Franklin was mesmerized by a single figure he saw sitting on the bench. It was the same man he had seen outside the fast-food restaurant. Was he waiting for Franklin to finish his session and come out to meet him? Franklin still couldn’t make out his face under the hood, yet his posture, the distinctive tilt of the head, the way his feet rested solidly on the concrete sidewalk all presented an air of confidence that Franklin found remarkably familiar.
The garbage truck proceeded past the bus stop, obscuring Franklin’s view. He leaned forward to try to keep from losing sight of the man.
Ruth rose and walked to the window. She twisted the rod on the vertical blinds, blanking out the street. Leaving the blinds open had been a rookie mistake, and she shook her head as she wondered where her own concentration had gone.
“Wait,” Franklin cried, limping to the window and parting the blinds with his hands. He tilted his head and stared at the street as the truck moved out of his line of sight.
“Is something wrong?” Ruth asked. She looked through the space in the blinds held open by Franklin’s hands. He seemed to be staring at the empty bus stop bench.
“No,” Franklin said, walking back to the couch. “I thought I saw someone I knew on the bench across the street, but I guess I was mistaken.”
Ruth parted the blinds and looked left and right. No one was in view, other than the sanitation workers. She let the blinds close and returned to her seat. She studied his demeanor. He fidgeted with his cuffs, his eyes still focused on the closed blinds. After a momentary pause, he turned to Ruth and said, “I’m a little tired. Could we talk about another dream some other time?” He wanted to ask if Dr. Klein had seen the man in the hood, but if she hadn’t…
“I think we’re going to need to do some work to find out what the root cause of your dreams might be. I’d like to hear more about your early years with your family and friends. Your sleep problems could be related to some past experience or trauma. It may take some time. I suggest that we schedule regular weekly appointments.”
Franklin thought for a minute about agreeing to be treated by a psychologist. The realization that he was going to be in therapy struck him for the first time. He didn’t like the stigma of being a mental patient, but maybe treatment was the only way he could end these dreams and sleep soundly again.
“Do you really think this is going to take more than one or two more sessions?” he asked.
One or two more years maybe, she thought, but said, “It’s really up to you.”
Franklin agreed.
Ruth watched Franklin hobble toward the door, leaning heavily on his cane. This was a troubled man who exhibited more than enough symptoms of psychological problems to warrant treatment. Ruth sat at her desk and began to transcribe her notes of the session. Then she had a thought. She walked back to the window and carefully pulled one panel of the vertical blinds aside so that she could see out but hopefully no one could see her.
Within a few seconds, Franklin appeared on the street. Surprisingly, he was walking across to the bus stop rather than to the parking lot. The buses ran infrequently at this time of night, and few of her patients depended on them. Ruth decided to watch him for a few minutes while he waited. He approached the bench in the enclosure, his back toward Ruth’s window. He stood for a long moment, apparently not moving. Ruth leaned forward, squinting, and observed subtle jerks of his head and occasional hand gestures. “He’s talking to himself,” she said out loud. “Why is he talking to himself? His problems are more serious than I thought. Normal people don’t talk…” Ruth stopped talking and returned to her desk and her notes.
A few seconds later, the number eighteen bus pulled into the bus stop. The driver opened the door and waited, but the man with the cane didn’t attempt to board. He just crossed back to the adjacent parking lot. The bus driver shook his head, closed the doors, and drove on.
6
The moon rose above the horizon, lighting the night sky. It was the hunter’s moon—large, bright, and full—the brightest of the year. Shadows appeared on the ground, all radiating out from the mystical light that legend claimed guided Native American hunters on their quest to fill their larder with game before the winter snows. A gust of cold autumn wind whistled through the pine trees. Summer was gone.
“All the crazies will be out tonight,” Officer Dugan said. “Every time there’s a full moon, crime goes up twenty percent.”
