I PUSHED MY way into the house, the light turned down low from one lamp next to the couch. I closed the door. Dad stood there in his stocking feet, still wearing his blue-gray postal uniform pants with a white sling-strap tee shirt, his dark-skinned arms and shoulders lean and muscled. He held a ball bat down by his leg. As a street cop, I would never want to go up against him—not someone with truth on his side. He hadn’t changed to his pajamas and had been standing vigil all night. I said, “What’s going on, Dad? You always told me never to lie. And now you just involved yourself in—”
His eyes went wide, and he raised his bat, pointed it at the wall in the direction of where JB and Hannah had stood out in the yard. “Those are bad people out there.”
“Take it easy, Dad, what are you talking about?” I put my hand on his shoulder.
He took a deep breath and let it out. He nodded. “I’m sorry, Son, I’m just a little worked up.” He turned and stepped over to the kitchen area and sat in a chair at the table. He got right up and paced the floor. “They’ve been sitting out there all night just waiting like a couple of vultures over a carcass. Makes me sick.”
I sat next to him. “What’s going on? Tell me.”
He nodded again. His eyes stared into mine, but his mind wandered somewhere else as he must’ve pondered all that had happened and his role in it. I waited for him to tell it in his own time.
He said, “I don’t remember ever lying like that to anyone, and it makes me sick that those people made me do it.”
I said nothing.
His mind returned as his eyes came back into focus looking at me. “But tonight, Son, tonight I realize there is only one exception to that rule I’ve always lived by. The exception is when it involves the safety of children. If a child is at risk and it’s the only way to protect them, then it’s okay to lie your ass off.”
I sat back in the chair a little stunned. Dad never talked like this. It was unusual for him to use words like “hell” or “ass.”
“What happened? Tell me what happened.”
He held up his hand. “Okay, just give me a minute.” He paused and swallowed hard. “All right, all right, here it is. I come home from the office, everything’s fine and it’s a good day to be alive. I send Mrs. Espinosa home. I start making the kids their dinner. It’s about five o’clock, still lots of light outside being summer and all. Maybe it’s five thirty, I’m not sure. Anyway, Olivia and Beth are both up on the couch jumping and bouncing around having a good time laughing and giggling. I’m over here in the kitchen makin’ them some macaroni and cheese with hot dogs when I hear Beth let out a little yelp.”
Dad points to the couch. “I look over in time to see her fall to her stomach, roll off the couch, and run to the bedroom.” He points down the hall with the ball bat. “She goes in and slams the door. I follow her to see if she’s okay. Something bad’s happened, Son, that’s what I think. I just don’t know what it could be.” Dad turned to look at me. “I found her under the bed backed up as far as she could go in the corner, whimpering. I started talking to her, tryin’ to find out what happened just as someone knocks at the front door. I’m still not figuring it out until I come back in here.” He again points with the ball bat. “As I’m going to the door, I realize Beth had been up on the couch and could see out the front window.”
He didn’t have to say anything more. For me the entire situation fell into place. I took the ball bat from him and leaned it against the wall. “You opened the door and there was JB and Hannah asking about Beth.”
“That’s right, how’d you know?”
“That’s when you told them Beth wasn’t here?”
“That’s right.” He pointed to the bat. “I also told him to get the hell off my porch.”
“We’re going to be in trouble if they come back with a warrant and the Sheriff’s Department.”
“What about that child in there? She can’t go back to those … those people?”
“Dad, if the child belongs to—”
“No, sir. No, I won’t have it. The police come here to take that child, force her to go someplace she doesn’t want to go, they’re going to have to fight me. I swear to God, Bruno, that’s the way it’s gonna be.”
“Dad—”
“No, sir. Not going to happen, not as long as I’m breathin’. Come here. Come with me.” He spun and hurried out of the kitchen through the living room and into the hall. I caught up to him at his bedroom door. He eased it open. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Took me the better part of an hour to talk her out from under that bed.”
The low light from the hall illuminated the bedroom. Beth and Olivia slept on a daybed in Dad’s room. They laid facing each other, each of their arms draped over the other, best friends even as they slept. With the heat of the summer, they only wore light tee shirts and panties. No blanket or sheet covered them.
Dad pointed and whispered. “Look, look at the bottom of her feet.”
All the air went out of me. Oh, no. I didn’t want to look. I’d worked the street long enough to know what I’d find. And each and every time I found a child, hurt, abused, or exploited, I had a difficult time containing my anger, my rage.
I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and got down on one knee for a closer look. Some sick bastard had whipped the bottom of her feet with an electric cord—or something similar. Scars crisscrossed the skin on the bottoms of both her feet. How had I missed this?
I’d been too busy, too caught up in my own life, and hadn’t slowed down long enough to pay attention to a small child who stayed in my house. Me, the big bad sheriff’s detective whose main job it was to be observant and to ferret out crime, pick out the victims and keep them safe. I’d failed.
How could anyone hurt a child like that? Anger replaced the sadness and grief for this child in our charge.
I couldn’t tell Ned about this; he’d kill JB outright. Ned would walk right up, and without saying a word, shoot JB in the face.
It had to be JB. He was the ex-cop. He’d know the best place to … the least likely place an injury would be discovered. Which also placed this heinous crime smack square in the middle of premeditation. JB had thought about it before acting—before torturing a small, defenseless child.
Then my mind skipped. Was that the reason why Ned had come to our house to hide out? Did he know about the abuse and that was the reason he’d taken Beth from Hannah? Out in the front yard, before I’d seen the scars, I’d jumped to the conclusion that Ned simply wanted more time with his daughter and had been on the dodge from Hannah in a child custody dispute.
No, I knew Ned. If he knew someone laid a hand on Beth, that person would no longer be above ground but buried somewhere out in the arid desert, the body desiccated, mummified under the sand.
What a mess; I couldn’t tell Ned, no way. I didn’t know what to do. I needed sleep and time to figure this all out.
Dad whispered, “What are we going to do, Son?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I really don’t know.”