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THIRTY-EIGHT

Josie could feel the excitement rolling off her sister’s body. “You are able to communicate with her?” said Trinity.

“Yes,” Eva answered. “But you must understand, it’s extremely limited, given her deficits. She can nod or shake her head to yes or no questions. She can make certain gestures. I lobbied for the use of assistive devices once that technology became available, but Roe gets frustrated very easily and when that happens, even with all the medication the doctors have her on, she becomes violent.”

Josie thought of the conflicting medical reports in Roe’s file. “She knows what’s going on around her? Her mind is fully intact?”

Eva gave another pained smile. “She is most definitely aware of everything happening around her. She understands a lot of things though it’s impossible to know just how much.”

Trinity said, “What kind of assistive devices has she tried?”

A small laugh bubbled up from Eva’s chest. “Oh my. Almost all of them. Well, an alphabet board was out of the question as was anything that depended on her being able to read. She did okay with rating scales—to communicate her preferences and pain. We tried a number of different apps when those became available, all of them reliant on images rather than words. For example, with one app, she could scroll through a whole host of drawings or pictures and if she pressed on one, it would say the name of the object pictured. Table, chair, bowl, tree…basic things. One of the speech pathologists told me that there were similar image-based apps that would allow her to express more complex thoughts as she grew more skilled with them, but we never got that far.”

“Because she got frustrated,” Josie said.

Eva nodded. “I really think she has it in her to make good use of many of those assistive apps. I’m not sure why she loses her temper so easily. The new technology, maybe? Who knows.”

“What exactly happened when she tried them?” Josie asked even though none of this was going to lead to some trail of obscure clues that would result in finding Noah.

“It always starts out well. She scrolls through the pictures, pushing some of them, trying things out. Then, at some point, she just…it’s like she’s looking for a particular picture and can’t find it. She becomes frantic, scrolling faster, aggressively, and she starts screaming her own name over and over. The next thing we know, she’s smashing the tablet to pieces against the table or the nearest wall. I suggested using a booklet instead, but the same thing happened, and she just started tearing the pages out and throwing them everywhere.”

“Is her name the only thing she can say?” asked Trinity.

“She can make other sounds but nothing coherent. It often seems like she’s trying to say words, but they never come.”

“What is it exactly about her case that you think was brushed under the carpet?” Josie asked, bringing the conversation back to where Eva started.

“Roe Hoyt exists without context. We know virtually nothing about what kind of home life she had before she was on that mountain. We don’t even know her real name! It probably sounds stupid, but I wish I could find out. One day, before one of us passes away—’cause we’re not getting any younger—I’d love to walk into the meeting room and call her by her real name. The one she had as a girl before…all this.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Trinity said softly.

“She’s able to answer yes or no questions,” Josie said. “Did you ever ask her about her family? Did she know her mother? Did she know her father? Was he the one who taught her to trap? Did she have siblings? Did someone in her home hurt her? Was it her father? Was it someone else? A brother? A neighbor? Did she go to the shack herself? Did someone leave her there? Was someone helping her? Did she know the person who impregnated her? Was it more than one man? Were any of the encounters consensual?”

She stopped her rapid-fire questioning when she noticed both Eva’s and Trinity’s mouths hanging open. But the last question blared in her mind, unspoken.

Did she let Lila live because there was something different about her?

“Sorry,” Josie said. “It just seems that you could still get a great deal of information from her with simple yes or no answers.”

Slowly, Eva nodded, studying Josie with a curious look on her face. “You’re right. Over the years, I managed to get answers to many of my questions. The same ones you just asked—well, except for the trapping. I don’t know anything about that. She didn’t know her mother, but she knew her father. No siblings. Her father hurt her. She went to the shack herself. I asked her if she had been there with her father before and she said yes.”

Which meant that her father had been a trapper and a hunter—like practically every other man in that area—and she’d learned some skills from him that enabled her to survive. She must have had a lot of outdoors experience to know how to find the shack on her own.

“She never went to school,” Eva continued. “The others, she wouldn’t answer. Whether someone helped her and all the questions about the pregnancies. I’m not sure if she wouldn’t answer because she was embarrassed or because she couldn’t grasp what I was asking her.”

Trinity frowned. “What do you mean, couldn’t grasp it?”

Eva arched a brow. “My dear, who told you about how babies are made?”

Josie and Trinity stared at her in silence before they both realized it was a serious question. They exchanged a glance and Trinity laughed nervously. “Um, my mom. High school health class.”

“Other girls,” Josie put in. “Also health class.”

She didn’t mention the fact that Lila had frequently engaged in sex with slimy, lecherous men in the living room of their trailer with no care at all as to whether Josie witnessed it.

Eva laughed. “In my generation, if you didn’t learn about it from other girls at school—the ones mothers referred to as ‘loose’ and forbade you from hanging out with—you didn’t learn about it at all. Thanks to Kathy Glander, I didn’t get the shock of my life on my wedding night.”

“Roe was isolated. If she didn’t go to school, she only saw her father,” Josie said.

“Yes,” said Eva. “I don’t think she ever understood what was happening to her or to her body. All she knew—at least with her father—was that it hurt.”

Trinity said, “She must have grown up thinking that it was normal for men to hurt her in that way. There was no such thing as consent. It was just a fact of life.”

“So when she came across other men,” Josie said, “she wasn’t prepared to tell them no. That would explain why she couldn’t answer your question as to whether the encounters were consensual or not.”

Eva nodded. “I tried to explain things to her. Gave her an anatomy lesson, talked to her about sexual assault. She shut down. I think she did grasp what I told her—and what it meant—and that it deeply upset her. Her father hurt her, and I don’t believe that her pregnancies were the result of consensual encounters. How can you consent when you don’t understand what’s happening and you don’t know that you can say no? Listen, nothing can excuse what she did, but we have no idea what drove her to such a dark place. We have no idea if she truly understood the full gravity of her actions. How can you look at the sickening facts of the case and not want the complete story? Those babies certainly deserve a full accounting of everything that led to their terrible ends.”

“You want to fill in the blanks,” Trinity said.

“Yes,” Eva sighed. “I think that Roe feels…remorse. I asked her if she was sorry for what she did and she answered yes. I asked her if she wished she could take it back and she answered yes. As she gets older, I think it bothers her more and more. She cries a lot. Sometimes, she simulates holding a baby in her arms, like she’s rocking it to sleep, and she just wails. It’s a dreadful sound.”