The Right Wrong Thing

by Ellen Kirschman

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chief Reagon’s office is lined with boxes, stacked three high, blocking most of the outside light from the one window behind her desk. The bookshelves are empty, and I can see nail holes where Jay Pence had hung plaques and photos during his tenure as acting chief. There is a large white gift box on her desk with a bright curly bow on top. It’s the only color in the room. The chief is wearing the same dark blue suit she’s worn three times this week. I wonder if she even notices. She stands to greet me.

  “Good morning, Dr. Meyerhoff. I just came from visiting Officer Rutgers at the hospital; he’s being released this afternoon. They kept him an extra day because of a minor infection. I understand you already talked to him. Is there anything I need to know?”

  “I’ll be debriefing Officer Rutgers and Officer Spelling later this week after they’ve rested, and he’s had a chance to recover from his injuries.”

  “And Officer Spelling? How is she?”

  “I talked with her briefly at the hospital.” I stop here. What any officer says to me is confidential, even if the officers don’t believe it.

  “I see. And you have nothing to add?”

  I start to say something and she interrupts. “Sorry, I know you can’t tell me what she said. But I can tell you something if you don’t know this already. Officer Rutgers is very upset. He believes Officer Spelling panicked at the scene, placing him in jeopardy. I won’t, of course, know the specifics until all the reports are in. I’ve asked Jay Pence to conduct an investigation of the incident, nothing to the level of Internal Affairs, unless his investigation suggests it’s warranted. I’m not jumping to conclusions until I see his report.”

  “Tough way to start your first week.”

  “As expected. Please, sit down.” It is both a courtesy and a kindness. Standing up she is nearly a foot taller than I am.

  “I understand you’ve been to all the briefings and met with every employee.” No small task, some briefings start at six a.m. “How did it go?”

  “As I expected it would.”

  Rumor has it she was stonewalled by the cops: long silences, no questions, no comments and then as she turned her back to the group to write something on a flip chart, there were small pantomimes about the size of her butt.

  “I’m not a popular appointment. I think most employees favored the in-house candidate. I have a reputation as a—excuse the expression—ball-breaker.” She enunciates the term like an elocution teacher. “Or should I say a hatchet man, or more properly, a hatchet woman?”

  She says this without smiling. Her large, ringless hands rest on the edge of the desk. “I have been brought here to shake things up, I think that’s obvious. This department is behind the times and its reputation still suffers from the actions of the previous chief. I firmly believe it takes an outsider with a fresh perspective to bring about change. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be fair or judicious about it. I know I will have to earn people’s trust.”

  She asks me to explain the scope of my job. I do and she comments that creating my position might be the most proactive thing former Chief Baxter had done while in office. There is no animus in her voice, no sense of dishing the dirt—woman to woman—just a plain statement of fact.

  “I have a great deal of respect for psychology. Too many officers’ lives have been ruined because they refused to get psychological help when they needed it or because none was available.” She pauses briefly as she whisks at something on her jacket, gathering her thoughts or brushing them away. “I might need some guidance from you regarding Jay Pence. He’s a good man, earnest and hardworking. Being passed over for the chief’s job has to be difficult. He needs to know that I bear him no rancor and I want us to work together as a team. Do you think he can do that or is he inclined to harbor bitter feelings?”

  “I’ve been here just over a year myself and I don’t really know him that well.” I doubt anyone knows Jay Pence. He’s always prepared, always pleasant, a bit too composed for my tastes. No spontaneity, no discomfort, nothing joyful or tense rubbing at him. Only the way he draws his lips together suggests a hint of moral superiority. He’s the consummate politician—I saw this at the hospital—how easily he played to his constituents, laughing and joking like he was one of the boys.

  “Well, at any rate, I hope I might call on you for some advice.”

  “Of course, I’m available to everyone in this organization from line staff all the way to the top.” She smiles and nods her head once. “Someone gave you a present.” I gesture toward the gift box, glad to have something to say.

  “Indeed they did.” She pushes the box towards me. “It was on my desk when I came in this morning. There is a card in it, unsigned. It says ‘Police Chief’s survival kit.’” She takes the top off and empties the contents one by one, placing them carefully on her desk as though they were valued objects: tampons, deodorant, douche powder, breath mints, and lipstick. I’m stunned. It’s a puerile prank, more typical of junior high school boys than men who carry loaded guns. The chief sees the look on my face.

  “I’m used to these kinds of practical jokes. They’ll stop eventually. You must have experienced a few yourself.”

  “Nothing like this.” I wonder how much she knows about my early-on struggles with Officer Eddie Rimbauer or what happened between me and Chief Baxter. It doesn’t matter because it’s not even relevant. None of that had anything to do with my being a woman, it had more to do with my persistent efforts to find out why Ben Gomez killed himself and who was at fault.

