Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  ‘I hear you,’ he said, shaping his words and the way he said them carefully. ‘If you’re really serious, I might be able to help.’

  She looked up. ‘How?’

  He leaned back, looked at her meaningfully, paused, and then reached into his desk. He pulled out a blank piece of paper and wrote a number on it. ‘Memorize this,’ he said, giving her ample time to do so, watching the corners of her mouth move. ‘This is for a friend of mine, who’s connected in showbiz. She’s gotten a lot of kids their first jobs.’

  ‘Like an agent?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, spinning the story like a length of fishing line, ‘but don’t think Hollywood … at least not yet. It’s more bread-and-butter stuff, cruise ships, convention work, traveling productions of some of the Broadway shows, catalog modeling, that kind of thing.’ He tore the paper with the number on it into tiny pieces. He had a moment’s pause, there was huge risk with minors, but also the possibility of a big payday, and keeping up the flow of money was everything. ‘Of course, I never said any of this, and if you can stick it out in that group home and finish high school, it would be better for you.’

  She pulled more tissues from the box, ‘You don’t know what it’s like in that place,’ she said.

  While Chase would never share this with a girl like Morgan, he knew exactly what those places were like. Unlike her, he’d figured out how to work the system, just like now. ‘You have to be careful,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you, Morgan.’

  Her eyes lingered on his, and then his cell phone rang, the dial tone set to a simple ring on low volume.

  ‘Our time’s up, make an appointment with the secretary and I’ll see you in a month.’

  Morgan got herself out of the chair. She moved slowly and stared back into Chase’s beautiful amber-flecked eyes. She seemed confused, the phone number he showed her, the way her gorgeous counselor was breaking rules for her, looking at her. She wished there was a mirror, as she knew her makeup had smeared, and she’d spent over an hour primping for her monthly meeting with him. Her legs felt weak and rubbery. ‘I might not be here in a month,’ she said, wondering if maybe he was interested in her. Because if he was, she’d do anything for him … absolutely anything.

  There was a second and then third ring. ‘I’ve got to take this call, Morgan … goodbye,’ and he closed the door behind her.

  He pressed the on button and heard Janice Fleet’s voice. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘I am now,’ he said, looking out his single dirt-smeared window, which afforded a dreary view of the adjacent municipal garage.

  ‘Did you get the cell back? Just tell me you did, because I’m having one hell of a day.’

  ‘No, and you better sit down because it’s about to get worse,’ he said, wondering how she’d handle the news. ‘It isn’t just one of the regular phones that’s missing. I think Bobby had one of the others.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The videophones … the ones we use with the girls.’ He waited, while catching his reflection in the window, appreciating the way the three-hundred-dollar sweater showed off the V-shape of his torso. His exercise and diet regimen was a meticulously crafted balance of protein shakes, supplements, yoga, weights, and aerobics, giving him just the right amount of lean, defined muscle but not that bullish steroid look.

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘It happened,’ he said, not wanting to deal with Janice’s tirades and finger-pointing, while getting a sadistic thrill at the fear in her voice. ‘Worst-case scenario, someone looks at a video of a naked girl, they won’t know who she is and there’s no audio.’ He filled her in on the specifics, how Marky went to retrieve the phones only to find a couple of female social-worker types in the apartment. How one of them called out the name Jerod.

  ‘Jerod who?’

  ‘Crazy Jerod. A nut job who’s been hanging around some of the kids in the family.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ she asked, her tone urgent.

  Her questions took him off guard. Janice rarely wanted details about the disposable kids that Chase carefully culled as they aged out of the foster system. Young adults with no family, nowhere to go, just ripe for a caring adult to show them some attention, give them a safe place to live, money, clothes, and a job … of sorts. Marky, as his lieutenant, showed them how easy it was to blend in with the undergraduates in the big dormitories, setting them up with the right look and fake IDs. He’d teach them how to reel in the children of middle- and upper-class families, starting with a few free tastes, showing them how to snort dope and eventually shoot it, and in a matter of a few short weeks turning an experiment with drugs into an insatiable habit that could last – or destroy – a lifetime. ‘Just some crazy kid who’s been hanging out with the family, I saw him once or twice when he was still in the system.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ she repeated. ‘White Rasta? Dirty blond?’

