The small DFCS office in Cobb County was nothing to speak of and nowhere Dane wanted to be. He reckoned no one ever did. The large sterile environment of the Children’s Services waiting room, along with the rest of the run-down government complex, felt completely devoid of joy. Places like this were built with the intention of providing a service that, by any measure of human evolution, shouldn’t have to be provided at all, but still did. The air itself gave off a thick, stale feeling of resentment that reminded Dane of a song he’d heard once called “Happiness Is Not a Place.” If anything, this was a place happiness came to die, or at least get the shit kicked out of it before limping home.
Several rows of conjoined navy blue hard-plastic seats ran down the center of the spacious lobby with fake mahogany endcaps covered by parenting magazines and brochures that covered nearly every tragic life track in existence.
“How to spot physical and mental abuse.” “The myths concerning childhood vaccinations.” “A guide to becoming a foster family.”
The building’s decor did its best to disguise what it was, but it still felt like a probation office dressed up to look like a kindergarten classroom. Puzzles made of wire with sliding wooden beads, old toys, and some ragged Dr. Seuss books littered a large, colorful floor mat that took up most of the left side of the room, opposite the wire-enforced, plate-glass-protected office windows lining the right. Two heavily secured doors bookended the windows. One led into a labyrinth of cubicles where the fates of children born into circumstances beyond their control were decided by burned-out twelve-dollar-an-hour employees, and the other, a unisex family restroom clearly marked by the stick-figure signs of both a man and a woman on a bright blue placard labeled FAMILY. Cobb County had a foothold in progressive thinking.
An attractive middle-aged Haitian woman holding a squirming toddler sat in the front row of seats. She wore a purple taffeta wrap with flip-flops, and the kid had on a pair of pink leggings with dirty feet, no shoes, and a Little Miss Sunshine T-shirt. Another woman, a bowling-pin-shaped blonde dressed for a day at a gym she’d never get to, sat uncomfortably behind Dane with a teenage girl who favored her mother right down to her look of disgust and boredom. Dane turned and smiled. The smile was not returned. No one was happy to be there, including Roselita, who paced the lobby like a caged animal. They’d only been waiting a few minutes, but the icy monotone greeting they’d received from the receptionist had already tested her patience. She stomped from one side of the room to the other, refusing to sit or even touch anything, as if she might contract something horrible if she did. She also hadn’t removed her sunglasses since entering the building. Dane hated that shit. It was so pretentious. But Roselita liked to advertise that she was important, and the sunglasses helped her do that.
Dane imagined it must be tough for a woman in her position—surrounded by so much male posturing—but he also imagined Velasquez was the type to already come aboard wound up. The chip on her shoulder was already firmly in place before she ever attended Quantico. Her pacing the room like a lion, however, was giving off enough nervous energy to make everyone in the room uncomfortable. “Sit down, Velasquez,” Dane whispered as he stretched out his legs under the seats in front of him. Roselita grunted at him and continued to pace the lobby until a petite blond woman, wearing red lipstick so bright it washed out the rest of her facial features, appeared through one of two doorways, holding a clipboard. “Special Agents Kirby and Velasquez?”
Dane put a hand in the air. “That would be us.”
The woman smiled. “Sorry to keep y’all waiting. I’m Clem Richland. Come on back.” She propped the door with her foot, but Roselita was already inside.
“Sorry, folks. Have a seat.”
Dane and Roselita sat down in two plush office chairs facing Richland’s desk. The cubicle was small but cozy. Pictures of Richland’s family cluttered her desk, and it was clear from all the UGA paraphernalia scattered among the walls and bookshelves that she was a Bulldogs fan. She sank into her own chair behind her desk. “I pulled an all-nighter. I didn’t even have time to get home and shower before I had to be here to meet you guys. I’m running on fumes. Another one of these”—Richland picked up a coffee mug from her desk that read ALL THE POWER. HALF THE PAY and drained half the contents—“and maybe I’ll be able to be coherent enough to help you this morning.”
“An all-nighter?” Dane said.
“Yes. We had to go pick up this poor kid from an RV park over on Moreland. His mother and her latest loser boyfriend were cooking crystal over one of those portable propane camping ovens right out behind the trailer—stinking up the whole park. Like someone wasn’t going to call in that complaint?” Clem Richland stopped talking abruptly and addressed Roselita. “I’m sorry, Agent Velasquez, right?”
“Correct.”
“Could you please take your sunglasses off. I have trouble talking to someone when I can’t see their eyes.”
