“Why would it be in the interest of children to take them from their mother?” Her volume is rising now.
“I’m just telling you they can make any interpretation. They will also question you if they start an investigation.”
Cass turns to look at Matthew with barely suppressed revulsion. “I have nothing to hide.”
“I know that,” he says. “But he will try to destroy you regardless.”
“We live in a world that hates women so much that they would sooner blame a woman for reporting a crime than punish a man for committing it.”
“They always start with the person reporting the crime. In matters of rape and assault, that person is usually the victim. You know how that can go. In crimes without physical evidence, it’s a matter of hearsay. His word against yours. What he and you can do to support—or destroy—the credibility of the witness.”
“They’ll have to take my word for it.”
“You’re accusing a man of attempted homicide, Cass. This will not be proven with one statement. Even for them to charge him, this will have to meet a high burden of proof. You’d better believe they’ll question everyone in the town of Cumberland.”
Cass stares at Matthew now, considering his statements. “He is guilty,” she says.
“I know that,” he says, “but they don’t yet.”
She looks at him another moment, then shakes her head.
“Besides, given the man you describe, how do you know he didn’t plant something in your house? Or get some bogus witness to testify that you did it? You ever heard of false alibi corroboration?”
Cass shudders as she makes new considerations. She is not a stranger to the basics of criminal justice. She knows that the systems in place to protect innocent people from false charges can also protect the guilty. She knows the burden of proof is on her, that meeting the standards of probable cause will take more than testimony and circumstantial evidence. But before she can give any further thought to the obstacles before her, she is following a burly female cop up a small stairwell with peeling blue paint and prepping herself for yet another rendition of her story.
“We don’t get involved in cases like this,” says the cop before she has finished.
“This kind of case?” says Cass.
“Domestic dispute. Assaults without physical proof. Battery with a chemical weapon? I don’t even think we have a code for this one.”
“There’s a sample,” Cass says. “We sent a portion to a lab. The rest is still in my freezer. Can’t you do something with it?”
The policewoman gives her a new look. “Oh, honey, we don’t send samples to the lab unless the victim comes in on a stretcher.”
“Got it,” says Cass.
Matthew nods. “I guess you should consider yourself lucky.”
The officer issues a look designed to signal the end of the meeting. Matthew and Cass stand to leave, gather their belongings.
“Besides,” says the officer. Her tone has changed to something less collegial. “You have a chain-of-custody problem.”
“Excuse me?” says Cass.
“If you were poisoned,” the officer says, “the evidence would be destroyed when it was ingested. That means no fingerprints. No wound or bruises. No smoking gun.”
“But if medical labs show it is in my system…”
“Then you’re the smoking gun,” says the officer. “Still no links between the weapon and the perpetrator. If it even is a weapon. Lord knows what’s lurking in the environment these days. You’ve heard of Flint, Michigan.”
“Yes, of course,” says Cass. “And there well may be criminal wrongdoing there as well. But in this case, the poison was not an accident of the environment. Someone put it there.”
“Maybe,” says the officer. “But who? There is no way to attribute it to anyone—him, you, or a third party—without an eyewitness. Why should I believe you any more than him? He could say you put it there. That you did it to yourself, or worse, that you put it there to frame him.”
“But I am the victim,” Cass says. “Why would I make this up when it costs me so much to say this?”
“You say that, but I don’t know it.”
“I experienced this, the violence that led up to it, the violence that he threatened, the violence that he carried out. The pattern of abuse, the threat, and the crime. I am the eyewitness.”
“I thought you said you were the victim.”
“I am.”
“You can’t be both. There’s a very big difference between a victim and an eyewitness.”
When she finishes, Cass is depleted. She regrets going to the cops, her naive expectations. Luckily, neither she nor Matthew considered the reception they do receive from the PPD: utter disinterest.
