“I don’t like to talk about it. It’s not your fault.”
Zachary unbuttoned the cuff of his right shirtsleeve and pushed it up. He showed her the scars on his arm. Old, pink, stretched scars.
“Oh, Zachary.” She touched it. Like she didn’t really believe what she was seeing. “Oh, I’m sorry. You never said it was that bad. I wouldn’t have used debriding as an example if I’d realized.”
“You’re right, though,” Zachary tried to get the focus off of himself and back onto Summit and Raymond and the therapy program. “Therapy can be painful. Physically. Mentally. And I’m not a professional, so what do I know? How can I judge whether they’re doing it right, and how soft or hard she should be with him? They’re the experts. Dr. Abato kept telling me how advanced their program is, better than anyone else’s. He kept telling me how they succeed where everyone else fails. What do I know, walking in there for the first time?”
Kenzie nodded. She let go of him and went back to eating her supper as if nothing had happened. He appreciated the gesture. She didn’t spend the whole night treating him like a baby. She didn’t ask him why he wasn’t on a medication that would stop the flashbacks and anxiety. She just went back to what they had been doing and acted like nothing unusual had happened.
Zachary was getting looks from the diners at nearby tables and some of the wait staff. Had he been that obvious? Caused a scene? He didn’t think he had shouted or cried, but he couldn’t be sure. He thought that he had just withdrawn, gone back in time in his mind, but that shouldn’t have been noticeable to people sitting at the other tables. Zachary poked at his meal, looking for something appetizing. He didn’t feel like eating anything more, but he knew he needed to. He’d learned that he had to eat whether he was hungry or not. He needed to take care of himself. He didn’t want Kenzie seeing him as a sick, broken person.
“What did you find out about Quentin?” Kenzie asked. “Nothing out of place in his room?”
“No. Well, yes and no. I’m still looking for some more answers. Who saw him last. If they did bed checks. If anyone went into his room.”
“Do you think they were negligent?”
“When they found him, he was on the floor. Not on his bunk. The coroner’s report said he’d been dead for four to six hours. If he was on his floor for six hours, shouldn’t someone have noticed?”
Kenzie considered, nodding slowly. “Unless that was normal behavior for him.”
“Abato said some kids hide under their beds. Sleep on the floor. That it wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary.”
“But was it out of the ordinary for Quentin? Did he usually sleep on his floor or on his bed?”
Zachary pulled his notepad out of his case and added the question to a list of other similar ones. “I wish I’d been able to spend more time talking to the people who were in charge of his unit and less time on the tour. Dr. Abato didn’t know much about Quentin’s habits or what had happened the night before they found him. He didn’t even know if they had computer logs of when Quentin’s door had been opened. They’re all electronic locks. So there must be a record of when they went in there.”
“Only if it was locked.”
Zachary stared at her, realizing that she was right. Dr. Abato had said that the door would only have been locked if Quentin had been involved in an incident earlier in the day. And if his door had been left unlocked, there would be no security log of who had opened the door.
“If it was locked,” he agreed. “And Dr. Abato couldn’t tell me whether it had been. One of those questions that I’m supposed to be getting answers to later.”
“They must have had to answer them for the police too.”
“I’m not sure. I get the feeling that the police investigation was pretty… cursory.”
“They’re required by law to investigate any homicide, including suicides. But if everything looked like suicide, I’m not sure anyone would be wasting their time digging down deeper.”
Zachary nodded. He took a bite of red Jell-O gelatin. There was a bit of ranch dressing on it, but just on the edge. He sucked it around his mouth, liquefying it like he used to when he was a kid. Jell-O had always been a favorite. As long as they didn’t put anything weird in it. Peaches were okay. But not carrots or cottage cheese.
“I would talk to his therapist,” Kenzie said. “Not a behavioral therapist, but a psychotherapist or counselor. Someone who would know whether he was depressed.”
“His mother didn’t think he was depressed. But she said he was…” Zachary strained to remember her exact words. “Agitated. They were increasing his therapy sessions.”
“So find out who he talked to. Find out what they thought was wrong.”
Zachary nodded. “I will… but I don’t know if they will be able to tell me anything. He didn’t really talk, so how would they know?”
“They’re trained professionals. They would notice changes in his behavior. His demeanor. Even if he couldn’t speak, he must have had other ways to communicate.”
“His mom said that they wouldn’t let him communicate any other way. They wanted him to speak, so they wouldn’t pay attention if he tried to communicate another way.”
“His therapy or counseling would have been different,” Kenzie assured him. “If something was bothering him, they would have worked with whatever communications method he had.”
“Okay. I’ll find out, then.”
“A lot of people with autism deal with depression or self-harm. I’m sure they’ll have protocols in place to evaluate their residents, even if they’re non-verbal.”
“But if he was depressed, you don’t think it was because of anything they were doing at Summit.”
Kenzie cocked an eyebrow. She shook her head. “No, not at all. Like I said, it’s very common. And Summit has a sterling reputation.”
“The police report said that they’ve had other deaths. I haven’t looked into the details yet, but doesn’t that make you suspicious?”
