Gray Matter

by Gary Braver

  He looked at the little white reserved parking sign. L. MALENKO.

  Greg didn’t know why, but he had the prowling suspicion that this L. Malenko might connect a couple more points.

  53

  “Going back up there is outright insubordination, and you know that, Greg.”

  Because of the traffic, he didn’t return to the office until nearly five. And the dispatcher said that Gelford wanted to see him in his office immediately.

  Again, Gelford was not alone, but flanked by Chief Norm Adler and Internal Affairs Officer Rick Bolduk. Something told Greg that they were not here because of tardiness.

  Gelford, of course, was ripped because Greg had gone against his notice to drop the Sagamore Boy case—which meant that this was a mano a mano thing—a personal offense against his supervisor who prided himself on running his ship on uncompromised discipline. But Gelford would hear him out first.

  “I realize that, but I’m telling you, there’s a connection. What I need is a court order for that database.”

  “And what’s that going to do?”

  “It’s going to let me cross-reference missing children from three and four years ago with kids who were part of the SchoolSmart program.”

  “Because one of your skull kids happened to take a test?”

  “Yeah, and because three dead kids had similar holes in their skulls and two of them are linked to the Nova Children’s Center. And two of the three kids were very smart, and a fourth unknown and still alive has the same kind of holes. And I want a court order to obtain his identity and check his medical records. He too could be in their files.”

  “Before you go banging on some judge’s door, you’ve got to have evidence that a crime’s been committed,” Rick Bolduk said. “All I’m hearing is circumstantial evidence.”

  “I’ve got the testimony from two doctors who are convinced that these kids might have undergone some experimental procedure. And one of those kids, Grady Dixon, was kidnapped and possibly murdered. So was the Sagamore kid. That’s evidence enough for me.”

  “They’re not our jurisdiction. None of them. We don’t own them,” Gelford said, his face turning red again. “One kid’s from Tennessee. The Sagamore kid is from God knows where.” He picked up the schematic of the North Shore boy’s X rays. “And this kid’s still wearing his head. There’s no goddamn crime.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Greg said. “Two neurophysicians say that these patterns trace the areas of the brain associated with intelligence and memory.”

  “So?”

  “It’s possible some kind of experiment is being done on kids’ brains, maybe tampering with intelligence or memory. I don’t know, but I think it’s something nasty and should be investigated.”

  All three of them stared at Greg as if he had just reported the landing of Martian spaceships.

  Gelford, who was nearsighted, removed his glasses and picked up a fax lying on some other papers. “While you were gallivanting around the North Shore today, a Reed Callahan was severely beaten up and hospitalized by Mr. Ethan Cox. And in case you don’t recognize the latter’s name, he was assigned to you last week on the school break-in, and had you done your job and questioned these kids and brought him in as you were supposed to, Cox would have been behind bars before he tried to shut up the Callahan boy who’s now in the ICU of Cape Cod Hospital with a fucking concussion.” Gelford’s face was purple with rage.

  “I got held up in traffic.”

  “Maybe you were, but something tells me your distraction with this skull shit has compromised your attention, your efforts, and your abilities to fulfill your assigned duties. This Callahan kid may not come out of his coma. He might also die because Cox took a baseball bat to him, and you could have stopped him because he’s got three previous assaults on his record and two B and Es. He’s a fucking animal, and you didn’t go after him but flew off to Cape Ann to look for skulls.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am, because you’ve disobeyed orders and turned a blind eye to everything else on your desk, and a kid’s in a coma as a result.”

  Gelford then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a letter and handed it to Greg.

  Greg felt his heart slump. He didn’t have to ask its contents. He was being suspended.

  “I wish it didn’t have to come to this,” Gelford said. “But you were put on notice, you were given a verbal and written reprimand, and you chose to violate department policies.”

  “How long?”

  “One month with pay until a hearing on a determination of guilt.” Then Gelford added, “As corny as it may sound, we live by discipline in this department, and you pissed on it.”

  Greg looked at the letter, aware that they probably viewed him as a crazy man on a mission, a cop who saw things that they discounted as patently foolish. It was possible that they even suspected that he had made it all up about the doctors and Nova Children’s Center.

  Technically, Gelford was right: They were not bound to crimes in another jurisdiction, especially when it was questionable that a crime had been committed. His lone hunches weren’t enough. The long and the short of it was that he was no longer credible or reliable in their eyes. Possibly even psychotic.

  “Sorry, Greg,” said Chief Adler. “You have a right to a hearing, of course, but in the meantime I must ask you to clean out your locker and turn in your badge and weapon.”

  Greg got up. He unstrapped his weapon and his badge and laid them on the desk. He felt half-naked.

  Gelford rose to his feet. “I think this might be for the best,” he said. “I think you need to decompress, maybe get away for a while. Get off this thing. Chill out.”

  Greg nodded.

  “And I think in the meantime you should see somebody—a professional. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Greg nodded again and headed for the door with his suspension letter in hand.

