(Un) Sound Mind

by Richard Amico

  Franklin lifted himself, trying to determine how badly he was hurt. A splash of cold water on his eyebrow and a look in the mirror told him that although blood ran freely—cuts on eyebrows seemed to do that—the cut wasn’t deep. He wadded up a piece of toilet tissue and pressed it to his forehead until the bleeding stopped. Then he found a small plastic bandage in the bathroom medicine cabinet and finished the repair. It stung, but he thought the bandage gave his face character. He twisted his body in front of the mirror to view his back. He had decided to sleep in his shirt to help fend off the cold. A mistake, he thought. He had a spot of blood on the back of his shirt. Must have rolled in some blood from my eyebrow when I fell. Franklin changed his shirt and brought the soiled one into the kitchen to soak it in cold water.

  “Anyone home?” Franklin called as he walked into the living room. Something had happened here. “Hello?” he shouted. A metal kitchen canister half full of sugar was on its side on the counter; its cover was bent on the floor. In the sugar he saw the brass casing and part of the paper tube of a shotgun shell. He hobbled back to the living room and looked at the empty shotgun rack over the fireplace. The rocking chair was lying on its side in the middle of the room. Something was terribly wrong. He hoped that nothing had happened to Dr. Klein and the lieutenant. He also hoped that whatever had happened had nothing to do with Dennis. Then he saw it. It was lying on the table next to a half-filled bowl of cereal and a spoon. It was a handgun, a silver Taurus .38 special stainless steel revolver. The same kind of gun that Hyrum had convinced him to buy for self-protection. The same kind of a gun that Franklin kept in his own nightstand next to his bed. It was his gun.

  Franklin dropped his stained shirt on the back of a chair and picked up the gun. He smelled the end of the barrel. He pushed the knurled lever to release the cylinder and dumped the brass cartridge cases out onto the table. All five were empty; all five had been fired. Confusion, shock, horror, fear—which emotion first? Something bad had happened, but what?

  Franklin drove his car down the narrow road back to the highway. His attention was divided between the road and the signal-strength indicator on his cell phone placed on the passenger seat. After turning onto the highway and driving about a mile, the meter registered three bars. That was enough. He braked heavily and pulled partially off the road onto the shoulder. The driver of the car behind him blasted his horn and swerved to avoid Franklin’s Toyota.

  “Fucking idiot,” the driver yelled.

  Franklin waved his hand in dismissal of the exasperated driver as he searched the contact list on his cell phone to find a number for the Luzerne County Police Station. The only number he could find was that of Lieutenant Peirce.

  “County police, Lieutenant Peirce’s office, Sergeant Holloway speaking.”

  “Sergeant, this is Franklin Jameson. I’m afraid something terrible may have happened to the lieutenant and Dr. Klein.”

  “Mr. Jameson, I’m glad you called. I just spoke with Lieutenant Peirce. He was hoping that you could give us some additional information about Dennis Cleaver. We were hoping you could tell us where we might find him.”

  “Is the lieutenant all right? Is Dr. Klein all right?” Franklin said, asking the second question before allowing time for Holloway to answer the first.

  Holloway attempted to answer all Franklin’s questions in one rambling utterance. “Lieutenant Peirce has been wounded in the line of duty. Dr. Klein found the lieutenant near the lake and managed to drive him to the hospital, but she never saw the gunman. Dr. Klein is with the lieutenant at Lowell County Hospital.”

  Then it was Holloway’s turn to get answers. “Now where can I find Dennis Cleaver?” Holloway realized that he had raised his voice. He composed himself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jameson,” he said, remembering that Franklin was not a very stable personality. “You seem to be the only person who knows the suspect. We could use your help.”

  Franklin took the empty gun from his pocket. Now it was clear. Dennis must have followed him to the cabin and attempted to kill the lieutenant and Dr. Klein. Somehow they had escaped. But why leave the empty gun at the cabin? Then the second wave of clarity arrived. The gun that shot the lieutenant was in Franklin’s possession and had his fingerprints on it, and it was probably safe to assume that his were the only prints on it now.

