I sat alone in the office that night. After the other therapists had seen their last clients for the evening. The hair of the dog called to me as I sat hunched over, prioritizing my list of suspects, focusing on recent males, violence-prone or those having the potential, when pounding rattled my inner door. I assumed my two new best friends LeMaster and Baker had returned to fit me for my workhouse oranges, but a muscular young man dressed in a red plaid work shirt and worn blue jeans stared down at me. He was large enough to be The Incredible Hulk’s stand-in.
“You Mitchell Adams?” the baritone voice asked, while fingers soiled by oil and grease scratched at his full but trimmed beard. The telltale odors of gasoline and oil residue hit me.
Paul Bunyan of the grease monkeys.
From a belt loop near his right hip dangled a heavy set of keys. A swinging ivory skeleton head keychain with blazing red eye sockets grinned at me. A bulky leather tool belt forced his pants to ride slightly lower on his waist, revealing the lower section of a fully ripped six-pack.
Mike and Dave had to pull him off the poor guy or he would’ve beaten him to death.
“Guilty as charged,” I said.
“I thought about you a lot when I was locked in the nut house.”
Neutral affect. This could go either way.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Harold.”
He stopped picking at his red-tinted beard long enough to say, “I thought about what I’d say to you if we ever met. My thoughts on it changed while I was there. At first I decided I wasn’t going to say anything, I was just going to pound you. Next I was going to ask what gives you the right to play God and take away my freedom, then beat the shit out of you. I thought about it some more and decided to ask if you were screwing my wife, and depending on how you answered, maybe take your head off. When they finally cut me loose, I knew what I had to do….”
A muscular forearm shot out. “Thanks for doing what you did. I was way too sick to get help on my own. I didn’t know half the crazy shit I was doing. I’m taking my meds and today I was back at work. Life’s tough enough without thinking the whole world’s against you.”
My hand disappeared into his when we shook and I probably did a lousy job of concealing my relief at learning he hadn’t come to pound me.
“That’s great news, Harold. Are you back home with Lisa?”
His massive shoulders sagged and his eyes lost a bit of their light. “Just until I have enough money for my own place. I deserve better than someone who sleeps around with my friends and God-knows-who-else. I don’t blame her for the way I am, but with Lisa it’s all about her. Life with her is like being strapped to a bomb.”
This was an unexpected twist, but c’est la vie.
“Harold, you’re welcome to join the sessions. We can talk about how you both want to proceed from here.”
A cell phone on his tool belt chirped and he reached for it. “I might take you up on that, but my priority now is just staying healthy and keeping my job. Thanks again.”
With that, Hurricane Harold blew out as fast as he stormed in.
Late that night, I studied my client folders and called Marilyn at home to give her a partial client list and the therapists I wanted them paired with in the practice. I reminded her which stacks of paperwork on my desk needed attention and mailing tomorrow for third party payers.
“That’s interesting,” she said, sounding tired, when I finished.
“What do you mean,” I answered, knowing.
“All your current clients are women.”
I hoped she wouldn’t notice that I turfed only the women.
“Yeah.” I said, “Funny how it goes in waves, isn’t it?”
There was silence on the other end of the line until she said, “What about that creepy borderline guy you’ve been seeing?”
“Back in prison, parole violation,” I lied.
“The world’s a safer place,” she said, sounding unconvinced.
I thanked Marilyn and told her to have a good night.
“Be careful and get some rest,” she said, yawning.
I asked why, also wondering why she sounded so tired.
“It’s two in the morning. You okay? I can come over.”
“I lost track of time. I wanted to give you the list. Sorry about the late call.”
She reminded me to be careful. This time it was more of a warning.
I drifted in and out of sleep, lost in a gray netherworld, the line between dream and reality erased. One instant I lost myself in Kris’ dark tiger-eyes; the next I struggled to remember her face. How could I be losing her this soon? I despaired because we hadn’t taken many pictures together. I saw myself burying my face in her clothes, taking in deep breaths of her, and rubbing the soft fabric on my face. Her scent moved through me and I caught a fleeting glimpse of her walking toward me and then she was gone. What will I do when the scent vanishes from her clothes? Like Gatsby with Daisy, would my memory of her recede year after year like a shoreline relentlessly pounded by waves?
I woke with a start on my office sofa. Six in the morning. Why was I still here? Maybe because we never had sex here. Maybe because I wasn’t safe to drive home. Booze helped the first few nights. Last night I’d added Ambien to the alcohol, but nightmares, flashbacks, and racing thoughts barreled through the fog.
