The Grey Ghost

by Nicholas Cara

  Before he could respond, Kate interrupted him.

  “Joe, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, but I’ve been worried about you so long. I thought I’d lost you after the accident,” Kate said fighting back the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. “I’ve got you back and you are going to take care of yourself you hear me or I’ll…Well…I don’t know what I’ll do, but you won’t like it!” she said hotly jamming her index finger square into his chest.

  “OK…OK…relax Sweetie. I promise no more mountain climbing for at least a week,” Joe joked looking back at the angry stare on Kate’s face. “You know you must really like me to get that huffy!”

  “Oh, don’t tempt the storm my sweet soldier,” Kate said putting her hand over his on his one crutch as they started again in the direction of the bus-stop.

  “Kate, can I ask a favor?” Joe asked as they waked along the path.

  “Sure Joe what is it?” she responded.

  “Just… please… let off the soldier bit. I left the soldier part of me back over there…I’m just…Well I guess I’m just Joe now,” he said.

  “Just Joe…hmmm…you know what?” Kate said into the evening sky.

  “What?” Joe questioned.

  “That’s always been more than enough for me,” Kate said squeezing the top of his hand a little tighter.

  As the young lovers traveled the campus lost in their feelings neither of them noticed a pair of villainous eyes tracking them from a third story window of Hardaway Hall. The thick glass spectacles of Dr. Mark Rosán reflected the unknowing travelers as he sat at his office window staring at the couple. Leaning back in his worn leather chair, Rosán closed his eyes in irritation, the two trouble makers had ended the argument he had started with Professor Stone much too early, cutting his little fact finding mission short.

  “The old fool called them little trinkets. Is it possible there really wasn’t anything else of importance found in that dusty cave?” Rosán said quietly to himself. “Or was he simply talking about the artifacts he knew he had sent ahead? Would he trust that carrier pigeon with anything of real importance?”

  “Well boss, the stuff we got from the kid seems pretty valuable I’m a thinkin,” a pitchy voice slurred from the back of his office.

  “Does it now? My dear simpleton, unless those crates were filled with dime novels and gum I kindly ask that you keep your idiotic opinions to yourself!” Rosán sneered to the thin form of Wiggy Gregs. “Your services have already failed me in the most elementary of assignments.”

  “Boss, I told ya it wasn’t my fault, see I was trying to get the kid in the van and I didn’t mean to say Vega’s name and…” Wiggy started sniveling before he was cuffed across the back of his head by a large paw of a hand.

  “Shut your yap Wigs… you talk too much,” came a dark voice belonging to the large hand.

  Collecting himself from the ground Wiggy tried to straighten his long ago stained and terribly ill-fitting gray suit. Looking up at his assailant with the cower of a disciplined puppy, Wiggy eyed the giant standing in the corner of the room. Dressed in a clean tailored black suit with his face half covered from a matching fedora, the large form almost disappeared into the late day shadows. Wiggy whined rubbing his head. “Sure Mr. Vega, sure…”

  “Thank you, Mr. Vega,” Rosán said with approval turning his chair around to again face the window only to find the young couple no longer on the quad’s sidewalk.

  “Never mind Stone’s overreaching little princess and her knuckle dragger. Its doubtful Stone has told them anything. He’s still too worried about his little assistant and that is to my advantage. The fool hasn’t even filed a single report to the board since his return,” Rosán thought.

  “Yes, well I believe we can make your recklessness with the young Mr. Paloski turn to our advantage,” Rosán said slowly turning back to his accomplices. “The disappearance and mysterious fate of his student seems to be all encumbering to our dear Professor Stone. That mystery must stay unresolved for the time being.”

  “Cumbering? What?” questioned Wiggy with a glass-eyed quizzical look until a grunt from Vega immediately silenced the question in his throat.

  “So you want us to keep the… kid… out of sight for a while?” Vega said comprehending the Doctor’s meaning.

  “Yes Mr. Vega. Since we were not able to ascertain anything of real importance from the boy, we will use him still to the best of our ability. The longer that he is a distraction the more preoccupied Stone will be. This should give us more time to unearth what mysterious item they really did find over there. In the young man’s telegraph I intercepted, he over enthusiastically called it a chest of magic. I seriously doubt he was talking about one of the clay pots he was transporting,” Rosán said smiling in spite of himself.

  “Fine, we’ll keep the kid under wraps for now, but just remember Doc,” Vega grumbled starting to walk to the back door, “We are only helping you on this little ‘side project’ for so long. Minos expects the results that were promised.”

  The name Minos echoed softly in the office causing a small line of unease to wash over Rosán’s usual overly confident expression.

  Quickly gathering himself, Rosán replied, “No worries my large friend. All of the plans are being constructed as we speak.”

  Looking away from the exiting giant and stooge, Rosán gazed over to a large drafting table off to the side of his desk. On the table, laid skewed and blotted with ink, were blueprints, geological maps, and a scatter of news articles from a distant newspaper titled the Tacoma Times. The images headlining one of the front pages brought a devious smile to Rosán’s face.

