by Mark Tufo
“You killed your father and I’m going to make you pay for that!” Hope grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and was shaking her; fat tears were falling to the ground as she did so. Her hands moved to Callis’ throat.
Callis’ eyes went wide with shock as she felt her wind slowly being cut off. “Please, mommy,” Callis beseeched as her mother choked her.
“This is for the best, Callie, you have the devil inside of you. I should have done this five years ago before you could harm anyone else.”
Callis’ eyes were closing, she was going limp in her mother’s grasp, her tongue began to loll out and then a spark of cognition as she blindly reached out to her mother with her thoughts.
STOP! she screamed internally.
Hope’s hands flew to her side. She stood at the position of attention as ramrod-straight as if she had been cast in stone.
Callis was bent over at the waist, dragging in ragged breaths as her windpipe expanded back to its original size. Black spots slowly receded from her vision. Callis stood back up when she felt she had sufficient air to do so without passing out.
“Mom?” she asked questioningly. Her mother was still except for her eyes, which burned with hatred as they followed Callis’ movements. “What are you doing?” Callis was torn between getting closer to investigate and scared to get back in her mother’s clutches.
“Say something!” Callis screamed.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“My name is Callis Rose, my dad died today in a car accident and...and I think my mom is in shock. We live at 2 Cobb Terrace,” Callis said as she rubbed her throat, which had turned red and abraded from Hope’s rough ministrations.
“Okay, hon, I’m dispatching a patrol car to your location. Is your mother breathing?” the dispatcher asked.
Callis looked out from the kitchen convinced that her mother would be standing in front of her ready to wrap her hands around her tender throat again. She swallowed hard as she peeked around the corner. “I...I can’t tell.”
“Go put your hand on her chest. I’ll wait here.”
“She tried to hurt me, I’m afraid to get near her,” Callis nearly cried.
The dispatcher’s tone immediately changed. “Are you in danger, hon? Can you get out of the house and wait for the police to arrive?”
“I can get outside, I think.”
“How did your mother try to hurt you?”
Callis couldn’t believe the words she was about to utter. This morning they had all been around the breakfast table laughing and joking before the day began, and now nothing would ever be the same. Her father was dead and her mother tried to kill her, of that she had no doubt. “She tried to choke me.”
Callis could hear the wail of a siren approaching. “I think I hear them,” Callis said with relief and dread. More than just her father had died today. She had the feeling the Rose name had gone down with him.
Callis was shaken out of her reverie as a heavy thudding shook the front door.
“This is Officer Tynes with the Denver Police Department, open up,” an authoritative voice commanded. He had been there earlier as the bearer of bad news. He had hoped to never have to visit on the family again…especially not this soon.
A young girl with angry welts on her neck answered the door.
“Are you okay?” the officer asked as he bent down to look at her.
She nodded back at him.
“Who did this to you?”
“My mom,” she answered, tears threatening to fall again.
“Where is she?”
Callis could only point to the next room over.
“Mrs. Rose? This is Officer Tynes…we spoke earlier today.” He was talking and moving, his hand gently brushing up against his riot stick. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. Could you come out here so we could talk?” he asked. He stopped talking and walking as he peered into the living room. “Ma’am, are you alright?” he asked. “Mrs. Rose?”
He approached hesitantly, he’d seen a lot of different reactions from people during his career, but this was new to him, she wasn’t moving. She was standing as if she were tied to a pole. He could see her chest moving and her eyes blinking. And somehow, that was the most disturbing part as she watched him turn on the light. She seemed to be pleading for help, but that made no sense, no sense at all.
Officer Tynes spoke into the radio adhered to his shoulder. “Dispatch this is 235. Have an ambulance roll for a 10-18 at 2 Cobb Terrace. Mrs. Rose, can you sit?” He moved closer. “Have you suffered a stroke, ma’am?”
Officer Tynes was at a loss. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to help the woman lie down, but he thought anything short of breaking her in half and he wasn’t going to be able to get her to bend.
Callis was standing at the entryway to the room, her eyes huge as she took in the whole scene. Officer Tynes empathized with the young girl; she had just lost her father and right now her mother as well. The welts looked much worse in the light. The mother had meant some serious harm to the girl. The stroke had most likely saved the girl’s life.
“What’s your name, honey?” the officer asked as he got down on his haunches.
“Callis.”
“Callis, do you have any family nearby that we can call?”
She shook her head.
“Can you go and get a bag with some of your clothes?” he asked her.
“Why?” she asked, the thinly covered fear coming back to the fore.
“Your mom is going to need to go to the hospital. I don’t believe she is well, and you’ll need to stay somewhere.”
“I’ll stay here. My dad will...be home soon…” She tailed off, realizing that would never happen again. “Please, I’m almost eleven, please let me stay here.”
“Honey, I can’t let you stay home alone. This is just temporary. Just until your mom gets some help and is well again.”
Callis looked past the policeman to her mother, who was watching the whole scene. Her mother was glaring at her. “Okay,” Callis said, hanging her head low. Her mother was never going to forgive her for what had happened, that much was obvious even to a near eleven-year-old.
