Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  Grimm read me my rights, cracking up the others by singsonging them like an auctioneer, capping it off with, “Sold, American.” They took my jacket, shirt and watch for the lab. It was all very professional, viewed from a distance. They found no weapon. Grimm bent so close he could have kissed Tyranno goodnight before saying, “Entry and exit wounds I’d say a .38 or maybe a nine-millimeter.” He said it quietly, as though not to wake the dead. Then he pointed to something I had not noticed before: a bullet hole drilled into the head of Drey’s bed. A technician began taking pictures.

  Grimm turned to me, by now handcuffed behind my back, asking, “You fire any weapons recently?” I shook my head no.

  “Don’t know or don’t remember, huh? Play it your way. Where’d you stash the murder weapon? You have an accomplice, maybe? How about that sexy wife of yours, that Diane? She help you out with this?”

  “Leave Diane out of it.”

  “Now how can I do that? She had the perfect motive: get rid of hubby’s girlfriend and a couple of extortionists at the same time. I heard she likes to play sex games online, or was that your idea?”

  “She’s not the only one, know what I mean?” The dog bite on my leg began to burn and ache. The pain in my injured shoulder from the handcuffs made me want to scream. Even my wired-shut broken jaw started giving me ringing throbs of pain.

  Grimm’s eyes narrowed. “Everybody outside; I need a few moments to interrogate this person of interest.” The others gave him his privacy. I thought I detected a few smirks of anticipation. As soon as the last to leave pulled the front door closed, Grimm drew his right arm over his left shoulder, like Robin Hood going for an arrow, and backhanded me across the mouth. My eyes watered. Within moments I tasted my own blood.

  “You’re going to eat it this time, Grimm,” I said, “or would you prefer I call you Dum da dum dum? It so happens I have a perfect alibi, so perfect even you will have to accept it. I’ve spent the whole day at one prison or another, signed in and locked in, conferring with clients or witnesses. Better check it out before you go making any more of an ass out of yourself than you already have.” The dog bite gave me another jolt so bad I felt like the dog was still attached, sniggering at me like one of those Hanna-Barbera dogs in the cartoons. Only this time there was no laugh track.

  “I need to get examined by a doctor right away,” I said. “I think I have rabies.”

  “Just when I thought I’d heard everything.”

  “I’m serious. My doctor says I have to be seen immediately.”

  “After you’re booked and processed you can call him. If you can get to a phone.”

  The city lockup in the Belleville police station is even less prepossessing than a room at Motel Six. There is a steel cot bolted to the concrete wall, a closet-sized area for pacing, and bars floor to ceiling. There are no wall hangings, mirrors or windows, but the bars lend an impression of spaciness. I rated the accommodations somewhere between Menard and Big Muddy. I knew the Constitution said they could hold me up to seventy-two hours without formal charges being preferred. Time slows to a virtual halt when you think you’re infected with the rabies virus. After what seemed an interminable wait, Grimm appeared, standing on the good side of the bars.

  “Have you checked out my alibi?”

  “Yeah, we checked; nobody remembers shit.”

  Disinformation becomes particularly troubling when one is deprived of his freedom and laboring under the realization that he is dying by inches from a disease of animals. This cell would become my death row if I wasn’t treated soon.

  “I want to make that phone call now.”

  “Nobody blames you for what you did, Ricky. Hell, those two assholes needed killing. Somebody was bound to step up to the plate sooner or later. You just happened to be lead-off man in the batting rotation.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody, Grimm.”

  “Sure you did, Ricky. But if you come clean about what happened without any more dicking around, you may be able to keep Diane out of it like you wanted. See, we’ve had your home and office phones tapped since the night of that phony break-in you thought you’d gotten away with. Plus we tapped Tyranno and K-Mart’s—I mean Drey’s—phones soon as we heard his voice on your answering machine. They’re scam artists, the two of them. Couldn’t you figure that out on your own, dumb shit?”

