What No One Else Can Hear (15 page)

Of course that wasn’t true.

“Any jury we might pick now is already very biased.” Kyle told us. “The best we could do would be to request a change of venue, but that would probably add months to the already lengthy wait for a trial.”

“So there’s nothing we can do about all this”—I sounded as defeated as I felt—“but sit, wait, and hope it doesn’t get even uglier.”

“That’s about it. Yes. Unless you want to go for the change of venue. But frankly, Liston is talking about this everywhere he goes, so I’m not sure even that will help. It’ll just add time.”

I shook my head. No, I didn’t want to do that.

S
O
MUCH
for hope.

For people who wanted to, it wasn’t hard to find out where I was living. Dorothy’s house was trashed. Filthy words were painted all over the side of the house and the porch. Paint was dumped on our cars, and we were repeatedly awakened to sounds of breaking glass as rocks with threatening notes attached were flung through the windows. I offered to pay for new glass out of what little savings I had, but Dottie said to leave it until things settled down. Otherwise we would simply be providing fresh targets. So we bought more plywood as needed and boarded up the broken windows.

Man, I didn’t know
how
I was going to repay that sweet lady… and I didn’t just mean financially.

The situation wasn’t much better at the center. Pickets constantly stood just outside the property line and chanted unkind things. Every time the staff attempted to take the kids out to play, the picketers became even louder. Several of the verbal children picked up some colorful language to repeat. Everyone tried to ignore the demonstrators and only kept inside those children bothered by all the noise. Stevie still wouldn’t come out of his room most of the time, let alone outside, so there were no problems with a crisis caused by all the emotions, but Sara finally had to tell the staff to keep the children indoors at all times after things intensified to dangerous levels.

On what would become the last day the kids were on the playground, several of the picketers managed to sneak up through the forested side of the property, and two of them actually laid hands on one of the kids. He was sitting by himself, but not far away from the nearest adult. The two “do-gooders” grabbed the kid, thinking he was Stevie, and were going to “liberate him from the horrible institution that had allowed him to be hurt in such a terrible way.” I guess from the back the kid did look a little like the picture of Stevie shown on TV but he was another child to whom touches were most unwelcome, and he had a horrible meltdown.

At least the self-proclaimed liberators were thrown in jail, but Sara didn’t want to take any more chances.

One good thing did come out of the so-called rescue attempt. The boy’s parents started a petition, which most of the other parents signed, to have the public barred from the premises. That didn’t do much for any protestors just outside the property line, but at least no one dared to come onto the property again—not that the kids were accessible any longer anyway. The parents also approached Mr. Liston and demanded that he either remove his son from the facility so that
their
children would be safe or publicly announce that the protestors should leave the premises and the outskirts of the center’s property. Mr. Liston finally did, when the parents’ group threatened to take the whole situation to the TV news station. They promised that the spin they would put on the ruckus at the center lately would not
be good for the gubernatorial candidate’s campaign.

The crowds were finally gone, but Sara still didn’t let the kids go out for a couple of weeks afterward.

At various points so far in this whole mess, the press had asked Mr. Liston some hard questions, but he had beautifully noble—though patently false—answers for each one.

“Why wasn’t it common knowledge that you had an older son? You only ever mention young Michael, who goes to a private boarding school in the East.”

“My eldest son is unable to understand what is going on around him. I simply wanted to protect his privacy and keep him safe from potential kidnappers or other people who would attempt to use my deep bond with my son against me. He is also such a fragile child; he didn’t need the extra attention of the media.”

“Why is he in a state-run institution when, with all your money, you could easily afford a better, private home?”

“The private homes already were very well financed and didn’t really need my money. I thought the state-run school would better benefit from my generous monthly contributions. I had done extensive research, of course, and was assured that it was a good facility with caring, attentive staff.”

“Why are you allowing him to stay in a place where he was hurt so badly?”

“The alleged perpetrator of these horrible crimes against my defenseless child is no longer allowed on the premises. I still believe the Lynneville Center for Children with Autism is the best place for the boy. He is used to the staff and to the routine. As an autistic child, routine and familiar surroundings are very important to him. While I
am
suing the center for negligence with regard to the hiring of and subsequent inadequate supervision of Jesse McKinnon, I do not think the staff in general is negligent. I trust the remaining staff to care for my son.”

“How is it that these things have been going on for seven months, and you didn’t know about it?”

“My son is uncommunicative and could not tell me about this on any of the occasions I saw him during that time.”

Dottie and Drew were both spitting nails.

“We need to go on our own smear campaign,” Dottie suggested to Kyle during a planning session. “Let the media know that the bastard they love so much dumped his kid here six years ago and hasn’t seen him since.”

“And what monthly contributions?” Drew put in. “He doesn’t even donate anything for spending money for Stevie, like most of the other parents do.”

“And that he on more than one occasion demanded that the center ‘stop bothering him about that kid,’” Dottie added.

Kyle waited until they seemed to run out of steam and then addressed their points. “If it wasn’t for the lawsuit, it might just be a matter of reporting both sides if we approached them with that information. But with the lawsuit, it might look like we’re fabricating lies to discredit Mr. Liston in order to make the center look better.”

“But Sara can
prove
all our assertions,” Drew added.

“True,” Kyle agreed. “But the public seems to have a love affair going on with Liston right now, and I don’t think trying to discredit him is the way to go. All our evidence might have more weight if it comes as a surprise to the public during the trial.” When he saw all the long faces in the room, he added, “If I thought it would do any good, I’d contact the press. I think, at this point, it’s better to lay low. There might be a better way to use this information later.”

