Small Crimes (6 page)

He
sat down across from me and told me to tell him my story.

'Your
daughter followed me from my parents' house to Zeke's. She picked me up at the
bar, drove me down a dirt path off Cumberland Road in Eastfield, and tried to
frame me with a rape charge. She had two friends waiting there, one with a tire
iron. Maybe they were planning to beat me to death.'

He
sat expressionless for several minutes as he stared at me. As difficult as it
was, I stared back. I tried not to look at the road map of scars that had been
left on his face. Finally he asked about Clara following me from my parents'
house.

'You're
an intelligent man, Joe,' he said. 'If you knew my daughter had been stalking
you, why would you get in a car with her?'

'It
wasn't something I was consciously aware of at the time.' I hesitated. I had
just left my parents' house. I was upset. But at some level I remembered her
car. It wasn't until it was too late that things clicked.'

'And
you didn't recognize my daughter?'

'No.
I hadn't seen her for a long time, not since she was a kid. And she was wearing
dark granny-style sunglasses to hide her eyes.'

He
leaned back in his chair and continued with his staring contest. Neither of us
moved, neither of us said a word. After about five minutes of it he broke it
off and told me that the two boys were in the hospital.

"The
one you punched in the face suffered severe damage to his jaw. He won't be
talking for months. You shattered the other boy's arm in three places. The
surgeon had to use several rods to reattach the bone. He'll have to undergo
intensive rehabilitation and probably will never have full use of his arm
again. I know both of them and they're from good families. Are you proud of
yourself, Joe?'

'I
had no choice. What would you have done?'

'Not
what you did, Joe.'

'I
did what I had to.' I hesitated before asking him how his daughter was.

His
eyes showed some life for the first time. For a moment I thought he was going
to take a swing at me. 'She's in shock,' he said softly. 'Her shirt was torn
off and she's got a black eye and bruises all over her body. How'd her shirt
get torn off?'

'She
did that herself,' I said.

'And
her bruises? She did that herself?'

'I
was trying to get free of her after I realized what was happening. When I saw
her friends running to greet me, I tried a little harder. I didn't try to hurt
her, though.'

"That
was awful thoughtful of you, Joe. Those scratches on your face look more like
the defensive wounds a rape victim might cause. Just as my daughter's injuries
look consistent with a rape.'

'Phil,
you don't want to do this. Not to yourself and not to your daughter.'

'I'm
just going by the evidence, Joe.'

'No,
you're not. I have no interest in pressing charges against your daughter and
her friends. I came here to clear this up and make sure they leave me alone
from this point on.'

"That's
awful generous of you, Joe.'

'Look,'
I said, 'this won't make it past a grand jury. It would only end up
embarrassing you and making things difficult for your daughter. How in the
world can you explain her two friends being out in the middle of nowhere to
conveniently save her?'

'First
of all, I am past embarrassment. You made sure of that, Joe. As far as those
two boys being out on that dirt path, my guess is it was just a coincidence.
Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure Clara and her friends hang out there
occasionally. Those two boys were probably there to drink or hunt.'

'There
were no guns or alcohol in their jeep.'

'Maybe
they were going to meet friends. They'll tell us when they're able.'

I
just started laughing. The whole thing was just too laughable. 'Phil,' I said
when I could. 'How are you going to explain her stalking me and picking me up
at Zeke's?'

'You
don't even remember fully my daughter being outside your parents' house. As you
told me, it's only some subconscious impression of yours. And about Clara
picking you up...'

He
seemed momentarily lost. He opened and closed his mouth. Then he got up and
left the room.

As
I sat there I couldn't help feeling anxious. I wasn't worried about having
sexual assault and battery charges brought against me. As much as Phil would
love to send me to prison, I couldn't see him using a frame. He'd wait until he
had a real crime. Besides, this whole thing would collapse on him if he tried
bringing charges. I guess what I was anxious about was the level of hostility I
was seeing. I had every reason in the world to expect it from Phil and his
daughter, but from Frank Schilling and Tony Flauria? And from my own parents?
With them it was more passive, but it was there all the same. You have dirty
cops who get busted all the time and the world moves on. I wasn't the first and
I'm certainly not going to be the last. Hell, Dan Pleasant was dirtier than I
ever was and he had more blood on his hands. There've been a few people over
the years who've died in his custody. They were lowlifes and nobody ever cared
much about it, but in one way or another, I knew their deaths were convenient
to Dan. Still, people smile and wave back to him on the street and vote him
back into office every election.

It's
funny, it wouldn't be this way now if Phil had died that night. The memory of
what I did would've faded and the hard feelings would've worn away. The problem
is Phil is there to face them every day. Every day they have to be repulsed
once again by my crime. Because of me they have to feel awkward and
self-conscious around him and try to pretend he's not some sideshow freak.
There's just no forgiveness for that.

Phil
didn't return to the interrogation room until after two in the morning. He
looked more somber as he sat down across from me and could barely meet my eyes.

'Your
friend Dan Pleasant was here,' he said. 'He looked over my report and
remembered that one of his deputies had been assigned to check your parents'
house periodically to make sure there were no problems. No surprise that his
deputy claims to have seen Clara's Taurus parked near their house.' He
hesitated

for
a long moment. 'I talked to my daughter also,' he added, 'and she admitted to
me what she did. If you want to press charges against her and the two boys you
put in the hospital, let me know.'

