A River of Silence

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Before heading into the actual autopsy room, where white tiles stretched from floor to ceiling, he thrust his arms into the gown, tied the mask behind his head, and slipped a pair of shoe protectors over his boots. Then he walked toward the autopsy table, the green edges of the gown flapping at his back.

  Heron stood beside the stainless steel table, stitching the Y-shaped incision in Skyler Sterling’s small torso. Classical music played in the background—Beethovan’s 9th Symphony. As always, Heron’s posture was perfectly erect in his blue-gray lab coat and matching apron. On a gleaming steel cart beside the autopsy table, his instruments were laid out, as orderly as any operating room surgeon. Like every morgue, this one smelled of disinfectant, formaldehyde, and some other, darker odors like bowel and stomach contents.

  Radhauser closed his eyes, then released his wish into the room. Let it be an aneurysm or a small blood clot in the heart.

  When he opened them again, Heron was pulling the needle through the child’s skin, then tying off a stitch.

  Radhauser cringed, grateful neither Laura nor Lucas required an autopsy. There was no question about the cause of death. Everyone knew they died by the drunken hands of Lawrence Arthur Flannigan.

  Though Heron must have heard Radhauser enter, he wasn’t easily distracted. Heron always closed his incisions in small, neat stitches, as carefully as a plastic surgeon would stitch a dog bite on a child’s face. When he finished, he looked up at Radhauser’s eyes. “How are things on the ranch, cowboy?”

  Radhauser made small talk with the ME for a few minutes about the little horse ranch he shared with Gracie, and Heron’s childhood summers on his uncle’s thoroughbred ranch in Wyoming.

  “Have you determined the cause of death?” Radhauser asked.

  “I haven’t dictated my report yet. But here are the basics. His external examination showed an egg-shaped bump and some bruising on his forehead consistent with a fall.” He paused and shrugged. “Pretty common in kids this age. There was no evidence of intracranial bleeding or skull fracture. His abdomen was slightly discolored, probably from the internal bleeding. The surgeon did a good job removing the ruptured spleen and repairing the torn hepatic vein. Under normal circumstances, this would have been sufficient to save the boy.”

  “What do you mean, normal circumstances?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, cowboy. I’m getting there. When I couldn’t find any obvious reason for his death, I looked at the EKG they did in the hospital. It showed QT interval prolongation.”

  “Basic English,” Radhauser said. “I skipped anatomy and physiology and majored in cowgirls.”

  Heron laughed. “It is a measure of the time between the start of a Q wave and the end of a T wave in the heart’s electrical cycle. Often prolongation is a risk factor for sudden death.”

  This could be the break Radhauser was hoping for. “Is it what killed Skyler Sterling?”

  “No,” Heron said. “But it is an important piece of the puzzle. This EKG abnormality is pretty rare in a child without any heart disease. My investigation found nothing wrong with his heart.”

  “What do you think caused the abnormality in the EKG? Could it have been a mistake?”

  Heron held up his hand. “I’ll get to that in a minute. But there was one more peculiar finding on my external examination you’ll want to know about.” He paused, studied Radhauser’s face.

  Just like Crenshaw, Heron liked to introduce a few dramatic techniques into his presentation. He lifted his left eyebrow. “This kid had a bruise and what appears to be a bite mark on his penis.”

  Radhauser dreaded asking the question, didn’t really want to hear the answer. “You think he was a victim of sexual abuse?”

  Heron shook his head. “I don’t know. The teeth marks were small. I found no signs of anal tearing or scarring and no semen in his mouth or anus. But one thing is pretty certain, the kid didn’t bite himself.”

  Radhauser said nothing. Bryce had described the shove Scott gave Skyler that sent him through the screen door, across the porch, and tumbling down the steps. The kicking, spitting and biting Bryce endured before he resorted to the slap on the butt. And later the bathtub bite on the penis Scott had given Skyler. Radhauser decided not to mention this to Heron. If the prosecution pursued the bite, tried to blame Bryce for the injury, it would be a feather in the defense cap to prove them wrong. He made a mental note to photograph the bite mark on Bryce’s arm for comparison.

