Tin Men

by Mike Knowles

  “Because you broke into my house. Because you killed Tony Nguyen. Because you need help.”

  Os laughed. “What I need is to get out of here.”

  “It was after I lost Natasha and the baby,” Woody said. “That was when it started. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and our daughter. I held her, you know. They weren’t going to let me, but I made them. She was in a pink blanket. She stayed alive just long enough for them to clean her off and wrap her in the blanket. She was small, seven pounds three ounces, but I could barely hold her. She felt so heavy. I sat for days with that blanket in my hands. Something inside me broke, Os. I couldn’t die, I goddamn wanted to, but I couldn’t. So I started doing things to make me numb.”

  “Fucks you up, don’t it? Seeing Julie put me in a place I didn’t know existed. It was like all at once I realized I lost . . .”

  “Everything,” Woody said.

  Os shook his head. “You remember what they used to call me?”

  “Who?”

  “For a while some of the guys called me Tin Man. All shield no heart, like in Wizard of Oz.”

  “I get it,” Woody said.

  “I walked around being nothing but the badge for a long time. You were right when you said I didn’t care. I didn’t. Me and Julie didn’t last. It was never serious, and we didn’t get along. We broke up before I knew about the kid, and when I found out she told me that she didn’t want me around. She wasn’t the kind of girl you argued with and, truth be told, I was happy to go. Then, I saw Julie on the bed. I saw her alone. Truly alone.”

  Os wiped at his eyes with a sleeve. “It broke something inside me, Wood. Something I didn’t even know was there because I had been the tin man for so long. It put me in a bad place. You went and got high. Me, I got even. I needed to hurt the guy who did it. And you know what? He got off easy.”

  “You should have talked to me.”

  Os laughed in Woody’s face. “You think you’re different than me?” He jabbed a finger at his partner’s chest. “Look at this place, Woody. You’re a junkie. You’re working day and night to kill everything in your chest that gives a damn about anything.”

  “You’re wrong,” Woody said.

  “Am I? Tell me this: how long after seeing Julie did you last before you needed a fix so you could be numb?”

  Woody didn’t answer, and that told Os everything.

  Os pointed at Woody’s chest. “Tin man, Woody.”

  “I had to keep going any goddamn way I could. I had to see this through for Natasha.”

  “For who?”

  “Julie,” Woody said. “For Julie. What you did, that wasn’t for her—that was for you. And you did it all wrong. There was no heart in that—there wasn’t even tin.”

  The big man snorted. His face was wet and he almost fell over when he wiped it. He put the base of the bottle on the end table and used it to keep him upright while he rode out the wave of tequila-induced imbalance. When he was steady again, he took two steps towards Woody.

  “Get out of my way, Woody.”

  “I can’t let you leave, Os.”

  Woody instinctively moved his right hand to his hip. He was ashamed of himself for treating his friend this way, but his hand didn’t waver.

  “You’re not wearing a gun, Woody.”

  Woody pulled his jacket open and saw that he wasn’t wearing his holster.

  “It’s on the kitchen table. Still want to rely on your powers of deduction? You didn’t even notice you weren’t wearing a gun for an entire day.”

  Os moved for the door. Woody got in his way and tried to shove him back towards the living room. Os’s chest felt like bags of sand. His flesh shifted with the impact, but that was it—his feet stayed planted.

  “Move, Wood.”

  Woody tried to shove Os again. He put all of his weight behind it, but Os just brushed his arms away. Woody went down to the floor and Os stepped over him.

  Woody scrambled on the floor, moving as fast as he could. He reached into his pocket then crawled over the clutter on the floor to Os’s pant leg. He heard Os breathe a sigh before he reached to pull Woody’s hands off.

  “Stop it, Woody.”

  Woody smashed the cuffs against Os and heard the metal separate and then reattach as it circled the big man’s wrist. Woody’s arm took off into the air as Os raised his arm to inspect the new bracelet he was wearing.

  “What the fuck, Wood? Take it off.”

  Woody shook his head. “You have to come in with me. I can’t let this slide.”

