It was very late at night when Melvin stopped the car in front of our house. Gil must have been watching because he came out onto the porch, Mrs. Howell behind him. She had waited all that time.
“The Vincents. They’re in jail,” I said as soon as I came up onto the porch.
“Dorothy?” they asked together.
I shook my head. “They said she ran away. Detective Thrasher thinks she must be … dead.” My voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Oh!” Mrs. Howell said, while Gil put his arms around me and looked away so that I would not see he was crying. We were all crying.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Detective Thrasher said gruffly. “Maybe she did run away. She could be hiding.”
“Oh, Lucretia,” Mrs. Howell said, her voice filled with anguish. She caught herself and said, “I suppose we have to be prepared for the worst. You must be very tired, dear. Melvin will take me home now. And you, Dr. Rushton? May we deliver you to your residence?”
“The hospital,” he replied. “That is, unless you need me, Lute? I’ll stay if you do.”
“No,” I told him. I didn’t want him to leave, but he had already taken too much time away from his patients. I would be all right alone. I was very tired and wanted to go to bed.
Detective Thrasher stood beside me as we watched the others leave. “There’s still a small chance—” he said, but I held up my hand.
“That’s not necessary, Detective. I am too familiar with death. Why should she be alive when the others I love are gone?”
“I’m sorry, miss. If it helps you, the Vincents will be put away for a long time. It might not be for the girl’s murder, but we’ve got him on killing Streeter—he confessed to that. And to the kidnapping. I just wish we had them for murdering the girl.”
“Dorothy,” I said. “She’s not ‘the girl.’ She’s Dorothy.” I wondered if it was easier for him not to put names to victims. Perhaps that was how he dealt with his job.
“Dorothy,” he repeated. “If we don’t find her, we’ll find her body. There aren’t many places they could have hid the body. The Englewood police are searching the house, and in the morning they’ll check the yard. With the snow, it’ll be obvious if there’s a grave.”
I thanked the detective, and when he left, I locked the door.
Mrs. Howell had left the remainder of the cinnamon buns on the kitchen table, covered with a napkin. She or Gil had washed the dishes. I sat down at the table, tracing one of the designs in the oilcloth, remembering how Helen had done the same thing. That seemed so long ago. Then I noticed the Bible at the edge of the table—my Bible, the one Helen had given me when we were both very young. Mrs. Howell must have taken it from the bookshelf and sat there reading it.
I wondered if I should go to Neusteter’s in the morning. There was no reason to stay home anymore, and if I went to work, I wouldn’t have to answer the telephone or shoo away reporters who came to the door. Perhaps working would take my mind off my sorrow and give my life some sense of normalcy.
I undressed, set and wound the clock, which had run down, and got into bed and dozed, but it seemed that whenever I fell asleep, I was awakened by nightmares about Dorothy. I tried to rid my mind of the images of what the Vincents would have done to her. Finally, near morning, I got up and wandered around the house
I stood in the doorway to Dorothy’s room a moment. I would not clean it as I had Helen’s. Helen’s room had contained the remnants of a deadly disease, but Dorothy’s room seemed sweet, scented with the lily of the valley perfume that had been Helen’s.
I was startled by a thud outside, then realized it was the newspaper hitting the sidewalk. The paper would have the story of Gus and Beulah Vincent’s arrest. Perhaps there was something more about Dorothy. Maybe the police had found her body. Detective Thrasher would have waited until morning to tell me.
Because it was very cold and I did not want to go outside in my nightdress, I grabbed my coat from the chair where I had thrown it the night before. I opened the door and looked out. One of the things I loved about winters in Denver was that after a storm, the sun came out and melted the snow. A few days later, you would never know there had been a blizzard. But it was too early for the sun now.
The paper was lying on the sidewalk, and I stepped carefully because there was a film of ice. I picked up the paper and unfolded it. A streetlamp a few houses away sent out a glow—not enough to read the paper by, although I could make out the headlines. They were big and black and screamed that the Vincents had been captured at a “hideout” in Englewood. There was no mention of Dorothy’s body. She hadn’t been found yet, at least not by the time the paper went to press.
The cold revived me, and I did not want to go inside just yet. The house seemed stuffy and overheated. Still, I clutched the paper and moved toward the swing. I would sit there until I grew too cold. The porch was dark, and I made my way in the dawning light. When I reached the swing I saw that there was a black lump lying on it—a dog, I thought, then realized it must be one of the reporters. I was disgusted to think that he had been waiting to waylay me the moment I stepped outside, then thought it funny that he had fallen asleep. The figure stirred, and I wondered if it might be another of the blackguards who demanded money for information about Dorothy. I backed away. I would go inside and call the police.
But I stumbled as I took a step backward, waking the sleeper. I stared, thinking I was looking at an apparition. “Dorothy?” I whispered at last.
“Lutie?”
