border, as her own mother had done so many years ago. Young Guadalupe had been carried across the Rio Grande on the back of a burro—a man who helped people enter the United States illegally. Guadalupe’s father had worked long hours in a pants factory in Brownsville, eventually earning U.S. citizenship for himself and his family. And his daughter had grown up to fall in love with the eventual CEO of that very company. Bob and Guadalupe Burns’s marriage had created the perfect melting pot American family. And their daughter, Ana, felt profound gratitude for what they had provided. She deeply loved her parents, despite her reluctance to return home to them.
Why had Flora said the name La Ceiba? Or had Ana misunderstood the child’s softly spoken words? Maybe Flora really had been speaking of the silk-cotton tree. What if Flora had asked Ana about the ceiba in hopes that she might find such a tree here in St. Louis?
Heart aching, Ana pushed away from her desk. How could she ignore the fear in Flora’s brown eyes? How could she blindly turn away from her suspicions about Terell Roberts and his behavior at Haven? Even if her forebodings proved unfounded, could she write about lead paint without focusing on the children who would suffer its consequences?
Ana thought of Carl Webster’s threat. Do it his way, or he had ten other reporters eager to take her place. Focus on the paint and ignore the children, or get out. Get out…go back to the home she had fled, the parents who blamed her, and the cottage…the cottage where she had failed to protect her sister. Go back to the reality of the emptiness in her life. Face the hopeless darkness.
Ana hovered on the cusp for a moment—craving escape, clinging to security, yet hearing the unspoken cries from the children who beckoned for her help. Then she understood, because her dead sister’s voice cried loudest of all. Save us, Ana, save us. And she would.
Rising from her desk, she shouldered her purse and started for the door to the stairs. This evening’s run would do her a world of good.
Chapter Six
Ethelou Childers crossed her arms and stared at Sam through half-lidded eyes. He realized this was not a good sign.
Lulu, as the kids called her, knew the city of St. Louis as well as she knew an aria from La Bohème. She could sing jazz and opera, and she could rap alongside the toughest of the boys. She taught tap and ballet, and she could back a sassy teenage girl into a corner and hammer her into shape with a few choice words. Lulu’s straightened black hair was swept up into a tight dance mistress’s chignon, while her dark, muscular biceps sported muted blue tattoos.
No one messed with Lulu.
“What’s this reporter really after?” she snapped, her full lips pursing into a sneer. “She sounds like trouble to me, honey.”
At the regular Thursday night meeting of staff and volunteers, Sam had decided it was time to update everyone on the many uphill battles the center was facing. Bathroom repairs had fallen behind schedule. Someone had gotten a knife past the metal detector when another boy had substituted for Raydell Watson at the front door. A gang had sprayed graffiti on an outside wall that volunteers had just plastered. And then there was Ana Burns.
“Miss Burns says she wants to write about our lead paint situation,” Sam replied. The meeting had not gone well thus far, and the matter of Haven’s problems being splashed across the Post-Dispatch only added to the tension in the group. “I gave her a short interview, and she talked to one of our donors. So I’m hoping that’ll take care of it. But I can’t guarantee what she’s going to write about us.”
“She’ll be back here before she writes anything,” Raydell Watson predicted. Though paid only a token wage, the teen attended every meeting and participated as though he were a full-time staff member at the center. “She ain’t gonna drop it. I know her kind.”
“Yeah,” Terell said. “She told me the editor assigned her a whole series of articles to write. Like a couple weeks’ worth, or something. She’ll be back.”
Sam scowled down at his clipboard. “Well, nobody better talk to her without seeing me first. We’ve got to minimize the potential damage from this.”
“Lead paint,” Ethelou scoffed. “Who wants to read about that?”
“Head pain?” Granny looked up from the mound of pink crochet work on her lap and blinked behind her thick-lensed glasses. “I think I’ve got some aspirin here in my purse, Ethelou. Just you hold on a minute.”
As she started to dig through an enormous macramé bag, Terell laid a hand on the old woman’s arm. He leaned across to explain, but Ethelou stopped him.
“It’s okay, honey, I’ve got myself a royal headache over all this nonsense anyhow.” She turned on Sam. “Look here, honey. I need a private room to teach my dance classes. I cannot and I will not do them outside on that parking lot. The kids’ll burn up out on that pavement, not to mention me. You just give us a bucket of paint, and we’ll slop it on ourselves.”
“That’s the problem, Ethelou,” Sam said. “Most of these walls are going to have to be repaired by a professional lead paint abatement company. And we don’t have the money to pay for it.”
“Well, if we had paint, we could do some of the rooms ourselves.” A strapping young man spoke around the last bite of a doughnut he had found in the center’s kitchen. “The ones that don’t have to be scraped, anyhow.”
Billy had come to Haven from New Mexico with his church youth group. The young people were the same age as many of the kids who used the center. Billy, his friend Caleb and the other volunteers worked many hours each day in the building. It pained Sam to think that if he couldn’t resolve the lead paint issue soon, all their labor might be in vain.
“We’ve had a little money donated already,” Sam assured the group, with a wink at Granny. “And the other day, Jim Slater pledged five thousand from his adoption agency.”
“But you said we only got two weeks to take care of this problem,” Raydell said. “Me, I got a bad feeling about it. I think we oughta do something.”
“Do what, Raydell?” Sam asked. “What would you suggest?”
The teen shrugged, and gave his dreadlocks a shake. “Just let her know not to mess with us. We ain’t gotta take nothin’ off of nobody.”
“Yeah, we do. The health department, anyway. We can’t get around them. The paint problem has to be fixed, or they’ll shut us down. And if Miss Burns wants to write about us, we can’t stop her. As she reminded me, it’s a free press, and she can put anything she wants in her article.”
“That stinks,” Raydell snapped. “Who does she think she is anyhow? She ain’t nothin’. I’ll show her.”
Sam heard this kind of bluster at the center so often, he had learned to turn a deaf ear to it. Instead, he focused on the determined woman who sat across from him. “Lulu, you’ve fought some battles in the past. How did you manage?”
“Hard work and lots of prayer. My husband ran off and left me to bring up our three children before the youngest was a year old. I raised them by working at the IHOP by day and singing in jazz clubs at night. When the kids got old enough, I took dance lessons at the YMCA. I taught myself to sing opera by listening to cassette tapes I checked out of the library. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, and my kids turned out all right.”
“There you go, then,” Sam said. “Hard work and prayer. That’s what we’ll do.”
Terell stood and stretched. “Just a sec, Sam. I need to check on something.”
Sam struggled to refrain from growling in frustration as his friend ambled away. It was just like Terell to take a lackadaisical attitude about the possible closing of the center. He had frittered away his NBA career and most of his money—and he didn’t even care. Would he also let Haven slide out of his grasp without a fight?
Sam certainly wouldn’t. He had invested his life in this place. His heart was here, and he wasn’t about to give up on it.
“Are there any more questions before we wrap up the meeting?” he asked.
Heads shook.
“Then I’d like to say a special thank-you to Caleb for the great work he’s done on the computer system. The screen lit up today, and I think I saw some words appear.”
Caleb looked glum. “It’s a piece of trash.”
