Dead Connection

by Charlie Price

A minute later, Peggy rounded a corner down the hall and headed toward him, smiling, her long strides rapidly diminishing the distance between them. As she got nearer, he saw she was wearing tweedy black slacks with a short fitted jacket of the same material. Her low-heeled shoes were a dark red that matched the shiny turtleneck under the jacket. How do women do it? Gates wondered. He tried to think if he had ever seen a shoe store selling matching tops.

  “Roman Gates! Good to see you. What brings you out here? It’s not court day, is it? Am I having a senior moment?”

  “Hi, Peggy. No. You know I just can’t stay away from these halls.”

  “Be careful. Talk like that might get you admitted.”

  They both smiled.

  “Actually, I’m following some leads on an investigation and I need a thumbnail on someone I’ve encountered.”

  “So they finally caught me?”

  “No, for once, it’s not your criminal activity.” Gates enjoyed their banter, passing the time on those long competency-review court days, when they sometimes stood in the hall together for hours.

  “It’s someone you work with.”

  “Staff?”

  “No. He’s early twenties, kind of stringy blondish hair, all the same length, but above his neck. Dresses like a street kid, black jeans, white tee, Doc Marten–type boots. Nervous eyes.”

  “I think I might know who you mean.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him going in your office before.”

  “Roman, if he’s a client of mine, I can’t talk to you about him like this.”

  “Peggy, I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t want you to bend any ethics or divulge anything confidential. He’s shown up a couple of times in the last week, and I just want a general picture, that’s all.”

  “Roman Gates! I thought you liked me, and here you are, trying to get me fired.”

  “Well, Peggy, I apologize. This investigation is more than just work to me or I wouldn’t ask. Can you help me in any way?”

  “We have a Mental Health Forensic Task Force that meets weekly to share information on our clients with the police, Public Health, and the sheriff. Really to advocate for them. We see if they’re in trouble, and see if we can handle it through mental health services, rather than through criminal justice. If that’s appropriate.”

  “Who’s the sheriff’s rep?”

  “Randy Henderson.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “You tell him you want to put whoever it is on the agenda for this Wednesday and ask to attend. We each sign a Memorandum of Understanding regarding interagency cooperation and confidentiality, and you get your information.”

  “So, I ask Henderson today, and the kid gets put on tomorrow’s agenda?”

  “Pretty sure … if you get him to request it before 4:00 today.”

  “It’s a deal. Peggy, thanks a lot. I owe you.”

  “Well,” she said, “traveler’s checks, gemstones, or expensive cars are a good way to convey gratitude. Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She turned and was gone while Gates searched for a reply.

  As Gates walked back to his car, he was thinking how much he liked and respected Peggy Duheen. She worked in a tough business, like he did, and she managed to keep her warmth and humor. And she was always professional. He thought she was a little younger than he, probably early forties. He knew she had been divorced for a few years, but he didn’t know if she was seeing anybody. She was sturdy and athletic and tall, maybe five foot ten, and she looked like she might be able to outrun him if she wanted to.

  Maybe he could settle up by taking her to dinner someday. He got in the squad car and radioed the dispatcher to put him through to Henderson.

  BLURRED FOCUS

  Robert had walked faster than usual back to the hotel, upset by the confrontation with the lawman. In his experience, nothing good ever came of encounters with the law. When he entered the lobby, he saw the new guy, Bruce, sitting at a rear table. He was playing cards with three other residents: two potheads with long, greasy hair, and a broken-down old man who was dying of something where he couldn’t get his breath anymore.

  Bruce looked up and said, “Hi, Robert,” when Robert passed by on the way to the stairs. The pothead wearing the stained baseball cap looked up but didn’t speak. Robert acknowledged Bruce with his eyes but didn’t say anything.

  Up in his room, he checked to see if he had taken his afternoon meds. Yes. And then he thought about the man. The man wanted to know about a car.

