It was always the children that seemed to be the victims. I didn't know why I was reflecting on this, yet again, as I had many times before, but I was. And I knew Phil was, too, even if he hadn't said anything about it yet .What we'd just witnessed…well, to put it shortly, it was something I never wanted to see again. A child had died solely because her parents' religious beliefs dictated to them that modern medicine was, well…evil. Or rather, that they didn't, and shouldn't, believe in it.
And not for the first time since the case had officially begun, I found myself thanking God that I had not been raised that way. Ironic, I knew, but still. The way my childhood had been, if my parents hadn't believed in modern medicine…It wouldn't have been pretty. That much I knew for sure. At least Dinah Driscoll had had parents that had actually cared about her .That much I could say for 'em. And as much as I hated to admit it, you could tell just by looking at 'em that that little girl had been their entire world, and then some.
But now she was gone. Neglect? Maybe. Ben Stone had thought so, and had garnered himself a conviction. Abuse? My way of thinking said yes, but something inside of me told me no. Maybe Phil had been right, I thought. Religion had nothing to do with how much a parent loved a child. But manslaughter? Considering the Driscolls had known their child was sick and had yet done nothing to help her constituted it in one way, but not in others. Once more, I was left wondering. But it didn't change the fact that a child had still been the victim, and where usually it didn't matter to me, it always did when that was the case.
I wondered briefly if it was because I had been in the same situation many of our child victims were in, and dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it had come. This was why, I mused wryly, I would never be able to handle being in a unit such as the so-called Special Victims Unit. Aptly named, I thought: it had been said many times over that children were the world's most precious natural resource, and while I had never been one to become philosophical or whatever on the subject, I felt in many ways that it was true. They were the ones that would carry on long after the rest of us had already passed on and what were we doing? Denying them medical care, beating the hell out of them, leaving them to die, to fend for themselves…Convinced that they could take care of themselves, and that they did not need us, we were doing more harm than good.
Then again, that was what the police were for, or so many people said. I bit back the sudden, mad desire to laugh at this. That was what we were for? I nearly scoffed at the thought. No. That wasn't what we were for. That was what parents were for, to take care of their kids and teach them wrong from right and whatever else it was that children were supposed to be taught before they were thrust out into the world to handle everything on their own. Dinah had been about five years old. Just old enough to start becoming truly curious about things, instead of the usual 'why' that came from children any younger than that age. She had asked her parents about a doctor. To my mind, that was something, but to the law…well…Ben left me the precinct, and the streets, and the actual footwork; I would leave him the courtrooms. It wasn't really my place to worry about it; all I needed to know was that I did my job and did it well, if only by my own standards.
I wondered what Phil was thinking, if only for the fact that he had still not said anything to me, but that wasn't all. I myself had no children of my own, yet had somewhat of a soft spot for them; he, on the other hand, had five, and I knew damn well that this had probably affected him more than it had me. I was halfway to joking that maybe he should take a turn with Dr. Olivet when something in his expression when he finally looked up from our ever-present paperwork and over at me. It was something I had never seen before. I wondered for a moment if he was finally seeing that maybe things weren't always the way he thought they would be, then realized, albeit slowly, that he was older than me and had probably figured this one out a long time ago. But it wasn't that. He seemed…almost hurt that something like this could happen, and where I had just been ticked off, something about the way I was thinking he was feeling made all that anger disappear, and I realized that I'd probably done more thinking about this in these past five minutes than I had during the course of the investigation.
It was ironic, and I knew it. I had long ago been characterized as the one who'd jump in feet first without looking to see where the hell I was actually going, and here I was, sitting at my desk, where I was supposed to be finishing paperwork, and I was instead sitting around thinking about some random case that had not only shaken me, but Phil, who never really seemed to be shaken about anything, but apparently, the child cases got to him a little bit more than they got to me. I couldn't blame him. Sure, his youngest might've been only a few years older than our victim, but at least he knew that his children were in a place where nothing they needed would be denied them. Other children in the city were not always as sure that they'd get what they wanted, much less needed. It made me sick in more ways than one, made me want to do something, but as it was, I was only a cop, and so was Phil; there was only so much we could do before the effects of burnout started coming, and we knew it, so we did what we could, and sometimes more, if we could manage to pull it off.
But it still didn't change the fact that a child always seemed to be the victim no matter what case we were working. And for every child that was a victim, there was a child safe at home, with someone who loved them, and would provide for them no matter what.
Even so, at times like these, the scales always seemed to be tipped in the former situation's favor.