“Call the school, I suppose,” Rose said. “Talk to Dr. Belter. He wanted to know if anything unusual happened. And God knows this is unusual.”
“What axe we going to tell him?” Jack said uneasily. “That Sarah found a couple of things and we think she killed the cat?”
“I don’t know,” Rose replied. “I’ll just tell him exactly what happened and see what he thinks about it.”
“When are you going to call him?” A note of belligerence had crept into his voice.
“Right now,” Rose replied, moving to the phone. She dialed the telephone, and was connected to the doctor a couple of minutes later. He listened to her story, and when she finished he asked some questions.
“How is she now?” he wanted to know.
“Sarah? I guess she’s all right. She doesn’t seem to be upset, if that’s what you mean. She’s upstairs, sleeping.”
Dr. Belter considered, then spoke again.
“Why don’t you both come to the school on Monday? You and your husband? Then we can talk about it Can it wait until then?”
“Well, I suppose so,” Rose said, but she wasn’t sure it could. Dr. Belter heard the uneasiness in her voice.
“I’ll tell you what. If anything else happens, you call me, and I’ll be right out there. Otherwise, I’ll see you on Monday.”
“All right,” Rose agreed. “I suppose that’ll be fine. Thank you, Doctor.” She hung up the phone, and was about to tell Jack what had been arranged when she saw his eyes move from her own to a spot behind her and the blood drain from his face. She whirled around, not knowing what to expect.
It was Elizabeth, and she was a mess. The dress that had been so clean when she left the house was now filthy, covered with mud, and the muck was streaked over her face as well.
“My God,” Rose said. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, and it was the voice of a small girl. “I was out by the quarry. I slipped in the mud.”
“What were you doing out there?” Jack demanded. “You could have killed yourself.”
Elizabeth seemed on the verge of tears. “I said I was sorry,” she repeated. “I’m all right It’s—it’s only mud.”
“That dress,” Rose snapped. “You’ve ruined that dress. Get it off immediately and give it to Mrs. Goodrich. Maybe she can save it.”
Elizabeth burst into tears and fled from the room. Rose watched her go, and doubted that Mrs. Goodrich would be able to save the dress. It looked to be as ruined as the afternoon. Rose, too, felt like crying.
“Oh, shit,” she said miserably.
“It’s only a dress,” Jack said soothingly.
“No it’s not,” Rose said. “It’s everything.” She felt the hopelessness sweep over her.
13
“And that’s where we are as of now,” Dr. Ciarles Belter concluded, closing the file in front of him. He glanced around the room, noting that Marie Montgomery looked unhappy and Josephine Wells looked annoyed. The three of them were waiting for Jack and Rose Conger, and Josephine Wells had suggested that it would be a good idea to review the entire file before their arrival. The mind of a bureaucrat, Dr. Belter had thought, but he had complied. Now he looked at Josephine Wells. “Any questions?”
“It strikes me,” Josie Wells said, and Dr. Belter noted to himself that things invariably “struck” Josie Wells, “that there must be a lot more going on here than we know about.”
Dr. Belter tried to keep his face straight, and did his best to nod gravely. “Go on,” he said, knowing that she would anyway.
“It strikes me,” Miss Wells said again, and this time Charles Belter had to fight down an impulse to do exactly that, “that we should be looking beyond Sarah as an individual, and trying, rather, to fathom the greater socio-psychological factors involved within the structure of the prime unit.”
“If you mean we should talk to her family,” Dr. Belter remarked drily, “that’s exactly what we’re about to do. If they ever get here.” He glanced at his watch and noted that it was still five minutes until the time the Congers were due. He braced himself to tolerate further pontificating from the social worker.
“What I’m trying to say,” Miss Wells said, tapping her front teeth with the end of the Pentel she always carried, apparently for no other purpose, since she rarely took notes, “is that what we seem to have here is a clear case of regression.” Miss Wells, who felt that her Master of Social Welfare degree qualified her as a psychologist,