by Gene Hackman
A brisk fall day, she couldn’t imagine a nicer afternoon—if only the threat of having to speak to Captain Walker in a pissed state wasn’t looming over her.
“By the way, according to our beloved Dr. Crankenstein . . .”
Walker held a typed memo at arm’s length for her to see. His wide shoulders sloped from years of heavy decision making, his lined face having tracked the many miles of police toil. “She says you never . . .” he scanned the paper to pick out the appropriate line. “Subject is not completing her psychiatric examination after the shooting incident. I deem this treatment crucial and necessary for the safety of said patient and others who may in the future prove to be at odds with the aforementioned patient. Miss Worth shows a combative nature when confronted. Dr. Heidi Cranstein.”
“She’d love hearing you call her ‘Crankenstein,’ Captain.”
“Oh yeah? I hear she’s a piece of work. The commissioner thinks you’re exploiting your newfound celebrity in order to get out of seeing this doctor. I don’t agree, but there you have it.”
He gestured toward the door for her to leave. “Anyway, you have to go back and see her, fulfill your required number of visits. Help me out here.”
“Thank you, sir, for allowing me to speak.” She left his office and noticed the squad room listening in.
The following day, the captain again called Julie into his office.
“What’s up on the gas station shooting debacle? Anything new?”
She brought her three-ring binder, anticipating that she would be placed on administrative leave and that some of her cases would need to be handed off. “We’re close to wrapping it up. We know this heavily tattooed street guy, Lobo, was involved. Probably did the deed, just need to find him.”
“That house fire BS. What about it?”
“About the same, Captain. We’ve got pictures of the wife going into a motel with a fellow we thought was good for that double tap up north last year.” She glanced at her notes. “Swan McGee—hell of a name, but he’s our guy. Todd’s working on a warrant as we speak. Our favorite judge”—they gave each other a wink—“is usually good about probable cause. In any case, we’ve got this jerk McGee at the scene with the broad doing the nasty at the Motel 6. We’re pretty much locked up.”
“Good work.” Walker cleared his throat. “Here’s the hell of it. I ran a couple scenarios past the commish in terms of your rehab. Doesn’t help that you’re blowing off your psych sessions. Best I can do is two weeks admin leave and a month of desk work, either in the property room straightening stuff or in latent.”
“Latent prints?”
“No, past unsolved crap.”
“How far back would I need to go, sir?”
“Up to you. You’re probably not going to find anything. O’Neal and Jefferson spent a month last year dusting off all that baloney. I looked over their work. Actually, they were fairly thorough.”
Julie closed her binder. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like the cold case files. Is there any reg saying I can’t do this as admin duty rather than admin leave?”
“I don’t get it. You’re being disciplined, and you want this work. Is that what you’re saying?” Walker leaned back in his chair.
“That’s what I am saying, Captain.”
Julie was made to wait far past her appointment time before Dr. Cranstein called her in. The previous patient had left in tears nearly a half hour earlier. She decided she would get the best out of the sessions, regardless of any prejudice she might feel toward Frau Cranstein.
The woman sat next to a file cabinet, her streaked blond hair pulled back tight into a sweet-roll bun. Pincenez glasses graced her heavy nose, as she looked, head down, over the top of the eyepiece. “You missed a few appointments, Miss Worthy. Will this be your habit?”
Julie hid her smile behind a manufactured cough. “No, of course not. I simply forgot.”
Cranstein adjusted her glasses and made a few notes. “It’s my experience that dissembling, feigning forgetfulness, and being insincere are all signs of secrecy. Wouldn’t you agree, Sergeant?”
Julie nodded.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear your response.”
“My response, madam Doctor, was a nod of the head, as in ‘ Yes, I agree.’ ”
“So it would follow that although agreeing, you wish to hold your own counsel, correct?”
“I’m not verbose, and generally not a liar, either. But your questions regarding being secretive might be accurate.” She paused. “Just like our last meeting. Today I was required to wait half an hour after the previous patient left, knowing full well that half of a one-hour session leaves not a hell of a lot of time. I’m here because I’m required to do so. A psych examination is required by the department. To get right to it, madam—”
“Doctor.”
