A Night at the Asylum

by Jade McCahon

  My fundamental need to curtail bullshit took hold, forcing me to interject. “He’s great. What the hell is going on, Roy?”

  Roy knew me. He was privy to my impatient ways. “Listen, Sara…I’m doing all I can for you on my end. I know you didn’t do this, but the truth is…it doesn’t look good.”

  Nothing else processed past those words, because my mind was imploding, right there in that little room. “What do you mean, like, charges? Yeah, it looked bad, and I thought maybe I was in trouble, but I never really thought I’d actually be in trouble –” My babbling, mostly out of pure disbelief, was reaching definite dog-whistle frequency.

  “Sara,” Roy interrupted. “Settle down. We need to handle this calmly.” He was using lots of hand gestures; flailing, really. “You can have a lawyer–”

  “Lawyer? Are you serious? No!” My voice dropped into a weird whisper-shout. “I told you I don’t want my parents knowing about this! Work with me here, Roy!”

  It was unbelievable what my life had become. If only I was a normal, responsible adult, with no one to report my malfeasance to and no one to blame but myself.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Roy promised. “Okay?”

  In spite of the idiocy of this whole situation, I was assuaged by the surety in his voice. For the most part, I trusted Roy. He and my dad had played varsity football together, for God’s sake. Roy had gotten me out of trouble a few times before, done things for me, like selling my Girl Scout cookies to the entire police force or dropping me off at home in his own car when I’d been out partying too late. It was hard to believe he’d allow me to languish in one of those cells.

  So I talked, trying to remember as much as possible. He scribbled down everything. At the end there was that tug in my chest again when I spoke Emmett’s name. “What’s going to happen to him? I think…I think someone might have given him something,” I said cautiously.

  “I’m sure he’ll sleep it off,” was Roy’s allusive answer, and then the door opened and that wonderfully breathable air from the hallway came swirling in. On the heels of the breeze was a tall, trench-coated man with dark, slicked-back hair and piercing eyes. Immediately I recognized Brad Sutter, police commissioner and Emmett’s father.

  Well, that explained why Roy had his panties in a bunch.

  I’d only seen him in person a few times, but my reaction to Brad tonight was the same as always: the guy creeped me out. He had the self-important air of a politician, the handsome but cold face of a man who unfailingly got whatever he wanted. There was more to my disgust for him than I would ever say out loud. In high school his sons would stalk the hallway with black eyes and bruised arms. I’d seen his wife in the grocery store a few years before she died of cancer, wearing sunglasses in the cereal aisle, trying hard to conceal her own shiner. At the very least this man was intimidating; at most he was a real piece of shit. But his charismatic façade and merciless attitude had earned him the highest police position in our town, and his arrival probably meant two things: that he didn’t trust Roy to cook the proverbial books for Emmett and that I didn’t have a prayer. It dawned on me then that it was Brad’s voice I’d heard during the argument down the hall. It seemed he couldn’t go a day without planting his fist in someone’s face. Roy immediately gave up the chair across from me for Brad, much to my dismay. While I was getting grilled Roy was going to stand in the corner like a coward. I swore under my breath.

  Brad stared down at Roy’s yellow notepad like he cared what was written there. I glanced at Roy uncertainly and he avoided my eyes, apparently preoccupied with his own anxiety. Brad looked up at me, and his mouth curved into a slow smile.

  It was the coldest smile I had ever seen. It was like a snake.

  Shifting in the chair, I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Brad’s attention settled on my face. His skin looked too tight against his bones. “Sara Featherstone. How’s it going?” He grinned, saying my name in the typical condescending vernacular of our local lawmen. “What were you doing out so late tonight, Sara?”

  I attempted to speak, but my esophagus felt coated with sludge. It was a struggle to push my voice past it. “I was walking home…from the gas station.”

  “At one o’clock in the morning?”

  “Yeah. Is there something…illegal about that?”

  Roy coughed loudly from across the room…a warning. Calm.

