Delia and the detective sat near Hayley on the edge of the deck with their feet nestled along the stone walk. Delia had warned Moretti that he needed to shrink considerably. Now they were close to eye level with Hayley.
“His name is Louie, not Mr. Louie,” she said.
At the mention of his name, the bobcat-sized Maine Coon cat emerged from beneath the large leaves of a dark green hosta. Louie settled in front of Hayley, easily coming to the height of her knees.
“Michael, this is Hayley, and she’s in kindergarten.”
“Hi, Hayley. My daughter is in fourth grade,” he said.
So far, so good with the detective. He kept his voice soft, kept his arms and elbows tucked in and didn’t do the manspread with his knees. Delia hadn’t done an assessment of a young child with him before. Often, there wasn’t a need for the police to be present during the ongoing assessment. And Delia had never worked a case where there were no family members at all.
“We know that you want to go home, so we are trying to find your mommy and your daddy,” said Delia. She reached into her pack and pulled out a floppy stuffed rabbit about the size of Moretti’s large hands. “So I brought my friend, Igor the Rabbit, and he will whisper questions to me that he wants to ask you. Is that okay with you if we play this game? And please ask Louie if it’s okay with him.”
Hayley looked at Delia with eyes fresh and unstained by time. “Okay. And Louie can’t talk,” she said.
Delia set the toy rabbit on her lap. “If you say so, but Louie can let me know when he likes something and when he doesn’t. I know he likes you.”
Hayley leaned forward and slid her small hand along the cat’s spine.
“Oh, wait, Igor has a question.” Delia put the rabbit up to her ear. “Got it. I’ll ask her.”
She put Igor back on her lap. “Igor wants to know if Mommy lives in a house with a driveway and a place to park a bike in case Igor wants to visit.”
The detective stroked his chin. “Good question, Igor. Sure, I’ve got a driveway. Oh, you’re asking Hayley! You mean Hayley’s mommy.”
Hayley approached a smile.
“My mommy has a blue car. Blue is my favorite color.”
Delia shook the rabbit around her ear again. “Oh, sorry, yes, I’ll ask her.” Louie flicked his tail. They wouldn’t have long with this game. She figured ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
“Igor wants to know the color of the car that you and Emma traveled in.” She turned to Moretti and said, “Igor is so nosy today.”
Hayley frowned. “Not blue like Mommy’s car.” She looked around as if searching for a reference color.
Moretti leaned to one side and pulled a laminated card, no bigger than a deck of cards, from his pocket. It was covered with cartoon-looking cars of different colors. With one finger, he covered the blue car. Why wasn’t this man wearing a wedding ring? Maybe they didn’t when they were on duty. “So, not this blue car. But which color was the car with Emma?”
He was right; this wasn’t his first rodeo. Hayley pointed to a silver car. “Like this car,” she said.
“Thank you, Hayley. Hey, Igor, she says it was a gray car,” he said. He winked at Hayley and smiled at her.
Delia wiggled the stuffed toy, bobbing it around her ear again. “Okay, I’ll ask her.”
“Igor wants to know who was with you and Emma Gilbert. The two men.”
“Only Uncle Ray,” said Hayley. She frowned.
Delia made the rabbit jump up and down. “Igor says you have answered three questions! He is so excited. Please calm down, you wild rabbit.”
Louie stood up and stretched. If he walked off, Hayley was likely to close down again. Delia was ready for him this time. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag of something called Kitty Kibble Treats. She tore open one corner and gave one to Louie. For the first time since she had been coming to Erica’s house, Louie looked directly at Delia.
Igor whispered in Delia’s ear again.
Moretti pulled a pad of paper out of his pants pocket and wrote something in large print and passed it to Delia.
Who hurt Emma and Uncle Ray?
Delia dreaded the part where Hayley must be escorted back into the memory of bloodshed and trauma. She had to keep her eye on the goal: find out why Hayley was with Emma Gilbert and Ray so that hopefully, they could backtrack to Hayley’s mother.