  “You don’t mean that, Wood. You’re no rat. We both know it.”

  “You crossed the line.”

  “You didn’t? C’mon, let me go.”

  Woody shook his head.

  “You’re siding with them? You said Tony didn’t kill Julie and maybe you’re right, but can you honestly tell me that piece of shit didn’t have it coming? Guys like him do whatever they want, steal whatever they want, kill whoever they want, and their lawyers let them get away with it. They laugh at us, Woody. The gangsters laugh because they’ve turned the whole thing against us. Tony, Vlad, all of them, laughing.”

  “Who’s Vlad?”

  “Another gangster with a lawyer.”

  “What did you do, Os?”

  “I did more than just get high and ask some questions.”

  Woody opened his mouth to say something else, but Os cut him off. When he spoke, his breath reeked of tequila. “I’m done talking, Woody. Let me out of these things.”

  Woody looked up at his partner. “I can’t do that. You’ve got to come in.”

  Os turned his head in disgust. When he brought his head back to face Woody there was a wildness in his eyes that Woody had never been on the receiving end of. “You’re siding with them over a cop?”

  “I’m siding with the law.”

  “You’re no upstanding citizen, Wood.”

  “I didn’t kill a drug dealer last night.”

  Os raised the cuffs in front of Woody’s face. “Let me go.” His voice was firm.

  Woody clenched his teeth and shook his head.

  “I said let go!” Woody’s body was yanked off balance by the pull of the steel tether attached to his wrist. He resisted, but it made no difference. Suddenly, the tension in his arm vanished as Os stopped pulling and began to pivot his body. The bottle of Cuervo came arcing down and connected with Woody’s shoulder. The blow immediately deadened all feeling in his arm. Woody covered himself with his free hand as best he could. The bottle came down again, this time glancing off the side of his head. Woody yelped just as the bottle connected a third time. He had been protecting the top of his head, leaving his face exposed. The base of the bottle hit him in the mouth and sent teeth into the back of his throat. Woody batted at the fists that began driving down from above him, but he couldn’t stop them. The beating only stopped when Woody managed to pull the cuff key out of his pocket and hoist it over his head. Woody waved the key as he shielded his face in his armpit in a desperate attempt to get away from Os’s fist.

  “What the fuck has gotten into you? All that junk you smoke has made you nuts,” Os said as he took the key.

  “Fug you,” Woody spoke with a swollen tongue and a mouthful of broken teeth. His numb arm raised and then fell as the cuffs came off Os’s wrist.

  “I know you’re not a rat, Woody. You’re a good cop who does right by other cops.”

  “You’re a giller.”

  “Maybe. But you’re for sure not a rat.”

  Woody couldn’t tell who Os was trying to convince. He watched Os disappear from view and then he heard the front door open and close. The room was suddenly quiet. The sound of Woody’s hand slapping down on a magazine laying on the floor broke the silence. His other arm made a slow sloppy arc and he dragged himself ahead a few more feet using a
modified freestyle swimming motion. He picked up the pace and crawled faster—each stroke moving him farther and farther into the house. Ahead, he could see the phone on the counter. The cordless unit was in the docking station next to the sink. The phone got closer and closer as Woody got his legs into it. He used a step stool he had left out months ago and got his hands on the counter. He stood on punch-drunk legs and spread his hands wide on the counter to hold him up. When the phone was eye level, Woody took a deep breath and pushed off the counter. He lost sight of the phone as he spun and took a shaky step, fuelled by momentum, towards the kitchen table. He dragged the gun off the scarred table top and heard it land on the ceramic tile.

  The Glock cracked the tile where it landed, but it didn’t skitter away. Woody fell onto his ass and took the gun as the door opened again.

  “Goddamn it, Wood. You blocked me . . .” Os saw the gun. “In.”

  “Don’t moofe.”

  “You’re no rat, and I know you’re no cop killer. Put it down.”

  “Shadup.”

  “I got too rough, but that’s because you weren’t thinking. You’re not using your head, Wood. That stuff you smoke is screwing you up. Are you high right now? Because if you shoot me, they’ll check your blood. You know they will. I might go down, but you will too. You going to throw your life away to solve Tony Nguyen’s murder?”

