“Well, we didn’t know that then. Back then, she was just sort of odd. I actually thought having a little girl to dote on and raise would be good for her. And I believed Joe would make a good father. They had been trying for kids and it hadn’t worked, so this seemed like a blessing. And Desiree seemed eager to have her, too. It was her idea to name her Rebecca.”
“But did you ever question Mercy about where she came from?”
“Well, yes, now that I recall.”
“And what did she say?”
“Well, she said that Ito had taken her from her parents because her parents wanted her dead, which matched up with what Ito had told us. It was all so horrible. Poor little child. Can you imagine parents saying that?”
“Mercy really told you that her parents wanted her dead?” said Pine skeptically.
“Well, come to think, I believe she said that’s what Ito told her.”
Pine shook her head at the woman’s obliviousness. “And in the days that followed you never thought that this girl could be the same child who had been abducted in Andersonville? Because it was all over the news by then.”
“Look, Len and me, we kept to ourselves. We didn’t watch the news and we didn’t go out much. If you’ve been to our old trailer you know we didn’t have any neighbors. I’d never heard the name Mercy till you mentioned it. I swear.”
They heard moaning behind them and turned to see tears sliding down Len Atkins’s cheeks.
Atkins rose and stroked her husband’s cheek. “It’s okay, Len. We . . . I just have to tell them, okay?”
He jerkily nodded and she resumed her seat.
Pine refocused on her. “Did you know how Joe and Desiree were treating Mercy?”
Atkins stared down at the floor. She said slowly, “At first things seemed normal. They seemed to be settling in as a family.”
“Did they formally adopt Mercy?” asked Blum.
“They said they did.”
“But you never saw any paperwork, a certificate?”
“No.”
“Go on,” said Pine.
“Then it got to be that whenever we would come over to see her, they would scramble around and whisk the child away to dress her up and get her room clean. But I would talk to her and play with her and things still seemed fine, though I could sense there was something strange going on.”
“How so?”
Atkins looked up, a pained expression on her face. “See, the thing was, Desiree never left us alone. She was always hovering. And Becky always wore long pants and long sleeves, even when it was hot and humid, like it is a lot in Georgia. And then, after thirty minutes or so, they’d swoop Becky, I mean Mercy, away, and that would be that.”
“And then at some point you found out the truth?”
Atkins nodded. “We made a surprise visit. Not to catch them doing anything but just to stop by. I had found a cute dress for Mercy and wanted to give it to her. This was maybe two years after they got her. We heard screaming coming from the house. We both of us rushed in. And . . . ” Here Atkins stopped for a moment and drew several long breaths, sucking on the oxygen coming into her nose like it was a line of crack.
“What?” prompted Pine.
Another moan came from behind them. When Pine turned to look, Len Atkins was pantomiming something. He was pushing the fingers of his functioning arm into his damaged one.
Pine whirled back on Atkins. “What is he trying to tell us?” she demanded.
“Mercy was tied down to a table. And Desiree was sticking needles into Mercy’s arms and legs. Dozens and dozens of them. She was screaming in pain.”