Dead Connection

by Charlie Price

  She could pull it off. She had snuck up on him before. Get him now and get him good!

  ROBERT BARRY TAKES HIS MEDS

  Robert had awakened late in the afternoon and wondered whether he had taken his pills yet. He walked to his dresser and saw that he had already started his new system. He was keeping a notepad by his medication organizer, and every time he took meds, he was going to write the date and time on the pad, and by God, he would know for sure and certain if he had taken the damn stuff right. His social worker at County had suggested that several times, but now he was finally ready to try it. Sure, he hated the meds, but at least they helped muffle the voices a little bit. You’re a dipshit! Wise up! Fool! You’re crazy! Good-for-nothing, good-for-nothing, good-for-nothing!

  The major thing about the meds was that they kept him from having to go back to the hospital. He hated the hospital. Once, when he had been on a three-day crank run, the police had picked him up for running down the middle of the Esplanade screaming. They didn’t understand that people were trying to kill him and he was just trying to get away. They put him in the psych ward and strapped him down to a bed so he couldn’t get up, and he had never been so scared in his life. He peed himself. He’d almost rather die than go back there.

  The meds made him think slower, and he was pretty sure they messed up his memory, but his friends on the unit had convinced him that, if he took them regularly, he wouldn’t have to come back to a place like that. If that’s what it took, he was willing. Besides, he worked. He had his own money. And one of these days, he’d probably get a girl-friend and a house when he was ready. Much, much better than being locked up.

  The notepad said, “11/30, 9:00 a.m.” Alright! He took his next dose and wrote down, “Ditto, 5:00 p.m.” He felt good about himself. This is working. He stood still for a moment and listened for voices. Nope. This is working!

  BUSTED

  Pearl could see that Kiefer was waiting for her as she walked through the gate, done with practice for the day. Shoot! She hadn’t expected that. He was standing between her and the workshop, hands folded in front of him like a sissy. She decided to play it cool for now and spring her plan later in the afternoon.

  “Hi,” he said when she was about ten feet away.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said, keeping eye contact. “I was embarrassed.”

  She looked like she wanted to say “You didn’t seem embarrassed; you seemed more like an asshole,” but she held her silence.

  “I pray,” he said. “I pray for all the dead people, and I thought you’d make fun of me. I’m very religious, and I … I want all the dead people to go to heaven, so I come out every day and pray for them. Especially the young—” He bit that off. He didn’t want to give her anything she could use against him somehow. She still didn’t say anything, didn’t seem to believe him.

  Finally her expression changed. She fumbled for words.

  “Uh, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. Well, you go ahead. I’m sorry if I bothered you.” She walked past him and entered the workshop.

  He was left standing with his hands still clasped in front. That was a quick turnaround, he thought. She just wants to get rid of me. Crap! He turned and went down toward Blessed’s grave for solace. He didn’t hear or see Pearl two minutes later when she guided the screen door closed so it wouldn’t make any noise and followed him with a sack under her arm.

  * * *

  Murray started talking to Blessed before he even sat down.

  “I think I really blew it, big time. That little brat is going to mess me up. I can feel it.” He knelt right in front of the stone and leaned his head over so he could rest his forehead against it.

  “Bet you wished you’d followed my advice, huh? I told you she was just lonely and wanted a friend, but oh no. Now you’ve hurt her feelings and she’s mad and she’s gonna get back at you.”

  “What do you think she’s going to do?”

  “Something you won’t like, I’ll bet. She seems like a sharp cookie. She’ll come up with something.”

  “I tried to apologize.”

  “You fed her a line of bull. I don’t think she believed you.”

  “What should I do now?”

  Blessed laughed. “I think you better do what you said. I think you better pray!”

  Looking back, he guessed that was when the girl did it. When he was leaning over talking to Blessed. He didn’t hear a thing. But then he wasn’t listening to that world.

  * * *

  Pearl was sitting in the big green overstuffed chair near the woodstove in the workshop when her dad came in from his afternoon rounds. They said hi to each other and then her dad sat at his desk to check e-mail and respond to the day’s invoices. Pearl waited quietly, unable to concentrate on her geography text. After a wait that was long enough to have her doubting her plan, her dad turned toward her.

  “Honey, did you borrow my pen for your homework?”

  Bingo! “I don’t think so. Which one?”

  “The black one with the white star on the cap. The one my dad gave me.”

  “No. I haven’t seen it. I wonder, though … I’ll tell you what I did see.”

  “What?”

  “When I got back from practice, that strange kid was standing up here by the workshop door, looking twitchy. He hardly said anything to me when I said hello, and he hustled off like he was in a hurry to get someplace.”

  Janochek took off his reading glasses and swiveled in his chair to face his daughter.

  “Are you saying that you think the Kiefer boy was in here and took my pen?”

  “I don’t know. Was the door locked?”

  “You tell me. I just got here a few minutes ago.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t really pay any attention.”

  Pearl was still while Janochek slowly surveyed the room.

  “Is there anything else missing?” she asked, more polite than curious.

  Janochek looked at her very closely now. All this time, the Kiefer kid had been coming around and nothing had ever been missing. Nothing disturbed in any way.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Just wondering, I guess.”

