Night Terrors

by Dennis Palumbo

  “You get no argument from me.”

  I sipped my beer. Nancy Mendors was an old friend of mine from Ten Oaks, that same clinic where we both met Noah. In the years since Noah was discharged, after his insurance had run out, she’d privately monitored his treatment, including prescribing his meds. Though I went into private practice after leaving Ten Oaks, Nancy stayed on, and was just last year promoted to clinic director.

  The fact that Noah could survive—and thrive—as an outpatient, given his diagnosis, was due primarily to her efforts. Plus the daily love and support he got from Charlene, an equally-big, frizzy-haired ex-hippie from somewhere on the west coast. It also didn’t hurt that the bar’s owner, a retired businessman who’d bought and refitted the old coal barge, had taken such a liking to Noah that he named the place after him.

  I finished my beer as Noah shuffled down the other end of the bar and clicked on the wide-screen TV. CNN. Doing another follow-up story to the one they’d been airing for the past two days. About Wes Currim. And me.

  ***

  It was a Monday night, and I was back from my weekend in West Virginia. Glad to be back in my therapy office this morning, seeing patients. Though nearly every one of them, having seen the news on Sunday, spent a good portion of our session asking me about the Currim case. In fact, as I locked up after work and drove over to Noah’s, I began wondering if my “fifteen minutes of fame” was beginning to adversely affect my ability to work with patients.

  After all, it had been the huge media hype concerning my involvement in the Wingfield investigation a year or so back, not to mention the bank hostage crisis this past summer, that brought my work with the Pittsburgh police to Wes Currim’s attention. That prompted him to single me out, and ask that I accompany him when he led the Wheeling police to where he’d left Meachem’s body.

  I looked at the sliver of brown liquid at the bottom of my glass. Maybe I’d be better off declining the news media’s requests for interviews. No big loss, I thought, for me or the profession. In fact, I’d often been alarmed when mental health professionals spoke glibly on TV about the emotional states of criminal suspects or Hollywood celebrities whom they’d never even met, let alone treated. Yet there I was yesterday, sitting in a makeup chair at a local TV studio in Oakland, about to do a remote interview with the lead anchor at CNN. Being asked by the makeup person if I wanted some highlights added to my beard.

  Wincing now at the memory, I tapped the bar counter with my glass, drawing Noah’s attention. Instead of a refill, he favored me with the wave of an impatient hand and pointed up at the TV. As if for emphasis, he aimed the remote control at the screen and raised the volume.

  Over the now-familiar video of Currim being taken into custody in Wheeling by Chief Block and Sergeant Randall, the announcer repeated the facts of the case.

  According to the suspect himself, he needed money and was lurking in the parking lot outside a local supermarket. His intent was to find an obviously well-off customer, and Ed Meachem, coming home from work in his Armani suit and pushing a cart loaded with groceries to his waiting Lexus, fit the bill perfectly. Though Currim didn’t know it at the time, he was about to assault the vice president of one of West Virginia’s largest coal mining companies.

  Given the lateness of the hour, and the inclement weather, the lot was nearly empty. Under cover of darkness, Currim came up behind Meachem, knocked him out, and dragged him to his Toyota pickup three spaces over. Then he drove his victim out to his late uncle’s backwoods house, apparently with vague plans to hold Meachem for ransom.

  Currim told the police he was so stressed and agitated, he wasn’t even clear in his own mind what exactly he intended to do. He figured he’d just get Meachem to the house, tie him up or something, then think things over.

  He never had the chance. According to Currim, once he’d dragged Meachem into the house, the businessman roused himself and struggled to get away. That’s when Currim killed him, striking him repeatedly on the head, though he couldn’t now remember what he’d used as a weapon.

  Then, Currim reported, he got the idea to dismember Meachem’s body. He’d known about Troy David Dowd, of course. Everyone knew about the Handyman. Currim claimed he’d spent years watching news specials about him, perusing every newspaper and Internet feature he could find. He’d even read that bestselling book about Dowd, written by a Post-Gazette reporter.

