“Look, Officer Peidmont,” she said, wiping her right cheek with the back of her hand. “You're asking me to trust you and that's not something I’m not very good at lately. Before I can do that, you’ve got to convince me there’s something to trust in.”
For a full minute he debated, arguing the wisdom of telling a total stranger what he’d revealed only to Donetelli. Caution won out and he rose off the couch, wearily.
“Mrs. McKenny, when you’re ready to press...”
“That’s all right, Officer Peidmont,” she cut him off briskly. “I figure you cut some deal with the men downtown and I’m not eager to get chewed up by your ‘Good-Ol-Boy’ network. What’s it matter that your wife nearly died.”
He felt his face redden and suddenly his lungs lost power to pull in anything, the air around him seemed thick as molasses. Not trusting himself to speak, he sat down again and stared at this damaged, beautiful woman and it seemed she sensed a line had been crossed. Her eyes softened and after a moment, she looked away.
It was another full minute before Oliver felt his breathing return to its steady familiar rhythm, silence filling the room about them as it did so. He could sense a chasm of distrust between them and knew only one way to bridge it.
After a nearly inaudible sigh, he finally spoke.
“I’m...willing to tell you what happened, Mrs. McKenny, on the condition that you’ll seriously consider pressing charges against your husband." He paused as she considered this. "Agreed?” he asked
“I’m listening,” she responded after a pause, her tone skeptical.
He leaned back and debated where to begin, finally choosing the only place he could.
“I met my wife, Linda, when I was a few weeks out of the police academy over in Brooklyn, New York ...”
“Listen, officer Piedmont,” she interrupted. “I love a good story like the next girl, but do I really need to hear about your entire marriage?”
The urge to simply walk out swept over him, but he fought against it.
“Mrs. McKenny,” he said, struggling to keep his tone even, and failed. “You wanted to know why I was the one who arrived on your doorstep.” He stood as if to leave. “Do you, or don’t you?”
“Sure...why not?” She replied sarcastically, lifting both hands. “I’ve got all afternoon.”
He took a deep breath, sat down once again and picked up where he'd left off.
“I was three weeks out of the Brooklyn police academy when we met. Linda was an East Coast girl all the way, although she’d spent summers with her divorced mother in Hickory, North Carolina. A friendship was what I wanted originally and for the first three months, that’s all it was.”
“Her parent’s marriage, as Linda used to say, ‘was not a happy one.’ Her dad was a cop, as well as her uncle, an older brother and two cousins. I’d met her in the D.A.’s office where she’d worked and asked her out a couple of days later. I couldn’t have been more wrong for her, I know that now, but she still lived with her dad and was eager to break free herself. Because I acted like a gentleman and treated her well, Linda thought I was different than all the cops in her family. Different than what she thought of all cops.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mrs. McKenny asked, her tone edgy.
He looked at her and felt a growing sense of exasperation. “I was about to explain...” She waved him on and taking a deep breath, picked up his life’s thread.
“As a child Linda had discovered her father’s infidelity, saw him cheat on her mother repeatedly till the two were divorced. In time her uncle, older brother, and even her two cousins took up girlfriends on the side. Their wives, suspecting much, confided their worst fears to Linda, who felt obligated to keep their dark secrets. I knew none of this for a long time. By the time I did, Linda already believed I had followed in her father’s footsteps.” Oliver paused, darted a look at Mrs. McKenny and then continued.
“After graduating from New York University with my B.A. in Political Science, my mother hoped I would go into academia, perhaps become a professor at one of the many East Coast universities, eventually. She refused to accept my becoming a cop, dismissing it as beneath me and grew distant and cold, snubbing my new wife in the process. We found ourselves largely alone on the East Coast.
"Like my father, I soon grew weary of my mother’s fascination with status and began applying out of state, eventually landing a position in Los Angeles, California. It wasn’t hard to convince Linda to move and a year after earning my badge, we found ourselves living in Glendale, a small suburb of Los Angeles. Though my job took me into the rougher neighborhoods of L.A at times, life was good.
