“Mama, I have been trying to wake you up. You were yelling in your sleep.” Anna bit her lip and tried not to cry. “Mama, what is really wrong with you? I miss you so much and I’m scared.” Anna started sobbing.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Kelly said, reaching out to stroke her daughter’s hair. “I am so sorry Anna-Banana. I have just been sick and I needed sleep.”
“But it smells in here like something serious, like someone’s dying.”
“Mommy needs a shower and some fresh sheets, that’s all. I am not dying, I promise.”
“Then what is happening? We have been with Gran and Dad for four days straight now and you’re never around. Dad’s always shushing us and telling us to leave you alone and Gran is even worse. She changes the subject every time we ask about you.”
Kelly smiled a little, picturing her mother trying to be sunny and helpful while she deflected questions of an uncomfortable nature. “I’m getting better, Anna. I’ll be back to normal before you know it.” Kelly felt like a hypocrite, knowing she would never feel normal again.
“Mom, there is something else. I want to talk to you about something but I don’t know if I can.” Kelly watched her daughter squirm and look down at her feet.
“What is it, baby?” Kelly sat up in her bed, alarmed.
“A boy in my class, Joey Slater, brought in an article today from the paper. He told everyone it was about you. He held it up high over my head when I wanted to see it. Mrs. Stenson took it away from him and sent him to the principal’s office. She told our class that your name wasn’t even in the article, but everyone believed Joey.”
“What do you think the article said?” Kelly asked, still stroking her daughter’s head.
“Everyone said that you were attacked near Rockford Park. Joey Slater used the word ‘raped.’”
Kelly shuddered at the sound of that word coming out of her eight-year-old daughter’s mouth. “Well, Anna,” Kelly started slowly, gathering her thoughts. “You know I always want to be honest with you, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Anna uttered as she nodded her head up and down.
“But I also want to protect you. So, Dad and I decided that the best thing was to be honest with you about my not feeling well and needing time and rest, without telling you anything that is too scary.”
“But Mama,” Anna said, “if the kids at school know about it, then I should know, too. You are my mother, for gosh sakes!” The anger in her voice startled Kelly.
Kelly thought for a moment. “First of all, I do not think that your classmates—including Joey Slater—truly understand what the word raped means, or he would not have been joking about it like that. But it is true that a man attacked me. I was running along the river, and he caught me and put me to sleep with some kind of drug and he hurt me. When I woke up he was gone and I went to the hospital to be treated.”
Anna quickly climbed into the bed and rested her head on her mother’s chest. “I’m scared, Mom. Is this man coming for us?”
“No, baby, we are completely safe. The man was arrested and he is in a prison cell somewhere. He cannot hurt us.” As Kelly said this confidently to her daughter, she felt herself shudder. What if they had the wrong man? What if he was not alone? Was there someone still out there that wanted to hurt her, or worse?
“Are you okay now, Mom?”
“Yes, baby, I am going to be fine. Smelly and tired maybe, but that’s all.” Kelly faked a laugh and gently stroked Anna’s head.
“I’m glad Mom. But I want you to get up now. Please. It feels like summer today and it smells really good outside.” Anna pinched her nose again.
Just then, Dan walked into the room. “Anna, I told you not to bother Mom.”
“It’s okay Dan. I needed it…. Is it really like summer outside?”
“It is amazing, Kel. It’s seventy-five degrees and the sky is blue and clear. Why don’t you come out in the backyard with us and we’ll have a late lunch there. It will be good for all of us.” Preempting her refusal, Dan quickly gathered clothing for her to change into. He chose a powder-blue Adidas warm-up suit and a worn white T-shirt commemorating a Bruce Springsteen concert they had been to five years earlier. “Look,” he said, as he laid the clothing on the bed gently, “you can even wear your flip-flops today.” He placed a pair of pink flip-flops next to the clothing.