'I
told you before, I have no interest in pressing charges. I just want to be left
alone. And I don't blame your daughter.'

He
met my eyes then. 'I don't blame her, either,' he said. "The only person I
blame for this is you, Joe. Why don't you get out of here.'

I
got up and left the room and didn't bother to look back.

Chapter 6

I
didn't get to bed until three in the morning and I had a restless night of it.
At times my mind would race with images from the past - things that I had
thought I had long forgotten; other times I was closer to hallucinations. I
wasn't quite awake, but I wasn't quite asleep either.

The
stuff that went through my mind - Jesus; they were memories that should have
stayed buried. At first it was only small stuff, small crimes, but still they
were things I didn't want dredged up.

When
my older daughter Melissa was three and a half - only a couple of months after
Courtney's first birthday - she had cut herself on a broken glass. It was
mostly a superficial cut, I think she needed a few stitches, but there was
blood everywhere. Elaine was hysterical, and at the time I was out of my mind
on coke and trying to place a bet with my bookie. You see, I had a chance to
take Miami plus two and a half over Buffalo in a playoff game. The Dolphins had
shut out San Diego the week before and how was I supposed to know Dan Marino
would shit the bed and lose that game by nineteen points? So now I'm back there
and Melissa's screeching like a banshee and Elaine's hysterical about us
needing to drive right away to the emergency room, and I can barely hear my
bookie over the phone. Remember, at this point

I'm
coked up to the gills. So I unholster my gun and point it at them, telling them
to let me make my fucking bet in peace. There wasn't a chance in the world I
would have used my gun. I just needed them to shut up so I could make one more
loser bet.

Other
memories raced through my mind. They were things that I'm pretty sure happened,
but I couldn't swear my life on it. I might have been mixing up different
events, merging them into a single memory. Or I might've been making it up
entirely. All I know is they seemed real.

One
night I had broken into a hardware store with Dan and his boys. They had a safe
that Dan thought he could break open, but he had trouble with it so we ended up
carrying the safe out of the store and loading it on the back of his pickup
truck. Now I'm riding with Dan and I guess we didn't secure the safe properly
and the damn thing ends up tumbling off the back of the pickup and onto the
road. It took five of us to pick it up in the first place, and now it's just
Dan and me. He radios his boys who were in on the heist and the two of us are
standing in the middle of the road next to the safe waiting for help to arrive.
Dan's as calm as can be, making small talk about this and that, and I'm going
out of my head with worry. I want us to drive away and leave the safe where it
fell, but Dan insists on waiting. His boys show up and help us get it back onto
the pickup, but I'm sweating bullets through the whole goddam thing, my heart
beating like it's going to bust out of my chest.

And
then there was another time a drifter stuck his nose into a liquor store that
we were breaking into. Dan and his boys ended up taking the guy into one of
their cars. I never found out what happened to that drifter. Dan had made a few
jokes about the hole the guy had dug himself into, but that was all I ever
heard.

Other
memories snaked in and out of my consciousness. I had a doozy of a
hallucination right before I woke up. I was back with Clara in her car. I had
just knocked her sunglasses off and realized what was up. She was grabbing onto
me like before, but
I
couldn't
break free of her. I elbowed her and punched her until her face was a raw mess,
but she wouldn't loosen her grip. I had no choice. I grabbed the car key from
the ignition and started stabbing her with it. Stabbing her over and over again
in the face.
I
must have stabbed her
over thirty times, but she still wouldn't let go. And I noticed a chunk of her
nose was missing, and how I could play tic-tac-toe on what was left of her
face, and how much she now looked like her father...

I
bolted up in bed and realized I was drenched in sweat. My bed sheets were
soaked through. It was six thirty in the morning.
I
felt a dull throbbing around my temples and got up and made
my way to the bathroom. I looked like hell; worse than if I was suffering from
a bad hangover. My eyes had a hollowed-out look and my skin was sickly pale.
The flesh along my cheekbone where
I
had
been scratched had swollen and was looking pretty bad. I took some aspirin and
then splashed cold water on my face until I felt better. Then I went back to my
room, got dressed, and shuffled towards the kitchen.

My
parents were both up. My mom was at the stove making eggs, and my dad was
sitting at the kitchen table reading his newspaper and drinking coffee. My mom
didn't bother to turn around. She greeted me with an unconvincing 'good
morning' as she worked on her scrambled eggs. I could see my dad's eyes grow
sick as he noticed the scratches along my cheek.

'You
got in late last night,' he said.

'Sorry
if I woke you.'

'I
heard your car pull in around two thirty.'

'I'm
sorry. Something happened last night. I couldn't help it.'

My
mom had turned around. Her raisin-like face seemed to shrink as she stared at
me.

'I
told you not to go into town but you wouldn't listen,' she complained, a
shrillness edging into her voice. 'What happened?'

I
poured myself some coffee and sat down at the table across from my dad. I'd
rather not go into this now,' I said. 'Could I have some breakfast?'