The Right Wrong Thing

by Ellen Kirschman

  “Doctor?”

  “That’s what she says.”

  * * *

  I walk up to the chief’s office. The door is closed. I can hear voices, loud voices. The chief’s secretary shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head at the commotion. “She’s been waiting for you. Go right in, if you dare.”

  Chief Reagon and Captain Pence are on their feet. They both look rumpled and sleep deprived. Pence’s pristine hair needs another coat of gel, there are sweat stains under his arms, and his tie hangs loosely around his unbuttoned shirt collar. The minute he sees me, he turns to the chief.

  “What is she doing here?”

  “I asked her to join us,” the chief says. “I want her input.”

  “Whatever. You’re the chief,” he says and drops into a chair. Petulant, sulky. I don’t know how or when I got on his bad side. Talking to the reporter yesterday wasn’t exactly a felony.

  The chief swipes at her forehead and then wipes her hands on her skirt. Her face is slick with sweat. I take a chair across from Pence. The sky outside the window is the color of concrete. “Captain Pence and I have been discussing the protocol for Randy’s funeral. The family insists on a funeral with full honors. Captain Pence and some members of the POA are opposed. It is their belief that a funeral with full honors is accorded only to officers who have died in the line of duty. Since we don’t know what Randy was doing at the Gibbs’ apartment complex, it is difficult to ascertain whether this falls into a category one or two funeral. I thought perhaps you might help us understand what Randy was doing when she died.”

  “Dr. Johnson knows more about Randy’s current behavior than I do. Remember, she’s no longer my client.”

  “Randy’s family and her husband are convinced that Randy was investigating Lakeisha Gibbs. Trying to assemble evidence to mitigate her decision to shoot.” The chief walks to her desk and sits down hard, as though her legs have suddenly given way. The chair squeaks in protest.

  “And Dr. Johnson?”

  “She hasn’t returned my calls.”

  “I don’t agree with the family’s theory,” I say. “And I’m surprised that Rich agrees. I think Randy went there to talk to Ms. Gibbs, face to face, to apologize for killing her daughter.” A red scrawl inches up the chief’s neck and across her cheeks.

  Pence groans and leans back, his hands to his head. “Stupid little bitch.” And just as quickly he sits bolt upright, shocked at this sudden display of his normally hidden inner thoughts. “Sorry, ladies,” he says. “I’m really tired.” He turns to the chief. “What I mean is that if she went there to apologize, that has nothing to do with police work. She doesn’t deserve a full-honors funeral. It would cheapen everything we do to honor the men—and the women—who make the ultimate sacrifice.”

  He stands up, apparently energized by his own thoughts. “I’m not a psychologist, but I’ll tell you what I think. I think Randy brought this on herself. If she was nuts enough to want to apologize to the mother, then she was nuts enough to want to be punished for her so-called crimes.”

  I can’t believe it. My exact thoughts coming out of Jay Pence’s mouth.

  “Suicide by crook. She let them kill her. Offered herself up like a sacrificial lamb. Maybe even handed them the gun and told them to wipe the fingerprints after they did her.”

  “Who is them?” I ask.

  “Anyone of them. The brothers, the mother, the grandmother, the guy that got Lakeisha pregnant.”

  “No one is to know about the missing fingerprints,” the chief says. “No one. Understood?”

  Pence walks toward the chief and stands in front of her desk. “We don’t give full honors to cops who kill themselves, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Without warning the chief stands. Her hands balled into fists. “That was Chief Baxter’s decision, not mine. Don’t forget that. Randy Spelling took a life, not as a result of malice or negligence. She was a victim, too, and she deserves our respect.”

  “She was doing her job,” Pence says. “She didn’t need forgiveness.”

  “How do you know what she needed? Have you ever killed someone?” Her eyes are flaring. Whatever she’s kept hidden behind that even-keeled façade is bursting its seams, splintering her emotional armor into fragments. Pence backs up. He looks at me. I’m the psychologist. I’m supposed to do something.

