Gray Matter

by Shirley Kennett

  “What does this have to do with me?” Schultz said.

  “The project needs a detective to handle the field work. An experienced detective. You.”

  The sandwiches were forgotten. Schultz processed the statements, but his brain got stuck on “field work.” After years of being relegated to desk jobs, he had almost given up the hope of getting an assignment like the one being dangled in front of him now. And if it sounded too good to be true…

  “What’s the catch?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a catch, but the assignment does have special circumstances.”

  Schultz let his raised eyebrows speak for him.

  “Your team leader will be a civilian employee of the Department, not a trained investigator.”

  Strike one.

  “You will be expected to give the computer aspect of the project your full cooperation.”

  Strike two.

  “Still with me? Your team leader is a female shrink whose previous job had something to do with testing shampoo.”

  Strike three. Batter out!

  Schultz stood up without a word and turned toward the door. Then he remembered the intensity of field work, the gratification when justice was done, the good feeling of getting some creep off the streets. If he did a good job on this case, maybe he could drop the computer stuff and the shrink afterward and get back to straight investigative work. The lure was there. The lure was strong.

  “How many of the other guys did you ask before you got around to me?” he asked Wall.

  “All of them.”

  With his back to Wall, he smiled. At least the lieutenant was honest.

  “What the hell. I’m your man.”

  By the time PJ pulled into her sister’s driveway, she and Thomas were snapping at each other, and she was looking forward to dinner, a long, hot bath, and curling up with a good book, in whatever order she could manage. Her sister met her with the news that her new boss needed to talk to her right away. As Thomas unloaded their suitcases, unceremoniously dragging hers into the spare bedroom and his to the fold-out couch, she used the kitchen phone to give him a call.

  “St. Louis Police Department. How may I direct your call?”

  “Lieutenant Howard Wall, please.”

  A moment later, he was on the phone, sounding as if he had his mouth full of food.

  “Dr. Gray, good to talk to you. I’m glad your sister’s phone number was on your application. I figured you might stop there on your way to St. Louis. Hold on a sec.” She heard the sound of papers being gathered up into a ball and tossed. “Oops, got to get a bigger wastebasket. Not as good a hoop man as I was in the old days.” Apparently he had just finished eating dinner at his desk.

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “That’s Howard, since we’re going to be working together. May I call you Penelope?”

  “I prefer PJ.”

  “Right. You’re in KC, aren’t you? That’s about four hours away?”

  “Yes, I just arrived at my sister’s house, where I’ll be spending the weekend. My son’s unloading the car, and I really should be helping him. What’s this about?”

  “Well, PJ, you might want to ask him to hold up on the unloading. I need you here tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “What? Hold on a minute.” She covered the mouthpiece.

  “Mandy, could you take the kids into the living room? I’m having trouble hearing on the phone. I’ll join you in a little bit.” The noise receded like a train going off into the distance as PJ’s sister Mandy herded her four children out of the kitchen.

  “Now then,” PJ said into the phone. “I thought I heard you say something about being in St. Louis by tomorrow?”

  “There’s been a murder. The captain thinks it would be the perfect kickoff for CHIP. We got a guy lined up for your teammate, name of Schultz. Detective Leo Schultz. He’ll be doing most of the actual field work. In fact, he’s getting started on the case using standard investigative procedures. It’ll be up to you to bring the computer in on this.”

  PJ was silent for a moment, trying to compose a response. This was a major blow. She had really been looking forward to some time with Mandy, had planned to talk over the troubles she was having with Thomas and get her sister’s down-to-earth advice. Even more disturbing was the fact that she had been led to believe that she would have several months to get CHIP up and running, and would be able to hire a couple of assistants. She decided on an approach that seemed reasonable to her.

  “Howard, I really don’t think I can make much of a contribution on such short notice. I only have my personally developed simulation software available, and even that might take me a week or so to bring up. There’s a lot of customization to be done. Also, I thought I was going to have a couple of assistants, although I suppose I could get by with one to start.” She thought it was a stroke of brilliance to toss in the carrot about having only one assistant rather than two. But the carrot was not picked up.

