What No One Else Can Hear (19 page)

Stevie had a big, goofy, sleepy grin on his face. “I love you too, Bear.” He snuggled into the soft cover Drew had draped over him. “Night, Bear.”

And the video ended.

The courtroom was quiet for a long moment, and then a quiet murmur started as everyone began to comment on it. The judge called for order pretty quickly, but it was obvious the video had the effect Kyle had hoped for.

M
R
. L
ISTON
’
S
lawyer brought up the other time I violated the restraining order, and Kyle had lots of different people testify that Stevie had left the center of his own volition. The police had been promptly called as soon as we were sure he had gotten outside, and staff members had looked for him immediately. I think it may have hurt the case a little that no one had been at home with me when Stevie arrived, but Drew had signed an affidavit describing what he saw once he got there. Kyle assured the other attorney that Drew could be made available for cross-examination if necessary.

And we had the video I took on my phone. Liston’s lawyer played up that there was an undetermined amount of time between when Stevie arrived and when I started the video and that I could have done anything to the kid in that time. Kyle drew the jury’s attention to the fact that Stevie didn’t look or act like he was being coerced to stay.

I heard Mr. Liston tell his lawyer. “Add that to the lawsuit against the center. They can’t even keep the kid in the building.”

More loudly, Kyle was saying, “This is another example of how desperately Stevie needs to be with Mr. McKinnon.”

He had brought to the stand both Dr. Brown and the psychologist, Dr. Patricia Lowe. They had testified about how Stevie had been before I arrived, and each had tapes to show what they were talking about. They also testified how much better he had been with me once I started working with him.

Dr. Brown showed a tape of Stevie sitting in his room rocking and told the court this was how he was most of the time now that I was no longer around. The doctor told them, as did several other staff, including his teachers, that Stevie now was not living up to the potential they had seen once I had gotten to the center.

K
YLE
HAD
me explain my six-year journey to find Stevie. He had found a few professors I had had over the years to verify I had been talking about Stevie all that time, and the other people I had talked to who knew about empaths and had them explain the phenomenon to the jurors. He had even gotten Rusty, Lilly’s brother, to come testify. Kyle showed old tapes of Stevie drawing pictures of me throughout those six years. He hinted but stopped short of saying that Mr. Liston would have known the dark drawing was from a time
before
I had even arrived, if he had indeed kept in such close contact with his son. When Dottie leaned over and asked Kyle why he didn’t go for the jugular, stating that we certainly had enough proof to show he had been lying about that, Kyle simply said “leverage,” and left it at that.

While the prosecution’s psychologist was on the stand, the DA asked, “Could the fact that Mr. McKinnon targeted this child from the very beginning mean that he had planned to take advantage of him all along?”

The psychologist looked puzzled. He was probably wondering how to answer that in a way to strengthen the prosecution’s case and not ours. He apparently couldn’t find one. “No, I wouldn’t think so. Pedophilia is usually a crime of opportunity and pedophiles are usually not that patient. I would think that if Mr. McKinnon felt the need to violate a child, there would be allegations from the other residential facilities he’s worked in.”

Kyle had brought that up earlier too. No such allegations existed.

The DA wasn’t finished. “But Stevie was a child of a prominent man. Could that have made him a more alluring target?”

“I suppose anything is possible, but usually pedophiles avoid children of high-profile people. They find vulnerable children of families without that much power to bring to bear. And if Mr. McKinnon were to target high-profile kids for some reason, I would imagine there were some along the way he wouldn’t have had to wait six years for. I can’t stress enough: that kind of patience is not typical in pedophiles.”

I think it went a long way that the prosecution’s own pet psychologist was the one striking down their theories and not just the center’s psychologist.

Overall I thought we were doing a pretty good job of convincing them that this whole thing was at best a mistake and at worst a pure fabrication to discredit me for personal reasons. Everyone in the courtroom, including many of the jury, looked at Chuck as if they were hoping it was possible to give someone the death sentence for criminal stupidity.

