AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He tried to latch onto a more positive train of thought. Deborah. Nope. That wasn’t it. He’d called her apartment before he hit the sack the previous evening. She hadn’t answered. Caller ID. She didn’t want to talk to the rat-snitch. Or maybe she was with Omar. Or at a bar.
Think positive. Think about the case. Cooper was back out at the ranch where the canine unit had resumed its search of the property. In the meantime, Alex had the CPS angle.
No pressure.
Lyn Thigpen didn’t look happy to see him. In fact, the caseworker looked exhausted, despite the fact that it was only Monday morning. The stacks of files on her desk might have something to do with that. The woman was clearly overworked, as were all the case workers employed by CPS in the state of Texas. “I really don’t have a lot of time for this, Detective. I have actual current cases that need my attention..”
Alex eased into the chair across from her desk even though she hadn’t invited him to sit. “I promise to make it quick. Sheriff’s records show officers escorted a CPS worker to Tómas Chavez home a couple of times. At least one child was removed and then returned after CPS did an evaluation.”
Thigpen moved a folder from one stack to another. “And you want me to find out what was in that evaluation.”
“Ms. Thigpen, there’s a little girl’s skeletal remains lying on a table in the morgue right now. Someone got away with murder five years ago—that’s how long Ray Johnson has owned the property. Tómas Chavez leased the property before Ray bought it. I just want to find out what kind of parent he was and what kind of problems brought your department into the mix. I’ve spoken with the man and he claims to have been a model parent. He claims to not know anything about his youngest daughter Nina being the victim of a brutal murder. I want to find out if he’s a liar.”
Thigpen stared at him, her pudgy face morose. “Detective, do me a favor. Go to Starbucks, get a café latte—you know what, make it a double.”
Fatigue, frustration, and a certain degree of sadness mingled in the woman’s face. Thigpen teetered on that thin line between dedication and burnout.
“Would you like a chocolate chip cookie with that?”
“That would be lovely.” Her voice wobbled. “Give me about thirty minutes.”
Twenty minutes later Alex set the coffee and the cookie in front of Thigpen.
Thigpen took a ginger sip of the steaming coffee and closed her eyes, an ecstatic look on her face. “Tómas and Clarisse Chavez ended up on our radar after the schools reported chronic absenteeism, a lack of immunizations, and neglect of at least one of the children.”
“Just one child showed neglect?” Alex frowned. “Ray said there were three or four running around.”
“The Chavezes had five children. Three girls and two boys. They all missed school and they all needed immunizations, but only one—the youngest one—presented a potential abuse scenario. A teacher reported that she came to school with fingerprint-shaped bruises on her arm. When she tried to talk to her about it, the little girl freaked. Nina was five at the time.”
She broke the mammoth cookie in half and offered the larger piece to Alex. He took it. “What else?”
“She was underweight, apparently undernourished. Suffered from anemia.” Thigpen flipped through the pages of the file in front of her. “The foster parents reported that she refused to sleep on a bed, kept sliding down on the floor after they left the room. They’d return and put her in the bed. She cowered every time they came in, but got back on the floor after they left.”
“Bizarre.”
“It’s the kind of thing we see.” Thigpen dropped her reading glasses on the desk. “A child who’s been abused will continue behavior conditioned through punishment. She undoubtedly had been taught that she was not allowed to sleep on a bed and would be punished if she did.”
“Maybe they didn’t have enough beds.”
“Her speech was delayed. She hadn’t developed the basic skills needed to learn to read. Her social skills were poor.”
“And y’all sent her back.”
Frowning, Thigpen leaned back and steepled her chubby fingers. “Let me tell you something. In the last fiscal year, there 3,249 cases of confirmed child abuse in the state of Texas. Those are just the confirmed ones, not the thousands that have to be investigated. Of those, nearly nine hundred children were removed from their homes.
“In Bexar County, the number of children abused was four percent higher than in the rest of the state. That means something like thirteen of every thousand kids in this county were abused or neglected last year. Should we remove all of them? And what would you have us do with them? Do you understand the state of our emergency shelters and our foster care system?”
She stopped and took a long breath, bright red spots glowing on both cheeks. Neither of them spoke for several seconds. She sniffed. “The answer to your question is we can’t remove children unless they are imminent danger. Because of the bruising and the fact that Mr. Chavez became belligerent when the workers approached him, Nina was removed. He committed to attending an anger management course and making sure Nina was in school each day. The children received their immunizations. Nina was returned. That’s the way the system works.”
She snatched a tissue from her desk. Instead of using it, she began shredding it. “This wasn’t my case, Detective. I’m just telling you what’s in the file.” She went back to the paperwork in front of her. “Chavez completed the class. The other children all seemed fine. I guess the caseworker figured four out of five wasn’t bad. Sometimes one child is just smaller and slower than the others. It could go either way. As for attendance at school—we didn’t receive any more complaints from the school.”
“Ms. Thigpen.” Alex stopped to rub his eyes for a second, trying to remember the exact conversation. “The neighbor, Maddy Stover, lived next to this family for about a year. She told us they only had four children. She only saw two girls and two boys when she dropped by the ranch.”
Thigpen pursued her lips, staring at the report. “She was mistaken. It’s right here in black and white. Twin girls, age nine, Esperanza and Estrella. Domingo, age seven, Francisco, age six, and Nina, age five. And it’s also in color. Here’s the photo.”
Alex took the photograph. An ugly, cold chill wrapped itself around his neck. The face of a dark-haired little girl stared up at him. Nina Chavez looked like an elf. She had wispy black hair that fell to her shoulders, one plastic barrette on each side. Uneven bangs spoke of a home haircut. Her skin was olive and her eyes green. This could be the face that belonged to the bones. Nina Chavez had been a cute kid.
“Poor Mrs. Chavez.” He dropped the photo on his desk, hoping she hadn’t noticed the sudden shaking of his fingers. “She had her hands full.”
