by Lynch, Sean
She began to examine the documents in one of the folders.
“You’re not from California originally, are you?”
“No,” he said. “I was born and raised in Iowa.”
“And you served in the military, I see.”
“That’s correct. In the army.”
“What did you do in the service?”
“I was an infantryman.”
“Were you ever deployed outside the United States?”
“Central America.”
“Did you see any combat?”
“None to speak of.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“Any children?”
“No.”
“Are you currently in a relationship?”
“I was until last night,” Kearns said, shaking his head.
“How long was that relationship?”
“Six months or so.”
“I see here your shooting was yesterday afternoon,” she said, opening another folder. She switched her gaze from the documents to Kearns. “Do you believe the end of your relationship was a result of the incident?”
“With all due respect,” Kearns said, “I’d feel a lot more comfortable discussing personal matters with the doctor.”
“You are,” she said, lowering her reading glasses. “I’m Dr. Patricia Marks. You can call me Pat, if it suits you.”
“I’m sorry, I thought-”
“You thought what most twenty-something, heterosexual males with your upbringing, background, life experience and frame-of-reference would think when they first encounter me at my office,” she said. “That I’m the secretary.”
“I apologize,” Kearns said.
“No need,” she said, replacing her glasses. “I’m accustomed to it. Incidentally, you can tell your friend in the lobby that I’m not married,” she said. “That’s what he was wondering, isn’t it?”
“How did you-?”
“You thought only police officers had functioning ears, Deputy Kearns?”
“It wasn’t our intent to offend you,” Kearns said.
“I realize that. No offense was taken. Shall we get back to why you’re here?”
“Sure,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
“Why do you think you’re here?” she asked.
“Because it’s departmental policy all deputies involved in a shooting incident attend mandatory psychological counseling.”
“Why do you suppose your department has such a policy?”
Kearns didn’t answer.
“Does the question bother you, Deputy Kearns?”
“Begging your pardon, Dr. Marks, I’m fully aware that everything I say in this room is going to go straight back to the sheriff’s office.”
“I assure you, what is said in this room is strictly confidential.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical.”
“You don’t believe I can be trusted?” she asked.
“I don’t know you,” Kearns said. “Trust is earned.”
“You have a rather cynical outlook for someone so young,” she said. “Even for a law enforcement officer.”
“You were me, and had been where I’ve been, and through what I’ve been through, you’d feel the same.”
Dr. Marks uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, looking directly into Kearns’ face.
“My loyalty, and my number one priority, is the well-being of my patients. Whether
you believe me or not, everything spoken in this room stays within this room. That’s a promise.”
“Who’s paying you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It usually does,” Kearns said. “Everybody answers to somebody.”
“I’m contracted to provide psychological services for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, as well as two dozen other law enforcement agencies in the greater East Bay,” she said, “including the California Highway Patrol, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office, the Oakland Police Department, and the Department of Justice. I’ve been doing this for over fifteen years, and in all that time I’ve never violated a patient’s right to confidentiality.”
“The sheriff’s office is paying you to look inside my head. They’re going to want to know what you find.”
“Is that what you think?” she said. “That I’ve been paid a fee to provide the sheriff a report on your state-of-mind and mental health?”
“You asked me why I thought I was here, and I told you.”
“I’m a psychiatrist, Kevin. May I call you Kevin?”
“Of course.”
“As I was saying,” she went on, “I’m a psychiatrist. My job is to heal. And like you, as a law enforcement officer, I’ve sworn an oath. An oath I take very seriously.”
“I’m not doubting your character, Ma’am. It’s your role I’m worried about. I know that you’re supposed to conduct a fitness-for-duty evaluation on me. Which means you have the power to strip me of my job if you decide I’m unfit for duty. From where I sit, that’s a Catch-22. If I want to keep my job, I have no choice but comply with you. But if I comply, and you don’t like what you find when you shrink my noggin, my career is over anyway. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
“Is it impossible for you to consider that perhaps you might benefit from participating in counseling with me?”
“Not impossible,” Kearns admitted. “Just unlikely.”
“It would seem,” she said, leaning back in her chair and nibbling on one of the arms of her glasses, “I have my work cut out for me in earning your trust, Kevin.”
“Welcome to the club,” he said. “It ain’t exclusive.”
Chapter 17
“Vice and Narcotics, Sergeant Avery speaking,” Avery said into the receiver. It was mid-afternoon, and he was at his desk scrambling to fill out timesheets for the detectives in his unit. He was behind on them, but like all detectives and detective supervisors at the sheriff’s office had been diverted to the investigation of the dual deputy-killing yesterday, which took precedent over more mundane tasks.
“I’d like to leave an anonymous tip about some drug dealers in my neighborhood,” a man’s voice with a Hispanic accent said. “Real nasty motherfuckers. Scaring all the old ladies and the children on their way to school. Who could I speak to about getting some cops to look into that?”
