Little Lies

by Heather Gudenkauf

  * * *

  I wake to the sound of a crying infant and for a moment I think it’s Avery. I gather my bearings and quickly realize I’m still at the hospital. A thin gray light barely penetrates the windows and I glance at my watch. 7:25 a.m. “He’s sleeping,” the same nurse who took the child when we arrived says, pointing to an examination room. I stand, stretch and peek into the room, and the boy is tucked beneath a white blanket and sleeping peacefully in a toddler-sized hospital crib.

  “He’s okay?” I ask. “Did he tell you his name?”

  “He’s not hurt,” the nurse assures me, “but he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell us anything about who he is and where he came from.”

  “Well, certainly someone will come looking for him today,” I say with more conviction than I feel. “I have to make a few calls. Will you come get me if he wakes up?” The nurse nods and I move toward a window in hopes of better cell reception. First I call Caren Regis, my supervisor at DHS, and fill her in as to what is happening, then I try to get ahold of Joe to find out if the woman in the park has been identified, but his phone goes right to voice mail. Finally, I phone Martha Renner, the foster mother that I hope will take the boy in for the time being. She has often worked with children who have been through unthinkable experiences. I don’t know what our world would be like if we didn’t have such selfless women and men step in to be surrogate mothers and fathers for these children. In fact, she was the foster mother of a child who appears to have gone through the exact same situation as our little John Doe. Thirteen years ago.

  I sense a presence behind me and turn to find Joe. He looks as spent as I feel. “Nice hair,” he says as he hands me one of the two cups of coffee he is holding. My free hand flies to my head and I self-consciously run my fingers through the matted mess, wild after being stuffed inside a wool hat all night.

  “Nice hat,” I shoot back, nodding pointedly at his own head. “You look like a Russian hunter.”

  He shrugs good-naturedly. “Keeps my ears warm. How was the kid’s night?”

  “He’s still sleeping. Martha Renner, his temporary foster care mother, will be here in a few minutes. Listen, we’ve got to talk about this. The more I think about the similarities to...”

  Joe holds up a hand and looks around the hospital hallway, now filling with doctors and nurses. “Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t go far in case the boy wakes up.” I shake my head in disgust. “We can’t go on calling him the boy. We need to find out his name, find out who he is.”

  “We will,” Joe assures me. “Someone will come forward soon. He was obviously well cared for. Clean, dressed warmly. A husband, boyfriend to the woman will call us looking for her.”

  “Unless he was the one who murdered her.”

  Joe nods thoughtfully. “That’s usually the case.”

  “But you don’t think so in this one?” I ask, fearing his response. Together we return to the area just outside the room where the boy is sleeping and sit down.

  “You tell me what you’re thinking,” Joe says. “And I’ll play devil’s advocate.”

  “How about, you tell me what you’re thinking and I play the devil’s advocate,” I counter. “You always get to play Satan.”

  “Fair enough.” Joe drinks deeply from his coffee cup before speaking. “Thirteen years ago, a homeless woman and her five-year-old son were found in Singer Park. The woman had been murdered and her body placed beneath a statue of a nearly naked woman.”

  “It’s a statue of a Greek goddess,” I clarify. “And she’s not naked.”

  “A Greek goddess,” he amends. “The woman was identified as Nell Sharpe and her son, Jonah, who was unharmed, was put into foster care. The crime was never solved.”

  “All true,” I agree.

  “Thirteen years later, we find the body of an unidentified woman and her unhurt son in the same park, beneath the same statue.”

  “A body is found in that park at least once a year. Granted most aren’t murders, but it has happened,” I say in my role as devil’s advocate.

  “The victim from thirteen years ago died from blunt force trauma to the head. This victim appears to have died in a similar way.”

  “Coincidence,” I counter.

  “I hope so—something we’ll have to look into anyway,” Joe says, standing and stretching his large frame. “How’s Jonah doing now? He has to be, what, nineteen years old?”