Callis had just finished throwing some clothes and her favorite teddy bear into a small suitcase when the ambulance pulled in. A growing cluster of her neighbors pooled at the bottom of the driveway curious to see what disaster had befallen, thankful that the curse of cataclysm had not struck at them…but all too willing to see what damage it had inflicted on others.
The two EMTs came in, both carrying their tackle boxes full of medical supplies.
“Where’s the patient?” the first, the taller of the two asked as he walked in. Officer Tynes pointed.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” he told the EMT as he grabbed Callis’ bag and walked out the door with her.
“Callis, are you alright?” one of the neighbors asked from the bottom of the driveway, Mrs. Salazar, Callis thought. Callis kept her head down and shielded her eyes from the revolving lights atop the cruiser.
“Come on, sweetheart, you can sit in the front with me,” Officer Tynes said as he opened the cruiser door and cleared his passenger seat of the lunch he had only eaten half of when he had got the call about Mr. Rose. He had lost any appetite he may have had after that.
“Where are you taking her?” the same woman spoke up.
“Ma’am, are you related?” Officer Tynes asked brusquely.
“No.”
“Then please let me do my job.”
“We have a right to know what’s happening in there. This is our neighborhood,” she retorted, getting more than a few head nods from the crowd.
“There’s always one,” Officer Tynes muttered.
“My mom says she’s a pain in the ass,” Callis said, never looking up.
Officer Tynes laughed. “Well I’m not sure about the language, but it seems fitting. This is Officer Tynes, I’m going to need another cruiser to roll on up to
my location for crowd dispersal,” he once again said into his portable radio. “Here, hop in.” He held the door for Callis.
“Ma’am, please stay out of the yard,” Officer Tynes said as he stood back from the car. Mrs. Salazar was approaching quickly with two men that seemed to be along merely for the ride.
“We have every right to know what’s going on in there!” she said heatedly.
“First off, no you don’t. This family has been through a lot today and is entitled to their privacy. If you keep coming I am going to arrest you for obstruction.”
“You’re going to arrest us all?” Mrs. Salazar said, spreading her arms, the men – one on each side – hesitated when they realized they were being thrown into the fire. The rest of the crowd had not moved and were much more interested in watching how the drama unfolded in front of them.
“Is this really the road you want to go down?” Officer Tynes asked as he pulled his pepper spray free from his utility belt.
“I’m good, man,” the man on Mrs. Salazar’s left said as he raised his hands and wisely retreated.
“So now what…you’re going to pepper spray me for voicing my opinion?” she shrieked.
Officer Tynes realized she was reveling in the attention, in fact, probably thriving on it. He would keep her on a very short leash. If it looked like she was winning the crowd over, he was going to spray her into oblivion. “No I’m going to pepper spray you for trespassing and obstructing my investigation and then I’m going to arrest you. So are you done?”
The man on Mrs. Salazar’s right was faltering. “You’re my husband, you’re not going anywhere,” she said as she grabbed his shirt.
“There’s nothing to see here really, just go home.” Officer Tynes tried the reasoning approach; it appeared as if it was going to backfire. Her mouth was opening in preparation for a rebuttal, right up until two cruisers pulled up. The policemen immediately got out of their cars and started ushering the crowd away. Within moments all that remained were Mrs. Salazar and her bedraggled husband.
“You’re a God-damned fascist Nazi!” Mrs. Salazar was bellowing and thrusting her finger at Officer Tynes’ chest. “You and all your filthy war-mongering kind, you push your ‘justice’ on us with a heavy hand…threatening our well-being if we don’t comply!”
She was prepared for another litany when Hope began screaming. “Witch, she’s a witch! Kill her!”
Officer Tynes started turning toward the house until he saw the man that had been thoroughly whipped into losing his masculinity make a fist and take a swing at his wife. A long tooth shot out of her mouth as she made a beeline for the pavement.
“What the...” Officer Tynes was reaching for his handcuffs even as Mr. Salazar adopted the same ramrod-straight pose that Mrs. Rose had. He was reaching for the man and just barely caught a glimpse of a fire-poker wielding Mrs. Rose running out the front door and towards the cruiser where a huddled Callis waited.
“I’ll kill you, you little witch!” Hope’s face was twisted in rage, her eyebrows were high on her head, her mouth frozen in a sneer, spittle dribbled from her mouth. Her hair was frazzled around the frame of her head.
Tynes dropped the cuffs, as he ran to intercept Mrs. Rose, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. The door to the cruiser was open and he feared she would get in one or two good swings on the girl before he could stop her.
A shot rang out, stilling everything. Officer Tynes heard Mr. Salazar fall to the ground but it had nothing to do with the bullet—that had pierced Mrs. Rose’s chest. She fell to the ground much like Mrs. Salazar had, although she would never be getting up. The round had caught her center mass. When they did the autopsy, it would reveal the bullet had entered the heart right above the aorta. She would be seeing the white light before her body came to a rest on the unyielding ground.
Officer Tynes rushed to her body. The EMTs came running out of the house to help.
