Never Tell (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

E
llie grew up being told by her mother that she and Jess were lucky to be in one of the city’s “good schools.” The term had little to do with academic standards or curricular content. In segregated Wichita, “good schools” was code, conveying the same message as “good neighborhoods” or “good people.”

The Casden School was an entirely different story. Casden was a “day school.” Until she’d moved to New York, Ellie would have thought the term redundant since she’d never heard of a night school for kids. But now she understood that day schools were in contrast to boarding schools. This particular day school was arguably the most elite coed program in the city. Its Wikipedia entry boasted that for ten years straight the small school had representation in every single Ivy League university’s entering freshman class.

As she followed the directions she had received to the offices of the headmistress, Ellie took in the photographs of alumni that lined the school’s ornately carved stone hallways. She’d already passed the headshots of three senators, two Supreme Court justices, and a vice president. A surgeon who conducted the first heart transplant. The first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The editor in chief of
Time
magazine.

It was a “good school” indeed.

Ellie arrived at the headmistress’s office with certain expectations. She had expected absolute silence in the waiting area, a woman with a tight black bun who talked like Mary Poppins, and an extended song and dance about student privacy and the importance of parental consent for any encounters with outsiders.

As it turned out, Ellie didn’t know much about headmistresses.

She entered the administrative suite to find several adults clustered in the doorway between the secretary’s desk and the headmistress’s office. She heard a voice from inside the door.
We have a grief counselor in the student lounge, though this really isn’t a school matter.

Ellie peered around the impressively coiffed hair of one of the concerned parents to get a glimpse at Headmistress Margaret Carter. No Mary Poppins accent. No hair bun in sight. A bit of a song and dance about privacy.
Our understanding is that even the police do not have a full understanding of what occurred, but whatever did happen took place off campus and is a private matter for the student’s family. Please, I recognize your children are upset, but this has nothing to do with Casden.

Ellie listened to the exchanges of complaints as the parents shuffled out of the suite. “If the girl went to Casden, then it’s the school’s business, which means it’s our business.” “I hear Julia Whitmire left a note. Does anyone know what it said?” “If that woman thinks we’re just going to ignore this, she’ll be out of a job by finals.” “This is the second time this semester. How can she expect us to simply ignore something like that?”

After the crowd of parents had cleared out, Ellie ventured into the headmistress’s office and identified herself.

“I apologize for the disarray. I’m Margaret Carter, the headmistress here. I’m afraid the rumor mill has a life of its own. My phone has been ringing off the hook with worried parents.”

“What was the gist of the rumors?”

“I know the official cause of death has not been revealed, but all the kids are saying there was a suicide note. They’re saying she popped a bottle of pills and slit her wrists in the bathtub.”

The pills were a dramatic embellishment, but someone had obviously heard at least some of the critical facts.

“I’m hoping to speak to some of Julia’s friends. They’d be in the best position to know her state of mind in recent weeks.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Detective. Our students are minors. If you want to contact them off school premises, you can do so during nonschool hours, at their homes, and presumably with the consent of their parents. As of now, they are minor children on private premises. And I’d prefer you obtain a warrant if you want to go beyond any routine conversation with yours truly.”

“How about Julia’s friend, Ramona Langston? Her mother—or stepmother—Adrienne, said it would be all right. You can call her if necessary.” Ellie had no need to speak to Ramona again, but she wanted to test the headmistress’s commitment to stonewalling.

“You must be mistaken, Detective. Ramona’s at home today.” Carter reached a manicured fingernail to a button on her phone. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.
“Yes?”
“Heidi, can you please check the attendance records to see who contacted us this morning about Ramona Langston’s absence today?”

“No need, ma’am. I took the call myself. That’s how I heard about what happened to Julia. Ramona’s mother called and said Ramona was too upset to come to school today.”

“Thank you, Heidi.” Another tap of the speaker phone cut off the call.

“My impression is that Julia had many other friends besides Ramona,” Ellie said. “I’ll need to speak to them.”