That sound again. My back line ringing.
“HOW ARE YOU SLEEPING?” the mechanically altered voice demanded to know. The same angry, programmed voice, like the Darth Vader of my own private Death Star.
I pressed record on my Dictaphone, dying to ask a million questions, dreading the answers. My mind ran off in every direction this conversation could go. “Never better,” I said.
“ANOTHER LIE. YOU’RE MAKING LISTS AND CHECKING THEM TWICE, TRYING TO FIND WHICH ONE OF US HAS BEEN NAUGHTY AND NOT NICE.”
I planted my feet to steady myself. “If you’re a client,” I said, “let’s meet and talk this out like men.”
No immediate answer, then, “YOUR JEALOUSY AND LACK OF TRUST DROVE HER AWAY.”
“Who’s lying now?”
“SHE RESENTED YOU FOR THAT. HER RESENTMENT WAS FESTERING, GROWING—”
“What makes you think you know the first thing about her, or me,” I interrupted. This guy’s an emotional terrorist.
The disguised voice seemed to grow louder, or maybe I was assuming it. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or impatience. “HER EX TRIED TO CONTROL HER, TOO. SHE SAW THROUGH HIM, JUST AS SHE CAME TO SEE YOU FOR WHAT YOU REALLY ARE.”
Does he know she broke up with me before she died? How?
“Am I your rejecting, authoritative father figure? Have you replaced emotionally distant daddy with me? Was he abusive? Have you displaced your rage at him onto me?”
The silence stretched out for a five count until the Darth Vader voice slowly said, “WE’RE TALKING ABOUT YOUR DEAD GIRLFRIEND. SHE WAS ATTRACTED TO YOU INITIALLY, JUST LIKE SHE WAS DRAWN TO THE REST OF US. SHE WAS QUITE THE LITTLE WHORE, OUR KRIS, BUT YOU COULDN’T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES. SHE REALIZED HER PATTERN WITH CONTROLLING MEN AND DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT. BY THE TIME YOU ACCEPT IT, YOU’LL BE IN A JAIL CELL OR WORSE. THAT CHOICE RESTS WITH ME. I CAN HAVE YOU IN POLICE CUSTODY IF I PUT FIVE MINUTES OF EFFORT INTO IT.”
The rest of us? I was not controlling! Stop it. Don’t let him get under your skin. That’s what he wants.
“You have quite the imagination. Delusions of grandeur, too. Who abused you as a child?”
“WHO’S TO SAY I DIDN’T KEEP SOUVENIRS? I CAN PLANT EVIDENCE IN YOUR HOME THAT WILL LOCK YOU UP FOR THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE, IF I WISH. I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT TO YOU. YOU CAN’T STOP ME. IT’S QUITE THE POWER TRIP, TO BE SO DOMINANT OVER SOMEONE, ISN’T IT? ONLY NOW THE TABLES HAVE BEEN TURNED. NOT EVEN YOU CAN TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE. LIKE YOU TALKED YOUR WAY INTO HER.”
He knows. How could he possibly know so much about Kris and me?
“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working,” I lied.
“OH, I INTEND TO DO MUCH MORE THAN FRIGHTEN YOU. SHE SPREAD HER LEGS LIKE A JUNKIE FOR PEOPLE LIKE US. YOU DROVE HER RIGHT BACK TO ME.”
I started to lead with my emotions. Don’t tell him you know about the rape. “Who are people like us?” I said.
“SWEET DREAMS, SWINGER.”
The line went dead in my hands, the floor spun and fell away from me.
I replayed the tape and made notes. Had I really known Kris or was this psychological torture part of his sick game of lies? Had she kept big secrets from me? Did she have an affair with her killer? Did our argument the night before drive her back into his arms? Was truth mixed in with his lies that somehow could help me catch him in less than a week? Would my tie be the final piece of evidence needed to arrest me? If so, how long would it take the detectives to make the connection? Would the killer make good on his threat to plant more evidence, maybe the bloody shoes, in my townhouse for the final nail in my coffin? Was he spoon-feeding information to the detectives? If so, I might have even less than a week to find him. One thing I knew—I couldn’t believe a word he said and still maintain the will to hunt him.
The killer meant to eviscerate me. He’d shaken the firm foundation I thought I’d built with Kris. I had to find him before he completed his demolition work.
