Love Gone Mad

by Rubinstein, Mark

  Conrad slides the mouse so the pointer rests on the photograph; he moves the mouse so the picture rotates in each direction—providing views from different angles—left side, right side, front view. He rolls the scroll wheel for a close-up.

  It’s pretty much what he’d expect in any of the tonier towns in Fairfield County, where people drive high-end Audis, BMWs, Porsches, Volvos, or Mercedes coupes and live in million-dollar-plus homes. The Douglas house shares the cul-de-sac with three others, all variations on colonial architecture.

  Fourteen Maplewood Lane is a two-story, white clapboard house with a cedar-shingled roof, a centrally placed front door, multipaned windows, black louvered shutters, and stately pilasters. Pink and lavender azalea bushes are out front; lush rhododendrons, yews, and boxwoods flourish along the sides, and three apple trees form a small grove out front. A detached two-car garage with a covered portico leads into the house—no doubt, right into the mudroom, if it’s like the scores of houses Conrad’s worked on as a freelancer in the construction trade.

  It makes for easy access, either through the mudroom door or the typically flimsy rear door. Conrad can tell the rear is shielded from the neighbors by a dense wall of lush Colorado spruce, like the evergreens he’d see back home. Privacy guaranteed.

  He hits “Map” for a schematic of the streets surrounding Maplewood Lane. Moving the cursor to the Altitude Bar, he hits the minus sign and gets a view from five hundred feet in elevation. Each street is labeled.

  Another click on the minus symbol: the map view soars to one thousand feet in elevation. It’s an eagle’s-eye view.

  The map shows the sinuous course of the Merritt Parkway and all access streets running from the Merritt leading right to Maplewood Lane. Driving at moderate speed, the house is maybe ten minutes from the Merritt.

  Conrad studies the map and quickly memorizes every street on the grid. In his mind, he delineates the precise route he’ll take.

  He shuts the computer down.

  Conrad opens the den door, stands stock-still, tilts his head, and listens. There’s not a sound except for the upstairs bathroom sink faucet dripping. A slow drip, which started last weekend. In the basement, the water heater kicks in, rumbling heavily. It’s straining. The intake valve needs an adjustment to let in more air. Morning light streams into the living room through the east-facing double-hung windows. Dust motes rise in the golden glow.

  Conrad treads softly into the kitchen, opens the louvered pantry door, and reaches up to the top shelf, where the pastor keeps a two-tiered toolbox. He sets it on the Formica kitchen counter, unlatches it, and takes out a Phillips-head screwdriver, a folding knife, a long-handled paring-blade chisel, and a roll of black electrical tape. He sets them all on the kitchen counter.

  He goes to the hall closet and removes a wire hanger.

  Back in the kitchen, he sifts through the toolbox and slips out a wire cutter. Using the tool, he snaps through the hanger near its curvature, makes another cut, and sets the wire cutter back in the toolbox. He straightens the wire and pulls it to a length of two feet. Using pliers, he fashions a curve at one end of the wire and then returns the pliers to the toolbox. He wraps the hanger’s curved end with electrical tape—four complete revolutions—so it’ll grip well and won’t slip. He sets the wire on the counter.

  Then it happens.

  A sound—a sudden snort, a gulp of air comes from upstairs. Conrad can tell the pastor’s awake. That sound precedes his getting out of bed each morning.

  Conrad hears the bedsprings squeak. The pastor’s moving, rolling onto his side, about to get out of bed. Then there’s a rustling of fabric—bedcovers folding back. The pastor sits at the edge of the bed, bare feet on the floor.

  There’s a yawn and then groaning floorboards beneath the bedroom carpet.

  Judging from the sound, Conrad knows it’s the pastor’s weight—maybe one hundred eighty pounds—on the floor beside the bed. He’s standing.

  The floorboards creak as the pastor crosses the room. No doubt, he’s at the rocking chair where his bathrobe lies.

  There’s another sound—clothing rustling—the pastor moving about the bedroom. The bedroom door opens.

  Then there’s movement in the upstairs hallway and the floorboards squealing.

  The door to Conrad’s room opens with a barely audible click.

  A voice—the pastor’s—in a husky whisper says, “Conrad?”

  Conrad hears feet padding to the upstairs bathroom, a soft knock on the door, another whisper. The pastor’s wondering where Conrad can be. He can imagine the pastor’s thoughts.