“And, again, I’m saying you’ll need to speak to them outside of school property, and with the consent of their parents.” Carter did not even bother waiting for her response before shuffling documents scattered across her desk, obvious busywork.

“Do you know anything about Adderall abuse at Casden?”

Carter stopped fiddling with her papers and shot Ellie a look as if she’d just spit on the floor. “I don’t know what kind of children you’re used to, but the Casden School prides itself on the creation of future leaders. We have alumni in every branch of government, including the Supreme Court, and on the boards of forty-eight Fortune 500 companies. We produce more Rhodes Scholars per capita than any other day school in the country. All of our faculty have graduate degrees in their respective fields.”

“Perhaps that’s exactly why you might have kids selling each other Adderall. I just heard one of the other parents say something about this being ‘the second time this semester’? Was there another suicide?”

“I’m sure you can get whatever information you need elsewhere, Detective. I have an institution to run here. We all regret what happened to Julia, but I have other young people whose educations require my attention. If we are finished?”

Ellie didn’t budge, so the woman led the way to the office door for Ellie’s anticipated exit. “The mayor is an alumnus of this school, and he fully understands the situation here today. I suggest you call him, if necessary. You’re on private property, Detective, which means you need a warrant to be here.”

This was definitely not what Ellie expected of a school that had just lost one of its own.

Chapter Seventeen

H
einz. H-E-I-N-Z. Like the ketchup.”

Casey had been saying “like the ketchup” since before he’d even learned how to write the actual letters. It was the same phrase his mother had used every time she introduced herself or gave her name over the phone—at least, back when her last name had still been Heinz. For a whisper of a moment in grade school he had abandoned the family line, as a symbol of protest against the oozy red condiment that every other child seemed to consider culinary heaven. Instead, he invoked a new twist, telling people to spell the name like Teresa Heinz Kerry. He was only eleven years old at the time, but quickly learned that he already knew more about current political events than most adults.

The woman behind the counter gave him a polite smile and promised to be back “in a jiff.”

More than a jiff passed—at least by Casey’s definition—so he took a seat in one of the fancy modern chairs in the lobby area. He remembered Ramona spinning around in one of these at the Design Within Reach studio one day. It was the kind of store that Casey would get rushed out of if he ever walked in alone, but Ramona and her friends looked like they belonged. Ramona loved walking into that store the way some people love to roam museums. She was into the whole mid-century modern vibe. More than once she said she felt like she was meant to be born earlier, back when pregnant women smoked and men drank three martinis at lunch.

What had she called this chair? A butterfly? Camel? No, it was a swan. Casey hadn’t seen the resemblance, but Ramona showed him how the lines at the edge of the seat arched backward like the angle of a swan’s neck. He reached behind him and ran both hands across the slope of the cushion, remembering Ramona spinning like a child, staring up at the ceiling to make herself dizzy.

Casey liked to pretend that he was comfortable in his own skin, able to waltz into this doctor’s office and give his name at the reception desk like he belonged, but he was relieved when he heard the door to the lobby open, followed by the entrance of his friend Brandon.

“Hey, man. You said you’d be here by eleven.” Casey had intentionally arrived five minutes late so Brandon would already be there first.

“Sorry,” Brandon said. “Subways were fucked.”

“Which line did you take?”

“The A.”

Casey had sailed to the Upper West Side without problems, but he’d taken the 1.

Brandon was offended by the cross-examination. “Damn, were you checking to see if I was lying to you?”

“No. Just, you know, wondering.” Casey had indeed been testing Brandon, but immediately let it drop. He needed to be careful not to scare Brandon away. He liked having at least one male friend on the street.

“Whatever, dude. We’re both here now. She get you hooked up yet or what?”

This office was unlike any of Casey’s previous, limited exposures to doctors. At the clinics he was used to, the lobbies were standing-room-only, for pregnant teenagers, colicky babies, and old bums two quarts shy of liver failure, all battling for a second’s attention from the gum-chewing fat ladies juggling phones behind the desk. This place felt more like a living room, with its designer chairs, fireplace, and piped-in classical music.

