(Un) Sound Mind

by Richard Amico

  “Dennis’s actions may have been violent, but they were also heroic,” Ruth said.

  “Yeah, he was a good friend to me,” Franklin said, “but I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.”

  “Were there many people on his bad side?” Ruth asked.

  “Yeah, Myra for one. I think he really hated her and, now, maybe me.”

  “What makes you think he hates you?” Ruth asked. “You told me he was upset because you spent more time with Myra than you did with him, but that’s to be expected. Girlfriends take precedence over buddies. You still saw each other, just not as much.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly what happened,” Franklin said, taking his cane from the back of his chair and beginning to pace back and forth across the living room. “You see, the story I told you about the fishing trip, the day of the accident, that’s not exactly the way it ended.”

  Ruth stood. “You lied to me?”

  “Not exactly,” Franklin said, now facing Ruth while leaning on his cane. “Most of it happened just the way I said: the storm, the lightning strike, Dennis swimming to shore. The part that I didn’t tell you was that we argued just before the storm. It was a terrible fight. He said that Myra was no good for me, she was a controlling bitch, and I was stupid to stay with her. He said I would never find a friend like him again, and I would be sorry if I let him go.” Franklin ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s when I told him that if it was a choice between Myra and him, I chose Myra. He was a good friend, but I didn’t feel the same way about him as he did me.” Franklin cast his eyes down to the floor.

  “I see,” said Ruth.

  “Well, I think he was about to say something else when the lightning struck. I don’t know, but he looked really strange.”

  “He still saved your life. Even after you rejected him, he didn’t stop caring about you.”

  “Well, that was another part of the story I changed. You see, Dennis swam toward shore, but he didn’t come back for me. It was a fisherman who lived near the lake who came out in his boat with the police.”

  “Did Dennis ever tell you why he didn’t come back?”

  “No. I remember seeing him standing on the road as they loaded me into the ambulance. I tried to reach out to him, but he just stood there. He never came to the hospital, and by the time I was well enough to come home, he was gone. I didn’t hear from him or see him again until I saw him outside your office just a few months ago.”

  Now Ruth would have to change her strategy. She had thought that Dennis might eventually become an ally. Someone who could help solve Franklin’s problems by absolving his guilt. Now she knew that Dennis was the cause of his emotional problems. Whether justified or not, Franklin’s feelings of guilt toward Dennis would not be erased by Dennis’s forgiveness. If she and Sam were correct, Dennis was a dangerous criminal, and absolution for Franklin was probably the last thing on his mind.

  “Franklin, what happened this morning that upset you so?”

  “I think you and Lieutenant Peirce were right, although I didn’t want to admit it. I think Dennis killed Sylvia Radcliffe and Michelle Ackerman. I think he left the stolen files and your calendar in my house to lure me here, and then he shot the lieutenant. Maybe he planned to kill you too, but somehow you escaped.”

  “Why do you think he would want to hurt me?” Ruth asked. “And if he had been successful, how would that implicate you?”

  Franklin reached into his pocket and withdrew the silver revolver. Ruth slid her chair back from the table. “Franklin, where did you get that?”

  “It was here.” He placed it on the table in the spot where he had found it. “He left it here while I was asleep. He’s trying to incriminate me. You see, it’s my gun, and all this is my fault.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is it your fault?” Ruth asked. She reached across the table and took the revolver. She released the cylinder, noted that it was empty, and placed it back on the table.

  “I made a terrible mistake. Dennis was right about Myra. She never really loved me, at least not the way he did. He was a powerful friend, but now he’s just as powerful an enemy. He said I would be sorry for abandoning him, and now I know what he meant. He plans to have me spend the rest of my life in prison.”

  “You said that Dennis was in your house and left the stolen files the day Sam—Lieutenant Peirce—came to visit. Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “Well, as I said, I didn’t actually see him that day. I heard someone in the house when Lieutenant Peirce rang the bell, and I assumed it was Dennis. He had been following me for weeks. If it was him, he must have slipped out the kitchen door before I let the lieutenant in.”

