I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (24 page)

Red Stevenson’s head was downcast, but I could tell he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t agree,” I said. “Cory has only seen his father a few times in the past six months.”

“Whose decision was that?” Mitzi asked.

“Mr. Stevenson didn’t want his son to see him in jail,” I filled in.

“You don’t know how hard this is for me,” Red said, softly. His bulky shoulders were hunched over and his arms hung docilely between his legs. His coloring and posture reminded me of a gibbon, a primate with long arms and no tail.

“It’s hard for Cory, too,” I began. “I think he needs more reassurance than criticism.”

Ignoring me, Mitzi opened a file. “Mr. Stevenson, in reviewing the performance agreement, I must point out that you have not substantially complied with any of the requirements. You have not completed psychological counseling for abuse, nor attended a series of parenting classes, have not opened the bank account and made deposits in his name. You have not provided one item of clothing each month or completed the readings on the list.”

“That’s not true,” Red replied forcefully. “I’ve spent more than seven hundred bucks seeing Dr. Osterman.”

“Is that your psychologist?” Mitzi asked. Red nodded.

“I am going to need a report from him too,” I added.

“He told me our sessions were private,” Mr. Stevenson said.

“Guardians can have any records they want,” Mitzi said without disguising her annoyance.

“The reason I want it, Mr. Stevenson, is so I can advise the judge whether or not I feel Cory should be returned to you if you do not end up in jail.”

“But Mrs. Courier doesn’t have to share that report with me,” Mitzi countered. “If you want it as part of the performance agreement, I’ll need to see it as well. Otherwise you’ll have to obtain additional counseling for your problems.”

“You two are going to gang up on me so I never get my kid,” he said, petulantly.

“Not necessarily,” I replied. “In fact, the prosecutor and Mitzi Keller have both requested no visitation until after the trial, but I stepped in to defend your right to see your son. Isn’t that true?”

Mitzi nodded.

“Why did you do that?”

“For Cory.”

“What about Tammy? She’s trying to steal him from me.”

“Alicia wanted to find her, so I helped them make contact. What happens next remains up in the air. Cory is so unhappy and confused, I want you to think about how you can make your visits with Cory more pleasant and less stressful for him.”

“It’s so hard for me now. I’m depressed and have serious financial problems of my own.”

“When are you going to pay some money toward Cory’s care?” Mitzi asked.

“I’ve had to ask Pop for twenty-five grand for the attorney and that means he has to sell the house so we have something to live on.”

“If Cory were at home, you’d be supporting him,” Mitzi replied.

“I can’t ask Pop for anything more now. We’re broke. Those little bitches are going to pay for it in the end. My lawyer is going to sue the Pruitts for false arrest and anyone else who tells lies about me. And now they’re digging up every piece of dirt they can find.”

“By the way, I don’t have a complete social history,” Mitzi interjected. “When were you first married?”

“I was eighteen and she was sixteen. It was in Oklahoma.”

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Annette. She died in an accident.”

“Did you have any children?” Mitzi continued.

“Yes, a daughter.”

Apparently, after Annette died, this daughter was taken from him by the court, who declared him an unfit father because Annette had another daughter, who had been hospitalized with a broken pelvis. Both parents had been suspected of child abuse.

“My own mother wanted Annette’s kid and helped take her away from me.”

After that, Red stopped communicating with his mother. He claimed she was a “whore” who had men “right in front of me.” She also allowed customers to “screw me in the ass” when he was little and “she kept the money.”

I could hardly believe these revelations were being made in an HRS office in the presence of a guardian and a caseworker, and I was certain Mitzi was equally astonished. Together we questioned Red Stevenson for more than an hour using polite, soft-spoken voices and acting sympathetic rather than accusatory. We even managed to discuss Sunny Rhodes.

“That was blown way out of proportion. I came out of the bathroom wearing a robe and Sunny was watching television. She jumped up and leapt into my arms. To catch her, I had to let go of the bathrobe, which didn’t have a belt. So of course the robe opened and I was naked underneath. Sunny saw my privates and screamed. Next thing I knew she’d called her grandmother, who never liked me anyway, and she told the police. But, once they heard my side of the story, they never prosecuted me.”