  “Mr. Jameson, are you still there? We really need your help to find Dennis Cleaver.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. I’m driving to the hospital as we speak. I’ll be glad to tell all I know when I arrive.” Franklin ended the call before Holloway could reply. He needed to get to the hospital. He was being set up by someone who used to be his best friend, and although he refused to admit it, he knew why. He needed to talk to Dr. Klein before the police questioned him.

  ***

  Ruth sat next to the hospital bed and removed Sam’s sweatshirt from her shoulders. The top from the pair of green scrubs was comfortable enough, but she still wore her own slacks. She had tried on the scrub bottoms, but her height had turned them into pedal pushers or some sort of baggy capri pants. The room was warm, and she could see small beads of perspiration on Sam’s forehead. She took a tissue from the box on the nightstand and wiped his brow. She tried to dry his face, but the stubble of his three-day growth of beard caused the tissue to flake and leave dots of paper on his cheek. Ruth leaned over him and gently blew the bits of paper away. She inhaled and drank in his scent. The faint musky redolence of his skin was intoxicating. Maybe it was his pheromones working overtime, but Ruth couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his forehead. Footsteps entering the room catapulted her out of the moment.

  “How is he doing, Doctor?” came a voice from the doorway.

  “Fine. He seems a little warm,” Ruth said, wondering how much this person had seen.

  “I’m Dr. Goodman, Alicia Goodman. I’m Lieutenant Peirce’s cardiologist. I understand that in spite of his wound, he hasn’t exhibited any signs of a cardiac event.”

  “Yes, that’s what I understand,” she said. “I’m Dr. Ruth Klein; I’m not—”

  “I spoke to Dr. Bradshaw, the attending, right after I was notified of the shooting by the lieutenant’s aide, Sergeant Holloway. Are you Dr. Bradshaw’s relief?”

  “No, I brought Sam—Lieutenant Peirce—into the hospital after he was shot.”

  “Well, he was fortunate to be found by a physician.”

  “I’m not a medical doctor. You see, Sam—Lieutenant Peirce—stayed at my cabin last night. When he was shot this morning, I drove him here.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re that Dr. Klein. You’re the psychologist he came up here to find. Something about a possible threat on your life?”

  “Well, I guess…”

  “And he stayed with you last night?”

  “How do you know about me?”

  “He told me. I’m not just Sam’s cardiologist; we’ve been dating for a year.”

  “I didn’t know that he—you both—were in a relationship.”

  “Obviously,” Alicia Goodman said.

  “No, it was all very innocent. Lieutenant Peirce only stayed because my car had four flat tires, and he couldn’t find his car, and—”

  “Dr. Klein,” Franklin said, rushing into the room. “I woke up, and you and the lieutenant were gone. I called the lieutenant’s office, and they told me he had been shot. How is he?”

  “He’s in satisfactory condition,” Alicia Goodman said. “It sounds like you had a house full last night, Dr. Klein.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t an invited guest,” Franklin said. “I’m afraid I barged in and caught them right in the middle of—”

  “Franklin is a patient of mine,” Ruth interrupted. “He has a vivid imagination. Franklin, why don’t we step outside so that the doctor can examine her patient?”

  “That’s a good idea,” Alicia said. “And, Doctor, we only use our lips on a patient’s forehead to check for fever in pediatrics.”

  Ruth took Frankli
n by the arm and quickly led him out of the room.

  Before leaving the hospital, Ruth asked for a sheet of paper and a pen at the information desk. She stared at the blank sheet for several minutes before writing a short note. Ruth then folded the paper in thirds, addressed it to Sam Peirce, and asked that it be delivered to room 217.

  Ruth didn’t speak for a long time on the drive back to the cabin. Franklin rattled on about how frightened he had been for her safety after awakening and finding no one at home.

