Chapter 43

"As for qualifications for the job," Harry continued, "Cox had exactly what they were looking for."

"Cox?" Jessica asked.

"Sorry. James Cox. From his picture and resume I'd put him about forty. Just been at ACCH about two years. Got there just before you were in, Alex. Before that he worked at a clinic up in Batesville. So that's four years, eight more makes twelve. Figure he finished college at twenty-two or so, thirty-eight at least."

"What was the eight years?" Alex asked.

Harry's grin was not one of humor.

"Ascent Children's Health Services. Ever hear of it?"

If I did I don't remember. Jessica?

"Hang on," Jessica said, "in Jonesboro?"

"Right. It's not there any more. Closed about four or five years ago. You might have seen it, I believe the main office was off of Highway 1, just south of the 63 bypass. The sign stayed up for a year or more after they closed, I used to drive by there to a detail shop I use."

"What type of children's health?" Jessica asked. "I never checked, thought it might be for special types of illness, something like that."

"Special is right. They call them 'special needs' children. Guess they still do, or maybe that's no longer acceptable. Things change so much.

"What it used to mean was mental disability, mostly, or could be medical. Physical handicap. But these days you can get a kid designated special needs for anything, or nothing. All about money again. Especially for minorities. As long as the government is going to take money from the working people and give it to the non-workers, they'll find as many ways as they can to get some of it.

"So it was essentially nothing more than a day-care operation, paid for by Medicaid. They had a half-dozen or so facilities around northeast Arkansas. They owned a stake in a transportation business, used their vans to transport the children, home to day-care, back home. Pretty profitable from the looks of it."

"By closed, do you mean they went out of business?" Jessica said. "If it was making money..."

"Oh yeah, it was making money. Hard not to with government handouts. Their downfall was, as usual, greed.

"They hired the cheapest help available, you've probably seen'em. Driving vans and buses, handicapped people, elderly people from retirement homes, things like that. It doesn't pay much. That's what they were using. Probably the best thing you can say about most of them is that they at least have a job. Intelligence and initiative are not found in great abundance there."

"I get that impression."

"Operating on the cheap, you get what you pay for, sooner or later. They had a few incidents, losing kids for hours at a time. Had some police reports. Apparently no one looked into it as much as it needed.

"One day, they picked up the kids and drove them to the facility, unloaded and took them into the building. Except one.

"June, already having some hot days here. Left one of the kids in the van. Windows closed. Kid strapped in..."

Harry paused, took a small box of cigarillos out and opened it. He extended it in Alex's direction.

"Smoke?"

Al Capone? Why not? Kinda small, but.. who's Al Capone. Gangster, long time ago. Funny what you remember.

Alex took one.

Harry stood up.

"Let's get some air."

What the fuck he about to tell us?

They followed Harry out of the office and exited a door on the back of the building. A small awning covered it. Harry handed Alex a lighter and Alex lit his cigar, handed it back.

Brandy flavor? Milder that what I smoke. Smaller.

Harry lit his cigar, took a puff.

"Alex, Jessica, after what you've been through, you won't be surprised.

"You hear about this, every year in the summer, usually parents forget to take the kid out of the car. Usually... it's easy to say it shouldn't happen. Any time. But most of them are parents, something disrupts their schedule, something on their mind. Forget to stop at daycare one day, Junior back there, gone to sleep. Mom or dad ain't... whatever. Those idiotic car seats make it worse. I rode in the front seat on my mama's lap, rode in the back of pickup trucks. Government always trying to fix things that don't need fixing...

"Anyway, those are bad enough. Dead child, parents maybe going to prison or at best living with the guilt for the rest of their lives. What happened here was something else. They already had problems, but no repercussions so far, so it went on. One day they left a kid in a van. Don't know what they were doing for eight hours. I read the files. They said the temperature of the seat was 141 degrees. The kid, five years old, had managed to free one of his hands, had almost gotten a foot loose."

They waited. Harry didn't seem the emotional type, and he was a hardened lawman.

Evil? Has to be. Being stupid and lazy? Yeah, but still not caring about your fellow human beings like that, what else is it but evil?

"I'd been a criminal investigator for thirty years." Harry said at last. "Organized crime, crazy hick gangs, I've seen what people will do to each other. And crimes against children were always the ones... I'd feel helpless because I knew that whatever punishment there was, wasn't enough. And wouldn't bring back that little life. Whether it was dead or just so mentally scarred it might as well be."

"Add how many upstanding citizens to that list?" Alex asked.

"More than you'd want to know. I've taken down plenty in my day, it seems there's something evil in all of us, but most of us try to suppress it when we recognize it, if only from fear of retribution. Probably those of us who feel actual guilt about hurting someone... I don't imagine there are very many. Lot of monsters roaming around in nice suits, sittin' in thousand-dollar chairs in boardrooms, they're in churches too, mostly the big organized ones, but they turn up in small towns too. The big ones are protected. But don't get me started. I still have to make you a little sicker."

Alex looked over at Jessica, it was hard to read her but he guessed what she was thinking. And feeling.

"Cox was the COO. Chief Operating Officer. Responsible for everything involved in running the place. The CEO, who was rarely on the premises, was a politician. State senator. When this boy died, the Senate was in session, and he was lobbying his fellow legislators to pass a bill that would have relaxed the competence requirements for businesses like his.

"And if that's not bad enough, he didn't have the decency or the good sense to either clean up his house or at least keep his mouth shut. He offered do pay for the kid's funeral."

Alex heard Jessica's gasp.

Yeah. Me too.

Harry had allowed what was left of his cigar to go out.

So did I. Guess there's an ashtray inside.

There was, and Harry and Alex dropped their butts into it. Sat down.

"And that's how it is." Harry said. "Saw his political ads before the election. Christian. Husband. Father.

"You want a drink?"

"I'm driving." Jessica said. "But y'all go ahead. I'll have a good one when we get home."

Harry went over to the sideboard.

"Peach brandy OK?" he asked.

"Sounds good to me."

After a sip of brandy Harry spoke again.

"Some say evil people are insane. Some say some are and some aren't. They're all dangerous. And the people behind this are evil for sure, and as I said there's a lot of money in it. And that's where they get really dangerous. When we break into this thing we'll have to be careful."

"Do you know who?" Jessica asked.

"Not yet. They don't make it easy to find. But I'll find out. Meanwhile, get started on being very careful."