“Igor wants to know who hurt Emma and Uncle Ray. Tell Igor what they looked like,” said Delia.
Hayley shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice lost air, like a deflated balloon. She rocked forward and back in her chair.
The detective held out his hand to Delia and Igor. “May I?” he said.
Did she trust him enough to channel questions through a stuffed rabbit? She hadn’t noticed how blue his eyes were before now.
“Yes,” she said, “but Igor will need to go home soon. He gets very tired when he’s out and he still has to dig up lots of carrots to eat.” She handed over the rabbit, giving him a look that she hoped communicated a dire threat if he took Hayley too far.
As soon as Igor reached Moretti’s hands, the detective fell back on the deck. “Ow, ow! Igor, don’t bite my ear! I promise to stop at the store and buy you an entire bag of carrots. What? You want chocolate ice cream too? Okay, I promise, but no more ear biting.”
Hayley squealed with a surprised laugh, forgetting everything else for a moment. Delia put a check mark in the category of This Guy Knows Kids. He just gave the power to Igor and minimized his own presence.
He sat up and rubbed his ear. He addressed Louie the cat. “Be careful of this rabbit. I hope he doesn’t like to bite kitty ears.” Louie’s ears rotated minutely forward. The cat seemed as intrigued by the performance as everyone else. The detective placed the stuffed toy on his shoulder and bobbed it around.
“Where were you when the people came and hurt Emma and Ray?”
The silly act softened Hayley. She answered without hesitation. “Emma told me to hide behind the dresser. I hide flat as a pancake. Emma said not to come out until she said it was okay.”
Delia didn’t know one thing about Emma Gilbert except that she had saved this child from murder, and for that she was grateful. Emma cared about Hayley. What the hell was she doing with killers and the heroin trade?
“What did you hear when you were hiding?” said Moretti. He didn’t go through the rabbit.
“Big bad voices and then pop, pop, pop. I waited a long time but Emma didn’t come for me.” Louie pushed his head into Hayley’s hand. “A tiger came in the house and hurt everyone with his big teeth and made them bleed. I found Emma. The tiger killed her.”
Delia was continually stunned by the deep subterranean life of children, where they held unimaginable demons and hopes, a place too terrifying for most adults. She hoped that speaking the words out loud, with Delia, the detective, Louie, and Igor as witnesses to the carnage, would take some of the toxin out of the scene. But how could it?
Erica stood up from the raised garden bed with an armload of squash and cucumbers. She stepped up on the deck and headed for the kitchen door.
Moretti remembered Igor again. He bounced him around his ear. “Igor says you are a brave girl to stay hidden behind the dresser. Can Igor give you a hug? He says you are a good girl.”
Hayley nodded yes, and he handed the stuffed animal toward her with his hand cupping the backside. She wrapped her arms around the toy and then held him out at arm’s length. She pointed one finger at the rabbit.
“Naughty bunny. No biting ears! If the tiger comes, hide.” She patted the rabbit on his head.
An icy fear descended through Delia’s body. Could the tiger come here? Would there be any reason for the drug traffickers to locate Hayley? There had been enough reason to kidnap her. Hayley looked so small and vulnerable, with only a large cat, a terrific foster family, and a wooden fence between her and people who were willing to kill for the heroin business.
Moretti
smiled an enormous smile at Hayley that could have melted the Arctic ice cap. “I am an official tiger fighter. Bad tigers run away when they see me and they squeal like little babies. What we have here at Erica’s house is a tiger-free zone.”
As if on cue, Louie stood up, stretched, and yawned, showing his formidable teeth. The interview was over.
Erica, who had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen, said, “Time to wash your hands for dinner. I need help stirring when I make brownies and I know just the girl to help me.”
Hayley stood up. “I washed my hands before snack.”
Erica said, “I know, but if you want to help me cook, we all have to wash our hands.”
Hayley and Louie walked into the house, headed for the bathroom. Delia knew Erica wanted the child out of earshot.
