Model Child_a psychological thriller

by R. C. Goodwin

  The room was warm and close despite the air conditioner. Gottlieb loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. “Were most of the thefts in Christina’s cabin?”

  “Well, that’s an interesting question. They occurred in all the cabins, but a disproportionate number occurred in hers. I should explain, the campers were housed in one of seven different cabins according to their ages. Each cabin had a counselor and a C.I.T. in residence. But we didn’t keep the cabins locked, so campers came in and out as they pleased. The counselors and C.I.Ts were gone for much of the time, supervising the activities and so forth.”

  The quiet conversation was shattered by an old man’s coughing in the next room. Anita turned her head towards it and cocked her ear. “You all right, Dad?” No answer. When it subsided, she resumed. “Throughout this time, by the way, Christina kept completely to herself. Her only activities were solitary ones. Swimming, canoeing, arts and crafts. The arts and crafts, that’s another story I’ll get to later. She refused to have anything to do with team sports. If you said hello to her, sometimes she’d say hello back, and sometimes she’d barely nod. If you asked a question, she’d give you a flat-out yes or no. She’d never elaborate, and she’d never ask a question in return. But . . . I know this sounds contradictory, but it’s not like she was rude. If anything, she was exceptionally well-mannered. In some respects, a model camper.”

  Gottlieb remembered Malcolm Kenyon’s words. In some respects, she was a model child. “A model camper? How so?”

  “She was neat and clean. She never got into fights or squabbles. She didn’t tease the other girls, didn’t pick on them in any way. And she never complained. You’re a psychiatrist, so you must know how young girls love to gripe about things. The others did, but not Christina.”

  Gottlieb waited for another fit of the old man’s coughing to subside. “How did she get along with the counselors?”

  “She did what she was told, and that was that. None of them engaged her, any more than the campers did. The counselor in her cabin, Kate Axelrod, had no idea what to do with her. I should tell you, Kate was one of the best-liked women on our staff, someone who had a wonderful way with children. At the time she was a premed at Marquette. She’s in medical school now, and she plans to become a pediatrician.”

  “Did Christina show signs of being homesick?”

  Anita scoffed. “If she was, she sure did hide it well. No one remembered her saying anything, ever, about her home or her parents or the rest of her family. She might have come from outer space for all we knew.”

  Plucking a handkerchief from a pocket of her house dress, Anita dabbed her forehead with it. “So, here was the situation. Items were missing. Senseless petty thefts were occurring, a disproportionate number in the cabin of this strange, reclusive girl who talked to no one. And then things began to die.”

  Gottlieb felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Excuse me?”

  “Things began to die,” she repeated. “Each of the cabins had what we called a nature plot. A kind of small garden where we kept different plants and wildflowers, and the girls in the cabin took care of them. The girls loved them. In fact, they’ve been one of our most popular attractions through the years. You see, we had a lot of city girls from Chicago and Milwaukee, and this was their first exposure to the real outdoors, to lakes and forests, no TVs or malls. Their first real taste of nature, their first chance to see things grow and bloom.”

  Gottlieb worked to keep an even tone. “And all of a sudden the plants and flowers were dying.”

  Anita nodded. “They’d been healthy and properly tended, and now they were literally shriveling up. Bear in mind that we’re not talking about hothouse orchids. These plants were hearty. They’d grown in the wild, untended. So one day, while the girls were having their afternoon swim, Kate and I took a close look at the plots, trying to figure out what was happening to them. At one point Kate took a pinch of soil and tasted it. I’ll never forget the look on her face. She said, ‘Why, this has been salted!’ I took a pinch of it myself. Sure enough, it was the saltiest thing I ever tasted. Someone had really done a job on it. And then Kate turned to me. ‘Why would she want to do this?’ She didn’t ask who’d do this. We already knew the answer.”

  “Did you question Christina?”

