by Torey Hayden
I knelt beside the chair. “Do you think you can talk, Jadie?” I asked, bending low enough to see her face. I gently pushed her hair back slightly.
No response.
“I know this is frightening. I know you’re scared, but do you think you can manage? I’ll stay with you. I’ll be right here.”
No response.
“She’s going to have to say something,” Mr. Tinbergen replied.
She raised her eyes then to meet mine, although she didn’t raise her head. With only a slight movement of her constricted arm, she pressed her fingers against her mouth.
Arkie was the first to arrive. “Well, you do know how to pick up live wires, don’t you?” she said to me when we met out in the front office. I sensed a note of irritation. Perhaps she thought I was blowing this all out of proportion, that I’d let an overactive imagination run away with me, when we could have solved this in a calmer, more civilized fashion. Or perhaps she was simply tired and hungry, as I was, and annoyed to be pulled out when she’d have rather gone home.
The social worker was named Delores Verney. Short, overweight, and fiftyish, she wore a pair of huge, owlish glasses pushed up on top of her head. Her hair, dark at the roots and bright blond at the ends, was in a short, cropped style, now rumpled to stand up in a manner very similar to Jeremiah’s, when he needed a haircut. Her smile, however, was broad and easy, and she shook my hand with a heartiness that intimated that we were old friends.
“I think we have to face the fact that a criminal offense may have been committed here,” she said, as way of greeting. “From what I’m told, we well may have to take this child—and most likely all other children in the home—into care for the time being. The only way I can get a place-of-safety order at such short notice is in conjunction with the police, so I’ve gone ahead and phoned the station. We should be getting an officer out here in a few minutes.”
This conversation, like the one with Arkie, was hissed in the front office, while Jadie remained with Mr. Tinbergen in his office. Both he and I realized immediately that the most serious problem facing us was not the abuse but Jadie’s fear. Indeed, she had yet to say a word, even to Mr. Tinbergen. So he and I took it in turns to sit with Jadie or meet-and-greet in the front office, in hopes that Jadie would not be intimidated by a rush of new people. Thus, everyone was shuttling back and forth in what could only be described as organized confusion.
“I prefer to work with someone from our station in Falls River,” Delores said to me. “I know we’re going to need to go through the Pecking police to do anything, but there’s only what? Two officers here? Three? I wouldn’t trust them with a case like this. I wanted a woman officer—that’s the usual procedure around here with child victims, if at all possible—and my girl in Falls River is experienced. One of the best in the state for child abuse. Now,” she said, pausing for breath, “who’s the one making the complaint?”
Heart long since sunk into my shoes, I knew, like Pandora, I had opened the box and was never going to get the lid back on again.
The policewoman’s name was Lindy. She was much younger than I’d expected, perhaps no more than thirty, and startlingly attractive. Large brown eyes and glossy, well-cut hair framing her face gave her the look of a Hollywood starlet, not a midwestem police officer; her appearance was further enhanced by stylishly casual clothes rather than a uniform.
Lindy had worked with Delores on several child abuse cases and seemed competent and confident. I took heart from this. On the other hand, the officer from the Pecking station seemed ill at ease. Unless there was concrete evidence, he kept saying, it was just going to be this girl’s word against her parents. Gotta find semen, else there wasn’t going to be a case.
Unexpectedly, I once again found myself downplaying the occult connection. In the heat of the first few moments with Mr. Tinbergen, it had been easy to mention the broken doll, the Black Mass symbol, and other aspects of Jadie’s bizarre tales that indicated ritualistic abuse; however, as time wore on and more and more professionals joined us, I found myself disinclined to go beyond the obvious. Yes, I said, there were definite indications of abuse, particularly sexual abuse. Yes, I said, there was the possibility of more than one person being involved. But I couldn’t make myself go out on a limb and say I thought we were looking for a coven or something like that. When Lindy turned to me and asked who, precisely, I thought was abusing Jadie, I paused. Who, indeed? I sputtered and tried to explain that she used some kind of code name for them. At this point Arkie jumped in to say Jadie appeared to be suffering from a dissociative disorder and that either she, herself, was disintegrating into an assortment of personalities or she had splintered her abuser or abusers into multiple personalities. Possibly both. Of course, Arkie said, sexual abuse was commonly implicated in dissociative disorders. I fell silent at this point and didn’t add anything to Arkie’s statement. I’d be grateful just to get Jadie out of the home, I thought. That was the main objective.
Jadie, herself, was no help at all. Despite her initial agreement to talk about the abuse with Mr. Tinbergen, she clammed up the moment she went into the office and had not said a single word since. She managed an occasional nod and that was all. Hunched over, drawn up, every muscle rigid, she appeared to have been turned to stone by fear.
We stayed in the school office until almost 7:15 in the evening, discussing among ourselves the type and extent of abuse suspected, the possible perpetrators, Jadie’s psychological makeup and that of other family members. It was decided that Jadie, Amber, and Sapphire would be taken immediately into the care of Social Services on an eight-day place-of-safety order, during which time the police would examine the case.