  Footsteps approach the stairs and then descend slowly. Despite the deep pile of the stairway’s avocado-green carpeting, Conrad hears the pastor’s footfalls moving down the stairs; actually, it’s a stealthy descent—sneaky. Hearing the pastor come down the staircase reminds him of the staircase leading to the basement, where Conrad was pushed down the stairs as a boy to the cellar with its dampness and cold floor, where his adoptive father pulled Conrad’s pants down and forced him onto his hands and knees. The belt would loosen, then the zipper would go down … then the trousers … and then mumbled prayers as the bastard undid his own pants.

  The pastor descends the stairs—such a pathetic attempt at stealth. Why sneak up on him? Goes to show that you never know who trusts you. Trust is difficult to come by. Take Grayson, for instance. Of all the people at Whitehall, Grayson most lacks basic trust. And basic trust is the foundation of personality development, according to Erik Erikson, the famous psychologist.

  Conrad picks up the screwdriver, folds his arms across his chest, hides the tool beneath his forearm, and leans with his back against the kitchen counter.

  Conrad hears the pastor’s morning shuffle as he crosses the living room.

  Pastor Wilhelm enters the kitchen wearing blue-and-white-striped pajamas, a blue terry-cloth bathrobe, and brown leather slippers. His white hair is mussed; a tuft in front stands straight up like an unruly cowlick. He looks sleepy, with puffy eyes and pillowcase creases on his face. He blinks a few times and peers questioningly at Conrad. His eyes shift to the toolbox and the tape and then to the chisel and hanger wire on the kitchen counter.

  “Conrad,” he says groggily, “how come you’re down here?”

  Conrad smells Wilhelm’s ammoniac morning breath. He stares at the pastor, waiting silently.

  “Conrad, what’re you doing?” the pastor asks nasally. His pink face registers befuddlement while his bleary blue eyes are wide, questioning. Then a hint of suspicion crosses his features. Conrad smells the pastor’s fear.

  Conrad thinks the old guy’s been a good guardian and has tried to do the right thing. But the stealth, sneaking down the stairs, the religious incantations … just like years ago: the basement, the dank coldness of it, the cruelty, the ugly secret he’d held for so long before finally revealing it to Nicole DuPont.

  “I have to leave,” Conrad says.

  “Leave?”

  The fear odor is stronger now, filling Conrad’s nostrils.

  “Yes. You won’t be seeing me anymore.”

  “What do you mean, son? I don’t understand.”

  “The time has come.”

  “The time for what, Conrad?” Wilhelm asks, shaking his head; he looks perplexed. Then his tongue flicks out; he licks his lower lip and blinks rapidly. His eyes widen when he notices the screwdriver partly tucked under Conrad’s forearm.

  The fear odor intensifies.

  “I’m sorry, Pastor. This isn’t going to be pleasant, and I ask your forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness? For what, Conrad?”

  “For this.”

  Conrad lunges at Wilhelm—panther-quick—and in a swift, slamming thrust, plunges the screwdriver into the pastor’s chest. The tool’s hilt thumps heavily against Wilhelm’s breastbone mid-sternum. The shaft pierces it and sinks deeply into his heart.

  A gasp erupts from Wilhelm’s throat. His eyes bulge and their whites go bl
oodshot red. For a half second, he stands there, as though suspended in stupefied shock. His knees buckle with the impact; he begins sinking slowly downward.

  Conrad catches him midfall and lowers him slowly to the kitchen floor. He pats the pastor’s head gently, almost lovingly.

  “Shh … Shh … Father,” Conrad whispers. “I know you’ll forgive me.”

  He sets the pastor on his back, rests his arms at his sides, and crouches beside him. He straightens the pastor’s mussed hair and pats his face gently.

  “It’ll be over soon, Father.”

  Conrad slides the screwdriver shaft out from Wilhelm’s chest and steps back.

  A tube of blood jets upward in a fountain surge from the hole in the pastor’s chest—the crimson stream shoots upward with each beat of his dying heart. Wilhelm’s eyes roll back and up; he grimaces as a pencil-thin blood burst gushes into the air. It spurts with each heartbeat, pulses more rapidly as the beat quickens—faster, then faster still with less height—as his heart weakens to a diminished pumping. Blood spills onto the pastor’s bathrobe, each blood rush lessening in height and pressure as his heart quivers, and then there’s a thready dribble. Less and less and less, waning steadily, and finally it puddles in a bubbling pool on his chest, seeps down on the pastor’s bathrobe, then everywhere, dripping and spreading as a thickening red paste on the kitchen floor.