  “He’s eighteen, almost nineteen. Never was legally adopted by anyone. Kept coming back to live with Martha Renner when he got kicked out of other foster and group homes. Good kid at heart, but made some poor choices.”

  A nurse in bright pink scrubs approaches us. “The little boy is just waking up now,” she says. “I’ll make sure he gets some breakfast.”

  I thank her and as Joe and I go to the examination room I reach up and pluck the fur hat from his head. “No need to scare him first thing in the morning.”

  The boy is curled up in a tight ball, his thumb in his mouth, eyes opening and closing slowly, still heavy with sleep. “Morning,” I say in a whisper and he scrambles to his feet, fingers clutching at the rails of the crib. I reach down and lift him from the bed. “Are you hungry?” He nods, his eyes fixed uncertainly on Joe. “This is Joe,” I tell him. “He’s a police officer. He helps people.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Joe says, offering his large hand to shake. The boy reaches out, but instead of taking Joe’s hand he pulls at the hat Joe is holding in his other hand. He takes it into his arms and hugs it as if it was a favorite blanket or stuffed animal. I smile. Joe will never get his hat back.

  Joe sighs, but decides to play along. “His name is Cujo.” I elbow Joe in the ribs. “And I bet he wants to know what your name is. Can you tell Cujo your name? You can say it into Cujo’s ear if you want,” Joe suggests.

  The boy holds the hat away from him as if trying to locate its ear. He presses his lips into one of the ear flaps and says softly, “Mason.”

  I look with surprise at Joe. It worked. Just knowing the boy’s first name is crucial in being able to find out who the woman in the park was, to finding Mason’s next of kin. Joe smiles smugly.

  An hour later Mason has eaten breakfast, Joe has left and Martha Renner has arrived. I do my best to explain that Martha is there to help him and that he gets to go to her house and play with some other nice children. Mason looks heartbroken. These transitions are never easy, even for me, a seasoned social worker who has made these handoffs time after time.

  “How’s Jonah doing these days?” I ask Martha as she straps Mason into the car seat of her SUV.

  She shakes her head sadly. “Not great. Didn’t end up graduating from high school last year, though I’m constantly telling him to go and get his GED. He works on and off for a construction company. Lives with a group of guys over on Laurel Street.”

  “Will you tell him I said hi?” I poke my head into the backseat of the car. “See you later, Mason. I promise.”

  He nods gravely and grasps Cujo.

  Once they drive away I realize that I left my car back at Singer Park, having ridden with Mason in the ambulance to the hospital. Adam’s in class teaching by now, but I send him a text telling him all is well and I’ll be able to pick up the kids from school and day care. I consider my options for getting back to the park. Singer is three miles away—I can walk or I can call Joe and see if he is able to come and pick me up. Walking the three miles in the brutal cold sounds too daunting, so a little reluctantly I call Joe. Though I consider Joe one of my best friends, sometimes I think he wishes we could be more. His divorce came as a blow, his wife of ten years leaving him for their accountant, and he’s never quite recovered. I know he’s lonely and he often tells me that Adam and I have it all: a strong marriage, beautiful kids, a home, a perfect
life. I encourage him to get out more often, have even tried to set him up with another social worker from the department and an algebra teacher from Adam’s high school, but it doesn’t seem to work out.

  “Hey,” I say when he answers, “I’m stranded at the hospital and was hoping you could give me a ride back to the park so I can get my car.”

  “I think I can manage that,” he says, “but you’re going to owe me.”

  I laugh. “Okay, I’ll run into the café across the street and get you a coffee.”

  “Thanks, but not what I had in mind. I’ll explain when I see you. Be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I thank him, puzzled at what I could possibly do to help him out. I zip up my coat and pull my hat over my ears and step outside. The sky is gray and the morning air is cold and pricks sharply at my lungs when I inhale. I cross a busy intersection and dash into a café and order a large black coffee for Joe, a hot chocolate for myself and two blueberry muffins. By the time my order is ready, Joe has pulled up to the curb. I pick my way across the icy street, carefully balancing the two steaming cups and bag of muffins, and climb in the passenger side of his car.