  “You have an assistant. Schultz.”

  “I meant a computer analyst.”

  “Well, you have a point there. Nobody would mistake Schultz for a computer anything.” He chuckled and made a slurping noise with a straw.

  “I think it would be better to pass on this case. I’m looking at a six-month time frame, maybe four if CHIP gets two others besides me.”

  This time it was Wall’s turn to be silent. After a long moment he sighed.

  “Look, PJ, you’re listening to what I’m saying but you’re not hearing me.” His voice on the phone was serious but managed to convey concern. “I know about your time frame. I know about your assistants. Shit, I’m the one who interviewed you, remember? I hate to drop this on you like this, but I don’t have a choice. What I’m trying to tell you is that the captain’s got a scorpion up his ass about this, and if you’re not here and ready to roll by tomorrow morning, you don’t have a job.”

  “I see.” Her voice wavered. “Just a moment, please.”

  PJ put the phone in her lap. The stress and emotional pain of the last few months bore in on her, and this latest thing seemed too much to handle. For a little while she considered chucking the whole business and limping back to Denver. Or maybe running off to Timbuktu. When she thought she had recovered enough to keep her voice professional, she raised the phone from her lap.

  “I’m hearing you now, Howard. Tell the captain I’ll be there at eight am sharp.”

  She and Thomas got wearily back in the car to drive to St. Louis. Thomas had not exploded as she had expected. He simply lugged the suitcases back out to the car.

  PJ nervously gobbled a whole bag of jelly beans on the drive.

  At ten pm, the lights of fast food places beckoned, and PJ pulled into a motel right off I-70 in St. Charles, across the Missouri River from St. Louis, or at least from St. Louis County. Close enough. After checking into a basic room, she and Thomas devoured burgers and fries, then went back for a second helping and a milkshake for PJ.

  Throughout it all, Thomas hadn’t said much. She knew he was disappointed to leave Aunt Mandy’s, but the only complaint he voiced was that the pillows in their non-smoking room smelled of cigarette smoke. He showered and dropped into bed. In a couple of minutes he was asleep, and she heard his soft breathing. Listening to it relaxed her. She used to sneak into his room at night just to watch his face in the glow of his man-in-the-moon night light and to listen to his breathing. It amazed her then, and still did, that she had known him so intimately, that he had grown within her body, eaten what she ate, and circulated the oxygen her lungs provided in his own red cells. She felt an almost mystical link to her son. Her whole body ached with love and with the fear that she had done something—taken him away from his father—that had hurt Thomas deeply. From her vantage point in the midst of her own emotional needs and imbalance, she couldn’t see how she could repair their relationship. And it didn’t look as though there was going to be any time to work on it right away. Ot
her adult concerns intervened, such as getting herself established in a new city and earning money to pay for cupcakes and milkshakes—little things like that.

  After showering, she sat on the edge of the bed, her hair wrapped in a towel. She dialed Wall’s home phone number, to check in and to get some facts about the case so that she wouldn’t be the only one in the dark tomorrow morning.

  She learned that a thirty-five-year-old white male named George Burton, occupation pianist, had been found dead in his Central West End apartment. The body was decapitated by a sharp instrument such as a meat cleaver, and the head was not in the apartment. The skin of his back was carved (probably before death, according to the medical examiner’s report) into a kind of bas-relief portrait of a dog. A passable three-dimensional effect was achieved by stripping the skin away to make the low portions. The victim was tied straddling a chair backwards, presumably so that the killer could carve the bas-relief on his back. Blood was found on the chair and carpet, along with a puzzling set of four indentations in the carpet. The indentations were positioned as though the killer had pulled up a chair to sit next to the victim, but none of the chairs in the apartment matched the pattern of indentations.