They thank the officer for her time and quickly leave the station with Matthew visibly unnerved and Cass renewed in the knowledge that she is essentially on her own, left to her own devices. The protections she assumed to be in place, the unflappable institutions—precincts, hospitals, courtrooms—are, in fact, vulnerable to the same things as anything else—corruption, bias, incompetence. Same story. New uniform. She is very much alone in this new reality. Her only hope of protecting her kids is proving Ryan’s crime to meet probable cause for arrest with her own investigation. Motive, method, weapon. Blood, urine, vomit.
EIGHTEEN
Cass is back in the part of the city that looks like a foreign country. The silver bay and the glass of the new skyscrapers are indistinguishable. It is raining, raining always. The strangeness of this part of town is amplified by the fact that the familiar world now feels dangerous and foreign things are, at least, untainted by known dangers. The air is cold and assaults her face with every step toward the courthouse. She thinks of something her father told her as a child, how foolish his words sounded at the time, how maudlin: “You can’t trust anyone.” But this has come to make good sense. No one—not the cops, doctors, not even her husband or father—none of these people make sense anymore. Perhaps he was simply pointing out the fact that no one is immune to brutal and corruptible human nature. Anyone can be trusted to turn under the right circumstances.
“Wear something nice but not flashy. Blue, not black. Pretty, not sexy.” Cass has heeded Matthew’s instructions.
She wears a knee-length gray tweed dress with a square neckline. She looks appropriately demure, more formal than she does in real life. But she cannot hide the fear she feels, the hunted look in her eyes. It makes her look—and feel—likely to pounce, a threat in her own right. And so she tries to soothe herself, to funnel her fear into focus.
She arrives at the Portland family court and walks down a maze of hallways. The hallway ends at a wood-paneled room that looks more like a coffin than a courtroom. The judge appears in his robes. The lawyers riffle through their papers. The court is a theater, and everyone in it betrays the anxiety of performers. The feeling is contagious. Ryan and Cass are sworn in. They are two opposing sides. This is Cass versus Ryan. Connor versus Connor.
Her lawyer is asking that the court continue her order of protection.
“Your Honor, this woman is afraid for her life,” says Matthew.
“This woman is delusional,” says the lawyer for Ryan.
“This woman implores the court for protection.”
“This woman is certifiable. This woman should be committed.”
Ryan wears his favorite suit, a perfectly tailored gray flannel. He is clean shaven with a new haircut. He avoids her gaze—either to deter the flow of emotions or because he no longer feels them.
Cass struggles to stay clear, to stave off the flood of sorrow that threatens to buckle her knees beneath her. She does her best not to look at him, rather than give him the satisfaction, but she is not trained for such pretense. She speaks and listens carefully. She tries to make a mental record of the allegations, the rebuttals, the judge’s comments. And then, just as suddenly as it began, it is over. The judge rules down the middle, discontinuing
the order of protection, and delaying the issue of custody until a trial. For now, things will continue as they are, with Sam splitting time between his mother and his father.
Ryan storms out of the courtroom in a state of fury. Cass breaks down in tears due to sheer exhaustion. She has taught a class on this, studied this very phenomenon. She has written pieces on this: “Season of the Witch: The Rise of Institutional Misogyny from Politics to Precinct.” She has fought to understand, to educate others about this perverse affliction, but she never imagined she would live it, would find herself and her children trapped and threatened by the overwhelming compulsion to believe a man’s testimony over a woman’s. The court has effectively dismissed her concerns, placing her son in the hands of a man who tried to murder the child’s mother.
* * *
At home, Cass tries to funnel heartbreak into action. She settles the kids upstairs in front of time-tested entertainment. Satisfied with their distraction, she leaves the room and storms the house like a looting soldier, pulling clothes out of closets, bedding off beds—sheets, pillows, blankets. One item at a time, she disassembles the underpinnings of their home, removing every piece of fabric not nailed to the furniture. She assembles a massive pile on the floor of the laundry room, like a prodigious beaver, a monument to her determination and a totem to his evil.
