by Edward Lee
It wasn’t even worth thinking about. A few minutes later, a man entered, and he didn’t look happy.
“Mr. Goodwin,” Helen greeted from her desk. “Thanks for coming. Please have a seat.”
Daniel Goodwin seemed to scowl in response to the greeting. “I sure don’t understand why I have to be dragged down here,” he said, seating himself. Nondescript in appearance, medium build, early 30s, but Helen could see the chip on his shoulder. Daniel D. Goodwin had been employed by the Madison County Rescue Squad for two years. He was also the lone survivor of the November 29th robbery of EMT Unit #154.
“You weren’t dragged down here, Mr. Goodwin,” Helen pointed out. “You were merely asked to avail yourself for some questions.”
“Avail myself, huh? I already talked to the Narcotics Unit. My partner gets killed, I get a concussion and hairline fracture, and they treat me like I’m the bad guy.”
“And why might that be?”
Goodwin’s face creased to a frown. “Because of the bum rap I got at Falks County FD, which I’m sure you know all about.”
Indeed she did, and a curious consideration, but Helen wasn’t quite sure what she thought about it yet. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Goodwin, and I’m sorry about your partner. I’d just like you to reiterate some points for me. You say you were assaulted by a lone gunman on the night of November 29th, at a few minutes after eleven?”
“That’s right, 2304, like it says in the report. I was cracked on the head.”
“With what?”
“The butt of his gun.”
“And this was after you opened the unit’s med safe.”
“Yeah. I don’t feel too good about it, but when somebody points a gun in your face and tells you to do something, you do it, especially after the same guy just shot one of your friends.”
“I’m sure I would’ve done the same thing, Mr. Goodwin,” Helen suggested. “Nobody expects you to risk your life protecting county pharmaceuticals. Ambulance jacking is rampant these days. Sixteen incidents already this year, and that’s just the southern district. But tell me a little more about your attacker.”
“It’s all in the report. The guy shot Cooper twice before I could even blink; he was waiting for us inside the truck when we came back from the address. The guy was smart. The average jacking’s always near an alley, never in the middle of a street; he put a lamp inside a closed rowhouse, made it look occupied. So the whole thing looked legit when we responded. But when we got back to the unit, the guy’s already in back waiting for us with the gun.”
Helen scanned the initial report filed by Madison Metro PD. “And the assailant had a pistol with a sound-suppression device?”
“A street silencer,” Goodwin elucidated. “A plastic soda bottle hose-clamped to the barrel; it’s big with dopers and street gangs. They used to use the big two-liter bottles until the soda companies came up with the bright idea of making twenty-ounce ones.”
“You seem to know a lot about it, Mr. Goodwin.”
“I’m an EMT. I see stuff like this all the time. A dozen times a year probably I transport some doper or junkie full of holes, and there’s always one of these bottles lying around near the scene.”
Helen nodded. Sometimes the ingenuity of the street was impressive. “It says here your assailant was tall, thin, wearing a leather jacket, gloves, and a ski mask, white caucasian.”
“Right. I know he was white because the eyeholes were big. And he sounded white on the 911 tape.”
“And after you opened the safe, he rendered you unconscious. And when you woke up, the first thing you did was examine the safe?”
“No, the first thing I did was radio for help. I was seeing stars. But I did manage to glance in the safe, and that was the strange part.”
Helen focused. “Strange because the typical products a jacker would go for were still there?”
“That’s right. We don’t carry much any more since jacking’s become popular. A little Dilaudid and a little Atropine—there’s nothing else in that safe a jacker could get high off of or sell.”
“But this jacker didn’t touch any of that. Am I correct, Mr. Goodwin?”
“All the Dilaudid and all the Atropine was still there. The only thing this guy took was a box of i.v.—”
“Succinicholine sulphate.”
Goodwin affirmed the fact with a nod. Helen paused, trying to read him. He seemed on the level, but—
So do a lot of people, she reminded herself. “Okay, Mr. Goodwin, now tell me about Falks County.”
