The Right Wrong Thing

by Ellen Kirschman

  “I’ve been in the incident room. Your name is up there with his. On the list of potential suspects.” I haven’t a clue if this is true, but at this point I don’t think it matters.

  Rich pulls me to my feet. “Untie yourself,” he says, holding me by the back of my shirt, his gun hand in the air. I can’t see Marvel, but I can hear her crying. And praying. I don’t move. “Do it. Now.” He’s in full cop mode, shouting so loudly that I can’t believe people aren’t coming outside to see what’s going on. Then I remember where I am. In this neighborhood angry voices make people turn out the lights and move away from their windows.

  Marvel turns toward her car. I can hear her footsteps moving away, first loudly, then softer, all my senses sharpened by impending death. She’s my only witness, my only advocate, and she’s abandoning me. I hear the car door slam and the motor start. Rich shoves me toward Darnell’s building. I hobble forward and stumble. There is an explosion of sound, tires screeching and spitting gravel. The air is perfumed with the smell of burning rubber. Rich pushes me down and runs toward the noise.

  “Marvel,” he screams into the night, “Come back. Don’t leave me here.” He raises his gun to firing position, holds it there for a moment and then buckles forward, his hands on his knees, gasping. It takes several seconds before he uncurls his body and turns back to me, his face twisted in rage. I’m still there, completely frozen by fear.

  “Don’t you see? Marvel is using you.”

  Something flashes in his eyes like he just woke up.

  “There’s more. Did you know that Tom Rutgers’ girlfriend told a room full of women that you were a womanizer?”

  He responds with a blank stare, like I’m speaking some language he doesn’t understand.

  “Did you know Randy told several women that she was unhappy at home? I’ve met them. They’re going to testify that she was planning to leave you.”

  He’s staring at me, but his eyes are unfocused.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying? All this makes you the perfect suspect for Randy’s murder. I’m your only defense.”

  My feet and hands are going numb from lack of blood flow. My head is still throbbing and my bloodied mouth tastes like the inside of a rusty can.

  “Here’s what you say: Randy was determined to kill herself. Self-sacrifice. An act of atonement for killing Lakeisha Gibbs. You tried to stop her, you fought, grabbed her gun, and it went off. It was an accident. And then you were scared that no one would believe you, so you wiped the gun clean, kept quiet, and let everyone think it was Darnell or the Gibbs boys. It’s a lesser crime than murder.”

  A cold wind whips through the parking lot. Rich is still sweating profusely.

  “I’m all you have. Marvel doesn’t care about you. She was using you.”

  He shifts the gun back and forth between his hands like a hot potato. “I just killed a cop.”

  “Eddie attacked you. Came out of nowhere. I was there. I saw it. I’ll tell them. Give yourself up, plead self-defense, and get yourself a good lawyer.”

  “I’ll go to prison. Do you know what it’s like for a cop in prison? It’s a death sentence.” He starts to lift the gun towards his head.

  “No, Rich. Please.” He looks to his right where Marvel had parked his car. There is no one there. “Listen to me. Think about what you’re doing.”

  His face crumples and for a split second I see a hopeless, lonely little boy, waiting for someone who will never show up. I change tactics.

  “Marvel will come back. Of course she will. Forget what I said, I think she loves you. You scared her. Now you need to bring her back. Think how devastated she’ll be if you kill yourself. Or me.”

  His hand wavers back and forth, towards his head, towards me, towards his head, towards the ground. Then his shoulders sag and his gun hand falls back against his thigh. “What do you care if I kill myself?”

  Under the circumstances, it’s a fair question. Better him than me. But then I’d have Eddie’s death and the blood from Rich and Ben’s suicides on my hands, not to mention an indelible image of Rich’s shattered skull to live with. He raises his gun again and points it at me. Suddenly, all the adrenaline I’ve been churning loses its force. I sink back to the pavement and close my eyes. I have nothing more to say. He’s going to shoot me or shoot himself. I don’t want to see either one.

