by C. J. Lyons
He rolled his eyes and looked up at me where I was swaying and blinking hard, clutching my belly with one hand and my eye with the other. “All right, then. Back to isolation.”
And that was it. Without my saying a word, my fate was now sealed.
Chapter Seventeen
For the next few hours, Lucy spent more time driving to each of her interviews than any of the actual discussions lasted. The consensus was virtually unanimous: Cherish Walker was quiet, never made any trouble until she shot the Kutler boys; but given her mother, no one was surprised that she’d turned out the way she had.
Still, Lucy managed to ferret out a few details that weren’t in any of the case files. Cherish’s junior high school teacher said she had a flare for design and often drew intricate graphics. “Real pretty flowers and vines and paisley-like curves. Then she started drawing them on herself—to cover up those nasty burn scars. Of course, that’s against school policy, so I called her grandmother, and Cherish had to wear long sleeves until the marker had faded away. That’s the only time I remember anyone here ever needing to discipline her at all. She was such a quiet girl—just sat in the back and never called attention to herself.”
A man who had grown up with Cherish’s father and served in the Army with him told Lucy, “I tried to keep an eye on them when I got home—it was hard, because I was messed up myself and then Sally was expecting our first. Cherish was living with her granny by then, but I went and took her hunting a few times. So much like her dad. Quiet, but in a good way, not daydreaming but always watching, you know what I mean? She could move through the wood like a spring breeze, without disturbing the game. Had a good eye—her daddy taught her well. You know what, even though she was a girl, I think she liked it better in the woods than being around people. She just seemed more relaxed. Or maybe that was me—back then I definitely preferred my own company most days, at least until I got myself sorted out. I was real sorry to hear what she did to those Kutler boys. But after living with her mom—well, living with that woman, going to war might have been easier, know what I mean?”
No one Lucy spoke with questioned Cherish’s guilt—either they trusted their legal system that much (which she doubted) or they admired the Kutler family too much to imagine the shooting could have happened any other way. “Besides, she confessed,” was a recurring theme along with lurid suggestions of “the goings-on” of Cherish’s mother after her husband went to war.
By the time she reached her final subject—the wife of Cherish’s old minister—Lucy had two competing profiles for Cherish. The one that appeared in all the case files echoed so many descriptions of mass shooters: quiet, kept to herself, but no one surprised when the smoldering volcano finally erupted into violence. But there was also another, more nuanced glimpse of the girl Cherish could have been: smart, quick-thinking, independent, self-sufficient, artistic, observant.
These new insights didn’t give her any hint as to Cherish’s innocence or guilt, but they did paint a totally different picture of the kind of fugitive she might have been. The police had focused on major transportation hubs leading from the county seat—particularly Route 74, which led to the Interstate. They’d scoured CCTV searching for a fugitive hopping onto a bus or hitchhiking, put out flyers and alerts along I-75 and the other major roadways, and sent email blasts to all the hostels, hotels, motels, homeless shelters, churches, and other agencies who might notice a lone teen living on the street. The nearest cities were Chattanooga and Atlanta, so they’d concentrated their efforts to the west and south of Craven County.
And came up empty.
Lucy thought about how Megan had accused her of bias, that if the genders had been reversed and it had been a teenaged boy accused of assaulting two girls, she’d be thinking of Cherish as a predator rather than a victim. It wasn’t true—well, maybe it was, simply because that was her first instinct after so many years of working these kind of crimes. But Lucy had learned early in her career to never assume anything, not even who was truly the victim and who was the perpetrator.
Maybe that was why she had a feeling she knew exactly how Cherish had escaped. She needed to go to the courthouse—the last place Cherish had been seen—to test her theory.
If the minister’s wife, Helen Overkamp, hadn’t been on Lucy’s way to the courthouse, Lucy might have skipped their appointment. Instead, she pulled up to a small whitewashed frame building with a large cross above the door and hurried in, anxious to finish and get to the courthouse. She finally felt like she had a handle on this case.
