There Once Was A Child

by Debra Webb

  A blast of heavy air puffs out of me and I wonder how many weeks I have left before the pain becomes unbearable. Since Stella started the treatments within two weeks of her diagnosis, she was sick as hell by now. Other than the coughing jags that are becoming more and more frequent, I haven’t had too much trouble. I have the pain meds just in case. As the doctor said, there’s no use in a dying man suffering.

  But I will. That, too, is inevitable. The job comes first, at least as long as I’m standing.

  Liv looked like hell again today. I don’t like that those migraines are taking her down so low. In the two years we’ve worked so closely together I’ve never known her to look anything but healthy and vibrant. She seems almost withdrawn lately. Distracted and fatigued. The big ass bags under her eyes underscored by the dark circles have me worried. But she went to the doc. I was there in the waiting room. Her doctor didn’t seem overly concerned. These days I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not. Sometimes I think they just run us through like scanning groceries at the supermarket checkout. If you’re turned the wrong way they might not pick up on the real problem. It’s all scary as hell and it feels like nothing more than the luck of the draw.

  The good news is, Liv is smart. And she’s strong. No matter that she’s a little off her game right now, she’ll pull it together. That’s something else I know about her.

  “Come on, Sandy.” I stand, stretch my back and lead the way into the house.

  I fill her water bowl and move to the fridge to scrounge around for a late snack. Thirty-five years I came home to a hot meal prepared from scratch, unless we went out which was rare. I’m spoiled and mostly inept in the kitchen. I round up cheese and crackers and snag a beer.

  With my arm full of goodies, I drop into a chair at the table. My working case file lies open on the table. Photos of the known victims of Joseph Fanning and a mug shot of the bastard himself stare up at me. I consider Dana Reeves and Janie Hyatt. Is it possible these two average looking women—neither of whom looks particularly strong—could be holding Fanning for the purposes of torture or could have killed him already?

  I’ve mapped out the route to the cabin Hyatt inherited. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find Fanning there and wrap this one up tomorrow. I could take Friday off and get a few things done around here. God knows I have an avalanche of leave days built up even after all the time I took off with Stella.

  My cell phone vibrates against the countertop. I answer with my usual, “Duncan.”

  The only sound on the other end is static. I frown. “Hello.”

  “Detective Walter Duncan?”

  The voice is male. Not one I’ve heard before, that I can recall anyway. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”

  “This is Mario Sanchez.”

  The words break a little but I still hear and understand that this is the guy on a climbing trip down in Mexico. “Sanchez, thank you for calling.”

  I stay perfectly still just in case a movement in one direction or the other might cause the connection to drop off. I vividly remember back when most all long distance phone calls sounded like this.

  “My wife says you’ve been very adamant about getting in touch with me.”

  The words crackle across the line in pieces but I get the gist of it.

  “That’s right. If you could call me as soon as you return home, I would appreciate it. I have a few questions I’d like to review with you in person. It’s very important.”

  “That’s the reason I’m calling. I wanted to confirm that we will return on Sunday and the minute I’m back in Nashville, I will call. Is there anything I can do from here, Detective? My wife was confused as to what this is about.”

  It was good to hear such eagerness to cooperate with the police though I’m not so sure he’ll still feel that way when he learns all the fuss is about Fanning.

  “Your wife tells me you and your friends left Nashville on Saturday morning and arrived in Mexico City late Sunday evening. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. We spent Saturday night in Brownsville, Texas, at a Holiday Inn Express.”

  “Your two friends were with you the whole time and can vouch for your itinerary?”

  “Absolutely. This sounds serious, Detective. May I ask what this concerns?”

  The static is back so I wait it out, hoping the call won’t drop. “It’s about Joseph Fanning, Mr. Sanchez.”

  The long stretch of dead air that follows makes me worry that he’s severed the connection, then he says, “I see.” He hesitates before going on. “Has he taken another victim?”

  That is a tough one to answer. At this point we still can’t say one way or the other. “We’re not entirely sure, Mr. Sanchez. You see, he disappeared sometime between Sunday morning and midday on Monday. It’s very important that we locate him.”

  More of that tense hush lingers between us; the crackle of static pops again and again. Finally, he speaks. “If the world is lucky, he’s dead and buried somewhere.”

  I can’t help wondering if that somewhere is in Mexico.

  “Have a safe trip back, Mr. Sanchez. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as you’re home.”

  The call ends and I study the photo of ten-year-old Mario Sanchez. He was Fanning’s final victim. The one who fought back and won. But was the plea bargain Fanning managed to finagle for owning up to abusing all seventeen victims not what Sanchez had hoped for?

  Or is the idea of his own child coming into the same world where Joseph Fanning lives too much for him to sit idly by and do nothing?

  Would his friends help him take that kind of revenge?

  I can’t say just yet. I need to sit face to face with Sanchez and measure the man he has become. But I have already concluded one thing with absolutely certainty: There is no way a scrawny ten-year-old boy escaped Joseph Fanning without help. Both the detectives who worked the case felt Sanchez wasn’t completely forthcoming but they had the bad guy so they let it go.

