Shoeless Child

by J. A. Schneider

  “It’s not the drawing, it’s the personality,” she insisted. “Gilbey’s picture is slow, boring. The killer’s scribbles are fast, nervous, have emotion in them like those frowning eyes.”

  Alex’s frown deepened. “He could have faked the personality part too.”

  “Oh right, he’s that brilliant. Square, slow everything and he looked almost pleased with it.”

  Alex finally nodded; held the drawing up a little, between his index and third fingers. “So what do we do with it? This doesn’t even come close to crappy circumstantial. It would be nice to have something solid, like, you know, a murder weapon.”

  Kerri glared at him for seconds until his phone buzzed. He answered. Listened, stony-faced, then hung up with a grunt.

  Inhaled regretfully.

  “They found the .38. Under Gilbey’s mattress near his pillow.”

  Kerri blinked with no change of expression, as if he hadn’t spoken yet. Then she took back the drawing, leaned way closer and looked Alex in the eye.

  “Under his pillow. Oh, funny.”

  “Under his mattress near his pillow.”

  She almost laughed. “Planted. Someone made it too damn easy to find.” She waved Gilbey’s drawing. “The hand that drew this isn’t the killer’s.”

  Her words were lost under the squad room’s eruption into cheers. Zienuc was grinning about Gilbey being toast, hooting that drinks were on him tonight, and Buck Dillon stopped by Alex’s desk. “How dumb is this guy?”

  “Nobody’s that dumb,” Kerri shot back.

  “Okay, overconfident. Either way we got lucky.”

  Buck drifted back to the celebration and Kerri went back to Alex. In low, insistent tones, she ticked items off on her fingers.

  “Someone’s been stalking both those buildings. Gilbey’s apartment is behind the stairwell, hidden like Frank Wheat’s. Anyone could have picked his lock while he was out. Picture someone wandering into that foyer, checking that no one was around, then ducking behind the-”

  Jo Babiak came over, leading a depressed-looking public defender who she introduced. He was a small, timid man with a slight stutter whose last name was Gaines. Alex introduced Kerri, commenting that both of them would be conducting the interrogation.

  “Okay,” Gaines sighed. News of the .38 had just reached him and he added, “Hell, I get all of those.”

  He wasn’t going to make his career on this one.

  Jo offered to get him coffee, which prompted an urgent discussion with her about his need for decaf, doctor’s orders.

  Kerri turned her head back to Alex.

  “Get somebody else to pair with you.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to the hospital.”

  “Now? Wait till after.”

  “No, now. This is bad. If Gilbey gets arraigned, what will that mean for Rachel and Charlie’s witness protection?”

  “It’ll continue. Gotta have a trial.”

  “No, Mackey will yank it. Having them still protected will make him look unsure.” Kerri threw her palms up, imitating. “Gotta keep costs down! Funds are strapped! Can’t you picture Mackey saying that?”

  Her jaw was set and there was no more time to argue. The weapon was found. Gilbey had just been brought down, and his lawyer was going to him.

  Alex looked torn. So many times he’d seen Kerri run off in the middle of by-the-book. She’d get all worked up about her hunches, which sometimes misfired.

  “Rethink this for an hour, please?” She’d gone back to her desk for her laptop and he followed. “Nobody reads people like you do.”

  “I’ve already read Gilbey. You interrogate the artist.”

  He gave up and got Zienuc to stand in for her.

  The two cops headed for one of the interview rooms where the suspect and Gaines awaited.

  Kerri turned away from the room and called Rachel.

  She answered on the second ring. She was feeling better, physically at least, doing exercise walking in the hall. And Charlie?

  She gave a sigh. “Doctor Benton built him a tent that was too successful. He didn’t want to come out. Then Jake came for him-”

  “Jake?”

  “Doctor Benton.”

  “Oh right.” Kerri’s mind was overdrive.

  “He got Charlie down to the playroom, but he seemed listless. Didn’t even want to bash that wrestler toy.”

  “Is the police officer still with him?”

