Buried Dreams

by Brendan DuBois

  I rolled over and went oomph, as a cop knelt on my back, pressing one knee against the back of my neck. I went limp, allowed my arms to be snapped back, and there was a click-click as handcuffs were snapped around my wrists. Hands patted me down and a voice yelled, "Any weapons? Are you carrying any weapons?"

  "No."

  "Any weapons in the house?"

  "I don't know," I said. "My pistol is on the floor over there." Other voices, the scent of smoke, the cop still on my back, and a voice again: "Any weapons on you?"

  “No.”

  Another pat down. "If you're lying, we'll strip you right here."

  "I'm not lying."

  "Good. I'm getting up. You move and you're fucked."

  I closed my eyes, the carpeting rough against my cheek. There was movement in the room, lots of movement, and it was easy enough to see what had happened: Felix and I had discovered Ray Ericson's location about a half hour before the cops had arrived. Oh my. What a foul-up. This was going to be one for the books, depending on what kind of books ever got written about a disaster like this. My God. My stomach was rolling with thick waves of distress and nausea.

  A boot nudged me. "You okay?"

  "I've been better."

  "Yeah, haven't we all. Time to get you up and out. Frank? Give me a hand with this character."

  Strong hands grasped both my arms and I winced as pain shot through my shoulders. I got up and looked around. The room was a mess, filled with cops in SWAT gear, most of them now with their helmets off, their short hair matted with sweat. Ray and Felix were gone.

  The stool holding up the hot oil had been turned over, and other cops were moving in and out of the other rooms. My legs were shaking, and then I was hustled out of the house by two cops, who weren't in SWAT gear, and who looked to be Maine State Police. The front yard was full of vehicles, including the panel truck we had seen earlier, parked to the side. The water delivery truck that I thought had pulled over for directions. Carrying the SWAT team, no doubt, and there was also no wonder why we hadn't heard anybody approaching. The loud noise inside the house had prevented that. I was taken out of the house and then put in the rear of a gray-colored Maine State Police cruiser.

  "Watch your head," one of the cops said, and I almost started laughing at that. How many times I had heard that same phrase from watching one of those cop reality shows on television, sitting on my safe and comfortable couch, in my safe and comfortable house?

  The door slammed shut and I tried to get comfy, which was damn near impossible, with the tight handcuffs around my wrists. I looked out at the circus taking shape in front of the house, at the different police cruisers from different police agencies. I thought I recognized Ray sitting in one of the cruisers, and Felix in another.

  My fault. All my fault that this had happened. Damn, damn, damn.

  The front door to the cruiser opened up and a Maine State Police trooper got in, picked up a clipboard, and turned around to look at me. He seemed tall and muscular and his black hair was streaked with gray.

  "Name?"

  "Lewis Cole."

  "Date of birth?"

  I told him.

  "Address?"

  I told him that, too. "Mailing address?"

  "Post office box nine-one-nine, Tyler, New Hampshire."

  "Occupation?"

  "Columnist for Shoreline magazine. Out of Boston."

  The trooper scribbled some more and said, "You got anything you want to say about what just happened?"

  I said, "I imagine I'm either under arrest, or will be shortly."

  "You got that right, pal."

  "Then no, I don't have anything to say."

  The trooper gave me a dark look. "You're in a world of deep shit, Mr. Lewis Cole of Tyler, New Hampshire. We're going to nail you for trespassing, breaking and entering, criminal threatening, illegal discharge of a firearm near a residence, and maybe suspicion of tax evasion when we're done. So you might want to think that over again."

  "Thanks, but I think all I'm going to say is that I want to call my lawyer."

  "Gonna be a long wait."

  I shifted in the seat, tried to ease the pain in my wrists. "No offense, trooper, but I don't think I'm going anywhere."

  "You got that right again, pal."

  He stepped out and slammed the door and I leaned my head back against the smooth upholstery, closed my eyes. What a mess. What an absolute mess.

