The Arx Read online

  “Are you sure?”

  He looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “Would you actually know? If no one else was around?”

  He tensed again. “Yeah, sure…sure I’d know.”

  “Gloria mentioned a horrific experience you had on the job. Is that what the nightmares are about?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyes moved to his hands. He noticed, set the paper clip sculpture down and laced his fingers on the desk in front of him.

  She leaned back in her chair. Her hair fell away, exposing the curve of her bare neck and shoulders. “It was one of your cases…”

  His muscles tightened. “I’ve been through all that already.”

  “You can take it slow,” she said in a soothing tone. “Start from the beginning. How did you first get involved? It was what – about a year ago?”

  Frank nodded.

  He picked up the paper clip again and twisted one prong into a ninety-degree angle. “We were after a serial killer.”

  He was silent for several seconds, focused on his sculpture.

  “Go on,” she said. “You were after a serial killer. It was a difficult case?”

  Frank blew out a puff of air. “Difficult – yeah, that would be one word to describe it. The guy was making us look like bozos. We were under a lot of pressure.”

  “We?” she said.

  Frank stiffened and his work on the clip stopped. He hesitated. “You know,” he said, looking up, “the team.”

  She studied him with those penetrating gray eyes. “But it wasn’t just you,” she said. “You had a partner?”

  His body began to tremble and beads of sweat rose on his forehead. The blood hammered through his veins and roared across his eardrums like a freight train. The light faded and the room closed in around him. He shut his eyes. A monstrous shape loomed above him in the darkness. The stench of rotting garbage permeated the air, and shadows swam beneath his feet. The lurid purplish light splashed over the pavement. It was coming… he began to shake violently.

  “Frank!” he heard a voice far in the distance.

  The floor heaved up like he was in the midst of an earthquake. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out.

  “Frank!” the voice was much closer now.

  He opened his eyes. Rebecca was leaning over him, her hand on his shoulder.

  "Frank!" she shouted. "You're bleeding!"

  He shook his head to clear away the darkness and stared down at his hands. His fists were clenched and trembling. A trickle of blood ran down the edge of his right palm. He felt pain in his right fist. He opened it. It was covered in blood – the sharp point of the paper clip had been driven deep into his flesh.

  "Here," Rebecca said, snapping a tissue from the box on her desk and handing it to him.

  He extracted the end of the metal clip from his palm and pressed on the wound with the tissue.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  She left the room and came back with a bottle of antiseptic. She swabbed the wound and applied a Band-Aid, then walked back around the desk and sat down.

  "Where were you?" she said.

  "What?" He opened and closed his injured hand.

  "Just now. Where were you? What were you thinking?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I think you were in what’s called a 'dissociative state'. You were re-living something that happened to you."

  "What are you talking about? I was just sitting here."

  "Then what happened to your hand?"

  "I'm just nervous or something, I guess."

  Rebecca leaned forward on her desk and looked directly into his eyes.

  “Frank,” she said, “Based on the amount of time we’ve spent I can’t draw specific conclusions, but I’ve seen cases like yours before. You need to come to terms with what happened to you. As long as you keep your problems bottled up you’ll never be rid of them. They’ll manifest themselves as mental and even physical health issues. It’s been more than a year since the incident – and you’re still having nightmares about it? It seems to me that you need to talk to somebody about what happened.”

  His fists clenched again in front of him as he stared at the desktop, “I can’t do that.” The pressure was building inside him.

  “Let’s come at this from a different angle,” she said. “Just tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

  It was too much. “I’ve had it with this crap,” he said, his voice rising. “Talk about your feelings – tell me about your childhood – why did you hate your mother – how did you feel about your dog – it’s a waste of time.”

  “Frank, we don’t…” she started to speak.

  “This was a mistake,” he interrupted, rising from his chair. He pushed it back. It tipped over and landed on the floor. He bent down and righted it, then started toward the door.

  “Frank,” Rebecca called after him. “Wait – I could refer you to someone. I know some excellent therapists…”

  “I gotta be going,” he said.

  Rebecca rose and followed him.

  “Frank,” she said as he reached for the door handle, “this will never be over until you deal with it.”

  He opened the door and strode out of the office. The receptionist glanced at him from one of the other doorways. Rebecca followed him back through the waiting room toward the main door.

  “Come on, Frank,” she said. “Don’t give up so easily. I thought you cops were supposed to be fighters.”

  Frank turned on her. “I’m not a cop anymore, remember? And maybe I’m not a fighter anymore.”

  He rushed through the door and down the hallway.

  “Take some time and think about it,” she called after him. “You have my card. Call me if you change your mind.”

  He waved his hand without turning, then passed through the front doors and out onto the street.

  A Tragic Event

  Two days later, in the depths of a dream, Frank was startled awake by the ring of his cell phone. He found himself sitting in a chair with his head lying on the kitchen table. The ring repeated, followed by the rattle of the phone on the Formica table top.

