Suffer the Children

by Lisa Black

  “Just make the meetings,” Denny said, veering between topics again. “Don’t keep blowing her off like last time.”

  “I won’t.” She could do it now. Maggie had gotten better at maintaining the boxes in her head, allowing only one open at a time. When she had to talk to the good doctor she would keep certain experiences shut and latched. Like the moment she knew the identity of their vigilante killer. The moment a defendant died of anaphylactic shock at his own trial while she testified against him. The moment Jack didn’t really need to kill the man who had been strangling her, but did anyway. The moment she, Maggie, had killed someone. She could keep those boxes closed and separated now, she thought.

  At least most of the time.

  Did this mean she had grown cynical? Cold? Numb? Or more understanding of reality and its limitations, the knowledge that rules that should be hard and fast weren’t so hard or so fast, when it came right down to it?

  “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re fine, too,” Denny said. He used a shutter cable to snap photos of his enhanced blood print without having to touch the camera and possibly jostle it.

  “You smooth talker you.”

  “I mean you seem more, um—normal.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I mean … right after the vigilante murders you were, you seemed, pretty—spaced out. I know that really shocked your system.”

  Maggie pressed a piece of tape to the drywall, focusing on the tip of her finger as it rubbed the silver backing. She had thought she’d done so well, hiding the doubts and the mad thoughts that tumbled up and down the rabbit hole, telling herself that some day her heart would stop pounding all day every day, an exhausting thud thud thud she thought must be audible to those around her. She had tried so hard to act, think, be utterly normal, be just like she had been every day Before even as her life now existed in After.

  Denny said, “But lately you’ve been back to—well, just you.”

  His words stumbled a bit; neither of them liked to speak of personal things. When every day they saw other people’s lives laid bare, the people in the forensics unit kept their own partially covered. Light things were discussed at work—the Indians, diets, in-laws, and the ever-changing weather—and that worked for them. The sunniness kept them balanced and did not lessen the fierce bond they felt that matched that of cops or soldiers or maybe teachers. Maggie, for instance, knew that she would take a bullet for Denny or Carol or Josh or Amy without regret or hesitation.

  Of course this was a largely pointless concern. Forensic techs didn’t arrive on the scene until long after the bullets had stopped flying. Usually. At least until she had met Jack Renner.

  “Good,” was all Maggie said.

  Neither one of them looked up from their individual tasks.

  “How’s Alex?” Denny suddenly asked.

  “Fine. They had a lull in the gigs so he’s taking the kids to Disneyworld. He says I should join them.” Watching her two tiny nieces whirl around in teacups with their ever-patient parent would be a nice time. Dragging Alex onto Space Mountain one more time would be fun. Eating French fries while debating Belle versus Anna would be … normal.

  It might also convince her brother that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her, that she had not changed in any way. She knew he had suspicions.

  Denny had met her brother. “Alex at Dizzyworld. I can’t picture it.”

  “Hey, just because he’s a musician and has never owned a tie doesn’t mean that he only eats raw foods and wears hemp clothing and won’t let the girls watch television.” Although she wasn’t entirely sure about the television part.

  “You should go.”

  “You telling me to take time off, boss?”

  “Not too much time. But yes, I promise we’ll survive without you.”

  She had attached enough strings to the rod to feel comfortable with their convergence point. She stood with one shoulder to the wall and photographed her witch’s broom of angles, then had Denny hold up a stiff tape measure to demonstrate the distance from the wall and the distance from the floor. It seemed a perfect match to the stab wound in the prone woman’s back.

  “He got her here,” Maggie summed up, pantomiming the killer’s slash. “She crawled away and started for the kitchen, trying to escape, get out the apartment door. She fell or he struck her again here, in the middle of the room.”

  Denny finished, “She went down next to the couch. Three wounds in the back, throwing these droplets onto the cushions, then she bleeds out. He stumbles toward the hallway, slaps one hand on the wall there, washes them in the bathroom sink—hence the positive phenolphthalein at the drain—and leaves the apartment.”