  Robert pulled out his wallet and took out his Social Security card. That was the word he had written on it: car. Robert tried some of the tricks he had taught himself to bring back his memories. Rhyming: car, bar, tar … Picturing in his mind’s eye all the different automobile brands he knew.

  And then he remembered the guy asking about the cheerleader. The white-and-blue uniform. White car? White car, white outfit? Was that it? What had caused him to vow to tell somebody? What kind of car? There was something different about the car. What was it? And something else. Robert could feel it. Something else. Was it the girl?

  Robert just couldn’t bring it back into focus.

  TASK FORCE

  Gates arrived at Mental Health twenty minutes before the meeting started at nine. He found Peggy and they chatted in the hall in front of the admin conference room. Henderson was the next to arrive, a compact ex–steer wrestler. His handlebar mustache and black ostrich cowboy boots punctuated both ends of his sheriff’s uniform.

  “Gates. Glad to see you’re finally here at Mental Health where you belong.” He smiled. “Compton, huh?”

  They were interrupted by a woman Gates hadn’t met, wearing a Public Health identicard, and then by a guy in a sport coat who turned out to be the therapist manager of outpatient services. He opened the door to the room and everyone filed inside. Before they had chosen their seats, they were joined by a young Hispanic woman, who turned out to be the psychiatrist. And then, shortly, RPD’s Officer Webber lumbered in, following his eighty-pound belly, and sat on the couch with a prolonged sigh that made Gates wonder if the man would be able to get up when the meeting ended. Henderson, at the other end of the couch, patted Webber on the knee.

  “Always glad to see Riverton Police’s finest.”

  Webber scowled at him. “Haven’t they fired you yet?”

  The psychiatrist introduced herself as Dr. Mendoza and suggested they get started. The outpatient services manager passed a clipboard that held the joint-department Memorandum of Understanding, which each person present had to sign, and then picked up the chart on the top of a rolling cart and read the name.

  “Compton, Robert Barry.”

  Gates told the team that, when he had met him yesterday, Compton seemed very uncomfortable and suspicious, even somewhat volatile. He was hoping for suggestions about how to question Mr. Compton and elicit information about a current investigation without overly raising Compton’s anxiety or triggering his anger. Further, Gates wondered if anyone on the team thought Compton might be capable of hurting someone in a crime of violence.

  As Gates spoke, the manager opened the chart and thumbed through different sections of it. He summarized, “Axis I Primary Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, paranoid type. Etiology probably crank abuse. No family history of major mental illness. Secondary Diagnosis: Methamphetamine dependence, in remission.

  “Dr. Mendoza, have you worked with Mr. Compton?” he finished.

  “I have probably prescribed his medication. What is it?”

  “Sorry. Uh, Risperdal, two milligrams p-o, b-i-d.”

  “P-o, b-i-d?” Gates asked.

  “Taken by mouth, twice daily.”

  “And the level of dosage?” Gates asked.

  “Moderate,” the doctor answered.

  “Did I prescribe?” the doctor asked the manager.

  The manager checked the record. “Yes, looks like you’ve seen him once in the last six months.”

  “I don’t remember him. What does he look like?”

/>   Peggy described Robert, ending with, “He’s usually avoidant, wary, suspicious.”

  “I don’t remember him. I see so many like that.”

  “I know,” Peggy said. “Well, am I the only one who’s worked with him regularly?” she asked.

  No one spoke.

  “He’s been staying at the Sadler House since he came here from Chico about six months ago,” Peggy said. “His Chico psych halfway house contacted us prior to the move, to arrange this placement. Robert started hearing voices as a young crankster in high school. He’s one of the ones who was just loosely enough put together in the first place that, when he got crazy behind the crank, he never fully came out of it and remains paranoid, hearing voices to this day. He doesn’t have the social tools to get much support from other people. He’s a loner.” Duheen had closed her eyes, remembering.

