Trouble in Mind

by Michael Wiley

Kelson asked the husband again, ‘Do you know of any problems he had?’

  ‘We wanted him to stay near us,’ he said, ‘but he was head over heels for Raima.’

  ‘Head over heels,’ his wife said.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ the man said. ‘Raima was a sweet girl. She made him happy. No, he had no problems we knew of. He left any problems behind when he moved back to Chicago.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me what those problems were?’ Kelson asked.

  The man screwed up his mouth and glanced at his wife. ‘Our family has had its share of difficulties.’

  ‘Like any family,’ his wife said.

  ‘There’s his sister Trina,’ the man said. ‘She has needs. And—’

  ‘Christian was good with Trina,’ his wife said.

  ‘But he also wanted a life of his own,’ the man said.

  ‘It was understandable,’ she said. ‘Raima was here. With her family.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ the man said.

  Then, in the other room, the door buzzer buzzed.

  ‘I should warn you,’ the man said, ‘the homicide detective asked us to call if you came. I did, as you were coming up. I’m sure you don’t mind.’

  But Kelson said, ‘Is it OK if I go out through the balcony?’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ the man asked.

  ‘The detective will want to talk, but I need to get home to my daughter.’

  The man stared at him, uncertain.

  ‘New kittens,’ Kelson said.

  The couple exchanged a look. Then the woman went to the curtains, pulled them back, and opened the balcony door.

  Kelson went out into the cold and dropped down the staircase two steps at a time.

  EIGHTEEN

  That afternoon, Sue Ellen played with the kittens until they fell asleep in little balls of fur and bone. Then she said, ‘Now, let’s Stump Dad.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Kelson said.

  She grinned. ‘What’s it like—’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘—to be you?’

  Kelson fought it but there was no fighting it. ‘Dr P told me there’s something called autotopagnosia,’ he said. ‘People who’ve got it can’t recognize their own body parts. Like, they’ll look at their legs and freak out. They’ll think someone else’s legs are sticking out of their bodies. Then there’s something else, just plain agnosia, which is when you can’t recognize other people’s faces. With me, it’s like you put those things together. I forget what I look like, or I think I look like someone else. I stare in a mirror and the face that stares back surprises me.’

  ‘Weird,’ Sue Ellen said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you ever think you look like an animal?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well, you look like a monkey.’

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘But you don’t know for sure, right? Unless you look at a mirror?’

  He touched his face with his hands. ‘The ears are wrong.’

  ‘Do you ever think you look like a girl?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How about … someone who’s Chinese?’

  ‘It happened once.’

  ‘Did you think you could talk Chinese?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Must be confusing.’

  ‘That’s a good description. Now it’s time for you to do your homework.’

  ‘I want to play with the kittens some more.’

  ‘You’ve exhausted them. Let them sleep.’

  ‘Let’s name them.’

  ‘Fine. Anything you like.’

  So Sue Ellen said, ‘Payday and Painter’s Lane.’

  Kelson raised his eyebrows. ‘Those sound like names for—’

  ‘Horses,’ Sue Ellen said. ‘I work with what I’ve got.’

  ‘Smart girl,’ Kelson said. ‘Don’t let me catch you trying to ride them.’

  An hour later, as Sue Ellen did her math at the kitchen table and Kelson started cooking dinner, the phone rang.

  When Kelson answered, the caller hung up.

  Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

  This time a woman at the other end said only one word. ‘Run.’

  One word was enough. Kelson recognized the voice of the woman who’d set him up to find Christian Felbanks’s body and lied about Dominick Stephens. ‘Did you also kill Raima Minhas?’ he asked, and Sue Ellen looked up from her homework.

  ‘Run,’ the woman said. ‘While you can.’

  ‘You got me twice. You won’t get me a third time.’

  ‘I never hurt anyone in my life,’ the woman said.

  Kelson said, ‘I’m going to ask you nicely to leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m telling you – get out of your apartment now. He’s coming.’

  ‘“Mengele”? If he wanted to get me, he could’ve done it any—’

  ‘At least get Sue Ellen somewhere safe,’ she said, and her words felt like ice. ‘Don’t let her get hurt because of you.’

