Broken Trust (eBook)

Chapter 2

A half-hour passed by with Anna settled in Harvey’s arms. the policeman came over to Harvey to suggest he sit inside the car for warmth until CPS arrived. Meanwhile, the EMTs worked on the woman in the car. She was in bad shape.

After leaving him standing there all this time, one of the policemen finally approached Harvey and introduced himself as Officer Pete Murdock. “Would you mind staying here for a while and holding this baby?” the officer continued. “It seems you’ve got her calmed down a little. Maybe the two of you can sit in your car for warmth. I’m going to need to ask you a few questions either here or at the station, depending on what the Chief says.”

Harvey agreed to stay and made his way over to his passenger side. He eased down into the seat with Anna sleeping lightly in his arms. She had calmed down a lot although Harvey could still feel her little body jerking in her sleep.

Meanwhile, Officer Murdock took a step back and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, calling his boss, Sheriff Bloom of Kitsap County. Pete assumed that the Chief, as he called his boss, was at the station because he had been working on some unknown project and had developed a pattern of staying till the wee hours of the morning and coming in late on morning shifts.

The officer knew this was an unusual case, especially for this small county, and also that a child was involved, which meant involvement with outside agencies. The Chief was never happy about “outside agencies” nosing around his cases. Nevertheless, this case could put them on the map. A wife beating and an infant let out in the cold and alone is something the Chief would want to know about, Pete thought. Although Sheriff Bloom had been Pete’s good friend for a long while, Pete didn’t dare cross him. Bloom required all the on-duty patrol officers to be ready to “walk the plank” if somebody didn’t follow the rules.

Sheriff Walter Bloom had a degree in criminal law from the University of Southern California and had come to Port Orchards after being in law enforcement for 18 years in California. He replaced the current “loved by the citizens” sheriff on his retirement. Bloom had vast experience and knowledge, although of course he saw things differently from the homegrown officers in Kitsap County. Over time Bloom had made a mark by putting petty criminals behind bars, making the whole community feel safer. Of course, there weren’t very many “big criminals” coming to Port Orchard to operate. Pete went out of his way to learn as much as possible from him when he joined the department five years earlier, so the two formed a strong bond.

Pete knew Sheriff Bloom and his wife of 30 years had separated and was headed for divorce. They were under a lot of pressure since Walter Bloom was an icon in Port Orchard. Pete wondered if the marriage problems were also a factor in the Chief’s odd, late hours at the station.

“No, don’t bring them to the station,” insisted Sheriff Bloom. “I don’t want to upset that child any more than possible and I’d like CPS to see the environment we found her in. You can send the other guys back to the station but Pete, you stay with the guy. Don’t let him mess with the crime scene or let him out of your sight. I’ll send a team out to search and fingerprint the car. When they arrive, you can release the scene to them. We’ll catch up when you get back here after the child gets picked up.”

Pete was glad he called him, relieved to have the Chief take responsibility for the next steps. He put away his phone and headed back to where Harvey and the baby were sitting in his car.

“We’re assuming that’s the child’s mother,” he told Harvey as he explained about the wait. “She appears to have been beaten up pretty badly, but she’s alive. We’re taking her along to the hospital now.” Both men watched as the EMTs carefully lifted the woman onto a stretcher and rolled her towards the ambulance.

After a while, Officer Pete went on. “CPS is a way out, so you can leave the child with me. But maybe we should try and clean her up a little. She stinks. Making a face, Pete began rummaging through her diaper bag and pulling out a clean diaper grinning as if he had discovered gold. “Here try this. And here are some baby wipes.”

Harvey grunted and took Anna to the back of the SUV where they would have room for their maneuvers. Ever so gently, he laid Anna down, keeping her covered with the soiled blanket. She moaned in little gasps of breath when he put her on her back, but she remained asleep. Pete leaned up against the car like he was on a break and handed Harvey the diaper while opening the pack of wipes. He seemed more than relieved to do his police job instead of Harvey’s task of cleaning this child.

