Chapter 5

Helen Widener thought it wise to get her version of the story out first rather than chance looking like she was covering her tracks when Detective Haldeman came looking for the boy. The morning after moving him to her cabin, she called the police department to report one of her charges missing, saying he must have slipped out some time during the night. Young people under her care rarely bolted, but it wasn’t unheard of. In this case, since the reported missing person was deemed to be emotionally disturbed, a detective was sent to take the initial report and begin a search without waiting the usual twenty-four hours.

At the same time Widener was making her missing persons report, Sarah Bernstein was speaking to Haldeman on the phone, asking for an update on the murder case. When he told her he’d already given all the latest information to Ken, she thanked him and went looking for her colleague. That’s when she learned from her boss that Ken had resigned via e-mail.

She tried calling his home number and his cell phone but she couldn’t get an answer. She knew instinctively that something wasn’t quite right and wondered if his resigning had anything to do with their little dustup at the home the day before. Her first concern was that he might try to steal her story, but then she smiled and thought, “That queer doesn’t have the cojones for real journalism.”

She reached up absentmindedly and touched the tender, bruised cheekbone plastered with pancake makeup.

When she called Haldeman back and told him Ken had resigned and couldn’t be reached, he was annoyed, but he invited her to come by the station and pick up the information she needed.

Bernstein may have been self-serving and ethically challenged, but she was nobody’s fool, and she made the same connections Ken had made tying John Doe to the murder scene. But unlike Ken, she expressed her suspicions to Haldeman immediately.

She wasn’t allowed to accompany him to the home to take Anton into custody, but she followed in her own car and waited outside the building with her camera in hopes of getting some shots and an exclusive on the capture of the perpetrator of the gruesome murders.

She was disappointed that the detective wouldn’t allow her to be present during his interview with Widener. That’s when he learned the boy had disappeared during the night. He confirmed that a missing person’s report had been filed and called in a forensics team to dust the boy’s room for fingerprints to verify that he was the one confined to the basement prison with the dead girl. He contacted the detective on the missing persons investigation and they agreed to step up the search by issuing a BOLO.

Armed with the latest, Sarah headed back to the station to prepare her story. Anton Balan would be all over the small screen on the six o’clock news whether Widener objected or not.

While Rhonda and Anton were on their hike up the mountain, Ken filled Eric in on the gruesome details about what had happened to the boy’s sister and what he might have done to the couple keeping them prisoner. Eric was still relatively new in the social work business, but where he grew up, he’d seen a lot of abuse cases. Nothing in his experience came close to what Ken described.

“My god,” he groaned, “no wonder the kid’s mind shut down! That would push anybody over the edge. Does Rhonda know?”

Ken shook his head. “I can’t speak for Dr. Widener, but my guess is that she doesn’t want Rhonda’s growing closeness to Anton to be influenced by something that’s as yet unproved. Yeah, the evidence seems pretty damning, but we can’t know exactly what happened until the kid opens up. Who knows when that will be?”

Eric said, “I guess the doctor knows best, but do you have any idea what Rhonda has been through? Man, that girl has suffered some major shit in her young life! Maybe nothing quite as grotesque as what happened to Anton and his sister, but it was damn close. If there’s anybody that can identify with what he’s going through, it’s her.”

“Really? I don’t know anything about Rhonda other than she’s smart, sassy, tough and good-looking. I assumed she’d had a rough life since she was handed over to Dr. Widener for care and treatment.”

Eric gave Ken the short version of Rhonda’s escape from her mother, her abduction and life as a drug-dependent, sex-slave/hooker for nearly a year and a half.

“Fuck,” Ken sighed, “no kids should ever have to carry a history like that on their shoulders. And I thought I had it rough growing up!”

“Yeah, pretty sick isn’t it? I guess you get why stories like Anton’s and Rhonda’s make our jobs necessary.”

A little later, as Eric was making another pot of coffee, he observed, “So, I guess since you’re free to get involved in this adventure, you must not be burdened with obligations to a wife and kiddies.”

Ken chuckled and said, “Nope, not by a long shot. I tend to hang out on the other side of the tracks.”

Eric didn’t catch on. “Other side of the tracks? Sorry, I’m missing the reference.”

Ken mentally kicked himself for his glib, off-the-cuff remark. “I don’t know why I even said that, but since I did, I meant that I’m somewhere between hetero and homo, probably closer to the homo end of the scale. But I don’t have any current love interests working in either direction.”

“Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosey.”

Ken laughed, “I believe the uninvited revelation was all mine. And in case that makes you feel anxious about sharing a bedroom, I’m not trolling for a hookup.”

Eric’s cheeks flushed a little and he said, “And I didn’t take it that way, but since you brought up the subject, I guess I can be equally as candid and admit that I’m fairly ambivalent in my sexual preferences as well, although I think I lean more to the hetero side. I haven’t had sex with any males outside the normal teenage experimentation, but I don’t exactly go all ga-ga and hormonal over women either, at least not the ones I’ve met so far. Thank the gods for internet porn, right? You can always go with your current whim. This may sound cold, but to me, sex is just sex; whatever makes you feel good. I don’t feel any pressing need to get involved in a serious relationship.

Ken regarded the young man with renewed interest. “How old are you, Eric?”

“Twenty-five.”

“That’s pretty late in the game to be tossing a coin, but if you’re one of those guys in the middle like me, I suppose that makes any decision kind of arbitrary. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t know that there’s any reason why anyone needs to commit one way or the other. You are what you are and you do what you do.”

Eric shrugged. “Well, that’s the thing, Ken; I don’t feel any need to commit to anything other than just going with the flow. Believe me, I’ve tried the commitment thing more than once, and so far it hasn’t worked out all that great. Now it’s catch as catch can. I guess that would be my motto if I had a motto.”

