by Laurel Dewey
Half the class giggled as the other half said, “Oooooh.” The principal was about to “pull him” when I intervened. I told her to let Fletcher stay. The fact was I wanted to try a quick experiment. I thought, “Hey, Fletcher. Calm down. Can you hear me?”
I swear to God, the kid stared at me and said, “Yeah! I’m calm.”
The rest of the classroom time is a blur. When I opened the floor to questions and answers, it went something like this:
“Can I touch your gun?”
“Is that a real gun?”
“Can I touch your gun?”
“You ever kill anybody with that gun?”
“Hey, seriously, can I touch your gun?”
“Did you ever shoot yourself by mistake with your gun?”
“Hey, lady cop, can I please touch your gun?”
Finally, the teacher piped up and introduced a new question. She wanted to know if there was any adage that I’ve learned from being a detective. I thought, “If you get a call that there’s an incident on Colfax Avenue, it’s a guarantee that someone’s been capped.” Not a half second later, Fletcher raised his right hand with his thumb and index finger positioned like a gun and softly said, “Bang!” But then, instead of staring out the window again, a look of sorrow filled his face and he buried his head on his desk.
I turned to the teacher and came up with the first clean, age-appropriate answer I could think of. “I learned that you can’t judge a book by its cover,” I offered. She seemed disappointed in the answer, so I elaborated. “In my line of work, criminals don’t always look like what you all see on television. Sometimes the bad guys look like the good guys. Sometimes the clean-cut person is really a monster and sometimes the strange-looking ones are the kindest.” I tried not to look at Fletcher when I said that, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see him peeking out from where he’d buried his head in his arms. He was sizing me up.
“So how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys if you can’t judge a book by its cover?” the teacher asked me.
“You listen to your gut and let it guide you.”
I could see that she had no damn clue what I was talking about. We all have the ability to use our intuition, but we’ve been conditioned to always let logic override the process. Hey, I’m all for using logic; God knows I incorporate logic all the time, especially when I’m listening to a perp’s interrogation and I hear an inconsistency in his/her statement. But you need to use a blend of logic and intuition. Too much logic and you ignore your gut; too much intuition and you lead with your heart more than your head. But it was obvious from the look on the teacher’s face that she’d been programmed to call a spade a spade even though it might actually be a shovel.
Outside in the parking lot, I was walking to my Mustang to finally get the hell out of this pedagogic prison when I suddenly heard a voice behind me.
“Hey, cop lady!”
I spun around. It was Fletcher. Usually, people can’t sneak up behind me. “Hey, kid,” I said, trying to hide my startled self.
He leaned forward. I could see clearly how horribly his left eye was injured. The eyelid dropped over the outside of his eye while the eyeball itself was straining to the left. Three scars, varying between two and four inches in length, cut across his left cheek and temple. He gave me his goofy grin. “I like the way you think, cop lady,” he said, tapping his finger to his head.
I have to tell you that I felt like I was in a dream at that point. This couldn’t be happening, but it was. “You read minds?” I asked him.
Fletcher stared into the sky and then to his right, suddenly lost in the moment. “I hear…and I see,” he said. Then he looked me straight on. “I see. But they don’t listen. But I can hear you and I can see you.…You’re real. Your cover is your book!”
It was his callback to my “You can’t judge a book by its cover” comment. But then he started rambling and not making any sense. Poor kid. I hope the asshole who did this to him went down hard for it. “What happened to you, Fletcher?” I asked, motioning to his face.
He quickly covered his left eye with his left hand, as if to protect him from the memory. “Jack and Jill went up the hill and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Jack together again.”
“You fall?” I asked.
“Yeah. Pow! I fall down. Pow! I fall down. Pow! I fall down and don’t get up. And then, nothing. All black,” Fletcher explained, still sheltering his face. “But I’m lucky. At least I’m not in the wall.”
“In the wall?” I said, furrowing my brow.
“Yeah. In the wall. Bull’s-eye marks the spot.”