  “To make a long story short,” Heron said. “I found nothing on gross examination, either internal or external, to account for this boy’s death.”

  Radhauser cocked his head. “Then why is he dead?”

  “There were raised levels of protein in his blood. This set off an alarm. With further laboratory examination, we found an enzyme called creatine phosphokinase. Upon microscopic examination, I found high concentrations of Haloperidol and its metabolites in his blood, urine, and tissues. This can cause seizures and heart rhythm abnormalities that would explain the QT interval prolongation.”

  “What the hell is Haloperidol?”

  “It’s prescribed under the name of Haldol for some psychiatric disorders and for hallucinations in acute alcohol withdrawal.”

  “How would a 19-month-old get ahold of something like that?”

  “Not without adult help,” Heron said. “It comes in childproof packaging most adults have trouble opening. And it doesn’t taste like anything a child would deliberately want to swallow. I suspect it was mixed with something he ate or drank.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Heron handed Radhauser a plastic bag with a pair of blue footed pajamas and a thick red rubber band, then paused as if waiting for the drum roll. “There is no doubt. Skyler Sterling was murdered.”

  For a moment, Radhauser was too stunned to speak. A blatant murder was the last thing he expected. “Do me a favor and try to keep this murder out of the press for a few more days. And keep that drug detail under wraps for now.” Radhauser suspected a kid murder would cause a media uproar. They would probably get some crank calls, crazies confessing to Skyler’s murder. He needed a piece of evidence held back—something only the killer would know.

  Chapter Eight

  It wouldn’t be long before the press learned the big news that a child was murdered in Ashland. In his seven years here, Radhauser had never investigated a child murder. On Friday morning, he got a search warrant for Bryce’s house and assigned his partner, Detective Robert Vernon, and Officer Maxine McBride the search. Their patrol car was parked in Bryce’s driveway when Radhauser arrived to question the neighbors. “No one home,” Vernon said. “Shall we break in the door?”

  “Give me a minute.” Radhauser was almost certain Bryce’s neighbor had a key.

  Miss Tilly answered the door wearing a flowered house dress and the same bunny slippers she wore the night of Skyler’s death. A hot pink headband held back her steel-wool colored gray curls. She had a sponge mop in her right hand, and her face and forehead glistened with perspiration.

  He tipped his Stetson. “Good afternoon, Miss Tilly,” he said. “Looks like you’ve worked up a sweat with that mop.” He paused and smiled. “I’d like to talk with you for a few moments if you have time.”

  “Oh Lordy, Detective Radhauser. I got nothin’ but time these days. And call me Tilly. Everyone else does.” She propped the mop against the exterior wall next to the front door. Her face lost its friendliness when she spotted the patrol car in Bryce’s driveway. “Why are the police over there?”

  “We have a search warrant,” Radhauser said.

  “For what?”

  “A child is dead, Ms. Tilly. The medical examiner has listed murder as the cause. And it’s my job to find out how and why it happened.”

  Behind her glasses, her brown eyes were round as quarters. “Murder? Why would that medical examiner think such a thing?”

  “Skyler didn’t die from his injuries. He died from a drug overdos
e.”

  “Bryce had nothin’ to do with it. That man won’t take nothin’ stronger than an aspirin.”

  “Skyler died as a result of something that happened in Bryce’s house. The search warrant gives us the authority to break down the front door. But I hate to do that when I’m pretty certain you have a key.”

  “I won’t be a party to no ransackin’ of my neighbor’s house. I’ve seen what the police do on television. And nobody ever cleans up the mess they leave behind.”

  “There’ll be a lot more mess if we have to break in.”

  She bit her lip, reached down into the pocket of her house dress, and handed him the key. There was a jittery undercurrent of anxiety around her today.

  Radhauser took the key and jogged next door to deliver it to Vernon. “Pay special attention to the medicine cabinets. Go through the trash and all the kitchen drawers and cabinets, too. Check the crib to see if you can find one of those kid cups with the little spout or a baby bottle inside.”

