Custody of the State Read online

  HARVEST HOUSE™ PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible ®, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

  The following Scripture quotations in this book are not identified in the text:

  chapter 1: Joshua 24:15

  chapter 46: Matthew 14:10-12

  chapter 51: Psalm 91:4 NASB

  Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. It is the intent of the author and publisher that all events, locales, organizations, and persons portrayed herein be viewed as fictitious.

  CUSTODY OF THE STATE

  Copyright © 2003 by Craig L. Parshall

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Parshall, Craig, 1950–

  Custody of the state / Craig Parshall.

  p. cm. — (Chambers of justice ; bk. 2)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-1026-2 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-6039-7 (eBook)

  1. Custody of children—Fiction. 2. Child abuse—Fiction. 3. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.A77 C87 2003

  813'.54—dc21

  2002013757

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  Dedication

  To John DiFrancesca, my friend and brother-in-law:

  for his dedication to his children—and his faithfulness to Him who created the first family and who beckons us all to join His eternal family

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  The Accused

  The Resurrection File

  Acknowledgments

  I am deeply indebted to Marilyn Clifton, my administrative assistant, for her tireless legal research that helped to inject reality into this fictional story; to Barbara Henderson for her painstaking keyboard work on the manuscript, as well as general research on everything from meteorology to geography; and to Sharon Donehey, as always, for her faithful handling of countless details that attend the preparation of a book, from inception to the final rush to make the deadline.

  A special thanks is due, again, to Paul Gossard with the editorial staff at Harvest House Publishers—his eye is keen, and his sense of the story and of the characters involved is ever insightful. My wife, Janet, and my four children made a massive contribution to this story, simply by teaching me the primacy of parenting and the essence of family.

  The inspiration for this story really springs from my experience, during a 27-year practice of law, representing parents and families who found themselves at the blunt end of government abuse. We have the greatest legal system in the history of the world—but when our courts and our law enforcers aim their considerable power at dedicated parents and law-abiding families, the results can be tragic.

  And in that regard, I am also thankful to those attorneys around the nation alongside whom I have had the privilege of fighting to help protect the integrity—and the sanctity—of the family.

  1

  THAT MORNING BROUGHT THE usual sounds and smells as the family gathered for breakfast inside the kitchen of the white farmhouse—the one with the long, dirt driveway that wound through the soybean fields and that eventually connected to the county trunk highway.

  Buried in the rural quiet of the Georgia countryside, the family gathered for the rituals of the routine and the mundane. Within the house, it all felt familiar. The daily patterns of their home had sheltered them. The life of the Fellows family had become predictable, the only major variations being those of weather, season, and the market price of soybeans, and occasionally Mary Sue’s schedule as a part-time nurse. Though their life was lived on a farm with the usual machinery, tools, and field chemicals, it had been a safe one.

  At a quarter after six, there was only the slight heaviness of early-morning fatigue, but nothing else. The family was beginning the day in the usual way. They were cradled in the details of the normal. They were safe.

  Outside, the house was tidy enough, but the careful eye could detect signs of minor neglect. The paint was peeling slightly. The red shutters set the white wood siding off nicely, but one hung a little off-kilter, the casualty of a storm. Joe Fellows, a thirty-year-old farmer who managed his sixty-acre soybean farm almost single-handedly, had promised Mary Sue that he would get to those odd jobs. But he never seemed to be able to find the time.

  Joe, Mary Sue, and Joshua, their four-year-old, were halfway through breakfast. Joe had been up since a quarter to five. After an hour’s work he’d ducked back into the house, tossed his International Harvester baseball cap down, stripped off his red plaid coat, and sat down for breakfast. Now he was slurping from a mug of coffee.

  Mary Sue was dancing between the stove and Joshua’s place at the barn-board table where her son was catapulting food off his plate with glee. Like a baseball player caught between first and second base, bowl in hand, Mary Sue moved slightly toward the stove, then toward the table, then toward the stove again. With one hand she was trying to scoop more scrambled eggs into
the bowl from the frying pan, and with the other she was reaching out toward the table, pointing her index finger at Joshua.

  “Joshua, no!” she yelled. “Don’t throw your food.”

  Joshua, a skinny, pale boy with big hazel eyes and brown hair, was grinning widely. He tossed more eggs off his plate.

