The Euthanist

by Alex Dolan

  I should have used my legs. Such a dummy, getting down on the floor with him. With legs hanging over the sides of the tub, I could have driven a heel into his shins. Knocked out the knees. It would have been so easy. But I got carried away, fueled by a numbing heat, which made me forget the pain in my right wrist as I brought down both fists with equal abandon. I kept battering, and he just waited until I punched myself out.

  The moment I gasped for breath, Leland came alive. One of his hands dropped. He pulled something out of his pocket roughly the size of a small vibrator, not much larger than a lipstick tube. I owned one of these in pink and kept it in my nightstand drawer. In the moment, I thought Leland Mumm might be attacking me with sex toy. He snaked it under my arm, then sprayed me in the face. A moment later, the most intense pain of my life burned my eyes blind.

  Pepper spray doesn’t necessarily paralyze the victim. On the contrary. With my sockets searing, I went wild. My arms and legs swung like medieval flails. Unsure of where to aim, I flagellated my limbs in all directions. Guttural screams punctuated the movements. Instead of disabling me, the pain only stirred me up. I kicked a dent in the plaster and bashed the sink out of the wall, so it sagged on the pipes. Somewhere in the maelstrom, a distinctive crunch told me I’d crushed the hypodermic under my heel.

  Leland had the advantage, and he found a way to evade my punches and kicks. I felt his body maneuver around me, and his arm slithered around my neck from behind. He threw a sleeper hold on me and dragged me back to the bed, my heels sliding on the floor. I thrashed my legs and toppled the bedside chair, but that didn’t help me. The handcuff found its way back around my wrist. It hurt more this time when the steel cut against my bones. I scratched some skin with my free hand, but it didn’t stop Leland. Seconds later a cuff closed over the other wrist. I lay flat on the mattress again, now with both of my wrists lashed to the bedposts. All I could do was scream in protest.

  Sometime between a half hour and an hour later, my eyes registered blurs, the most prominent being a smear shaped like Leland’s face. Hovering over the headboard, my legs couldn’t get him. Then he started with the water. He poured water over my eyes and dabbed them with a towel. I thought the prick was waterboarding me and bucked as much as the chains would allow.

  “Hold still,” he said. “This will make the pain go away faster.”

  One might think that this kind of pain would limit my ability to speak, but despite the panic, I was able to curse just fine. Someone walking through the front door might have thought they stumbled across an exorcism.

  Diligently, Leland Mumm poured the water over me, talking me through it as he went. “I know, it’s the worst. I’ve gotten sprayed three times. Once I nailed myself while making an arrest. I was just starting out. I pointed the thing the wrong way and blasted myself in the face. Can you believe that?” Initially, the water made the pain even worse, like vinegar in a wound, and I writhed in response. “Second time, we were in the same kind of situation, trying to hold down a guy hopped up on PCP, back when PCP was still a thing. My own partner missed the guy and got me.” He softened. “Open your eyes to let the water in.”

  I shook my face and moved every part of my body that I could. The bed bounced on its teak frame.

  He waited for me to calm down, and then went on. “Third time was plain trickery. I washed out the canister, and the steam carried some of the vapors into my face. It got in deeper, the way the cold can creep in under your clothes.”

  I fought the towel, but he found a way to dab my face.

  “Kali, hold still. Open your eyes to let the water in.” More water drizzled over my face. Some snorted up my nose. “Have you ever taken chemistry class?” He asked.

  I responded my howling into his face like a crazy person.

  Without raising his voice, he said, “I know you can hear me, and I know you can respond. Have you ever taken a chemistry class? Kali.” He stressed Kali.

  I articulated for the first time since he sprayed me, and my voice croaked from all the screaming. “Yes. I’ve taken a chemistry class.”

  “Remember the water fountain? The one you use to flush out your eyes? That’s what this is like. I’m flushing out your eyes. You need to open them. It will make the pain go away faster. I promise.” Opening my eyes was a challenge, but I did it. The water eventually helped. Eventually, the piercing sting faded to a dull soreness, no more painful than dry eyes after an all-nighter. The skin around them smarted like a mild sunburn.

