Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  An officer picked up the gun, and reached around the back of his belt for one of the white plastic restraining ties that had mostly replaced handcuffs.

  ‘No,’ Barrett said forcefully, realizing that they intended to arrest Jerod and bring him to a precinct lockup or even worse to the Tombs – the large downtown jail that housed nearly a thousand criminals as they awaited sentencing. ‘This is Jerod Blank. He has schizophrenia and is suicidal … you just saw that. We’ll keep him here; we have a locked observation unit on the fourth floor; it’s the right place for him. As soon as things settle I’ll petition the court to have him go to a forensic hospital. Now everyone needs to clear out of here except for two security guards and a nurse, because I’m going to need to get some medication.’

  ‘And you are?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Dr. Barrett Conyors,’ she said. ‘I’m a psychiatrist and the Director of the Forensic Evaluation Center; Jerod is my patient. This is the right place for him.’

  ‘You’re certain about that? Wait a minute, I know you, you’re the lady doc who helped track that weirdo who wanted to poison the city water. That’s you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, having now repositioned herself, still holding Jerod, but now with the two of them sitting up on the floor, her arms wrapped around the boy’s back. He was sweating buckets, his striped shirt dark with sweat around the neck and down his sides, and he reeked.

  ‘Well, I disagree entirely!’ Janice Fleet stood from the table. ‘Dr. Conyors, this man is a dangerous criminal who just threatened all of our lives. You need to let the officers do their job and take him to jail.’

  The officer looked at Janice and then at the other two suited men at the conference table. He sighed. ‘You are?’

  ‘I am Dr. Janice Fleet, the Commissioner for the Department of Mental Health.’

  ‘You outrank her?’ he asked.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Not in this case,’ Barrett said, realizing she was about to step from only ankle-deep shit into a mess that could drown her. ‘I am an MD psychiatrist with the legal authority to commit and confine Jerod, as being an imminent danger to himself or others. She is not. Dr. Fleet is a psychologist who does not have that statutory authority.’

  The officer looked at Barrett, still holding tight to the crazed-looking man with his wild hair and wide eyes. He then looked back at Janice. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘she’s right.’ And then to Barrett, ‘If you even start to think about releasing him, don’t,’ he warned, ‘there’s going to be charges, so consider him on a police hold.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Barrett said, sensing Janice’s frustration and anger. ‘If it looks like he’s getting released we’ll call.’

  Seemingly satisfied, the officer nodded and started to back away.

  Barrett whispered to Jerod, ‘How much dope have you been doing?’

  ‘They gave it to me,’ he sobbed. ‘Why would they be dead? They know how to shoot dope. They told me how to do it. They were always careful.’

  ‘Jerod, how many bags a day have you been doing?’

  ‘A bundle, sometimes a bundle and a half.’

  Barrett looked around, nodded toward the two remaining security guards. ‘Let’s get him downstairs.’ She looked over at Hugh and the two commissioners. Janice was flushed, the heavyset DFYS commissioner seemed dazed, and Hugh kept glancing at Janice, as though looking for guidance as to how he was supposed to behave.

  She imagined how bizarre this must look – almost comical. She was on the floor, her arms and legs wrapped around a patient who’d just had an armed standoff. She wondered how Janice would spin the episode. This boss had made it abundantly clear that she thought Barrett took unnecessary risks with both her own safety and that of her staff. At one point she’d even accused Barrett of vigilantism – ‘We’re administrators, not cops. You need to remember that. Your heroism may be appreciated by some, but it’s not in your job description, and it’s not in the agency’s best interest.’

  ‘Jerod,’ she said, keeping her arms firmly around his shoulders, to offer comfort and to keep him from trying anything, ‘I need you to stay calm and not do any more crazy shit. Can you do that?’

  ‘You should have let me do it,’ he said, starting to rock against her arms.

  She knew she wouldn’t get any rational answers out of him. He was sick and desperate and until that was taken care of she’d get nowhere. ‘Jerod, we’re going to stand up now, and I’m going to take you to your room. Can you do that?’

  He nodded.

  Awkwardly she let go of him and stood. ‘Come on.’ She extended a hand and helped him up.

