Ruth dropped her coat onto an office chair and hurried to her desk to review Franklin’s file. She recalled observing stress in his voice at their last session, but nothing that indicated such aberrant behavior. She would need to find out what had caused this episode if she was going to help him through it.
Ruth Klein quickly retrieved Franklin’s folder from her file cabinet drawer. She was pleased with herself for having labeled and filed it properly immediately after his last session. She normally procrastinated, which usually necessitated a mad scramble through piles of seemingly camouflaged documents to seek out the unidentified culprit she sorely needed. She laid the file open on her desk, took a long sip of her coffee, adjusted her glasses, and began to read.
Ah, now she remembered, nightmares precipitating feelings of guilt, minor acting out of his dreams, but nothing as debilitating as the symptoms he’s now presenting. Something new must have happened.
Ruth scanned her notes, running her finger down the page, then stopped at three words: yellow rose tattoo. Suddenly the full session with Franklin from Tuesday replayed in her mind. He described a burglary taking place in a large house and a woman stabbed to death with a pair of scissors, a woman with a yellow rose tattoo on her right hip. He was describing Sylvia Radcliffe’s murder. How could he know that? Unless…
Ruth looked at her desk clock: 8:45. He’ll be here any minute. She sprang from her chair, ran to the front door of her waiting room, and closed the deadbolt lock, making a loud click. She stood motionless with her hand on the lock, breathing deeply to regain control of her racing heart. After a calming moment, she decided that she may be overreacting. There was probably a logical explanation. This could simply be a coincidence, or something he read in the newspaper. She slowly unlocked the door. It made a “clunk” sound this time, and she backed away about a foot. But the yellow rose tattoo—that’s a bit much for a coincidence, and it wasn’t in the newspaper. She stepped forward again; click went the lock. Then she stepped back, thinking, Tattoos are very popular right now. I would imagine a yellow rose is a very common design in tattoo parlors, particularly with young women. Clunk went the lock as she opened it. But on the right hip? Click.
Being no stranger to paranoia, Ruth weighed her fear against her professional training and her obligation to her patient under the Psychologist’s Code of Conduct and made her decision. Clunk. She commended herself for making the right decision, one favoring the welfare of the patient over her personal concerns, and then she ran to her desk and rummaged through her top drawer until she found her tube of pepper spray and slipped it into her pocket.
***
Franklin stepped quietly through the front door of 29 Office Park Place. When he passed Hyrum Green’s office, he walked on his tiptoes. Only his cane clicked on the noisy tile floor. As he went by, Hyrum opened the door and stepped into the hall.
“Early for another date, Franklin?” He smiled broadly. “I knew you didn’t stop by the other night just to see my handsome face. So what is it? You’re dating Dr. Klein. It’s all right; you can tell me,” he said with his usual wink. “I wondered why she was here so early today. Now I know.”
“No, I just stopped by to—”
“Enough—she’s an attractive woman. You’re a good-looking man. Go. You can tell me all about it later,” he said and disappeared back into his waiting room.
“I’m going to have to see if this building has a back entrance,” Franklin mumbled as he made his way down the hall.
He entered Dr. Klein’s waiting room and took a seat. Within a few seconds, he got up from his seat and walked to her office door. Just as he raised his fist to knock, Dr. Klein pulled the door open. Startled by the sight of Franklin standing less than a foot away with his fist clenched and raised, she uttered a short, high-pitched shriek.
“I’m sorry,” Franklin said, backing away from her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was going to knock.”
“You didn’t frighten me,” Ruth said in defense of her pride. “I was just a little surprised to see you. I didn’t hear you come in.”
Any more “surprised,” and I’d have to change my pants, she thought as she secretly slipped the pepper spray back into her pocket.
“Come sit down and tell me what happened,” she said, intentionally leaving the door to the waiting room open as she walked to her chair.
Ruth watched Franklin rub his hand over the two-day growth of beard on his cheek. His hair was matted; it looked as though it hadn’t been combed for days—he looked pretty scary.
“Do you mind if I record our session along with taking notes?” she asked. “Sometimes a recording helps when reviewing a session.” And it can also serve as evidence if you threaten me, she thought.
“I’d feel better if you didn’t,” he said.
“You seemed extremely upset last night when you telephoned. Could you tell me what happened?”
“I’m still frightened by the dreams we discussed last time I was here,” he said. “I don’t know what they mean.”
“What do you think they mean?” Dr. Klein asked. That is the most overused response in psychology ever. We should give it a number. Then we could just say ‘twelve’ when that response is required, and everyone will know what we mean.
“Is it possible to do something while sleepwalking and not remember doing it?” Franklin asked.
“It certainly is possible to not recall an activity while sleepwalking. Do you think you did something in your sleep?” Dr. Klein said. Like kill somebody?
Franklin sat on the couch with his hands clenched in his lap, looking at the floor. He tilted his head as though he were sorting out his thoughts. Then, he raised his head and began to explain.
“I think I’m psychic,” he said.
Psychotic is more like it, Ruth thought.
“What led you to that conclusion?” she said instead.
