Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  “Can I help you?” a pimply faced teenaged boy asked, as he stood next to Phillip staring at the array of choices. His Walmart smock was too big and he hadn’t yet grown into his hands and feet, but he seemed at ease working both sides of the counter.

  Phillip looked him in the eye and the boy smiled back. “We sure have a lot of phones, don’t we?”

  “Yes, you do. Too many.” The need for so many choices made Phillip very uneasy.

  “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

  “Something simple to use. Nothing fancy. I want to be able to add minutes by paying cash. I need voice and typing.”

  “You mean texting?” the kid replied.

  “Yes, that’s what I meant.” Phillip had to work hard at not being defensive. He decided this boy was like the lady at the front entrance, just helping—not a threat.

  After a few minutes, Phillip chose the cell that the clerk recommended and paid for it there at the register in the electronics department. The clerk put in the battery, activated it, and taught him how to use the keypad. On his way back to the front of the store, he found a white lanyard in the school supply department along with some magic markers, a glue stick, and a package of white construction paper. Mission accomplished. He checked out and retrieved his belongings from customer service. He wondered if he was the only one who looked through his bag to make sure everything was still there before taking the bus back to the Red Apple.

  Later that evening, Phillip was seated hunched over his desk in his motel room. He was hard at work under the only lit lamp in the room. He had already used the magic marker to color the lanyard midnight blue—the same color as the ones the state employees used. He cut out a copy of a State ID he found on the internet at the library with the Sheffield staghorn-handled carving knife from David’s dining room. He used the copy as a template to create his own.

  For the first time since moving in, he had the windows open in his room. The drapes billowed in the gentle breeze of a cool summer night. Above the street noise drifting in, David’s words reverberated in his mind: “Every day means something on the outside; every completed task means something.”

  If only David could see me now.

  Chapter 24

  The next morning, David and Annie were eating their cereals of choice together in the dining room, watching the squirrels plot to empty the birdfeeder. It was their daily ritual before going off to work—one upstairs, one downstairs. Christy had left for school to take his last final exam before being set free for the summer. David rose from his chair at the screech of the boiling kettle in the kitchen. He was pouring hot water into a cup of Irish Breakfast tea for Annie when the landline started to ring. David glanced at the base station on the far counter. A nameless telephone number flashed red on the caller ID screen.

  “Who’s calling?” Annie asked.

  “No name. I don’t recognize the number. Probably a robocall looking to sell us a timeshare. Fat chance.”

  Annie snickered as she lifted a spoonful of Corn Chex cereal to her mouth. With Christy looking at colleges, there was no room for indulgences in the Thompson budget.

  “I’ll get it,” David said. “It will just take me a sec to verify it and block the number.”

  “Okay,” Annie shrugged at the opportunity to avoid a confrontation. She was a people pleaser, even with telemarketers, so David got to be the bad guy.

  David picked up the handset. “Hello?” he said in his best formal, discouraging voice.

  “Good morning, David. You’ll never guess who this is.”

  David recognized the voice. It’s Boris. He mentally bit his tongue. “Ah . . . Phillip, is that you?”

  Annie lifted her gaze out of her cereal bowl. Questions broadcast from her countenance with the lift of one brow.

  “Yes,” Phillip smugly replied.

  “But this is not your motel number. I hear traffic in the background. Are you at a pay phone?” Where in the world did Phillip find a pay phone? David was trying to get one step ahead of the situation.

  “No, I bought myself a cheap cell phone.” Now he truly sounded pleased with himself.

  “Really? Where did you get it?” David reminded himself not to be confrontational. Aim for casual interest.

  “Walmart. I went out into the outside world yesterday.”

  “Okay. Where are you, by the way?”

  “Are you surprised?” Phillip sounded like a kid with a frog in his pocket.

  “You never cease to surprise me, Phillip.”

  “Aren’t you proud of me for leaving my room and figuring it all out?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am.” David suddenly felt as if he was having a conversation with a grade schooler. “I guess right now I’m more worried about you than anything.” At that moment, David realized the depths of his dilemma. While he was worried about Phillip, he was terrified of Boris. His head spun as he contemplated the double whammy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which was worse, the convicted murderer or the sociopath scientist?

  “You can’t have it both ways, David. You can’t want to get me out of my room and then worry about me when I do.”

  “You’re right. Sorry, I’m a parent and that line of thinking is par for the course. Look, we can talk about this when I see you. I don’t want to burn up your cell minutes. Now where are you?”

  “At a bus stop. I just missed an express bus going downtown. I’m waiting for the next one.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to pay a visit to Commissioner O’Neil.”

  “What?” Suddenly David’s hair was standing on end. “Are you crazy?” So much for the casual approach.

  Annie pushed away her cereal bowl, dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and turned her full attention to David’s conversation.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Phillip snorted. “Not any crazier than any other guy locked in a box for thirty years.”