I was about to disregard him but something…something pulled me in. “What are you talking about?”
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children, she didn’t know what to do, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all. Bulls-eye marks the spot.”
Fletcher looked at me with probing eyes. For a millisecond, he was normal. The soul inside him that hadn’t been beaten to a pulp bled through his brown orbs and reached out to me in a desperate plea.
“Fletcher!” a voice yelled out.
I looked up and saw the principal making a beeline toward my car. Fletcher quickly backed away from me. The principal gave the kid a tongue lashing for being off school grounds and having the nerve to talk to me. She told him to go over to the curb, sit on the bench and wait for the “special bus.” Then she turned to me with a roll of her eyes and told me how terribly sorry she was that I had been troubled by the kid. I asked her to tell me his story.
“He’s a mess,” she stated, tossing her hand in the air dismissively. “His father beat him when he was a baby and on up until he was six years old. It wasn’t until his father put him in a coma that the state transferred him to foster care. He’s bounced from one foster family to another. He’s got special needs, since he has seizures due to the beatings. They said he suffers from something like a combination of autism and Tourette’s syndrome. We’re just warehousing him here until they can find a more suitable school.” She leaned closer to me, talking to me as if I was her best buddy. “You want to know his biggest problem? He makes up stories that sound quite absurd. The social worker told me to ignore the fanciful tales. He’s most likely rehashing some trauma from his childhood.” She turned and saw Fletcher standing at the curb, staring into the sky. “Sit on the bench, Fletcher!” she screamed. Turning back to me, she shook her head. “Jesus Christ! Anyway, thank God he’s with a decent foster family now. The woman’s a saint. She takes in kids who have been abused and no one else wants. There’s a place in heaven for her! I sure as hell could never do it!”
I asked her where Fletcher lived and she told me. “That’s on my way back to DH. I can take him home.” My first thought was that this had to be against school policy, but because I was a cop and wore a gun and ate up thirty minutes of classroom time that day, she figured I must be a safe bet. After all, don’t most people believe that cops, ministers, teachers and doctors are all here to help us? If you judge a book by its cover, you sure do. She had no reservations about summoning Fletcher back over to my car and telling him to get in. Fortunately, I actually happen to be a trustworthy person.
The ride took less than ten minutes. Every time I tried to get him back on his odd tale about being “in the wall” and his disturbing nursery rhymes that suggested severe trauma, he just stared out the window. He was much more interested in making sounds like a car gearing up and down. I gotta tell you, I was regretting my decision to play the Good Samaritan, but I couldn’t shake that damned feeling in my gut.
We rolled up to his foster family’s home. It was in an extremely nice neighborhood. The two-story white house with green trim was beautiful, with a neatly mowed lawn, swept brick pathway and manicured hedges that framed the two front windows. Fletcher looked at the house and then stared out the front window of the Must
ang.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He looked quite pensive and said nothing for a bit. “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe…she had way too many children and she didn’t know what to do…” He turned to me and his eyes pierced me. “Time to go to sleep, baby. Bulls-eye marks the spot.”
The front door of Fletcher’s foster home opened. A large-framed woman wearing denim jeans and a white tunic trimmed in red walked out, holding a toddler in her arms. “Fletcher? Is that you?” she called.
Fletcher bowed his head and picked at my passenger seat. He made a strange grunting sound like a pig sourcing out food. The woman approached the car and I got out. Here was the “saint” I’d heard about from the principal. She had a cherubic face, blond hair cut to precision around her cheeks, and she wore a splash of soft blue eye shadow that accentuated her hazel eyes. A dainty gold cross adorned the outside of her white tunic and a simple gold wedding band graced her chubby ring finger. The toddler in her arms obviously suffered from Down syndrome.
“The school called and told me you’d be bringing Fletcher home,” she said, smiling. “You’re sweet to do that! Thank you!”
Nobody has ever called me “sweet.” Ever.
“I’m Christy! We’re just about to sit down to some milk and cookies! Want to join us?”
