“Right, exactly.” Mary smiled. “All you have to do is answer their questions and tell them the truth. Do you understand?”
Patrick nodded, sucking on his lower lip, which disappeared under his two front teeth, and Mary remembered that she had teeth like that when she was little, which they used to call buck teeth. Or at least the bullies did. Mary’s nickname had been Bucky Beaver, a laugh riot.
“Patrick, if you don’t understand anything the police ask you, you can ask them what they mean. Don’t be afraid of them, they’re here to help us and to understand what happened. Got it?”
Patrick nodded, still sucking away on his lip, and Mary wondered if it was a way of comforting himself, almost like a pacifier.
“It will be easy and it won’t take very long.” Mary paused. “Do you have any questions you want to ask me?”
Patrick didn’t reply but shook his head, in the exaggerated way that Mary had seen little kids do.
“If you think of anything you want to ask me, you can say so later.” Mary figured she had some time before the police arrived. “Your grandfather tells me you’re very good at drawing.”
Patrick brightened and stopped sucking his lip.
“Do you like to draw?”
“Yes!”
“What do you like about it?”
“It’s fun!” Patrick smiled for the first time, showing missing teeth on the upper deck.
“What do you like to draw?”
“Oh I draw a lot of things, I can draw anything!” Patrick’s voice sounded a new note of excitement, and Mary followed his enthusiasm.
“Like what?”
“Like everything!”
“Where do you do your drawings?”
“In my room.” Patrick nodded in his exaggerated way.
“Would you like to show me your drawings, right now, while we’re waiting?”
“Okay!” Patrick popped up from the couch like a jack-in-the-box and scampered around the coffee table to the steps.
“Great!” Mary rose, catching Edward’s eye. She wanted to go upstairs alone with Patrick, but she didn’t have to tell that twice to Edward, who looked just as happy to stay behind, sinking backwards into the couch.
“Patrick,” Edward said, calling after him. “Take Mary up to your room and show her your drawings. I’ll call you when the police get here.”
Patrick was already climbing the steps two at a time, trailing his finger pads on the wall, and Mary ascended behind him, keeping pace. He turned left at the top of the stairwell and ran down a short hallway until he got to the last room on the left, and Mary followed him inside, where it was uncomfortably warm.
“This is my room!” Patrick shouted, making a megaphone of his hands in a comical way, and Mary found herself liking him. He had a bright little spirit, with a surprising sense of humor, though it was hard to reconcile with his gruesome drawings.
“This place is great!” Mary said, glancing around the tiny room, which was remarkably orderly, and she was guessing that was how Edward ran the household. On the right side was a single bed, which had been made, the sheets folded over and a plaid coverlet at its foot. Next to the bed was a bookshelf of plain wood, its shelves filled with transparent containers of crayons, markers, pens, and pencils, and only a few thin children’s books, a bunch of wrinkled comics, and a white copy of the Bible, with Patrick’s name stamped on the spine. Posters of Spider-Man, Superman, and Ant-Man covered the walls, and there was a window that held a white plastic fan, but no air conditioner. Underneath the window was a blue Little Tykes table, its tabletop blanketed with drawings.
“This is my headquarters!” Patrick scooted to the table and began arranging the drawings into piles.
“Very cool!” Mary tried to catch sight of the drawings as he shuffled them around.
“Which do you want to see first?” Patrick looked up at her, directly, his brown eyes alive with animation, and Mary could see that his demeanor had changed completely from downstairs. He was freer, happier, more talkative, and even more confident.
“What are my choices? It looks like you made three piles.”
“So this pile, the first one, is nature scenes, and the second pile is window scenes.” Patrick pointed out the window to the rowhouses across the street. “See? Those are new people that moved in, and I drew pictures of them with their moving van. It was big! And they had two cats. Two! One gray and one black and white.”
“I heard you like comic books.”
“That’s this pile! Bam!” Patrick smacked his palm down on the third pile. The drawing on top was of a Transformer with shoulders like NFL shoulder pads, drawn in black Sharpie like the gruesome drawing had been.
