Dave Zeltserman - Small crimes

'What do you do now?'

'I'm in transition.' I let loose a short laugh. I couldn't help myself. 'My dad wants me to go to college. Who knows, maybe I could major in history or literature and become a professor someday. I don't know, I still haven't figured out yet what I'm going to do with my life.'

It was funny; she didn't press me about what I did to get myself thrown off the force, or why I hadn't dated during the last seven years. For the rest of the lunch, we stuck with small talk, only superficial stuff. When I tried asking her why she left Montreal she changed the subject to how nice the weather was, then her face darkened as she stared at her hands. I moved the conversation to her cats and that brightened her back up. She told me they were Persians and that she had brought them with her from Canada. Before too long she was smiling again.

After lunch we strolled around some of the stores. At one point she took hold of my hand. It felt nicer than I would have expected.

We made our way down to Lake Champlain. After walking for a few minutes along the shore, we sat on some rocks and looked out at the water. I saw a couple of seagulls flying overhead, and as I watched them, I found my thoughts drifting. I felt calm sitting there. The noises that had been buzzing through my head for the past several days were silent. Charlotte brought me out of it by asking how I knew Manny Vassey.

'I got to know him when I was a cop,' I said.

'Wasn't he a criminal?'

'Yeah, he was.'

'And you're friends with him?'

'Not exactly.' I hesitated as I tried to think of a way to broach the subject of what I really needed from her. Because what I really needed from her wasn't a girlfriend or a relationship, but for her to overdose Manny – maybe with morphine, maybe with something else. As I thought about it, I realized how crazy the idea was. It was more than a long shot, it was nuts. Completely, absolutely nuts. I felt cold all of a sudden, especially in the head.

The coldness was penetrating deep into my eye sockets. Kind of like when you eat ice cream too fast, except worse. I had to look away from her. But I had no other choice – no other way out that I could see – so I stumbled along, my voice sounding strange and foreign to me.

'I guess over the years I've grown to respect him, at least at some level, and maybe somewhat begrudgingly,' I said. 'He was always a tough, hard sonofabitch. But no one should have to die the way he's dying.'

I could feel the words drying up in my throat. I shifted my gaze back to her. Charlotte sat silently watching me, her color having dropped to a pasty white. Her mouth looked so small, her lips almost disappearing into her face. I forced myself to push forward, ignoring the queasiness that was working its way into my stomach.

'It just doesn't seem right.' I coughed and cleared my throat, my voice growing hoarse as I continued. 'Especially when it would take only a little extra morphine to put him out of his misery.'

'Is that why you asked me out?'

'What?'

'I asked you if that was why you asked me out,' she said.

There was no nervousness in her eyes. There was really nothing there. Her expression had hardened into something not quite human. I barely recognized her. I found myself shaking my head.

'I don't get what you're asking,' I said.

She just sat staring at me. After a while she told me that Alice Cook at the information desk had stopped her when she had gone back to the hospital to get my allergy medication.

'Alice told me that you were asking about me,' Charlotte said. 'She told me what you did to Mr. Coakley. She told me how you went to prison. Please, Joe, don't lie to me. Tell me why you asked me out. Was it to get me to overdose Mr. Vassey with morphine? Because I would never do that.'

So Alice had recognized me after all. Probably hit her after we had talked. Now I knew the reason for Charlotte's funk earlier and it left my head spinning. I heard myself mumble something about how I had no idea what she was talking about. I was only making an observation,' I forced out. 'Why would you think I'd want something like that?'

'Mr. Coakley spends a lot of time visiting Mr. Vassey.'

'So? What does that have to do with me? And I told you before why I asked you out. That was the only reason.'

We sat quietly after that. I'm not sure how long. It might've been ten minutes, maybe fifteen, but it seemed like an eternity. After a while she leaned against me. I looked over and saw her expression had softened. She moved closer and rested her head against my shoulder.

'Aren't the clouds lovely,' she whispered.

It was weird. She acted as if nothing had happened. There were no questions about what I had done to Phil, or about my being in jail, or my interest in Manny Vassey. She just sat quietly, occasionally making comments about how nice a day she was having or how beautiful the lake and sky were. Later, when we drove back to Bradley, it was more of the same. On the way back she told me she'd like something to eat so we stopped off at a diner. I could barely stomach anything and only had a few spoons of rice pudding. I watched as Charlotte took bird-sized bites from a grilled cheese sandwich. During it all my mind raced as I tried to understand how my conversation with her went the way it did, and more importantly, what I was going to do next.

When I got her back to her apartment, she hesitated and moved awkwardly towards me.

'Would you like to come in?' she asked.

'I'd like to,' I said, 'but your cats and my allergies-'

'Your medication should be good for twelve hours.'

'I'd better not risk it, at least not tonight. I still feel a little shaky from before.'

I wasn't exaggerating. I did feel shaky. Maybe not from my earlier allergic reaction, but I still felt shaky as hell. I could see a thought start to formulate in her eyes about us maybe finding someplace else to be alone, so I moved quickly and gave her a long kiss. When I moved away I asked if I could see her tomorrow when she got off work.

'I could pick you up here,' I said.

She nodded. 'I'd like that. I finish work tomorrow at seven. Why don't you come by at eight?'

I told her I'd see her then and gave her a quick kiss before leaving. As I drove back to my parents' house, I kept playing the scene at the lake over and over again in my head. Maybe my comment about putting Manny out of his misery was out of line, but how could she make the leap from that to guessing that I only asked her out so I could manipulate her into overdosing Manny? The only thing I could come up with was she must have overheard Manny and Phil talking together. Maybe she overheard Phil trying to convince Manny to incriminate me. Anyway, I couldn't get that out of my head, that and the fact that even though she knew what I had done, she was willing to go out with me and pretend that none of it ever happened.

What really got to me was the look on her face when she was waiting for me to explain myself. It was the type of look you might see at an accident site when a bystander catches a glimpse of something he wishes to hell he never saw. And she knew damn well I was lying! She knew it, but went straight into denial, pretending everything between us was hunky-dory.

By the time I got to my parents' house, I was feeling worse than shaky – kind of weak in the knees, like all I wanted to do was get to bed, lie down and hide from the world. When I opened the door I saw both my parents sitting in the den. They had the TV set on, but it was obvious they weren't paying attention to it. When they turned to me, my mom's mouth started to move as if she were chewing gum and my dad looked as if he dreaded what was about to happen.

'Can you sit down, Joey?' my dad asked.

'What's this about?'

My mom's mouth was closed but it was still moving furiously. It seemed like an effort for her to stop it. 'Do what your father tells you to do,' she demanded sharply.