My Name Is Venus Black

by Heather Lloyd

  “I told you to wait in the car, Ms. Black.” It’s the first officer, looking affronted.

  “I didn’t want to wait in the car,” I tell him. “I wanted to see who kidnapped my brother.”

  “We didn’t kidnap him!” the girl cries out. “We didn’t! We took care of him after his dad abandoned him.”

  “Tessa,” says the Tony guy. “Stop now, honey. Don’t talk. Just make sure Leo’s okay.” He says this as they’re leading him out the door. I step aside. This Tony guy looks at me as he passes, his eyes pleading for something from me I know I don’t have. Mercy? Forgiveness? Help?

  “Ms. Black, let me take you to your car,” says the cop whose badge reads DETECTIVE CUNNINGHAM.

  “What about Leo?” I ask. “I want to see him. I’m ready to take him home.”

  “That’s not possible yet,” he tells me. The Mexican girl is listening closely to our conversation. “Officer Pinkerton here will wait with Leo until the folks from children’s services arrive. We’ll need to interview Leo.”

  “Children’s services?” I can hardly believe my ears. “But I’m his sister! I can take him. Right now!”

  “This is policy, ma’am.”

  “Policy?” I’m yelling at this point. “He’s got mental disabilities. You can’t just interview him! You can’t take just take him!”

  Detective Cunningham ignores me and grips my arm firmly. “I’ll take you back to your own car, miss, and then you can follow me to the station. We’d like to talk to you some more. Get your mother on the phone, too.”

  “I’m going to check on Leo,” says the Mexican girl, leaving the room.

  “You’re going to let her see Leo? Why can’t I see Leo?” I object. I’m dumbfounded.

  “He’s not cooperative, ma’am. We need to wait for the experts. He has to be checked. You can see him, absolutely. But we can’t turn him over yet….”

  And then I finally get it. Leo is probably afraid. Terrified, more likely. Police. He must have awful memories. I can’t bear to imagine the scene that is about to unfold all over again. Strangers grabbing Leo. Putting him in a strange car and taking him to a strange place.

  Only this time, he’ll cry for the Mexican girl, not me.

  I just know it.

  * * *

  —

  TONY IS SITTING in an interview room at a police station, being questioned by two detectives. He’s already told the story from start to finish as best he can, but Detective Cunningham keeps asking Tony the same questions over and over. Somehow, the plain truth is not good enough for him. The other cop, a Detective Torres, is the quiet one. Tony could be wrong, but he seems somewhat sympathetic.

  “So why should we believe that you were going to turn yourself in now?” asks Cunningham. “After almost six years?”

  He is a heavyset man with rosy cheeks. He looks like you’d expect a cop to look.

  Tony is irritated by the “turn yourself in” phrasing. “Like I told you,” he says, “I was planning to turn over Leo. I was only waiting until he could perform a solo in a concert at school. It was a big deal. I wanted him to have that before I—”

  “So you want us to believe that after almost six years you were just going to give the kid back to his mother?”

  “It’s the absolute truth. You can believe what you want.”

  “Tell us again about this Phil Brown fellow you say is the boy’s uncle.”

  “He went by Phil Brown, but I’ve since learned that he sometimes goes by Tinker. I think Thomas Miller is his real name. Like I said, all I knew was what he put on his rental application and what he told me. He said he was the kid’s dad. He claimed the mom didn’t want him.”

  “Did he appear to be abusing the boy? Sexually?”

  Tony shakes his head. “God, I hope not. I didn’t see anything to make me think that. I think he cared about Leo, at least enough to try. But Leo was maybe too much for him, too hard to care for. So he dumped him, I guess.”

  “He just left one day, drove off? No notice?”

  “No notice. I think he knew that we’d take care of Leo.”

  “So this Tinker could tell you wanted the boy.”

  Tony’s anger flares. “I didn’t want him. My daughter befriended Leo. She kept an eye out for him. But it wasn’t like we wanted Leo.”

  “But you didn’t hesitate to take him?”