  “Not high,” Woody said.

  “You need help, Woody. This isn’t it. I know you think putting me away will make things better. It’ll prove that you’re as sharp as ever, drugs or no drugs, but it’ll fuck your life for good. You pull that trigger—your job, your life, all of it will be over. Let me walk, Wood.”

  Woody laughed, and the pain of the newly exposed nerves in his broken teeth shot bolts of lightning up his jaw. “Gook around. What am I giving up dat’s so special?”

  Woody thought Os would run, but he went low instead. He got his pant leg up and his hand on the ankle holster when a bullet from the Glock hit him in the face. Woody had been expecting Os to bolt for the door, so he aimed low for a leg. He was wrong.

  Woody’s ears rang, and it took a few seconds to realize that his phone was ringing too. He fumbled for his cell and looked at the display. Dennis was calling. Woody dropped the phone and curled up on the floor. He had been wrong. He could see Os’s open eyes and the hole from the bullet that went in an inch to the left of his nose. The blank expression he wore was impossible to look at. Woody covered his eyes and screamed. He just wanted to close the case. To return Natasha and the baby to the back of his mind. Instead, he got a whole new set of nightmares. Everything had gone so wrong.

  28

  Dennis sparred with Dr. Kelsey until she forced him back to the waiting room so that she could see her patient. Dennis gave in, not because he had to, but because he was getting nowhere with the doctor. Dennis needed time to think, and he needed to talk to Woody. Since Woody wasn’t picking up, he was left with thinking. He paced while the doc did whatever it was she did. One of her patients murdered the other and then faked her own death. Must be some magic going on behind that door alright.

  Dennis did ten laps and tried Woody again but just got his voicemail. He kept walking back and forth, thinking about Lisa O’Brien and putting the whole thing together. Lisa and Julie were both mentally ill. Both were pregnant too. Julie was farther along than Lisa, and she was mentoring the other woman because she was more stable. Lisa, who had already had a series of miscarriages, must have had another and gone off the deep end—something she had also done before. So, she lost the baby and went across the hall to kill Julie and take hers. Why? Dennis rubbed his chin as he passed in front of the receptionist’s desk again. Murder wasn’t complicated. It never had been. Even in Biblical times, it was for the same reasons as murder today. Cain killed Abel, Joseph’s brothers tried to off him by throwing him down a well, God even got Abraham to go after his own kid. All of it was for the same reason: jealousy. It usually boiled down to someone wanting something bad enough to kill for it. Sure, there were the occasional blind-rage cases, but this felt like old-fashioned, Old Testament jealousy.

  Thinking back to the night of the murder, Dennis remembered Lisa pushing against his questions. Finding Julie had hit her hard, and she didn’t want to talk about it, or so he had thought. It had been hard to get anything out of her at first, but then she opened up. Just like that, she started blabbing about her stupid pictures and her fucking cats. Ash and— Dennis couldn’t remember the name of the other cat.

  “Goddamn it, there was no cat.” Dennis shouted the words at the empty waiting room.

  When Dennis was in the apartment the second time, he saw an empty cat dish in the kitchen. Just one cat dish. There was no other cat. Lisa talked because she wanted to keep him away from the bedroom. He had heard Julie’s daughter that night. Dennis swore out loud. Lisa had said Julie was going to have a baby girl, but Julie’s mother had no idea about the sex of the baby. Lisa had slipped up and Dennis had missed it. She was two for two against him. He kicked the nearest chair and sent it to the floor.

  “Everything alright?”

  Dennis turned and saw Dr. Kelsey’s head in the doorway. She was looking at the chair. Dennis righted it and said, “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Dr. Kelsey let Dennis know that she didn’t believe him with a raised eyebrow. She was holding a slip of paper and she used it to gesture towards a chair. “Please have a seat and try to keep your voice down. I’m with a patient.”

  Dennis stared at the slip of paper. “What is—”

  “I will talk to you after my appointment.”