“I had to,” the cop that shot her said.
“Put your weapon down, Sanders,” the other policeman said.
“I had to. You saw her…she was going to hurt that little girl,” Sanders insisted.
“I saw it, Sanders, I saw it. It was a clean shoot. Put your gun away and come sit in my cruiser.”
Officer Tynes turned to Callis after the EMT silently shook his head to let him know she was dead.
She doesn’t look like a witch, he thought as he stared at her. Her hands were covering her mouth and her eyes were wide in shock. But some mighty strange stuff is going on here.
The taller EMT checked out Callis who was now bleeding profusely from her nose and also had burst a blood vessel in her eye. “Stress,” he mouthed to Tynes who stopped by to see how she was doing.
The EMTs waited while the CSI team took their photos, then they loaded Mrs. Rose up to bring her to the morgue where she would once again spend the night—side by side with her husband.
The cuffs Officer Tynes originally had been reaching for to restrain Mrs. Salazar were used for her dazed and confused husband who had struck her down. Mr. Salazar was stuck in the fourth cruiser that showed up. Sanders was so shaken up that his shift partner Henderson drove him back to the station for a debriefing and a mandatory meeting with an After Incident Counselor. A second ambulance was dispatched to bring Mrs. Salazar to the hospital; the fall to the ground had broken her jaw.
“Karma comes to all those that wait,” Tynes said quietly as he stood outside his cruiser.
“What a cluster” Captain Myron O’Bannon, Tynes’ captain said while sitting against the corporal’s hood and lighting a cigarette.
Officer Tynes pointed to the front of his car and his lone passenger.
“Oh shit, come with me, Tynes,” O’Bannon told his officer. “Can you tell me what happened here?”
“Well, beside that little girl in there now being an orphan, I’m not really sure, sir. I was at the house earlier to let them know that Mr. Rose was killed in a traffic accident.”
“That’s the dipshit that whipped a shitty on the highway?”
“Whipped a shitty, sir?”
“British slang,” the captain answered.
“One in the same then I suppose. Next, I get another responding call and I arrive here thinking it’s going to be some sort of domestic disturbance after the news they just received. That’s fairly justifiable. I get here and it looks like Mrs. Rose has just suffered some sort of stroke. I mean…nothing like I’ve ever seen. She was just standing there not moving a muscle except her eyes. After that, sir, it just got stranger. I’m not even sure how I’m going to write this report up.”
“After you get the girl to Social Services I want to see the report before you make it official.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well I’m going home. What a mess…this is going to be a media nightmare. And I’m going to have to deal with it as best I can.”
Tynes wanted to add that what Callis was dealing with was far worse—her father had just died and her mother had been shot down right in front of her before she could do the girl bodily harm.
The captain ground out his cigarette and headed off. “Damn mess,” he muttered.
Tynes got into his car. Callis had her hands in her lap and was staring at them intently. “You okay?”
She nodded in response.
“You ready to go?” he asked tenderly.
“To where?” was all she could say.
The girl’s entire world had, in one fell swoop, been completely obliterated. Everything she had known and loved was no more. The foster world was not going to be kind to her, he thought There were a couple of folks that were in it for the right reasons, but most were merely in the system for the extra income it brought in; the children they fostered were nothing more than indentured servants. No, the next seven years of her life were most likely not going to be a happy time. His heart ached for a moment, but even this early on in his career, he was becoming callous to the human condition.
“You’ll h
ave to spend some time at the station, then I’ll bring you to Social Services and then on to your new home,” was his terse reply. He hoped she wouldn’t ask for further explanation because he didn’t think he’d be able to lie to her convincingly enough about ‘how wonderful it would be’.
“Hello...how do you say your name…Call-is?” Sandy Cummings, a senior social services agent for twenty-three years, asked. She had long ago let any hope that she could change the world one child at a time go. She had placed more kids from broken homes into worse situations than she cared to count. She allowed herself to sleep at night justifying it by saying she was just doing her job. The one sitting in front of her was just one more casualty.
“It’s Callis.”
“Oh, rhymes with malice.” Sandy smiled. “Isn’t that charming. Well let’s find you a nice new home.” She punctuated that with the same fake smile she’d been using for close to a decade; the same one her husband saw every morning when he somehow found his way home after a night of drinking.
“I have a nice home. Can I just stay there?” Callis asked pleadingly.
“You had a nice home,” Sandy said, looking up from her sheet of prospective fostering parents. Since Callis was a young girl, she looked for parents with the lowest number next to their names; the number not referring to the amount of kids living in the home, but rather the number of complaints that had been lodged against them from former foster kids that had stayed with them. The after-event questionnaire had been her brainchild, she at one time hoped it would be used to get rid of problem foster parents. Now it was merely used as a trouble tracking device.
“I’m almost eleven. I just want to go home,” Callis cried.
“I’m sure your new parents will have the internet or whatever you kids are into these days,” Sandy said, this time not looking up as she scanned the sheet. “Ah…the Templeton household. They’ll do, and only a 5. Well, well it’s your lucky day!”
