by Lisa Gardner
“Capisce!” Ree yelled right back. “That means ‘I understand’ in Italian! I know Italian. Mrs. Suzie’s been teaching us Italian.”
For a moment, Marianne blinked her eyes. Apparently, even in a forensic interviewer’s world, there was precocious, and then there was precocious. Frankly, D.D. was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She slid a glance in Jason’s direction, but he had the same blank look on his face. Light switch, she thought again. He was in the room, but shut off.
That made her think of a thing or two, and she found herself scrawling a quick question on her notepad.
In the interrogation room, Marianne Jackson seemed to recover herself. “All right, then. You know the rules. So, tell me, Clarissa—”
“Ree. Everyone calls me Ree.”
“Why do they call you Ree?”
“ ’Cause when I was a baby, I couldn’t say Clarissa. I said Ree. And Mommy and Daddy liked that, so they call me Ree, too. Unless I’m in trouble. Then Mommy says, ‘Clarissa Jane Jones,’ and I have until the count of three or I get the timeout stair.”
“The timeout stair?”
“Yeah. I gotta sit on the bottom step of the staircase for four minutes. I don’t like the timeout stair.”
“What about the little gal you’re holding? Lil’ Bunny. She ever get into trouble?”
Clarissa looked at Marianne. “Lil’ Bunny is a toy. Toys can’t get in trouble. Only people can.”
“Very good, Clarissa. You are a smart cookie.”
The child beamed.
“I like Lil’ Bunny” Marianne continued conversationally. “I had Winnie the Pooh when I was your age. He had a music box inside that when you wound it up, played ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ ”
“I like Pooh, too,” Ree said earnestly. She had moved closer now, onto the rug, peering around Marianne to the wicker basket. “Where is your Pooh bear? Is he in the basket?”
“Actually, he’s at home, on my bookshelf. He was a special toy for me, and I don’t think we ever outgrow our special toys.” But Marianne moved the basket onto the rug, closer to Ree, who was clearly engaged now and very curious about the rest of the contents of the magic room.
D.D. sneaked a second glance at Jason Jones. Still no response. Happy, sad, worried, anxious. Nada. She made a second note on her pad.
“Ree, do you know why you are here today?”
Some of the spark went out of the child. She hunched a little, her hands rubbing her rabbit as she sat back. “Daddy said you are a nice lady. He said if I spoke to you, it would be all right.”
Now D.D. could feel Jason tense. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but the veins suddenly stood out on his neck.
“What would be all right, sweetheart?”
“Will you bring my mommy back?” Ree asked in a muffled voice. “Mr. Smith came back. Just this morning. He scratched on the door and we let him in and I love him, but … Will you bring my mommy back? I miss my mommy.”
Marianne didn’t speak right away. She seemed to be studying the child sympathetically while letting the silence stretch on. Through the observation window, D.D. contemplated the pink rug, the folding chairs, the basket of toys, anything but the pained look on the little girl’s face. Beside her, Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But Jason Jones still didn’t move a muscle or say a word.
“Tell me about your family,” Marianne said. D.D. recognized the interview technique. Back away from the sensitive topic. Define the child’s broader world. Then circle back to the wound. “Who’s in your family?”
“There is me and Mommy and Daddy,” Ree began. She was rubbing Lil’ Bunny’s ear again. “And Mr. Smith, of course. Two girls and two boys.”
D.D. made more notes, the family genealogy as seen through the eyes of the four-year-old child.
“What about other relatives?” Marianne was asking. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, or anyone else?”
Ree shook her head.
D.D. wrote down, Extended Family??? The child apparently didn’t know about her own grandfather, perhaps confirming Jason’s assertion that Sandra and her father were estranged, or perhaps confirming that Jason Jones had done an excellent job of isolating his much younger wife.
“What about babysitters? Does anyone else help take care of you, Ree?”
Ree regarded Marianne blankly. “Mommy and Daddy take care of me.”
“Of course. But what if they’re working, or maybe they need to go somewhere?”