  ‘How do you know—’

  The woman hung up.

  Kelson yelled, ‘Shit.’

  ‘You shouldn’t swear,’ Sue Ellen said. ‘You’ll scare Payday and Painter’s Lane.’

  ‘Fuck Payday and Painter’s Lane,’ Kelson said – and now real alarm fell over his daughter’s face. ‘Get your books,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you home.’

  She tried once more, weakly. ‘This is my home. My kittens are—’

  ‘Your mother’s home,’ he said. ‘Yours too.’

  Sue Ellen’s eyes dampened, and only his fear kept him from tearing up too.

  She put each book, each pencil, each sheet of paper in her bag separately, as if lagging would break the spell that seemed to have rushed into him from the phone. When she raised her eyes to his, he swore again and told her to hurry. If she’d asked about the call, he would’ve told her, and so he bullied her out the door, downstairs, and into his car.

  She leaned sullenly against the passenger door as he drove to Nancy’s house. Then she got out, slammed the door, and disappeared up the path and into the house. As the front door closed, he said, ‘I love you.’

  On his way back to his apartment, he called Dan Peters but got voicemail, and so he hung up. He dialed Greg Toselli, who picked up on the second ring.

  When Kelson told him what happened, Toselli said, ‘She’s trying to scare you.’

  ‘Yeah, and it’s working,’ Kelson said. ‘She threatened Sue Ellen. How does she even know—’

  ‘Calm down,’ Toselli said. ‘You’ll blow a fuse. Seems to me like you’ve got two choices. Go home and take it easy or do like she says and get out of the way of whatever’s coming. If you go home, what’re the chances anyone’s really coming for you? She’s been messing with your head is all—’

  ‘No,’ Kelson said, ‘she’s killed two people. Or whoever she’s working with has.’

  ‘Mengele?’ His tone said enough. ‘Then run. Go into hiding. If someone comes after you, don’t let them find you.’

  Kelson thought about that, mostly out loud, then asked, ‘Can I come over and hang out with you tonight?’

  For the first time, Toselli hesitated, as if Kelson’s story scared him more than he let on. ‘I don’t know that’s such a good idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a date – and sometimes you say things you shouldn’t.’

  ‘I don’t mean to.’

  ‘Maybe you should just hole up tonight. Read. Watch a movie. I’ll call every couple of hours to make sure you’re OK. If you want, I’ll stop by later and have a beer with you.’

  ‘Yeah, the calls would be good,’ Kelson said. ‘Don’t worry about the beer.’

  ‘Another time?’ Toselli said with false cheer.

  ‘I hear pity,’ Kelson said. ‘I don’t do pity.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect?’ Toselli said. ‘You call, scared shitless, because a woman’s making prank phone calls in the middle of the afternoon—’

  ‘A woman connected to two
killings,’ Kelson said.

  ‘OK, understood,’ Toselli said. ‘But you call, scared, and that makes me sorry. Once was a time when nothing scared you. You went as deep as anyone ever went in the department, and I admired that. And when a seventeen-year-old thug shot you in the head, what did you do? You killed him. That’s the stuff of heroes. So when I hear you scared, it makes me sorry.’

  ‘None of the guys I dealt with on the street threatened Sue Ellen. Not even Bicho. But I’ll tell you what, don’t bother checking in tonight. I wouldn’t want to lower myself in your eyes.’

  ‘That’s not what I was saying,’ Toselli said. ‘You’re—’

  But Kelson hung up on him. ‘Asshole,’ he said. ‘Love him, but he doesn’t have a fucking clue.’

  That evening, Toselli telephoned anyway, once every two hours, and Kelson thanked him for the calls.

  Between the calls, Kelson cooked dinner, then stared from the window as if whatever attack the woman warned him about would come rolling down the street. He stretched out on the carpet and then on the bed where Raima Minhas lay dead twenty-four hours earlier, and then he got up and stared out of the window again. The kittens practiced their claws on the carpet, played a game of hide-and-seek under the bed, and scaled the bed cover as if it was a rock face, before falling asleep on his pillow. ‘So damn cute,’ Kelson said, and he watched a utility truck cruise down the street.