  “I just thought of something else. Tell you what, check my cell phone, too. I called my office along Route 57 at least an hour before I found the bodies, and my doctor before that. There must be pings off a tower or two out there you can confirm. I was nowhere near Cahokia at the time of death.”

  “Time of death? Fill me in, Ricky: when exactly was the time of death?”

  “The medical examiner can tell you that. As a matter of fact, I’m sure he already has. So quit playing games, all right? Let’s not insult each others’ intelligence.”

  “This from a man claiming he’s dying from rabies?”

  “Get a doctor’s opinion, you don’t believe me.”

  “Who says I don’t believe you? Rabies, why not? We had a werewolf locked up in here the other night. Kept it quiet, though. No sense spooking the public.”

  “I need a doctor, Grimm.”

  “Doctor comes in every Wednesday. Or is it every Thursday? One or the other, unless they changed it. Think you can hold out that long before you start frothing at the mouth?”

  “Get me to a telephone and I’ll call my own specialist.”

  “Make it easy on yourself, Ricky. Maybe you don’t realize it but you’re going nuts right about now. Truth is, you’re no more rabid than I am. What you’re feeling is a healthy dose of good old-fashioned conscience. Come on, haven’t you heard confession is good for the soul? Lay it all out for us and save the taxpayers the expense of a trial. You’ll feel better.”

  “The joke’s on you, Grimm. I won’t live long enough to stand trial. I’ve got rabies. Hydrophobia. You’re gonna have to put me down like Old Yeller.”

  Grimm called over to one of the uniforms, “Cut him loose. This ain’t no dog and cat hospital we’re running.” To me he acknowledged, “Your damn alibi checked out after all. But this investigation is ongoing. You ain’t out of the woods yet, asshole. So don’t leave town.”

  Dr. Nancy met me at the emergency room thirty minutes later. They took saliva samples, skin samples, even stool samples. I waited in one of the examining rooms for another eternity. Finally Dr. Nancy returned, drew aside the sliding curtains and smiled at me. Then laughed.

  “Let me in on the joke, Doc. What’s the verdict?”

  “We’re going to apply aggressive corticosteroid therapy and administer a powerful antihelminthic.”

  A glimmer of recognition resonated from college biology. “Antihelminthic? You mean—?”

  “In other words, we’re going to worm you, boy. Or perhaps a more precise term would be de-worm you. Can’t have you dragging your anus across the carpet in front of company.”

  “So it isn’t rabies after all?”

  “You did have me worried. However, the lab tests confirmed the diagnosis of early-stage encephalitis brought about by Baylisascaris procyonis.”

  “Is that serious?”

  “It’s no day at the beach, but it’s not rabies, either.”

  “What is it?”

  “In lay terms, raccoon roundworm: a rather large parasitic worm that typically makes its abode in the intestines of raccoons. Regional studies have demonstrated that a sizable percentage of the raccoon population is infected. Pet any raccoons lately?”

  I hadn’t. But I knew someone who probably had. I remembered Heart petting and fawning over the dog at the restaurant in Lincoln. The way she felt about furry little animals, she’d probably coaxed any number of wild raccoons to the door of the cabin with a cookie in her outstretched hand and tamed them until she could furtively pet them. And Heart, as the state of her apartment tended to indicate, wasn’t exactly your most sanitary of homemakers. A biker chick throug
h and through, she didn’t believe in hand-washing before preparing meals.

  “Let’s say the woman I’m living with managed to pet a wild raccoon’s fur, got some slobber on her skin or some raccoon shit under her fingernails and then fixed dinner without bothering to wash her hands. Would that be enough?”

  Dr. Nancy nodded. “Humans ingest the raccoon roundworm's eggs through accidental contact with raccoon feces. Your lady friend no doubt unwittingly garnished your food with roundworm eggs transmitted from raccoon fur or saliva to her hands or fingers and onto food which was then ingested by you, causing the infection.”

  “You’re saying my girlfriend gave me worms?”

  “Gave you worms and damn near killed you.”

  “Does she need to be examined too?”

  “Not a bad idea. Call her.”

  “I would, but there’s no phone where we’re living.”

