Sadie(69)

[DOOR OPENING AND CLOSING]


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Let’s get this over with.


WEST McCRAY:

Walk me through how Keith came into your life.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

I met him at the bar. Joel’s. I don’t remember it too well, but he followed me home like a … a sober puppy. He didn’t drink. He never drank, all the time I knew him.


WEST McCRAY:

So why was he even there?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Exactly. He was looking for someone like me.


WEST McCRAY:

Tell me what you mean by that.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Lost, sick … I was sick with my addiction. He helped keep me sick. Always giving me money, making sure I got wasted …

He never asked me for anything. He just gave and gave and I was happy to take, so long as he was willing. He was trying to keep me out of it because …


WEST McCRAY:

Because why?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Sadie hated him, you know.


WEST McCRAY:

May Beth mentioned that. She said Sadie felt threatened by Keith.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

She never liked anybody I brought home. You’ve got to understand, even if they were good men, she didn’t like them. They weren’t all bad.


WEST McCRAY:

Was Keith bad?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

I ended up kicking him out.


WEST McCRAY:

Why?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Something about the way he was with the girls. He was always … too interested, you know? Most guys, you tell ’em you have kids, and they don’t want nothing to do with you, so you gotta promise them they’re always gonna come first. Keith never wanted that.

I didn’t like the way he was looking at Mattie.


WEST McCRAY:

What does that mean?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

It means just what I said.


WEST McCRAY:

Claire?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

I found—I found him in her room one night. The last night.


WEST McCRAY:

Doing what?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Nothing, no, I don’t know …

It was wrong. Soon as I saw it, I knew it was wrong. He had no reason to be in there. None. And sometimes, when I think about it, I think his pants were undone but I was … I was wasted, I don’t know. I had him out of the house that night, and the next morning Mattie was up and asking where Keith was … and every time after his name came up, she was fine, so I don’t think—I think I must have got there in time.


WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]: Claire is a hard woman to pin down by voice alone. She relates these things in a flat, distant way, as if to keep herself separate from them. You have to look at the way she shrinks in on herself with each word that passes her lips. The way she fidgets with her cigarettes, but can’t quite make herself light up. Her hands shake. This upsets her deeply.


WEST McCRAY:

Claire, I have to ask you something else.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Don’t.


WEST McCRAY:

Did Sadie ever tell you—


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Don’t.

I don’t know.


WEST McCRAY:

Did Keith abuse Sadie?


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

[CRYING] I don’t know.


WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]: It’s clear Sadie had unfinished business with Keith. Was it that? Or did he succeed in hurting Mattie? Claire may have saved her daughter for one night, but Keith lived with them for a year.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

I just can’t believe … I can’t believe what you’re saying about him.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

It’s the truth.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

Sadie must’ve told me every time she saw me how much she hated him. I didn’t listen. I thought she was being a kid but … she was never a kid.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Don’t start with me, May Beth.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

I’m not, Claire. Thank God … thank God you stopped him.


WEST McCRAY:

It sounds like Sadie was looking for Keith because she had something to settle.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

I don’t know why she’d go after him now, after all this time.


WEST McCRAY:

There’s something else. Keith was in a relationship with a woman whose brother was recently arrested for a sexually abusing children. He was arrested because of Sadie. I’ll walk you through that later, but without Sadie, it’s safe to assume he’d still be preying on children. I don’t know the extent of that man’s ties to Keith, but from what Claire’s telling me, it seems they have this predilection in common.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

Well, what’s the sister got to say about it?


WEST McCRAY:

She refuses to talk to me.


CLAIRE SOUTHERN:

That’s confirmation enough, isn’t it. [PAUSES] Did Sadie really get him arrested?

[PHONE RINGING]


WEST McCRAY:

Sorry. I have to take this. West McCray here.