  I opened my eyes, took another look outside at all the cops and SWAT team members and cruisers, and there, standing by a York County sheriff's department cruiser, sipping from a cardboard cup of coffee, was Detective Diane Woods of the Tyler Police Department. She looked at me and I looked at her. Her face was impassive as she looked at me. I could not see what was going on behind those eyes of hers. The moment seemed to last a good long while. Then she turned away, to talk to a Maine State Police trooper, and after a bit, I turned away as well.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Eventually the trooper came back into his cruiser and started up the engine, and said something into the radio, and we went down the driveway. At the bottom of the driveway, I spotted a tow truck backing up to Felix's rental car. We made our way out onto the main road, and we didn't exchange a Single word as we drove. Long minutes drifted by as I watched the landscape flow by, sometimes seeing people out walking or raking their yards and doing normal things. Once or twice somebody looked up and gazed in my direction, and I'm sure they felt a sense of peace and security, knowing that an evil criminal was now on his way to the justice he deserved. I half-listened to the chatter of the police radio and then, up ahead, I saw a two-story brick building, surrounded by a chain-link fence and razor wire on top. A sign outside announced YORK COUNTY HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS, and I was certain that I had just been introduced to my new home for the next day or so.

  The trooper drove out to the rear, where a sliding metal garage door came up. We drove in and the door slid shut. The trooper got out, removed his pistol, and placed it in a lockbox bolted to the side of the garage door. Then he came around and opened the cruiser and said, "Swivel around, get your legs out."

  "Sure."

  He helped me get up and kept a strong grip on my upper arm as we passed through checkpoints and other doors. I stayed quiet and did what I was told, moved where I was directed to, and didn't complain as I was told to strip, and I was searched. My clothes were taken away, and I was presented with a stiff orange jumpsuit and paper slippers for my feet that were barely big enough. The standard fingerprinting and photo taking was completed, and then one of the deputy sheriffs asked me if 1'd like to make a phone call.

  "Yes. I would like that very much."

  I made the phone call in a cubicle of a room, the phone fastened to the desk, the phone looking like it had been designed by the U.S. Air Force to survive a nuclear blast, way back in the 1950s. When my phone call was complete, I was brought down another series of corridors, another series of checkpoints, and was placed in a cell. The barred door made a terrific clanging noise as it was closed and the lock was set into place.

  "Hungry?" the deputy sheriff asked. He seemed to be in his mid-fifties, thick mustache, heavyset. "Thirsty?"

  "Yes to both," I said.

  The deputy sheriff said, "Then take it easy. Lunch will be along in a while."

  "Thanks."

  "Nothing to thank me for," he said. "Them's the rules."

  He walked away and I looked around at my new home. It seemed to be about eight feet to a side, the room made of concrete and steel. To the left was a plastic-enclosed mattress, with two wool blankets folded at the foot of the bed. A plastic-enclosed pillow was at the other end. A stainless steel toilet was in the corner, next to a stainless steel sink, set into the wall. I went over and saw there was no faucet, just a thick push button. I pushed the button and lukewarm water came out. I did that three times and washed my hands and face. No towel. Just a roll of toilet paper. I dried my hands on my jumpsuit and wiped my face with my upp
er arm. In the middle of the cell was a drain. I imagined inmates being placed in here, throwing around food, feces, vomit. What a job, to hose down and clean that place up. I lay down on the thick mattress, pulled a blanket up and over my cold feet. And thought a lot. And waited.

  And waited.

  Lunch came by, but at what time, I did not know. It was brought by a guy wearing an orange jumpsuit as well, and pushing a lunch cart, like the one used by flight attendants. He was tall, with a thin beard and stringy hair, and he wore clear plastic gloves. He slid the plastic tray under an opening at the base of the cell door, and said, "When you're done, slide the tray and all your trash out into the corridor."

  "Okay."

  He smiled, revealing a number of missing teeth. "Oh, and since you're new, here's a suggestion. Be nice and neat with your trash, or you might not like what gets dumped into your dinner later. Got it?"

  "Gotten."

  I sat on the bed and ate with the tray balanced on my knees.

