Jack Keller - 01 - The Devil's Right Hand

by J. D. Rhoades

  Berry’s voice was steady. “Then what happened?”

  Keller straightened up. “I left.”

  “She say anything to you?”

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “She asked me what was wrong.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  Keller shook his head. “I just left.”

  “You ran.” Berry said it without anger or accusation; his voice was flat and matter of fact. Keller started to protest, then just nodded. “Yeah.”

  “She mean anything to you? This woman?” Berry asked.

  Keller thought for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What had been going on between you? Before the dream?”

  Keller looked at him. “We were making love.”

  “Before that, then.”

  “We were—she had asked me about my family.”

  Berry raised an eyebrow. “And you told her?”

  “A little, yeah. Just the basics.”

  Berry whistled. “That’s serious progress, Jack,” he said.

  “Yeah, but..”

  Berry cut him off. “You’re starting to open up to someone. That’s good. It’s a damn sight better than the way you were when you saw me five years ago. Then, you were…” he trailed off.

  “What?” Keller said. “I was what?”

  Berry looked straight at him. “You were the walking dead, Jack. You’d cut yourself off from everything. I was kind of amazed when you called. I was amazed that you were still alive.”

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “Well, I guess I’m better now.”

  “A little,” Berry agreed. “But some of the stuff you’ve been cramming down into the back of your head for years is coming out. Believe it or not, that’s good too. It was going to come out anyway, Jack. So does she care about you?”

  “I think so. Probably. Yeah, she does.”

  “Congratulations,” Berry said. “Love and work, Jack. That’s what Freud said everyone needs.”

  “I thought you said Freud was a quack.”

  “Mostly,” Berry said. “But sometimes he hit it right on the nose.” He stood up. “You still against the idea of prescription meds? They’ve got some new stuff on the market that doesn’t have as many side effects.”

  Keller shook his head. “No. I’m still working. I can’t take anything that might slow me down.”

  Berry sighed. “It’s hard to treat someone for anxiety who gets shot at for a living.” He shrugged. “Well, you’re not suicidal, at least not any more than your job requires. Come on with me to the front desk and we’ll make you another appointment.”

  Keller stood up. “Okay. How much do I owe you?”

  “I don’t know,” Berry said. “I haven’t done outpatient psychotherapy like this in a few years. I’ll send you a bill when I figure out what to charge.”

  “Thanks, doc,” Keller said. “I mean, for taking all this trouble.”

  Berry clapped him on the shoulder. “You were always my greatest challenge, Jack.” They went inside to the front parlor that had been converted into an office and reception area. As the receptionist penciled in Keller’s appointment, he heard a voice behind him. “Mr. Keller?”

  Keller and Berry turned. Crystal Puryear was standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a pair of ragged jeans and a tee-shirt. Behind her, a group of people was slowly filing out of a room across the hall.

  “Crystal,” the receptionist said, “You know the rules. After group, you have to get back to your room for meditation.”

  “Fuck off, lady,” Crystal said.

  “That’s enough, Crystal,” Berry said in a voice that sounded like it should have been coming from a burning bush on Mount Sinai. Crystal looked chastened. “Doctor,” she said in a small voice, “I just wanted to talk to Mister Keller for a minute. I wanted to thank him.”

  “We don’t allow visitors the first two weeks—” the receptionist started, but Berry silenced her with an upraised hand. “Five minutes,” he told Keller. “On the porch. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Keller walked out onto the porch with Crystal in tow, both ignoring the murderous look from the frustrated receptionist. They sat down in the rockers.

  “You were right,” she said. “I owe you one. So here I am.”

  “So we’re square then,” Keller said.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Mister Keller,” she said. “Everything has a price, and it’s always more than you thought you’d pay. No one knows that better than a whore.” She sighed and looked away. “I ain’t heard from DeWayne. If I do, I’ll let you know. But you have to promise you won’t hurt him. He’s a fuckup, and he’s half-crazy most the time, but he’s all I got left.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him, Crystal,” Keller said. “But I’m not going to let him kill me.” The sentence hung in the air between them. Finally, Crystal nodded. “Okay,” she said. “That’s fair, I guess.” She put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe he would kill nobody,” she said. “He was always wild, but he weren’t never mean.” She sat in silence for a few minutes. “And Leonard,” she said finally. A tear ran down her cheek. “He was always so gentle. I really can’t believe Leonard hurt somebody.”

  Keller shrugged. “From what I hear, they tried to hold somebody up. Armed robbery’s a killing waiting to happen. They should’ve stuck with the small stuff.” He stood up. “You better get back inside,” he said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  She nodded and stood up. “Thanks,” she said. “For getting me in here, I mean. I been all messed up for a long time. I need to get my mind right.”

  That makes two of us, Keller thought. “Good luck,” was what he said.

  She started back into the house. She stopped for a moment and looked back. “You think I got a chance?” she asked.

  Keller nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “You checked yourself in. Most people aren’t here by choice. They get sent here by the courts. So you’re ahead of the odds already.”

  She thought about that for a moment. Then she smiled. “First time that’s ever happened,” she said. She went back inside.

