Mother's Milk (4 page)

She smiled. ‘Such flattery.'

‘Nothing but the truth,' he said, his grin broadening. He turned from her, his short compact frame reminding Barrett of a wind-up toy, and focused on Commissioner Martinez, ‘Commissioner.' The two men shook hands. Finally, as though observing some unspoken protocol, he turned to Barrett, and nodded his head, ‘Dr. Conyors.'

‘Dr. Osborn,' Barrett responded, having given up first-name basis with him in the wake of his grievance.

They all sat with Barrett at one end of the table and Janice at the other. ‘Dr. Conyors,' Carlos Martinez began, ‘thank you for meeting with us on such short notice.' He sniffed the air. ‘What is that delicious smell?'

‘Please call me Barrett and I have to admit that I was just trying to wolf down a little lunch. What you smell are probably my mother's cheese biscuits.'

‘Heavenly,' he said.

Not certain of the protocol, Barrett offered, ‘Would you like one? She packed way too many.'

The commissioner's eyes lit. ‘If I wouldn't be depriving you of your lunch, I've been in meetings all day and haven't had a bite.'

Barrett went back to her desk and retrieved the foil packet from the bottom drawer. The brown-paper bag next to it reminded her of all the lunches she and Justine used to carry to school, and the frequent lunchroom swaps that would result. The foil was still warm and she had a moment's pause.
What if Janice knows you've been sneaking out a couple times a day to run home and nurse?
She glanced across at Marla, still standing in the doorway.

‘Will you want anything else?' her secretary asked from behind her curtain-like bangs.

Barrett felt Janice's gaze on her, and remembered a recent memo about restricting catering budgets for meetings and conferences. Still, it wasn't every day she received a pair of commissioners and her mother had stressed the importance of always offering guests something to eat, and of course there was the article she'd written on violence and hunger – her conclusion being, if people are fed they're less likely to kill you. ‘Maybe some coffee and Danish.'

‘A bagel?' Carlos asked, perking visibly.

‘No problem,' Marla said, giving the older commissioner a shy smile.

‘Well,' Janice said abruptly, looking first at Barrett and then at Carlos and finally letting her gaze rest on Hugh, ‘we should get straight to the point. We've got a large problem that's getting bigger and we need to put some plans in place fast to turn this around.'

Barrett put the biscuits in front of the commissioner, took her seat, and braced herself, still not clear why these two were so eager to have this meeting. But she sensed they were going to ask her for something and it was going to be big.

Carlos took a bite of biscuit. ‘Delicious.' He then leaned forward and smiled at Barrett. ‘How much have you been following the foster-care issue?'

‘Some,' she said, ‘but mostly just what's in the papers, and of course what we see here. That story about the five-year-old who was killed by his foster mother's boyfriend was heartbreaking.'

Carlos shook his head. ‘It's a terrible thing, and people can never comprehend the job we're supposed to do, that the State of New York is the legal guardian for tens of thousands of children. When something bad happens to one of those little ones, it's just …' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But today it's the older kids we need to talk about. Let me give you the quick background and where we are. Twelve months ago our department was put under a judicial order that stemmed from allegations regarding kids in the foster-care system, especially as they age out. We knew it was coming.' He looked meaningfully at Janice.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘not to leave this room, but it had a great deal to do with the Governor's decision to have me leave my position at DFYS three years ago and become Commissioner of Mental Health, he foresaw there was going to be a major restructuring of the two agencies.'

‘There were damning articles,' Carlos added, ‘and that whole black-plastic-bag thing, case workers just dumping all the kids' belongings into a garbage bag when they hit eighteen and telling them that they were on their own now.'

‘That happens,' Barrett said. ‘Occasionally we get them in here for evaluations, after they've committed some crime, been put in lockup, and told the guards they feel like killing themselves … or actually tried to do it. When they get here, they've still got their bag.'

‘I just saw one like that,' Hugh interjected, his expression oozing compassion, ‘no family, no supports; it breaks your heart.'