  “Yes, every step.” Rachel’s voice cracked. “He’s a traumatized kid. Still won’t talk except for one or two words sometimes. At least he’s dressed, which we thought would make him feel better. Terry Mercer brought over his jeans and favorite blue sweater. She went to…the apartment. Said she almost…died herself when she saw…”

  All that blood went unsaid.

  Rachel’s place was still a nightmare. Kerri remembered overwrought, emotion-spewing Terry Mercer as the last person who should walk into such a place.

  “Where’s Charlie now?”

  “In Benton’s office. He’s trying to get him to talk through toy soldiers, galactic heroes protecting scared people. He just sits and stares at them. I was feeling so anxious I called during their session…I shouldn’t have but…Jake filled me in.”

  Rachel’s voice choked with tears. “My poor little child.”

  “Maybe Charlie would like company? I’m freed up for a bit.”

  “Oh! You’re the only one who’s ever gotten through to him. Yes, he’s been with Jake for forty minutes, there’s twenty left but he’ll probably stay longer.”

  Fast, Kerri loaded photos to her laptop: random cop faces, assorted perps, James Burke, Jed Stefan, and Gilbey.

  Frank Wheat too?

  No, she decided. Of all the faces, Wheat’s would be the only one Charlie would recognize. It would throw him, and anyway she and Alex had pushed Frank down the list.

  She stuffed her things into her bag and got to her feet.

  Jo accompanied her to the stairs. “You don’t believe it’s Gilbey?”

  “No.”

  “The rest of us are starting to have qualms too. The gun left practically under his pillow? It’s too perfect.”

  Kerri looked down to the lower flight.

  “You know what scares me? With this arrest all over the media, the real killer’s not happy. He likes to brag. And what does a spree killer do when the wrong guy’s in the spotlight?”

  Jo went pale. “He kills again.”

  “I’m going to the hospital. If Mackey hollers, tell him I’m visiting our only eyewitness.”

  Down in the street, Kerri backed her Tahoe out so fast she almost hit a cab. The driver blasted her with his horn; leaned out screaming some undecipherable language.

  Deep breaths, get centered, she thought, fighting her sense of urgency.

  Traffic was heavy. She turned on her siren, and was at the hospital in nine minutes.

  44

  Benton’s office was in the same building as the playroom, third floor, with uniformed Billy DeWitt standing outside.

  They greeted each other.

  “Good news, huh?” Billy smiled. “They caught the bastard. I’m relieved for the little guy in there.” He gestured to the closed door behind him.

  “Anyone call you about leaving?” Kerri asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Kerri looked at the sign on the door. JOHN BENTON, M.D., CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY.

  “I’m going to pick up Charlie,” she said. “We don’t need both of us – maybe go guard his mom? She’s doing exercise out in the hall.”

  “Got it.” Billy smiled again and trotted off.

  Kerri turned the door knob and entered.

  The waiting room was a child’s fantasy of bright bean bags, action figures male and female, blocks, crayons and books. Beyond the closed door, Benton’s soft, prodding voice could be heard, along with a thump suggesting that Charlie had pounded something.

  Not good, Kerri thought.

/>   There were armchairs for adults, but she felt drawn to one of the little seats circling a small read-and-draw table. The chair felt ridiculous as she squirmed into it. Parents visiting their children’s schools must feel like this. Kids’ books were strewn, and she picked up one that caught her eye. Horton Hears a Who!, by Dr Seuss.

  Oh Horton, my old sweet elephant friend, Kerri thought, feeling her eyes fill. Determined, endearing Horton standing up for the little guy. He hears a cry for help from a speck of dust, and tries to protect the tiny creatures who live on it despite the hurtfulness of others who call him crazy, out-of-line, wrong wrong wrong-

  The door opened, and Jake Benton led Charlie out.

  Benton was dressed in jeans, running shoes and a navy-colored crewneck. Kerri glimpsed his long white coat hanging on the door. Charlie was in the little jeans and blue sweater that Terry Mercer had brought.

  He saw Kerri, and came right for Horton.

  “Oh,” Kerri said, giving him the book. “You’ve read that?”

  He hugged the book to him, his frightened, round eyes seeming to recall a safe, happy time.

  She said, “I love Horton so much. Do you love Horton?”