  Mary Sue stopped and pulled a long strand of her strawberry-blond hair away from her face. As she stared at Joe, who was reading the market prices in the paper, her pale blue eyes, usually soft and inviting, started to flash into anger, as they could do in seconds.

  “I could use a little help here,” Mary Sue snapped out to her husband.

  “Joshua, don’t,” Joe said nonchalantly from behind the newspaper.

  “That was a great help, thanks,” she shot back, her pretty features starting to flush. “Will you reinforce the rules at the table, please?”

  “Okay,” Joe responded, smiling. Then he slowly lowered the paper from his face as Joshua watched intently. As his face was revealed, Joe crossed his eyes, bared his teeth, and growled in a bearlike voice, “D-o-n-’t t-h-r-o-w y-o-u-r f-o-o-d!”

  Joshua rocked with giggles in his little chair.

  Mary Sue tried to muster up the appropriate anger, but gave up as she started laughing a little herself.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said to Joe, who seemed pleased that he and his son had waged a small but successful rebellion together.

  As Mary Sue walked over to her husband with the bowl of eggs, he pushed himself away from the table.

  “You haven’t finished your plate,” she said.

  “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “How about your work in setting a good example for Joshua?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Eating habits. Children pick up bad eating patterns by watching the parents.”

  “Whether I finish my plate or not has nothing to do with Joshua not eating.”

  “Then what is the reason? The doctor doesn’t know. I can’t figure it out. And when he does eat, sometimes he throws up. That isn’t normal. He’s not gaining weight. I think there’s something serious going on.”

  “Look,” Joe said, “you’re the medical expert—”

  “I’m a nurse. That doesn’t make me an expert.”

  “I’ve got a farm here that doesn’t take care of itself. Soybean prices are going down. Weather reports don’t look good. I’m not trying to blow you off, honey, but I’ve got a lot going on.”

  “Your family is your first priority,” Mary Sue replied sharply.

  “You want my two cents’ worth?” Joe said. “I don’t think that Dr. What’s-his-name knows what he’s doing with Joshua.”

  “What is his name?” Mary Sue asked, her eyes narrowed and her arms folded across her chest.

  “I don’t know…” Joe searched his memory for a minute, “Dr.…What’s-his-name. I can’t remember. What’s the difference?”

  “When was Joshua’s last checkup?” Mary Sue asked.

  Joe gestured as if he were going to answer, then stopped. After a second he said, “Last week.”

  “Wrong. This week. Two days ago,” Mary Sue replied. Then she added, “No further questions, Your Honor. Mr. Fellows is found guilty of being too busy for his family.”

  Joe sauntered over to his wife with a stern expression of his own. Mary Sue gazed into Joe’s blue eyes, looking over his square jaw and the dark blond hair that framed his face with an unkempt swatch that hung down to one side. They stared into each other’s eyes until a smile began turning up the sides of Joe’s mouth.

  He quickly touched his index fingers to the tickle spots on her rib cage until she started laughing and pushing him away.

  “Making me laugh is not an answer,” Mary Sue protested.

  “I know that, darlin’,” he said. “Look, I’m worried about Josh just like you.”

  “And when are we going to talk about what the social worker said?” Mary Sue added.

  “Okay, now you’re moving onto subject number two. We have to talk about that later.”

  “It’s all related. That Liz Luden woman from Social Services said that if we were insisting on getting a second opinion, then they wanted us to get it done by today.”

  “Today—or what?” Joe said, his voice rising slightly. “Or what? You told her a couple of weeks ago that you were going to get a second opinion about Josh from another doctor. That’s it. That is the end of it. No Miss Social Worker What’s-her-name is going to meddle with our right to decide what’s best for our son.”

  “It’s too late. They’re already meddling, Joe. Besides, the two of us have to talk about where I’m going to get the money for the second opinion.”

  “This is all that doctor’s fault.”

  “Maybe Dr. Wilson meant well,” Sue countered.

  “By calling Social Services? Just because you wouldn’t agree with everything he was saying? This doctor has tried how many tests on Josh? He’s grabbing for straws. We tell him that we want a second opinion, and then the next thing we know he calls a social worker from the county on us.”