"Our second year there, we traveled up to Carmel for our first real honeymoon and instead, we both fell in love with Pacific Grove. Though I had fit in well enough at my job and made some good friends, Linda struggled to make connections and missed her girlfriends back home. She seemed to come alive during our week in Carmel and on a whim, I contacted all the local police chiefs.
"The second to our last day of vacation, as Linda shopped on the Monterey Wharf for souvenirs I drove over to meet the one person who’d returned my call; Chief Williams. We hit it off right away but in such a desirable small town, it took over two years before an opening came through. By that time, Linda’s accusations of my unfaithfulness had become a monthly event.”
“Were you?” Mrs. McKenny’s tone dared him to confess, his guilt apparently decided.
“No, Mrs. McKenny, I wasn’t. Contrary to what Linda believed, I was faithful till the day she left me.”
“Collin claimed to be faithful too,” Mrs. McKenny shot back. “Even when I found hotel receipts for days when he was supposedly at work.”
“Mrs. McKenny, can we get something clear?” he asked, fed up. “I am not Collin McKenny. In addition, let me go on record by saying I’ve never hurt a woman, or slept around ever during my eight year marriage.”
“So why did she think you were?” she asked accusingly.
“In a word, Mrs. McKenny, paperwork.” He paused and looked at her. “May I continue?”
With a dismissive wave, she relinquished the floor and Oliver picked up where he’d left off.
“I’ve had lots of time to think since the trial began," he said. "Time to look back and see that perhaps both Linda and I let our guards down. Maybe it happens to everyone once in their life. If things go your way, you pick up the pieces and go on. If they don’t, well, just hope to God you don’t end up like us.
“As I said, it all started with paperwork. Though our shifts were defined, the paperwork afterward always varied, depending on the day and crimes involved. This always made getting home at a set time a gambler’s nightmare and in eight years of marriage, I’d lost an awful lot of those bets. Once I made detective, a year after moving to the peninsula, it only got worse and, it became even more complicated. In an area like L.A. where they don’t want to pay a lot of overtime, it wasn't too bad. But in P.G. I had to finish my paperwork without exception. More and more we hit heads about my sporadic work schedule and I think over time, it just became easier to believe I was out screwing some unnamed woman, just like all the men in her family. Infidelity she could rage against, paperwork she couldn’t.
“After a quiet shift one day, I managed to get off early and went for a jog along Carmel beach. That took an hour and I stayed to watch the sun set, pushing my usual arrival time at home by another hour. Complicating matters further, Linda had gotten off work early as well and she called the station. Told that I’d just left, she began a special dinner to surprise me. By the time I came home, her growing fears and my late arrival had convinced her she’d been right all along.
I arrived home to find Linda wearing her best outfit, but was greeted by only silence and cold stares. I took a shower, put on some sweats and walked down to figure out what I’d missed. We were soon shouting, walking the length of our house, going from room to room spitting out all the mean, cruel things people say to eac
h other in such a fight. All the while getting louder and nastier, yet resolving nothing. After an hour of this, I made the mistake of going to the kitchen for a drink of water...”
“Officer Peidmont?”
He looked up at her and was surprised to see a look of concern.
“Are you all right? You look a little...pale.”
He realized with a start that sweat now covered his hands, neck and face.
“Uh...yeah, I’ve...told only one other person about this.” He cleared his throat too loudly.
“You don’t have to go on, Detective.”
He cleared his throat, “No, I’m fine, really. There’s not much more anyway.” She nodded at him, a little uncertainly.
He looked down, centering himself to reveal what had never made it into the papers and had caused Linda to leave. “It was in the kitchen,” he said. “That it all went to hell...”
A sharp pain to his chest prodded the breath from his lungs. He looked up to see Linda holding a steak knife in front of him, a mixture of rage and fathomless pain in her eyes. The blade’s cold steel tip pressed into his bare chest, just barely puncturing his skin. He concentrated on his breathing as his wife continued to scream. The knife sliced through several layers of skin, causing him to groan, and bleed.