  “Doctor…” Vega grumbled returning Rosán’s attention to the exiting giant. “Remember…I ain’t no one’s friend…” With that Vega slowly opened the office door and left with the cowering Wiggy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Having made it roughly intact through combat, Joe never thought he’d consider himself a prisoner of war back in his own house. However, upon hearing of his over-exertion with his “simple” trip into the city, Joe’s mother considerably cracked down on his movements.

  “Traitor,” Joe had whispered underneath his breathe to Kate.

  “You’ll thank me later…” Kate had smiled back fully aware of what she had started in motion.

  “Now Joseph, don’t be hard headed,” his mother constantly berated him as both she and Benedict-Kathryn followed nearly every one of his activities.

  “Well at least Kate’s schoolwork keeps her busy during the day. One warden is enough at a time,” Joe muttered sitting at the kitchen table as his mother fixed dinner. Even small acts were seen as too strenuous for the wounded patient, so he quietly sat watching.

  “That girl has worked so hard to get into that program,” Vera replied. “I couldn’t believe all the hassle she had to go through when you were gone.”

  “Well the last thing I need her to do is jeopardize that to help this poor slug get around the living room,” Joe announced laughing. “Here I was thinking I was the one having all the excitement and making all of the enemies overseas. I bet there are a few professors at C-Stone that wish her pretty face was the one sent to fight the Germans and not little old me after all she’s put them through to get accepted.”

  “Well you know that girl, she’s not going to do all that work for a simple pat on the back,” Vera remarked stirring the tomato sauce.

  Joe sat thinking of the women Kate had told him that she had found in her reading. Women like Mary Engle Pennington and Nora Barney; women who had so many obstacles put in their way while trying to get their degrees or even respect in their fields just because of their gender. The impractically of some the hurdles they had to jump through had baffled him. The injustice of it had burned him when Kate told him about how Pennington, who even after completing the same amount of courses as her male counterparts at her school, was left with an almost worthless certificate of completion instead of a degree.


  Joe knew that getting her full degree was incredibly important to Kate, so it wasn’t too surprising to him when she explained the hard campaign she had fought through similar barriers blocking her way into the engineering school. Kate is easily the smartest person Joe ever met; straight A’s even in classes like calculus and physics and that silly school was actually going to deny her admission into the department simply because she was a girl. However, after an entire summer of meetings between Kate and the board of admissions they finally relented, but only after the local press had run a story on her and her fight for admission.

  “Nothing like great publicity to make the vultures happy. How’d the paper find out so quickly about your troubles,” Joe said peering at Kate.

  “I’m not sure,” Kate said with a sly smile. “Must’ve been from a little birdie.”

  The sounds of a bird calling outside the window brought Joe back to the present in the kitchen.

  “Yeah a little birdie, not likely…” Joe thought looking out the window at the little caller. “If that girl thinks I’m going to let her spend all of her time babying me instead of working at school after all that, she’s crazier than the fox I know she.”

  This reason, along with a considerable amount of ego swallowing, spoon fed by his mother's constant worrying, had guilted Joe a few weeks back to agree to something he had sworn he would not do once he got back home, use a wheelchair. Even now, Joe still found it very hard to move past the feeling of helplessness the use of a wheelchair represented to him. Over time and against his own reservations he had to admit to himself that the longer he was home, the more damage the crutches were doing to his body, especially on his shoulders. This, coupled with his family's obsessive worrying about him falling all over the place, slowly broke Joe's resolve on the matter and now here he sat rolling back and forth across the living room.

  “Well at least this rolling monstrosity has gotten you two to agree to let me head into town to meet with the Captain. Patsy won’t stop bringing it up every time I see him. When you going to see the Cap? He’s bugging me if I asked ya if you are coming in Joe, go see the Cap. Over and over again, who knew Robinson was in such a rush to officially boot me out the door,” said Joe.

  Joe knew that the conversation with Captain Robinson could only go one way, losing his badge. And without anywhere near the amount of years needed for a pension, Joe wasn’t in any hurry for that pat on the back and swift kick out the door. So complain as he might, Joe secretly thanked his girls for being that excuse keeping him from heading down to Police Plaza.

  “I guess every dream has to end sometime…and there is only so much dreaming I think I’m allowed anymore,” Joe sadly thought reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out his wallet, rubbing his thumb over the police badge pinned to the front of it.

  “You know little Nic-Nac they might need a potato peeler over there at the station,” said Joe’s mother as she walked up behind him noticing the badge in his hand. “I can’t remember anyone ever breezing through a basket that quickly.”

  Seeing how his mother was trying to break him from one of the moods he very often found himself in lately, Joe replied looking back at his mother.

  “I will not bore nor shock you my dear lady on the details of how your son became so proficient at peeling these little things. Needless to say if I could reach them I could clean every toilet in this house to a mirror shine with only a toothbrush.”

  The two shared a laugh as Vera remarked how she would love to see that, brightening the mood as the two made their way out of the kitchen to be with their guests.

  “You know son, both your father and I know that things are going to be… well are different for you. I know it’s easier said than done, but we just want you to remember to not only focus on the bad,” Joe’s mother told him as he softly turned his head to the living room. There stood Kate pouring coffee for both of their fathers as they were visiting.

