Masques IV

by J N Williamson

  She saw him. Her large brown eyes held him briefly in focus and then she looked away and continued past him. He didn’t exist at all.

  The Children Never Lie

  Cameron Nolan

  Her first job, though she was very young for it at age 13, was as a babysitter—for Richard and Ruth Matheson!

  If that doesn’t surprise you, you’re probably new to the fantasy/horror field and need to be reminded that Matheson wrote I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, The Shrinking Man, and some of the best stories and scripts ever produced for “The Twilight Zone.” And perhaps you need to know that one of the Matheson children was a little boy called Richard Christian . . .

  Cam Nolan did many interesting things as a native Angeleno. By the time high school was over, she had over three dozen professional credits in Southern California newspapers (including the Examiner). She “folded (Dodger pitcher) Don Drysdale’s socks in a laundry,” assembled electronic inertial guidance systems for the Air Force, and became, in her mid-twenties, a purchasing clerk for Capitol Records. From that there was a stint of completing an article a day for Tiger Beat, a teenage mag. She wrote and published five non-fiction books—

  And married the multi-talented consummate pro, William F. Nolan.

  At a time when we’re still reeling from reports of widespread child abuse and yet more terrible instances are discussed almost regularly on tv talk shows, Cameron needed courage to explore the subject in this, her first short story. “The Children Never Lie” is an understated examination of the volatile subject which, it’s safe to say, simply takes one of the most startling turns you will ever read.

  “I tellya, Addie, it’s our chance. Almost as good as winning the Lottery. Hell, maybe better.” He picked up his coffee mug, the one with his Valencia County Sheriffs shield on the side, a personalized (and cheap) gift from the Chamber of Commerce. Twenty-five years of service. He shook his head at the thought. Too long. As he took

  a swig from the cup he looked out the kitchen window at the flat brown fields which rolled toward the purple mountains in the distance.

  Cotton and sugar beets, not what usually came to mind when people thought of California. Five thousand square miles of farms, just like back home in Liberty ville, Nebraska, only there it had been corn and sorghum. He’d come 1,500 miles to trade corn and sorghum for cotton and sugar beets, and a county sheriffs pissy salary.

  But things were due to change.

  He thought about the beautiful Spanish colonial sign outside the La Palma Mobile Home Estates in San Diego. He already had the lot for a trailer picked out: Number 15-A. It overlooked the ocean, had palm trees front and back, a sweet little side yard, and a clear view of San Diego twenty miles to the south. Blue sky and blue ocean and white sea gulls . . . It was all going to be theirs, he really believed it now. For the first time, he really believed it.

  He took a long drag on his Marlboro and fingered the collar of his uniform shirt where it rubbed against the wrinkled flesh of his neck. He knew he looked older than his sixty years. Too damn much sun, he thought. It was hard to avoid in farming country.

  He looked over to where his wife was flouring the meat for chicken fried steak. “Dr. Martin says these kids were ‘probably’ molested. ‘Probably,’ he says! Shit!”

  He sighed and took another drag on his cigarette. “I called Ben in Sacramento—at the Attorney General’s office—and he told me to phone the Sarazan Center in San Francisco and have their psychologists come down to examine all the children. So when I call them, they tell me they’d be happy to do it—for their regular fee. Gonna run over a thousand per kid before this thing is over, maybe a whole lot more than that. Last election the good voters of this county decide they can’t raise my salary a lousy two thousand a year, and suddenly they’re pleased as punch to pay maybe fifty thousand to some head doctors from Frisco. It isn’t fair, Addie. It just isn’t.”

  She looked up from the boiled potatoes she was mashing. “Millie at the grocery store told me people want to pay whatever’s necessary. She says it’s all anybody talks about these days. Clint, do you think it’s true? You know more than anybody else right now. Do you believe it?”

  He looked at her quickly, then shifted his eyes back out the window again, looking deep into the horizon. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Addie. I just don’t. It seems unbelievable that something like this could happen out here in the sticks. But it’s my responsibility as an officer of the law to investigate this to the fullest extent. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

  He drank from his mug. “Whatever happens, I give the big city papers two days—maybe three—before they pick up on it. And once it’s in the headlines up and down the state, everybody is going to know who Clinton Lansdale, Sheriff of Valencia County, California, is.

  “And then two things are gonna happen. First, we’re going to get a lot of calls from movie and TV producers who want to buy the story. Just like that teacher up in Placerville a few months ago who got two dozen calls from producers after his story hit the big city papers. So that guy’s set for life—all ’cause he got fired for doing too good a job! One way or another, I tellya, we’re going to be seeing some real money real fast.”

  He looked at her, his eyes intense.

  “The second thing that’s gonna happen is the people of this county are going to see me in a whole new light. I’m going to be Big Time, Addie, a real celebrity. And when elections come up next year, they’ll be proud to vote me a salary increase. So no matter what happens now, we’re gonna be okay. Honest to God, honey, we’re gonna be okay.”

  “The children have been molested, Sheriff Lansdale. Every one of them. We have proof.” The smartly-dressed woman searched through her expensive leather briefcase for some papers.