  Brad leaned in close. His long arms overtook the table, his face only inches from mine. To outsiders, this guy was confident, intense. To me he was a sack of bones wearing too much self-tanner…and still utterly terrifying. “I’ve got a dash cam video of you holding a knife over an incapacitated victim.” He stared at me, reptilian lips pressed into a thin, straight line. “You’re in a lot of trouble, young lady,” he growled.

  The horror in my heart was staggering. I’d walked straight from one nightmare into another. There was a real danger I could blurt something offensive and be expeditiously thrown in jail, and Roy seemed to sense this. He stepped forward. “Sara’s already gone over everything with me,” he offered.

  Brad shut him down. “I can read.”

  Roy and I exchanged looks. I chewed my bottom lip.

  “How long have you known the victim, Sara?” Brad asked.

  The victim?! My brain exclaimed. Choking back those words, I instead answered cautiously, “Do you mean Emmett?” Screw his politics. I wanted him to know I’d recognized his son’s face. “Since…maybe first grade?”

  “And had you spoken with him just prior to the incident that took place in the road?”

  “I’ve never really spoken to him.” It was a strange question, or at least strangely worded. What was he really asking? “I saw him at the gas station…but I didn’t talk to him.”

  “And then?”

  “Nothing. Big M—er, Mike Cliff, the clerk, tried to kick him out.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  I paused. That niggling part of my brain – the part that remembered how trashed Emmett had been – seemed to be wrestling with throwing him under the bus to save myself. Perfect. Just what I needed, a case of Stockholm syndrome. “I assumed it was because he’d been drinking,” I answered carefully, deciding to stick to what was readily apparent.

  “Did you follow the victim?” Brad asked.

  “Why the hell would I do that?” Another warning glare from Roy burned into my forehead. I wanted to control myself, but being falsely accused happens to be one of my tipping points to boiling, impetuous rage.

  “Maybe you wanted to get revenge for something? Maybe rob him? Only you know the motive, Sara. That’s what I’m trying to understand.” Brad’s tone was infuriatingly apathetic.

  “Rob him? Why would…no! He approached me with the knife. Then he passed out in the street and dropped it and I picked it up.” So much for not throwing Emmett under that bus, but dammit, it was him or me. Roy’s admonishing glance told me to simmer down, but my rant carried on. “You keep calling him the victim, by the way,” I spat bitterly. Okay, this was just erupting into full-on mouth diarrhea. This wasn’t just throwing Emmett under the bus. This was driving it over the top of him. “Your son came after me. The knife belonged to him, and I was just defending myself.”

  “From someone who was passed out in the middle of the road?” Brad pounced. “You just said you’d seen him earlier and that you believed he was drunk!”

  “I did!” My voice was a whine. “But…” It was pointless. We were both doomed. That sound of the strike I’d heard, flesh upon flesh…that was Emmett’s fate and jail was mine. I had thought Emmett was drunk, but wasn’t so sure of that anymore. His words in the back of the police car might get us both in more trouble – I would keep those to myself.

  “Okay.” Brad smirked a little, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I think I get it. You want to stick to your story. You want to press charges against the victim. That’s fine. We’ll have to book you and hold you, let you see the judge. The evidence doesn’t
lie, Sara. It’ll take some time to push it through, several days maybe, depending on how backed up they are. But uh…I’ll get the paperwork started, if that’s what you want to do.”

  Panic rose like bile in the back of my throat. I imagined myself in a cell for weeks until the overworked (and most likely bribed) judicial system wriggled me into their schedule. And then it hit me: this whole thing – every backwoods, small-town, good ol’ boy bit of it – was about deterring me from pressing charges against Emmett. Had I even been planning to? I didn’t know anymore. “What I want to do…” his words echoed from my lips slowly. Was he even giving me a choice?

  He had me right where he wanted me.

  Roy pushed away from the wall and came toward us. “Maybe I could talk to Sara alone for a minute, Commissioner Sutter,” he stammered, his fat fingers clasping each other like sausages. “I’ve known her since she was a little girl…she’s a good kid.” He nodded at me reassuringly.

