Olivia stood by the glass door.
“Michael, I just want to know you better,” she said.
He ducked his head under the water and she wondered if he’d heard her at all.
“I love you, Olivia, but I can’t talk about that, babe. Don’t ever ask again.”
Olivia stood in the bathroom, the steam swirling from the shower and the image of her husband standing before her growing more and more distant. It was more than a metaphor for who he was, but who he’d always be.
Inside the shower, Michael Barton’s tears mixed with the water.
The thought that just scuttled through his mind almost made him laugh, had it not been so painful. Robert and Helen Hansen had the first foster home that he and his sister had been assigned to after their mother failed to show up after leaving them at Disneyland. The Hansens were what he would later call “K4Ms” or Kids for Money—the kind of family who pretends to want to help children, but really only wants the $300 per head they get from the State of California each month.
Although state law prohibited keeping more than two children in a bedroom—and they had to be two children of the same gender—Michael and Sarah slept in a back bedroom of the Hansens’ house in Tustin with four other children. The Hansens outfitted the room with three bunk beds that Robert Hansen had built himself out of pressure-treated timber he stole from a landscaper three blocks away. The chemicals in the wood made the kids sick, which made Helen Hansen madder than usual.
The first time that Robert Hansen abused Michael was a couple of weeks after he and his little sister arrived for foster care. Michael and the oldest boy in the house, a lanky kid with red hair and a swarm of freckles, were watching TV when Mr. Hansen came into the den. Mrs. Hansen, a morose brunette with spider veins that practically crocheted the skin around her ankles, had gone to the grocery store. The other kids were napping in the little warren of beds that met the minimum requirements for youth housing.
“Tim, you watch the kids,” he told the redhead.
“OK, Papa,” the boy said, barely looking up from the TV.
“Son, I want to show you something,” he said, taking Michael by the hand and leading him to the garage. A cat meandered past them, and for a second, Michael thought that he was there to play with the cat. But the cat kept going, and Mr. Hansen said nothing to stop it. It was a two-car garage, but inside there was a single car and a workbench, a bed for the dog, and an old sofa.
Mr. Hansen was working on a Corvette that he’d been restoring for months, if not years. Its red fiberglass body was spotted with Bondo.
“Hop in,” he said, holding open the passenger door.
Michael climbed inside. The car fascinated him at first. He’d had a Hot Wheels car similar to it back in Portland, though that, and everything else he owned, had been left behind.
“Beauty, huh?”
Michael watched as the man slid into the driver’s seat. He reached over and clicked the automatic garage door opener and the gears overhead started to grind as the hinged panel rolled down, shuttering the sun from the garage. It went from a blast of light to a slit, to near darkness. Michael felt Mr. Hansen take his hand and press it into his crotch.
“That’s a good boy,” he said.
Michael wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew it was wrong. He tried to pull his hand away, but Mr. Hansen wouldn’t let him.
“Hold on, cowboy,” he said, leaning closer, his hot breath now against Michael’s cheek. “You’re gonna make Papa feel good.”
The rest of what happened was lost in his memory. It wasn’t because it wasn’t traumatic, because to Michael Barton, it absolutely was. It was lost because, over time, Michael just turned it off.
“Suck on me until I tell you to stop,” Mr. Hansen said.
Michael looked up and started to cry. “I want my mom.”
“Stop crying and suck. Your mom dumped you because you were a bad boy.”
Michael protested some more, but Mr. Hansen palmed the back of his head like a volleyball and pressed it to his groin.
“Yeah, that’s a good boy. That’s my good boy.”
It seemed to last a long time. Horrifically long. Inside his head, Michael sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider song over and over. It was a mantra that helped him through the hours he’d ended up spending in the Corvette, the laundry room at the end of the hall, the bathroom when Mrs. Hansen had gone to bed. As time went on and the incident was repeated, Michael knew it would end. He could read Mr. Hansen’s body for the telltale signs that it was almost over. Mr. Hansen would stiffen his legs, moan about how good it felt, and then relax.
Mr. Hansen was a cigar smoker who liked to light up afterward and wave the cigar around, taunting the boy.
“Bet you’d like this in your mouth, too?”
While Michael was able to push most of the repulsion and shame that he felt out of his mind, whenever he smelled the pungent smoke of a While Owl cigar, his stomach would roil into knots.
Years later, he pushed the memory aside. Only temporarily, of course. He pulled a paper towel from the bathroom rod and patted his face. The mask was on. He looked good. He looked in control.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Dixon
It was strange how quickly they started coming and leaving things on the steps leading up to the big Tudor that was Beta Zeta House at Dixon University. A bouquet of carnations with the cellophane from the Dixon Kroger on West Cannonball Street was the first item. It had probably been dropped off there within two hours of the discovery of Sheraton’s bloody body. From the settee in the front window, Jenna Kenyon and Midori Cassidy watched the other students come from across campus. They were carrying flowers, cards, candles—and even a beer bong.
“Sheraton would have liked that,” Midori said.
Jenna looked at the girl, unsure how to respond.
“I mean, she would have thought that was funny,” Midori quickly added. “You know?”
“I get it.”
A plainclothes detective entered the living room and smiled at the young women. Her name was Kellie Jasper. She wore round-framed glasses that were far too large for her face. Her hair was curly and clipped short—a symptom of a woman too busy to care, or one who’d just given up.
“I know this has been a horrendous morning,” she said from across the room.
The words brought Midori to tears again and Jenna patted her on the shoulder.
“Midori and Sheraton were very close.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, darlin’,” the detective said, taking a seat next to them so she’d no longer tower over the grieving girls. She turned to face Midori—a crumple of a human being, her long black hair limp and askew.
“We all have to work together, now. Sheraton is gone, but we will make sure that whoever did this to her is caught.”
Midori looked like she was going to cry again and Jenna squeezed her hand.
“I’m going to take you in my car to the justice center, and another officer will bring you back.”
“That’s fine. I understand procedure,” Jenna said, realizing that she sounded like some lame junior detective or a TV watcher who stayed glued to police procedurals.
“I understand that your mama’s in law enforcement.”
Jenna nodded. “She’s a sheriff back in Washington.”
Detective Jasper led them out the front door and down the steps.
“Yes, I remember reading about her, and, of course, reading about you.”