  After Toselli’s midnight call, Kelson said to himself, ‘No sleep tonight.’ After the call at two a.m., he kicked the kittens off the bed and climbed in again. The sheets were new, the blanket fresh, but he thought he smelled Raima Minhas. Maybe something physical but beyond the range of the human senses remained of her in the room, like an odorless gas. ‘Or some sixth-sensory thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t think about it. The world is full of the dead. The dirt under our fingernails is composted bodies. The air we breathe has already passed through the lungs of dead men. Get used to it. She died here. Just the most recent of many. No reason for nightmares. No reason to let her into my dreams at all.’ He lay awake talking like that for a half hour and then swore at himself. He ripped the sheets and blanket from the bed, spread them on the carpet, and lay down again. ‘No reason to worry,’ he said, and he closed his eyes. ‘Only a fool worries about what he can’t see.’

  NINETEEN

  The next morning shined dully through his window, and he woke with the same shock he felt when he looked in a mirror and saw a stranger. ‘Good morning,’ he said to one of the kittens – he was pretty sure it was Painter’s Lane, though he hadn’t paid close attention when Sue Ellen told him which was which. He felt a weird joy at seeing the gray sky and hearing the stale heat hiss from the radiator. When he cooked breakfast, his eggs and toast tasted better than usual, and he told them so. Dr P had said some brain injury victims experienced sudden manias as they recovered. He’d never had that happen but wondered if he was feeling one now. He explained to the eggs that, no, happiness was perfectly reasonable after making it through the night.

  The ringing of his phone startled him, but when Nancy’s irate voice spoke to him from the other end, he laughed. Sue Ellen was refusing to go to school. He’d upset her yesterday afternoon and now—

  ‘Put her on, put her on,’ he said. ‘Shut that luscious mouth of yours and give her the phone.’

  ‘Dad?’ Sue Ellen said when she picked up. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I acted like a bastard yesterday.’

  ‘You shouldn’t use words like that,’ she said. ‘They upset Mom.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry for being a dickhead.’

  ‘That’s better?’ she said.

  ‘And I need to know, which one is Payday and which is Painter’s Lane?’

  When she told him, he swore again because he’d gotten it wrong. They hung up a minute later, having agreed that she would go to school and he would pick her up afterward. He consented to another game of Stump Dad when she warned him that once she hit puberty, she wouldn’t want to play games with him – at all.

  As he put on his jacket, he looked out at the street again, and something bothered him about how the cars were parked at the curb – the dirty van in the tow-away zone, the two cars across the street idling with exhaust pumping into the cool morning air – and about the absence of pedestrians. ‘Slipping?’ he asked himself and kept staring at the street. ‘Imagining monsters?’ he said. ‘Nothing and nothing. Peek under the bed and find … kittens.’

  He rode downstairs, went outside, and started up the sidewalk.

  Then the side panel of the dirty van slid open and three men in green coveralls and black vests poured out, carrying rifles, running toward Kelson. Plainclothes cops with bulletproof vests over their jackets and service pistols in their hands got out of the idling cars and jogged toward him. He’d participated in similar maneuvers dozens of times himself on the narcotics squad.

  So he put up his hands and leaned against the cold wall of his building.

  One of the cops patted him down and caressed the inside and outside of his legs for guns, then yanked his hands behind him and snapped cuffs on his wrists.

  Peters got out of a car Kelson hadn’t noticed from his window. The cop who cuffed Kelson spun him around to face the detective.

  The big man peered down at him and said, ‘You’re under arrest for the murders of Christian Felbanks and Raima Minhas.’

  Kelson said, ‘But—’

  Peters shook his head. ‘Shut the hell up. Is that enough of a caution, or do you want the rest?’