Once inside, she was surprised to find a reception area filled with sick people. She did a double take and glanced at the sign over the door. All Souls Ministry, it read. But below it, in a different font, had been added: Walk-In Clinic. She wove her way past a woman with a leg swollen like an elephant’s, a young man wracked with coughing spasms so violent they bent him double, an older man clenching a bloody bandanna to his arm, and a young pregnant woman bouncing a toddler on her knee while another slightly older child played at her feet.
“I’m here to see Helen Overkamp,” Lucy told the elderly woman sitting behind the receptionist desk. “Lucy Guardino.”
The woman jerked her head up to assess Lucy, performing some kind of mental triage. She folded her arms across her chest and shook her head as if Lucy had been judged unworthy. “She’s busy.” Her tone implied that Lucy was a cretin to not have already figured that out for herself. “Try again tomorrow.”
“We had an appointment.”
“Not today you don’t. Today’s walk-ins only.”
“Which I just did.”
“You don’t look sick. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not sick. I need to speak to Ms. Overkamp. If you could just let her know I’m here—”
The woman ended the argument by simply lowering her head to return working on her crossword puzzle, as if Lucy’s existence were no longer was worthy of acknowledgement. Lucy debated between leaving—she wanted to check out the courthouse before they closed for the day—arguing, waiting, or simply barging past the old woman and finding Overkamp herself. Which, given the sour expressions on the others favored her with, might cause a small riot.
Luckily the door behind the reception desk opened and an overweight woman emerged, carrying a slip of paper clutched in her hand. Behind her was another woman in her late fifties wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope. She glanced at Lucy and blinked in surprise.
“Says you made an appointment,” the receptionist said, her tone one of rebuke.
“Right. Sorry. I forgot to tell you.”
“Can’t do much good if you don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Gloria.”
From the receptionist’s expression, Lucy had the feeling the discussion was one frequently repeated. She stepped into the fray. “Helen Overkamp? I’m Lucy Guardino. We spoke on the phone last night?”
Overkamp looked past Lucy to scour the waiting room with her gaze, and then glanced at the clipboard on the receptionist’s desk. “George, why don’t you come back and we’ll get that wound soaking while I speak with this lady.”
The receptionist sighed and glared at Lucy before smiling at the man with the bandage and leading him past her back into the rear of the building. Overkamp and Lucy followed behind.
“I thought this was a church,” Lucy said, as they passed several examination rooms and ended up in a small office area.
Overkamp closed the door and took a seat behind a desk. There were photos of her and a man in a clerical collar—her husband, Lucy presumed—along with several framed diplomas. Doctor of Divinity in the name of Martin Overkamp along with a Bachelor’s of Nursing Science and a nurse practitioner’s degree in the name of Helen Overkamp.
“Sit, please.” Overkamp waved a hand to the chair opposite her desk. “This was a church—my husband’s dream. We spent every penny buying this place after we were married, tending to our congregation.”
“Spiritually and medi
cally?”
“Exactly. Only the clinic wasn’t here, of course. Not back then. I used to work with the local family physician. But he died, and then Martin died and here I was, no job, no husband, spiritually bereft. But with the closest doctor now all the way over in Cleveland, people just kept wandering in, knocking on my door, and asking for help. And I realized, as always, that the good Lord had provided a solution for me and our congregation.” She smiled, her gaze going to a photo of her husband. Then she shook herself and returned her attention to Lucy. “But that’s not what you came to discuss. You asked about Cherish Walker.”
“I know her grandmother, Tessa, attended your husband’s church, so I hoped you might have some insights.” It was a long shot.
“Tessa. What a special soul. So generous and patient. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about Cherish, though. Such a quiet girl. Guarded. It wasn’t easy to earn her trust. She definitely had her doubts about religion—Martin and Tessa despaired of her ever being baptized. But I think, maybe in part because of our discussions after she was incarcerated, at least I hope, she changed her mind and finally found her faith.”
