Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

The detective and the Motts weren’t exactly strangers. After the MacLaren psychologist told her of his interview with Amaryllis, the feisty CASA had taken the liberty of dropping by Rampart unannounced to introduce herself (she had of course accompanied the child there once before; as far as Lani was concerned, she and the detective were practically colleagues). She told him all about her husband’s long-term relationship with the suspect, and naturally Samson wanted to hear more, for until then his only real character witness had been the execrable signboard beggar. So he took them to lunch at the Pantry. There, both husband and wife reiterated the peculiar history, including their last, rather strained encounter — how incensed the man had been that they’d “turned the girl over.” Lani was a little surprised that none of this information had been conveyed, because the Motts had dutifully spoken to a policeman after William’s tirade regarding the child. (Though her instincts told her he wasn’t a predator, her role as CASA still demanded that she let such developments be known through official channels; she was sworn to the court, and so legally bound.) The detective merely said that sometimes “things fall through the cracks.”

Now, starved for information, Lani and Gilles swamped him with questions about the imprisonment. Between the two of them, they felt oddly responsible for the woes that had befallen that unforgettable Victorian gent.

It may be recalled that after William had made a fuss about their handling of the girl, Lani had been overcome by remorse. She had, in her own mind, self-righteously passed the “social” buck — she, Lani Mott, who was capable of ruining a Sunday brunch with a strident serenade against the L.A. Times or the corruption of the MTA or the soul-killing hypocrisy of the child welfare system or what have you. Yet what did she have to show for her coffeehouse activism? She’d become a volunteer at children’s court (her friends never heard the end of it) but had spent a year saying no: no to advocating for this child and no to advocating for that … and then, as fate would have it, came her big chance — an orphan dropped at their very door, a discarded little being —and what had she done? Obediantly called the hotline, strictly by the CASA book … the useless right thing. She may as well have phoned the SPCA and had the child picked up in a perforated metal box. Lani Mott had barely gotten her hands dirty. And everything she had done for the girl since (none of which seemed enough) was to atone for that moment at Frenchie’s when William — crazy, stinky, delusional William — had delivered a moral coup d’état.

Husband Gilles had his own cross to bear, for he had been the one to have strong suspicions that William was a molester or child aggravator or whatever; and too, that day at the Pantry, had blindly accepted the detective’s assertion of the vagrant’s involvement in the murder of Ms. Kornfeld. When Samson called that Sunday after the arrest and Gilles broached the touchy subject of an “inappropriate relationship with the girl,” the detective tersely said that as a result of his interview with the child herself, “nothing like that was on the table.” (“I told you so,” interjected his wife.) He wouldn’t elaborate, but Gilles got the sense it wasn’t the type of situation — not that Gilles had claims of knowing anything about the machinations of the law or its enforcers — where the charges of rape and homicide eclipsed or took precedence over a middling one of, say, child-bothering, thus rendering the issue moot; instead, the baker inferred from Samson’s tone that such an accusation was bogus and insupportable and had no basis in fact. Suddenly, Gilles felt like a snitch — as if he had perversely betrayed his original instincts, and done a good man a great wrong.

That night, after each took long, reflective soaking baths, the baker and his wife split an Ambien and fell into troubled sleep.

Lest our chronicle lean too heavily upon the travails of a certain child of nail-bitten hand, a child who has already had her goodly share of sorrow, a quick and painless exegesis of that hapless girl’s travels will here be provided, though more painless for some than for others.

Needless to say, upon her fleeing the Boar’s Head attic, things didn’t go any better. Amaryllis, venerable and nearly Blessed, fell in with a coven of runaway skeevs who favored Promenade benches by day and the debris-strewn husk of a condemned mental-health center by night. Their style in clothing ran to Goth, but a strain neither Morris nor Ruskin would recognize. She spent two fun-filled nights in Skeevy Hollow before being chased down by policemen, one of whose legs was bitten so hard that she had to be concussed into releasing her jaws — and got a hairline fracture for her trouble. Convalescence occurred in the lockdown unit of a psychiatric hospital in Alhambra. Once she emerged from the torpor of head trauma, the fiercely combative girl was given enough meds to become a bona-fide member of Mrs. Woolery’s tribe; she peed and bled (for menses had come) with the best of them.

Inside of a week, news of her reappearance had in its own excruciatingly random, slipshod way devolved to the stalwart Lani Mott, she of the special-advocates’ office berthed just inside the lobby of children’s court. Mrs. Mott convened with her supervisor, and a stratagem was devised. It was agreed that a visit to the Alhambra hospital must be paid and the child’s physical and mental state assessed, in view to finding a suitable placement — if not a private home (which seemed an impossible goal), then, say, a ranch-like environment for wayward children — perhaps even one out of state. Lani put her boss to work, then got her briefcase in order.

She packed a blue wallet of special business cards with the CASA “heart” logo and made sure to carry a copy of the signed notice from the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles Juvenile Court identifying her as the child’s Guardian Ad Litem of record.

When she saw Amaryllis, she was sickened. The girl drooled and could barely keep her head up. There were deep scratches on the insides of her arms. “Did you make these?” asked Lani over and over. She couldn’t figure out whether the poor thing was nodding or shaking her head. “Amaryllis, do you know who I am?” Finally, Lani abandoned the interview and told a nurse that she wished to speak with the doctor.

After waiting more than forty minutes, she asked again and was confronted by a different attendant.

“What is it you want?”

“I’ve already told the woman.”

“What woman.”

“A nurse. I didn’t get her name.”

“Well I’m the one in charge. So you better talk to me .”

She took a breath, and girded herself for battle. “I would like to speak with the prescribing physician.”

“That isn’t possible.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“He isn’t here . Who are you again?”

“I am an officer of the court.”

“An officer of—”

“ Of the court . I would like to speak to Amaryllis Kornfeld’s psychiatrist and I would like to speak to him now . If he is in this building and you’re not telling me that, then you are potentially in a world of trouble.”

“Don’t you threaten me. May I see some I.D.?”

Lani handed her the court order and her driver’s license.

“Do you work with that detective?”

“What detective is that?” Lani asked.

“The one who came to see her. Well, obviously you don’t,” she said disdainfully, “because otherwise you would know what I’m talking about. Just wait here please.”