by David Carnoy
“They want you to speak to a psychiatrist as soon as you wake up. You’re a fifty-one-fifty. You’re in the psych unit.”
“I’m a what?”
“Fifty-one-fifty,” Morton explained. “That’s the code for someone who’s a danger to himself or a danger to others. If you’re admitted as a fifty-one-fifty you have to be cleared by a psychiatrist to leave. They don’t want to take the chance you’ll do it again.”
“Well, get him in here. Or her. I’ll tell them I didn’t try to harm myself.”
He was now looking at the texts he sent Morton last night. Wow, she was good. They actually seemed convincing. Then he went back to the top of his messages and noticed something really disturbing. Indeed, he had texted somebody else besides Morton. Much to his horror that person was his former fiancée.
“Was Denise there?” he asked his son. “Was she at the apartment?”
“No,” his son said. “But she called 911. And me. And she’s here now.”
“Where?”
“Out in the waiting room. She showed up a little while ago. She had some work calls to make so she didn’t want to come in. They said you’d probably wake up soon.”
“You’re kidding me. So, she thinks I tried to kill myself, too?”
His son nodded. “She thinks she’s the reason you tried to do it.”
“Oh, man.” Fremmer said. “That’s not cool. That is so not cool.”
20/ Harmless
AFTER MADDEN WAS USHERED OUT OF MILEKI’S HOUSE HE WALKED UP the street, got in his car and drove down the hill past the house. About a hundred yards down the street he made a U-turn and parked again, leaving the engine running. From that vantage point he’d be able to see her pull out of the driveway and intercept her before she drove away. Ideally, however, he wanted to time his return so he caught her before she left.
He looked at his watch. He decided to give her ten minutes. Any longer and she might think it weird that it had taken him that long to remember he’d left his phone behind. Or maybe she wouldn’t. He didn’t know. But ten minutes sounded about right.
In the end he let the clock run a little longer—an extra minute—then drove back up to the house and parked in front. Soon he was going through the same routine with the barking dog and her eyeing him through the peephole.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you again. But I left my phone. It’s in the living room.”
She opened the door but not all the way. She told him to wait there, she’d get it. “I’m not closing the door on you, I just don’t want the dog to get out.”
In fact, she did close the door, then returned a few moments later to crack it open again and hand him his phone through the narrow gap. She didn’t seem to suspect anything. To her, the phone looked like it was off. The screen had gone to sleep but the app was still running.
Even if she’d turned the phone on the first thing she would have seen was the lock screen.
“Sorry,” he said. “Thanks. Have a good day.”
Back in his car he wasn’t quite sure where to go, but at a stop sign he pulled over and searched Google for “Petaluma breakfast spots” and picked one that looked good. He clicked on its address, which in turn launched the Apple Maps app.
It took him only five minutes to get to the restaurant, a quaint little place with a country kitchen feel called the Tea Room Cafe on Western Avenue. It served huevos rancheros, which was all he was looking for.
After he’d settled in at a table, he texted his wife and let her know he’d made it to Petaluma and was OK. Then he texted Dupuy. “Spoke to her for a little bit,” he tapped out. “Going to hang out in town until after rush hour. Call you in a few.”
Waiting for his food to arrive, he opened the voice-recording app on his phone and plugged his headphones in. The restaurant was a little noisy but it was still early, so it wasn’t packed, and his earbuds, a pair of Bose in-ear headphones his wife had given him as a birthday gift, sealed well and cut out a lot of ambient noise.
“OK,” he said to himself, “Let’s see if we’ve got anything here.”
He jumped ahead along the recording’s timeline until he got to the point right before Mileki asked him to leave. He let it run from there.
“Say goodbye to Detective Madden, Eli,” she said.
The iPhone had an excellent microphone and her voice sounded clear and fairly loud even though she wasn’t close to the phone. That was a good sign.
“Goodbye, Detective Madden,” he heard Eli say.
Next, the more muffled sound of the front door to the house opening, then closing. She then returned to the kitchen and told Eli she was going to be turning off the TV soon.
“Can you make it louder, Mommy?” he said.
Shit, Madden thought.
“OK, but just for a few minutes. Finish your milk. I’ve going to make a call and then we’re going to go.”
The volume on the TV went up. For about ten seconds that’s all Madden heard. Some silly PBS Kids show.
“Hey,” he heard her voice again. “So I had a visitor this morning. The detective. Madden.” A pause, then: “Yeah, at the house. He just left.”
He had trouble hearing what she said next. Maybe she was moving around or maybe the mic was picking up too much of the TV show, he couldn’t tell which it was, but her voice came and went. Oneway conversations already sounded fragmented. This one even more so. He paused the recording and took a pen and small notebook out of his coat pocket so he could jot down what he heard. When he was sure the pen worked, he hit the play button and began taking notes, writing one line for each fragment of the conversation.
… from Menlo Park. He was on his way to Calistoga.
He’s a little handicapped, you know. I felt bad. I had to …
No, the usual stuff.
… no, nothing. It’s always the same thing.
He went to see Uncle Robbie. He made a video to show me.
