Chapter Twenty-Five.

The week went by in a disconcerting jumble of meetings, phone calls, and disjointed conversations. On two occasions, social workers came to the school with their dolls and equipment to interview Jadie and Amber. The police appeared, combed through Jadie's school files, and talked individually first with me, then with Mr. Tinbergen, and then with Alice Havers, who had had Jadie for two of her years at the school. Time and again, we saw the police cars parked across the street in front of the Ekdahls' home.

Very little information on the investigation filtered through to us in the school, which I found disconcerting in the beginning and then downright distressing. Despite being integral in bringing the case to the attention of the police and Social Services, I was now very much on the periphery of the investigation, and my fear that they were acquiring no substantial evidence mounted as the week progressed.

More difficult were the stark warnings to me about talking with Jadie. While I was told to carry on as normal in the classroom, I was instructed not to encourage any in-depth conversations between us alone, for fear that I might ask leading questions that would prejudice the case were it ever to come to court. Indeed, as the week went on, I had the horrible sense that the lawyers now representing Mr. and Mrs. Ekdahl were going to try to prove that I had planted many of these ideas in Jadie's fertile imagination.

All of this made me more and more reluctant to stand behind my accusations of occult involvement. With Jadie refusing to talk, with only skimpy evidence of any abuse, much less abuse by a large group of people, and with the police lawyers repeatedly suggesting that if the defense discovered I had gone several times to the occult bookshop and consulted with a person claiming to be a witch, they could be well down the road to proving the occult connection came from me. I wanted only to extricate myself, career intact.

In the quiet of Lindy's office, I did talk at some length with her about my suspicions. Couldn't it be, for instance, that Jadie was familiar with the old video machine I'd brought in the previous year because she'd come in contact with one before? I'd asked. What if the abuse sessions were filmed? Could that account for the number of times Jadie had asked me if I'd seen them on my TV? Perhaps she'd seen them played back in private and assumed they were being broadcast. Perhaps this was why everyone was referred to by "Dallas" character names. Wouldn't that be a perfect ploy to keep from being identified? With the reference to being on TV, outsiders would naturally conclude it was all a child's fantasy.

Jadie's continual reference to being given Coca-Cola was another example, I told Lindy. In one of the books on satanism I'd gotten from the occult bookstore, there had been mention of putting Valium or similar drugs into soft drinks to make the victims of the ritual assaults more compliant. While admittedly it sounded a bit farfetched to me, Jadie had mentioned Coke as an integral part of her times with Miss Ellie and the others too many times for me to dismiss it out of hand. Certainly, that would account for Jadie's hazy recollection of specifics during these occasions.

Lindy appeared to take these points seriously and was particularly interested in the doll incident; she felt, as I did, of all the occurrences, it was the most likely to indicate the involvement of someone other than Jadie. On the other hand, she felt the same kind of professional leeriness.

She said, "I think it's just going to muddy the water, if you bring in all these heebie-jeebie things, don't you? What we've got to do is get these kids safe. From what you've said, from the way this oldest girl acts, I feel fairly definite about the fact these girls have been abused, and I'd hate to see them go back home. But if you get in there talking about ghosts and witches and all that, Torey, we're going to be asking for it. Their defense is going to shred us. Know what I mean?"

I did. Still unable to convince myself beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jadie's terrible stories were factual, I didn't know what kind of witness I would make. Mortified at the thought of what it would do to my professional credibility, embarrassed that I might be thought a crackpot or worse, it was only too easy to agree that unless concrete evidence to the contrary came up over the course of the investigation, I would not make a major issue out of the satanic business.

I came home from the meeting with Lindy to fall wearily into the chair in front of the TV. I didn't bother to make myself a meal. I didn't even bother to take off all my outer clothes. Feeling overwhelmed, I flicked the TV on and just sat, staring vacantly at it.

The doorbell rang.

Not wanting to answer it, but not daring not to, given all that was going on, I pulled myself up from the chair. Opening the door, I found Lucy.

"Hi," she said nervously, glancing around. "Am I interrupting anything?" Despite the amount of time we had spent together in the summer, she had almost never been over to my apartment, and I think she continued to harbor fantasies about the grand city lifestyle I must be carrying on. She looked vaguely disappointed to find it empty.

"Come on in." Then, suddenly aware I was still wearing my jacket, I pulled it off. "I just got here myself."

"I didn't mean to bother you or anything. It's just that I was nearby, and I haven't been seeing much of you at school ..." Lucy looked over at me and the moment's hesitation became a full-blown pause. "Are you okay, Torey?" she asked softly. "I guess that's what I wanted to know. I mean, we're all aware of what's going on. It's all anybody talks about in the teachers' lounge ..."

