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“To say the least,” she said. “And one I’m afraid we didn’t meet very well.”
“Tough kid.”
“Tough and scary,” said Felice Heidl. “Our cat had kittens and he killed two of them. Just went to the den one day and wrung their necks and didn’t seem at all upset. He also set fires. Outdoors, at first, but then we barely managed to put one out that he’d set in the kitchen. He wadded up newspaper, soaked it in cooking oil, and lit it on the gas range.”
“Scary.”
“Terrifying. We’d had our share of kids with tough histories and were well aware of his but still…the last straw was one night when he came into the bedroom of another foster, a seven-year-old girl, and tried to rip off her pajamas. We knew then that he had to go so we returned him to the county and I have no idea what happened to him after that. I felt guilty about it for a long, long time. It led me to do some reading about dangerous children—a book calledSavage Spawn—and poor Rooney ticked all the boxes. I say ‘poor’ because what control did he have over his childhood? A father like that.”
I said, “Did he ever talk about his siblings?”
“Not the brother, just the sister. He called her a whore and a murderer. Said she’d killed his father and his mother, if not for her he’d be hunting and fishing with his dad, life would be perfect. Of course that was a distortion but we didn’t feel anything good would come from debating him.”
A beat.
“The truth is,” said Felice Heidl, “we avoided confrontation because he really, really frightened us. I don’t want to be melodramatic but his eyes, they were flat, Doctor. Different. Really different. Anyway, I just thought you should know. Maybe it would help fill in some blanks.”
“It does. Thanks for getting in touch, Ms. Heidl.”
“I know it doesn’t change things…he really killed them both? All that irrational hatred, festering all these years?”
“Unfortunately.”
Another sigh. “What can you do…thanks for listening, Dr. Delaware…like I said, I didn’t figure I’d be baring my soul to a psychologist. No offense but we tried that for Rooney. Before we gave him back. Used a person on a list the county gave us. He evaluated Rooney and called him a ‘fulminating sociopath.’ Told us unless Rooney shaped up by age twelve, there was no hope. Rooney was eleven, so talk about time pressure. We asked him—the doctor—what we coulddo and he looked at us as if we were stupid and said, ‘My point is, nothing, really.’ ”
“What a thing to go through.”
“We’d done well with nearly every other child, even those with tough backgrounds. The girl Rooney tried to bother is married, has her own kids, sends us Christmas cards and photos. A lot of the children we had the privilege to work with keep in touch. But still, the failures get to you. A few years ago, we returned to missionary work.”
“Where?”
“Last time was Colombia, our third trip.” Soft laughter. “The slums of Cali didn’t seem quite so bad.”
CHAPTER
50
A note from Judge Julie Beck’s law clerk informed me that Derek Ruffalo was in town and available for evaluation at my convenience.
The number she included connected me to the law offices of Wendy Sugihara. Her assistant said, “This is Lance. Great to hear from you, Doctor. Anytime you’d like to see Derek would be great. Wendy and Jack Toth will both be bringing him, if that’s okay with you.”
“Wendy represents—”
“Derek’s mother. Jack represents the dad.”
I said, “First time for everything.”
Lance said, “Everyone’s hoping it’ll be agreatfirst time.”
—
At ten o’clock the following morning, a chauffeured black Escalade pulled up in front of my house. I’d positioned myself five minutes earlier, just close enough to the rail to see the driveway but sufficiently back to avoid attention.
Curious about two opposing lawyers taking the time to serve as escorts. Wanted to collect as much non-rehearsed, nonverbal data as possible.
First to exit the SUV was a thickset gray-blond man in his fiftieswho hitched his trousers and smoothed his jacket. Seconds later, a teenage boy with straight sandy hair that half shielded his forehead got out of the same door.
Average size for fifteen but equipped with the gangly limbs of someone much taller. Maybe the sign of an impending growth spurt.