  Maybe it’s time that possibility was revisited.

  I turn my attention to Reeves and Hyatt. There’s always the chance Fanning is just a few miles up the road in Hendersonville hogtied in a shed or an old barn awaiting execution.

  Somehow I can’t muster up any sympathy.

  He deserves a lot worse than whatever has happened to him.

  The Child

  After the first year, I stopped thinking about my dead mother and my sorry, lowdown asshole of a father. They were no longer relevant and the thoughts only made me sad and miserable. I had a choice: I could hope to die or I could hope to survive.

  I chose to survive.

  The monster became my father, my mother, my world. I had no one else.

  When I was nine years old, he started to allow me outside whatever shithole we lived in. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t happen often but when it did it was like going to the circus for a kid who’d spent the past two years as a prisoner. He made sure my hair was brushed and even tucked a little pink barrette on one side. As we left the car and walked into the market or wherever, he held my hand, smiling like a proud daddy. It wasn’t like he had to worry that someone would recognize me from a milk carton. No one had reported me missing. No one cared. I belonged to him.

  The first time out in public was the most difficult. Not because I misbehaved but because I was terrified that someone else would take me. I’d lived through it once; I didn’t want to risk going through it again. I needed the stability. As foolish as it sounds now, at the time I knew where my next meal would come from and that I would be warm on a cold night. I was well acquainted with the things he would do to me whenever he chose and, though I hated every second of it, I understood that I would survive those awful things. I’d learned to go to my happy place while he took what he wanted, to tune out his sickening grunting and the disgusting things he did to my skinny little body.

  It was my new normal. My everyday routine.

  Food and warmth and routines…those things were
all that mattered to a nine-year-old who’d been sold like a pair of old shoes at a tag sale and who had been sexually abused in every possible way one can imagine.

  You might think it’s impossible to do all the things to a small child one can do to an adult, but you’re wrong. Trust me when I say he did things to me that I will never share with anyone. Things no one can ever know because I cannot bear the reliving long enough to tell the story.

  Between nine and ten our relationship began to shift somewhat. He realized he could use me for more than entertainment. No one worried when a child wandered too close to a shopping cart, or bumped against the heavy purse hanging from a shoulder or arm. I learned the art of pickpocketing like other kids learn how to ride a bike. It still amazes me the stash of cash most women kept handy in those days. It was as if they feared the need for change or a few dollars while attempting to exit a public parking garage with two sleeping kids in car seats. Or worse, the five bucks they used their debit card for at McDonald’s would end up part of a major card security breach that required new debit cards and pin numbers. Always a pain in the ass.

  Since there was inevitably the risk I might be caught by a shopper who wasn’t as distracted as I first believed, he taught me how to avoid being trapped into a confession. How to lie like a pro. How to make the same lady I’d just robbed believe perhaps she was wrong after all. When all else failed there was the ace up my sleeve—the sympathy card. I was hungry. My baby sister needed milk. And then, of course, I learned how to evade capture. I could slip away and hide where no one would find me better than Houdini himself.

  But stealing wasn’t my only skill. I was also very, very good at begging in a way that didn’t actually give the appearance of begging. I would stare, big eyed, at something most kids my age took entirely for granted—like a new pair of sneakers or a cute pair of jeans or a dress. I never bothered with toys. I had been taught they were pointless. I still had the teddy bear but he didn’t actually count. On those occasions when I set out to get something only I wanted, I wore my most ragged clothes. He didn’t teach me this technique; this is one I developed on my own. Even the hardest heart could be melted by a poor, dirty child in need. Children are starving all over the country and no one wants to hear about it. Put one in front of their faces so they have to look at it and all bets are off. They can’t take it.

  Funny thing was, I had no idea at the time that I was learning the skills I would desperately need later.

  He still got angry and forced me into the dreaded box from time to time. And he kept me illiterate. He refused to teach me to read or to write. Too afraid, I suppose, that I would turn out smarter than him and then maybe figure out that I didn’t really belong to him. The problem is, by age ten I didn’t remember who I was. I was the child. His child. I belonged to him, body and soul.

  During the rare occasion when I had to flee a pickpocket situation, it never once entered my mind to find a police officer or to tell someone I needed help. I was far more afraid of what might happen if I did this than I was of anything else he might possibly do to me. I had survived the worst he could possibly do to me.

  Or, at least, I thought I had.

  “I saved you.”

  My attention jerks to the piece of shit huddled in the darkest corner of his prison. Ah, so he’s decided to talk today, has he?

  “You saved me?” I scoff at the concept. Obviously his brain was damaged during all those years in prison.

  I walk closer to where he huddles. I am not afraid. In addition to having a wide, ugly wound on his upper arm, he’s bruised and battered quite thoroughly. As I approach him he shudders visibly and draws into a tighter ball. How pathetic. I think of all the times he beat me far more brutally than what I have done to him. I think of the endless ways he used my frail, tender body as a seven-year-old child and the need to kill him now—this instant—surges until my heart is thundering in my chest.

