There Once Was A Child

by Debra Webb

  Shelley Martin, Melanie Hardeman, Janie Hyatt, Dana Reeves, Mario Sanchez and a dozen others. They are all here.

  Every single known victim of Joseph Fanning.

  The Child

  The blood has stopped coming.

  This makes me very happy. At least for a while. I haven’t grown taller in the past few months, that makes me happy, too. He says I’m probably as tall as I’m going to get. I don’t know when my real birthday is but he chose one for me. May fifth. On May fifth of that year I was fourteen, he told me.

  Fourteen sounded really old. The breasts were finished growing, too, apparently. A C cup, he announced. I didn’t really know what he meant, but he appeared to have adjusted to this new me.

  I hadn’t really but as long as he had, that was all that mattered.

  Now we used a different method for getting money. I was still very good at pickpocketing. But it was harder to get close to the unsuspecting old ladies and the distracted mothers. I had to work harder to grab a few bucks here and there. We never took credit cards. Too much risk of getting caught, he claimed with all the authority of a man who had mooched off others his whole life. A lot of stores have cameras now, he’d told me. They could look back and see who used the credit card. So we stuck with cash rather than take the risk.

  The new method of making money involved me pretending to be one of those ladies who haunted the street corners. It was easy, really. All I had to do was flirt with the guy and lure him into the alley where he would be waiting. Sometimes I worried about how hard he hit the guys, but none of them died as far as I know. We didn’t have to worry about any one of them looking for us because we always went to another part of town or even to a nearby town. Never shit where you eat, he’d say.

  Then I started to get sick. I felt really bad all the time. If I ate I puked it up. And I was so tired. He eyed me suspiciously but he wouldn’t say why. I begged him to take me to the doctor but he refused. He said I’d live. And I did.

  Pretty soon the sickness passed and I felt better. Not tired anymore. We kept running the scam on the guys who wanted to buy me for a few hours of disgusting pleasure. Until my belly started to swell like I had swallowed a ball or something. That was when things went to hell for me. He screamed and ranted and kicked at me. I cried and cried, begged him to tell me what was wrong. Finally, he told me I was pregnant. I knew what that meant: I was having a baby. But I shouldn’t be pregnant I didn’t have a husband or a boyfriend. All I had was him. Then I realized that he was the one who got me that way.

  I had no idea how these things worked.

  I stared at my belly. I had a baby growing inside me? He started to cuss and scream about the time he got drunk and forgot to use a condom. I didn’t completely understand but I eventually figured out it had something to do with the stuff that came out of him when he was grunting and rutting into me.

  The angrier he got, the more terrified I became. What were we going to do? How did I get it out? What did we do with it? At first he wouldn’t answer me. He just stared at me as if I was a pile of dog shit in his path. Then he told me he was going to fix it. Over the next few days he forced me to drink nasty black medicine. When the only thing that accomplished was to make me shit myself to death, he punched me in the belly and beat me up worse than he ever had before.

  That didn’t work either.

  My belly just kept growing.

  Then he told me we would wait until it was ready to come out and take care of it then. The way he said this made me worry but I had no clue what I could do about it. He made all the decisions. I just did what I was told.

  This was my life, my normal.

  The first time I felt it moving around inside me I screamed. I was like, what the hell is that? I was afraid to ask him about it so I just waited and finally figured out it was the baby. For some reason, it made me happy. Really happy. I had never had any toys except for that ratty old bear. Now I was going to have a baby of my very own. I could play with it and take care of it. It would look at me the way I looked at him. We would be a family.

  Except that isn’t what happened.

  When the labor pains began I thought I was dying for sure. I screamed and cried and screamed some more. He went and got this old woman who lived down the block. She claimed she had brought dozens of babies into the world. The pain went on for hours. It felt as if my body had a mind of its own and was going to pop open any second. The pressure. The need to push. I couldn’t stop it. I had no control. I thought I was going to split in half for sure. All I could do was keep screaming.

  Late that night it finally happened. The woman used her hands and fingers to help the baby come out. She said I was real lucky that she was able to help the baby come out without a lot of tearing and extra bleeding. I was still hurting like hell but mostly I just wanted to hold my baby. It was a boy. She cut the cord with scissors, then clamped it with a clothespin. She cleaned him up, wrapped him in a towel and handed him to me. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  No other baby had ever been as beautiful as him. And he was mine.

  She told me to let him suck at my breast. It hurt like hell but I did it. Later I fell asleep. When I woke up the old woman was gone and so was my baby.

  I stare at the disgusting shell of a man collapsed into a heap in the corner. Even as he sleeps his chest rises and falls with the rattle of the dying. The wound on his arm is infected. Yellow pus leaks from it. I am certain it hurts like a son of a bitch. I stand, walk over to him and kick him in the arm, ensuring the toe of my boot goes into the wound.

  He awakens instantly, howls and writhes in pain.

  I smile and wonder how much longer his black heart can hold out. Long enough to keep the misery going for a day or two more, I suspect. Long enough for me to block out the memories of what he did to me with the howls of his agony. I squat down and watch as he shudders and quakes and cries.

