"This has nothing whatever to do with our case," the lawyer for two of the young girls told a newspaper reporter. "We are still suing Brother Jacob." When they printed that news, hostile letters to the editor flew like raindrops in a hurricane.
Brother Jacob was released from jail on his own recognizance.
Doreen Z. Landover announced her client was giving a deposition to Brother Jacob's counsel in the other lawsuits. She said Jennifer Dalton was sorry…and she was going to do everything in her power to make things right.
"She's out."
"Stay with her."
"White on rice," the Prof promised.
I used my key to let myself into Jennifer Dalton's apartment, moving as carefully as a minesweeper. I wasn't there to thieve—I wanted to leave something for her.
The back bedroom was the same filthy mess the Prof had described. I popped the portable video player out of the duffel bag I had carried over my shoulder. I was looking for an electrical outlet when the cellular buzzed in my pocket.
"She doubled back. Almost there. Just going into the lobby. Step quick!"
I moved over to the window. It was barred from the inside. No fire escape. I heard a key turn in the front door, snatched the video player and moved behind the bedroom door.
I heard her come in. She turned on the TV set, then the sound suddenly disappeared, like she hit the Mute. I heard the refrigerator open, the sound of some liquid being poured. The springs on the couch made a faint protest. The TV sound came on again, some talk show. She was flicking the remote, changing channels so fast it was a sound–blur when a sharp series of raps sounded on the front door. She hit the Mute again. I heard her walking toward the door. Sound of the peephole cover being slid off. Harsh intake of breath.
Heard the door open. "What do you want?" Jennifer asked.
"I want to talk to you." Heather's voice, rage in it like a bubble ready to burst. Sound of a grunt, door closing.
"Sit down!" Heather said. "Right there."
Sound of someone hitting the chair. Springs sagging heavy—must be Heather on the couch.
"Why did you do it?" Heather asked, her voice thick. "How could you do that to him?"
"He was the one who did it to me," Jennifer whined. "It wasn't my fault."
"He never did…Wait—who do you mean?"
"The therapist. He was the one who—"
"Kite," Heather said. "How could you do it to him?. He believed in you. You know he did. How could you let him sacrifice his whole career, his whole life, for you when you knew it was all a lie?"
The room went so quiet I could hear Heather's harsh breathing.
"It wasn't a lie, Heather," I said, stepping into the silent living room.
Jennifer gasped, hand flying to her mouth. Heather whirled to face me. "You!"
I tossed the videotape cartridge at Heather. She didn't make a move to grab it out of the air—it landed against her chest. She didn't flinch, eyes only on Jennifer.
"It's all there," I said quietly. "Isn't it, Jennifer? Brother Jacob must have edited hours and hours of tape to make this one production, huh?"
"I don't know…"she said softly.
"Had to be," I told her. "There's years of you on this. Everything you said. Lifting your skirt for the ruler. Playing with yourself while he watched. Getting on your knees and—"
"Stop it!" Jennifer screamed. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't want—"
"No, it wasn't your fault," I said, moving close to her. "It was never your fault. It was all the truth, so why did you…?"
"I wasn't going to get any money," she said, face tightening into rigid lines. "The statute of limitations. I was too late. This way, I get paid. I have to think of myself, don't I? I can get fixed now. Anything I want. Plastic surgery even. It's only fair."
"You're dead, bitch!" Heather snarled, coming off the couch, the brass knuckles already fitted over her right fist.
I was ready for it this time. I swept the knife–edge of my hand down against Heather's wrist, spinning so my back was to her as I fired an elbow into her gut.
She gasped and went down.
"Just stay there!" I snapped at her, my foot right next to her face. I turned to Jennifer, holding out my hands like a traffic cop to keep her in the chair. "This is gonna be all right," I told her. "Just relax—I'll have her out of here in a minute."
I dropped to one knee next to Heather, put my lips close to her ear. "You owe me," I whispered. "It's you and me now. It's not about that sorry bitch over there. Come on."
She staggered to her feet holding my arm, leaning heavily against me, tears blotching her face. "He—"
"Shut up now," I said. "There's plenty of time for that." I pushed her gently back onto the couch, keeping hold of her until she was seated.
I stepped away quickly, grabbed my duffel bag out of the back bedroom, slung it over my shoulder.
"You can keep that tape," I told Jennifer. "A little souvenir. I got copies. I'll give you three days. Seventy–two hours. That's enough for you to get paid. Then you better get in the wind."
