Marty kind of had fun at Uncle Jerry's. He really liked Tim. Tim was eleven and would be in the sixth grade next year but he didn't treat Marty like a baby third grader. Angie was fourteen and kind of snotty but not as bad as Linda. Aunt Cindy was funny. She said things that made you laugh all the time. Ya, it was kind of fun but it wasn't Uncle Henry's
Marty did like the lady that Uncle Jerry took him to see in Madison. She was neat. She asked a lot of questions and had him draw some pictures. Marty liked that. He was pretty good at drawing and the lady kept telling him what good pictures he drew. Some of the pictures she wanted him to draw were kind of dumb. Like, how do you draw happy? That's a feeling, not a thing but he drew Uncle Henry and the lady, her name was Sarah, thought that was a good idea. She asked him to draw sad and he drew Auty, and the baby and Uncle Henry's house without him in the picture.
She asked him to draw angry and he drew Miss Bitch. He then asked if he could draw some more angry. She let him. He drew Mart, Kiki, the druggy, and Miss Bitch in her car trying to make him tell lies about Uncle Henry. She asked him to draw OK. He drew Aunt Myrt, Uncle Ces, Freddie, Larry, Linda, David and Debby and School. Marty thought for a minute then asked for his happy picture back. He added Uncle Reind, Aunt Betje, Larry, Fritz, Ferdinand and LeAnn. He took his OK picture back and crossed out Larry.
She asked him to draw love. Marty drew himself in Uncle Henry's lap. She asked him to draw hate. He said he couldn't. Uncle Henry would be mad. You ain't s'posed to hate no one.
She asked if Uncle Henry gets mad often.
"He don't ever get mad. I made a sapantstic mistake. He would be unhappy."
"Sapantstic?"
"Something like that. I get words mixed up sometime. Whatever that word is, Uncle Henry said it was about words." He got an impish grin. "Sometimes I do it on purpose just to tease Uncle Henry."
"Could the word have been semantics?"
"Oh, ya, that."
She asked him to draw bad touch. He drew the druggy fucking him. She asked if he knew anything more about bad touch. He told her about Lucy and how if you're not careful you can get good and bad touch mixed up.
"You're a smart boy."
"I know. Uncle Henry said so."
"You really like Uncle Henry, don't you?"
"No, I don't like him. I really, really, really, really, really love him."
"Well, I guess you really, really love Uncle Henry."
"You would too if he was the only person in the whole world who loved you."
"Is he really the only person who loves you?"
"Well, maybe Uncle Reind and Aunt Betje - and I think Larry's getting to love me and I'm getting to love him. I think Aunt Mytr and Uncle Ces kind of love us but they ain't hardly got time to hug nobody but David and Debby. Anyway, David and Debby need to be hugged all the time. Their mama and daddy got killed and they don't have no grandma or nuthin'. Aunt Myrt says she thinks they need a biologist - uh - that ain't the right word but I can't 'member it - but Miss Bitch says she ain't got the money and don't baby them. They'll get over it. Don't tell Uncle Henry this but I think I hate Miss Bitch."
Dr. Sarah Collins came away from Marty very impressed. She had been filled in on his background and, like Jerry Dissler, wondered that he was so well adjusted. She was also convinced that there had been no untoward behavior on Henry's part and that Kate Burtch had used duress in an attempt to get a false accusation from Marty. The woman couldn't be too smart. As long as she had known Marty she should have seen that no one was going to frighten or trick this kid into doing anything he didn't want to do. He was too intelligent and too tough.
Dr. Collins had started her professional life as an attorney. She worked as an assistant prosecutor and was assigned to prosecute sex abuse cases. She was passionate about protecting children and for the first several months was very aggressive, almost brutal in her tactics. As time went on, however, she became very concerned about the evidence she was given and the manner in which that evidence was obtained. She became convinced that, while most cases brought to her were, indeed, crimes, too many seemed to be dubious and in a few cases vindictive.
