The Question of the Felonious Friend

by E. J. Copperman

  Tyler Clayton’s question had been a simple one to answer, but when I considered it objectively, I found myself reluctantly agreeing with Mother and Ms. Washburn—I probably was needlessly extending the process. There was no tangible evidence that Richard Handy was indeed Tyler’s friend, yet I had not informed Tyler I had arrived at an answer to his question. That was unlike my usual procedure.

  I must have sighed audibly because Mother asked if I was all right. I assured her that I was, because there was nothing noticeably wrong with me physically.

  “I believe I will schedule a meeting with Tyler tomorrow,” I said. “It’s time to answer his question and collect my fee.”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that when you talk to him,” Mother advised.

  “Don’t worry.” I sat back in my seat. Mother was steering the car into our driveway.

  Once she stopped it and put the transmission into the park mode, Mother looked at me with a sly expression on her face, one I’d seen before but did not consider one of her more recognizable looks. “Was it the Beatles that got you?” she asked.

  I couldn’t resist. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said.

  Six

  Ms. Washburn arranged the meeting with Tyler Clayton to take place at the Questions Answered office at ten the next morning. Tyler was anxious to hear the answer, she said when she disconnected the call, and wanted to come by as soon as possible. We had not considered traveling to his home because his brother was not aware of our involvement in the question and apparently Tyler preferred that arrangement.

  “Are you nervous?” Ms. Washburn asked me.

  Why would I be nervous? “I am concluding a business arrangement,” I told her. “Tyler contracted with us to answer a question. We are doing so. We never promise to deliver the answer the client hopes to receive.”

  She nodded but her expression did not signify agreement. Ms. Washburn understands my Asperger’s Syndrome better than most people but still does not completely grasp my thought process. In this case, she clearly believed I was being insincere or deluding myself. Neither was true, but Ms. Washburn was merely mistaken.

  Tyler arrived with Sandy at ten precisely. It is not unusual in those who present on the autism spectrum to be almost compulsive about time, so I expected nothing else. Tyler’s head was vibrating periodically as if he was trying desperately to quell a strong emotion—perhaps anger or fear—trying to dominate his mind.

  Sandy also looked tense, but her gaze was almost exclusively trained on her brother.

  “What news do you have for us, Mr. Hoenig?” Sandy asked. Tyler appeared to be too overwhelmed to speak first.

  Ms. Washburn stepped forward from behind her desk. “We believe we have an answer to your question,” she said. “But keep in mind that in this case, the answer can’t be definitive because it’s not possible to accurately measure how a person feels.”

  While I appreciated her attempt both to buffer Tyler’s feelings and to shield me from having to deliver what he would consider to be bad news, I felt it was necessary to clarify what Ms. Washburn had said.

  I was already standing in front of my desk. Sandy sat in the client chair, a small upholstered seat we had placed in front of my desk. The recliner that is Mother’s chair was empty, as Tyler was pacing the floor by our desks. So when I spoke, all three of them turned to face me.

  “The answer is an accurate one,” I said. “Ms. Washburn is correct in saying there is no way to quantify emotion, but it is possible to determine how a person behaves and interpret that accurately. We believe we have done so regarding this question.”

  Sandy seemed to be choosing between what Ms. Washburn had said and what I said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” she said, addressing her comment to neither of us specifically. “Do you have an answer or not?”

  “We do,” I said. “I was merely trying to indicate how that answer was reached so you can see the validity of the process and—”

  “Is Richard my friend or not?” Tyler said, the words coming out of him quickly.

  I regarded him carefully. “No,” I said. “He is not.”

  Sandy appeared to deflate. “I was afraid of this,” she said, leaning back in her chair. Her expression was either one of sadness or puzzlement; I could not tell. I would ask Ms. Washburn for her opinion after the meeting had ended.

  But Tyler’s face was not at all difficult to decipher. He was angry.

  “You’re wrong!” he shouted. “You didn’t get the right answer! I’m not going to pay you!” He turned and walked very quickly to the office door. He opened it and went outside, presumably back to Sandy’s car.

  She watched him, then stood up and nodded at Ms. Washburn. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll get the fee.”

  “That’s not really what we’re most concerned about,” Ms. Washburn told her, although I was certainly wondering if we would be properly paid. “Will Tyler be all right?”

  Sandy looked at her strangely as if Ms. Washburn had asked a question that had no answer. “I have absolutely no idea,” she said and walked outside after her brother.

  Ms. Washburn stood still for a long moment looking at the spot where Sandy had been standing. Having discharged our business, I felt it was time to move on and walked to my desk, where I sat down to work on a question regarding the physical properties of flames by beginning some Internet research.

  After shaking her head a few times as if she’d been dazed, Ms. Washburn took her hands off her hips and walked back to her desk. “I’m sorry that didn’t go better,” she said as she sat down.