  Lunch was a sandwich of bologna and American cheese, mustard and butter, on white bread. A carton of milk, a bag of Humpty Dumpty potato chips, and a chocolate chip cookie. The cookie was surprisingly good. I finished everything and washed my hands again, and then put the trash carefully and neatly on the tray, and slid the tray out onto the corridor floor. I heard a murmur of voices and the scrapes of other lunch trays, being placed out in the corridor, but I wasn't sure who my neighbors were, and I didn't think the so far polite deputy sheriffs would like it if I started yelling down the corridor to see if Felix was there.

  So back on the bed I went, and continued the wait. Which didn't last long.

  The cell door clanged open and the same deputy sheriff was there. "Cole."

  "Yes?"

  "Some people to see you. Come along."

  "Sure," I said.

  "Turn around, put your wrists together."

  It was the second time I had been handcuffed, and I didn't enjoy it anymore. Back along the corridor I went, and I glanced into the other cells, but no Felix, and no Ray. I was brought into a small conference room, with a nice shiny table and chairs. Three men were waiting for me on the other side of the table. The handcuffs were taken off and I sat down, and introductions were made, and I promptly forgot everyone's name. But there was a detective from the Maine State Police, a detective from the New Hampshire State Police, and a deputy attorney general from York County.

  First things first. I was then quickly and efficiently and officially placed under arrest for a breathtaking series of crimes --- just like the state police trooper had earlier predicted --- and my Miranda rights were read to me. A form was slid across the table, asking me to check off and initial each right, so there was no misunderstanding that I did not fully and completely understand my rights. I nodded politely and made the little checkmarks and initialed with a firm "LC" at each proper place in the form.

  "Now, Mr. Cole," the deputy attorney general said. 'We're going to ask you if you would like to waive your rights and speak to us about what happened this morning with you, Mr. Tinios, and Mr. Ericson."

  "How do I do that?" I asked.

  "Do what?" he replied.

  "Waive my rights?"

  He said, "At the bottom of the form. Just put a check mark next to the box that says you fully and completely understand your rights, and that you're waiving your rights to speak to us without an attorney present."

  I looked down and smiled nicely, and then slid the form back across the table.

  "Thanks for asking," I said. "But the answer is no."

  There were no harsh words, no pounding on the table. The deputy attorney general looked sorrowful, if anything. He said, "We don't know everything at the moment, but we'll find everything out, Mr. Cole. We know that Mr. Ericson is a suspect in his brother's death in New Hampshire. We also know that you and Mr. Tinios were at his house, and that a shot had been fired in the rear yard. You see, the house has been under surveillance for well over a day, before you two gentlemen showed up. And we also know that you and Mr. Tinios were engaged in... well, we'll say a rather brutal method of interrogation, before the police entered the home."

  I nodded, said not a word.

  The deputy attorney general said, "We've done a quick background check on you, Mr. Cole. Your record's pretty clean. Nothing like Mr. Tinios or Mr. Ericson. You cooperate with us, answer our questions, let us know exactly what was going on, and then I can make some recommendations on your behalf, recommendations that will be very helpful once you go to trial. Believe me, Mr. Cole, this is your window of opportunity, and the window is closing very quickly. Give us answers, work with us, cooperate with us, and it'll be to your benefit. You could be out of here and back home in Tyler Beach within a few hours. What do you say to that?"

  I looked at the well-dressed and tough-looking men across from me, and there was that little yearning there, to roll over and cooperate, to be the good citizen. There I was, wrists still sore from the handcuffs, wearing an orange prison jumper and ridiculous paper slippers that kept falling off my feet, sitting in a room with men in suits, and I so wanted right then to do the good thing, so I could be a good guy and get out of this jumpsuit and back into my own clothes.

  Instead, I said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm not going to waive my rights, and I'm not going to answer any of your questions."

  The deputy attorney general gave me a crisp nod. "The window is now closed."