  Brad stood abruptly, his trench coat barely moving against his tall, slim body. He snapped his fingers. “That’s right, I knew I recognized your name. Your father owns the café on Ninth.” Casually he wagged his finger, as if our conversation had suddenly turned inconsequential, friendly. “The coffee there…best in town.”

  “Okay,” I replied evenly.

  He became somber for a moment. “I remember the night your brother died.”

  Immediately I bristled, my hands balling into fists at my side. Really? He was going to speak Tommy’s name? Nausea swept over me, made me tremble in the tiny chair.

  “I was the first one on the scene. It was gruesome.” Brad shook his head with sympathy so fake he could have had it implanted during his last face lift. His dark, piercing eyes met mine. “He really should have been wearing a helmet.”

  My mouth opened, but my voice was silent. He’d actually rendered me speechless.

  “You think about what you’re going to do, Sara,” Brad said as he opened the door, still holding my gaze. “What a shame it would be for your parents to get another call in the middle of the night.”

  His words were like a burn on my brain, and the sludge in my throat returned, choking me. Roy stealthily held me in my chair, restraining me as Brad walked out, his dark coat swirling behind him. When he was gone, I pushed Roy away and put my head in my hands, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. My lips tasted like I’d bitten through to blood.

  “Sara, I’m sorry,” Roy sighed.

  “Don’t…just…leave me alone.” Brad had totally played me. I was angry at myself that I’d let the prick make me cry. My stomach wanted to empty its contents on the cheap, scratched table.

  Roy sighed. He lowered his voice, leaning toward me. “Don’t take it personally, kid. Brad’s an asshole.” He eyed me apologetically and his thick, warm hand patted mine. “I know this has been awful for you. But I think there’s something you should know.”

  “What?” Slowly my eyes opened, pain from the buzzing lights overhead piercing through my skull.

  “Brad told me Emmett has had some…issues, okay? Kid’s got a drug problem. It happens.”

  He gave me insulin. Emmett’s words rang in my memory even as I fought back angry tears.

  Roy paused a minute, then continued, watching me. “He wasn’t in his right mind tonight when he met up with you. He’s like you, he’s a good kid. A mess like this is just gonna make it harder on him to get the help he needs.”

  I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “What are you trying to say? What is it you want from me?” This situation had officially gotten old. My need to leave this oppressive room was overwhelming.

  Roy folded his fingers together patiently. “What I’m saying is…maybe I could get Brad to just drop the charges. On both sides. You could go home, Emmett could get stitched up…just chalk the whole thing up to what it was…a big misunderstanding.”

  “A misunderstanding?” I whimpered. “So you’re asking me to just forget it?” My encounter with Emmett merited brain bleach, for sure, but I’d never shrug off what Brad had done.

  “What choice do you have? Do you really want to spend the next couple of weeks in a cell here?”

  “Are you two really good-cop/bad-copping me?”

  Roy looked stricken. It was either because I’d really offended him or because I was right.

  My pulse was vibrating at my temples. I didn’t care if it was all an elaborate ruse to keep Emmett out of trouble, didn’t even care if it meant Brad won. I didn’t give a damn about anything anymore except being in my own bed. With a sigh I told Roy as much, and to my relief, he nodded in agreement. “Let me see what we can do,” he said.

  As soon as he left I stalked across the room and opened the door. My tears hardened into anger once again. Screw it, I thought, thoroughly done with waiting around. This dog and pony show was over now.

  I took one look at the jail yawning at the end of the hall, dark and empty, and cursed under my breath. Who was I kidding? This place scared the crap out of me.

  Still, I could not go back in that little room. Pulling the door closed behind me, I collapsed against the wall in the wood-paneled hallway. The blood that pulsed in my brain became a barrage of overbearing drums. I closed my eyes to try to quiet the incessant pounding.

  That’s when I sensed someone watching me, a darkly appreciative, cold gaze. Feeling mildly unnerved, I straightened, looking around. The door had opened in the room the argument had exploded from earlier, and there was a man slowly walking toward me. At first glance he looked like Emmett, but this person was too tall, his swagger too obnoxious.