  So, inspired by the serial killer, Currim used a butcher knife from the kitchen to hack the body to pieces.

  Here, the announcer’s voice took on an even graver tone: “When asked why he used Meachem’s severed head as the head for the snowman, Currim allegedly replied, ‘I figgered it’d be funny. Besides, that’s something even the Handyman never thought of.’”

  Under a just-released mug shot of the suspect, the announcer said: “According to the Wheeling, West Virginia, District Attorney’s office, Wesley Currim’s family have retained legal counsel. And a psychological evaluation will likely be ordered, to determine Currim’s mental state.”

  The news report ended there. Fine with me, I thought.

  By now, a few new customers, chilled from the cold outside and wanting drinks, had come into the bar, calling out to Noah. Men and women done with work for the day, gratefully undoing coats and removing scarves, leaning expectantly forward on their stools. With an aggrieved scowl, Noah muted the TV volume and began taking their orders.

  Soon enough he got around to me, refilling my beer. Though the tense smile on his face, barely hiding his disgust, revealed how upset he’d been by the news report.

  It also reminded me of something he’d told me once, regarding the Handyman’s brutal crimes. “I don’t mind the crazies,” he’d said. “It’s the evil fucks I hate.”

  Seeing the distress in his eyes, I thought it wise to try to re-focus his attention elsewhere. To a topic near and dear to his heart, and one about which we’d long held differing views.

  “By the way,” I said casually, “you ever get around to listening to A Kind of Blue? I mean that new, remastered CD I gave you?”

  He frowned. “Don’t need to. Heard the original tracks years ago. You can’t re-master music, Danny, just clean up the sound. And I still say, everything Miles Davis did after 1965 was better than anything he did before.”

  “And I still say you’re full of shit.”

  It was a classic argument, especially among gifted musicians like Noah himself. Even among mere fans like me.

  Which was the better Miles, pre- or post-1965?

  There was a pretty clear distinction. The early Miles Davis, though obviously a genius, still worked in the classical harmonics of jazz. Then, starting around 1965, as far as I and many others were concerned, Davis turned his back on his audience. Not only figuratively, in terms of the postmodernist, anti-melodic quality of his playing. But even literally, in that he began playing concerts with his back to the audience, facing the stage’s rear curtain.

  Not that I’d ever convince Noah Frye of that. A skilled jazz pianist who often sat in with the musicians who appeared at his bar, Noah was definitely the more progressive of the two of us. At least where music was concerned.

  “Here’s what I don’t get, Danny,” Noah was saying now, brow furrowed. “You’re not that old. How come you gotta be such an old fart when it comes to music?”

  Before I could muster up a snappy comeback, a voice boomed behind me. Accompanied by a blast of frigid air as the front door opened wide.

  “Ahoy, barkeep! Desperate man on the bridge!”

  The words were loud and imperious enough to stop Noah in his tracks behind the bar, and cause me to swivel in my seat. Though, from its thick Brooklyn accent and belligerent tone, I knew who it was before I saw him.

  Chapter Five

  Assistant District Attorney Dave Parnelli, his portly frame swathed in a snow-flecked overcoat, sat heavily on the sto
ol next to mine. Motioned to Noah.

  “Jack Daniels, pal.” He rapped his knuckles on the counter. “I’ve been doing battle with the elements and need reinforcements. Pronto.”

  Noah gave me a dark look before going off to get Parnelli’s drink. I doubt he’d ever forgiven me for introducing the arrogant ADA to his bar a few months ago. To my surprise, Parnelli had become a more or less regular customer.

  I’d met Dave Parnelli last summer, during that bank robbery investigation, and we’d bumped into each other a half-dozen times since then. Formerly a public defender in New York, he’d traded sides and cities to come to work for the district attorney here in Pittsburgh. Had racked up a pretty impressive record for convictions, too, given his short tenure in office.

  Parnelli was a couple years older than me, with a broad drinker’s face and thinning hair that he wore in a comb-over. As I’d come to learn, he played the cynical, seen-it-all lawyer stereotype to the hilt.

