Punishment

by Scott J. Holliday

  Before him stood three separate buildings. A green-and-white sign pointed to the pediatric ward on the left, the adult ward on the right, and straight ahead for the commons. Breezeways connected them all. The place wasn’t some big and ominous thing, like the infamous Danvers. It looked to Barnes like the elementary school he’d recently visited, only this school was surrounded by two fifteen-foot-high fences sporting razor-wire wigs and watchtower spotlights at each corner.

  Barnes got out of his car and walked up to the outer gate. He pressed a buzzer and looked up into a video camera perched there. A rough female voice came through the speaker. “State your business.”

  Barnes showed his badge to the video camera. “Here to visit an old colleague. Tom Watkins.”

  A buzzer sounded. The gate’s lock clicked. Barnes pushed it open and walked through. Before he reached the second gate, another buzzer sounded and the lock clicked. He pushed through and headed toward the commons building. The gates closed behind him, rattling the fences.

  The interior of the commons smelled like body odor. The head nurse, a mahogany woman wrapped in stark white, with a back so wide and straight you could hang a painting from it, led Barnes down a breezeway and through the adult gathering room toward Watkins’s quarters. She smelled of perfume and bleach, kept her hands clamped together behind her back as she strode through the maze of patients dressed in dingy white. The walls were painted royal blue, supposedly a soothing color. A scrawny guy with dark eyes sat sullenly on a couch. His left hand was wrapped in gauze. A dot of blood had made its way through to the top layer.

  They drew near a closed door with a sign on it.

  THERAPY

  The mahogany woman walked on, but Barnes stopped and looked in through the rectangular glass pane. It was crisscrossed with wire in the same diamond pattern found on the gym door at the elementary school. Inside there was a man lying on a hospital bed. His hands were manacled to the railings, his head and chest strapped down, a bite-riddled bit in his mouth. There was an IV stand providing the man nourishment as though he were in a coma. In a sense, he was. A machine technician sat to the side on a wooden chair. He read a magazine while the man jerked and shuddered at the experiences being pumped into his head.

  The nurse appeared at Barnes’s side.

  “What did he do?” he asked her.

  “Tortured a woman.” Her speech was terse, as painful to hear in person as through the gate speaker. “Kept her in his basement.”

  “How long?”

  “Six months.”

  “No. How long a memory pull?”

  “They got two full days from the woman he tortured. He’s reliving it all.”

  A swell of terror passed through Barnes. To be on the machine for two full days was beyond his ability to grasp. He watched as the man bucked hard against his restraints and screamed out for help in a woman’s voice.

  The nurse said, “Watkins is this way.”

  Tom Watkins sat quietly in his room. He was attached to a wheelchair by leather straps at the wrists and ankles. He wore a battered robe with a wife-beater tank top, boxer shorts beneath. The tank top was stained from food and something else, maybe drool.

  The nurse said, “We had ourselves an incident this morning, didn’t we, Tom?”

  Watkins looked up at her. There were bags under his unfocused eyes. His jaw hung limply. “I’m so sorry, miss,” he said. “So sorry.”

  The head nurse squinted. “Hmm.”

  Watkins hung his head.

  “What did he do?” Barnes said.

  The nurse looked at him, sighed through her nose. “He decided his fork would be better placed in Mr. Hill’s hand than in his pancakes.” She pointed to a chair and then left.

  The chair legs grated the floor as Barnes pulled it out from the wall. He sat down. Watkins lifted his head only high enough to see Barnes, to watch him through the tops of his eyes, the lids fluttering. He was drooling now, answering the question about the tank-top stain.

  “How you doing, fella?” Barnes said. He patted Watkins’s knee.

  A smile spread across Watkins’s face. Full Metal Jacket, Private Pyle in the bathroom. He started with a chuckle, and then broke into a full-on laughing fit that tested the strength of his straps and engorged the veins on his forearms and neck. Barnes sat patiently through it, mentally fighting back the people emerging from the file drawers in his own mind. He wished he hadn’t left his pint in the car.