  “Shit,” he said, fishing through the debris. He flipped open the vibrating phone.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Did you follow up on the stuff you were going to do for Gloria?” It was Janet. Her voice was distant and impersonal.

  “Oh yeah – I’ll do it today,” he said, running a hand through his unwashed hair.

  “Save yourself the trouble,” she said curtly. “Gloria’s dead. She hanged herself last night.”

  A jolt raced up Frank’s spine like an arc of electricity on a high voltage line. It tore into his brain, which suddenly seemed to go blank.

  “W…What?” was all he could think to say.

  “Don’t sweat it, Frank,” said Janet, in a tone he’d never heard from her before. “Don’t put yourself out worrying about somebody else’s problems. She’s dead now. You’re off the hook.”

  “I’m s…sorry,” he said, now feeling like a fool as well as an asshole.

  There was silence at the other end of the line. He fought desperately for something to say.

  “How did it happen?” he finally blurted out.

  “Her sister called early last night and told me Gloria had been arrested. I offered to go down and see her, but she said they weren’t allowing any visitors. They found Gloria’s car. It was torched, and they found Ralphie’s body inside.”

  “Oh, God…”

  “She said Gloria was out of her mind with grief. I thought they were supposed to put a suicide watch on people like that.”

  “They should have… sounds like they really screwed up.”

  “I tried to call you, but you weren’t answering. I guess you were off somewhere crying in your beer. I’m disappointed in you, Frank,” she said, breaking down. “Maybe there’s nothing you could have done, but at least yo
u could have tried. I wouldn’t wish what happened to you on my worst enemy, but…”

  Frank said nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” Janet finally said. “I know it’s not your fault. I’m just upset, that’s all. It’s not your fault, Frank. I shouldn’t have accused you.” She was sobbing. “I’m sorry – I have to hang up now.”

  The line went dead.

  Frank set the cell phone down on the kitchen table and sat trembling, staring at the wall.

  For several days Frank spiraled downward, circling like a leaf caught in a storm drain, toward a black abyss the depths of which he hadn’t experienced even in the darkest nights of the past year.

  He was burning through what was left of his stores of alcohol, but it no longer provided the anesthetic power he’d valued so much before. Even his nemesis, his recurring nightmare, was now spiked with images of Gloria: taking the final desperate step to break the cycle of anguish and despair, the light fading from her eyes the way it did after she looked away from Ralphie’s picture.

  He was uniquely qualified to understand Gloria’s pain, but, given the chance to help her, he’d turned his back and retreated into his usual pattern of depression and self-loathing.

  His rational mind knew he couldn’t have saved her. The point was that he hadn’t even tried. He was impotent, useless. His emotional mind stood in judgment and found him guilty, a pathetic loser pursuing oblivion in a bottle while an innocent woman was driven to suicide.

  For a while he considered following her, letting go and erasing his own pain forever. But that wasn’t an outlet he was built to pursue. He was baptized and raised Catholic, but that wasn’t it. The fact was that some people were capable of making that leap and some were not. Maybe that was his curse, condemned to sink ever lower into despair while being denied the option of ending it.

  Then a dream he hadn’t had for years crowded into his psyche. Seventeen years old, called to the principal’s office at school and told to go home. His mother sobbing on the living room couch. A stoic cop, the bearer of bad news, staring at the floor.

  Frank’s father, a beat cop, had been blown away when he stopped to check a stolen car.

  He remembered the question that had haunted him from that day forward. How could the world tolerate such a senseless crime…?

  Frank opened his eyes. Once again he was at the kitchen table, his forehead resting on the Formica tabletop. He sat up and shook himself awake, trembling, with his fists clenched. Gloria was dead; there was nothing more he could do to help her. But he could use his knowledge and experience to find out the truth about the tragedy.

  If he no longer had the option of saving her life, at least maybe he could redeem her memory.

  Just before noon several days later, having staked out the building long enough to learn her routine, Frank stood waiting for Rebecca Hanon to emerge from the main doors and head out for lunch. She appeared on schedule, her long legs moving sensually under a pale yellow dress. Unexpectedly he felt his heart race. She was alone. She glanced around, but didn’t notice him. She headed south toward the restaurant district.

  “Rebecca,” he called. She turned, startled.

  “Oh,” she said, recognizing him. “Frank, – hi.”

  It was hard to look her in the eye, remembering how he’d failed her sister. He stared down at the pavement under her feet.

  “Can I do something for you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry about Gloria,” he said. “I feel like shit about it. I should have done more to help.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done. If anyone’s to blame it’s the police, for not putting a watch on her. What did they think would happen after the most precious thing in her life was taken away…?” Her voice began to break.

  “Sorry.” He looked up. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Thank you for your concern.” She fished a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m glad you came back. I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot in our first meeting. I hope you understand that my only interest is in helping you. Why don’t you go on in and make an appointment with Judy. I can recommend somebody…”

  “I’m not here about that.”