  Charlie dropped his brow to the top of the book’s cover, and hugged it tighter. He seemed to be hiding in the book.

  “Take Horton with you,” Benton said, patting the child’s shoulder. Then he shrugged and gave Kerri the same look he’d given her yesterday in the playroom: You make more progress with him. His eyes dropped back to Charlie and he said, nearly under his breath, “Anxious hyperactivity. Breathing rapidly.”

  Kerri had noticed.

  She reached out to hug him. He let her. With one hand still on his shoulder, she used her free hand to push herself up from the little chair.

  “Y’know, Horton helped me a lot when I was a little kid.”

  Benton’s eyebrows raised. Charlie’s brow still pressed to Horton, but he stilled; she could tell he was listening.

  “See, I didn’t used to know English.” She looked at Benton. Charlie would understand the important parts. “My parents were brought to this country as babies by their parents who fled in the Hungarian Revolution, just made it out before the Communist takeover. Brutal times. Growing up, there was only Hungarian spoken in our home. I couldn’t speak in school, and when I tried, mean kids teased my accent.” Kerri fought old emotions welling up. “So I didn’t speak. Only to Horton here, because he helps little guys who are hurting.” She touched Charlie’s book. “I used to cry my problems to him. I read him out loud and memorized him, every line. Horton taught me English and made me happy.”

  “Wow,” Jake Benton said softly. He smiled, his eyes lit with warm surprise. “You were a brave, determined child.”

  “I was lucky, found what helped me.”

  Kerri patted Charlie’s shoulder. “Hey buddy, want to come with me back to your mom? Bring Horton?”

  They left together, passing a sullen little girl, about eight, refusing to hold her distraught mother’s hand, refusing to enter Benton’s office. It must be hard, what he did…

  In the elevator, no chance to hold Charlie’s hand. He was still hugging the book with his chin down, still breathing too fast. A suffering little volcano. When they got off, he saw Rachel leaning on a smiling nurse with Billy DeWitt hovering. She was wearing her blue robe from home that Kerri and Alex had brought her.

  She bent to Charlie.

  “I’m almost done,” she told him lovingly. “Exercise will make me better. Did you exercise?”

  He kept his head down, hiding in his book.

  Billy tousled his hair. “Hey champ, Horton! That’s my niece’s favorite book.”

  No response. Rachel looked so pained.

  Kerri glanced down the hall. There was a waiting room at the far end. “A little change of scenery?” she suggested. “We’ll read and look at pictures, then join you.”

  Rachel agreed, encouraged Charlie to go.

  He seemed limp, except for squeezing the book. He let Kerri lead him to the waiting room.

  45

  They had it to themselves. It was a small room, with a small television turned off, a two-seater couch, and some armchairs.

  They settled on the couch, Charlie about ten inches away from Kerri, and went back to Horton. She read softly the irrepressible rhymes, misted up again at Horton’s kindness and perseverance, chuckled that with his big, goofy elephant ears he could hear the tiny, scared Whos hidden in a speck of dust, and was able to save them from baddies who called Horton crazy.

  “’I’ll help you, said Horton,’” she read. “’But who are you? Where?’”

  Charlie inched closer, watched the pages turn. Kerri’s voice lulled, and his breathing slowed. When the scary part came, and the big bad bird carried away the clover in which Horton had placed the life-bearing speck, Charlie pressed his cheek to Kerri’s arm. He knew the happy ending, but in that moment he sought warmth.

  “So,” she finished with soft firmness, “Horton taught the Whos to make as much noise as possible to save themselves. That’s so important, isn’t it?”

  Charlie’s solemn little face hesitated, then nodded.

  “If somebody hurts you, you have to tell a good person. And if they can’t hear you, you have to yell, right? Good and loud.”

  Seconds passed, then: “Yeah,” he finally whispered.

  Oh, we have contact, Kerri thought, feeling her eyes fill.

  She left the book open to happy, grinning Horton, and slid it onto Charlie’s lap. He clutched it.

