Before She Was Found - Heather Gudenkauf Page 0,102

it, but Mara and Jim rushed back into the room frantic after her fever spiked.

Clearly, someone pretending to be Joseph Wither was with Cora the night she was attacked; that’s most likely the one who attacked her. Or perhaps she just imagined he was there. But why would Cora sound so sad about him leaving? Was he someone she knew?

It’s not uncommon for victims of abuse to become dependent on the perpetrator, to seek out their approval. It’s all part of the abuser’s sadistic, manipulative game. I wanted to talk with her more, wanted to see if she could remember anything new about her encounter that night.

Cora had also expressed doubts about her friends, Violet and Jordyn. If only she remembered. At the time I believed that if my conversations with Cora could help her identify the person who did this to her, then so be it. In my line of work there were often unanswered questions and a lack of closure. It wasn’t my job to catch the bad guys. My role was to help children who experience trauma identify and describe the feelings they had and from there develop tools and healthy coping responses in order to increase the feelings of control and self-reliance.

I logged into the hospital’s electronic file system and pulled up Cora’s medical records and went right to the April 15 file. I clicked on the photographs that the ER nurse took of Cora’s injuries and winced at the sight. From Cora’s injuries, it appeared she had to be facing her attacker when she was stabbed, but it was after midnight. Maybe it was too dark or maybe the attacker knocked her out before she could clearly see who it was.

Cora was struck by the knife one time. A four-inch horizontal slash on her left side just above the abdomen.

The head, arm and facial injuries appeared to be made by some kind of blunt object. From the pictures and X-rays there was really no way for me to tell exactly what weapon was used. The toxicology screen showed no evidence of drugs or alcohol. There was nothing new to be learned there.

It was the injury to the arm that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Did the attacker begin by using one kind of weapon and then transfer to another? It was possible.

Perhaps Cora fought back, causing the attacker to drop the knife or the blunt weapon. There didn’t appear to be defensive wounds on any part of Cora’s body. No sliced fingers or arms to show that she put up a fight.

Why didn’t she fight back? Was it because the attacker was someone she knew? Someone she trusted? Could it have been one of her friends—Violet or Jordyn, or both? Something still didn’t seem quite right but I just hadn’t landed on it, not yet.

* * *

When I went back to check on Cora the room to her door was shut and a sign was affixed to the door frame—I’m resting, please do not disturb. I decided to take a chance and lightly tapped on the door. When it opened I came face-to-face with Jim Landry. “Yes?” he asked brusquely.

“How’s she doing?” I whispered.

“She’s sleeping,” he answered shortly. I was about ready to apologize for disturbing them when Mara stepped out from behind her husband and joined us in the hallway.

“She’s got an infection.” Mara’s face was pale, strained. “In her eye.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What is the doctor saying?”

“More antibiotics and now we just wait and see.”

This is not good. Mara doesn’t say it, but I know that there’s a chance that Cora could lose her eye.

“If you can excuse us,” Jim said. He looked helpless, defeated. But there’s something else on his face. Guilt, perhaps. He looked past my shoulder and brushed past me, moving down the hallway. I turned and saw him striding toward a police officer.

“Oh, God,” Mara said, running her fingers through her hair. “I can’t deal with this right now. They keep wanting to ask Cora questions and she can’t answer them. She doesn’t remember anything.”

I thought about what Cora told me earlier about how Joseph Wither didn’t stay at the train yard with her. If Cora remembered this, then maybe she remembered more details, but I couldn’t just come out and tell Mara what her daughter revealed to me during our discussions. The guidelines about patient confidentiality are very clear. “The police often need to question victims several times. It’s surprising what witnesses can remember