Chapter 6 - Leo’s first interview
The forensic interviewer did not ask:
Did Rachel abuse you?
That would have been easier.
And worse.
She asked Leo to describe his house.
Where he slept.
Where Maya slept.
What happened when Dad traveled.
Leo said Rachel sometimes made them have “downstairs nights.”
What was a downstairs night?
“When we’re bad.”
What happened?
Rachel brought blankets.
Snacks.
Water.
Then shut the door.
Could Leo open it?
“No. Top lock.”
How did he go to the bathroom?
“Little potty.”
Was Maya there?
“Always.”
What made them bad?
Different things.
Maya crying.
Leo refusing dinner.
Leo asking to call Dad after bedtime.
Making messes.
Arguing.
Rachel called it:
“Quiet reset.”
How long?
Leo did not know time.
Sometimes “until sun.”
Sometimes shorter.
How many times?
He held up both hands.
Then stopped counting.
Children are poor calendars.
Investigators did not turn ten fingers into ten criminal counts.
Important.
Then came the leg.
Leo said nine days earlier he tried to get upstairs during a downstairs night because Maya was crying.
The door was latched.
He climbed onto a toy bin and tried reaching the latch through the stair rail opening.
The bin tipped.
He fell awkwardly down several steps.
His leg hurt immediately.
Rachel came downstairs.
She became angry.
Not because he was hurt.
Because he had tried to open the door.
Leo said she wrapped his leg.
Told him:
“You made it worse yourself.”
Did she hit him?
“No.”
Did she push him down the stairs?
“No.”
That mattered.
The fracture came from a fall during an attempt to escape confinement.
May you like
Serious.
Different from Rachel deliberately breaking his leg.
