Suffer the Children

by Lisa Black

  And unexpected pregnancies would be anything but.

  He went on: “It’s difficult to make a facility this large homelike, so we went the other route and made it school-like. Kids are used to school, and keeping them in that sort of mind-set will make reentry easier.”

  “Reentry?”

  “When they go back to their actual home, their regular school. Their ‘normal’ life. Unfortunately, for so many of them, their lives have never been what we’d call normal. That’s why we always work from the basis of ‘what happened to you?’ rather than ‘what did you do?’ Frankly, America locks up far too many juveniles, especially considering that the majority of them have committed nonviolent infractions, like truancy and running away. Violating probation and such.”

  Maggie said, “And the children here?”

  He blinked at her. “Here?”

  “Nonviolent offenses?”

  “Well, no.”

  She glanced at him as they reached the ground floor.

  “This facility specializes in high-risk clients. The kids who have resisted more community-based interventions.”

  She tried to sort out that verbiage. “So—”

  The doctor sighed. “Some of their crimes have been violent, yes. But it has been shown over and over that with an intensive yet secure program their lives can still be turned around. I can personally attest to amazing strides with a number of our charges.”

  They stood in front of the girl’s body at the bottom of the steps, frozen into her final and hopeless position. “And Rachael? Her crime was—?”

  “Murder.”

  Maggie blinked. “She killed somebody?”

  He nodded, shaggy graying hair falling around his downturned face. “Two people, actually.”

  Loud footsteps abruptly sounded behind them, causing Maggie’s heart to pound again. She really hated prisons.

  But a middle-aged black woman led in two detectives she knew, and well. The red-headed Riley and his partner, Jack Renner. Maggie knew more about Jack Renner than she would have ever wanted to, and her life had been turned inside out because of it. In the span of a few months they had accumulated a number of experiences together, all of them bad.

  Well, nearly all.

  But for once she didn’t cringe at the memories he brought into the space with him. For once she felt just a little glad to see him.

  Jack might have a lot of issues, but should they be suddenly set upon by a teeming band of wilding teenagers she felt fairly sure he would do his job and at least attempt to protect her. Even though her death would remove a serious complication from his life.

  Still.

  Fairly sure.

  Chapter 2

  Damon got up from the floor to follow the first big person to the door. She had brought the food to him and the other small persons, as they did a couple of times every day. Damon loved the food, which was unlike anything he had ever eaten. It took him a while to get over the different sensations of it—sometimes hot or wet or soft instead of dry and crunchy—but the tastes made it all worth it. He especially liked the little things they would give him after he ate the hot wet things, usually cool and soft and sweet. The big persons called them things like “cookies” and “brownies” and something amazing called “ice cream” but Damon thought of them as wonderful. He couldn’t form the words but he could think them, and he thought them a lot.

  The other words didn’t make much sense to him, but he didn’t worry about that. This new world didn’t need to make sense; he only cared that it existed. The sights and smells and colors and sensations were a constant delight of new experiences. He liked the other small persons, ones like himself, like his brother had been. He would watch them as they listened to the big person say words he didn’t understand and then draw in their books. He would laugh—in itself a new and bizarre eruption—at their expressions and their mannerisms. He rushed at them and touched them, their clothes, their hair. At first they had not liked this and pushed him away, but after some time they’d gotten used to Damon. Now when he touched they just brushed him off like a pesky fly.

  Damon avoided the big people, only because they were big, staring down at him from an imposing height that made his stomach quaver. They forced him to do things, like take his clothes off and get under a big faucet of water, or at least put his hands under the faucet, and stick a thing in his mouth and rub his teeth with it. But those things didn’t actually hurt, so it didn’t bother him so much anymore. And the big people also gave him food.

  But right now he wanted to get past this one.

  Beyond the door was a place that led to other places, like outside where the bright light shone and there was stuff growing out of the floor. All of them went there every day, but he could see the place outside the door went in other directions as well and he wanted to see them. There might be other small people, and more food. But the big people wouldn’t let him. They caught him by the arm or the shirt if he tried.

  However, every night one of the big people took the stuff that the food came in, and the metal pieces that the other small people used to eat that food instead of using their fingers like Damon, and carry it out the door. Damon might not be able to form words, but he could plan.

  He hovered behind her, rubbing at his nearly bare head, waiting until she opened the door, her hands full of the tray, then—go!

  He ducked under her arm and shot through the opening. But he didn’t get far.

  There were other big people in the place outside the door, some he hadn’t seen before. One who was really big, and one who had brown stuff growing out of her head that he liked. He liked the color without knowing why, or what color actually was. He had only become aware of color recently, since it had always been so dim where he used to live, but in this new world the lights were always bright. Sometimes a little too bright for his eyes.

  They all stared at him, but he had grown used to that.

  The big person called, “Damon!” which he knew, from experience, meant him.

  He should run, but curiosity about these new big people kept him from pursuing his curiosity about other new places. Plus the air smelled like … almost like his brother had, at the end. Only the faintest whiff. It came from the white thing on the floor. It seemed long and stiffish but not solid, and had one of those magic fasteners like on the clothes the big people put on him.

