“Will Pennington talk to me?”
“Of course not.”
“So why are you telling me about him?”
“To prove to you I’m right.”
Linda smirked. “Just for that, I’m going to get him to talk. I’m going to study the shit out of him and write a big paper and get on TV.”
“Good luck,” Rein said.
“What did he say to you during your interview with him?”
Rein rocked his head back and forth, listening to his neck crack. “I never gave him the chance. It was not my best night. Just one of my many mistakes.”
“No worries, I’ll interview him enough for the two of us.” She stamped her pen to dot the period at the end of her last sentence. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Thank you so much.”
She came up from the seat to where he was standing, their faces only a few inches apart. She breathed him in. The prison soap and shampoo and laundry detergent had no fragrance. There was nothing except the scent of him.
“What are you doing?” he said, but he did not pull away from her.
She touched his face. She ran the tips of her nails down the sides of his cheek, and his hands came around her waist. He found the way around her hips toward the high, rounded curves of her backside.
She heard the library door swing closed before she realized there was someone standing in the entrance, watching them. Rein yanked his hands away from her and spun around.
Miguel sneered at them. “So now I know everything you said to me was bullshit.”
“Listen to me,” she said. “It’s not like that.”
“You telling me I don’t see what I see? You think I’m stupid because I’m not like this faggot surrounded by books, huh?” Miguel’s hand dipped into his right front pocket and emerged holding a jagged piece of metal. The handle was wrapped with masking tape. Its blade had been sharpened against the prison’s concrete floors until its edges and point gleamed. He aimed the shank at Rein’s face. “Ya te quedaste, pinche joto.”
Miguel circled around the desk toward Rein and Linda shouted for help. It was useless. There were too many people in the hallway outside. Too much noise.
“Guards!” she cried.
“You shut the fuck up, whore! I’ll cut out your fucking heart after I cut his throat. See if you even have one.”
Rein picked the thesaurus up from the desk and held it against his chest with both hands.
Miguel waved the blade in front of Rein’s face. “You going to read to me, pussy?”
Rein smacked him in the mouth with the book. The corner of the book’s spine caught Miguel with his mouth open and impaled his lower lip on his bottom front teeth. Rein grabbed Miguel’s wrist with one hand and struck him with the book again, this time on the side of the head. The impact sounded like a softball hitting the leather of a catcher’s glove. Rein raised the book high in the air and brought it down on the same place, harder. Miguel’s knees buckled. Rein snatched the shank away. He pressed the metal tip against the white meat in the corner of Miguel’s eyeball. “Imagine being blind in prison.”
“Get off of me!”
“I can’t think of anything worse,” Rein said. He ran the blade across Miguel’s eyelashes. “They leave you in general population. There’s nowhere else to put you.”
Linda wrapped her hands around Rein’s arm. She pulled at him, but his muscles were coiled tight. “Let him go, Jacob. That’s enough.”
Rein withdrew his forearm but kept the shank pressed against Miguel’s face. Miguel slid sideways to get out from under it and rolled off the desk. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the door, throwing it open and racing down the hallway to get away.
Rein laid the shank down on the desk. He bent over and picked the thesaurus up from the floor and laid that on the desk as well. She reached for him, but he pulled away from her. “If you have good to do in the world, go do it, but leave this place and don’t ever come back,” he said. Then he walked away.
* * *
Dr. Linda Shelley had three small dark black growths under her right eye that looked like tiny moles.
They aren’t moles, the dermatologist had told her. They’re seborrheic keratosis. Nothing to worry about.
Can you remove them?
There’s no need to, he’d said. It’s just part of growing older.
She touched the moles with the tip of her finger, feeling how large they were. They weren’t easy for anyone else to see. Someone would have to be close to her to even notice them. To really look into her face. That hadn’t happened for a long time.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she said.
Mr. Darryl stuck his head in. He was dressed in an all-white uniform with a black leather belt. He had a bright white beard and wild, kinky, hair. “Morning, Dr. Shelley.”
“Good morning, Mr. Darryl.”
“You heard about them two boys fighting last night?”
“Which two boys were that?”
“Tucker Pennington, and that other one. The creepy white boy.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that.”
“What’s his name.” Mr. Darryl snapped his fingers and said, “Gregory Moon.”
Linda picked up a pen and wrote both of their names down. “What were they fighting about?”
“Nobody say. All I heard was there was some kind of commotion in Pennington’s room and they found him whooping on Moon. You ask me, Moon probably deserved it.”
Linda kept writing. “Would you mind bringing one of them to my office, Mr. Darryl?”
“I’ll go see who I can find. Moon might still be in the infirmary. Be okay with me if he stays there awhile.”
“I’ll take whoever you can find, Mr. Darryl,” Linda said.
The door closed and Linda opened the drawer in her desk to pull out a fresh notepad. She laid it on her desk and wrote the time and date and Report of Disturbance Between Patients on the top line. There was another knock, and Mr. Darryl opened the door and said, “I brought you Mr. Pennington, Dr. Shelley.”