“People are going to die there. At any institution. But not violent deaths…?”
“I haven’t looked them up yet,” Zachary repeated. “The police didn’t seem to think they were anything to be concerned about.”
“But it’s your job to look at it all again,” Kenzie said, giving a melodramatic sigh. “It’s your job to be suspicious. I get that. But how many deaths are we talking about? If it was anything out of the ordinary, it would have been in the news, and I don’t remember hearing anything like that.”
“I don’t know. Half a dozen, I think.”
“Half a dozen? In how long? This year? Five years?”
“Since it opened.”
Kenzie laughed. It wasn’t a mocking laugh, but genuine amusement. Zachary shifted uncomfortably, staring down at his plate.
“Since it opened, Zachary?” Kenzie repeated. “They’ve been operating thirty, forty years. Six deaths in thirty years is nothing. Probably just natural causes.”
“No, I think those are deaths that were investigated. Suspicious deaths.”
“Even so, one death like Quentin’s every five or six years? You’ll see more than that in any municipal jail.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. I’m sure it’s a shock to the parents when something like this happens, but kids commit suicide at home, too. The institution can’t prevent every death. It’s just not possible.”
Chapter Ten
T
he following day, Zachary spent some time re-reading the police reports in the small hours of the morning, until he was sure he had taken in every word and sorted out all of his questions. He still didn’t have all of the answers he wanted from the staff at Summit, and a couple of polite emails and voicemail follow-ups had not produced any results. By the time Bowman got up, Zachary had decided to go back to the institution. He needed to talk to the psychologist who had been treating Quentin. To the supervisor of his unit and the person who had discovered the body. The night staff w
ho hadn’t noticed anything was amiss. And if he were there in person, Dr. Abato couldn’t put off his questions in the hopes that he’d just stop asking.
“Where are you off to so early?” Bowman asked after a few gulps of scalding-hot coffee. Zachary had put his into a travel mug and was waiting for it to cool.
“Back to Summit Living Center.”
“More questions to be answered?”
“Yes… I’ve gone over everything I can, but there are still holes in what the doctor over there told me and what was in the police reports. It doesn’t seem…” Zachary tried to word it tactfully, “like it was… investigated very deeply.”
Bowman shrugged. “No skin off my nose. It’s not our police department. And suicides… they’re not investigated the same way as other homicides. If there’s nothing on the surface that’s suspicious, the police don’t spend months sifting through the details. Why would they? Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you walk into the room and it looks like a suicide… it was. It’s only on TV that murderers try to cover up a killing by making it look like suicide. Or Victorian murder mysteries. In real life, if someone takes a bottle of pills, or slits their wrists, or hangs themselves… you walk in, you do your scene survey, talk to the family, forensics does their bit, and you wait until the lab comes back with all of the details confirmed. The coroner makes his ruling, you write your summary, and the case is closed.”
Zachary nodded. That pretty much confirmed what he’d read on the file. Very high-level, superficial. “If it looks like a duck…”
“Exactly,” Bowman agreed. “Even in cases where the family didn’t know the person was depressed… it’s not usually that big of a surprise. After the initial shock wears off… they admit that they knew there was a problem. Addiction, depression, a series of traumas… when someone commits suicide, there’s usually been a long lead-up.”
Zachary pretended to take a sip of his coffee, even though it was still too hot for him, just so he could hide any changes in his expression. Bowman didn’t know much about Zachary’s own history. He didn’t know he was talking to a self-qualified expert on suicide. Zachary cleared his throat.
“You’re probably right,” he said. “It probably was. But his mother is paying me to investigate, so if anything doesn’t fit… I’ll find it.”
Bowman grinned. “You’re a good investigator. That’s why she hired you. I wish you all the luck.”
He looked down at his watch. Without looking at his, Zachary took the hint. “I’d better be heading out. Got some driving and thinking to do.”
Bowman gave him a little salute. Zachary grabbed his soft-sided briefcase and headed down to his car.
Unlike the previous day, it wasn’t clear and fresh, but pouring rain and dark due to the thick clouds. A miserable day to be caught outside, but he was warm and dry in his car. Once he was settled and on his way in the Civic, Zachary called Mira and gave her a brief non-report.
It was a lengthy commute to Summit, but Zachary found it easier to think in a moving vehicle. He didn’t know the psychology of it, whether his ADHD restlessness was satisfied by a constantly changing horizon, that he had something to occupy his hands, or whether it was the soothing swish of the tires on pavement. It didn’t really matter why. He just knew that distance driving was one of the few times he could really sit still and think without distraction. Maybe he should have chosen the profession of a long-distance trucker instead of a private detective.
He mentally ordered and prioritized the questions he had. Who he wanted to talk to. Bowman was probably right; once Mira started to accept her son’s death, she would realize that there had been signs. That Quentin hadn’t been happy with himself or with his living situation. That he suffered from depression, even though he couldn’t express it to her. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with having him institutionalized at Summit. Depression was rarely simple cause-and-effect. Not everybody who thought their lives sucked was suicidal, and people who appeared to have everything could be deeply depressed.