  Janochek swiveled back to his desk. He made a visual inspection, then stood and went over to his workbench and did the same. Right away, he could see the red-handled pliers were missing, and he knew he hadn’t taken them anywhere else. His thoughts were divided. One part of him making an inventory of tools; another part thinking about his daughter. The fancy pen, the red-handled pliers. They might have attracted Kiefer’s attention. But why? That was the part that didn’t compute. Kiefer would know he’d be the first suspect and that he would possibly be evicted from the cemetery, even if he wasn’t caught red-handed. He turned again to look at his daughter.

  “The red pliers,” he said.

  “Huh,” she said, seeming barely interested. “When I saw him, he looked like he was maybe stuffing some money in his pocket,” she added, her face expressionless.

  Janochek turned back to the desk and reached for the gray metal petty-cash box he kept on the back left corner. He opened it. Loose change all over the bottom and two or three receipts, but otherwise empty. The forty or fifty dollars it usually held was gone. He set it back on the desk without comment.

  “Let’s go talk to Kiefer,” he said.

  * * *

  Murray was sitting with Edwin. He had asked him the “heard anyone new?” question, and Edwin had said no and then was saying how, when he got polio, the kids he thought were his friends gradually stopped visiting him in the hospital. Though his friends really tried hard to disguise it, he could see their pity, and that hurt. That hurt more than anything. More than his parents’ heavy sorrow. Even more than not being able to move his arms and legs. He’d gone from being a friend, an equal, to being a chore people did because they felt sorry for him. The boy he was had disappeared, and there was this tragic dumm
y in his place.

  “Better to die,” he was saying.

  Murray was thinking that’s how he felt sometimes. He had gone as far as he could go. He couldn’t even imagine being an adult.

  Murray heard them come up behind him. Janochek spoke as soon as he stopped walking, at the foot of Edwin’s grave.

  “Murray, I need to talk to you for a minute.”

  Something was wrong. Murray could see it in his face. She got me!

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “My daughter said she ran into you up by the workshop today. Is that true?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need to ask what you were doing.”

  Murray’s mind was racing. What could she have said?

  “Uh, I was waiting for her, your daughter, uh, Pearl … I wanted to apologize … for yesterday.” He could feel himself sweating.

  “Apologize?” Janochek said. “For yesterday?” He was clearly puzzled.

  “Uh, yeah. She may have told you.…” Murray could see she hadn’t. He looked over to her. She was just standing there looking back at him. Quiet. Nothing on her face.

  “I was maybe a little mean to her.” Be careful! “She wanted to know what I was doing at the graves and I didn’t want to tell her I was praying. I was embarrassed. I … I just brushed her off and I think I hurt … I mean I know I hurt her feelings.” Both the girl and her father were as still as the stone angels on the crypt behind them. Say more! “I came up to the workshop today to apologize to her and to tell her I was just praying.”

  “He’s not just praying!” Pearl startled them both.

  Murray had an impulse to argue, but he stayed quiet.

  Janochek was looking at Pearl but speaking to Murray.

  “We’ve, uh, misplaced some things up in the workshop, and we came down here to ask you if you had seen them anywhere.”

  He continued to look at Pearl. Murray was stumped. Lost some graves? Misplaced what? Markers? Signs? He couldn’t get ahold of what Janochek was asking about. Murray looked at Pearl and saw she was now looking at his backpack. Janochek’s gaze followed hers. Murray began to get it.

  “You think I took something! You think I took something of yours?” Murray could feel his eyes brim. “Oh, God, I would never do that. I would never do that!”

  Murray didn’t know what he could say. He wanted to say he loved Janochek. He didn’t know him, really, but Janochek was the only adult who had ever looked at Murray and treated him like he mattered. Janochek knew Murray wanted to be in the cemetery, and he let him be there. Murray sank to his knees. “Oh, God, Mr. Janochek, I would never do that.” He covered his face.

  It was very still for a while. When Murray came back from wherever he’d gone, he wondered if they had left. When he put his hands down, they were still standing there. Both of their faces were red. Murray stood up. Janochek was looking at him, and he lowered his eyes.

  “Murray, I think a couple of my things may have gotten in your backpack by mistake.”

  “Oh, no, they didn’t, Mr. Janochek. I’ve had it with me the whole day. I didn’t take anything. I mean I didn’t put anything in there. Just my lunch and some books.”

  “Would you show us?” Janochek turned to look at Pearl again. Still no expression on her face.

  “Sure,” Murray said. He would have done anything to get this over with. He went to the nearest headstone and picked up his pack, brought it over to Edwin, and set it down. He spread the top and pulled out his lunch … and right below it was another lunch.

  Murray couldn’t make sense of that. He had packed his books and his lunch that morning. He always threw the old bag away because any food left was probably rotten. He pulled out the other lunch. No, that was his lunch. He could feel how light it was because he never got a drink or a can of juice and he could feel the chips crunching. He looked back at the other bag he had just set down.

  “I … I…” Murray was suddenly afraid to open the bags. He looked up to find Janochek watching him.