“That’s a myth,” his partner said as he drove the squad car through the upscale suburban Pennsylvania housing development. Each home was set back on an acre of well-landscaped lawn with manicured shrubbery. The police officers navigated the quiet streets looking for anything that seemed out of place on this quiet October night. The neighborhood had been plagued by robberies during the past year, but the police were always too late, and the thief never left a single clue.
“Studies show that all that stuff about the moon having an effect on people’s behavior is a load of bunk,” said Officer Riddle. “It’s an urban legend; nobody believes that stuff anymore.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Officer Dugan caught sight, in his side-view mirror, of what looked like a bear with large red feet riding a bicycle. The bear appeared to be carrying another small animal lying across the handlebars.
“That sounds great, Riddle, but could you pull over? I think we have an urban legend trying to wave us down.”
The police car screeched to a stop, and Officer Dugan watched as the bear on the bicycle waved a large paw and raced toward their car. Within seconds the bear had shape-shifted into a man with a dark beard wearing a ladies’ mink coat with several other furs balled up on the handlebars.
“Help, officers,” he yelled. “My house is being robbed. I saved my wife’s coats, but he’s still in there.”
Officer Dugan stepped out of the car and opened the door to the backseat. “Is your wife or anyone else in the house?” he asked as he ushered the man into the car and rested the bicycle on its side at the curb.
“Don’t forget the other coats,” the man cried as he ignored Dugan’s question and pointed at the ball of fur across the handlebars. “My wife would kill me if I didn’t save her furs.” Dugan tossed the furs into the backseat with the man, who was now pointing back in the direction from which they had come. “Turn around,” he demanded. “It’s the house with the fieldstone front two blocks down. I was in the shower when I saw this man in a stocking mask pass the bathroom door. He ran when he saw me, but I don’t know if he’s still in the house. I just grabbed my wife’s coats and slippers and ran out.”
Officer Riddle called in their location as he stopped in front of the victim’s house with all the lights on the police car flashing. The first floor of the house was dark, and the front door was wide open.
“Take the back, Riddle,” Dugan said as he drew his weapon. “Is anyone else in the house?” he asked for the second time.
“I, I don’t think so,” the man said.
“You don’t think so?” Dugan repeated. The man gazed toward his next-door neighbor’s house. Dugan followed his line of sight and saw a woman with wet hair wrapped in a large bath towel. She disappeared through the front door.
“No,” the man said. “No one else is in the house.”
Dugan looked at the man, then shook his head. “Stay in the car,” he said, and ran to the open front door.
Dugan pulled his flashlight from the nylon holder on his utility belt, held it under his weapon, and scanned the darkened entryway. He poked his head in and out quickly, and then slowly worked his way into the room. The beam of light bounced around the living room, moving rapidly from corner to corner, exposing any space large enough for a man to hide.
Dugan paused and tilted his head to listen for any sound that might betray the burglar’s presence. A subtle creak of a floorboard, barely discernible to his ear, came from the next room. Dugan held his weapon out in front of him. He raised his arm and tilted his head down to wipe the sweat from his upper l
ip on the sleeve of his uniform shirt. He took three slow, deep breaths to calm himself. This was the first time Dugan’s weapon had been out of its holster in an actual on-duty situation since he left the police academy ten years ago. He swallowed. His throat was dry and scratchy. Dugan pulled his hands in close to his chest, pointing his gun up at the ceiling as he flattened out against the wall leading to the kitchen doorway. He readied himself to burst through the door. He silently mouthed the words: “One.” He licked his dry lips. “Two.” He took a deep breath. “Three.” Dugan charged through the doorway, gun first, yelling, “Police—don’t move! Don’t move or you’re dead!”
“Don’t shoot! It’s Riddle, it’s Riddle!” the officer shouted in a frantic, high-pitched voice.
Dugan raised his gun and slumped back against the wall. “What are you doing here? I almost shot you, you dumb shit.”
“I’m sorry. The back door was open,” Riddle said. “He must have gone out before we got here. I thought it was over.”
