by R C Barnes
Our fathers weren’t men who had ditched a pregnant woman and run off to escape the demands and responsibilities. Our fathers were men who never knew they were fathers. My mother had cheated them of the knowledge, but if they learned the truth now, Echo and I could be separated. Two men would learn they had abandoned children they didn’t know existed. And just like that, their rights, their legal custody rights, would take precedence. There were no grandparents to fight for us and challenge the custody. My mother would be vilified.
I sat down in the visitor’s chair, pulling it up alongside the bed so I could lay my head on the blankets covering her legs. “I love you,” I whispered to the battered creature lying on the bed. I don’t think I have ever felt so scared and alone.
An hour passed, maybe two, and Dusty poked her head into the room. “The police are outside,” she said.
I stepped into the corridor and saw Officer Lopez was there along with another policeman. He was a tall guy with rugged features. Officer Lopez was in uniform, but the other cop wore clothes that looked like he slept in them. He was all disheveled in khaki pants and a battered bomber jacket, but he held an erect posture like a steel rod was going right through him. His badge was clipped to his jacket. A toothpick moved back and forth in his mouth.
Officer Lopez spoke first. “Elizabeth, Bess, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry this has happened. Still, my colleague and I have several questions, and Ms. Lorazo, here believes you have most of the answers.”
“Todd did this,” I hissed. “Todd Mackey.”
“We believe that, as well. Ms. Lorazo is the one who found your mother on the floor of the studio this morning. Your mother was still conscious, and she named Mr. Mackey as the attacker. We’d like to get a time-line from you if possible.”
“And there is another problem,” Dusty interjected.
“What?” I turned to Dusty, who looked as awful as I felt. Her face was still white, and the only hint of color was her bloodshot eyes.
Officer Lopez eyeballed Dusty as if she was speaking out of turn. Suddenly, the other policeman spoke up. “We believe Mr. Mackey has your sister.”
“WHAT?!” I screamed.
Dusty ignored Officer Lopez’s stern look and filled me in quickly. Her usual slow country drawl was gone, and now she spoke like the Italian girl from Brooklyn that she genuinely was. “I went to the high school to collect you as soon as the ambulance delivered her to the hospital. I thought it best to leave Echo at school, given your mother’s condition.” I nodded as that was sound thinking. “I was going to contact the family that watches Echo every now and then and see if they could take her. Then the school called to check on your mother’s condition.”
“How did they know?” I asked.
“Exactly” was Dusty’s response. “Apparently, Todd went down there at noon and removed Echo from the classroom. He told the women at the front your mother had fallen ill, and he was taking Echo to the hospital.”
“So, where is he?” I demanded.
“We have multiple units on the lookout for him and your sister,” Officer Lopez responded. “We don’t believe he is going to harm her. However, we need to focus our efforts. I have to ask you why Mr. Mackey would have taken your sister, to begin with.”
The shock of the situation and fear for my sister’s safety clogged my brain. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I looked at Officer Lopez for relief. She guided me to a row of chairs in the hospital corridor. The act of sitting helped to bring the level of panic from a high to a moderate level. “My mother didn’t come home last night,” I said to the officers.
Dusty reacted in surprise. “What do you mean?” she stammered. “I saw her leave with Todd around eleven o’clock.”
Officer Lopez gently placed a hand on Dusty’s shoulder and locked her eyes with mine. “Bess, when was the last time you saw your mother?”
I told Officer Lopez about the Somerville Beloved ceremony that had occurred the previous evening and what it had entailed. Lopez listened, but it was the other officer who was writing everything down. “Your mother was beaten this morning, so where do you think she went?” Officer Lopez asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Todd came to the house, and he was waiting around for her. He was drinking and telling me the ceremony was fantastic. When I asked where my mother was, he mentioned she had gone back to the studio to retrieve something, and she was walking home. He said she was high from success and wanted the time to ‘revel in the coolness of the night’ or something, but she never came home. Todd drank a lot of beers, so he didn’t go out to look for her. I stayed at the house and sent her text messages, but she didn’t answer any of them. This morning, Todd was gone, and I took my sister to school.”
