Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

“Everybody is looking for somebody, and I can tell you where to find him.”

“Where?”

“In here,” he says, tapping his chest, “and in the Bible.”

“I. .”

“Just kidding,” he says, and laughs softly. “I mean I’m not kidding about everybody needing to find Jesus, I’m just kidding about putting you through the pitch. I try to get all of the men staying here to find God.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Life is supposed to be full of challenges,” he says, “and this is no different. Do you mind?” he asks, pulling out a packet of cigarettes.

I do mind, but I shake my head. “Go for it.”

“These damn addictions,” he says. “Thankfully they’re the only two.”

“You don’t count God as an addiction?”

He smiles around the cigarette as he lights it up, draws in a lungful of smoke, then exhales.

“That’s good,” he says. “I must remember that.” He holds the cigarette out in front of him and stares at it lovingly. “Life is full of temptations,” he says. “It’s one of God’s ironies. The things that tempt us the most are what are the most bad for us. Except for religion.”

“I need your help,” I say. I show him the sketch. “You recognize this man?”

He doesn’t take much of a look and shakes his head.

“You sure? I heard from a reliable source this guy lived here. Take a longer look.”

He takes a longer look. “Yeah, maybe. Wasn’t he in Lord of the Rings ? I think he was a hobbit.”

I put the sketch into my pocket. I may as well screw it up and toss it out.

“I need to speak to anybody who came here from Grover Hills.”

“Why? Somebody does something crazy and you want to blame a mentally ill person?”

“Something like that. Somebody set fire to one of the nurses who worked there.”

He takes a long draw on his cigarette, sucking constantly until his lungs can’t take any more air. “I heard about it on the news. You think that person had to be a patient?” he says, holding in the smoke.

“There are other things too.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You’re not at liberty to say. Well, I’m not at liberty to say anything either. The people here, they look up to me, I have their trust. I’m not at liberty to break that.”

I pull a thousand dollars out of my pocket. “How liberal are you about receiving donations?” I ask. “This is your chance for some good karma. You just said there isn’t enough kindness in this world. We have to start somewhere, and this is it. You’re kind to me with some information, and I’m kind to you. This,” I say, shaking the cash, “can buy food, cigarettes, some new pots and pans.”

He stares at the money the same way he did at the cigarette, like it’s another addiction but one he never gets to taste, then he looks around the room as if somebody is watching. There isn’t. He steps forward to take the money but I pull it away. “Names.”

“I can’t remember them all. There were six or seven of them.”

“Were?”

“They’ve all moved on.”

“Where’d they go?”

“This isn’t the kind of place where people stay in touch,” he says. “Most of the people here are straight out of prison. They get jobs flipping burgers and scraping dead animals off the street barely making minimum wage. People don’t want to make friends here.”

“Any of the Grover Hills patients stand out?”

“Nobody stands out here.” He reaches back out for the cash. I keep hold of it.

“That’s not exactly worth a thousand dollars,” I tell him. “Give me something else.”

“I guess there’s one guy you could talk to,” he says. “One of the patients. He seemed to get on well enough with most of them.”

“What? He’s here?”

“Yeah. He’s here.”

“Thought you said they’d all moved on.”

He shrugs. “I just remembered,” he says, and money does help people remember. “His name’s Ritchie Munroe.”

“He here right now?”

He reaches out for the cash. I hand it over. I figure if I really wanted to I could take it back off him in about five seconds. He takes another draw on his cigarette. “Upstairs. Last door on the right.”

I head into the hallway and take the stairs. They groan with every footstep and the handrail is worn and wobbly. The windows upstairs lining the hallway are streaked with a thicker layer of dirt than their counterparts downstairs. The view outside isn’t pretty, rusting roofs of neighboring houses, gutters chock full of leaves and sludge, backyards with burned lawns and car parts scattered in the sun. I knock on the end doorway and a guy calls out for me to wait a moment before opening it half a minute later. Ritchie Munroe has a nose that’s too big for him and a mouth that’s too small, it’s like somebody gave him the wrong-sized parts in the baby factory. His eyes look too small for the sockets, as if a tap to the head would spin them around like dollar signs in a slot machine. His hair has been dyed black, and he hasn’t done a great job because there’s dye on his forehead too. He must be in his midfifties, maybe even sixty. He could be the man in the sketch but he could just as easily not be. He’s wearing only underwear and a T-shirt and the front of his underwear is bulging out. Behind him is a small TV set playing a porn movie with the sound turned down. The hot air rushing past him from the room seems happy to escape.

“Who are you?” he asks, and he sounds nervous.

“Detective Inspector Schroder,” I say, figuring Carl won’t mind. Well, more figuring he’ll never know. “I need to ask you some questions about Grover Hills.”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of it,” he says, and he tries to close the door.

I put my hand on it. “That’s funny, considering you spent some time there. You mind turning that off?” I ask, nodding toward the TV.

“Why? It embarrassing you?”

“Guess that means you don’t want to put any pants on either.”

“Just ask your questions and leave,” he says. “Please.”

“Preacher says you were friends with a bunch of Grover Hills patients.”

“Preacher tell you that?”

“He did.”

“You have to pay him?”

I smile. “I did.”

“You hold back anything for me?” he asks, not sounding so nervous now.

I show him the remaining cash.

“What do you want to know?”

“Somebody set fire to Nurse Deans.”

He pulls back a little as his face tightens, but then it loosens off again as he comes to terms with the news. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Any idea who would do a thing like that?”

“None.”

“Heard of Emma Green?”

“Nope.”

“Cooper Riley?”

“Nope.”

“Not even from the news?”

“Why would I watch the news?”

“Who else wouldn’t be upset at hearing Nurse Deans was dead?”

He shrugs. “Everybody who ever stayed at the Grove. Nobody really liked anybody out there. Mental institutions are like that.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m easy to like.”

“I meant did you want to kill her?”

“I’m a lover not a fighter,” he says.

“You an arsonist?”

“What?”

“Where were you yesterday?”

“Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Here. With Melina. All day.”

“Melina?”

“Yeah. She’s my girl.”

“She here?”

“Where else would she be?”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

I wave the cash in front of his face and remind him why he’s talking to me. He sees it and figures talking to strangers isn’t such a bad thing. “Make it quick,” he says.