Being an obsessive planner, Harvey always carried an extra jacket and blankets with a variety of items he might need in his car during the winter months. You never know when you might get stuck. There was also an earthquake preparedness bag, a couple of extra towels, and an old pair of sneakers and golf balls rolling around in the back. Prepared for everything.

Harvey built a wall around the baby using towels and jackets so she would not get too cold in the whipping wind, then he worked her little pants off her soaking. legs He negotiated each leg out of the stinky pants with surgical precision.

“See if there’s an extra pair of pants in the bag,” he instructed Pete as he wiped down her legs and bottom with wads of baby-wipes. So far so good, but he held up the diaper as if it were a jigsaw puzzle.

Officer Pete, seeing that Harvey was stumped, said, “Here, let me show you how that works.” He opened the diaper and showed Harvey how to tell front from back and where the sticky things held it together. “I’ve had a couple of babies in my life before,” the policeman explained.

Between the two, they were able to get Anna cleaned up and into the spare pants that Pete had found in the bag. Harvey took away the ruined blanket from the care and replaced it with his own, wrapping her tightly to keep her warm.

As Harvey picked her up, Anna opened her eyes. Once again, fear and trembling overcame the beautiful baby girl. She tried to cry, but it seemed as if her voice was gone. She had probably been screaming and crying for long before Harvey pulled up and found them. It seemed the little thing had cried her voice out.

Harvey held her close, calling her name and humming “Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon…” How odd that song had popped into his head. He had not heard it in years. But Anna stopped trembling and looked up at her new friend, even giving him a shy, little smile. Harvey’s heart flipped a few times. He had read about hearts that melted like butter in a hot iron skillet but had never believed it until that moment. He smiled back, murmuring her name holding her close.

Harvey was amazed at how he was feeling about this little girl. He never had kids. He had wanted them, but his late wife Cassie did not. The two of them fought over that issue more than they did about money, sex, or anything else. He felt guilty about it in the end. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance, and the idea of children that never came up until after the marriage. Now, with Cassie gone, he was relieved and even glad they never had kids.

But he could feel how engaged he was with the tiny life that he was holding in his arms. All at once, it was desperately important to him what would happen next with Anna. Harvey was a good lawyer and knew a lot about the law in general, but he knew next to nothing about juvenile law. He worried how she would be handled and where she would go. It was going to be awful to wake her up and hand her to another stranger now that she had finally calmed down. He wasn’t sure he could let her go. She looked so helpless and vulnerable all by herself. He worried that this little girl would not be able to handle one more trauma.

Harvey sat in the back of his car with Anna, waiting for CPS to arrive. Pete had released the other police car on the orders of his Chief. If he had known that CPS would be so long, he would have taken Harvey and the child back to the station as well. Too late to worry about that now, he thought, as he and Harvey talked and waited.

Harvey had been up since four AM the morning before, Chicago time, and had been through countless hours interviewing witnesses in Chicago. He could feel his body responding to all of this drama that he had just been through. He learned about Pete’s family and how much he loved his job and living on the Peninsula. Harvey explained that he had a small place on the water near Port Orchard and loved every minute he was there. Although he hated the long commute to downtown Seattle on Interstate 5 as well as the long ferry ride, since he only went to his office now and then, he could deal with the driving and traffic to live in such a pristine place. Thank goodness for technology, they agreed.

“So, you’re a corporate lawyer, and you do what exactly?” asked Pete.

“Well, my role is to protect my client, of course, which is usually a big organization, usually valued over $500 million in assets. We make sure they get to keep their money and reputation,” said Harvey. “Sorry to say, I’m not always on the side of justice because mostly it’s a game of who can last the longest paying expensive attorney invoices,” Harvey chuckled. “I mean, we follow the law, but like most things, everything is judged on interpretation and...