Free Bless the Child by Cathy Cash Spellman

frightened me . . . I mean, maybe drugs aren’t the only thing she’s into. I’m only telling you this because of the little girl. Jenna’s got a right to screw up her own life with that shit if she want to, but kids are different. They’ve got rights too.”
     
    “Cheri, what frightened you at Jenna’s? Is Cody in danger?”
     
    “I feel like I’m betraying Jenna’s trust even talking to you like this, Mrs. O’Connor, but you’ve always been real nice to me and I remember thinking, when we met that day at the park, how good you were to Jenna’s kid. I could see you really loved her and all . . .” She paused again and Maggie heard the in-drawn breath at the other end, the girl getting up her courage.
     
    “Look, Mrs. O’Connor, please don’t ask me why I’m saying this, but I think you’d better get that baby out of that house.”
     
    “Why, Cheri? What’s wrong there?” Maggie’s heart beat faster.
     
    “I can’t tell you, Mrs. O’Connor. Honest to God, I can’t! It’s just that I think I know what she’s into, through some friends of mine. I’m not really sure, and I don’t want to make trouble for her, if I’m wrong . . . but if I’m right, it’s real dangerous for Cody.”
     
    “Please, Cheri. Please tell me what you mean! I can’t just take Cody away from there without some explanation. It’s against the law.”
     
    “If I’m right, Mrs. O’Connor, Jenna and Eric are into things a lot more against the law than you could ever be. Just please get the kid out of that house . . .” Cheri’s voice was strained, agitated now, with the weight of what she wasn’t saying.
     
    “Just listen to me and get that baby out of there, will you? Even Jenna would want you to, if she were in her right mind. But there’s something wrong with her . . . more than just the drugs. She’s like somebody else, not Jenna. I don’t know how to describe what I mean, but it’s spooky. I can’t say anymore, Mrs. O’Connor. Honest to God, I can’t!” The phone clicked off and Maggie stood with the receiver in her hand, the dial tone making its lonely, persistent sound.
     
    Maybe the private detective agency she’d used to trace Jenna could help in some way, she thought frantically, as she dialed. The director, Bill Schmidt, was an ex-FBI man; he listened, occasionally breaking into her hurried explanation, then he responded.
     
    “Look, Mrs. O’Connor, I like you, and I don’t want to mislead you. It’s not like you see in the movies. We can’t go breaking into people’s estates like the cops on TV. If you want us to check this out for you on a fact-finding mission, we’ll do it, but to get the goods on anyone in a place that well protected, we’ll need electronic surveillance. Trucks, men, recording equipment . . . it’ll cost you at least a thousand bucks a night, and I gotta be honest with you, the courts don’t like to accept recorded surveillance from a PI, because they say it could be doctored. And it’s not as if we could go storming in there like John Wayne and pull the little girl out for you, either. I’m really sorry, Mrs. O’Connor, that you’re in this kind of trouble, but my advice is it would be a big waste of money for you to hire us. Why don’t you try Child Welfare or the police.”
     
    The Bureau of Child Welfare was just as drab as every other bureaucratic office in the huge municipal complex. Dreary yellow and institutional gray, no Disney characters in evidence. Maggie chided herself for being repelled by the place; it didn’t matter what it looked like, only what it could accomplish. Surely, someone here would care about a little child in danger.
     
    A woman dressed in a blue, shapeless suit ushered her into a small cubicle with a metal desk and sat down.
     
    “What can I do for you?” she asked with the weary expectation of one who runs a complaint window.
     
    “My daughter is a heroin addict,” Maggie began, cringing internally at the words.