W
HAT
HAPPENED
next was something Kyle and I had argued vehemently about over the last nine weeks. From the beginning, Kyle wanted to put Stevie on the stand. I was totally against the idea. All those people with emotions running so high were bound to be too much for Stevie, especially in his current state. He had lost a lot of ground in his ability to control the noise in his head. I didn’t want to expose him to this, and I didn’t think we needed to. The tapes showed how I was with him and how much he missed me and wanted me with him. But Kyle insisted if the prosecuting attorney didn’t have the right to cross-examine Stevie, he might move for the tapes to be declared inadmissible. Kyle said he wasn’t 100 percent positive he could do that, but he didn’t want to take any chances, so we had agreed to bring Stevie to court and put him on the stand.

I had talked to Stevie at length in the forest about what court would be like. We made sure Drew was scheduled to work that day and would be the one to bring him to the building. He would stay with him the entire time he was waiting for his turn, and he would wait in a quiet room so as not to become overwhelmed before he even got to the stand. I was still very concerned about this and couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. Stevie was all for it, though. He had decided he would just tell that judge to let me come back, and everything would be okay. He was so sure all he would have to do was ask.

Dottie said that idea probably came from the fact he had the whole center wrapped around his finger and did get anything he asked for—most of the time.

We had talked about the fact he would have to make sure he had a good heavy wall in his mind before he came to the courthouse. Stevie smiled and said he would build
two
walls. I didn’t know if that would help or not, but I couldn’t see the harm in it, so I told him okay.

So we had come to the part of the trial I dreaded. It was Stevie’s turn on the stand.

Stevie and Drew appeared at the door in the back of the courtroom. Stevie looked so confident—better than I had seen him in a long while. Drew looked a little nervous, and I wondered if there had been trouble of any kind. My fertile imagination could think of any of a number of possible troubles—anything from Stevie having empathic spikes to the pair of them being accosted by the media. I vowed I would ask Drew later.

As soon as Stevie saw me, he broke free of Drew’s grip and ran straight for me, grinning broadly. “
Bear
!”

He jumped for me when he was about three feet away, and we almost went down. Kyle managed to steady me long enough for me to settle Stevie on his feet and continue the hug in a more stable manner.

The spectators erupted in loud commentary. Everything from shouts of amazement over how genuinely exultant Stevie was to see me, to shouts for someone to get the child away from the horrible criminal. It amazed me how determinedly some people stuck to their preconceived notions. None of them were prepared for the reaction the uproar provoked.

Stevie clapped his hands to his ears, screamed, and dropped to the ground. Even I could tell the emotions in the room had gotten heavier when all the spectators were reacting to Stevie’s arrival, and I wasn’t an empath, at least not one like Stevie was. Now it was a vicious cycle. The onlookers’ emotions spiked at Stevie’s response, and he reacted badly to their reactions. Dottie shot Kyle a “he warned you this would happen” look, but I was too busy with an armful of distraught empath to comment.

Unbidden, Drew thrust the bag of blocks into my hand, and I tried to get Stevie’s attention. Touch worked best, though, and the more I touched him, the louder Liston and his camp complained, which just made the emotion more intense. I looked up at the judge and implored him to quiet them down. He pounded his gavel and demanded order, but the noise itself caused Stevie more distress.

“Aw, come on, big guy.” I soothed with my voice as well as my touch now that the room was at least outwardly quiet. I knew the surrounding emotions probably hadn’t let up all that much. “You wanted to come to court and talk to the judge, remember? There he is, right there. But you need to build that wall back up, buddy. Build two walls if you want, but you have to shut out all the noise.”

He loosened his hands a little and looked at me. “All crumbled, Bear.”

“I know. Look… I’ve got your blocks. Let’s build it together, okay?”

We sat down on the floor and built a block wall. I asked him periodically if he was building one in his head. He finally told me yes, and I could tell the moment he completed it. He looked up at me, then at the judge, and finally around the room. “Are they going to get all noisy again?” I knew he meant emotionally more than physically noisy.