  I looked over at her. “It went as well as it could have been expected to,” I said. “We had a volatile client and the correct answer to his question was the opposite of what he had hoped to hear. It was probably foolish of him to ask it. He should have known the probability was at least fifty percent that he would get a negative result.”

  “Everybody’s not a science experiment, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said. “Emotion isn’t something that has no value. Tyler made himself vulnerable to another person, which is something that is clearly very difficult for him to do, and he was rejected. That must be devastating. I hope that the damage isn’t so bad he never tries with another person again.”

  I had not calculated the possible effect the answer to his question might have on Tyler. Frankly, that is not my job when considering a question. Each client is told at the beginning that the outcome is not predictable and the news received at the end of the process might not be what he or she desires. I had made sure to include such language in the Questions Answered contract, a document we require each client to sign before we begin considering a question.

  “It would be an extreme reaction if he never tried to make another friend,” I pointed out. “If a person can’t play the violin the first time he or she attempts to do so, they most often do not avoid making a second try.”

  Ms. Washburn looked over at me and shook her head. “I think I’m going to take an early lunch,” she said. She picked up her purse and walked out of the office.

  I looked at the time displayed in the upper right hand corner of my MacPro. It read, “10:24 a.m.” That was indeed an early lunch. I wondered if Ms. Washburn’s impending divorce was having some unusual effect on her appetite.

  Having allowed more than twenty minutes to pass, I stood up to power walk the circumference of the office. Exercise was an important part of my day.

  Ms. Washburn returned from her lunch at 11:38 a.m., more than an hour after she had left. We do not own a time clock at Questions Answered, and as her employer I have never considered giving Ms. Washburn less than her full salary per week, but this was an interesting development. She had never been late returning from lunch before. I was in fact a trifle concerned about her absence, since I have lunch with Mother at our house each day at 12:30 p.m. If Ms. Washburn had been much later, she m
ight not have had time to drive me to the house.

  “Did you have a pleasant lunch?” I asked when she had settled in at her desk. I have been instructed to ask such questions despite the fact that I knew if something of interest had occurred during Ms. Washburn’s break, she would surely tell me about it.

  “It was fine,” she said in a clipped tone.

  I looked in her direction. “Is something wrong, Ms. Washburn?”

  She started to reply, seemed to catch herself, and sighed a bit. “No, Samuel, nothing’s wrong. I disagreed with some of your diatribe about Tyler before, but I realize that’s your way of looking at the world. I just wish you could learn a little more empathy.”

  Learn empathy? I did not know if such a thing was possible. “How should I have been empathetic?” I asked. Perhaps that was one way a person could learn about such things.

  “Of all people, you should know what it’s like to be different and hope you have a friend,” she replied. “Tyler is hurting right now because we had to tell him the one friend he thought he had was something else entirely. Instead of thinking about how it impacts us, consider what it’s like to be Tyler at this moment.”

  I believed that I had already done what she suggested. “Should I not have told him the truth?” I asked Ms. Washburn. “Should I have lied to him as Richard Handy has and let him perpetuate the situation?”

  “No. You should have felt the pain that boy felt and tried to assure him that not everyone is like Richard Handy.”

  I would have responded to that, although I do not know what I would have said, but the telephone on my desk rang. The one situated on Ms. Washburn’s desk rang as well, and even after she gave me a quick glance, assuredly to remind me that I can answer the phone too, she picked up the receiver.

  “Questions Answered,” she said.

  I had thought, when I started the business, that the most appropriate way to respond to a phone call would be to say, “Hello.” That was how I was taught to answer a telephone. Then I would add, “This is Questions Answered. We will answer any question you might have if we find it interesting. There is a fee schedule. You may leave a message when I finish speaking, or e-mail us at (our e-mail address). Please do not call back.” If a person wasn’t going to leave a message now it was likely a second call would be equally unproductive.

  But I discovered over the first few weeks that merely saying hello led many callers to believe they had reached a personal telephone. There would be a long moment of confusion followed by the inevitable voice asking, “Is this Questions Answered?” I would explain that it was and the potential client and I would have wasted five seconds coming to the point of our business.

  That was when Mother suggested that businesses often answer the phone with the name of the business followed by the phrase, “May I help you?” (Actually, most employees of businesses I have called ask, “Can I help you?”, which is an unanswerable question. If I am calling your business for the first time I have no way to measure your competence, and therefore cannot determine if you are capable of performing the task I need completed.) I merely say the name of the service and let the client assume we are here to help.

  Ms. Washburn listened for a moment and then said, “No, he is here, but—” Then her face lost much of its color and her eyes widened. She took a short involuntary breath and blinked. I was immediately concerned about her health, since she looked much like Mother did when she had a cardiac issue four years ago.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Hold on,” Ms. Washburn said into the phone when she regained her breath. “I’m going to get Mr. Hoenig.” She pushed the hold button on the phone and turned toward me.

  “Ms. Washburn,” I began, but she held up her right hand to stop me.