Dugan holstered his gun and put his hand on Riddle’s shoulder. They stood side by side, Dugan’s hand massaging the base of Riddle’s neck, and Riddle patting Dugan on the back.
“Let’s call it in,” Dugan said. “Yeah, we’re done here.” Neither man looked the other in the eye. Both exhaled deeply as they walked to the car.
***
The vertical posts from the guardrail of the interstate blended into a blur as Mortimer Banks sped down the highway, now several miles from the scene of the robbery. He flipped his cell phone open and pushed speed-dial three. He shouted into the phone, his voice quivering with anger.
“You were wrong! He was home. What kind of half-assed information are you giving me?”
“Take it easy, Mort,” Sylvia said. “His wife is out of town, and he plays cards on Wednesday night. No one should have been home. What happened?”
“The wife was gone all right, but this guy and his neighbor were washing each other’s backs in the shower when I came in. You were wrong. The house wasn’t empty.” Mort swerved across two lanes of the empty highway as he shook his fist in the air.
“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” After a long pause, she said, “How did we do?”
Mort took a deep breath. “The watch was there, just like you said.” His voice was calmer now that he had gotten the rant out of his system. “I picked up a few rings, not worth much, and a cheap bracelet. The watch was the only thing worth taking.” Mort snapped his phone closed and tossed it on the passenger seat. He reached into his pocket and dumped the contents of a small blue velvet bag onto the car’s console. Mort smiled as he groped through the pile of jewelry and fished out a diamond tennis bracelet. He held it up in front of him. Forty matched diamonds set in a yellow-gold bracelet sparkled in turn, reflecting the light from the lampposts that flashed by the windows.
Mort made some mental calculations, waving his finger in the air as he computed the amount of profit he should receive from the bracelet and the rings. Keeping most of the profit for himself had become the rule rather than the exception. After all, he took all the risk, and what Sylvia didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Mort and Sylvia had been working together for about a year—ever since he’d violated parole. He had amassed a fair amount of money over the year and now thought seriously of moving on. Sooner or later someone was going to realize that at least one item in each theft had been bought at Stanton’s, and once they made that connection, Sylvia would be caught. He didn’t intend to be within miles of this town when that happened. This partnership had to come to an end, and after tonight’s screw-up, the sooner it ended the better.
7
The second Ruth Klein opened the door from her inner office, Franklin leaped from his place in the armchair by the window and charged forward, cane thumping on the rug. “You’ll never guess what happened,” he said. Just then his cane caught in the rug, and he lunged forward. Ruth raised both hands chest high in front of her to shield herself from his advance and stepped back into the doorway. He stopped short only inches from her.
“Sorry,” Franklin said, regaining his balance. “I’m just so excited.”
“I can tell,” Ruth said. She backed into the inner office and directed him toward the sofa with a wave of her arm. Instead, Franklin ambled to the window and parted the blinds. He looked left and right before releasing the blinds and walking to the couch.
“What are you afraid of? Is someone following you?”
“Yes…No…I’m not sure.”
Ruth pulled on the cord to open the vertical blinds and searched the street for any suspicious passersby. “What did he look like? It was a he, wasn’t it?”
“It’s like you knew this was going to happen the last time I was here. You asked about him, and then he showed up.” Ruth watched as Franklin turned in small circles as he spoke, shifting his weight from foot to foot to minimize the pressure on his weak leg.
“Slow down and tell me,” Ruth said with a nervous laugh, feeling the contagion of Franklin’s concern but not wanting to exacerbate it.
“The last time I was here I was looking out your window; you remember that.”
“Yes, I do. There was a garbage truck collecting trash from the tavern across the street. I apologize for the distraction,” Ruth said. “I’ll keep the blinds closed in the future.”
Franklin waved a dismissive gesture. “Well, I thought I saw him before I came in. He was looking at a woman driving away, and then I saw him again…”
“Franklin, slow down. I’m not following.”
