“That must be very hard.”
“Everything that we worked so hard for is gone, because this man, this Damien, stole her away from us. How could anyone be so depraved? To take such an innocent life and do what he did.”
“You’re lucky you got her back at all. They could have—” Zachary checked his tongue before blurting in front of Tirza, “—hurt her instead of letting her go. They must not have thought that she could identify them.”
“She could describe their clothes and what they did to her. But I don’t know if she could ever testify in court and be considered a competent witness. So they were probably right. They don’t have to worry about what she could say about them.”
“No, Mom.” Tirza first tapped Ava on the leg, and then made a chopping motion. “No more. No.” Her words cut off and she looked at Zachary pleadingly for a moment before hiding her face against her mother again.
Zachary looked at Ava to get her interpretation of Tirza’s words and gestures. But Ava shook her head, not quite sure.
“No one is going to hurt you anymore,” she told Tirza. “You’re safe here. The bad men can’t get to you here.”
“No.” The chopping motion again, as if she were karate-chopping Ava’s thigh. But while she did continue the motion until her hand reached Ava’s leg, it was obviously not a violent motion. Not intended to hurt. She jerked her hand in Zachary’s direction.
“What, Tirza? Use more words,” Ava prompted.
Tirza pulled her face back from Ava. She brought the arm that had been behind Ava’s back in front of her body. She made the chopping gesture again, into her flat hand, and motioned at Zachary.
“Stop,” Ava said. “Stop… Mr. Goldman?”
“Zachary,” he corrected automatically.
“What do you want to stop, Tirza?” Ava asked. “Mr. Goldman—Zachary—is here to help. You want him to stop something?”
“No. Him.” Tirza motioned to Zachary again, and again made the sign for ‘stop.’ “Him, him, him, him.” Each time she said ‘him,’ she moved her hand over slightly, as if there were a row of men standing beside or behind Zachary.
And for the two days she had been gone, there had been a row of men, Zachary realized. It made his heart ache to think of what she had been through for those forty-eight hours. How terrified she must have been, not understanding what was going on. Or understanding and not able to stop it.
“Baby.” Ava kissed the top of Tirza’s head. “It’s over. It is stopped, sweetie. They aren’t going to hurt you any more.”
Tirza looked toward her room’s open door. She again buried her face in Ava’s shoulder.
“No. No more.”
“That’s right. No more. No more hurting Tirza. Tirza is safe.”
She rubbed Tirza’s back and hugged her. Zachary watched a man walk down the hallway, past Tirza’s room. He saw Tirza look up briefly at the sound of footsteps, and then she hid her face again quickly.
“Tirza,” Zachary addressed her in his gentlest voice. “Tirza, no one here is hurting you, are they?”
Tirza moaned and again made the ‘stop’ gesture with one hand.
“Is somebody here hurting you? Touching you?”
She murmured and cried into her mother’s shoulder.
“Does she understand what I’m saying?” Zachary asked. “Has she told you anything to indicate that she might be… being victimized here? It happens in a lot of institutions. I’m sure they have to pass police checks to work here, but…”
“I just don’t know,” Ava admitted. “She keeps telling me to stop it. No more. I think it’s just anxiety or flashbacks, I don’t think she’s still being hurt. I don’t think that anyone here would… Everybody has to be vetted. I don’t think…”
But she couldn’t know. None of them could know for sure whether Tirza was still being hurt, except Tirza herself. And she was not giving them the information they needed.
“I think it’s just anxiety,” Ava repeated, trying to sound more certain.
# #
A woman walked up to the door. She was wearing a lab coat, like most of the therapists. An affectation, since none of them were doctors who were doing anything messy and needed to have their clothing protected. It was just a uniform to identify them as doctors or professionals. Was the lab jacket supposed to make it look like they had had more training than they did? Zachary remembered Clarissa telling him they liked to recruit aides and therapists right out of school, so their methodology wouldn’t be contaminated by other practices.
The woman gave the room a big smile. “We have company today, do we, Tirza? That’s nice, isn’t it?” She focused her gaze on Ava. “Mom, it’s time for Tirza to go to therapy. Would you tell her good-bye, and I’ll get her on her way?”
Ava pulled gently back from Tirza, trying to extricate herself from the girl’s grip. “School time, Tirza. Time to go.”
Tirza didn’t argue or fight, but she made it obvious from the way she sat slumped on the bed that she didn’t want to go.
“Get up,” her mother coaxed, pulling on her hands. “Get up off of the bed and on your feet. Therapy time. You need to get your skills back. Work hard again.”
Tirza slumped down farther, uncooperative. The therapist put her hands on her hips. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you’d let her wear an ESD.”
“She’s already traumatized enough. She doesn’t need to be abused further by being given electrical shocks.”
Bravo for her. Finally, someone standing up for her child’s rights.
“Okay, then you need to move out of the way and I will get her going. Tirza, come!” The therapist’s voice snapped. Tirza darted a glance at her. “Out,” the woman repeated to Ava, and looked at Zachary. “And you too. I can get her to move.”
Ava sighed. She stroked Tirza’s hair. “You need to listen, baby.” Then she moved out of the room. Zachary followed her reluctantly.