  I move toward the chief, but before I have a chance to say a word, she makes a beeline towards her private bathroom and slams the door. A moment later we hear water running. Pence looks at me and shrugs. Neither one of us dares move an inch.

  The door to the bathroom opens after several minutes, and the chief walks back into the room mopping her face and neck with a wadded-up wet paper towel.

  “My apologies. I, too, am tired. And under a lot of strain, as you have no doubt noticed.”

  Pence and I mutter some trivialities in response.

  “Randy’s incident is personal to me. By way of explanation, I would like to share something with you and I ask each of you to keep this information confidential. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done, but I don’t want anyone, the media or the POA, to use it for their own ends.” She looks at us. “Can I trust you?” We nod our heads. “When I was a young officer, I was involved in a high-speed pursuit and I killed a fourteen-year-old girl who was crossing the street on her bicycle. The pursuit was deemed legal after a protracted investigation. Still, I couldn’t forgive myself. I wanted to apologize to her parents, but my chief wouldn’t let me for fear that the girl’s parents would understand my apology to mean that I was guilty of negligence and bring an even larger lawsuit than the one they were planning. Shortly thereafter, the department suspended the use of high-speed pursuits. That did not make me popular with the troops who blamed me for limiting their ability to catch criminals.”

  It takes me a minute to absorb the magnitude of what she’s saying. I remember her comment the morning we went to see Ms. Gibbs—about not remembering the people you save, only the ones you kill. A person is only as sick as their secrets, and she’s been dragging this secret around for years. Whoever did her background failed to investigate her experiences as a street cop because they didn’t find them relevant to her ability to manage budgets and city politics.

  “I can’t imagine how difficult this has been for you,” I say. “Thank you for telling us.” I can see Pence out of the corner of my eye. He is standing stock still. Without a command to bark or a smart remark, he has no idea what to say. Empathy, sympathy, kind remarks are not in his lexicon.

  “Did Randy know?” I ask. The chief holds the damp towel to her forehead and closes her eyes.

  “No. Nothing anyone said to me at the time of my incident eased my pain. I didn’t think I could ease hers. I thought, in time, she would find a way to live with herself, just as I have. Isn’t this a police officer’s fate? To be stuck with remorse for what we’ve done and regret for what we failed to do?”

  I want to launch myself at her, guns blazing. Knowing her chief had survived a similarly tragic incident and built a career in spite of it, might have been just the thing Randy needed to hear. A glimmer of hope to hang onto.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you and then you could have helped me help her. Randy’s dead. She might not be if you had reached out.”

  The color in the chief’s face drains to a pallid gray. She takes a sharp breath. There’s a quiver at the corners of her mouth. Pence backs up a step.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “that was over the top.”

  “Indeed it was,” she says. She’s staring at her desk, struggling to regain her composure. It takes a minute before she looks up. “I don’t hold myself responsible for Randy’s murder and neither should you.”

  “I don’t hold you responsible,” Pence says. “Never have. Randy did this to herself.” It’s the first thing he has said in several minutes, and he looks pleased with himself for finally figuring out what to say.

  “If there was anythi
ng I learned from what happened to me it’s that while our actions have consequences, our intentions matter too. I never intended to kill that girl, and Randy never intended to kill Lakeisha Gibbs. She didn’t have to tell me that for me to know it.”

  “But it would have helped her to know that you understood that.” There is another silence. We are all on shaky ground. “I am sorry. I should never have spoken to you like that,” I say.

  The chief’s face shifts again and softens slightly. Her eyes are indescribably sad. “You might work on your delivery,” she says, “but I appreciate your candor. I will think about what you said. Now we need to move on.” She pulls her chair closer to her desk. Gavel down. Case closed.

  “Regarding the funeral.” She looks directly at Pence. “This is my decision alone, and I am going to accord Randy a full-honors funeral.”