After Red left, I sat limply in Mitzi’s office. “Had you known that he had a child removed from him in Oklahoma with his own mother siding against him?” I asked.

“No,” Mitzi admitted. “You wouldn’t really champion Cory’s return to that pervert, would you?”

“After what he’s just confessed in here, combined with the way he behaved with Cory, he’s even worse than I expected. But whether we want to or not, we have to deal with the fact that Cory loves him.”

At this point the trial preparations were in full swing. Whenever the attorneys wanted children to appear, they had to be made available. After I told Grace Chandler, the state’s attorney who was prosecuting Red Stevenson, what Rich had witnessed and experienced, she was anxious to take his statement. Without telling me, she called Dr. Newman and made arrangements for Rich to be deposed. Fortunately, Mitzi alerted me because as his Guardian ad Litem, I was the only other person allowed in the room during the interview.

I contacted Grace Chandler and warned her that Rich might still be on mind-altering medications. Grace thanked me and phoned Dr. Newman to request that Rich not be given drugs a few days before the appointment if at all possible. When the therapist seemed doubtful about him handling the stress without tranquilization, Grace followed my suggestion. “Promise him the pizza of his choice for cooperating.”

Apparently that worked. When I met Rich outside the state attorney’s office, he was docile and affectionate, hugging me like a long lost pal. Mitzi seemed anxious to get back to her office and said she’d meet us at the pizza restaurant. While we waited, Rich and I debated whether pepperoni was better with green peppers or mushrooms and wondered what sort of person ordered anchovies.

“I hate fish, especially if you see their disgusting eyes,” he said.

“Do you know the Dr. Demento version of ‘Fish Heads’?” I asked.

He didn’t, but he broke up laughing at the words to the silly song.

When I first was asked to take the Stevenson case, I had thought that since I was trying to survive the throes of adolescence with our sons, I might be better off with younger ones. Later I discovered that knowing the jargon was a decided advantage. Who would have thought that being able to quote the lyrics to “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” or that all-time mother-cringer, “Dead Puppies,” would come in handy? Perhaps Dr. Newman and her peers might analyze these songs in terms of Rich’s disorder, tying them in with his morbid preoccupations, but I knew that most boys that age took delight in these verses during a macabre phase that fortunately passed.

When we were called into the state attorney’s office, Rich went in humming the fish head song. Grace Chandler bantered with him for a few moments before she took out her tape recorder and had him swear he would tell the truth. After those formalities, Grace asked a few routine questions, then narrowed in on the night he had seen his father molesting his sister. Rich repeated what he had told me almost word for word.

“Now, describe what your father did to you,” Grace asked.

“He played with my privates.”

“When was that?”

“Last summer.”

“What happened?”

“We were working late to get the boats ready for the Memorial Day races, so Dad decided we’d camp out at the store.”

“What went on that night?” Grace coaxed.

“We were getting ready for bed, well, not really a bed, we were going to share a double sleeping bag. I was wearing my shirt and bathing suit, but Dad said to take off my suit. I didn’t want to because I knew what he meant.”

“Why is that?” Grace asked.

“He’d done it before.”

“He’d masturbated you before?” Grace asked to clarify.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what an orgasm is?”

“It’s when you come all over.”

Grace nodded. “Is that what happened when you were at the marine shop in May?”

“Yeah, he came and …” Rich’s head drooped. I saw his shoulders heaving. Nobody spoke. “He made me … he made me come too.”

Grace took some notes. “Do you have the street address for your father’s marine repair shop?”

“No, but you know the Camel Hump Bridge?” Rich replied in an unsteady voice. “Well, right after you cross it, you take the first left turn and go back behind the shrimp docks, and his place is the last one on the end before the gas pumps.”

“Aren’t the shrimp docks over the county line?” Grace asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I replied.

“Yeah, they are,” Rich added.

“Where’s your house?”

Rich described the area known as Stevenson Groves. Grace nodded. “At least that’s in our county, but the incident Rich can pinpoint by date took place in the marine shop out of my jurisdiction.”