T
HINGS
HAD
gotten pretty bad for Stevie. He started having frequent empathic crises, and while at first Drew or Dottie had been able to talk him through them by helping him build his mental walls, the episodes had now become so severe he couldn’t even focus on trying to build them. He started simply throwing anything around him and screaming.

Drew and Dottie, with Sara’s permission and the cooperation of the other staff, had rearranged their schedules so one or the other of them was always at the center since, next to me, Stevie responded best to them. They were keeping him together somewhat, but he really needed my help.

One meltdown turned so dire that Drew called me at Dottie’s house.

“Jesse, you
have
to talk to him. This meltdown is off the scale. The poor kid is already naked and scratched to pieces. He’s sitting on the floor in his room, banging his head against the wall. Jess, his head has already started to bleed, he’s banging it so hard. We can’t calm him down, and the doctor can’t get anywhere near him to sedate him.”

“Jesse”—Dottie stood close enough to hear Drew’s loud, frantic voice—“if you talk to him, you’re violating the restraining order. I’m not sure if you could actually do jail time for that or not.”

I couldn’t just leave Stevie like this, but Kyle had said that he wasn’t sure whether or not Dottie could lose her house if I violated the restraining order. “Dottie? What do I do? I don’t want you to lose your—”

“Don’t you dare make that poor boy suffer through this if you’re only worried about my house. If you’re willing to take the risk of going to jail again, I’m willing to risk the house. I’m behind you all the way, Jesse. You know that.”

“Take your cell phone to his room and put me on speaker.” I wished I had a way to see him and have him see me, but Drew didn’t have the program installed on his phone, and I was on a landline.

“Thank you, Jesse.” Drew sounded genuinely relieved. “I know the risk you’re taking here. Hank is going to videotape the whole thing. Maybe that will help if you get into trouble because of the restraining order.”

It took half an hour, but I finally talked Stevie down and he crawled into bed. The doctor had him take a mild sedative, and he slept the rest of the night. After he was asleep, Doctor Brown cleaned Stevie’s head wound and decided it didn’t need stitches… this time. What would we do if more of his episodes deteriorated to this degree? Man, we had
to get this sorted out, and soon.

D
REW
HAD
started staying in the guest room at Dottie’s house on evenings he worked or when he had to work the next day. He was closer to the center that way, so it bought him a little time. Both he and Dottie were working my shift now, 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Drew had quickly found out that shift didn’t work well while living a half hour away. Two and a half miles was a much better distance to travel.

So Drew was with me when I got the frantic call from Dottie at the center. Drew or Stacy usually worked with Lydia, a young girl who usually needed one-on-one attention, but both were off that day, and the child was having a difficult time. Tara was working with another hard-to-handle child. Barbara, who was Chuck’s replacement, and Jean, the hopefully temporary substitute for me, were both too new to handle Lydia, and Lydia didn’t respond well to men, so Hank was out of the running. Since Stevie wouldn’t come out of his room anyway, Dottie had allowed Hank to stay on the hall with him, while she went to help with Lydia. Dottie got a call from Hank just after lunch and immediately called me.

Stevie was missing.

Apparently he had waited until Hank was in the office, just out of eyeshot of Stevie’s room, and then escaped off the hall since the door was usually unlocked during the day.

Everyone was looking all over the center, but so far they hadn’t found him. Sara was going through security footage, but there was no sign of him on any of the hall or calm room cameras yet. She was currently looking through footage from the outdoor cameras. Dottie was sure he was trying to get to me.

As we talked, Sara notified Dottie that she had seen Stevie on an outside camera. He had left more than a half hour previously and was heading toward the road. He knew where I lived in relation to the center from all the times we had gone out into the community. Often we’d eat lunch with Dottie and then go back to the center from her house. Steve was really smart and would have easily been able to find his way, provided he didn’t have any empathic spikes on the way.

“I’ll see if I can backtrack him to the center,” Drew said immediately and started toward the door. “You stay here in case he gets past me.”

I knew several volunteers from the center were trying to trace Stevie’s steps along a couple of different possible routes. Hopefully one of them would find Stevie before he got into too much trouble.

The search went on for another hour. Stevie had officially been missing for an hour and a half when I finally heard a frantic cry from beyond the door.

“
Bear
!” Then he started to pound on the door. “Let me in, Bear. I need you. Bear,
please
.”

To hell with the restraining order. I opened the door and caught him as he fell into my arms. I had the foresight to put my phone on video and asked him to walk with me as far as the house phone. I called Dottie while I held him. He shook and cried and refused to leave my arms. It took quite some time to calm him down and get him to let go of me.

By then Drew had gotten back. He left Stevie with me as long as he dared, but we really needed to return him to the center.

Damn that restraining order!

As I mentally applied every curse I knew to William Liston and Chuck Tyler, I tried to gear myself up for the inevitable battle of getting Stevie to go back.

When Stevie finally realized that I wasn’t going to allow him to stay, he started throwing anything in sight, ripping everything he could get his hands on, and generally trashing Dottie’s house from the inside.

I added each broken piece of glassware, each torn pillow and ripped section of wallpaper to the ever-growing mental list of things I owed Dottie as I tried to stop Stevie from hurting himself in the process. I never realized how much damage one ticked-off ten-year-old could do when he really put his mind to it.

He finally ran out of steam and collapsed in a heap on the floor. I gathered him in my arms then simply held him until he sagged against me with exhaustion. We finally got him into Drew’s car, and he fell asleep in the passenger seat on the way back. Letting that car pull away without me in it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.