  He stood and then doubled over in pain.

  ‘Jerod, I know you’re dope sick and I’ll get you some medication as quick as I can, just try to keep it together.’ And without waiting for an answer she motioned for the guards and they headed toward the elevators and down to the fourth floor.

  Once buzzed into the small eight-bed locked unit, which typically housed prisoner/patients who’d been court mandated for psychiatric evaluations to see if they were competent to stand trial, she spotted Maggie, a diminutive near-retirement nurse who was not easily flustered, and was kind. ‘Maggie,’ Barrett said, relieved to see a friendly face, ‘how long would it take to get the pharmacy to deliver some Suboxone?’ she asked, referring to a medication used to handle opiate withdrawal.

  The short, sandy-haired woman said with a voice cured by twenty years of two packs a day, ‘You write the script, I’ll walk it over myself.’

  ‘Thank you. Come on, Jerod.’ She led him over to the nearest unoccupied patient room, and left him with the male guard.

  ‘Dr. Conyors,’ the female security officer approached, ‘do you want anything special done with his belongings?’ She was holding his black knapsack while the male officer stayed in Jerod’s room, and had him strip off his street clothes. He searched him then handed him a pair of faded blue hospital pajamas and rubber-soled sock slippers.

  ‘My office,’ she said, allowing herself a moment’s relief that what could have been disastrous was largely over. She glanced at the belts on the two security guards, neither with firearms, although both carried pepper spray and Tasers.

  Maggie reappeared from the med room with a triplicate prescription pad and handed it to Barrett with a pen that had the logo for a drug company that marketed a popular antidepressant. Barrett had a moment’s hesitation as she looked at Jerod. He had used soft drugs before – mostly pot – but never heroin. Would the medication handle it? A bundle a day could be a lot or a little depending on the strength of the dope. She quickly scribbled out the prescription using the special DEA certification number she’d had to obtain to prescribe a medication specifically used to cover opiate withdrawal and hoped it would be strong enough. She looked up at the dozen or so overhead monitors that gave a clear view of each patient room, the small common living and dining areas, and the unit door.

  The unit clerk, a youngish man in a plaid shirt and khakis, pulled an empty plastic binder from off a shelf. He looked at Barrett. ‘Who’s doing the admission paperwork and orders? And is he medically stable? He looks pretty sick. Maybe he should go to the hospital?’

  ‘Heroin withdrawal,’ she said, ‘it won’t kill him … just try to get some fluids into him, and I’ll write the orders.’

  The buzzer to the outer door sounded. The clerk looked at the monitor. ‘Oh my God, it’s the Commissioner.’ He buzzed the door open.

  ‘Dr. Conyors –’ Janice was pissed – ‘we were in the middle of a meeting. Were you intending to come back? What should I tell Commissioner Martinez?’

  Barrett felt a rush of heat in her cheeks. She wanted to shout, I’m a little busy right now, having just stopped someone from shooting himself, or someone else … or you! But she needed to stay focused and get Jerod settled and treated, and then try to figure out what this whole day was about, why he’d called her downtown to find a couple dead kids, and why he was so frig
htened that suicide seemed like a better option. ‘Sorry, but it’s going to be another forty-five easily,’ she said, turning to meet Janice’s tight-lipped expression.

  ‘I see,’ Janice responded, brushing back a strand of straw-dry hair. ‘This is your priority right now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barrett said, her gaze steady, knowing that no amount of explanation would appease her. She felt her chest constrict and wondered if this was the moment when she’d be fired.

  ‘Your choice,’ Janice replied, and she turned and walked off the unit.

  ‘Crap,’ Barrett muttered, as she looked at the shivering and miserable Jerod and then at the clerk. ‘Have somebody sit with him till the meds get here. Give me the paperwork.’ She felt a pull to go after Janice, but how do you explain to someone who’s not a medical doctor that the patient always comes first? That if the orders for medication aren’t written and all of the hundred and one little boxes checked off on the right forms, treatment can’t get started? She looked at the monitor trained on the unit’s front door and watched Janice storm away. She saw Hugh on the other side, and the two of them talking as they vanished from view. He was probably telling her how Barrett was hounding him, how she was making his life miserable, how she’d not given him the perfect evaluations that he’d always received. How she actually insisted that his reports be finished on time, and how she’d had the gall to make him edit and revise reports she deemed too low on hard facts and filled with half-baked conjecture and supposition and not fit for a courtroom.