  Pence moves forward again. “Are you sure? We still don’t know precisely who killed her or why.” He’s backpedaling, throwing his suicide-by-crook theory under the bus. “Let me remind you that if you insist on a full-honors funeral, you’re going to lose that vote of confidence. The POA is split 60/40 against this.”

  The chief drops her shoulders and straightens her spine. “Captain Pence. Let me remind you of something. I don’t make decisions, big or small, for political gain. And I don’t have much regard for people who do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It is Frank’s first police funeral. He insisted on coming to keep me company. The convention center is filled to capacity. Enormous flower arrangements, taller than Randy herself, stand like sentinels along the front of the elevated platform. Rich walks past Randy’s flag-draped casket, a uniformed officer at each elbow guiding him forward. He stops for a moment, brushes his hand over the gleaming lid and mounts the stage to join the other speakers. Randy’s family is seated in the front row of the audience, her father and her brothers in dress uniforms from their respective agencies. Police Chaplain Barnes gives an ecumenical benediction. He stands tall, his dark skin burnished under the bright stage lights, speaking in measured terms about the grief that hangs in the air like secondhand smoke. He is followed by a heartfelt statement of compassion from the mayor of Kenilworth before Chief Reagon, in uniform, comes to the microphone. Her voice drones with condolence and everyone shifts restlessly in their seats. If the audience is looking for inspiration, some way to wrap their minds around this senseless loss and move forward, it doesn’t come from her. My ill-timed attack in her office seems to have driven her back into her emotional armor.

  Next up is Manny in his role as POA president. He walks to the front of the stage. Time on the street has strengthened his bearing, made him look taller, stronger, and more confident. He leans in to the microphone. His voice sails out, clear and strong, over the convention floor and up to the balconies.

  “On behalf of the Peace Officers’ Association of Kenilworth, our hearts go out to Randy’s family, to her parents, her brothers, and to her husband, Rich. Randy was one of us. I ask her family to please, look around you. You are surrounded by hundreds of Randy’s brothers and sisters in uniform, who are also your brothers and sisters. You may never meet us personally or know our names, but we stand with you, now and always.” He lifts his head and looks over the crowd to the back of room where the TV cameras are positioned. “To the cowards who did this, be warned, kill one of us, and all of us will join the fight to bring you to justice.”

  Too bad, I think to myself, that this display of solidarity didn’t include Randy when she was alive.

  Rich is the last speaker. Bowed with grief, a handkerchief clutched in his hand, he stands mute. Seconds feel like hours before he finally bends toward the microphone, his hands gripping the edge of the podium for balance. “I loved her. She didn’t deserve this. Find the bastards,” he says before his knees give way and he crumples forward into the lectern. Someone in the audience begins sobbing loudly. I look first at Randy’s family who are sitting ramrod straight with stony faces. Then I see her, a speck of pale pink in a sea of dark blue. Dr. Marvel Johnson, slumped forward in her seat, her back heaving.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Nobody except Pence looks rested at the Monday staff meeting. I can’t remember seeing him at the funeral. Pulling together a funeral of that size takes work, not to mention money and the aid of several surrounding agencies. There’s still a psychological debriefing to do, but Pence has requested that any unnecessary meetings be postponed because all hands are needed for the continuing investigation. “And the bad guys aren’t giving us a break. We still have police work to do. Okay with you, Chief?” She nods her head in agreement and turns to me. Her eyes are dulled from lack of sleep.

  “What about you, Dr. Meyerhoff? Do you agree?”

  I nod affirmatively. Psychological debriefings don’t seem to work well when a cop has been murdered and the killers are still at large.

  She continues. “I’ve asked the liaison officer to give us a report on how Randy’s husband is doing. He should be here in a minute.”

  There’s a hard knock on the door and it swings open banging against the wall. Manny is standing in the doorway, cheeks bright, bristling with excitement. “Sorry for interrupting, Chief. But we have three in custody.” He clenches his fists triumphantly.