Ken gave it some thought before tossing his hat into the ring. “Yeah, well let me know if you feel yourself flowing toward the dark side. I happen to be available for catching at the moment. Or throwing.”

Eric was about to respond to that when Anton and Rhonda came through the door.

Ken got up from the couch and asked, “So Rhonda, you want to go with me to the store? You seem pretty adept in the kitchen, so maybe you should help me decide how we spend Dr. Widener’s grocery money.”

“I’m on it!” She looked at Eric and Anton and asked, “Any special requests?”

Eric said, “Um, let’s see, Fritos and some white bean hummus if they have it. Oh, and some green tea.”

“Weird,” she laughed, “but whatever.”

Anton ignored the question and retired to his room to listen to music on his iPod.

As Ken and Rhonda headed out the door, Eric said, “If you’re gonna call Dr. Widener, ask her to bring up that guitar in the observation room, will you? I don’t know if Anton will get interested in it, but since there’s no piano available and music seems to be so important to him, it might prove to be a useful diversion.”

Raul Hinojosa was beside himself worrying about how the loss of his job was going to affect his bid for citizenship. He knew losing a job wasn’t exclusionary, but he needed to look like a good upstanding citizen to make a good impression. What he’d done for a little pussy was very dumb and he knew it. And it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten himself in hot water over a stiff dick and the promise of some place nice to put it. Sometimes he wondered if he was ever going to grow up and get his priorities straight.

He gave some thought to what Sarah had said about him making a killing as a gigolo, but that was probably nothing but pillow talk from a sexually satisfied woman. Besides, he had no idea how he would even go about getting into that kind of business. So he figured his best shot was to go to Dr. Widener and beg for his job back. He hadn’t dealt with her directly because the head counselor did the dirty work of letting him go, but he knew la doctora had a reputation for being a kind and fair woman. Maybe if he could explain, she’d take pity and give him a second chance.

He didn’t want to call her because it was too easy to say “no” over the telephone. He intended to just show up and ask Donna, the receptionist, if she would let him in to see her.

As he parked his car across the street from the home, he saw Dr. Widener walking toward her Lexus SUV carrying a guitar. He trotted across the street to intercept her.

“Dr. Widener?”

She unlocked her car with the remote and turned toward the voice. “Yes? Oh, it’s you, Raul. What can I do for you?”

He wasn’t a man who was used to begging, and his embarrassment showed in his anguished expression. “Doctor Widener, I am very sorry for the stupid thing that I did. I am a proud man, maybe too proud, and I would not be here asking for my job back if it was not so important. But I’m taking my examination for citizenship soon and this will look very bad for me. If you would give me a second chance, I swear I will never do anything so stupid again. Por favor!”

She was moved by his sincerity but not convinced. “Raul, I’m sure you can appreciate how important it is to protect our young people from public scrutiny and interference by the press or anybody else with their own agenda. Several of our young people have very serious emotional problems they’re trying to work through. Allowing someone like Ms. Bernstein to have free access to any of them without direct oversight is out of the question, especially the boy you knew she wanted to see. What you did and the reason you did it didn’t leave us a lot of choice regarding your employment. Surely you can understand that.”

“Si! Yes, Dr. Widener, I understand! I feel terrible for what I did, but she said she only wanted to ask him some questions. She said she was worried he wasn’t getting the right kind of care. I did not see what could be so bad about her talking to him. Please, Dr. Widener, I am begging you to give me another chance. I promise I will protect los niños with my life from now on!”

Widener stood beside her car looking hard into Raul’s eyes, trying to find any hint of duplicity. Seeing none, she gave him some small ray of hope. “Here’s all I can offer, Raul. I need time to think about what you’re asking, so I’m not going to give you an answer right now, but I’d like you to come back in the morning and ask me again. Meanwhile, I’ll review your employment record. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Doctora, I will be here when Donna opens the door. Thank you for being such a kind woman!”

“I’m not making any promises, Raul. I only said I’d think about it.”

“Si, I understand. Um, is that your guitara?”

“We got it for the boy we call John Doe, the one you let Ms. Bernstein in to see.”

“I did not know he played la guitara.”

“He doesn’t, but he seems to possess a special gift for music. We were hoping he might try.”

“Uh, Doctora, I play guitara very good. I could give him lessons if you want. No charge.”

“Thank you, but John Doe left us some time during the night. The police are looking for him now.”

Raul looked stricken. “He is gone? Oh no! Was it because of me, what I did?”

“No, Raul, I’m sure it wasn’t because of you. Come back in the morning and we’ll talk,”

“Yes. Yes, I will come back in the morning. Uh, Dr. Widener, I could teach the other niños as well if you wish. I was the teacher of music in Mexico.”

“Were you? How is it you wound up doing custodial work?”

Raul shrugged and said, “When one comes here from the south, one takes whatever work he can find.”

“I see. Well, as I said, come back in the morning.”

“Si. Buenas noches, Doctora!”

The six o’clock news lead story was a rehash of the bloody crime at the farmhouse, but with a new twist. The news anchor retold the original story with commentary by Sarah Bernstein, then as television reporters are wont to do, Sarah took it from there and sensationalized the story of Anton Balan, speculating rather wildly about how she (the reporter) saw the whole scene playing out.

She painted a picture of how a young boy and his sister, eleven and nine years of age respectively, were bought from an unscrupulous orphanage in Romania and locked up in a basement prison to be photographed and used as sex slaves in a child pornography operation. She described a grim picture of their gradual starvation over a period of four years, ending in the girl’s death from malnutrition. She created a graphic picture of the boy’s escape, waiting for the man to open the steel door and then clubbing him to death with a piece of pipe, then running upstairs and doing the same to the woman.