The Word of a Child (29 page)

"You weren't scared of him, were you?" Mom was
pleading, but almost immediately her voice changed, as she talked herself into
believing what she'd wanted to believe all along. "You never said that.
All you did was complain that he brushed your breast with his hand when he was
reaching for a cereal bowl in the cupboard. That kind of thing happens all the
time! I thought you were imagining things!"

Tracy
started to shake. "What about that other guy you brought home? What about
Eddie?"

Mom looked startled and mad at the same time. "What
about him? He didn't even spend the night, for Pete's sake!"

"You mean, he didn't spend it with
you."

In the silence that followed, Tracy couldn't breathe. She
saw the expressions leapfrog across her mother's face: shock, guilt, anger, and
then a stunning kind of pain.

"What do you mean?" Mom said quietly.

"You know what I mean!" she screamed, and ran past
her mother and out of the kitchen.

"Tracy!" her mother yelled.

Just as she reached her bedroom, the doorbell rang. Tracy threw herself facedown on her bed and buried her sobs in her pillow. She heard the
murmur of voices, and then her mother's footsteps and the sound of the bedroom
door opening.

"Honey…"

She stiffened and clutched her pillow. "Go away!"

"We need to talk about this."

She drew a shuddering breath. "I don't want to talk
about it."

Mom was quiet for a long time, but she didn't go away. At
last she asked, in a low voice, "Why did you never say?"

Tracy
shook
her head violently.

"It wasn't that teacher at all, was it?"

Tracy
's face
convulsed in a silent wail she hid in her pillow.

"I didn't hear Eddie leave. I should have walked him
out. I'd had a few drinks, and—" She stopped. "Honey…"

"Go have dinner with your
friend."
Tracy
's voice was thick with tears. "He's out there, isn't
he?"

"I can ask him to leave." Mom sounded defensive.

"I don't want to talk now."

She was silent for a minute. "All right," she
agreed finally. "But we have to, you know." Tracy didn't say
anything.

The door hinges squeaked. Mom asked, "Can I bring you
some dinner?"

Tracy
only
shook her head. Her stomach hurt so much, she would only throw up if she ate.
Especially if she ate her mother's gross casserole.

"Honey, I wish…" Mom's voice died away. She stood
there for a moment without saying what she wished. Then she closed the door and
went away.

Tracy
thought about running away. She could take all the money out of Mom's purse
tomorrow right before she left for work. Mom didn't usually look in Tracy's bedroom when she got home; she wouldn't even notice Tracy was gone. She could
hitchhike to Seattle. Maybe look for her dad. Mom had said that's where he
lived.

Her huge racking sobs slowed, as if her body was too
exhausted to keep them up. Tracy began to feel almost numb, listening to first
voices from the kitchen and finally laughter.

It was the sound of her mother laughing that made Tracy think dully about killing herself. Mom would find her slumped in the bathtub, blood
everywhere. She'd be sorry then.

Tracy
played
with the pictures in her mind: with Mom finding her, the announcement at
school, the funeral. Reluctantly, at last, she turned to the practicalities.
Could she get her hands on a gun? That would be the fastest. You wouldn't even
have to think. Just pull the trigger, and it would all be over in a booming
second. Or she could just get a knife out of the kitchen drawer. But doing it
that way would be harder. Wondering if she was brave enough to cut her own
wrists, Tracy dropped into a heavy sleep.

On Wednesday
, the
long-lost Jason Haworth was pulled in on a warrant for a missed court
appearance on an assault charge. Galvanized, Connor went straight to the jail.

A guard brought a sullen Haworth to an interrogation room.
Lanky hair pulled into a ponytail, he wore the jail's white T-shirt and denim
pants. Trouble on the hoof.

A resentful gaze swept Connor. "I don't know you,"
he said in faint surprise,

From his place behind the table, Connor said evenly,
"No, I'm not interested in your drunk driving or bar fights."

Haworth
pulled
out a chair. "I was trying to get into treatment."

Uh-huh. His attorney was trying to get him into treatment.
"Your honor," he would say, "my client realizes he has a
drinking problem. Prison isn't the answer. Give him a chance to clean up his
life in a thirty-day program." He'd have a treatment center prepared to
accept Haworth. Chances were all too good that the judge, unhappily aware of
the overcrowding at the jail and prisons, would say, "Fine."

Not Connor's problem. Not today.

"I'm here to talk about Tracy Mitchell." He
watched Haworth carefully.

A blank stare was his reward. "Who?"

"Until a month ago, you lived with Sandy Mitchell. Tracy is her thirteen-year-old daughter."

"Oh." He slouched in his chair. "Tracy. Yeah, sure. That was her name. The kid. I remember her."

Big of you,
Connor
thought.

"Pretty girl." Connor made his tone musing.

The bastard shrugged. "Yeah, nice tits. So?"

"Mom didn't mind you getting a little on the side with
her daughter, huh?"

He shoved his chair back and half rose in a quick, violent
motion. "What are you talking about?"

"Tracy says she was raped."

Alarm exploded on his face. "I never touched that
little bitch!"