  “One more thing,” Gelford said. “I need not tell you there are laws against impersonating a police officer. Furthermore, if you keep bothering those people up there, you could be arrested for harassment and disturbing the peace.”

  Maybe that’s how it would end, Greg thought. He thanked them and left.

  54

  Brendan was thinking about love and death when the phone rang.

  “I have to see you.” It was Nicole.

  Brendan felt mildly shocked. The last time he saw her, she all but wished him to disappear. “What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you,” she said. Her voice was its familiar neutral.

  “C-can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of something.”

  “I’m going back to camp tomorrow. It’s about the stuff you told me last week. We have to talk.”

  “Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

  “No. It’s too important. Please.”

  Please was not a Nicole word. Brendan felt his resolve slip. “W-w-where you want to meet?”

  “In the parking lot on Shoreline Drive at eleven.”

  That was just outside Hawthorne, about eighteen miles from Brendan’s house. He had no desire to jump in his truck and drive all that way. Maybe she had some information about all this. Maybe she remembered stuff. Maybe she had decided to fess up.

  “Okay.”

  He hung up and stared at his hands for a long moment.

  “Death is the mother of beauty.” Wallace Stevens again. The line had hummed in his head all evening. Even before Richard had gone to bed.

  Brendan got up and stepped out of his room to the second-floor landing. There was a wall mirror hanging between his room and Richard’s. In the overhead light he studied his face.

  I’m going to kill my grandfather, he said to himself.

  Nothing.

  Time to get off the bus.

  He pressed his face closer. No change of expression. No dilation of pupils. No look of horror. No shock. No fear. No pleasure. No pounding of his chest.

 
; Nothing.

  He had hoped to detect some shift in his features, some microexpression to betray the flat featureless landscape of his face. Yes, he had been prepping for this for weeks, so it was no surprise. But still. Murder.

  God! I could be a terrorist, he thought. Except even terrorists have passion, misdirected as it is.

  I’m half-dead. A zombie.

  He had no intention of hurting Richard. This was not an act of cruelty. In fact, he knew he was not a cruel person. He never entertained fantasies of hurting anyone. He was not into torturing animals. He did not get off looking at pictures of train wrecks or dead people.

  In fact, he liked Richard. And he knew murder was a morally wrong act, but Richard was near death anyway. Why prolong his misery, and he suffered daily debilitation and pain. Euthanasia is not murder. He’d be Richard’s own Jack Kevorkian.

  An act of mercy. I’m a moral being.

  Then another voice cut in: You’re twisting logic to arrive at a preordained conclusion.

  No.

  Brendan had worked out all the details, thought through the consequences of Richard’s death. Because he was a legal eighteen, Brendan would not have to contend with guardians or foster homes. And because he was sole beneficiary of Richard’s estate, he would inherit the house, the contents, the truck; the old man’s meager savings would be his; and he would collect on a small life insurance policy. With his job at the Dells, he could support himself just fine.

  As for Richard’s death, there’d be no telltale signs. Richard had a long history of heart disease, so the coroner’s report would be pro forma: heart failure. Brendan had read someplace that unless there were suspicious circumstances, people who die over the age of seventy-five are almost never autopsied. And there would be no suspicious circumstances.

  Besides, he had an alibi. He spent the evening with Nicole DaFoe.

  He tilted the mirror to change angles.

  Am I insane?

  Richard was near death anyway. Why not wait?

  Because he could linger for months. Wasn’t that more cruel?

  Brendan knew full well why he was doing this: He simply hoped that Richard’s death would release the emotional blockage. To let him know love and sorrow.

  And what if there’s nothing? a voice asked. What if you kill him and you’re still made of wood?

  There’s the shotgun in the cellar.

  Brendan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He tensed his muscles into a tight crouch and squeezed with all his might against the maelstrom raging in his brain. He held firm and pressed until it swirled into a pinpoint and blinked itself out.

  Silence.

  Brendan straightened up and opened Richard’s door.

  The hinges let out a rusty squeal, but Richard did not stir.

  The interior of the room was very still. The hump of Richard was slashed with moonlight through the blinds. Because of the arthritis, Richard always slept flat on his back.

  Brendan moved closer. Richard’s mouth was slightly open and a hand rested under his chin. His eyes looked fused.

  A pillow had fallen to the floor. He picked it up. It was thick enough to do the job.

  Without an autopsy, suffocation would pass as heart failure.

  In his head, Brendan ran through the moves, almost feeling the old man’s bony frail frame under him. He wondered how much Richard would struggle. That would be the hardest part. He hoped not much. He might even die of fright.

  Brendan stood over Richard’s sleeping body, the pillow in his hands.

  He felt as if he were trapped in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

  I can do this.

  I can.

  He stopped for a moment to gauge his feelings, putting his finger to his own carotid artery to feel his pulse. He checked his watch. Sixty beats per minute. Normal. Cold-blooded normal.

  His eye fell on the contents of the bed stand: a glass half-full of water and three prescription vials. Old-man meds. Crazy-boy meds. The same amber vials.

