The Word of a Child

The woman displayed identification. “Gail Cooper from Child Protective Services. May we speak with you and your husband? Is he home?”

Beginning to feel wary, Mariah said, “Yes, he’s watching the Mariners.”

Neither asked about the score, even though the game was critical to the Seattle Mariners making it to the World Series and most people were at least mildly interested.

“What is it?” Mariah asked. “Is something wrong?”

“It might be best if we spoke to you and your husband together,” the woman said.

“Well, then…” Apprehension raised a lump in her throat as she backed up. “Come in.”

They followed her into the living room. Simon, a man with dark hair and the broad cheekbones of his Slavic heritage, tore his gaze from the TV and stood politely. Three-year-old Zofie, in the midst of tumbled plastic blocks and miniature people spread over the carpet, paused with a red block in one hand and stared at the visitors.

Mariah swallowed but failed to dispel the lump. “Simon, this is Detective McLean from the Port Dare police and Ms., um…”

“Cooper,” the woman said pleasantly. “Gail Cooper. I’m from Child Protective Services.”

His expression didn’t change, but Mariah felt her husband’s immediate tension. She supposed she was feeling it herself. It was so strange, having a police officer and a social worker drop by without calling, and at this time of the day.

“What do you want with us?” he asked. “Is this about someone we know?”

“In a way.” Ms. Cooper smiled at Zofie, who was alarmed enough to scramble to her feet and race to clutch her mother’s leg. “It might be best if we could talk without your daughter hearing.”

Real fear gripped Mariah now. Not questioning the suggestion, she boosted Zofie into her arms. “Honey, I need you to play in your room for a minute, while Mommy and Daddy talk to these people.” She started down the hall, as though her request was matter-of-fact, keeping her voice soft. “Okay?”

Zofie popped her thumb into her mouth and stared over Mariah’s shoulder at the strangers until her mother turned into the toddler’s bedroom.

Mariah set her on the floor beside her small table and chair. “I loved the drawing you made today. Can you draw me a new picture?”

Zofie hesitated, then sat down. Around her thumb, she mumbled, “Okay.”

“I’ll leave the door open so you can call if you need me.”

Thumb out of her mouth, the three-year-old was already reaching into her crayon box. “Okay,” she said again, obligingly. Thank heavens, she was almost always good-natured and compliant.

Simon and the two visitors stood exactly where they’d been when she’d left them, her husband stiff and still expressionless. He had turned off the baseball game.

“All right. What’s this about?” he asked, voice harsh, the moment he saw her.

Mariah gave him a reproving look. “Please. Sit down. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

The man looked at her, his light gray eyes somber. “No coffee. Thanks.”

The two sat at either end of the sofa. Mariah chose the chair facing them. Simon planted himself behind her, his hands gripping the winged back of the chair.

The police officer spoke. “A child who plays with your daughter has been sexually molested.”

Mariah pressed a hand to her mouth. “Who?” she asked faintly.

“Lily Thalberg.”

Zofie’s preschool classmate was an animated little girl with wild blond curls, bright blue eyes and enough energy and grace to make her “most likely to become a cheerleader,” as her parents joked. She and Zofie weren’t best friends, but these past few months they’d played at each other’s homes a couple of times.

“Oh, no,” Mariah breathed. “But…how? She wasn’t kidnapped, was she?”

“No, her molester was apparently an acquaintance.” Ms. Cooper looked straight at Simon. “I’m afraid she’s named you, Mr. Stavig.”

The chair jerked as Simon’s grip tightened. Mariah couldn’t breathe.

“This is insane! I hardly know who this kid is, and you’re claiming she pointed her finger at me?”

“I’m afraid she did,” the police officer said stolidly. “We’re obligated to follow—”

“You dare to come here, into my home, and accuse me on the word of a three-year-old?”

“At this point, nobody is accusing you,” the social worker soothed. “We simply need to ask you some questions, and inform you that we will be conducting an investigation.”

“An investigation!” He shoved violently at the chair, moving it several inches despite the fact his wife sat in it. Pacing, he snapped, “How can you investigate something like that? It’s ludicrous that you’re here at all. The kid can’t even talk! I can’t understand a word she says.” He stopped to glare at them with narrowed, glittering dark eyes. “Tell me—can you?”

The police officer’s jaw muscles knotted. “Yes,” he said, voice very level. “Even in a terrified whisper, ‘Zofie’s daddy,’ was clear as a bell.”

Mariah’s head swam. She felt distant, as if she looked down on a scene she didn’t fully understand and had no part in.

Lily. Pretty, comical Lily, touched…sexually? The idea defied imagination. How could anybody do something so horrific to a child so young?

And…Simon. They were saying he had done it. Mariah’s husband. The very idea was ridiculous! Mariah couldn’t believe this was happening. Had Lily ever even met Simon, except at preschool events like the Halloween party, where too many people were around for something like this to happen?

She’d missed a couple of exchanges.

Simon was shouting, “Maybe you should be looking at her daddy. Did you ever think of that?”

Mariah stared at him in shock. He and Tom Thalberg had talked about the Mariners in front of the house just recently. Tom was a nice man.

Seemed to be a nice man. These people wouldn’t be here if Lily hadn’t been molested. Somebody had done this unspeakable thing.

She heard her own voice. “Was she raped?”

The police officer’s cold stare for her husband turned to something gentler when he looked at her. She read sympathy in his eyes. For her, which scared her even more.

“No. We can be grateful, because she would have been injured badly if an adult male had actually penetrated her vaginally. From the standpoint of the investigation, however, the ability to gather DNA would have been helpful.”

“Oh.” Penetration… No. She would not imagine Zofie, instead. No. “Then…then what?” she asked, just audibly.

He told her about oral sex and objects pushed into Lily, things Mariah wished she’d never heard. She glanced at Simon, expecting him to look as shocked, but all he did was stand across the living room from the tableau the rest of them made, his nostrils flared, fury written across his face.

“My husband would never do anything like that,” Mariah said stoutly. “We have a daughter. You saw her. Zofie is fine. Surely a man who would molest another child would do the same thing to his own daughter.”

“Yes.” Detective McLean’s voice was very soft, the gaze he kept on her husband very hard. “Unfortunately that’s usually true.”