  Long after the call, she lay awake worrying whether she had done the right thing for herself and for Thomas, replaying hurtful scenes between herself and her ex-husband Steven, and mulling over the basic facts of the murder that Wall had given her on the phone. She had a good imagination, and she was awake most of the night.

  CHAPTER 3

  A HOT SHOWER FOLLOWED BY an icy rinse raised PJ’s spirits in the morning. Her clothes, hung in the bathroom the night before, also benefited from the steamy environment. Now instead of being completely mashed and wrinkled from the suitcase, they merely looked like she had worn them for a hard twelve hour workday. As if to make up for their appearance, she spent extra time with her hair and even dabbed on lipstick. As she closed her makeup case, she noticed in the mirror that the chestnut hair that rested easily on her shoulders had already curled up in spite of her efforts to curl it under. There were lines at the corners of her gray eyes—smile crinkles, surely, not that nasty kind—and more than a few gray hairs mixed with the chestnut.

  Thomas, under strict orders not to leave the motel room, was marshaling his supplies for the day: magazines, books, snacks, and the TV remote control. In spite of the current difficulties in their relationship, she trusted him when he promised that he would stay in the room. As soon as she could get a chance, she would look for a place to live, probably a rental home, and get him registered in school. If she was lucky and found a place right away, he could finish out the last three weeks or so before summer vacation. She blew him a kiss, which evoked a typical twelve-year-old’s response of revulsion, and drove to work.

  It was a good thing that she had gotten an early start. The volume of traffic took her by surprise. She spent a good twenty minutes just crossing over the Missouri River from St. Charles into St. Louis County, listening to a morning talk show on the radio, inching forward in traffic on I-70, then the Innerbelt I-170, and finally Highway 40. She bit her lip nervously while driving, and there was nothing left of her lipstick by the time she pulled into the crowded lot at the Headquarters building on Clark Avenue downtown.

  PJ had never been in a police station, even a neighborhood district office. Before her divorce, she would have been comfortable in a new situation. She had a professional poise and confidence which radiated to others and buoyed them through difficult situations. She was, after all, a trained psychologist and a pioneer in the use of computers in simulation studies. She had published several articles in prestigious journals, presented papers at conferences, and participated in seminars. But when your husband suddenly decides he loves another woman, it does something to your confidence. She knew that she had enough inner strength to pull through eventually, but her self-esteem was still struggling with the blow, and some days were better than others. She tried to put her doubts aside and concentrate on meeting her CHIP teammate, Detective Leo Schultz.

  The two of them pressed into PJ’s tiny office as Wall, standing in the doorway, brought PJ up to date. The office was a former utility room which PJ suspected was still being used as one until about ten minutes before her arrival. The wooden desk was scarred with knife marks and marred with cigarette burns. Her swivel chair was green vinyl—thankfully no rips—and the metal arms were burnished by years of contact with elbows and palms. The ceiling fixture was a fluorescent rectangle which hummed and occasionally blinked, like a person with an unpredictable nervous tic. She couldn’t help comparing her new office to the one she had occupied in Denver: sleek, spacious, and sunlit.

  PJ was not a tall woman. She was just short enough that retrieving items from the top shelves of kitchen cabinets was a problem. Many times she had simply knocked an item off with a long-handled spoon and caught it before it hit the floor. When she sat in her chair, trying to establish that important first impression as a confident professional, she first tilted back so far that she thought she was going to go over, and then, righting herself, discovered that her feet dangled three inches off the floor.

  The room was airless, had rusty circles on the linoleum floor, and smelled of old wet mops. Since there was no heat or air conditioning vent, the only way to get air circulation was to open the door, which subjected the occupants to the noise and bustle of the men’s room directly across the hall.