“Ah, yes,” Linda said. “Thank you, Mr. Darryl. Hello, Tucker. Please come in.”
“Do you want me to stay?” Mr. Darryl asked.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll call you when we’re finished.”
Mr. Darryl guided Tucker toward the nearest chair. Tucker’s hairline was receding. The skin under his eyes sagged. He looked at her with the slow gaze of the overly-medicated.
There was something on his lower lip, either from lunch, or it had fallen out of his nose. He didn’t notice it. She didn’t mention it. Tucker watched her, staring as if he were trying to make sense of her. “Hello.”
“Hello, Tucker.” She pulled out his file. “How have you been this week?”
“Okay.”
“That’s good. The pastor says you’ve been a big help to him at the chapel this week.”
“Yes.”
“What else have you been doing this week?”
“Praying.”
“Anything else?”
He squished his eyes together in thought. “Eating.”
Shelley smiled gently. “Has anyone been bothering you?”
“No.”
She pulled a report out of the file on her desk, looking it over before she spoke again. “The orderlies told me that Gregory Moon and you were fighting last night.”
“No.”
“Their report said he was found in your room and they heard screaming. When they came in, you were on top of him, punching his face.”
Tucker shook his head in confusion. He touched the side of his head and tapped it with his fingers, each tap making a soft thud against the bone there. He rocked back and forth as he continued tapping and said, “Gregory is bad.”
“How is he bad?” Shelley asked.
“He wants me to do bad things.”
“What kind of bad things did he ask you to do?”
“I told him no. She to
ld me to tell him no.”
“She? Was there a girl in the room with you?”
“No,” he said, looking away.
Linda closed the file and slid it out of the way. She leaned her head back against her chair, eyes cast down at him. They’d drugged both him and Moon with super doses of phenothiazine and thioridazine since the incident. Talking any further was useless. Tucker clutched himself around the chest with both arms and rocked back and forth. “Do you remember what I told you when we first met, Tucker?”
“No.”
“I told you I’d taken this job to meet you.”
“Okay.”
“That I wanted to help you.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve been doing this ever since I came here and you know what? It’s always the same old thing. Nothing I say even matters, does it?”
“Okay.”
“I could tell you at night I grow wings like an angel and fly around the sky.”
“Okay.”
“Because you and all these other people are really just nothing but goddamn fucking lunatics, right?”
“Okay.”
Linda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, Tucker was picking his nose. He was really going for it. His right index finger was buried up to his knuckle. It was hardly the worst thing she’d seen during her interviews. Half of the patients liked to masturbate during their sessions. They could do it just talking to her, carrying on normal conversations. It had gotten so routine, she knew when to pass them tissues before they finished.
She pressed the button that called for the orderly. “Mr. Pennington is ready,” she said.
Mr. Darryl arrived and helped Tucker to his feet. “Do you still want me to bring Gregory Moon, ma’am? He’s out of the infirmary, they say.”
“No,” she said. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, she thought. Or the next day. Or next week. Or never. It didn’t matter. It was always the same. They were radios transmitting nothing but static. She’d run out her thread as far as she could carry it, and she knew it. Deep within, it was all for nothing. There were no answers to be found in the human mind. No solutions. Some people functioned and some were defective. Some had families and went to work and some thought aliens had implanted worms inside pregnant women. It was that simple. Everything else came down to pharmaceuticals. Trial and error, route experimentation, until you found the exact formulation to deal with that specific patient. But if it ever stopped working, or the patient ever forgot to take their meds, it was back to square one.
She picked up the phone and dialed the number she’d written on her notepad. The same one she’d been looking at for three days. The phone rang, and the woman who answered said, “Vieira County Juvenile Detention Center.”
“This is Dr. Linda Shelley,” she said. “Can I speak to the director?”
“Yes, one moment please.”
The phone rang once before it was picked up. “Linda!” the voice on the other end said. “I was starting to think I’d never hear from you.”
“I gave it some serious thought,” Linda said. “Five thousand dollars more and I’ll accept the position.”
8
The woman with the half face entered the courtroom. Alexis Dole’s remaining eye glared at everyone, wide and blue, as she walked down the aisle toward the witness stand. She glared at the ones who looked at her. She glared at the ones who looked away. Her other eye was nothing but an empty black socket surrounded by ruined flesh. Her scalp on that was side was bald from scarring. She wore the other half short in a buzz cut like a boot camp recruit. Scars curved around the right side of her mouth, pulling her lips permanently taut in that direction. Her right ear was malformed. The scars ran down her neck and disappeared inside her black T-shirt. The T-shirt was tucked into a pair of camouflage pants. The pants were tucked into shiny black combat boots.
Dole stopped at the table where Tucker Pennington sat with his head lowered. Tucker’s parents were in the row behind him. Thad Pennington was trim and spry for a man in his fifties. He wore a custom-fit suit. His gray hair was swept back and parted. He looked young and his wife looked old. Grace Pennington’s face was lined and hard. She wore a form-fitting dress that showed off her bare arms and legs. They were muscular and too tan.