“I don’t know, buddy. If they are, the judge will ask them to quiet down again.”

“But he’s noisy too.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant just physically loud or if the judge had been angry or perturbed at the outburst when he pounded his gavel and Stevie had felt that too.

I decided to react as though he just meant “noisy” and chuckled; so did most of the spectators, but they cut themselves off when they heard the room becoming louder. “Only to ask the others to be quiet, big guy. Ready to give it a try?”

He smiled adoringly at me—man, I
loved
that smile—and said, “Okay, Bear,” and popped up to his feet like nothing had happened. Most of the audience and all the jurors were stunned as Stevie climbed into the witness box like he belonged there.

Just as Kyle approached to ask him some questions, Stevie looked up at the judge. “Are you the judge?” The judge nodded. “Why are you keeping my Bear away from me? Can I have him back now?”

The judge smiled, several of the spectators chuckled, and the jury awaited an answer. So did Stevie.

“That’s what we’re here to determine, Stevie.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes,” the judge answered.

“I don’t know yours,” Stevie said indignantly. “What’s yours?”

“My name is Alan,” the judge said benignly.

“Oh, okay.”

That was good enough for Stevie. He turned back to look at Kyle, who started asking Stevie easy questions: what was his name? what was my name? why were we here today? Stevie answered all of those with ease.

Then the opposing lawyer took his turn. He asked tougher questions, but Stevie didn’t bat an eye.

“Did Jesse ever hurt you, Stevie?”

“No way. My Bear would
never
hurt me. He makes the hurt go away.”

“Did he ever touch you, Stevie?”

My little boy looked puzzled. “Sure, all the time.”

A collective gasp gripped the courtroom, and Mr. Liston said, “See? Out of the mouths of babes.”

From the look on the lawyer’s face, though, I got the distinct impression that he was losing his taste for manipulating the witnesses’ words to suit his case.

“Stevie, where does Jesse touch you?” Seeing Stevie’s still confused face, the lawyer added, “Where on your body does Jesse touch you, Stevie?”

Stevie smiled. He understood the question now. “Usually on my back. He rubs circles. That helps me build the wall. Sometimes on my arms. Sometimes he messes up my hair, but that’s not when I’m building the wall. That’s when he’s picking on me. I tell him I don’t like him to mess up my hair… but really I do. I like it when he plays. I mess up his hair too, and sometimes I get my fingers all tangled. I wanted to let my hair grow that long, but Miss Sara said I shouldn’t, so Drew cuts it for me. He let it get a
little
longer than it used to be, though.”

Everyone smiled, including the lawyer. “I think we’re getting off track a little, Steve. Can you tell me, has Jesse ever touched you when you didn’t want him to? Have you ever told him to stop, but he touches you anyway?”

“Uh-huh,” Stevie nodded solemnly.

“See?” Mr. Liston started again.

His own lawyer cut him off. “Tell me about those times, Stevie.”

“When I can’t build the wall, and all the noises are so loud they tingle, and my skin hurts. My clothes hurt then too, and sometimes Jesse takes me out of the hall, because he says I shouldn’t be naked, but it hurts when he touches when the noises are so loud, so I tell him to stop, but he says he can’t stop because I can’t be naked in public. I’m not sure why, but Jesse says I shouldn’t, and everyone else says so too. Oh, and sometimes he sits behind me when I try to bang my head to get the fire off. He’s in the way and my head touches him instead and I don’t like it because it just puts more fire
on
and I’m trying to get the fire
off
. So I tell him to stop. But he doesn’t because he says I can’t bang my head. He lets me slap the floor, but that doesn’t get the fire off as well.”

The lawyer looked resolved and said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

Mr. Liston looked fit to be tied. He waited until his lawyer got back to the table, but just barely.

“You can’t just stop.” He said it in a normal, even quiet, tone. I could barely hear what he said but the emotion was palpable. “You haven’t gotten to the point of the trial yet.”