  The air fills with a soft thrumming. I open my eyes. The sound grows increasingly louder. Rich is looking around wildly. His face splits into a grin. “Marvel, Marvel? Over here. I’m over here.” Lights sweep across the parking lot. A car pulls into the space next to where I’m lying. It stops with a jerk as though someone has slammed on the brakes. All four doors open at once.

  What happens next happens so fast I can’t take it in. It doesn’t help that I’m curled in a fetal position with my eyes closed. I’ve never been in a physical fight, let alone a melee, unless you count the time I hit my ex on the head with a wine bottle and he slammed me to the floor. And now I’ve been in two fights in as many hours. There’s a lot of grunting and cursing. I can hear feet scraping the pavement.

  “Piece!” someone shouts.

  “Pop him!” another hollers.

  In the distance, I hear the long whine of a cop car.

  “What up?” someone yells from the apartment house.

  “Get gone, Darnell. This ain’t your business. Best you stay in your crib.”

  The tallest boy pulls me to my feet and cuts me free with a knife. The other boys have Rich on the ground. He’s struggling to break away. “What you doing, white boy, messing with my fan club?” Tall Boy says over his shoulder. He looks at me. “You beat down. You need a doctor.”

  “He’s a cop,” I say.

  “I know. Works the jail. I seen him before. He be looking for Darnell.”

  A line of police cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring, turns the corner.

  Rich shouts at me. “Help me. You promised.”

  My legs start to fold again. The tall boy puts his arm around my shoulder to steady me.

  “If you hadn’t come along, I’d be dead now. Thank you.”

  “1704T at your service,” he smiles broadly. “Not every day we get to pound a cop and get thanked for it.”

  * * *

  Tom Rutgers puts me in the front seat of Manny’s patrol car and tells me to relax, Manny’s going to drive me back to the station. 1704 Travis looks like the parking lot at police headquarters. Every patrol car in Kenilworth and three surrounding communities is there, light bars flashing like Christmas gone wild. Now that I no longer need them, the residents are hanging over the balconies in their nightclothes watching the spectacle. Only in 3C is the window dark and the front door closed. I grab Tom’s arm before he closes the door.

  “Eddie Rimbauer is at Marvel Johnson’s apartment. Rich Spelling shot him. He needs an ambulance.”

  “We’re on it,” he says.

  “I think he’s dead.”

  “Medics are on their way.”

  “Who sent medics?”

  Rutgers looks at me. “Dr. Johnson. As soon as she escaped, she called 911, told us about Eddie and where to find you.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Back at the station.”

  “Those four boys over there—”

  Rutgers turns his head in the direction I’m pointing.

  “They are a rap group called 1704T. They helped me, saved my life. Don’t you dare arrest them or treat them like suspects.”

  Rutgers wheels around. “I don’t take orders from you.”

  “I’m telling you what happened. If it wasn’t for them I’d be dead.”

  “We found a gun on one of them.”

  “The gun belongs to Eddie Rimbauer. Rich used it to shoot him. Those boys took it away from him. If they hadn’t, he might have shot me.”

  “I’ll be sure to check that out,” he says with a small smirk.

  “If any of those boys has so much as a scratch on him, I’ll
be checking that out, too. Count on it.”

  * * *

  I tell Manny that I want to go to the police station first. I need to see for myself that Rich Spelling is locked up and can’t hurt me. Then I want to talk to Marvel, actually, I want to strangle her, but then I don’t because she saved my life. She and 1704T. On the other hand, I want to see Eddie before I do anything else. I hope Manny knows where he is, what hospital or, God forbid, what morgue. But that’s not right either, the first thing I should do is call my mother and Frank before they hear on the news that I’ve been kidnapped and nearly killed.

  Manny looks at me. “You okay, Doc? You’re talking to yourself.”

  “I don’t know what to do first.”

  “Not to worry,” he says. “I’m driving. You’re going to the emergency room. That’s an order.”