A Google search guides the next course of action. “Cleaning, Poisons, Toxins,” she types. She is relieved to find a cleaning method that is shockingly simple, and more surprised to learn that she has all the materials she needs in her kitchen cabinet.
“Vinegar, dish soap, and water. These three substances, when combined, will remediate most toxins. Vinegar is an acid and dissolves metals. Dish soap provides the grit along with physical action. Water removes the substances, once they’ve been dissolved and broken down.”
God love the internet for its store of DIY instructions.
Cass leaves her laundry room and hurries to the kitchen. She takes a bucket from the pantry, gathers the listed ingredients, and produces the simple solution—one part vinegar, two parts water. Then she gets down on hands and knees and scrubs the house from top to bottom. Satisfied that the floor is clean, she moves on to the tables and counters. Then she collects the kids’ blocks and LEGOs in the cleaning bucket. Doused with the solution, and bleach for good measure, they look strangely like a cache of Halloween candy. She works quickly, with only the duration of the movie until the kids surface. The cheerful sounds of the children’s movie float downstairs in contrast to her maudlin mission. Just like this, she conducts a one-woman purge, cleansing toxins from her home, knowing neither where nor what is the substance or source of the contamination.
The task complete, she walks upstairs to check on the children. She piles them into her bed, assembling their sleeping bags on the mattress.
“It’ll be like camping,” she says.
Thankfully, they are too delighted by the concept to demand further explanation.
Once they all are asleep, Cass returns to the laundry room, stuffs it with all the bedding and clothes she can fit within it. She knows she will be up all night, doing loads and folding. Exhausted, she sits on the floor and tries to sort her thoughts. Would that she could organize them as easily as laundry folded on the table. Now she takes out her two phones—hers and his—and considers her leverage. As much as she hates to admit her reliance on technology, the phone is the horse to her cowboy, not only her means of communication, the lifeline to those who can help her—friends, family, cops, doctors—but her magnifying glass, her Ziploc bag, the vault for her evidence. It is also her camera, her video recorder, and her security system. The phone is her shield and her weapon.
Wielding her phone, she leaves the laundry room, pads noiselessly down the stairs to the kitchen. She stands in the green glare of the fridge and surveys every item of food recently purchased by Ryan. Every word she types now leads to the same destination.
High in arsenic, high heavy metal content, potentially toxic. These are the results she gets now. Rice milk, almond milk, apple juice, kale, root vegetables, and shellfish, particularly crabs and lobsters, are among the most concentrated sources of naturally occurring arsenic. Either by chance or by design, Ryan has purchased a fridge full of foods all high in the same substance. And then, just for kicks, a search inspired by his other recent purchase: “chalk paint, joint compound, arsenic.” Followed by the string of entries: “Various heavy metals can be found in common household products.” “Arsenic is used in paints, paint thinners, and several construction compounds.” Followed by the comforting addendum: trivalent arsenic is readily absorbed through the skin and sixty times more toxic than the pentavalent form of the element.
Unsettled, she deploys her phone for its other greatest power, not only to identify evidence but to document it for cops, lawyers, and judges. One by one, she photographs every item in the fridge: cardboard boxes of almond and rice milk, drawers of dewy green vegetables, the remainder of the sickly greenish lobster roll, hidden on the top shelf. Her mind spins with a revelation. Ryan has created the ultimate Trojan horse. He has transformed a seemingly generous grocery list into the vessel for poison, doubling the noble act of a doting dad with a knowing act of murder. His dutiful list of provisions is the perfect alibi for an “accidental” environmental toxin.
Now, as she stands in the dark kitchen, Cass faces the starkest of questions, not only scrutiny of her own judgment but crucial strategic decisions. She must meet and surpass the burden of proof. She must provide not only photos, receipts, and proof of purchase—she must prove method (poison), motive (the baby and the house), and prove how he got the weapon. She must establish a link to the source, prove the connection to the weapon and its purchase, and, failing an eyewitness or video recording, elicit a confession from either the source or accomplice.