It reminded me of one of those hostage videos. Except instead of pleading for his life he was pleading to see me. It was sad. He looks old now. I started crying.
He wanted me to go see him.
No. He thinks he’s so desperate to have a relationship with me that he’ll tell me where mom’s buried. He offered to get him immunity.
Same story.
I know. For someone so decorated, he seems to be flailing. He said he was frustrated. But given his situation, it’s great what he’s accomplished. I told him that.
[A laugh]. I actually asked him whether he’d been in therapy. You should have seen his face.
It was strange to talk to someone that age who’d been sexually assaulted. I only know young people who’d been assaulted.
It was Pete’s case. It wasn’t ever his.
What I expected, I guess. Eli told him he was too old to be a police officer. I was kind of horrified when he said it but it was kind of funny.
No, no, it’s OK. You don’t have to. He’s harmless. I just wanted to let you know. I don’t think he’ll be coming back.
No, I don’t want you to say anything. I’ll talk to you later.
Eli’s good. You wanna say hello? Eli, say hello to papa.
Come on, Eli. Say hello. I’ll turn off the TV if you don’t.
The next thing Madden heard was a prolonged high-pitched scream. Apparently, Eli wasn’t good with threats. He went nuclear. And that was it. The phone call ended. And there wasn’t anything else after that. No other calls. Just the inane banter of a mother and her four year old. And then Madden showed up at the door and the phone was retrieved without comment.
“Sorry,” he heard himself say. “Thanks. Have a good day.”
He sounded pathetic, he thought. A lot of people had underestimated him over the years, but he found confidence in the knowledge that people underestimated him. This time was different, though. He’d allowed himself to be soft. He’d gone in feeling bad for her. That was a mistake. Christ, she thought he was harmless. What a goddamn insult! For a seco
nd he wanted to drive back up to the house and play the recording back for her.
Harmless, huh? Well, you got played. Played by a senile old detective.
The waitress brought him his coffee. She asked him something, but he didn’t hear her because he still had his earphones on. He pulled them out.
“Excuse me?”
“You want a newspaper, sir?” she asked.
“No thanks.”
After she left he put the headphones back on and called Dupuy.
“You get anything?” she asked.
“Yeah, a bruised ego.”
“What happened?”
“I pulled the old leave-the-cell-phone-behind-while-it’s-still recording trick. It worked a little better this time. She made some unflattering remarks to her husband about me.”
Last week in Laguna Beach he’d done the same thing with her uncle Robbie and his wife, Jillian. They’d met at a restaurant and he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, leaving his phone at the table. They’d talked while he was gone, but about superficial matters like whether Madden looked like Kevin Spacey. And then they had a discussion about the actors who’d played Ross, Stacey, and Cathleen in the re-enactment scenes in the Dateline NBC segment about the case. Both Pastorini and Marcus appeared on the show, playing themselves.
“The husband was there when you spoke to her?” Dupuy asked.
“No, she called him afterwards to tell him what a putz I was.”
“Really, she called you a putz?”
“Not exactly. The funny thing is I went in feeling sorry for her and came out impressed by how together she was. Apparently, the reverse was true for her. She came in impressed with how together I was but came away feeling sorry for me.”
“Is that objective Hank talking or oversensitive Hank?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired. I actually want you to listen to the recording when I get back. It’s kind of fragmented. There’s a TV playing the background, so I couldn’t hear everything. She didn’t really say anything all that interesting but I thought her tone was slightly conspiratorial. I may be wrong, though. It’s hard to know what to think when you’re being insulted. She said I was harmless.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, it hurts. How ’bout Bender? You said you had something for me. What is it?”
“Some dirt. Ted heard something. You gotta talk to him about it.”
“What kind of dirt?”
“Talk to Ted. He thinks Bender’s trading prescription drugs for access to executives at some of these companies.”
“Really?” That sounded juicy. He was suddenly in a better mood. “Who’s his source?”
“Talk to him. He’s still asleep. He’s off so he’s around. I’ll have him call you when he wakes up.”
“I’ll be back by around noon.”
“How’s Petaluma?”
“I like it. It seems unpretentious. Got a bit of a southwestern flair. Or maybe it’s just western. At least it’s got some old bits and pieces. Some history. You know, they filmed American Graffiti here. I think I’ll do the tour later. A couple of the locations still exist. I’ve gotta get a picture.”
“I didn’t realize you were such a fan.”
“That movie launched a lot of careers.”
“Speaking of pictures, you get one of her?”
Back to reality. “No,” he said.
“Did you ask or just forget?”
“So she thinks I’m harmless and now you think I’m senile?” Madden said, only half kidding. “I asked. She says she doesn’t do pictures. Doesn’t want them to end up in the paper or on social media. Something about not wanting people comparing her to her mother.”
“Does she look like her?”
“Yeah.”
“A lot?”
“There’s a definite resemblance. Similar eyes. Similar nose. She’s a good-looking woman.”
“Sounds like she turned out OK.”
“Better than OK. And she got there by looking forward, not back. Which is why we’re an intrusion.”