“Daddy works, Mommy watches me,” Ree said. “Then Daddy comes home, and Mommy goes to work, but Daddy has to sleep, so I go to school. Then Daddy picks me up and we have Daddy-Daughter time.”
“I see. Where do you go to school, Ree?”
“I go to preschool. In the brick building with the big kids. I’m in the Little Flowers room. Next year, though, when I am five, I will go to the big classroom with the kinnygardeners.”
“Who are your teachers?”
“Miss Emily and Mrs. Suzie.”
“Best friends?”
“I play with Mimi and Olivia. We like to play fairies. I’m a Garden Fairy.”
“So you have best friends. What about your mommy and daddy who are their best friends?”
It was another routine question, generally used in CSAs, or Child Sexual Assaults, when the person of interest might not be a relative, but a suspected neighbor or friend of the family. It was important that the child define her own world, so later, should the interviewer bring up a name, it did not appear as if the interviewer were leading the witness.
Ree, however, shook her head. “Daddy says I’m his best friend. ’Sides, he works a lot, so I don’t think he gets to have friends. Daddies are very busy.”
This time Miller looked at Jason. Ree’s father, however, remained immobile against the wall, staring resolutely through the window as if he were watching a TV show and not a trained specialist interviewing his only child. After another moment, Miller turned back around.
“I like Mrs. Lizbet,” Ree was volunteering. “But she and Mommy don’t play together. They’re teachers.”
“What do you mean?” Marianne asked.
“Mrs. Lizbet teaches seventh grade. Last year, she helped teach Mommy how to be a teacher. Now Mommy teaches sixth grade. But we still get to see Mrs. Lizbet at the basketball games.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, I like basketball. Mommy takes me to watch. Daddy works, you know. So it’s Mommy-Daughter night, every night. Yeah!” For a moment, Ree seemed to forget why she was in the room. Then, in the next instant, D.D. could see the realization crash down onto the child, the little girl’s eyes widening, then her whole body collapsing back into itself, until she was hunched once more over her stuffed rabbit, rubbing the poor bunny’s ears.
Behind D.D., Jason Jones finally flinched.
“When did you last see your mommy?” Marianne asked softly.
A muffled reply. “She put me to bed.”
“Do you know the days of the week, Ree?”
“Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Ree sang in a little voice. “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”
“Very good. So do you know what day it was when your mommy put you to bed?”
Ree looked blank. Then she began to sing again, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday …”
Marianne nodded her head and moved on; it was obvious the child knew a song about the days of the week, but not the days themselves. Fortunately, there were other tricks for establishing date and time when dealing with a young witness. Marianne would start asking about shows on TV, songs on the radio, that sort of thing. Children may not know a lot from an adult’s perspective, but they had a tendency to observe a lot, making it possible to fill in the necessary information, often with more credible results than a witness simply saying, “Wednesday night at eight P.M.”
“So tell me about your night with your mother, Ree. Who was home?”
“Me and Mommy.”
�
�What about Mr. Smith, or Lil’ Bunny or your daddy or anyone else?”
The anyone else was another standard interview technique. When presenting a child with a list of options, the last item always had to be “anyone else” or “something else” or “somewhere else;” otherwise, you were leading the witness.
“Mr. Smith,” Ree said. “And Lil’ Bunny. But not Daddy. I see Daddy during the day, Mommy at night.”
“Anyone else?”
Ree frowned at her. “Nighttime is Mommy and me time. We have ladies’ night.”
D.D. made a note.
“So what did you do for ladies’ night?” Marianne asked.
“Puzzles. I like puzzles.”
“What kind of puzzles?”
“Um, we did the butterfly puzzle, then the princess puzzle that takes up the whole rug. Except it got hard, ’cause Mr. Smith kept walking on the puzzle and I got mad, so Mommy said, maybe we should move on.”
“Do you like music, Ree?”
The girl blinked. “I like music.”
“Did you and your mommy listen to music while doing the puzzles, or maybe have the TV on, or the radio on, or something else?”