Nobody has ever invited me in for milk and cookies. Ever.
I looked inside the car and saw Fletcher rocking back and forth. While I wasn’t certain, I’d heard that might be a sign of a child reliving trauma. I didn’t want to leave the kid like that, so I accepted the cheerful broad’s invitation. Besides, my curiosity was piqued. I wanted inside that house.
The mêlée that erupted there was jarring. A long table was set up in the large living room, and it was covered with a heavy plastic cloth that had been permanently stapled to the table. Ten children, ranging in age from around three to twelve years, sat at the table. Well, I say “sat,” but I really mean hovered. Nobody was seated. Some were lying halfway on the table, some were under the table and one was on top of the table. Christy introduced me to her two “angels” — teenage girls from her church who were in training to work with special-needs children. “They were sent from heaven!” Christy gushed. The two pasty-faced girls, who had only been with Christy for about a month, were earning credits toward their college degrees by volunteering and assisting with the children. Boy, that Christy really was a saint. She wasn’t just helping out the eleven special-needs kids; she was also giving the gift of hands-on education to these innocent high school girls. When I told her she must have a busy schedule, she shook her head. “I’m just doing our Lord’s work,” she said earnestly. “He spoke to me several years ago and told me that I was to be his beacon of light in the darkness of these poor children’s lives. And when the Lord speaks to me, I have no choice but to follow His word.”
I wondered if the Lord also told her to wrap her table in that hideous plastic cover, but I held back. The noise in the place was starting to grate on my last good nerve. I could feel the urge for a cigarette rearing up, so I knew I had to make this visit a short one. Christy handed off the Down syndrome child to one of the helpers and told the kids, including Fletcher, to take a seat at the table and be quiet. That took another ten minutes because one of the toddlers blew lunch on the carpet. Once they were all settled, they were instructed to hold hands and Christy led a prayer over the milk and cookies. She didn’t realize it, but I was saying my own prayer simultaneously. It went something like, “Dear God, get me the fuck out of this hellhole.” I no sooner said, “Amen,” than Fletcher let out a loud guffaw and looked up at me, winking his good eye. That simple reaction reminded me why I was there.
I asked Christy if I could use the restroom as a ruse to check out the joint. Since the milk and cookies were free flowing in the living room and the kids would soon be high as a kite on sugar, I figured I’d have an easy roam of the large house without any interruption. But as I left the room, I stole a glance at Fletcher. He was trying to give me a not so subtle clue as he kept dipping his head to the floor and pointing that one good eye toward the kitchen.
The kitchen? I thought. He nodded, really pointing his head toward the floor as he did it.
This is the first floor, I thought. He shook his head at me.
There’s a basement? I thought while realizing that this entire mental conversation with him “defied logic.” Fletcher nodded.
“Let’s sing Him our praises!” Christy exclaimed, as she led the motley collection of cookie-crunching characters into “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
It was the perfect time to duck into the kitchen. Obviously, I didn’t have a lot of time to “feel” the scene as I usually do. My eyes traced the large yellow kitchen with the happy-face clock and the collector plates on the wall, each with a verse from the New Testament scrolled on them. Cheerful. That’s exactly how anyone would describe this kitchen. And neat. God, for a woman who had eleven special-needs kids, the kitchen was immaculate. The adage on the dish towel said it all: A clean home is a godly home. I’ve always thought that a clean home is a sign of a wasted life, but what the hell do I know?
A series of eight engraved plaques covered the length of the wall above the sink. It seemed that Christy had been honored by eight different organizations in Denver for her “tireless dedication” to special-needs children. I’ve been presented with three plaques in my life — two for saving people’s lives — and I couldn’t tell you where in the hell they are located if you held a gun to my head.
A large chalkboard filled the wall on the other side of the kitchen. On it was written: “What are we grateful for?” followed by ten answers that I was pretty sure Christy wrote in somewhat erratic handwriting. “Jesus” was the first answer, with “This Home” and “Christy” ranking numbers two and three, respectively. It was decent of Christy to give herself third billing after Jesus. It’s important to stay humble.