  She nodded again. “That same afternoon. We brought her to my office, and Kate asked her if she’d done anything to the nature plots. She stared at us with those big blue eyes of hers, as if we were both completely crazy, and she denied it flatly, over and over. We asked her if she knew of anyone else who might be trying to destroy them, and of course she denied that too. In all, we must have talked to her for ten minutes, closer to twenty. She didn’t budge, didn’t flinch.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Next was the business with Critters Corner, our petting zoo. It was in a small enclosure near the dining hall. We had about what you’d expect there. Rabbits, guinea pigs, a chicken, a rooster, a couple of ducks. Our star attraction was a skunk named Petunia. The girls were crazy about her. Deodorized skunks make great pets, by the way. Then, this would have been in mid-July now, the animals started dying too. A guinea pig

  first, and then one of the rabbits.”

  “What did you do?”

  She shifted in the armchair. “First, we called in a vet. He wasn’t much help. Thing is, he mainly treated large animals, farm animals. And dogs and cats, of course. You knew he wasn’t about to lose sleep over a dead guinea pig or rabbit, and no way was he about to do an autopsy on one. Only thing he suggested was to send the animals to Madison, to the vet school there.”

  “Did you?”

  She shook her head. “We checked with the lab. Their fees were sky high. Besides, some of the tests took so long that camp would have been over by the time we got back the results. Instead, we decided to keep a closer eye on the animals.”

  “I assume you asked Christina about it?”

  “Of course. And she did exactly what she did when we asked her about the nature plots. She stared at us as though we’d gone crazy, denying everything.”

  Gottlieb stroked his chin. “You kept a closer eye on the animals. Did you keep a closer eye on Christina herself?”

  “Yes, as much as possible, but that was easier said than done. Summer camps don’t have a lot of extra staff. It’s a competitive business, and we all have to struggle to keep down costs. Besides, the extra staff attention usually goes to the younger children. They’re the ones who need it most.”

  “Why do you think she wanted to kill those plants and animals?”

  “You’re the doctor, you tell me,” Anita answered, snappish. She resumed a moment later, less combatively, “The only answer I can give you is that she liked it when things died. I know that sounds far-fetched, but it’s the only one I can think of.”

  They fell silent. Despite the hum of the air conditioning, and the nearby clamor of the televised baseball game, Gottlieb made out the sounds of the summer night—crickets and cicadas, breezes wafting through the trees and bushes, an occasional dog barking in the distance. He found the sounds restorative, an antidote to mounting fatigue. Apart from his usual long day, the discussion of Christina drained him.

  “You were going to tell me about the arts and crafts,” he finally said.

  Anita took her time before replying. “I guess she had some talent as an artist. She spent a great deal of her time drawing and sketching. Off by herself, of course. She didn’t care what others did, or what they thought about her own work. To the contrary, she tended to be very secretive about it. She’d spend hours on a drawing, but then she’d rip it up and throw it out before anyone else saw it. Well, one night I was up late in the camp office finishing some paperwork when the arts and crafts counselor, Sherri Allard, rushed in to see me. Now, Sherri was usually very calm, a placid farm-girl type, but she was really in a state that night. She came over to my desk, holding several sheets of papers, so upset her hands were shaking. At firs
t she couldn’t even talk. Then she said, ‘I think you ought to see these.’ They were drawings she’d found in the trash bin. They’d been torn up, but it had been easy to tape them back together.”

  “What were they like?”

  Anita squeezed her sightless eyes shut tightly, as if steeling herself to talk about them. “There were three of them. The first was a drawing of a guinea pig. A good, realistic likeness. Hooks, like fishhooks, had been driven through each paw, and each hook pulled in an opposite direction. The guinea pig was stretched across some torture device, like a rack. The whole drawing was bad enough, but the most awful thing about it was his eyes. You know how the eyes of an animal widen when it’s terrified? Well, that’s what this poor creature’s eyes were like. Whoever drew it had captured them perfectly.”

  Gottlieb took a deep breath. “And the others?”