“Does that mean you can’t charge him on this count?” I asked.

“Unfortunately.” Grace cloaked her annoyance and spoke gently to Rich. “Don’t be ashamed of what happened. It was not your fault.” She thanked him for his time and me for my help, and asked that I call her to talk about the rest of the charges relating to Alicia and the other girls.

Then Mitzi and I took Rich out for his well-deserved pizza—well, make that two pizzas, extra cheese and everything but anchovies.

The months leading up to the trial were especially hard on Alicia. She was doing so poorly in her new school she was asked to repeat ninth grade. Her foster mother, Ruth Levy, reported that Alicia seemed too preoccupied to concentrate on her studies. Alicia was in group therapy for sexually abused teenagers, but Ruth didn’t think it had made any difference.

“Does Alicia receive any individual counseling?” I asked Ruth.

“Not at this time because the only Medicaid provider in our district is the mental health clinic, and they have a waiting list for individual therapists. The best program around here is at Valley View, but that’s private.”

“I have a friend in their community relations department. Maybe I can ask them to donate some services.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to get something for free than to convince HRS to pay for it,” Ruth replied.

After a few days of wrangling, the Valley View Foundation contributed ten sessions with the female therapist who specialized in sexual abuse problems. When we spoke a month later, the therapist said, “Every time we touch on a tender topic, Alicia clams up. Mostly she nods off.”

I was annoyed that the precious hours of free counseling were being wasted, but I also knew that Alicia’s behavior was a form of disengagement, a way to escape from the apprehension that comes with having to confront the past. When the free sessions were about to end, Valley View sent their recommendations to Mrs. Levy.

“Listen to this!” Ruth said in an irate voice. “The counselor indicates that very little progress has been made due to Alicia’s refusal to confront the issues of her sexual abuse. Then there’s some gobbledygook about disassociation, acute anxiety, and her identification with the aggressor. They suggest—get this!—an ‘in-patient program to stabilize the situation with twice a week therapy after that.’ Each session would be sixty dollars an hour and the hospital care is four hundred forty-two a day, plus extras. Now where are we supposed to come up with ten thousand dollars?”

I groaned. Valley View was a private, for-profit, mental health facility that actively recruited for its adolescent unit, even advertising on television. Many health insurance policies covered in-patient therapy, and I had heard of teens being admitted by parents fed up with oppositional behavior, drug or alcohol use. Miraculously, each child was released at the precise moment his family’s insurance benefits were exhausted. While the hospital did have some excellent clinicians on staff, I was wary of these sales tactics, especially when I learned from their “director of marketing” that doctors were paid “commissions” for in-patient referrals.

“Just explain that Alicia is not covered by insurance, but you’d love her to receive treatment at their expense. That will put an end to that.”

“I don’t want this in Alicia’s file,” Ruth said with much agitation. “It makes it sound like she’s crazy.”

“She does have serious problems, Ruth, but I doubt she needs to be hospitalized. Maybe we can use this diagnosis to continue to get therapy for her. She’s going to need special support around the time of the trial.” “That’s what I am here for,” Ruth replied softly.

In many ways Alicia typified the sexual abuse victim. Inferior school performance was one indicator, but her sexually oriented behaviors were more illustrative of what had happened to her. Alicia displayed inappropriate mannerisms for a child of any age, even a belligerent fifteen-year-old. Ruth described Alicia answering the door with her blouse opened, lifting her skirt and touching her vulva in public, as well as catching her fondling boys and allowing them to squeeze her breasts and buttocks. On Halloween Alicia had gone into a community group’s haunted house but had not come out with the other girls. When Ruth went in after her, she found Alicia in a corner under an eerie skeleton that glowed in black light lifting her sweater and revealing her naked breasts as visitors came around the corner. Even I had observed Alicia lifting her skirt and scratching her genitals in the front hall of the house, where anyone in the living room could see her, and I had heard the stories of her sexual exploits firsthand. Her foster father, Milo Levy, had to be ever vigilant and never dared hug her without another adult in the room. He avoided being alone in the house with Alicia, or any of the other foster girls, because even an accusation of sexual abuse by an angry foster child could ruin his reputation.