  “You know me,” Watkins finally said, bringing his head back down. He licked at the drool hanging from his lower lip.

  “I do,” Barnes said. “We worked together at the precinct.”

  “No, no, no,” Watkins said, shaking his head. “You know me. You know us.”

  “I know us?”

  Watkins again threw back his head. “The machiiiiiiiiiine!” His cry was like fingernails against a chalkboard. The tendons in his neck stood out like cables. His black fingertips turned white against the arms of his wheelchair. He looked like a man screaming down the highest hill on a roller coaster in hell.

  “Yes,” Barnes said, gripping the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been on the machine.”

  Watkins jerked back to attention. His voice reached up an octave when he said, “What’s your angle here, son?”

  Barnes blinked. Watkins’s tone was like that of a woman. His eyes had changed, too. They were clear and sharp. Barnes said, “Um . . . well, I—”

  “Spit it out, ya moron!” Watkins said. His eyes had changed again. Angry, shifty. His voice had dropped back down in tone, but he didn’t sound like Watkins—he sounded like . . . Jesus . . . he sounded like Chunk Philips.

  “I came to ask you about Calavera.”

  Watkins pushed back against his wheelchair like he’d been slapped. He cringed and shook his head. The index finger on his right hand started a repeated motion. Straight down, right, and then back up, like a triangle. Down, right, diagonally back up, again and again. He said, “Ten-three, good buddy. Ten-three, good buddy. Ten-three, ten-three, ten-three.”

  Barnes said, “What about ten-three?”

  “Ten-three, ten-three, ten-three. You’ll find it. Ten-three, ten-three, ten-three.”

  “I’ll find what?”

  Watkins went still, though his finger kept moving. “He wants you to find him,” he said. “Do you have the clues? You just have to see them. What do you see? What did you eat?”

  “I saw that horrible mask.” Kendra MacKenzie.

  “Talcum powder.” Moe Chamberlain.

  Barnes said, “I don’t understand.”

  “Riddle me this. What do you see? Riddle me that. What did you eat? Peas?” He laughed again, shifted, morphed, his finger repeatedly drawing the triangle. It was like watching a Transformer constantly changing but never settling on a shape.

  “A riddle?” Barnes said. “You figured it out?”

  “Oh yes,” Watkins said, “oh yes, oh yes. Not all of it, but I was on my way. He was taking me there. He wants to be found, you know? He wants to be visited. He wants you to stop him, just like he wanted me to. But I didn’t want to. I believe in his work. The world should know him not as a martyr”—he leaned forward and whispered—“but as a god.”

  “Is that why you killed Dawson that day in the safe house?”

  Watkins’s finger stopped making the triangle. He looked at Barnes like he’d just realized he was there. He smiled. “Dawson. The survivor. Thought he could hide. Ha. I know what Dawson did.”

  “Dawson was never on the machine,” Barnes said. “He refused it. And then you came along, and, well, let’s just say you made an attachment impossible.”

  Watkins smiled. “Gee, so sorry about that.”

  “What did Dawson do?”

  Watkins sat still for a moment. The Transformer action was slowing down. It was like smoke reversing back into a chimney. All movement stopped, even the eyes, and then, in a child’s voice, Watkins said, “He hurt me.” Watkins squirmed, rubbed a cheek agains
t his shoulder.

  Barnes said, “Who are you?”

  In the same child’s voice, Watkins said, “It’s me, dummy.”

  Barnes sank into his chair. His head swam in delirium. It was Ricky. He was sure of it. How did this madman have Ricky inside him? It doesn’t matter. Just leave. Go. Run. He tried to stand but found he lacked the strength. He dropped his head into his hands. The idea that Ricky was trapped in this man, in this place. He reached for the Glock in his armpit but found the holster empty. He’d left it at the desk, their precautionary enforcement measure.

  “Quit crying, ya pussy,” Watkins said.

  Barnes looked up. “Why did you leave me?”

  “I didn’t leave you.”

  “You did. You let that train take you away, and I—”

  “I don’t know you, shithead.”