  “You know Crystal’s Social Security number?” Debbie asked. She was standing in the kitchen of her tiny apartment. She had the phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear. DeWayne started to answer, but she held up a hand to stop him as someone came on the line. “Good afternoon,” she said, “this is Mrs. Gunderson from Consolidated insurance. Can you connect me with patient accounts?” In the brief pause, DeWayne shook his head no. Debbie nodded understanding.

  “Hello,” she said after a moment. “This is Mrs Gunderson from Consolidated Insurance. We’re trying to follow up on some paperwork for one of your patients. The name is Puryear. Crystal Puryear. Yes, I can hold.”

  “You sure they’ll tell you anything? Ain’t it supposed to be, you know, confidential?”

  She covered the mouthpiece with one hand. “Oh, yeah. Medical Records won’t tell you squat. You want to know what’s going on, talk to the billing people. I know, I used to work in a hospital. Confidential goes right out the window when they’re tryin’ to get paid. Watch. Yes, I’m still here,” she said into the phone. “We’re having some trouble processing this claim form. No, I don’t have her Social Security number, that’s part of the problem, I can’t read how it’s written here. Is that a five or a three…maybe you just better read the whole thing off for me.” She grabbed a pencil from the counter and jotted the number on a pad. “Thanks so much,” she said in a bubbly voice. “Now, what was the name of the place where she was moved—good, got it. No, I’m not sure when the claim will be paid, I have to send it upstairs. Have a nice day.” She hung up.

  “She’s at a place called Rescue House.” She picked up the phone directory and rifled through it. “Here’s an address.”

  DeWayne nodded. “Pretty slick.”

  She got that weird light in her eyes again. “Tell me how much you need me.”

  DeWayne tried not to shudder. “Oh, I need you, baby, y
ou know that.”

  Marie had considered keeping Ben home with her. With no job to go to, she would have enjoyed the extra time. But he actually seemed to like the day-care where she had him, and he had fussed at the interruption in routine the first day she kept him out. She was also afraid that if Ben missed too many days in a row, she might lose the space. Good day-care was hard to come by. When she unlocked the front door and stepped into the silence of her house, however, she began to wonder if she had made a mistake. She shook her head. All the time I keep bitching to myself about never having some time alone, she thought. And now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with myself. She walked into the kitchen. She glanced over towards the kitchen cabinet where the liquor was stored. Briefly, she thought of pouring the sweet burning liquid in until it drowned all the places where she hurt inside. Something in her recoiled.

  No, she said, Jack was right. It doesn’t help. At the thought of Keller, she felt another sudden twist in her stomach. She had clung to him like a drowning woman, and he had pulled her out. Then she had reached out to him when he had seemed in pain—and he had slammed shut. She felt a brief flash of anger. Damn him anyway, she thought. It was then that she noticed the message light blinking on her answering machine, an insistently pulsing number “2”. She walked over and pushed the message button.

  “It’s your dad,” a gruff voice said. “Call me.” That was all. The second was from a detective named Stacy. He had been a friend of Eddie’s, but she had always managed to make herself scarce when Stacy came around. He was big and mean-looking and the way he looked at her made her flesh crawl. The choice of who to call first was an easy one.

  “Yeah?” the voice on the other end said.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  The voice softened. “Hi, kiddo,” her father said. “How you holding up?”

  Not so great, Dad, she wanted to say. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Bullshit,” the reply came back immediately. “We went through this yesterday, kid. We going through it every time I call? You lost your partner. You almost got killed. You seeing anybody?”

  For a brief panicked moment, she thought he meant romantically. She didn’t want to discuss Keller with her father. Then she realized what he meant. “Uh—no. I’ve been meaning to call the doctor the department recommended…”

  “Screw that,” her father said. “Get your own.”

  It sounded so much as if he was correcting an erring rookie that Marie laughed out loud. After a brief pause, he laughed too, a little ruefully. Then he said. “I mean it, kid. The worst thing that could happen to a cop just happened to you.”

  “I thought getting yourself killed was the worst thing that could happen,” she said.

  “Hah. You still feel that way?” he said.

  She thought a moment. “No.”

  “So get some help. And not from some pet shrink who’ll go running back to the Department with a bad evaluation.”

  “Okay.”

  “You heard from Internal Affairs yet?”

  “They took a statement from me at the hospital. And I’ve got a message from a Detective named Stacy.”

  “Fuck those assholes,” her father spat. The vehemence shocked her. “Listen, kid. We can’t do anything about the statement you gave at the hospital. But from now on you do not, repeat do not, talk to any IAD puke without a lawyer. I’m talking cop to cop here, not as your Dad.”

  “You sure there’s not just a little Dad in there?” Marie said.

  He laughed and his voice relaxed slightly. “Okay, a little bit Dad,” he said. “But I mean it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll find my own shrink. And call a lawyer.”

  “Better yet,” he said gently. “Why don’t you and Ben come home? We’ll take him hunting, like we used to go. He’s old enough to go with us.”

  She closed her eyes. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “Do that,” he said, in a voice that said he knew she wouldn’t. “One last thing, kiddo. You got drunk yet?”