I rushed to the swing and grabbed her and held her tight. “It’s you. It’s you!” I whispered. “Oh, Dorothy, are you all right?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered back.
Her face was seared with dirt, and I brushed back her hair, picking out leaves and twigs. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
“I wouldn’t have come here, but I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Of course you should have come here.”
“Don’t send me back to them. Please. I’ll earn my keep, and I won’t be any trouble. I’ll quit school and I’ll clean your house for you and do the laundry, and I’ll learn to cook. Just don’t send me back to Aunt Beulah.”
“Of course I won’t send you back. Why would you think that?”
Tears ran down Dorothy’s face, and she couldn’t look at me. “Aunt Beulah said you didn’t want me and told them to come and get me. She told me you wanted to send me to an orphanage, but I was too old and I’d be put out on the street. They were the only ones who would take me, and if I caused any trouble or told anyone about Uncle Gus and Papa, I’d be sorry.”
“They lied,” I said, appalled that anyone could be so callous. “You’re my sister. I love you. I want you more than anything in the world. Did you know the police have been looking all over for you so that they could bring you back to me? Your aunt and uncle are in jail, and they’re going to stay there a long time, maybe forever.” I held out the paper so that she could read the headlines.
Dorothy began to shiver, and I realized she had been in the cold a long time. Although she was now almost as big as I was, I picked her up and carried her into the house. I all but collapsed onto the couch with her and sat with her in my lap, wiping the tears from her face and cooing a little.
After a time, I said we must let Gil know she was safe. And Mrs. Howell. And the police. “Everyone has been looking for you. Oh, Dorothy, I was so scared I’d never see you again.”
Dorothy turned her sweet, angelic smile on me and said, “I love you, Lutie.”
I told her I must make the telephone calls, but first I would give her a bath and find her some clean clothes.
She stood up, then looked down at her new orange coat. “It’s spoiled. I ripped it when I crawled out the window. And I lost a shoe,” she said. “But I got away.”
“How?” I asked.
“They said we had to hide. They were fighting, and they took me on a long drive. I was at that house before, with Papa. They put me in a back room, but I could hear them talking. Aunt Beulah said she didn’t trust me. I think she wanted to kill me. I knew I had to run away, but Uncle Gus had locked the door. He forgot to lock the window, though. I opened it and jumped out, but I broke the glass.” She showed me the scratches on her hands from the glass shards. “My coat got torn. I ran. I heard them call me, but I didn’t stop. I remembered that Papa took me there on the trolley, so I followed the tracks. It took a long time because it was so far away and I had to hide when a car went by. Then I recognized some buildings, and I knew how to get to your house.”
“Our house,” I said softly.
“I didn’t want to wake you up, so I sat on the swing. Then I was so tired I couldn’t wait for you to wake up, so I went to sleep.”
In the bathroom I took off Dorothy’s remaining shoe and her socks and helped her out of her coat. I turned on the taps, and when the tub was full, I left Dorothy to climb in by herself. I collected her clothes and put them beside the back door. Later, I would throw them into the ash pit, her coat as well. Even if the coat was salvageable, Dorothy would not want to wear it again. I left the bathroom door ajar and went to the telephone and asked for the police station. Detective Thrasher was out, but Detective McCauley was there. “Dorothy’s here. She’s safe,” I told him. “She ran off after all, and she came here.”
“Isn’t that fine! We’ll call off the search.” I was about to hang up when he said, “I never saw my partner so upset about a case before. You think maybe him and me could stop by and talk to the little girl sometime? I mean, we have to interview her, but we might just like to say hello now and then.”
“She would like that,” I said.
Next I telephoned Gil, who said he would be right over, and then Mrs. Howell.
“The two of you must have time to be together. I shall not call for a few days. But tell Dorothy I love her and that I am praying for her,” she said.
I did not return to work for a week, and I was pleased that Neusteter’s had not replaced me. Perhaps that was because I had become a sort of celebrity. The newspapers did not let go of Dorothy’s kidnapping, and every story mentioned me. There were even likenesses of me and reports that I worked at Neusteter’s. When I walked into the store on my first day back, the other employees applauded, and Mr. Meyer Neusteter personally came into the advertising department to tell me he was glad that Dorothy was safe.
By then the tenants had moved into the basement apartment, so Dorothy did not have to come home from school to an empty house. Still, I talked with a real estate agent about selling the place and buying another one. I had been happiest in that house, with Helen and Peter, but I had been saddest, too, and Dorothy must have bad memories of it as well. It would be best if we could start over in another home. Gil and Mrs. Howell agreed. She invited Dorothy and me to live with the judge and her until we found a place, but I thought Dorothy and I should be on our own. As kind as the Howells were, I did not want us to be dependent on them. I think Mrs. Howell understood.
We began looking at houses even before the court gave us its approval. The adoption was just a formality now. It was only a matter of signing papers. I did not think there was any great hurry.