Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

"Committing suicide is just one of the crazy things crazy people do," Carter said. "I'm out of here."

"At least stay and watch the rest," I said.

"What for? I got enough nightmares of my own. I don't need nobody else's."

"Five minutes. That's all I'm asking. You said you need the overtime."

Carter let out a long breath. "You don't give up, do you, man?"

"Not yet."

I pushed the play button and the three of us watched, shoulder-to-shoulder. Corliss coaxed and coached Delaney through the preliminaries, Delaney agreeing to the videotaping, acknowledging that the video may be shown to others and that Delaney understood that this was for research purposes only and that no treatment was being given. Delaney showed no emotion throughout the exchange, his face flat, his voice flatter. Then Corliss steered the conversation to Delaney's nightmare.

CORLISS: How are you feeling, Tom?

DELANEY: Like shit.

CORLISS: Are you sleeping?

DELANEY: Some. Not much.

CORLISS: Why not?

DELANEY: I don't know.

CORLISS: What happens when you sleep?

DELANEY: I keep having the same dream.

CORLISS: Tell me about the dream.

DELANEY: I already told you when I signed up for the project.

CORLISS: I know you did. That's why I wanted to make this videotape. Your dream is important to the project.

DELANEY: Okay. I'm sitting right here. In this chair. I take my gun and put it up against my head, like this.

He lifted his shirt and pulled the Beretta from his waistband with his right hand and placed the barrel flush against his right temple.

CORLISS: But you don't pull the trigger in your dream. Why not?

DELANEY: 'Cause I'm a chicken-shit loser, that's why." CORLISS: It's okay, Tom. Put the gun away."

I paused the video, looking at Carter.

"You see what he did with the gun?" Lucy asked. "Right hand to right temple. No wrap around gymnastics."

"Yeah, I see it," Carter said.

"Still think I got a whole lot of nothing?" I asked Carter.

"I think you got enough for a third look. Give me your cell number." I wrote it out for him and he handed me his card. "E-mail address is on there. Shoot that video to me," he said and left.

"Had enough for one day?" Lucy asked.

"Two dead people are two more than my daily limit."

"I had to park a couple of blocks away. I'll get the car and meet you in the circle drive."

"I can walk, you know."

"I know. Makes me feel better if you let me get the car."

I'd learned that it helps some people to help me even if I didn't need the help, a gentle reminder that nothing happens to just one person.

"Fair enough. I'll meet you downstairs in ten minutes."

I watched the rest of Delaney's video. Corliss took him through the dream sequence several more times, but Delaney didn't change a detail. Each time, he pulled out his gun with his right hand, held it to his right temple, and stuck it back in his pants when Corliss told him to do so, Corliss never asking or checking whether the gun was loaded. The more they went through the motions, the more it began to look like they were rehearsing a one-act play though I doubted Delaney realized it would close on opening night.

I e-mailed Delaney's video to Carter, downloaded it to my flash drive, and packed the incident reports into the canvas satchel that passed as my briefcase. The rest of the institute's employees must have taken to heart Sherry's suggestion that everyone go home early because the halls were quiet and empty and one of the elevators opened the instant I pushed the call button. For the second day in a row, it stopped on the third floor and Maggie Brennan stepped on. She had replaced her gray scarf and gray coat with an identical version in black.

"It seems we're fated to make this trip together," she said.

"I could do worse."

She tilted her head at me. "I'm not so certain but thank you for the vote of confidence."

"You're welcome. New coat?"

She raised her arm. "I finally tired of the other one."

"Some day, huh? It's good that everyone gets tomorrow off."

She nodded. "A day of rest suits me. The police talked to me and I heard what happened with that young man. Do you think he killed that girl?"

"He had a reason to run. That could have been it."

"You don't sound convinced."

"Let's just say I'm agnostic on the subject," parroting her uncertainty about the dream project.

She smiled. "Are you teasing me?"

"A little. Truth is I like to take my time before accepting a quick and easy answer to something as hard to figure out as murder."

"Then you would have made a good scientist. I heard talk that the young man, what was his name?"

"Leonard Nagel."

"Yes. Leonard. I heard that he had been in trouble before."

"He had. He may have been guilty or he may just have been running from his past."

"The past is difficult to outrun. It chases us like the sound of the driven leaf."

"You've lost me."

"It's from Leviticus," she said, reciting the verse. "'As for those of you who survive, I will cast a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues.'"

The elevator stopped on the ground floor and we stepped out.

"What does that have to do with Leonard?"

"He'd sinned and survived. That made him weaker, not stronger, afraid of the simplest and smallest things, like the sound of a driven leaf. Perhaps that's what drove him into that intersection."

"But he was pursued. I was chasing him."

"I've known many people like your Leonard. He wasn't running from you. He was running from himself and none of us wins that race."

Lucy had parked my car in the circle drive, the passenger window down. She waved as I passed through the doors of the institute, the last of the low-angled sun slicing through the trees, disappearing at my feet. The day, though at its end, had warmed, as winter days in Kansas City will do, turning snow to slush and stoking frozen bones with the promise that spring was around the corner no matter how far the bend in the road.

Gone were the squad cars, fire trucks, ambulances, news crews, and gawkers. Gone too were the frightened and anxious people who worked here, the loss of two of their own seeding their nightmares, leaving them rattled and relieved that they had survived the day. In their place was an empty after-hours quiet. The hum of homebound traffic hung in the air, a white noise reminder that loved ones will be home for dinner, the sun will set and rise, and we will begin again.

That faith in normalcy, that bedrock certainty that there are more good guys than bad, that hard-eyed survivor's optimism, gets us through the night and emboldens us to take on the day. It will allow Carlos Morales to one day go searching for tools in the sub-basement closet where Anne Kendall was murdered without imagining her violated body pressed against the wall and allow Connie Nichols to drive through the intersection where Leonard Nagel died without muttering under her breath that he got what he deserved and not caring whether he did.

Underlying all of that is our shared faith in justice- that whoever takes a life will be called to account by those who have sworn to take up that burden. I took that oath when I joined the FBI and though my badge had been taken from me, I couldn't set that burden down.

A black sedan cruised into the circle drive, stopping between Lucy and me, Ammara Iverson at the wheel, Dolan in the passenger seat, and Kent in the back. Dolan stepped out, opened the rear door, and thumb-jerked an invitation. Lucy jumped out of my car, stopping when I waved her off.