The time then came to adjourn to the police station, and it was decided that Mr. Tinbergen, Arkie, and I had probably made our contributions to the proceedings for the evening and didn’t need to go along. They had our statements and that was all we could give. It went out of our hands from this point onward. Despite my emotional involvement, I could appreciate this, but I mentioned my concern for Jadie. Would she be comfortable going alone in the police car with Lindy and Delores, or would she be better with one of us along? Lindy pointed out the extreme care now needed to keep from inadvertently biasing anything Jadie might say. It might be better if we kept contact to a minimum. And Jadie seemed to accept this next step. She disappeared through the door of the school, her hand in Lindy’s, and didn’t give a backward glance.
About 9:15, Lindy phoned me from the Pecking police station. They’d brought the Ekdahls in, she said. Mom and Dad seemed completely bewildered by all of this. Amber, who had been interviewed separately from Jadie or her parents, denied all knowledge of abuse. Jadie refused to talk to anyone about anything. There hadn’t been a word out of her since she’d arrived. Lindy didn’t need to mention the amount of frustration she was feeling because of Jadie’s silence; it echoed clearly in her voice, but she made it plain how damaging this attitude was going to be. She explained that she’d already called Arkie, and Arkie had told her to phone me. I was the one would could make mutes talk.
At the police station, I was met at the front desk, let through a heavy door with an electronic lock, and taken down a long corridor to a large back room. The place was alive with people, mainly from Social Services in Falls River, but also with additional police personnel.
Lindy greeted me. “We’ve put a place-of-safety order on the girls, and Delores has managed to find a short-term foster home in Red Circle that’ll take all three of them for the week. That’s super, because it means they’ll be close enough to continue attending school here. I think that’s best. It’s going to be a disruptive enough week as it is. Mind you, we still haven’t got anything out of Jadie, and, heck, Torey, the whole works’ll fall right through the floor if this kid keeps it up. I’m praying to God you’re going to be able to make her see sense.”
“One won’t talk, one won’t shut up,” Delores muttered. “I was trying to explain to the six-year
-old that they’d be staying with another family for the week, and she’s gone hysterical on me. Absolutely hysterical.”
“It’s going to be difficult,” I said.
“Why’s that?” Delores asked.
“They’re a closed-in family. The mother told me they’ve never left the girls with anyone for any length of time. Not even a babysitter for the evening.”
“Oh Jesus, are you joking?”
I was led down the hall to one of the interview rooms, and the door was opened. There sat Jadie, alone. I came in and the officer shut the door behind me and left us.
It was a small room, not even as large as the cloakroom at school. The walls were lined with corkboard to ensure privacy. There was a switch by the door to turn on a red light outside so others in the hall would know when they should not interrupt. The room had no windows and was furnished with only a metal-legged table, three plastic chairs, and a file cabinet.
Jadie was sitting on a chair that had been pushed up to the table. She was bent over so far that her head touched the tabletop.
“This is proving a long night, isn’t it?” I said and came over. Pulling out one of the other chairs, I sat down. “Are you tired?”
She nodded.
I was tired. The evening had been so emotionally exhausting that I found I had almost no feelings at all as I sat there. I felt a deep form of sympathy for Jadie, almost maternal in its strength, and I wanted to catch her up in my arms and protect her, but that was all I felt. Certainly, I had no inclination just then to carry on with what I’d been sent in to do.
“Have they told you what’s going to happen next?” I asked. “Lindy says they’re going to let your mom and dad go pretty soon, but they’re thinking it would be better if you and your sisters didn’t go home just at the moment. Just until this thing is sorted out. So the three of you are going to stay at a place in Red Circle. A foster home. Rather like Philip has got, with a special foster mom and dad to take care of you while you’re there.”
Jadie put her elbows on the table and propped up her head with her hands. She gave little indication of listening to me. Both of us, I think, were so far past exhaustion as to be numb.
“You’ll still come to our class. We’ll still see each other.”
On the table beside Jadie lay two rag dolls, one dressed in man’s clothing, the other in woman’s. A girl doll lay a little farther along. Stretching across the table, Jadie reached for the girl doll. She held it up in front of her and stared at it.
“Jadie, it’s not going to help at all if you don’t talk to them.”
“Did you tell them about Tashee?”
“You’re expecting me to do all the work here, Jadie, and I can’t. You tell them about Tashee. You’re the one it happened to, not me. You’re the one who knows.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. And you must.”
“I can’t. There’s spiders here. I seen ’em. They’re going to hear. They’re going to tell Miss Ellie what I done.”
“That’s over with, lovey. We’re putting an end to it right now.”
“It’s not over with,” she said mournfully. “The spiders are watching.”
Exhaustion overtook my patience. I sighed in desperation. “Look, Jadie, what can I do? Would a can of Raid help? If I spray the place myself, will you talk to them?”
Close to tears, she looked at me. “No, please, you got to tell them for me.”
When I finished with Jadie, one of the social workers came and took her into another room where Amber was. A small box of old, well-worn toys was provided, although both girls looked so tired as to be beyond play. I then went down to the room where Lindy and Delores were to discuss the difficulties we were going to encounter if Jadie failed to speak. About ten minutes later, we heard the sound of doors opening and closing. Voices filtered through to us from the corridor.
