Page 43 of Tex's Angel

To my surprise, when we get to the CPS building Mattie comes out and requests that we both come back to her office. Rigs, and Siege’s wife, Cleo, are there as well.

Mattie says, “Thanks for coming here today. I have good news.”

“That’s great,” Clara says. “I could use some good news just about now.”

Mattie picks up a sheet of paper for her desk and gives it to me.

“I talked with my supervisors, and they have agreed that since the Savage Legion has helped in finding several missing kids, they’re willing to share information about these cases because both families have supposedly moved away, and we need to locate them in order to check on the kids and close the cases. I mentioned that you worked for Las Salinas PD and that swung their decision.”

“Are you saying that both kids went missing?” I ask.

Mattie gestures for us to sit down at the small conference table in her office. “It’s not all that unusual for families to move to a new county or even out of state to get away from a CPS investigation.”

“You’d think there’s be laws against that,” Clara says.

Mattie explains, “There are. But it doesn’t stop them,” she pauses and then looks at me, “As long as I’m leading the investigation, they’re willing to let you sign a release of information to ensure you don’t disclose information about the cases. If you’re willing to do that, then you can assist in our investigation, since you are technically law enforcement. We glossed over the part about you being a trainer.”

I start reading through the release and since it seems pretty standard, I scribble my signature at the bottom of the last page, initial the other pages and hand the document back to Mattie.

She sits down at the head of the table and explains. “Clara, you made two reports this school year. The first was on August thirtieth last year for Anabel Miller, an eight year old girl. The second was four months ago and involved a boy called Robbie Blake, a seven year old boy. I ended up supervising Anabel’s case and Cleo ended up supervising Robbie’s case, so we’re familiar with the children. We need to do a brief rundown on each case to make sure we’re all up to speed.” Turning to me, she asks, “Can you tell us what you remember from each case?”

I nod, reeling back in my mind, I begin telling them what prompted the CPS reporting on my part. “School had barely started for the year when I realized that Anabel was covered in bruises. I saw bruising on her neck and arms. She came to school with a busted lip, and it took me a long time to get her to open up. She reported that her father got mad a lot. She said he sometimes hit her and her mom. I went ahead and reported because the situation met the criteria for reporting and seemed to be getting worse.”

Mattie speaks up giving me information that CPS had discovered. “The father is Herman Miller, and the mother is Andrea Miller-Richards. We took Anabel to the hospital and discovered she not only had extensive bruising on her arms and torso, but her family had also attempted to cover it with makeup. She had several old fractures that hadn’t healed because she was never taken for treatment. Needless to say we filed for an emergency protective order immediately. Her parents never followed through the requirement stipulated in the family reunification plan.”

“That’s a lot to digest at one time,” I tell her.

Rigs asks, “And we have no idea what happened to the family?”

“We think the moved to Marlon County where the father’s family resides,” Mattie answers. “Zen might be able to track them down through their driver’s licenses or real estate records. I passed the details to my colleague at the Marlon County CPS, and they’ve been trying to track down the mother.”

Rigs nods. “How about the other kid, the boy?”

Cleo opens a file on her table in front of her and tells us, “Robbie Blake. His mother is Sandra Blake and his father’s name is Todd Blake. Clara, can you tell us what you remember about this case? hopefully it’s still fresh in your mind.”

Clara nods, “This one really stuck in my mind because of the significant amount of weight Robbie lost in such a short time. It got to the point where his eyes looked sunken in, and it was nearly impossible to keep him awake for classes. I took him to the school nurse, and we removed his shirt. He appeared to be emaciated. He also has some bruising and what appearedto be scratches on his back and legs. We tried to get him to eat but he couldn’t seem to hold anything down. He was lethargic and wouldn’t tell us where he got the bruises. Naturally, I made a report to CPS that same morning and one of your workers came out and picked him up. She said she was taking him to the hospital. That was the last I saw or heard of him. Not long after that I took up the position at Las Salinas High School.”

“That exactly what you wrote in your initial report,” Cleo says. “I picked up the case when the social worker called to say she needed an emergency removal order. After she explained what was going on, I dropped everything to make sure she got what she needed to save the child’s life.”

She sighed before continuing. “The hospital confirmed that he was severely malnourished and suffering from acute kidney illness from repeated, lengthy bouts of dehydration. They put him on an IV right away and he ended up being hospitalized for four days. Thankfully, we caught him in time.”

“What was the deal with the family, was it deliberate abuse?” I ask, horrified that Robbie had gone through all that, and also relieved that I’d reported it.

“As near as we could tell after getting Robbie to finally talk to us, his parents were both strung out on heroin, time got away from them and their water got turned off for non-payment. Robbie reported that he could only drink at school, his parents were always sleeping, and they ran out of food. He said he tried to climb up into the cabinets to get food but there was never much there to eat. The bruises were mostly likely accidental, in his case it was pure neglect.”

“Clearly he didn’t understand the difference between sleeping and passed the fuck out.” Rigs grumbles.

Something finally fell into place in my mind, both of these kids were young, not the high school students she teaches. “How is it you were working with small kids and now you’re working with teens all in the same school year? Those two age groups don’t even attend the same school.”

“My preferred age group is high school students, but when I graduated there were no vacancies, so I ended up teaching at the elementary school. Las Salinas High School lost three teachers over a short period of time, and I was drafted in to cover one of the positions which ended up becoming permanent. I’ve only been there just over three months. After I threw out Chris, I needed extra money to cover his share of the mortgage and high school teaching offered longer hours, so I ended up staying. It was hard whipping the teens into shape after they were used to so many substitute teachers.”

I give her a lopsided smile. “That kind of challenge was probably right up your alley. You were teacher of the year, last year for a reason.”

She gives me an indulgent smile in return and responds, “I just love teaching, no matter what ages the students are.” Turning back to Cleo, she asks, “Did the family complete their reunification plan.”

Cleo looks disturbed. “No. The mother took an overdose, and his father disappeared. We think he moved out of state, grief stricken over losing his wife.”

“Was it an intentional or accidental OD?” Rigs asks almost immediately.

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