Goodwin’s eyes thinned, and suddenly a vein was bulging on his temple. “Jesus Christ, I knew this was coming. Look, the county attorney’s office dropped charges. You want to know why? Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well, they dropped charges for lack of enough evidence deemed sufficient for prosecution,” Helen made the minor correction.
“You people kill me,” Goodwin accosted. “Look, sure, I screwed up that night in Falks; I left the keys in the truck because there was a kid lying in the middle of the road with blood all over him, and it was a strapped call.”
“A strapped call?”
“We got the call when I was the only guy in the station, so that’s why I had no partner that night.”
Helen nodded again. “But, according to the Falks County investigator, your partner was in the station—
“He was in the can taking a dump, lady. What, I’m supposed to wait for him to finish wiping his ass when there’s a transport call for a kid bleeding in the street?”
“—and suggests that you deliberately left the station without him, because responding without him would have removed a second witness from the scene. Mr. Goodwin, the county investigator always believed that you arranged the whole incident on purpose in order to allow an unknown associate to commandeer your Falks County EMT van and then steal all the controlled pharmaceuticals in that med safe.”
There. That’s what she wanted to say, to gauge his reaction. And his reaction came as no surprise:
“That’s a bunch of fuckin’ bullshit! Do you know how much Dilaudid the average EMT truck carries? Ten tabs! Maybe worth five hundred bucks to a dealer on the street. And Atropine, it’s a cheap five-dollar high. Yeah, sure, lady, I’m gonna jeopardize my fuckin’ career to split a couple hundred bucks for the penny-ante dope in an EMT truck? Jesus Christ!”
Helen’s purpose was now served. Get him hot. Get him riled. Get him in a defensive emotional mode, because when that happened, people generally lost their sense of better judgment and would—
Slip up.
Helen put Goodwin’s Falks County report away. “Let me be almost as profane as you, Mr. Goodwin. I don’t give a shit about any allegations you may have faced while serving as a paramedic for the Falks County Rescue Squad.”
Goodwin’s entire face seemed to open like a flower. “Then why the fuck am I here?”
“I’ll tell you that, just calm down, all right? I can’t tell you the details, Mr. Goodwin. I only want your professional opinion on succinicholine sulphate. It was stolen from your vehicle on the 29th of November, and it was stolen from your vehicle during the Falks County incident over two years ago.”
“Of course it was!” Goodwin railed. “I already told you, the whole thing was a set-up. I took the call alone because my partner was in the can taking a shit! I arrived at the loke and there was a kid lying in the street with blood all over him! I fucked up and left the keys in the truck because I was rushing to help the kid! The kid gets up and runs away—it’s catsup he’s got all over him. Then I go back to the truck, but some player’s already in it driving away! The succinicholine sulphate wasn’t in the Falks County safe because nothing else was either! They took everything, like they usually do. An ambulance jacker isn’t gonna take time picking through each and every pharmaceutical! He takes everything at once and sorts it out later, because he knows in two minutes every cop car in town is gonna be looking for him!”
&
nbsp; “Calm down, Mr. Goodwin. Please. Just calm down.” Helen gave him some air, let him sit a minute. “The only reason I had my men bring you down here is to answer one question.”
“Okay,” Goodwin responded hotly. “What’s the goddamn fuckin’ question?”
“Why would anyone specifically want to steal the drug known as succinicholine sulphate?”
Goodwin rubbed his face in his hands, seemed to try to wring out his stress. “Succinicholine sulphate is only good for one thing. It’s a paralytic agent. We use it in emergencies to stop convulsions and Grand Mal seizures. The only thing it’s good for is paralyzing people.”
“But why would someone want to paralyze someone else?”
Goodwin jumped to his feet, his fists clenched. Then his entire face jumped forward when he shouted, “How the fuck would I know, goddamn it!”