  She cleared off a stretch of counter in the central nurses’ station, while keeping an eye on Jerod through the large expanses of shatterproof glass. He looked like a caged animal pacing in his tiny locked room. She glanced at the screen and then took a quick overview of the other patients, all of whom she knew either from having done the evaluations herself or from having reviewed the cases with her staff. Moving as fast as she could she whipped through the paperwork. As she signed off on the various forms, her eye caught on his black knapsack and beside it a sealed plastic patient-belongings bag. Apparently, his stuff never made it to her office.

  She walked over, and knowing she probably shouldn’t, she dumped the contents of the knapsack on the counter and broke the seal on the bag. The first thing that struck her was the similarity of Jerod’s clothes to those worn by the dead kids. New jeans and a striped polo shirt with the Abercrombie and Fitch logo, and his sneakers were the hottest new high-top Chucks – a hundred bucks easily. He didn’t have a wallet, but in a sealed plastic bag there was a wad of bills, a New York State identification card, and a Medicaid card. There were also two cell phones. Which, for starters, was odd. She’d known Jerod for five years; he didn’t carry a cell … and why two? On the inventory sheet it said there was nearly three hundred in cash. The obvious answer was that Jerod had gotten involved in dealing dope. She picked up the first of the cells and tried to see if she could get into the call history. Apparently it had been left on and all she could get was a signal for low battery. The second too was on its last drop of juice, and showed a single number that didn’t have enough digits for a phone number on the caller ID history and that was it. As she flipped through the menu options she saw the number 1 in the video option screen. She pressed play, and saw a few seconds of a pretty brunette, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She was naked and draped on a burgundy bedspread. She appeared asleep, or drugged. The phone flashed a message about going into sleep mode and then went dead. She shuddered, the way the camera moved slowly around the girl, like she was on display. Her first thought was of the dead girl she’d found earlier, but it wasn’t her. And what was Jerod doing with something like this? Had she completely misjudged him? Underneath his craziness, heavy pot smoking, and petty crimes, she’d always found something gentle and sweet about him, more a victim than a perp. But it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been fooled by someone trying to avoid prison.

  She looked up as Maggie returned. The diminutive nurse held a brown bag from the pharmacy. She opened it and held up the bottle filled with tiny white pills. ‘How much do you want me to give him?’

  ‘Start with two, and as long as he doesn’t start puking, keep giving him another two every hour times four. Tell him he has to hold them under his tongue until they dissolve, that if he swallows them they won’t work.’

  ‘You got it,’ Maggie said, counting the pills, putting two into a small paper cup, and then entering this information onto the narcotic log sheet.

  Barrett watched the monitor as Maggie entered Jerod’s room. He was face down on the bed, his body curled tight. She turned up the sound and listened as Maggie coaxed him to sit up and take the medication. She’d know within half an hour if she’d picked the right one. She also knew that she wouldn’t leave until she’d made good on her promise. She was going to get him through this, and then she was going to figure out what the hell was going on. What had him so desperate that suicide seemed his best option, and what did he know about those dead kids, or that girl in the video? She looked over the inch-thick mound of paperwork she’d just completed, and got it arranged so she could dictate. As she dialed onto the transcription service, something popped into her head, something she’d not wanted to think about. The man who’d run off before getting whatever it was he was after. She could still hear the click of the safety. She looked at Jerod on the screen – money, dope, cell phones, and two dead teenagers all gave credibility to his ramblings about danger. That piece made some sense. He’d called; he’d been frantic and scared. He wanted to get off the street and into a hospital, not for treatment, but because he wanted safety, someone was after him.

  She finished her dictation and walked over to his room as Maggie gave him the second two pills. He was still sweating and in obvious pain, but he seemed less frantic, whether from the medication or from Maggie’s husky voice soothing him, ‘That’s right, just try and relax, everything is going to be all right.’

