The Caretaker of Lorne Field

by Dave Zeltserman

  “We need to cut off his foot and get him on some serious antibiotics.” The doctor left the warden to arrange for the emergency surgery. Twenty minutes later when Durkin was on the operating table, the anesthesiologist told him to count down from ten.

  “Someone’s got to weed that field,” Durkin warned, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes rolling wildly.

  “Please, just count down from ten.”

  By the time Durkin reached six he was out.

  During the next three days, Durkin flitted in and out of consciousness. When he woke up, his fever had broken and he found his left wrist chained to the hospital bed and his injured ankle throbbing worse than ever. For a long moment he stared blinking, with no clue where he was. Slowly the cloud fogging up his head lifted a bit and he realized what was on his wrist, then he remembered where he was. He also knew that it must’ve been days since the Aukowies had been weeded. Unless first frost had come early, it was already too late.

  A nurse came by a short time later and noticed he was awake. “You’re finally back among us,” she said, her tone flat, her eyes and mouth plastic and expressionless. “And how are you feeling?”

  He tried to talk but his lips and throat were too dry for him to do anything but croak out a hoarse whisper. She held a plastic water glass for him so he could suck on the straw. With his lips and throat wetted, he tried to talk again and whispered that his ankle hurt.

  “If you press the button next to you, you can control your pain medication,” she told him.

  Durkin reached blindly as he searched for the button. When he finally got his hands on it he pressed it several times. He caught her looking at him no differently than the way a snake might. “How come I ain’t seen my lawyer yet?” he demanded.

  “I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake,” she said without emotion as she turned and left the room.

  It was hours later when the lawyer from the public defender’s office showed up. He looked like a kid, wearing a cheap suit that was two sizes too big, with a thick mop of unruly brown hair covering his head. He introduced himself as Brett Goldman and sat hunched over, grinning a lot, though he had trouble making eye contact. Durkin explained to him the history of Lorne Field, what happened that night with Dan Wolcott, and why it was so important for him to be let go. Goldman nodded regularly, grinning down at his hands as he rubbed them together as Durkin might if he wanted to start a fire with sticks.

  “Why do they got to keep me chained to the bed like this?” Durkin complained bitterly. “With my foot cut off how the hell can I run off?”

  “They have to, Jack. They’re just following regulations.”

  “It’s Mr. Durkin to you. And quit rubbing your hands like that! You’re making me nervous.”

  Goldman gave a lopsided grin and moved his hands awkwardly to his sides.

  “Sorry, Mr. Durkin,” he said, sneaking a peek at his client before lowering his eyes. “I guess I’m a little nervous, too. Now, I’ve spoken to the doctor you saw when you were brought to the emergency room. He told me that you were a very sick man. Do you realize you almost died?”

  “I realize I ain’t got my foot no more. That’s what I realize!”

  Goldman smiled sympathetically. “I know, Mr. Durkin, and I’m truly sorry about that. According to Dr. Brennan you were very sick that day, and quite likely delusional. I know you think you know what happened at that field with Sheriff Wolcott, but the reality is that as sick as you were you didn’t know what you were doing and you didn’t know what you were seeing. We have a very strong case for temporary insanity.”

  Durkin sat quietly while the lawyer spoke, a deep scowl folding his face. “I ain’t crazy,” he said.

  “I’m not saying you are.” Goldman brought his hands together and absentmindedly started rubbing them together again. He caught Jack Durkin glaring at them and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “The important thing now is to get you released so you can go back to that field, right?”

  “I know what I saw,” Durkin said slowly, “I ain’t delusional. And I ain’t letting you say that I’m crazy.”

  “How about this,” Goldman said. “You keep telling people what you saw and let me take care of the rest.”

  Durkin was going to argue with him that it was important for people to believe what happened, but the morphine and antibiotics had wiped him out. He sank back into his bed and closed his eyes. Before drifting off, he murmured to the lawyer to find out if first frost had come yet. That the fate of the world depended on him learning that.

