Morgan Reece called Serena. After exchanging pleasantries, he went on to explain the next day’s activities.
“Is it possible for me to be tested first? I’m trying to find a job and I have to move out of the place I’m staying. Tom—well I’m sure it was Tom but I can’t prove it—gave the number out along with an obscene message. The family that I’m staying with has children and I don’t want them dragged into my mess. So I have to get a room somewhere.”
“I’ll discuss it with you and Mr. Tully. He says his employers are pressing him about the amount of time he’s missing from work.”
“Only because they’re losing. When you win anything goes. Ask him about the ‘Fifth Down Club.’”
“Let me ask you. What is the ‘Fifth Down Club’?”
“It’s a bunch of guys, players mostly, but there were some coaches, who broke every rule the club had: curfew, drinking, drugs, girls.”
“Was your husband a member of the ‘Fifth Down Club’?”
“Before we were married, yes. Afterwards, I don’t know. I didn’t think so, but I also wasn’t checking up on Tom either here or on the road. Now, nothing would surprise me.”
“Have you considered putting your husband under surveillance to see if he has a girlfriend, as you believe?”
“Dr. Reece, I don’t have money for food. I’m going to pawn my watch tomorrow, try to get a motel room to stay in while you do your work and try to get a job with a face that has more lumps than my mother’s gravy. No, I haven’t even thought of it.”
“I brought it up because your husband is moving for a divorce on the grounds of adultery. It sounds like you believe the grounds could go both ways.”
“Let me ask you a question, Dr. Reece. Is adultery a factor in custody matters?”
“I don’t want to practice law, Ms. Tully. There are cases in Virginia that say that adultery per se is not proof of unfitness to parent. However, it is still a crime on the books. I’d rather you got advice from your lawyer on the legal consequences of adultery.”
“But what about you, what does it mean to you?”
“It’s a factor, Ms. Tully, like lots of things. I have to see that there’s been a direct adverse impact on the children as a result of the adultery for it to be a factor.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a legal concept, Mrs. Tully. Please ask your attorney to explain it to you. He can give you some examples.”
“All right. Thank you, Dr. Reece. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Morgan Reece spent the rest of the evening working on a sexual abuse evaluation involving the three oldest sons of a prominent Irish Catholic family. While babysitting their eight siblings they took turns sodomizing their twelve-year-old sister. This seemed a reasonable course of action to them considering their fears about her getting pregnant and the prohibitions on the use of condoms.
Around ten o’clock the pizza man arrived with a ‘clogger’: pepperoni, sausage and extra cheese. When he could not bear to read another page of testimony, he switched to a best-selling thriller he’d recently picked up. So far this one confirmed his belief that inside every fat book is a thin one trying to get out. However as a soporific it was cheap and effective. There was no style to speak of. Just words marching dutifully across the page single file, like pack animals bearing their load of information across the paper desert.
Reece put the book down and thought about Lindsay Brinkman’s offer to get an instructor to help him with his fear of heights.
He needed a larger world. He was far too comfortable in his current, cramped one. Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. Was he ready to defy inertia almighty?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Felicia Hurtado was in her mid-twenties. She had long black hair braided down her back and her copper skin was free of makeup. She wore a long charcoal grey skirt, a white blouse, black sweater, and sat with her hands folded in her lap. She looked like a parochial school student.
Morgan Reece decided not to beat around the bush. He usually shunned family and friends as witnesses because of the high risk of bias in their reports. That went for employees, too.
“Are you an American citizen, Ms. Hurtado?”
“No.”
“Do you have a green card?”
“No. Not yet. Mr. Tully said that he would help me get it.”
“How was he going to do that?”
“By sponsoring me.”
“What does that mean ‘sponsor’?”
“He promised me a job for when I get my card.”
“And what kind of job was that?”
“This job. To take care of his children.”
“So, you are employed by Mr. Tully alone, not he and his wife?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Tully talk to you about our meeting today?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I should tell the truth.”
And how much water is in the glass? he thought. “If Mr. Tully loses custody of his children, what kind of job has he offered you?”
She looked down at her nails for the answer, then whispered what she had found.
“None.”
“Where are you from?”
“Colombia.”
“Is it any different for you here?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
“Are you a mother?”
“Yes.”
“What are your children’s names?”
“Guillermo, he is eight and a half. Mayra, she is seven.”
“Where are your children?”
“Here with me.”
“Who takes care of them when you are at the Tullys?”
“My mother.”
“Ms. Hurtado, I do not want to cause you any trouble, but my first and only loyalty is to these children. What is best for them. You can do very little to help Mr. Tully keep his children. If you say that he is a wonderful father and she is a terrible mother, I won’t pay much attention to that, I may not even write that down. It could be the truth. It could also be your fear speaking. How can I tell? If the truth is different, that I will listen to. That will help the children. Shall we begin?”