He felt a single drop of blood trickle down his stomach, then another. Real fear now swept over him as he saw in Linda’s eyes a heightened sense of abandon; something he’d seen in too many criminals.
“Linda, please!” He tried to keep his voice steady. “I’ll explain where I’ve been, but I can’t think with that knife poking me.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Her maniacal laughter dashed his hopes. “Don’t try that boyish look on me.” Her tone was all wrong, almost sing-song like. “I know what you’ve been doing, out screwing another woman? HAVENT YOU?” This last question was all scream and the knife edged closer to his chest once again.
“Please, Linda,” Oliver groaned. “I went down to Carmel beach for a jog and just lost track of time.”
“For two goddamn hours, Oliver! You’ve been sitting in the sand for two fucking hours!” She poked him for emphasis and her voice grew dangerously quiet. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
More than anything at right that moment, he wished his wife were that stupid. But in their eight years of marriage, she’d proven to be sharp and at times, paranoid as hell about their relationship. As a result, he knew that Linda was far more likely to believe a guy-oriented lie than the boring truth.
“Okay, okay, you caught me.” He lifted both hands in surrender. “A couple of us guys went down to Doc Rickets. John Collinson and...”
“YOU LIAR!” She screamed. Her hands began to tremble and the knife nicked him again and again. “I called there THREE times, you piece of shit. Each time you were nowhere to be found, even when I said it was an emergency.” Then, as if a light had switched off, her hands stopped trembling, “Don’t lie to me again, Ollie. Tell me where you were...and who with.”
His mind raced, understanding now that she was only waiting for her worst fears to be confirmed before embedding the seven-inch blade into his chest. He thought of the best way to disarm a knife-wielding attacker, desperately trying to recall the tactics of his police academy training. Most were useless when you were unarmed, out of uniform and dressed only in sweat pants.
“If you’ll...”
“TELL ME!”
“Linda, will you listen...” Another jab to his chest and he stepped back and she followed, keeping him within knife reach. He thought about the scene and how it would appear; a woman dressed in her best holding a knife to a man wearing only sweats.
“WHO WERE YOU WITH?” she screamed, becoming more shrill by the second. "TELL ME NOW! TELL ME!!”
He winced as each outburst prodded the knife deeper, his chest now marked with small gouges. He flirted with the idea of making somebody up; tried to think of somebody who wouldn’t suffer the wrath of his poor choice.
“TELL ME, OLIVER! TELL ME!’ TELL ME! TELLLL MEEEE!” Her screams became more mantra than question and in horror, he watched Linda snap mentally as she pulled the knife back above her head and without thinking, used the only weapons available. As the blade arced toward him, his fists shot out toward her chest and sent her tumbling backward. The blade slipped from Linda’s grip as she fell toward the table behind her and though he reached for the knife, it eluded his grasp and followed her to the floor.
“LINDA!” He shouted.
Barely missing the table’s edge, Linda's head came down solidly onto one of its thin metal legs. The tumbling knife cut her stockings and brushed her bare thigh before coming to rest against her still form.
He dropped down beside her.
“Linda?" he cried out. "Linda? Are you okay?”
She blinked up at him once, then again and he laughed, relieved that she was all right, “You got crazy there for a minute.” She blinked again, this time more slowly, but still without making a sound. “Linda?”
Her eyes rolled upward until only the whites showed and seconds later, she began convulsing the way he’d seen a young epileptic do only weeks before.
“LINDA! Oh my God!”
He ran for the portable phone and dialed 911, torn at leaving her side. He knew however, that she might die right on their kitchen floor if medical help didn't arrive very soon. He ran back, dropped beside her, then pulled her onto his lap as the emergency operator came on, Linda's body convulsing in his arms.
“Please state the nature of your emergency and your address.”