"Sit down," I said and smiled. "You want something? A soft drink? Coffee?"

"No, I was just stopping by. But how is it going?" She settled into the other armchair. "Are you all right?"

Sitting back down myself, my jacket still in my hands, I told her. She already knew a good deal about Jadie's strange other world, but I told her now about the seamy stuff, about my concerns for something deeper and more horrific than straightforward sexual abuse, but at the same time, I mentioned all my doubts. I spoke of the problems Lindy and her officers were encountering, of the complexity in reporting something of this nature. Lucy listened silently, chin braced in her hand.

I hadn't meant to include Lucy in all of this. I liked her very much and, indeed, she was as close to a confidante as I had in Pecking. In quiet moments together at school, we'd shared much of ourselves with one another. We cheered each other on in the good times and cheered each other up in the bad. But there remained an innocent and naive side of Lucy that had kept me from sharing everything. She loved her world of white weddings, potluck suppers, and sleighbells in the snow. I didn't like to be thought of as cynical, because I didn't think I was, but my brand of realism didn't marry well with Lucy's world. Yet, there I was, tired, frightened, and very much in need of a sympathetic ear. So Lucy got all of it.

She listened thoughtfully, not saying a word until I'd finally fallen silent. "Do you really think that's going on? That ritualistic stuff? Do you really think some little girl's been murdered?"

"To be perfectly honest, at this point I don't know what I think. I'm so jumbled up, even in my own mind."

"But Jadie thinks there is?"

I nodded.

"What have the police found?" Lucy asked.

"They haven't told me very much. The worst part of this whole deal is the lack of communication. I'm not supposed to be talking to Jadie, in case I inadvertently ask leading questions. The police aren't talking to anybody. Social Services are going their merry way, not feeling obliged to tell me anything, which they aren't, of course. I'm just the teacher. And Jadie ... Jadie's not saying a word to anyone." I sighed. "It's going to fall through, I just know it. They're not going to come up with any hard evidence. I've been involved in other, just ordinary abuse cases and, believe me, the kind of evidence the police need to prosecute ... we're going to get all this way and it's going to be thrown out. I just know it is."

Actually saying that, hearing myself say it, brought me to the brink of tears.

Lucy looked over. "I think you're doing the right thing."

"But what if they don't find anything? What if Jadie ends up going back home? What if Jadie never says a thing, and I'm stuck here with this big story about murdered children and voodoo dolls?"

"Well, just because she didn't tell them, Torey, doesn't mean she didn't tell you. Just because they don't find anything doesn't mean it didn't happen. You got to listen to yourself. If it's crazy-sounding, it's crazy-sounding, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be real."

"But this is Pecking," I muttered, Lucy grinned. "I ought to be saying that, not you."

I smiled.

"I guess what you've got to be asking," she said, "is why not Pecking?"

At the end of the week, Arkie appeared in the doorway of my classroom. "We've got an appointment today. Did you hear about it?"

I nodded. "Rumor of it, yes."

"Lindy wants us in the police station in Falls River at 4:30. Can you manage that? They've got to decide which way they're going. Delores says she can get a twenty-eight day extension on the place-of-safety, but I haven't heard what the police are going to do. If they're not going to prosecute, I'd expect the kids to go back with their parents."

"What do they want with us?"

Arkie shrugged. "Just tying up loose ends, I suppose."

I regarded her. There'd been distance between us in the last week. I sensed Arkie still did not approve of my insistence that Jadie's claims might be true, and I knew she was deeply afraid of the exploitive media attention this sort of case would garner. That remark she'd made to me last time we were out to dinner, the one about "good-bye New York Times, hello National Enquirer" stuck in my mind. I'd diminished myself professionally in Arkie's eyes and it upset me.

"What do you want to see out of this?" I asked.

Arkie gave a slight lift of her shoulders. "Justice to be done, I guess."

The Christmas season refused to stay at bay, despite my distinct lack of mood for it. Decorative lighting was strung from the street lamps and through the small trees along the downtown sidewalks of Falls River. An ectomorphic Santa Claus with black hair sticking out from under his cap stood on the corner outside the police station and dolorously rang his bell. The sound merged with the piped carols as we entered the building.

"Hi, you guys," Lindy said, coming to the front desk to meet us. "Come on back."

I'd been expecting a whole crowd at this meeting, as I'd assumed it would be a summing-up of the week's findings, but in fact, there were only Lindy, Arkie, and myself. Lindy must have picked up on my surprise, because she said, "This is just an informal invitation. I thought we could make one last stab at getting the facts straight."

Arkie and I nodded.