A priest sat next to them. He was a tiny man whose torso did not even fill out his extrasmall black shirt. He wore his hair short, bright silver against his olive skin. He closed his eyes and bowed his head toward Alexis Dole but she ignored him. Her gaze fell on Tucker himself and she did not move.
Both sheriff’s deputies sitting behind Tucker leaned forward in their chairs. One of them lowered his hand to his holster.
“Miss Dole,” the judge called out to her. “Please be seated in the witness box.”
Judge Roth waited for her to sit and instructed one of the court staff to fill her a glass of water. “It’s my understanding you had a little trouble at the security gate.”
“No trouble,” Dole said through the good side of her mouth.
“It’s not often someone carries two guns and four knives into the courthouse.”
“I have a permit.”
“So I was told,” the judge said. “Apparently you set off so many alarms when you walked in, it sounded like D-Day all over again. That’s okay. These boys were probably getting complacent anyway.” He winked at the deputies. “Do you know why you’re here today, Miss Dole?”
“You’re going to let that diseased piece of garbage go free.”
“Well, the Commonwealth has petitioned the court to release Tucker Pennington from his civil commitment. I should advise you that this isn’t a criminal hearing. There’s no prosecution and no testimony about his previous crimes. Mr. Pennington was tried and convicted as a juvenile in a different court, so there is no need to retry his case. The reason you were asked here is to help us determine the impact Mr. Pennington’s release will have on the community. I realize you were one of the people most significantly affected by his crimes, so I’d like to put your thoughts on the record. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Dole said.
“Excellent. Now, I’m sure you’re aware that Mr. Pennington has been locked in a mental health facility since his release from the juvenile detention center. He’s been under constant psychiatric care, and according to the facility’s records, has been a model patient.”
“I’m sure.”
“After all these years, can you please tell the court what your opinion is of allowing Mr. Pennington to return once more to his home?”
Dole’s eye fixed on Tucker. His head was still lowered. “Look at me,” she said.
Tucker was rocking back and forth and muttering. His hands were clasped together under the table in prayer.
“Make him look at me,” Dole said.
The attorney looked to Judge Roth. The judge only shrugged.
“Tucker,” the attorney said. “Can you please face the witness.”
Tucker raised his face toward her. He was gaunt and pale. Sickly looking. Alexis Dole’s mouth twitched in anger. She grimaced in disgust at him. Then, her ruined face twisted into a bizarre shape. Half of her mouth curled upward into a mortician’s facsimile of a grin. “Believe me,” she said. “I want you to let him out.”
After that, the judge dismissed her. He waited for Alexis Dole to get down from the stand and make her way back up the aisle. Tucker’s head lowered as Dole walked past. She loomed over him. Even Tucker’s attorney looked unnerved. He picked up his pen and began doodling on his notepad until she moved past him.
“Next witness,” Judge Roth called out to his clerk. He looked at his list. “Patricia Martin?”
One of the court staff stationed at the back of the room left to fetch her, only to return seconds later and say, “Miss Martin isn’t ready yet, sir. It might be a while.”
“What do you mean she’s not ready?” Roth said.
“They are trying to convince her to come in.”
“I’m here, Your Honor,” a voice called out from the rear of the courtroom.
Tucker Pennington raised his head as Linda made her way down the aisle toward the witness stand. He smiled benignly as she walked past.
Linda placed her hand on the Bible as the judge read her the oath, then sat.
“Dr. Shelley, it’s my understanding you treated Mr. Pennington for four years while you were employed at Sunshine Estates?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor.”
The judge reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, squeezing hard. “It’s been a long day, Doctor, so I’m going to cut to the chase. In your opinion, is it advisable for the Commonwealth to release Mr. Pennington into society?”
“No.”
There was an audible gasp from Tucker’s mother. Tucker’s father squeezed his wife’s hand hard.
“Why?” the judge asked.
“Because he’ll never be cured, Your Honor. He can be stabilized with the proper amount of medication, but that’s it. If he goes off his medication, or if they stop working, he’ll be a grave danger to himself and everyone around him.”
The judge pointed at Tucker’s attorney. “Do you have anything you’d like to ask, Counselor?”
“I do, Your Honor. Dr. Shelley, how long did you work at Sunshine Estates?”
“Approximately four years.”
“And during that time, was my client ever a threat to you or any of the staff?”
“No.”
“Does he appear to be properly medicated at this time?”
Linda looked Tucker over. He was hunched forward, eyes wet and distant. “He does,” Linda said.
“So at present, he poses no threat to you, to me, his family, or anyone else in this courtroom. Is that correct?”
“Not that I can see,” Linda said.
“Dr. Shelley, I’m sure you’re aware the Commonwealth has been releasing multiple citizens who’ve been detained outside of the judicial system under the auspices of civil commitments. Is that correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
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