A Silence of Mockingbirds (14 page)

S
arah is angry with me.

I knew she would be. That’s why I put off calling her and telling
her about this book.

I intended to sit down and talk to Sarah about it, but I knew before I wrote
one word that Sarah wouldn’t like it. And I knew why. This book is nonfiction.
Sarah prefers made-up stories, what David calls her alternate reality.

My cell phone rang the minute I walked out of the Benton County
courthouse. It was the spring of 2007 and I’d come to town to pull some
documents, and to visit with folks at the courthouse about the case.
Sarah had been on my mind all morning long. A woman who knew the
case intimately had pulled me aside earlier that day and warned me to
be careful when going through the documents.

“Those of us who work around this stuff all the time were shocked
by what we saw,” she said. “Don’t look at the photos. I’m warning you.
They were the worst ever, even for those of us used to it.”

I thanked her for her advice, but assured her that as a former cop
reporter, I’d seen my fair share of nightmares.

“Not like this,” she said. “And your relationship with the family and
all will make it even harder.”

Then she paused, placed her hand over mine, and added, “I understand her.”

“Sarah?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. Then taking me by the elbow and leading me to
a quiet corner, she added, “My ex-husband was abusive. I understand
how a woman can get caught up in a relationship like she did.”

She proceeded to tell me how she never knew when her ex would
be in a foul mood, could not tell what little things would set him off.
Finally, after one terribly explosive evening, she called it quits. She left
him.

“So I know how these things can happen,” she said.

“Did you have children?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Did he ever threaten or hurt your children?”

“Yes, once,” she said. “That’s when I made up my mind to leave.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That’s the difference between you and Sarah. You
protected your children. She didn’t.”

The lady nodded her head in the knowing way of mothers and
grandmothers and sisters the world over. We will take a heap of abuse
ourselves, but God help the person who tries to harm one of our
children. Scorn us thusly and most of us will storm the Gates of Hell
and do hand-to-hand combat with legions of demons.

Sarah looked the other way in hopes of hanging onto Shawn.

It pleased Sarah that David didn’t like Shawn. And while David
clearly had no affection left for Sarah at this point, Sarah fancied him
jealous. And, in fact, told investigators David’s jealousy was the source
of all of Karly’s problems.

Of course, I didn’t have a clear picture of what had happened the
day Sarah called me, the way I do now after spending hundreds of hours
studying court documents and after talking to the people involved, and
reflecting on all of it as the years have passed. I’d put off telling her I was
writing a book because I wanted to know more first.

But I wasn’t surprised when I answered the cell phone on the steps
of the Benton County Courthouse and got an earful of Sarah’s ranting.
She was pissed. Why hadn’t I called her? Didn’t I owe her that courtesy?
It was the first of many such phone calls to follow. In each one, Sarah
spoke harshly, yelling at times. Sarah is usually very soft-spoken. It’s
part of her charm. She is usually so controlled, so controlling; she rarely
allows her emotions to lead the way.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I should have called.”

Sarah grew quiet. We both did. There wasn’t much left to say.

Since that day on the courthouse steps, I have called Sarah
periodically to keep her up-to-date. I have offered Sarah as much
opportunity for input into this story as I’ve given David. I would have
welcomed what Sarah had to say, but Sarah has resolutely refused to
participate.

“I am barely over the trial and now this,” Sarah said. I’d called her
from my home in Hermiston. “You don’t know me anymore.”

“True enough,” I said. I was standing at the kitchen counter, taking
notes, and watching the dog run across the backyard. “But I did at one
time.”

“The last time we spoke you bitched me out. You cut me out of your
life,” Sarah said. “Why would I speak to you after that?”

She wasn’t referring to the very last time we spoke. We’d spoken
several times lately. She was dredging up that awful phone call of
February 2003.

“Because, Sarah, that’s what families do,” I said. “They get angry and
say things, sometimes hurtful things, but then they get over it.”

“Not in our family!” Sarah snapped. “When I got angry, I got sent
off to boarding school.”

This was exactly the sort of response I expected from Sarah. Whenever the conversation grows uncomfortable for her, Sarah brings up
how it is somebody else’s fault her life got derailed. Her parents sent
her away. Her mother didn’t like her. She was the outsider. No one ever
really loved her. Sarah is skilled at deflections

“It’s your fault I got involved with Shawn to begin with,” Sarah said,
in her most accusatory tone.

That was a gut-kick I didn’t see coming. I moved from the kitchen
counter to the living room. I curled over myself into the armless red
chair. I felt queasy, clammy. No one can knock the breath out of me the
way Sarah does.

“How’s that?” I asked. My voice was thin.

“Those things you said! Well, at least one of them hasn’t come true.”

