by Tom Bierdz
“I don’t know. Let me know when you know anything. I’ll do the same.” I hung up. The discussion with Greg could have stirred him up, but it just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t believe he started the fire, yet he was the prime suspect.
I hiked to the office, once again, questioning my judgment. I singled Greg out for special attention. We hit it off, fostering more than the typical therapeutic relationship. He needed a father and I needed a replacement for Kevin. I truly believed I had made a difference in his life. He was making good strides and had come to me when he was most vulnerable to acting out, wanting help with his impulse to start a fire. Usually, after such an insightful interview, Greg could be expected to harness his acting out for a period of time. How could he set the fire the very next day?
All through the day whenever the phone rang I thought it was Greg calling me, but he never did. I pushed Rollins to issue an Amber Alert. He declined, referring me to the juvenile division who sent out an APB instead to apprehend Greg as an arson suspect.
“Thank you for coming in,” I said to Mrs. Liendecker who sat stiffly on the edge of my sofa, her knees pressed together. Blessed with pretty features, the road map on her face from the sun or excessive smoking, coupled with the heavy rouge, made her appear more like Greg’s grandmother than his mother. Short and underweight, her burnt almond, hair hung straight to her shoulders. She appeared frightened.
“I can’t pay you,” she pleaded, nervously fidgeting with her hands.
“There’s no charge. This is community service.” I smiled. I needed to get the fee question immediately off the table so we could concentrate on Greg. I thought it must be hard for people who are barely scraping by, to forever have this affordability factor weighing in on everything they did, and the accompanying embarrassment when having to acknowledge it with others. I felt sucked in by her demeanor and wanted to help her out financially. I understood how her ‘Oliver-esque’, pauper-like plea effectively served her and blasted the guilt onto Greg. “Have you heard from Greg?”
Her lips quivered and she began to cry. “He’s set a fire and runaway. It’s all my fault. I’ve pressured him to come home. I shouldn’t have.”
I offered her a tissue. When she ceased crying, I asked, “Who is this Karen Smith who called Mr. Gutierrez?”
“She’s nobody. I made her up. Had a friend call.” She forced a smile, revealing yellowing teeth. “If I wasn’t so desperate.”
I pushed back the anger that rose within. Would Greg have runaway if that friend hadn’t called? “I know how hard it must be for you to worry about where your next dollar might come from. I can appreciate that. It can make people do desperate things. But you can’t rely on Gregory to provide that for you. You have to rely on...What’s your first name?”
“Mary.”
“You have to rely on Mary.”
“But Mary isn’t very reliable.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s made a mess of her life. Her husband left her. They took her son away. She didn’t even finish high school.”
“How old are you, Mary?”
“Forty.”
She was young at forty. One could make a case for how much I’ve accomplished at thirty-five. Yet, I was also making a mess out of my life. And at the moment I couldn’t imagine how my life could get any messier. “You have your whole life ahead of you yet.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
I smiled sympathetically. “I don’t know you very well but I can see where you have several issues
that you could use help for. Would you be willing to tackle some of these obstacles if I could I could get you some help?”
“Like what?”
“You tell me. What would you like help with?”
“Getting more money.”
“Okay. We can get someone to help you get your GED. Provide you with training so you could get a good job and be financially independent. Does that appeal?”
“Yeah, after Gregory gets back.”
“Of course, I think we also need to look at that relationship between you and Greg.” She nodded.
“I don’t know how this situation with Greg will be resolved, but I know he has many strengths and lots of potential. I know you want him to succeed. That means you have to let him go. He will be gone from your home in a couple of years anyway. So it’s time for you to make your own way. Okay?”
“Yes.” She swallowed, her eyes filled with fear.
“I don’t know if Greg will be able to return to the group home if he started that fire.” Most certainly he would be sent to a delinquent boy’s home. “We’ll have to see. In the meantime, stay close to that juvenile officer and let me know if you hear anything. Okay?”
“Okay. Do you think he’s all right?”
“Greg’s pretty resourceful. We can only hope and pray.”
I bid her goodbye. We agreed to keep in touch. I watched her walk away. So needy, so little to give. I think I was more devastated by Gregory’s acting out than she was. I had reached out, invested a hell of a lot in him. I thought we had bonded a nourishing closeness, tight enough to override the negative impulsivity. I was angry at his mother’s interference. And, again, I was plagued by my own impotence.
47
Between wondering what happened to Greg, and obsessing about how I was going to confront Megan to admit her guilt, record it and come out alive, I was dangerously in overload. Walking to the office early at sunrise I pondered how science maintained the brain can hold an unlimited amount of information, and even expand by growing additional cells if needed. Still, at thirty-five I was convinced my head was already filled to the brim and could not take in one more bit of information without first removing something to make room. There were all of my life experiences retained in my memory bank, most of it shoved into the far recesses not readily accessible but taking up space. I had to juggle the case histories of my patients, be familiar with their current conflicts, and where they were in their treatment. I was still plagued by the recent past crisis of my son’s suicide and all its ramifications including my divorce from Hanna. And now I needed to cope with the assault on my character and livelihood, and the danger to my life. The latter added a whole new dimension, as I was forced to focus on the everyday functions I used to perform automatically at the periphery of my consciousness, cautiously being aware of what was front of me as I walked to work.