  “Of course we hesitated—”

  A door opens and a woman peeks in. “Mr. Herrera’s lawyer is here.”

  * * *

  —

  TESSA STAYS AT Marco and Maureen’s house that night. Maureen is making her something to eat. Tessa thinks of her lasagna noodles floating in water on a cold burner at home. She doesn’t know who turned off the stove, but someone did. She checked.

  Tessa, along with Marco, was allowed to stay at the house until a man and a woman from children’s services arrived to take Leo. The whole time, Leo was in the corner, yelling at the top of his lungs.

  What happened next…she can’t get the images out of her head. Leo being dragged from his room, wailing, “No touching! No touching!”

  “It’s okay, Leo. It’s okay, Leo,” she told him over and over.

  The man and woman put Leo in a cream-colored sedan, trying to be gentle, but it was way too late for that.

  Back inside, the woman put her arm around Tessa. “He’s upset now, honey. But we’ll be able to help him calm down. He’s not the first mentally challenged child we’ve dealt with.”

  Tessa didn’t want the woman’s arm on her shoulders, but she was too polite to resist. The woman insisted on staying until Maureen arrived to be with Tessa. She was annoyed to be treated like a kid but didn’t fight it. Where else would she go but M and M’s?

  It was bad enough watching Leo be taken, but seeing her dad led away in handcuffs…She can’t stop blaming herself. All of this is my fault. I was the one who begged my dad to keep Leo. I am the one who should be in jail.

  “How do you feel about potpies?” asks Maureen. Tessa is sitting on Maureen’s gold velour couch, hugging a tapestried pillow. She’s stopped crying for now. “That’s fine,” she says. “But I’m not hungry.”

  Maureen puts her hand on top of Tessa’s head. Tessa wonders where she’d be if it weren’t for M and M. Would they have taken her away, too—even though she’s seventeen?

  “Marco found a good lawyer for your dad, sweetie.”

  “That fast?”

  “Well, he knew a guy who knew a guy.”

  “Is he going to jail?”

  “I don’t know, Tessa. Maybe for just one or two nights. But when they figure all this out, he won’t stay in jail, at least not for too long. They’ll have to set bail and then we’ll pay to get him out.”

  When Maureen brings Tessa a potpie on a TV tray, Tessa tries to eat it but can’t get down more than a couple of bites. It’s chicken with peas and carrots. Leo would never eat it, because the peas should not be mixed with anything else.

  * * *

  —

  BACK AT THE police station, I want to call Inez and tell her the good news first. But it turns out she already knows what is going on. After the Oakland PD had contacted the Everett PD and verified Leo’s missing status, they’d called Inez to confirm.

  “Oh my God!” she screeches into the phone. “You found him, Venus! You found our boy! Oh, I just…I just can’t believe it. My Leo is coming home! Have you seen him? What does he look like? How is he, Venus? Did they hurt him?”

  “He looks like Leo turned into a teenaged boy with longish blond hair. Skinny, still on the small side.”

  “He’s not hurt or anything?”

  “No, Inez. Actually, it looks like they were taking good care of him. A man and his daughter. Leo was even in school. Shit. He was carrying a large musical instrument case when
I saw him. Can you imagine Leo playing an instrument?”

  “Oh my God, no. I can’t imagine it. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

  “Just for a second, in front of the school,” I tell her. “I asked him if he remembered me. He nodded and said, ‘My sister, Venus.’ But I didn’t know what to do, because I couldn’t just grab him, and I didn’t want to scare him or anything. So I drove along behind his bus until he got off and went into a house with the teenaged girl who met him at the stop.”

  “You’re so smart, Venus, just like a detective! I’m flying there tonight,” she says excitedly. “Will you be able to pick me up at the airport?”

  “Which one?”

  “I’m flying into Oakland.”

  “Where do I go? I don’t know anything about how to pick someone up….”

  “You’ll be there. You will figure it out, Venus. It’s what you do.”

  I don’t know how to take that. I motion for something to write with and a cop hands me a small tablet and pen. “What flight?”