  * * *

  The ER doc seems a little perplexed at my status. First he asks me if I need to speak privately with a domestic abuse victim advocate. When Chief Reagon arrives with news that Eddie is waiting to go into surgery and that Fran is with him, the doctor asks me if I’m a cop because I’m clearly getting the VIP treatment. When Frank arrives, I burst into tears and cry so hard the doctor asks if I want to talk to the on-duty psychiatrist. In all the confusion, he forgets to ask me if I lost consciousness after being hit on the head. I decide not to tell him I did because I haven’t got any of the classic symptoms of concussion and I don’t want the doctor or anyone else to keep me from going home with Frank.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Frank watches me like a hawk, asks me every other hour how I’m feeling, won’t let me have a glass of wine and, worst of all, he won’t let me watch the news. “Doctor’s orders,” he says. “You’re supposed to rest and take these.” Whatever “these” are knock me out almost instantly. I wake up with a headache, a bruised cheek, a swollen lip, road rash on my butt, and a bald patch where the doctor shaved my head to suture my scalp. Frank hears me moving around and opens the bedroom door.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty. Finally decided to get up?”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A little over ten hours. Hungry?”

  “I have to go to the hospital. I need to see Eddie.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. First of all, I don’t know where your car is, and if I did, I’d hide the keys.”

  * * *

  I wake again in another four hours and this time I’m starving. Frank makes me breakfast although I haven’t a clue if it’s morning or night. My headache is gone and I need a shower. Frank warns me not to get my bandage wet and tells me my bald spot makes me look like a cross between a Chinese Crested hairless dog and a punk rocker. When I get out of the shower, he tells me to come into the living room, that he has something to show me.

  “I recorded this for you while you were sleeping,” he says. “And, the chief called. Twice.” He clicks the TV remote.

  Chief Reagon is standing in front of a phalanx of reporters in the large conference room. Chaplain Barnes and Jay Pence are standing next to her, one on either side. Cameras are whirring and clicking. Jack Shiller is sitting in the front row.

  Chief Reagon thanks the reporters for showing up at such an early hour. She’s being gratuitous. There isn’t a reporter in the room who would have missed this just to get some extra sleep. Shiller is so excited he’s wiggling in his seat. Then I remind myself that it’s better to live in a country with a free, albeit blood-lusting, press, than to live where the press is censored or a tool of government.

  “Let’s get started,” the chief says. “I am happy to report that Officer Eddie Rimbauer has come through surgery and will recover from his gunshot wound.” There is a smattering of applause from the back of the room. I join in from my perch on Frank’s sofa.

  “Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, our department psychologist, sustained some non-life-threatening injuries and is at home recuperating. As you know Deputy Rich Spelling from the Sheriff’s department is in our custody.”

  Shiller’s on his feet. “Is he a suspect in his wife’s murder?”

  “We’re just beginning our investigation. I can’t divulge any details, other than to say that he was one of several prime suspects.”

  “Prime suspect? What are you saying? That I almost got myself killed for nothing?”

  Frank puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’re talking to the television, Dot. The chief can’t hear you. I recorded this hours ago.”

  “Dr. Marvel Johnson is a psychologist who has had a clinical relationship with both Officer Spelling and Deputy Spelling. The exact nature of her involvement won’t be clear until we complete our investigation. We do know that she was present at the scene on Travis Avenue, that she escaped and telephoned the police to inform us that Dr. Meyerhoff was being held against her will and that Officer Rimbauer had been wounded and was in her apartment. Had she not done so, the outcome for both Officer Rim-bauer and Dr. Meyerhoff could have been disastrous.”

  “Why was Johnson at the scene? Why was Rimbauer in her apartment?”

  Pence steps forward. “As the chief has said, we are just beginning our investigation. When we have answers to those questions, the press will be the first to know. If there is nothing further, we need to conclude this briefing. We have a lot of work ahead of us.” He and the chief turn toward the door.