“I’ll see you out back in a few minutes.” Dan waited until Anna left the room before speaking again. “Kel, the doctor’s office called to say all of your tests were negative. They wouldn’t share any details, but you can call them for more. They said some of them need to be taken again in six months, but that is good news.” Dan waved his hand in front of his nose, to pretend he was waving away the malodorous air of the room, hoping to make Kelly laugh. “Since we are having a little lunch date, maybe you could at least, you know, shower.”
Kelly said nothing and did not laugh. But, to Dan’s relief, she got out of bed slowly, collected the clothing and started toward the bathroom. She felt bruised and tired and every step toward the shower was a strenuous feat.
A moment later, Kelly felt the warm stream of water and started to wash her hair with both hands. Something in the soapy white water rushing down off of her body and toward the drain lifted her mood. She found herself scrubbing vigorously, every inch of her body, and even enlisted the help of a scratchy loofah pad that had previously hung in the shower unnoticed. She scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed again, until her hands were puckered and her skin felt tender. Kelly looked at her face as the condensation slowly cleared from the bathroom mirror. She recognized the eyes, but her skin was drawn, her cheekbones were more pronounced, and she looked sharper and older at the same time.
When she returned to her bedroom, Kelly noticed that Dan had stripped their bed and opened up their bedroom windows. She was surprised to find that the warm breeze coming through the windows lifted her spirits. Suddenly she could not wait to get outside. Five minutes later, she sat with Dan and the girls at their backyard dining table. Kelly’s fingers played with a napkin next to a plate with a turkey sandwich and fresh strawberries. She tilted her face up to feel the warmth of the sun.
“Aren’t you going to eat your lunch, Mom?” Anna asked.
“No, sweetie. You can have it.” Kelly answered.
“We ate our lunch already, Momma, at school.” Gracie chimed in.
“Okay, if it’s not turkey you want, I know what you can’t refuse.” Dan quickly disappeared into the back door of the house. He reappeared a moment later with a tray of brownies. “Kel, your mom and the girls made these brownies for you.” Then, after Kelly refused to register any response, Dan said, “Girls, don’t you want to see Mom eat some of your hard work?”
Grace and Anna giggled and nodded.
Kelly took a brownie off the plate and popped half of it into her mouth. She was surprised to enjoy the chocolate taste in her mouth and the squishy texture of the brownie. She hadn’t eaten much in days, but she suddenly felt hungry. She popped the other half in her mouth and said, “Maybe one more.”
“Excellent. These are good for you I’m sure. I think they call it comfort food.” Dan said, smiling at his wife and daughters for the first time in days. He reached over gingerly and put his fingers through Kelly’s thick hair, which was still damp from her shower. The girls each ate a brownie and then ran off to climb a small apple tree that grew in the corner of their yard.
“Dan,” Kelly’s voice grew somber again, ending their rare moment of levity. “What have you learned about this case?”
“I have been talking to the police every day, and a lot has happened. As you know, the young guy who was arraigned, Chad McCloskey, is in prison pending trial. I haven’t met him or anything, but I did see him at the arraignment.” Dan hesitated a moment before continuing. “He actually looks like a normal guy, Kel. I mean, he looks like a kid you’d see playing baseball at Rockford Park or having pizza with friends at Trolley Square. He does not look like a monster
.”
“Is that your professional opinion, Dan?”
“No, of course not. I don’t mean to upset you, Kel. I am just trying to explain that he wasn’t what I expected. He looked like he was lost or scared or something.”
“I bet he’s scared. If he’s the scumbag who did this to me he should be scared.” Kelly snarled.
Dan held up his hand to her to signal that he needed a few minutes to speak uninterrupted. “Please let me explain where I am going with this, Kel. I’m on your side, remember?”
Kelly breathed a loud sigh.
“He claims he did not do it.” Dan continued. “He told the police that he found you in a little gardener’s shed on the Breck’s Mill property, bound, blindfolded and gagged. He said that you were completely knocked out.”