We were in a small, gray-painted room with a large table. Arkie and I pulled out chairs and sat down. Lindy, who held a set of file folders, sat across from us. She laid the files out on the table.

"I'll have to confess this is proving a pretty hard case," she began. "I wish I could give you good news, but ..." She rifled through the papers. "We've had a good look at the girls and there's nothing to support any kind of physical abuse, other than perhaps that circular scar on the six-year-old's abdomen. While maybe not as clean as they could be, otherwise the girls were all in good physical condition.

"In terms of sexual abuse, well ... the hymen's been broken in all three girls. This happens naturally in many instances and, of course, this is what the parents maintain. That's feasible in the two older girls' cases, but it is rather unusual in an eighteen-month-old. However, we could hardly build a case for sexual abuse on that alone. The eldest girl and the baby also show evidence of anal dilation. This may mean anal penetration, but then again, it may simply indicate constipation-very common in girls of both ages. Otherwise, there has been no evidence of semen, seminal fluid, blood in the underclothes, vaginal irritations or infections. In short, we haven't got a good case for sexual abuse based on the hard evidence."

Lindy shifted papers and picked up another file. "Our psychologist has had three extended play periods with the girls, two individually and one with all three together, each time using the anatomically correct dolls. Nothing significant occurred with the younger two. With the eldest-that's your Jadie-it's obvious she's sexually aware. She quite openly demonstrated vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, and fellatio, but we do have to keep in mind she's nearly nine.

"Dr. Denning, from the mental health clinic, has assessed the two elder girls for stability and overall functioning. Both are of normal intelligence, from what he can tell, although Jadie refused to participate in the verbal parts of the test. Neither appears wildly stable, according to him; neither was wildly cooperative, however. So goodness knows how helpful these data are.

"Regarding your comments, Torey, about the possibility of occult involvement or a porn ring or something similar, we took a search warrant and went through the house. We didn't come up with much. A handful of Playboys stuffed down the back of the sofa, two books on astrology, one on numerology, a small box full of bones, which the path lab has identified as coming from small animals, and six boxes of white candles."

"What are their explanations for those last two items?" I asked.

"Mr. Ekdahl says the bones are some he's collected out in the field. He says he likes to reassemble skeletons as sort of a hobby. Says he'd always wanted to be a taxidermist but couldn't afford to pursue it, so he goes out walking on the weekends and collects the bones. He was able to substantiate all this insomuch as he had two completed skeletons, one of a squirrel and one of a cat." Lindy wrinkled her nose. "They were rather nauseating, really, because he's glued them up in these coy little poses. We did bring the two skeletons in, but I must confess, I could hardly imagine anyone performing black rites around a squirrel sitting on a little red bench with its legs crossed and a newspaper in its paws.

"As for the candles, they're just ordinary penny candles, which they say they keep in case of winter power cuts. Six boxes do seem a bit much, but Mrs. Ekdahl claimed they were on sale when she bought them. So ..." Lindy paused.

"That's not really going to be enough, is it?" I asked.

"Not to prosecute, no."

"But what about these characters from 'Dallas'?" I asked. "She talks so realistically ..."

"No, she doesn't," Lindy replied. "That's the whole problem. You talk realistically. She doesn't talk at all. I have never yet heard this kid utter a word. And while we've tried to follow up some of the things you've said she's said, unless you can give us something more specific, what are we supposed to do? A plain example: when you talk about these characters, you're talking about five or six or more suspects, all involved in serious sexual abuse. At best, we've got two suspects. Where are the other ones? Who are they?"

"I think we have to face the possibility that these people simply may not exist at all," Arkie said, her voice soft. "I know it's hard for Torey. She's closest to the child; she has the girl's confidence, and certainly the girl can be remarkably vivid when she does talk. But irrespective of whether abuse has occurred or not, Jade is a seriously disturbed child. There is a hearty chance we're chasing moonbeams."

I looked over at Arkie in dismay.

"Torey, you've got to accept this."

"But why can't you accept it could be real?"

"Because it can't. Because she's disturbed. Because I don't want to see a replay of the Salem witch hunt right here on my own turf. That's what that was, wasn't it? Hysterical children accusing innocent adults. Human nature hasn't changed, and I just don't want to be a party to destroying these people's lives. These are people, Torey. This is a family we're talking about here, and they're never going to be the same because of this. You and I and the police and everyone, we'll walk out of it. The Ekdahls won't. I'm scared shitless by this talk of witches and Satan and stuff, not because of what it is, but because of what it can do. It's exciting, interesting, something to liven up a dull police report and a bunch of dull lives. I'm so frightened we're going to forget these are people and we're destroying them."

I fell silent. Indeed, we all did, the silence weighing down on us in the small room. Lindy shuffled through her papers for a moment, but the silence remained.

