“Yes. His children told me.”
“Were they complaining about it?”
“I think they were. I took it that way. They’re captivated by the simplest programs as if they’ve never seen anything like it before. They know so little about what’s going on in our culture. Their lives are far too sheltered for their proper social development.”
“And that is your professional opinion?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what about direct evidence of any physical abuse? Did anyone see any bruises on the children, any signs that something was amiss?”
“Well, of course! Ruth had a large bump on her head!”
It was all Tom could do to remain quiet.
Corrigan asked, “I take it the anonymous hotline caller reported that bump?”
“Of course.”
“Did Ruth ever say where she got that bump?”
Miss Bledsoe assumed an even stiffer posture and answered, “We’re still investigating, and until that investigation is complete, the matter is strictly confidential.”
“I would think the bump is a matter of public record,” said Corrigan. “You realize, of course, that the children have told their father, in your presence, where that bump came from.”
“But remember, Mr. Corrigan, that it was their father they were talking to. Out of fear, a child can tell a tale to avoid further abuse.”
Corrigan indulged in a quick sigh of frustration. “Ms. Bledsoe, why do I get the impression that you don’t really have a concrete reason for holding the children in custody in a strange home and environment, away from their own home and father?”
Miss Bledsoe made a visible effort to keep her cool. “We have suspicions, Mr. Corrigan, and suspicions are enough reason. We are still working with the children. We have ways of drawing out the truth eventually. The children do want to tell us everything, but are often afraid.”
“So you do believe that Ruth and Josiah mean to be truthful?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you won’t accept Ruth and Josiah’s account of your near-collision with a blue pickup truck, and their claim that it was in that near-mishap that Ruth sustained the bump on her head?”
She grimaced in disgust at the question. “That’s an entirely different matter! You can’t trust children to be reliable witnesses in such things.”
“So they are reliable witnesses only when their testimony confirms your prior suspicions?” Jefferson started getting ruffled. Corrigan spoke first. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Corrigan pulled out a photograph and placed it in front of her. “Have you ever seen this woman?”
Bledsoe looked at the picture of Sally Roe and did her best to draw a blank. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Any chance that she was the driver of that pickup?”
“Objection!” said Ames. “You haven’t established that there even was a pickup.”
“Miss Bledsoe, did you have a near-miss encounter with a blue pickup while driving the Harris children away from the Harris home?”
“No, I did not!”
“With any vehicle of any color?”
“No!”
Corrigan pointed at the picture of Sally Roe. “You said you’ve never seen this woman before. Have you ever seen this picture before?”
She hesitated. “I may have.”
“Where?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Do you recall tearing up some photographs that were in Josiah Harris’s possession during the children’s last visit with their father?”
She was clearly uncomfortable. “Oh . . . I tore something up, I’m not sure what it was.”
Corrigan took back the picture. “Let’s talk about your driving record. Any moving violations in the past three years?”
Now she hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Traffic tickets. Citations.”
“I believe so.”
“According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, you’ve had five speeding violations in the past three years. Is that true?”
“If that’s what they say.”
“You’ve also been cited twice for failing to stop at a stop sign, correct?”
“I don’t see what this has to do with anything!”
Corrigan insisted, “Correct?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“You’ve had to change insurance companies three times?”
“I don’t know.”
Jefferson blurted, “I think you’re badgering the witness, Mr. Corrigan.”
“I am through with this witness, Mr. Jefferson.” Corrigan folded up his notes, relaxed, and smiled. “Thank you very much for coming, Miss Bledsoe. Thanks to all of you.”
Bledsoe and the two lawyers felt no need to hang around socially, and the court reporter had another appointment. In no time at all, Corrigan, Mark, and Tom were alone in the conference room.
“Well?” asked Tom.
Corrigan wanted to be sure Bledsoe and the others were gone. He leaned over to look out through the door. The coast was clear. He sat down and thought for a moment, looking through his notes.
“Well, she’s lying like a rug, and it shouldn’t be too hard to trap her on the witness stand.”
Mark asked, “What about Marshall’s theory? She’s connected to this whole thing, isn’t she? She’s working for them.”
Corrigan thought for just a moment, and then nodded. “The evidence is still circumstantial, but there’s a connection, all right, and she’s working hard to cover it up. That’s one reason she’s being so stiff-necked with your kids, Tom. They’re witnesses. If you want to hear my latest theory, I’d say she was brought in just to discredit you, but then crossed paths with Sally Roe with the children as witnesses, which complicated everything. Now she not only has to keep the kids quiet about seeing Sally Roe, she also has to keep them quiet about having that near-accident in the first place, and Ruth’s bump isn’t going to make that easy.”
“My children are like hostages!” said Tom angrily.
Mark was fuming as well. “She’s connected with Mulligan, then; she’s helping him protect that whole suicide story.”
Corrigan leafed through his notes. “The more we get into this, I think the more we’re going to find that everybody’s connected with everybody else. And don’t forget Parnell, the coroner. In order to get the whole thing dismissed as a suicide, he’d have to be a part of this too.”