  “It’s the Somerset police,” Ms. Washburn said, gesturing toward the phone. “They have Tyler Clayton in custody. He’s been arrested.”

  That confused me. Tyler Clayton had been in my office less than three hours earlier, and while he did have social issues, he hardly seemed ready to run afoul of the police. He did not own a driver’s license and therefore would not have been caught in a serious situation with a car. The worst that could have happened would have been a raucous argument and perhaps an embarrassing public scene.

  “On what charge?” I asked.

  Ms. Washburn hesitated a moment as if wondering how to phrase her response. “They say he shot and killed Richard Handy,” she said.

  Seven

  The crime scene was cordoned off and Det. Milton Hessler was being very clear in his opposition to Ms. Washburn and I entering it, which made me wonder why he had asked us to come here. “You’re civilians,” he said. “You stay out until the yellow tape comes down.”

  Detective Hessler had called Questions Answered after he arrested Tyler Clayton because he had spoken to Tyler’s sister, Sandy, who had informed him that her brother had been utilizing our services. I had tried to call Sandy but had gotten a voice mail message; no doubt she was dealing with Tyler’s arrest and could not respond. Being thorough, Hessler had followed up on every possible angle to the crime, which he described as “as open-and-shut a case as I’ve ever seen.”

  That struck me as odd, but as Hessler explained, Tyler had apparently not been very careful about his escape after entering the Quik N EZ and shooting Richard Handy four times with a 9mm handgun. Richard had died instantly, as the gun had been fired at close range and none of the shots had missed him. One had passed through him and shattered the glass on a refrigerated case of dairy products, Hessler said. Milk and blood mixed on the floor.

  “We have no interest in seeing the crime scene,” I informed Hessler as we stood in a light drizzle outside the convenience store. Ms. Washburn looked surprised but I could not understand why she would find my statement at all unexpected. “We are not answering a question involving the death of Richard Handy. We came here because you asked us to come, presumably because you want to know about Tyler’s business with Questions Answered.”

  “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to help you there,” Ms. Washburn said, her voice strong and steady. It had been a difficult drive for her, I could tell. She had barely spoken since she got off the phone with Hessler and told me we were to go to the convenience store. She had moved her hands on the steering wheel more often than usual and had bitten her lower lip almost to the point of bleeding. “We keep all client information confidential.”

  That was technically true, although I have always been careful about sharing data with the authorities when questions have become involved with the business of the police or the government. I do not believe Questions Answered would qualify as a business that could legally maintain confidentiality if an agency filed for an injunction in court and besides, I believe in cooperating with authorities until there is some reason to think corruption might be involved. There was no such suspicion here. But I did not contradict Ms. Washburn directly.

  “Tell me what you need from us, detective,” I said. “We’ll be happy to help if we can.”

  Hessler took his gaze away from Ms. Washburn and focused it on me. “This Tyler Clayton was a client of yours? What kind of service do you offer?”

  I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. “This is our agency,” I said, and handed the card to Hessler.

  He studied it. “Questions Answered?” he said. “So what is it you do?”

  That flummoxed me, but it was not the first time someone had reacted to my business name in that manner. “We answer questions,” I said slowly.

  Hessler seemed to be waiting for more, but since that is what we do, I offered no elaboration. “You answer questions? Isn’t that what Wikipedia is for?”

  “It’s a specialized business that will answer any question within reason,” Ms. Washburn interjected. “We aren’t able to help if you want to know whether there is life aft
er death. We can’t tell you what the future will bring. But if you have a question that can be researched and answered with precision and certainty, we will do that for you.” I had heard her say exactly those words to clients a number of times; it was a sales speech she had devised and perfected and she delivered it well.

  “Uh-huh,” Hessler said. “So what question did you answer for Tyler Clayton?”

  Before Ms. Washburn could protest, I answered, “He asked if Richard Handy was truly his friend.”

  Hessler blinked.

  “He paid you money to find out if a guy at the convenience store was his friend?” The detective seemed astonished at the very concept.

  “That is correct,” I said. “Tyler’s behavior is classified as being on the autism spectrum so it is difficult for him to read many social cues. He could not be certain if the young man he knew, with whom he had played video games and talked, was truly a friend. So he made use of our service.”

  Ms. Washburn looked agitated. “Samuel means that Tyler was trying very hard to be a good friend and wanted to know if there was something he was doing that might have been less than what a good friend would do.” Her syntax was somewhat tortured, and her meaning was actually backward—Tyler did not ask if he was a good friend; he asked if Richard was indeed his friend. I did not attempt to correct her statement for Hessler, however. I felt it was the detective’s job to interpret the information he received without unrequested perspective.

  “That’s your business? People just ask you questions and you answer them?” We had covered this particular aspect of the conversation already, and I saw no reason to elaborate. Hessler simply shook his head in wonder, assuming I understood his body language. Deciphering movements, particularly the unconscious ones people make, is a very tricky business for someone like me.