Casey would live here if given the chance.

“All right, Casey. The doctor’s ready for you now.”

Casey looked at Brandon, who had already settled into the next chair with a copy of
Sports Illustrated
like a waiting father. This was their sixth visit to this office, but Casey still wasn’t comfortable with the entire setup. “You sure you can’t come with me? Maybe it’s, like, more efficient or something for him to meet with us together.”

“No way, dude. The doctor will just kick me out if we try that. Just do like I said. Like you’ve been doing every time, man.” Brandon lowered his voice and held the magazine up to hide his lips from the receptionist’s view. “Answer all his questions with half the truth, but really exaggerated—like you’re totally bummed out or majorly psyched. And maybe remember to add the thing about touching the phone booths. Every single one. And if you try to pass one, you wind up circling back. Try to get that in there somehow. But, with each visit, tone it down a little. Not as much today as last time.”

As Casey followed the receptionist to the heavy oak door at the end of the hallway, he felt a little guilty that he allowed Brandon to believe he was still playing games with the doctor. Brandon had his own agenda and was the one to first bring Casey here, nearly two months ago, but Casey hadn’t been able to go along with it. Maybe they’d wind up messing up this doctor by pretending to be something they weren’t. Or maybe there were side effects or something that could screw his brain up.

But Casey hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave, either. Even now, he was still excited to be here. Sure, he’d been sent to “counselors” before, but that had been in Iowa. And they’d all been hell-bent on fixing his supposed delusions. There was usually a lot of prayer involved. They weren’t real doctors like this guy, let alone successful city psychiatrists. As much as Casey liked to tell himself he was fine—it was other people in the world who had a problem—he had to wonder if maybe a nineteen-year-old living on the streets for the last two years might be in legitimate need of some fine-tuning in the head department.

He glimpsed back one more time at Brandon, who mouthed an urgent command to “go on.”

As he let the doctor’s office door close behind him, Casey reminded himself of the vow he’d taken on that first visit, a promise not to waste this opportunity. The chance to have a real, honest one-on-one with a legit top-notch shrink was more important than the plan that had originally brought him here. When the doctor had begun asking him the usual questions, Casey had answered them—not as Brandon had coached, but in his own way. He answered truthfully. He told the doctor everything.

Forty-five minutes later, he exited the office. Brandon was still in the lobby but now had the sleeves of his sweater hitched up to his biceps, a cotton swab taped over a vein near the crook of his left arm. He cradled a Ziploc baggie filled with pills in his lap and looked at Casey with anticipation.

“Dude, what took so fucking long? It’s usually takes me, like, ten minutes.”

Casey flashed him a quick thumbs-up, and Brandon broke out into a broad grin. Two minutes later, after a quick blood draw, Casey had an identical Ziploc bag and a hundred bucks in his back pocket. But he was even happier about having someone he could talk to.

Chapter
Eighteen

Second Acts: Confessions of a Former
Victim and Current Survivor

“N
EVER
T
ELL
”

I almost called this post “Speaking Truth
to Power.”

The title was intended to be ironic, the
phrase itself vacuous. It came to use in the mid-1950s, courtesy of Quakers who
were trying to resist international violence. These days, the phrase is invoked
constantly by those who want to be seen as standing up to oppression: the Tea
Party against what they see as the “elite,” the left against whoever dares to
disagree, Anita Hill as a title to her memoir.

But what is power on the Internet?

Many of you will have noticed that in the
past few days, our little discussion group here has drawn the efforts of someone
who craves attention from others. From what I can tell, he—or I suppose, less
probably, she—checks the site one or two times a day for new posts from me, and
then tries to respond with some sort of intimidating comment.

If you haven’t had the privilege of
reading the artistic contributions of this particular writer, here’s a sample of
the work in question:

Wait until you see
what I have planned.

He should have made
you bleed more.

I will show you
damage.