Ree shook her head. “I like to rock out to Tom Petty,” she said matter-of-factly, “but puzzles are quiet time.” She made a face, perhaps like her mother, embarking on a lecture with one wagging finger: “ ‘Children need quiet time. That’s what makes brains grow!’ ”
“I see.” Marianne sounded suitably impressed. “So you and your mother had quiet time with puzzles. Then what did you do?”
“Dinner.”
“Dinner? Oh, I like dinner. What is your favorite dinner?”
“Mac-n-cheese. And gummy worms. I love gummy worms, but you can’t have them for dinner, just for dessert.”
“True,” Marianne said sympathetically. “My mother never let me eat gummy worms for dinner. What did you and your mommy eat for dinner?”
“Mac-n-cheese,” Ree supplied without hesitation, “with little bits of turkey dog and some apples. I don’t really like turkey dogs, but Mommy says I need protein to grow muscle, so if I want mac-n-cheese, I have to eat turkey dogs.” The girl sounded mournful.
D.D. jotted down the menu, impressed not only by Ree’s level of detail, but the consistency with her first statement given Thursday morning. A consistent witness always made a detective happy. And the level of detail meant they could corroborate Ree’s account of the first half of the evening, making it harder for a jury to discount what the child might say about events in the second half of the night. All in all, four-year-old Clarissa Jones was a better witness than eighty percent of the adults D.D. encountered.
“What did you do after dinner?” Marianne asked.
“Bath time!” Ree sang.
“Bath time?”
“Yep. Me and Mommy shower together. Do you need to know who was in the shower?” Ree apparently recognized the pattern by now.
“Okay.”
“Well, not Mr. Smith, ’cause he hates water, and not Lil’ Bunny, because she takes a bath in the washing machine. But Princess Duckie and Mariposa Barbie and Island Princess Barbie all needed baths, so they came in with us. Mommy says I can only wash three things, otherwise I use up all the hot water.”
“I see. What did your mommy do?”
“She washes her hair, then she washes my hair, then she yells at me I’m using too much soap.”
Marianne blinked her eyes again.
“I like bubbles,” Ree explained. “But Mommy says soap costs money and I use too much, so she puts soap in this little cup for me, but it’s never enough. Barbies have a lot of hair.”
“Ree, if I tell you I have blue hair, is that the truth or is that a lie?”
Ree grinned, recognizing the game again. She held up her first finger. “That’s a lie, and in the magic room, we only tell the truth.”
“Very good, Ree. Excellent. So you and your mommy are in the shower, and you have used a lot of soap. How do you feel in the shower, Ree?”
Ree frowned at Marianne, then something seemed to click. She held up four fingers. “I don’t understand,” she said proudly.
Marianne smiled. “Excellent again. I will try to explain. When you and your mommy shower … do you like it or do you not like it? How do you feel?”
“I like showers,” Ree said earnestly. “I just don’t like having my hair washed.”
D.D. could sense Marianne’s hesitation again. On the one hand, a mother and her four-year-old girl showering together was hardly inappropriate. On the other hand, Marianne Jackson wouldn’t have a job if all parents were appropriate. Something had gone wrong in this family. Their job was to help Ree find a way to tell them what.
“Why don’t you like your hair being washed?” Marianne asked.
“ ’Cause my hair snarls. My hair’s not really short, you know. Nope, when it’s wet, it goes halfway down my back! It takes forever for Mommy to get all the shampoo out, and then she has to condition it or it gets all snarly and I don’t much like my hair at all. I wish I had straight hair like my best friend, Mimi.” Ree sighed heavily.
Marianne smiled, moved on. “So what did you do after your shower?”
“We got dry,” the girl reported, “then we go to the Big Bed, where Mommy wants me to talk about my day, but mostly I tickle her.”
“Where is the Big Bed?”
“Mommy and Daddy’s room. That’s where we go after bath time. And Mr. Smith hops up, but I like to wrestle and he does not like that.”
“You like to wrestle?”
