CHAPTER 5

When two goats meet upon a narrow bridge over deep water, how do they behave?

Martin Luther

There were two of them, a man and a woman, both in uniform.

“Mr. Starr?” said the man. “My name’s McCormack. This is Sergeant Steeple.”

Alan glanced at McCormack’s identification and stood back to let them in. They looked at him curiously and followed him into Rosie Hall’s living room, their eyes roving left and right, taking in the harpsichord, the playpen, the sleeping baby.

McCormack looked tired. He plopped himself down on the sofa. “You say the door was open? Give me that again.”

Alan explained again in more detail. McCormack’s face was mobile. His eyebrows went up and down, he smiled, he frowned, he scribbled in a pocket notebook. Sergeant Steeple stood solemnly at one side, refusing to sit. Her face was expressionless, her jaw large, her bosom massive.

McCormack put away his notebook. His eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t the church next door the one where they had that fire last year?”

“Oh, that’s right. That’s why I’m here. I’m installing the new organ. I was on my way in, and there was this baby on the church steps.”

Sergeant Steeple walked heavily to the playpen and looked down at Charley. “This is the child?”

Well, naturally it’s the child. Who did you think it was? Alan watched as she bent over stiffly and picked up Charley. For the first time it dawned on him that this formidable woman would be in charge of the baby from now on. He felt a pang of dismay. “Hey,” he said impulsively, taking a step toward her, “wait a minute.”

Sergeant Steeple straightened up with a creak of her corset and looked at him sternly, holding Charley at arm’s length like a sack of flour. Charley woke up and burst into loud sobs. “Well?” said Sergeant Steeple, glaring at Alan.

He reached for the baby. “Let me take him.”

Charley howled. Sergeant Steeple shouted above the racket, “What’s it to you? I thought you were a stranger, right?”

“Well, sure, but maybe I can calm him down.”

Reluctantly she dumped Charley into Alan’s arms. The baby quieted at once, and began sucking his thumb. Sergeant Steeple looked resentful. “Where’s all the kid’s things?”

Alan led the way into the baby’s room, feeling heartsick. Poor little Charley, what was going to happen to him now?

He left the policewoman to gather Charley’s clothes, and went into the kitchen with the baby in his arms to find McCormack on his knees, using a pipette to get a blood sample from the floor. McCormack got to his feet with a wheeze. Alan watched as he emptied the sample into a small jar, screwed the cap on tightly and enclosed jar and pipette in a plastic bag.

“Will you be able to identify whose blood it is?” said Alan.

“Well, of course we can figure out the blood type. Then we’ll try to get the mother’s medical records. Maybe the baby was born in a local hospital.” McCormack wagged his head wisely. “But even if it’s the same type, it wouldn’t prove it was hers.”

Sergeant Steeple appeared, carrying a plastic bag bulging with Charley’s possessions.

“Sergeant,” said Alan, appealing to her, “what happens to the baby from now on?”

She glowered at him. “Relatives, we look for relatives. If he’s got no relatives, he goes into foster care.”

“You mean some stranger might be taking care of him?” Suddenly it seemed terrible to Alan that this marvelous child should be sent out into the bureaucratic world of Boston’s social welfare system all by himself. “Hey, why don’t you let me take care of him?”

The policewoman narrowed her eyes. “Who are you anyway, the father? Lotsa times it’s the father kidnaps the child. How come you’re so interested in this kid? Here, let me have him.”

Alan held Charley tighter, and backed away. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m not his father. I told you, his father’s dead. I never saw this baby before in my life. I never saw his mother. I’ve never been in this house before. I found the baby on the steps of the church, like I told you, and I only figured he came from here because the door was open.”

“Well, okay,” said Sergeant Steeple, “but I can’t give this baby to nobody without they go through the Department of Social Services.” Reaching for Charley, she tried to tug him away. Alan hung on. For a moment there was a tussle, with Charley whimpering in the middle.

Alan gave up. There was no point in arguing. “Well, look. Can I find out where he’s going to be, so I can visit him?”

Primly the woman gathered Charley to her stiff bosom. At once he began to cry. She shouted above his sobs, “Social Services. You got to ask them.”

“Jesus,” said McCormack, holding his ears. “I get enough of this at home.”

“What are you going to do about Rosie?” shouted Alan. They looked at him blankly. “His mother, Rosalind Hall. She’s missing, remember?”

McCormack reached up and plucked something from the kitchen wall. It was a key, dangling from a board. “We’ll send over a detective. Missing persons, we’ve got a department, they’ve got a system.” He tried the key in the front door. It worked. Then McCormack wandered around the apartment, giving it a cursory examination.

Alan watched him try the bureau drawers in Rosie’s bedroom and open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and shuffle the papers on her desk. Pulling something out of the pile he held it up, a money clip of twenty-dollar bills. “No burglary, apparently. Okay, we’re through for now. Come on, we’ll turn out the lights and lock the place up.”

Alan followed them out of the apartment to the sidewalk. Charley was still crying in Sergeant Steeple’s embrace. Alan watched as they got into the cruiser. His heart ached for Charley, who was reaching out his arms over the sergeant’s thick blue shoulder.

“Bye-bye, Charley,” he said, trying to smile, waving his hand. He stood helplessly on the sidewalk as the cruiser drove away, Charley’s screams fading as the car moved in the direction of Dartmouth Street.

Three hours earlier Alan had not known of the existence of young Charley Hall. How could such a short acquaintance with this little blob of human flesh leave him so bereft? His peace of mind was fractured. Turning away from Rosalind Hall’s apartment, he walked to the church, climbed the steps and tried the door. It was locked. He fumbled in his pocket for the key.

Inside the vestibule there were only glimmers of light from the street lamps outside, superimposing the shadows of bare branches over the geometric patterns of the William Morris tiles on the floor. The sanctuary too was dark and silent. Castle had gone home.

Only the stained-glass windows were dimly visible—the Wise and Foolish Virgins over the pulpit to the east, the Three Kings to the south, Daniel in the Lions’ Den to the north, and Moses and the Burning Bush at the west end of the balcony, in a forest of new organ pipes. The symbolism connecting the four windows was a mystery, but they were famous creations from the workshop of John La Farge.

Alan looked up at the Three Kings. The sky behind the three majestic figures was made of light-refracting blue glass knobs the size of Ping-Pong balls. In the kings’ hands as they knelt before the child in the manger were pale objects of yellow glass, chalices gleaming like gold.

Charley Hall too was a baby, but nobody was bringing him presents of gold and frankincense and myrrh. In his case it was all misery, loneliness and abandonment—that was what the chalices of the Department of Social Services would be offering to Charley Hall.