  “You beat and raped me day after day, week after week, year after year until I was fifteen years old. What the hell do you think you saved me from?”

  It doesn’t matter really, what he thinks. He is nothing. Less than nothing. I have no idea why I bother interacting with him. Perhaps on some level I am curious how such a monster can believe himself the victim after what he has done. Or more to the point, how could he possibly do the things he did to me or to any other child and believe he deserves anything less than every ounce of pain I am capable of inflicting?

  How has he lived with the memories of his grievous acts against the weakest members of society?

  And why did he come back to Nashville? He could have gone to Murfreesboro or farther north. I suspect I know the answer to that one but we’ll see.

  “I saved you from the people who brought you into this world. Your mother was a junkie whore who killed herself for the sake of pleasure.” Even as he boasts he braces for my retaliation.

  Coward.

  I consider kicking him in the side. I’ve done this numerous times already. Why bother? My mother was a junkie whore who chose her own selfish needs over mine. My father wasn’t any better. He sold me to this depraved animal rather than deal with his drug addiction. He lasted a few months longer than my mother before he hit rock bottom and overdosed, but an extra few months of survival doesn’t make him better.

  “Do you know what today is?” I ask him rather than kick him as I first considered.

  He shakes his head, fear filling his pathetic eyes. I do not possess the proper words to articulate how very much that fear pleases me.

  “It’s day three of our reunion,” I say. “I’m surprised you didn’t think of this when you were planning this elaborate game you set in motion. Do you remember what you did to me on day three after you took me home with you?”

  He shakes his head adamantly at first and then the movement subsides as the memories flood his wretched brain. The fear tightens around his throat and chest in a chokehold. I hear the change in his respiration. See the growing terror in his eyes.

  Oh, how it pleases me.

  “But don’t worry. I’m sure you were raped plenty of times in prison.” I shrug. “Statistics show that men like you were probably raped as children, too. Is that true? Did your daddy or an uncle, maybe a grandpa, rape you as a child? Is that what turned you into the disgusting perv you became?”

  He looks away. In all the years we were together he never spoke of the men in his family. There had to be men. He spoke only of his mother—the one who died of heart failure when he was just eight years old. Before he dies I’m going to tell him about searching until I found where his mother was buried. I went to her grave in the middle of the night and shit on it. Probably wasn’t her fault he turned out the way he did since she died when he was so young, but she was the one who spit him out of her loins. For that, she deserved to be shit on, alive or dead.

  “I’ll make this a lot easier on you if you just tell me the truth.”

  After he was taken away to prison, I watched the news. I heard the armchair shrinks create scenarios based on his known history. His father had gotten himself murdered when Fanning was seventeen. His grandfather had been in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. When Fanning was nineteen, somehow his grandfather ended up dead in the shower at the care facility where he was a resident. Strange thing. The staff had no idea how he got out of bed and into the shower, much less fell and bashed his head on the tile. The shrinks speculated that the grandfather had molested Fanning as a child.

  The monster remains silent, hovering in that corner like a trapped animal.

  “We both know it was your grandfather. That’s why you killed him.” I experience much pleasure at saying these things to him. I want him to feel the way I felt. The worthlessness, the humiliation, the desolation. The utter uncertainty.

  “Then why ask?” he snarls.

  I smile. “I just want to hear you say the words, that’s all. I want to hear all the terrible things he did to you. Maybe see if you learned those nasty tricks
of yours from him.”

  “Shut up!”

  The hoarse shriek gives me another shot of immense pleasure.

  I really don’t need any answers from him, I know how the story likely went. Does his damaged childhood make me feel the least bit sorry for him?

  No.

  He chose to continue the vicious cycle of abuse. Since he didn’t have children of his own, he abused other people’s children.

  That is never going to happen again.

  Never, ever, ever.

  Thursday, May 3

  Detective Olivia Newhouse

  “Sounds like she accepted your apology,” Walt notes with a quick glance at me before making the turn onto McMurtry Road.

  I toss my cell onto the console. What else can I do? I did exactly as I promised David I would. I called his mother. She was, as always, charming and accommodating. “Who knows? You can’t ever tell with her.”

  David’s mother would never allow her composure to slip or any sort of improper emotion to show. Not to me. I hesitate, feel bad for half a second for holding this uncomfortable situation against her when I was the no-show at dinner last night. But then, it’s true. I met David’s parents not long after we started dating. I’ve known them for approximately six months and I still feel like an outsider. My future mother-in-law is one of those people whose social graces are so ingrained that she would smile at the devil himself if he showed up at a function as long as his name was on the guest list. She was probably holding the phone tight enough to crack it as she listened to my feeble excuse for not attending the family dinner. Tracking down a missing pedophile couldn’t possibly be more important than one of her family dinners.

  A good future daughter-in-law would be looking for a way to make it up to her. I’m certain she views the situation from that prospective.