  The pastor lets out a throaty gurgle; spittle forms on his quivering lips. Then there’s a sibilant dying sigh. The air goes out of him. Crouching, Conrad places his fingers to the pastor’s neck and feels for a pulse.

  There’s nothing. The skin is flaccid, getting mottled, losing color.

  A minute later the pastor is drained. He’s gone.

  Conrad turns on the sink water, washes his hands and the screwdriver, dries the tool with a kitchen towel, and drops it in the day pack along with the folding knife, chisel, electrician’s tape, and hanger wire. He leaves the pack and toolbox on the counter. Opening a kitchen drawer, he removes an eight-inch boning knife—razor-sharp, a Wenger—precision forged in Switzerland. They make the Swiss Army Knife and a fine line of hunting knives, too. Conrad bounds quickly to the stairway, moving along the edge so there’s no creaking as he makes his way to the still-open bedroom door.

  Martha Wilhelm is asleep on her back. Her mouth is open; her uvula flutters with each strident intake of air. Her pinkish cheeks puff with each exhalation. There’s a low-level whistle as exhaled air passes raucously through her clogged nose and pursed lips. It’s the way his adoptive mother struggled for breath during her last cancer-ridden days. Martha’s chalky-white arms lie above the bedcovers, tight against her torso. Gazing at those sticklike arms, Conrad is reminded of his adoptive mother’s cadaverous arms at the end of her life—her wasting body consumed by the malignant cells seeding her organs. He recalls she did nothing to protect him, thinks of her conspiracy of silence with his adoptive father, and he suddenly realizes Martha—snoring in her sleep—looks and sounds like a slumbering pig. A withering, cancerous pig—devoid of feelings for human suffering, emptied of soul.

  Conrad lifts the pastor’s pillow, sets it over Martha’s face, and in a swift motion, runs the boning knife across her throat and slices deeply—feels the blade scrape across the spinal bones at the back of her neck—and as the blood spurt begins, he presses the pillow over her face and neck, stifling the pumping flow. Her body jumps in a sleeping spasm and she begins bleeding out. A guttural air blast erupts from her severed trachea; the cut ends of her windpipe flutter amid the bloody soak beneath the pillow.

  Soon the pillow is drenched in a crimson flood. It seeps downward and oozes onto the sheets beside her severed head. Her life’s blood pumps from her carotids and soaks into the mattress as the bedroom air turns fetid from Martha’s emptied bowels.

  Conrad drops the knife onto the bed and scrambles downstairs. At the kitchen sink, he washes his hands and then dries them.

  Conrad knows he has time. So he thinks about everything since he’s been at Whitehall and how he fooled them all—even that bloodhound son of a bitch Grayson.

  There was the whole deal with Risperdal. In the hospital, Conrad read Kaplan & Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry and the Physicians’ Desk Reference. They were quite illuminating. To combat his craziness, his so-called delusion about Megan, Douglas, and the kid, they gave him Risperdal each morning—liquid medication in orange juice—so it couldn’t be cheeked like a pill. Tasted like piss. If you didn’t swallow the cocktail, a gang of huge male aides would pin you down and jab a needle in your ass.

  It was injectable sanity. In the ass—another rape, a mind-fuck.

  Conrad read all about Risperdal—in the library and online using Don Compton’s laptop. The Fairfield County chess champ. Ha! He let Conrad use it each evening after the shrinks went home.

  After oral administration, peak plasma concentration takes one hour, according to Kaplan and Sadock. One hour. So, after drinking the stuff, he had time to get to the bathroom, shove a finger down his throat, and hurl—upchuck the medication-laced juice. Maybe a tenth of a milligram was absorbed through his stomach lining.

  After a month, they changed the medication to pill form. Easy to cheek, then spit into the toilet followed by a quick flush—and he hasn’t swallowed any since he’s been at Whitehall. That crap messes with serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain—just like what Nicole DuPont said at the competency hearing.

  But he’s avoided state-mandated sanity.