  “We’ve got a decision to make,” Mary Sue pleaded, grabbing Joe’s arm as he tried to pull on his coat. “The social worker said if we don’t cooperate with everything they’re asking, they might actually try to get a court order. Joe, I don’t want anyone coming after my baby.”

  “This is really ridiculous,” Joe fumed. “Just think about it. Why are they picking on us? We’re your normal, average parents. You must have done something to tick off that Dr. Wilson. I bet it was the way you stopped following his orders.”

  “Josh was getting worse!” Mary Sue cried out.

  “I thought you just said you weren’t the medical expert!”

  “Please, just give me five more minutes so we can decide this right now,” Mary Sue pleaded.

  “I’ll give you my decision,” Joe shot back. “We don’t check in with the Department of Social Services on medical treatment for our son. Period. We’ll get a second opinion when we have the time, and when we have the money, and not a minute before that.” He put his cap on, but before he swung the door open his face softened slightly. “Besides, if they take us to court, you’d whop them all bare-handed. You could wrestle wildcats, baby doll.”

  As he was walking through the door, he turned, pulled something from his coat pocket, showed it to Mary Sue, and shouted back to her, “I’ve got the walkie-talkie with me if you need to get ahold of me.”

  Joe closed the door behind him. As he buttoned up his coat he glanced at the familiar little plaque at the side of the porch. It bore a Bible verse from the book of Joshua:

  “…As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

  In the kitchen Mary Sue sighed and tried to smile. She gazed over at little Joshua, who was leaning sideways in his chair. His eyes were closing and his head was nodding as he started to doze off.

  “You are so tired all the time, aren’t you, precious one?” Mary Sue said.

  She walked over to the counter to retrieve Joshua’s sippy cup. After hunting for it for a few seconds, she found it behind the toaster and gave it to Joshua. But after a sip, he made a face and spit it out. Then he rubbed his eyes.

  “No, momma, no…”

  “Don’t you want any more?” Mary Sue asked, moving her hand along his baby-soft cheek.

  Outside, Joe fired up his tractor and drove out along the track that led to the barns and outbuildings. He was already past the buildings and beside the back forty acres when something caught the corner of his eye.

  He put the tractor into neutral and studied the horizon.

  Off in the distance along the road leading to their house, he saw a cloud of dust spiraling up into the air from three cars that were approaching. He could see the squad lights on top of the first two. As he looked closer, he could see they were from the sheriff’s department. The third car was plain brown, and it looked like it was one of the Juda County government vehi
cles.

  Joe snatched the walkie-talkie.

  “Mary Sue, listen up—we’ve got trouble coming down the road.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two squad cars from the sheriff’s department—and another car from the county. Heading right toward the house.”

  “Joe, we’ve got to do something.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I’d be willing to bet they’ve got some kind of legal paper for us. That’s the way it happened when my uncle’s farm got foreclosed. Just like this. Double squads from the sheriff’s department.”

  “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said, his voice tense.

  “No one’s going to take Josh away from me, you hear? No one!” Mary Sue cried out.

  “Mary Sue, calm down. Nobody’s talking about taking Josh. I’m just going to tell them to get off my property until I can talk to a lawyer.”

  “Joe, what if they’re coming for my little boy? You don’t know—we can’t take any chances.”

  Joe paused for a second. He knew that this was a defining moment. One of the make-or-break events that jumps into your path like a deer at night, right in front of your car while you’re doing sixty. With little warning, and barely time for anything except instinctive reaction.

  “Until I find something out…” Joe said—and by now he had his tractor in fourth gear and was heading back to the house at a healthy speed—“you’d better take Josh out the back door. Take the truck, and the two of you get off the property through the back pasture and across the creek. Head out to the state highway. Then call me later to make sure the coast is clear before coming home.”

  Mary Sue grabbed Joshua, who already had been startled by the tone of the conversation. She snatched the truck keys and headed for the back door—but thought better of it and ran upstairs.

  Sprinting into Joshua’s bedroom, she picked up his soft-sider bag and threw in some of his t-shirts, training pants, and jeans. Then, carrying her little boy under one arm and his bag under the other, she hurried down to the master bedroom, where she grabbed her make-up case, some underwear, and a pile of unfolded clothes that lay in a laundry basket and stuffed it all in a laundry bag.