««—»»
How the fuck would I know? Helen thought long after the paramedic had left.
But I do know, don’t I?
You paralyze someone to render them defenseless. To leave them in a state where you can do anything you want, however depraved, however pathological.
She believed Goodwin had gotten a bad rap on Falks County FD; it was easy enough to discern. It was also easy enough to discern that the following likelihood existed: the masked ambulance jacker and the Jeffrey Dahmer copycat were the self-same man.
Christ, she thought. I wish Congress would ban ski masks.
««—»»
The man kissed the man. A cold kiss, a disaffectionate one, but a kiss nonetheless. The man didn’t know what to feel.
Only this man was—
««—»»
“Tom, I—”
Helen couldn’t finish. Too much, too soon. Was it a dream? What am I…seeing? she asked herself. The cold air chafed her face when she lowered down the window to look harder…
She hadn’t really been able to identify the impulse. It had been a long day which stretched into a long night; all the while the encouraging conversation she’d had earlier with Tom had sparked her. Something, at least, to feel good about.
She knew he needed time—he’d said that, and she respected it. But—
She’d decided to…drive by.
For what precise reason, she couldn’t name. It seemed like something that teen lovers might do when they were on the rocks. I’ll just drive by his condo, see if his lights are on, see if his car’s there… And now—
She’d never felt more confused in her life.
Helen had driven by, yes, figured that whatever the impulse was, it was harmless. I love him, she reminded herself in an utmost resoluteness. So I’m driving by.
Mistake.
She wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing at first. Two figures at the condo entry, two—Men, she saw. Then—
Jesus, that looks like Tom, doesn’t it?
She squinted through the cold glass, still trying to discern. And when she lowered the Taurus’ passenger window, she knew what she was seeing beyond a doubt.
Tom was kissing another man on the landing.
The car stopped. Helen stared.
“Aw, no,” Tom said.
“Tom, I—”
His eyes peered down. “Jesus, Helen, you should’ve called first.”
“Yeah, I guess I should’ve! I wouldn’t want to cause a difficult situation for you! I wouldn’t want to screw up any of your action!”
Tom’s suitor, a frazzled-looking younger man in jeans, long brown hair, and an old pea-coat, extricated himself from the situation as quickly as possible. His sneakered footsteps faded off in the parking lot darkness, leaving Helen and Tom to gape at each other.
“Come on in,” Tom said. “I guess we better talk.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You’re…gay,” she stupidly mouthed.
“No, Helen. I’m bisexual. I have some gay tendencies, yes, but bisexual is what I am.”
Her mind swarmed with winter clouds. She’d parked in the fire lane, had come in upon his invitation, though she wasn’t sure why. He’s gay, she kept thinking. He’s gay, he’s gay—why didn’t he ever tell me?
He couldn’t look her in the eye right now. Some CD-ROM game was on his computer, playing through a demo—monsters prowling medieval corridors—and he used this distraction to go and turn it off.
Finally, Helen spoke up, if only to create a break which would relieve her from merely standing there in her overcoat feeling idiotic. “Bisexual, gay—what’s the difference?”
“Well, there is a difference, Helen. It’s not easy to explain but there’s still a difference. Christ, this is the 90s. I mean, don’t go Rush Limbaugh on me.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Tom! I’m not a homophobe! But I think I have damn good reason for being disillusioned when I see my lover kissing another man on the steps of his condo!”
The rant hushed the room.
“I don’t know what to say,” he told her.
“And what about precautions, Tom? You’re the one who just told me this is the 90s. You ever hear of AIDS? For the last year and a half, whenever you and I have slept together, you never once used a condom.”
“But I did at first, didn’t I? Until you were comfortable not using them. I’m a state employee, Helen, just like you. I get an AIDS test every six months to maintain my health insurance. And whenever I’m with another man…”
“What?” she spat back.
“I’ve always used condoms,” he sheepishly replied.