  Back into the cell I went, and I laid back on the mattress and stared up at the thick green paint on the steel ceiling. The blanket went back onto my feet and I waited, thinking. If Jon had been alive and could see me right now, he'd be shaking his head in dismay. What a foul-up. What an incredible foul-up. To fail was one thing. But to fail in such a spectacular fashion, and to be arrested for what I had been doing, Jon would have ranked this disaster with other great disasters, like World War I and the Bay of Pigs invasion and the invention of loud car stereos. And more than anything else, of course, there was Diane.

  Diane.

  My very best friend in all of the world, and she had looked at me like I was a stranger with drool running down his chin, holding out a paper cup for a spare quarter. And who could blame her? She had warned me, days ago, that her plate was full, that there was too much at risk with Kara and her upcoming promotion, to clue me in on the investigation or to do anything else to hurt her and her career. That had made sense, perfect sense, and then I had gone out on my own to screw everything up for her. For what would happen once a smart detective from the New Hampshire or Maine State Police realized that one of the three men brought into custody this morning was a very good friend of the lead investigator?

  I pulled the blanket up to my chin. Not good. Not to mention how things had been left, just before the police had broken in. Felix and I had been engaged in torture. Nothing could prettify that. As rotten as Ray Ericson was, and perhaps --- despite all of his denials --- he was still connected with his brother's death, did he deserve what Felix and I were doing to him this morning? Hot olive oil upon his skin? Tied and helpless in front of us? Was that the best I could do, the best I could be, to find justice for my dead friend?

  Lots of questions. And I didn't want to consider any of the answers. So I lay there, blanket over me, and I only got up when the meal cart rattled by again for dinner. I rolled over and picked up the plastic tray. Dinner was a carton of milk, two lukewarm hot dogs in buns with mustard packets underneath, another bag of Humpty Dumpty potato chips, a salad in a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon, and another chocolate chip cookie. Even though I had been careful in following the meal deliverer's earlier instructions in keeping my trash neat and tidy, I picked up each hot dog from the roll and carefully examined the roll and the bun. Clean, it appeared, of any foreign debris.

  I ate with the tray balanced on my knees, feeling out of sorts, for a number of good reasons. One was that when eating alone, I'm used to reading a newspaper or magazine. There's something about a well-wri
tten piece of news or commentary that goes well with a good meal. I can't explain. It just does. So eating a poor meal in a cold cell, it would have been nice to have reading material, but the only thing available was the back of the potato chip bag, where I learned that Humpty Dumpty --- always a Maine icon of fine potato chip products --- was now owned by a Canadian company.

  Dinner and reading finished, I slid the tray out, washed my hands, and went back to my bunk. After a while I found that nature was calling, and was calling rather frantically. I looked at the cold steel toilet in the corner and saw how open it was to anybody walking by, and I waited and waited, until I couldn't wait anymore. I went over and got out of my jumpsuit and winced at the cold metal against my skin, and I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was someplace else, and the pretending had to go on for a long, long while before I could relax and do what I had to do.

  My humiliation continuing, I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, got dressed again, and went back to the hard, unyielding bunk.

  Sleep came in bits and pieces during the long night. There were shouts and occasional yells from the other inmates --- I couldn't yet bring myself to say "fellow inmates" ---- and there was the far-off chatter of radio traffic from some of the deputy sheriffs. Somebody at the end of the corridor was snoring so loud that I was certain seismographs from the Blue Hill Observatory in Massachusetts could detect the trembling of the building.

  The lights were dimmed but not turned off, which made sleeping even more of a problem, and I tried to take care of that by rolling over and facing the wall, and draping the blanket over my head. But the smell of strong detergent from the blanket prevented that from working too well. As I lay there, I tried to keep my mind off my current problems by remembering great tales I had read in the past, from Solzhenitsyn and Koestler and Kafka, about those brave souls who survived the prison systems of the old Soviet Union and other totalitarian states, and thought about what strength, what values, enabled people to survive in such places, day after day. How many rose above their torture, their abuse, their imprisonment, to become poets, writers, and statesmen? From Mandela to Havel to Walesa, how many had survived and become stronger?