  “Delta flight one thirty-two. I get in at eleven-forty.”

  For a moment, neither of us speaks.

  “So I’ll pick you up. Eleven-forty,” I repeat.

  I hand the phone back over to the cop, who’s been listening at a polite distance. He leads me into an interview room, where I’m asked to tell him and another cop more about my part in how Leo went missing in the first place.

  Do I need Betty? This is the first time in years I’ve had to talk about what happened. I know my rights, and I know that they can’t make me do anything. I also suspect they’re more curious than trying to be thorough. But I don’t want to seem uncooperative, since I want them to let me take Leo home. I lift that old white sheet and share as little as possible, just the stark facts, with the police.

  When they finally thank me and say I can go now, I swear to God I sense reluctance on their part. Like after learning what I’ve done, it feels weird to them that I should be out of jail, walking about free in the world.

  Sometimes it feels weird to me, too.

  Leo is tired from crying, but he can’t make himself stop. No matter how hard he rocks, or how many times he counts to fifty, he can’t comfort himself. He knows he is rocking number three and banging his head, which is only for emergencies, but Tessa is not here and no one is getting mad at him.

  He is in a strange room with two beds. No one is in the other bed. The bedspreads are the wrong orange. There is no closet or dresser. A lady with red shoes was with him in the room for a long time, but she finally left. She told Leo to put on his pajamas. She said to knock on the door when he’s done. His pajamas are the right ones. The blue ones from home.

  He finally stops banging his head and just rocks. His throat is raw. He loses track of time. Lying on his side, with his arms wrapped around his legs, he focuses all his attention on the ribbed pattern of the bedspread on the other bed. He counts eighty-nine vertical lines from the top of the bedspread to the end that hangs near the floor.

  He hears the door open. He doesn’t look up, but he knows it is the same woman with red shoes. “Leo, can I help you get in your pajamas?”

  Leo sits up and scoots to the corner of the bed. He is afraid the lady will touch him. She sits on the edge of the bed. “I have your toothbrush here. Do you want to brush your teeth?”

  “Where’s Tony?” he asks.

  “Tony can’t be here, Leo.”

  “Where’s Tessa?”

  “Tessa is somewhere safe,” she says.

  “I want Tony. I want Tessa.”

  “I know you do, Leo. But that can’t happen tonight. Can I help you with your pajamas?”

  “No.”

  “If I leave you alone again, will you put your pajamas on? If you put them on by yourself, I won’t have to touch you. I need you to do what I ask, Leo,” she says. That is what Leo’s teacher says sometimes. It means she might get angry and use a red voice if Leo doesn’t obey.

  After the woman leaves, Leo looks at his new yellow watch and sees that it is way past bedtime. Tessa was making lasagna. He hasn’t eaten dinner, but he vaguely remembers the lady trying to get him to eat a hamburger instead of a hot dog.

  He puts on his blue pajamas. The lady left his yellow toothbrush on the bed, but there is no toothpaste on it. He picks it up. He knocks on the door. The lady opens it. “Good boy, Leo!” she says. “Now let’s brush our teeth and go to bed.”

  He follows her to a small bathroom. She stays outside when he goes in. He shuts the door. He sees that it is the wrong toothpaste. It is not the kind with the red and white on it. It is the wrong blue. It is so wrong that he can’t decide. He lays his toothbrush on the counter, because he can’t brush with the wrong toothpaste.

  He pees. He washes his hands, but there is no towel. There is a metal box on the wall like at school, though. He knows how to use it. He tugs on the edge of the white paper that isn’t the right white and one comes out. He dries his hands and tosses the paper in the round metal container.

  He opens the door. He follows the lady down a short hall to the same room as before with the beds. She pulls back the covers. She is not supposed to do that. Tessa is. And Tessa should put his clothes for tomorrow on his dresser. He wants to go home. “I want to go home,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, Leo. You can’t go home,” the lady says.