Click by click, she photographs the seemingly innocuous items. Each one is a shiny exhibit. On first glance, it is a normal grocery haul, proof of Ryan’s paternal duty, his role as a provider. On second, it is an alibi, the source of what he could later claim was an accidental toxin, a hidden danger in the home environment. And yet, she is conscious, even as her suspicion grows into conviction, that he has again wrought, in his weapon of choice, yet another avenue for her dismissal. Who but the most ungrateful of wives, the most twisted and paranoid person, could see, in this bountiful grocery haul, such a sinister mission? She knows that these photos are not enough, that they, too, will be discounted. And so she must continue apace; the only way out is in deeper.
It’s late now, and the strain of the day has dulled her nerves and spirit. Tomorrow she must change the locks and batten down the hatches. The locks, of course, were only just changed, but ever the trusting fool, she’d given a spare set to Marley. Cass will not sleep tonight. There is too much to consider. Did Ryan intend to kill her and fall short of the necessary dosage? With failure, he was condemned to discredit or dispose of a living witness. And so he dosed her again, this time to create a public spectacle, to drive her stark raving mad, or at least appear so long enough to discredit her as a witness. Or did Ryan remain unflinching in this goal, simply trading one toxin for another, expanding from one drug to a cocktail, all of which require time and repetition to build up in her system?
What was Ryan’s alibi, what had he planned as his defense had he succeeded? The lobster roll, she assumes, was chosen because it could be ruled “accidental,” the result of a freak accident, an environmental poison. Everyone knows that seafood contains all sorts of unwanted substances. But where else did he place it? In the food, on the floors, on the sheets, in the water filter standing in their kitchen? Is the substance potent enough that it need only be sprinkled on the floor, like powder used to kill a rat? Did it infiltrate the air so that no amount of cleaning would actually make a difference? Did he intend to affect everyone in the household so that when Cass died and the survivors were tested afterward, he could claim in solemn tones that the whole family
was exposed to some ubiquitous environmental hazard, that the dust, the water, the air, the very fabric of their home was the culprit? What a shame, he would say. How tragic.
Now she looks more carefully into poisons and radiation, moving from general summaries on Wikipedia, forging on to medical websites like WebMD and the Mayo Clinic’s, and then to more specific research from afflicted regions: Flint, Michigan, where residents reported problems with drinking water, where their faucets leaked metallic sludge for months before the government took notice, where city officials denied these reports while a community was poisoned. She looks at accounts from mining communities with compromised drinking water, fracking sites whose dirt and air was steeped in poison. Farming towns in Asia whose rice was foul, tainted, populations with skin and lung cancer on an epidemic basis. Adding to her horror is the most unsettling feeling, something like a déjà vu but without the inherent pleasure. The random searches lead Cass back to the most unlikely of places—the American Cancer Society website where she’d started her research on Marley.
Arsenic trioxide, declares an article, “Approved by the FDA for Trials in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.” Was this Marley’s salvation? Was the treatment of her own disease the inspiration for the murder method? Arsenic was hardly a modern invention. The eighteenth-century scientist Thomas Fowler ran with his eureka moment, creating a paste used topically in skin and breast cancer patients, and naming his ingenious salve Fowler’s Solution. Not one to stop at invention, he contributed both product and philosophy to science, making the intriguing statement, “Sola docit venenum.” It’s the dose, not the poison. In other words, poisons in small doses are the best medicines, and the best medicines in too large doses are poisonous. Cass lies in bed, considering this chilling statement.
“Topical applications of arsenic,” she types. “On skin.” A flurry of entries arises.
Ancient Chinese remedies often used arsenic compounds in ointments. However, traditional Chinese medicines must be administered with care due to the frequent incidence of death in those receiving arsenic compounds in their treatments. Many substances thought to have a curative effect have steep curves of diminishing returns, reversing from a tonic to a toxin above a certain level.
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