Live To Tell Part 25

"You said you went to fetch a gla.s.s of water," Karen repeated directly to me. "Did you see Lucy tonight? Visit her at all?"

"I saw Lucy. She was dancing in moonbeams. She was happy."

"When?"

"Before I got water."

"Danielle, start talking. The hospital will be launching an investigation. The state will be launching an investigation. You need to tell us what happened."

"I saw Lucy. I got a gla.s.s of water. I met with Greg about Jimmy and Benny. Reloaded the copy machine. Met with the detectives. That's everything I did. All that I did."

"That doesn't take twenty minutes," Sergeant Warren stated.

"But it did." I finally looked at her. "You were right before. It'd be better if we had security cameras."

Sergeant Warren asked me to come with her for questioning. I refused. Karen informed me I was on paid leave, effective immediately, and I was not to come to work until the hospital granted permission. I refused.

Not that it mattered. Everyone was asking me questions, but no one was listening to my answers.

"She didn't kill herself." I spoke up, my voice louder, edgier. "Lucy wouldn't do that. She wouldn't."

Greg and Karen shut up. Sergeant Warren regarded me with fresh interest. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I saw her. She was happy. She was a cat. As long as she was a cat, she was okay."

"Maybe someone burst her bubble. Or the delusion slipped away. You said she was volatile, dangerously unpredictable."

"She'd never shown any signs of suicide before."

"That's not true," Karen protested. "She'd already demonstrated a need for self-mutilation, as well as debas.e.m.e.nt." She turned to Sergeant Warren. "First day she was here, Lucy cut her arm and used the blood to draw patterns on the wall. The child did terrible things, because terrible things had been done to her. I don't think we can say with any degree of certainty what she was, or was not, capable of."

"She didn't kill herself!" I insisted again, angry now and realizing how much I needed that rage. "She wouldn't do that. Someone helped her get out. That's the only way you can explain her getting through two sets of locked doors. Someone helped her. First time was yesterday, maybe as a trial run, then again tonight. Face it, the unit was hopping, we were short-staffed, and then the police suddenly appeared. Plenty of distractions, providing the perfect opportunity for someone to harm her. That's what happened."

"Someone," Sergeant Warren drawled, looking right at me.

"I was only gone five to ten minutes-"

"Eighteen. I timed you."

"I was with your own detective for part of that-"

"About two minutes, he says."

"That's not enough time to smuggle a child out of the unit and get down to radiology and back."

"But someone did. You just said so."

"Not me-someone," I snapped. "Someone else, someone."

"Really? Because I thought Lucy didn't trust anyone else but you. So who could that someone-else someone be?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Gave up. f.u.c.k if I knew.

Lucy, dancing in the moonlight. Lucy, swinging from the ceiling.

Then, out of the blue: my mother, with a single bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

"I'll take care of this, Danny. Go to bed. I will take care of everything."

"Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl..."

"Do you need to sit down?" Karen asked me gently.

I shook my head.

"How about a gla.s.s of water? Greg, fetch Danielle a gla.s.s of water." Karen found my right hand, cradling my fingers between her palms. But I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand back, held it against my chest. I didn't want to be touched right now. I wanted to feel the rage, let it flood me like a river.

"Tika and Ozzie," I stated, looking at Karen. "Ask Sergeant Warren about Tika and Ozzie."

D.D. explained. Karen went chalky white.

"But ... but ... that doesn't make any sense," she protested feebly. "We can't be the common denominator between two murdered families. We don't make home visits. We work with the child, but hardly know anything about the family. Where they live, what they do ... that's not us...."

"But you have that information," Sergeant Warren said. A statement, not a question.

"In the files, yes."

"And didn't I see some poster in the lobby about an open-door policy? Parents can visit the floor anytime they want?"

"Parents are invited to visit their child whenever they want. That still doesn't mean we know them. Their time on the floor is a small slice of their overall universe, a.s.suming they visit at all. Most of them don't."

"The Harringtons?" Sergeant Warren pressed.

Karen fidgeted with her gla.s.ses, adjusting and readjusting them on her face. "Ozzie's parents, right? The mother, she came several times. Stayed over in the beginning, then came once or twice a week after that."