  “Why?” He tries to look at the lady’s eyes. People are supposed to like it when you do that. He can’t lock on. His eyes feel the kind of funny that they always do when he’s been crying for a long time. Has he been acting like a crybaby? That’s what they say at school if you cry too much.

  “I can’t explain it all to you, Leo. But tomorrow you will get to see your mom.”

  “My mom?”

  “Your mother, Leo. Do you remember your mother?”

  “From before?”

  “Yes, Leo.”

  “But I want Tony. I want Tessa. I want to go home.” He can’t understand why this woman is doing this to him.

  * * *

  —

  TONY IS EXHAUSTED. The metal bed with the thin mattress is almost a relief. He has spent the last hour talking through his situation with James P. McKinney, the defense lawyer Marco found for him. He’s a slick-looking guy with eyes that seem too blue to be true—like he stole them off a doll or something. But Marco says he’s supposed to be good.

  Tony never dreamed he’d need a defense lawyer. He never imagined himself in a jail cell. Often, his customers would reference their drug use or scrapes with the law, assuming that they were in the company of a tough guy. But they couldn’t have been further from the truth. Tony was a plain-vanilla good boy at heart.

  So how could it be that tonight he’d been read his Miranda rights and arrested and booked on charges of kidnapping? It all seemed surreal. Except for Tessa’s tears. The look of shock and fear on her face.

  “You are in pretty good shape,” McKinney had told him. “They can’t prove intent for kidnapping, and we’ll be able to prove that Mr. Brown rented a room from you and that he worked at the Burger Bar. Hopefully they’ll focus on building a kidnapping case against this guy, not you.”

  “So what am I looking at?”

  “Interfering with child custody is where I hope we can end up. Maybe even a suspended sentence and parole. But they’ll start out by charging you with kidnapping, even if they know it probably won’t stick. It’s hard to say how hard the D.A.’s office will come down. Ironically, you may be in more trouble for knowingly providing false documents—the birth certificate and Social Security fraud. But given the circumstances, I would expect a minimum amount of jail time.”

  Tony had tried to take it all in. “So can I tell the mother I’m sorry?”

  “No contact. Definitely not.”

  Now, lying in his cell, Tony ca
n’t stop thinking about the girl who came into the house just before they took Leo away—the girl the police scolded and quickly escorted out. He’s almost positive she’s the same young woman he saw walking down Rockefeller near Inez’s house last Sunday afternoon on his way out. As he drove by, she was passing under a streetlamp, and her height, along with her head of curly hair, made a strong impression. She’d been carrying a suitcase that looked too heavy for her. He’d almost pulled over to see if she needed a ride.

  Now he thinks she may have passed by his shop today, too. This was the girl who murdered her stepfather?

  How could she have tracked Tony down from his visit to Everett? He can’t put it together, and he finally gives up trying.

  He thinks of praying. God, if Maria could see him now. He tells himself that children’s-services people are experts at these situations. They’ll take good care of Leo. Tomorrow this whole mess will get straightened out. He tells himself this and many more lies before he is finally rescued by sleep.

  * * *

  —

  IT TAKES TESSA a few seconds to realize where she is. And then the memory of what happened comes crashing in. It is worse than any bad dream she’s ever had. Her father in handcuffs. Leo being dragged away by strangers.

  She is lying on the hide-a-bed in Marco and Maureen’s living room. She hears one of them making coffee in the kitchen. Her eyes feel thick. She has a completely out-of-place thought that she should try coffee for the first time today.

  She hears voices. M and M are both in the kitchen, talking. Tessa is not normally one to eavesdrop, but she can’t help herself. She quietly climbs off the hide-a-bed and makes her way toward the half door that opens into the kitchen. She positions herself just outside so she can hear what’s being said.

  Maureen is saying, “Once we find out the bail, can we get it reduced?”

  “For kidnapping?” says Marco. “It’s gonna be high. Twenty-five thousand is probably a good guess. Of course, at some point—I’m not sure how it works—Tony’s lawyer will try to get the charges reduced to interfering with custody.”