She seemed to be rousing herself out of a dream.
Shaking her head looking now scared and miserable. Iglesias was wondering how a rape victim returned to her life—to school, to her friends. Already news of the missing Frye girl found hog-tied in the canning factory was on the street.
Sybilla leaned to her mother and murmured in her ear. Her swollen lips moved but Iglesias couldn’t make out what she was whispering.
“Oh honey, I know,” Mrs. Frye said to the girl; then, to Iglesias, with grim satisfaction, “S’b’lla sayin they gon kill her, ma’am. Told her they gon kill her whole family, she tells you.”
It was strange how Mrs. Frye addressed her daughter gently and lovingly, or harshly and reproachfully. If you were the daughter you would have no way of guessing which Mama would emerge.
Though generally, it was safe to surmise that when Sybilla did not oppose her mother in any way, in even the expression on her face, the tilt of her head or the set of her back, the gentle-loving Mama emerged.
“But we can protect you, Sybilla. We can put you in protective custody until your assailants are arrested.”
Iglesias was a police officer, she said such improbable things.
How many times uttered by police officers in such situations in Pascayne, to whatever futile end.
“Off’cer, that is such bullshit. Half the people we know believe that shit you tell them, they shot down dead in the street. Whoever do it don bother waitin for dark, he just shoot. You aint bein honest with my daughter an me, an you know it. Why I asked for an African-American woman, and you aint her.”
“I am her . I’m here to help you.”
“You a woman, you got to know what they gon do to my daughter if she say who hurt her. All she told me, it was five of them—men. Men not boys. Nobody she knew, from the neighborhood or her school. That’s all she told me, she’s too scared.” Mrs. Frye smiled a sharp mirthless smile revealing a gap between her two front teeth like an exclamation mark.
Iglesias tried again with Sybilla. “So—you say—it was five men? No one you recognized? Could you begin at the beginning, please? Your mother says you went missing on Thursday . . .”
Slowly then, as if each word were a painful pebble in her mouth, Sybilla began to speak in a hoarse whisper. She was squirming inside the blanket, looking not at the police officer who’d fixed her face into an expression of extreme solicitude and interest but staring at the floor. There appeared to be a slight cast in her left eye. Perhaps this was why she didn’t look up. Iglesias could not determine if the girl was genuinely frightened or if there was something childishly resistant and even defiant about her—an attitude that had to do less with Iglesias than with the mother who remained at all times close beside her, half-sitting on the examination table, a physical presence that must have been virtually overwhelming to the girl yet from which she had no recourse.
Iglesias could see that, though Sybilla’s eyes were swollen and discolored, these were Ednetta Frye’s eyes: thick-lashed, so dark as to appear black, large and deep-set. During her hurried briefing Iglesias had been told that the victim was possibly mentally defective, maybe retarded, which was why it was so difficult to communicate with her, but Iglesias didn’t think this was true.
Iglesias asked Sybilla to repeat what she’d said, a little louder. She was leaning close, to listen.
In the hoarse slow whisper Sybilla recounted how she’d beencoming home from school Thursday afternoon when somebody, some men, came up behind her with a canvas they lowered over her head and grabbed her and dragged her away in a van and kept her there for three days—she thought it was three days, she wasn’t sure because she was not conscious all the time—and punched and kicked her and did things to her and laughed at her when she was crying and later put mud and dog shit onto her and wrote on
Shaking her head looking now scared and miserable. Iglesias was wondering how a rape victim returned to her life—to school, to her friends. Already news of the missing Frye girl found hog-tied in the canning factory was on the street.
Sybilla leaned to her mother and murmured in her ear. Her swollen lips moved but Iglesias couldn’t make out what she was whispering.
“Oh honey, I know,” Mrs. Frye said to the girl; then, to Iglesias, with grim satisfaction, “S’b’lla sayin they gon kill her, ma’am. Told her they gon kill her whole family, she tells you.”
It was strange how Mrs. Frye addressed her daughter gently and lovingly, or harshly and reproachfully. If you were the daughter you would have no way of guessing which Mama would emerge.
Though generally, it was safe to surmise that when Sybilla did not oppose her mother in any way, in even the expression on her face, the tilt of her head or the set of her back, the gentle-loving Mama emerged.
“But we can protect you, Sybilla. We can put you in protective custody until your assailants are arrested.”
Iglesias was a police officer, she said such improbable things.
How many times uttered by police officers in such situations in Pascayne, to whatever futile end.
“Off’cer, that is such bullshit. Half the people we know believe that shit you tell them, they shot down dead in the street. Whoever do it don bother waitin for dark, he just shoot. You aint bein honest with my daughter an me, an you know it. Why I asked for an African-American woman, and you aint her.”
“I am her . I’m here to help you.”
“You a woman, you got to know what they gon do to my daughter if she say who hurt her. All she told me, it was five of them—men. Men not boys. Nobody she knew, from the neighborhood or her school. That’s all she told me, she’s too scared.” Mrs. Frye smiled a sharp mirthless smile revealing a gap between her two front teeth like an exclamation mark.
Iglesias tried again with Sybilla. “So—you say—it was five men? No one you recognized? Could you begin at the beginning, please? Your mother says you went missing on Thursday . . .”
Slowly then, as if each word were a painful pebble in her mouth, Sybilla began to speak in a hoarse whisper. She was squirming inside the blanket, looking not at the police officer who’d fixed her face into an expression of extreme solicitude and interest but staring at the floor. There appeared to be a slight cast in her left eye. Perhaps this was why she didn’t look up. Iglesias could not determine if the girl was genuinely frightened or if there was something childishly resistant and even defiant about her—an attitude that had to do less with Iglesias than with the mother who remained at all times close beside her, half-sitting on the examination table, a physical presence that must have been virtually overwhelming to the girl yet from which she had no recourse.
Iglesias could see that, though Sybilla’s eyes were swollen and discolored, these were Ednetta Frye’s eyes: thick-lashed, so dark as to appear black, large and deep-set. During her hurried briefing Iglesias had been told that the victim was possibly mentally defective, maybe retarded, which was why it was so difficult to communicate with her, but Iglesias didn’t think this was true.
Iglesias asked Sybilla to repeat what she’d said, a little louder. She was leaning close, to listen.
In the hoarse slow whisper Sybilla recounted how she’d beencoming home from school Thursday afternoon when somebody, some men, came up behind her with a canvas they lowered over her head and grabbed her and dragged her away in a van and kept her there for three days—she thought it was three days, she wasn’t sure because she was not conscious all the time—and punched and kicked her and did things to her and laughed at her when she was crying and later put mud and dog shit onto her and wrote on
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