  “The next one she showed me . . . it’s still hard for me to talk

  about this. . . the next one was of a big angry dog. Again, a fairly

  realistic drawing, except for his exaggerated teeth, like fangs, and his eyes, as red as fire. In front of the dog, hunched over, was a woman. And this dog . . . this dog was having sex with her.”

  Anita blushed, and she took a moment to compose herself. “But the last one was the worst. She’d made a sketch of Jesus on the cross. His chest and trunk and limbs were done realistically, in fact very carefully. But his face was done as a caricature, as if he were some kind of drooling idiot. Around his neck hung a placard, with two words. Fucking asshole!”

  A heavy silence filled the room. “I didn’t sleep at all that night,” she said eventually. As a rule, I sleep like a log, even when I’ve had an awful day, but not that night. All I could think of, over and over, was I’ve never known a child like her. By that time, I was already in my late forties. I’d spent the whole of my adult life dealing with children in one capacity or another. Most of them I liked very much. Some of them were difficult, of course. Spoiled, ill-tempered, rude, you name it. But Christina! I never knew one who’d been remotely like her. Still haven’t, thank the Good Lord.”

  “Was that when you decided to send her home?”

  Anita nodded. “The next morning I called a meeting. Carol Boyer, my assistant director at the time, and Kate Axelrod, and me. They agreed, she had to go. First time we’d ever done it. Oh, we’d sent them home before, but there’d always been a reason. Poor health, or intractable homesickness, or a death in the family . . . something. The thing is, there really was no reason with Christina. She had stirred up all kinds of suspicions, and there was certainly a bad feeling about her, but no one had ever proven that she’d done anything. But we were all afraid of what she might do next. If she’d hurt a guinea pig or rabbit, who could say she wouldn’t hurt a child?”

  “What happened then?”

  “The next morning I had Kate bring her to my office. A rainy

  morning, I remember how the rain beat down against the windows as the three of us sat around my desk. I showed Christina the drawings without saying a word. It would have been a waste of time to accuse her of having made them anyway. She would have looked at us, innocence personified, and she would have denied it, the same way she denied the other things. So, I showed her the pictures without a word. And then I said, ‘I think it’s time for you to go home, Christina. It doesn’t look like the camp experience is turning out to be very good for you.’”

  “How did she respond to that?”

  “She didn’t argue,” replied Anita with a shrug. “She didn’t get angry or defensive, and she certainly didn’t seem the slightest bit upset. As I recall, she looked at us, kind of blankly, and asked when she’d be leaving.”

  Anita took out her handkerchief again and wiped her forehead. The room was still warm despite the air conditioning. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a hostess. Can I get you something cold to drink? There’s lemonade and iced tea in the fridge.”

  “Lemonade would be fine.”

  She got up and slowly but steadily made her way to the kitchen, guiding herself along the wall. A few minutes later she returned with two brimming tumblers and handed Gottlieb one. They sipped their drinks in silence. Then Gottlieb asked, “So, that was it? That was the end of your dealings with her?”

  “Don’t I wish. Dear God, don’t I wish.” For the first time since his arrival, she looked about to cry.

  “I’ve always been fairly healthy,” she continued, “but I do have my share of allergies. Nothing serious, but the symptoms can be annoying. Runny nose and red itchy eyes and so forth. I treat myself with over-the-counter medications, mostly nasal spray and eyedrops. Well, a couple of days after Christina left, my allergies started acting up. So I used my eye-drops, as I always did. But someone had put something in them. Lye.”

  Gottlieb jerked in the chair, as if an electric current had

  passed through him. “What!”

  “Lye,” she repeated. “That’s what the lab came up with. It’s easy enough to get hold of. Drano, Easy-Off, and so forth. Lots of common products use strong alkalis, including ones we had around the camp.

  “I don’t know how much you know about eye injuries, but lye has a different effect on the eye than acid,” she went on. “For one thing, it doesn’t hurt as much, at least not right away. For another, there isn’t such a telltale smell. So, if you’ve put it in your eyes, it takes a while before you know what you’ve done. Not long, but long enough to do yourself some terrible damage.”