“If your mother was at the studio and the event went well, can you think of any reason why Mr. Mackey would attack her?” This was the other officer speaking.
I thought about my mother, and the last time I had talked with her directly. It had been at dinner two nights ago when we had the conversation about Annika’s angel wings. There had been something then in my mother’s demeanor. I remember thinking she was trying to tell me something.
“Bess,” Officer Lopez had taken the seat next to me. Her voice was low, but I’m sure everyone else could hear her words. “Your mother’s injuries were not the type of injuries we normally see in domestic violence. This wasn’t a direct beating. He wanted something. There were other wounds on the body before he went for her face out of fury. What did he want? Why did he take your sister?”
“Leverage,” I whispered as the answer dawned on me.
“Yeeees…” Officer Lopez confirmed, stringing out the word. “But leverage for what?”
My gaze drifted up, and I looked at Dusty. “In the hospital room by the chair is my backpack from school. I need to show it to the police.”
Dusty frowned, but she went into the room. A few seconds later, she came out with my backpack with the green ribbon tied across the straps. Her hands shook as she handed it over to me.
As I spoke to the police, questions scattered around my mind like thoughts that had sprouted wings but had no place to fly, so they were forced to bounce around in my head. I withdrew a hot sauce pack from the front pouch and sucked it back to try and ground my thinking.
“You should go back to Cosmic Hearts and see if there is a backpack that looks exactly like this one but without the ribbon. But I’m pretty sure it’s not there.”
“What’s in the backpack?” asked the male policeman.
“Drugs…or money,” I answered. Dusty gasped and slowly sank into the seat on the other side of Officer Lopez. The other officer took a picture of my backpack and went down the hallway, where I could see him making calls.
“Who is he?” I asked Officer Lopez, nodding my head in the direction of the other officer.
“He’s the detective who was brought in once it was understood Todd Mackey was the attacker and he had kidnapped your sister. He is responsible for bringing your sister back home safely. Now he is contacting the narcotics division. It looks like everyone at the precinct is going to be caught up in this one.”
“Go big or go home,” I deadpanned. Officer Lopez looked at me askance, questioning my poor attempt at humor.
“I thought your family didn’t like cops,” she said.
“We don’t,” I responded. “Except for when we have to.”
“Just like everybody else,” she sighed, shaking her head. “So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on. And just remember whatever you tell me is going to be passed on to other divisions. I only do robbery and property damage. Other officers might need to come back and ask you more questions. Are you going to be able to handle that?”
I nodded. And then I told Officer Lopez everything I knew about Todd and what I had guessed about his drug operation. I was scared, but I was also relieved.
***
At ten o’clock that evening, I was shooed out of my mother’s room. Surgery was
scheduled for the morning. They didn’t want me in there when the team came to retrieve her.
I sat in the waiting room. Ollie came by at two in the morning to try and get me to go home and sleep in my bed. He promised me he would bring me back in the morning, so I would be here when they took her into the operating room. I refused. I didn’t want to go home when Echo was not there. It seemed like the only suitable option was to stay in the hospital waiting room. I was waiting for any type of information about anything.
At dawn, before they took my mother to the operating room, a nurse brought an EMT over to me. The man was not in his uniform. He had been one of the ambulance technicians that had delivered my mother to the hospital.
“Are you Bess?” he asked. He was washed and scrubbed and looked like he was going to start his day rather than coming off a long 18-hour shift. I could smell the shampoo he had used to wash his hair. It reminded me it had been a few days since I had showered myself. I’m sure I was ripe; especially given the number of hot sauce packs I had been consuming. Ollie had brought me a large thermos of tea to sip through the night so I would have something else in my system besides pepper sauce.
The EMT handed me a folded-up piece of paper. It was addressed, “To Bess, my little mouse,” I slipped the paper into my bookbag, not wanting to open it with people standing around. Besides, there was blood on it.
