Miracle Creek(81)

Heights swallowed. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “Yes. I do recall that, but—”

“Thank you, Detective. Now”—Shannon stood—“tell us how you handle child abuse claims in general.” She walked up, her steps slow and relaxed as if she were strolling through a garden. “When you get a serious complaint, you sometimes remove children from parents’ custody right away, before the investigation’s even done, correct?”

“Yes, when there’s a credible threat of serious harm, we try to obtain an emergency order temporarily assigning the child to a foster home pending investigation.”

“Credible threat of serious harm.” Shannon stepped closer. “In this case, when you received the anonymous complaint about Elizabeth, you didn’t remove Henry from his home, didn’t even try. Isn’t that correct?”

Heights looked at Shannon, mouth shut tight, eyes unblinking. After a long moment, she said, “Correct.”

“Which means that you believed there was no credible risk of harm to Henry, correct?”

Heights looked over to Abe, back to Shannon, and blinked. “That was our preliminary assessment. Before our investigation.”

“Ah, yes. You investigated for five days. At any point, if you had determined that Henry was, in fact, being abused, you could and would have removed him to protect him. That’s your job, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“But you didn’t do that.” Shannon stepped forward like a bulldozer ramming through a barrier. “For five full days after the complaint, you left Henry at home, correct?”

Heights bit her lip. “We were obviously wrong in our assessment—”

“Detective,” Shannon said, projecting her voice. “Please answer my question and my question only. I didn’t ask about your job performance, although your supervisor and attorneys interested in suing on behalf of Henry’s estate may be very interested to hear your admission of wrongdoing here. My question is: After five days of investigation, did you or did you not find Elizabeth to be an abuser posing a credible threat of serious harm to Henry?”

“We did not.” Heights looked dejected, her words flat.

“Thank you. Now let’s turn to your investigation itself.” Shannon put a blank poster board on the easel. “Yesterday, you said you investigated four types of abuse here: neglect and emotional, physical, and medical abuse. Correct?”

“Yes.”

Shannon wrote those categories in a column on the poster. “You interviewed Kitt Kozlowski, eight teachers, four therapists, and two doctors, as well as Henry’s father, correct?”

“Yes.”

Shannon wrote the interviewees on the top row:




Shannon said, “Did anyone express concerns about Elizabeth neglecting Henry?”

“No.”

Shannon wrote NO five times across the Neglect row and drew a line through the whole row. “Next, anyone other than Kitt express concerns about emotional abuse or physical abuse?”

Heights said, “No.”

“In fact, Henry’s teacher from last year said—I’m reading from your notes—quote, ‘Elizabeth is the last mother I could see traumatizing her child emotionally or physically,’ right?”

Heights breathed out, almost in a sigh. “Yes.”

“Thank you.” Shannon wrote NO in both rows across all but the Kitt column. “Finally, medical abuse. You focused on this, so I imagine you asked detailed questions to every person you talked to.” Shannon put down the marker. “So let’s have it. List for us all the instances of medical abuse these fifteen other people told you about.”

Heights said nothing, just stared at Shannon with a look of intense dislike.

“Detective, your answer?”

“The problem is, these people weren’t aware of any of the so-called medical therapies the defendant inflicted on Henry, so—”

“Yes, we’ll get to Henry’s therapies in a minute. But in the meantime, it sounds to me like your answer is that these fifteen people you interviewed did not, in fact, think that Elizabeth had committed medical abuse. Is that right, Detective?”

Heights breathed, and her nostrils flared. “Yes.”

“Thank you.” Shannon wrote NO across the last row and stood back to give the jurors an unobstructed view of the easel.




Shannon pointed to the poster. “So the fifteen people who knew Henry best and cared for his well-being agreed that Elizabeth did not in any way abuse him. Let’s talk about the one person with concerns. Did Kitt actually accuse Elizabeth of emotional abuse?”

Heights frowned. “I think it would be fair to say she questioned whether the defendant harmed Henry by saying he’s annoying and everyone hates him.”

“So she questioned emotional abuse.” Shannon drew a question mark in the Emotional Abuse/Kitt square. “And what’s your opinion on that, Detective? Is that child abuse? I have a child, a very teenage girl, if you know what I mean, and I admit, I catch myself telling her often that she’s rude and mean and downright hateable and she’s going to wind up alone with no friends, husband, or job if she doesn’t change and soon.” Some jurors chuckled and nodded. “Now, I know I won’t win any mother-of-the-year awards, but is that the type of thing we take kids away from moms for?”