  Worm medicine in hand, I drove from the hospital directly to the office. There was so much mail piled up behind the slot it was hard to push the door open. Brochures for seminars and online courses mostly, a few letters from attorneys bitching about not having received answers to discovery, some routine correspondence and one notice and petition postmarked days ago.

  People v. Kevin Quarles. Hearing on the state’s petition to certify Kevin as a sexually dangerous person and commit him to Big Muddy. The hearing was set for nine o’clock tomorrow morning. There was a habeas order signed by Judge Mudge for Kevin to be brought over from St. Elizabeth.

  Back to the hospital, notice and petition folded in my pants pocket. Elevator to the eighth floor—the psych ward. Late as it was, I needed to visit Kevin, one sexually dangerous person to another.

  The same attendant as last time was on duty. He farted around calling downstairs to the security desk, then shuffled papers in no particular hurry, taking his time before admitting me. When the door buzzed open and I passed by him I said, “Dominus vobiscum.”

  “Et cum spiritu—knock it off, wise guy.”

  Kevin was sitting on his bunk in the lotus position rocking back and forth with his eyes closed, humming a tune I eventually recognized as I’m a Girl Watcher. Pausing at the place where it goes Here comes one now he greeted me, eyes still shut, “Ricky. Still making the meetings?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  “Wrong answer, man. Them meetings don’t work unless you go every time.”

  “I’ll try to do better.”

  “I’m here if you need me, man.”

  “Thanks, Kevin. I think this time it’s you who needs me.” I showed him the petition and notice and began explaining them to him. Kevin didn’t need much explanation. Panic doubled him over. He began rocking again.

  “Look, Kevin, the first thing I want to do is continue this thing. We need our own expert to go over you—”

  “Just get me into Happy Meadows, man. That’s all I ask. Happy Meadows and I’ll go quietly. Don’t let them put me in Big Muddy.”

  “Kevin, this thing is bullshit.”

  “Happy Meadows for a three-month retreat, away from the Cat Lickers. That ain’t askin’ for much, is it? They’ll take my social security and Medicaid for payment. We both know I ain’t right in the head, Ricky, but that don’t mean I belong in a snake pit like Big Muddy.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, if that’s what you really want.”

  “I had a dream the other night, how I was locked up in Big Muddy, and in the shower room there was maybe a foot of standing water on account of the drain was plugged. I wade in there through all the filthy backed-up water, through that soup of athlete’s foot fungi, shit follicles, stealth piss and skin flakes, reach down and start monkeying with the drain cover, and all of a sudden out comes all this black hair. Wads and wads of greasy black hair come puking out, all gobbed up with cum, and I knew it was the hair the Cat Lick priests were combing out of little altar boys’ pubes. Thousands and thousands of little altar boys. The fucking drain couldn’t take it all.”

  I rested my hand on his shoulder until he stopped rocking. In the gentlest voice I could muster I asked him, “Were you ever an altar boy, Kevin?”

  His screams brought a three-man response team. First one in the door was a black man built like a Mac truck. He grabbed Kevin in a bear hug from behind while another grabbed his feet and a third danced around like a boxing referee aiming a cotton swab and a hypodermic, until he’d administered what I figured was either a sedative or a fast-working antipsychotic drug. Within thirty seconds Kevin quit struggling. His body sagged like a hammock between a pair of trees. They settled him into his bunk and he soon began snoring.

  The first attendant asked me, “You all right, man?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s true what they say: crazy man fights with the strength of ten.”

  “He’s had a hard life.”

  “Got a hard life ahead of him, too, from the looks of it.”

  “What are the chances of Happy Meadows taking him in?”

  “Triple-bunking them up there now. Still, he’s gotta go someplace. Can’t stay here much longer. This is a short-term facility.”

  “But if a judge sent him there?”

  “Couldn’t hurt to try. Life might not be near as hard on Kevin at Happy Meadows.”

  I slept on a couch at the office. In the hall closet I kept a fresh shirt and tie, sport coat and pants for emergencies like this one. I cleaned up as best I could in the rest room and headed off for court.