  “Is this an arranged visit?” David was grasping at straws as he desperately hunted for a way to sideline this runaway train. “Do you have an appointment to see him?”

  “Hell no. You think he’d see me if I called to make an appointment? I’m the last person on earth he wants to see.”

  “What do you plan to do when you get there?” David felt like a police dispatcher, frantically trying to keep the perp on the line while he contrived a plan.

  “I want to talk to O’Neil and then we’ll take it from there.”

  Oh, boy. David felt his stomach plummet. “What do you mean, ‘take it from there’?”

  “You know, play it by ear . . . .”

  “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” David tried to keep a light, interested tone while he pumped Phillip for details.

  “When I talk to people, sometimes my memory is jarred and things come back to me,” Phillip continued earnestly. “I think O’Neil is behind all of these incidents, all of my problems. If I confront him and fix things, maybe I can have a life on the outside. It’s my only chance.”

  “There has to be another way.” David felt sweat beading on his upper lip and in his palm where he gripped the portable phone.

  “I don’t see one now.” Phillip wasn’t mad, just matter of fact.

  “You said to me once that with time things have a way of working themselves out.” David found himself wishing for another decade or so to sort out this mess.

  “Not this time around. You know, the more time passes, the better your chances get of dying right alongside of me.”

  “Phillip, don’t say things like that.” Careful now. Don’t provoke him, just stall.

  “I call them as I see them. Always have, always will.”

  “Please tell me you’re not going to hurt him.”

  David’s request was met with static from the cheap phone and the sound of traffic whooshing down Central Avenue. “Phillip, are you going to hurt him?” Don’t hang up; please don’t hang up on me. Now David knew what it felt like to be a mother coaxing her dared
evil kid off the third-floor roofline.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Anyway, it’s my decision; it’s my life. I just wanted to call and say thank you in case things don’t work out. You are a good friend to put up with me and to try and straighten me out. Your family is wonderful and you’re very lucky to have them. Please thank them for me.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s my only option. You know as well as I do that they’ll either put me in the box again or they’ll kill me here on the outside. Two different means that lead to the same end. I will not survive the box this next time around. Hope used to give me a reason to survive the box because I believed I was innocent. Now that I know differently, I’ll have no hope. The system will win this time around. I will not die in the box if I can help it.”

  “There has to be another way out of this mess.”

  “I don’t think there is and I can’t take you, Annie, and Christy on a trip through hell to find it. You deserve better than trying to fix all the mistakes I’ve made in my life. I know I’m not the same person that I was when I killed Officer Carlson. I know I’m a much better man now than when I was nineteen. But that doesn’t make any difference to anyone else. I’ll always be a cop-killer in the eyes of other people, no matter how hard I work to change myself for the better. That one day, that one bad choice out of all the questionable choices I ever made, will define me for the rest of my life. I don’t want that one day to destroy you in the process. You’re a good man, David Thompson.”

  “Phillip, you need to listen to me now.”

  Click.

  “Are you still there? Phillip?”

  David looked at Annie in disbelief. “He hung up.” The phone lay in his limp hand at his side, now giving off a dial tone.

  Annie stood up and quickly stepped over to David in the kitchen. She took his free hand and tilted her head to one side as she inspected his face. Her forehead crinkled; her lips pursed like one of David’s Cheerios for a few seconds. “What’s going on, David?”

  Her voice was gentle, but implacable. He could almost hear the Wife Gears turning in her head. Busted. David didn’t want to say a thing to Annie about the SNAFU with Phillip. He wanted to just let things play out. He felt that Commissioner O’Neil and Boris Dietrich deserved one another. Perhaps their meeting would settle some of the issues facing and threatening him and his family. Maybe Commissioner O’Neil would arrest or kill Boris and that would be the end of all of his problems. If Boris managed to kill O’Neil—well, that would work too, as long as Boris shared the same fate or was arrested promptly for the murder. In either scenario, Boris would be out of David’s life and the system might then choose to leave him and his family alone.

  “Who is Phillip going to hurt?” Annie asked.

  David sighed. He had said too much during the phone conversation. “The Commissioner of the Bureau of Prisons.”

  “What?” Annie looked appalled.

  David looked down. “You heard me right.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would Phillip hurt him?”

  “He believes the commissioner is behind all of his troubles.”

  “Why does he think that?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, you better make this long story short because we’ve got to hurry to help Phillip out.”

  David’s eyes popped and he swallowed with a gulp. He didn’t expect that Annie would be so quick to jump in and help out. “I don’t think I should get involved, Annie. You heard me—I tried to talk him out of paying this guy a visit. But he didn’t want to listen. It’s Phillip’s choice at this point.”

  “We’ve got to do something, David. He’s a good friend. Why he’s almost a member of our family.”