I was the sad character in one of my favorite oldies songs—playin’ solitaire till the sun came up, and, just like the loser in the song, I only had a deck of fifty-one.
She was a junkie for people like us.
Sweet dreams, Swinger.
The next knock on my office door came at nine that morning. I let in LeMaster and Baker. “I’m gonna have a spare key made for you two.”
“Shit, you look tore up from the floor up!” Baker said. Seeing my couch hair, rumpled clothes, and empties, he said, “What the fuck you doin’ sleepin’ here?”
I’d rather die than tell him why. “Lost track of time, I guess.”
He got cut-eye with me. “Guess again, Doc.”
“Never mind that,” LeMaster said. He looped his thumbs in the front pockets of his dapper gray twill pants. “You had several arrests in college. You were quite the crusader—defender of the downtrodden, the poor, of criminals claiming to be innocent. Care to explain?”
“Like you said, I was in college, in social work school. I took part in peaceful protests, sometimes helped organize groups against social injustices such as unjustified wars, inequities in our court system, and discrimination. No crimes against people or property.”
“Not that we know of. Yet,” Baker said.
LeMaster continued, “We interviewed women who knew you. Some were still angry at you, called you every name in the book; many said you hopped on to one woman as fast as you jumped off another.”
“You talked to women I broke up with. I dated a lot when I was young. That’s no crime.”
“Some said you like your Hashish, sometimes pot, when you have sex.”
“If I did it was more than a decade ago. In college. You’re not scaring me with this. Run a blood tox screen if you haven’t already. Now if you’re done—”
“You’re a Summa Cum Laude from Gateway University. Your peers hold you in the highest professional standing; they cannot imagine you capable of such a heinous act. We discovered a few past frivolous citations directed toward another therapist in the practice that your company addressed and resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, but there are no complaints against you in the National Association of Social Workers organization of licensed therapists or the Better Business Bureau. Your practice seems to be thriving financially as well.”
I waited for the other shoe to fall and when it didn’t, I said, “But—”
LeMaster took a step forward. “You’re a crusader. Sometimes the line between crusader and vigilante gets crossed.”
Now I know where this is going….
“You offer your time and expertise as a consultant to the major local television stations to help educate the public on mental health issues. We watched your old tapes. On one you were fighting for one of your clients. Literally.”
Baker worked a toothpick across his wide mouth and added, “Or maybe you just like to fight. Whaddaya say, Swinger? Bet that handle hasn’t been too cool for the biz. We asked around in your professional circle. Some said the name is ‘apro-pos.’ Wonder why that is?”
They saw me land the punch on the Channel Four news segment, but of course the film didn’t detect DeLuca whisper his admission of guilt in Bob Vale’s nearly fatal assault.
Baker turned to LeMaster then back at me. “Who the fuck says ‘apropos’? We got the fight at the Irish pub with the dead girlfriend and now this—two fights in a coupla weeks. It’s the beginning of a pattern, is what it tells me. Wonder what dirt we gonna find next—a little slap-and-tickle with clients, other im-pro-pri-eties?” Baker intentionally paused after each syllable of the word as he glared down at me.
It was pointless to debate the various connotations of the word swinger. I never swung, as in swapping sex partners at parties, but I dated a lot of women casually for years before I met Kris. People can conflate casual dating with swinging. It didn’t make sense to defend the punch because the camera captured it, our loud exchange of verbal taunts, and my ultimate loss of control. I hit DeLuca in the jaw. I assaulted him. Words in my defense would fall on deaf ears here.
“Several things about that tape disturb us,” LeMaster said. I will connect the dots and see the big picture. What will we find when we dig deeper—a compulsive need to control that drove her away, an obsessive rage that sent you over the edge? I know you’re keeping something from us. Make it easy on yourself and tell me. If you refuse to cooperate and force us to learn the truth the hard way, I will throw the book at you.”
Tell the police, I vanish forever….
The circumstantial evidence was piling up against me, threatening to put me in a deep, dark hole for a very long time. Could I find my way out of the darkness?
“I don’t have anything else to say, Detective.”
LeMaster did a slow burn as they walked to the door.
Baker said, “Circle the wagons, Swinger. We be comin’ and it gonna be soon. Maybe we toss you in a cell and scalp you next time. A man do what he did to that woman deserve worse.” Baker’s grin exposed that shiny gold front tooth, and he whooped once like a wild Injun on his way out.
My heart, not my mind, agreed with Baker. As did the Stranger.