Invisible Boy (36 page)

“How can you be so sure that
these
shoes belonged to Teddy Underhill? Isn’t it possible that finding them at Prospect Cemetery was a coincidence?”

“We know when and where they were purchased,” said Skwarecki. “All the clothes Teddy was wearing when his mother last saw
him had been birthday gifts.”

“From whom?”

“From Elsie Underhill.”

“You’re certain about that?” asked Bost.

“Mrs. Underhill still had the receipts,” said Skwarecki.

“Detective, can you tell us anything else about that missing-persons report?”

“Such as?”

“Well, how did Angela Underhill say her child had gotten lost?”

“Objection,” said Hetzler. “Calls for hearsay.”

“Sustained,” said the judge.

“In the missing-person’s report Angela Underhill filed with the police,” said Bost, “Miss Underhill stated that while her
boyfriend Albert Williams was babysitting her son, Teddy, Mr. Williams fell asleep and Teddy wandered out of their motel room,
isn’t that right?”

“It is,” said Skwarecki.

Cate leaned toward me, whispering, “Do they know yet what happened?”

I shrugged. “Skwarecki didn’t mention anything.”

“And
is
that what happened, Detective?” asked Bost. “Did Angela Underhill tell the truth in her report?

“No, she did not,” said Skwarecki.

“How do you know that, Detective?”

“Following her arrest,” said Skwarecki, “Angela Underhill confessed to having sat on that same bed and watched as Albert Williams
punched her three-year-old son, Teddy, in the chest repeatedly, until the boy died.”

I
expected a burst of noise in the courtroom following Skwarecki’s description of Teddy Underhill’s murder.

I leaned over to Kyle.

“Nobody makes a peep,” I whispered, “with a bombshell like that?”

“You and Cate are probably the only people here who haven’t heard it already. It would’ve been the backbone of Bost’s opening
argument unless she’s an idiot. And she’s not.”

The judge smacked his gavel down three times and glared at us, looking righteously pissed.

Bost addressed the judge. “Your Honor, I have no further questions for Detective Skwarecki at this time, but I may want to
call her back to the stand later tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll agree to that, Ms. Bost,” he said. “And ask that the defense address its questions to the detective at that time.”

Even from behind Hetzler looked like he’d bristled at that, but he didn’t put up any argument.

“As it’s getting rather late in the day,” continued the judge, “we’ll recess until tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Bost.

Cate and Kyle and I walked out into the front hallway. She had to leave so we hugged good-bye, but Kyle held back with me.

“You have a minute?” he asked as we watched her go out the front doors and back into winter.

“Sure, what’s up?”

He put his hand on my left arm and looked around the hallway. “Let’s go get a coffee or something.”

“Are you done for the day?”

“Yeah.”

“Then screw coffee. Let’s go back to the city and get a drink.”

He seemed preoccupied in the car.

“You’re not going to ask me about stealing state secrets or anything, right?” I asked, after we’d driven a number of silent
blocks.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how much I should tell you.”

“The number of times we all played Truth or Dare over tequila, back in college? I wouldn’t have thought we had any secrets
left.”

He didn’t answer that.

“Kyle, it’s
me
. You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“It’s not personal, it’s about the trial. And I’m not sure about the ethical implications.”

“I’ve kept other secrets. We’ve all been through some shit since the last time you and I hung out.”

“I’m an officer of the court. It’s different.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the outcome of this trial.”

“I know.”

“So talk to me.”

He was quiet, pulling up to the tollbooths for the tunnel.

“Kyle?”

“It’s about Mrs. Underhill,” he said.

I grabbed his arm. “Is she okay? My God, I should have called her last night.”

“She’s fine, physically. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Then
what
? What’s wrong?”

“Let’s wait until we have some cocktails in front of us, okay?”

We ended up at a crappy Irish place on Third Avenue.

Kyle ordered a Jameson rocks. I asked for a pint of Guinness, girding my taste buds for disappointment.

We slid into a booth and the bartender put some quarters in the jukebox.

“Clancy Brothers,” I said. “Gag me.”

“You used to
love
Irish dives.”

“I used to love Irish
guys
. Thankfully, there’s a cure for that.”

“What?”

“Penicillin.”

I took a sip of the Guinness, then pushed it away. Someone had obviously dissolved a urinal cake in it despite the crappy
head.

Kyle winked at me over his Jameson. “Pickled egg?”

“You first.”

He put down the drink.

“Truth or Dare, Kyle.”

He ran a fingertip along the edge of his glass. “Truth.”

“Why are we here?”

“Mrs. Underhill’s waffling on her testimony. Bost needs her to

step up.”

“She testified before the grand jury, right?”

Kyle didn’t answer. I guess he wasn’t allowed to.

“If she changes her story now it’s perjury,” I said. “Can’t Bost threaten her with jail time or something?”

“The woman’s ninety years old, or close to it. Juries don’t want to see someone like her being grilled—elderly, polite, vulnerable.
She’s lost her daughter, her great-grandson, her husband—and she’s old enough to get away with saying she’s confused, or forgets
things.”

“She’s sharp as a tack.”

“You know that,” he said. “The jury doesn’t.”

I looked at my Guinness.

“Look, Bost mentioned that you’d spent some time with the woman, bonded a little. Maybe you could check in with her. Give
her some encouragement. That’s all I’m saying.”