I want to thank you all for the moral
support you have shown me here. You give me courage and strength to continue to
share my experience with you, and I hope it helps you in turn.

But whoever has been making these
destructive comments deserves no attention. Some of you have tried to scold him
or shout him down, but please just ignore him. I have been tempted to erase the
comments, which of course I have the ability to do, but even that gives this
person a form of attention—the knowledge that I digested his words sufficiently
to decide to erase them, the accomplishment of being the one member of the
message board to have his comments moderated.

And so I have left the words there on the
screen—capable of being read by you or me—but hopefully ignored upon first
glance. These are the words of a person who has his (or her) own shortcomings.
His (or her) own secrets. His (or her) own insecurities. Whoever that person is,
he does not have anything “planned.” He will not make me “bleed” or “show me
damage.”

Because some of you loyal readers may
have called the police in response to the activity of my website, I suppose law
enforcement might become involved. But I will not delete the words. Nor will I
stop writing my own.

I choose not to delete those heinous
comments because they are a badge of honor. Those words constitute evidence that
I am speaking truth—not to power, but to those who crave it, no matter what the
cost.

I will not delete the words because I
recognize they are an attempt to silence me, no different from that man’s words
so many years ago, threatening to kill my mother and me if I spoke the
truth.

The title of this post is “Never Tell”
because that is the lesson I was taught by my abuser all those years ago. In my
particular case, he made the threat explicit, but he didn’t need to. Never Tell
is the universal, underlying rule that all survivors intuit and then
internalize.

The phrase is beautiful in its
efficiency, isn’t it? Two little words, but they convey so much more.
Never tell. Or else.

But here’s the thing. When does it
happen? When do we actually read in the news about women who are killed for
daring to speak of the harms committed against them? It doesn’t happen, at least
not here, where we are privileged to live in a modern society. Words have been
used by these abusers to silence us for too long, but the cowards never follow
through on their threats. They are the ones who are weak. We are the ones with
strength.

They choose to threaten. I choose to call
their bluff. I will not be silenced.

B
ack
at the downtown gym with complacent staff and a public computer, those words
were inducing their own kind of threat. This endeavor was proving more difficult
than previously envisioned. She had not only continued to blog, she had
defiantly kept the threats visible in the comments section. Now she was raising
the possibility of a police investigation.

Although it was tempting to reconsider strategy,
there seemed to be no other option but to leave another response.

“I look forward to proving you wrong. I
know your name. I’ve seen your family. And I know where you live.”

I
n his rented room at the Tonawanda Motor Inn,
Jimmy Grisco finished reading the last of the letters. He hadn’t thought about
these things for fifteen years, but seeing the yellowed pages now had him
remembering how he’d felt back then.

It was ironic. He’d been out for two months. He’d
searched as well as he could—asking around, checking the phone book, that sort
of thing—but had gotten nowhere. Then, yesterday, the prosecutor had hauled him
into her office.
Why is this person calling the
prison?
she wanted to know.
Keep your nose
clean. You got a second chance, James. Don’t be causing yourself any
trouble
.

And then he’d seen that note next to the lawyer’s
computer. The name and phone number just sitting there for him, better than if
he had planned it himself. He pretended not to see, but, man, how he’d started
repeating those numbers in his head over and over and over again. Picturing the
layout on a phone’s touch pad. Imagining the shape. Anything to keep that number
locked up in his mind.

Finally he’d ended up in the courthouse elevator
with that guy scribbling file notes with his left hand. He asked to borrow the
pen, using his own forearm as a scratchpad. Fifteen years ago, when he’d gone
in, a phone number could only do so much. These days? On the Internet a phone
number could get you everything.

He packed the letters away into the same Adidas
shoe box he’d stored them in all those years ago. He still couldn’t believe the
police hadn’t paid more attention to them when they searched his apartment back
then. Goes to show they didn’t really care about the whole story.

He’d found the shoe box in his uncle’s basement
last month, when he’d finally gone through all the crap that had been stored
there since his arrest. He had almost thrown it out. Now he was glad he
hadn’t.