“All right. Doctor. Your questions of whether I enjoyed the shooting were inappropriate.”
“How so? Enlighten me, please.”
“How can you be serious, madam—”
“Doctor.”
“Madam, for you to say, ‘Tell me your innermost sense of joy, your feelings, over the death of a human being?’ It is not only inappropriate but insensitive and rude. I killed a man to save a young boy’s life. The only joy was still being able to go home and see my kid. Why don’t you read the account of the incident before you ask me if I enjoyed the taking of a life?”
“When you raise your voice to make your point, do you say to yourself, ‘I will be forceful to assure those listening and myself that I’m righteous, indeed’?”
“We are mixing our metaphors here, madam Doctor. Whether or not I was, to use your word, ‘righteous’ in God’s eyes or correct in the realm of the criminal justice system is way beyond your purview to adjudicate. To ask me that kind of question equates me with a common thug. A killer. Is it your duty to suss out murderers in the department? To weed out the homicidal? Is that who you are?”
“I would remind you, Sergeant, that I’m not the one being examined here.”
You should be, bitch.
The woman made a deliberate show of looking at her watch. “This is not of benefit, Sergeant. Let’s be honest.”
“So fifteen minutes into a one-hour session, and it’s auf Wiedersehen, right?”
“You really do have issues, Sergeant. One is your inability to interpret emotion. It’s possible the man you mur—shot, killed, was in fact considering a course of agreement. Your explosion of self-righteousness could possibly have been avoided if you considered the other’s right to life. His family, loves, and joys in simple everyday activities, which you took away in the blink of an eye. A millisecond of thought may have changed not only the man’s life but your own. In the years to come, keep in mind your power with that beloved weapon you so proudly wear. You must, at least, be honest with yourself.”
“To be honest, I want to say ‘Fuck you,’ but I won’t. I’ll just say this is what I call a holy session of misinformed bullshit. If and when I’m ever confronted with another deadly armed shoot-out, I’ll give you a call first, and we can discuss your book-smart theory on who dies and who doesn’t in these truncated guidance sessions. It’s great drive-through psychiatry, Doctor, and, by the way, do you have a dog named Blondie?”
The woman had goaded her into making an ass out of herself. Julie stopped on the street to think of what the Nazi bitch said to her about taking away the man’s life in a millisecond, without thought. She asked herself if things could have turned out better—or at least different—if she’d given it more thought. Maybe a wounding shot, not a mortal one, would have been better? It flew against everything she had been taught. The mantra was always two rounds at center mass. A wounded man could still be dangerous.
It gave her pause, though she didn’t regret the man’s death. He had killed and wounded at least three people, but Frau Cranstein finagled and fucked her mind with inaccurate accusations. Niggling doubt remained. Hateful as the woman wa
s, maybe she had a point.
A careful driver, Charles stayed five to ten miles under the speed limit. The stolen 1993 Ford Bronco, a proud symbol of American workmanship. Steady hands guided his vehicle, both in traffic and on deserted country roads. He would grin when drivers circled around him and honked past. He loved it when they’d throw their hands up in despair and laughed when they got worked up.
It didn’t bother him. Charles continued with his safety-margin caravan-like ways. The Bronco was special. To say he owned it would be an exaggeration. But it was his. He used the vehicle during his tomcat hours and on those occasions when transporting female passengers, some of whom would be better left in the wilderness. So the Bronco stayed, for the most part, in a wood garage adjacent to Bait Shack. He often thought how bizarre it would be to take the auto back to Oklahoma, where he had stolen it many years ago. Each year, he would lift a Missouri tag from another car to comply with state regulations. Messy but necessary. However, maybe Charles Adam Clegg, poster child for the thoughtful traditionalist, would leave it in the driveway of the house where he had acquired it, with a note:
Thanks for the use of the Bronco. I have such a short memory, couldn’t think of who I borrowed it from. It wasn’t until watching a recent football game between Oklahoma and Missouri that it dawned on me, sorry. I filled the tank.