  Barnes blinked. “Who are you?”

  “Andy Kemp. Don’t call me Andrew. That’s for the bitches.”

  Not Ricky.

  Andy Kemp. First he’d been in Barnes’s dream, and now he was here, in Watkins. Andy Kemp, the unsolved mystery that Watkins claimed didn’t leave a memory to pull, the body too far gone, the connections a mess.

  Watkins lied. Kemp’s memory pull wasn’t a dud.

  “Gerald Dawson,” Barnes said. “He was the one who hurt you—wasn’t he, Andy?”

  “Fuck Dawson.”

  “You’re a clever kid,” Barnes said. “You got inside Watkins.”

  Andy winked, smiled.

  “You used Watkins to kill Dawson. Revenge from beyond the grave.”

  Andy shrugged, showed a petted lip, turned up his palms.

  “Killing Dawson was a bad thing, kid. It landed Watkins in this place.”

  “He’s happy here.” At that, Andy’s visage dashed away from Watkins’s face like a swipe on an iPad. Watkins’s head fell and his eyes came up, back to Private Pyle.

  Barnes said, “Andy?”

  Watkins said, “Get out of here.”

  “Calm down, Tom. I want to talk to Andy again.”

  “Get out of here!” Watkins squirmed and strained against the straps of his chair. It rocked side to side on its wheels.

  Barnes leaned in close. “Talk to me, Andy. Tell me how you knew Dawson.”

  Watkins spat in Barnes’s face.

  Barnes wiped the spit with his jacket sleeve. He found his legs, stood up, and backed away. Watkins continued to writhe and strain against his restraints. “Get out of here!” The chair fell sideways, and Watkins struggled against the floor, his cheek flat against the green tiles.

  The head nurse entered the room with two orderlies, one at either side. The orderlies came in and picked up Watkins, reset his chair. His tormented eyes never left Barnes. “Get out of here!”

  The head nurse turned to Barnes. “You might do as the man says.”

  25

  Jeremiah Holston was in the psych ward parking lot, outside of the double gates. He leaned up against Barnes’s car with his arms folded over his chest.

  “You followed me?” Barnes said. He was waiting for the second gate to buzz and release him. The people in his head whispered curiously among themselves.

  Holston smirked. “Took a cab,” he said. “Figured you might offer me a ride home; we could finish the interview along the way.”

  “Must have been an expensive ride.”

  Holston shrugged.

  “And what if I just leave you here?”

  “I thought you didn’t hate me yet.”

  “Not yet,” Barnes said. The gate buzzed and unlocked. He made his way through and came to the driver’s side of his car. “Get in.”

  Barnes moved the pint of bourbon to the back. Holston got in. They pulled onto the highway and headed south. Barnes said, “This is it. You’ve got however long it takes us to get back to Detroit. After that, we’re done.”

  “What’s crackin’ in Bracken?” Holston said.

  “Watkins. He was on the machine with Cala—I mean, with the Pickax Man—before I was. I was checking if he might have had different experiences, seen different things.”

  “And did he?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh yes, he did.” Detective Franklin’s voice.

  “Shhh.”

  “Shhh yourself, bastard.”

  “You were going to say Cala something. Cala what?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “I thought you were going to be honest with me.”

  “If it doesn’t potentially hurt the case, I will. If my answer could bring in false leads or spawn some copycat, no soap.”

  “Come on, Barnes. Off the record is off the record.”

  “Bat Boy’s record is never off.”

  Holston scoffed. “So then, how was Watkins?”

  “Not good.”

  “The machine messed him up.”

  “He was a good man.” Detective Franklin.

  “It could’ve messed him up,” Barnes said. “Sure.”

  “How could there be any doubt? He was a decorated detective and a family man. Now he’s a murderer, a mental case reduced to mush, and you’re giving me it could’ve?”

  “Like it or lump it.”

  “Just give me more than could’ve.”