  Later that night Goldman was at a local brewery slowly working through his second nut-brown ale when he was clapped on the shoulder from behind. He turned with his lopsided-grin in place for William McGrale, the state’s attorney who was going to be prosecuting Jack Durkin.

  “Goldman, how’d you get in here?” McGrale asked. “Let me guess, you used a fake ID?”

  Goldman shook hands with McGrale. “Nah, I threw my fake one out years ago. I’ve been legal six years now. How are you doing, Mr. McGrale?”

  “After three scotches, pretty damn good.” A slight sheen showed over the prosecutor’s eyes. “What do you say you grab that soda pop you’re drinking, and the two of us move over to a table and discuss your client.”

  “Are you buying dinner?”

  “Anything for a deserving young attorney.”

  Goldman took his glass with him and followed McGrale to his table. When the waitress came over, McGrale ordered another scotch, Goldman another beer, along with a cheeseburger and onion rings.

  “Maybe when you grow up you’ll start ordering a big boy’s drink,” McGrale said, smiling pleasantly.

  Goldman shrugged off the dig. “You realize that I have a strong temporary insanity defense,” he said.

  “And how’s that?”

  “Have you talked to his doctor? Durkin was at death’s door when he was brought in. A hundred and two fever, gangrene throughout his foot and ankle. Shit, he was hobbling around on that broken ankle for four weeks, pulling out weeds because he thought if he didn’t the world was going to come to an end. He was absolutely delusional, with no idea even which way was up.”

  “All that may be true, but juries hate the temporary insanity defense. All my years as a prosecutor, I never once saw a jury buy it.”

  “Forget temporary, my client’s insane. It scared the hell out of me just sitting with him. And that was with him chained up!”

  “He’s as crazy as a loon,” McGrale agreed. He stopped to take his drink from the waitress and offer her a smile. After she walked away, he studied his drink for a moment before sipping it and looking back at Goldman. “There’s a big difference, though, between insane and criminally insane. No, Goldman, your client knew what he was doing. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there were charges filed against him earlier this summer for cutting off his son’s thumb. I talked to Jill Bracken already about it. He did that solely as a ploy to convince that town of his that those weeds were monsters. Same reason he killed Sheriff Wolcott.”

  “And that’s not insane?” Goldman asked.

  “Not criminally insane, no.”

  The waitress came back with Goldman’s food and ale and placed it in front of him. His grin was halfhearted at best as he picked up the burger and took a bite.

  “I thought your office was floating the theory that my client blamed the sequence of events leading to his younger son’s death on Sheriff Wolcott. That the murder was done for revenge,” Goldman concluded decisively.

  “A little bit of both,” McGrale admitted.

  Goldman considered this as he took another halfhearted bite of his food. “Mr. Durkin really does believe that monsters grow in Lorne Field,” he said. “And not just him either. That town has been paying his family for over three hundred years to weed that field.”

  McGrale rolled the last sip of scotch around his mouth the way a wine connoisseur might do with a fine burgundy before swallowing it. “I heard somethi
ng about that. Doesn’t surprise me. They always seemed a bit inbred over there. But again, there’s a big difference between insanity and criminal insanity. It all comes down to whether your client understood his actions, and he clearly did. As insane as his motives might’ve been, he fully understood his acts.”

  Goldman put his burger down so he could dip an onion ring in some ketchup. “Mr. McGrale,” he asked. “What exactly do you want?”

  McGrale held up a finger to the waitress to signal for another scotch before turning back to Goldman. “I have a family that’s grieving right now,” he said. “They want to bury their loved one, but they can’t because there’s no body. If your client discloses where he hid the rest of Sheriff Wolcott, I can offer man-two, with a minimum of ten years.”

  “Quite a deal,” Goldman said.

  “Given what he did, I’d say so.”

