Law and Addiction

by Mike Papantonio

  “And since the Vietnam war ended in 1975,” said McCrumb, “you can do your own math as to Victory’s military service. I’m sure that claim’s helped you get a little more money when you beg on corners, hasn’t it?”

  “Got a dollar?” Victory asked.

  Even without a cigarette in them, his fingers rose to his mouth. Not finding the fix they were looking for, they detoured to scratch his facial hair.

  “I know he’ll just use it for drugs,” Deke said, “but I’d still like to give him something.”

  “Go ahead,” McCrumb said. “A couple times a month he catches me in a weak moment, and I do the same, even though I know what he’s using the money for.”

  Deke extended a five-dollar bill; it disappeared in a sleight of hand worthy of a magician. Victory apparently didn’t want anyone to see he had money.

  “God bless you,” he said, the words rote—zombielike.

  Then he asked, “Got a cigarette?”

  vvv As they drove away, Deke heard how things used to be in Oakley, how things were now, and how it appeared things were going to be. Neither of the cops was optimistic.

  “It’s this vicious cycle,” said Poole. “It started when the economy, and the community, was down. Doctors began prescribing opioids like they were candy, for treating everything from pain to the dismals.”

  “No shortage of people with the dismals,” McCrumb said. “But then that’s always been the case. What’s different is suddenly there was a pill for it.”

  “Jobs disappeared, the economy got worse, and our little Zombieland began to take form,” McCrumb said. “A doctor would set up shop, run an all-cash operation, and never spend more than five minutes with any patient. It was howdy-do and here’s your prescription.”

  “Is the pill mill still in operation?” asked Deke.

  “Not that one,” said McCrumb. “Operated long enough to get about half the town hooked; then it closed its doors, and the heroin pushers moved in. But there’s another town exactly like ours just a hoot and a holler from here.”

  Poole translated the phrase with a smile: “That’s about two miles. If it was a ‘fur piece,’ it would be maybe five miles, and ‘over yonder’ is less than a mile.”

  “What’s the source of the pills?” asked Deke.

  Poole shook his head. “The magic question. Straight from the manufacturer, but no one seems to point a finger at those corporate distributors supplying these doctors.”

  “Is anything getting better?” asked Deke.

  The two cops looked at each other, and then they both shook their heads.

  “There’s a saying in these parts,” McCrumb said. “We started out with nothing, and we’ve still got every bit of it. I’m thinking maybe we should now say we’ve got less than nothing.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Deke.

  It was Poole who fielded the question. “Take little Dresden, for example. Used to be there were homeowners and businesses who took care of their property and paid property taxes. When the drug blight hit and the area was abandoned, it was a blow to the town’s economy. And the double whammy was all the new expenses associated with drugs that hit the town and county. It seems like every week we’re having to remove children from the homes of addicted parents. Then there’s ambulance services, hospital costs. You think it’s expensive to run a township? What’s expensive is the disintegration of that township.”

  “Welcome to the world of the Native people,” said Bennie. “Alcohol and drugs took away our way of life. The poison took over the world around us. We’ve been dealing with the vicious cycle you speak of for the last century, until despair has become all but institutionalized. Now the white nan is joining us in this hell.”

  “Dante wrote a pretty good book about the inferno I’m seeing here,” said Deke.

  Abandon all hope, he thought, ye who enter here.

  The squawk box sounded, and McCrumb listened intently to the dispatch. He picked up the transmitter and offered a short response.

  “Got an overdose,” he said.

  He turned on the red-and-blue light show and hit the gas.

  8

  TRANCE AND DANCE

  The house stank of human neglect. There were plates with old, moldy food, and the ground was littered with trash. But Deke couldn’t take his eyes off the surreal dancing girl.

  She was moving to music that only she heard. He wasn’t sure if she was actually dancing, or if she was trying to keep her balance in slow motion. She swayed and dipped, raised herself, and then swayed and dipped. She reminded him of a Gumby toy, twisting like her limbs weren’t flesh and sinew and bone.