“I want to see the third pile. I like comic books, too.”
“Which comic books?” Patrick looked up, interested, his head still thrown back.
“Betty and Veronica.” Mary didn’t add that she was Betty. Every woman she knew was Betty. Or maybe Anne Murphy, from work, was Veronica.
“They’re for girls.” Patrick rolled his eyes, goofing around.
“Probably.” Mary smiled, then glimpsed the bright red color from some bloody drawings at the bottom of the third pile. “What’s that one? Is that blood?”
“Yes.” Patrick yanked out one drawing, which was of a boy, just like the one on the drawing Machiavelli had shown her. The boy was stabbing the air, and in the distance was a large male figure.
“What’s that?” Mary asked, keeping her tone light.
“That’s Knife Boy killing a bad guy.”
“Knife Boy?” Mary hid her concern. The drawing looked so much like the one Machiavelli had shown her, it could’ve come from the same series.
“Knife Boy is a superhero and he stabs bad guys with a knife, and sometimes he can turn himself into a knife.” Patrick spoke more rapidly, with growing excitement, and he shuffled the drawings to show her another one, a boy shaped like a bullet, flying through the air. “This is Bullet Boy and he’s like a bullet that gets shot out of a gun but sometimes he has a gun. He can either be a gun or be a bullet, whenever he wants to be. He can do whatever he wants to, to fight the bad guys. Same with Fog Boy, he is a poison fog like a ghost but a hero. He’s like a hero ghost. I make up lots of stories about him.”
“I see.” Mary kept her tone noncommittal to keep him talking. “Is he a good guy or a bad guy?”
“Oh, he’s a good guy, definitely! My superheroes are good guys and they fight bad guys.” Patrick nodded, flipping through his drawings, and Mary could see him becoming absorbed in the fantasy world he had created, almost forgetting that she was there.
“And these are all superheroes that you invented?”
“Yes, and they are heroes like Spider-man and Superman and Iron Man and Ant-Man, he’s my favorite because he’s so funny and little and he can disappear inside pipes and motors and no one can see him, none of the bad guys.”
“Ant-Man sounds cool.” Mary guessed that Patrick identified with Ant-Man, probably the same way she identified with Betty.
“I love Ant-Man and Captain Merica, those are my favorites.”
Mary realized that Patrick meant Captain America, but didn’t correct him. Children who had dyslexia sometimes missed the beginning and endings of words.
“Those are the Marvel heroes but I make my own heroes and I am going to put them in comic books and be a comic-book artist when I grow up—oh, look at this one!” Patrick yanked out one of the drawings from the middle of the pack, which showed a boy as round as a bowling ball, with a cartoony string fuse coming out of his head. “This is Bomb Boy!”
“Wow! What does he do?”
“He rolls himself into the bad guys and he blows them up! But he doesn’t die, he never dies, he lives forever, he just keeps coming back and back to fight bad guys.”
“I see.” Mary eyed the drawing, then the other ones. “Who are the bad guys?”
“Just bad guys,” Patrick answered, as he looked at one drawing, then
the next, lost in his imaginary world.
“Are they ever real people, in your life?”
“No, they’re jus’, like, they’re evil terroris’ or robbers or killers on CSI. They’re just bad.”
“What about the bad kids at school? There are bad kids at your school, aren’t there?”
“Yes, but these are real bad guys, like, in the world.”
“Are they ever real adults, you know? Like a neighbor or somebody else?”
“No, no, no.” Patrick shook his head over the drawings. “They’re bad guys, you know how there’s bad guys everywhere? And you never know why bad guys are bad, they just are. That’s why my Pops won’t let me watch the news or go on the Internet by myself. Bad guys are there. You have to be careful.”
“I agree.” Mary thought it over. “How long have you been drawing these superheroes?”
“I don’t know.” Patrick shrugged his knobby shoulders.
“Would you say it was years ago or months ago?”
“Since I was little.”
Mary hid her smile. “Who was the first superhero you invented?”
