They’d found a phone in Becky’s bedroom in the trailer, but it had been locked and illegal to open without establishing probable cause. It was a complicated legal process, and as far as I knew, nobody had gone through the proper channels to access it.
“We want to show you some of the videos on Becky’s phone.” He turned to Luke. “Can you set up the computer?”
My curiosity got the best of me. “How’d you get into her phone?”
“We got her Fourth Amendment rights waived,” Ron said.
I nodded like I understood, but that was the first time I’d heard of someone doing that. I jiggled my leg nervously while we waited for Luke to come back with a laptop. He set it on the table in front of me, sliding into the aluminum chair next to me. A video was queued up. He hit play.
The closet in the back room of the trailer came into view. The silhouette of Janie’s body curled into a ball in the corner. I’d never forgotten the picture of the ties, but seeing them in use—tightened around her ankles and wrists, the dog chain around her neck—burned them into my memory in a way that I knew meant they’d never leave. It was dark, but there was no mistaking her face when she turned around.
“Janie, it’s time to eat,” a woman’s voice said.
Janie uncurled herself and stood slowly, head down, shoulders hunched forward like she wanted to disappear inside herself.
The woman continued. “Like I was saying, she been good lately. Earned her some time out of her ties.”
My eyes were glued to the screen. The woman shuffled toward Janie. She held her phone in one hand and unlatched her collar with the other. Janie smiled up at her lovingly. I could barely breathe. Janie held her stick-thin arms out for her next. The woman easily slipped those ties off; the picture never wavered. She took a step back, then knelt in front of Janie, the angle bringing her into frame. She placed a small bowl of dog food on the ground. Suddenly, blood sprang from the side of her neck.
“Don’t!” I screamed for them not to show me, just like I’d refused to look at the dying part in the Allison video, but it was too late. I saw it happen. The slice. The sound as the phone clattered to the concrete floor. I covered my ears so I didn’t hear the sounds of the sixteen stab wounds that I knew came next.
Luke pressed pause. Ron slowly walked to our side of the table, leaning back against it. He crossed his arms on his chest. “Disturbing stuff, huh?” he asked.
All I could do was nod. No words.
“Quite a violent attack for such a little girl.”
I swallowed the fury in my throat. “She must’ve been terrorized beyond belief to have been able to fight back with that much strength. Was that Becky’s voice?”
“It was,” Luke said.
Ron cocked his head to the side, opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then shut it quickly and turned to Luke instead. “Why don’t we show you the next part?”
“Wait.” I put my hand up. “If she was tied up, then how did she get a knife?”
Ron shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“Maybe there was someone else involved,” I said. That had been my suspicion all along. “Was there ever anyone else in the videos?”
“There’s a man’s voice in one of the videos, but we haven’t been able to identify him, and nobody has come forward,” Luke said.
“What does he say?”
“He asks one question.” He paused for effect. “‘Is this the devil child you were telling me about?’”
Hannah had called her the same thing. A chill filled my insides.
He pressed play. The videos had been cut and spliced together to form a series following Janie’s activity, all of them within the confines of the trailer, most in the back bedroom. There were scenes of Janie smearing her feces on the wall in the living room like she was finger painting and flinging it at Becky when she got upset with her. Other scenes showed Janie screaming and crying like she was being tortured even though no one was touching her. Times when Janie bashed her head against the floor until she passed out. All the neighbors had claimed not to hear anything, but there was no way that was true. Time and time again during the episodes, Becky tried to get close to her to comfort or calm her down, but Janie rejected each attempt, sometimes spitting at her, other times biting her arm.
Luke paused it again.
“There’re hundreds of video snippets just like this. Becky goes on to record all the things she did to try and control Janie. She started with starving her and using food as a reward for good behavior. She gives her plenty of old-fashioned spankings that escalate into beatings before she moves on to tying her up in the corner for time-outs. Finally, she works her way into the closet. Do you want to see the progression?”
I shook my head.
He moved the slider. This time the video swelled with Becky’s face. Her skin was pale and spotted with pockmarks, pieces of flesh that had been removed and scabs that were still healing—the telltale sign of any meth addict. Her eyes darted back and forth; her voice was hurried and pressured.
“I need your help. Please, I need your help. I keep calling. Nobody answers. But okay, okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. This is it. This is what I have to do to show y’all what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Otherwise, y’all just look at me like I’m the crazy one. But she the bad one. She pure evil, this child. I tell you. What’d I tell you? How many times?” She worked her jaw as she spoke. “I want you to see for yourselves what I’m talkin’ ’bout. You’ll see how she acts. I’m gonna record her. You’ll see. I can’t keep doing this. You gotta help me. Somebody gotta help me with this child. Please. I call and call, but nobody comes. None of you ever want to help me.”
The video stopped on its own. We’d reached the end. My emotions moved quickly from panic to sadness and back again. Ron took a seat. They each turned their chairs inward, fencing me between them. Sweat dripped down my neck.
