A Child is Torn: Innocence Lost (4 page)

“I just don’t know,” Marty muttered, shaking his head.

Trina came over to the table and refilled Paul’s diet coke.

“Need another beer Marty?” she asked. She smiled broadly, showing a small gap between her front teeth that Marty would normally have found attractive. Tonight, he wasn’t in the mood; besides, Trina was far too young for him. She was barely out of high school, and from what he heard, she’d been through half the cops in town. When Marty shook his head and told her “No thanks,” she started to walk away.

“What about me?” Justin called after her. “What am I, a box of rocks?”

“Depends on what part of your anatomy we’re talking about, Thyme,” she responded, blowing him an animated kiss as she flitted away to another table.

“Look guys, I think I’m going to call it a night.” Marty stood up, leaving his plate unfinished. He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Catch you guys tomorrow.”

They said their goodnights, and Marty walked out of the bar and into the well-lit parking lot. The headlights of a car blinded him momentarily as he got into his car. As he started up the car, the radio came on. It had been tuned to the news, so he wasn’t surprised to hear the middle of a report about the murder of a Sullivan County couple by their ten-year-old son. Information was sketchy, but sources reported that the child was being sent to the Armistace clinic for observation. Marty didn’t know why, but he felt compelled to go to the hospital and see the boy. Maybe it was to get answers. Maybe because he felt he had to look in that child’s eyes again and ask him what had happened.

“But not tonight,” he said out loud.

Instead, he drove to the house he grew up in. The one he now shared with the Captain. He and his dad were the only ones left at the house; all of his siblings were grown-up and married with families of their own, scattered all over the state. Marty came home to live with the Captain after his sister called with some concerns about his dad

“Marty,” she said, late one night. He had been entertaining and she had caught him at an inopportune moment. “I’m worried about the Captain; something isn’t right.”

He’d been about to make an excuse and hang up on Mary—tell her to stop being such a worrywart, that the Captain was probably out running errands and he would call her in the morning. He was enjoying what’s-her-name nibbling on his stomach. But a little voice in the back of his head changed his mind and he asked her what she meant.

“I’ve been trying to reach him for hours Marty; he isn’t answering. He knew I was going to call him this morning. I tried calling his neighbor Jack to check on him, but there’s no answer there either. Can you just run over there and see?”

He hung up with Mary, and after apologizing to the lady for the interruption, he got into his car and headed to the Captain’s house.

When he got to the house, he found his dad semi-conscious and moaning on the living room floor. He’d slipped on a loose piece of carpeting and had been lying unable to move for hours, unable to reach the phone and call for help. Turned out his father had broken his hip.

By the time the Captain had gotten home from rehab, Marty had sublet his apartment to his friend Justin and was back in his old room; he’d been there ever since. Somebody had to take care of the Captain, and there was no question in Marty’s mind whose job that was going to be.

There was also no question in Marty’s mind that he wanted to go home and make sure that the Captain was okay. The vision of Brad’s parents’ bodies flashed before his eyes again, which made him want to go home and be with his dad more than ever. Besides, he had some studying to do.

He was disappointed when he got home. He had forgotten it was the Captain’s poker night. Still hungry, he grabbed a bowl of cold cereal and began studying for the detective’s exam. He fell asleep long before his dad got home.

Hope

I must have been a lot more exhausted than I even realized because the minute my head hit the pillow I fell into a deep sleep. For the first time in months I slept through the night. The sunlight poured through the slats in my window treatments the next morning waking me up. I couldn’t get that little boy’s face out of my mind. His words echoed over and over in my mind and I tried to shake the sound of his timid voice from my head; but it was useless.

I recalled how I tried inconspicuously to look for physical evidence of abuse and not finding any.

I dragged myself out of my bed and into the bathroom, looking forward to a hot shower. Glancing at the mirror on the back of the door, I took inventory of what I saw in the reflection; I was still in pretty good shape. I could still get into those size-three jeans from my college days hanging in my closet. So what if a few grey hairs had popped up where the dark brown used to be? As my best friend from high school, Diane, would say, “You’re still hot, Hope.”

Thank God for Diane, because in my mother’s opinion, I always had room for improvement.

“Before you know it, Hope, you’ll be going on singles cruises with middle-aged men. Maybe you should get breast implants. Men like big boobies. Maybe if they were bigger Richard would still be around.”

It’s true that I was thirty-two years old and divorced, but it wasn’t my fault; Richard was an idiot. Trust me, he’s an idiot. If he preferred that busty cocktail waitress, his loss. Honestly, I think Richard was jealous of my being a doctor. He’d been premed but couldn’t cut it, so he’d dropped out to help run the family business. They owned a slew of restaurants around the state so Richard traveled a lot. What I didn’t know then was that because of the hours they work, the people in the restaurant business had a lot of extra personal business going on as well. Like his own father, Richard became a serial cheater— one waitress after another. More often than not, he carried on with more than one at a time. It took me a few years to figure out that all those wrong numbers and hang-ups weren’t really wrong numbers, but very anxious or angry ladies trying to get a message to my husband. It’s funny how hindsight can clear up old mysteries.

Like the time some bimbo drove onto our front lawn and poured something on it. We saw her do it from the front window; Richard looked just as bewildered as I was. I thought it was just some teenage-prank and forgot about it until I woke up the next morning. There had been a hard rain during the night. Turned out that what had been poured on my lawn was laundry detergent. My front yard looked like a giant bubble bath. It took us months to get the lawn back in shape and even longer for the neighbors to stop talking about it. I found out years later it hadn’t been a teenager, but a disgruntled waitress he had been dating. She’d been furious when she found out my husband, who was cheating on me, was cheating on her. Go figure.