MERCY
Sunday
Two days went by with no word regarding my sister. I stayed at the hospital. Rueben and Joanie began coming by on Friday and Saturday. They were so caring and sympathetic; it was almost nauseous. They were treating me like a little duckling, newly hatched from its shell. I was that duckling. I was trembling and shaking from the experience and afraid to step away from the nest. I had never seen that level of violence directed on a human being before.
Joanie sat in the hospital waiting room and prayed for me, my sister, and the recovery of our mother. She took a chair next to me and softly mouthed words to Jehovah. I told her to go to the chapel in the hospital, but she refused. Apparently, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t use the chapel. Sometimes, when a new person entered the area, I pretended not to know the girl sitting next to me, asking for Jehovah’s protection and guidance. But I was glad she was there, even with all the embarrassing praying stuff.
Joanie told me she had led a special vigil at her kingdom hall with her father and the Spanish congregation had joined in as well. Over a hundred Jehovah’s Witnesses prayed for my family and our safety. It’s strange to learn hundreds of people you don’t know are taking the time out of their lives to send hope (in whatever form) for your spiritual benefit. On one level, it feels invasive as I wonder what they know about me and how they judge my family. But on another level, it’s touching and sweet. And weird. Let’s not forget weird.
On Monday, the third day of my hospital vigil, I received a call from Officer Lopez to come outside to the front of the building. I did. A squad car was there, and I could see Officer Lopez sitting in the back seat, talking to someone beside her. Suddenly, the door swung open, and a little red-haired person charged out of the car and tackled me. The two of us fell back into the flower beds with my arms tightly around her. I smelled the musky scent of her dirty wild hair and felt the fragile perfection of her little body. She was pure innocence and love, and I thought my heart would break.
The police drove us to lunch at a sandwich place a few blocks away. No one wanted Echo to know about our mom just yet. She was told our mother was hurt and was in the hospital to get better. Echo accepted this since she had been in a hospital and gotten better. We ordered a tuna melt with fries for us to split, and Echo dived in like she hadn’t eaten in days. The officers just ordered coffee. I wasn’t hungry. Still, I selected some fries and deposited them on a separate plate, dousing them with ketchup and hot sauce to claim them.
Officer Lopez, along with the ruggedly handsome detective in khakis, drilled Echo with questions to piece together where she had been for the last 48 hours. I didn’t catch the other cop’s name, Kling, or something like that. I figured after this, I wouldn’t be seeing him again, but I kind of liked the way he smelled like cinnamon.
During the time she was with Todd, Echo was utterly unaware of her possible peril. Todd hadn’t told Echo the story about our mother being in the hospital. Instead, he said they were playing hooky and then had to explain what hooky meant. Playing hooky with Todd meant going to a movie in the middle of the day. Todd took her to a movie and bought her a massive tub of popcorn and red vines candy. Echo sat through the film and then a dinner of a burger and a chocolate banana shake, and then played with her toy fairies which were conveniently in her hair.
While they were in the theatre and restaurant, Todd kept popping up, checking on the status of Terry and what was happening at the hospital. Echo was very annoyed he kept leaving the movie and going to the lobby because then she had to explain what was happening in the story when he came back. Of course, Echo didn’t know who Todd was calling to get his information, but Officer Kling or something like that said they knew Todd had an inside person at the hospital, which was how he had access to some of his pharmaceuticals.