She sat there with her mouth open, like I'd slugged her in the gut too. I held my hand out to Heather. She took it. I hauled her to her feet, thumbed the cellular into life, hit the memory button.
"Go," the Prof's voice came back.
"All clear?"
"Quiet as the crypt."
I held Heather's pudgy hand tight all the way down the back stairs.
It took two complete loops of the FDR before she stopped crying. I finally found a place to pull in near the heliport on Thirty–fourth. I held her against me in the darkness. Her whole body trembled with what she knew.
"I don't believe it," she said finally. "The truth…"
"The truth is just a toy they played with, Heather. It's up to you now. It's your call."
"What are you going to…?"
"Me? Nothing."
She was quiet for a long time after that. Finally, she turned in her seat. "I have to know. I have the key. Will you come with me?"
"It's not mine," I said. "I'm done."
She shifted her body against me, pulling at my jacket until I looked in her face.
"I love you," she said. "You found the truth."
I didn't say anything.
"Please…"
The concierge wasn't at his desk, the lobby deserted at that hour. We stood close together in the small elevator. "Breathe through your nose," I told her. "Stay inside yourself. Calm. You wanted the truth, Heather. You know where it is."
She opened the grille. I followed her down the hall. He was in the fan–shaped chair, like he'd been waiting for us.
"It was the truth!" Heather blurted out. "We know the truth. She—"
"Shut up, you cow!" Kite hissed at her. "What's wrong with you? Have you forgotten our work?"
"Our…work? To find the truth…"
"No!" Kite said sharply. "We know the truth, don't we? False allegations, that's the truth. All the pernicious lies, all the exaggerations. The phony therapists. The witch hunt—remember Heather? There was only one way to stop it. Only one way to put a stake right through the enemy's heart."
"But you knew…All along, you…"
"This is a chess game," he said in his empty voice, eyes shielded behind the glasses. "An intellectual problem. The real weapon in this war is propaganda. And I have just delivered the master stroke. It will take them years to recover. Public perception will never be the same. I did this. Nobody will ever get away with a false allegation again—everyone is on the alert now. Just as I promised you when we started together."
Heather sat down on the floor and bawled like a little girl. A little girl who had lost her compass.
"No hard feelings?" Kite said to me, talking over Heather's slumped body like she wasn't there. "We're both professionals, you and I. And I appreciate the work you did—I admire it. You are the finest investigator I've ever worked with. But this was never about investigation."
"And you got paid."
&nb
sp; "Did I? You know nothing about it, Mr. Burke. No, you got paid. And paid well. For myself, the payment is my syndrome. The syndrome, Heather," he said, shifting to a gentle, kindly voice. "You remember all the time I have invested in it? How important it is? Well, my syndrome is now the truth."
Heather's face snapped up. Her makeup was streaked, black–cherry hair hanging limp. Her movements were stiff, almost robotic. She caught her upper lip with her lower jaw, bit down so hard a drop of blood blossomed.
Kite returned her stare calmly, waiting for the dice to stop rolling.
"Can I still…?" she asked, finally.
"Of course you can," Kite smiled down at her like a father forgiving a child. "Things will be just as they were. With us, I mean. There's still so much work to do. Now why don't you go into the bathroom and pull yourself together. Then you can show Mr. Burke out."
She got to her feet silently. I kept my eyes on Kite, listening to the tap of her heels on the hardwood floor.
"You're not planning on doing anything stupid, are you Mr. Burke? I can't imagine you believe your…testimony would be worth very much in a court of law. And I know some things—"
"I'm all finished," I cut him off. "Can I just ask you a question?"
"Certainly. In fact, I'll even answer it for you. I was, shall we say, retained by a certain group in anticipation of certain lawsuits being filed. But the plan, the strategy, the tactics…they were all my own. Uniquely my own. And I have committed no crime. As I said, I did a full–scale investigation. And I proceeded in good faith throughout. And I'm sure you understand that I have a rather complete record of our…dealings. So…"
Heather came back into the room, face freshly scrubbed. "Will you please show Mr. Burke out, Heather?" Kite said, the control–leash tight in his voice.
She did an about–face and started down the hall. I followed close behind. At the door, I pulled her to me, holding her against my chest. "For your love," I whispered, pressing the brass knuckles into her chubby little hand.
I gave the videotape to Wolfe. Just in case somebody at NYPD decided to treat their copy like they had the French Connection heroin.
Jennifer Dalton disappeared the next day. The cops said there was no evidence of foul play.