“Of course,” Roselita said, and tucked her aviators into the outer pocket of her jacket. “Please, continue.”
Richland did. “Well, the police got there, arrested both of the so-called adults, and found the kid covered up in a mound of dirty laundry. He was using it for a bed, and eating dry cornflakes out of a baseball cap—a friggin’ baseball cap. Can you believe that? The kid is nine years old. He’d been taking care of himself and getting himself to school for months from living conditions like that and not a single one of his teachers thought to let us know. He was filthy. Hadn’t taken a shower in weeks. It’s like no one cares anymore. It happens so often that no one pays it any attention. It breaks my heart.”
“It breaks mine just hearing about it,” Dane said.
“And can you believe, when they finally called us out there to get him, he didn’t even want to come. He didn’t want to leave his mom. He said he wanted to go to jail with her and not with us. It’s unbelievable.”
“Not really, Mrs. Richland. That’s family.”
“Please, call me Clem. My name is Clementine. I don’t know what my parents were thinking, but I go by Clem.”
“Okay, Clem.”
“You were saying?”
“I was saying, that kid. His mother is his family. Kids who get raised in that kind of environment don’t know any better, so taking him away from the only family he knows is always going to make you look like the bad guy. I’ve seen it a hundred times over up in McFalls County.”
Richland finished the coffee in her cup and nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Agent Kirby, but it doesn’t make it any easier for us to deal with.”
“What’s going to happen to the kid?”
“Well, he’s going to spend a few days at one of our halfway houses while we try and find a foster family to take him in. If we come up empty, he’ll go into the system and stay at the halfway house until mommy of the year is cut loose and then the whole cycle starts over again. I swear to you, Agent Kirby—”
“It’s Dane.”
“Dane.” She nodded. “By the time that kid is sixteen, he’ll be the one cooking the crank, just like his mama, and we’ll be fishing his baby out of the laundry. Every time I come to work it’s like going to war—and there’s more of them than there are of us.” Richland held up her mug and whistled at someone down the hall. A few seconds later, a big bruiser with midnight skin and arms like redwood trees walked into the cubicle. He wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt, two sizes too small, and an equally tight argyle sweater-vest. Clem handed the man her mug.
“Thanks, Hank.”
“Half a pound of sugar, no cream?”
“You know me too well.”
Once Hank gave Agent Velasquez a once-over that clearly turned her stomach, then disappeared, Richland sat as far back in her chair as possible and stretched her arms above her head. She was cut and toned like a runner, with thick, natural blond hair that hadn’t seen a brush in at least twelve hours. Her facial features were sharp and pronounced. She wore no makeup except for the ruby-red lipstick, but she didn’t need any. She was a natural beauty and Dane didn’t understand the need for the cherry-red lips, but he guessed it wasn’t for him to understand. He also guessed she couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five.
“Okay,” she said. “Enough about that. Your boss, a friendly old man named O’Barr, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Right, O’Barr. That’s it. He asked me to get everything I could on William Blackwell, so here it is.” She slid a file as thick as the Monday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution across the desk and Dane picked it up.
“This it?”
“That’s it.”
“Was he one of your cases? I mean you handled him personally?”
“He was, and I did. And to be honest, he was one of the better ones.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there was no sign of abuse of any kind. It was a refreshing change of pace. Up until last year, William was a pretty well-adjusted kid living with two well-adjusted parents. You can see there in the file what happened to end all that. Both his parents, Matthew and Nadine Blackwell, were killed in a car accident on the two eighty-five bypass. They were sideswiped by a tractor-trailer.”
“Drunk driver?”
“No, actually. The driver was a long hauler. The truck drifted. He barely tapped the Blackwells’ SUV, but it was enough for them to lose control of the vehicle. They ended up rolling the truck doing about seventy, and both of them were killed. The truck driver didn’t even realize there had been an accident until he heard it on his CB. He turned around immediately but there wasn’t much he could do. Him or anyone. Accidents happen.”
Dane felt his skin go cool and moist. For a moment he thought he might be sick. He muscled through it before anyone could notice but still looked uncomfortable in his chair.
Clem cocked her head at him. “Can I get you some water, Dane?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine. Please, continue.”
“Well, of course, the family had no papers drawn up. No will. No power of attorney. No preparations at all in place for what would happen to William in the event of their sudden demise. So that’s how I ended up with him. He was given to me, and we did what we do. We located his next of kin—the older brother, a real piece of work named Arnold. The guy is a total degenerate. I knew that William was going to end up back here, or worse, as soon as I met the brother.”