  “Last week during our meeting, he seemed better than I’ve seen him before,” she continued. “Who knows? If he stayed away from street drugs and took his medication as prescribed, he could pull out of it at some point and have a better life. I don’t see him being violent unless he was cornered by someone he feared, or unless his full-blown paranoia returned, like if he stopped his meds or was using again.”

  “I agree,” Dr. Mendoza added. “Sober, no more likely to be violent than the average person. More irritable, possibly. More dangerous? Probably not.”

  Gates broke in, concerned about the young man as a suspect. “Could he be using, not regularly, but once in a while? Or back to drinking like he did earlier and getting into blackouts where he’s capable of who knows what?”

  Dr. Mendoza thought this over. “Has he been deteriorating, staying at baseline, or improving over the last two months?” she asked Peggy.

  “Actually, I’d say he’s been stabilizing, getting some cognitive gains, and able to keep his job.”

  “Then it’s a high probability that he’s not chipping,” Dr. Mendoza said. “If he were occasionally using crank, for example, once a week, say, his medication would be failing to hold him because of the huge neurotransmitter disruption that methamphetamine creates. We would be seeing deterioration.

  “As for blackouts, any of us has the capability to do anything if we’re that drunk. In a blackout, there will be no memory of an event or behavior. A person’s executive functions become anesthetized. You probably know better than I that our prison system is filled with people who have committed heinous crimes in a blackout.”

  Gates realized that might explain why so many convicts adamantly claimed their innocence; they didn’t remember doing the deed! Gates broke in before Mendoza could continue. “Executive functions?” he asked.

  “When you take a drink, alcohol gets in your bloodstream, and begins to saturate your brain from the top, the cortex, down,” she explained. “The first things to numb out are the executive functions: your ability to control your impulses and to consider the consequences of your behavior. You get bolder, less inhibited, more opinionated, more self-absorbed, less aware of your effect on others. Continue drinking and the numbing reaches lower in the brain. Gradually, centers like speech and balance become impaired. You slur, have trouble walking. You can drink so much you pass out and the anesthetization may reach the life-sustaining centers. Your breathing stops, or you vomit but don’t wake to clear your airway and you drown in it. I’m sure you’ve come across deaths due to acute alcohol poisoning in your work.”

  As Mendoza talked, Gates was flooded with memories of deaths he had encountered. And then he thought about his son. He forced himself to refocus on what she was saying.

  “It’s unlikely that Compton’s neurological balance could sustain even one big party without it being noticeable to Peggy in their sessions.”

  “Okay,” Gates said. “So, what’s the best way for me to approach him?”

  Mendoza responded first. “Low-key. No pressure. Nonthreatening. Laid-back body posture. No quick gestures or movements. Give him plenty of physical space; don’t crowd him. Introduce yourself and your purpose. Show him respect.”

  “He says exercise makes him feel better. Walking,” Peggy said. “He smokes. He probably likes cars, even though he doesn’t drive that I know of. Likes sweets. Any of those things might be an entry.”

  “Could you come with me to interview him?” Gates asked Peggy.

  Mendoza quashed that instantly. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  The room was quiet then.

  After a few seconds, the manager spoke. “Anybody got anything else?” he asked.

  No one said anything.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks for coming, Deputy,” and that was that.

  DONUTS

  The day manager at the Sadler had a thin black goatee that he probably thought made him look distinguished, but Gates thought it made him seem shrewd, possibly untrustworthy.

  “Why do you want to see Robert?” he asked, eyes fixed on Gates’s service revolver.

  “He’s not in trouble, if that’s what you mean. Is he here now?”

  “Well, I can’t say. He came in a while ago, but he could have left through the laundry, or even gone out the front without me seeing him.”

  Gates suppressed some irritation. “Would you phone his room?”

  “The rooms don’t have phones.”

  Gates thought he would probably get more assistance from a paper clip. “What is his room number?”

  “Three-ten. Second or third door on your left after two sets of stairs.”

  Gates left without thanking the man.

