“And who called Mrs. Leone into the situation?” the judge asked.
“Detective Mendez,” Dixon said.
“Detective Mendez isn’t aware of proper protocol?”
“He has a connection to Anne through Vince. He knows Anne has a gift with children. When the little girl came out of the coma, she was extremely agitated. Detective Mendez called Vince, who is consulting with us on this case, and asked if Anne couldn’t come with him. He knew personally she could handle the situation.”
“Does it really matter now who was called first?” Willa Norwood asked, always the voice of reason. “Can we just get on with it?”
Upchurch glared at her. “Of course it matters, Willa. She came in here last night and convinced the child she’s her mother.”
“That’s absolutely not true,” Anne said, her focus more on the judge rather than her accuser. She knew from experience there was no winning an argument with Maureen. The woman was as tough and unyielding as gristle, as unmovable as a city bus.
She was also so red in the face she seemed in danger of having a stroke. “When I got here last night, she was calling you Mommy. How do you explain that?”
“It’s a simple case of transference,” Anne said calmly. “Haley’s last moments of consciousness before she lapsed into the coma were spent with her mother’s dead body. She regained consciousness in totally unfamiliar surroundings, in a room with strangers, hooked to monitors and machines. Who is the first and only person she really wants to see? Her mother—alive.”
“And you just happened to look like her mother,” Upchurch said.
“No, Maureen, I planned that in my mother’s womb,” Anne snapped. “I knew it would come in handy one day.”
There goes the patience, Anne thought. She could feel it sliding through her mental grasp like a very short satin ribbon.
“The girl’s mother had dark hair and dark eyes,” Dixon said to the judge. “Anne has dark hair and dark eyes. It only makes sense. The poor kid was terrified. She needed someone to be Mommy. Anne was there.”
“I would have been there if Detective Mendez had called me sooner,” Upchurch griped. “It was already too late by the time I got there. And she made no effort to put a stop to it.”
“What was I supposed to do, Maureen?” Anne asked. “Rip the sobbing child from my arms and tell her I wasn’t her mother because someone cut her mother’s head off?”
“Oh my God!” Milo Bordain cried out, pressing a gloved hand to her throat. Tears rose up in her eyes.
“Mrs. Leone, did you at any time try to tell the little girl you aren’t her mother?” the judge asked.
“No,” Anne admitted. “She was terrified and hysterical. My only concern was calming her down. I certainly didn’t encourage her. I didn’t tell her I’m her mother. I just let her call me what she wanted.”
“Now the girl has attached to her,” Upchurch said. “How am I supposed to place her with a family?”
“Maybe you won’t have to, Ms. Upchurch,” Judge Espinoza said pleasantly.
“She should be placed with me,” Bordain argued. “She knows me.”
Upchurch didn’t like the judge’s tone. “But she’s a ward of the state, Your Honor. Her case clearly falls under the auspices of CPS.”
“But I’m the judge,” Espinoza explained calmly. “And what I love about being a judge is that what I say goes.”
He turned to Dixon. “What’s your position on this, Sheriff?”
Dixon sighed. “Obviously, what’s best for the little girl is most important. She’s the only witness to a brutal homicide. At this point, we have no idea who the killer is, if he’s someone known to the girl, if he’s still in the area. The child was strangled and left for dead. If the perpetrator knows she’s alive ...”
“She’s potentially still at risk.”
“Yes, Your Honor. And, therefore, whoever has custody of her.”
“How do you expect to place this child into foster care, Ms. Upchurch?” Espinoza asked. “You’d be putting your foster family at risk.”
“There doesn’t need to be any foster care!” Milo Bordain insisted. No one seemed to be listening to her.
“If you aren’t willing to award custody to Mrs. Bordain at this time, I have a foster family willing to take her temporarily. The Bessoms.”
Willa Norwood rolled her eyes to look at Upchurch. “Are you serious? The Bessoms already have five foster children and run a day care center. You seriously think that’s an environment for this little girl, as psychologically fragile as she is?”
“Being around other children will take her mind off what happened,” Upchurch said, as if witnessing a murder and nearly being murdered were no more traumatic than losing a tooth or scraping a knee.
“She’ll be lost in the shuffle,” Anne said. “How can she get the kind of attention she needs? Is Mrs. Bessom trained in child psychology? Does she have any experience grief-counseling children?”
“A stable environment is just as important as any of that,” Upchurch declared. “Mrs. Bessom runs a tight ship. Those kids say ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and ‘No, ma’am.’ They toe the line and do their chores—”
“Great,” Anne said sarcastically. “Why don’t we just send Haley to a military school? They can drill the grief out of her.”
Upchurch glared at her. “I don’t appreciate your smart mouth.”
“And I don’t appreciate that, so far, all your concern has been about pissing on fences,” Anne shot back.
Milo Bordain stood up, red faced, shouting, “LISTEN TO ME! I WANT HER WITH ME! SHE SHOULD BE WITH ME!”
“Mrs. Bordain.” Judge Espinoza stood up and tried to put a hand on Milo Bordain’s arm in attempt to calm her. She jerked away.
The uncomfortable silence embarrassed her back to her senses. Tears squeezing from her eyes, she sat down and dug a linen handkerchief out of her Hermès bag.
“I’m sorry,” she said tersely. “I’m so distraught. I’ve lost Marissa, now Haley ... I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Mrs. Bordain could apply to become a foster parent,” Upchurch suggested. “If Mr. and Mrs. Bordain became foster parents, I have the authority to place the child—”
“The circumstances here are extraordinary, Your Honor,” Dixon said. “The child needs to be in protective custody with people trained to help her through the nightmare of what happened to her. Both Mrs. and Mr. Leone have degrees in psychology. Anne was a teacher. She dealt with the grief of her students last year—”
“She’s not even an employee of the state, Your Honor,” Upchurch argued. “She’s a volunteer. And they’re not licensed foster parents. Their home hasn’t been screened—”
“Are you kidding me with that?” Anne said. “You’re objecting on the basis that I haven’t filed the proper paperwork? That you haven’t come to my home to see if I have dust bunnies under my bed?”
“There’s much more to it than that.”
“Yes, there is,” Anne said passionately. “There’s what’s best for Haley. She’s a victim of a violent crime. Do you know what that’s like, Maureen? Mrs. Bordain? Because I do. I know exactly what that’s like.
“I know exactly what it’s like to wake up screaming in the night, to be terrified to walk around a corner, or to turn your back even to someone you know, let alone a stranger.