say, I must have done it. You know they 're never wrong about anything.'
'You versus them? Is that how you see things, Mr. Mills?' Bondurant put down his pen and folded his hands together under his chin.
'No. That's how they see things.'
Bondurant smiled. This one was going to be a pleasure. The devil had reached into this child, whispered foul things in his ear, turned his heart to stone. But Bondurant wielded the shining sword and punishing scepter in the form of the paddle in his bottom drawer. 'The Cheek Turner' was two feet of solid hickory and had adjusted the attitudes of larger boys than Freeman.
Bondurant read the psychiatric reports that the driver had given him: Bipolar disorder, periodic antisocial behavior, manic episodes of moderate severity, grandiose and persecutory delusions. One doctor had noted a suspected cyclothymic disorder, tossing in an asterisk and question mark beside the words 'schizoaffective.'
Diagnostic voodoo. Those doctors, with their own God complexes, couldn't see this boy's most obvious disorder. Freeman Mills needed to get right with God, needed to mend his sinning ways, needed to let Jesus in to cure that troubled heart. Bondurant removed his glasses and pretended to clean them.
'Suicide attempt,' he noted. No need to skirt that. Let the boy learn that nothing would be glossed over at Wendover.
Freeman shrugged and absent-mindedly rubbed the scars on his left wrist. 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'
A broken home. So many broken homes these days. Mother murdered when Freeman was six, according to the case history. Father, an accomplished physicist and clinical psychologist, convicted of the crime and confined to a psychiatric hospital. That punishment was divine justice to Bondurant's mind, but it still left an innocent victim. Except Bondurant was quite sure that none of these children were innocent, or else they wouldn't be wards of the state.
'Does your father know you're here?'
The boy shrank into the chair and his eyes shifted as if waiting for a shadow to loom over him. Bondurant recognized the mixture of anger, pain, and fear. Many of Wendover's children wore that mask. Especially when you mentioned their fathers.
'Why do you have to drag that bastard into this?' Freeman said.
'I need to understand you if I'm going to help you.'
'Did I ask for help? How come all you shrinks make it your mission to fix me?'
Persecution complex. That's what the 'shrinks' would say. But Bondurant knew that persecution itself wasn't a problem. The Sweet Lord Jesus Christ was the poster child of persecution, and the Lord had certainly overcome.
'Two arrests for shoplifting,' Bondurant read aloud. 'Running away from group homes. Vandalism. Tipping over tombstones in a Presbyterian cemetery. What possessed you to do that?'
Freeman said nothing.
Bondurant leaned back in his leather chair. 'We'll not have that sort of foolish behavior here. Is that understood?'
Freeman nodded, looking as if he were near tears. The boy closed his eyes in an attempt to regain control.
Ah, a lesson in humility. Bondurant bit back his smile. 'There's one simple rule at Wendover, Mr. Mills. May I call you Freeman?'
The boy nodded again.
'That rule is: respect yourself and respect others.'
'Sounds like two rules to me.'
'That's not a very respectful response, is it?'
'No, sir.' Freeman's voice was barely audible, swallowed by the thick paneled walls of the office.
The telephone rang, and Bondurant glared at it, annoyed at being interrupted in this important task. He answered on the third ring. Kracowski was on the other end. 'Francis.'
Not a question, not a greeting. Merely a fact. The length of line between them didn't make Bondurant feel any more at ease, because Kracowski's office was just down the hall. He found himself adjusting his tie.
'Yes, Dr. Kracowski.' Bondurant clenched his fist around the receiver. He couldn't quite accept that the younger man insisted on being addressed as 'Doctor,' while Bondurant himself could be called by his first name. No matter that Kracowski had helped bail him out of that Enlo mess. After all, accidents happened.
'There's trouble.' Kracowski made the statement with no inflection. Was it good trouble or bad trouble?
'Of what sort, sir?' Bondurant nearly swallowed his tongue on that last salutation.
'Pillow case.'
'What's that?'
'Womb therapy. Dr. Swenson told me it went badly.'
Some of Kracowski's unorthodox methods, if discovered, would have the Department of Social Services conducting a full-scale investigation of Wendover. Never mind that Kracowski, and therefore Wendover as a whole, produced results, with several children already successfully integrated back into the home and society. Healing had to be done in a proper way, by the book. Kracowski must have read the book backward torn out a few pages, and scribbled in most of the margins. And all that new machinery in the basement…
Bondurant had to suffer in silence and ignorance. He looked at the cross on the wall, the symbol of He who knew suffering. Bondurant smiled at Freeman to maintain the illusion of calm superiority. 'How badly?' he asked Kracowski.
'The child is unconscious.'
'I see,' he said aloud though inwardly he was searching for the kind of perfect verbal blasphemy that only a sinner could summon.
'We have it under control. It was a necessary part of the treatment.'
'I'm sure there will be no problem.' The child would probably have no memory of the treatment. One good thing about Kracowski, he didn't produce potential witnesses against himself.
'We won't need to administer atropine this time,' Kracowski said. 'A natural recovery should suffice.'
Freeman rose from his seat, paced back and forth a few times, then walked over to the bookcase and ran his fingers over the books. Bondurant cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and called, 'Excuse me, Mr. Mills, but 1 don't think anyone gave you permission to stand.'
Then, to Kracowski, 'Hold on, sir.'
Bondurant pushed an extension button that buzzed a phone in an adjacent office. 'Miss Walters, send in Miss Rogers. We have a new member of the Wendover family who needs to be shown to his room.'
A static-filled voice responded 'Yes, sir.'
Freeman ignored Bondurant and fidgeted before the bookcase. Just before the office door opened, Freeman looked Bondurant fully in the eyes for the first time and said, 'She'll be okay once she starts breathing again.'
Bondurant frowned. This boy was a little too witty for his own good. Coming up with words out of thin air, sticking his chest out, squinting, a study in defiance. Maybe it was the mania, the 'up' cycle of the boy's manic depression, that brought on the misbehavior. Or his delusions of grandeur. But that would be granting him excuses, and Bondurant believed that evil was innate and that forgiveness had to be earned. Through pain if necessary.
The door opened. Bondurant deliberately kept his eyes fixed on Freeman's back. To look at Starlene Rogers inspired jealousy. 'Freeman, this is Miss Rogers,' he said.
Freeman turned, smiling at the woman. 'Hello, Miss Rogers. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.'
'Hello, Freeman,' she said. 'Welcome to Wendover.'
'Take him to the Blue Room,' Bondurant said. 'I'll have his bag sent over later.'
Bondurant risked a glance at Starlene. She was tall and a little stocky, a country girl raised on garden produce, home-butchered livestock, and Sunday sermons. Even in a navy pants suit, her curves suggested a particularly enjoyable route to eternal damnation. But her wholesome-ness was a threat, her innocence made others seem unclean. Bondurant couldn't dwell on his resentment fully, knowing Kracowski was waiting on the line.
'Come along,' Starlene said, holding out a hand to Freeman. The boy looked at her, trying on a suspicious expression, but Bondurant could tell it was an act. Starlene always put the children at ease. She had a quiet,