“Yes.” She almost said “Commandant,” but caught herself. Perhaps he thought he was freeing her from Tully’s influence, but what she heard was the police interrogator who came to her village and questioned her about the ambush that killed two of his men.
She was stripped and tied to a chair. He waved the Taser at her like a pet cobra. He, too, knew what answers he would believe. When they put her feet in a bowl of cold water to increase her conductivity, she was finally able to find a truth he would accept.
“How would you describe Mr. Tully as a parent?”
“I have not had much time to see him with the children. When Mrs. Tully lived at home, I would leave when he came home from work. This last week I see him in the morning when I arrive and then for a little bit when I leave. He is affectionate with the children and very generous. He always brings home a toy for the children.”
“Does he say why he does that?”
“Because they have lost their mother. So they won’t be sad.”
“Have you ever seen him discipline the children?”
“No. They are very well-behaved children.”
“Have they ever seemed afraid of their father?”
“Not that I have seen.”
“Mr. Tully, has he had any woman friends come to the house?”
“No.”
“How about Ms. Tully? Any men ever come to the house? Have the children ever mentioned another man being around?”
“No.”
“What kind of mother is Ms. Tully?”
“She is a good mother. We did not get along very well when I first came. She only wanted me to clean the house. She would take care of Tina. I understood that. She did not hire me. Mr. Tully did. She relaxed later and let me take care of Tina sometimes.”
“W
hen was that?”
“The last few months. When she would have to go out to see her doctor. She would leave Tina with me.”
“What if she had other appointments, or shopping to do?”
“No. She would take Tina with her. Or do it when she had a nap. But for her doctor appointments, she would leave Tina home. Sometimes he would call her and say he had an opening and she would change her plans and leave Tina with me.”
“How often did this happen?”
“She went to her doctor sometimes two or three times a week.”
“Every week?”
“Yes.”
“You said she had to change her plans when he had an opening. Were the times the same or did they change a lot?”
“Both. She always went on Monday mornings, but sometimes Wednesday afternoons or Friday afternoons. One week I believe she went both days.”
“Wednesday and Friday.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what kind of doctor she was seeing?”
“No. She said he was very busy, with lots of patients and so he saw her when he had cancellations. It was because she had so much free time she could come in.”
“How long was Ms. Tully gone?”
“Usually two hours, sometimes two and a half or three hours. She said she would have to wait outside while he finished with another patient. Sometimes they ran over.”
“Did Ms. Tully seem ill to you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see pills in her medicine cabinet?”
“Yes, but I do not know what kind they were.”
“How was her mood? Did she seem sad or unhappy all the time? Angry, or restless?”
“No. I did not ever see her cry or be unhappy. If she was, she did not talk to me. She spent most of her time playing with the girl or cooking. She would go shopping or to the health club, but she would take the girl with her.”
“To the nursery there.”
“Yes.”
“Did that upset you? That she wouldn’t leave the child with you?”
“No. A little bit. It is her child. She can do what she wanted. The house was easy to clean. I had time to study.”
“Study what?”
“I take night classes at NOVA. I want to be a teacher. I was a teacher in Colombia.”
“How are the children with Ms. Tully?”
“They are very well behaved. Sometimes Tommy is a little difficult. He is just a little boy.”
“Like Guillermo?”
“Yes. They need a firm hand sometimes.”
“Did Ms. Tully have a firm hand?”
“Sometimes. She would let Tommy test the rules, then she would put him in time-out.”
“Did he obey?”
“Oh yes.”
“Did Ms. Tully ever have to threaten them with their father? You know, ‘wait till your father gets home’?”
“No. She never did that. There was no need.”
“Now that Ms. Tully is not at home how are the children doing?”
“They are sad. The little girl, Tina, carries her mother doll with her everywhere. She sucks her thumb and cries out in her sleep. Wherever I go in the house she is just behind me. If I stop suddenly she will bump into me, fall down and cry for her mother. I cannot get her to stop unless I sit and rock her in her favorite blanket. If there is a loud noise on the TV she will run to find me. If I am cooking in the kitchen she holds onto my legs and tries to hide under my dress.”
Felicia Hurtado stopped to tamp out a smoldering memory of her own daughter’s nightmares, waking up crying whenever her mother would scream, “NO, NO, NO” into the laughing darkness.
“They need their mother back. They are very scared and sad.”
“What about the little boy?”
“He is trying to be grown up. A little man. He will play with his sister when she asks, and if she is frightened, he will go with her.”
“Go with her?”
“Sometimes if we are downstairs, she will be afraid to go upstairs alone to get a toy or another doll. Tommy will take her by the hand and go with her. It is cute. He slows down so they can go up each step together.”
“Can you tell how he feels? Does he talk to you?”
“No he does not talk. He goes outside to play or he goes to his room to draw. He will do that until his father comes home.”
“What does he draw?”
“He draws war. He draws death.”
A little man, indeed, Reece thought. “When Mr. and Ms. Tully were together, how did they get along?”
