Chapter 5 - AVA'S FIRST INTERVIEW
A child forensic interviewer met Ava three days later.
Laura did not sit in the room.
Neither did Dean.
That was important.
Ava was not asked leading questions.
She was allowed to draw.
Play.
Speak at her pace.
The interview lasted fifty-three minutes.
Laura received only the general findings at first.
Ava said Dean became angry when Laura asked about money.
Ava said Dean sometimes told her.
“Mommy gets confused.”
Ava said Dean instructed her to tell doctors she fell if “Mommy made a mistake.”
Then came the back steps.
Ava had taken the prepaid phone after hearing her parents argue.
She slipped it into her boot because she had no pockets.
Dean noticed it was missing.
He searched her room.
Ava ran toward the back door.
Dean caught her by the left arm.
She pulled away.
He grabbed again.
She lost her balance on the wet steps.
She fell.
The interviewer asked.
“Did Daddy push you?”
Ava said.
“No.”
That mattered.
Dean had not pushed her down the stairs.
He had grabbed her while trying to recover the phone.
The fall caused the fracture.
Truth did not need exaggeration.
Then Ava said something worse.
“Daddy told Mommy I fell by myself.”
“Did you tell Mommy something different?”
Ava shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Daddy said Mommy would go to jail.”
Laura cried when she heard that.
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Dean had not merely controlled Ava physically.
He had turned a six-year-old child into the guardian of her mother’s freedom.