“That’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Ekdahl leaving,” said Delores, and she pushed back her chair. “I’d better go get the girls, so they can say good-bye.”
I stepped cautiously out into the corridor after everyone had passed. Uneasy about being the one to cause so much trouble, knowing I was the one to destroy this family, and still not sure that I’d pointed the finger at the right people, I was reluctant to be seen; but at the same time, I was curious to see them. Both looked dazed. Mr. Ekdahl, small and wiry, his thinning hair rumpled, stood back as Amber came running down the corridor.
“Mommy! Mommy!” she screamed at full volume. “Take me with you! I wanna go home!” Mrs. Ekdahl, a bedraggled-looking figure in saggy clothes, clutched her young daughter to her.
There was nothing in their demeanor that set the Ekdahls apart from any other of millions of midwestern families. I think, as I stepped into the corridor, I was praying I’d see something to clinch the matter in my mind. I think I wanted to at least sense evil in them, if nothing else, and come away secure in the knowledge that somehow these people were guilty of what I was accusing. There had to be abuse. Even if the occult connection could never be proved, even if Jadie was found to be severely disturbed and capable of fantasizing the worst of what she spoke of, I did feel certain something terrible was at the root of it. But I stood in abject terror of accusing the wrong persons.
The crowd had clustered just before the electronically locked door, where Amber was clutching frantically at her mother’s clothing and crying. No one noticing me, I slipped down to the room where Jadie and Amber had been. Jadie was still there, still sitting on the floor beside the box of toys, a decrepit-looking Barbie doll in her hands.
“Your parents are going now. Do you want to come say good-bye?”
“Look here at how long the hair is this doll’s got,” Jadie remarked. “I got Barbies at home, but none of mine gots hair like this.”
“I said, your parents are going now.”
“It don’t got no clothes, though. I got some clothes. I wish I could have this Barbie.”
“Jadie …”
At last she lifted her head and looked up at me, her thick hair tumbling back over her shoulders. “You just tell ’em good-bye for me, okay?”
Taken aback, I regarded her. “You won’t be seeing them for quite a while. Amber’s gone to say good-bye. Don’t you want to come, too?”
“No, I’m busy playing,” she replied, the emotion in her voice unreadable. “You say good-bye for me.”
At the far end of the corridor, Amber was being prized off her mother’s leg. I stayed well back, embarrassed to be seen, frightened by what I’d done this evening. Finally, the door unlocked with an electronic buzz, and a policeman opened it to let the Ekdahls out into the front part of the station. The door closed automatically, giving a loud, long sigh, and then the lock snapped audibly back into place when it was completely shut. Amber, still sobbing, was carried by in the arms of a social worker.
In the silence that followed, Jadie appeared in the corridor. She scuttled past me and down to the door. Coming up against it, she tried to open it. Delores, who’d seen her go back, hurried after her. “They’ve already gone, sweetheart,” she said.
Jadie jiggled the handle of the door.
“Oh, sweetheart, I am sorry. They’ve already gone.”
Jadie tried it again. “I just wanted to see if the door was locked.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jadie didn’t come to school the next morning, a result, I suspect, of the long night before. When she did show up the following day, she looked like a different child. Literally. Her mass of dark hair, which had always been loose and often uncombed, was now parted smartly on the side. The thicker section was pinioned back from her face with a wide white clip and the rest was done into long corkscrew curls. These had been gathered into two pigtails and tied with red bows. The effect was both quaint and peculiar. To complete the transformation, Jadie was wearing a garishly checked red-and-white dress with ruffled sleeves, which I doubted was hers.
“Whoooeeee!” Jeremiah cried, when he saw her.
“Look at that girl, man! Ain’t she a piece of cake?” And he ran after Jadie, smacking his lips.
“Get away,” Jadie replied irritably.
“Jeremiah, sit down, please.”
“Yeah, but look at them curls, man. Trying to drive a guy wild, that’s what she’s doing with them curls.” He paused a moment in thought. “She’s a foam fattal, that’s what she is.”
“Oh, just ignore him,” Jadie replied in a thoroughly disgusted voice.
She seemed happier. Her posture was not quite so rigid; her movements were freer. She tolerated Jeremiah’s attentions; she allowed Philip to work with her; she acknowledged Reuben and Brucie’s existence for the first time in ages. But during math, when she had gone to take her folder back and put it on the window ledge, I caught her pausing to gaze out the window toward her house.
“Do you miss being home?” I asked softly, touching her shoulders.
“Amber does.”
“What about you?”
She chewed her lip a moment and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I do. I miss my mom, mostly. I miss her kissing me at night. I miss my Barbie dolls. I don’t hardly got any of my own toys, and I keep wondering what’s happening to them. Mostly, I miss things being the way they were.”
At lunchtime, Jadie joined the others in the cafeteria, the first time she’d ever eaten lunch at school. After seeing the children down to the lunchroom, I headed back to my room to collect my sack lunch before going to the teachers’ lounge. However, just before the bell had rung, I’d been using some homemade modeling dough with Brucie and could now feel the salt from it on my hands. So, I detoured into the girls’ rest room to wash them before collecting my lunch.