“Why was that?”
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know when people are a lost cause. This guy, Arnold, was exactly that. He’d just lost both his parents in a horrible accident, and all he seemed to care about was if it were possible to sue the trucking company and William’s disability check.”
“He received a check?”
“Yes. William’s condition made him a candidate for government assistance. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince that worthless brother to sign the papers. I didn’t like it. Nobody did. But, despite his record of arrest, the brother had no history of violence or drug abuse, so we had to release William to his custody. That’s the law. So even though William was one of the kids who actually might’ve benefited from the state foster program, we had no choice. It is what it is. And despite what I thought about Arnold, William seemed to genuinely love his big brother and wanted to be with him. It’s like you said earlier—family—sometimes it’s all you got. In William’s case, Arnold was the hand he got dealt.”
“Tell us more about William’s condition,” Dane said, still staring at the papers in his lap.
“William has Asperger’s.”
“So I’ve been told. Tell me about it.”
“I’m not a doctor, but I know it’s a distinct form of autism that affects each person diagnosed with it differently. Sometimes it can be misdiagnosed as extreme OCD, or present as severe social anxiety, but in all cases, routine and patience is paramount in maintaining a somewhat normal life. Without it everything can quickly become chaos.”
“If it affects people differently, then tell us how it affected him, based on your personal experiences with the boy.”
“He’s a follower. He needs direction, or he begins to spin aimlessly. Not physically, but internally. For example, if he knows he’s supposed to do the dishes at three thirty in the afternoon, and there are no dishes to do, and there’s no one there to tell him otherwise, then he’ll shut down. He doesn’t know how to process what to do with that allotted time frame in his head, so he struggles to get through it. He’s not incapable of doing something else. He just needs to be told what that something else is. I don’t know if this is making sense, but that’s the best way for me to describe it.”
“So he’s dependent on some type of leader figure to guide his day-to-day actions?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
“And in this case, that figure was Arnold.”
“Yes.”
“So without him, what will happen?”
“I don’t know. I told you, I’m not a doctor, but like I told your boss last night, the fact that William is out there by himself could be dangerous to both himself and anyone he comes into contact with.”
“What do you mean? He is violent?”
“No, not at all. Just the opposite. His brain doesn’t interpret conflict or process violence like you or I would. Violence for most of us is an emotional response to some type of stimulus. William doesn’t think in terms of emotion. At least, not outwardly. He’s more like a machine calculating a problem, and that’s how he responds to that type of stimulus. It can make him appear cold at times. It frustrated me to no end until I found out it’s not his fault. It’s just his wiring. It’s hard to explain. Shit. It’s been a long night. I’m sorry.”
Dane closed the folder. “Try.”
Clem cocked her head again as if she’d forgotten what they were talking about. “Try?” she asked.
“To explain,” Dane said.
Clem eased back in her chair and blew two big cheekfuls of tired air from her lungs. “Well, for one, he’s brilliant.”
“Define brilliant.”
“I mean brilliant, intellectually. It’s like he thinks in math. It’s how he sees the world, in numbers and puzzles that are meant to be solved, but that’s not all. The best way to describe how William sees things is to say he sees the negative space in things.”
“I don’t understand,” Dane said.
Richland leaned forward. “Okay, look. A pebble bounces off the highway and cracks your windshield. We—you or me—see the crack it makes. We get angry because we know we need to get it fixed and deal with insurance companies and yadda yadda, but William doesn’t see the crack. He doesn’t get caught up in the aggravation like we do.”
“What does he see?”
“He sees the two new shapes made in the glass. He sees the reaction to the rest of the windshield and not the crack.” She leaned back and scratched a pencil against the back of her neck. “I don’t know. I told you. It’s hard to explain.”
“So how is that dangerous to others?”
“Okay. Think about it like this,” she said, and wriggled around in her seat. She held both hands out in front of her as if she were physically framing an image for them to see. The caffeine must’ve been working on her because she was coming to life behind her desk. Her blue eyes were getting softer and wider as she spoke, and Dane could hear the genuine excitement in her voice as she talked about William. Her job hadn’t devoured her entire sense of hope, not yet, anyway. She still cared for the children in her charge—especially the Blackwell boy. Dane also noticed that the cold feeling of despair from the lobby wasn’t present in Clem Richland’s small section of the building. He wanted some of that coffee Clem was drinking but didn’t want to interrupt her to ask.