Kite was a different story. A maid discovered his body in the penthouse a few days later. He'd been beaten to death. His files had been looted, picked clean. "It could have been anyone—we've got a long list of suspects," the lead detective on the case told the newspapers. "But whoever did it was a pro—they knew what they were doing."
They got that part right anyway.
I don't know where Heather went to. But wherever she is, I know her eyes aren't orange anymore.
AFTERWORD
Every year, millions of children in the United States are victimized by severe abuse. This maltreatment takes many forms, but all have this in common: they rob children of some percentage of their potential, some vital human piece of themselves. And by such robbery, all America is looted. The problem has been documented to the point of nausea. The media dutifully report the body counts, but the one–sided war rages on. Domestic violence, sexual exploitation, rape, sociopathic plundering, homicide…we remain under siege even as our "protective" institutions rot from within.
We know the root cause of our societal ills and evil—the transgenerational maltreatment of children. We know today's victim can become tomorrow's predator. We know that while many heroic survivors refuse to imitate the oppressor, the chains remain unbroken as abused children turn the trauma inward and lose their souls to self–inflicted wounds—from drug and alcohol abuse to depression to suicide. Their lives are never what they could have—should have—been.
We know the enemy…but where is the counterattack? More social engineering? More pious whining? More networking? More conferences? More unfocused, blundering incompetence? There is a Rosetta stone to societal decay. Child abuse, simply, modifies development of the brain. It alters "processing," so that the abused child (of whatever age) assimilates and responds to stimuli in distinctly aberrant ways. Most of those ways are self–destructive. Some destroy others. All, eventually, destroy us…as a country, and even as a species.
The CIVITAS Child Trauma Programs at Baylor College of Medicine are attacking child maltreatment in three distinct ways: (1) providing clinical services to desperately underserved children; (2) training a cadre of dedicated and superbly skilled professionals; and (3) carrying out these services and training in the context of ongoing research. Without an understanding of what happens inside maltreated children, we can never hope for meaningful change but must expect only a continuation of our pitiful policies of appeasement and amelioration.
CIVITAS provides a multidisciplinary and interinstitutional spirit that synthesizes the complex social, legal, cultural, psychological, and physical issues related to child maltreatment. When is it safe to return an abused child to his biological parents? What about "false allegations?" What constitutes a truly professional investigation? What turns one abused child into a healer…and another into a serial killer? Are monsters born, or made? CIVITAS is answering these questions and, more important, documenting the answers, proving them again and again, developing a body of scientific knowledge to replace the psychobabble and guesstimates that pass for "truth" today. A major goal of CIVITAS is to develop, pilot, and evaluate innovative models for clinical service, training, and research in a replicable model for use throughout America.
Some of this research is now available. More is being developed every day. How can you help? By altering the pace of this vital work. What CIVITAS needs is resources. Financial resources. Given sufficient resources, we can not only find the answers, we can implement them. Do it for humanitarian reasons. Do it for self–interest. But do it now. Please.
If you want more information about CIVITAS; if you want to make a contribution; or if you want both, write to:
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Director
CIVITAS Child Trauma Programs
Baylor College of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry
One Baylor Plaza
Houston, TX 77030–3498
e–mail [email protected]
CIVITAS is a tax–exempt, not–for–profit organization. Checks should be made payable to Baylor College of Medicine (Tax ID 74–1613878) and marked for the exclusive use of Dr. Bruce D. Perry for the CIVITAS Child Trauma Programs.
Andrew Vachss
Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, poetry, graphic novels, and a "children's book for adults." His books have been translated into twenty different languages and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, The New York Times, and numerous other forums. He lives and works in New York City and the Pacific Northwest.
The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com
BOOKS BY ANDREW VACHSS
Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
Sacrifice
Shella
Down in the Zero
Born Bad
Footsteps of the Hawk
False Allegations
Safe House
Choice of Evil
Everybody Pays
Dead and Gone
Pain Management
Copyright © 1996 by Andrew Vachss
All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1996, and in trade paperback by
Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1997.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Vachss, Andrew H.
False allegations / Andrew Vachss. –1st ed.
A Burke novel.
1. Burke (Fictitious character)–Fiction.
2. Private investigators–New York (State)–New York–Fiction.
3. Ex–convicts–New York (State)–New York–Fiction.
4. Child sexual abuse–Fiction. I. Title.
PS3572.A33F35 1996
813'.54–dc20 96–16296
CIP
Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/
eISBN: 978-0-375-71911-0
v3.0
False Allegations Page 23