  “Here we have a preliminary summary of the results of our examinations. The completed examinations are all on videotape, of course, for use in court, and we still have several weeks of investigation ahead of us. More detailed information from each child is needed; obtaining that data is our next task. But the preliminary results are quite important. Just look at these.”

  Melissa Hamilton handed over several sheets of expensive paper with the Sarazan Center logo engraved at the top of each one.

  Class, Clint thought. He didn’t have much use for psychologists but Melissa Hamilton and this Sarazan Center were class all the way.

  “As you’ll see, we have documented a variety of criminal charges for you to choose from when you and the District Attorney prepare your indictments. We at the Sarazan Center pride ourselves on the professionalism we bring to our legal services. We offer depth and breadth, in order that local law officials can create airtight cases that are virtually guaranteed to result in guilty verdicts.”

  He looked over the summary sheets, blinked. What he was reading was bizarre, beyond belief. “It says here that some of the children were taken to Nevada and used in child prostitution!” he exclaimed incredulously.

  “Oh, yes, we found that quite interesting. We have established scenarios in both Reno and Las Vegas.”

  “What’s all this devil worship stuff?” He looked at Melissa Hamilton skeptically. “We sure don’t have any devil worshippers here in Valencia County.”

  She smiled with the syrupy condescension of the sophisticated city professional towards the country bumpkin.

  “Of course, this is a shock to you, Sheriff Lansdale. We run into such disbelief all the time. What you must realize is that the sexual abuse of children is the most well-hidden of crimes. Usually, no one other than the abuser and the victim knows what is occurring. We’re lucky in this case because we have more than two dozen children involved, and the abusers appear to number at least ten. We’re not sure yet just how many people are involved or exactly who those particular people are, because our established investigation format focuses first on breaking down each child’s personal privacy boundaries. Then we detail specific acts which have occurred. That’s where we are now. After we ge
t the children to trust us—tell us the things they thought they couldn’t tell anyone—we then go into the specifics of exactly who did what to them, how many times, under what conditions, and so on. It’s a multi-step procedure which has been developed in order to maximally utilize the memory potentials of the children we are examining.”

  He put the papers down on the desk. “How do you know the children are telling the truth?”

  “We have scientifically-approved ways of establishing data,” she said. “Initially, we use anatomically correct dolls in which the genitals are greatly enlarged. When a child manipulates two or more dolls in such a manner as to indicate oral sex, for example, we know that such an act has occurred in the life of that child.”

  “Couldn’t they just be playing with the dolls and however they put them, it’s still just a child playing?”

  “Oh, no. When a child manipulates an anatomically correct doll, each action has specific meaning. That’s been well established in scientific literature.”

  “And how do you know who supposedly did this to them? Do you ask the child for names?”

  “We do, of course. But we seldom get a direct answer. Instead, the children answer indirectly; all children do. We give them crayons and paper and they draw pictures. Whenever they draw monsters, we ask them who the monsters are, what the monsters are named. That they tell us—then we know who the ‘monsters’ in their real lives are. Once a child identifies an abuser, we ask the other children about that particular person. They are relieved the secret is out and usually admit quite readily that that person also abused them.”

  “You mean, you take a child and give it naked dolls with big genitals—some crayons and paper—and whatever the child seems to indicate, you depend on that being the truth?”

  “Oh, absolutely. It’s well established medical procedure used by virtually all child abuse investigators throughout the United States.” Clint shook his head in disbelief. The county was paying thousands of dollars for just this information, and he couldn’t accept any of it. Well, maybe sometimes it worked, some of it. But all the time? These people might be doctors and have initials after their names out the ass, but he’d developed a lot of common sense over the years and his gut told him this was, mostly, totally nuts. But he held a tiger by the tail now and he knew it. One way or another all this had to be seen through. Besides, these Sarazan Center people were professionals. Surely they knew what they were doing.

  One way or another, his future and Addie’s depended on him doing his job and doing it right.

  If only it didn’t seem so crazy.

  “What do you do now?” he asked her.

  “At the moment, we don’t have any idea who did these things to the children. The next step is determining who is involved. We must quantify data: names, dates, times of day, locations.”

  “How long do you expect everything to take?’

  “Another two weeks, perhaps three. I have five experienced interviewers working on the children now. We ought to begin getting specific data within the next day or so. My interviewers know what they’re doing, Sheriff,” she added. “We’ve obtained data on some of the most resistant cases imaginable. Compared to some, this is a piece of cake.”

  “And you’re certain this is real? This is the truth?”

  “Just remember the first rule of child sexual abuse, Sheriff: The children never lie.”

  There was a hoot owl outside and he always felt good when he heard a hoot owl greeting the moon.

  Comforted. You knew that wise bird (all owls were wise, he’d been convinced of it since he was a child) was somehow watching over you. Which made life a bit easier to take when everything seemed so all-fired crazy. Clint looked out into the lonely moonlit fields from the living room. He’d stubbed out three Marlboros since he sat down, unable to sleep, and now he sat in the dark without even the friendly red glow of a cigarette to keep him company.