“Well, wait ’til the Bender story gets out there. She’s really not going to like you then. She’s going to think you put him up to that.”
Christ, she was right. All of a sudden he didn’t want to go back. He wanted to keep driving. Maybe he’d really head up to Calistoga and hole up somewhere for a few days. Just check out. He didn’t even have to drink, though that’s what one did in wine country, wasn’t it?
“Hank, you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I said, ‘At least she won’t think you’re harmless.’”
“No, maybe not.”
21/ Unconditional Release
FREMMER WAS NEVER ALONE IN THE ROOM. WHENEVER HE WAS, EVEN for just a few minutes, Paulette came in and sat in one of the two empty chairs. She was less sexy than the woman in his dream, but resembled her just enough to make it difficult for him to look her in the eyes without feeling a whiff of embarrassment. Her job as a psych ward nurse—or at least part of it—was to make sure he didn’t try to harm himself again. And that meant he wasn’t allowed to be in the room by himself. Someone had to watch him at all times.
When she popped into the room this time Jamie was there, so it wasn’t to keep him company.
“Sir, that friend of yours in a wheelchair is still out in the waiting room,” she said. “She asked if she can come in now. What should I tell her?”
Until now Paulette had been quietly bland. But Fremmer detected a bit of attitude in her voice, like he could hear her thinking, What kind of asshole treats a person in a wheelchair like that?
“Tell her I’m too dangerous.”
“Dad, you’ve got to speak to her,” Jamie cut in. “She’s been sitting out there for almost two hours. It’s rude.”
Fremmer didn’t want Denise to see him like this. He’d sent Morton away and told him to tell her on his way out that he was in no condition to see anybody. That apparently hadn’t worked. Fremmer’s attempts to extricate himself from the hospital had been equally unsuccessful.
“Spoke to 2 docs,” he texted his friend Bernstein earlier. “One was a shrink. They still won’t discharge me.”
“Patience patient,” Bernstein said. “U r a liability. Be out in a little while. They’re getting ready to close here.”
Bernstein was in surgery. Fremmer pictured him there, sitting at the head of the operating table by the patient’s head, texting on his cell phone. As a patient you didn’t realize what was happening while you were lying there, cut open. But that was what anesthesiologists did. Most of the time they weren’t doing anything so they texted. Or checked their email, stock quotes and sports scores.
“OK, tell her to come in,” he said to his son. “But give me a few minutes alone.”
He told Jamie to go find them some food. Maybe he could dig up a turkey club. He was starving.
“What are you going to say?” his son asked.
“I’ll think of something.”
“You can’t be a dick, Dad.”
“Me? A dick? What are you implying?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t be your blunt self. Some people don’t appreciate it.”
“Some people do. And those are the ones you want to hang out with. But point taken. Ixnay on the blunt self. Now amscray.”
In the thirty seconds he was alone he tried to make himself more presentable. He finger-combed his hair and popped a Lifesaver from the roll Morton had left behind. He still had the IV needle in his arm, but he’d been disconnected from the banana bag of fluids so he wasn’t tethered to anything. He could have greeted her standing up but he thought that wouldn’t look good considering he’d had Morton tell her he was in no shape to see anyone. So he stayed in the bed, propping himself up a few more degrees with a press of the button on the bed’s remote control.
Paulette knocked first, and then held the door open so Denise could wheel herself in. This isn’t going to end well, Fremmer thought as the door clo
sed behind her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said back.
“You hear the one about the guy who hit the prescription pills a little too hard and texted his lawyer and ex-fiancée about wanting to kill himself?”
“You scared me, Max. You scared Jamie.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I am a little surprised though.”
“About what?”
“No flowers.”
That got a smile. A tiny one. “I debated it,” she said. “But then I decided it wasn’t appropriate to bring flowers to someone who tried to kill himself.”
“Probably not. But I’m glad you came. I’m sorry I kept you waiting. It’s just that I’m feeling a little stupid and not so attractive. You look good, though, kid.”
She did. From the waist up she looked exactly as she had all those years ago, maybe better. And with the bed in the way, that’s all he saw, her upper half without the chair. Her tight shirt showed off her arms; she was in better shape than he was. A real-estate broker now, he’d heard she’d been doing some wheelchair racing, which made sense—she was a serious runner when they’d been dating. He hadn’t seen her in four years. She’d been in a relationship with another wheelchair racer. They were going to get married. Then they weren’t. She didn’t post much on Facebook, but sometimes she liked the images he posted. Occasionally she made comments on them. He commented back. That was the extent of their relationship.
Instead of answering, she wheeled herself forward and pulled up alongside the bed. The chair barely fit between the bed and the wall. Before he knew it she’d taken his hand and was looking at him intently. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for but it felt good to hold her hand. So good he wanted to cry. And then he did. He felt a tear go down his cheek. He couldn’t believe it.
“If you still love me, why didn’t you just tell me,” she said.
“I don’t know.”
And then he heard Rochelle in his head saying, “Are you lucid? Are you lucid now?” And he really wasn’t. He was completely unsure what was happening. He wondered if some residual GHB had suddenly kicked in.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” she said.