I looked over to a door that held a calendar from her church along with eleven heart-shaped cutouts, each displaying a small photograph of a child in her care. I could understand why the school principal called her a saint. Christy was devoted, wasn’t she?
Wasn’t she?
Or was she obsessed? Or controlling? Or manic? Or fucking nuts? Or all of the above?
To the untrained eye, this kitchen was the epitome of a family- and God-centered home and the woman in the other room leading the group through the third verse of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was the quintessential queen of devout selflessness. But to me, it was organized chaos. Every item in that yellow room was a piece of a puzzle and the puzzle was starting to feel like madness incarnate.
My eye traveled back to the door with the eleven heart-shaped cutouts and photos. They were joined one by one with a white satin ribbon that was perfectly stapled to the door to form an elegant arrangement. Christy was a perfectionist. That much I could verify. But a glance back to her handwriting on the chalkboard told me she was easily excitable and prone to sudden, possibly violent reactions to stress. Yes, I have studied graphology, and it’s come in damn handy at times. When you put a perfectionist who is prone to sudden, violent reactions in a situation where there is chaos every day, it can be like putting a match to gasoline.
I was suddenly reminded of Fletcher’s nursery rhyme patter: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe… she had way too many children and she didn’t know what to do…” And then, “Time to go to sleep, baby. Bulls-eye marks the spot.”
I looked closer at the white satin ribbon that joined the eleven heart-shaped cutouts with photos. On the third photo it was clear that the ribbon had been cut and retaped to the next photo. Could she have simply run out of ribbon? Maybe. But knowing how perfectionists operate, she would have been more likely to redo the entire display to avoid an interruption in the design. But if something changed in the design — if a photo had been removed, for example — it would easier to cut the ribbon like she did and
join it to the next photo in the line.
I started to get a sick feeling right about then. It came on faster than food poisoning from bad tuna. I checked to make sure Christy was still occupied leading the afternoon songfest with her off-key pack of kids. And indeed she was. I opened the door that held the calendar and cutouts and was greeted by a set of steep stairs that led into a basement. The door creaked as I closed it and pulled the cord on the overhead light to illuminate my descent into the musty, dirtfloored habitat. As my feet hit the bottom, I was immediately struck by the dampness of the area. Moist conditions tend to accentuate other odors, such as feces and blood and death.
I turned on another light at the foot of the stairs. The walls were brick with cracked mortar.
And then I felt it.
I saw the desperation in the child’s eyes.
I felt the fear spreading across the dank space.
I sensed the suffocating torture of dying slowly at the hands of a crazy woman.
Fletcher told me, “Bulls-eye marks the spot.” I canvassed the small basement and saw a large dartboard hanging on the far wall, near the corner. The center of the dartboard had a red dot…a bulls-eye. I quickly crossed to the spot and removed the dartboard. Behind it, I found a section of bricks about eighteen inches tall and twelve inches wide that had obviously been removed and put back in place. Finding a crowbar nearby, I easily lifted the bricks away from the dirt. The smell of death gave it away long before my fingers touched the fingers of the baby.
It’s taken me several weeks to process all this. I learned fairly quickly that Christy killed the baby before the two teenage girls went to work for her. I also found out that Social Services hadn’t been making regular checks at her home because, after all, she was a multi-award-winning, thoughtful, cheerful, church-going, Christian woman who had been given the moniker of “saint.” Nobody could have guessed that Christy was on high doses of four strong drugs to fight severe bipolar disorder and depression and that she’d stopped taking two of them, which pushed her into a cascading psychotic break. At the moment when her mind splintered, she was holding the baby who wouldn’t stop screaming and that’s when she probably said, “Time to go to sleep, baby,” and proceeded to suffocate it before burying it half-alive in the wall of her basement. The problem was that Christy was so out of it, she didn’t see Fletcher watching the whole thing as he hid in the basement behind the water heater.