  Janochek turned to his daughter. “Pearl, I think you can help us here, and I mean right now!”

  Murray could see the lines in the back of Janochek’s neck, and he could see Pearl’s eyes get wider and wider. And then she took off running, back in the direction of the workshop.

  Murray understood. Her revenge. This other sack.

  Janochek watched her until she disappeared in the distance, obscured by foliage, and then turned back to him.

  “Are both those your lunch?” he asked.

  “No … no! I’m so sorry. I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what the other sack is. I don’t know.…” Murray ran out of words.

  He held his hand out and Murray gave him the bag that wasn’t his lunch.

  “Do you know what’s in this bag?” Janochek asked, looking at Murray steadily.

  “No, sir,” Murray said.

  “I think I do,” Janochek said. “I’m very sorry for this. Please forgive my daughter and me for this upsetting intrusion.”

  Murray couldn’t stop himself. “She’s real mad at me.”

  Janochek hesitated and looked at Murray again. His face seemed weary this time.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.” And then he walked away.

  * * *

  When he walked in with the sack, Pearl was sitting in the big chair, hands in her lap. He put the sack on his desk and pulled his swivel chair over near her and sat down. He waited a moment before speaking.

  “I’ve been mad at you before, but I don’t think I have ever been ashamed of you. Until today.”

  He remained still and Pearl didn’t look up.

  He began again.

  “I love you. You’re the only child I have and the only one I want. I love you with every cell of my body and all of my soul. And I want you to start at the beginning and tell me everything about what happened today. Everything. You took my things, you lied, you did exactly what I asked you not to do.… You don’t want to be this kind of person. You know where this kind of behavior leads. Hell, you’ve experienced it.”

  Pearl was quiet for a moment. Then she began telling him how she had gotten interested in the grave kid because he was so strange and that when she teased him and tried to get to know him, he had told her to leave him alone. And how mad that made her and how it really hurt her feelings because she had kind of thought she was doing him a favor. She went slowly, but she didn’t stop until she admitted taking the things and putting the sack in the kid’s backpack when he wasn’t looking.

  When she finished, she looked up. The color had gone out of her dad’s face and he looked older. Or maybe just tired.

  “You didn’t kick him out, did you?” she asked.

  He shook his head, no.

  “Is he still here?”

  “Probably.” There was more silence.

  “I know what you want me to do,” she said.

  Silence.

  “I’ll do it tomorrow after school,” she said.

  He nodded and got up to start dinner.

  BILLUP PIECES THE NIGHT TOGETHER

  Even before he opened his eyes, Billup knew it was morning. He could hear cars on the thoroughfare two streets over. His mouth was dry, and his eyes were crusted together but not so sticky that he couldn’t open them. Shit! He was in his recliner, still wearing the same clothes from the day before. He tried to summon some saliva while he retraced yesterday. He was at the cemetery. He left there and drove to the mission. He helped serve dinner to some homeless families, washed dishes … and then what?

  He levered himself up and went to the bathroom. In the last three or four months, there were quite a few mornings when he awakened without any memory of the night before. He walked back into the living room and looked out the front window. His Chrysler was sitting in the driveway. Yes! So he had taken the department car back to headquarters and got his own and then … he stopped at the Tropicana because he saw a car in the parking lot that belonged to an attractive community servic
e officer. He didn’t see her at the bar, so he went up, sat and ordered his usual, a double and a beer, probably, waiting, thinking she might be in the rest-room … And nothing after that. Did he stay there and drink till they cut him off?

  He went into his small kitchen. There was a brown sack on the counter. He checked it. Empty. He looked around the kitchen but didn’t spot anything. He walked back to the living room. Between his recliner and the wall, lying on its side, was an empty bottle. Popov vodka. A quart. So now he knew. When he left the bar, he bought some to go and drove home. End of story.

  A better ending than a few weeks ago, when he woke up in the city car at the rodeo grounds by the river, with mud on his clothes and the car seat and the floor mats. Took him over an hour to clean everything up. Or last month, when he found the city car in his driveway with a bash and scratches in the right front fender as if he had hit a pole or a divider somewhere the night before. He had been able to explain away that dent and damage as a parking lot accident that probably happened when he was at a strip mall opening the day before. He told motor pool he didn’t notice it at first and suspected it must have been a hit-and-run, no note or anything. He never mentioned the part about not returning the city car at the end of some of his shifts, and no one asked him about it.

  He went into his bedroom, hampered his wrinkled clothes, and got ready to shower and shave for work. When he got to his car, thirty minutes later, he walked all around it. No scrapes. No blood. He must have made it home okay.

  WHAT’S MISSING?

  Gates began calling associates, friends, and family of the three main suspects, asking whether Rudy or John or Buell ever borrowed anyone’s car. Buell appeared to stay at home nearly all the time, and drove only his brown Taurus. John’s clients reported that his red Miata convertible was a kind of trademark and he was never without it. Rudy, on the other hand, had access to a multitude of cars through his family. Mostly he drove a white Nova with a 327, glasspacks, and oversize tires on chrome mags. When the Nova was being worked on, Rudy drove his uncle’s “M-car,” a BMW rocket.