“I can help you,” Avery said, instantly recognizing Cervantes. “But you have to be patient. That kind of problem takes time to resolve.”
“I got no time,” Cervantes said, “and it’s getting hard to be patient. These old folks and kids need to be protected, you know? If I don’t get some help real soon, me and some of the boys I hang out with are going to take matters into our own hands. Who knows what could happen? All kinds of shit might spill out of the bag. You understand what I’m saying?”
“You have a number I can call you back?” Avery said. He wrote down the phone number Cervantes recited on a notebook extracted from his pocket.
“I’ll call you within the hour,” Avery said.
“That’s as long as I’ll wait.” The line went dead.
Avery sat at his desk a moment and stared out the window at the San Leandro hills. Cursing under his breath, he finally got up and walked out of the Vice and Narcotics office, through the Investigations Division squad room, and over to the secretary’s desk.
Rhonda, the frizzy-haired, rotund Investigations Division secretary, was taking another break. She was sipping from a can of Diet Coke through a straw, and had a Jackie Collins novel propped open on the keyboard of her computer terminal.
“Hey Rhonda,” Avery said. “I completely screwed up my timesheets. I’m going to need another set. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll have to go down to the Records Division and have them run off new ones,” she said, exuding no effort to conceal her irritation at being interrupted. Without looking up from her book, she
said, “Can it wait until I’m done with my break?”
“I’m afraid not,” Avery said. “We’re all tied up on this quadruple murder, and I have a meeting in less than an hour. I’ve got to get those time sheets in today before you go home. You know that’s the deadline.”
Avery knew all the Investigation Division supervisors had to have their employee’s time sheets completed and turned in to Rhonda by tomorrow, so they could be reviewed and signed by the lieutenant and forwarded up the chain-of-command. If not signed by the division captain and submitted to the county payroll office by then, deputies wouldn’t get paid on time, and heads would roll. One of those heads would be Rhonda’s, and Avery knew she knew it.
Rhonda made an elaborate gesture of setting down her book, took a sip of Diet Coke with a loud slurping sound, and pushed herself out of her chair. He watched her waddle out of the division and down the hall towards the elevator.
Avery didn’t hesitate. Rhonda’s desk was secluded from the other desks in the squad room, which gave her a degree of privacy as long as no one was waiting in the lobby. He quickly scanned the lobby to ensure it was empty, and brought out his knife.
It was a red Swiss Army knife, and although it looked like any other it was quite unique. Each of the various blades had been skillfully customized for use in circumnavigating locks. He opened the leather punch, which had been carefully re-shaped and filed to end in a flat triangle with a notch cut into its edge a quarter-inch below the tip. He’d confiscated the knife from a residential burglar he’d arrested many years before, and it had served him well over the years.
He slipped the blade into the gap at the top of the center drawer, and within seconds it was open. Avery wasn’t interested in the contents of the master drawer, but by opening it he automatically released the locks on the other drawers of Rhonda’s desk.
The top drawer contained nothing but pencils, pens, a stapler, and paper clips. The second proved more interesting. That drawer contained a box of tampons and an already-opened, half-consumed, one-pound bag of M&M’s, in flagrant violation of Rhonda’s daily declaration that she was religiously adhering to the Nutrisystem diet. In the third drawer Avery found what he was looking for; a three-ring binder containing access codes for the various functions of the departmental computer, not-so-affectionately named Hal by the staff which had to operate it.
Avery opened the binder and thumbed through it until he found the heading PERSONNEL AND TRAINING, and the corresponding computer code number for that section. He carefully removed Rhonda’s copy of Hollywood Wives from the keyboard, noting the page it was opened to. Instead of entering his name, badge number, and personal access code, he typed in Rhonda’s password, ‘Scarlett O’Hara,’ which he’d seen her input dozens of times.
The computer screen’s green-on-gray lettering produced a blank box, and Avery typed in the Personnel and Training computer code. Seconds later the words PERSONNEL ROSTER emerged. Below were two tabs; one read SWORN PERSNNEL, and the other NON-SWORN PERSONNEL. He typed in ‘sworn’ and a blank template appeared. Taking a second to make sure the lobby and hallway were still vacant, he typed in, ‘Kearns, Kevin.’
Avery knew all sworn personnel were required to keep their supervisors up-to-date with their current address and phone number. Failure to do so would result in significant discipline for the first offense, and termination on the second. If a deputy were to move, he or she had twenty-four hours to notify their supervisor, who forwarded the change-of-address to Administration. The sheriff’s office, as the mutual aid and emergency response authority for the entire county, had to know how to reach its first-responders during routine call-ins, such as the quadruple homicide yesterday, or in the event of a major disaster like an earthquake or civil unrest. A master personnel list, which was kept confidential for deputy-safety reasons, was maintained by the department, but only available to watch commanders or higher rank.