“Great. Give yourself the gold star. But tell me this, Tom. For the time we’ve been together, just how many other men have there been?”
More hushed silence cramped the room. Tom looked at the carpet. “I won’t lie to you. There’ve been, well, a bunch. Nothing serious. Just…flings.”
“A bunch, huh? Well tell me something, how many is a bunch?”
He faltered like a car with a bad carb. “A dozen, I guess, er, probably less than that, more like, I don’t know, nine or ten.”
The roof of Helen’s consciousness caved in then—she simply couldn’t picture it, she simply couldn’t understand. He’s been with a dozen men for the whole time he was with me?
But as if he’d read her thought, he scrambled to explain. “No, you’re right, I didn’t tell you and I should’ve—”
“You’re goddamn right, you should’ve.”
“—and the reason I didn’t was, well, because, you are too important to me—”
“That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life,” she replied.
“—and I didn’t know how you’d feel. I needed to get things out of my system before I took the plunge.”
She shook her head, wincing, incomprehensible. “What plunge?”
“Marrying you.”
“I—” she came right back, but that was all. Marrying. You. She felt lost now. Test the water before you jump to conclusions. Christ, this was hard. Marriage was what she wanted more than anything—at least a marriage to the right man. For so long, she’d believed he was it. But now?
She…just…didn’t think…she could…believe him.
“I can’t handle this,” she murmured more to herself. “This is too weird, this is too—shit, I don’t know what.”
She turned and left, blew out of the condo and into the stairwell. Tom rushed after her.
“Don’t run away!” he bellowed.
“Shut up! Leave me alone!”
Her high heels scampered down the steps.
“I won’t do it again, I promise!”
She kept going down, and he kept following. The cold air of the parking lot exploded into her face. She trotted for the Taurus like someone fleeing demons.
Tom stopped at the condo entry. “I’ll marry you!” he shouted.
Helen paused as she meant to open the car door.
“I’ll marry you, right now. We’ll go someplace right now, some justice of the piece, some lawyer—anywhere.”
Her hand shook holding the key.
“I love you, Helen,” he professed. “I don’t ever want to be with anyone else in the world, man or woman, except you.”
Helen felt as though she’d just stared into the eyes of the Medusa, and was turned to a pillar of salt.
“I’ll never touch anyone else in the world,” Tom promised, “except you.”
Tears turned to frost on her cheeks when she got into her state car, started the engine, and drove away. She wasn’t out of the parking lot a full two minutes when her pager began to beep.
««—»»
“Dumplin, Alan, 36 years old,” Jan Beck rattled off at the bottom of the stairwell of the Reed Circle loft. The stairwell rose narrowly into close darkness; Helen smelled dust and new paint as she followed the CES chief up.
Another one. In the Madison gay district. Beck looked like a pop scrub nurse in her red polys, showercap, elastic booties, and vinyl gloves. “No one saw or heard anything,” Beck added.
“That figures.” Helen was losing her breath mounting the close steps. I quit smoking a year ago but I’m still huffing and puffing, she thought. She felt short-changed, and the scene, less than thirty minutes ago at Tom’s, only supplemented that particular notion. “Please tell me there’s not another note.”
“There’s another note,” Beck said. “And it looks like we’ve got the pen this time.”
“A Flair?”
“Yep. And my UV guy thinks he’s got a solid tented arch on the note.”
UV guy, Helen thought. Most latent techs used battery-powered ultraviolet lamps to scan crime scenes for initial prints. The killer screwed up, came the bald thought. A tented arch was one of the most common types of fingerprint partials, and the easiest to make an ID from.
Beck waited on the landing for Helen to catch her breath. “In other words, this case may be solved now, or at the very least we’ll be able to prove the killer isn’t Dahmer. By mistakenly leaving a fingerprint on the note? That’s direct evidence that will contradict the graphological analysis of Dahmer’s handwriting.” Beck paused to peer at Helen. “I would think you’d be elated by this news, Captain.”