But I wasn’t equally alert to what was happening behind me until I heard a chilling roar, distinctly different from the traffic moving by my side, of the pounding acceleration of the sport utility vehicle bearing down on me. Craning my neck, I saw it was veering off the road on a trajectory straight for me. Colored dark, possibly black; I couldn’t tell because the sun crossed over the horizon directly into my eyes, nearly blinding me. If I didn’t act quickly I’d be mincemeat and join my colleague Hodges. I didn’t want such a partnership then and I didn’t now. My adrenalin kicked in. There was a curbside tree about thirty yards ahead. If I could beat the vehicle there it would hit the tree before me. That was wishful thinking. The way the beast was nipping at my heels I’d be lucky to make ten yards. Breathing hard, my heart beating like a kettledrum, I shot into survival mode. I spun and whipped my attaché case like it was a baseball at the windshield, striking it and buying myself a fraction of a second, as the driver reflexively nudged the steering wheel in the opposite direction, before correcting its aim toward me as my case caromed onto the street. Simultaneously, I dug the balls of my feet into the sod and propelled myself forward, as if I were playing third base and leaping to spear a liner, then dived head first into the row of forsythia bushes. The SUV’s fender nicked my left thigh before swerving back on the road, leaving deep ruts in the sodden lawn.
That was much too close for comfort. If not for the minuscule difference of a second or so I’d be a statistic instead of an injured and frightened psychiatrist. My clothes were ripped, my body full of scratches, and my leg hurt. Moving to f
ree myself from the brambles, a broken branch stabbed my thigh. I winced, not knowing if I should curse the bushes or thank them for saving my life. Tasting the coppery tang of blood, I touched my face and realized I’d been bleeding from the scratches. I wondered what I would see once I gazed into a mirror. I pushed the instant replay button in my mind, trying to recall exactly what happened as Detective Rollins would need to know. All I could say for sure was that it was a large, dark-colored SUV. It might have been a Mercedes and it might have been cinnamon or cinnabar red like Megan’s but I couldn’t swear to it. Maybe, if the sun hadn’t obscured my vision. As it was, I couldn’t see the driver nor make out the license plate. Did it even have one, or was it covered in mud making it indistinguishable? I’d make a piss-poor witness in a courtroom.
Gingerly roiling in pain from my injured thigh, I inched myself out of the bushes which were mangled and reached for the cell phone in my pocket. Shit! It wasn’t there. Then I remembered putting it in my attaché case because it felt too snug in my pant’s pocket. I started to stand but a sharp pain shot up my leg. There was no way I was going to get to my attaché case which was lying somewhere in the street, probably run over by now, and reduced to a pancake. Just as I wondering how I was going to call for help, three young women rushed to my side.
“Are you all right?” the first, an attractive Asian lady, asked, kneeling beside me. The others framed her, looking at me with concern.
“Besides for my leg, I think so.”
“Thank God you’re okay. We saw that car run you down,” another one said.
The first carefully probed my leg with her fingers, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin, when she touched my thigh. “We’re nurses in training. Your leg is fractured.”
An ambulance screamed in the distance.
“I called the ambulance,” the third girl said.
“Are you all from the Noble House?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I was glad Noble House was a training facility for nurses and not one of those crazy conspiracy stories we would make up. “Will one of you see if you can find my attaché case? It should be somewhere out in the road.”
I questioned the girls to what they had seen. They all agreed a dark colored, possibly black SUV, deliberately ran me down. One of the girls thought it was a Mercedes as her dad had one. No one saw the driver, couldn’t say if it was a man or woman, and no one noticed the license plate. I wrote down their names and numbers for Rollins.
My case had been flattened but, miraculously, my cell phone had survived, embedded in a corner. As the ambulance carted me to the hospital I called Bobby, told him what happened and to cancel my appointments for the day, then briefed Detective Rollins so he could immediately check out Megan’s autos.
Examined in the emergency room, I was given a shot for the pain and escorted downstairs for x-rays on my leg. A gash above my right eye had to be stitched. A nurse cleaned the remaining cuts and scratches and dressed my wounds while we waited for the radiology report.
“Has the pain subsided any?” the tall, thin, ER doctor who was older than Doogie Howser, but seemed much too young to have a medical degree, asked.
“Some.” The throbbing was still brutal. “What’s the damage?”
“You have a femoral shaft fracture.’
“A broken thighbone.” I shifted my body to alter the weigh to my right side. “I’m a shrink and don’t know a lot about orthopedics so fill me in.”
He picked up a pad, drew a few lines, and then showed me his drawing. “You have a spiral fracture in the middle of your femur. The break is like this swirl from the twisting force of the impact. It needs to be repaired surgically. Normally, we’d put you in traction before surgery, but I talked with Brian Goodman, one of the best, if not the best orthopedic surgeon in town, who happens to be in the hospital right now. As a professional courtesy he’ll operate on you when he finishes his rounds.”