  PJ shut out the disconcerting surroundings and listened attentively as Wall gave the details, some of which she already knew from their phone conversation. On the wall directly in front of her was a blackboard, mounted hastily and crookedly, which had two photographs taped to it. One showed a smiling mid-thirties man, handsome and dressed in evening wear, standing in front of an audience, arms spread wide to scoop in their appreciative applause. The other was a graphic shot of a headless corpse, tied upright in a chair and pitifully unable to shield its fatal disfigurement from the camera. The pictures showed the same man, before and after the handiwork of a person who could only be loosely classified as human. She pulled her eyes from the photos, but her gaze kept wandering back whenever it lacked discipline.

  Her mind raced with ideas for computer simulation, not only of the crime scene itself but a re-enactment of the crime. She wondered how her teammate would take to high-tech detective work.

  Leo Schultz was, she estimated, in his mid-fifties and clearly an indifferent dresser. He was a large man, tall and thick through the waist, whose ill-fitting clothes suggested that he had put on weight. The cramped office seemed intolerably filled with his presence. His arms and legs, which at one time had been hard and muscular, were now rounded, plumped like hot dogs that swelled when they cooked. The ceiling light reflected from a bald spot on the crown of his head. The reflection seemed brighter than the actual radiance accounted for, as if the bald spot drew in light rays from a disproportionate volume of space and bounced them back. Most of his hair was clipped short and hugged his head, except for a few long grayish-brown strands which he combed over the thinning area at the front. Even though he was thirty or forty pounds too heavy, his face was long and thin, with cheeks that used to be firm but now sagged a little, and a prominent nose that towered above the rest of the landscape. His skin was wrinkled, with lines drawn like a road map around his eyes and mouth. He had either spent a lot of time in the sun or he was a heavy smoker; either could account for those wrinkles. PJ took a deep breath, but couldn’t detect any smoke odor. His eyes were deep brown, what could be an attractive and warm feature, but on him seemed misplaced, as though a puppy’s eyes had somehow gotten on the face of a rhino. He sat tipped back in a ridiculously small folding chair, sullenly doodling in a notebook during the briefing. It seemed clear to PJ that Schultz was unhappy, but she was unable to tell whether it was because of her, the pilot computer project, or a generally negative approach to life.

  Probably all three, she thought.

  “I’ll leave yo
u two to get acquainted,” Wall said. He closed the office door and left, abruptly cutting off the noise from the bathroom and the hallway traffic.

  She almost chuckled at Schultz’s reaction to that. He lowered his chair and his face took on a trapped look which he concealed almost immediately, but not quickly enough for a psychologist to miss it. PJ deliberately let the silence stretch out in the stuffy room. She wanted Schultz to make the opening gambit.

  Two full minutes later, she acknowledged that he had won round one. Apparently the detective was no stranger to awkward silences.

  “Well,” she said pleasantly, “would you rather I call you Leo or Schultz or Detective?”

  “My friends call me Schultz. But let’s keep this strictly professional. You can call me Leo.”

  My, my, she thought.

  “Look, lady, let’s get a few things straight right from the start. I took this assignment so I could get back out on the street where I belong. If that means I have to work with a shrink and a glorified adding machine, then that’s what I’ll do, see? But there’s working with and there’s working with, if you get my meaning.”

  “Yes, I certainly…”

  “And while we’re talking ground rules, let me make it clear that you’re going to leave all the detective work to me. That’s me. Detective Leo. There’s a reason I’ve got that title and you don’t. You keep your pretty little nose buried in that computer and we’ll get along just fine.”

  “Are you done? Could I possibly get in a word now?”

  Schultz settled back magnanimously. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  PJ gathered what dignity she could while sitting in a chair with her feet off the floor, like a child sitting at the teacher’s desk. Well, it was her desk, however humble and worn. Besides, she had dealt with hostility and sexism before, and her favorite response was to squelch it unmercifully.

  “Detective, you may have noticed when we were introduced that I was Doctor Gray, not just plain old Penelope. There’s a reason I have that title and you don’t. The reason is that I’m a highly trained professional in my own field and I’ve been hired to head CHIP. That is why we are meeting in my office, not at your desk. Make no mistake about who’s in charge here.” She tapped her chest with her finger.