  Robert was very cautious about opening the door. He kept the chain on and leaned just far enough around the side to make sure it was Gates. Gates invited him to walk the three or four blocks to Winchell’s for some donuts. Robert seemed wary, but tempted by the donuts.

  When they got there, Robert seemed surprised to see a fellow in a stocking cap sitting at one of the metal sidewalk tables talking with a girl and a guy wearing big backpacks. The young man hailed him immediately.

  “Robert! It’s me, Bruce. Hey! Long time no see! Come here and meet Jeannie and … what’s your name? Tom? Tom!”

  Robert waved him off.

  Bruce persisted. “Robert! Come meet Jeannie!”

  Gates was holding the glass entry door. Robert had stopped, unsure. Gates whispered, “Tell him you’ll come meet her in a minute.” Robert seemed grateful.

  “I’ll come meet her in a minute,” he said, and quickly entered the donut shop.

  “Man, I missed lunch. I’m really hungry,” Gates told Robert as they approached the counter. “I think I’ll get a dozen. We can sit over here by the window and have some and then take the rest home. What do you want, some coffee or some milk?” Robert was barely listening, lost among the donuts. Gates told the counterwoman to give them two coffees, two milks, and a dozen donuts.

  “I want an old-fashioned chocolate and two old-fashioned glazed and an apple fritter. You pick the rest and I’ll pay.”

  Robert was absorbed. He started right up where Gates left off. “Two of those strawberry ones … and what are those?”

  “French crullers,” the woman said.

  “And two of those. And two cinnamon rolls…” He looked at Gates. “Is that all right?”

  “Sure. Whatever you’d like.”

  “And two of those lumpy ones with the white frosting. And two of those ones he got first. And … and that’s all,” he said, winding down.

  “Okay,” Gates told the woman. “Could you bring all that over to the table by the window?”

  Gates told Robert to go out and say hello to his friends and then to come inside, and their food would probably be ready by that time. Robert went out, stiff and uncomfortable. The guy who had called to him seemed energetic and friendly, and Gates thought Robert had loosened up a little by the time he came back. Donuts covered most of the table space. Robert looked from one to the other, giving each donut its due.

  “They look good, don’t they?” Gat
es said.

  Robert nodded without taking his eyes off the donuts.

  “Which one you going to start with?” Gates asked him. “You pick first.”

  Robert picked up a strawberry donut with pink icing.

  “Good choice,” Gates said. “I’m going to have one of these old-fashioneds.”

  After Robert had chosen a cruller for his second, Gates gave him time to chew, and then said, “So, tell me anything you feel like about our discussion a while ago. Have you remembered anything? A girl in a white-and-blue cheerleader outfit getting into a car about a month ago?”

  Robert was reaching for a chocolate donut. He had been fairly relaxed, but when Gates said the word “remember,” he drew back his arm and sat up straight.

  “I can’t remember things,” he said, looking down and off to the side of the table.

  Gates made himself relax and smile. “That’s okay,” he said. “We’ll just sit here and eat, and I’ll tell you what her cheerleading outfit looked like and you can just tell me anything you think of. Don’t worry. Anything you say will be of help to me and will help her, because I wasn’t there. I don’t know anything about what happened, so I am going to appreciate everything you say. Whatever you say will help that girl.” Gates made himself sit back and pick up one of the donuts.

  “She was sixteen years old and she had”—past tense!—“she has brown hair down to her shoulders and her name is Nikki, and that day she was wearing—”

  “A white outfit,” Robert finished for him.

  Gates felt a surge. “Yes, a white outfit. Did you see it?”

  “No. You told me.”

  Gates smoothed himself out again.

  “Yes, you’re right. A white outfit with a blue letter on the front. And her skirt was pretty short and it was the same color, white, and it was lined in shiny blue material that sometimes showed when she walked.”

  “I didn’t see her walk.”

  Gates stayed within himself. “You didn’t?”

  “No.” Robert was spaced out, eating another donut. “She was in a car.”

  “In a car.”