Clem cocked her head at him. “Can I get you some water, Dane?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine. Please, continue.”
“Well, of course, the family had no papers drawn up. No will. No power of attorney. No preparations at all in place for what would happen to William in the event of their sudden demise. So that’s how I ended up with him. He was given to me, and we did what we do. We located his next of kin—the older brother, a real piece of work named Arnold. The guy is a total degenerate. I knew that William was going to end up back here, or worse, as soon as I met the brother.”
“Why was that?”
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know when people are a lost cause. This guy, Arnold, was exactly that. He’d just lost both his parents in a horrible accident, and all he seemed to care about was if it were possible to sue the trucking company and William’s disability check.”
“He received a check?”
“Yes. William’s condition made him a candidate for government assistance. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince that worthless brother to sign the papers. I didn’t like it. Nobody did. But, despite his record of arrest, the brother had no history of violence or drug abuse, so we had to release William to his custody. That’s the law. So even though William was one of the kids who actually might’ve benefited from the state foster program, we had no choice. It is what it is. And despite what I thought about Arnold, William seemed to genuinely love his big brother and wanted to be with him. It’s like you said earlier—family—sometimes it’s all you got. In William’s case, Arnold was the hand he got dealt.”
“Tell us more about William’s condition,” Dane said, still staring at the papers in his lap.
“William has Asperger’s.”
“So I’ve been told. Tell me about it.”
“I’m not a doctor, but I know it’s a distinct form of autism that affects each person diagnosed with it differently. Sometimes it can be misdiagnosed as extreme OCD, or present as severe social anxiety, but in all cases, routine and patience is paramount in maintaining a somewhat normal life. Without it everything can quickly become chaos.”
“If it affects people differently, then tell us how it affected him, based on your personal experiences with the boy.”
“He’s a follower. He needs direction, or he begins to spin aimlessly. Not physically, but internally. For example, if he knows he’s supposed to do the dishes at three thirty in the afternoon, and there are no dishes to do, and there’s no one there to tell him otherwise, then he’ll shut down. He doesn’t know how to process what to do with that allotted time frame in his head, so he struggles to get through it. He’s not incapable of doing something else. He just needs to be told what that something else is. I don’t know if this is making sense, but that’s the best way for me to describe it.”
“So he’s dependent on some type of leader figure to guide his day-to-day actions?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
“And in this case, that figure was Arnold.”
“Yes.”
“So without him, what will happen?”
“I don’t know. I told you, I’m not a doctor, but like I told your boss last night, the fact that William is out there by himself could be dangerous to both himself and anyone he comes into contact with.”
“What do you mean? He is violent?”
“No, not at all. Just the opposite. His brain doesn’t interpret conflict or process violence like you or I would. Violence for most of us is an emotional response to some type of stimulus. William doesn’t think in terms of emotion. At least, not outwardly. He’s more like a machine calculating a problem, and that’s how he responds to that type of stimulus. It can make him appear cold at times. It frustrated me to no end until I found out it’s not his fault. It’s just his wiring. It’s hard to explain. Shit. It’s been a long night. I’m sorry.”
Dane closed the folder. “Try.”
Clem cocked her head again as if she’d forgotten what they were talking about. “Try?” she asked.
“To explain,” Dane said.
Clem eased back in her chair and blew two big cheekfuls of tired air from her lungs. “Well, for one, he’s brilliant.”
“Define brilliant.”
“I mean brilliant, intellectually. It’s like he thinks in math. It’s how he sees the world, in numbers and puzzles that are meant to be solved, but that’s not all. The best way to describe how William sees things is to say he sees the negative space in things.”
“I don’t understand,” Dane said.
Richland leaned forward. “Okay, look. A pebble bounces off the highway and cracks your windshield. We—you or me—see the crack it makes. We get angry because we know we need to get it fixed and deal with insurance companies and yadda yadda, but William doesn’t see the crack. He doesn’t get caught up in the aggravation like we do.”
“What does he see?”
“He sees the two new shapes made in the glass. He sees the reaction to the rest of the windshield and not the crack.” She leaned back and scratched a pencil against the back of her neck. “I don’t know. I told you. It’s hard to explain.”
“So how is that dangerous to others?”
“Okay. Think about it like this,” she said, and wriggled around in her seat. She held both hands out in front of her as if she were physically framing an image for them to see. The caffeine must’ve been working on her because she was coming to life behind her desk. Her blue eyes were getting softer and wider as she spoke, and Dane could hear the genuine excitement in her voice as she talked about William. Her job hadn’t devoured her entire sense of hope, not yet, anyway. She still cared for the children in her charge—especially the Blackwell boy. Dane also noticed that the cold feeling of despair from the lobby wasn’t present in Clem Richland’s small section of the building. He wanted some of that coffee Clem was drinking but didn’t want to interrupt her to ask.
“He was almost eleven when he was given to me, and at that age, he could perform advanced mathematics in his head that I couldn’t do with pen and paper. It was amazing to watch. His IQ is off the charts—genius level—but he isn’t capable of picking out clothes for himself that match, or driving a car.”
Roselita repeated Dane’s question. “So, still, how does that make him a danger to others?”
Dane answered for her. “She’s saying what if he did decide to drive a car?”
“Exactly. Listen, the longer he’s alone, the bigger the chance is of something terrible happening, and I’m telling you, something will happen. The worst part is that it won’t be his fault. Asperger’s is a relatively newly identified condition. There isn’t a lot of research yet on how to treat it other than maintaining a healthy daily routine. Without help, he could end up in a system a lot worse than this—like juvie—and a kid like William can’t survive in those conditions. It’s impossible.” Richland sank her head into her hands and ran her fingers back over her skull.
Dane imagined it must be tough for her. She rarely got to hear a happy ending in her line of work, and to find out one of the kids she was most fond of was in this kind of trouble had to be heartbreaking. Dane didn’t envy her job. He thumbed through the file again, scanning for the newspaper article concerning the car accident. “Was William in the car with his parents when the accident occurred?”