  “Then what…?”

  “Would it be okay if I walk with you for a minute?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking to you like this, Frank. Make an appointment.”

  “Look, I know I’ve got a few problems, but I’m not crazy. I want to try to get to the bottom of what happened to Gloria. I feel like I owe her that much.”

  She glanced over his shoulder. He turned to look. A beat cop was crossing the street headed toward them.

  “Everything okay, Ms. Hanon?” the cop asked on arrival.

  Frank understood the situation. “I’m harmless,” he said to Rebecca, with what he hoped was an innocent-looking smile. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”

  The cop raised an eyebrow and looked at her. She hesitated.

  “Everything’s fine,” she finally said. “Thanks.”

  The cop nodded and walked away.

  She started walking and Frank joined her.

  “Have the press finally quit hanging around?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t take long for them to latch onto something new,” she answered. “Especially once the story’s been nicely wrapped up in a bow.”

  “They tell me Stocker’s planning to close the case.”

  Her face hardened. “I’ve been trying to decide how to fight that decision.”

  They walked in silence for half a block.

  Finally Rebecca spoke. “Look, Frank. I hope you won’t take offense. I appreciate you wanting to help Gloria, but you have your own issues. They should be your priority right now.”

  “Hey, investigating crime is what I did for a living for fifteen years. It’s what I am. Who knows?” he smiled. “It might even be good therapy for me.”

  Rebecca studied the pavement as she walked. Finally she stopped and faced him. “I don’t believe for a second that Gloria had anything to do with Ralphie’s death. He was her reason for living. She would never have done anything to harm him.” She turned back and continued walking.

  “I guess once a cop, always a cop,” Frank said. “When I was on the job they always said I had a nose for the truth. When I interviewed Gloria my nose told me she was innocent.”

  They turned onto Mainland Street. The west side of the block featured a raised brick sidewalk that was crowded with cafes. The boulevard bustled with the lunchtime crowd.

  They reached a sidewalk café called the Downtown Bistro.

  “Why don’t you join me?” Rebecca said.

  The sun was shining. They sat down at an empty table. Frank fished a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, saw Rebecca’s expression, and put it back. A waiter brought them both coffee and took Rebecca’s order.

  “You should eat,” Rebecca said. “I’ll even buy.”

  Frank shook his head.

  He took a sip of coffee. “One thing keeps bugging me,” he said. “Why Gloria? Why that kid in particular? Her apartment’s fifteen floors up. There’s security in the building. There must be hundreds of babies living in houses at street level or in ground floor basement suites with badly latched windows – places with a lot easier access. Why go after that particular baby?”

  “Maybe it was just a crime of opportunity. Someone in the building became fixated on Gloria and Ralphie. I saw that kind of thing when I was working in therapy. Anything can trigger it: a chance look, a way of dress, even a hairstyle.”

  “Maybe. Gloria told me the father died in a construction accident eight months ago.”

  “It was before Ralphie was even born. He wasn’t interested in the baby anyway. His only interests were drinking and gambling.”

  “Could some relative of the father be hanging around?”

  “Not as far as I know. I think whatever relatives he had are back east somewhere.” Rebecca sat back. “It mak
es no sense at all. And then to find the poor thing… that way. Poor Gloria.” Her voice broke again. “You’d think that would rule out any relative – if they wanted Ralphie they would have kidnapped him, not killed him.”

  “Speaking of Ralphie,” Frank said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but… did you find anything strange about him?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. He had an unusual way of staring at you.”

  “Like an animal.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Something’s missing,” Frank said. “Too bad we can’t get a copy of the Coroner’s report.”

  “My ex-roommate from university is pretty high up in the Coroner’s office. I might be able to convince her to give me a copy.”

  He leaned forward. “Could you do that? We don’t have much to go on, but it’s a start.”

  He grabbed a sugar packet out of a bowl on the table, shook it a few times, and put it back.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  He took a large swig of his coffee. He needed a smoke. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, getting up from his chair. “I’ll be in touch. Let me know if you hear anything.”

  A few days later, Frank was wakened by a loud noise. He found himself lying cross-ways on his bed, still in his clothes. At first he was confused and rolled over to swat his alarm. Then he realized it was something else: his phone was ringing. He staggered to his feet and reached for it.

  It was Rebecca.

  “My friend came through,” she said. “I’ve got a copy of the Coroner’s report, if you want to have a look.”

  They agreed to meet back at her office. Frank formally met Judy, Rebecca’s receptionist.

  “Wow, a real live detective.” She smiled, as Frank shook her hand and introduced himself.

  “Ex-detective,” he corrected her, smiling.

  Rebecca led Frank to her office and Judy brought them both coffee. When she was gone Rebecca closed the door and took a seat behind her desk. Frank sat facing her. She unlocked a drawer, pulled out a white plastic flash drive, and plugged the device into her computer. She swiveled the screen around for Frank to view.