  “Did Mason get off okay?” Joe asks, relieving me of the coffee and bag of muffins.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty dazed, but Martha is a pro. She’ll get him settled in. No one has come forward about a missing woman and child?”

  “No, but I got a guy working on digging into local birth records trying to find documentation of a little boy born four years ago with the first name of Mason.”

  “That could take some time,” I say, taking a cautious sip of my cocoa.

  “Not as much time as you’d think. Everything is computerized now. Just have to enter the name into the system and it sorts all the info.”

  “Unless Mason wasn’t born in the county,” I remind him. Joe tips his head in concession. “Now to the favor you need.”

  “I’m not ready to collect yet,” Joe says cryptically. “I want to check into things a little more before I start barking up that tree.”

  “What tree is that?” I press as Joe pulls next to my van and parks.

  Joe turns in his seat and regards me thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t have said anything yet. It’s just a hunch I have. Let me do some more digging and then I may need to ask for your help.”

  Something about the rigid set of his jaw and the weariness in his eyes causes me not to push further. “Okay,” I say, patting him on the arm. “Thanks for the ride. Will you call me if you find out anything more about the woman’s identity or Mason’s next of kin?” He agrees and I step out of the car and slide quickly into my van, where I turn the ignition and twist the knob controlling the heat to High. Joe waits until the ice that has collected on my windshield melts away, and when I raise my hand indicating that I’m ready to go, he pulls away.

  I have every intention of following Joe out of the park, but something keeps me there. It is deserted. All the emergency vehicles and personnel from the night before are long gone and all that remains is a scrap of crime scene tape tangled within a bush, a ragged yellow ribbon rising and falling with each gust of wind.

  With the van idling, I leave the warm interior and step back into the icy air. I approach the marble sculpture, the same mottled white as the snow at its feet, and look up at her serene face. I don’t know much about the figure carved expertly in the stone, but from the placard affixed to the base, scoured by years of exposure to the elements, and nearly illegible, I confirm the artist fashioned her after a Greek goddess by the name of Leto. Here Leto stands nearly ten feet tall, her lovely face cast downward at the two children who are at her feet. Somehow the sculptor was able to etch her face into an expression of pure adoration. The children are looking up at their mother in rapt attention as if Leto was whispering the secrets of the universe to them. I wish the mothers that I worked with could look at their children that way more often—as if there is nothing more precious in this world. It’s not that they don’t love their kids—I know they do—but something has distracted them; a boyfriend, alcohol, drugs or life has hardened them so that they aren’t capable of expressing that kind of love. I don’t know. Suddenly, even in daylight, the park emits a ghostly aura. There is no sound except for the bray of the wind.

  Two women found murdered, thirteen years apart, in the same park and beneath the same statue, each with an unharmed child found at her side. My teeth begin to chatter and not just because of the cold. It could be a strange coincidence, but I don’t think so.

  I feel the weight of someone’s eyes on me and I glance around. In the distance, beneath a cluster of shagbark hickory trees, stands a lone figure dressed in a baggy sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head. Male, I think, but that’s all I can tell. His face is concealed within the shadows of the trees. My heart thumps with fear and I scurry back to the safety of the van and lock the doors. I quickly drive away as the man darts into the woods.

  By the time I have collected Avery from the sitter’s and turned onto my street, my nerves have steadied and I have convinced myself that it was just a curious gawker. No murderer would be stupid enough to return to the scene of the crime, I assure myself, but I make a mental note to tell Joe about the encounter.

  I nurse Avery, admiring the tininess of her, the way she stretches languorously, her small fists waving like soft pink tulips bobbing in the wind. She is so beautiful and I know from experience how quickly they grow up. I long to keep looking at her, but a sudden lethargy overtakes me I lay Avery in her crib, set my alarm for 3:00 p.m. so I can pick up Leah and Lucas from school, and climb into my own bed.