  He picked the chair off the floor and returned to his seat. “You’re a dangerous woman, no doubt about it.” I squinted, and some of the excess water and tears drained out. Slowly, he came into focus.

  “Stops you in your tracks, doesn’t it? Nice belly ring, by the way.” My dress had torn, and my navel was exposed.

  He laughed heartily and patted down his body, especially a few inches left of his navel, where I’d stuck him with the needle. “You almost gave me my own belly button piercing.” Now that our tussle was over, he seemed gleeful. “You got me good. I have to hand it to you. Jesus!” He prodded around his ribcage where I’d landed some of my deepest punches. “Do you realize how phenomenally fucked you are right now? You just assaulted an officer.”

  “Show me your badge.”

  “Fair enough.” He opened a closet door and found a suit jacket that matched his trousers. From the inside pocket, he pulled out a gold shield and flopped it close to my face. In the time afforded me, I could read the words “Alameda County,” and the number “5417.” It looked real enough. The moisture drained from my tongue.

  “You’ve never been arrested, have you? Probably never been stopped.” I didn’t reply, but he guessed the answer. “Lucky duck. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through every step of the way.”

  Having just traded blows, I was less afraid of him. “If this is an arrest, why am I still here?”

  “Technically, I haven’t arrested you yet. I’m detaining you right now.” He retrieved the copy of The Peaceful End and thumbed through it in his chair. He breathed deeply as he settled into his seat and cracked the cover. “I’m not sure what to do with you yet.”

  Chapter 3

  The sun passed to the western side of the house. The living room dimmed until Leland turned on the overhead so he could continue reading his book. He hadn’t said much to me except to occasionally offer me water. I refused, and my tongue had toughened to hide. I thought about asking for a lawyer, but I didn’t have a lawyer to call.

  “This book is handy. Even has illustrations,” he said. “You ever try using the helium tank?” It wasn’t a good idea to say anything about my work. But when Leland Mumm was a client, we talked about different methods I could use—different options for him. He remembered. “That’s right, you didn’t recommend it. I can see why. Look at these photos. Dying with a bag over your head? It’s like going out dressed as the Unknown Comic. You know that guy? He was on ‘The Gong Show.’ A comic that dressed up with a bag over his—you know what? It’s not important.”

  “I’ve seen ‘The Gong Show.’”

  “Must have seen it on reruns. Too young to see it on broadcast, that’s for sure. Probably watched it with one of your folks. More of a guy show, so probably your dad?” He studied my reaction until he determined he’d guessed correctly. “You must love your dad. Putting up with bad reruns just so you could sit with him.”

  This felt like it was never going to end. “Why are you holding me captive?”

  “Captive? What do you think is happening here? I’m detaining a mass murderer.”

  “I don’t believe you’re a cop,” I said. I’m not sure what I believed. I’d seen that badge—he might have been law enforcement. I was just being contrary. It took some will for me to say this, not to mention some physical effort since my mouth was dry. I was essentially daring him to book me. A police station would mark the end of my free life. I didn’t want that to come any sooner, but if Leland wasn’t planning on arresting me, he was
planning something worse.

  “I guess that’s the beauty of me being where I am and you being where you are. I don’t need you to trust me. But I am a cop, and you are in deep shit.”

  His cell phone jangled. Leland picked up and listened. He didn’t take his eyes off me this time. He scribbled in the margins of the book. Something ignited his face. The call ended in less than a minute.

  “Pamela Wonnacott.”

  Leland had just spoken my name. If my insides were a room, all the paint would have melted down the walls. I didn’t know how to react.

  “Pamela Wonnacott,” he read off his sheet of paper. “The miracle of mobile, baby. Found your gym and messaged your headshot over. The general manager knew you in a blink. He says you’re there every morning. One thing you don’t have to worry about in prison will be your access to free weights.”