  It’s been a long, tough chess game. And his main opponent has been John Grayson—a worthy adversary. Nicole DuPont helped ease the way.

  If there’s one thing he’s thankful for, it’s that Don Compton taught him to play chess. And Conrad has studied the game carefully. Chess has its opening moves, its middle game, and the endgame. And Conrad used a conservative opening strategy—like the low-key Réti Opening as opposed to the aggressive Latvian Gambit. The opening strategy sets up your opponent’s expectations. Grayson’s a smart guy, and he has backup—the entire PSRB. It was important for Conrad to outmaneuver them one move at a time, to slowly execute his strategy.

  And it’s been an eighteen-month trek to redemption, to restoration of sanity.

  Conrad realizes his thoughts are racing—from past to present, streaming wildly over the days of his life and the ugliness of the past—and he finds himself laughing and nearly crying at the same time.

  Thirty-eight

  Conrad picks up his day pack and goes to the Shaker-style console near the side door. The keys to the pastor’s Chevy sit beside an antique brass lamp on the console. He grabs them.

  Conrad knows the moment he leaves the house, the ankle bracelet will be out of the receiver’s range. An alarm signal will be set off. The hospital and police will be contacted within seconds. And that bloodhound Grayson will orchestrate a search. Conrad realizes he’ll have only a narrow window of time before the sheriff and his posse come for him.

  Severing the bracelet will also send a signal. Conrad’s certain Grayson’s arranged for a GPS tracking device somewhere in the pastor’s car. There’s probably one in Martha’s, too, if he’s right about Grayson, and he’s sure he’s got the guy doped out. He’s a sneaky son of a bitch. Most likely the device is behind a bumper or in a wheel well, but there’s no time to do a thorough search once he sets off the monitoring signal. So Conrad thinks of the alternative he’s devised. It takes just a touch of creativity to outflank Grayson.

  He opens the folding knife and severs the ankle bracelet.

  Now he must move quickly.

  He rushes out the side door, unlocks the pastor’s Impala, jumps in, and starts the engine.

  He figures he’ll have a five-minute head start. Maybe more, if he’s lucky.

  Grayson sits at the maple breakfast room table in his Stratford home. He’s wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and his Jordan 1 Flight basketball sneakers, and he’s ready to begin his Saturday. His gym bag’s packed. At ten, he’l
l meet Phil, Matt, and Jeff down at the Y; they’ll shoot a few hoops, and afterward they’ll go out for breakfast at Danny’s Diner.

  Right now, Ellen and the kids are asleep, so he’ll down a mug of freshly made coffee and go through the New York Times online. He unplugs his laptop from the wall socket; it’s charged up with four hours of battery life. He boots up and tries to recall when he last bought a newspaper, when he actually held a real paper in his hands. The world’s definitely changing.

  He’s about to scroll down the front page when his cell phone trills.

  He looks at the readout. The message says, “Alarm.”

  The circuit’s been broken at the Wilhelm house. It’s 7:59 in the morning. There’s no way Wilhelm would be going anywhere with Conrad Wilson this early. Wilhelm’s never failed to call in when they go to the mall or to Dunkin’ Donuts, to church or a local restaurant. Something’s definitely wrong.

  It’s a breakaway from the receiving device. Holy shit!

  Grayson thoughts race as he hits the speed dial on his cell for the Wilhelm home.

  Six rings, then comes the answering machine’s outgoing message.

  Wilson’s snuck out and left the house. Or maybe he’s tampered with the ankle bracelet. The pastor and his wife must be sleeping. But wouldn’t they hear the phone? After six rings? Grayson assumes they have a bedside telephone, but there’s no answer.

  Grayson snaps his cell shut.

  He turns to the laptop, types “SkyCam” into the address bar, hits “Enter.”

  A menu comes up; he types in his user name and password.

  A map of Bridgeport loads in quickly. He has good Wi-Fi reception in the house.

  A red dot pulses every two seconds.

  Wilhelm’s car—the blue Chevy Impala—is moving along Main Street in downtown Bridgeport. The GPS device behind the front bumper pinpoints the vehicle and denotes it’s the Impala, not Mrs. Wilhelm’s Ford. The device is accurate within twelve inches of the car’s location. It’s moving at a good clip; it looks like it’s heading toward Route 8—a north-south highway.