Dark Places

that the farm’s going away
?
    “German,” she said for the second time that day.
    “You have another few little ones, don’t you?” Collins said.
    “Yes. I have four children.”
    “Same daddy?”
    Diane rustled in the seat next to her. “Of course, same daddy!”
    “But you are a single mother, correct?” Collins asked.
    “We’re divorced, yes,” Patty said, trying to sound as prim as a churchwife.
    “What’s this got to do with what’s happening with Ben?” Diane snapped, leaning across the table. “I’m Patty’s sister by the way. I take care of these kids almost as much as she does.”
    Patty winced, Det. Collins watched her wince.
    “Let’s try to start this civilly,” Collins said. “Because we’ve got a long way to go together before this is cleared up. The charges leveled against your son, Mrs. Day, are of a very serious, and very concerning nature. At this point, we’ve got four little girls who say that Ben touched them in their private areas, that he made them touch him. That he took them out to some farm area and performed certain … acts that are associated with ritualistic Devil worship.” He said those words—
ritualistic Devil worship
—the way people who don’t know cars repeat what the mechanic said:
It’s a broken fuel pump
.
    “Ben doesn’t even have a car,” Patty said in a barely audible voice.
    “Now the age difference between an eleven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old is only four years, but those are very crucial years,” continued Collins. “We would consider him a danger and a predator if these accusations turn out to be true. And, frankly, we’ll need to talk not only to Ben, but to your little girls too.”
    “Ben is a good boy,” Patty said, and hated how limp and weak her voice was. “Everyone likes him.”
    “How is he regarded at school?” Collins asked.
    “Pardon?”
    “Is he considered a popular kid?”
    “He has a lot of friends,” Patty mumbled.
    “I don’t think he does, ma’am,” Collins said. “From what we understand, he doesn’t have very many friends, he’s a bit of a loner.”
    “So what does that prove?” Diane snapped.
    “It proves absolutely nothing, Miss … ?”
    “Krause.”
    “It proves absolutely nothing, Miss Krause. But that fact, combined with the fact that he doesn’t have a strong father figure around, would lead me to believe he may be more vulnerable to, say, a negative influence. Drugs, alcohol, people who are maybe a bit rougher, a bit troubled.”
    “He doesn’t associate with delinquents, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Patty said.
    “Name summa his friends for me then,” Collins said. “Name the kids he hangs out with. Name who he was with last weekend.”
    Patty sat, tongue thick in her mouth, and then shook her head, folded her hands near a smear of someone else’s chocolate icing. It was late coming. But now finally, she was being revealed for what she was: a woman who couldn’t quite keep it together, who lived from emergency to emergency, borrowing money, scrambling for sleep, sliding by when she should have been tending to Ben, encouraging him to pick up a hobby or join a club, not secretly grateful when he locked himself in his room or disappeared for an evening, knowing it was one less kid to deal with.
    “There are some parenting gaps then,” Collins sighed, like he already knew the end to the story.
    “We want a lawyer before anything else happens, before you talk to any of the kids,” Diane interrupted.
    “Frankly, Mrs. Day,” Collins said, not even glancing at Diane, “with three little girls at home, if I were you, I’d want the truth out more than anyone. This kind of behavior doesn’t go away. In fact, if this is true, and to be frank, I think it is, your daughters were probably his first victims.”
    Patty looked behind at Libby, who sat licking the frosting off her donut. She thought of how much Libby used to hang on Ben. She thought of all the chores the kids did on their own. Sometimes after a day working in the barn with Ben, the girls would come back to the house, irritated, weepy. But … what? They were little girls, they got tired out and cranky. She wanted to throw her coffee in Collins’s face.
    “May I speak plainly?” Collins said, his voice kneading her. “I can’t imagine how … horrible it must be to hear these things as a mother. But I can tell you something, and this is straight from our psychologist, who’s been working