  When he has calmed himself and the pain has subsided to a tolerable level, I’ll kick him again.

  Oh what fun we’re going to have. Funny how his carefully laid plan to get back at me has backfired on him.

  Saturday, May 5

  Detective Olivia Newhouse

  I feel terrible not telling Walt the truth about the files I found at the farm. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I figure this out, at least to some degree, myself. As much as I adore Walt, love him really, it would be like betraying my father.

  My cop instincts warn that I’m allowing emotion to get in the way of the job—of the law. But I just can’t do it. Not yet. We still have another victim to interview. Not to mention Sanchez is coming back in to Nashville tomorrow. There’s time to talk about the files later. Maybe Sanchez will shed new light on this puzzle.

  I heard my father’s name mentioned on the news this morning. The reporter apparently did a piece on the late news last night that was picked up on all the networks this morning. The chief has already called Walt. I expect a call from David any second.

  Walt glances at me. “You okay, kid? You look exhausted.”

  I open my mouth to tell him I didn’t sleep well but he reaches for his cell. I’m grateful for the reprieve. Gives me a minute to figure out what I am going to say.

  By the time I flipped through all seventeen files last night my vision had blurred to the point that I could no longer read the words on the pages. The headache had consumed my ability to think, pain exploding over and over in my skull. I crawled to the lower bunk in the panic room and that’s where I woke up this morning.

  There was dried vomit on the floor so at some point I threw up. The bad taste in my mouth was more than sufficient evidence that it had come from me. Not that there was anyone else around, only me.

  I rinsed my mouth and made a pot of coffee, then checked my cell for the first time since I went unconscious. David had called three times during the night. The problem is I left my cell in my father’s office. No way could I have heard it through the foot of concrete that makes up t
he walls of the panic room.

  I called him back this morning. He didn’t answer so I left him a voicemail telling him I had worked so late packing at the farm that I’d fallen asleep and just decided to stay the night there. There was a nugget of truth in the story. With all that’s happened I don’t know how he and I will ever get back to each other. The gap between us widens a little more each day.

  My mind goes back to the files. There was nothing there that suggested my father had done anything other than conduct background research on each of the victims. There were no notes from meetings or sessions. No conclusions. No summaries from telephone conversations. But why would he need background information on Fanning’s victims? Since Sanchez’s name is the only one I found in his office, I have a feeling it begins and ends with him.

  Sanchez has to know what my father was doing. I refuse to believe he was gathering information for Fanning prior to his release. No way he would do that.

  “That was Reynolds.”

  I force those dark worries away and turn to my partner. “He got the DNA results?”

  Walt nodded. “Only on the B positive. The analysis confirms that it came from Fanning.”

  I blow out a breath. “Well, we knew that was coming. What’s the hold up on the second type?”

  “Just the timeline. We ordered the first test the day before the second. Those results will probably pop up in his system by tomorrow.”

  “That’s something I guess.” Not that we doubted that Fanning was one of the people who had been injured in whatever went down in his house. There wasn’t enough blood at the scene to believe he’d died there but there was sufficient to conclude that he had sustained a serious injury.

  Walt reaches for his cell again. I’m reasonably confident Reynolds hasn’t gotten the other DNA results back already. Maybe his second look sifted something out of all that trace evidence. It never hurt to have a second look at the evidence. Even better if the second look is with fresh eyes.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Walt says before putting his phone away. “That was Renault.”

  Rob Renault is the detective working the two missing person cases we added to our list of potential trouble with Fanning. I brace for the news.

  “Eldridge was found over in Knoxville with her boyfriend’s sister.” He brakes for a traffic light. “Simone is dead. They found her body this morning.”

  Not what I’d wanted to hear but not a surprise either. “Any chance her murder is connected to Fanning?”

  Walt shakes his head. “They got the killer. The old janitor who used to work at the school. He’d been watching her for months. Bastard finally worked up the nerve to go after her. I guess he had too much time on his hands after he retired.”

  I close my eyes and shake my head. “Sick fuck.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  I can only imagine what the Simones are going through. How in the world can a sane person bring a child into this screwed up world? I think of the child developing inside me and I wonder if I’m making the mistake of my life. Will he or she blame me for dragging him or her into this shitty place?

  Too late to worry about that now. It’s done.

  Walt parks a few yards from the front of Melanie Hardeman’s home. It’s a modest brick on Second Street in Cleveland Park. The neighborhood is up and coming. Lots of hipsters moving in, jazzing things up. Melanie is my age, thirty. She’s a beautician. Single. No kids.

  I scan the street as we wander up the walk to the front door. A newspaper lies on the small porch. Since there’s no garage and no driveway, street parking only, I’m thinking Hardeman uses the front door. With the newspaper untouched it’s possible she isn’t home. Her car certainly isn’t anywhere near the house. The shop where she works said she was off today. Maybe she’s visiting a friend or shopping.

  Walt knocks on the door.