  “I have something very important to discuss with you. I need to talk. I need to tell you what happened.”

  “Not now,” Ruth said. “I have a few problems of my own.”

  All Ruth wanted to do now was go home. She was happy to get a ride back to the cabin from Franklin, but the ride wasn’t free. Somewhere in the background she could hear him still whining about some pernicious event that had left him devastated. Ruth opened the window to let cold air blow on her face. The sound of the wind subjugated his words and allowed her to escape into the muffled din. Sam was dating his cardiologist. That was now apparent to her. Does he have a thing for doctors? He never said he was available, but he never said he wasn’t. How could she be such a fool? The answer to the question she had asked herself this morning—was she being too easy—was suddenly obvious. Well, that ends now.

  The buzz in her ears slowly began to resolve into words. Franklin was still speaking. His pitch was high and the cadence of his words rapid.

  “They’re going to arrest me again, and I can’t go back to jail. He was my friend; how could he do this to me?”

  “Wait,” Ruth said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Try to calm down, and we can discuss this over a cup of coffee in a few minutes when we get back.”

  40

  Ruth could hear the click, click of Franklin’s cane on the hardwood floor of the cabin as he paced while Ruth made coffee. She really wanted to pack up and go home. Her pleasant little sabbatical had turned into four days of fear, danger, a little romance, and now a major disappointment. Well, she still had Emma. Emma hadn’t been happy about Ruth’s decision to send her home alone. Ruth would have to make that up to her in some way. It would probably take a gift of a car to offset this parenting blunder, she mused, knowing that Emma would never hold a grudge. She was a sweet child. She would never even think of extortion in exchange for love. It was Ruth’s own guilt that made her feel that a gift was even necessary. No, she would go home, and all would be normal and loving between her and Emma. Ruth would be totally and unconditionally forgiven. She believed that, but she would have a fifty-dollar bill ready just in case. And she still had her career, which reminded her that Franklin was waiting in the next room.

  She steeled herself to the task and walked into the living room. Her parenting skills may have disappointed her daughter, and the man she chose to be with for the first time in five years may have experienced enough disappointment to prefer another relationship, but she wasn’t going to disappoint Franklin. She would help him reveal the deep-seated reason for his neurosis if she had to beat it out of him.

  When Ruth returned to the living room with the coffee, Franklin was sitting on a dining chair with his cane resting across his knees.

  “What happened to your eye?” Ruth asked. She had noticed the Band-Aid on his eyebrow at the hospital but had been too distressed, or maybe too self-absorbed, to comment. Now she felt guilty.

  “I fell getting out of bed and hit my eyebrow on the dresser. It looks worse than it feels. It’s my back that’s killing me. I found some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. It seems to be helping.” Ruth picked up the spotted shirt from the back of the chair.

  “I was going to soak that in cold water,” Franklin said. “I must have rolled in some blood from my eye when I fell.”

  “That’s not all,” Ruth said as she examined the shirt. “You must have ripped it as well.”

  “Leave it. I’ll probably throw it away. It’s an old shirt. I have more important things to talk about. I think you were right about Dennis.”

  “How so?” Ruth said, swinging into therapy mode.

  “I understand that you saved Lieutenant Peirce from being killed. Did you see who shot him?” Franklin dumped three spoons of sugar into his coffee and stirred it.

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t see him,” Ruth said, suddenly feeling proud. She had acted quite bravely, and she may very well have saved his life. Not that he’d recognized her bravery. She tried to recall if he even said thanks. Of course, a lot was happening at once, and he probably planned to thank her at the hospital had she not left in a hurry when his girlfriend…Ruth shook her head to clear her mind and get back to the business at hand.

  “You said you were sure that Dennis could never be violent. What changed your mind?”

  “I never said he couldn’t be violent; I’ve seen him violent. I said I didn’t think he would kill anyone.”

  “Can you remember a time when you saw Dennis act violently?” Ruth asked, pushing her coffee cup to one side and picking up her pen and notepad.

