Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

In the witness box, Warner seemed to edge away from Caroline. ‘We didn’t discuss that,’ she said tersely.

  ‘So you didn’t discuss why he felt it necessary to bring his charges against Carlo in court?’

  A vigorous nod. ‘To protect Elena.’

  ‘I see. And you believed that it was your responsibility to protect Elena as well. Is that correct?’

  ‘Inasmuch as I could. As her teacher.’

  ‘As her teacher, when you called Ms Peralta about the playground incident you mentioned, did you mention the concern that Elena might have suffered sexual abuse?’

  Warner’s shoulders seemed to curl in. She had begun staring at Caroline with open dislike; yet Caroline had never raised her voice. ‘No,’ Warner said. ‘She didn’t seem receptive.’

  ‘Do you make it a practice to decide to raise child abuse only if a parent seems “receptive”?’

  Warner flushed. ‘Of course not. But I’d already told the custodial parent, Mr Arias.’

  ‘Tell me, then, why Ms Peralta didn’t seem “receptive”?’

  Warner folded her arms. ‘When I suggested that Elena might be overstimulated by her new relationship, Ms Peralta sounded annoyed. So I decided to leave it there.’

  Sometimes it helped, Caroline thought, to truly dislike a witness. ‘And how did you know about Ms Peralta’s “new relationship”?’ she asked.

  ‘Because Richie told me.’ Warner looked angry now. ‘Apparently, Ms Peralta had been involved even before the marriage broke up.’

  Still Caroline did not raise her voice. ‘According to whom?’

  ‘Mr Arias.’

  ‘And of course you took his word for that too. Because you knew him so well.’

  Warner stared at her. ‘I accepted what he told me. I had no reason not to.’

  ‘And on that basis, you made a moral judgment about Ms Peralta as a mother.’

  ‘Elena’s problems came from somewhere,’ Warner snapped.

  You officious fool, Caroline thought. ‘Indeed they did, Ms Warner. Don’t you think that if you’d told Ms Peralta of your concerns, she might have helped identify where?’

  ‘I didn’t consider that.’

  ‘And yet you had a series of meetings and conversations with one parent within the space of a few weeks, all supposedly premised on the specter of abuse that you never even mentioned to the other.’

  Warner gave her a hostile look. ‘Many of these contacts were initiated by Mr Arias.’

  For the first time, Caroline moved closer. ‘And did either he or you raise the possibility of including Elena’s mother?’

  Warner shook her head. ‘No. On my part, I was confident he’d report to Ms Peralta.’

  ‘Really? In truth, weren’t these exclusive meetings a convenient way of ingratiating yourself with a father you found attractive and who was hostile to his estranged wife?’

  ‘No,’ Warner responded angrily. ‘I was meeting with the custodial parent.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘The custodial parent,’ she repeated quietly. ‘Who, for all you know, was the one who had molested Elena.’

  ‘Objection,’ Salinas called out. ‘That is outrageous, Your Honor. There is no basis for that kind of diversionary slander.’

  Caroline spun on him. ‘From the moment you entered this courtroom, Victor, you have been just delighted to slander a teenage boy so that you can convict his father. But I suppose it’s not slander if it’s also a career move.’

  ‘I resent that –’ Salinas began, and then Judge Lerner’s gavel crashed.

  ‘Enough personalities – both of you.’ He addressed Caroline. ‘I agree that your question’s germane – if rephrased. Press on.’

  Caroline turned back to Warner. ‘Did you ever consider,’ she asked softly, ‘that Mr Arias might have molested his own daughter?’

  Warner gave her a hostile look. ‘No,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Or that telling Ms Peralta might help Elena?’

  Warner grimaced; with each question, Caroline thought, she looked a little less attractive. Stiffly, she answered, ‘I did what I thought was right.’

  Caroline gave her a long, silent look. ‘Is it fair to say,’ she asked finally, ‘that your entire assessment of Mr Arias was based on your meetings with Mr Arias?’