  “Cops are not a monolithic block. In my experience, there’s great peer pressure to join the resistance to an outside chief, especially someone with my reputation, but ultimately people sort themselves out. What concerns me is this: If I’m being harassed, I can only imagine what’s happening to Officer Spelling. I’ve been where she’s at, the only female. I would have rather cut off my hand than complain about the way I was being treated or ask for help. There was nobody like you around when I was a rookie. I’m going to talk to her myself today. If she’s in some kind of trouble over last night’s incident, she’ll need a lot of support. I’m going to insist that she continue to see you after her debriefing.” She pauses, picks up the tube of lipstick, pulls off the top, looks at the color—a garish pink—closes it and puts it down. “Is there anything in the general orders that authorizes me to mandate that she get therapy?”

  “Don’t do that,” I say. “Please.”

  There is a slight lift to Chief Reagon’s shoulders and one, tiny, breathy inhalation. I doubt many people tell her what to do or not do.

  “Mandated therapy never works. She’ll be angry at being ordered to do something she doesn’t choose for herself. Therapy only works when the client wants help and trusts the therapist.” Once again the memory of Ben Gomez swoops in on me reminding me how great my limitations and how small my talents are as a psychologist.

  “Do whatever you think is right. The bottom line is, until I make a decision about this incident, I want you to keep an eye on Randy Spelling. There’s no way she’s not feeling some heat. After-action investigations take time, and if it turns into an Internal Affairs investigation, those can take forever.”

  * * *

  There is a running controversy over post-incident debriefings in the world of psychology. Do they harm? Do they help? Do they do nothing at all to prevent PTSD? It’s complicated and hard to study. There is little uniformity among debriefers or debriefing incidents and relatively little consistency of specific factors among the people being debriefed. Still, psychological debriefings have become so common that if you fell down in any major city in the United States, every other person who stepped on you would be trained to debrief you. All that aside, I am eager to check on Tom Rutgers and especially eager to speak with Randy Spelling. Neither of them are especially eager to speak with me.

  I arrange to meet Tom Rutgers at his house. He’s still on antibiotics and feeling queasy. He asked to postpone
our meeting and only agreed to meet today when I said I would come to him. He lives in a suburb thirty minutes south of Kenilworth. It is a place where farmers once grew oranges, walnuts, and apples. Now leafy enclaves of high-tech businesses sprawl across college-like campuses surrounded by clusters of condominium developments built to look like small villages. Mounded shrubs edge sloping swaths of grass. Fountains arc in small ponds next to meandering walkways. I drive through an intersection, all four corners filled with shopping centers probably selling fruit flown in from New Zealand. Many of the smaller shops have window signs in English and Chinese or Vietnamese.

  Tom’s townhouse is at the end of a row of fifteen identical residences. It is quiet, the only sound is a lawnmower whining somewhere in the distance. I see no children, no playgrounds, no sandboxes, nothing to indicate that this is anything more than a bedroom community in disguise, a place for people to warm takeout food in their microwaves and sleep before going back to work. Not too different from where I live. And how I live.

  MaryAnne Forester, Tom’s girlfriend or fiancée—I haven’t figured that out and perhaps neither have they—opens the front door dressed in a tank top, shorts, and flip flops. Her hair is pulled up in a gigantic plastic clip. She looks as though she hasn’t slept for a week. Tom is sitting in a recliner. Tank tops, shorts, and flip flops seem to be both their preferred styles. He has a large bandage on his neck and his finger is in a metal splint. There’s a glass of water and a bottle of pills on the table next to his chair. The rest of the furniture in the room is standard Rooms-R-Us fare: a functional, black Naugahyde sectional, a wood-and-glass coffee table, an entertainment center holding electronic things and the largest flat screen TV I’ve ever seen outside of a bar. No sign that MaryAnne has had any say or influence on the decor.

  I take a place on the couch. MaryAnne sits on the other sectional at right angles to me. Tom is facing us. We sit in a mute triangle.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Pretty good. A little nauseous from these.” He picks up the bottle and rattles the pills. “I should be back to work in a week or two. Maybe do a little light duty until my finger heals. It’s my shooting hand.” He holds it up for my inspection.

  “Sleeping all right?”

  “Sure.”

  MaryAnne shifts in her seat. “Tom, that’s not true.” He gives her a searing look.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You have to tell her. She’s here to help you.” MaryAnne turns toward me, her eyes bright with tears. “He has nightmares. Rolls around, yells. I touched him to wake him up and he almost hit me. He didn’t know who I was. It was scary. I don’t know what to do.”

  “How about shutting the—” He pauses, looks at me, and says to MaryAnne, “Get me some water. I’ll talk to the doc myself.” She stands up, takes a step toward the back of the house, and turns. Her cheeks are wet and shiny.

  She looks at me, avoiding Tom’s eyes. “He’s afraid to go back to work. He doesn’t want to work with Randy Spelling. He’s afraid she’ll get him killed the next time something bad happens.” And before Tom has a chance to react, she stomps out of the room, as much as anyone can stomp in flip flops. She’s back in a minute with a bottle of water that she sets down on the table. “See you later.” She nods in my direction and goes off somewhere. I hear a door slam. Tom takes a long swig from the bottle.

  “She’s upset. Always nervous. Scared I’m gonna get hurt.”

  “You did get hurt.”