‘Yes,' Carlos continued, ‘it's not a practice we condone. Anyway, the judge appointed a consulting firm to track all the kids in the foster system and report back. That report, based on anonymous interviews with all the kids they could get their hands on, is about to be made public … It's not good. The Governor saw an advance copy and is extremely concerned. He wants assurances that we'll address this problem in an “aggressive and timely fashion.”'

‘Not to be dense,' Barrett said, knowing a shoe was about to drop, likely onto to her, ‘what's in this report and how does it relate to the forensic center?'

Carlos sighed as he finished the last crumbs of his first biscuit and looked longingly at the two remaining on their bed of foil. ‘All the evils that can be visited on a child. For those of us in the field, it's what we've known all along, but seeing it tallied up is horrific, and John Q. Public is going to wonder where the hell his tax dollars are going. Over fifty percent of the kids report having suffered some kind of abuse in foster care, thirty-five percent are involved with the criminal-justice system, sixty percent are actively using drugs and or alcohol, thirty percent have been sexually victimized, and eight percent have themselves been either accused or convicted of sexually predatory behavior.'

Janice looked at Carlos and then at Barrett. ‘This is where things intersect with mental health … and forensics. The report makes a big deal of how many of the foster children have serious and persistent mental-health problems. They're putting it at fifty to seventy percent, but the part that's going to blow up in the papers has to do with how many of these kids are known sex offenders. Most have been in residential placements for years, but when they turn eighteen …'

‘They get released,' Barrett said, having evaluated many such young adults, almost all victims of sexual abuse who as they matured took on the same behaviors as those who had molested and raped them.

‘Pretty much, unless there are active charges. But where so many of them have been locked away, we have no legal right to hold them. And we're talking about over a hundred a year. So that's big problem number one, and then we get to biggie number two … dead kids.'

‘Dead from what?' Barrett asked, the image of the two teens from that morning seared into her brain.

‘Mostly drugs, some bad outcomes in the sex trade, a few suicides, ten homicides … but mostly overdoses, supposedly accidental,' Janice said.

A knock at the door, and Marla wheeled in the food cart. Barrett watched as Janice scanned the modest offering of coffee, bagels, and a couple small pastries from the deli on the corner – probably tallying up the cost. She'd undoubtedly make mention of it at their next monthly supervision, but considering everything else that had gone on that morning, it was the least of her worries.

Barrett waited for Marla to leave. This meeting she now knew for sure was leading to something big and bad. She watched as Carlos got his bagel, and Janice, looking peeved, poured herself a cup of coffee. Hugh took nothing.

Her thoughts raced, as she grasped the enormity of the problems being put on the table, and the different ways they could get thrown in her lap. As the state's leading forensic psychiatrist, anything that lay at the intersection of mental health and criminal justice could be batted into her court: sex offenders, drug addicts, as well as all the kids with major mental illnesses who'd also committed crimes – the number was staggering.

‘Not to overwhelm you,' Janice said, slitting open three sugar packets and pouring them into her coffee, ‘we're seeing a major role for the forensic center in whatever plans get put together. Fortunately, we'd already planned an inter-agency conference for this, which in view of this study has been reconfigured as an emergency planning session that's scheduled …'

Her next words were swallowed in the blaring of the overhead alarm system, ‘Code Blue, ninth floor. Code Blue, ninth floor.'

Barrett shot out of her chair. ‘What the—?' as her door flew open and a young white man with shoulder-length dirty blond dreads, wiry arms covered with tattoos, and a wild-eyed expression barreled in with a gun in his hand. His braids whipped around as he looked behind at an advancing phalanx of security guards. He raised the gun in shaky hands to hold them back. ‘Dr. Conyors,' he shrieked, ‘you got to help me! They're going to kill me! Please God, you got to help me! Help me help me help me!'

‘J
erod,' Barrett shouted, struggling to be heard over the blaring intercom and his pleas.

‘Help me! Help me! Help me!'

‘What the hell are you doing?' she shouted, needing to break through to him. The intercom didn't stop. ‘Code Blue, ninth floor. Code Blue, ninth floor'

Jerod's pale, lean face was streaked with tears, his blue eyes wide. He looked behind him at the armed and uniformed security force, his gun raised. ‘Help me! Help me!' He was hyperventilating. ‘They're going to kill me. Help me! Help me!'