  ‘Thanks, Maggie, you need me for anything else?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘No, and Dr. Conyors, in case no one mentions it, what you did for this boy should get you a medal. Most psychiatrists just stand in the background when bad stuff happens. I sure appreciate what you did. He could have gotten himself killed, or someone else.’

  ‘Thanks, Maggie,’ Barrett said, not wanting to think about how close they’d come to a tragedy.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ the nurse said. ‘I just wish others would take notice. There’s not many that would step in like you did.’

  Barrett returned to the nurses’ station and retrieved Jerod’s belongings. She piled them back into the plastic bag and thought through the day’s events. It felt messy as hell and standing there holding – and contaminating – what might turn out to be evidence in a double homicide, she needed help. That was yet another problem, she knew the help she wanted: Hobbs … Detective Ed Hobbs. So as she often did when faced with tough calls, Barrett forced herself to act. She made toward the exit, punched in her code, and waited for the elevator, all the while thinking of what she’d say to Ed. She’d avoided him since Max’s birth. It had become too awkward; Ed had fallen for her, and told her so. She couldn’t return it. She’d hurt him, after all he’d done for her, she’d really hurt him and it killed her. Of course she loved him, but not in that way. Although … there had been that kiss, the tickle of his moustache, the feel of his strong hands on her face, in her hair. ‘Damn,’ she said aloud as the elevator came to the ninth floor. She got out, glanced at the clock, surprised to see it was only three. ‘Marla,’ she said, as she passed her secretary’s desk, ‘hold my calls.’ She closed the door, went into her small private bath, undressed, pumped, put the milk in the fridge, and no longer feeling like her breasts were going to explode, dialed Ed’s cell.

  He picked up on the second ring.

  ‘Ed, it’s Barrett.’ She held her breath.

  ‘Barrett who?’ he said with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

  ‘Ed, I’m so sorry. I
t’s just between the baby and going back to work and—’

  ‘Please stop. We’ve known each other way too long for bullshit. I’m glad you called. What’s up?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You got some time?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m just plugging through some reports. I can’t believe how fast they pile up. What gives?’

  She started to lay out the events of the day.

  Barely into it, Hobbs blurted, ‘What the hell were you doing going into that building without a police escort?’

  Barrett was struck by something in his voice, something she’d missed, his concern, his wit, his humor. ‘It’s me, Ed. It was broad daylight, I wasn’t alone.’

  ‘For the love of God, Barrett, why do you put yourself in these situations? Don’t you think you’re getting a little old?’

  ‘Can I finish?’

  ‘Yes, please continue. I can’t wait for the part where you single-handedly fight off a drug lord and his minions.’

  She laughed. ‘How did you know? But that’s coming …’

  At several points in the telling he asked for further details, about the dead kids, and about Jerod’s near suicide-by-cop.

  ‘This is where it gets creepy,’ she said, and she told him about the cells and the video of the naked girl. ‘I mean Jerod I’ve known for years. He has chronic schizophrenia, hears voices, and lives hand-to-mouth more often than not just staying at the shelter. The first time I met him he was eighteen and smoking a huge amount of pot because the voice of Bob Marley was telling him he was going to be a Rasta messiah. What’s he doing with all that cash? The cell phones?’

  ‘Does anyone know you have those phones?’

  ‘Just some guards, and a couple nurses.’

  ‘That’s probably what he was looking for.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man you saw running away, the one you thought had a gun. From everything you’ve said it sounds like your sweet boy Jerod – who, let’s be clear, set you up – is dealing dope. It’s also unlikely he’s far up in any kind of organization. This feels bad, Barrett. Something dangerous has just been dropped at your door. If you’re not frightened I suggest you start. I need to see those phones and that video. Don’t touch them or do anything else with them. I’ll swing by within the hour. I’ll also give the ME a call to see what’s happening with the autopsies and if they’ve got positive ID. Because maybe this is just a freaky double overdose, but it stinks like homicide … No wonder your kid is scared, he’s either seen something or knows something. How good is your security there?’