Mark looked at his watch. “We’d better pray for Marshall and Ben. They’re talking to him right now.”
JOEY PARNELL WAS not happy at all when he opened his front door to find Marshall Hogan and the recently jobless Ben Cole standing there.
“Hi,” said Marshall. “Sorry to bother you at home. Apparently you forgot our appointment.”
He had trouble looking them in the eye. “I’m sorry. My secretary was supposed to call you. I’m sick today.”
“She did tell us that,” said Ben, “but only after we sat there and waited for half an hour.”
“Oh, I am sorry. Well, perhaps some other time . . .”
“You’d better have your secretary call the Westhaven Medical Association too,” said Marshall. “I saw the ad in the paper, and I just talked to them. They’re still expecting you to speak at their conference in an hour.”
“Is that why you’re wearing your dress shoes and slacks?” asked Ben. “Looks like you’re getting dressed to go somewhere.”
Parnell became angry. “What business do you have snooping into my daily affairs?”
Marshall reached into a manila envelope. “This might help to answer that.” He produced a photograph and showed it to Parnell. “Mr. Parnell, to the best of your knowledge and expertise, is this the woman who committed suicide at the Potter farm several weeks ago?”
He didn’t want to look at the picture. “Listen, guys, I do have some other things to do and I have to get ready. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Just give us a
minute,” said Ben. “Please.”
Marshall showed him the picture again. “Take a good look. We’ve checked around with several witnesses who have positively identified her; we have fingerprints, a rap sheet, the whole thing. Is this Sally Roe?”
He looked at the picture for a moment. “Yeah, sure it is. I remember her. Death by strangulation. She hung herself.”
“Just checking,” said Marshall.
Parnell turned away from the door. “Now if that’s all . . .”
“Mr. Parnell,” said Marshall, “that was a picture of my sister.”
Parnell’s face went blank and suddenly pale. His hands were starting to shake.
Marshall continued, “I figured since you live here in Westhaven you probably wouldn’t know what the real Sally Roe looked like, and now it’s obvious you’ve never seen her dead either.”
Parnell was speechless. He kept looking down, then at the door, then inside the house, then at Marshall and Ben. The poor guy was acting like a cornered animal.
Ben asked, “Can you tell us who the dead woman really was?”
“I can’t tell you anything!” he finally blurted. “Just go away—get out of here!”
He slammed the door.
Marshall and Ben walked back toward their car.
“Did you see that?” asked Marshall.
“That guy is scared!” said Ben.
KATE’S AFTERNOON HAD been, in a way, informative; at least she was being informed in a most frustrating way how difficult it was to ever see a bona fide copy of the Finding the Real Me curriculum for fourth-graders.
She stopped by the office at the elementary school to meet with Mr. Woodard, the principal, and look at the curriculum. Mr. Woodard wasn’t there. She found him down the hall, whereupon he had a sudden recollection of their appointment.
Then the curriculum was nowhere to be found, and he couldn’t understand whatever happened to it. He told her to talk to Miss Brewer. Miss Brewer was with her class and could not be disturbed, but would call her. Miss Brewer never called.
Then Kate called Jerry Mason, a member of the school board and most likely a member of LifeCircle.
“Well, I think the teacher should have a copy,” he said.
Kate was getting tired of that line. “No, she doesn’t. I’ve already checked with her and she referred me to Mr. Woodard, who then referred me back to Miss Brewer.”
“Well, I don’t have a copy.”
“I was just wondering if you might, since you did approve the curriculum for the elementary grades.”
“But do you have a child taking that curriculum?”
“No, I’m just trying to see a copy of it.”
“Well, there aren’t that many around, and I don’t think anyone who wants to can just drop in anytime and see it. We prefer to work with only the parents. You probably should make an appointment.”
Kate ran around the mulberry bush a few more times with Jerry Mason, and then called Betty Hanover, another school board member.
“Say, listen,” Betty said, “we’ve been through all this before with the . . . the religious fringe. The community has decided they like the curriculum, and we’d just as soon have some peace now, all right?”
John Kendall was no better. “Did you ask Miss Brewer? It’s the teachers who are supposed to be in charge of it. They ought to be able to help you out.”
Kate put down the phone and checked off another name. Then she let out a mock scream.
If for no other reason, that curriculum had to be worth seeing simply because so many people were going to such great lengths to keep it hidden.
ANOTHER LETTER! IT was just like the other ones—same envelope, same handwriting, same thick letter inside on lined notebook paper! Lucy grabbed it out of the pile of incoming mail and slipped it quickly into her pocket. Where were all these letters coming from? If this was a joke, it was certainly a long-lived joke, and not at all funny.
If it wasn’t a joke, and these letters really were from Sally Roe . . .
She didn’t want to think about that; it was easier not to consider it at all, and go on trusting all the people she now trusted.
Debbie was nearby, sorting through the mail in another mailbag. She’d stopped working, and seemed to be looking carefully at a mailing label on a magazine, but . . . To Lucy, it seemed like Debbie was watching her, but trying not to look like it.