“Yeah,” Ree said proudly. “I’m strong! I rolled Mommy onto the floor and that made me laugh.” She held up her arms, apparently in imitation of flexing. “It made Mommy laugh, too. I like my mommy’s laugh.” Her voice trailed off wistfully. “Do you think my mommy’s mad because I pushed her off the bed? She didn’t sound mad, but maybe … Once, at school, Olivia tore the picture I drew and I told her it was okay, but it wasn’t really okay and I got madder and madder and madder. I was mad all day! Do you think that’s what happened? Did my mommy get mad all day?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Marianne said honestly. “After you and your mommy wrestled, then what happened?”
The girl shrugged. She looked tired now, wrung out. D.D. glanced at her watch. The interview had been going on for forty-four minutes, well beyond their twenty-minute target time.
“Bedtime,” Ree mumbled. “We got on PJs—”
“What did you wear, Ree?”
“My green Ariel nightgown.”
“And your mother?”
“She wears a purple shirt. It’s very long, almost to her knees.”
D.D. made a note, another detail that could be corroborated, given the presence of the purple nightshirt in the washing machine.
“So after pajamas?”
“Brush teeth, go potty, climb into bed. Two stories. A song. Mommy sang ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I’m tired,” the girl declared abruptly, a trace petulant. “I want to be done now. Are we done?”
“We’re almost done, honey. You’ve been doing a really good job. Just a few more questions, okay, and then you can ask me anything you want. Would you like that? To ask me a question?”
Ree regarded Marianne for a bit. Then, with a sudden, impatient exhalation, she nodded. The girl had the stuffed bunny on her lap again. She was rubbing both ears.
“After your mother tucked you in, what did she do?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did she turn out the light, close the door, something else? How do you sleep at night, Ree? Can you describe your room for me?”
“I have a nightlight,” the girl said softly. “I’m not five yet. I think when you are four, you can have a nightlight. Maybe, when I ride the school bus … But I’m not on the school bus yet, so I have a nightlight. But the door is closed. Mommy always closes the door. She says I am a light sleeper.”
“So the door is closed, you have a nightlight. What e
lse is in your room?”
“Lil’ Bunny, of course. And Mr. Smith. He always sleeps on my bed ’cause I go to bed first and cats really like to sleep.”
“Is there anything else that helps you sleep? Music, a sound machine, a humidifier, anything else?”
Ree shook her head. “Nope.”
“What is the name of my cat, Ree?”
Ree grinned at her. “I don’t know.”
“Very good. If I told you those chairs were blue, would I be telling the truth or would I be telling a lie?”
“Nooo! The chairs are red!”
“That’s right. And we only tell the truth in the magic room, don’t we?”
Ree nodded, but D.D. could read the tension in the child’s body again. Marianne was circling around. Circling, circling, circling.
“Did you stay in bed, Ree? Or did you maybe get up to check on your mommy or go potty or do anything else?”
The girl shook her head, but she did not look at Marianne anymore.
“What does your mom do after you go to bed, Ree?” Marianne asked softly.
“She has to do her schoolwork. Grade papers.” The girl’s gaze slid up. “At least, I think so.”
“Do you ever hear noises downstairs, maybe the TV, or the radio, or the sound of your mother’s footsteps, or something else?”
“I heard the tea kettle,” Ree whispered.
“You heard the tea kettle?”
“It whistled. On the stove. Mommy likes tea. Sometimes we have tea parties and she makes me real apple tea. I like apple tea.” The girl was still talking, but her voice had changed. She sounded subdued, a shadow of her former self.
D.D. eyed Jason Jones, still standing against the far wall. He had not moved, but there was a starkness to his expression now. Oh yeah, they were homing in.
“Ree, after the tea kettle, what did you hear?”
“Footsteps.”
“Footsteps?”
“Yeah. But they didn’t sound right. They were loud. Angry. Angry feet on the stairs. Uh-oh,” the girl singsonged. “Uh-oh, Daddy’s mad.”
Behind D.D., Jason flinched for the second time. She saw him close his eyes, swallow, but he still didn’t say a word.