Under Her Care(67)
“Please. Help. Me.”
THIRTY-ONE
CASEY WALKER
“Genevieve is twisted and depraved! She’s hurting Mason, probably more than we even know. Something is seriously wrong with her.” My speech is pressured and hurried. I can’t get the words out fast enough. “Nobody ever suspected her except me. Not once. But of course nobody else did. I mean, if a mother says something about their kid, you believe them, right? A mother knows best and all that. Just this automatic trust.” I smack my steering wheel as I drive, trying my hardest not to speed home. “What kind of a person does that to her own child? And what for? So she could speak at a few conferences? Be on the local news? Seriously?”
“Ms. Walker, slow down. You need to—”
“Arrest her. That’s what we need to do. I don’t know what happened out there with Annabelle, but whatever it was, it was all about her. She’s behind everything. Not him. I got him to talk, Detective Layne.”
“You did? What’d he say?” He’s finally paying attention for the first time since I called instead of just trying to butt in so that he can speak.
“During our visit, we communicated with an app that my daughter and I use so she can speak without having to use her voice. I thought of it before, but Genevieve’s against assistive technology, so I didn’t bother with it. I should’ve. Whatever, though, it doesn’t matter. I used it today.” I want to squeal like Mason did when he first made the voice say hi. “Anyway, I showed him how to use it. It’s pretty simple, but for a while I was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to figure it out, and then he did. He finally did.” This time I do squeal like him. “And he said, ‘Please help me.’ Please help me! That’s what he said. He needs our help, Detective. What do we do? How do we stop her?”
“Did he say it was his mama hurting him?” He doesn’t sound nearly as excited as I expected him to be.
“It has to be her. There’s nobody else around him to hurt him. She’s never let him out of her sight until now.” He tries to interrupt, but I don’t let him. I’m not done talking. “And then the one time he’s finally free, he asks for help? You have to see how significant that is. Not only that, Detective, he’s a different kid. A relaxed and inside-his-body kind of kid, and you want to know why that is?” I’m not giving him a chance to respond. “It’s because she’s hurting him. She’s been doing it all along.”
“Okay, but did he actually say that his mama was hurting him?” He repeats his question, undeterred by anything I’ve just said.
“He said, ‘Ma. Ma.’ Over and over again.” Once he put those sounds together, he spent ten minutes tapping them out and playing them on repeat. I just sat there on his roommate’s bed, nodding my understanding and hoping it was encouraging enough to get him to say more. “That’s pretty telling, don’t you think?”
“Yes and no,” he says. “He could’ve just wanted his mom. Besides, I’ve heard him say that lots of times, and Genevieve claims it’s one of his favorite phrases, so I’m not willing to bank anything on that. We would need a much more detailed statement.”
“A detailed statement?” I respond incredulously. “How can you expect him to go from almost no communication to giving a detailed account about what happened to him?”
“That’s not what I’m expecting at all. But a blanket statement of ‘help me’ and saying ‘ma ma’ could mean anything. Maybe something is going on at the foster home he’s in and he wants you to help get him out, or maybe he just wants you to help him go home.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. He acts like I let him say those powerful words and didn’t ask any more questions. I jumped in immediately.
“Is someone hurting you, Mason?” That was the first question out of my mouth after his cry for help.
He dropped his head and took just as much time to select his words as he had before. The seconds felt like hours until he was finally finished and tapped play again.
“Little boy boat no float.”
My heart sank. I’d been hoping for further disclosure. Was it code for something or just gibberish that he’d put together?
“Tell me more about the little boy,” I probed. He repeated the same line. This time when he was finished, he snuck a quick peek at me to see my reaction, and I was sure he was trying to tell me something. That his words meant something. “I don’t understand. Help me understand.”
“Please. Help. Me.”
I turn my attention back to Detective Layne. “He didn’t just ask for help once. He said it twice. I don’t care if it’s not a perfect confession; it’s something, and even if you don’t believe it, I’m sure Genevieve is hurting him. We need to do something to protect him.”
“We don’t need to do anything. Mason won’t be going home for a long time.”
“What?” I balk, forcing myself to focus on the road while he speaks. The last thing I need is to get into a car accident on my way home.
“Depends on whether the district attorney charges him as an adult or a juvenile, but no matter what, he’s going away for some time. I suspect they’ll let him slide as a juvenile because of the circumstances, but that’ll still follow him until he’s twenty-four.” He couldn’t sound more pleased.