"But you looked."

"Sure I looked!" He sat again, but on the edge of
the chair, his hands braced on the table. "I mean, the kid is parading
around in tank tops without a bra and shortie pajamas. Who wouldn't look? But
that's all I did. Shit, she isn't even in high school!"

Connor couldn't shake him. Okay, Tracy had whined to her
mother a few times that he'd bumped her or walked into the bathroom when she
was naked, but he swore to God those were accidents.

"I may drink too much, but I don't screw little
girls," was his final word.

To his regret, Connor believed Haworth. He would have
enjoyed putting this son of a bitch behind bars, the only cure for a drinking
problem like his.

"Will you agree to a DNA test?" he bluffed.

Haworth
looked
him in the eye without flinching. "Sure I will. I never touched her."

Connor nodded to the guard, who steered a still protesting
prisoner back to his cell.

Tapping a pencil on the table, Connor gazed blindly at the
scarred wall. So Tracy wasn't raped by her mother's last boyfriend, the one
who'd left after a big fight. So who the hell had raped her?

And who was she protecting?

In a call to Mariah that evening, he asked again.

"I don't know," she said, "but I wish you'd
find out. Tracy wasn't in school today. Why would she skip, when she'd already
faced the worst of the talk?"

"She could just be sick," he suggested.

"Or have bad cramps. I know." She was silent for a
moment. "Tracy has just been so … subdued since she came back. She seems
to be quieter and quieter. As if she's fading away." Mariah sighed.
"That sounds melodramatic. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He stood in front of the window in his
living room looking out at the courtyard. Wet leaves plastered the cobblestones
and the bare branches of the trees dripped. His own frustration and
discouragement sounded in his voice. "The last time I talked to her, I
thought she was scared. But I got to tell you, Mariah, I'm running out of ideas.
About all I can do is keep stopping by, make myself available in case she
changes her mind."

Mariah was quiet for a moment. "Do you think it would
be all right if
I
called tonight, just to be sure she's okay?"

"I don't know why not. You must contact students and
parents at home sometimes."

"Yes, but not usually to find out why a kid has missed
one whole day of school."

He said what he'd been thinking. "Tracy is a
powderkeg."

"I think I have all the students' numbers here."
Paper rustled. "Yes … no. Wait." More rustling, and then a
triumphant, "Here it is."

"I could have given you her number," he said
mildly.

"Is that ethical?" she asked, in a doubtful tone.

"Is it ethical for me to discuss her with you?" He
rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know. You tell me."

She apparently gave it some consideration, because after a
pause she said stoutly, "I think it must be okay, as long as all of us
only want to help her."

One corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile.
"Keep our eye on the goal, huh?"

"Shouldn't we?" She sounded tart, as if he had
criticized.

His smile deepened. "Yeah. That's my philosophy."

"Well, then…"

"Call. Just… Let me know if you reach her, okay?"
His own uneasiness made him add, "Or if you can't."

She phoned back ten minutes later. "I talked to Tracy's mother. She said Tracy has a bug, that she's been throwing up all day."

Reading her tone, Connor said, "But you don't believe
her."

"I don't know. For starters, why's Mrs. Mitchell
home?"

"It's Tuesday. This can't be a big night at the bar."

Her voice lightened. "You think Monday and Tuesday are
her regular days off?"

He hated to tell her. "Actually, Sunday and Monday are.
But she's probably entitled to extras, just like anyone else."

Mariah sighed, her mind already having moved on. "She
just sounded … too perky. You know? 'Oh, no, everything's fine. Poor Tracy just caught a bug.'" Dropping the mimicry, she continued, "I stumbled
through some explanation of how I was just concerned because Tracy has missed a
lot this semester and how I hope I'll see her tomorrow in class."

"Better to stumble than not take the step in the first
place."

"The philosopher again."

"That's me."

"You must be working on ten other cases."

Involuntarily he turned to glance at the sheaf of notes he'd
dropped on the breakfast bar. "Five active, a dozen others on the back
burner."

"This isn't that big a town!"

"I handle a variety of crimes, remember, from child
sexual abuse to rape, indecent exposure—unfortunately I have a goody right now,
a fellow who strolls up to school bus stops and whips open his raincoat.
Classic. I'm even checking out a stalker right now, because there's an implied
sexual threat. I'm an all-around guy," he mocked himself.

"How will you catch the, um, exhibitionist?"

"Loiter around school bus stops in a raincoat, I
guess." He grunted. "Sorry. Black humor. Only half-true. I have
loitered in a discreetly parked car near bus stops every morning for the past
week and a half. No cigar."

Her voice softened. "You don't often see people at their
best, do you?" She giggled, then stifled it. "Oh, dear. I just
realized…"

He had to grin. "That I might yet get to? When he opens
his raincoat?"

She gave another choked giggle. "I'm so sorry!"

"Nah. If we can't laugh…"

He heard a voice in the background. Mariah briefly covered
the phone and answered, whatever she said muffled. Then she came back.
"Time to tuck Zofie into bed. Let me know if … well…"