“I know things I could not know any other way,” he said with a newfound look of confidence on his face.
Unless you did them, she thought. “Can you give me an example?”
Franklin cleared his throat, stood, and began to pace as he spoke.
As he approached her chair, she instinctively placed her hand in her pocket and gripped the pepper spray. She relaxed her grip when he turned away.
“I know this will sound strange to you,” Franklin said, shaking his index finger in the air as he spoke, “but I think the dream I described to you in our last session was a premonition of a real murder.”
And there it is, Ruth thought.
He went on. “Have you read yesterday’s newspaper about the murder of a young woman in Silicon Springs?”
“She was my patient,” Ruth volunteered, then regretted saying it.
Franklin sat back down on the sofa and lowered his head into both of his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice now weak and slightly muffled. “I thought it was only a dream, but I guess I was seeing what was going to happen.”
Or you were planning what you were going to do, she thought, her anger beginning to well up inside her.
“In our last session, you said that the murder weapon was a pair of scissors and the victim had a yellow rose tattoo on her right hip. Were those facts in the real murder?” Ruth asked, already knowing that at least the tattoo was real.
“I don’t know. But if they are real, it would prove I am psychic, since I saw them in my dream. Don’t you see?” he said, leaning forward at the edge of his seat.
It would prove something, she thought. “I’ve never seen any proof of psychic phenomena before. Have you?”
“I’ll bet many of the dreams I dreamed recently have been premonitions of things to come. I never thought of it before. Even dreams I had as a kid probably came true, but I didn’t know.” Franklin began pacing again, this time with his hand on his chin as he walked faster and in a tighter oval pattern.
He’s delusional, Ruth thought. This fantasy of being a psychic is his escape. It�
�s an opportunity for his mind to rationalize the memory of the violent events in his past as premonitions. It’s a defense mechanism to hide his actions from his conscious mind and thus avoid the consequences of those actions. He doesn’t know he did it.
This man needs help, but the only way to institutionalize him would be if he committed himself voluntarily, since he has no family in the area that would have that authority. Of course I could contact the police and tell them what I know and let them take it from there, but I have no knowledge of a crime he is going to commit or proof he committed one in the past. The Psychologist’s Code of Conduct forbids me to divulge any of his personal data to the police or anyone unless it’s to protect someone from imminent danger.
“Dr. Klein—Dr. Klein!”
Oops, I did it again, she thought.
“How shall we prove you’re right?” she said. “Should we call the police and tell them what you know? Maybe you could help them.”
“No, no, no. We can’t tell anyone until I can prove I’m right. They might get the wrong idea.”
Might? Ruth thought.
Then suddenly Franklin walked through the open door into the waiting room. “Thank you so much, Doctor. You really helped me,” he said. He continued walking to the exit.
“Mr. Jameson—Franklin—where are you going? What are you going to do?” she cried.
“I’m going to go home and write down everything about my dreams, all of them. Then I’m going to check each one out. I’ll prove I’m a psychic, and the next time I dream of a crime, I’ll be there to prevent it. Thank you again; I feel so much better.” Then Franklin disappeared down the hall.
Ruth Klein stood stunned in the middle of her office. She thought of the seriousness of his illness and the need to take action, but then there was the conflict she felt with doctor-patient privilege and the Psychologist’s Code of Conduct.
“Fuck the code. I’m turning him in,” she said, speaking from pure impulse.
After a few minutes of calming meditation and rethinking the problem, Ruth came to a different conclusion.
She was still committed to her career and to her code of conduct, but she felt an overpowering urgency to act. She would never intentionally violate doctor-patient privilege, but this was an extreme situation. Although she had no proof that Franklin would hurt someone in the future, she felt she could not allow him to roam the streets at will in his current psychological state. What to do? That was the question. She could call the police and give an anonymous tip that he was the murderer. She didn’t actually know that as a fact. She could talk to Lieutenant Peirce and tell him she was concerned that Franklin might hurt himself. That might get the lieutenant involved, but she couldn’t support her concern without telling him why, and that would violate Franklin’s privacy. How could she stop him? She could wait for him to cross the street and then run him over with her car. That would stop him. OK, you’re losing it now, she thought. What if she met with him again and tried to convince him to commit himself? It was a long shot, but it might work. And if it didn’t, she thought, she could always revert to Plan B—the anonymous phone call, not running him over.
***
“Here you go, Cochise,” said the uniformed police messenger as he handed a large manila envelope to Sergeant Holloway.
Holloway raised his hand and touched the bandage on his head. He turned and looked at his reflection in the glass-topped partition dividing his cubicle from the other precinct office spaces. He stared at the single white band of gauze wrapped around his forehead and understood. “How would you like an arrow in your ass?” he asked as he sat in his chair to open his mail. The messenger did not reply, but as he walked away, he flashed half of a peace sign over his shoulder.
“Whatever happened to respect for your fellow workers!” Holloway shouted at the receding figure. An hour later he stood in Lieutenant Peirce’s office paraphrasing the arrest record of the recently deceased Mortimer Schmidt, aka Mortimer Banks.
