By Dean Baker
June 1993
The phone rang loudly, echoing with an irritating shrill.
A hand fumbled for the receiver and the call was answered with a sleepy huff.
“Phillips, what is it?”
He struggled to listen to the voice on the other end of the line, but suddenly something jolted him to his senses. Something that was said shook his mind awake.
"Ok, I'm on the way down," he said.
At the station Louis Grant, newly transferred to homicide, was scratching his head as he stared through a two-way mirror at a young blonde woman who sat on a chair. The girls stare was fixed to the floor and she made no movement except for a slow rocking.
“Is the girl still catatonic?” The night sergeant asked as he passed by with a cup of coffee, staring through the mirror.
“Can’t get nothing out of her. I’m no interrogator. I only just transferred. I did the textbook stuff, but this ain’t nothing like robbery. I’m used to tying to get witnesses to shut up. This one hasn’t said a goddamned word. I got better things to do at 4am that
be ignored by a fruit loop. Dick Phillips can take over, he’s the senior.”
“Dick Phillips? Man I thought he’d retired?”
“No way. His old lady cleaned him out in the divorce. That fat jerk will still be working homicide when I’m commissioner.” Grant laughed.
“No doubt.” The sergeant said, taking a sip of coffee and ambling back down the corridor.
Phillips got out of bed, part of him wishing he’d never answered the phone. He really needed his sleep, but something Grant had told him troubled him. Something terrible had happened. As Phillips drove the midnight streets he wondered how much longer he could stand the job. All he dealt with, day after day, was misery, despair and horror. Phillips pulled up opposite the station with a heavy heart, and tapped out a lucky strike from the carton in the glove box. He smoked it down to the filter before he flicked it out the window and resignedly crossed the street. His young rookie partner greeted him in the hall.
“Jesus Dick, you’re wheezing like a ninety year old. You wanna get yourself to the gym buddy.”
The rookie was right. He was out of shape. A simple jog across the street shouldn't have made him puff like this. He was only in his early fifties
"You are not gonna believe the shit you're about to hear," Grant laughed as the two men headed down the grungy, dimly-lit corridor to the interrogation rooms.
"I know it sounds grim," said Phillips. "I gather this girl ain't no princess."
“Not exactly mother of the year material.” Grant smirked.
To him it was all a game, a big joke. He never seemed to show any compassionate response to the horrific side of the job.
“Fact is we can’t get squat out of her.” Grant said leaning against the door to the interview room nonchalantly.
"Hmm." Phillips murmured, scratching his stubbly unshaven chin as he scanned the report.
"I mean, what makes a woman kill her own baby." Grant asked, scratching paint from the doorframe.
“Maybe it was an accident?”
“Yeah right Dick.” Grant snorted, slapping Phillips on the back in an irritating jokey fashion. “Maybe she got confused at meal time. That’s a classic old man.”
Phillips peered into the interview room through the two-way mirror and stared at the girl. She was a petite young woman in her early twenties. Beautiful, flawless skin, enormous jade green eyes, and long golden hair. She looked so fragile, like a china doll. But her natural beauty was juxtaposed by the shameless, appalling nature of the charges against her. Phillips lingered outside the room, scanning the report for any further details that caught his eye, but none of it matched up to the profile.
“I can’t see any previous history in this report at all. Have you had her checked by a doctor? What about medical records? Has she been treated for Munchausen’s?”
“We got nothing. She’s got no file. If she ever saw a doctor it wasn’t recorded. Let me know when you're ready," said Grant. "I've gotten all I can out of her, which is zip. Maybe you can work that Dick Phillips magic."
Phillips flipped through the pages of the report until a set of photographs tumbled out. What he saw sickened him. The corpse of a small baby, with horrific burns
all over its tiny body. Phillips took a deep breath and then entered the room. The woman just sat rocking backwards and forwards on the chair as the police inspector stared at her.
“Hello. I’m detective Phillips.” He smiled, sitting down and setting the file on the desk. The woman didn’t change expression.
“I gather you’ve been speaking to my colleague Detective Grant. Can I ask your name?”
There was no response, only the sound of the chair creaking as she rocked slowly.
“Look we know what happened with your baby. What we need to know is why you did it so we can try and deal with this situation. I’m trying to help you here. So can we start with your name?”
Phillips waited for an answer. But it never came. He switched his gaze back to the file. It was virtually bare. The only information they had was what they found at the scene, an abandoned derelict house on the outskirts of town. The neighbours had called the cops when the screaming was at its worst. But nobody could say anything about who the woman was or where she came from.