She was referring, of course, to when I said to her: “Listen, Sarah,
you are not always going to be able to trade off your looks. One day
you’re going to wake up old and ugly, then what?”

“I was very angry at you for a long time,” Sarah continued. “I
thought, ‘Screw Karen. I found a guy better than David.’ Of course he
wasn’t.”

Once Sarah had her say, she grew silent. I was pretty quiet myself.
I was nauseated at the thought of my anger being a compelling reason
for Sarah to get involved with a man like Shawn. On some level, I knew
she was just making excuses. But on a deeper level, I also regretted,
continue to regret, that during that 2003 phone call I didn’t offer to pray
with Sarah, instead of yelling at her about her decision to leave David. I
should have prayed for Sarah, for David, and most of all for Karly.

That what I was thinking, but what I asked Sarah was, “Wouldn’t
you rather have someone who loves and cares for you write this?” I
asked.

“No!” Sarah said. “I’d rather have someone who didn’t know me at
all. How would you feel if someone decided to write about some of the
painful things of your past? Interviewing your friends from childhood?
How would you feel?”

Sarah had told me about the breakdown in her relationship with
her brother Doug.

Sarah and Doug had maintained a close relationship as they grew
up, bonding in sibling solidarity. But that all changed once Karly died,
and perhaps before.

During one of our last conversations, I asked Sarah about Doug,
and she said, “I haven’t spoken to my brother.” I was surprised to hear
that, knowing how much she had adored him. I told her so.

“Family members are fairly easy to replace,” she said. “You get a
couple of new friends and move on. I don’t hate him. I’m at peace with
my decision. You can’t keep people in your life forever.”

K
arly fashioned a game from her favorite movie, Shrek. She
and David played it a hundred times or more. The last time
they played, it was on Monday, May 30, 2005, at the playground
at Hoover Elementary School. The school is located a couple hundred
yards from David’s house and within blocks of Shawn’s place.

It was Sarah’s week to have Karly. David’s coursework on his master’s
program at George Fox University was winding up. Even though it was
a holiday, he had a study group meeting in Salem, papers he needed to
write, exams to study for, and his job to attend to. It was going to be a
crazy, hectic week.

Father and daughter spent Saturday at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.
They drove up in the morning, met up with David’s girlfriend, and rode
MAX, the city’s mass transit system, out to the zoo. Karly loved seeing
the hairy orangutan, the painted zebra, and the gangly-necked giraffe.
She ran from animal to animal, standing on her tiptoes, tugging on
David to pick her up so she could better see the sleeping polar bear.
After Saturday’s outing, both father and daughter were so tired that on
Sunday, after Mass, they puttered around the house all day. Monday
morning, after breakfast and chores, Karly and David walked over to
the playground at Hoover.

“Higher!” Karly cried, as David gave her a gentle push in the swing.
“Betcha can’t catch me!” she said, running from him. “Catch me,
Daddy!” she commanded as she barreled down the slide on her tummy.
Then she climbed up on one of the play structures and spread
across the colored tubing. She lay perfectly still, eyes closed, a slight
grin on her face.

It was David’s cue.

She was a sleeping princess, like
Shrek
’s Fiona, who could only
be awakened with a kiss from her daddy. And it had to be the perfect kiss
or she would forever remain suspended somewhere between life and death. It
was up to the prince to save her, to awaken her, and to bring her back to
life. And love, true love, was the key.

David leaned over the sleeping Karly and kissed her. Then he stood
back to wait her reaction. Ah. Nothing. The princess remained asleep.
No magic in that kiss. He leaned over and tried again.

Aha! That’s the one. Her blue eyes popped open, reflective pools that
mirrored her daddy’s eyes. The magic worked. Karly clasped her little
hands around her father’s neck and whispered, “Thank you, Prince! You
saved me!”

“Good thing,” David said. “Otherwise you might have missed your
lunch.”

The two walked hand and hand back to David’s place. After a lunch
of pizza, Karly’s favorite food, they gathered her things and stuffed them
into her backpack.

“C’mon,” David said, “time to go.” He grabbed his books and opened
the door.

Karly reluctantly pulled her backpack behind her. “I don’t want to
go.”

“I know, honey, but we have to get going. Your mommy’s waiting
for you and I’ve got to be in Salem soon.”

“But I don’t want to go to Mommy’s,” she whined.

David said nothing. Karly climbed into her car seat. He buckled her
in as a fat tear rolled down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to go!” she cried.

David looked at his daughter in the rearview mirror. What could he
do? It was Sarah’s week. If he refused to bring Karly, Sarah would raise
holy hell. Probably call the police on him.