  “That piece of—”

  Dr. Kelsey turned with a hand on the door. She said, “I will talk to you after my appointment,” and shut the door.

  Dennis got to his feet and swore under his breath as he stomped to the door. When he opened it, he noticed that the slip of paper had changed hands.

  “What do you have there?”

  “Excuse me?” the bed-wetter said.

  “In your hand. What is it?”

  Dr. Kelsey slammed a hand on her desk and stood. “Detective, this is so inappropriate.”

  Dennis held up a hand to silence Dr. Kelsey. “I’m a police officer, sir. What is that?”

  “It’s a prescription.”

  “Where do you fill it?”

  “Detective!”

  Dennis didn’t take his eyes off the patient. “Shut up. Where do you fill it?”

  “Thomas,” Dr. Kelsey said. “You don’t have to speak to this man.”

  “Yes, he does,” Dennis said. “Where do you fill it?”

  “At the pharmacy near my house.”

  Dennis looked at Dr. Kelsey. “Could you check if he filled it?”

  “What?”

  “Could you find out if he filled her prescription?”

  “Yes, if I called the pharmacy.”

  “You need to reschedule,” Dennis said.

  Thomas looked at Dr. Kelsey. Dennis stepped in front of him and blocked his view. Dennis stepped to the chair and placed his hands on the armrests. When he spoke, his face was inches away from the other man. “Get up and leave right now.”

  Thomas moved to stand and Dennis gave him just enough room to get to his feet. Thomas wouldn’t meet Dennis’s eye as he attempted to pass by him.

  “Thomas.”

  Thomas spoke over his shoulder as he walked out. “It’s okay, Dr. Kelsey. We can reschedule.”

  “Thanks, Thomas,” Dennis said.

  “Do you mind telling me what the hell that was?”

  Dennis was behind Dr. Kelsey’s desk, moving the mouse to rouse the computer from sleep mode.

  “I think you should leave, Detective.”

  Dennis nodded. “In a minute.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m checkin
g for pharmacies near Lisa’s apartment.”

  Dennis opened a browser and searched for pharmacies in Hamilton. The search returned numerous options and Dennis used geography to narrow the possible stores she could have used.

  “Why would you need to do that?”

  “I’m guessing that when Lisa lost her baby she went bat shit like she did in the past. She went across the hall, killed Julie, and took her child.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I think I heard the baby,” Dennis said.

  “Heard it?”

  “Lisa said it was the cat. She said she had two, and she had to separate them. I went back to her apartment before I came here.” Dennis held up a single finger. “One cat dish.”

  “My God.”

  “Me coming into her apartment was a close call. It spooked her, and she decided to run. She knew we’d look at her, so she took herself off the board by calling you. The call wasn’t planned, it was a last-minute thing. I’m guessing the idea to mention the prescription came to her because she was planning on filling the prescription. She knew that she would be away from home for a while and would need her medication to keep her mind in check.”

  Dennis turned the monitor towards Dr. Kelsey and tapped the screen. “Try calling this one.”

  She didn’t fight him. Dr. Kelsey just picked up the phone and dialled. Listening to the doctor speak, Dennis knew that it wasn’t the right place. He turned the monitor back and clicked on his second choice. Dr. Kelsey dialled the number and gave Dennis a thumbs up after a brief exchange with the pharmacist.

  “She’s on the computer, but she hasn’t filled anything lately.”

  Dennis nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly, a thought came to him. He said, “See if they can check other branches.”

  Dr. Kelsey asked and there was a long pause while the pharmacist gave an answer. Dr. Kelsey snapped her fingers and mouthed, “pen.” Dennis passed her one from the desk drawer and she wrote down the address on her prescription pad. Dennis took the pad while she thanked the pharmacist and was surprised by the address. Lisa had gone to ground in Port Glen. It was a small town on the shore of Lake Erie. There were tons of little summer towns along the lake and most people chose Port Dover as a summer destination. Port Glen was a little farther south than Port Dover and a hell of a lot less popular. This time of year, it was a good place to hide out.