Kelly looked up at Dan’s face as she saw flashbacks of waking on the cold bumpy stone floor with her hands tied and her eyes blindfolded. She recalled the acrid smell of something familiar, and at that moment she realized it was the smell of fertilizer that filled her nostrils while she lay on the cold hard floor. A gardener’s shed was her prison.
“That’s a little convenient, don’t you think? Why wouldn’t he just call the police or an ambulance or something if he found an injured person?” Kelly asked, feeling her face redden with anger.
“He says he was too scared, so he brought you to a place in the trail where he knew you would be rescued. This is where his story gets interesting. He can describe in detail the couple and the dog that showed up when you were rescued. And his story as far as location and timing is corroborated by a phone call that the police got from a woman. An eyewitness called the police and told them that she saw a man carry a body in a blanket into the woods by Brecks Mill.”
“So?” Kelly asked, exasperated. “Just because he left me somewhere to be found or ‘rescued’ as you put it, does not mean that he is not the one I needed rescuing from in the first place!”
“Kel, please. Geez, I know you are hurt and angry and all that, but I am not your enemy.” Dan said. “The police are still running DNA tests on this guy, a background check, interviewing folks and even searching his house, okay? So, if he is the guy, they’ll nail him.” He looked at her, trying to figure out if he could continue. “But,” he hesitated, “there is more that I learned. Do you want to know, or is this too much for you?”
“No, Dan, I want to hear everything.”
Dan placed his hand on top of Kelly’s hand on the table. He was heartened by the fact that she did not pull away. He hesitated before telling her the next part. “Kelly, there is possibly someone else involved.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, first of all, it did not seem like a good idea to share this with you while you were curled up in the fetal position in our dark bedroom. I didn’t want to make things worse. Also, I wanted to wait a little bit in case the police could give us more specifics.” Dan paused. “It turns out the woman I just told you about, the eyewitness, said she saw one man shoot and carry away a woman fitting your description along the trail by Breck’s Mill, and then, about an hour later, she saw a different man carrying a woman wrapped in a blanket into the woods.”
Dan looked at Kelly for her reaction. He thought that she had the same look that Gracie had when she was trying to build the perfect sand castle or memorize words for a spelling test. Her eyebrows were knitted together and her lips were drawn tight in a line. “The evidence, especially if they have DNA, will say for sure,” Kelly mumbled, without any apparent emotion.
Dan squeezed her hand. “I love you, babe. I know you have been through hell, and I know it is going to be a rough road for you, but we are all here to help. Take your time, tell us what we can do to help you get through this, lean on us.”
Kelly sat gazing straight ahead, quiet for at least two minutes. Then Dan saw her lift her left hand to her cheek. He knew she was wiping away a tear. Then, after Kelly caught her breath with a shudder she said softly, “I am going back to work tomorrow.”
“What?” Dan asked. “Kel, Margaret came over when you were sleeping yesterday. She told me not to disturb you, but she asked me to assure you that all of your cases and obligations were covered and everyone at the firm is fine with you taking off whatever time you need. Christ, you just got cleared as far as the concussion. Don’t you want to take some time off to heal completely?”
“Dan, I don’t need time. I don’t need rest. I am lying up there trying to sleep or drug myself into some altered state with sleeping pills just to block out those horrid thoughts and memories that keep replaying in my brain, poisoning me. I don’t know what I need, but lying around is making me feel like I am losing my mind.”
CHAPTER 19
CHAD: SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
DETECTIVES BECKER AND Hahn walked carefully up the decaying steps and onto the porch. After pushing the doorbell button a few times and hearing no sound, Detective Becker pounded on the front door. “Hello? Is anyone home?” She walked over to a window and peered inside at Charlie McCloskey who was slumped over the morning newspaper at his kitchen table. He startled when she rapped on the glass with her knuckles.
A moment later, Charlie opened the door. “What the hell is this?” Charlie scowled as he pulled an old bathrobe tightly across his chest. He smelled of whiskey, and he had several days’ stubble on his chin.
