Overcomer - The Journey by Judy Colella (top 10 non fiction books of all time txt) 📕

“At first, they were going to kidnap you, she said, but realized how stupid that was. So they devised something better, if you call murder ‘better.’ They decided to kill the Boltons, and then wait for the system to start looking for another home for you, knowing full well they were next on the list.

“So one afternoon – and this how Bobby Lee told it to Letitia, she said – when they knew the Boltons would both be there while you were at school, Bobby Lee snuck in through one of the back doors and surprised them at lunch. He grabbed Mr. Bolton first, knowing his wife wouldn’t have the strength to stop him, and threw him to the floor. Then he started kicking him. She was screaming, so he reached over to the table, picked up a glass, and threw it at her head, knocking her out long enough for him to grab a steak knife from the table and stab Mr. Bolton about twenty times in the chest and once through the eye. Then he pretty much did the same to her, kicking her in the ribs until every one of them was broken before stabbing her to death. And that, I believe, is how you found them when you got home that day, yes?”

He nodded, horror choking him as the full memory rose from somewhere deep and shrieked its grotesque wickedness in his face. Not realizing at first that he was doing so, he put his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and rocked forward with the agony of that ten-year-old boy’s gruesome discovery. He now remembered being unable to move or make a sound for what felt like an hour – he’d stared instead, absorbing every sickening detail. When his mind had been unable to handle any more, it released him from the cruel paralysis long enough for him to get to the phone and call 911 before shutting him down again. Someone – he didn’t know who – had told he he’d been found unconscious in the hall leading from the kitchen, but that when they revived him, he couldn’t remember anything. After this, a woman had brought him upstairs to his room, helped him pack his things, and had driven him to the home of his caseworker…

“Cian?”

He stopped rocking and lowered his hands, sitting straight to look at Dr. Murphy through tears that burned his eyes. He couldn’t yet speak. Waved at her instead to continue.

She bit her lip. “I know this is rough, and if you hadn’t witnessed their bodies in that state, I probably wouldn’t have given you those details. But since you did, you needed to know how it happened.” She took a quick, deep breath. “So. Now as you know, the police asked you who you were, and you gave them your name, telling them the Boltons were your foster parents. You gave no indication that you knew what had happened to them, but it was plain by the condition they found you in that you’d seen them and had had the presence of mind to call for help. So the DFC was called, and you were brought to poor Melanie Hunt’s apartment for the night, and the next day she arranged for you to go and live with the Pettijohns.

“What I’ll never understand is why, when she called the Pettijohns that morning to say she’d be bringing you to them, she accepted Bobby Lee’s story about them having gone to stay that week in what he called their vacation home out near Shady Dale. I mean, people visit there on vacation because of its historic connections with the Pony Express, but it’s a small place that’s occupied only by those who live there year-round as far as I know. Of course, their house wasn’t anywhere near town. As you know only too well.”

He nodded, his voice still elsewhere.

“Well, that was the last we heard about you. Bobby Lee disappeared the same day you were driven to their house, and his body was found a day or so later on the side of one of the roads heading north. Mrs. P said in her statement that she’d convinced him to leave town so she could give him an alibi in case they traced the murders to him, but because she was afraid he’d break down and implicate her as well, she’d poured sulfuric acid into his mouthwash bottle while packing his suitcase that night.”

Cian shifted, closing his eyes for a second as he listened – he knew all about that sulfuric acid…

“Seems he was a bit obsessive about clean breath, and the next day as he was driving, he took a swig. The stuff immediately must have started eating through his throat, but he was somehow able to pull the car over and get out, choking on his own skin and blood. He died right there on the shoulder of the road, the motor still running. The acid ate through most of his face as well, making him unrecognizable, and since Letitia had also removed his I.D. from his wallet, they had to figure out who he was by tracing his license plate.

“When the police came to the house to tell his wife, she of course acted all shocked and devastated, and explained that he used the acid to clear clogged drains and must’ve left it in the upstairs bathroom last time he’d done that, then mistakenly grabbed it instead of his mouthwash. The kids went hysterical, she said, because they really did love their daddy. The police were a mite suspicious, but had no proof that she’d had anything to do with it, so no charges were ever filed against her.

“Meanwhile, Miss Hunt never made it back either, and when the local police found her, they failed to turn over her brief case that had all your information in it. We knew you’d been left with the Pettijohns, but what with the huge amount of work necessary to transfer all of Miss Hunt’s cases and records to a new social worker here, somehow you were forgotten, assumed to be all right, and no one heard another thing about you for the next six years.