With ten feet separating them, Barrett lowered her voice. ‘No one,' she said, keeping her voice steady and making eye contact with the nearest of the security guards, ‘is getting shot in my office.' She inched toward Jerod, as the intercom finally went quiet. Behind her she heard Janice whisper to Hugh, ‘Call the cops, now!'

‘They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me.'

‘Jerod!' she shouted.
God, why would this normally passive young man pick up a firearm and break in here?
Is this paranoia? Drugs? Some other delusion?
‘I will help you, but you've got to put down the gun.'

‘I don't know,' he cried incoherently. ‘I don't know.' His face was twisted as he blinked back tears, and he shifted from foot to foot, looking at her, and then at the guards. ‘They're dead.'

‘I know,' Barrett said, trying to make eye contact. ‘I was there. I saw.'

‘Why? Why would someone do that? They didn't have to do that. They were only kids. They were my friends. I want to die. I want to die.'

Barrett gauged the distance between them, trying to keep him talking while slowly bridging the gap. He had a couple inches on her at just over six feet, but if she could only get close enough … She crept closer, feeling his grief; he was a wreck, the blues of his eyes nearly obliterated, the pupils way too big, and he was shivering, gooseflesh popping on his tattooed forearms, even though her office was warm. ‘Jerod, let me help you. I'm so sorry about your friends, but you've got to let me help you.' She wanted to scream as she heard Janice behind her whispering on her cell, ‘We have a hostage situation at the Forensic Evaluation Center …' She tuned out the rest, needing to keep focused. ‘Look at me!' she said. ‘And the rest of you, move back.'

With his free hand he batted away the tears. He tried to look at her, his head nodded back and forth. The gun, a cheap Korean 9mm, was still raised, not pointed at her but in the air, hovering.

Barrett heard the first siren; it wouldn't take long for the cops to make it up here. This needed to end fast.

From behind her Janice urged, ‘Dr. Conyors, let the police handle this. You need to step away.'

She ignored her. ‘Jerod, I can help you, but you've got to put the gun down before anyone gets hurt. I know you, you don't want to hurt anyone, you never have. I'm begging you, let me help you.'

He looked so young and frightened. He glanced back at the guards, who'd followed her orders and moved back to the periphery. ‘I don't know what to do. They're going to kill me. They killed Bobby and Ashley. Why did they have to do that?'

There was now less than six feet between them, she could smell the acid of his sweat. She tried to make sense of his too-clean clothes, a blue-and-yellow-striped polo shirt, trendy low-riser jeans, bright red Converse sneakers – where the hell did he get those? – and a new black knapsack. The Jerod she knew favored ripped Bob Marley T-shirts and jeans that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine for months. She heard the bell for the elevators in the corridor outside her suite, knew in a matter of seconds armed police would swarm in. ‘Jerod, put down the gun. I promise, I'll keep you safe.'

He looked at her. ‘They're going to kill me,' he said softly. ‘I shouldn't have come here.' He appeared distracted, as though listening to something or someone no one else could hear. And as though having reached a decision he raised the gun and pointed it at his head.

Once before, Barrett had had a patient commit suicide in front of her. The image, the sound, the smell of burned hair, flesh, and bone were branded into her. That man had been guilty of horrible crimes, and had killed himself instead of facing life in prison – or possibly execution. Jerod was more victim than criminal, and now, as cops swarmed into her waiting room, her options were gone. She heard the click of holsters, ‘Hell, no!' and with her years of martial-arts training she closed the remaining few feet between them with a seamless glide. She trapped his gun hand in a double overhand block. She felt his thin body tense as she clamped down hard on his wrist. The gun fell to the floor, she felt a sliver of fear that it would discharge on impact, but not stopping she surged forward, pulling him off balance, and using her body as a fulcrum she controlled his fall so that his head wouldn't hit. She lay on top of him, holding him close, as the security and armed officers closed in. It was strangely intimate as she felt his body shake beneath hers. He was sobbing and shivering, even as sweat drenched his clothes. And then she got it, he was dope sick.