  Across the floor, Deputy McCrumb and another deputy were trying to revive an unresponsive male who was naked except for a WVU T-shirt. McCrumb said something to the other deputy and shook his head. Then he raised himself up, sighed, and rejoined Deke and Bennie. Poole was out in the car—left unattended, it would have been a magnet for junkies to try and break into.

  “Is he going to make it?” asked Deke.

  “It’s not looking good for Shotgun,” said McCrumb, “but Lazarus—that’s what we call Deputy Lawrence—has raised more junkies from the dead than the rest of us put together.”

  73

  “And Shotgun?” asked Deke. McCrumb glanced toward where his fellow deputy was working on the unresponsive man. “I don’t know his real name. Everyone around here calls him Shotgun because of the way he liked to shotgun a beer. Then he learned that he preferred heroin.”

  “So what’s Lazarus’s secret?” asked Deke.

  “Naloxone,” McCrumb said, “whether by injection, nasal spray, dermal pads, or any and all of the above. Whatever it takes, Lazarus knows how to kick-start a heart.”

  Deke had read about naloxone, a drug more commonly referred to as Narcan. When administered in time, it blocked the effects of the opioids. To date, it was the only known antidote that was effective in combating opioid overdose.

  “These days it seems like we’re being called out on overdose cases more than anything else,” said McCrumb. “Last week I was working a shift and had to administer four separate naloxone blasts.”

  “Why is there water all over the floor?” asked Bennie.

  “Half an hour ago that water was ice,” said McCrumb. “Junkie cure. His friends forced ice cubes up his rectum because they were convinced that would reverse his overdosing.”

  Deke and Bennie exchanged a glance. “You’re not pulling our chains, are you?” Bennie asked.

  McCrumb wearily gestured toward the water on the floor. “Exhibit A.” Then he pointed to a pair of pants nearby. “Exhibit B. And if you want to get close enough to Shotgun to see his inflamed red ass, that’s Exhibit C. I suppose Exhibit D would be the anonymous caller who phoned this in, and how all of Shotgun’s junkie friends have disappeared from this shooting gallery.”

  “Deke, I got to go outside and get some air,” said Bennie.

  “I’ll be joining you in a minute,” Deke said, noticing that his bodyguard was looking pea-soup green.

  Then again, thought Deke, I’m probably not looking any better. His gaze shifted from the ongoing saga of life and death, to the dancing woman.

  “What’s her story?” he asked.

  The young woman was still swaying, her movements sloth-like. The thick makeup around her eyes gave her the appearance of a raccoon, especially when her eyes were closed.

  “One of the nicknames for Fentanyl is ‘Dance Fever,’” said McCrumb. “When Coco uses, she starts doing her shuffle. I’ve seen it in a lot of women who use.”

  McCrumb turned toward the dancer. “How are you doing, Coco?” he asked.

  Coco continued her swaying, not acknowledging the deputy.

  “Trance and dance, we call it,” said McCrumb. “In ten minutes or so, she’ll start coming out of it. Then she’ll probably try and run away from the crime scene.”

  “How old is she?” asked Deke.

  “Eighteen or ninet
een,” he said.

  “I’ve seen enough,” said Deke.

  “I wish I could say the same,” said McCrumb.

  vvv When Jake saw the name on his cell phone display, his grip on the phone involuntarily tightened. For the last twenty-four hours he’d been agonizing over whether he should call Nick Deketomis to apologize, or just wait to hear from him. Paul had advised him to sit tight, saying it wouldn’t be wise to enter into a potential business relationship from a position of weakness, but it had taken all of Jake’s willpower to not make that call.

  “Mr. Deketomis,” he said, doing his best to sound calm, “I’m so glad you called.” Instead of picking up where the two of them had left off, Deke surprised Jake by saying, “I’ve been sitting here trying to remember the name of that diner you were so keen about.”

  “You mean Mom’s?” Jake asked. Jake heard part of Deke’s exchange with another man—he thought he heard the man say, “Fifteen minutes”—but he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

  “How soon can you get to Mom’s?” asked Deke.