  “Part of the job. And I’m not hurt bad. Tell you the truth, things aren’t too good around here, even before this. She hates my hours, doesn’t like my friends. I don’t know where this is going.”

  “She’s worried about you and she doesn’t know how to help. There’s no shame having nightmares. It’s almost universal after an incident like yours.”

  “It was no big deal.”

  “Really? You mean that being outnumbered, thinking you might lose your gun, and getting hit in the neck by a crazed man with a sword is no big deal? I find that hard to believe, Tom.”

  He pulls the lever on his recliner and leans forward. The foot rest retracts with a groan.

  “You want to know the big deal? I’ll tell you. Randy Spelling. She froze. She panicked.”

  “She called for help.”

  “Big effing deal. She’s supposed to call for help. And she’s supposed to get in the fight.”

  “I thought she did.”

  “She couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag. She got thrown off the pile, and I never saw her again. If it wasn’t for the other guys getting there so fast, I coulda been killed.”

  “Under the circumstances—you were in the dark, fighting for your life—how do you know who was where?”

  He pulls back and looks at me. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Captain Pence is doing an after-action report. Things will be clearer when he finishes interviewing everyone.”

  Tom leans forward again, pointing his splinted finger at me. “He hired her, she’s his pet, he’s not going to throw her under the bus. You watch.”

  “You don’t trust him to write an unbiased report?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what he writes. Even if I have to go back to day shift, I’m not working with Randy Spelling again.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Randy is sitting on the edge of the couch in my waiting room facing the stairs. She’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, running shoes, and a small black fanny pack swiveled to the front where she keeps her gun. There’s no need for a weapon in my office, but after what’s she’s been through, I doubt she feels safe enough to go anywhere without it. Her face is scrubbed to a shine. The only jewelry she wears is a large sports watch on her left wrist. She hears me before she sees me and is on her feet, her hand on the fanny pack, preparing for the unexpected.

  “I see your startle response is working.” She looks at me, her face taut. Her lips are chapped and red. “That was a joke,” I say. She doesn’t respond. I open the door to my office and motion her in. She looks around as though she’s never been here before.

  “Where do I sit?”

  “On the couch, where you sat before, when I did your pre-employment psych.” She sits down on the edge, ready to spring up again.

  “Coffee, water, tea?”

  “No, thanks.” She reaches behind and pulls a phone from her back pocket and clicks it off.

  “Do you need to answer your phone? It’s okay, we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “How long?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?” This is definitely not the relaxed young woman I interviewed before.

  I lean forward in my chair. “Here’s the deal. Since I’ve been working here, the department has instituted a policy. When an officer has been involved in a serious incident, that means an incident where there’s been violence and extreme danger, I automatically meet with that officer and his or her family.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, we know that incidents, like the one you were just involved in, can affect you psychologically and emotionally. In the old days, cops would simply stuff their feelings or drown them at choir practice. Now we know it helps to talk about the incident so things don’t pile up. This is not a brain drain. I’m going to talk too, tell you how people react to critical incidents so you don’t think you’re the only one or that you’re going crazy.”

  Her left leg is jiggling and her hands are balled so tightly that her knuckles are bloodless. “So this is like a fit for duty?”

  “Absolutely not. What we talk about is confidential. I won’t take notes. I’m not going to make a report. This is for your benefit. The only thing the chief needs to know is that you showed up.”

  “What if I am crazy?”

  “I doubt that’s the case. The limits to confidentiality are the same ones you have as a police
officer. I have to break confidentiality only if you tell me that you’re going to kill yourself or someone else, that you’re abusing a child or an elderly person, or that you can’t take care of yourself. So, are you planning on doing any of those things?”

  “No.” A smile flickers and dies at the corners of her mouth. “What else do you want to know?”

  “How are you sleeping?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “You gotta sleep to have nightmares.”

  “So you’re not sleeping at all because the incident is doing hot laps in your brain. You see it over and over and can’t stop it.” She looks at me, her eyebrows lifting slightly. For the first time since she’s been here I feel like I’ve made a connection.

  “That’s me.”

  “Happens to almost everybody. Partly your brain is trying to figure things out, partly you’ve overdosed on your own adrenaline. As the adrenaline and some other body chemicals decrease, probably in a few more days, you can expect that hot-laps thing to slow down too.”

  “Is Tom Rutgers doing hot laps?”

  “Randy, I can’t tell you what he said. Any more than I can tell him what you said.”

  “So you saw him?”

  “I told you, it is policy to see officers who are involved in critical incidents.” I take a breath. It’s getting dark outside. In a minute I’m going to have to get up and turn on the overhead light. “Let’s get back to you. You said the incident keeps spinning in your head and you’re going over it again and again. We can slow that down by reviewing it, frame by frame.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “It makes sense to avoid what’s causing you discomfort. But here’s the problem. Those same chemicals that have you so jacked up create a variety of perceptual distortions: time slows down or speeds up, you get tunnel vision, your hearing changes, your vision changes. Happens to almost everyone who’s involved in a fight for survival. Which is why your recollection of the incident is probably not accurate.”