  It had taken them approximately two hours of work to establish this scenario and chances were it would prove completely useless. Knowing where the victim had been stabbed didn’t tell them who stabbed her. Unless her ex-husband could be found with her blood on his clothes, or an alibi didn’t check out, or some other form of additional evidence came to light, the forensic information might not help the case at all. Or he might claim self-defense and the sequence of events inside the apartment would be of great interest to both prosecution and defense. Either way, Maggie and Denny had gone through the process and reached their conclusions, and the criminal justice system would have to take it from there.

  Maggie said, “Okay. I’ll just swab a few of my stains and then I think we’re done here. I’ll have this written up in time for lunch.”

  Her phone rang and she checked the caller ID. “Or maybe not.”

  *

  Justin Quintero met them under the admiring eye of the receptionist—admiring for him, she barely glanced at Jack and Riley—and shook their hands with a firm grip. “Detectives. I want to thank you for your discretion. So far this tragedy has stayed off the radar of the local news.”

  “That’s not up to us.” Jack didn’t feel any responsibility for the Firebird Center’s relationship with the media or the success of their proposed budget. The cops had returned to pick up Rachael’s personal property, especially the gold ring. Her father in jail thought it might belong to him—or he wanted to scavenge any item from his daughter’s life that might have street value in the event of his release. Either way the county prosecutor had been trying to make a deal for his testimony against his coconspirator on an armed robbery charge, and thought that a goodwill gesture on the part of the police might tip the scales toward cooperation. The homicide chief, whose only talent lay in schmoozing the power structure, did not want to miss an opportunity to do a favor for the prosecutor. So now we’re bloody couriers, Jack thought.

  Justin Quintero said, “I know, but still—we’re fighting for these kids as hard as we can, and any misstep could give the state a reason to nickel-and-dime us. Not that Rachael’s death is a misstep, of course. It’s a great pity.” He guided them up the hallway, but at the next door a small brown force threw it open and barreled out, running straight into Jack.

  “Damon!” A woman in white scrubs pursued, so Jack grabbed what felt like shoulders, their tiny bones shifting under the skin. The kid formed a blur, all arms hitting and legs kicking—capable of some force, as Jack’s shins found out the hard way.

  “I guess he’s feeling better,” Quintero noted.

  The nurse wrestled her young charge back into the room, apologizing to Jack as she did so.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “We’ve met.”

  Quintero shook his head. “That one’s always going to be limited. All the therapy in the world can’t fix a background like that.”

  They continued on toward the stairwell.

  Riley said, “Mr. Quintero—”

  “It’s Doctor, actually, but I try not to put on airs. Justin will do fine.”

  “I hate to be a wuss, but doesn’t this place have elevators? My back is killing me. I spent two hours last night putting together a bookcase for—um, a bookcase.”

  “This is a very old building. An eleva
tor was added, but it’s on the other side of the building. Strictly for staff only and operated by keys, which we all have.”

  “The kids have to walk, huh?”

  “Aside from the few disabled ones we have, yes. They need the exercise—not easy to get, cooped up in one city block. And of course we don’t want them anywhere where they can’t be observed.”

  Jack asked, as they reached the staircase, “When are your cameras going to be operational?”

  He expelled air with an audible pfft. “Good question. Dr. Palmer asks every day. But when you have to go with the lowest bidder, sometimes you get the lowest results—that’s why he needs me. We’re trying to construct a first-class facility here with a fourth-class budget. Let me give you some background.”

  Let’s not, Jack thought to himself.

  “Youth crime began skyrocketing during the eighties. People panicked that we’d have roving bands of wilding teenagers by the nineties, and built all sorts of juvenile detention facilities. Then despite all predictions in 1990 the juvenile crime rate began to fall. But society believes what it believes regardless of facts and the number of kids in custodial settings doubled.”