Luke leaned forward as he spoke. “Becky reached out for help. More than once. In fact, quite a few times. Do you know who she reached out to?”
I shook my head, my throat too dry with fear to speak.
“Ron, why don’t you tell her who she called?”
“Certainly.” Ron pulled the file across the table and flipped through it before he found what he was looking for. “It says here that Becky called the Department of Children’s Services seven times in the year leading up to her death. In fact, she started making these videos the day one of the social workers was supposed to come by the trailer and help her.” He pulled out a piece of paper and held it in front of me. Our agency letterhead was in bold letters at the top. “Do you know which social worker was assigned to visit Becky?”
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Words were impossible.
He set the paper back on the table. “It was you, Piper. You were the worker assigned to follow up on her phone calls. But you never did, did you? You never went. Never even called.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Imagine if you would’ve. What would’ve happened if you’d gone all those months ago when she called the department clearly distressed from trying to parent a child who we all know is sick. Really sick. That must be a lot of weight to carry on your shoulders.”
Every wisp of air was stolen from my lungs. “I didn’t know anyone had called the department. I’d never heard of Becky Watson until I met Janie in the hospital. I swear.”
He leaned so close our heads nearly touched, the smell of stale coffee on his breath. “Then what happened? Who dropped the ball? Because it says right here that you were assigned to do the visit.”
“I didn’t know about any of this.”
“Stop!” He slammed his fist on the table. I jumped. “Allison might be alive today if you’d done your job the way it was supposed to be done.”
My voice shook. “I had no idea Becky contacted the department. Nobody ever said anything. I was never assigned to do a home visit, but that doesn’t mean I’m not responsible.” Tears spilled over, and once they
had started, I couldn’t hold them back. “You don’t understand. The Department of Children’s Services gets so many calls every day—parents, teachers, friends, police, even elderly people who are just bored and have nothing to do with their time. We are so short staffed it’s impossible to handle every complaint that comes across our desks. So we prioritize. Claire weeds through the complaints and handles my schedule.” I struggled to speak. “Becky Watson’s case never made my list.”
“How is it possible that something like this never made your list?”
Was he serious? Didn’t he know how broken our department was? “The Department of Children’s Services is a revolving door. The same files come across our desks again and again. We see the same faces, meet the same families. We take one child out of the home and are forced to leave the other children behind or send children back to the families that abused them in the first place. I’ve been called to investigate abuse in foster homes almost as much as birth-parent homes. We have to operate within the system. Every social worker knows it’s broken, but it’s the only one we have, so we have to make do with it.”
Luke raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying you failed Becky?”
“I’m saying the system failed them both.”
We’d failed all of them. Christopher was never going to be the same again after he heard this. He had to believe that children were born good and pure, that no child was beyond repair, in order for his world to make sense. This would shatter his core belief.
“What will you tell the Bauers?” I asked. It went without saying that they had to know. I couldn’t begin to imagine how this would change things.
Ron didn’t need time to think about his answer. This was what he’d been waiting for all day. “The only thing I can tell them—the truth. Their daughter is a killer, and until she’s an adult, they’re responsible for making sure she doesn’t hurt another human being.”
“When?”
“When what?”
I cleared my throat. “When will you tell them?”
Ron glanced at his watch. “It’s too late now, but we’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Can I come with you?”
He frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Look, if I wanted to, I could go over there tonight and tell them myself. I’m not on the case anymore, and I already told you that we’re more like family than anything else now. So I’m doing you a favor by waiting to go with you in the morning.” I did my best to sound threatening.
I couldn’t bear the thought of Christopher hearing the news without someone to support him. Hannah was barely hanging on herself, and she would be relieved. Elaine had confided in me that Hannah had spoken with her about relinquishing her parental rights and rehoming Janie. I hated the term because it made children sound like pets, but there were instances where the state allowed adopted children to be returned to foster care. There was no doubt in my mind Hannah would push for that now.
And I didn’t blame her. Unlike Christopher, I knew there were children who were too damaged to be fixed. It was an awful fact of life and my job, but that didn’t make it any less true. You couldn’t fix what Janie had, but he would spend his life trying. That much I knew for sure, and he would do it alone unless I was there for him.
Luke folded his hands on the table. “You should know that Greg’s attorneys have filed a civil lawsuit against the Department of Children’s Services.” He paused, letting his words sink in before continuing. “You should be aware that you are named in that suit.” He exchanged a look with Ron, then turned his attention back to me.
“I don’t care,” I said.
They needed a friend. The charges against them had made their situation public, and people were avoiding them like everyone avoided tragedy, afraid they’d catch it if they got too close.
They exchanged another look. Ron nodded before Luke spoke.
“Meet us here at eight tomorrow.”
SIXTY-ONE
HANNAH BAUER
The toilet flushed, signaling Christopher was awake. His feet plodded down the hallway, and he grabbed a cup of coffee before joining us in the living room. He stood behind the couch.
“How’d you sleep last night?” he asked like he’d done every morning since I’d been home.