  Another pause. ‘I think I’m a decent judge of character. In my business you see a lot.’

  Only if you’re looking, Caroline thought. ‘You didn’t know anything about his life – correct? – except what he told you?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘So you didn’t know how he acted when he wasn’t with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor do you have any background in psychology or psychiatry.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Caroline paused, skipping a beat. ‘Or suicide.’

  Warner looked startled. ‘No.’

  ‘Has anyone you knew very well ever killed himself?’

  A short shake of the head. ‘No.’

  ‘And yet you’re convinced that Mr Arias didn’t kill himself.’

  Warner’s mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘Yes.’

  Caroline half turned, taking in the jury for the first time. They were surveying Warner with a newly skeptical air; Joseph Duarte tapped his pencil to his lips, watching Warner intently over a semi-smile. It was that which persuaded Caroline to go for broke. Facing Warner, she said, ‘You don’t like Teresa Peralta, do you?’

  Warner blinked. Slowly, she answered, ‘No.’

  ‘Is there a specific reason?’

  ‘Yes.’ Warner’s eyes hardened, as if she saw an opportunity to regain the ground she had lost and could hardly believe that Caroline would give it to her. ‘Teresa Peralta slapped me.’

  ‘What was the occasion?’

  ‘I was at school, in my room.’ A slight hesitation. ‘I’d suggested to the police that they should question Elena.’

  Caroline gave her an incredulous look. ‘Elena? As in Ms Peralta’s six-year-old daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Warner’s voice rose. ‘A few days before Richie died, Elena was moping around the classroom after the other kids went out to play. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that she heard her parents having an argument and that Ms Peralta had threatened to kill Richie.’

  ‘Do you know the context?’

  ‘No.’ Warner’s voice dropped. ‘When I told Richie, he just laughed. He said his wife had a bad temper.’

  ‘Did you ever discuss this supposed threat with Ms Peralta?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see fit to inform Ms Peralta that you were setting two homicide inspectors loose on her kindergartner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For that matter, did you consult the principal?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or a psychologist?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you consult anyone on how the violent death of a parent might have affected Elena?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or how being questioned about it by the police might affect her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And of course, because you never talked to Ms Peralta about anything, you were unaware that she had engaged a psychologist to help Elena.’

  Warner sat rigid in the witness chair. ‘I did what I thought was right.’

  ‘You always do, don’t you? Isn’t it true that before she hit you, Ms Peralta asked if you had any idea of the harm you were doing?’

  Warner’s eyes seemed to widen. ‘She may have said something like that.’

  ‘And didn’t you respond by saying that she shouldn’t raise her own daughter and that Elena was lost without Richie?’

  A slow nod. ‘I think I did.’

  ‘And then she slapped you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Caroline appraised her. ‘How long after that,’ she asked quietly, ‘was it that you called the police and offered to testify that Mr Arias wasn’t suicidal?’

  Warner’s shrug was like a twitch of the
neck. ‘Sometime thereafter. I’m not sure when.’

  ‘Try the next day, Ms Warner.’

  Warner held her head higher. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Caroline gave a sardonic smile. ‘One more thing. Before Ms Peralta slapped you, did she also call you a fool?’

  A brisk nod of indignation. ‘Yes. She did.’

  Caroline gave her a look of bemusement. ‘And after that, you still thought she was an unfit mother?’

  The insult was so subtle that it took Warner a moment to flush, Salinas to object. There was a snicker from the press.

  ‘That question,’ Salinas said angrily, ‘is sheer harassment, deliberately calculated to insult this witness.’

  Caroline turned to Salinas. ‘Please forgive me, Victor,’ she said in rueful tones. ‘I was just doing what I thought was right.’

  When Caroline abruptly turned her back on Warner, returning to the defense table, Joseph Duarte gave her a short nod.

  There were moments during a trial, Caroline thought, when it felt like you could live forever.