“I did not see them together very much. They did not seem very happy. Mr. Tully would come home and his wife did not go to the door, smile or greet him. He could have been the repairman. He did not go to her either. The children would race to greet him and he would pick them up and hug them and kiss them. I would leave then.”
“Mr. Tully says that you saw a fight between them, not too long ago. What did you see?”
“They were in the kitchen. I was in the living room with the children. I had not gone yet because they were painting my portrait. So I was sitting until they were done. I heard Mr. Tully call me by name, to come into the kitchen; when I got there Mrs. Tully had kicked him in the shins and told him that she’d scratch his eyes out.”
“What happened next?”
“I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Tully, you called me?’ He limped away, rubbing his leg and said, ‘It’s nothing, go home now.’”
“What did Ms. Tully say?”
“Nothing. She looked very angry and pushed past me, out of the kitchen.”
“Do you know why she looked angry or threatened him?”
“No.”
“Could it be that he had tried to kiss her or more?”
“I don’t know.”
“But they weren’t an affectionate couple.”
“No. There was only frost between them.”
“Other than that episode, had you ever seen Ms. Tully threaten her husband, or act threateningly in any fashion?”
“No. Never.”
“Did she ever strike or threaten either of the children?”
“No.”
“Were they ever afraid of her?”
“No. They were very close and loving.”
“You said that Ms. Tully was not sad or unhappy while you were there; did she ever do or say anything to make you think that she was suicidal?”
“No. Never. She loved her children.”
“Thank you for your help. If anything else comes up, may I call you back?”
“Yes.”
Felicia Hurtado left the office wondering what her help had cost her and her children.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Tullys were facing each other in the waiting room. Tina was draped across her mother’s chest like a forty-pound brooch. One arm was around her mother’s neck, the other stroked her cheek.
Tommy sat in his father’s lap and pointed to the characters in the comic book as his father read.
Serena Tully stood, and holding Tina across the back and buttocks asked, “Can we speak to you before you see the children, Dr. Reece?”
He looked at Tom Tully, who shrugged agreement. He stood and slid Tommy down next to him.
Serena put down Tina, who whimpered and clutched at her neck. “Tina, it’s all right. Mommy and Daddy are going into the room across the hall for just a few minutes. You stay here with your blankey and doll baby, honey. It’ll be all right. Mommy isn’t going anywhere. I’ll be right here, honey.” She pulled her daughter from her chest, looked straight into her eyes and said, “I promise, Tina. Mommy will be right here. Have I ever broken a promise to you?”
Tina was too frightened to answer that question. She reached out to her mother who pulled back so she only got handfuls of hair. Serena sat down and patiently worked Tina’s fingers loose like they were made of gum.
“Junior, you sit with your sister. Play some games with her until we’re done,” his dad said. Junior walke
d over to his sister. “C’mon, Eenie,” he said, arms outstretched. “Let’s play with baby. You be the Mommy. I’ll be the Daddy.” Tina reluctantly let go of her mother and reached out for her brother. He tried to carry her but staggered and put her down.
“Thank you, Tommy,” Serena said.
Her husband growled, “His name is Junior, not Tommy.”
Reece followed the Tullys into his office. Serena sat at the far end of the sofa. Tom took the recliner facing her.
“Dr. Reece, I got a call this morning, around eight from your answering service saying that our appointment had been changed to eleven o’clock to accommodate a change in Tom’s schedule. Obviously that message was false. I tried to call and got your voice mail, so I used the emergency number. That got me your service. They couldn’t get you at home. So I came down here anyway. I’m glad I did. This is another of Tom’s stunts. Just like the dinner he planned. If I’d come here at eleven I’d have looked like a complete idiot, too fucked up to make even these appointments on time. Am I right?”
Tully jumped in. “You sound pretty screwed up anyway, Serena. Is this another of your wacko paranoid fantasies? Were you running late again, spending two hours on your face and hair? Need a fallback line? I’m tired of being your alibi, Serena. I want you here. You’re the best evidence I’ve got, Serena. For the record, Doc, I didn’t ask you to change the time, did I?”
“No, Mr. Tully. Nor did I ask my service to call you, Ms. Tully. There were no changes in the schedule.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that. Tom probably got some friends of his to make the call. I’m wise to you Tom. You sent me to pick up your brother the day of the hearing. Only he never got on that plane. And you lied about me to the judge. You aren’t going to trick me again. I know I haven’t got any evidence. Maybe I do sound paranoid but I want to be on the record about this. Somebody called me today and tried to sabotage me so I’d miss this meeting. I know it was you, Tom. I just can’t prove it.” She jabbed a finger in the air at him.
Tully leaned forward and smiled with contempt. “Rag on, Serena. Rag on. You’re proving what I’ve said all along. You’re crazy, babe, crazy.”
“Why would she make up this story, Mr. Tully? She got here on time. If she was late, sure. Why even bring this up? If it isn’t true, she sounds paranoid. Why do that?”
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