  Then she got out her laptop; opened it to videos of Charlie happy too: yelping “Wheee!” zooming down a slide; running hooting after a ball, cuddling someone’s puppy. How many times had she watched those videos? She’d lost count, but now caught her breath as Charlie’s little finger went out, and he touched her screen. Touched the video of him cuddling the puppy, grinning with two missing teeth. Rachel had made the tape. Her voice could be heard saying, “Aww…precious…”

  “Puppy,” Charlie said wistfully.

  Rachel must have been standing about fifteen feet away from him. Behind Charlie a broad man crouched, watching them, smiling.

  Kerri pointed to him. “Is he nice?”

  “Dunno.” In a whisper. But he spoke.

  “You don’t know him? Never saw him?”

  Charlie shook his head, inhaled. Breathing normal, lulled by Horton. Maybe, too, by the warmth of Kerri’s arm.

  Her own breath was quickening.

  “Okay if I go back to the one of you on the slide?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He was opening up.

  Kerri had seen a man in the background of that video, too. She clicked it, Charlie zoomed happily down the slide again, and she pointed to the man: young, gaunt-faced, watching Rachel taping.

  “Is he nice? Do you know him?”

  Charlie just blinked. No reaction.

  Kerri’s phone buzzed and she checked it. Gina Wheat. She let it go to voice mail.

  Charlie’s eyes were fluttering closed. He was getting sleepy. Can’t beat warmth and a good book to lull…

  Also to ease into looking at other pictures. Kerri closed her videos file, and opened her first photo: a young cop volunteering for mug shots.

  “You know him?”

  Charlie didn’t, and was getting sleepier. Maybe a little bored, too.

  Kerri opened another photo – some guy from the Internet – told Charlie to take a good look, and listened to Gina Wheat’s message. She sounded emotional.

  “Visiting hours and we’re here, in the hospital…my father too. I’m in the ladies’ room to call you. He got mad when I told him to stay home. It’s weird, suddenly he’s fantasizing worse that he was Rachel’s dear friend.”

  Her voice paused; then, awkwardly: “I just wanted to check if it’s okay for him to come too.”

  Kerri called her back. No answer; she pulled in a breath and left a voice mail. “Sure, Daddy Dearest can come
. Say how nice of him.”

  Her fingers had meanwhile clicked open a photo of another cop. No reaction from Charlie.

  Then – click, click - a perp’s mug shot, then shrink James Burke, then actor-student Jed Stefan, and…Mitch Gilbey.

  She let long seconds pass as Charlie blinked at the last three. No reaction to any of them, including Gilbey.

  Alex and Zienuc were probably still interrogating their prime suspect…yet nothing here. Charlie looked at Gilbey and shook his head, a sleepy kid peering back to Horton on his lap.

  Kerri let out a long, pent-up breath. Trauma-induced repressed memory, what had she expected? The mind just shuts down, refuses to let in something horrible.

  Now what? Nice try, but she hadn’t helped the child and had gotten nowhere.

  “Hey Charlie, your mom must be back,” she said with an ache. Oh please let it out. It will help you, free you. “Let’s go see her.”

  They got up, Kerri holding the book and Charlie’s hand, and started down the hall.

  They’d covered maybe thirty feet when Charlie stopped short, and she heard his sharp intake of breath. He whimpered and clutched her hard.

  “What, honey?” she said, peering from him to the hall ahead.

  Entering Rachel’s room were Gina and Frank Wheat.

  Charlie’s two hands gripped Kerri’s side. He buried his face in her, emitting a high mewling like a terrified kitten. A faint dripping sounded near her feet.

  He had peed.

  Her breath stopped. He had peed like he’d done the night of the attack in his bathroom doorway.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”

  She scooped him up and rushed back to the waiting room. Flicked on the TV, sat hugging him on her lap, and speed-dialed Alex.

  “It’s Frank Wheat,” she whispered over a trilling cat food commercial. Her heart was bursting. “He’s the guy.”

  46

  Gilbey’s public defender had gotten a call that thrilled him. Maybe this client wasn’t a dud after all.

  “I must advise you,” attorney Todd Gaines intoned, “that we will be making a motion to suppress.” There was dribble on the side of his mouth. “With flimsy evidence, you obtained a quickie warrant from a police-friendly judge before you found the gun, which my client just owned to protect himself.”