“The social worker’s report could be somewhere, though. The government never throws anything away.”
“I doubt the bitch even filed it,” Callie said. “All of the social workers were terrified of Mom. When the cops questioned me about Buddy disappearing, they didn’t say a damn thing about how I looked . They didn’t ask you about it, either. Linda gave me antibiotics and set my nose, but she never asked one single question. Nobody pushed it with social services. Nobody at school said a damn thing.”
“Yeah, well, that asshole Dr. Patterson wasn’t exactly a child advocate.”
The humiliation flooded back like a tidal wave pounding Callie down onto the shore. No matter how much time had passed, she could not move past not knowing how many men had seen the things she’d done with Buddy.
Leigh said, “I’m sorry, Cal. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Callie watched Leigh search for a tissue in her purse. She could remember a time when her big sister had concocted murderous plots and grand conspiracies against the men who had watched Callie being defiled. Leigh had been willing to throw her life away in order to get revenge. The only thing that had pulled her back from the brink was the fear of losing Maddy.
Callie told Leigh what she always told Leigh, “It’s not your fault.”
“I should’ve never left for Chicago. I could’ve—”
“Gotten trapped in Lake Point and drop-kicked into the gutter with the rest of us?” Callie didn’t let her respond, because they both knew Leigh would’ve ended up managing a Taco Bell, selling Tupperware, and running a bookkeeping business on the side. “If you’d stayed here, you wouldn’t’ve gone to college. You wouldn’t have a law degree. You wouldn’t have Walter. And you sure as hell wouldn’t have—”
“Maddy.” Leigh’s tears started to fall. She had always been an easy crier. “Callie, I’m so—”
Callie waved her away. They couldn’t get entangled in another it’s all my fault/no it’s not your fault. “Let’s say social services has a report, or the cops put it in their notes that I was in bad shape. Then what? Where’s the paperwork now?”
Leigh pressed together her lips. She was clearly still struggling, but said, “The cops are probably retired or up the ranks by now. If they didn’t document abuse in their incident reports, then it would be in their personal notes, and their personal notes would be in a box somewhere, probably in an attic.”
“Okay, so I’m Reggie, the private detective that Andrew hired, and I’m looking into a possible murder that happened twenty-three years ago, and I want to see the police reports and anything the social workers have on the kids who were in the house,” Callie said. “What happens next?”
Leigh sighed. She was still not focused. “For D-FaCS, you’d file a FOIA request.”
The Freedom of Information Act made all government records publicly available. “And then?”
“The Kenny A. v. Sonny Perdue Consent Decree was settled in 2005.” Leigh’s legal brain started to take over. “It’s complicated but, basically, Fulton and DeKalb County were forced to stop screwing over children in the system. It took three years to hash out an agreement. A lot of incriminating paperwork and files conveniently went missing before the settlement.”
Callie had to assume any reports on her beat-down were part of the cover-up. “What about the cops?”
“You’d file a FOIA for their official documents and a subpoena for their notebooks,” Leigh said. “Even if Reggie tried to go the other way and knocked on their door, they’d be worried about being sued if they documented abuse but never followed up on it. Especially if it’s tied into a murder case.”
“So, the cops would conveniently be unable to locate anything, too.” Callie thought about the two officers who had interviewed her. Another case where men would keep their mouths shut to cover for other men. “But what you’re saying is, neither of those are a problem we need to worry about, right?”
Leigh hedged. “Maybe.”
“Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Nothing,” Leigh said, but she always had a plan. “I’ll take you out of state. You can stay in—I don’t know. Tennessee. Iowa. I don’t care. Wherever you want to go.”
“Fucking Iowa?” Callie tried to lighten her up. “You couldn’t think of a better job for me than milking cows?”