  “Franklin, when was the last time you actually saw Dennis?”

  “It has been a while. He was sitting at the bus stop outside your office weeks ago. I wasn’t sure it was him, so I didn’t tell you at the time.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “I did,” Franklin said, now beginning to sob. “I tried to apologize, to say how sorry I was for not being there for him all these years, but he didn’t answer me; he didn’t even look at me. He just turned and walked away.”

  Ruth placed her hand on Franklin’s shoulder. This time he didn’t pull away.

  Later Ruth wrote notes from the session into Franklin’s file:

  Franklin feels crippling guilt because of the way he treated Dennis more than twenty-five years ago. This guilt seems grossly out of proportion to the circumstances, and Dennis’s violent reaction to Franklin seems out of proportion as well. There is more to this story than has been told.

  Ruth knew that the only chance Franklin had to overcome this guilt was to face it head on, and he probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish that until Dennis was caught.

  41

  One hundred and fifty feet away from the cabin where Ruth Klein was in bed, a man carefully opened the door to her SUV. He wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell of smoke from the chimney intermingled with gusts of wind blowing from the north. He reached in, quickly turned off the interior dome light, and released the hood. “Shit,” he whispered as the small service light under the hood made him visible. That is, he feared he would be visible if someone was looking during the few seconds it took him to twist the bulb from its socket. He now had to complete his task with only the light from the full moon. He worked quickly. He removed the cap from the master brake cylinder and placed a long, inch-thick branch into the fluid reservoir. Next he pulled on the stick, using it as a pry bar to snap the reservoir from its mount, and dumped its fluid.

  Under her down comforter and blanket, Ruth lay awake in her bed and listened to the wind whistle through the half-inch space between the open window and the sill beneath. Ruth always slept with the window open, even on the coldest nights. It had been a point of disagreement between Ruth and her ex-husband, Tom. It was just one of a list of differences too numerous to recall that eventually became more important than the relationship. She wondered if Sam slept with his window open or closed. She was about to bet on open when a small pinpoint of light became visible through the window for just a few seconds.

  Ruth rose from her bed and slipped her thick red-and-orange terrycloth robe over her nightgown. Then a movement outside caught her eye. At first she thought it was bushes blowing in the wind. She took her glasses from the dresser and tried to focus on the moving shadow in the distance. It looked like someone was crouching next to the cars in the parking lot, but she couldn’t be sure. Ruth put on her slippers and rushed to the front door. She flipped on the porch light and stepped to the railing at the edge of the porch. No, the parking area looked deserted. Her car sat facing down the hill, just as she had left it, ready to drive back to the city in the morning. She was really getting jumpy. She thought of waking Franklin, but since she was treating him for a sleep disorder, it didn’t seem prudent to interrupt his rest. It was probably just her imagination. Tree branches swaying in the wind could have altered the reflection of t
he moon bouncing off her car. She could have easily mistaken the reflection for a light.

  Ruth walked back into the house and began to heat a pot of water on the stove to make a cup of tea. She knotted the belt of her robe around her waist. The wind now howled through the trees outside and light snow was beginning to fall. That’s all I need, she thought, a few more days of being cooped up here, and I’ll need a therapist of my own. She rubbed the soft collar of her robe against her cheek, remembering the morning last Christmas when Emma had given it to her. Emma said she had saved part of her allowance for months to buy the present, but Ruth was sure that Emma had asked her grandfather to help supplement her funds. Too bad he didn’t help her choose the color. She missed Emma. Tomorrow morning she would go home and try to be a better parent.