  * * *

  The three men in the detention center are in separate holding cells. Small, concrete block rooms furnished with hard metal benches and barred windows in the doors. There are several officers milling around in the hall in front of the evidence room giving each other high fives. Manny and Tom Rutgers are among them. I haven’t seen Rutgers very often since the incident at the creek. Pence is grinning, shaking hands, and slapping backs. Congratulating everyone on their good police work. “This is what it’s all about,” he says. “Getting the bad guys off the street.” It’s not what it’s all about, of course. Cops do hundreds of other things. Comfort victims, aid the frightened, participate in the community, and help the disadvantaged. But this is what gets everyone’s adrenaline going: the thrill of the chase and the triumphant capture. If adrenaline smelled bad, this hallway would reek.

  Chief Reagon is conspicuously not joining the back slapping. She walks over to Tom Rutgers.

  “You were the officer in charge?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He salutes, smiling so hard his mouth is in danger of ripping at the corners.

  “How did these suspects sustain their injuries?”

  There is a sudden silence.

  “I repeat. How did these suspects sustain their injuries?”

  Rutgers shrugs. “Don’t know, ma’am. It was a pretty long chase. We went over a bunch of fences, through bushes, backyards, you know, could have happened anywhere. We didn’t just yell stop and they stopped.”

  Another officer steps forward. “And when they did stop, it’s not like they stuck their hands out and let us put the cuffs on without a fight.”

  “None of you appears to be injured,” she says.

  “Yeah, well. Good for us.”

  The chief turns around until she sees Pence. “Captain Pence, I want these suspects transported to the hospital immediately and then I want a report from you on how this happened.”

  The minute she leaves the hall, they start rumbling.

  “Jesus fucking Christ. They run from us. What does she expect us to do? They just killed a cop.”

  Somebody kicks an evidence locker. The sound of it—the violence of it—echoes through the hall.

  “Give ’em some love. That’s what we do.”

  “Shoulda shot the fuckers,” someone else mutters, “Save the public a bundle.”

  “Shhhh!” Somebody sees me standing there.

  “Okay, everybody,” Pence says. “You heard the chief, let’s get these men to the hospital.”

  I watch them as they walk out, one by one, shackled at their hands and feet. First come the Gibbs boys, skinny as rails, their terror-stricken faces bruised and bloated. Blood spatters down the front of t
heir white t-shirts. They look more like their grandmother than their mother, with the same delicate frame and the same light-colored skin. The third boy, Darnell Taylor, is a shirtless, husky kid with cornrowed hair and tattooed arms. He is dark skinned, but I can clearly see the bruises on his face and the name Lakeisha written in bold script across his chest.

  I watch as the officers walk them into the police garage. I wait as each boy is placed in the hard back seat of a patrol car, with the guiding hand of a grim cop bending his charge through the passenger door. Tom Rutgers is standing behind Darnell Taylor. He shoves Darnell forward, cracking his skull against the roof of the patrol car. “Oopsy,” he says loud enough for me to hear. “My bad.”

  * * *

  Manny and I walk upstairs together. He’s still jazzed.

  “Good day,” he says. “Damn fine day.”

  “Do you know how those boys got hurt?”

  He stops on a step and looks at me. “No,” he says, drawing out the O. “I wasn’t there.”

  “And if you did know? Cops talk. You must have heard something.”

  “Where are you going with this, Doc?”

  “You were the guy who was willing to turn in anyone who contributed to Ben Gomez’ suicide.”

  “That was different. Somebody drove him over the edge. I wanted to find out who. So did you.”

  “And I admired you for it. You risked a lot to help me. Are you going to do the same for Chief Reagon?”

  “Look, Doc. there are people out there who would kill a cop for no reason. I don’t know who they are and I don’t know when one of them is going after me. But I do know who has my back. And I’m not about to throw any of them under the bus.”

  The air in the stairwell is stale. Manny is standing on the step ahead of me, half-turned in my direction. Even in the dim light I can see his face begin to redden.

  “How can you be sure it’s one of those three boys who killed Randy?”

  “You have any other suggestions?”