That, I supposed, made Beth Scoggins’s presence a bit more than coincidence.
“The first three months were spent earning her trust. Then we started dancing around the issues. The history of abandonment was obviously crucial but she was resistant. Wouldn’t talk about foster care either, other than to say it hadn’t been fun. I’d gotten more directive the last few weeks but it’s been a drawn-out process. Her next appointment wasn’t for four days but an hour ago she put in an emergency call. Agitated, crying, I’ve never heard her like that, she’s always been a restrained girl. When I finally calmed her down, she told me someone claiming to be a psychologist had called her out of the blue, a research project on foster care. It confused her and scared her, she didn’t know what to think. Then she told me the caller’s name.”
She crossed her leg. “She broke speed limits to get here, Alex. Began to unload before she sat down.”
“What a mess. I’m sorry, Ali— ”
“On balance, maybe it’ll turn out to be positive.” Her eyes met mine. Blue, cool, direct. “Are you really conducting research?”
“Of sorts.”
“Of sorts as in Milo stuff?”
I nodded.
She said, “That’s what I was afraid of. You felt deception was absolutely necessary?”
I told her what we’d come to suspect about Drew Daney. Lee Ramos’s pregnancy, abortion, and suicide. The trail of deceit and betrayal that had led me to Beth Scoggins.
“I’m sure that made it seem exigent,” she said. “Right now I’ve got an extremely vulnerable nineteen-year-old in my office. Ready?”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“You assumed it was a great idea before you knew she was my patient.”
“Allison— ”
“Let’s not deal with that now, Alex. She’s waiting and I’ve got another patient in forty minutes. Even if I didn’t think it was a good idea, at this point I can’t dissuade her. You opened up some kind of Pandora’s box and she’s a very persistent young woman. To the point of obsession, at times. I haven’t tried to quash that because at this stage of her life persistence might be adaptive.”
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.”
CHAPTER 34
Beth 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 counse
lor 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.”
“Why’s that?”
“She was stuck in the house, cooking, cleaning, while he was driving around to all his nonprofits. He told me, ‘Cherish doesn’t like to have fun.’ Then he’d be like, ‘I’m so glad I’ve got you, Bethy, because you’re so beautiful and young with that gorgeous figure and you do know how to have fun.’ Then, he’d go off on some religious stuff.”
“He talked about religion?”
“Like a sermon in church. Like ‘Fun’s not a sin, Bethy. God made a beautiful world and if we don’t enjoy it, that’s the sin, Bethy.’ ” She smiled. “That was usually right before he’d unzip his pants. It was like he had to . . . convince himself what he was doing was okay with God.”
She waved a hand impatiently. “He’d go off on these long stupid speeches about God and fun. About God not being a God of vengeance like in the Old Testament. God was basically this cool guy who wanted everyone to have fun.”
The Creator as party animal. Hollywood would love it.
Beth Scoggins emitted a ragged laugh. “It was like he had to convince himself he was a nice person. Then I got pregnant and it was
like, ‘You’ve got a problem.’ I think he enjoyed it.”
“Enjoyed what?”
“Getting me aborted. On the ride over he was real quiet, but when it was over he was in a great mood. Let’s go out for doughnuts. Like the whole thing was fun.”
* * *
I asked her if she remembered the name of the abortion clinic.
“Woman’s something.”
“The Women’s Wellness Place?”
“Yeah, that’s it. They had all these posters about AIDS and safe sex and making smart choices.”
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