“Bullet Boy, then Knife Boy, they were the first two. I did them when I was really little.”
Mary got an idea. “If I wanted to see one of those early Knife Man drawings, could you do that?”
“Yes, they’re not in my headquarters because my Pops saves them in the office. He doesn’t like me to keep a lot of papers in here. He says it’s a fire hazard.”
“He’s right.” Mary’s mood lifted. If she could produce early drawings of Knife Boy that would predate Patrick’s meeting Robertson, then that would suggest that the bad guy in the drawing wasn’t Robertson. The more she thought about the drawings, the better she felt. Even though they depicted bloody scenes, Patrick wasn’t angry when he talked about them and not all of his drawings were violent. Mary was no psychologist, but if she could argue to a jury that it was normal for a boy who generally felt powerless to imagine alter-egos who could defeat bad guys, then the drawing that Machiavelli had shown her, in context, no longer tended to prove that Patrick had tried to stab Robertson. The only place that Patrick felt empowered was in the imagined world of his artwork.
Mary tried to get him to open up. “So you want to make comic books someday?”
“Yes.” Patrick looked over with a smile. “My Pops says I have a gift from God.”
“That’s true.” Mary smiled back. “Talk to me about reading. That’s a little bit harder for you, isn’t it?”
“I can read,” Patrick shot back, defensively.
“I see.” Mary didn’t want to challenge him directly, but she wanted him to be able to open up with her. Patrick was keeping his illiteracy secret, because he felt so ashamed, which was needless. “You know, Patrick, there are kids your age who can’t read.”
“That’s not true.” Patrick blinked. “Not in my class.”
“I’m talking about kids that are in other schools.” Mary had seen that dyslexic children could feel terribly alone. “Can you imagine a whole school full of children your age, but they can’t read?”
“Why can’t they?” Patrick eyed her directly, listening with a newly grave expression.
“Because everybody has a different brain and everybody learns differently. They go to a really great school where the teachers teach them differently and that’s how they’re learning to read. They’re very smart, just like you, but they haven’t been taught the way they need to be taught.”
Patrick turned to the window. “They’re here.”
“The police? How do you know?”
“I hear them, don’t you?” Patrick set down the drawings and went to the window, peeking through the blades.
Mary hadn’t heard anything, but she looked out the window to see a police cruiser pulling up in front of the house, double-parking. She remembered that hyper-vigilance could be a symptom of dyslexia and also PTSD, but she didn’t want to go there yet with Patrick.
“We’d better go downstairs.” Patrick scooted around her, heading for the bedroom door. “My Pops says it’s rude to be late.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mary introduced herself to Officer Cindy Lee and Officer Jorge Muniz after Edward had introduced himself and Patrick, who had grown instantly quiet, looking up with wide eyes at the uniformed officers. Officer Lee was in her early thirties, with pretty features, an easy smile, and a shiny low ponytail, and she seemed to take the lead over her heavyset partner, perhaps because she was a woman.
Edward pulled in two wooden chairs from the kitchen, and the police officers sat down in them, their knees bumping the coffee table. Edward steered Patrick to the couch and sat down next to him, and Mary took the chair catty-corner to the couch, placing a notepad discreetly on her lap. She wanted to hear the story from Patrick’s lips and resolved to listen objectively, even critically, to see what kind of a witness he would make, as well as resolve any doubts about the truth of what had happened.
The police officers slid skinny notepads from their back pockets, located some pens, and got settled, but Mary noticed that Patrick’s demeanor had reverted back to his quieter, anxious self. He seemed to take in their every movement and he had resumed sucking his lower lip. He sat still on the couch cushion, neither bouncing nor swinging his legs, and he seemed to telescope down, roaching his back and hunching over, so that he seemed somehow smaller.
Officer Lee began by looking from Edward to Mary. “Folks, right now we’re just going to get the bare-bones of what happened from Patrick. You’ll need to take him to PCA, the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, after this for further questioning. We will give them a call that you’re coming over and it shouldn’t be a problem. They take walk-ins.”