  Chapter 4

  Teresa Peralta sat in Denise Harris’s waiting room, reading notes from Chris’s murder trial while Harris saw Elena.

  She had arranged for the notes through Caroline Masters, who assigned an associate to follow each day’s proceedings. After Salinas barred her from the courtroom, Terri had resolved that she would know where the prosecutor was going right to the moment when Salinas put her on the stand. Salinas’s opening statement indicated his intention to make Richie’s charge of sexual abuse a centerpiece of the prosecution; it was doubly ironic that Terri, forbidden to attend the trial, was waiting here while on the other side of the door a stranger tried to learn from her own daughter where the truth might lie.

  But even Chris felt like a stranger now. It was not only that he would not talk about the evidence against him; the demands of maintaining his composure, of trying to think like a lawyer while the father in him worried for Carlo, drained so much energy that he seemed to have withdrawn to another place. It was becoming harder to remember how she once depended on him; or the sudden surprising brightness when he smiled at her; or the belief that she knew enough to share a life with him. The unnerving sense that Chris was a series of compartments, with some that he opened for no one, had taken its place.

  But there were few things, now, of which Terri felt certain. She could not believe that she had been a good mother – she had the evidence of Elena to tell her otherwise. She was no longer sure that she knew her own mother; there seemed to dwell within Rosa an ingrained solitude, a deep sense that she had always been alone. Terri did not know whether her own daughter had been molested; there was too much doubt to be sure of Carlo, and she did not know what secrets Chris was hiding.

  Perhaps Caroline knew, or at least had guessed. Caroline was so smart that Terri had sometimes found her scary, and she was more like Chris than any woman Terri knew: Caroline acted according to her own personal code, which she did not explain to others, even if the price was to appear unfeeling. There was an honor to this, and a certain arrogance as well. But perhaps Caroline sensed things about Chris that Terri could not see.

  That was part of it, Terri realized. She had been Chris’s professional partner and now – when it mattered most – the role had fallen to Caroline Masters, who seemed so well suited to it. But there was something more. Defending Chris might be so inimical to Caroline’s ambitions that Terri could think of only one reason that Caroline would take it on: that on grounds Terri did not know, Caroline sensed that Chris was innocent.

  Pensive, Terri flipped the page.

  Caroline had done well with Liz Shelton, but not well enough; Shelton knew that there was no way Richie had killed himself, and Terri was quite certain that Caroline could find no one who believed Richie suicidal. But what Terri believed, and what she might say, were different.

  Caroline could do many things, Terri reflected, perhaps even believe in Chris. But only Terri could make the jury believe in a man they might never hear.

  She resumed studying the notes, making her own notations to mark the key points of Salinas’s case.

  At certain angles, Harris reflected, Elena Arias was the image of her mother.

  The child had long eyelashes, quick but delicate hands, a grave beauty. But the resemblance went far deeper. Harris was sometimes haunted by the almost ruthless determinism through which the trauma of the parent seemed to catch up with the child, generation after generation.

  Buried in Terri’s childhood or adolescence, Harris suspected, was something so deeply wrong that Terri herself had yet to face it. Harris’s best guess was sexual abuse. But the deeper tragedy was apparent to Terri herself: in trying to escape Ramon Peralta, Terri had fled to her own marriage carrying Rosa’s troubles with her, and now – for whatever reason – Elena was troubled as well.

  An endless chain, Harris thought. Ramon Peralta’s father had beaten him; Rosa’s father had raped her. They were a couple made for each other, just as they had made Terri the perfect wife for Ricardo Arias.

  Of course, Terri had tried to end this and to take Elena with her. So there was always the hope of change. Except that, Harris reflected wearily, she could not be entirely certain Terri herself had not killed Richie: in an abusive relationship, beneath the victim’s stoicism, anger lives a life of its own.

  Troubled, Harris turned back to Elena.

  The child sat on the rug with crayons and drawing paper. Elena was almost through with her drawing; working alone seemed to make her feel peaceful, and beneath her air of listlessness, she had surprising powers of concentration. But when Elena handed Harris the picture, watching for her reaction, it was another drawing of a lone girl, this time in what looked like a desert beneath a red-orange sun.

