Free Good Intentions by Joy Fielding Page B

on for a number of months, yet you waited until now to phone us. Did something happen last night?”
    “If you’d heard that child crying, you wouldn’t have to ask. I just couldn’t take listening to it anymore.”
    “Did your husband hear the crying as well?”
    “Well, of course.”
    “Could I speak to him?”
    “Oh no, no, no,” Mrs. Messenger trilled, her hands fluttering wildly in front of her. “Leave him out of this. He doesn’t want to get involved. He told me not to call you. He said that nobody would believe me. That Mr. Foster is an important man in the community. No, no, no. Leave my husband out of this.”
    Lynn lowered her pen to her lap, aware that Mrs. Messenger seemed to be holding her breath. “What makes you so sure that it’s
Mrs.
Foster who’s abusing her daughter, and not Mr. Foster?”
    “Oh no, no, no,” the woman said again, this time with conviction rounding out the vowels. “Mr. Foster is a gentleman. He would never do anything to hurt a child. It’s his wife. She’s much younger than he is. Young enough to be his daughter. His granddaughter, even. Pretty enough, I suppose. She doesn’t do much. Sits around the pool all day in her bikini. Don’t know why she had children. They’re not allowed, you know. At least that was my impression when we bought the place, bought it while it was still under construction. We have a real eye for beauty, my husband and I. Decorated it ourselves. Please be careful with that pen.”
    Lynn put the cap back on the black felt pen, closed her notebook, and returned both to her briefcase. It was obvious she had already received whatever worthwhile information she was going to get from Mrs. Davia Messenger, and she was afraid that if she stayed anylonger, the woman might break into hives. “Thank you, Mrs. Messenger. I think I’ll talk to the Fosters now.”
    “You can’t do that.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Don’t you see? She’ll see you came from my house, and she’ll know I was the one who reported her. She’s a very vindictive person.”
    Lynn Schuster stared deeply into the eyes of the woman who was squinting in her direction, watching them narrow further to emphasize her point, aware that she was not the most credible of witnesses, but aware also that each report of suspected child abuse had to be investigated fully.
    “I assure you your identity will be kept confidential.”
    “She’ll try to fool you, of course. She can be very persuasive. You mustn’t underestimate her,” Mrs. Messenger continued as she followed Lynn to the front door, then hid behind it as Lynn stepped outside into the hot sunshine.
    Davia Messenger was an unpleasant, possibly even unbalanced woman, Lynn was thinking as she cut across the narrow strip of lawn to the house next door. She would make a most unreliable witness in court. With that in mind, Lynn knocked tentatively on the Fosters’ door, and was relieved to discover that no one was home.
    A few minutes later, she was sitting in her car in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam. It was extremely hot, and already cars on the busy highway were starting to overheat. Motorists who were stranded on the side of the road, their faces polished in sweat, their mouths distorted with agitation, stood beside raised hoods, steam shootingfrom overheated engines. Lynn observed them dispassionately, reaching over and flicking off her own air conditioning to spare herself the same fate, lowering her window instead, feeling the immediate attack of hot air as it quickly clambered in through the open window, as if it too was looking for a place to escape. Lynn rested her elbow on the car door, withdrawing it almost instantly, feeling her flesh burn as if she had pressed it against a lit torch.
    She peered out her front window, trying to make out what was causing the delay, but a large yellow van with bright flowers painted across its back window blocked her view. In the car to her right, a man and a woman were