With no promising news on Terry’s recovery, Todd stashed Echo at a friend’s house on Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. Echo didn’t have much to say about the nice lady except she gave Echo soda and cereal, and she had a cat. Echo talked endlessly about the soda (a treat our mother denies us) and how naughty Smithers the cat was. Apparently, Smithers kept running off with one of Echo’s plastic fairies and hiding it in his food dish. Echo spent the entire time of her kidnapping watching television, drinking soda, eating cereal, and playing with Smithers. She slept on the couch with a smelly quilt, but she used it anyway because it was cold. (The police were amused by this detail, and Officer Lopez praised my sister for being practical and then had to define “practical.“)
The police surmised when Todd heard Terry’s injuries were severe, and consciousness was not happening soon, having Echo as a hostage became more of a liability than an asset. It wasn’t going to deliver what he wanted, so he needed to let Echo go. Todd dropped my sister off at Luther’s auto shop. I thought it looked like a desperate attempt to make it appear as if Luther was involved. If the police hadn’t already vetted Luther and the shop, Todd might have been successful with that sneaky maneuver.
Luther immediately called the police when Echo showed up and when they arrived, my sister confirmed Todd had removed her from school to play hooky. The identity of Todd’s female friend, the owner of Smithers, the cat, was not of concern. Echo was back, and she was unharmed. She was only missing a plastic fairy which somehow Smithers had been victorious in claiming.
Pleased to have adult attention, Echo finished her story and polished off her half of the tuna melt and mine as well. She grabbed me continually to give me hugs, wiping her greasy fingers on my clothing. I didn’t say anything or push her away. I was glad to have her back.
“How’s your mother?” Officer Lopez asked.
I shook my head to indicate things were not going well, making sure Echo was not watching. I fought back the tears threatening to spill out from my eyes. “I need to take her home,” I said, gesturing to Echo. My voice cracked with emotion.
“That’s just it…” Officer Lopez hesitated and looked over at her partner, Kling or something. “We are not sure where the two of you should go.”
“Home is where we should go,” I responded.
Detective Kling or something eyed me with a worried expression. “We don’t know where Todd Mackey is at the moment, and we don’t know where the drugs are located, so we think you two need to be protected.”
“We’re not going to a foster home,” I said emphatically. “That’s not happening. You have to keep us together and allow us to continue with our lives. I need to be able to go to the hospital and school. There are responsible adults around us. Don’t take us away.”
Lopez looked at the detect
ive and spoke in my defense. “I’ve seen how capable this girl is. They should be fine at the house. At least for a while.”
Officer Lopez turned her attention back to me and leaned in. “Listen to me,” she said with all seriousness. “These are the ground rules for you and your sister to return to your home. One, you must maintain a regular schedule and stay within Berkeley. If you need to travel outside, you contact Detective Kline or me.” (Kline. His name is Kline) “Two, this is not a game. Until Todd Mackey or the drugs are located, there will be a unit watching the house.”
I frowned at that piece of information, and Lopez frowned back at me. Her frown was uncompromising. “I repeat,” she said. “This is not a game.”
“What about Cosmic Hearts?’ I asked. “Can I go there?”
“Once it has been cleaned up and Ms. Lorazo reopens, then yes, you can go there. Of the adults in your mother’s circle, only Ms. Lorazo and the tenant, Olliver DeMatteo, are allowed in the house.
“What about Luther Tucker?”
Lopez looked over at Kline. He shook his head no. Lopez looked back at me and said, “No,” even though I distinctly saw Kline’s negative answer.
“Why not?” I protested.
“Legal reasons” was Kline’s response, so I guess they had found out about the restraining order.
“How about my friends?” I asked. “Can I have my friends over?”
“Can I have MY friends over?” Echo had decided to jump into the conversation. “And a kitten,” she added.
Lopez smiled in Echo’s direction. “Yes, if your sister says it is okay.” Looking back at me, Lopez laid out the parameters. “Friends should be okay, but try to stay at your home, the schools, and the tattoo studio.”
“And the library,” I threw in. “Finals are coming up.”
“Your home, the schools, the tattoo studio, and the library,” Lopez responded.
I put out my hand to shake on it in agreement. Lopez shook my hand and then also shook Echo’s who had stuck out hers, so she was included as well. “That should be it,” Officer Lopez said, standing and stretching her back. Kline went over to the cashier to pay for the meal and their coffees. He reached into his breast pocket and removed a toothpick. It went right into the side of his mouth.