“Look, sooner or later you’re going to have to talk to someone. If not me then the judge when they try you. Do you want to die? I don’t believe that anybody in their right mind would harm their own child. If you don’t help me, I can’t help you.”
There was a long paused, and then suddenly a whisper came from the woman’s thin pursed lips. It was so quiet Phillips almost missed it.
“Baby was dirty. Needed a bath. Boil everything, everything must be clean...”
“What?” Phillips asked, edging closer to the woman. “What did you say?”
The woman gave no response. Her mouth clamped shut, like her jaw had been wired. Her eyes were glazed over as she rocked back and forth. Then there was a knock at the door and Grant arrived with three coffees.
“Has she given her name yet?” He asked as he handed Phillips his coffee.
“She hasn’t said a god-damned word.”
“Told you she wasn’t much of a talker. When I told her she had the right to remain silent I didn’t think she’d take it so seriously.” Grant said with an arrogant laugh.
Phillips felt the bile rise.
“You want this?” He asked the girl with a grin as he held the hot steaming coffee in front of her unflinching eyes before setting it down next to her.
“She’s not gonna give us anything Grant. Put Grisham in records on it. Take her sheet and the mug shots.” Phillips said handing over the file.
“Sure thing Dick.” He said, closing the door behind him.
Phillips just sat watching the woman. Why won’t you talk? He wondered.
Grant handed over the file to Grisham who sat at his computer terminal. He was a bulky man with grey hair and a huge beard. He wore large framed glasses and looked like a school librarian.
“We got a real nut ball this time Grish.” Grant said with a smile. “You won’t believe this. Boiled her own baby to death.”
“My god!” Grisham said, honestly shocked.
“She boiled it in a pot like Glenn Close. Unbelievable. We can’t get a name out of her. I think she's mute or something. Can you run her through the system?”
“Sure thing.” Grisham said, as he took the file and began running the data through the computer.
Soon he hit upon a match in the files.
“Christ,” Grisham said.
“What is it?” Grant asked, intrigued.
“This girl was at Waco . She was a branch dividian. Got out just before the place went to hell.”
Outside the interview room Phillips stared at the woman through the glass unable to penetrate her silence. Unable to see the images that played in her mind. The brainwashing, the strict rules, the orgies, worst of all. Replayed over and over again. Then the excessive washing, scrubbing. The compulsion. The shame. The desire to feel clean. To be free of the stain.
Her mind replayed them in her head over and over, the images prompted by the questioning. She couldn’t stop the flow of memories. The scene slowly unfolded
silently like and old home movie. The baby, crying and distressed. The stench of the unchanged diaper, the vomit over its clothes. Walking to the stove and switching on the gas underneath a large pot full of water. Putting on the latex surgical gloves and
covering her nose and mouth with the mask, slowly peeling the filth encrusted clothes from its wriggling body until it lay naked, writhing in its own dirt. Holding up the soiled clothes at arms length, the only way to kill the germs by boiling them. Everything must
be sterile. She said to herself. Then carefully placing the baby’s clothes in a plastic bag and setting it down on the floor. The pot on the stove bubbling as the water reached boiling point. Picking up the shrieking baby with her gloved hands.
“Now now.” She says. “Lets get rid of those nasty evil germs. They won’t get my baby. My baby won’t be dirty.”
The steam rising in wisps from the boiling pot, the baby’s cries ringing louder and louder. Slowly lowering the child into the water, legs first, shrieks tearing from its tiny throat.
“All better.” She says as the baby’s cries cease.
Grant approached detective Phillips and handed him a computer print out whilst eating a donut.
“Anne Evans.” He mumbled through a mouthful of donut. “She’s one of them Waco religious freaks.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” Phillips said, sipping his coffee. “I don’t think she’s gonna talk to us.” He added as the woman continued to rock backwards and forwards.
“Any Idea why she did it?” Grant asked.
“It beats the hell out of me. Nobody really knows what went on in that cult. Something must have driven her to boil her own baby. Whatever it was she’s gonna need a truck-load of shrinks to figure it out. I’m not a damn doctor; I think she needs a psychiatric ward rather than a police cell. Poor girl.”
“Who cares? I’ll make the arrangements. Get this sicko off our hands.” Grant said, looking at the woman with contempt, before shaking his head and heading down the hall.
Phillips just watched her continue to stare ahead blankly, rocking to and fro.
END