Lucy stilled. “Excuse me—you had contact with Cherish after she was arrested?”
Overkamp nodded. “I was the nurse for the detention center. Unfortunately, Cherish ended up seeing me quite often. It was almost as if she was punishing herself—or preparing herself, I’m not sure. The children targeted her, and the adults turned their backs and didn’t protect her. Even though she was quite capable, Cherish refused to ever fight back. Of course, things got worse after Sylva left.”
Lucy held her breath. None of this was in the case files—only a few photos documenting injuries Cherish sustained, but no personal insights. “Sylva?”
“Sylva Wright. Another girl detained there. A few years older than Cherish, but she quite literally saved Cherish’s life. You have to understand—the other children, they all knew the Kutlers, they knew what Cherish had done. Or was accused of doing. Locked up in such close quarters, she was just as much their prisoner as she was the county’s.” She paused, her gaze distant. “I hate to judge; they were only children caught in difficult circumstances. But all that wrath focused on one small girl… They would have killed Cherish, I’m certain. If not for Sylva.”
Chapter Eighteen
Once they released me from Isolation, the next few days passed in a whirlwind. Meetings with my probation officer, my caseworker, the detention center’s doctor, an orientation session with the staff, and a mental health evaluation, which translated to filling in little bubbles on a test with questions like “Do you generally consider yourself a happy person?”
Most important, though I didn’t know it at the time, was my first meeting with my new roommate: Sylva. She was a thin black girl, seventeen, arrested for assault after hitting her mother’s boyfriend with a lamp. He’d been trying to rape her—she said—but both her mother and the man said it was unprovoked, so here she sat until her eighteenth birthday when she’d be released with no home and no family, thrown into the deep end of her life to sink or swim.
Sylva. I wish I’d paid more attention to the moment when I first saw her, before she saw me. The cell was the last one at the end of the building, and because of a utility closet beside it, was shorter and wider than the other rooms. It had two narrow cots, but they were situated not across from each other but at ninety degrees along the far corner, their heads placed together, just a few inches separating them. There was a window high up in the cinderblock wall, its glass wire-mesh and unbreakable, like all the windows here. The sunlight refracted strangely through the thick glass, separating into soft ribbons that cascaded down to where Sylva lay on her bunk reading a book. Even then she was fiercely determined not to waste a moment. If the courts said she had to be locked up for two and a half years, then by God, she was going to make the best of it, and use the time to prepare herself for what came next.
Her gaze lifted from the words on the page to me. I stopped, clutching the stack of linens I’d been given, not sure if I needed to ask permission to enter the space that was to become my home. She was beautiful. But not pretty. Not with her reedy-thin arms and sharp cheekbones. Sylva’s beauty never had anything to do with what you saw when you looked at her; it was more about how she saw you.
What did Sylva see with her first glance of me? Not much except a terrified girl barely holding it together, on the brink of collapse. As I stood, wavering, she moved with certain purpose. She closed her book with a bookmark, setting it aside on her bunk, stood up in one fluid movement, and somehow crossed the space between us before I could take another breath. She ignored me to focus on the staff nurse, Helen, who’d escorted me out of Isolation.
“Take this guppy back,” Sylva told Helen. “She’s too little to be swimming down here in the deep water. Ain’t you got room in the kiddie pool?”
Later I learned she meant sending me to a group foster home instead of keeping me locked up with the “hardened” offenders.
“Can’t. She’s charged with a felony.” Helen paused. “A violent felony. One with possible repercussions.” She stressed the last word.
“What sort of repercussions?” Sylva asked, eyeing me as if taking inventory. She did not seem impressed by what she saw.
“The sort that could cause grievous harm to the balance of our delicate social environment.”