“This guy had a conviction for grand theft burglary and manslaughter. He served twelve years in a New York state prison,” Holloway said as he looked for the familiar jar of jelly beans on the lieutenant’s desk. “Banks has been out for about a year. He fell off the radar a month after he was paroled. His parole officer in Albany issued a warrant for his arrest, but he was never found.”
“I guess he figured he would be sent up for life if he was caught. That’s probably why he ran.” Peirce opened his top desk drawer, removed a bag of wilted vegetable strips, and tossed them onto the desk in Holloway’s direction.
“Here’s the good part, Lieutenant—he had a computer flash drive in his pocket. It contained a list of customer sales from the jewelry store where Sylvia Radcliffe worked. I checked with robbery division, and four of the addresses on this list have been broken into in the last month. I think we have our cat burglar.”
Holloway opened the bag, took all the carrot sticks, and tossed the bag with the remaining vegetables back on the lieutenant’s desk.
“I guess Sylvia could have been feeding information to her mother about who recently bought jewelry, and Mort did the smash and grab. Maybe Sylvia decided she wanted out, and the family needed to keep her quiet. Was anything other than jewelry stolen from those houses?” Peirce asked as he wondered about Holloway’s fascination with the color orange.
“The usual stuff,” said Holloway, “some cash, a big-screen TV.”
“Good work,” interrupted Peirce. “Get a detailed list of the stolen items from robbery, including the serial number of the stolen TV. Then get a search warrant for Henrietta Radcliffe’s house. It’s time to pay another visit to the grieving mother.”
18
Police sirens wailed and black-and-white police cars skidded to a stop, blocking off both ends of the street. Four uniformed police officers and two in plain clothes exited their cars and rushed to the front door of Henrietta and Emily Radcliffe’s home.
“What do you want now?” Henrietta shouted at Lieutenant Peirce as she stood in the open doorway. Henrietta was dressed in a dark-blue pantsuit and black leather shoes instead of her customary flowered housedress and flip-flops. Through the open doorway, Sam Peirce could see Emily carrying two suitcases down the stairs. When she saw the lieutenant, she stopped midflight and ran back up the stairs to her bedroom, bumping her bags along the wall and stairs as she went.
“Henrietta Radcliffe,” Peirce said as he held up a folded sheet of white paper. “We have a warrant to search these premises.”
The four uniformed police officers immediately began to rummage through the house, lifting sofa cushions and opening drawers over the protests of Henrietta. She waved her arms and shouted profanities as she attempted to reset the sofa cushions and slam the drawers before a thorough search could be executed. Sergeant Holloway intervened, backed Henrietta to a chair, and cautioned her not to interfere under penalty of arrest. Lieutenant Peirce smiled as he observed the tenacity with which Holloway confronted the woman in spite of the fact that she was two inches taller and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds.
Peirce turned the big-screen television and checked the serial number on its side against the list of stolen items and found a match. From the top of the stairs, Officer Thompson called down to the lieutenant.
“Sir, you might want to come up and see this. It seems Ms. Radcliffe’s suitcase is filled with some pretty expensive jewelry.”
Sam Peirce climbed the stairs. He lifted a blue velvet bag from the suitcase and dumped its contents onto the bed. He lifted a diamond tennis bracelet from the pile of rings and watches and matched it against the description of a bracelet stolen just three weeks ago. “Those aren’t mine,” Emily said. “I didn’t put them in there.”
Peirce lifted her wrist and studied the white-gold and diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe wristwatch she was attempting to hide behind her back. He checked his list. “I suppose someone put this watch on your wrist without your knowledge.”
“
It was a gift. I got it from—”
“Shut up,” Henrietta shouted from her chair in the living room. “Don’t say another word.”
“Well, that’s at least possession of stolen goods. I think we have enough to continue this conversation at the station. Officers, read them their rights and bring them in. We’ll meet you there as soon as we finish the search.”
***
“We’ve had them sitting there for over an hour. From the way they’re both fidgeting, I’d say they’re ready, boss,” Holloway said as he looked through the glass window into interrogation room three.
A single desk lamp barely illuminated the small observation room where Peirce and Holloway stood.
“Let’s give them ten more minutes to stew. Make sure we’re recording them.” Sam walked out of the observation room. Holloway put on a pair of headphones, checked the volume control on the recorder, and resumed watching the two women through the one-way mirror.
Henrietta and Emily Radcliffe sat on metal chairs, both on the same side of a large stainless steel table. They sat under harsh light cast down from four strong spotlights recessed into the ceiling. Emily reached down and grabbed the sides of her chair and tried to pull it closer to the table.
“We’re screwed,” Henrietta said.
“What?”
“Our chairs—the chairs are screwed to the floor. You can’t move them. And you see those big metal rings stuck on the table? They’re to attach handcuffs.”
“They’re not going to put handcuffs on us, are they, Momma?”
“Maybe—we’re dangerous criminals.”
“I’m not a criminal; all I did was—”
“Emily, we talked about this. All that jewelry, we never saw it before, and the TV was a gift from Sylvia. We don’t know how she got it. You know what to say.”
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