Supernatural Noir

“I think she’s i

“Nah.”

“What if she’s i

Raul was thinking. She was too tired and stressed out to see about what. She almost fell asleep. Finally he swiveled, tapped on his keyboard, sat back in his chair, leaned forward again to turn up the volume.

Voices of prepubescent girls and boys came up, seven or eight different ones, some of them hard to understand, some clear and close. Soft-spoken male and female interviewers asked carefully nonleading questions, just like in the role-play in Forensic Interviewing. At least one of the kids was crying. Another one kept making a barking sound like a goofy cartoon seal that was probably laughter. One of the interviewers had a cough.

Raul closed the audio file, peered into the coffee mug on his desk that had DADDY on it in puffy blue letters, sighed and got to his feet. “Coffee?”

She’d told him a million times that she took her caffeine cold. She said, “Uh. No.”

He missed the sarcasm or ignored it, which pissed her off more. She thought she might just get outta here while he was refilling his stupid mug, but she couldn’t quite.

When he came back she said, “Nothing was really disclosed on there.”

“Makes you wonder, though, all that disgusting stuff.”

“That wasn’t at the level of an outcry.” Using the intense word “outcry” in such a familiar way made her feel like a real social worker.

Raul patted her shoulder. “That’s why we got you.”

“Probable cause,” she said, like she knew what she was talking about.

“Something like that. So, you okay now?”

For a split second she thought he was asking if she felt okay, if she was upset, if she was sick. But he just meant was she okay to keep going with the job. She said, “I guess,” and that seemed to be enough for him. Whether it was enough for her they’d just have to see.

By about two thirty in the morning she really, really wanted to smoke a joint to help her sleep, but that would compromise her testimony if for some reason she had to pee in a cup in the next few hours. She did drink part of a beer and almost hurled.

The next morning, Little Shit had Madison sit in the chair where her feet didn’t quite touch the floor. Lourdes settled herself on the closest end of the couch. “How are you today?”

“You look terrible.”

“I didn’t sleep very well last night, but I’m fine. Thank you for noticing, Madison. That’s very nice of you.”

“You going to fall asleep?”

“No. I promise.”

“You going to die?”

“Oh, honey, don’t worry. I’m right here with you.” Lourdes reached over to pat her knee but got her thigh instead, the inside of her thigh.

“Oops,” Lourdes said softly. “Sorry.”

But the hand stayed there, very lightly, for a second or two, and something squirmed around the edges of Madison’s thoughts.

She did the clamping-the-legs-together and caught Lourdes’s hand where it was. The fingers spread, rubbed.

Then Lourdes gently pulled away and sat back. Gently she asked what Madison was doing. Madison didn’t know. Well, she sort of knew.

“Has somebody touched you there, Madison? On purpose? Not on accident like just happened?”

“Yeah.” Squeaky voice into the baby doll’s hair.

“Can you tell me about it?” A tiny shake of the head, though she could have told; she’d been practicing. “Can you tell the baby doll about it?”

“What’s her name?”

“What do you want her name to be?”

The technique to get buy-in worked. Madison smiled. “Pretty.”

“That’s a good name. Can you tell Pretty about it?”

Careful. Don’t be easy, don’t play too hard to get. There was a humming sensation at the base of her brain—the primal part, the reptilian part that took care of basic survival stuff.

“Is it too scary over there all by yourself, Madison? Do you and Pretty need to come sit by me?”

Madison did need to. This is it. Don’t blow it.

“Or on my lap?” Whoa. “Even a big girl like you needs somebody to hold her sometimes.” Hold sounded nice. Hold me.

“I don’t like it here.”

“You don’t like it here in the office?”

“This room’s ugly.”

Lourdes didn’t take offense or laugh. “Would you like to go into the other room where the toys are?”

Can you say kidnapping? Madison nodded. Lourdes led the way.

They sat on big, soft pillows on the floor. Pretty the doll went onto Lourdes’s lap first, a canary into a mine, into Lourdes’s lap, into the hollow there. Madison sat cross-legged on the floor, crotch open under the white jumper, pink flowered panties barely covered. Little Shit faced forward to fend off any gropes of her chest. Her boobs and crotch were throbbing, boobs painfully, crotch not so much. Hopefully the call button was still there inside the Ace girdle—the temptation to feel for it and give herself away was weirdly erotic, like the urge to step off a cliff that made you have to back away. Instead, she put her hand under her flared skirt and rubbed herself, and saw Lourdes smile.

“Why don’t you come over here by me?”

Madison really wanted to go and really wanted to stay right here, almost but not quite out of reach. It was like being licked in the inside folds of her brain.

What are you doing? Which of the three of them was saying that to which of the three of them?

Lourdes scooted close. She smelled like Lourdes, like somebody Madison didn’t quite remember. “Can you show me with Pretty what somebody did to you?”

Madison giggled and kissed Pretty with her mouth open, touched the plastic mouth with her tongue.

“Someone put his tongue in your mouth?”

“Her.”

“Someone put her tongue in your mouth?”

Madison nodded and licked the doll’s mouth again.

“A grown-up woman?” Madison nodded and the woman’s, the therapist’s voice got even more gentle. “Did she do anything else to you, honey? Touch you anywhere else?”

A heat was spreading in all their minds and bodies now. Madison squirmed. Little Shit tried not to. Lourdes put an arm around her. “Can you show me with Pretty?”

Madison put the doll against her crotch. Little shit really hoped she didn’t have to insert the sorry thing.

“She touched your vagina?” The word clanged like a bell. Lourdes was practically cooing. “Like this?”

It seemed to take long minutes before Lourdes’s fingers actually came into contact with the stretch of pink flowered panties. It seemed to be all one quick motion when the fingers wormed inside the elastic. The realization exploded in Lourdes’s awareness that the skin she was caressing wasn’t hairless but shaved at the same instant that Madison threw up and Little Shit went for the call button.

The Ace bandage unwound and her boobs deployed like airbags. You little shit. The call button wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Then she found it, and Raul and Dixie slammed into the room with guns drawn.

Lourdes just sat there. Madison was gone. Little Shit covered what body parts she could. When they pulled Lourdes to her feet and cuffed her, Thanks was in her mind, like a wave on a beach. Not the word, just the gratitude itself. Thank you then, and the name she’d given Lourdes to call her by. And, before she could get all the way out of Lourdes’s mind, something like I love you.

——

Melanie Tem’s solo novels include her Bram Stoker Award–wi