“Good,” I lied.
He’d worry too much if I told him the truth. No matter how hard he tried to hide his worry for my sake, deep lines of it were carved in his forehead. I hated what Greg’s charges had done to him. The case had stripped every shred of confidence he’d had left.
He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Can I take him?”
I nodded. He scooped Cole from me tenderly, and I struggled with the emotions in my throat. Sometimes his kindness hurt too much. I wanted him to hate me. That’s what I deserved.
Christopher held him up, and Cole cooed, his eyes dancing with joy. He added new sounds every day. We both grinned as he babbled. I burst out laughing when he blew a spit bubble, then was immediately swallowed up by guilt because happiness felt like a betrayal to Allison. Mom kept telling me we needed to give it time, but time wouldn’t heal this wound. I’d miss Allison just as much in ten years as I did today, but time would move forward regardless of our loss. That much was a given, and Cole would be the force pulling us along. He was the reason we got up in the morning. For now that was enough. It had to be.
Christopher and I didn’t speak about how hard things were, but we didn’t speak about much these days. Our suffering was too big for words. But it was better that way. I preferred it over the clichés we got from other people. One of my coworkers had sent me a card that said you needed to find beauty in the broken. I wanted there to be beauty, but I could only see broken.
He laid Cole on his lap. The two of them fit together perfectly. Cole favored him more every day. Their lips even turned up the same way when they smiled. Christopher tickled Cole’s stomach until he squealed with laughter. My heart swelled with love for them.
This. This is how it was supposed to be. Me, Christopher, and our baby.
I pushed the thoughts away. Thoughts like that only destroyed me. I didn’t need any therapist to tell me that.
“Do you want to take a walk after breakfast?” he asked.
I nodded.
Our walks were new. We’d only started them last week. I hadn’t been able to hide my panic attacks from him for long, and he’d quickly learned to recognize the signs. I’d balked when he’d suggested going for a walk on the brink of one of my attacks, as my biggest fear was having an accident in public because I couldn’t get to a bathroom in time, but he’d promised we would only go around the block. I had started feeling better by the time we’d been at the end of the sidewalk, so we’d just kept going. We worked them into our day as often as we could, and our first one was after breakfast. We rarely spoke, but something about the outdoors made it okay even when it felt suffocating in the house. Yesterday we’d walked two miles without saying a word.
Cole was happiest when we walked. Christopher strapped him to his chest in the Baby Bjorn, facing him forward because he liked to see what was happening. Once we’d walked in the direction of the park and had run into a few mothers who had recognized us. We hadn’t made that mistake again. All our miles were in the opposite direction of the park. We’d gotten to pass through neighborhoods we’d never been in before.
Cole stirred in Christopher’s lap, and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I leaned close and inhaled the smell of his vanilla-mint baby shampoo. I would get through this for him. I had to. I made myself concentrate on what Christopher was saying, doing more than nodding my head at the appropriate time and faking interest like I did most days. He was in the middle of telling me about Janie’s new social worker, Elaine.
“I can already tell I’m not going to like Elaine, and I’m not just saying that because she’s not Piper.” He took another sip of his coffee, pausing to nuzzle against Cole’
s cheek.
We both knew it wasn’t true. No one would measure up to Piper. She’d taken the time yesterday to check on me even though I should’ve been the one calling to support her since she was the one on her way to be grilled by the private investigator, Ron. He’d interviewed Christopher, too, and Christopher had said it was more intense than the medical malpractice deposition he’d been part of a few years earlier. Neither of us had heard from her last night. I had no idea if it meant things had gone well or terribly wrong. My appointment with Ron was next week. I would be happy when this entire thing was over.
Greg wouldn’t let me near my nephews, and I missed them terribly. My heart ached, especially since I knew Allison would’ve been furious with him because she would’ve thought this entire lawsuit was a joke too. If the roles had been reversed, she never would’ve done something like this. Ever.
But I wasn’t mad at Greg. He was in unimaginable pain and not thinking straight. I wanted to be there for him. Christopher felt the same way. He’d told me he wanted to take Greg out for a beer and just let him talk until he ran out of words or sit in silence until the sun came up. He’d almost called Greg the other night, but our lawyer had told him he had to wait until all the paperwork was finalized.
“I’m ready for another cup,” he said. “Do you want me to fill up yours too?”
“Yes, please,” I said, instantly mad that I’d said please. I was working hard at not sounding so formal. He handed me Cole and headed into the kitchen with our mugs. I laid Cole on my lap just like he’d been on Christopher’s since it was one of his favorite positions. He smiled up at me when I looked down, and I beamed back. I never got tired of looking into his sweet face.
“Hi, little buddy,” I said, taking one of his hands in mine. He wrapped his fingers around mine and tried to pull himself up.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma . . . ,” Cole cooed.
Christopher raced in from the kitchen. “Did he just say Mama?” he asked.
I leaned down, and Cole patted my cheeks with both hands. “Ma-ma-ma-ma.”
The Perfect Child Page 30