  When he returned to Tilly’s house, her door was closed. He rang the bell.

  No answer.

  He rang again. Knocked.

  She opened the door a crack. “I don’t approve of what you’re doin’ to Bryce. So I ain’t got the time or anythin’ to say to you.”

  “Don’t you want to help Mr. Bryce? I already talked to your neighbor, Harold Grundy. He claims you know Bryce better than anyone in the neighborhood.”

  “That old man don’t know nothin’ about anything except himself,” she said. “He wouldn’t go out of his way to help Bryce or anyone else.”

  “But you would,” Radhauser said. “And so would I.”

  She opened the door a little wider. “If you’re so anxious to help him, how come you let those cops go through his stuff like he’s some kind of criminal?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to find something that will prove Skyler’s death wasn’t his fault.”

  She opened the door and stepped aside so he could enter. “Is that medical examiner person smart?”

  “As smart as they come.” Radhauser pushed a blanket aside and took a seat on her sofa. He set his hat, crown-down, on the coffee table.

  She plopped into the rocking chair across from him.

  The house was neat and clean, designed much like Bryce’s Craftsman, but without the careful restoration of the floors and woodwork. Her walls were filled with framed family photographs. A large picture of a black Jesus, painted on velvet, hung over the mantle.

  She pushed her glasses up and held the bridge to her nose for a second, but as soon as she let go they fell forward again. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like you to tell me about Bryce. What kind of man is he?”

  She smiled as if there was nothing in the world she would rather talk about. “Bryce is about the best man I ever knew.” She nodded repeatedly, reaffirming every word. “He treats me better than my own sons. And he gave Dana and them two boys a place to stay. He’s a good dad. Watches them boys like a hawk.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Ever since he moved in next door.” She paused and appeared to be counting something in her head. “His house was the neighborhood eyesore when he bought it. He fixed it up real nice. I reckon it’s been ten years now.”

  “Have you ever seen him lose his temper with the boys?”

  She cocked her head and gave him a look that could have peeled chrome off his bumper. “Don’t you go blamin’ Bryce for what happened. He adored that little boy.”

  “I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just doing my job. A child is dead and I need to get at the truth.”

  Miss Tilly tensed, and she sat up straighter. “You want the truth? Nobody ever loved that little boy like Bryce does. Especially not Reggie Sterling.”

  “Did you ever see or hear Bryce lose his temper with either of the boys?”

  “I know what you’re getting at,” she replied. “And you’re dead wrong.” She told him what he already knew—that Bryce had smacked Scott on the backside after he pushed the baby out the door and had kicked, bitten, and spit on Bryce. “If you ask me, that boy could use some good old-fashioned discipline.”

  “Did you witness this incident?”

  “I heard Skyler screaming after he went flying through the front door. I was sitting on my porch and saw the whole thing. Scott ran off. I figured he was the culprit and knew he done something bad. Bryce chased after him. I reckon that’s when he swatted him, but I didn’t see it.”

  “Did you see them come back?”

  “I did. Bryce was carrying Scott underneath his arm. The boy was having a hissy fit, kicking and screaming his head off. I swear, Detective Radhauser, it woulda taken a saint not to whack that boy on his backside. His sorry excuse for a mother does it all the time.”

  “You don’t care much for Dana Sterling, do you?”

  “I might as well be honest. Truth of the matter is, no I don’t. That woman is a taker. And Bryce is too good for the likes of Dana. You should investigate her. I don’t think she ever wanted either of those babies.”

  “I intend to,” Radhauser said. “Were you at home the entire day on Monday? The day of Skyler’s injury.”

  “I’m just about always home. Bryce totes me to the supermarket whenever he goes. And if I’m not feelin’ up to it, he takes my list and shops for me. And sometimes he even takes me to my doctor’s appointments. Does that sound like the kind of man who’d hurt a baby?”

  “Did you see anything unusual that day?”