  Try as I might, I’m not able to fall asleep. Images of the women lying lifeless beneath the statue in the park keep invading my thoughts. Two women in thirteen years. How could it be a mere coincidence?

  * * *

  Thirteen years ago, on the day I met Jonah, I had received the initial call from the responding officer about a deceased woman and her child being found in the sculpture park. The first question I asked after being assured the boy wasn’t hurt was if they knew the little boy’s name.

  “The woman has no wallet, no identification on her, just a backpack with a few clothes. Kid’s not talking. Probably transient. She’s a nobody, so’s the kid,” the officer said blithely. “When can you get here?”

  I had to bite back the scathing response I longed to give the callous officer, but I learned, even that early on in my career, that I had to pick my battles. A time would come when I would need this officer’s help and it was best not to anger him. “Well, someone must know who he is,” I said instead. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” When I arrived, the scene was unnervingly similar to the one I witnessed early this morning. Though it took some time, the boy eventually told us his full name and as much as he could about his mother. Jonah Sharpe was five years old and his mother’s name was Nell. They had only just arrived in Cedar City a few days before. He was able to tell us that he came from a town called Franklin. At first we were hopeful. There was a Franklin, Iowa, in far southeastern Iowa, but there was no record of a Nell and Jonah Sharpe. We quickly learned that there were at least twenty-five towns named Franklin in the United States. Finally, we uncovered several arrest records from across the Midwest involving Nell. Public intoxication, drug possession, child neglect. No next of kin was ever found and Nell was buried in a Cedar City graveyard, her funeral and gravestone paid for by a local women’s group. Jonah entered foster care and never found his way out.

  * * *

  Giving up on sleep, I throw the covers back and pad down to the kitchen. I still have an hour before I need to pick the kids up from school. I pull a mug from the cupboard and put water on the stove for tea. While I wait for the water to boil I retrieve my laptop from my briefcase and turn it on. First, I look up Nell Sharpe on Google and three links to articles from our local newspaper pop up. I click
on the top one and a news article from the morning after the homicide appears along with a picture of the crime scene. It’s a photograph of a small, bewildered-looking boy clutching the hand of an equally shaken-looking young social worker. Me. The accompanying article surmises that the murder was most likely a drug deal or a robbery gone bad. I always had my doubts. Jonah couldn’t or wouldn’t recount any details for us. He just knew that his mother was dead and was never coming back.

  I know that this morning’s paper won’t have any information regarding the most recent murder, but sometimes the online version of the Cedar City Courier reports up-to-date breaking news. After a few clicks all I can find is a brief report of a deceased individual found in Singer Park. There is no mention of homicide or of a little boy. The whistle from the teakettle rouses me from my thoughts and I turn off the stove, pour the boiling water into a mug and absentmindedly drag a tea bag through the bubbling liquid. I take the mug and a plate of crackers that I’ve slathered with peanut butter over to the living room couch and turn on the television, alternating between taking sips of tea and bites of crackers, while watching for any updates on the murder on the local TV station.

  The landline phone rings and I frantically leap from the couch and look at the clock, fearing that I have lost track of time and forgotten to pick up Leah and Lucas from school. Two forty-five. I breathe a sigh of relief; I still have fifteen minutes before the dismissal bell rings.

  “Hello,” I say, answering the phone.

  “You’re home,” Adam says.

  “I’m home,” I say, warmed by the familiar sound of my husband’s voice.

  “You must be tired,” he empathizes. “I’ll be home by six. I promise.”

  We say goodbye and I trudge up the stairs to get Avery. I hate the thought of dragging her back out into this cold, but this, unfortunately, is the life of a third child. They get carted around everywhere, naptime and bedtime schedules are wishful thinking, and pacifiers aren’t disinfected after they are dropped onto the floor, but are unceremoniously popped back into the third child’s mouth. She is gurgling happily in her crib when I open her bedroom door. I change Avery’s diaper, make sure that her leggings and long-sleeve t-shirt are covering any exposed skin, pull her hat over her ears, fasten her into the car seat and tuck a warm blanket beneath her chin.