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protective order placing both Christie and Danny under the
temporary care of the Oregon State Children's Services Division. "ugl had had
no other choice; Diane had said she was going to
fake her children out of the hospital and nobody was going to ^op her.
^"Dr. Miller and Dr. Wilhite informed me. When I woke up in
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the recovery room, they told me they wanted me to know about it
before I saw it on TV. They said, 'We just want you to know you
can see Christie whenever you like,' as if they had the right to
give me permission to see my own child! Jim [Jagger] explained
that the DA said I was hindering the investigation."
One evening, Jim Jagger and his associate Lauri Holland
came to McKenzie-Willamette to see Christie. When sheriffs
deputies and nurses balked, there was a disturbance--almost a
scuffle--and in the furor, Holland spent ten minutes alone with
Christie before she was ushered out.
Diane told her tape recorder: "I dreamed about the shooting. I
had the impression that he knew me."
"... the impression that he knew me . . ."
Diane whispered to her tape recorder that she thought maybe
the gunman had recognized her. She told no one else. Not even
Jim Jagger.
As Diane underwent surgery in the McKenzie-Willamette Hospital,
Kurt Wuest was at Sacred Heart Hospital talking to Danny
Downs. Danny knew Kurt well, and he was used to seeing him
around. Wuest had no kids of his own; Danny Downs got to him.
"He was so smart--so very, very extremely smart. He was a
real heartbreaker for me. One time, he was sitting in his wheelchair
and he looked at me, impatient and confused, and he said,
'How come I can't get up? I wanta get up.' And I didn't know
what to tell him, so I didn't say anything."
They played games together, and one of the games made
Wuest and everyone in the playroom turn pale. "Danny pointed
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his finger at me, as if it was a gun. Then he goes, 'Psshhow!
You're a bad boy!' like he was firing at me."
Wuest talked to Danny in the third-floor playroom as Clanny's
nurse, Janet Jones, sat beside the little boy. Wuest spoke in a
casual, soft voice--deliberately interspersing unrelated topics with
the questions that were vitally important.
"Do you remember going to see some horses a little while
ago?"
"Yeah."
"Did you go in the car?"
"Yeah."
"Where did you sit?"
"Back seat."
SMALL SACRIFICES 205
And then the harder questions, painfully, tediously asked.
"Danny, do you know how you got hurt?"
(No answer.)
"Did you see Christie get hurt?"
"Yeah . . . next to her."
"Was it in the car?"
"Yeah."
"Did she cry?"
"No."
"How did she get hurt?"
(No answer.) ylvli"
"Did your mom get hurt?" ^i
"Yeah." ;
"How?" w . ''.ò:
"Cat did it." ;
"Were you in the back seat when you went out in the
country?"
"Isn't any more country."
"Who was driving?" ' ò"ò+
"Aunt Kathy."
B "Did you see how Christie got hurt?"
"Somebody poked her."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Was it somebody you know?"
(No answer.)
"Where did Christie get hurt?" ' ^'i
(No answer.)
"In the leg?"
"No."
"In the stomach?"
"No."
"In the arm?"
"In the arm."
And then Danny became very still, his face a blank mask as
he looked into the distance.
"Are you afraid to talk about this, Danny?"
"Yes."
Wuest immediately stopped questioning Danny. The usually
^mbunctious little boy had grown so still, and his eyes were filled
lw tears. Janet Jones moved to take Danny back to his room
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and he said softly, "Not supposed to answer . . . not supposed to
answer."
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Danny Downs was three years old and someone had shot him
in the back. It was doubtful that a toddler, not much more than a
baby, would ever be accepted as a witness in a murder trial. But
Kurt Wuest saw something haunted in Danny's eyes.
Later, Danny was sitting at the window staring down at a
screeching ambulance below.
Suddenly he turned to his nurse and asked, "Who shot me7"
"I don't know, Danny. Wio?"
"That man . . ."
"What man? Was it outside or in a car?"
"That man--Jack."
"Did you know him before?"
"That man was mean to me."
"What man?"
"That man Jack ..."
"Who shot you, Danny?"
"Jack--like Jack in the Beanstalk ..."
Did "Jack" mean something to Danny? Or was truth and
fantasy as conjoined in his young mind as it is in most toddlers'?
"It's obvious to me they suspect my daughter," Wes Frederickson
told the Springfield News. "Every time she moves and breathes,
they move and breathe with her. I believe in my daughter's innocence. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]