  “There’s still a lot of good in your life, son, a lot of good.”

  Noticing them in the living room doorway, Kate flashed one of her million dollar smiles in Joe’s direction. It amazed Joe that a simple smile from that lady could always lift his spirits, no matter how bad he was feeling.

  “She’s a good girl, you know,” Joe’s mother whispered to him as they entered the room. “The kind of girl that can make you forget your troubles son. The kind of girl that can help a man get his footing again…”

  A few days later Joe slowly rolled inside the front door of Police Plaza 1. The small building was situated between the old court house, now mainly used as a holding station, and the Capital City Firehouse located on the corner of 79th Street and 59th Street. The station is so small compared to its neighboring buildings that if you didn’t know it was there you could easily miss it.

  "Might as well get here early and get off the Captain's plate," Joe thought smiling at Judy as he wheeled himself by the secretary's high desk.

  "Son, you're going to have to sign in here," Judy said stretching over the counter at Joe with a clipboard and pencil in her right hand. "Everyone is quite busy this early in the morning but someone will get to you shortly."

  "Judy, it’s me Joe...Joe Bevine," Joe said with a pleading look in in his eyes begging the older woman to remember his face. Joe was sadly disappointed to find not a hint of recognition on the gray haired secretary's face.

  "Bevino?" Judy incorrectly repeated. "I'm sorry son. That doesn't ring any bells. Please just sign in and I'll get somebody to help you."

  "Well it’s great to see you too," Joe grumpily thought as he reached into his inside coat pocket and removed his bill fold flipping his badge and identification to Judy.

  "Ma’am, I have a meeting with the Captain. Please don't get up. I remember where his office is," Joe said with as much gusto as he could as Judy started to rise to seemingly escort him to the Captain's office. Joe had tried to keep his voice at a pleasant tone when talking to Judy. However, as he wheeled around the desk he caught himself thinking that he had just now sounded like a character from a corny radio serial.

  Before Judy could respond any further Joe quickly rolled past the large oak desk and down the main hall toward a sign labeled “Booking.” The Captain's office was at the end of the hall on the right. When the building was originally constructed, the second story’s layout had been particularly planned for high ranking officials such as the Captain. Those completely furnished offices allowed an escape from the chaos of the central booking pen and any of the day-to-day operations of the police station. However, Joe’s Captain was a creature of a different nature then that of his fellow executive officials. James Robinson had risen up the ranks from a simple beat cop, and those early days had left their mark on him. Never wanting an outlet from the real action of police work, Captain Robinson had converted a large closet near the booking pen into his office instead of taking one of the upper floor estates.

  "I always wondered why the Captain had even accepted the promotion taking him off the streets; the extra brass has never seemed to agree with him," Joe thought as he rolled down the long hallway.

  Joe had expected the precinct to be running on a skeleton crew this early in the morning; however the emptiness of the halls and offices surprised him. He had intentionally decided to come and see the Captain early in the morning. Remembering the Captain was an early riser, Joe was counting on him being in his office earlier than most of the precinct, going over the daily duty schedule. Joe had hoped to time it correctly to skip the formalities of being welcomed back by almost every gumshoe on the force, especially since those greetings would be at the same time short lived.

  Reaching the far door with the words "Captain James D. Robinson" stenciled across the fogged glass, Joe wrapped the doorframe and slowly pushed the door open to see inside. There, popping above a large stack of folders and papers appeared the bearded face of Captain James Robinson. A little grayer around the temples and chin than Joe had remembered him, but the same steely bl
ue eyes met Joe’s with a sign of recognition.

  “Bevine, why in heaven’s name did it take you so long to get down here!” Captain Robinson chided standing up from his desk. Expecting a greeting from his long-time supervisor, the remark had taken Joe aback, leaving him sitting with a confused look on his face as the Captain moved closer to him in the small office to shake his hand.

  “Did he want to get rid of me that quickly? What’s the rush?” Joe thought to himself.

  “Well sir, Patsy has been on me constantly to report to you since I came back,” Joe started.

  “I would hope so; I’ve only been reminding him daily,” Robinson interrupted. “I was worried you were worse off than what he was telling us since it took so long for you to report in.”

  “Worse off? Worse off than what? Has the old man lost his sight while I was gone?” Joe caught himself before he blurted out the thought. Joe’s respect for Captain Robinson was without question; the Captain had earned it on numerous occasions and definitely didn’t deserve any cheek from him.

  The Captain took a small step back in order to take a long inspecting look at Joe. The way the Captain was looking at Joe’s leg and scratching his small beard made Joe’s skin crawl. He felt like a car being inspected for damage after an accident, slightly expecting the Captain to kick the wheels of his chair to check the pressure. Joe quickly looked away from his supervising officer’s gaze.

  “Well son, I hope you took a few of them first,” the Captain said returning to his desk chair, nearly blocked again by the stack of folders.

  “Yeah well…sort of,” replied Joe.

  Not wanting to postpone it any longer Joe started, “Sir, let’s not beat around the bush with niceties here. We both know why you wanted me to come down here and I just want you to know that I don’t hold it against you. I understand what you have to do.”