  “But how—I mean, how was she able to get—”

  “To get to the drops?” She scratched her nose. “Would have been a cinch for her. I should tell you about the camp’s layout. There were four main structures apart from the cabins and activities buildings. The dining hall, the infirmary, and two that housed camp offices and living quarters for senior staff. All four are grouped around a central oval. We almost always kept them open. Up till then we’d had no cause to lock them. But even if we had, someone could still get into them easily. They’re all one-story buildings, they all have ground-level windows. It’s not exactly like Fort Knox up there.”

  “But even though you didn’t feel the effects of it immediately, wouldn’t you feel them a few seconds later? Wouldn’t there be enough time so you’d avoid putting drops in both eyes?

  “Ordinarily, yes. But Christina thought of that, you see. She was a smart one, Christina. I’m sure you’ve heard that too. She put something else in my eyedrops. A topical anesthetic, Ophthaine. She probably snuck in and got it from the infirmary. Like I told you, we weren’t Fort Knox. The Ophthaine killed the pain until it was too late. I’d already put drops in both eyes.

  “What did you do then?” asked Gottlieb quietly.

  “Well, the one good thing was, it happened in the bathroom.

  As soon as I knew something was wrong, I stood at the sink, kept running water in my eyes. Then I called the infirmary. The camp doctor came right over. She took me to the nearest ER. From there they sent me to one of the University hospitals in Milwaukee. The doctor there was wonderful, a professor of ophthalmology at their medical school. By that time, he couldn’t do much, though. I suppose I’m a little bit lucky. At least I can make out large shapes and light and shadow.” She looked at him intensely. “I can see the outline of you, but I can’t tell if you’re a man or woman, or young or old, or black or white.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  She shook her head. “You probably think I should have. Everyone else does. I’ll admit, I was afraid of the terrible publicity. I told you, I’d sunk my life savings into the camp, and that kind of publicity could destroy it overnight. If I kept things quiet, at least I could unload it while it was still a thriving business.”

  She sipped lemonade. “Besides, I knew the police would come up empty. What did they have to go on? Just the eye-drops, nothing else. How could they prove she’d done it? Simple thing, to wipe a bottle clean of fingerprints. And even if they somehow tied her into it, what
then? Remember, Christina was still a minor. She’d go to a juvenile facility somewhere, and then they’d let her out when she turned eighteen. Her records would be sealed. If you ask me, the law is way too lenient with juvenile offenders.”

  They fell silent as they finished their lemonades. Wild cheers exploded from the nearby TV, punctuated by the old man’s coughing; the Cubs must have gone on a scoring spree. A few moments later Gottlieb continued. “So, you sold the camp?”

  She nodded. “I sold it, and of course I quit teaching. Things were pretty rough back then. My mother had just died, and my father was having health problems of his own. For three or four months, I didn’t do much of anything. I could barely force myself out of bed. Then I got tired of feeling sorry for myself. I learned Braille, got a part-time job with the local chapter of the National Federation for the Blind. Between that, and the disability checks and my father’s pension, we get along. There’s not much extra, but we manage. I still have times when I wonder if it’s all worth the bother, but they pass.”

  She tapped the rim of the tumbler. “What do you think will happen to her father?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, of course you don’t. And you probably wouldn’t tell me if you did. But I’m guessing that they’ll lock him up and throw away the key. That is, assuming they don’t kill him. Too bad he can’t afford a bunch of fancy lawyers. Do you want to know what I think? I think they should give him a medal for getting rid of her.”

  Gottlieb put down the empty tumbler on a coaster and prepared to leave. He looked forward to the long drive home, which would give him time to digest this wealth of new information. “I appreciate your meeting with me, Ms. Pierce. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to talk about her. Before I go, is there anything else which might have a bearing on the case, anything I haven’t asked you about?”

  She shook her head no. “That’s pretty much it.”

  He stood up and began to make his way to the door, then stopped and turned to her. “Just one last question. Have you ever had doubts, however fleeting, that she was the one who tampered with those eyedrops?”