The therapist wasn’t gentle or patient. She gave Tirza commands in a loud, unyielding tone, and when Tirza didn’t immediately obey, she pushed, pulled, and prodded her to get her to move. Eventually, Tirza was on her feet and being escorted out the door. She wasn’t crying or protesting her treatment. The therapist nodded at Ava, ignored Zachary, and marched Tirza off down the hall.
Ava motioned to Zachary, and they both went back into Tirza’s room to talk for another minute.
“So, this doesn’t have anything to do with Quentin’s death,” Zachary said.
“No… It’s just… the police said that kids are often victimized by people like this that they meet online or in chat apps. They agree to meet someone without the parents’ knowledge, not realizing that they are opening themselves up to a predator.”
Zachary nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen it before.”
“But Tirza didn’t have a phone. She didn’t have internet access. She didn’t use a computer, except for a self-contained communications device, not hooked into any network. Nobody contacted her while she was at home. It was either someone at the school, or someone here.”
“She couldn’t tell you which?”
“She calls them both ‘school.’ I can’t work out how this guy met her. The school and Summit both say there’s no way. He doesn’t work there. And there haven’t been any strangers hanging around. They would have found him on the cameras.”
“It’s more likely to be someone from the school, since that’s where they took her.”
“Yes.”
“And you said she cries when you take her back there. Not when you bring her here.”
“Because that’s where she was taken from. She doesn’t want them to take her away again. But…” Ava motioned to their surroundings. “You saw she still asks me to stop them when she is here.”
Zachary nodded.
Ava gave a wide shrug. “I can’t say it’s someone from the school. And I can’t say it’s someone from here. I have to just trust them at both places and let her keep going back somewhere she might hav
e been stalked or victimized before. It’s not much of a choice.”
“No. So, you’re looking for someone to investigate and find out who took her? It would not be easy, and my plate is already full with Quentin Thatcher’s death.”
“I just… I thought that since you’re looking at things with fresh eyes here, getting to know how the place works… you could just tell me if you saw something. If you thought there is something to be concerned about. A security risk, or a person you get a bad feeling from. Just… anything you happen to come across.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you.”
Ava’s face fell. But she didn’t argue or reproach him.
“I’ll tell you if I hear or see anything,” Zachary promised. “But don’t get your hopes up. Because I don’t think… I don’t think I’m going to come across a pedophile while trying to get to the truth in Quentin’s case.”
“Okay. I understand that. And… thank you.”
Zachary nodded. “Do you think I could watch her therapy session for a few minutes?”
“I’m sure we could get permission.”
Ava led the way to the nursing station at the middle of the unit and smiled at the woman seated at the computer.
“Mr. Goldman would like to watch my daughter’s therapy session. Would that be alright?”
The nurse or supervisor shrugged. “I don’t see why not, if you give your permission. Do you know the way?”
Ava shook her head. “I have to go. If someone could take him there…?” At Zachary’s look of surprise, she explained. “It’s best if I leave while Tirza’s occupied with something else. She’s very clingy and if I try to separate from her, she cries and makes a fuss. It’s better if I’m just not here when she gets back. And I need to run some errands and take care of the rest of my household.”
Zachary accepted this. The supervisor waved down a security guard and indicated Zachary. “Can you escort him down to the therapy wing? Tirza Kennedy’s session?”
The guard agreed. He escorted Zachary through the hallways, which were becoming a little more familiar and not so much of a rabbit’s warren.
“Here she is.” The guard stopped at one of the observation windows, and Zachary saw Tirza sitting across the table from the therapist who had bullied her out of her room.
“Thanks.” Zachary sat down on one of the chairs. The guard nodded. “Flag someone down when you’re done,” he instructed. “Don’t go wandering around.”
Zachary agreed. He watched Tirza through the window. The therapist seemed to be working with her on speech. Prompting words and phrases which Tirza dutifully repeated, staring off distractedly into space. Her mother said that she could describe the men and what they had done. But Zachary hadn’t heard her say more than a handful of words voluntarily. And those sporadically, haphazardly, without grammar.
“Eye contact,” the therapist prompted, putting her hands on Tirza’s cheeks to turn her head until Tirza was looking at her directly. Tirza’s hands came up to cover her face.
“No, quiet hands. Keep your hands folded on the table.” The therapist grasped Tirza’s hands and put them back down on the table, joined together. Tirza kept her hands there, was praised, and the therapist went back to getting Tirza to repeat words back to her.
She used a communications device at the school. If they brought it to her at Summit, would she be able to tell them more about the men she was afraid of? Whether she feared someone who was actually there, or just the idea of men who might hurt her and flashbacks to the men who had hurt her. Zachary couldn’t understand why Summit wouldn’t allow the use of communications methods other than speech, as Margaret had suggested.
Zachary’s mind drifted to Ray-Ray Maslen. He wondered how the little boy was doing. He had known Quentin. Had gotten used to seeing him after their sessions. Did he miss Quentin now that he was gone? Or did Ray-Ray not even remember that he had existed?
