“The bigshot record producer who had some commune going in his Hollywood Hills mansion and eventually got tagged for unlawful sexual intercourse with minors?”Hutch asked, hoping like fuck there was another Frank Groove out there.
“That’s the one.”
Goddammit.
Lee kept hitting him with it.
“Mabel’s mother was a part of that commune.Probably won’t surprise you, she got wound up in it when she was seventeen.At that time, Groove was forty-seven.The mom was there for a while.Three men, five women, eventually several children.They had CPS called on them repeatedly, considering Frank and his followers were busy taking drugs, getting drunk, and fucking, so the kids ran wild.”
“Please tell me they were taken off them,” Hutch begged.
“Sorry to say, I can’t do that.Groove explained to the authorities that people were animals.Once weaned, animals learned how to survive in the wild.So that’s what he expected of those kids, if you can call them having the run of a huge mansion ‘the wild.’Nevertheless, the authorities saw they were fed.They were healthy.They had nice clothes, if they were often dirty.But they ate what they could get their hands on, or someone might make them a meal.They took baths only when someone remembered to tell them to.Shit like that.”
Hutch closed his eyes at the thought that this had been Mabel’s life growing up.
He opened them when Lee continued speaking.
“One of the men was a teacher, so he taught them to read, write, add, but he did it whenever it took his fancy, until the state of California decided their version of homeschooling wasn’t actually homeschooling, and they had to prove they were educating those kids.In other words, at every turn, Groove slid by and kept doing what he was doing.And there were allegations he greased some palms if that didn’t look like it’d go his way.”
“I hope there’s an ‘until.’”
“There is.Mabel’s mom got tagged during a drug bust.It wasn’t her first arrest.It was her sixth.They threw the book at her.Considering she wrote ‘unknown’ as father on Mabel’s birth certificate, her child was taken from Groove and given to Mabel’s mother’s brother.This was before the rape charge.”
“Thank fuck.”
“No, Hutch,” Lee said quietly.“This is where it gets worse.”
Worse than being messed up in Frank Groove’s commune?
Hutch hung his head.
But he listened.
“Mabel’s uncle was an evangelical preacher.”He paused.“The fire and brimstone kind.”
“Motherfucker,” Hutch whispered.
“You can imagine, getting his hands on a ten-year-old wild child did not fit into his tidy religious life.”
Good Christ.
He saw them.
Fucking hell.
He’d touched them.
Mabel had scars on her back.Only a few, and they were thin.
They could be anything.
Including the results of a whipping.
“She was with him for three years,” Lee said.“He legally changed her name to Grace Maine.His last name.Her mother’s.Mabel’s mom got out, pushed to get her girl back, didn’t have much luck, until, during a visitation, Mabel shared what was going down at her uncle’s house.”
“He whipped her.”
“With a belt, yes.”
