She
slid off the desk. “Ready?”
“Any
guidelines?” I said.
“Lots,”
she said. “But nothing I need to spell out for you.”
* * *
Beth
Scoggins sat stiffly in one of Allison’s soft white chairs. When I entered, she
flinched, then she held her gaze steady. Allison made the introductions and I
held out my hand.
Beth’s
was narrow, freckled, cold. Nails bitten short. A hangnail caught on my flesh
momentarily as she pulled away.
I
said, “Thanks for meeting with me.”
She
shrugged. Her hair was straw clipped in a page. Worry lines tightened a narrow
mouth. Wide, brown eyes. Analytic.
Salesgirl
at The Gap, but tonight she wasn’t making use of the employee discount. Her
navy suit looked like vintage poly. A size too large. Grayish stockings encased
skinny legs. Blue flats with square toes, blue plastic purse on the floor next
to her. A string of costume pearls settled on her chest.
Costuming
herself as a dowdy, middle-aged woman from another decade.
Allison
settled behind her desk and I took the other white chair. The cushions were
warm and smelled of Allison. The position placed me three feet from Beth
Scoggins.
She
said, “Sorry for hanging up on you.”
“I’m
the one who should apologize.”
“Maybe
you did me a favor.” She glanced at Allison. “Dr. Gwynn said you work with the
police.”
“I
do.”
“So
what you told me, about research, it wasn’t true?”
“It’s
possible that I may look into the general topic of foster care, but right now
I’m focusing on some specific foster parents. Cherish and Drew Daney.”
“Drew
Daney abused me,” she said.
I
glanced at Allison. Allison’s eyes were on Beth. It brought back my intern
days. Talking to patients while being evaluated by supervisors behind one-way
mirrors.
Beth
said, “He started off being really nice and moral. I thought I’d found someone
honest.”
Her
eyes turned blank. Then they came back into focus and shifted toward Allison.
“Should I give all the background?”
“Whatever
seems right, Beth.”
Beth
breathed in deeply and squared her shoulders. “My father left my mother when I
was eighteen months old, he’s some kind of roofer but I don’t know much about
him and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My mother moved from Texas to
Willits— that’s up north— then she left
me
to raise horses in Kentucky
when I was eight. I have severe learning disabilities. We were always fighting
over school and everything else. She always told me I was a hard kid to raise
and when she moved away I figured it was my fault.”
Her
knees pressed together, glossy-silver knobs in gray nylon.
“She
always liked horses. My mother. Liked them better than me and I’m not just
saying that. I used to think it was because I gave her problems. Now I know she
was lazy, just wanted an animal that was easy to train.”
B
eth Scoggins stopped talking and stared at the
ceiling.
Allison
said, “Hon?”
Beth
lowered her head and nudged the purse on the floor with one shoe. Deep breath.
Her tale of abandonment continued in a soft, flat voice.
Cared
for by a widowed maternal grandmother who eked out a living running a thrift
shop. Passing through school without learning much. Discovering boys and dope
and alcohol and truancy at twelve, a habitual runaway by her thirteenth
birthday.
“Grandma
got mad but she always took me back. The cops said she could declare me
incorrigible but she figured she had to be a responsible person.”
If
she’d been my patient, I might’ve suggested that her grandmother cared about
her.
This
wasn’t therapy.
What
was it?
“The
last time, I ran all the way to Louisville. Took the bus and hitched and I
finally found her after a week. My mom. She had different hair, had got skinny,
was married to another horse groom and they had a baby, real cute, a little
girl. Amanda. She didn’t look a thing like me. My mother was like freaked
because I showed up. She couldn’t believe how big I got. She said I could stay.
I hung around for a few days but I don’t like horses and there was nothing for
me to do, so I came back. Grandma got liver disease from her drinking and died
and they collected her junk from the shop in boxes and took it away. Some
people from the state wanted to talk to me but I got out of there.”
She
went silent again.
A
history not unlike Troy’s and Rand’s. They’d murdered a child. This young woman
was struggling to make it. Coming along nicely, until a stranger called.
Allison
said, “You’re doing great, Beth.”
Beth’s
freckled hands gathered skirt fabric. “I went all the way up to Oregon, then
back to Willits. Some people were coming down to L.A. To see a concert at the
Anaheim Pond, they said they’d get me tickets. They didn’t but I was here so I
stayed. In Hollywood. I met some other people.”
She
blinked several times. “I ended up at a shelter in Glendale run by this church
school. They assigned me to Mrs. Daney and she was nice, her hair reminded me
of my mom’s. She said I could leave the shelter and move in with her, she had
other girls, everyone was cool, I just couldn’t use drugs. I moved in and it
was okay except there was too much praying and the other kids were mostly
Mexican. Mrs. Daney was homeschooling everyone, had all these books and lesson
plans. I was seventeen, hated school. Mrs. Daney said you should do something,
so I ended up being Mr. Daney’s assistant. That meant I’d go with him when he
went to all these places and help out.”
“What
kind of places?” I said.
“Sports
programs, churches, church camps. He drove around doing jobs.”
“Church
jobs?”
“Sometimes
he’d lead prayers or grace,” she said. “Mostly he was like a camp counselor or
a coach. Or he’d teach Bible. He did it because he needed the money.”
“He
told you that?”
“He
said that after he gave up a career as a minister he didn’t make enough money
to do just one job. Said all the foster money went to the kids. They did feed
us pretty good and we always had clean clothes even though it was mostly cheap
stuff. I was being his assistant for about a month when he started to abuse
me.”
She
stared at the carpet.
Allison
said, “You can stop any time.”
Beth chewed
her lower lip. “I think what he did was put something in my Seven-Up, a roofie
or something.”
“He
drugged you?” I said.