Erica looked at the detective. “Should I have my daughter stay at my sister’s house while Hayley is here? Is it possible that the people involved will come looking for her?” She was scared, but not once did she hint that she didn’t want Hayley at her house. Delia loved this woman and wanted to clone her.
“There’s no way to trace the location of a foster child,” said Delia. “We have firewalls on top of firewalls on our computer systems. This is the safest place that Hayley has been in for a long time.”
“We’re going to increase the patrol around your house. And here is my cell if you notice anyone unfamiliar in your neighborhood. Don’t feel weird about calling,” said Moretti.
* * *
They waited until Hayley was back from the bathroom and stationed at the kitchen island with a wooden spoon at the ready.
“You could stay for dinner,” said Erica. “Tom is picking our daughter up at soccer practice. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Moretti hesitated and looked longingly at the brownie batter. Didn’t this man have a home to get back to?
Delia said, “I’ll have to take a rain check.” She looked at Hayley. “That means I have a special ticket for the next time that you make brownies. Yum, these already smell delicious! Let’s go, Mr. Tiger Fighter, I have to get back to my office.”
* * *
In the driveway, they stood between their cars. “I’m not sure how much help that was for you. A silver car is what you have from the interview,” she said. Her hand was on the edge of her open door. He had one foot in the door of his car. Across the street, a trio of crows made a sound like laughing. Or barking.
“I have a lot more than that. I know that Emma Gilbert was taking care of Hayley and that she saved her life. And Hayley’s mother drives a blue car. We need to look at the possibility that Emma may have been kidnapped too,” he said. His jaw muscles twitched. “Seeing kids in danger never gets any easier for me. It pretty much makes all of us on the force go nuts.”
Who wouldn’t go ballistic in the face of a child being hurt? But Delia had stopped trying to answer that question or the other questions that went along with it. Adults hurt children, and sometimes they didn’t mean to but other times they did, whether in a fugue of rage, reenactment of their own childhood abuse, mental illness, or everything that came along with drug abuse. But she was glad that Moretti was on this case, that Hayley had ignited something in him.
“Go home, Moretti, and give your daughter a big hug. I have a feeling you’re a great dad,” she said.
He swung into the driver’s seat. “I would do that, except she’s at her mother’s house until the weekend. I’ll save my hugs until then. I have a gigantic supply. And would you please do me a huge favor?”
“What?” said Delia.
“My name is Mike. Michael if you’re up for two syllables. But you sound like a street thug when you use my last name. Would you mind?” He looked up at her from the driver’s seat, head tilted, just enough of a smile.
Delia reached into her pack, retrieved Igor the Rabbit, and made the stuffed toy dance on the edge of his door. “Okay, Mike, or Michael. I’ll give up my street thug talk.”
Mike reached over and patted Igor on the head, brushing Delia’s fingers.
“Much appreciated, Igor. And Delia.”
She had to ask. If J Bird were here, she would have put all the signs together and figured this out much sooner, or she would have asked long before this. “Are you divorced?” said Delia.
Mike started his car. “Yup. Too young, too much police work at crazy hours and all the rest fits into the vast cauldron of irreconcilable differences. Stay in touch. Let me know anything that you find out,” he said as he tapped the computer screen on his dash.
A tributary that had been dammed up with the debris of charred rafters broke open and a ripple ran through her. She shook her head, not unlike the way Baxter shook himself after a dip in the ocean. All this because the man could make a child laugh, talk with a stuffed rabbit, and make a traumatized child feel safe? Or was it because Tyler was back and she could feel the pull of him?
CHAPTER 29
Delia’s job was to continue with the assessment for Hayley, which could take up to a month for any child who was removed from a dangerous or neglectful home. Delia had to be fully informed about a child’s physical needs and schooling so she could locate the best fit for a foster home and, with most kids, arrange visits with the immediate or extended family. No family visits for Hayley; that was the big puzzle. No family.
Regina, the art therapist, was back from vacation and had already paid one visit to Hayley. Regina was a consultant, hired occasionally by the state for special cases. Delia could imagine the political uproar in the newspapers if Foster Services had a full-time art therapist on salary. Any libertarian worth their salt would run wild with a news item like “Taxpayer dollars go to art therapist.”