“He was almost eleven when he was given to me, and at that age, he could perform advanced mathematics in his head that I couldn’t do with pen and paper. It was amazing to watch. His IQ is off the charts—genius level—but he isn’t capable of picking out clothes for himself that match, or driving a car.”
Roselita repeated Dane’s question. “So, still, how does that make him a danger to others?”
Dane answered for her. “She’s saying what if he did decide to drive a car?”
“Exactly. Listen, the longer he’s alone, the bigger the chance is of something terrible happening, and I’m telling you, something will happen. The worst part is that it won’t be his fault. Asperger’s is a relatively newly identified condition. There isn’t a lot of research yet on how to treat it other than maintaining a healthy daily routine. Without help, he could end up in a system a lot worse than this—like juvie—and a kid like William can’t survive in those conditions. It’s impossible.” Richland sank her head into her hands and ran her fingers back over her skull.
Dane imagined it must be tough for her. She rarely got to hear a happy ending in her line of work, and to find out one of the kids she was most fond of was in this kind of trouble had to be heartbreaking. Dane didn’t envy her job. He thumbed through the file again, scanning for the newspaper article concerning the car accident. “Was William in the car with his parents when the accident occurred?”
“Heavens, no, and thank God,” she said. “He was at school. The Blackwells had him enrolled at a school in Decatur for children with special needs. His parents were incredibly dedicated to helping him. They spent a lot of time and money finding the right resources to help him adjust to normal life.”
“What’s the name of the school?”
“Morningside.”
“Did Arnold maintain William’s attendance there once he’d been granted guardianship?”
“He was supposed to. The disability money wasn’t enough to cover the school’s cost, but even if it was, I knew Arnold had no intention of using the money for its intended purpose. I’m telling you, if there wasn’t a monthly payday attached, I doubt the guy would even have showed up here when we called about William in the first place.”
“So can you tell us any place William liked to frequent? Somewhere he’d hide if he were scared? Anything at all you think might be useful.”
“You’ve already searched the last known address?”
“The apartment here in Cobb is a dead end,” Roselita said. “We came up empty, and we still know nothing about this kid or where he’d be likely to go.”
“He would be wherever he was told to be,” Richland said. She sounded much more alert and concerned now despite her lack of sleep.
“You said he followed a routine. If one fell through, would he try to fall back into another? Meaning, could he have gone back to the school?”
“No. It doesn’t work like that, and if he’d turned up at Morningside, they would’ve contacted us the minute he showed up.”
“Could you possibly reach out to them anyway? We could use all their information as well.”
“I’ve already done that. There is a problem with the phone lines over there this morning, but all the contact information on Morningside that I have is in that file already. We don’t have a lot of dealings with places like that. William was a special case.”
Roselita took the file from Dane and flipped through it until she found a card clipped to some type of invoice from the school. “This it?” She held up the card.
“Yes. That’s all I’ve got.”
She handed the file back to Dane. “Anywhere else, then? Somewhere off the grid that Arnold might’ve mentioned during one of his visits to this office? It doesn’t matter how far-fetched. Anything he may have told you could help.”
“Agent Velasquez, I just filled out the paperwork. Arnold was a scumbag. I never talked to the man at length about anything if I didn’t have to. If something stuck out, I’d tell you. Believe me.”
Dane pieced through the file in his lap. He didn’t look up when he spoke. “When William was released to his brother’s care, was it a requirement for him to keep your office in the loop? To check in with you?”
“We encourage it, but no, it isn’t a requirement. It is with foster families, but not with blood relatives.”
“So he didn’t?”
“Not officially, but I made a few unofficial visits to their apartment on my own time. I told you, I liked the kid, so I kept hoping I’d find a reason to take him out of his brother’s care. I never did. I eventually stopped.”
“And that’s the only contact you’ve had with either of them since?”
“Yes. When a child is placed with a blood relative, even one as messed up as Arnold Blackwell, the rules are far more lenient. We are basically at the mercy of the law. If someone calls us to report abuse or neglect, then we can act, but generally, this office views having a member of his immediate family take him in as a win. What happens after that is out of our hands. I had no choice but to let it go.”
The big man in the sweater-vest who Richland had called Hank returned to the cubicle with her coffee and set it on her desk.
Roselita looked up at the man. “How about you? Did you know this William Blackwell kid?”
Hank leaned his hip onto Richland’s desk. “Yeah, I know William. He’s a good kid. I hated letting him leave with that loser brother of his. I knew this would happen. I knew it.”
“But you let it happen anyway.”
