Page 117 of Bad Seed

Dr. Yellin was reading through her file when she came into the office. She was new to the facility, andthis was her second session. He was just reminding himself of her diagnosis, why she was here, and prior offenses. When the guard knocked, Dr. Yellin called out, “Come in,” and then closed the file and turned on the recorder to tape the session. It was old school, but still in practice because cassette tapes were more difficult to tamper with or alter than digital recorders and needed to be foolproof when taken to trials.

“Good afternoon, Justine. Please sit down.”

She sat in the chair indicated, then smoothed down her hair and folded her hands in her lap.

“How have you been?” Yellin asked.

“Do you know when my parents are coming to get me? I don’t much care for it here.”

She seemed calm, but her whole body was on alert. Stiff shoulders, straight back, and one knee bouncing as she sat. She had a tic at the corner of her eye, and he could tell she was biting on the inside of her jaw.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Yellin asked.

She wouldn’t look him in the face and looked at a point above his head instead. “They’re coming to get me,” she repeated.

“No, your parents can’t come.”

She frowned, her voice rising an octave as she asked. “Why not? Daddy has money.”

“Your father is in jail. He stole money from his boss.”

She pounded a fist on her knee. “He wouldn’t let me come home. Mama will get me. Call her.”

“We can’t call your mother, remember?”

She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t want to remember. Just call her!”

“She can’t come to the phone anymore. Do you know why?” Yellin asked.

Justine covered her face. “Shut up! Stop talking. Just call her!”

“She’s dead, and now this is where you live.”

“No money…no money. Waste of time. I need to leave now. Tell the man to take me home.”

Yellin signaled the guard. “Miss Beaumont is ready to go to her room now,” he said, and turned off the recorder.

Justine was talking to the guard as they walked out the door, giving him her address back in Dallas, but Justine Beaumont was already home. She just didn’t know it.

***

Tipton Crossley’s “come to Jesus” moment happened when the door to his cell slammed behind him. His heart was pounding, and he’d broken out in a cold sweat. He’d already asked for a criminal defense lawyer and had given them the name of one he’d met before. He knew they’d find out everything now, and he had no hope of getting leniency, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

But the longer he stayed locked up, the more he began to realize the irony. He’d stolen women and children andlocked them up to sell. He knew some of them died before they reached their destinations, and the ones who survived probably wished they had not. But they hadn’t mattered. They weren’t real to him. He saw them as merchandise and sold them for what they were worth on the open market. Now he was locked up and going to pay a fortune to someone in an effort to keep himself off death row.

His first night in prison had been horrifying, and he kept thinking of the home he’d had with his father and the luxuries they’d enjoyed. All that was over, including his relationship with his father. He would die remembering the look on Wilhem’s face as he’d stepped aside for the federal agents swarming into his office. It was shame. He’d brought shame to the family name.

After his arraignment, Tipton was moved to a federal lockup and was now awaiting notice of a trial date.

Then just when he’d begun to assimilate within the population, someone recognized his name from news reports, and word of his reputation began to spread, and all of a sudden, his safety was at risk.

There were inmates who’d had their women disappear, and their sisters, and their children, and even their mothers, and he became the face and the reason. He began looking behind him everywhere he went and staying to himself in the common room, until one day a man walked up behind him, wrapped his arm around Tip’s neck, and whispered in his ear.

“What did you do with my woman?”

And then another inmate hit him in the face andbroke his nose. “My daughter. You unholy bastard! What did you do with my baby girl?”

And a third, and then a fourth joined in, and Tip couldn’t scream because he couldn’t breathe, and the blows kept coming, and his flesh kept ripping, and when they finally dropped him, he’d bled out all over them and onto the floor.

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