  It was none other than Ead Sutter, Brad’s eldest son.

  My back stiffened, purely on instinct. He was watching me, with beady blue eyes that roved unabashedly down my entire body and back up with a smirk. He was only slightly taller than me, his close-cropped reddish blond hair giving him the appearance, upon first glance, of being clean-cut and civilized. But his features were sharp and rat-like, a perpetual sneer. They repelled me as much as Emmett’s inexplicably drew me in.

  The words Brad had shouted behind the closed door replayed in my head. “At least be a man and finish the job.” The connotation in that sentence was frightening, and my mind wandered. Which of his delinquent sons had he been admonishing? The purplish bruise across Ead’s cheek seemed to confirm the sound of the strike.

  Even with that humiliation, Ead was leering at me, walking too close. If you so much as breathe on me, I will scream rape, I glared. The woody scent of his cheap cologne filled the hallway. He was wearing cowboy boots, the tinny sound of the metal tips scraping the floor, and his empty gun holster rattled as he moved. I almost laughed. Everyone in town knew the story of how he’d nearly shot the governor’s foot off during a visit and had his firearm taken away indefinitely. That had all been a little too public for Daddy to sweep under the rug. Six months later, Ead’s gun holster was still empty. What an idiot.

  Don’t talk to me, I repeated in my head. Don’t talk to me. Of course he stopped right in front of me with a chuckle, obviously waiting for me to look up. I resisted only until realizing he wouldn’t go away unless his vile presence was acknowledged.

  “Tommy Featherstone’s little sister,” his thin, drawling voice sneered. “You’re looking…uptight as always.” He stuck his arm against the wall in an inappropriate lean toward me. Everything he said dripped blatantly with sexual narcissism. “What were you and my little brother doing out in the middle of the street together?”

  I gritted my teeth, determined not to speak. I’d never said a word to him and hoped I’d never have to, which was quite the lofty ideal for someone whose mouth frequently went renegade. The truth is, if I was creeped out by Brad, I was terrified of Ead. If I could have chosen one dude not to ever meet in a dark alley, it would have been him.

  Quickly as he’d approached me, he walked away guffawing to himself, disappearing into another microscopic office. I let out my breath, surprised the confrontation was over s
o easily. It wasn’t a coincidence; Roy was headed toward me.

  “It’s all over, Sara,” he announced. “You can go home.”

  I’d never been more relieved in my life, but was hardly surprised. I shoved Ead out of my mind and my thoughts wandered back to Emmett. “So what’s going to happen to him?” I asked for the second time.

  “Emmett? He’ll be fine.”

  “Is he going to the hospital?”

  “Sara,” Roy said with a frown. “Do yourself a favor and forget about all of this. His father will take care of him now.”

  That’s what I was afraid of. “So you’ll get him to the hospital?” I repeated.

  Roy took my jacket out of my arms and wrapped it affectionately around my shoulders. I shrugged off the simple gesture of apology. Roy had betrayed me, and I wasn’t feeling very forgiving.

  “Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

  “No,” I snapped. That would be the worst idea ever.

  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed the only person I knew who would pick me up at two o’clock in the morning from the police station and not tell my parents. Ten minutes later a little blue PT Cruiser pulled up and a girl with dark bouncy ringlets waved to me from the driver’s seat.

  Sometimes you had to put your trust in the nutty granddaughters of the bible-thumping old ladies of the world.

  “Hey Jamie,” I said, climbing into the passenger side.

  ****

  Three O’Clock

  Soft music played on the radio as we pulled out of the police station parking lot. The stress of the last few hours had peaked and was now poised to leave my body. Soon I would be home where I longed to be, where there would be silence, sweet silence. As the subtle smell of pineapple air-freshener and the warmth and gentle rocking of the car almost lulled me to sleep, I remained blissfully unaware of our departure from the road. In fact, I was dead to the world until a fistful of knuckles clobbered my arm and I was confronted with Jamie’s infuriated stare.