  “Twenty, thirty minutes,” said Jake, suddenly making sense of the situation, as hard as it was to believe. “Are you saying that you’re in West Virginia, Mr. Deketomis?”

  “I am. And I’ll be flying out two hours from now. What would you like me to order you from Mom’s?”

  “I’d like the chicken-fried steak with gravy,” said Jake, “and a side order of ramps. They sprang up all over the state just in time for your visit.”

  “Very hospitable of them. I’ll see you soon, Jake,” Deke said, and he clicked off.

  vvv Jake arrived at the restaurant just before his order did. Even now he was in a state of shock. Yesterday he’d been trying to talk Nick Deketomis into visiting West Virginia, and today the lawyer was here. For Jake, that was even better than Santa Claus coming to town.

  He opened the faded red entrance door and walked into Mom’s. The diner smelled of all the comfort food it had been serving for almost seventy-five years. The old wooden flooring, uneven in a few spots, groaned under Jake’s shoes. He walked by the chalkboard that listed the day’s specials. Today there were two entries: Meatloaf and Ramps!

  All the seats at the counter were taken, as were most of its twelve tables. Jake scanned the faces of those there and paused at a table where he saw a familiar face. Edward “Paint” Dunn— so-called because his name made people think of Dunn-Edwards paints—was the sheriff’s deputy who had been called out to the scene of his brother’s overdose. Dunn hadn’t provided many insights into Blake’s death and had seemed wholly unconvinced that Oakley’s opioid problem might be worse than anywhere else. Jake remembered he’d begun thinking of him not as “Paint” but as “Whitewash.”

  Dunn’s attention seemed focused on the conversation at a table across from where he was sitting. There were four men at that table. Jake recognized sheriff’s deputy McCrumb, who worked Oakley and the surrounding area of Seneca County. There was an older man in uniform Jake didn’t know, and sitting across from him was perhaps the biggest human being Jake had ever seen.

  The fourth man at the table was Nick Deketomis. He was sipping coffee and looked at ease with both the company and the surroundings. The lawyer was dressed casually. He had on jeans, boots, a faded green linen shirt, and a brown leather jacket.

  Deke must have felt eyes on him; he looked up and then acknowledged Jake with a smile. With his coffee cup, he motioned to the empty seat next to him.

  Jake made his way over to the table. Deke was already up on his feet before Jake could tell him to stay seated. To the other men, Jake said, “Please keep your seats.”

  He shook hands with Deke and said, “It’s an honor.” “Likewise,” said Deke.

  And to Jake’s ears, it sounded like the other man meant it. The

  two of them sat down.

  “This is Jake Rutledge,” said Deke. While the hand shaking and introductions went on at the table, Deke said, “Yesterday I talked to Jake for the first time. I remember that one minute I was telling him that over the next month I’d carve out some time and take a look into two cases he was working, and then the next minute I was being told by him that wasn’t good enough and that I needed to get to West Virginia ASAP. I’m pretty sure Jake is a heck of a fisherman. There I was in Florida, like a big old largemouth bass squatting down in the depths, and Jake knew just what bait it would take to get me to rise up and bite.”

  The men at the table laughed, and so did Jake. But then he passed a sheaf of papers over to Deke and said, “I wish I was the fisherman you think I am, Mr. Deketomis. But as you can see, sometimes there’s just no improving on telling the truth.”

  Deke looked at the cover page and shook his head. “Forgive me, Jake, for doubting you.”

  He held up the law-school paper for all at the table to see. The title was Nick Deketomis: LEGAL INNOVATOR.

  Deke flipped to the back of the paper and saw the circled red A. He winked his approval to Jake, but to the rest of the table, he said, “How Jake wrote a ten-page paper from a subject that should have merited a sentence or two at most, I’ll never know.”

  Along with everyone else, Jake smiled. At the same time, he recognized a pattern to Deke’s self-deprecating nature that put people around him at ease, including himself.