  David rolled his eyes and prepared to step deeper into the hot mess his day had become.

  “What’s wrong, David?” She let go of his hand and put both hands on her hips. “This is not like you. The David I know would be in the car right now on his way to help Phillip.”

  “Maybe the David you know doesn’t want to get himself killed. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.”

  “You’re expecting an awful lot from Phillip. He doesn’t know how to act in our world. He’s been in solitary for so long.”

  David thought it was time to come clean. Maybe a little dose of truth would change her mind. “Annie, there are some things you don’t know about Phillip.”

  “Really? Like what?” Annie asked skeptically.

  “Phillip believes he killed that police officer—”

  “What?” Annie shifted from skeptical directly into disbelief.

  “You heard me right.”

  “You said he was innocent. He must be innocent or they wouldn’t have let him go.”

  “Phillip believes they let him go so he could help them come after me.”

  “What? Why would they come after you? Who’s they?” Annie snapped.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Come after you for what?” Now she was like a dog with a bone.

  “Maybe because of my views on solitary. Maybe something else.”

  “When did Phillip tell you this?”

  “After the hearing. That night at our house.”

  Annie leaned back against the kitchen counter as if the news had taken the wind out of her. Shaking her head, she continued, “This doesn’t make any sense. I can’t believe he killed that officer.”

  “He firmly believes that he did.”

  “And how was he going to come after you?”

  “He said he was sent to kill me.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything. Did he ever threaten you in any way?” Annie’s voice vibrated with annoyance.

  “Not directly, no.”

  “What do you mean by that, David?”

  “He did say he had dreams about killing me.”

  “When were you going to tell me this?”

  “I think I just did.”

  “Well, dreams don’t necessarily mean anything.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “David, don’t you see he’s mixed up?”

  “Of course I see it.”

  “I don’t care what Phillip believes at this point. You need to help him.”

  “Annie, are you okay? That doesn’t sound like you. I thought you’d be angry with me for not telling you about this sooner.”

  “Don’t think that I’m not. No time for that now. We’ll get back to it. Right now you’ve got to do something to protect Phillip and that state guy—the commissioner.”

  David couldn’t believe that Annie wanted him to get involved. She didn’t comprehend the potential dangers. “What do you want me to do, Annie?”

  “Do you think you have time to beat Phillip to the commissioner’s office?”

  “Maybe. Phillip is waiting for a bus to take him to downtown Albany. That’s where the commissioner’s office is located. I might be able to intercept him before he gets there.”

  “Do it then. Get a wiggle on.”

  “But you need to know something else, Annie.” Now David wanted to make sure Annie knew everything before he raced down to O’Neil’s office on a rescue mission.

  “What now?”

  “Phillip may not be Phillip.”

  She looked at him with an exasperated huff. “Seriously? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Phillip might really be someone by the name of Boris Dietrich.”

  “What? God, you’re making my head hurt. What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain it to you, but I’m not sure where to begin. It’s complicated.”

  “Stop, David. We don’t have time. Answer me this: Do you think it’s possible that Phillip didn’t kill the officer?”

  “Why yes, I suppose—”

  “And do you think—I can’t believe I’m saying this—do you think Phillip might really be Phillip and not this Boris guy?”

  “Yes,
that’s possible.”

  “Do you agree that no matter what, Phillip is not the same man he was thirty years ago?”

  “Yes, assuming he is Phillip.”

  “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

  “But Annie, there’s a whole lot more to this than meets the eye.” He wanted to tell her about MK-Ultra and that the CIA black ops guys might be involved in trying to kill him.

  “Now answer me this, David: If something happens to Phillip and you’re wrong about all this stuff, will you be able to live with yourself?”

  “I’d feel awful for sure.”

  “Me too. And what about Christy? How do you think he’d feel? He’s close to Phillip, you know.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You’d better get going, David. Do you want me to come with you?”

  David’s mouth hung open. His stomach was doing somersaults. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten himself into this mess in the first place. Now he couldn’t believe Annie was pushing him to do a search and rescue operation. But he knew deep down she was right. He couldn’t live with himself if he was wrong about Phillip. If he was wrong, Christy and Annie might never forgive him either.

  “David? Snap out of it and work with me here. The clock is ticking.”

  David swung into action. “No, we can’t risk both of our lives. One of us has to stay safe for the sake of Christy. You stay here.”

  “Okay. Please be careful, David. Don’t forget your cell.”

  “I’ve got it in my pocket. I just need my wallet and my keys.” He thought about grabbing his Civil War Sharps carbine—the only gun he owned. But he suspected that running around the streets of Albany, or inside the state office building, with a rifle in his hand might just get him killed. David bolted to the hall closet and shook his coat as he lifted it from the hanger. He felt his wallet bump in the pocket and heard his keys jingle. “I’m all set,” David said as he stormed toward the door.