  Franklin took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Soon he was back in Binghamton, walking home from school with his show-and-tell project. Ruth watched him cup his hands and hold them out over the table as though he were holding a great treasure.

  “I was twelve years old, and the project I built was a Green Lantern power battery. I made it from an old kerosene lamp and a flashlight. I had sent away for a genuine Green Lantern power ring. It cost three cereal box tops and two dollars and fifty cents. It was just one week’s allowance, but it took a month to eat the cereal.”

  Ruth looked confused. Franklin explained, “The Green Lantern is a comic book superhero. He gets his super powers from his ring and the light from his lantern, a green lantern. It charges his ring with power. Well, anyway, I made this lantern, like I said, out of a kerosene lamp and a flashlight. When I held the ring against the lantern, the flashlight battery in the lantern would charge a little battery in the ring, and the stone would glow green for a while.”

  Ruth nodded. She didn’t really understand how the ring worked, but she didn’t think that was the important part of the story.

  “My presentation at school went fairly well,” Franklin said. “It took two tries for the ring to glow. Some of the other kids laughed, but Mrs. Shultz, my teacher, said it was the most creative of all the projects and gave me the class prize, a snow globe with the skyline of Manhattan Island inside. It had been sitting on her desk ever since her weekend in New York City during the Thanksgiving holiday. I was really excited.”

  Ruth looked at Franklin, and she could imagine how his twelve-year-old face must have beamed with pride. She put down her notepad and leaned back in her chair.

  “I tucked the glass globe carefully into my backpack. I could picture it on my bookcase in my room, right up there on a shelf with the lantern and the ring. I guess I was pretty impressed with myself.”

  “You had a right to be proud,” Ruth said. “It was a monument to your intellect; a trophy for a job well done.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Franklin said. “Well, I was feeling good, that was, until I walked past the alley next to the pharmacy, and someone grabbed my shoulder from behind. My memory gets a little sketchy here. It all happened so fast that it seemed like flashes of light, a strobe creating images on a storyboard. I still see them that way in my mind, pictures flipping past my eyes.”

  Ruth loved the metaphor. Franklin had emotional problems, maybe even mental illness, but his mind was creative and his storytelling very expressive.

  “I know I was attacked by boys from school. I remember them shouting…Weirdo…Freak…” A mist came over Franklin’s eyes. Ruth reached out to touch his hand, but he pulled it away and began to speak louder.

  “Someone slapped the lantern out of my hand. I tried to hold on to my backpack, but I couldn’t. One of the boys, the biggest one, took the snow globe from my bag and held it in the air.�
� Franklin reached up high above his head with one hand.

  “I tried to get it back, but the other boys were hanging on me, holding me down. I pleaded with him not to smash it on the ground. He just laughed at me and raised it even higher.”

  “Franklin?” Ruth said, trying to get his attention. His voice was quavering and his hand was starting to shake.

  “I looked at the globe for what I thought was the last time. He cocked his arm to throw it, and then…”

  “Then what?” Ruth said, teetering on the edge of the fate of the snow globe.

  “Then another hand grabbed the globe. I recognized the yellow plaid jacket and the gray hood from his sweatshirt; it was Dennis. Then one of the other boys fell on me, and all I could see were flashes of images interrupted by darkness, images of Dennis kicking the boy who had taken the globe, and the other boys standing by, just staring in awe at the savagery of his attack. I think they were too afraid to intervene. My view was blocked by the boy who fell on top of me, but I could hear the boy’s grunts and cries as Dennis beat him.”

  Ruth marveled again at the imagery evoked by his words.

  “Then I was free. Two of the boys grabbed the one on the ground and dragged him away. I had never seen this side of Dennis. He stood with his arm raised high and shrieked something unintelligible as he held the snow globe over his head in triumph.”

  Franklin now stood, making a sound that seemed savage if not a little high-pitched, and waved the sugar bowl over his head.

  Ruth exhaled a long breath. A breath she had held for the last two minutes.