  By the time the food arrived, table talk had touched on everything from deer hunting in West Virginia (“Best in the U.S.,” according to McCrumb), to the state’s many underground waterfalls, to ghost stories (in particular, the “ghost girl” who was said to walk Fifth Street Road in Huntington). Service at Mom’s wasn’t exactly prompt, but Jake could tell that the others at the table thought the wait was well worth it. As for Jake, his stomach was too tied up to enjoy the food. He was desperate to find out if Deke had come to any decision as to whether he and his firm would be joining Jake in his action.

  At any other time, Jake would have enjoyed Deke’s company. The lawyer was a natural raconteur and had everyone laughing throughout the meal, but Jake would have actually preferred talking business.

  When all their plates had been cleared, Deke leaned back in his chair and shook his head thoughtfully. Then he turned and looked at Jake, catching the younger lawyer’s eye. Jake wondered if this was the moment of truth.

  “I must admit,” said Deke, “that when Jake told me the name of this restaurant, I was more than skeptical. You see, I try to abide by Nelson Algren’s three rules of life. Algren said you never play cards with a man called Doc, you never sleep with a woman with more troubles than your own, and you never eat at a place called Mom’s.”

  Jake found himself holding his breath. Did Deke approve of his restaurant choice? Did he approve of his case? The man’s face looked pensive, and for a moment Jake feared the worst, but that was before Deke winked at him and smiled.

  “Now I’m pretty sure Algren was right about his first two rules of life,” said Deke, “but I’ve decided to revisit my lifelong bias against restaurants called Mom’s. The food here has proved to be just as good as young Jake Rutledge said it was.”

  Jake joined in the table’s laughter. The smile of approval told Jake everything he needed to know. Nick Deketomis was in.

  9

  THE HOMECOMING QUEEN

  Anna Fowler stepped outside onto the porch and inhaled deeply. When she let out the pent-up air, it was cool enough that her breath was marked by a condensation trail. She looked around, taking in the night sky. Seeing the North Star, she recited:

  “Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have this wish I wish tonight.”

  The wish that followed was as simple as it was heartfelt: I want something good to happen in my life, something to get me out of my rut, something that puts me on a positive path.

  She was reminded of another Starry Night that had occurred ten years before. Starry Night had been the theme for Midway High School’s homecoming dance. The ceiling of the school’s gymnasium had been a
dorned with reflective spray-paint stars. In the darkness, they had glistened and glittered like real stars.

  80 It had been the best night of Anna’s life. She remembered how a spotlight had penetrated the darkness, with the light moving from one side of the gym to the other, until its beam had found her and Blake Rutledge. The two of them, the homecoming queen and king, had walked arm in arm. Everyone in the gym had applauded as they made their way out onto the dance floor. Her classmates had thought that she and Blake looked like the perfect couple, and no one could understand why the two of them weren’t more than friends. What Anna had never told anyone was that she carried a secret torch for Blake’s shyer and much more studious brother, Jake.

  Still, homecoming was a magical night. Anna thought back to the song the royal couple had danced to: Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” That had been one of the most popular songs her senior year. When it came to the line “Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun,” she’d pretended to spin a cylinder and put a gun to her head.

  Everyone had laughed when she did that, including Blake. It had seemed funny back then. Now Anna knew better. You didn’t need a gun to play Russian roulette. There were other games just as deadly, other ways to kill yourself.

  Even though it was cold out, she didn’t want to go back inside. Anna had always thought that by the time she was thirty she’d be a wife and a mother and have a career. As much as she’d cared for Blake in high school, she’d known he wasn’t the one she would ever marry. He’d always been devoted to Oakley, while her plan had been to become a dental hygienist and move to a big city in Ohio or Pennsylvania. She was supposed to have gotten away from this town, but here she still was.

  It wasn’t her fault, though. After graduating from high school, she’d moved away and had been sharing a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls also enrolled in the Sinclair Community College dental hygiene program in Dayton, Ohio. She remembered how she and her roommates had all felt so grown up. But then she got the call that changed everything. Her mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Her family was counting on her to come home and help with her mother’s care. That was the traditional role of the oldest girl, after all.