CHAPTER 56

Ah! how bitter an enemy is the devil.

Martin Luther

Next day Mary Kelly took up the crusade, the question of Pansy Kraeger’s problematical panties. She began with the daycare centers. The women in charge would be surely be experts in the toilet training of small children.

Pansy had been enrolled in a couple of different places, the center at the church and another one called Mother Goose Land on Hereford Street. And Martin thought there had been another before that.

Mary began with the church. But Ruth Raymond was too busy to talk. She was trying to handle a group of fifteen small tots with the help of only one other woman. “Cecily, stop talking. Scott, put that down. Karen, leave Becky alone.” In answer to Mary’s question about Pansy Kraeger, she said, “Oh, isn’t it dreadful? How could he? We’re all so upset.”

Mary suppressed a sharp retort and said blandly, “Well, some of us think the charge isn’t true.” Folding herself double, she sat down on a tiny chair.

Ruth wasn’t listening. Darting forward, she helped a small girl clamber to the top of a pint-sized jungle gym and climb down again. “Oh, we made such an awful mistake last month,” she said, plopping down beside Mary in another small chair. “I don’t know how long I can stand it. Cecily, stop that noise!”

“An awful mistake?”

“We took in eight more children, all at once, just like that.”

“Eight more, in the middle of the year?”

“Well, we had extra help then. But Marcia resigned because she was getting married, and then Joanie got mono, and Ann and I—well, we had a fight, we were both so tired, and I said something I shouldn’t have said, and she left, so here I am. Sometimes I can get a mother to help, like today—thank God for Mrs. Benjamin—but most of the mothers are working. I mean, that’s why the kids are here, so their mothers can work. I’m only barely legal. Some days I’m not even that, like today.”

“But why were there suddenly eight more children?”

“Oh, the other daycare center in this neighborhood, Kiddy Kamp, closed down. The kids had to go somewhere, and we thought we could handle them—we were glad of the extra money, so we took them.” Ruth lowered her voice and whispered in Mary’s ear, “Mrs. Benjamin had her little boy there. See, there he is, climbing into her lap. I asked her what the trouble was. I mean, I heard there was some sort of scandal, but she buttoned her lip and wouldn’t tell me. Cecily, I don’t want to speak to you again!”

Mary had another question, but it was interrupted by a noisy argument over a tricycle. It took both Mrs. Benjamin and Ruth Raymond to handle it. Then a small moppet bashed another one with a tin pan from the toy stove. Ruth darted away to comfort the victim.

Mary went to Mrs. Benjamin and sat down beside her, folding her long legs once again. “Oh, Mrs. Benjamin, I understand there was some sort of trouble at Kiddy Kamp. Can you tell me what happened?”

Mrs. Benjamin was a black woman with a smooth kindly face. She looked at Mary and shook her head, but Cecily piped up brightly. “It was Pansy. Pansy went to the bathroom in her—”

“Ssshhh, Cecily.” Mrs. Benjamin touched Mary’s arm. “Talk to Millie Weideman. It was her daycare center. She’ll tell you all about it.” Mrs. Benjamin opened a book and held it up for the children to see. “Now look, everybody, who’s that?”

“HORTON THE ELEPHANT,” shouted all the children, crowding close to her knees, eager to climb the first rung of the ladder of education.

“Thank you, Mrs. Benjamin. Thank you, Mrs. Raymond.” Mary left the daycare center and found her way to the public phone in the vestibule of the church. She was pleased to find Kiddy Kamp in the phone book, even though it was defunct. “Is this Millie Weideman?”

“Speaking.”

“My name’s Mary Kelly. My husband and I are friends of Martin Kraeger, the minister of the Church of the Commonwealth. I understand his daughter Pansy was enrolled in your daycare center. Might I come to see you and talk about Pansy?”

“Talk about Pansy?” Millie Weideman made a sound that was half laugh, half snort. “Why not? Come right over. I’d be delighted to talk about Pansy Kraeger.”

It was only five blocks up Clarendon Street to Millie Weideman’s apartment. The day was mild. Mary swung along, enjoying the way the mirrored surface of the Hancock Tower reflected the blue sky and Trinity Church and the pedestrians on the sidewalk. She crossed St. James Avenue toward her own wobbly reflection, then broke into a run.

Millie Weideman’s building was one of a row of town houses that were downmarket versions of the grand dwellings on Commonwealth Avenue. Her apartment was small, crowded with paraphernalia from the discontinued daycare center.

“Don’t trip over the cats,” said Millie, leading the way to a couple of chairs laden with toys and blocks. “Here, I’ll just shove all this stuff aside.” She picked up a plastic egg box filled with tiny plants growing in eggshells. “Look at that. What am I supposed to do with all these little clovers? The kids planted them. I suppose I should take them over to Commonwealth, but I don’t want to set eyes on Pansy Kraeger ever again.”

Mary made her way past a guinea pig in a cage full of shavings and a gerbil whirling on his exercise wheel. Picking up a Raggedy Ann she smoothed its apron and sat down. Four half-grown kittens tumbled over each other on the floor. “Tell me, what is it about Pansy that’s so disturbing?”

“Oh, Lord, it wasn’t Pansy, it was her mother.” Millie put her head in her hands. “Where to begin?”

“Can you tell me why you had to close down?”

“Mrs. Kraeger accused one of our mother-helpers of molesting one of the children. White child, black mother-helper. Pain.”

“Well, was the accusation true?”

“Of course it wasn’t true. The little kid couldn’t control her bladder. We had to keep changing her pants. We told her mother we couldn’t keep her because our kids had to be toilet-trained. I mean, we had a long list of children waiting for an opening. Their mothers needed to be working. They really needed a good daycare center. And we were good. Damn!”

“But why would Mrs. Kraeger make such an accusation?”

“Oh, she was insulted. She refused to believe her perfect little four-year-old needed her pants changed all the time. She accused us of—you know—wanting to handle her genitals or something.”

“But couldn’t you fight back?”

“Oh, God, we tried. We called in her complaint to Social Services immediately—you have to do that—and sent in a report, and then an inspector came and talked to everyone on the staff, and they exonerated us. But it didn’t make a hell of a bit of difference. That slimy woman called all the other mothers and got them excited too, and they all snatched their children out of Kiddy Kamp, so we had to close down. And now I’ve got this crazy thing on my record as a daycare administrator. I’m so mad I could spit.”

“So it was all Kay Kraeger’s doing,” murmured Mary, getting up to go.

“Kay Kraeger,” agreed Millie Weideman. “I hope she fries in hell.”