All the best, your friend, the absentminded thief
Friday evening held a hint of rain, the western sky a color wheel of darkening clouds. The stop at his one-bedroom apartment outside Morse Mill yielded the proper prescription weekend garb—raincoat and boots. He remained the careful stickler. Charles’s usual grocery needs involved sojourns to two separate stores, the overwhelming Splendid Farms supermarket and Mag’s family store, a mom-and-pop place.
“Evening, Mr. C. What’s the news?” Mag’s husband, Winston, a pleasant man who might have actually graduated from elementary school, always greeted him the same way.
“The word is rain, pardner, coming soon and plenty of it.” He probed a large head of lettuce. “So batten down the hatches.”
“What’s that mean? Never really put a thought to it.”
“Means the doors on the cargo hold of a boat or ship should be battened, sealed, ready for foul weather, to make fast.”
Bits of an overripe cantaloupe spotted the narrow aisle floor between the freezer case and the vegetables. Charles picked up the larger pieces and placed them in his shopping cart.
Winston wore the same vacant look. “Why would you go out to sea if it were nasty weather?”
“Exactly.” He smiled. “Why?”
“You been buying a right smart load of food lately. Having a weekend bust-out?”
“I’m expectant, Winston. As if with child, ideas, full of yearning, nostalgic for the old days prior to television’s political wrangling and Washington’s backbiting.”
Winston seemed sorry to have asked, so he checked and bagged the mountain of produce. “They do get heated on the TV. When you gonna move out to the lake full-time, Mr. C? Hells bells, you could fish and carry on til Judgment Day.” He droned on, like a gospel minister, Charles having opened the floodgates to Winnie’s dull world.
He wondered why Winston spoke of God and that painful day of judgment. Even Jesus had reason to keep his miracles hidden. “You’re not going to charge me for the cantaloupe, are you, Winnie?”
“Heck, no. Been busy trying to get to that mess for an hour.” He took the spoiled chunks of fruit from the cart.
Yeah, right, Winnie. And the people in the South have forgotten the Civil War.
The hour-and-a-half drive out to Bait Shack, his country shanty, had been pleasant enough. A soft, steady downpour kept the wipers at their busiest. He kept his reliable 1969 Chevy Nomad in mechanically perfect condition. His other vehicle, the Bronco, he stashed away safely in the garage for special occasions. The hard-packed dirt road danced with the first slanted drops. Charles listened to his oldies-but-goodies station, knowing that the next hour would be stressful. But the familiarity of Elvis doing “Hound Dog” brought a warm anticipation.
He always pictured himself an entertainer. Given the right circumstances and breaks, he thought a career playing Midwestern bars and roadhouses as a rockabilly revivalist might have been his.
The early days of guitar picking brought him pleasure, though his small grip refused to wrap comfortably around the neck of his secondhand acoustic Gibson. He would prop his knee against the throat of the instrument, his left hand counterpressing in an attempt to make chords. The few times he tried to play at local amateur nights turned into ultimate failures. One club owner nicknamed him Camaron, which he quite liked. It sounded friendly, like he was the man’s comrade. But it shook him when later at work a fellow toiler at the Drew Box Factory explained that camaron was Spanish for “shrimp.” A questionable five foot six, Charles addressed his vertical challenge with helpful lift-enhanced shoes that still left him wanting.
The group of foster homes in various counties around the state established twice yearly trips to participating factories in the area. Chuck attended with his foster parent, the other six kids in his foster home, and several other groups of youngsters who arrived expectant and loud at Drew Inc. on a “Way Things Are Made” school trip.
The box factory vibrated with overhead cranes, forklifts, and long, noisy conveyor belts, like a giant Erector Set, a boyhood dream. Chuck and his best friend, Bink, were told a number of times by Mr. Tucker, his so-called nurturing sire, to “Stay the hell with the group, shitheads.” Tuck had a way with words.