“He came back,” Franklin said, now pacing back and forth between the coffee table and the sofa. “I hadn’t heard from him in over twenty years, and now I see him almost everywhere I go.”
Ruth stepped forward and caught his shoulder on the third lap past her chair and settled him into his seat.
“Who came back, Franklin?” she asked. “Before I get too dizzy to stand.”
“Dennis—Dennis Cleaver, my childhood friend. You remember? I told you in our last session that he and I had grown apart. Well, there’s more to the story than that, but I can tell you that later.”
Franklin popped up from the sofa, and Ruth just as quickly guided him back down with gentle pressure on his shoulder and a smile.
“How did he find you?” Ruth asked as she settled back in her chair and picked up her notepad.
“I don’t know,” Franklin said, attempting to rise out of his seat. Ruth stiffened her arm and pointed back at Franklin’s place on the sofa. He sat back down and said, “OK, I’m OK, I’m fine now.”
“I hope so. You know I can’t prescribe sedatives. If I could, I would.”
“It’s OK,” Franklin said. “I don’t need a sedative.”
“The sedative wasn’t for you!” she said, laughing. “Tell me about your friend Dennis.” This was the second time that Franklin had come unglued in her office, and both times Dennis had been the reason for his emotional reaction.
“Well, he just stopped coming around all of a sudden when we were about nineteen. We seemed to have different interests. It was my fault. That was when I met Myra, and I just didn’t have enough time for friends. Well, that’s not true either. You see, Myra didn’t like Dennis. She made me choose between her and my friend.”
“That doesn’t sound fair. Couldn’t you find room in your life for both?”
“I could have, but Myra forced me to choose.”
“And you chose Myra over Dennis.”
“You have to understand. I was nineteen. I guess my hormones did the choosing for me.”
“Understandable, but how did Dennis take the decision?”
“Not so well, and the fact that he saved my life made me feel even worse.”
“Wait, Dennis saved your life? Tell me about that.”
“It’s a long story.” Franklin sat looking at the floor.
Ruth waited as he paused. He looked more serene now, lost in the memory of a time in his youth. “Wha
t are you thinking, Franklin?” Ruth asked in a soft voice.
Franklin leaned back on the sofa. His restless fidgeting and manic behavior had dissolved into a look of introspective contemplation. His breathing became slow and regular. Ruth noticed a faint smile begin at the corners of his mouth and spread across his lips as he recalled the story.
“It was a beautiful summer day. We were both about nineteen at the time. The thing we most enjoyed doing together was fishing on the lake. I always talked about the fish I was going to catch and the best bait or lure to use, but I don’t think any of that really mattered to Dennis. He seemed content just to be out together on the water. Most of the time I would talk and Dennis would listen. Nobody else ever really listened to me the way he did. When I would tell a story, and I often did, he would hang on every word. Most of the guys we knew would just tell me that I was full of crap, that I talked too much, but not Dennis—not Dennis.”
Ruth sat quietly, observing the gentle tone that had overtaken Franklin’s voice as he spoke of Dennis. It was a warm tone, rich with affection.
Franklin closed his eyes, and he was back in the boat on Lake Oneida. “I sat in the bow with my feet dangling over the side, staring at the red-and-white bobber tied to my fishing line, waiting for a fish to pull it under. Dennis stood in the stern next to the outboard motor, casting his line. He never was patient enough to sit and wait for the fish to bite.”
“It sounds Rockwellian,” Ruth said.
“The water was smooth as glass, yet the boat rocked as Dennis cast and then reeled in his line, trying to place his lure in one specific spot about fifty feet away.” Franklin went through the motions of casting and reeling with an invisible fishing pole and line.
“‘Hey, sit down,’ I told him, ‘you’re going to tip us over, and I forgot to bring the life preservers.’ I felt pretty guilty about that, but Dennis didn’t care. He said we didn’t need them. He could swim back to shore without even breathing heavy.”
“Was he that good a swimmer?”
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