  From the notes in the book he then read off my street address in Bernal Heights and my social security number. He was dead on for both of them. “Born in 1984. Five ten. I’d have guessed you were six feet, but it’s probably the boots and the broad shoulders. Eyes…green.” He looked at me intently from across the room. “How about that? I don’t see those very often. I thought you were wearing contacts. Now let’s seen…hair brown. I would amend that—brown…sometimes. Right?”

  I felt like such a jagoff for wearing that purple wig.

  “Everyone can be found out, Kali.” I was properly horrified, which was exactly what he wanted. “So let’s pull the walls down and get to the studs.” He sipped his water. “Pamela. You don’t look like a Pamela. Wonnacott. What the hell kind of name is that? Sounds like you’re a pilgrim.”

  I puked. I didn’t have much in me, but whatever I had dumped out over the mattress. The acrid smell burned in the back of my nose. Leland rolled his eyes and threw me another towel. With effort, I angled my arms just so to wipe my mouth. “You’ll be even more dehydrated after that, and you can bet your ass we’re going to be here a while.”

  By his feet he kept a second water glass, the one he kept offering me all afternoon. “You want it?” Reluctantly, I nodded this time. That dull ache behind my right eye throbbed that much more passionately from the dehydration. He walked behind the headboard and slowly fed me the water. I finished the glass, and he wiped my mouth with a clean corner of the towel.

  “What do you think your folks will think of this?” he asked. “I’m going to call them, you know. They’ll be the first people we talk to.” This must have worked on the born-yesterdays.

  “Good luck getting a hold of them,” I said.

  He read my face. “Your dad really is dead, then? Mom too?” My lack of response confirmed it. “Mom too. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He refilled the water glass in the kitchen and came back to me. “More?” I didn’t refuse, and he poured the water slowly into my mouth.

  “What did your father do? Mr. Wonnacott. I’m going to find out anyway.”

  My will was crumbling. Since he already had my name and my social, it wouldn’t take much to find out details about my parents. Still, this eased out of me unexpectedly. “He was a musician.”

  “Trombone?” He loved messing with me, as a client and then a cop.

  “He scored movies.”

  “Like John Williams. There’s good money in that, right?” I nodded hesitantly. “Any movies I would have heard of?” He mopped up the water that ran down my cheeks.

  “Depends how much you get out.” He would have heard of a lot of the movies my dad worked on.

  “So, you’re a rich kid.”

  I started to wonder if this was a kidnapping and he wanted ransom. “Do you want money?”

  Leland scoffed, “If you’ve got money, why did you take mine?”

  “So you wouldn’t be insulted when I refused.” My mouth started to feel moist again. “I’m not a fucking assassin.”

  “Whatever you call yourself, the outcome is the same, Pamela.” He stewed over the name. “I don’t like the way that sounds. I’m going to call you Kali.” He nosed into the notes he’d jotted in The Peaceful End. “You have a falling out with your folks? Trust fund runaway?”

  “I loved my parents.”

  He shrugged. “Kids from good homes usually don’t find themselves in situations like this. It’s not that it never happens, just not as much. How did they die?”

  I’d already said too much. “You’re a detective. Detect.”

  He studied my face. “Someone got to you, though. As a kid, someone got to you. Something bad happened. Was it your mom? She cross a line with you?”

  “My mother didn’t molest me.”

  “I never said she did.”

  “You implied it. And she didn’t. I loved my mom.”

  “Not your dad either. He was a good dad. I can tell by the way you talk about them both. Shame. It would be so much easier to blame them.”

  I was going to have to pee soon. My bladder had started to swell.

  He said, “Listen, I really don’t give a shit about your parents. You don’t have to tell me about whatever happened to you as a kid. Really, I’m just being polite.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Your confession.”

  When I closed my eyes, a tear rolled down the side of my face.

  Leland said, “You’re not done yet. You just need to cook a little more.” He read his book.