  “We heard that from Dr. Szabo,” Jack said, to hurry him along.

  “Cool. Now a chunk of these kids were incarcerated for technical offenses, things like parole violation and public misdemeanors. States all over the country built megajails for juveniles, except for Missouri, which somehow figured out long before the rest of its neighbors that smaller, local facilities are much more effective for turning kids around and reducing recidivism. Taking a kid halfway across the state to lock him up with no one else except other incorrigibles to socialize with only turned them less law abiding, not more.”

  One flight down, the woman in white scrubs hurried along with a tiny black girl, the woman explaining in a breathless voice, “She was tryin’ to catch the ball an’ it hit her finger and bent it way back and she thinks it broke—”until the clang of an exterior door cut her off.

  The noise covered the sound of the phone in Jack’s back pocket vibrating. The phone that wasn’t issued by the police department—the burner phone bought with cash with a number that could never be traced to him. The phone he used to look up places and people he would never be able to explain away to a board of inquiry or a jury. The phone Riley had seen on occasion but never commented on, assuming that Jack used it to text another man’s wife or the chief’s daughter, or someone equally scandalous. Just as Jack never verbally observed that Riley had bought several new shirts lately, changed his aftershave, and apparently started going to a professional barber instead of the vocational school shop. All these things heralded a new girlfriend, but Jack didn’t ask. If he asked for a confidence, one might be expected in return.

  “All locking kids up does,” Quintero was saying, “is makes them more likely to get locked up in the future. So the pendulum began to swing the other way. In 2008 Ohio had eight major custodial juvenile detention facilities. Today we have three. This is a good thing, keeping secure placement only for the most violent and serious offenders—except that there’re still forty-five hundred juveniles adjudicated for felony offenses every year. We’re at maximum occupation every minute. Every minute. Hence, the dog and pony show next week to convince Fiscal Operations to give us more money, so that we can be a properly secured and effective facility instead of a Cracker Jack box with only two working cameras.”

  “I’m going to use the men’s room,” Jack announced, his voice echoing slightly in the deep stairwell. “I’ll catch up.”

  “It’s back by the reception room—” Quintero began, but Jack had already turned. He heard the young man explaining to Riley how DORC budgeting staff would be coming to see how well they’d done with the miniscule budget they had, and hear how much better they could do with something like realistic funding.

  Once ensconced in the narrow hallway by the entry door, he checked the Missed Calls log. A Phoenix area code.

  He returned the call. When a woman answered, he said, “Emma.”

  “None other,” Emma replied. “What’s up, cuz?”

  Jack sidled over to be able to see into the reception area. Empty except for the administrative assistant working busily at her keyboard. He sidled back before she noticed him. “Not much. What’s up with you?”

  “Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you.”

  “I’m in a prison and I don’t have much time.”

  “Wait, you did just say you’re in a prison, right, not in prison? Because those imply two very different situations.”

  “What do you want, Emma?”

  “Well, sorry. I tried to soften the blow, but if you’re in such a hurry—Giles died.”

  “Oh.” His father’s brother. Giles had taken him fishing, loaned him well-worn Zane Grey books—which Jack had only skimmed, though even at twelve he appreciated the gesture—and taught him how to make chili. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “The funeral’s on Wednesday.”

  “I’ll try to make it.”

  His cousin gave a snort. “Like you tried to make Aunt Betty’s ninetieth? Or my daughter’s wedding?”

  “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry, but I left my old life behind when I started this … this … and that includes the people in it. I can’t bring my darkness into a circle of good, decent human beings who still believe I’m the man they used to know. “But things are really busy here.”

  “How is San Francisco?”

  “Hilly and expensive. Emma, I have to go. Give Bethany and Frank my love.”

  “All right. But seriously, cuz—just think about it, okay? No one has seen you for so long. What did you do, join the CIA? Are you waterboarding terrorists at Gitmo or something?”