Hank straightened back up and glared down at Roselita. Agent Velasquez sat completely at ease. “Why don’t you go find him instead of judging the people that work in this office. We did our job, darlin’. Maybe you should do yours.”
“Maybe if you’d have done your job right, we wouldn’t even be here. And if you call me darling again, I’ll kneecap your black ass.”
Hank looked both appalled and aroused. “Who do you think you are, coming in here, talking to me like that. I could report you.”
“Oh,” Roselita said, sitting up slightly in her seat. “You get to be sexist, but I can’t be racist. Why don’t you go fetch me a cup of coffee, too.”
“All right, all right,” Dane said, putting his hands up. “That’s enough. I apologize, Mrs. Richland. My partner hasn’t had much sleep, either. I’m sure you understand that.”
Clem glared at Roselita, who glared right back as if the woman behind the desk were a fresh log of dog shit that a stray had just laid on the carpet, before turning her stare back on Hank. Everyone just sat in awkward silence while Roselita and Hank sized each other up. Dane finally spoke, putting an end to it. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the boy, Clem?”
“No. I think we’re done here.”
Dane looked up at the big black man. “How about you, Hank? Anything you remember about him? No matter how insignificant.”
It took Hank a few beats to answer but he did speak. “He likes to read,” he said, keeping his stare directed at Roselita. “When he was in our care, he was always reading something—anything from comic books to medical textbooks. Whatever he could find lying around. He’s like a sponge when it comes to soaking up information. And he really likes birds, too. Talked about them all the time. He could tell you the mating habits of a brown thrasher down to the sounds they make. He’d get excited talking about it, too. I learned a lot from that kid. I really hope he’s okay.”
“We’re going to find him, Hank. Thank you for the insight. Anything else?”
Hank shook his head. Richland thought about it for a moment longer before shaking her head as well. “That’s really all I know, other than he detests chocolate.”
“Really?”
Hank finally stopped eyeballing Roselita. “Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “The day I brought William in, I tried to give him some M&M’s and he practically threw them back at me.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the chocolate he detested.”
“Wow.” Richland glared at Roselita. “Where did you find her, Agent Kirby?”
Hank took a step toward the door and Roselita unbuttoned her suit jacket. Her gun didn’t show, but the tanned leather of her shoulder holster did. It was enough to remind the big man who he was talking to. “You damn Feds. You think you know everything.”
“Relax, Hank,” Dane said. “We’re all on the same side here.” Dane gave his partner a hard stare. “Agent Velasquez and I are on our way out anyway.”
Richland helped Dane try to defuse the tension in her cubicle. She flipped through a Rolodex on her desk. She found the card she was looking for and copied a number down on a legal pad with a Sharpie. She tore off the number and handed it to the big man. “Do me a favor, Hank. Keep trying to call Morningside until you reach someone. When you do raise somebody, check to see if William Blackwell has been seen anywhere around there within the past twenty-four hours.”
Hank didn’t take his eyes off Roselita, who only sat back and smiled a pearly white smile. “Of course, Clem. I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
Hank turned to leave, and Roselita buttoned her jacket as she stood. Dane stood up and tucked the thick file folder under his arm. He removed his hat. “Just one more question, Clem. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she said with an impatient huff. She clearly wanted Roselita Velasquez out of her office.
“During your unofficial visits to see William, did he ever mention a place called the Farm? Or did he ever talk about a farm of any kind?”
Richland thought on it. “Yes. He did say something about going to a farm. He also mentioned a safari.”
“A what?” Roselita said.
“A safari. He said that Arnold took him on safaris all the time. I had no idea what he was talking about and never did get a chance to find out; Arnold would cut him off after he brought it up every time. He acted weird about it. I didn’t think much about it then, but it was strange now that I think about it. Do you know what that means?”
Dane ignored the question, put his hat on, and pulled it down low over his brow. He stayed on his own line of questioning. “Listen, I know it was a while ago, but try and remember. Did he say he was going to a farm or the Farm?”
“I honestly don’t remember, but what’s the Farm mean?”
“Maybe nothing,” Dane said. “Come on, Velasquez.” Velasquez smoothed down the front of her pants.
“If you can think of anything else, Clem, anything at all that might be of any help, please call us—day or night.” Dane took a card from his pocket and laid it on her desk.
“I suppose that means you’re not going to tell me? What the Farm is?”
Dane smiled at her. “Have a good day,” he said as he left the cubicle. Richland didn’t pick up the card until after the buzzer on the lobby door sounded and clicked shut.