  He’d also somehow formed the impression that he and I were paisans. Buddies. Brothers under the skin. Probably for no other reason than that we both drank Jack Daniels.

  “You’ve been watching the news about Currim?” I asked.

  “Sure, who hasn’t?” He nodded to Noah as the whiskey glass was placed in front of him.

  I glanced up. “I could use a refill myself, Noah.”

  “No shit? Well, I could use a three-way with Charlene and Angelina Jolie, but that don’t mean I’m gonna get it.”

  But he snatched up my glass anyway and refilled it.

  Then, grunting something unintelligible, he shuffled away to attend to other customers.

  “Speakin’ of Currim,” Parnelli went on, “ya know how he said he was inspired by the Handyman? Well, jailhouse gossip says that Dowd didn’t exactly take that as a compliment. In Mr. Dowd’s considered opinion, the Meachem dismemberment was sloppy, and the whole snowman thing was just juvenile theatrics.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I get it. To a seasoned pro like Dowd, Currim’s amateurism is offensive.”

  “Whatever you say, Doc. Though I wouldn’t mind if the next severed head we find belonged to Dowd himself.”

  “You and most registered voters in the state.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlene, carrying trays laden with burgers and fries, push open the hinged kitchen doors with her wide hips and move out into the dining area. As she sauntered expertly past the bar, she gave me a friendly wink.

  Meanwhile, Parnelli was holding his glass aloft, waiting for me to raise my own. We touched rims.

  “To better days.” He swallowed his drink in a single gulp. “By the way, Danny, I gotta get the name of your PR guy. You’re gettin’ more exposure than a porn star on YouTube.”

  He gave a short laugh, then motioned again for Noah.

  Over the next twenty minutes, I nursed my beer and watched Parnelli go through four whiskeys. When it came to drinking, I thought, Parnelli had one thing in common with Dowd: they were both seasoned pros.

  By now, happy hour had ended and the serious drinkers were streaming into the place. The bar quickly filled, as did most of the tables. Noah, sweating profusely in the close confines of the barge’s interior, hurried to fill drink orders. Meanwhile, Charlene moved about with surprising dexterity. Like a graceful mama bear, smiling and chatting with customers as she placed full plates on some tables and removed empty ones from others.

  I got up and threw some bills on the bar. Before I could say good-bye to my hosts, as well as to Parnelli, the ADA took hold of my elbow.

  “Hey, Danny, I forgot to tell ya.” Voice slurred. Pale eyes blinking in the dim, stinging haze of cigarette smoke. No longer on his way to getting drunk. All the way there now. “Your name came up the other day. I was talkin’ to that female detective, Lowrey…”

  “Eleanor?”

  “Yeah, some lame-ass case we’re doin’. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, like I say, your name came up.”

  “Cool.” I easily but firmly removed his hand from my elbow. “But, listen, Dave, I’ve gotta—”

  “Fine lookin’ woman, that Lowrey. Totally buffed. Epic tits.”

  “Funny, that’s the same thing she says about you.”

  “Bite me. But I mean it. I envy you, Rinaldi.”

  “Afraid there’s nothing to envy. We’re just friends.”

  “Uh-huh.” A bleary-eyed, conspiratorial look. “Just make sure you tell your ol’ buddy Dave all about it when you close the deal.”

  “Right. You’ll be the first one I call.”

  I was getting pissed off now. It wasn’t just the boozy familiarity. It was the casual way he spoke about Eleanor Lowrey. Though we’d only seen each other for drinks a few times since the summer—busy schedules, some family issues on her part, the usual contemporary approach-avoidance dance—I felt a pang of disloyalty allowing Parnelli to speak crudely about her.

  Even drunk, this notion managed to penetrate his thick Italian skull. He tried to get to his feet.

  “Hey, Danny, c’mon…Don’t get your shorts in a twist. I like Lowrey. Really. Great cop. Helluva girl.”

  He wobbled a bit on the stool, and I reached with both hands to steady him. Which he acknowledged with a rueful smile, and then swiveled back to face the bar.

  I turned quickly and headed for the door, nodding to a flustered Noah who was struggling to unlock the mysteries of the bar cash register.