  Barnes nodded. “Detective Watkins was affected by the acts of the criminals he chased. He began to believe some things, and he acted on those beliefs. Was his use of the machine a factor in why he lost his marbles? Possibly. Can I say that with any certainty? No.”

  “Did he give you any help?”

  Barnes thought of Watkins wriggling against the chair, his cheek on the floor, drool on his chest. The man was clearly out of his mind, but the answer to Holston’s question was “Yes.”

  “Something still in him,” Holston said. “Something haunting him. The same thing is happening to you, now.”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit, Barnes. How long have we known each other? Five years? Ten? I’ve never seen you such a ghost.”

  “You think because you’ve been the guy with a microphone in my face a few times you know me?”

  “What don’t I know?”

  Barnes’s mind flashed to Calvary Junction, to Ricky. For the first time his memory of the place, of his brother’s death, felt lighter. He didn’t feel that instant sense of guilt and remorse.

  “Maybe it was the salt.” Edith MacKenzie.

  “Let’s just say,” Barnes said, “I’m not just some munky stuck in the machine.”

  “No one’s saying that, Barnes. Jesus Christ, man, can’t you see I’m trying to help you? You and any other detective who’s been hooked to that machine. You keep dying over and over on that goddamn device. That’s how we punish criminals, for God’s sake. So how can it be that it’s not destroying you?”

  “We all have a penance to pay.”

  “So what, you deserve it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  Barnes didn’t respond.

  “You might as well tell me. I’ll find out anyway.”

  Barnes said, “Don’t make me start hating you.”

  Holston shook his head.

  “You really want to help me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’re going to do me a favor.”

  26

  Barnes dropped Holston off at his newspaper office—a nondescript building in an industrial park full of nondescript buildings. His cell phone rang as the reporter grew smaller in the rearview mirror. Barnes answered it.

  “Detective, this is Judy Nolan from Sinai Grace. I’m one of the nurses looking after your partner, Detective Franklin.”

  “I’m right here. What’s up?” Detective Franklin.

  “Excuse me?” the nurse said.

  “Goddammit, stop it,” Barnes said.

  “Who are you talking to?” the nurse said.

  “I’m sorry,” Barnes said. “Just . . . how’s he doing?”

  “Well, he’s awake now,�
�� the nurse said. “We believe he’s going to pull through. Please don’t visit until tomorrow. He needs rest. I only called because I thought you’d like to know his condition has improved.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not until tomorrow, okay? It’s what’s best for him.”

  “Not until tomorrow.”

  Barnes disconnected the call. He pulled to the roadside and stopped the vehicle. He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. The man he saw there was a shell, a corpse, a ghost. His eyes were as dark and sunken as those on the mask he chased, his skin as waxy and false. He imagined the sugar skull over his face.

  Moe Chamberlain screamed.

  Edith MacKenzie cried.

  Chunk Philips roared in anger.

  Barnes mentally stuffed the victims into their proper drawers. When they came crawling back out, he punched them down with prejudice until all activity stopped.

  Martinez was in the tech lab, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, when Barnes walked in. She was fiddling with the railing on the hospital bed. Officer Flaherty was standing next to her, arms folded over his chest, gum smacking.

  “What are you doing here?” Flaherty said.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Barnes said. He took off his jacket and started on his holster. He could smell Flaherty’s grape gum. “Get out.”

  “Captain’s orders. You’re not to get on this machine.”

  “You’re going to stop me?”

  “If I have to,” Flaherty said. He smiled, kept chewing.

  It struck Barnes then that he’d been wrong: Flaherty hadn’t been bullied as a kid—he was the bully. Guys like him and Freddie Cohen, the kid that used to bully Ricky. They grew up, got jobs, and stayed bullies. Just being fat don’t make you tough. Barnes snickered.

  “Something funny?” Flaherty said.

  “Why you got such a hard-on for me, Flaherty? What did I ever do to you?”

  Flaherty shrugged. “I guess I just don’t like your face.”

  “How unoriginal,” Barnes said. He made a fist and stepped toward the officer, but before he could swing, Flaherty dropped down like a marionette cut from its strings.