“How could she back
down
? After what happened to that boy,

everything she knew? Jesus, we
cried
together….”

“Families are strange.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

“Just call her. It can’t hurt.”

“If she wants to shut down there’s nothing I can do.”

“Try anyway.”

“I will. Of course I will.”

He was quiet again for a minute.

“What?” I said.

“Truth or Dare.”

“Truth.”

“What happened that makes this matter so much to you?”

“This boyfriend of Mom’s molested my little sister. When she was eleven. I just found out about it.”

He nodded, sadly.

“It’s not—I mean, compared to the stuff you’re dealing with, Kyle? It was bad, but let’s just say he never achieved penetration.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s about the destruction of trust. The physical details aren’t predictive of how much damage
that will do.”

No. They sure as shit aren’t.

I tried calling Mrs. Underhill seven times that night. She didn’t have a machine and she never picked up.

Bost called the pathologist to the stand the next morning. He looked different in a coat and tie. I hadn’t recognized him
at first.

“In September of last year you examined the skeletal remains which had been discovered in Prospect Cemetery, did you not?”
she asked.

“I did,” he said.

“Can you describe your preliminary findings relating to the victim’s identity?”

“The remains were those of a child, roughly three years old and of African ancestry.”

“And could you determine the child’s sex?” asked Bost.

“It’s difficult to ascertain the gender of skeletal remains in prepubescent victims. Secondary sexual characteristics aren’t
apparent before an individual reaches the teenage years.”

“And yet you’re confident that these are the remains of Teddy

Underhill?”

“I am,” said Dr. Merica. “Absolutely.”

“On the basis of what evidence?”

“A comparison of the child’s skull with a photograph taken of

Underhill.”

Bost’s assistant set up another photograph on the easel. It was a head-and-shoulders close-up of a tiny little boy, smiling
broadly, the same photo I’d seen on Mrs. Underhill’s piano, only ten times bigger. There was a gap between his upper front
teeth I hadn’t noticed before. I could see the big patch of red behind him: the suit of the Santa whose lap he was sitting
on.

“And is this the photograph you used for comparison?” asked Bost.

“It is,” answered Merica.

Bost motioned to her assistant. The next photograph showed Teddy’s face superimposed over the image of a ghostly skull. Every
feature synced with the structure of the bones beneath: eyes and eye sockets, cheeks and cheekbones, the point of his chin,
the gap in his smile.

The jurors looked shocked. I was impressed. Maybe we hadn’t needed the second sneaker after all—even without a blood sample.

“And was it possible for you to determine any approximate time frame for when the child’s death occurred?” asked Bost.

“The state of his remains indicated that he had died somewhere between three to six months before his remains were discovered.”

“What else could you determine from your examination?”

“This was a battered child,” said Merica.

“How can you tell?”

“Teddy Underhill suffered extensive physical trauma on a number of occasions before his death.”

“What sort of trauma, Dr. Merica?” asked Bost.

“The injuries to his bones,” he said. “There were six fractures in various stages of healing.”

“Which stages?”

“Technically, we’d call these localized, asymmetrical areas of subperiosteal new bone formation. They were consistent with
the types of fractures we associate with extreme, systematic physical abuse in children—injuries to the forearms, cranial
vault, ribs, and legs. In addition to periosteal lesions.”

“What causes a periosteal lesion?” asked Bost.

“They can be caused either by blows or by the child’s arms and legs being used as ‘handles’ by the abuser. They’re a sort
of damage caused by actually bruising the bones themselves, evidence of the surface of the bone being stripped away by such
trauma, or of bleeding caused below the periosteal layer of the bone by the force of a blow.”

One of the jurors brought her hand up to her mouth, her eyes clenched shut.

Bost’s assistant placed a new photo on the easel, a shot of two long bones with a thick lump in the middle of one of them.

I felt my own stomach lurch and looked away.

“Can you describe what this photograph shows us?” asked Bost.

“This is a photograph of the bones in Teddy Underhill’s forearm—the radius and ulna,” said Merica. “The lumps you see in the
middle of each are what we call a ‘callus’ of bone.”

“What does that indicate, Doctor?”

“This child’s right forearm was broken and never treated or immobilized. It healed on its own, hence the thickening you can
see in this image.”

I covered my own right forearm’s cast, remembering how painful my first break had been—without anesthesia.

Teddy lived through that six times.

Seven.

No painkillers. Not even an X-ray.

Those fuckers.

I looked over at the jurors, hoping they saw Angela and Albert in the same nasty light. Most of them were wincing, and none
were looking in the direction of Bost’s easel. The woman who’d covered her mouth was crying.

Good
.

“And could you tell from Teddy’s remains what it was that killed him?” asked Bost.

“I think it’s safe to say that the massive blunt-force trauma to his chest could easily have caused the child’s death.”

“Can you tell us whether that trauma was inflicted
before
his death?” asked Bost.

“It was certainly inflicted when his bones were still elastic,” said Merica. “Either before—or very close to—the time of his
death. What we would call ante- or peri-mortem trauma.”

“So this damage couldn’t have happened later on, when his remains were in the cemetery?”

“No,” said Dr. Merica.

“And would the trauma be consistent with someone having punched the boy in the chest repeatedly?”

“Yes, and with a great deal of force.”

“Thank you, Dr. Merica. I have no further questions at this time.”

Bost returned to her table, and the curly black head of Galloway bobbed up for the defense.