J. Konrath: Rusty Nail

“You know, Mom, you’re only supposed to sleep for one-third of your life. You’re using up your allotment here.”

After a pillow fluff and a kiss on the cheek, my attention drifted and I wondered if Tony was still here. A kind, good-looking, single man my age was a rarity.

How hard could it be to ask a guy out for a cup of coffee? What’s the worst that can happen? He tells me no? On several different occasions, men have tried to kill me. Getting rejected had to be easier than that.

“See you tomorrow, Mom.” I leaned down, whispered in her ear. “I think I’m gonna ask him out.”

I closed the door behind me, gently this time, and wandered down the hallway.

Tony had left his door open, and when I poked my head in I saw him holding his father close, his face buried in the older man’s chest.

He was sobbing. Great heaving sobs that shook his whole body.

Before I could back away, he noticed me, his face a mask of rage and tears.

“Leave me alone, for crissakes!”

“I… uh… sorry.”

I backpedaled, not able to get to the elevator quick enough.

In the car ride home I second, third, and fourth-guessed myself. My conclusion: A coma clinic isn’t a smart place to pick up men.

I lived in an apartment in Wrigleyville, a stone’s throw from where the Cubs played. The rent was outrageous and the neighborhood younger than me by two decades. I parked next to a hydrant on the street and lugged the evidence bag up the stairs and to my door.

After disarming the alarm, I went into my kitchen and discovered the cat had been playing his favorite game – toss the kitty litter out of the litter box.

I hated that game, but preferred it to his second-favorite, crap on Jack’s bed.

I decided to leave the mess until tomorrow. There was a lump of solidifying cat food in the bowl, and I couldn’t remember if it was from this morning or yesterday. I scraped it into the garbage and opened a fresh can.

Mr. Friskers leaped onto the counter upon hearing the can opener.

“You don’t greet me when I come home, but you come running when I give you food.”

He didn’t reply. I dumped the food into his dish and he sauntered over and sniffed it. Then he looked at me, his face the picture of utter disappointment.

“How about a thank-you?”

The cat ate without thanking me.

I plodded into the bedroom, took off my outfit and judged it unsmelly enough to hang up, and washed off my makeup in the bathroom sink. I followed that up with a careful mirror examination of my face, studying the wrinkles and deciding I needed nothing short of spackle to fill them in. My roots were showing too. No wonder Tony wanted me to get away from him.

After dunking my head into a bucket of Oil of Olay, I put on one of Latham’s old T-shirts and crawled into bed.

Latham was my ex-boyfriend. I loved him, but messed up the relationship by being me.

I reached across my blanket for the remote, and made an unpleasant discovery: Mr. Friskers had indulged in his second-favorite game after all.

“Dammit, cat!”

I curbed a desire to toss him out the window, a desire I often had but never seriously considered because Mom loved the damn cat. Ten minutes later I’d cleaned up Mr. Friskers’s gift, microwaved a chicken parm Lean Cuisine for myself, and got under the covers to watch TV.

The videotapes from the Kork case called to me from their bag.

I ignored them, sticking with sitcom reruns and zany late-night talk show antics. But the jokes weren’t funny, and my mind wouldn’t let me relax. I brought those tapes home to watch them. And I only had forty-eight hours to find some kind of lead.

But I didn’t want to watch videos of people being tortured to death.

But this was my job.

But they might not even help the case.

But they might.

But, but, but.

Finally, when the only thing on was infomercials and pay-per-view porn, I crawled out of bed and went for the Jewel bag.

I told myself I could handle it. I told myself that the people on those tapes had been dead a long time. They were beyond my control. They weren’t in pain anymore. I was strong. I could handle it.

I could handle it.

I picked out a tape at random and shoved it into my VCR.

Snow. Then an image.

A teenaged girl. Tied to a chair. Crying.

“Hi, Betsy.” Charles Kork’s voice, low and straining to be seductive. “We’re going to play a game. It’s called ‘Please God Make It Stop.’ You see all of these nails? I’m going to hammer them into you, one at a time, and you’re going to beg God for it to stop. Are you ready?”

This happened in the past. I could handle it. I was a police lieutenant.

“Look at how big this nail is, Betsy. I bet it’s really going to hurt.”

I could handle it.

“Here it comes!”

Kork put the nail on the girl’s knee.

I forced myself to watch.

MY FATHER WOULD… do things. To himself. To us.”

“What kind of things, Alex?”

Alex shifts on the shrink’s couch, stares at a small water stain on the ceiling. The office is too bright for Alex to get comfortable. It’s like being scrutinized under a microscope.

“Father’s a very religious man. A member of Los Hermanos Penitentes. Are you familiar with the group?”

“Flagellants. They lash themselves to atone for their sins.”

“They’re a Christian sect dating back to the sixteenth century, extremely strict, focusing on redemption through pain. They kneel on tacks. Rub salt and vinegar into their wounds. Mutilate themselves to absolve their sins. They also whip their children. Or make their children whip them.”

“Your father would whip you?”

Alex’s eyes close, memories flooding in. “Among other things.”

“How often did this occur?”

“Sometimes a few times a month. Sometimes every day.”

“And where was your mother during all of this?”

“Dead. When I was just a kid.”

Alex wonders if revealing the next part is wise. But what good is therapy without a little disclosure?

“My mother died of cancer, after I was born. Father took up with different women after that. Bad women. I remember one of them who wasn’t so bad. Father killed her. He beat her to death and buried her in the basement.”

Alex turns to assess Dr. Morton’s reaction. The good doctor remains composed, sitting in his high-back leather chair. Probably fancies himself Sigmund Freud.

“Were the police ever involved?”

“No. Father claimed she ran away, and ordered us never to speak about her.”

Dr. Morton leans forward. “Sometimes, when something traumatic happens to small children, they create events to help them deal with the trauma.”

“You mean maybe I imagined her death, and blamed my father for it? Because he abused me and she was missing?”

Dr. Morton makes a noncommittal gesture.

Alex considers. “That’s interesting. But not true in my case. I watched Father murder her. He tied her to a beam and flayed all of the skin off her body with a cat-o’-nine-tails.”

“And you saw this?”

“Father made me help.”

Dr. Morton jots something down on his notepad.

Alex smiles. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe this is what you believe, Alex. In our last session, you mentioned your father is still alive.”

Alex thinks of Father. “Yes. He is. If you can call it living.”

“It’s difficult to believe he was never arrested.”

“Isn’t it? I wonder about that sometimes. How different I’d be if someone had stopped him. How many cats would be alive.”

Dr. Morton’s pen stops on the paper. “Cats?”