  Bobbi Peterson herself was standing around Judge Mudge’s courtroom at ten minutes to nine. Kevin, in orange jail coveralls, handcuffs and leg irons, his hair stiff and disheveled, looked haunted and grey-complexioned sitting at counsel table between two county jail guards in the harsh fluorescent lights. They must have transferred him to county like body-snatchers sometime during the night.

  “I want to confer with my client. Where can we do that?”

  “Right here, Counselor.”

  “How about cutting us some slack?”

  “Like I said, we have to stay right here, unless you want us to take him back to the sweatbox.”

  Kevin stiffened. His eyes implored me not to let them move him.

  “Kevin, that thing we talked about last night? That place you wanted to go? Do you still want to go there?”

  Kevin nodded rapidly.

  “Let me talk to some people, then. You sit tight.” Walking toward Bobbi I shook my head in amazement at the uselessness of that last bit of advice.

  Studiously ignoring me, Bobbi looked at her watch. In the jury box was seated an older woman wrapped in a saffron and blue sari with a dull red caste mark on her head. Bobbi leaned over and whispered something to her. The woman nodded. No doubt cooking up an impromptu ventriloquist act with the state psychiatrist.

  “Can we talk?” I asked Bobbi.

  “What’s there to talk about? Your boy can’t keep his prick in his pants. It’s that simple.”

  “Nothing’s that simple, Bobbi. I have only recently learned that as a child, my client was sexually abused by a priest. I’m convinced that his psychosis is a direct result.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Judge Mudge might think otherwise. The thing is, I need a short continuance to hire an expert—”

  “No way. You’ve received ample notice of this hearing. We’re tired of screwing around with this asshole. After today, your guy goes off to Big Muddy and Belleville will be running help wanted ads to refill the position of village idiot.”

  “What are the odds of you stipulating to an evaluation at Happy Meadows?”

  “Slim and none. My expert says he’s violent. She says he was a candidate for a straitjacket last night at the hospital before they managed to knock him out. Happy Meadows doesn’t admit violent offenders.”

  “Is Judge Mudge in?”

  “Since eight o’clock this morning.”

  “Let’s go see him.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bobbi shrugged. “Anything
to get this show on the road.”

  Entering Judge Mudge’s chambers always reminded me of visiting Santa’s cottage as a child. Rather than climbing up on Santa’s lap and whispering what I wanted for Christmas in his ear, this time I opened the conversation after Judge Mudge’s effusive and merry greetings to Bobbi and me.

  “Judge, as I was explaining to Bobbi, my client Kevin Quarles needs mental health evaluation. What we should avoid at all costs is a rush to judgment. There has been some newly-discovered evidence impacting on the nature and treatability of his illness, which needs to be further, explored. In the meantime we’d be willing to stipulate to Happy Meadows for a ninety-day period.”

  Judge Mudge’s eyebrows rose hopefully as he looked to Bobbi for the likelihood of a docket-clearing agreed order. But it was not to be.

  “Judge, we have witnesses present, including a board-certified psychiatrist who is prepared to testify that this defendant is extremely likely to re-offend. That this defendant given his history is violent and that he’s virtually certain to re-offend, and that he therefore constitutes a clear, present and immediate danger to the public.”

  “Judge,” I responded, “it would be a tragedy of the worst kind if this young man were to be branded a sexually dangerous person, particularly if we can gain more insight into the nature of his problem and his illness turns out to be something that can be cured.”

  Judge Mudge turned to Bobbi and said, “Why don’t you two go back out in the courtroom for about, oh, twenty minutes or so and talk this over? See if there’s a middle ground.”

  “There is no room for compromise, your Honor,” Bobbi said.

  Judge Mudge nodded sadly. “Then I have a suggestion for both of you,” he said. “If your respective positions are clear, why don’t each of you write up an order setting forth your requested disposition of this case, then leave both orders on my desk here in chambers. I’ll consult the authorities, take the matter under advisement and render a decision before noon today.”