Finally, Lindy looked over at me. "What do you think? Do you really believe she's telling the truth?"

A depressing weariness overtook me. "I don't know. I really don't. But ... it's not so much what she says when she's talking about the abuse, it's the little things. Like how she talks of Tashee always being cold. Or how Tashee was short for her age. Or like the other week, just before Thanksgiving. One of my boys is Sioux and he got to talking about a headdress and some other Indian articles his father has, when Jadie mentioned that Tashee had a pair of genuine moccasins. Then she scooted back and showed this boy how the moccasins came up around the ankles. That incident struck me, because it wasn't Tashee she was talking about and it wasn't me she was talking to. It was the moccasins and it was to him. From her description, she was clearly referring to real Indian moccasins, because they do look so different from what gets fobbed off on the tourists. Such a casual, minor reference. It'd take considerable skill to lie like that, and I'd find it unusually complete, if it's the result of some kind of psychopathology."

"But it could be," Arkie replied. "Maybe she wanted those moccasins. Then it'd be only natural that she'd put them on Tashee."

Lindy pursed her lips. "So, basically, we're not a whole lot further along than we were at this time last week."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

"So, what we gonna do in here, man? You gonna get us a Christmas tree or what?" Jeremiah demanded. We were only half an hour or so into the morning on Tuesday, all sitting together around the table, supposedly working, but nobody was. Brucie was in deep conversation with his crayon, flipping it before his face and saying "Bwah, bwah, bwah" to it. Reuben had done his first math problem, to which the answer was "12." So taken by the sight of "1" followed by "2", he felt compelled to continue on, writing "3", "4", "5", and so on, covering his paper with minute numbers. I'd already stopped him twice and reoriented him, but he reverted the moment I turned my attention away and was now up to 736. Philip had drawn a gigantic Christmas stocking on his paper and was decorating it with stars. Jadie just sat.

"I think we have plenty of time to worry about Christmas trees in the weeks ahead, Jeremiah. Now is the time for numbers."

"Fuck numbers. We gonna have a party?"

"We'll discuss it another time. Now we work."

He slammed his pencil down on the table, grabbed his chair, and slammed that down as well. Then he saw Philip's paper. "Look at him, lady. Look at what that little boog's doing. Hey, baby boogs, what's Santy Claus gonna bring you, if you been a good boy? Put in your itty, bitty stocky?"

"Jeremiah, please sit down." I reached a hand behind me to the bookcase. "And here, Phil, here's another math sheet." I removed the decorated one.

"I don't hang up a stocking no more," Jeremiah announced. "I'm too big. That's what my mom says. Says I won't get nothing in it." He shrugged. "But don't matter, 'cause what I want don't fit in a stocking anyhow. Know what I want?" He flung himself down on his back on the tabletop, his face right under mine. "A BMX."

Deciding to ignore him, which wasn't easy, as he was nearly lying in my lap, I stretched across to reorient Brucie.

"What you gonna get, girlie?" he asked Jadie, as he rolled across everyone's work on the table to come face to face with her.

"Go stick your head in a toilet, okay?" Jadie replied.

Rising, I took hold of Jeremiah's shirt collar and belt and lifted him bodily off the table. I placed him upright in his chair.

"Hooeeee! Did you see that, guys? That is one strong broad there. Lifted me up just like that. Man, better mind what she says. Better do what this dame wants. Man, lady, you know how to treat a guy."

"Jeremiah, work."

About twenty seconds' silence reigned before Jeremiah looked up. "I know what. Let's make Christmas wishes."

"You've already told us about your bike. Now, go back to math, please."

"No, not that. Wishes. Like peace on earth and stuff. Like what you'd wish for-not for yourself, man-for everybody."

The idea caught my fancy. "Okay, Jeremiah, what would your Christmas wish be?"

"That people with brown skin don't get picked on no more. That it don't matter that you got brown skin or black skin or anything, that nobody gets beat up, just 'cause they're different."

"Well, that's a very good wish, Jeremiah. Wouldn't it be lovely, if it came true?"

"What do you wish for, girlie?" he asked Jadie.

Jadie thought a moment, then shrugged, and I didn't think she was going to answer. Finally, however, she did. "No more fighting, I guess. That everybody in the whole world could be happy."

Philip jumped up and down excitedly. "Mhhheeee!"

"Okay, you. Your turn," I said. "What do you wish for?"

"Hhhhhaann huhhh," he said and gesticulated wildly, a grin on his face. He pointed to Jadie.

"I'm sorry, we can't quite understand you. Can you use your signs?" I asked, because Philip now had quite a wide vocabulary of sign-language gestures.