  He moved closer. The big people did nothing to stop him, and his big person had to set the tray down before she could catch him. Big people always did that—set things down instead of simply dropping them. He didn’t know why yet.

  The stiffish white thing had a person inside it. Not quite a small person like himself but not a big person, either. The face didn’t move, didn’t blink even though Damon stood right over her. He had seen this before. It meant that, like his brother, this person wasn’t going to move ever again.

  He put a hand on the person’s face, pressing the cheek and nose. It still felt warm and very soft. He knew that would change after a while.

  The big person with the hair he liked put both her hands on both his wrists, not tight, but to pull him away from the person in the bag. But he had given up looking for new places to look at this instead and didn’t want to go back to the other small people so soon. He knew what to do about that.

  He whirled and kicked, knowing from her grunt that his foot had landed well on her shin. Then he drew one skinny arm back and punched her in the stomach. This knocked her back a little, so he followed up by pushing with both arms until she snapped against the wall.

  But then the really big big person grabbed his wrists from behind, just as the first one had done but now so tight that it hurt. And he didn’t pull Damon softly like his usual big person did; this one jerked him off his feet and dragged him over to the door to his place. Damon’s big person opened the door and the other one dropped him back into the midst of the other small people just like the food would be dropped down the steps where he used to live.


  Damon wound up in a heap, grinning at the other small people’s surprise at his abrupt leaving and even more abrupt coming back. He hadn’t gotten to any new places, but it had been worth it. It had so been worth it.

  *

  As usual, Jack had barely acknowledged her presence at first, but now he asked if she was all right. Maggie took in some breath and said she was. Only a little startled, though she didn’t admit it, unaccustomed to being physically attacked at a crime scene even by pint-sized assailants.

  “It sounded like your head clunked against the wall.”

  She had to smile at that. “Just a little clunk. No major damage.”

  “If he’s an example of the clientele, maybe a dead girl isn’t so surprising,” he said in a low tone. Out of earshot, Director Palmer eyed the tall detective as if he could guess his thoughts.

  The Medical Examiner’s office investigator arrived, and with Maggie he took a closer look at the eyes, neck, and hands of the dead girl. He shifted the clothing and checked the pockets, finally rolling her over, taking care to control the mess that spewed from her broken skull.

  No signs of strangulation, no apparent bruises. No damage to the teeth or mouth. Bra and panties present and in place, giving no signs of sexual assault. Shoes clean, lacking, say, damp asphalt, which might have come from the roof. Pockets empty except for a woven string bracelet and a gold-plated ring too big for any of her fingers. It could have been a man’s wedding band, worn and scratched and without engraving.

  “That’s very curious,” Maggie said aloud, examining the ring against the latex surface of her gloved hand.

  “We’re going to need this girl’s history,” Jack said to Dr. Palmer. “Family, parents, siblings, where they are, how she came to be here.”

  “Of course. The file will have all that.”

  “Her dad’s in jail.” The woman who had accompanied them spoke without inflection. Her name was Erica Washington and she was the “dorm mother” for the fourteen-to fifteen-year-old girls—at least on Monday through Thursday. Another woman stayed, twenty-four hours, Fridays through Sundays. Dorm mothers—fathers for the boys’ sections—provided guard duty; counseled; broke up fights; observed who ate well and who didn’t, who made friends and who didn’t, who slept through the night and who didn’t; moderated family meetings and goal progress; and supplied extra attention for those who had no family support as well as a shoulder to cry on, all administered with a stern sense of discipline to the ten to twenty kids in their section. Then they got to go home for a few days to take care of their own families and their own kids and their bills and their homes and their lives. In short, they did a job Maggie wouldn’t have considered taking on for a million dollars a month.

  Ms. Washington continued, speaking to no one in particular, her eyes on Rachael as the body transport team arrived to move the girl to a gurney. “Her mom took off years ago, no one knows where, dad got twenty for armed robbery. Grandfather got custody and then raped her daily from the age of ten. She started running away, spent her thirteenth and fourteenth birthdays on the street before beating up another girl in a dispute over shoes they’d stolen from Kohl’s. Officers took her back to her grandfather. She got a kitchen knife and slashed the man’s arm before the cops had even pulled away from the curb. I think the ring is her father’s, though she never exactly said.”

  “How long has she been here?” Riley asked. Suspects often made the mistake of underestimating Thomas Riley, with his growing paunch, thinning hair, and the way his clothes seemed rumpled even when they weren’t. But that underestimation was, indeed, a mistake. Maggie wondered how he must be feeling inside, looking at the body of a girl not much older than his two daughters.

  Ms. Washington told him, “Three weeks. Three weeks and two days, I think.”

  “She friendly with anyone?” Jack asked.

  A hint of a smile played along the woman’s lips. “I wouldn’t call it friendly. There were girls she tolerated more than others. She had a lot more interest in the boys, common for a girl with her history. Common for fifteen-year-old girls period. But we keep a tight clamp on that.”