“My wife’s gone into convulsions, " he said, desperately, marveling at the lady's calm. "I need an ambulance at 822 Franklin in Monterey!”
He heard his address typed into the computer.
“Okay sir, stay calm. Help is on the way. What do you believe caused the convulsions?"
“She, I, I knocked her down and she fell onto a table leg.” Immediately he regretted such an admission but was distracted by the sound of pages being rifled through.
“All right, sir, stay calm. Do you know CPR?”
“Yes, yes, I’m a police officer in PG.” His heart was pounding now as he tried to hold Linda still, afraid she might injure herself.
“Okay, officer, you’re doing great. An ambulance has been dispatched and they’re about three miles away and should arrive in less than four minutes.”
“Hurry! Please, you’ve got to hurry!”
He knew his voice sounded wildly desperate, like all the recordings he’d heard on television and in real life. Linda had stopped convulsing and now lay deathly still and somehow, this seemed worse. He leaned forward to listen for her breathing and realized with horror that she wasn’t. Gently laying her down, he quickly got to his knees to listen for her heart beat. When he heard a faint thumping he began giving mouth-to-mouth.
Though it was only minutes which passed before paramedics stormed into his house and took over, it seemed to Oliver that he had kneeled over his wife for hours. Several times he had nearly gagged at the bile which had come up during her convulsions and it was a long time before it's foul taste was completely washed away.
CHAPTER THREE
“I don’t understand.”
Oliver opened his eyes, then quickly shut them as the mid afternoon sunlight imprinted swirling colors onto his eyelids. Using his fingers to rub the afflicted areas, he blinked several times until his vision was largely clear of them.
“What,” he asked as the last of the swirls faded away. “Do you not understand?”
“What don’t I...?” Exasperation fought with amazement, the two playing back and forth across her face until the former won out. “Why...all of this. The paper said nothing about your wife assaulting you.”
“Mrs. McKenny,” he said, trying not to sound obvious, “the paper didn’t mention it because their sources didn’t know it.” He watched her eyes narrow and it was his turn to become exasperated. “Mrs. McKenny, no one knew about it unti
l weeks after my trial ended and only then did I tell my closest friend. I couldn’t take the chance of Linda being charged.”
Lifting her outstretched legs off the couch and to the floor, she turned and settled her back slowly against the soft leather. Oliver saw he was losing her. He sat, rose from the couch and deciding on a different tack, turned toward Mrs. McKenny.
“I understand you were a professional cheerleader, Mrs. McKenny,” he said offhandedly.
“Why...yes, yes I was. For the Chicago Bears,” she said, her eyes wistful, then cleared at the apparent change of subject, then went on.
“For three and a half years, until I met Collin during a playoff game. The Bears lost that day, but we got married six months later and I thought I’d won a true prize.” The cynicism in her voice abruptly turned hard. “Most people have no idea how hard it is out there on the side lines, to make it look so easy and effortless, like we did.” Then after a moment she met his eyes, “Why do you ask, Detective?”
“Did you all get along?” he asked, ignoring her question. “The cheerleaders, I mean?”
Her sudden bark-like laugh surprised him.
“Hah! Are you kidding; piranha treat their meals better. All us girls watched our backs every hour of the day or we were gone from the squad.”
“Why do you think cops are any different?” He asked.
She opened her mouth while folding a leg beneath her, then closed it again until after a few seconds she mustered a reply.
“Because...they’re cops, I suppose.”
“Cops wanting a promotion can act like one of your old squad-mates, especially in a small town with a limited number of detective positions.” He watched her make the connection and only when understanding softened her face did he pick up the thread once again.
“His name was Larry Caulkins and he’d taken the detective examination six years straight. He was a good cop and in any profession, there is the underdog that wins the hearts of their coworkers. It also happened to be my first year to take the exams after transferring into the area a year earlier, and apparently I lacked the good manners to score lower than Caulkins. It was like a funeral the day I made detective, with few people other than myself and Chief Williams seeming pleased.”
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