They wandered. Bink pressed a button on a yellow metal box that controlled an overhead apparatus moving on rails high in the ceiling. A heavy pallet of boxed tape for cardboard crashed down on Bink and Chuck. Bink died instantly. Chuck suffered a crushed hip and a broken leg. He could still see Tuck hovering in the background with a wry look. Chuck heard himself scream.
“You’re lucky, limp dick. You gotta sign a paper saying you’ll behave yourself, but the Drew company did right by you. A lifetime job at your disposal, medical and retirement benefits as per rank and file, and a chunk of earth fit for a baron.”
“What’s a baron?” He understood later that Tuck’s explanation of the company’s generosity was more liberal than what had been advertised to him.
He didn’t see Tuck much after that. The man would disappear from the foster home property for several weeks at a time, coming back tan and grouchy.
On Chuck’s sixteenth birthday, Tuck drove him to the box factory. “You’re on your own, tough guy. By the way, you know anything about Rat? Gloria says she found him hanging by the neck from that elm tree by the outhouse. Anything?”
“He was your cat, Tuck. You should look out for things that are assigned to you.”
It didn’t seem that his foster parent understood the reference but simply gave him the finger and sped away.
Charles liked his job, for he didn’t have to talk to anyone. After several weeks, he bought the trashed Nomad and spent the weekends at the lake fixing up his legacy, a gone-to-hell fishing shack on a tract of uncut timber. The land was worthless—really too far from town to commute—but he liked it; it was his.
“Chuck, it’s a hell of a deal,” one of the older accountants at the factory said. “A real fixer-upper; we’ll get the paperwork settled later. In the meantime, I’m off to sunnier climes.”
He never saw the man again, learning that he had died while on a search for a retirement spot for himself in the Tampa, Florida, area.
Several years later he ran into his old mentor, Tuck, toiling at a Conoco gas station on one of the winding back roads of the lake country.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Tuck glanced up at him as he filled Charlie’s tank. His long black hair still swept back in a ducktail. “I see a lot of folks passing through here. That’ll be nine dollars and eighty cents”—he paused—“cowboy.”
Charles thought him to be the same
surly bastard who took money from the county for all those years to raise him and a half-dozen other pitiful waifs.
It looked as if Tuck either owned or ran the station. Charles rode by several times over the next few weeks and saw a woman pumping gas most of the time.
It wasn’t Gloria, his old foster mom, though it looked somewhat like her—floozy hair and big knockers.
The mysterious fire that burned the Conoco station a month later at three o’clock in the morning was seen for ten miles. The inferno, listed by law enforcement as “suspicious.” The two bodies inside, charred beyond recognition.
Charles considered the event. On the one side, the world—as rotten as it appeared—was better off having been rid of Ol’ Numb Nuts and his big-breasted partner. On the downside, Chuck had to give up his nightly prayer: “Lord, please help me find my old nemesis Mr. J. T. Tuck Gerard; I need to pay my respects.”
Tuck and his big-titted friend went up in smoke for $9.80. It weren’t no joke. Cowboy, indeed.
Charles made it a ritual to drive by the blackened remains. It made him smile as nothing else could.
The Show-Me State’s countryside. Age-old trees, shrubs, and vines covered Julie’s hillside bungalow. At the white picket fence, she waved to Mrs. Tripette and her cottage, Serenity. The name, a little over the top, but the woman seemed pleasant, and Julie believed each to his own. She even felt a comfort in another neighbor’s perpetually broken-down slatted corral. She would keep the memory of her early days leaning over that top rung watching the colts and their mothers and wishing for a Shetland pony—not, she thought, the usual young girl’s yearning for dolls or a bright dress.
It wasn’t to be. Her father stated, “Ponies are expensive toys. They give you nothing back but a brief, bumpy ride and a possible bite on the butt.”
Her daughter, Cheryl, on the other hand, claimed she was more reasonable for never asking for a horse, but rather, only a car. “Mom, everyone has one. You know, get to and from school, shop, go out. Hello, Earth to Mom.”