“I want to stay with you!” Karly was sobbing buckets now. Salty
tears mixed with snot streamed down her face. “I don’t want to go!”

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “But your mommy wants to see you.”

“How many times will you pick me up?”

“What?”

“How many times are you going to pick me up, Daddy? How many
times?” Karly demanded.

“I don’t know, Karly.”

“Are you going to pick me up? Are you, Daddy? Are you coming to
get me?”

“Yes, honey. I’m going to come get you.”

“When?” Karly said, sucking back another sob.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe Friday.”

Karly would not be quieted. Her cries continued even as David
pulled the car up to Sarah’s place, the apartment she kept with Shelley
Freeland, Karly’s godmother. Karly loved “Auntie” Shelley, loved hanging
out with her, but she did not want her daddy to leave her today, not for
any reason. She continued pleading, “When? When are you going to
come get me? How many times?” Karly continued to cry even as Sarah
took her from David’s arms.

Bloody hell
, he thought as he kissed Karly goodbye.

On Friday, June 3, 2005, David was at work when he got the
call from Gene Brill. It was 2:45 p.m.

“Sarah just called,” Gene said. “Karly’s in the emergency room.”

David went to his supervisor and told her he needed to leave
immediately. He tried not to worry. Doesn’t every kid wind up in the
emergency room at one time or another? And besides, David told
himself, he had just heard from her that very morning.

Sarah had called around ten o’clock. David’s phone was on vibrate,
as was his habit while working, so he’d missed the call, but Karly left a
message.

“Hi Daddy,” Karly said. “I miss you. I love you.”

It was the last thing Karly would ever say to her father. He not only
missed the call, he’d erased it after he heard it.

David put his car in reverse and nearly hit a Hillsboro Police Department
squad car in his rush. Taking a deep breath, David paused to compose himself.
Karly is in good hands
, he reminded himself.
You still have at
least an hour and a half of driving to do. Don’t end up in the emergency room
yourself, or you’ll be no help to her
.

Once he was on the highway, David called Sarah’s cell. He got her
voice mail.

“Sarah, I am Karly’s father. If there’s something wrong with her, I
have the right to know. Why didn’t you call and tell me she’s in the
hospital? Call me ASAP!”

It was the last thing he would say to Sarah in the coming weeks.

As he headed south on Interstate 5, David called Gene back.

“Have you heard anything more?”

“I haven’t,” Gene said. “But Sarah did say Karly wasn’t breathing
when she was admitted to the ER.”

“Okay,” David said. He took a deep breath and gripped the steering
wheel. “I’m going to call the hospital. See what I can find out.”

At 3:30 p.m., just a tad north of the Wilsonville exit, still about
sixty-five miles north of Corvallis, David received a phone call from a
man who identified himself as an emergency room doctor. Dr. Hochfeld
didn’t waste any breath making small talk.

“Your daughter was admitted to the ER this afternoon. She was not
breathing. I am sorry. We did everything we could. Karly is dead,” he
said.

“No! No! No!” David cried out.

Hours earlier on that Friday morning, Sarah had called Gene
Brill and told him that Karly had woken up with a badly swollen eye. Gene
and Carol were at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in Portland,
where Carol was being treated for ongoing health problems. Gene recalled later
that Sarah sounded very distressed.

“Dad, Karly’s eye is swollen and all she wants to do is sleep. Can
allergies do that? Make a person sleepy that way?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, Sarah,” he said. “Eyes can be affected by allergies. They can
turn red. Sometimes there’s swelling. Sometimes they get runny.” He
reminded Sarah that sometimes her sister’s son got allergies, especially
during the spring growing season.

“Kim gives her boy Benadryl. You might try that. Why don’t you
call Kim?” Gene suggested. “Ask her about it.”

Sarah asked Karly if she wanted to talk.

“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Karly cried. “My eye hurts. My eye hurts.”

“I know, honey. Your momma told me. I’m so sorry.”

“Is Grandma sick?” Karly asked. “Are the doctors fixing her?”

“Yes, honey. They are fixing her all up. I’ll tell her you called, and
we’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Karly said, handing the phone back to her mother.

Gene was disconcerted by Karly’s cries. His granddaughter seemed
to be in a great deal of pain, but he couldn’t see what Sarah saw, what the
police, EMTs, nurses, and doctors would later see—what made them
believe this little girl had been beaten to death. Karly’s eye was swollen
shut. The eyeball was ruptured. She looked like a boxer who’d lost the
fight.

David kept driving through his tears and anguish. He did
not try to call Sarah. He did not want to speak to her. Instead, he called
his girlfriend Kendall and told her that Karly was dead.

He asked Kendall to call his sister Andrea in Ireland, but not to tell
her anything.