  Shiller won’t be dismissed. “Why did Spelling kidnap Meyer-hoff?”

  The chief stops, thinks for a moment and then turns back to the microphone.

  “We don’t know, yet. What I can say is that Dr. Meyerhoff, using her skills as a psychologist, was able to…” She pauses. I imagine her groping for the right words to describe how an unauthorized civilian jumped into the middle of a murder case, almost got herself and one, maybe two, other people killed, and was rescued by a rap group. “…help us in our investigation. We are grateful for her assistance and wish her Godspeed in her recovery.”

  Everyone but Shiller begins to pack up their laptops and notebooks. “The POA has given you a vote of no confidence. Will you be staying?”

  Once again, the chief turns back to the microphone, a slight redness in her cheeks. “A vote of no confidence is not a mandate for me to leave my position but rather a directive to improve my leadership and my relations with the rank and file. Under the circumstances, with an ongoing investigation of this magnitude, it is inadvisable for me to make any hasty decisions about the future.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Frank gives me the dreaded “we need to talk” speech and only releases me from his custody when I promise to come back that night. He drives me to the PD where my car has been towed.

  “Don’t forget,” he says again as he lets me out. “We need to talk. Try not to get killed in the meantime.”

  I head straight for the hospital. Eddie is sleeping and Fran is sitting outside his room reading a magazine.

  “I don’t know if I should hit you or hug you,” she says when she sees me.

  “How is he?”

  “What were you thinking, asking him to help you? That boy has pickled his brain with alcohol. He has no sense at all, and you don’t seem to have any more sense than he does. The blind leading the lame, that’s the two of you.” She wraps her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Who’s out there?” Eddie calls from his bed.

  “Go on, he’s been asking about you constantly,” Fran says, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “And he’s not the only one. The chief has called here twice looking for you. She needs you at headquarters. ASAP.”

  I duck under a bouquet of balloons. There are flowers everywhere and greeting cards. I give Eddie a hug and he doesn’t let go for the longest time.

  “Smells like a fucking funeral parlor, don’t it? I may be stupid, but I’m hard to kill.”

  “Looks like you still have a lot of friends,” I say.

  “Too bad I had to get shot to know it. The chief came to visit me. I begged her, could I get my job back, a
nd she blew me off. Said we shouldn’t talk about it until I’m better. Not a word of thanks, nothing, for me helping out with the investigation. Pence was with her. Told me he hoped my worker’s comp would pay for the hospital because I was not on official police business. If getting shot isn’t police business, I don’t know what is.” He pulls up his shirt. There is a large bandage covering much of his immense stomach. “One good thing about being fat is that the bullet stuck in my gut and didn’t get to my heart.” He turns his head toward the doorway and yells. “And yes, Fran, I do have a heart.”

  He turns back to me. “The bad thing is that they found a lot of other shit wrong with me. Doc said if I didn’t lose weight and get my blood pressure down, I was killing myself on the installment plan.”

  A nurse arrives with Eddie’s lunch tray. He looks at the tiny portions. “Fucking A, first lover boy tries to kill me and now the hospital wants to starve me to death.” He shouts to Fran. “Bring me something from the restaurant. I can’t eat this crap.”

  She stands in the doorway, hands on hips. “Stop whining and do as you’re told. They’ll take it away, whether you eat it or not. And you won’t get anything until dinner.” Eddie looks at me and rolls his eyes.

  “So, how’d you get away from Spelling?”

  I tell him the story.

  “Gangbangers and that lunatic shrink saved your ass? Maybe my doc is right, if I had a life, I should retire. If I had a life.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  My next stop is headquarters. The door to the chief’s office opens and Chaplain Barnes walks out. He greets me and takes my hand in both of his. He has a winning smile and warm hands.

  “Good to see you. I’m thankful that you weren’t more badly hurt than you were. If there is any way I can be of help, please call me. Those of us who counsel others are not above needing a little counseling ourselves.” He gives my hands a conspiratorial squeeze.