  “Umm…”

  “Don’t answer. Just listen. It’s okay if you have. Once. Maybe twice. Have a few for Eddie. But then stop. Don’t crawl into the bottle. I seen too many cops do that and never make it back out.”

  “That’s sort of what Jack—that’s what a friend of mine said.”

  “That’s a good friend, then,” her father said. He paused. “I love you, Marie.”

  It was hard to breathe past the lump in her throat. “I love you too, Dad.” They said their goodbyes and hung up.

  Marie looked at the flashing light on the message machine. She thought about her father’s words. Was Stacy working IAD? She decided not to take the chance. She decided to get out of the house. Suddenly, she knew where she wanted to go.

  When Keller walked into the office, he could hear Angela’s voice from the back room. “Wait a minute,” she was saying, “that may be him now.” She appeared at the door with a portable phone in her hand. She looked drawn and haggard, as if she hadn’t slept. She held the phone out to him. “It’s Scott McCaskill,” she said.

  He walked over and took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Where’ve you been, son?” there was an edge of tension underlying the joviality in McCaskill’s voice. “There’s a lot of people who’d like to have a talk with you.”

  “I’m sure,” Keller said. “I had some personal business to take care of.”

  “The police have upped the stakes, Jack,” McCaskill said. “They don’t just want you for questioning now. There’s a warrant out for you. Murder Two on John Lee Oxendine.”

  Keller’s hand tightened on the receiver. “That’s bullshit.”

  “I know, son, but it’s bullshit we’re going to have to deal with. They matched the blood on your clothes with blood from the scene. You’re known to carry a shotgun, and that’s what killed Oxendine.”

  “It was self defense.”

  “I know that. But no one found a gun anywhere near Oxendine’s body. And there were no witnesses.”

  Keller remembered the touch of a gun barrel on the back of his neck, remembered a softly accented voice. “There was a Latino guy there. He took the gun.”

  “The Phantom Latino theory may convince a jury, especially if I sell it right. But right now, I don’t think the cops want to hear it. No one else knows anything about this guy.”

  “What about the brother? Raymond Oxendine?”

  There was a brief silence. “Raymond Oxendine and an accomplice shot their way out of Fayetteville General last night,” McCaskill said finally. “They killed a cop.” His voice became brisk and businesslike. “I need to arrange for you to come in to the station for booking,” he said. “It’ll look better than if they pick you up.”

  “When?”

  “Now would be good.”

  “Bail?”

  McCaskill paused. “I can’t promise it, Jack. Not for this. And you’re already bonded out on another charge.”

  “Not now, then,” Keller said. “I have some things I need to do first.”

  “What have you got to do that’s more important than this?”

  “It’s personal. Give me till noon tomorrow.”

  McCaskill sounded exasperated. “Jack, they won’t hold off that long.”

  “Noon tomorrow. And I give myself up to Barnes. Not Stacy.”

  “You’re not in a real good position to be negotiating, son. If you could give me some reason why you can’t come in today, I might be able to hold them off, but…”

  “Tell them I have a doctor’s appointment.” Keller hung up. He looked over at Angela. She was sitting behind the desk. She shook her head wearily. “You’re making a big mistake.”

  “Probably.” They looked at each other in silence for a few moments. Then she said softly, “When I called, earlier. You were with a woman. I heard her voice.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Do you love her, Jack?”

  He wanted to turn away and stare ou
t the window, but he forced himself to look into her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. I think I could.”

  She was the one who looked away. Her eyes closed for a moment and she took a deep breath. “That’s good,” she said finally.

  He walked over and stood beside her. He put his hand on her shoulder. “What’s this about?” he said. “I thought you said…”

  She took his hand in hers, kissed the back of it. “I know I did,” she said. “And I meant it. I still do. It would never work with us, Jack. It’s just that—this is hard, is all.” She looked up at him and smiled. She pressed the back of his hand against her cheek before releasing it. “Does she make you happy?”

  This time, Keller did look away. “I’m not sure I’m capable of it,” he said.

  She stood up, put her arm around him. “I hope you’re wrong,” she said. “You deserve to be happy.”

  He shook his head. “I think I may have screwed it up.”

  She released him and sat on the edge of the desk. “What happened?”

  He took a deep breath. He told her about the night before, about the dream and how he had left. At one point, Angela stopped him. “Wait a minute,” she said. “This is the Jones woman we’re talking about? The cop?”

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “Marie Jones.”

  “Keller, are you crazy?” Angela said. “You’re wanted for murder and you’re dating a cop?”

  “She’s suspended from the force. She’s got no reason to help them out.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Besides, she has to know I wouldn’t kill anyone in cold blood.”

  “Trying to strangle her in her sleep would really set her mind at ease on that point.”

  Keller thought about that for a moment. Then he picked up the phone. “I need to talk to her.”

  Angela slid off the desk and put her arms around him. “For God’s sake, be careful, Jack,” she whispered against his chest. She turned him loose and stepped away. “There’s so many ways this could go wrong for you.”

  “I know,” Keller said. “But I’ve been going through my life so far taking stupid risks. This time, I’m taking a risk on something important.”