  Goldman’s lopsided grin showed again. He took a long drink of his ale and laughed sourly to himself. “I’ll talk to him, but I don’t think he’s going to take it. I don’t think he’s going to let me plead insanity either. I think he’s going to force me to argue that there are monsters growing in Lorne Field.”

  “There are ways around that. Have him declared incompetent.”

  “I could try to do that, but what if he’s right?” Goldman said, his grin fading. “According to the forensics report there was no blood found on the machete.”

  “So?”

  “Why cut off Sheriff Wolcott’s foot and leave it in the woods, but wipe the machete clean? And even if he wiped it clean, there still should’ve been traces of blood found.”

  “Not necessarily,” McGale countered. “There are chemicals you can use to remove blood traces.”

  “And how exactly would my client get his hands on those, living out there in the middle of that field? And what bothers me even more is the report that the foot was sliced and not hacked off. My client was deathly ill, his weight had dropped from one hundred and seventy pounds to one hundred and thirty in about a month, and yet he was able to cut off that foot with a single blow from the machete?”

  “Ah, Goldman, you’re making this so damn complicated. The insane can show amazing strength sometimes.” McGrale held up a finger for emphasis. “But let me repeat, insane, not criminally insane.”

  Goldman let out a sigh. “I’ll talk to my client tomorrow. If I have to get the ball started on competency hearings, I’ll do it.”

  “That’s fine, Goldman. Remember, though, I’m going to need the location of the body before I can agree to any deal.”

  Goldman shook his head and laughed softly to himself. “You realize how nuts this is? To go to court to prove my client is mentally incompetent, but still not criminally insane?”

  The waitress brought McGrale another scotch. He smiled sadly at it, knowing he had reached his limit. “If our office’s psychiatrist considers him criminally insane, I won’t fight a lifetime confinement to one of our fine mental institutions.”

  Goldman finished his dinner, but stopped himself at three ales. He knew there were a number of police officers unhappy with him taking this case—as if he had any choice —who would be looking for a chance to pull him over for a DUI charge. After leaving McGrale, he sat in his car trying to make up his mind about something, then finally took out his cell phone and called his mother.

  “Have we had first frost yet?” Goldman asked.

  His mother sighed heavily. “I had just gotten into bed,” she complained. “You’re calling me at ten o’clock at night to ask me that?”

  “Mom, please.”

  “Well, if you had your own garden you’d already know the answer.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Yes, I know, you’re too busy as a hotshot lawyer to bother with a simple activity like gardening.”

  Hotshot lawyer. He wanted to laugh. Public defender was nearer the bottom rung of the ladder, although this case could get his name in the paper. If it went to trial.

  “Mom, please, can you just answer the question?”

  “The answer is no. There hasn’t been a frost yet. But I’ll call you when we have one.”

  “Thanks.”

  After hanging up, he headed home. Before he had driven more than a few blocks, he turned his car around.

  Goldman had left his car and was standing on the edge of Lorne Field. He had to admit that it was eerie standing out there under the full moon. The place had a desolate feel to it. No animal sounds, no birds or insects, nothing. That part of what Durkin had told him was true. But he also found himself disappointed that there was nothing growing there. The field was completely empty. Wolcott’s burnt-out jeep had been removed and there was nothing there but ashes from the fire. It made sense that there wouldn’t be any weeds growing there now, but it didn’t stop his disappointment. Goldman walked out into the field and could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He hurried back to his car, his heart racing with irrational fear. He could only imagine what spending four weeks alone out here could do to a man’s sanity, especially if you were already unhinged enough to believe that the weeds growing up where you slept were blood-thirsty monsters.

  Chapter 13

  The following morning Jack Durkin’s lawyer nudged him awake from a morphine-induced sleep to tell him about the deal being offered. Durkin refused. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t accept it,” he said irritably. “There ain’t no body. The Aukowies saw to that.”

  His lawyer hunched over and stared at his hands. “Well, I guess that answers that,” he said. “Anyway, the state’s psychiatrist is going to be evaluating you—”

  “I told you, I ain’t crazy!”