  ‘Yes, thin, might be good looking if he ever got near a bar of soap.’

  ‘What’s his last name?’ she asked.

  ‘I think it’s Blank,’ he said, hearing the click of a keyboard over the phone.

  ‘This is very bad.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘Just listen, Chase,’ she said, ‘he barged into a meeting I was at this afternoon. He had a gun. Apparently the current head of the Forensic Evaluation Center – a Dr. Conyors, who’s a royal pain in the ass, but too smart to mess with – is his shrink. I’d also be willing to bet she was one of the two women sniffing around those dead kids. He was rambling about people trying to kill him. We’ve got a major problem …’ There was a pause. ‘And possibly an opportunity. At least we know where he is, and I’m willing to bet he had those cell phones on him. There’s no love lost between Dr. Conyors and me … If she’s trying to set me up, which I wouldn’t put past her, I swear she won’t live to regret it.’

  ‘How do we get them back?’

  ‘We don’t,’ she said, ‘you do, and do it tonight. You’ll need a key card to get in … I know where I can get you one. And while you’re at it, make sure that crazy Jerod never makes it to his next appointment. And if he’s told that shrink anything at all, take care of her.’

  SIX

  Barrett ran her key card over her office door’s electronic pad. She didn’t hear the usual click and realized it was not latched. Her pulse quickened; something was wrong. She resisted the first rush of adrenalin as she turned the handle that should have been locked … had been locked, and now wasn’t. She opened the door thinking of all the reasons. Maybe the cleaning crew, maybe Marla came in early, maybe … She stood unmoving in the open door. ‘This can’t be.’ In shock, she surveyed her corner office, the early morning light leaving no doubt why the door was unlocked; someone had broken in and ransacked it. She stepped over the threshold, her senses like radar, was the perp still here? She listened intently, the hum of the air conditioner, the ding of the elevator and the doors opening from out in the hall and a buzzing from a poorly seated fluorescent bulb, but that was all. Moving silently, she swept through the space, her feet flat on the floor, her eyes taking in the busted locks on her filing cabinets and desk. Papers, reports, articles, and journals that had all been filed, shelved, or piled in tidy stacks by Marla were now spilled onto the floor. She flung open the door to the small closet and saw her just-in-case wardrobe of a go-to-court navy suit and workout clothes for kung-fu or a quick run tossed to the floor. Her heart skipped as she saw one of her sports bras plainly visible on top of the heap. She swallowed, not wanting to think about the hands that had touched it. What did they want? What were they looking for? Her eyes flew to the computer monitor; it was on. She always shut it down at the end of the day. She resisted the urge to check the history, realizing that maybe the perp had left prints. She circled behind her desk and into the tiny bathroom that was one of the perks of being the center’s director. Her breast pump
still sat on the metal shelf over the sink, but the medicine cabinet was open and the contents, all the personal things she didn’t want in the open, from aspirin to tampons, had been spilled on the floor and into the sink. Back in the main office, her eye caught on the open door of the dorm-size refrigerator she kept under her desk. A white plastic bottle of breast milk that she’d forgotten to take home lay on the floor. She struggled to stay detached, this was a crime scene, and she knew the best course was to get out of there, call security … call Hobbs, but the thought of others going through her things, it felt dirty and frightening.

  She startled at the sound of Marla coming into the outer office. She caught her secretary’s expression – fear. ‘Call security,’ she said, ‘tell them there’s been a break-in.’

  Marla nodded and backed away, her face trained on Barrett as she picked up the phone and dialed.