“I’m
pretty sure. We were in the car, driving home from some camp, and it was late
and he said he was hungry. We stopped at a Burger King and he bought a
cheeseburger for himself and two Seven-Ups. After I drank mine, I started to
feel sleepy. When I woke up, we were parked somewhere else, some road, real
dark. I was in the back of the car now, and he was next to me and my pants were
off and I knew from the smell that we did it.”
She
bent forward, as if in pain. Two breaths.
“After
that we started doing it pretty regularly. He never asked, just pulled over in
the car and led me to the backseat. He held my hand and opened the door for me
and talked nice and didn’t hurt me. It was always real quick, which made it
kind of like nothing. Sometimes he said thank you. It’s not like it
was . . . I mean . . . I wasn’t feeling much
those days.”
Moisture
collected in the corners of her eyes. “I guess I thought he cared about me
because sometimes he asked if I felt okay, was it good, could he do anything to
make it better.”
She
fingered her beads. “I lied and said it was great. A few months after we
started I was late for my period. When I told him is when he started acting
weird.”
Two
hands filled with fabric, gathered her skirt above her knees. She smoothed it
down quickly. Patted her eyes with her fingers.
“Weird,
how?” I said.
“Like
part of him was happy but part was freaking out.”
“Happy
about . . .”
“Getting
me pregnant. Like he was . . . he never said ‘Great, you’re
pregnant,’ but there was something . . . the way he looked at
me. Like he was . . . Dr. Gwynn?”
“Proud
of himself?” said Allison.
“Yeah,
proud of himself. Like look what
I
did.”
“But
there was also the angry part.”
“Exactly,
Dr. Gee. Like look what
you
did, stupid. He called it ‘the problem.’
It’s your problem, Beth, but I’m going to help you fix it. I said maybe I’m
just late, that happened before.” Her eyes shifted to the floor. “What I didn’t
tell him was that I was pregnant before, years ago, but I lost the baby— it
wasn’t really a baby, just a little glob of blood, I saw it in the toilet. This
was in Portland, the people I was hanging with took me to a free clinic. I got
scraped out and it hurt like cramps. I didn’t want to do that again unless I
was sure. He wouldn’t listen.”
Allison
said, “He demanded that you fix your problem.”
“He
said we can’t afford to wait, Bethy. That’s what he called me, Bethy, I hated
it but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
She
turned toward Allison. “Dumb, huh?”
“Not
at all, Beth. He manipulated you into thinking he was kind.”
Beth’s
eyes got wet. “Yes, exactly. Even when he talked about fixing my problem, he
was patient. But he wouldn’t let me disagree. Put a finger on my lips when I
tried to say let’s wait. ’Cause I didn’t want to be scraped again. Anyway, the
next day, he told Mrs. Daney we were going to a sports night out somewhere far.
In Thousand Oaks, I think. Instead we went to this place, a clinic, that was
close to the house. It was nighttime and the place looked closed but the doctor
was like come on in. She put me in a room and I got aborted really quick.”
“Remember
the doctor’s name?” I said.
“She
never said. She had an accent. Short and dark, kind of . . . not
fat but . . . thick, you know? Like she’d have a hard time
wearing fitted jeans, would need relaxed fit? There was no one there with her
but she moved real quickly, everything went real quick. Afterward, Drew was
hungry and we went out for doughnuts. I had some cramps but they weren’t so
bad. A few days after that, he stopped taking me to the nonprofits and he got
another girl to be his assistant. A new one, she’d just been there a couple of
days. I guess I felt jealous. For sure I was real bored so I took some money
out of his wallet and went to Fresno. I met some new people. Dr. Gee? I’m
thirsty.”
* * *
She
finished two cups of water. “Thanks, that was refreshing.” To me: “You can ask
me questions if you want.”
“Do
you remember the name of the girl who became Mr. Daney’s new assistant?”
“Miranda.
Don’t know her last name. She was younger than me, maybe sixteen. Mexican, like
I said, most of the girls were Mexican. She thought she was street but she was
just spoiled— had attitude. When she became his assistant, she was like, I’m
all
that.
”
She
twisted and faced Allison: “Maybe I should’ve told her, Dr. Gee. What being an
assistant was. But even though she was just there a few days she was mean to me
and I figured if she was all that, she could handle it.”
“You
had a lot to deal with. It wasn’t your responsibility to protect anyone else,”
said Allison.
“I
guess . . . also, like you were saying before, I didn’t really
figure out it was abuse. I thought it was . . .”
“Attention.”
Beth faced
me. “I had no feelings back then, it felt like attention.”
Tears
trickled from her eyes and she turned back to Allison. “What you said last
week, Dr. Gee? Everyone looks for someone to attach to? I guess that was it.”
Allison
walked around her desk and stood next to Beth. Beth held out her hand and
Allison took it.
“I’m
okay. Really . . . sir— Doctor— you can ask questions.”
“You’re
sure?” I said.
“Yeah.”
Allison
patted Beth’s arm and returned to her seat.
I
said, “Do you think Mrs. Daney knew what Mr. Daney was doing?”
“I
don’t know. He was always lying to her. About little things, like it was fun to
fool her.”
“What
kind of little things?”
“Buying
doughnuts and candy and hiding them in his Jeep. He’d be like, ‘Cherish doesn’t
want me to spend money on junk food, but we won’t tell her, huh?’ Then he’d
wink. Like I was part of the . . . scheme, I guess you’d call
it. But then he didn’t share the doughnuts and the candy. He was like, ‘You’ve
got to keep that fantastic figure, Bethy.’ ”
She
laughed. “Like I was some supermodel. Mrs. Daney was the strict one. Making all
the rules, making the kids do their lessons. She could be a little bossy. I
figured she didn’t have much fun.”