Protector - Laurel Dewey [27]
Weyler pinched the skin between his nose. “Detective Perry, must you?”
“Kids aren’t stupid, sir. I may not have any of my own, but I was one. And I can tell you that they know things. Lying to them just screws them up.”
“Martha will inform Emily when she feels the child can handle it. Let’s get back on point.” Weyler leaned back in his chair, his hands folded against each other. “We are ninety-nine percent certain that Emily saw something.”
“You said she was barricaded in her closet upstairs. What did she see?”
“Evidence points to a couple possibilities. First and foremost, Emily’s palm and fingerprints were found in the streaks of blood along the wooden banister. The killer or killers wore gloves and dragged their bloody hands up the banister on their way, presumably, to Emily’s bedroom at the top of the stairs. We know that one of them entered her room and stood approximately in eyesight of the closet door that was slightly ajar when patrol officers found her the following morning. Blood droplets were found on the bedroom carpeting that probably came from the tip of a knife. It is only by the grace of God that the individual who was in that room was somehow distracted from finding the child. Either way, there’s a good chance she saw him from in there.”
Jane’s head began to beat from the hangover. Trying to intelligently debate with Weyler was proving difficult. “Okay, maybe I’m missing something here. How can she be hidden in her closet and also be touching a bloody banister?”
“She obviously didn’t stay in the closet the entire time,” Weyler said irritated. “Do a little crime scene math! Or is your head pounding too much?” Jane instinctively grabbed a cigarette from the pack in her shirt pocket. “You can’t smoke in here!”
Jane jabbed the cigarette back into the pack. She could feel herself becoming edgier. “Okay, so, she’s in the closet and she possibly sees the perp. He leaves the scene for whatever reason. She gets up, walks downstairs and sees mom and dad on the living room floor. Then she goes back up—”
“No, she does not go back up right away. She walks over to her parents, their blood pooled together, and stands there in her bare feet for an undetermined amount of time. We know that from the trail of her bloody footprints that lead back up the stairs. The front of her nightgown was also partially stained with their blood as were the palms of her hands.”
Jane listened, unable to stop the gory visuals. As much as she tried to remain detached, she could feel herself falling into the child’s body, standing in her parents’ blood and looking down on their mutilated corpses. Jane collected herself. “It sounds like you know a lot already about this case. I’m sure the kid will tell you the rest.”
“As I said earlier, she’s not talking except to ask if her parents are dead. She stood in their blood and she doesn’t remember any of it. Martha says it’s deep post-traumatic stress. When you see or experience something so utterly destructive and shocking that you simply turn it off, you black out in a way and bury it somewhere deep down in your psyche.”
Jane looked Weyler in the eye. “Sounds great. Some people aren’t given the gift of blacking out memories.”
“According to Martha, it’s never completely blacked out.”
“Wait a second,” Jane interrupted. “Since when did Martha become an expert trauma psychologist? Isn’t she just a glorified government babysitter?”
“She’s read books on the subject—”
“Oh, spare me!”
“She works with children who have been traumatized! Children just like Emily Lawrence who bury ghastly images deep in their mind and can’t remember. However, the research shows that slices of those memories fall between the cracks of the child’s subconscious. With the right stimulus, they reappear, allowing for a full