“I suppose I should be grateful. You sure there’s no way to avoid the surgery?”
“Not if you want it to heal correctly, be able to walk, run, use your leg as you have in the past.”
“Tell me about the surgery,” I grunted. The throbbing pain made me nauseous. Maybe I needed more of that pain killer.
“I’m an ER doctor. Better for Dr. Goodman to tell you.”
“As one doctor to another, give me your best guess.”
“Well, most likely he’ll make a small incision in your hip or knee, and run a titanium rod through the bone marrow to keep the bone aligned while it heals, and fasten it with screws and plates.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“We’re moving you to another room where they will prep you for surgery.”
A few hours later in the recovery room I awoke to the sight of Hanna, sitting by my side, a warm smile etched on her face. At first I thought I was dreaming. “You’re real,” I muttered.
“I like to think I am, but sometimes I feel like a character in a Greek tragedy.”
“How Woody Allen-esque. How did you know I was here?”
“Bobby told me.”
“At least you didn’t learn it on the local news.”
“You will probably make the evening newscast.”
“As long as they don’t mention my name.”
“The doctor said your surgery went well.”
I touched my leg to make sure it was still there. The analgesics were working. “Did he say when I could get out of here?”
“They want to keep you overnight, check you in the morning.” She moved closer, examined the cut above my eye, and touched the scratches on my face. “You’ll still be handsome. The doctor says the scars will eventually fade away, but I’d still love you even if they didn’t.” Feeling awkward for being so personal, she changed the subject. “I remember when you came to this hospital to make rounds.”
“I still do occasionally, but I’ll have to hobble around on crutches for a while.”
“Bobby tells me you’re lucky to escape with a broken leg. I knew that woman was dangerous, Grant. You have to extricate yourself from that situation.”
“I know. I’m trying to. But first, she needs to be stopped.”
“It’s a police matter, Grant. Let it go.”
“It’s not that simple. We need proof. I may be the only one who can get it.”
“Where the hell do you get those delusions of grandeur?”
“Please, Hanna, not now! I’m not delusional.” I’m scared shitless, but you don’t need to know that. “I’m working with the police.”
“And Carrie’s on board?”
“Yes. We know what were up against. Megan’s a very clever, manipulative woman. We’ll take every possible precaution.”
“That didn’t work so well this morning, did it?”
Sighing, I said, “Look, I don’t like this, but I don’t have much of a choice. If I bow out I’ll be forced to defend myself in an ethics-- a sexual abuse-- investigation. If I lose I’m finished as a therapist.
Even if I win, my reputation will be forever tarnished. My patient load hasn’t recovered from my DUI. Imagine what it will be like after a sexual abuse investigation. I’ll be a pariah in the business.”
She gave me one of those ‘I don’t agree but you have already made your mind up’ glances.
“Let’s talk about you. How are you doing?”
“I’d love to share with you, but now’s not the time. When this is all over.” She bent down, kissed me and left.
48
The orthopedic surgeon knelt in front examining my leg by running his hand down the side of my thigh, probing with his fingers, inducing pain. “The x-ray looked good. Your surgeon is a genius.
Eventually your leg should be as good as new. Let’s see how you handle the crutches.”
“He’s been needing a crutch for a long time,” Carrie said, seated. She came to drive me home. “Let’s hope these work better than his recent crutches”.
The surgeon smiled.
>
I gave Carrie a look, picked up the crutches, hobbled out of the room, turned around in the hall and returned.
“I want you to keep the weight off that leg for a while so the bone can mend.” He gave me a prescription for the pain and scheduled a follow up appointment. “You’re a natural on those crutches,” Carrie said.
“I don’t think I’d be able to outrun a car aiming for me.”
Detective Rollins entered the room, huffing and puffing. “Glad I caught you.” He sat on the end of the bed, wiping the sheen on his forehead with his sleeve. “Another goddamn blind alley. We tracked down her trade. Some yuppies in Renton bought it. We gave them a loner, then practically took the front end apart. Nothing. Even with a good detailing we can usually find blood or DNA. Hodges bled internally. No skin. No fabric. Dead end.” He caught his breath. “Here’s the real corker! There was absolutely no time for Megan to have washed or gotten rid of her vehicle after you were hit. There’s not even mud on her tires.”
“Either she didn’t do it or she used a different car,” Carrie said.
“Besides for her sporty Mercedes, there was no other car around. She could have hid it somewhere.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“What did you do? Run up the stairs?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She could have a partner.”
“Yeah, possibly, but it doesn’t seem like her style,” I offered.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because that makes her more vulnerable. She’d prefer to have total control, only rely on herself.”
“Could we be dealing with two killers?” Carrie asked. She fiddled with her cigarette case.
I was grateful she couldn’t smoke in the hospital. “I’ve thought of that because we have that father-daughter thing going on with the murders of her husbands that were several years older. Hodges was a young man--“
”As are you,” Carrie pointed out.
“--Right. So we have two older victims and two younger counting me. The commonality being sexual abuse. I mean, if you can consider what I did...”