  • • •

  I fell asleep. I’d fought to stay awake, but somehow several hours escaped, and now it was morning. The sun came through the windows in a cathedral beam and baked me gently. If metal weren’t grinding against my bones, this might have been a perfect morning.

  Leland was still reading. His shirt now rumpled in places, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked tired as he combed over the last few pages. He blinked slowly and rubbed his eyes. His spare hand propped up a leaden chin. When he saw me budge, Leland regarded me in passing, and then flipped a page.

  My bladder was bursting. “I need to use the bathroom.” My throat dried again overnight.

  Leland hadn’t moved. “Too bad.”

  “You can’t keep me here like this. This has to be illegal,” I thought aloud.

  “But you’re not sure, are you?”

  “Eighth amendment.”

  “You have no idea how it all works, do you? I haven’t hurt you any more than necessary to detain you.”

  “I still need to use the bathroom.”

  “Do you have something you want to say to me other than please?” When I didn’t say anything, he laughed with less oomph. “Worth a shot.”

  My heart beat the way a wing flaps on a wounded bird. I twisted in my cuffs. My left wrist had swollen visibly in the shackles, and now my right wrist chaffed as well from hanging in chains. The cuts and bruises on my knuckles—the ones I’d earned from punching Leland—smarted this morning. I didn’t mind them as much. I scanned my body, especially between my legs. I didn’t feel different down there, just a little musty. As far as I could tell, Leland hadn’t fondled me while I was out.

  “I need water.”

  “That I can do.” Leland had a glass at the ready and poured it into my mouth from behind the headboard. On the back of the chair he’d draped both his suit jacket and a shoulder holster with a black semiautomatic. I still wasn’t completely assured that he was a lawman, but his props were convincing.

  “I need to pee.”

  “Can’t let you off the chain.”

  “You have a gun.”

  “You can’t be trusted.”

  My eyes watered. This man wasn’t going to arrest me, and I had no idea what he was going to do. I hadn’t eaten for a day, and although my stomach squealed, the abundant cortisol shooting through me killed my appetite.

  A detective would have driven me somewhere by now. He would have called his partner and at the very least, the two of them would have been watching me together. My interrogation would be hosted in one of those cinder-block rooms with the b
ig mirror. They’d give me a cell with a bed and a toilet. At this moment I craved those things. My eyes ached from the pepper spray and fountained with tears. I coughed up the extra mucus in my nose, and then the coughing avalanched into sobs.

  “That’s an appropriate reaction.” He let me cry a while before he put his book down. “This can go on for a lot longer, you know. But you can end it.”

  A watery gasp from me: “How?”

  “Just talk to me.”

  Again the confession. He wasn’t going to arrest me without it. Maybe he didn’t have much hard evidence, and he needed me to fess it all up. If this was all he wanted, then I could talk. It was the smallest morsel of hope.

  “You’re a good actor,” I said. “I thought you were dying.”

  Leland smirked. He pointed to my purple ball of hair, now bunched in a pile with the rest of my purse chaff. “You’re pretty theatrical yourself.” His voice relaxed. We were both tired. He noticed something else in the pile he’d missed. Pinching them between his fingers, he picked up one, then both of the ziplock bags.

  “Those aren’t drugs,” I said.

  “Of course they’re not,” he said, examining them against the light. “They’re ashes, aren’t they?” He held them in his open palm. “Let me guess. Your mom and your dad?”

  “Please don’t empty them,” I said, realizing that I was pleading.

  “Don’t worry about that.” He placed them inside his jacket pocket. “I’ll keep them safe.”

  I felt like I should keep talking, because the conversation gave me a wobbly sense of calm. “My dad was in opera before he did movies.”

  “Name like Wonnacott—of course your dad was into opera.” Leland’s voice was tender now. I knew he was manipulating me, but I didn’t care. Fake kindness was better than no kindness.

  “I liked the costumes. I got lost in the wardrobes backstage.”

  “Do you dress up every time?”