The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (14 page)

              She put on her deep- thought face.  “How often does this happen?”

              “Once or twice a week or so, I guess,” I said.  Suddenly it was difficult to find what to do with my hands.  Dr. Sharper made notes on her pad.

              “Well, we’ve clearly discovered that you have been suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder since September’s incident,” Sharper began.  She knew I didn’t like to mention Jake’s name in therapy and the only way to get me to talk was to refer to it as the incident.  Post- traumatic stress disorder, I remember Dr. Sharper telling me, is normal, especially after an experience like the incident.  She told me I might feel frightened, sad, anxious, and even disconnected from other people and things I used to find enjoyable, which I’ve experienced at various times.  She added that I should start to feel better over time, but I’m yet to see it.  I feel like I am a wounded soldier returning from an Afghan battle but I had never even visited the Intrepid.  

“Sometimes with PTSD patients will suffer these types of headaches called tension headaches.  They are brought on by various stressors and we’ve certainly been dealing with quite a bit of stress lately.”

We?
  Since when did this incident become
our
problem?

“I can prescribe something for you to take whenever you feel one of these tension headaches coming on,” she said.

I thought about that for a second.  The thought of having to take medication regularly as a result of Jake’s death might really send me over the edge.

              “Have you been able to reconnect with Jake yet?” she added.

              “How the hell am I supposed to do that?  I broke my Ouija board when I was six.”  I laughed but she didn’t. 

              “Have you been able to visit with him yet, spiritually or through fond memories that you two shared?”  Dr. Sharper uncrossed her legs, stretched them out and crossed them again at the ankles.  She rested her chin in her hand while she waited for my answer.

              The flashback started before I could answer.  The sweatshirt.  The sneakers.  The gun.  I closed my eyes to shake the visions out.  “Not yet.  I haven’t had to sleep downstairs in a few weeks, which I take as an improvement but I haven’t been able to cross the threshold.”

              Dr. Sharper smiled.  “Well, that’s definitely all right.  Have you had any thoughts about Jake aside from the shooting?”

              “What do you mean?”  She explained that some PTSD patients unconsciously avoid positive- or negative- thoughts about the victim of the trauma.  Sort of blocking out the times before the traumatic experience occurred.  I told her that I recently found myself thinking about Jake and I going to baseball games like we used to.  Sharper appeared to be pleased but showed little emotion. 

              “Do you like video games, Chase?”  No wonder I can’t keep my mind straight during therapy because Doc throws me all over the map. 

              “I did at one time, but I haven’t played any games in a few years.  Why?”

              “Well, there was a study done a few years back, according to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, that believes playing the puzzle game, Tetris, is a possible remedy for PTSD.”  I listened as intently as ever to Dr. Sharper as she explained the study to me.  I enjoyed puzzles and puzzle games.  I still do but I just haven’t any interest as of late.  The study was geared towards soldiers of war done by an Oxford research team.  The team experimented with sixty volunteers and had them watch a graphically violent movie and thirty minutes following the viewing of the movie they were divided into three groups.  One group played Tetris, another was given a trivia game to play, while the third group didn’t do a thing.  All of the volunteers were asked to keep a journal for a week, tracking any possible flashbacks the movie might have triggered.  The end result of the study showed that the group that played Tetris experienced the least amount of flashbacks.  I liked what I heard.  Any adult looks for any excuse possible, especially medically prescribed, to play video games is probably just fine in most books.

              My hopes were crushed when Dr. Sharper U- turned back to my headaches. 

              “It sounds like you might be experiencing stress- related tension headaches.  I’m going to give you a prescription.  It’s a medication called Fioricet, used to treat these types of headaches.  Take one whenever you experience one of those headaches.”

That’s great, I thought.  Now I’m even more of a pill- popping whack- job.  The timer went off, indicating that we were done for the day.

“There’s one more thing, Mr. Barnes,” Sharper said, back to calling me ‘Mr. Barnes.’  I stood, expecting to take my prescription and leave but her last comment startled me.  What else could there possibly be?  I watched and let her continue.  “Unfortunately, since you will no longer be an employee of the Paterson Police Department and you are newly self- employed, this has to be our last session together, I’m afraid.  At least our last session on the department’s dime.  I’d like to continue to see you on a regular basis.  I really feel like we are starting to make some progress here.  I’m pretty sure your insurance company would cover the cost.”  She said it as if she were reading it off a card.  The way I used to read the Miranda rights to knuckleheads we’d arrest. 

Yeah, real progress.  Do you really need some quack reminding you that Jake is gone?  That’s what you’ve got me for.

“Progress, huh?  You’ve really got some gig here, Doc.  Thanks for the drugs but this is where our road ends.”

              I put the prescription in my pocket, turned my back and left.

PART III- Recruits

THIRTY FIVE

Barry Klein was born and raised in Ringwood, New Jersey, a town dominated by nature.  It was a hiker’s wet dream.  Five thousand acres of trails and off- road biking located in the heart of the Ramapo Mountains.  Klein lived in the section of town near Cupsaw Lake. 