“Something wrong?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, no . . . nothing,” Debbie answered, turning away and shoving the magazine into one of the mailboxes.
They went on sorting the mail, and nothing more was said.
But Debbie had seen the whole thing.
CHAPTER 25
WAYNE CORRIGAN HAD read Dr. Mandanhi’s detailed report on Amber Brandon’s condition. Most of it was so technical it would take another expert to refute it, if it was refutable. One thing was clear to even a lay reader of the document: Mandanhi held the Good Shepherd Academy responsible for Amber’s troubles, and had a low opinion of Christianity. This deposition would not be easy.
Mandanhi was a gentle man, however, and not unpleasant to deal with. He was in his forties, of East Indian descent, well-dressed, well-mannered, professional. Attorneys Ames and Jefferson sat on either side of him, as they did Irene Bledsoe, but didn’t seem quite as edgy for his sake as for Bledsoe’s. Apparently they were sure Mandanhi could take care of himself.
Corrigan started with some basics. “So could you review for the record Amber’s basic symptoms of trauma?”
Mandanhi brought a few notes, but didn’t seem to need them. “Amber’s behavior is typical of any child her age who has undergone extensive emotional trauma: bed-wetting, moodiness, occasional nausea, and frequent escapes into fantasy . . . a loss of reality, paranoia, the fear of unseen enemies—spooks, bogeymen, that sort of thing.”
“And you attribute all this to the environment at the Christian school?”
He smiled. “Not entirely. There could well be other factors, but the pervasive religious overtones of the school’s curriculum would be, in my opinion, sufficient to exacerbate Amber’s preexistent emotional turmoils. The Christian doctrines of sin and of a God of wrath and judgment, as well as Christianity’s imposition of guilt and accountability, would immediately assimilate into the child’s preestablished identity structure, producing a whole new set of reasons for her to be insecure and fearful of her world.”
“Have you discussed any of this with the pastor of the Good Shepherd Church, or with the headmaster of the school?”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“So do you know for a fact that the school was imposing any kind of guilt or fear upon the child?”
“I have examined the child, and I know she went to the school. A clear connection is not hard to draw.”
Corrigan made a few marks in the margin of his copy of Mandanhi’s report. “Now . . . about this Amethyst, this little pony that Amber becomes . . . What was that term you used?”
“Dissociative disorder, or hysterical neurosis, dissociative type.”
“Uh . . . right. Could you explain just what that is?”
“Basically, it is a disturbance or alteration in the normally integrative functions of identity, memory, or consciousness.”
“I’m going to need that in simpler terms, doctor.”
He smiled, thought for a moment, and then tried again. “What Amber is displaying is what we call Multiple Personality Disorder; it’s a condition in which two or more distinct personalities exist within one person. This disorder is almost always brought on by some form of abuse, usually sexual, or severe emotional trauma. The onset is almost invariably during childhood, but often is not discovered until later in life. Statistically, it occurs from three to nine times more often in females than males.”
“I wanted to ask you about some of these complications you listed.”
Mandanhi consulted his own copy of his report. “Yes. Complications, difficulties that can arise when this d
isorder manifests itself.”
Corrigan scanned the list. “External violence?”
“Yes. A total break with social norms of behavior, social inhibitions. Blind rage, injury to others . . .”
“How about screaming, kicking, resisting authority?”
“Oh yes.”
“Suicide attempts?”
“Very common.”
“How about Amber?”
Mandanhi thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Her case seems rather mild in that area.”
Corrigan found another new word. “What is coprolalia?”
“Violent, obscene language, usually involuntary.”
Corrigan stopped on that one. “Involuntary?”
“The victim has no control over what he or she says; the utterance is spontaneous and can include animal noises, growls, barking, hissing, and so forth.”
“Uh . . . how about blasphemy?” Corrigan felt a need to explain that. “Uh . . . railings, obscenities, slanderous statements against a Deity?”
“Yes. Quite frequent.”
“And then there are . . . altered states of consciousness?”
“Yes, trance states.”
“And according to your experience, this sort of thing is usually—or almost always—brought on by severe emotional trauma or sexual abuse?”
“That is correct.”
“And this is your assumption regarding the Good Shepherd Academy?”
“It is.”
“But you haven’t talked to the school personnel about this?”
“No.”
“I see.” Corrigan jotted some notes and read a few more notes. “The press seems to have some firm opinions about what went on at the school, and they’ve said some pretty rough things about Tom Harris. Have they gotten any of their information from you, doctor?”
“I have not spoken to them personally, no.”
Corrigan raised an eyebrow. “But it’s reasonable to think that your opinions, in some form or another, have gotten into the hands of the press?”
He didn’t seem too happy to have to answer. “I believe so.”
“How about the Child Protection Department?”
Mandanhi looked at the lawyers. They didn’t seem too distressed. “The CPD received a complete copy of my report, and I have consulted with them on a regular basis.”