Showered, dressed, and ready to roll, I grabbed a banana from the basket in the kitchen and headed to the hospital. I was hoping the detectives had found out more information about the child. Usually in cases like this, you’d find a horror story behind the horror story. I was sure I was going to find out that Brad’s mom or dad had done something terrible to him. Or maybe it’d been a teacher, a neighbor, or even the uncle. There weren’t any obvious signs of abuse— no bruises, cuts, cigarette burns, no malnutrition. I hoped my office had received his previous medical records so I could see if there were any past incidents, like broken bones, that were unexplained. Somewhere there was an answer to this puzzle. I just had to find the right pieces and connect them. The question was, even if I had all the answers, would I be able help this child? I must have been lost in my own thoughts because the next thing I knew I was pulling into my parking spot at the clinic. Every time I saw it from this angle, I was awestruck. It was an architectural piece of art. The giant pillars that enveloped the wraparound porch reminded me of the plantation in
Gone with the Wind
. The walls were covered with climbing ivy that glistened in the sun and swayed slightly in the wind. The building sat on a hill that looked down on miles of pasture covered with spots of colorful wild flowers and a few live oak trees. We didn’t worry about security or children wandering off because the height made it possible to see for miles from anywhere on the premises.

Although a state institution, it had been given a private endowment by a reclusive gentleman that nobody really knew. No one knew why Mr. Armistace gave enormous amounts of donations to the hospital. The hospital was state of the art. If the administrators needed something, a phone call was made to Mr. Armistace’s solicitors and before you knew it, we received the new x- ray machine, or computer systems, or new toys for the kids. In that aspect, our situation was very different from other institutions, and I wasn’t about to complain.

The interior of the hospital was just as elaborate as the exterior. Large, intricately carved wooden front doors with frosted glass panels opened to faux-marble gray-tiled floors. The high cathedral ceilings had large, wooden paddle fans every few yards that kept the air circulating. The walls were decorated with children’s artwork; some showing remarkable talent, and others painstakingly bad. Most of the art hinted at silent screams of emotional pain; evidence of the artist’s demons. All of the artwork, whether simple crayon scribbles or skilled works of genius, were set in well-crafted wooden frames also created by the children in the well-equipped wood shop.

“Morning, Dr. Rubin,” a deep baritone voice said behind me.

It was the usual singsong welcome from Gabby, our janitor. I smiled in reply and tap danced around his newly mopped floor. Gabby picked up the small trashcan to his left and held it out so I could throw away my banana peel. I quickly swallowed the last bite and said, “Thank you.”

“Papers from the Madison case are on your desk,” Judy called out as she rushed by me. Never slowing down, Judy continued, “I’ve got a meeting; Madison is expected this afternoon, by two. I’ll catch you later.” 

Not waiting for my reply, she was gone in a flash. I put my briefcase on the leather sofa that often served as a trampoline for my manic patients, and turned on my coffee machine. I was way overdue for my second cup, which was usually waiting for me; my secretary, Sandy, was on vacation.

Coffee cup in hand, I sat down, opening the file. I skimmed over the first few pages of the standard police report. The name of the officer who’d been first on the scene sounded familiar. “Keal,” I murmured, “Who is that?” It took me a few seconds to recall that I’d seen him here once or twice before. Occasionally, a child would commit an assault or cause damage to some property, and we’d have no other choice but call in the authorities. “Yeah, he’s the one with the six-pack abs,” I recalled. “Stop it,” I admonished myself. “Get a grip.”

As I came across the crime scene photos, I stopped daydreaming about the cop with the tight abs. Even though they were low-quality copies they were still extremely graphic; I almost lost my breakfast. Brad’s mother, Caroline Madison, lay on the floor with her arm outstretched as if pleading for help. Her face was almost completely flattened. The next picture was of her husband, Evan. It looked like he’d been attacked in his sleep, unaware of the imminent danger. His face had been buried in the pillow; the back of his head was caved in. Dried blood was caked around his right ear. Another picture showed the alleged weapon, a baseball bat, laying on the floor next to the dresser. Above it was a large mirror, in which Mr. Madison’s reflection could be seen.

The official cause of death was still to be determined, as well the time. There was a note with a question mark next to it reading that the temperature in the room had been extremely low.

I wondered if someone thought this was a well-thought-out crime, the evidence manipulated by making the time of death hard to determine. I glanced down to see whose signature was on the report. It was Moran’s, the older detective, not his partner, Jean Whitley. I asked myself if they were questioning the fact that a ten-year-old child was capable of manipulating this kind of crime scene. After seeing the photos, I wondered if this child was physically capable of causing such horrific damage.

The emergency room report stated that the child appeared to be in good physical health. Slightly small in stature for his age, and on the low end of the normal weight scale, but nothing remarkable. There was no evidence of broken bones, past or present. He seemed slightly disoriented, which was probably normal, given what had happened. He was able to answer simple questions—name, age, what day it was—but would break into sobs when feeling overwhelmed.

I knew it was too early, but I was hoping to see Brad’s primary physician and his school reports. I wanted to know if he’d been treated for psychological problems before this incident, and how he acted and interacted in school. I made a note to get those reports as soon as possible, and perhaps interview his teacher.

I sat back in the chair, sighed, took a last gulp of coffee, and then prepared to make rounds. I had other children to care for; I had other souls to save.