  The last of the arrests was over, he hoped. Twelve people—people he’d thought were among the good people of Valencia County—were now in the county jail. Which meant, of course, that the jail was three hundred percent over maximum legal capacity. Nobody’d ever figured on a series of crimes like this in Valencia County when the jail was built. God, he still couldn’t believe it.

  Duane MacAllister, who owned the feed and supply store, the principal sponsor of the Valencia County 4-H Club. Agnes Hobson, the music teacher for all the Valencia County public schools. Pete Dubrevick, who carried the mail for half the county. And Dr. Martin, the one who’d said the kids had “probably” been molested. He was one too. It was like the whole world had suddenly gone nuts. These people he’d known intimately all these years.

  It was sick and awful, his soul hurt, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make sense out of it. If all these people were guilty, then Sheriff Clinton Lansdale didn’t know a damn thing about human nature.

  It was time, he realized suddenly, for him to retire.

  The realization had been coming a long time. Hell, he probably would have done it five years ago if he’d had the money. But he didn’t then, and now he did. Well, almost. The producers had been calling, just like he’d promised Addie. It was the biggest news story of the month and not just in California, either. It was all over national television—even around the world—and Clinton Lansdale was now an honest-to-God celebrity. A week ago he’d even gone to San Francisco to appear on “Nightline” with Ted Koppel. The network had sent their own plane, flown him to San Francisco, put him up in a suite at the St. Francis, and then flown him home again.

  He’d never been so scared in his life, not even the time years ago when that murderer had escaped from San Quentin and was ready to kill him in Mike Cahill’s barn. But he’d looked fine on TV—everybody said so—and it was a shoo-in for him to get a fat raise in the next election.

  But he didn’t have to depend on that now. No, he was going to sell his story to the TV movies for a quarter of a million dollars. That was the price and the contracts were being drawn up. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Enough for the rest of their lives in San Diego.

  Another six months, and Number 15-A at the La Palma Mobile Home Estates would be Home, Sweet Home.

  Outside the living room window he saw the glint of shiny metal moving in the night. Someone was in the front yard. His cop’s senses aroused, he suddenly realized there was more than one person. He could see dark motion by the eucalyptus tree, more over by the wooden fence. Quietly, Clint stood and went for his weapon.

  He couldn’t figure out why, but the house was under siege. Terrorists? Drug-crazed motorcycle freaks? He didn’t know, but he did know that it would take at least ten minutes for backup to arrive from town. By that time, if he wasn’t careful, he and Addie could both be dead.

  Adrenalin pumping, his mind clearer than it had been in years, Clint walked softly towards the bedroom to wake her. Every second counted.

  The door exploded open with light and sound. A spotlight, his mind registered—the type used by city SWAT teams. He was pinned in its beam, unable to move. He noticed that he could see the weave on his cotton pajamas, each hair on the back of his hands. Those lights were damn good, some part of his mind registered. I wish Valencia County could afford one.

  “Freeze!” an authoritative voice ordered. “This is the FBI. Turn around and face the wall, hands in plain sight. Spread your legs apart.”

  Incredulously, automatically, he did what he had ordered so many others to do over the years. The hands that patted him down were professional. It didn’t make any sense, but these were no terrorists or hippies. They were the law.

  The man in charge, keeping him covered, came nearer. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will . . .”

  Addie was suddenly there. Nobody could have slept through the last five minutes. When had she appeared in the doorway? Clint didn’t know. She was looking at him oddly, wh
ich he found strange. Then the other FBI man, dressed in camouflage, was talking quietly to her. Her eyes were getting big and round like she couldn’t understand what the man was saying, except she did.

  He’d never seen that expression before on Addie’s face, but he’d seen it on lots of others. First was years ago when he’d had to go over to Emma Dunham’s place and tell her Frank had been killed in a tractor accident near the bridge. That was the first time he’d seen that expression—just a couple of months after he became a deputy sheriff—but he’d seen it plenty of times since. Total disbelief mixed with total belief, all at the same time.

  It was the horrible look of a human being stretched to the limits of endurance, and now it was on his own wife’s face.

  The trial was a nightmare. At first, in the months before the trial began, Addie came to visit him every week. Then gradually, as his bail was denied and the press and television went to work, she came less and less. She was in court the day the verdict came in—he saw her sitting next to the back door—but she acted as if she’d never seen him before. Her face didn’t have any expression on it. She was just going through the motions, living each day as it came until God called her home, just like she’d been taught at the First Baptist Church back in Nebraska when she was a little girl.

  His last thought before the verdict was read was that he wasn’t married anymore. His wife had died, though her body continued to function. It was a sobering thought: it hit him more deeply than the guilty verdict which he had already come to expect.

  It didn’t matter that he’d never done any of the things he was accused of. He was innocent, but he knew that his innocence was irrelevant in this age of scientific knowledge and expert witnesses. The children had identified him. They’d told immensely detailed stories of how he had done ghastly perverted things to them, and to chickens and rabbits and geese and sheep and cows and horses and dogs and cats.