  “Matter of fact, I did.” There was satisfaction in her voice, as if she was finally asked a question she was happy to answer. “Ever since he’s been off work, Bryce takes them boys down to Lithia Park. Every day it ain’t raining or too cold. They leave at 10:30 and get home at noon or a little after. You could set your watch by them. After he gets home, he fixes lunch for them and sometimes me, too, then puts Skyler down for a nap.”

  “Did he take the boys to the park on Monday?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And while he was gone, Reggie Sterling shows up with Dana and that boy who works at the Lasso—the owner’s son. They had some boxes and packing tape with them.”

  “Did they go inside the house?”

  “Dana just opened up the door and let them inside like she owned the place. They were there for at least a half hour and when they came out, they were each carrying a big box.”

  “Was the door unlocked?”

  She nodded. “Bryce doesn’t usually lock it during the day. Scotty is allowed to come and go—as long as he stays in either the front or back yard. Them boxes were taped shut when they left, so I don’t know what they stole. I told Bryce about it, though.”

  Radhauser smiled. He was quite certain she had. Talk about neighborhood watch.

  “He just shrugged it off. Said he didn’t think he had anything valuable enough to steal. It’s not the first time she snuck in there with that Reggie Sterling, doin’ God knows what.”

  “Are you saying Dana was having an affair with her ex-husband?”

  “They didn’t even bother to close the curtains,” she said. “Right there in Bryce’s bedroom. And you wonder why I can’t stand that woman.”

  “Were there any other visitors that day?”

  “Some man I never seen before walked with Bryce and the boys when they came home from the park. I think he was a photographer. He had a camera around his neck. One of them big ones with the long lens.” She indicated the length by holding her hands about a foot apart. “He followed Bryce and the boys inside.”

  He made a mental note to ask Bryce about this. “There’s one more thing I need to ask you about, Miss Tilly.” A part of him didn’t want to bring this up, knew it would open an old wound for her, but the coincidence was too big. And Radhauser wasn’t a man who believed in coincidence—not when it came to a murder investigation.

  Tilly sighed, like a woman who’d lived a hundred years. “I’m listening.”

  “I unders
tand you were once arrested and accused of a crime in Philadelphia.”

  Her gaze shot over to him as if he accused her of stealing the silverware. For a moment, she stared at him in silence. “You mean that followed me all the way to Oregon?”

  “I don’t always like it, Miss Tilly, but it’s my job to investigate everyone with access to Skyler Sterling on Monday.”

  She looked at him like she might spit in his eye. “I didn’t hurt that baby, Detective Radhauser. And neither did Bryce. Back in Philly, everyone blamed me. I even got fired, but I swear to you, it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “You gonna believe an old colored woman like me.”

  He smiled in an attempt to be reassuring. “Until you give me a reason not to.”

  “It was the sixties and Miss Amy hired me to work in her daycare center. But them northern white folks didn’t take kindly to no colored woman watching their babies.” She focused her liquid brown gaze on him. “They musta figured some of my black gonna to rub off on their kids’ lily-white asses when I changed their diapers.” There was pain and a deep resentment in her voice.

  “Those were hard times,” Radhauser said. “I was a young boy in the sixties. But as a man I’m sorry and ashamed of what went on.” It was hard for him to imagine what life was like for her then. Now, Miss Tilly seemed like such an impenetrable woman. It was hard to imagine her ever questioning her place in the world.

  She gave him a half-hearted smile. “On the day it happened, the white woman I worked for was out sick and I had ten kids aged four and under to take care of by my lonesome. I slipped a disc in my back and the doctor prescribed those pain pills to get me through the day. I was always lifting up kids, bending over to change their diapers and wipe their butts.”

  “Did they accuse you of being an addict?”

  “That and a whole lot more.” For a moment, her statement hung suspended in the air between them. “I had them pills in my purse on the highest bookshelf. Same place I always put it. Same place the white woman put hers, too. One of the babies had a bad case of diarrhea that day and it was all I could do to keep her clean so she wouldn’t get no diaper rash. While I changed her, Wally Meyers climbed up that bookcase, grabbed my purse and found them. He was four-years-old and I reckon he thought they was candy. I called an ambulance as soon as I found my purse on the floor and that pill bottle empty.”