  Ruth went to the cupboard and opened the tin marked “teabags,” only to find that it was empty. A thought struck her. She quietly walked to Franklin’s room, carefully turned the doorknob, and opened the door just a crack. Through the opening she could see his cane leaning up against the wall next to the bed and the outline of Franklin’s body under the patchwork quilt and a double layer of blankets. Ruth gently closed the door and went back to the kitchen. Then a second thought struck her, and she returned to the living room. The empty revolver was still sitting on the dining table. Ruth placed it in the pocket of her robe. It was empty, she knew that, but maybe the killer wouldn’t be certain, and she could use it to her advantage. That was, of course, if someone was really out there and this wasn’t all her imagination. She went back to the front door and opened it.

  Ruth’s mind flashed back to the grade-B horror movies she watched as a teenager. The beautiful young heroine in the movie would hear a noise or see a movement in the dark, outside her window. Ruth was familiar with the scene that came next. It was the part of the movie where the shapely young heroine would do something very foolish. Ruth thought of herself as this heroine—well, maybe not quite as young or as shapely as the gal in the B movie, but a heroine no less.

  It’s a dark night, and the violent killer is hiding somewhere in the woods outside the cabin. Our heroine hears a noise and decides—a bad decision, by the way—to go out and investigate. The audience cringes in their seats. Shouts of “No” and “Stupid bitch, he’s going to kill you” leap from their lips. Ruth remembered that these movies didn’t attract the most sophisticated patrons. But the heroine goes out anyway. Poorly armed and barely dressed, she tempts fate in a way no rational person would. Ruth knew how the movie always ended. The heroine’s curiosity to know if the danger was real or imagined was overpowering. Her best judgment aside, she walks out the door.

  Next was the part of the movie where the murderer split the young woman’s head with an ax, or drove a two-foot-long sword through her back and out her rib cage. Why does she do it? Ruth thought. Why doesn’t she just lock the door, barricade it with furniture, and wait to be rescued? Of course, that assumed someone was coming to rescue her. Ruth knew, in her case, that no knight in shining armor, no cavalry or sheriff’s posse, was on the way. She was not only on her own, but she felt responsible to protect Franklin as well; he was a patient still under her care.

  Ruth knew she should stay indoors until morning when the forest would be bathed in light and her ears filled with the sounds of songbirds rather than the eerie moan of the wind and the sudden rustle of bushes that caused her heart to leap. The murmur of the forest sounds began to mimic the frightening background music of the remembered movie, a dirge punctuated by the loud throbbing of a heartbeat, her breath catching in her throat, that heartbeat becoming faster with each step.

  She tried to analyze her state of mind. She realized that there was a certain added vulnerability one feels when in a dangerous situation and not wearing underwear under one’s nightgown. Was it a gender thing, or would a man in pajamas feel the same? She wondered if there was any research on the subject or if it would make an interesting topic for a paper on gender-related fear.

  Ruth was through the door, down the porch steps, and halfway to the parking lot before she again focused on her current situation. She stopped, reached into her pocket, and positioned the gun in her hand. Psychological research would have to wait until she was sure that that ax wasn’t about to cleave her head in half and that the sword wouldn’t suddenly erupt from her chest.

  Ruth stood on the gravel path in her slippers, feeling the sharp stones pressing through the soft soles. She limped the rest of the way to her car. Maybe she could sit and rub her feet for a few minutes before heading back to the cabin. She relaxed her grip on the revolver and opened the car door. The first thing she noticed was that the dome light didn’t come on. She backed away immediately and opened the rear door. Empty. Well, no one was hiding in the car. The bulb in the dome light could have burned out. She reached up and flicked the switch at its base. The light came on. Curious, but it didn’t seem that suspicious. She could have bumped the switch while unloading the car, or Sam might have shut it off for some reason while he was filling the tires with air.