Children were definitely being damaged by perpetrators - no doubt about that. But Sarah also became convinced that in a percentage of the cases brought to her children were being damaged, not because they had actually been abused but because they were being used and manipulated by a parent or, more often, a vindictive or incompetent social worker. Sarah lost confidence in her ability to distinguish which cases were valid and which were not. More research needed to be done in the area of sex abuse investigation.
She left the practice of law and entered medical school. Upon completion of her MD, she entered Columbia University in New York and studied Child Psychology. There she became acquainted with, and eventually worked with Dr. Richard A. Gardner, Head of the Department of Child Psychiatry, whose research eventually resulted in the book, Sex Abuse Hysteria: The Salem Witch Trials Revisited. She concluded that there were many people pursuing the prosecution of abusers. In fact it was becoming a growth industry. She would give her attention to seeing that the correct people were prosecuted.
Although Dr. Collins was in her late forties, she looked much younger. She was also a slight woman, one who appeared to be the kind that the large, not fat but definitely buxom Kate Burtch could bully. The meeting included: Prosecutor Rick Olmstead, Dr. Collins, Kate, Mervin Gross, Sheriff Joe Fleetwood, Detective Jerry Dissler and Judge Marvin P. Ford, pro tem from Winnebago County.
Kate, although somewhat unsettled by recent events, attempted to take over the meeting. She informed the group that she had been working with children for thirty years and she didn't need this neophyte, referring to Dr. Collins, coming in here telling her how to do her job. Rich gently, then eventually forcefully informed her that he had called the meeting and he would control the agenda. He asked Dr. Collins for her findings. Her findings did not at all please Kate Burtch. She lunched into a tirade of insults mostly directed at Sarah Collins. Kate did divert her animus briefly toward Henry, raising the question as to why, other than sex, would a man of Henry's age show so much interest in a nine year old boy.
Jerry Dissler could finally say to Kate some of the things he's wanted to say for years. "You know, Kate, you have never seen kids as other than a job. They are not people to you. They are either aggravations or tools to be used to satisfy the whims of your vicious nature. I sometimes wonder if you have ever been loved - even as a child. You don't understand the first thing about love. People need love. Goddamit, children need love. You made Marty's life hell but even as a very little boy, he knew that's not the way a life should be. What you never would do for him, he did for himself. He went looking for a better life and he found it. He found it and in finding it he made life a hell of a lot better not only for himself but also for Henry Schmidt.
"You're the sick one Kate. You don't understand love and compassion is a completely foreign concept to you. You put some sexual connotation on any act of compassion. What Henry and Marty have started as necessary compassion because of how you made Marty live and, yes, it became love. Love, goddamit! Love - not sex.
"Oh, hell! I don't know why I'm wasting my breath. An arrogant, pig-headed bitch like yourself would never understand."
Kate, then continued her tirade, this time directed mostly at Jerry. Sarah listened for a few minutes and than calmly asked, "Miss Burtch, how long have you been an alcoholic?"
Kate was stunned. She drank only vodka. They could never smell it on her. How did this woman know?
Now uncharacteristically defensive, Kate said, "I have a drink now and then but I am not an alcoholic".
"I am a physician, Miss Burtch. I can see it in your eyes and in your mannerisms. If it's not already, your liver will be irreparably damaged within a year if you don't get help immediately."
Mervin had wondered about Kate. He had seen empty vodka bottles in the trash frequently. She had often seemed - not quite herself but Mervin had never confronted her or searched her office. Over Kate's strenuous objection, however, Mervin insisted that she take immediate leave of absence and could return to work only with a positive report from a rehabilitation clinic. The man showed more balls than at any time in the twenty-five years Jerry had known him.
Dr. Collins suggested a young lady who had just graduated as a social psychologist and wanted to stay close to Madison so that she could pursue her doctorate. Mervin hired Jill Monroe.