He came from a wealthy family and was given anything and everything he wanted since birth.  Klein’s father made his money in the stock market and retired before he was forty- five.  His mother didn’t need to work but took a part- time clerical job at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck just to maintain her sanity.  She led the PTA, was the leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop, and was just your run- of- the- mill swell kind of mother.  Klein along with his brother and sister each went to an Ivy League school.  Stephen Klein, Barry’s brother, graduated from Princeton with a law degree and Colleen, Barry’s sister, graduated from Harvard with a biology degree.  Barry chose Yale and was an English major, deciding to get into education. 

              As a kid, Barry loved sports, cartoons, and baseball cards but his true love interest was trains.  He collected classic Lionel trains and found Christmas to be his favorite holiday, not for the presents and Santa Claus, but for the train tracks under the tree.  He’d sit for hours and watch them go round and round.  Eventually, each car was given a special magical power as if they were superheroes.  Barry’s father was convinced his first words were ‘choo- choo,’ which eventually grew into a nickname.  His family made the nickname stick through adolescence but once Barry’s social life grew he realized how stupid the nickname really was.  He took it upon himself to shorten the nickname to toughen up his image.  And when Barry Klein was fourteen “The Chooch” was born. 

              Klein tried as much as he could, throughout his entire life, to be nonviolent but certain situations called for extreme measures.  His surveillance of Jamal’s own drug ring forced him to take his usual intellectual approach.  He had been tracking several of Jamal’s drug runners over the past few months after collecting some pertinent reconnaissance information.  Klein was one to manage his lucrative drug business down to the last cent.  A trait he inherited from his father.  The mathematical calculations, not the drugs.  He knew something was strange when his runners would return from the streets with little or no cash in hand and virtually all of the stockpile of drugs they had been sent out with.  Someone was invading his turf and he wanted to know who.

Klein had gotten interested in drugs in college, not as a user but as a pusher and a dealer.  He experimented with his own supply from time to time but was more interested in the high of profit rather than the high from ecstasy or weed.  His roommate freshman year had been the go- to person for the simple drugs: marijuana, caffeine pills, and ecstasy.  Klein, instead of taking advantage of the accessibility, converted his inner beast into a competition.  He bought up the majority of his roommate’s supply for double the street value and turned the small- time gym- bag stash into a major illegal enterprise.  Klein’s roommate didn’t like the fact that he converted his own half of the closet into an illegal medicine cabinet and used the shower curtain rod in the bathroom to hang his shirts.

Yale University, located in the heart of New Haven, Connecticut, is one of the most prestigious academic schools in the country for obvious reasons.  The irony of having a university, which consistently churns out the nation’s power players, surrounded by a city riddled with poverty and crime consistently boggles many.  To some, they see fear.  To Klein, he saw opportunity.  He pushed and sold to the local community as if his drugs were Girl Scout cookies.  Teaming up with a guy named Tank, Klein was the go- to person for not only the marijuana and ecstasy but the cocaine, heroin, and acid in the entire state of Connecticut.  A convenient way to pay off student loans and earn some start- up money.  Tank started out as a local street kid running a few drugs here and there to make an extra buck.  Within a few months, Tank had become Klein’s right- hand guy.  The brawn behind the brains.  That was until his brawn wasn’t enough to survive two execution-style shots to the back of the head.

Having to graduate at some point, Klein took his English degree and his border- line million- dollar drug ring home to New Jersey.  His parents must’ve been so proud.  Once in New Jersey, Klein found it difficult to locate runners to make deals for him.  At Yale he had plenty of roommates and fraternity brothers to choose from.  What college kid isn’t looking for a way to make some pocket change?  He eventually went into some of the inner- city neighborhoods and bought up some of the small- time sellers and made them his runners.  Over the years, some of Klein’s runners got pinched and some were killed ‘in the line of duty’ as Klein would say. 

The business had grown even more over the last few years.  Right around the time Klein was promoted to principal of School 5.  Instead of expelling or even suspending the handful of students that possessed drugs or drug paraphernalia on school grounds, Klein once again saw opportunity.  After interrogating them to find out who their suppliers were he began persuading his elementary students to become his new local runners.  What a genius idea.  Older teenage adolescents are easy targets for the cops in Paterson, especially during the late evening hours.  Why not recruit young, innocent, naïve ten- eleven- year old elementary boys to deliver his merchandise?  Aside from a higher unlikelihood of being picked up by the cops, they were cheaper labor.  And cheap labor meant more profit for him.

THIRTY SIX

Klein tried to get information out of his young prisoner but was unsuccessful.  Esteban’s impulsive aggression had resurfaced the minute Klein had attempted to put the clamps on him.  Klein didn’t want to resort to using physical violence on a young, fragile boy despite how much of a monster the kid was considered to be.  He left that to one of his lackeys.  The one called “Source” had backhanded Esteban across the cheek a few times until Source realized it was backfiring and only causing Esteban to shut down and refuse to talk even more. 

              Klein wanted information and when Klein wanted information he got it- at any cost.  With adults, Klein would immediately pull out his gun, press it to the temple or under the left eye of his victim and threaten their lives for the information, money, or stolen drugs he wanted returned.  He’d even shot a guy in the eye just to prove a point- even after Klein found out one of his runners was a police informant.  It was more of a point to himself that he could actually do it.