  Her feet really hurt. She sat on the driver’s seat, feet out the door, and crossed her leg to massage her right foot. She pressed her fingers into the ball of her foot and rubbed her thumb on the base of each toe in succession. She closed her eyes and was lost in the fantasy pleasure of someone else’s warm hands rubbing her aching toes, someone with large, strong hands that could manipulate her feet so hard that it almost hurt, rubbing the arch of her foot and squeezing each toe, then moving up her ankle to—

  A cracking sound of a breaking twig caused her to pry her eyes open in time to see a man in a hooded jacket running full speed with his head down toward her car. Ruth swung her legs into the car. It was too late to reach for the wide-open door to pull it closed. He was too close. She began to crawl over the console to exit from the passenger side. She swung the passenger door open and was about to dive out when his hands caught her right foot. That same foot that she’d imagined in a man’s strong hands was now being clawed at and restrained in a most unpleasant way. Ruth held the side of the seat with both hands and kicked at his head several times in quick succession. Her kicks hit their mark. She could feel the flesh of his face and the firm bridge of his nose against the heel of her left foot. His head snapped back, and by the third kick, her right foot was free. She tumbled out of the car and slammed the door. The fierceness of her kicks, or maybe it was the slamming door striking his head as he tried to follow her out of the car, seemed to disorient him. He paused, stunned. Now it was time to run.

  Each step on the sharp-edged gravel was extremely painful and cut into her already tender feet. The hooded man was still for a moment, then started to stir. The cabin was too far down the stony path. She chose to run into the woods instead. The soft pine needles on the forest floor afforded both comfort to her feet and an opportunity to move without making much noise.

  Ruth watched from her hiding place beneath a wide pine tree. The hooded man in the plaid jacket rubbed his head and looked toward the cabin. Ruth ducked down. He exited the car and stood still, apparently listening and wondering if she had gone back to the cabin or into the woods. Ruth didn’t believe in psychic powers or any form of extrasensory perception, but while she hugged the ground, cringing, she found herself trying to will the man into not finding her.

  After a long and frightening moment of indecision—frightening for Ruth, that is—he began to walk toward the cabin. At first she felt relieved. She could run back to the car, get the magnetic key box out from under the fender well, and drive off the mountain. However, assuming the hooded man was Dennis, she would be leaving Franklin at the mercy of a man who now appeared to be his sworn enemy.

  Ruth quickly formulated a plan. She would wait until he was almost at the cabin, then make a dash for the key and start the car. She would hesitate after the car was started, hoping that he would run after her. She would then try to lead him away from the cabin. She could blow the horn to wake Franklin. Once awake an
d hopefully warned, he would at least have a chance to defend himself.

  The hooded man was approaching the porch. She could see his silhouette in the light from the full moon filtering through the trees. It was time to act. Ruth rushed to the fender well of her car, dropped to her knees, and reached inside. She felt around for the magnetic box. “Shit, shit, shit,” she whispered. Could it have fallen off on the road? Why did I trust a freaking magnet with such an important job? Technology never was her friend. By now, the man was at the base of the porch; time was running out for Franklin. No wait, it was in the left fender well that she had hidden the key, the driver’s side. She quickly clambered around the car on all fours and felt inside the wheel well for the box. Finally, the box was hers. She slid out the key and climbed into the driver’s seat. Through the rearview mirror, she could see a rectangle of light; the front door was open. Ruth pressed on the horn in quick, short beeps. Her purpose was twofold: to attract Dennis away from the cabin and to alert Franklin to the danger.

  She watched the rectangle of light in the mirror. At first she was confused. It appeared that the light from the door blinked. Then it became clear. The fleeting darkness was the body of the killer as he passed through the doorway, heading toward her car at a full run. Ruth placed the key in the ignition. She had a momentary fear that he might have disabled her car earlier. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of a muddy hand. If she had any religious beliefs at all, this would be the time to pray. Ruth closed her eyes and made a low moaning sound as she twisted the key, then a loud yes when the engine started. I guess he’s not that smart after all, she thought.

  Suddenly a new plan took shape in her mind. She would start down the hill just far enough ahead of him to make him believe he could catch her if he kept running at full speed. Then, when he was close, she would hit the brakes, throw the transmission into reverse, and floor the gas pedal. He would be running downhill as fast as he could and hopefully not be able to stop before she could paste him to the back of the vehicle.