“And then, when you were fourteen, you ended up in the hospital in Shady Dale. Their records say that according to the doctor’s notes, he was highly suspicious about the wounds on your back, arms and sides, and while Letitia’s assertion that you had thrown yourself into a barbed-wire fence because Retta didn’t want to, well, had spurned your advances, seemed to fit the extent of the cuts, it still didn’t explain the pattern, according to his recorded observations. He felt they were too even and consistent, which shouldn’t have been the case had it happened the way she’d said. He ended his prognosis with your claim that Mrs. Pettijohn had beaten you with an electrical wire, and wrote that he was going to go out to the house the next day to see if there really was a barbed wire fence since you had told him it didn’t exist.

“He never made it, though. Someone had cut the brake line on his car. He hit a tree and died the next day from extensive head injuries. That ‘someone,’ Letitia admitted, was Buddy, who had found out which car was the doctor’s from the parking valet. Apparently, the man had been reading a magazine and never looked up to see who was asking about the car, so he couldn’t identify the boy to the police.”

“W-why did she make Buddy k-kill him?” Voice back but hoarse.

“Well, a couple of reasons. She had told Buddy to go home from school and set up a roll of barbed wire she had in the shed, but so much of it had rusted away, he couldn’t do it. The doctor had told her, you see, what you had said about her, and she was trying to make you look like a liar. But mostly, she was afraid he’d contact the school to see if any abuse had been reported, which would open up a whole new can of worms, so to speak – you weren’t registered, the school didn’t even know the Pettijohns had a foster son, and an investigation would have been inevitable.

“That’s pretty much the long and short of her confession. Quite frankly, someone should have been out to check on you every month during the first year. That’s how it’s normally done. And no one even wondered why this family didn’t adopt you after the first four years or so. Finally, some of it came to light through the diligent work of Felicity Markwood who had located the lost briefcase with your history. Because of your case and about five others in which the kids had somehow slipped through the cracks of the system, the head of the DFC was fired and Mr. Croghan took over. He was – ”

“Croghan?! Are you s-sure?” Of all the things he’d forgotten, the name “Croghan” had not been one of them.

“Of course. And he had quite an interest in what had happened to you. Why the look of surprise? Do you know him?”

All the vile things he had learned in the last half hour, all he’d been reminded about that he’d shut out, dissolved. I should have known! Good lord! Cian started to laugh.

“You want to share the joke?”

“May I leave?” he choked, still laughing.

“And go where?”

“My – my room!”

Dr. Murphy got up with Cian, who was holding his stomach. “I’ll walk there with you.”

He continued chuckling and started to mutter something in Gaelic, bursting into sudden laughter again every few steps. He sounded completely mad, knew it, and didn’t care.

When they reached the ward where the private rooms were located, she followed him into his and pointed at the bed. “You go lay down, Cian – I’ll get a doctor.”

“Why? You’re a d-doctor, aren’t you?” And he laughed even harder.

Falling onto the bed, he rolled over, laughing into his pillow. He didn’t even hear her leave.

*******

Dr. Murphy gave Cian a last, horrified look, left his room, and pulled out her sat. phone. She had Dr. Bowden paged, the physician who had been giving the boy physical therapy to help him through the pain caused by muscle and nerve damage from years of being beaten so badly – some of the cuts on his back had even gone all the way through flesh, muscle and nerves to bone and organ tissue.

The deeper ones had healed, but the other tissue injuries required exercise and treatment by Dr. Bowden, who seemed to have earned the boy’s trust more than some of his other doctors had, so she decided he’d be the best choice to try and talk Cian down from whatever bizarre ledge he’d climbed onto. A minute later, her phone buzzed.

“Bowden.”

“It’s Dr. Murphy – do you have a moment? Cian… he’s either had a breakdown or a breakthrough. Either way, I can’t get any sense out of him. Can you speak with him? I know how he trusts you.”

A distant loudspeaker announcement echoed, other sounds of the ward where Dr. Bowden was. “Give me about five or six minutes. Where is he?”

“In his room.”

“All right – I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

Thanking him, Dr. Murphy hung up and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. What in the world had happened? And what did the new Director have to do with Cian? Strange, even for this place, but all she could do was wait.

*******

Almost ten minutes had elapsed since Dr. Murphy had left him. Enough time to regain control, to understand what had happened to him during those first three days Letitia had played the tape. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out the window registering nothing that was beyond the glass.

Footsteps – two sets. He thought about Mr. Bell