“Just tell her to call me ASAP, please,” David said.

It was late in Ireland. The family had gathered at Castletownbere
to celebrate a wedding. David and Karly couldn’t be there with the rest of
the family, but they had a trip booked for later in August. Karly had started
packing her suitcase already. A week or two before, in a phone call, Karly
had serenaded her Auntie Andrea. She sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” the song
her daddy had taught her the previous summer when they were preparing for
their last trip to Ireland.

Shortly after midnight, Jason, David’s brother, asked Andrea to
check for messages on her phone from a U.S. number. Kendall had left
a message, instructing Andrea to call David as soon as possible.

Andrea and Jason left the reception, stood in the hallway, and called
David.

“David,” Andrea hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

“Where are you?” David asked.

“I’m at the wedding,” Andrea said, “with the rest of the family. Why?
What’s wrong?”

“Karly’s dead,” David cried.

Andrea dropped to her knees. Jason dropped down beside her.
Everything went hazy for them both. She assured David that she would
tell their mom and dad. But after she hung up, Andrea had a sense
that none of it had really happened. Not the phone call. Not the death.
Perhaps the universe was playing some horrific hoax. Surely, she had
misheard David. Or he had misspoken. There was no way Karly could
be dead.

So unsure was she that Andrea rang her brother back.

“David, how do you know Karly’s dead? She can’t be dead! Are you
sure?”

“As sure as I can be,” David replied. “That’s what the doctor just told
me.”

David’s parents, James and Noreen Sheehan, were on the dance
floor swaying to a slow song. Noreen had been facing the door when Jason had
first come to get Andrea. She’d watched the two of them leave together. There
was something about the way they were walking, an urgency to it that bothered
Noreen.

“James, there’s something wrong,” she said. “Maybe something’s
wrong with one of the grandkids.” The couple held their spot on the
dance floor facing the door, waiting, watching, expecting.

Andrea was soon back, making her way across the crowded dance
floor. When she reached her parents, Andrea took them both by the
hand and led them outside.

“What’s wrong?” Noreen asked first, then James. “Andrea, what’s
wrong?”

They kept repeating their question, but Andrea would not answer
them. She wanted to get them as far away from the wedding reception
as possible. Once outside, Andrea spoke as plainly as she could.

“Karly is dead!” she cried.

“Andrea! Don’t say things like that!” Noreen scolded. But then she
saw the darkness in her daughter’s eyes. “Oh my God!” she cried. “Why?
How?”

But Andrea didn’t know why or how. Jason was kneeling on the
ground, weeping. They all were weeping.

“We’ve got to get home,” Noreen said. She turned to her husband.
“We all have to get home. Right now! I need to talk to David.”

A friend took them to the hotel, where they picked up their bags,
and then drove them the thirty miles home to County Kerry.

“We were very anxious to get home,” Noreen said. “David was going
to ring us when he had information for us. At that stage, we had no
details as to what had happened. Unfortunately, we had a fair idea that
Sarah was involved.”

Nearly all of Andrea’s childhood memories include David.
The two, who were born only a year apart, were as close as any siblings could
be. They spent nearly every weekend with their own grandparents. In the mornings,
David would tag along with their grandfather and Andrea along with their grandmother.
In the afternoons, the two siblings would go off frogging.

“We would spend hours playing in the field, climbing into drains with
old tin cans and catching frogs and putting them into a barrel,” Andrea
recalled “Our record was about fifteen frogs. We were very proud!”

As they grew older, David took pride in looking after his younger
sister. When she was in her final year of college and pregnant with her
daughter, Chantelle, Andrea developed a kidney infection.

“I didn’t want to ring Mom and Dad as I was afraid that they would
worry, and also I didn’t want to put them under pressure financially as
there were three of us in college that year, which can’t have been easy,”
Andrea said. “So I rang David, who told me to get myself to a doctor,
and that he would send down money for me. A check arrived in the
post the following day.”

Now her big brother was across a wide ocean from her, desperately
hurt, and there was nothing Andrea, or anyone else, could do to bring
Karly back.

Still driving south on I-5, David called his friend John
Hogan. There were a million scenarios running through his head, but David
was trying his best to stay focused as he told John what little he knew.

“John, when I get there, I don’t want to see that prick Field,” David
said.

John was waiting at Good Samaritan Hospital when David pulled
into the parking lot. Before getting out of the car, David dropped his
head to the steering wheel and prayed for strength.

David felt lead-footed entering the ER. John embraced him and
handed him a bottle of water. His priest, Father John Mitchell from St.
Mary’s Catholic Church, was there as well. They spoke briefly before
Detective Karin Stauder and Detective Shawn Houck showed up to
interview David.