  I also bumped into Charlene, wiping off the table nearest the front door. Red-faced. Breathing labored.

  “Do me a favor, will ya, Charlene? Make sure Parnelli takes a cab home.”

  “Sure, Doc. Since I’m just sittin’ around, eatin’ bon-bons, with nothin’ better to do.”

  “I’d ask Noah, but—”

  “But he’s got the attention span of a goldfish. Okay, Danny, I’ll pour the son-of-a-bitch into a taxi later.”

  “You’re the best, Char. I think I see a tasteful gift basket in your future.”

  “Great. When you see a winning lottery ticket, get back to me.”

  I gave her a brief, goodbye hug and stepped outside into a bitter, angry wind. It was about eight by now, and while the snow had been slowing all day, pockets of flurries still rose up and veiled the night.

  Nevertheless, except for the plowed streets, the continuing cold kept the snow layered in thick drifts as far as the eye could see. Endless sheetings of shadowed white, like bedcovers shrouding the nearby cars and low-slung river buildings, the spires of the fast-growing downtown commercial district, the rounded shoulders of the far-off Allegeny mountains. The Monongahela River to my left, a blackened ice slurpy moving like slow-flowing oil toward the Point, there to join an equally sluggish Allegheny and form the massive Ohio.

  I turned then, chin buried deep in the collar of my coat. The temperature out here must’ve dropped fifteen degrees in the short time I’d been in the bar. Shivering, I hurried down the sliver of sidewalk toward where I’d parked the Mustang.

  I never made it.

  Two men in dark overcoats and hats, hands in their pockets, were moving like wraiths toward me. Emerging from the shadows between the parked cars. Footsteps silent on the blue-white carpet of snow.

  I was still deciding my move—or even if there was one—when I saw the guy on the right shift his hand in his coat pocket. Saw the imprint of a squared bulge push against the fabric. A gun.

  His partner got to me first, though. An even smile.

  “Got someone who wants to say hello, Doc. An old acquaintance of yours.”

  “This old acquaintance own a telephone?”

  “Why don’tcha ask him yourself? In person?”

  Whatever menace he was trying to convey with his clipped, hard-ass voice was undercut somewhat by the puffs of frost coming from his mouth. Regardless, now that he was joined by his gun-toting partner,
I figured I had little choice but to accept their invitation.

  With me positioned between them, the two men walked me half a block down the sidewalk, in the opposite direction from where I’d parked. At the corner, with its engine idling, lights on, and wipers slowly grazing its icy windshield, a black Lincoln towncar waited.

  The guy on my left reached past me, opening the rear passenger door.

  “There ya go.” Again, that professional smile.

  I swung into the spacious rear passenger seat. Plush, dark leather. Feeble overhead light.

  But enough illumination for me to see—and recognize—my fellow passenger.

  I held out my hand.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Agent Alcott. Was it something I said?”

  Special Agent Neal Alcott, FBI, ignored me and lifted a cell phone to his ear.

  “Package has arrived. We’re on our way.”

  Chapter Six

  “Shouldn’t I be wearing a blindfold? Or a hood or something?”

  Alcott favored me with a pained smile.

  “Hell, if I had my way, Rinaldi, you’d be bound and gagged. And tranked to the gills. But I need you conscious, so I can get you up to speed. Besides, there’s no mystery to where we’re going. Beautiful downtown Braddock.”

  Well, that cleared one thing up. I glanced out my side window. We’d crossed the South Tenth Street Bridge, moved smoothly through the construction sites around the Point, and were heading east along the Penn Lincoln Parkway.

  Though there were only scant flurries now, our driver—some junior G-man in a thick camelhair coat—drove slowly and deliberately through the unceasing gloom of night.

  When I turned back, I saw the chiseled lines of Alcott’s profile as he punched buttons on his iPad. The local FBI agent hadn’t changed much since we’d met last summer. Same blond hair, with its military-style buzzcut. Broad, linebacker shoulders straining the threads of his tailored gray suit. The knowing, confident squint in his hooded blue eyes.