“I understand,” Mary answered for her and Edward, because she could see him leaning forward, as if he hadn’t heard. She remembered that Officer Diamond had mentioned PCA, too.
“Ms. DiNunzio and Mr. O’Brien, we ask you not to talk with Patrick about the incident between now and the time he’s interviewed at PCA. It’s procedure to keep the number of times he’s interviewed to a minimum, for obvious reasons. That’s why my interview now will be just enough to complete our file and begin our investigation.” Officer Lee turned to Patrick with a reassuring smile. “So, Patrick, we want to hear from you. How did you get that bruise on your face?”
Patrick didn’t say anything.
“What happened to you? I know it was a while ago, but do you remember what happened?”
Patrick nodded, but didn’t say anything, then looked down.
“Okay. Let’s just start at the beginning.” Officer Lee consulted her notes. “You just started the fifth grade, right? I have a son in fourth grade, and his name is Adam.”
Patrick didn’t reply, and Mary felt pained on Patrick’s behalf. It couldn’t have felt good to hear about another boy about his age, lucky enough to have a pretty mom who also happened to be a cop.
Edward nudged Patrick. “Patrick, tell them what happened. They don’t have all day. They’re very busy.”
Officer Lee pursed her lips. “Mr. O’Brien, thank you, but we have time. He can take his time.”
“Take your time, Patrick,” Officer Muniz added.
Patrick looked over at Mary, and on impulse, she winked at him. He flashed her a brief smile, which touched her.
Edward frowned. “Patrick, don’t be rude. Tell her how you got hit at school, will you?”
Mary knew Edward was trying to speed things up, but he had put words in Patrick’s mouth.
Officer Lee pursed her lips again. “Patrick, your grandfather means, tell us how you got the bruise.”
Patrick stopped sucking his lip. “The teacher’s aide hit me. Mr. Robertson.”
“How did that come about, that Mr. Robertson hit you?” Officer Lee softened her tone.
“I was going to the assembly, and I started to get really, upset in my stomach, and I knew I was going to throw up, because sometimes I throw up i
n school and I get nervous.” Patrick started working his lips again, looking down, and Mary and Officer Lee exchanged sympathetic glances.
“I know how that is,” Officer Lee said, again modulating her tone. “I used to be very nervous in school. I didn’t speak English that well, I had an accent, and the other kids teased me.”
Patrick listened, but didn’t say anything.
“I get nervous sometimes on my job, too.”
Patrick nodded, his eyes flaring suddenly. “Because of terrorists.”
“Right!” Officer Lee smiled.
“Terrorists, they try to shoot police, I saw on the news.”
“Yes, that’s very true.” Office Lee nodded. “So everybody gets scared and nervous, sometimes. It’s okay to be scared sometimes and to get sick. So what happened, you threw up?”
Patrick nodded, blinking, meeting Officer Lee’s gentle gaze.
“And then what happened?”
“Mr. Robertson got really mad, like, really mad. He said, ‘you better clean that out, you have to clean that up!’’ Patrick’s voice sped up, the story rushing out like a dam opening. “But it was on the floor and it has like a rug and it’s like a blue rug and I didn’t know how to clean it up, so I said to Mr. Robertson, ‘What do I clean it up with?’ I didn’t see any paper towels or anything that I could pick it up with and he said, ‘You have to lick it up.’”
Officer Lee blinked. “That’s not very nice, is it?”
Mary masked her reaction. The very notion revolted her, and she also felt confused, in that this wasn’t the story that Edward had told her. She didn’t know if Edward had known this, he had just forgotten, or if Patrick was just telling it anew. She would have to clarify the time and location of the incident, but that was for another day. She looked over at Edward, whose expression had fallen into sorrowful lines.
Patrick shook his head no, in his exaggerated way. “I mean, it’s my fault because I threw up but I didn’t want to throw up, it came out of me, my cereal for breakfast. It was Special K.”
Mary’s heart went out to Patrick, thinking it was his fault, but she didn’t want to interrupt him. Officer Muniz’s lip curled in distaste, and he leaned away.