Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

She blamed herself for not having listened to the therapist. Harold reminded her that he hadn’t believed the woman either—how could anyone have? Rayanne attacked it from all angles. One minute she was attributing the surreal, horrendous events to some undiscovered neurological quirk of cleidocranial dysplasia; the next, indicting Honeychile’s birth parents for being a “minefield of shitty genes,” something she’d always believed but never dared declare out loud. She even went after the bully football player, impugning him for sending those cruel, disgusting texts to their daughter. (They’d looked at her phone before handing it over to the police.) When Harold gave her a look that she’d gone too far and was being unchristian, she grew quiet and relented, though without becoming contrite.

Rayanne said We need an attorney and Harold said We’ll talk about it later. Rayanne wondered if they should reach out to the parents of the dead boy and Harold said Too soon, talk about it later. She broke down and said Oh, Harold! What if they put her in jail and throw away the key? and Harold said They’re not going to do that, Rayanne. She wrung her hands and said They never allow an insanity defense, never! and Harold said Maybe not on TV but they do in real life, they do it all the time. He said it like a seasoned criminal lawyer.

Zelda came by with her parents and sat with the Devonshires awhile. Zelda’s mom and dad were kind, but standoffish. Later Rayanne told Harold it was “obvious” Zelda’s folks never liked their Honeychile, never liked the way she looked or acted, never liked her “bad influence.” Did you see how far away they sat? Like we had shit on our shoes. Harold said she was being too sensitive and that Zelda’s parents behaved just fine.

Two cops came into the waiting room after Zelda left. When they said they were here to see their daughter and just wanted to say a quick hello, Rayanne’s eyes sparkled for the first time since the world turned on end.

“Please,” said Rayanne, in the quietest, sanest way she could muster. “Please tell them it’s all right for us to see our baby. She’s probably so scared! And please come back! Come back and tell us how she’s doing?”

Lydia promised she would.

They wore their old deputy uniforms, a strategy both cagey and naive, thinking they could bluster their way into visiting the girl under cover of “official business.”

Why had they come in the first place?

This time it was on Daniel’s instigation.

A few days before the high school killing, he awakened from a deep sleep with an overwhelming feeling (like the one Lydia had about Rhonda) that “Winston,” the new girl from the Meeting, was in some kind of danger. When they learned Honeychile had been arrested for murder, the vision was validated. The two of them rehashed Dabba Doo’s theory that wires had been crossed and decided more would be revealed—once they got into a room with her.

But the head nurse wouldn’t allow it.

The frustrated deputies returned to the waiting room. When they told her, Rayanne was stoic. She knew what she was about to say was futile but couldn’t help herself.

“Did she ask for us? Did they say that she asked for us?”

“We didn’t talk all that long,” said Lydia. “The nurse kind of had her hands full.”

The deputy wisely kept to herself the only intel they were able to gather: that Honeychile had been screaming for her mother—whom she alternately referred to as “Hildy-Bear,” “Mommy Bear” and “Mrs. Collins.”

The next morning at the office, Willow laid into them.

“What the fuck was that little stunt about?” Lydia and Daniel stared at the floor and took it in the neck; there was nothing else to do. “Do you know the shit I got from the sheriff about you going to see that girl? What did you think you were doing?” They remained silent. “Open your mouths and give me some fucking answers . Now!”

“She’s—a family friend,” said Lydia, without looking up.

“A family friend ?” said Willow, his rage building. “Really?”

Daniel improvised. “We know her folks, that’s all. It was… an emotional decision and we were wrong.”

“It was dumb ,” said Lydia. “Totally inappropriate and we’re sorry.”

“How do you know the family?”

Daniel made an executive decision that the only way out of the shit was to go deeper in. “I know the dad from a veterans’ group. I work with a PTSD group.”

“Harold and Rayanne called us from the hospital,” said Lydia. “They sounded so frightened. My heart went out.”

Willow was still red hot. “What in hell did you think you could accomplish by seeing that girl?”

“It was stupid,” said Lydia. “They wouldn’t let her see her parents and then we thought that if we could get in to see Honeychile for a few minutes, we might be able to calm the girl down.”

“Calm her down,” said Willow, stunned by their idiocy.

“Maybe make it easier for Owen and his people to interview her,” said Daniel, in futile damage control.

Willow looked like he was going to have an embolism.

“They wouldn’t let the parents see her—they won’t let the fucking sheriff see her—but somehow you two, the casual acquaintances and bleeding hearts —somehow you thought, We’ll ride in like the cavalry and save the day for the department! That it’d be just a wonderful idea to drop in on the prime suspect of an ongoing homicide investigation and potentially contaminate said investigation. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I know, I know,” said Lydia, in star-spangled my bad mode. “It’s totally crazy and effed-up, and, sir, we completely apologize.”

“A terrible judgment call,” added Daniel.

Willow shook his head in disgust and resignation.

“I’ll tell you who you’re going to have to make those apologies to: Sheriff Owen Caplan . You better hope and pray he’s not going to hang your asses out to dry. And not just from this unit —you better hope he doesn’t ask you to turn in your guns and badges, period . That man went out on the line to put you here and you go and do something so stupid , like a couple of kids —”

“We’re sorry, sir,” said Daniel.

“It won’t happen again,” said Lydia.

“Damn straight it won’t. I’ll fire you myself.”

3.

The sheriff spoke to Zelda at the Mount Clemens office of the Detective Bureau, with her parents present. He would have liked to have done the interview at her home but needed everything on video. Honeychile’s best friend was completely unglued, crying nonstop. He was joined by the detective lieutenant heading the case, but Owen was taking charge for now.

About fifteen minutes in, he asked Mom and Dad if they would mind waiting outside. They didn’t, of course, because he’d already had a private conversation about it with them. He said there were things a teenager tended not to talk about if their parents were in the room. They understood.

“Zelda,” he said, softly sympathetic. “I know this has been very, very hard on you. It’s a terrible shock and I know that you’re worried about your friend. But I want to assure you that right now she’s in the absolute best place she could be, getting the best of care.”

“K,” said Zelda, sniffling and avoiding his eyes.

The detective lieutenant sat back, doing his best to become part of the wallpaper so as not to antagonize the girl.