  Examining the picture, Harris tried to sound brightly curious. ‘What’s she doing, Elena?’

  Elena’s shoulders gave a miniature shrug. ‘She’s lost,’ the child answerd in matter-of-fact tones.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she was bad. So they left her there.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  But Elena’s face had closed, the opaque expression of a child who had suddenly tired of a subject. ‘No one.’

  Harris did not question this. Instead she went to a shelf, got out a box full of plastic figures, and sat down with Elena. Silently, Harris began to create a world without people: a plastic fence across a river, which led to a wood full of trees, with a couple of hills and a log cabin in the middle. Elena watched with interest; neither spoke.

  At length, Harris said to Elena. ‘Your turn.’

  Elena studied the plastic landscape. ‘You’re already finished,’ she objected.

  Harris shook her head. ‘There’s no people in it,’ she said, and pointed to the box of plastic figures. ‘You get to decide who lives here and what kind of things they do.’

  Elena studied the landscape, eyes averted from Harris. She was an intuitive little girl, Harris sensed; on some level, Elena understood that to play with Harris was to reveal herself. Suddenly Elena turned to her.

  ‘Why does Mommy bring me here?’

  Harris smiled. ‘Because she loves you and knows things may be hard for you right now. She thought you might want a friend to spend time with.’

  ‘I don’t need a friend.’

  ‘I do.’ Harris paused a moment, adding another tree to the woods. ‘Why don’t you need a friend?’

  Elena shrugged. ‘They’re boring. All they want to do is play.’

  What was so disturbing, Harris thought, was that Elena had learned to scorn her own childhood. One explanation could be the trauma of her father’s death. But there was a more troubling possibility. Elena’s detachment from other children was common among children who had been sexually abused.

  ‘Sometimes I like to play,’ Harris said, and started to build another fence.

  It might go on like this, Harris thought, for weeks, or even months. T
hen, without saying a word, Elena placed a plastic figure in the middle of the woods.

  She had chosen the black-haired girl, Harris noticed, from a box full of blonds and brunettes, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and dogs. ‘Does she live in the cabin?’ Harris asked.

  Elena shook her head. ‘No. In the woods, where it’s dark.’

  ‘Who lives with her?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  Harris busied herself with another fence. ‘Does she want anyone to live with her?’ she asked.

  Elena fell quiet, studying the woods. Silently, she placed the figure of the little girl next to a tree.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Harris asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Elena looked away. ‘The robbers have tied her to a tree.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  Elena folded her arms. ‘She can’t see them,’ she answered in a thin, flat voice. ‘It’s too dark in the woods.’

  ‘Can someone help her?’

  Slowly, Elena shook her head. ‘It’s a nightmare, and she’s all alone. The robbers have a black dog.’

  At the word ‘nightmare,’ Harris felt the smallest change in herself, a pricking of nerve ends. Time seemed to slow down. Carefully, she asked, ‘What does the black dog do?’

  ‘Watch the little girl,’ Elena’s voice was small now. ‘She can hear him in the dark.’

  For a moment, the child seemed transfixed by her imaginings. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ Harris probed.

  Again, Elena shook her head. Harris waited for an answer that never came.

  ‘Can’t she call 911, Elena?’

  ‘There’s no telephone.’

  The child’s certainty was frightening, Harris thought; her vision of isolation was too vivid and complete. For a moment, quiet, she considered Elena. Then she reached into the box and brought out a plastic alligator.

  The creature was fearsome-looking, with pointed teeth and black eyes painted on its dark green face. Without comment, Harris placed the alligator beside the little girl, facing the darkness Elena had described.

  Pointing to the alligator, Elena asked, ‘What’s that?’

  Harris smiled. ‘The little girl’s secret friend. She looks scary, but she’s very nice. She’s come to protect the little girl.’