"What about the rest of the family?"

"I have no memory of them. A shame, too. Parents seem to feel they'll traumatize their other children by bringing them to an acute-care unit, when really, it's good for all the children to see one another and reaffirm that each is doing okay."

D.D.'s eyes narrowed. "And Tika's family?"

Karen shook her head, bewildered. "Greg?" she asked.

He'd just returned with a tray bearing four cups of water. He handed me one, then Karen, then offered one to Sergeant Warren, who pa.s.sed.

"Tika?" he repeated. "Little girl, 'bout a year ago? Cutter?"

"That's the one," Warren a.s.sured him. "I understand you worked with her."

He nodded. "Cute little thing. Had a wicked sense of humor if you could get her to open up. But yeah, she had some self-esteem issues, depression, anxiety. Maybe even suffered s.e.xual abuse, though she never disclosed."

"What was her family like?" Sergeant Warren wanted to know.

"Never visited."

"Never?"

"Never. Tika's file described the mother as 'disengaged.' We never experienced anything different."

"And our records show them living in Mattapan," I spoke up, remembering the exchange between Sergeant Warren and the George Clooney detective. "We wouldn't know they'd moved; our involvement was over and done."

"Not so hard to look up," Sergeant Warren said with a shrug.

"But why? We're caretakers. We don't hurt children. We help them."

"Tell that to Lucy."

"f.u.c.k you!" I exploded.

"Eighteen minutes," the sergeant shot back. "Gym Coach here just fetched four cups of water in a fraction of that time. Explain eighteen minutes."

"Easy," Karen interjected, ever the manager. "Let's just take a deep breath here."

"Lucy wouldn't just wander into a radiology room," I insisted hotly. "And where would she find the rope?"

"Like you said, someone must have helped her."

"Lucy didn't trust anyone. Had limited social skills, limited speech skills. h.e.l.l, we don't even know that she had the dexterity required to tie knots. Whatever happened, it was done to her, not by her."

"By someone she trusted," the sergeant reiterated, staring at me, then the little string ball I held in my left hand.

"I wasn't gone that long!"

"Maybe hanging a troubled kid is quick work."

"Sergeant!" Karen protested.

As I heard myself say: "Dammit, I loved Lucy."

"She attacked you."

"It was nothing personal-"

"Looks like she tried to wring your neck."

"It's part of the job!"

"Does the rest of the staff have any bruises?"

"You don't know what it's like here. We're the last line of defense these kids have. If we can't help them, n.o.body can."

"Really?" The sergeant's voice turned thoughtful. "I remember now. In your own words, not much hope for a child like Lucy. Missed too many development stages. Doomed to be inst.i.tutionalized the rest of her life. Some might say she was better off dead."

Karen gasped.

I heard myself scream: "Shut up. Just shut the f.u.c.k up!"

Lucy, dancing in the moonlight. Lucy, swinging from the ceiling.

My mother with the single hole in the middle of her forehead.

"I'll take care of this, Danny. Go to bed. I'll take care of everything."

"Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl ..."

My knees gave way. The rage wasn't enough to stave off the pain after all. Lucy, who never got a chance. My mother, who I loved so much and who still didn't save me. Natalie and Johnny, stuck forever as stone angels.

Blood and cordite. Singing and screaming. Love and hate.

Vaguely, I was aware of Karen bending over me, ordering me to place my head between my knees. Then Karen's voice louder, directed at the sergeant.

"You shouldn't be pressuring her like this. Not so close to the anniversary of what happened to her family."

"Her family?"

Greg's voice, angry, protective. "Are you arresting her?"

"Do you think I should?"

"You need to leave now," Karen was saying. "You've done enough damage for one night."

"Two families connected to this unit are dead and one of your patients was just found hanging from the ceiling. Frankly, I think the damage is just beginning."

"We'll take care of it," Greg snapped.

Greg and Karen closed in around me, a protective s.h.i.+eld. My second family, the unit I'd probably fail just as badly as the first. I squeezed my eyes shut, wished it would all go away.

As if reading my mind, the sergeant announced crisply, "This time tomorrow, I'll know everything there is to know about every single one of you. So you might as well get used to my charm, people. From here on out, you belong to me."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.