A few seconds later Deputy Kevin Kearns’ information lit up the screen. Avery quickly wrote down the address. He also noted that Kearns had no next-of-kin listed.
Replacing the notebook, Avery signed off the computer. The green ‘sign-on’ template still remained, however, and would for several minutes until the computer eventually went back into sleep mode. Rhonda would know someone had been on the terminal if she returned before that occurred.
Avery knelt below the desk, located the computer’s power cord, and pulled it from the socket. The computer went instantly dead. He replaced the binder in the third drawer, grabbed a handful of M&M’s from the second drawer, then closed all the drawers and re-locked the center one with his knife. He re-plugged the computer cord back into the power socket, and returned the novel on the keyboard in exactly the same position, and to the same page, it had been before. The corridor and lobby were still devoid of people.
Avery retreated to his office, and was munching M&M’s for only a minute or so when Rhonda called him to come and retrieve his time sheets.
When he returned, he found Rhonda red-faced and slightly out-of-breath. She extended a thick hand with a stack of blank timesheets.
“Thank you,” Avery said.
“Glad to be of help,” she said smarmily, plopping back into her chair and putting her Diet Coke to her lips.
“You certainly were,” he said, walking away.
Avery tore up the new timesheets and threw them in a garbage can on the way out of the building.
Chapter 18
“You going to tell me what the good doctor said, or leave me in suspense?” Farrell and Kearns were on the road back to San Francisco in Farrell’s Oldsmobile.
“It’s supposed to be confidential,” Kearns said.
“I won’t tell anybody,” Farrell said.
“Why should I divulge my innermost thoughts to you?”
“I don’t care about the sordid details of your psychological counseling session,” Farrell said. “I already know your noodles are only half-baked. I want to know if she said anything about me?”
“She mentioned you.”
“What did she say?”
“She complimented me on being kind enough to take my grandfather out of his nursing home for the day.”
Farrell glared at Kearns. “If you’re trying to get me to start smoking again, you’re making progress.”
“I get it now,” Kearns said, slapping the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Why didn’t I see it before? You didn’t give up cigarettes because of your health. You’re quitting because of all the hot girls you saw in that aerobics class you were taking. You’re going through a mid-life crisis.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. You’re sleeking your coat before mating season, just like the animals on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” He pointed his finger at Farrell. “You’re on the make.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Farrell said.
“Hey,” Kearns said, “I ain’t knocking it. It’s as good a reason as any to quit smoking. Besides, it would do you good to get your ashes hauled once in a while.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Farrell mumbled. “Did the doc say anything else?”
“You mean after she got done making me feel like a schmuck for thinking she was the secretary?”
“Don’t beat yourself up about that. I did the same thing. I only hope she doesn’t hold it against me. When’s your next appointment?”
“How do you know I have another appointment?”
“I know how these things work,” Farrell said. “You’ll have to see her at least three times before she’s concluded her evaluation.”
“For your information, I’m seeing her again tomorrow afternoon,” Kearns said. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like baring your soul to educated, attractive, older women?”
“That’s what makes me so nervous. I get a good feeling about her, and she assured me she’s not going to divulge anything to the sheriff’s office other t
han to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ about whether I’m fit-for duty. But I still don’t know if I can trust her.”
“She’s looking out for your best interests,” Farrell said. “The purpose of an after-shooting counseling session is to help you cope with any trauma you may be experiencing in the wake of having to take another life. It’s not a bad thing, Kevin, and in my humble opinion represents real progress in the way the law enforcement profession supports officers nowadays who’ve been involved in life-or-death incidents. In my day, post-shooting counseling was conducted by Dr. Jim Beam. Didn’t always work out so well.”
“How so?”
“Lot of cops who came on the job when I did were ‘Nam vets like me, and had seen action. Many of them were carrying emotional baggage as a result. Cop gets into a lethal encounter on-duty, it dredges up past traumas. ‘Triggers’ they’re called. Lots of reasons cops have issues after getting into a shooting is because it isn’t necessarily about the shooting they just survived, it’s about all the other stuff they were lugging around that got triggered to the surface by it.”
“You seem to know a lot about this kind of thing.”
“I’ve seen it from all sides. So have you.”
“You think it’s not such a bad thing that I see Dr. Marks?”
“Not at all,” Farrell said. “Can’t hurt, and might do you some good. You’ve definitely seen more than your share of shit, Kevin. I can think of an awful lot of cops I knew throughout the years who maybe wouldn’t have ruined their marriages, or become drunks, or eaten their guns if they’d have gotten the right kind of help when it mattered.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Cops typically won’t admit they need help, even when everybody around them knows they do. They’re afraid of being stigmatized as crazy. Also, police work is a macho profession. Cops, whether male or female, act macho as hell. You’ve got have a bit of swagger in this business to get the job done without getting hurt. Admitting to needing help is tantamount to admitting weakness, and there aren’t many cops who are going to do that.”
“That’s why departments make the counseling mandatory, isn’t it?”