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a calendar from her church along with eleven heart-shaped cutouts, each displaying a small photograph of a child in her care. I could understand why the school principal called her a saint. Christy was devoted, wasn’t she?
    Wasn’t she ?
    Or was she obsessed? Or controlling? Or manic? Or fucking nuts? Or all of the above?
    To the untrained eye, this kitchen was the epitome of a family- and God-centered home and the woman in the other room leading the group through the third verse of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was the quintessential queen of devout selflessness. But to me, it was organized chaos. Every item in that yellow room was a piece of a puzzle and the puzzle was starting to feel like madness incarnate.
    My eye traveled back to the door with the eleven heart-shaped cutouts and photos. They were joined one by one with a white satin ribbon that was perfectly stapled to the door to form an elegant arrangement. Christy was a perfectionist. That much I could verify. But a glance back to her handwriting on the chalkboard told me she was easily excitable and prone to sudden, possibly violent reactions to stress. Yes, I have studied graphology, and it’s come in damn handy at times. When you put a perfectionist who is prone to sudden, violent reactions in a situation where there is chaos every day, it can be like putting a match to gasoline.

    I was suddenly reminded of Fletcher’s nursery rhyme patter: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe… she had way too many children and she didn’t know what to do…” And then, “Time to go to sleep, baby. Bulls-eye marks the spot.”
    I looked closer at the white satin ribbon that joined the eleven heart-shaped cutouts with photos. On the third photo it was clear that the ribbon had been cut and retaped to the next photo. Could she have simply run out of ribbon? Maybe. But knowing how perfectionists operate, she would have been more likely to redo the entire display to avoid an interruption in the design. But if something changed in the design — if a photo had been removed, for example — it would easier to cut the ribbon like she did and join it to the next photo in the line.
    I started to get a sick feeling right about then. It came on faster than food poisoning from bad tuna. I checked to make sure Christy was still occupied leading the afternoon songfest with her off-key pack of kids. And indeed she was. I opened the door that held the calendar and cutouts and was greeted by a set of steep stairs that led into a basement. The door creaked as I closed it and pulled the cord on the overhead light to illuminate my descent into the musty, dirtfloored habitat. As my feet hit the bottom, I was immediately struck by the dampness of the area. Moist conditions tend to accentuate other odors, such as feces and blood and death.
    I turned on another light at the foot of the stairs. The walls were brick with cracked mortar.
    And then I felt it.
    I saw the desperation in the child’s eyes.
    I felt the fear spreading across the dank space.
    I sensed the suffocating torture of dying slowly at the hands of a crazy woman.

    Fletcher told me, “Bulls-eye marks the spot.” I canvassed the small basement and saw a large dartboard hanging on the far wall, near the corner. The center of the dartboard had a red dot…a bulls-eye. I quickly crossed to the spot and removed the dartboard. Behind it, I found a section of bricks about eighteen inches tall and twelve inches wide that had obviously been removed and put back in place. Finding a crowbar nearby, I easily lifted the bricks away from the dirt. The smell of death gave it away long before my fingers touched the fingers of the baby.

    It’s taken me several weeks to process all this. I learned fairly quickly that Christy killed the baby before the two teenage girls went to work for her. I also found out that Social Services hadn’t been making regular checks at her home because, after all, she was a multi-award-winning,