  TWENTY

  In the police lineup, Kelson felt he had an advantage. He didn’t know what he looked like, and he sensed his own confusion would make it harder for anyone to identify him. He knew the problem with that logic. ‘Like a baby hiding behind his hands and thinking no one can see him,’ he said as he and four other men filed into the room. The man in front of him glanced back as if Kelson was crazy, and the cop directing the lineup told him to keep his mouth closed. Nerves made Kelson talk, though, so when the cop told the men to face the mirror, then turn left, then turn right, and then stand still, Kelson said, ‘And shake your booty.’

  Rather than single him out, the cop said, ‘Quiet, please, gentlemen.’

  ‘Good protocol,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Shut your goddamned mouth,’ the cop said.

  Twenty minutes later, as Kelson sat again in the interview room, Peters came in and said, ‘Well, you’re screwed.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me what the witness saw me doing?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Entering your apartment building with Raima Minhas. Ms Minhas was stumbling – incapacitated. The witness said she looked drunk, though she could’ve been high. You mostly carried her.’

  Kelson thought of the possibilities. ‘Let me guess. The witness is about thirty. Short red hair.’ When Peters stared at him blankly, he added, ‘Nice ass.’

  ‘You seem sort of fixated,’ Peters said. ‘Nope, the witness is nothing like that.’

  ‘Then I’m screwed.’

  ‘As I said.’

  ‘You know I didn’t do it.’

  ‘How would I know that?’ Peters asked.

  ‘Check the witness. See who this person is. Whoever it is, there’s going to be dirt.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something I shouldn’t,’ Peters said. ‘You’re right. We’ve got credibility concerns. We wouldn’t take this one in front of a judge unless we had good evidence.’

  ‘Addict?’

  ‘Not quite. But who knows, this one might not even show up for the trial. Maybe there isn’t even enough to arrest you.’

  ‘But you just did.’

  ‘Sure, because you’ve got bigger problems. I hear that a street cop and a security guard visited you in your office yesterday morning. Something about gunfire.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And when they came, you said no one shot a gun.’

  ‘No, I said—’
r />   ‘I’ve got it in the report.’

  ‘They only asked about me. And they didn’t notice the bullet hole.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Peters said. ‘They noticed. The cop called it in and ran your name. So the report got passed to me, and I’m guessing you know the rest.’

  ‘You got a warrant and checked my office,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Hell, I brought a team with me. We pried out the bullet and bagged it. We looked inside your desk. Cute picture of your little girl – you should hang it up like a normal person. Clever under-the-desk rig for your KelTec. We bagged it too.’

  ‘So why did you arrest me?’

  ‘We tested the bullet from the wall. I’m guessing you know the rest again.’

  ‘No, but I’m starting to worry.’

  ‘Fireworks. A match with the bullet that killed Christian Felbanks.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘That’s what I would say too if I was sitting where you are.’

  ‘Raima Minhas’s father shot it.’

  Peters laughed at him. ‘You sure it wasn’t the redhead?’

  ‘Raima’s father and a cousin came to my office and blamed me for her death. I convinced them I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘But the father shot the wall anyway.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must’ve done a lousy job of convincing. Why’d he shoot?’

  ‘He was aiming at me.’

  ‘And he missed you by what – eight feet?’

  ‘He was jumpy.’

  ‘You know what?’ Peters said. ‘You should stick with the redhead. She’s at least got a nice ass.’

  ‘I want my lawyer.’

  Peters shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paperclip. He bent it in half, as if it was Kelson. ‘Why don’t you first tell me what really happened?’

  ‘My lawyer.’

  ‘Where’s the murder weapon?’

  ‘Talk to Raima Minhas’s father.’

  ‘Go to hell. Where is it?’

  ‘My lawyer.’

  ‘There’s no one I hate more than a dirty ex-cop. You shit on your whole life and my life too.’

  ‘My lawyer.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Edward Davies arrived before noon. With his fingers laced as if he was praying, he listened as Kelson told him his story. Then he asked for details about the phone call in which the redhead implied that someone set him up at Christian Felbanks’s condo to avenge Bicho Rodriguez’s death. He didn’t roll his eyes, but he asked Kelson to repeat the part about a man the redhead called Mengele. He directed Kelson back to his legal concerns when he sidetracked to the story of Sue Ellen and the kittens.