My brain gave up trying to interpret their code. Clearly I’d need to learn a new language here. But that thought brought home the fact that I would be staying here for the foreseeable future. My case worker had said that there would be hearings and evaluations, and it might be months before they even knew if I’d have to face being charged as an adult, and if that happened then it would be even longer. He told me Gran’s doctors said she was still in serious condition—had developed pneumonia on top of the stroke—and even if she survived, she’d need months of rehab and possibly a nursing home. She’d never be able to take care of me again. One way or the other, I was on my own.
The funny thing was—and I should have asked more questions those first days, but I was shocked numb with exhaustion and fear—no one seemed to even consider the fact that I’d done nothing wrong.
“Looks like the Barbies already had a go at her.” Sylva nodded to the bruises that had blossomed around my throat and the gauze patch the nurse had taped over my scratched eyeball.
“Only round one,” Helen said.
Sylva and Helen continued their silent staring contest for a moment more while I shifted my burden from one arm to the other, not at all certain what I should do. Finally, they came to an understanding, with Sylva standing aside and waving her arm to usher me into my new home.
I crossed the threshold not sure if I should feel relief at not being turned away or dread because it was clear this was the best I could hope for. I stumbled to my cot and collapsed onto the naked, plastic-coated mattress, hugging my linens to my chest. Maybe if I closed my eyes and held very, very still, this would all go away.
It didn’t. When I opened my eyes Sylva was standing over me, hands on her hips, looking much older and wiser than anyone I’d ever met. Even Gran.
“It’s not a dream,” she said. “Get your ass out of bed, and we’ll get you sorted out. Best hurry because it’s almost time for dinner and it’s cherry cobbler night. I don’t care if there’s bones sticking out or blood gushing, I don’t miss cherry cobbler night for anyone.”
As I followed her directions—you’d think I’d never made my own bed before—I felt like I was outside myself, watching. How had this pasty-pale white girl with the stringy brown hair stinking of anti-lice shampoo gotten here? It all felt so surreal, like it was happening to someone else.
Sylva worked with me, her hands correcting mine when I faltered, my mind drifting. I didn’t know why I had to take all the blame for what happened—I hadn’t done anything wrong except to accept help when the twins accidentally ran me off the road. In fact, now that I’
d had time to go over it in my head, I wondered if maybe it hadn’t been an accident after all. Maybe Jack had purposefully sped up and steered into me. Maybe I was just the pawn in some sick power game he and his brother had been playing—it sure felt like whatever enjoyment they’d had that night had nothing to do with me and everything to do with each other.
Not that I’d ever be able to explain that weird vibe to anyone. My caseworker hadn’t even asked me how I’d ended up with the twins. Guess he took it for granted that I’d wanted to be there, had offered up something to be there. After all, I wasn’t exactly homecoming queen material.
We finished making my bed and putting away the new clothes they’d given me: white cotton panties and bras along with beige scrub tops and elastic-waisted pants like what nurses wear. We folded my towels and washcloths and placed them on the shelf beside Sylva’s. We filed out when the bell rang for dinner and ate side by side, never saying a word to each other. Some of the other kids tried to talk to me, but Sylva sent them away with a glare. I could tell they were posturing, trying to show the newbie who was boss, but at that point I was too numb to care.
Word of what had happened to Hank and Jack had spread, leading to even more whispers and stares in my direction, none of them friendly. All these kids went to my school; most of them probably knew the twins. And they blamed me—after all, Hank was dead and Jack next to it. Who else was there to blame?
I touched the tape holding my eye patch in place. It was finally setting in that I was in big, big trouble, and the grownups who were supposed to be in charge probably weren’t any different from these kids—they’d take the easy way out, avoid a public scandal or smearing the reputation of one of Craven County’s oldest and proudest families, and cast me in the role of the bad guy.
After dinner we headed back to our cell—the staff called it a dorm room, but it was really a jail cell, and I had to accept that fact. It wasn’t hard—the idea felt familiar. In some ways, I’d been living inside jail cells ever since Dad left. First the cabin, then Gran’s trailer, and now here. All the same.