“Excuse the interruption, sir, but we figured we were most likely to catch you at home in the morning before work.” Detective Becker held up a paper and continued speaking. “Sir, we have a warrant to search your house and its contents. Will you be peaceful in complying with this request or will I need the help of the officers I have waiting here?”
Charlie curled his lip in scorn, spit right next to Detective Becker’s feet, and stepped aside. “Come in, I have nothing to hide. You’ll find a mess, I’m sure, but as far as I know, that’s not a crime.” He shuffled back to the kitchen and resumed his position at the table. The detectives and officers went to work.
Detective Becker went straight to Chad’s bedroom. An old pizza box peeked out from under the unmade bed. Some clothing sat on a beanbag chair in the corner. It looked like an average eighteen-year-old male’s bedroom, with one notable exception: the pizza box was actually a treasure trove. It had been carefully lined with aluminum foil, and held an array of pine cones, acorns, dried flowers, fragments of bird eggs, small rocks and numerous feathers. There were also small plastic vials containing tiny items and with labels marked tooth of red fox, falcon’s beak, and skull of chipmunk. Detective Becker closed the pizza box carefully, taped it shut and put it in a clear plastic evidence bag.
In Chad’s closet the only thing that Becker found remarkable was a small wooden cigar box. She opened it slowly and found an assortment of tiny tools and containers of various sizes and shapes. She put on a brand new pair of plastic gloves and gently examined the tools and other contents of the box, which included a tiny tweezer, a small set of scissors, cotton swabs, empty vials and a pack of blank labels. A moment later, she had wrapped the cigar box with its contents in another evidence bag. She put it with the pizza box and carried them together against her chest. As she walked through the kitchen, Charlie McCloskey looked up.
“What’s that you got there?” Charlie grumbled as she walked by.
“It’s just part of our investigation, sir.” Detective Becker continued walking toward the door.
“That’s the stuff he used when he collected his little treasures from the woods and river,” the old man yelled at her back as she passed by. “An innocent hobby of a boy, for Christ sakes!”
Detective Becker resisted the urge to yell back to him as she walked purposefully to her car. She slid the bags and their contents carefully into the back seat and locked the car.
When she re-entered the house, Charlie stood by the door, agitated. “Why the hell do you have to take his special boxes?”
“I can’t say, sir, except that it may be evidence of a
crime.” Detective Becker answered in her most professional and detached voice. Then, as she started to walk back to the bedroom, she paused for a moment and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“That boy does not have a violent bone in his body. Those were just things for collecting stuff from the woods.” Charlie stopped for a moment to wipe spittle off of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry, sir, I am not following you,” Detective Becker said.
“Ever since Chad was a little boy, he liked to bring home things he found in the woods; feathers, rocks, that sort of thing. I never really got it, but it was a hobby. His mother helped him. They got library books and special kits and everything. It was their thing; they shared a love of the woods and its creatures.”
“Again, I am sorry, sir,” Detective Becker continued, “but I’ll leave that to the experts to tell me exactly what the contents of that box are and if they have any relevance to this matter.” She bit her lip, turned her back, and walked away to resume her search of Chad’s room. She noticed that Chad had a bookshelf filled with books related to the topic of plants and animals. She picked one off the shelf titled, Trails of the Brandywine River Valley. Inside its cover, flowery cursive handwriting read:
My dearest Chad: Happy 14th birthday! Remember always to follow your passions and preserve what is beautiful. But please do not forget that sometimes you have to let go of things that don’t deserve your love and care.
Love Always,
Mom
Detective Becker was surprised to feel a lump form in her throat. She knew that Chad’s mother had left him unexpectedly and that he was a troubled young man living here in this old house with the broken man slumped over in the kitchen.
“Helen.” Tim Hahn’s voice in the doorway to Chad’s bedroom startled Detective Becker. She turned to face him. “I searched the father’s room and didn’t find anything of interest. Just a few empty Jack Daniels bottles, a pile of dirty laundry, some half-eaten bags of greasy snack food… oh, and signs of large rodent activity.” He shrugged his shoulders as he reported. “Pretty depressing, actually.”
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