Zachary watched Tirza. She obeyed her therapist’s commands. Each phrase repeated back perfectly. She was prompted for a few scripts like Quentin had been learning, where she was expected to give the correct reply to prompt words or phrases such as ‘how are you?’ or ‘good-bye.’
Zachary thought about Ray-Ray’s session. ‘Touch your nose,’ ‘touch your ear,’ ‘give me a hug.’ He had read through Lovaas’s reasons for teaching commands like those in his book. By teaching simple commands and imitation, the therapist then had the tools to move into more complex behaviors and interactions that the child needed to learn. Interactions like hugs and kisses were taught because they were required in everyday life. Giving grandparents a hug when they arrived. Kissing Daddy good-bye on his way to work. Desensitizing the child so that he wouldn’t have a meltdown if auntie or cousin wanted a hug when it was time to go.
Tirza continued to obey each prompt.
And Zachary saw both Ray-Ray’s and Tirza’s sessions meld before his eyes.
Hug me, Tirza. Good girl.
Give me a kiss and you can have a candy.
Touch your lips, Tirza. Touch your stomach. Touch me here. That’s right. Good girl.
In his manual, under rewards for good behavior, Lovaas had listed “kissing, hugging, tickling, stroking, fondling.”
Take a child who had been trained to follow every command an adult gave them. A child who had been trained to obey immediately, without question, and to expect treats, praise, and physical touch or games in return. Who had learned to expect pain and punishment for any wrong response. That child became the perfect victim. A child with no boundaries, no defenses, and no instinct to fight back.
A beautiful, innocent girl like Tirza would do whatever she was told.
Chapter Nineteen
T
irza was parroting the lines that the therapist was feeding her, but her mind was far away. In her brain, she was somewhere safe and protected. Not where she had to answer questions and do as she was told. She was curled up somewhere deep inside her brain where no one could reach her. Still trying to process everything that had happened to her.
The new man seemed nice. The Gold Man. But Damien had seemed nice too. Damien had praised her and told her that she was a good girl. Tirza had been happy to please. But then Damien took her away, said that she was supposed to go along. Her mother had said so. And she was always supposed to do what her mother said.
Tirza didn’t know what to do. She had tried to answer the questions of the policemen, but they had thought she was a bad girl, a girl who had run off and done bad things to make her mother cry. She tried to use her words, like she’d been taught, but the police officers didn’t like what she said and kept feeding her new lines.
At home and able to use her computer again, she’d tried to explain it to her mother. Her mother didn’t think she was a bad girl. Her mother didn’t believe that she would run away and go do bad things. But typing the things that had happened to her made it too real and too frightening. It was like bleeding into the computer and not being able to stop the flow or the pain inside her. Like being forced to open her eyes when the light burned them. It made her even more afraid. What if Damien or the men came back? What if they took her away again?
A slap on Tirza’s hand brought her attention back to the game. She couldn’t let her thoughts be distracted to the point that she stopped vomiting back the words to the therapist, or she would be punished. She was tired of being punished. The men had hurt her. Even when she tried to do everything they told her to, they still hurt her.
Her mother had said she shouldn’t let men touch her body. She should protect herself. Fight back. But whenever Tirza fought back against the grown-ups, she was punished and told she was a bad girl. Her body wasn’t hers. She wasn’t allowed to say no or to decide where to go or what to do. If she resisted, they just took hold of her and forced her to perform.
It wasn’t her body. It was theirs. Theirs to control and do what they want to.
Maybe the Gold Man could help, like her m
other had said. He would stop them from hurting her more.
Damien would come back for her.
Damien could come to her room. Could take her out.
And she had to do what Damien said.
Chapter Twenty
Z
achary couldn’t look at Tirza’s shadowed, hollow eyes any longer. He got up from his observation chair and wandered to the other therapy rooms in the cluster. He didn’t like that he was becoming accustomed to watching the therapy. It wasn’t so shocking, it didn’t disturb him as much, even with his dawning realization that by doing what they were, they were making autistic children into the perfect victims. How could so many professionals be wrong? Zachary couldn’t claim, as a layman and someone who had not seen more than a handful of autistic children, that he somehow knew and understood more than they did. That would be the height of arrogance.
He stopped, for a moment fighting vertigo. Once again, he saw little Ray-Ray Maslen on the other side of the glass in therapy with Sophie. It gave him a sense of deja vu, especially after he had just been thinking about them. Could the therapy help Ray-Ray to grow up to be a strong, independent man? Able to make his own way in the world, like any ‘normal’ man? Could they make him indistinguishable from someone who did not have autism? Make him function just like one of them?
Ray-Ray was sitting at the table, looking engaged, eager to please his therapist. He beamed when he got an answer right and frowned or cried when he responded in the wrong way and was corrected.
Sophie was making him repeat words when she pointed to the pictures on a board she held in front of him. When Ray-Ray got nervous or excited, he started to flap his hands, and Sophie physically repositioned them, admonishing ‘quiet hands’ every few answers.
Ray-Ray twisted in his seat, pivoting his little bottom one way and then the other, attempting to keep his upper body calm and still while burning off nervous energy below the level of the table.
His Hands were Quiet Page 20