“The good news,” said Regina, one day at Delia’s office, “is that I feel like an artist, coming and going all over the Portland area, sitting with children, drawing and painting with them. I get to see their world without a filter, and it’s quite beautiful.”
The downside was that Regina had no health benefits, no anything. She wasn’t even paid mileage. Amazingly, the woman seemed happy, without the bitterness or rancor that Delia was sure she’d have if she were in Regina’s shoes.
Today she was meeting Regina at Erica’s house for Hayley’s second session. She wished she could put in a special request, like where is the mother, or what town, what state did Hayley come from? But this was when Delia had to take deep breaths, slow down, and listen.
Regina’s car, a twelve-year-old Honda stacked with art supplies in the back seat, was in the driveway when Delia pulled in. Erica answered the door, and Delia heard voices from the living room. Hayley and Regina were already engrossed in a project. Each of them was seated on the floor, side by side, next to an oval coffee table, paper spread out in front of them, crayons and colored markers scattered.
“Can I color too?” asked Delia, sliding down to the carpet. Regina and the child looked up, too deep into their world of coloring to fully notice Delia. Regina was thin, her skin pulled tight along her arms, her legs crossed under a short, flowered skirt. Her small size made her less intimidating to children.
“You can have the red ones,” said Hayley. “And the brown.”
Clearly these were the cast-off colors.
Regina slid a sheet of paper to Delia, who tried to take the smallest space on the table. Listen, her job was to listen.
“We’re drawing favorite animals,” said Regina.
Good. Delia would draw Baxter with the red marker and the brown. Baxter was actually a gorgeous burnt orange, but no one called a golden retriever orange. Invariably he was called a red dog. She drew a seated version of Baxter, with one paw up in an offered handshake. Paw shake. The whole drawing was one step up from a stick figure, but she soon felt the spread of childhood comfort, sitting around a table and drawing. No wonder Regina liked her job so much.
“Your dog is good,” said Hayley. This was the first thing Hayley had said to her that wasn’t in response to a ques
tion.
“Thanks,” said Delia. “His name is Baxter. He likes to chase sticks and balls. And he likes to swim and shake water all over me.” And this was the first uncalculated thing Delia had ever said to Hayley. She didn’t want to leave this island of safety. The smell of crayons, paper, and markers, all rolled up in Hayley’s almost indiscernible little girl aroma of soap and maple syrup, was a balm to Delia’s adult world. She slid down the portal to grade school, where her old teacher, Mrs. Conz, handed out drawing assignments, and the change in the seasons from summer to fall knocking at the windows felt like a soft blanket.
“Can Baxter fight tigers?” said Hayley.
Delia crashed back into her adult body. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
“Would you like to meet Baxter? Tigers are so afraid of Baxter that we’ve never seen a tiger at our house. Not once. Or in all of Portland. But what about Louie? I’ll ask Erica if Louie is okay with dogs. Some cats are afraid of dogs.”
“Who lives at your house with Baxter?” said Hayley.
Sometimes, but not often, children wanted to know about Delia’s family. Mostly when they were looking for a safe harbor to land in, and sometimes she answered the questions directly and other times she sidestepped, directing the kids to the best way to adapt to their new surroundings. But she saw that Hayley was drawing a family, not a favorite animal, and Delia didn’t want to do anything to break the spell.
“I live with my sister. She is almost as good of a cook as Erica, but nobody can make brownies the way Erica can.” She was supposed to be listening, not talking. Delia looked over at Regina, who pushed a blue marker around the top corner of her paper.
“I see three people on your paper,” said Regina as she drew a gray mouse with huge whiskers. “I wonder if my mouse has a family. Who is that?” she asked, pointing to one of the figures on Hayley’s drawing.
“That’s the daddy,” said Hayley. He was the least detailed figure, no arms, all legs and torso, and no mouth. He was also far away from the other two figures.
The Tiger in the House Page 13