Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [83]
“Now they’ll be up all night, torturing you and one another?”
I regarded the cops steadily. “Priscilla has brain damage from being shaken as a baby; it impairs her ability to process numbers. Tonight, however, she counted out ten candles and jammed them all onto one cupcake. Speaking for the staff, we don’t care if the kids spend the rest of the night tearing this place apart. It’s worth it for that moment.”
Sergeant Warren studied me. I couldn’t tell if my words had affected her or not. Then again, this was a woman who spent her time rolling over dead bodies so she could note their faces. She probably could take me at poker.
“And Tika Solis? She have a party?”
“I don’t know.” I started to open the file. Sergeant Warren reached across the table and slapped it shut.
“No. Off the top of your head. What do you remember about her?”
“I don’t.”
“What do you mean you don’t?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t. Name’s not ringing any bells.”
“You remembered Ozzie Harrington,” she said crossly.
“I worked with Ozzie one-on-one over the course of many months. Of course I remember him.”
“But not Tika?”
“Can’t even bring her face to mind.”
The sergeant continued to stare at me, as if I were holding something back. “Girl liked to cut herself. That jog your memory?”
I shook my head. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Please, a little girl who self-mutilates? That doesn’t stand out in your mind?”
“We have two of those cases right now, so no, it doesn’t.”
“Two?”
I pulled the file out of her grasp. “Children are direct, Sergeant. Sometimes, they can’t verbalize their emotions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not attempting to communicate. A child who hates the world will act hateful. And a child who hurts inside will externalize that pain, cutting her arms, legs, wrists, in order to show you her ache.”
“Tika was three when she was admitted here. That’s not exactly a teenager brooding over the poems of Sylvia Plath,” the sergeant countered skeptically.
“Three?” Three was young for slicing and dicing. Not unheard-of, but young. My turn to frown. “When was she admitted?”
Sergeant stared at me. “Around the same time as Ozzie Harrington.”
I searched my memory banks, trying to bring a whole cluster of kids into focus. The dynamics of the kids impacted the milieu as much as anything. Who were the kids we’d had with Ozzie? What was the dynamic? We’d been so busy for the past year. More and more kids, each with a case file more horrific than the last … “Wait a second. Tiny little thing? From Mattapan?”
Sergeant Warren flicked a glance at the redhead sitting on her other side. “They moved to Jamaica Plains from Mattapan,” he murmured. The sergeant nodded at me.
“Okay, I remember her,” I admitted. “But I didn’t work with her much. I was busy with Ozzie; besides, Tika didn’t care for women. She responded better to the male MCs.”
“What do you mean, ‘responded’?”
“Wanted a father figure, most likely.” I shrugged. “Tika didn’t have one at home, so she was anxious to find one elsewhere. If Greg or Ed asked her to do something, she did it. If Cecille or I spoke to her, it was all la, la, la, la, la, wind blowing through the trees. We’re acute care—not our job to change that, just our job to work with it. So male counselors it was.”
“You’re saying she worked most closely with the gym coach out there?”
“Gym coach … Greg? Yes. Here, may I?” I gestured to the file. The sergeant finally let me open it. I skimmed through the reports. Sure enough, most of them were written up by Greg, Ed, and Chester. Male MCs indeed. “Greg and Ed are both here tonight,” I commented. “They might be able to help you.”
“Did Tika and Ozzie interact?” the sergeant wanted to know.
“Probably. In the common area, during group, that sort of thing.” There was something obvious I should be understanding. Ozzie and Tika. Tika and Ozzie. Then it came to me. My hands stilled on the file. I stared at the three detectives, horrified.
“Are you