By the time he reached Summit, the rain had cleared, and the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. Zachary hadn’t set up an appointment, so he decided he should go to the front entrance instead of the private entrance he had been directed to the last time. See the front face of the institution. Ask for the people he needed to talk to before confronting Dr. Abato.
But he hadn’t counted on the protesters. He didn’t know if there were actually more than there had been on his previous visit, or if he just hadn’t known how many people were actually there because he’d been at the private entrance. But there were a lot of them. They waved their signs at him angrily, shouting words he couldn’t understand through the closed windows of the car. Zachary continued to inch forward, forcing his way into the parking lot, where he sat for a moment and considered whether to call for assistance. Abato said that security staff presence just tended to inflame the protesters. And he really didn’t want to call the police when the fact was that he didn’t have an appointment or anyone waiting for him and could just as easily have conducted interviews over the phone.
After sitting for a few minutes, he took a deep breath in, unlocked his door, and forced himself to pick up his bag and step out of the vehicle.
The protesters immediately homed in on him when they saw him walking from his car toward the front door. As soon as he reached the sidewalk, they were closing in, shouting at him and thrusting their signs toward him. Zachary frowned, looking at the signs and trying to take them all in. The ones about Quentin made the most sense to him. Of course people were upset that one of the children at the institution had died. They wanted someone to be held responsible, even if it was suicide or an accident. They wanted accountability. For someone to agree that it should never have happened and that they wouldn’t let it happen again.
But other signs didn’t make immediate sense.
Zachary shook his head at a woman who pushed her way in front of him. “What is all this?” he demanded. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t work here.”
“Do you know what goes on in there?” the woman demanded. She had ash blond hair and deep wrinkles around her mouth and throat, making it look like she’d recently lost a lot of weight and her face was collapsing in on itself. There was a harsh, M-shaped frown line between her eyebrows. She wore blue jeans and a shapeless t-shirt. Maybe the mother of one of the residents there. Or a former resident.
“Yes,” Zachary said. “I was here a couple of days ago. Got a tour. Watched a therapy session. I’ve seen what goes on.”
“Really? Did they show you the aversives? Did they let you see how they treat residents they consider stubborn or violent? The hard cases?”
Zachary let the words sink in. The woman gave him a little shove back on his shoulder. Nothing that hurt Zachary, but he was shocked that she would touch him. Organized protesters were normally trained in what qualified as a peaceful process and what they could not do. Of course, pushing around someone who was trying to get past the protest was way out of line. Something that could get her arrested and jailed for assault. If there had been any police officers around.
“Tell me about that,” he suggested.
She looked surprised at his response. She looked around, then back at Zachary. Not straight on, but sideways, wary, as if she were no longer sure what to think of him. He could be a threat. He could just be teasing her, stringing her on like he was interested in what she wanted to say when really, he just wanted to get past her to the big brick building.
“What?”
“Tell me what you mean. What are aversives?”
She again looked around, then leaned in toward him, too close into his personal space. But he was surrounded by jostling protesters, so he wasn’t sure why he even noticed how close she stood to him.
“An aversive is something you do to cause the subject pain whenever he performs a bad behavior.”
Zachary thought back to Ray-Ray’s therapy sess
ion. “Do you mean like yelling at him or forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to? Physically?”
“I’m not talking about yelling. I’m talking about causing pain.” She pointed to one of the signs with a lightning-bolt symbol on it. “Like skin shocks.”
“Skin shocks?” Zachary shook his head. “Really? I thought shock treatment was out in the seventies.”
“Shock treatment is passing an electrical charge through the brain. ECT. Not the same thing as skin shocks.”
A male protester jostled Zachary. “Like cattle prods.”
Zachary looked at the lightning bolt sign and then at the woman. “They don’t use cattle prods. That wouldn’t be legal.”
“I said ‘like cattle prods,’” the man repeated. “Cattle prods. Stun guns. Skin shocks.”
“I didn’t see anything like that.”
“Of course not,” the woman scoffed. “Do you think they would let you see that on a VIP tour? They’re going to try to show the institution in its best light. All the good stuff. Show you kids playing happily and appearing to have a good time in their therapy sessions. Just like the pictures and videos on their website. Do you think they would show you what it is really like?”
“No.” There had been tours through Bonnie Brown and other facilities Zachary had been housed at too. He remembered the way they had been lectured on giving the VIPs a good experience so that the facility could get more money. How they had sanitized everything, making sure that the kids were all in clean, fresh clothes, and that anyone who they knew would give the tourists a bad impression was hustled off to detention or another unit. They were ordered to smile and play nicely and answer questions positively if they wanted to earn a treat and avoid retribution. The VIPs never got to see what the institution was really like in day-to-day operations. Real life was messy and raw. Kids who had been locked up because they were too difficult for foster families to deal with were not cute, polite, respectful automatons.
The protesters were quieting a little. The fact that Zachary was listening to them instead of just shoving his way through was having an effect.
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