  From behind her desk, Barrett tried to make sense of the avalanche of papers. She tried to push away the feelings of violation and of being watched. This was no random break-in. Marla’s office hadn’t been touched, there’d been no call in the night from security saying the Center had been broken into. Someone had deliberately come to her office and trashed it. Why? What were they looking for? Her gut twisted at a horrible thought. Not caring about contaminating potential evidence, she pulled open her smashed top right-hand drawer. Her hands flew inside. I’d left it on top. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘What?’ Marla asked, standing on the other side of the door, looking in, her eyes wide beneath her dark bangs. Barrett sensed her fear, knowing it mirrored her own.

  She dug through the drawer spilling papers and clips, her fingers desperate for the familiar feel of the framed photomontage her mother had made of Max. It included the recovery-room picture of her holding him, surrounded by a snapshot a week for his first eight weeks of life. Her mom had given it to her the morning she’d had to return to work from her maternity leave. She left it in the drawer, and would look at it countless times, of course it had been on top. And now … it was gone.

  ‘What’s missing?’ Marla repeated. ‘What did they take?’

  Barrett flung open every drawer, a sick feel in her gut. ‘It’s got to be here.’ She looked at Marla. ‘They took Max’s pictures. Why?’ She stepped back, feeling lightheaded and numb. ‘And why such a mess?’ Clearly whoever did this was looking for something, and they wanted her to know they’d been there, been through her things, and knew she had a baby. She tried to piece it together, how someone could have gotten into her office; the only locks that hadn’t been broken were the ones on her door and Marla’s outer door. They’d gotten into Marla’s office – assumed there was nothing there they wanted – and then into hers without any force – someone with either a key card or master key – but that was a short list.

  A phone rang. Barrett startled and then searched over the chaos on her desk to find the buried phone. She picked up; it was Hobbs. His deep voice just what she needed.

  ‘We still on for Croton?’ he asked.

  ‘Ed, someone broke into my office.’

  ‘When?’ his tone serious.

  ‘Sometime overnight, they’ve torn it up pretty good; it had to have been an inside job. They must have had a passkey or a key card.’

  ‘What’s missing?’

  ‘I can’t tell. I’m freaking … the only thing I know is gone is Max’s picture.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Ed, I don’t put out any personal photos in my office, but I’ve had his in my desk drawer … it’s like … I just need to look at it.’ She looked at Marla still in the door. ‘Marla, this is Detective Hobbs, would you mind …’

  ‘Of course not,’ and she left, closing the door behind.

  ‘Ed, what if this is Jimmy’s doing? What if he knows about Max?’

  ‘Don’t go there, Barrett. Jimmy’s locked away. There’s no way he could know.’

  ‘Yeah, but with his kind of money he’s had people do his dirty work enough times before.’

  ‘I’m not ruling it out, but step back and tell me what else is gone or disturbed in any way.’

  ‘They’ve been on my computer. My files are password-protected, but …’

  ‘I’m on my way. Try not to touch anything else.’ And then he added, ‘This could have to do with the kid?’

  She first thought of Max, but then realized, ‘Jerod? It’s possible, I don’t know.’

  ‘It could be, but if it’s an inside job, it’s someone who didn’t know you had him moved to Croton last night.’

  ‘Right,’ and holding the phone she looked up as her door banged open. She expected Marla, but it was Hugh Osborn in a dark suit. ‘I got to go, Ed.’

  ‘Dr. Conyors,’ Hugh said, not acknowledging the wreck of her office. He held a Manila folder in one hand and a document that Barrett immediately recognized as his year-end evaluation in the other. ‘This is unacceptable.’ He waved the disputed report in the air. His fingers crumpled the pages. ‘I will not let you put this in my file.’

  ‘Hugh,’ Barrett said, not about to get sucked in, ‘I gave you ample warning about what was going in there. I told you the areas you needed to improve …’

  ‘Unacceptable! I’ve worked for the State of New York for over fifteen years, and I have always received the highest marks on my evaluations. If you think you can slander my reputation this way, you’ve got another thing coming; this is libel! I am not going to stand by and let you do this.’