  The ME staff wheeled the body of Rachael Donahue out of the area. The girl could now leave the facility, though probably not in the way she’d hoped for. Or perhaps she had, Maggie thought. They had found nothing to rule out suicide.

  “Where does she sleep?” Jack asked.

  Erica Washington looked at him as if that should be obvious. “In her room.”

  “Can we see that?”

  The woman exchanged a brief glance with Dr. Palmer, and then led the way to the third floor.

  And they plunged into the teeming band of wilding teenagers.

  Chapter 3

  A large, well-lit open area took up one half of the space, and a row of doors lined the other half. These were apparently the dormers, each with a single bed, desk, chair, throw rug, and a window with no bars but a rugged sturdiness that made Maggie think bars weren’t necessary. A wall unit of cubes held folded clothes and toiletries, leaving everything visible with no doors behind which to hide contraband. Small shelves were present to display personal items, but no one seemed to have many of those. Most of the doors were open but some were not. All smelled of TV dinners past overlaid with perfume, body spray, and nail polish.

  In the open area four round tables sat in a line with six folding chairs at each. A one-piece washer and dryer combo had been installed in the corner next to a sink and counter. Beyond them a low wall of plant holders created a casual conversation area, with more comfortable armchairs grouped within. Each had already been claimed by a different girl, and those who arrived too late, or too low in the pecking order, sat on the rug. As one they stared at the visitors.

  “We want the kids to socialize with each other,” Dr. Palmer said as he slipped into tour guide mode as they walked. “But at the same time we keep the age groups strictly separated. Too much damage can result when you throw a twelve-year-old in with those in their late teens. It also allows for closer monitoring by counselors. This section is fourteen and fifteen.” He gestured past the tables and conversation area. “On the other side of this wall are girls sixteen to seventeen. There are mirror sections on the floors above and below with boys and the younger girls. Classrooms are at the east end of the building.” As they passed a doorway he pointed to a small—very small—room with a coffee table and three chairs. “Each section also has a room like that one for one-on-one counseling and sometimes for meeting with family members or legal representation, though usually that’s done in the first-floor visitation area. And we have one at the end of this row that’s kept completely empty. Kids can use that for meditation.”

  “They meditate?” Riley asked.

  “Time-out,” Ms. Washington clarified.

  “We call it meditation,” Dr. Palmer said. “If they are upset, sad, or angry, they can go in there for as long as they need until they get themselves under control. Anger especially—they all have anger control problems after what they’ve been through in their small time on this planet. We try to teach them to deal with it more constructively, or at least less violently. But sometimes they just want to be alone. Doesn’t everyone?”

  Palmer walked a few more steps, keeping to the wall opposite the conversation area, the better to speak without being overheard by the girls around the conversation area, who watched the group progress, their wary expressions hardened into near permanence. They didn’t look like prisoners in worn but varied clothing. One wore all-black. One wrapped an oversized Hello Kitty sweatshirt closer around her thin frame, and one wore a blouse trimmed with lace. Their skin color ran the gamut. The hint of fear and anger glinting from their eyes formed the only consistent characteristic among them. They made thirtyish Maggie feel old. And uncomfortable.

  “Boys are on second. Under twelve occupy our west wing. At eighteen we have to find other arrangements for them. When someone reaches a birthday they move to the next section, no exceptio
ns. It breaks up any little cliques or gangs that tend to form. Most of these kids come from gangs, so they gravitate right back toward that structure when they get here.”

  “It also breaks up friendships,” Ms. Washington added.

  “Which is unfortunate,” Palmer agreed. “But socialization is a double-edged sword. I said we wanted to mimic the ‘real world’ as much as possible for the residents, and kids are used to being around other kids, school, home, neighborhood. But they also encourage each other’s self-excusing behavior—that all adults are unfair, we don’t understand, and so on. We want to encourage the kids to develop relationships with more pro-social adults, which will serve them far better in the long run.”

  He stopped. “This was Rachael’s room.” The end of the sentence turned up in a questioning tone, and Ms. Washington nodded her confirmation.

  Maggie turned the knob, as gingerly as before.

  The standard bed, desk, and chair did nothing to suggest why their occupant had come to a violent end. The bed had been made, not well. Very little rested on the shelves; instead Rachael’s possessions and most of her clothing lived in a layer across her desk.

  Maggie photographed the room, then by unspoken agreement began to shake out and refold the clothing. It would seem less a violation to the girls in the armchairs—watching through the open doorway—if a woman did it, she thought. Apparently the detectives agreed because they spent the time asking questions of Palmer and Washington.

  Or perhaps, Maggie thought, that’s an old lady’s assumption of a bygone attitude. Perhaps any interference by an adult represented a violation to these children, just one more in their long and tragic history.

  She started with the few clothes in the wall unit, found nothing of interest, and moved on to the desk.

  “They all have their own rooms?” Jack asked Dr. Palmer.