Chapter 7: What Susan Saw
Susan had worked for the family on Tuesdays and Fridays.
She was sixty-four, recently widowed, and had taken the job through a domestic staffing agency.
She had needed the income and the routine.
She had not expected what she found inside that house.
She sat across from Dana in the interview room with her hands folded on the table and spoke in the careful, measured way of someone who had been rehearsing this for a long time.
"The first thing I noticed was that Emily ate separately," Susan said.
"Renee told me Emily had food sensitivities and needed a special diet.
She ate in the kitchen, alone, before the family ate.
Small portions.
I thought it was unusual, but I didn't say anything."
"How old was Emily when you started?"
"Just turned six.
She was a quiet child.
Very quiet.
The kind of quiet that isn't natural in a six-year-old." Susan's hands tightened slightly.
"She used to follow me from room to room while I worked.
She never asked for anything.
She just stayed near me."
"Did you ever see Renee hjt her?"
"Once." Susan's jaw set.
"I was in the hallway.
The door to the kitchen was half open.
Emily had spilled a glass of water.
Renee hjt her across the back of the legs with a wooden spoon.
Emily didn't cry.
She just stood there and said sorry." Susan looked at the table.
"She didn't cry.
That was the worst part.
She was already trained not to cry."
Dana wrote without looking up.
"Did you report it?"
"I told myself it was discipline.
That I had misunderstood.
That it wasn't my place." Susan's voice didn't waver, but her eyes did.
"I was wrong.
I knew I was wrong and I told myself I wasn't."
"Why did you leave?"
"I found the room." Susan looked up.
"The locked room.
It wasn't locked yet then — this was before the lock was put on.
I was cleaning the hallway and the door was open.
I looked in and saw that everything had been removed.
The bed, the dresser, everything except the stickers on the wall.
Emily's name was still on the door in those wooden letters.
But the room was empty."
"What did Renee say when you asked about it?"
"I didn't ask her.
I asked Emily." Susan paused.
"Emily told me Renee said she didn't deserve a room because she was bad.
She said it the same way she said everything — very quietly, very flat, like she was telling me what the weather was." Susan pressed her lips together for a moment.
"I went home that Friday and I sat in my car in my driveway for a long time.
And then I told myself it wasn't my business.
And I went inside."
"But you came back."
"The following Tuesday.
And the Tuesday after that.
For another three months." Susan's voice dropped.
"And then I couldn't do it anymore.
I told the agency I had a family commitment.
I left."
Dana set her pen down.
"Susan.
The wooden spoon.
The empty room.
Emily sleeping outside — did you know about that?"
"Not while I was there.
The kennel was there, but I thought it was just for the dog." She shook her head.
"If I had known—"
"I need to ask you something important," Dana said.
"Are you willing to make a formal statement?
Everything you've told me today, on record, signed, available to the prosecution?"
Susan looked at her for a moment.
"Yes," she said.
"I should have done it a year ago.
I know that.
But yes."
"There will be a defense attorney who will try to discredit you.
He'll say you have no direct evidence of the most serious allegations.
He'll say you're motivated by guilt or attention."
"I know." Susan's chin lifted slightly.
"Let him say it."
Dana allowed herself one small nod.
"We'll schedule a formal recorded statement for tomorrow morning."
After Susan left, Dana sat alone in the interview room for a moment.
The case was building.
Carol's photographs.
Emily's statement.
The medical records, which had come back that afternoon — the two-year-old wrist injury was logged as a torus fracture, consistent with a fall, but the treating physician had noted in the file, in small careful handwriting: *mechanism of injury as described by accompanying adult inconsistent with fracture location.
Recommend follow-up.* There had been no follow-up.
Renee had not brought Emily back.
The physician's name was Dr.
Anand.
He was still practicing at the same hospital.
May you like
Dana picked up her phone.
There was one more call to make.