  ‘That’s fine, Hugh,’ Barrett said, picturing what it would feel like to land a roundhouse kick on his perfectly combed head; if only he put half the time in his work that he did in being so immaculately groomed. ‘You’re a member of the union; bring it up with your delegate. There’s a process for that. Other than that, what I put in there is accurate and stands. Now, I’ve got more important matters to deal with,’ she said, opening her arms.

  He blinked and finally took in the wreckage of her office. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ she said, realizing that high up on her list of insiders who might have a grudge against her would be Hugh. ‘Intend to find out … what time did you leave yesterday?’

  ‘You think I had something to do with this?’ his tone incredulous.

  ‘Of course not, but maybe you saw something.’

  His dark eyes scanned her office. ‘I left the regular time, didn’t see a thing.’

  Barrett detected a rapid shift in his expression, it was hard to pin down, but he was worried. Stepping toward him and the open door. ‘Looks like someone came after something, someone who knew where my office was, someone who had access to the building.’

  As she advanced he stepped back. ‘You certain you didn’t see anyone,’ she asked, ‘or know anything?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He broke from her gaze. ‘I have reports I need to finish.’

  You lying, sneaky bastard, she thought, you know something. But then again, He seems genuinely surprised by the break-in … ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you sure do, and that’s why you got the evaluation you did. You have a lot of overdue reports. And if you decide to push the grievance with the union – which is entirely your right – I have all the data I need to back up your evaluation. I could have made it much worse.’

  ‘I’m not surprised someone did this,’ he said maliciously, ‘you can’t treat people this way, and I know my rights; I am not going to let this go into my file. I refuse to sign it.’

  ‘Fine.’ She noted the flare of his nostrils and the clenching of his jaw. ‘I’ll make a notation that you refused to acknowledge receiving your evaluation. Some might call that insubordination. You can leave now,’ she said, feeling a hair’s breath from losing her cool, which was not an option and would only add fuel for whatever new grievance he’d bring. To try and get him out of there she walked past him, his fury palpable. In another setting she was certain he’d try to hit her. She went over to Marla. ‘Did you get Jim?’ she asked, referring to the Center’s head of se
curity. Her anger was boiling, and with her back turned, she heard Hugh storm out, almost slamming Marla’s door in the process. She finally let out her breath.

  ‘He’s a piece of work,’ Marla commented.

  ‘That’s for sure,’ Barrett said, and then realized that in among the mess in her office were all the employee files, including Hugh’s. What if he’d come looking for it?

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ Marla said, as one by one she opened her desk drawers.

  ‘Why?’ Barrett asked, having learned over the years to pay attention to her normally mouse-quiet secretary.

  ‘When you were on maternity leave,’ Marla said, ‘he wanted to use your office. Said he was the acting director and it would be the right thing to do. He got mad when you told me to tell him no, and that he could just use his own office.’

  ‘What did he do?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘Kind of like now, yelled at me, told me I was incompetent, and that if he were director, he’d have to get a different assistant.’ She looked up at Barrett.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Barrett said, ‘I wish you’d told me he’d been such an ass.’

  ‘I’ve been through worse,’ Marla said, with a shy smile. ‘But there was other stuff, like he was doing an evaluation on a patient you’d seen before and he wanted me to cut entire pages from one of your reports and paste them into his. I told him I’d have to check with you first; he didn’t like that, told me I was insubordinate. Or when he’d send out letters, he’d want me to use director under his name. I told him that was inaccurate, that he was the acting director. It was lots of little stuff like that; he doesn’t like to be told no.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘I should have,’ Marla admitted, ‘but men like that scare the hell out of me. He even looks a little bit like my ex. He sure acts like him.’

  Barrett didn’t press, Marla’s past history was a painful one, and few other than she and George Houssman knew the details, that over twenty years ago Marla, in the midst of a psychotic depression, had set her home on fire intending to end both her life and that of her brutally sadistic husband. She’d survived; he hadn’t. She’d ended up being sent to a forensic hospital, and through a release program had come to work as George Houssman’s secretary at the Center over a decade ago. ‘If he does anything in the future to upset you,’ Barrett said, ‘let me know right away.’