  Richard’s disheveled white hair looked like a scattered cloud above his head. Brendan bent over him until he could smell the mustiness. Brendan held his breath.

  Richard was not breathing.

  Brendan lowered his ear to Richard’s mouth. No wheezing. No scrapping air. No flutter of his uvula.

  Brendan peeled back the covers to see if he could detect movement of his chest. Nothing.

  Jesus! He’s already dead. He had not expected this.

  A sensation rippled inside his breast and he dropped down on his knees.

  “Richard?”

  Nothing.

  He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder and gave a little shake. “Richard!”

  Still nothing.

  “Richard?”

  Richard’s body jolted. “Wha-what? What’s the matter? What’re you doing?” His eyes were no longer gummed with sleep but huge with alarm. “Why you holding that pillow? What the hell’s going on?”

  “It f-f-fell off the bed. It’s okay,” Brendan said. “I d-d-didn’t think you were breathing.”

  Richard was now fully awake. “Well, I am … for what it’s worth.” Richard rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up onto his pillow. “Why, you worried I wasn’t?”

  “I guess.”

  Richard humpfed. “Hell, I’ve got a few breaths left in me still.”

  Brendan was full of words, but he could only nod.

  Richard looked around the room. “So, what are you doing in here? Is something wrong?”

  To see if I’m human.

  To see if Death is the mother of beauty.

  “To g-g-get the truck keys. You left them in your p-pants when you moved it.”

  Richard craned his neck to see the clock radio. “Jeez, it’s after ten. Where the hell you going at this hour?”

  “To g-g-get some air.”

  Richard humpfed again. “Well, I hope it’s female air.” Then Richard gave Brendan an odd look. “You were really worried about me, huh?”

  Brendan nodded and moved toward the doorway. In the light he could see Richard smiling.

  “Be back before midnight. And careful driving, for cryin’ out loud. Lotta drunks on the road at this hour.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You take your meds?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Another thing he was always after him about. That, eating right, and going back to school. What was left of his life’s checklist.

  “Good boy. You need some money?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Before Brendan stepped out, he looked back at his grandfather with his cotton-wispy white hair and face so pale it seemed to glow in the dark. “Good night, Richard.”

  “Good night, kiddo. And thanks for looking out for me.”

  “Mmm.”

  Then as the door was closing, Richard added, “Hey!”

  Brendan stopped. “Yeah?”

  In the strip of light, Brendan could see Richard’s mouth lopsided with emotion.

  “I love you, Brendy Bear.”

  Brendan could hear the catch in his grandfather’s throat. And for a moment, he was unable to breathe for the small glow in his chest. Then in a barely audible voice he muttered, “Thanks.” And he clicked the door shut.

  But Brendan did not bound down the stairs as usual. Instead, he put his hand on his chest and gazed into the mirror again.

  His heart was pounding. And his eyes were wet.

  It was about eleven-thirty when Brendan pulled into the lot—a small tartopped parking area on the bluff hanging over the town beach. The only other car was Nicole’s mother’s SUV. She swung open the passenger door to let him in.

  “W-w-what’s up?”

  Nicole was dressed in white jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt. “I want to go down to the beach.” With that, she got out of the car, tugging a shoulder bag.

  Brendan didn’t like beaches. He couldn’t swim. He didn’t like trudging in sand. He didn’t like the fishy brine. In the daytime, i
t was too hot and bright, at night it was dark and forbidding. But he followed her down the serpentine steps to the sand.

  There were no lights on the beach, and the nearest residents were a mile away. The only illumination was a white crescent moon, which rocked in the sky about thirty degrees above the eastern horizon like a rib bone.

  “I’m sorry for being such a bitch.”

  It was a night of surprises. Brendan could not believe she was actually apologizing. Such a sentiment seemed antithetical to her nature. “N-no problem.”

  “It’s just that what you said about getting a head operation freaked me out.”

  Nicole didn’t freak out, he thought. “Your parents knew my parents. That’s what got to me—that note.”

  “Did you ask them?”

  “My mother said I got seizures when I was small. Maybe that’s what it was all about. I had chicken pox too. I don’t know.” She turned her face toward him so that the moon cast shadows across her eyes. “Do you really think they made you smarter?”

  “I’m n-not sure, but that’s what the tests and the X rays s-suggest. Maybe I was au-autistic or had a t-tumor or something and they got me fixed. That’s what I don’t know. Whatever they did, I think it s-s-screwed me up big time. And I’d like to find the people who did it to me.”

  Nicole said nothing.

  “Did you ask them about that doctor—Lucius Malenko?” The name meant nothing to Brendan.

  “Just that he’s some kind of specialist. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She took his hand.

  “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to jump on you.”

  He was grateful for that.

  “And I don’t think you’re a fag.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “It’s just that I wish I turned you on.”

  “Sorry, b-but it’s not you.”

  They were quiet for a while; still holding his hand, she pulled him up.

  “How’s camp?”