  “No … no. I’ll try, but right now I have to go. Sorry.” He hung up before she could play any more of the family guilt card. Because it might work. He did have a family, people who had given him birthday gifts and attended his high school graduation. Helped him learn to ride a bicycle. Came to his wedding.

  But that had been before.

  Across the hall, he heard a thump in the infirmary. The beast-child playing while the keeper was away.

  *

  Inside the homicide unit at the Justice Center, Rick Gardiner considered his takeout options. Chili dogs or Chinese? He had packed on weight without Maggie’s horrid “healthy” crap to eat all the time, but if he smoothed his shirt down over the growing belly he still looked good, right? General Tso’s Chicken called his name and he stood up just as his phone rang. Detective Daley from Phoenix, Arizona. With the three-hour time difference he had probably just finished breakfast.

  No chatting this call, but he sounded friendly enough. “I checked with HR, and no Jack Renner on the job here, ever. And before you ask, I went you one better and called the county, too.”

  They must have a lot of spare time in Phoenix, Rick thought. Or were super nice.

  “Negativo there, too.”

  Huh. Maybe he was wrong. Renner could have picked up the phrase from someone he knew and that someone had lived in Phoenix. Maybe he saw it on a TV show—who the hell knew.

  Daley listened to the silence for a split second, then asked, “Anything else?”

  “Um … no. I guess not. Thanks for your help, though.”

  “No worries,” the guy said, and hung up.

  Well that was that. A bizarre hunch that didn’t pan out. Might as well pick up his General Tso’s and forget about it.

  But Rick continued to sit at his desk, tapping a pen against its metal surface.

  Chapter 8

  Maggie met Jack and Riley on the sidewalk outside the Firebird Center, the concrete path interrupted by a sunken circle of dirt that held a sickly-looking tree of indeterminate family. Its scattered brown leaves crunched under their feet.

  “What’s up?” Maggie skipped any preamble.

  Riley said, “Another dead kid.”

  “A fall?”

/>   “Don’t know. We were waiting for you.” Now he knocked on the door and a worried-looking, overweight blonde peeked her head out. “Are you ready?”

  Yes, they confirmed.

  She ushered them inside, holding the door and glancing up and down the street as if she expected antenna vans from every major news team to careen up the street with tires screeching. Either that or a phalanx of angry parents with pitchforks and torches. She shut the door behind them with a decisive thud.

  In the kitchen farther up the hallway some sort of vegetable and pasta concoction had been cooking that made Maggie glad to think about her crisp tuna and broccoli pita chilling in the small fridge back at the lab. They passed Reception, which held benches and a desk with office equipment. An effort had been made to make the place look welcoming—new tan paint, earth-toned abstracts, and comfy couches—but these careful choices appeared to be lost on the teenage girl lounging against the cushion. She had her legs straight out in front of her and her face turned to the ceiling to demonstrate her sense of utter ennui. She wore enough eyeliner to resemble a raccoon, skintight leggings, and a push-up bra under the tank top proclaiming “Bitch” in tiny pink rhinestones. It had stains across it, something orangey like old food or vomit, which also didn’t seem to concern her. A cloudy fake diamond the size of a dime hung around her neck. Maggie wondered if she had arrived to fill the vacancy left by Rachael Donahue.

  The “receptionist,” a matronly black woman with a stylish scarf and perfectly coiffed hair, would most likely be a social worker responsible for assessing the needs of the new resident: medical care, clothes, social work, school level. No small task—it had already been made clear that these children’s lives were myriad and complicated and always, in some sense, tragic.

  Though right now the girl didn’t look tragic. She just looked bored.

  The blonde used a key to open the infirmary door, again scanning the area for potential witnesses. Once inside, however, Maggie could see why.

  The infirmary held only a small desk, two beds, and a door leading to a small lavatory. A dark, unnaturally still form occupied one bed.