  “I understand that, but the state has the right to order this, so I’m asking that you cooperate with her. Oh, by the way, I have good news for you.” He tried to grin, but it didn’t stick and slid off his face like a fried egg from a well-buttered frying pan. He lowered his eyes from Durkin’s hollow ones and stared back at his hands tapping out a drum beat on his knees. “I got a call from my mom this morning. We had our first frost of the season last night. The world should be safe.”

  “Don’t treat me like an idiot,” Durkin said, his voice trembling. “I know you don’t believe a word I’ve been telling you about the Aukowies. But you drive out there yourself and you’ll see. Frost or no frost, they should be five feet tall by now, and somethin’ has to be done about them.”

  Goldman continued to stare at his hands. “I drove out to Lorne Field last night. Mr. Durkin, there was nothing growing there.”

  “That don’t make sense.”

  “The fire you set scorched the ground and covered it with ash. With those conditions, probably nothing will grow out there for a while.” Goldman forced his lopsided grin as he peeked back up at Durkin. “Think of it this way, Mr. Durkin. You beat the Aukowies.”

  Durkin looked confused as he met his lawyer’s eyes. “They ain’t weeds,” he muttered. “They don’t grow there. That’s just where they choose to come out of the ground.”

  “Well, Mr. Durkin, I don’t know what to tell you except that the Aukowies are gone. You won.”

  Goldman got up to leave and Durkin stopped him to ask whether he contacted Jeanette Thompson yet about getting back his contract and the Book of Aukowies. Goldman told him he’d do it later that week, then nodded, his lopsided grin fixed in place as he left the room.

  Durkin lay in bed troubled by the lawyer’s visit. It didn’t make sense that the Aukowies would’ve stopped coming out of Lorne Field days before the first frost. They’d never done that before, and he couldn’t imagine why they were doing it now. If they could’ve been wiped out as easily as by setting the field on fire, it would’ve been done over three hundred years ago. Earlier, really, ’cause an Indian tribe had weeded the field for God knows how many years before the responsibility fell on the town, and then on the Durkin family. It just made no sense that they’d be gone. Everything in the contract was written for a reason, and h
e couldn’t help feeling unsettled wondering what had happened to the Aukowies.

  It was hours later when the state’s psychiatrist came to talk to him. She was a small, owlish-looking woman in her early forties, but there was a gentleness and quietness to her that Durkin appreciated. Still, he didn’t think it was fair for her to be evaluating him while he was doped up on morphine and worrying about the Aukowies, and he told her so. He mostly ignored her questions, not that she asked many. After waiting several minutes for him to respond to her last question, she smiled gently at him and told him he wasn’t being fair himself and that she was told he was willing to cooperate with her. She spoke in a soft lisp, and the sound of it made him drowsy.

  “I still don’t think you should be talking to me until I’m off the morphine,” he complained.

  She smiled at that. “Jack, rest assured that your being on pain medication won’t have any effect on my evaluation.” She paused for a moment before continuing again in her soft lisp. “I am curious about something,” she said. “It seems to me that you’re the only person in your town who believes that these weeds are monsters. Is that true?”

  “I never said they’re monsters,” Durkin muttered indignantly. “Monsters are unknown imaginary things. Aukowies have been well documented.”

  “Excuse me for my mistake. Are you the only person from your town who believes Aukowies grow out of Lorne Field?”

  “Used to be the whole town believed that.”

  “But how about now?”

  Durkin’s jaw muscles hardened as he thought about it. “My son, Bert, believed it,” he said finally. “He came down to the field the day he died to help me with my weeding. He could see their faces. He told me he could hear the cries they made when I killed them.”

  The psychiatrist nodded gently. She pulled her chair closer to Durkin’s bed so she could hold his hand with both of hers. He didn’t fight it, just turned his head away from her, his lips pressing into two thin bloodless lines.