  No television or other sounds beyond the closed door. Blinds are shut tight so there’s no looking in through the windows.

  “Looks like we’ll have to give the lady a call.”

  There’s a good chance once she learns what we want that she’ll blow us off. All too often victims don’t want to talk about what happened. It’s too painful, too humiliating. I can understand how they feel. At this point reliving the nightmare won’t change anything about what happened to them. But it’s our job to convince them that their nightmare might prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.

  Walt reaches for his phone at the same time a silver Impala pulls to the curb in front of the house. I elbow him and nod toward the street. A woman, tall, brunette, dressed in leggings and a long tee, emerges from the Impala. Shopping bag in her arms, she is around the hood and headed up the walk before she looks up and spots us.

  I smile.

  Walt says, “Good morning, Ms. Hardeman. I’m Detective—”

  The bag hits the ground and Hardeman runs.

  “Well shit,” Walt grumbles.

  I take off, dodging the apples and oranges rolling across the sidewalk.

  Walt is right behind me.

  “Ms. Hardeman,” I shout, “we only have a few questions for you. You are not in any kind of trouble.”

  She keeps running.

  We didn’t find a criminal record. What’s up with this reaction to a visit from the cops? Drugs are the first things that come to mind. Maybe there’s a hit of her drug of choice in that bag back there.

  My heart is pounding as I grow closer and closer to her. The woman clearly runs regularly. I have been ignoring my workout routine lately and it shows.

  Just as I draw within reach of her she apparently runs out of steam and slows to a stop.

  We both bend over and struggle to catch our breath.

  “You’re not in trouble,” I repeat between gasps for air.

  Walt trudges up to where we are huddled. “No offense, ma’am,” he complains between gasps, “what the hell was that about?”

  “I did it, okay?”

  Walt and I exchange a look then stare at her. Is the woman admitting that she kidnapped Joseph Fanning?

  “What did you do, Ms. Hardeman?” I ask.

  She flops down on her butt on the ground, puts her knees up and wraps her arms them. “I found out where he lived and I watched him. I followed him around. Harassed him in the supermarket. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it.”

  “At any time did you touch him?” Walt asks, his voice still breathy.

  “I didn’t lay a hand on that son of a bitch. I just heckled him. I made sure that the customers at every store he went into knew what he was. I followed him through each department, shouting to all who would listen until he left the store empty handed. I hoped he would starve to death.”

  It’s hard to shame a woman for heckling the man who raped her as a child. “Did he ever speak to you?” I ask.

  Walt goes down on one knee, his forearm braced on his thigh. He’s obviously struggling to catch his breath. His face is pale, beads of sweat slip down his forehead. I drop into a crouch as if to catch my breath as well, but mostly I just want to be at his level so I can better assess his condition.

  “He wouldn’t even look at me,” Hardeman says, drawing my attention back to her. “No matter how often I showed up, he tried to ignore me. He pushed his cart around, reaching for whatever was on his list. Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore and he abandoned his cart and left. I never followed him outside. I wasn’t quite that brave.”

  “Did you ever see him with anyone?”

  She shakes her head at Walt’s question. “He was always alone.”

  “Did you notice anyone else following him or watching him?” Walt scrubs a hand over his face. If possible it’s even whiter than it was before.

  I start to ask him if he’s okay but figure I better wait until we’re finished here. Men don’t like to have their weaknesses pointed out. Not even smart guys like Walt.

  Hardeman appears to consider his question. “I can’t remember any
one, but I was always so angry and focused on him that I can’t be sure I was really looking either.”

  “Did he ever show up at your house?” I ask. “Try to turn the tables on you?”

  She shakes her head. “I thought about that later, after I’d already harassed him a couple of times. But thank God he never came around.”

  “Are you certain he recognized you?” Walt asks.

  Good point. If he thought she was someone else, he might have gone after the wrong person. This whole thing may have started with Hardeman’s heckling.

  “I told him who I was.” She raises her chin in defiance. “I wanted him to know I was no longer afraid of him.”

  I stand, offer her my hand. “Thank you, Ms. Hardeman. We’ll be in touch if we think of any other questions.”

  She pulls up, dusts off her bottom. “Sorry I ran. I guess I got scared and panicked.”

  I offer Walt my hand but he waves me off and pops up like a man half his age. He reaches into his pocket for a business card and hands it to Hardeman. “Sorry we scared you.” He chuckles and swabs at his face again. “The way you ran we were worried you had a kilo of blow or something in that bag of yours.”

  Hardeman’s expression freezes.

  Oh hell.

  She shrugs. “It’s only a gram.”

  Detective Walter Duncan

  Sometimes as a cop the best thing to do is walk away. Since Hardeman was never arrested before, never been in any kind of trouble, we let the whole confession go. We didn’t see the drugs. We had no reason to search her bag of groceries or her car. We came to ask her questions about Fanning and she answered those.

  End of story.

  We’re three blocks away from the woman’s house when the coughing starts.

  I try to get it under control but the spasms won’t stop. The pain shears through my body, twists inside me like barbed wire.