Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

The vinyl around me groaned as I shifted in my seat. All of Richard Drake’s personal effects—including the items from the The Brink, the lockbox and his son’s home—were inside the manila envelope, locked in my office desk. I’d left them there after I’d filed my report today, not wanting to touch them, not ever again. If Peterson ordered a search of my office…

This couldn’t get any worse, simply couldn’t.

“I also received a phone call this morning from the Haverstraw Sheriff’s Department,” Peterson reported. “Apparently, a Brinkvale employee assaulted a resident of that county. This resident could not recall the name of his assailant, who allegedly visited the day before to question him about his father, a Brinkvale patient. According to the officer, this employee broke into the man’s home last night—and quite literally buried a hatchet into the man’s leg.”

Peterson did not smile at his joke. His eyes slowly, deliberately, cataloged my appearance. He knew, knew everything. Bile rushed to my mouth. I pined for a wastebasket. I was going to puke.

“The deputy asked me if Brinkvale was housing a patient by the name of ‘Drake,’” Peterson said. “He also asked me if I knew why the alleged assailant might anonymously report the man’s wound from a pay phone at Claytonville Prison.”

I stared at my boss. The silence was a roar, if that were possible.

Peterson finally spoke.

“I told the deputy we were not treating a man named ‘Drake,’” he said.

The old man pushed the paper across the desk, to where the videocassettes rested. He removed his glasses and began to polish them with his tie. His eyes were tiny things now, pebble-sized.

“There is a difference between ‘want’ and ‘need,’ Zachary,” he said, his thumb working the fabric. “Is there something you want to tell me? Something I want to hear?”

I had to clear my throat to speak.

“Uh… no, Dr. Peterson.”

The old man placed the spectacles on his face. He nodded.

“Is there anything you need to tell me? Anything I need to hear?”

My mind danced and raced and played hopscotch, calculating this, wondering what—if anything—I should say. Peterson wasn’t an administrator anymore. He was my judge, my jury, my executioner. I don’t know how long I sat there, my mind screaming in the impenetrable silence of the room—but when the words eventually came, they flowed out as my brain formed them, a manic data dump.

“I… I try to make a difference, a positive difference, with what I do here,” I whispered. “I try to save my people—ah, my patients —from themselves, from their torment. I do everything… everything I can to help them. It’s what I’m built to do. It’s…”

I looked into Peterson’s eyes. My voice was louder now.

“…It’s what you hired me to do. That’s what I did with Martin Grace. I helped him. I saved him from himself. I… I think that’s something we both needed to hear.”

A smirk flashed onto the doctor’s face, and then was gone. I wasn’t actually sure I’d seen it. He picked up the videotapes and his notes with both hands. They trembled slightly above the desk, and then slid away from the gooseneck lamp’s glare. He released them.

They clattered into the wastebasket behind the desk.

“The footage was compromised, Zachary,” he said, “and any additional information outside of your report is innuendo. Aside from Thursday’s tape—which must be archived to accompany the Emilio Wallace incident report—there is no record beyond what you’ve told me, and what you’ve filed. This leaves me with your conclusions. I asked you to determine if Martin Grace was fit to stand trial. You did that.”

His eyes narrowed now, knowing.

“Your findings were precisely what I anticipated,” he said. “Weren’t they?”

I recalled what Peterson had said in his office, a million Mondays ago.

“‘He wouldn’t be here if he was innocent,’” I quoted.

Peterson didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, for a moment.

“And yet, the patient seems at peace now,” he said. “Amazing.”

“Amazing Grace,” I agreed. I felt stupid, as if I were missing the punch line to a very long, very funny joke.

Peterson leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands, placing them on his belly.

“I want you to go home, Zachary. You’re on leave until further notice. I’ll review your report—and your conduct—and will soon notify you of your professional standing here at Brinkvale Psychiatric. But in the meantime, rest. I want you to rest. Will you do that”

I opened my mouth to speak, to plead my case… but I’d already done that. I nodded.

“That is all, then.”

I stood up, quietly grimacing as my body shrieked its pain. I walked to the door, opened it, stepped beyond into the reception area. Lina Velasquez blasted rapid-fire words into her computer keyboard. A hundred-twenty a minute, easy.

“Zachary.”

I turned back toward the doorway. Peterson’s face was half-lit in the lamplight. He opened another desk drawer and removed a ring of keys. They clinked merrily, in the dim room. He eyed them.

“I acquired these keys through an acquaintance,” he said. “There are Braille stickers on every one.”

His eyes turned to me now. “Do these belong to Martin Grace”

I paused.

“No sir,” I replied. And that was true.

“Very well then,” he said, and tossed them into the wastebasket. “Goodbye, Zachary.”

I gave a wordless wave and strode out of the Administrator’s Office, down the hall, and out into the world beyond The Brink.

I descended Brinkvale’s front steps, cringing slightly at the chilly air. Malcolm waited for me at the bottom.

“Zach T,” the janitor said, and gave a little salute. He held a rake in his other gloved hand; Primoris had decided to begin its annual shedding during the past hour, it seemed.

“Two bottles, Grey Goose,” I said. “I don’t know when I’ll get ’em to you, but you’ll get ’em. I’ve been suspended, maybe fired. But I’m good for it. Promise.”

Malcolm didn’t smile. His voice was serious, conspiratorial.

“That’s not all you’re giving me, is it”

I nodded, knowing what he meant.

“Didn’t forget about that, either,” I said. “Tell me. What’s going to happen to his effects”

Malcolm shrugged. The large ring of Brinkvale keys jingled on his hip.

“Nothing, Zach T. Absolutely nothing. The Sub might as well be the deep blue sea. Toss something in, it sinks to the bottom, never seen again. The Brink’s basement is where paperwork goes to die.”

“Sounds like that warehouse at the end of that Indiana Jones movie,” I said. “The one where they put the Ark of the Covenant. I wish I could see it.”

Malcolm shuddered; I couldn’t tell if it was the wind, or something else.

“It ain’t,” he said. “You don’t.”

“The folder’s locked in my desk,” I told him. “Make sure it sinks.”

I extended my other hand. The janitor shook it.

“It was a pleasure working with you,” I said.

“Likewise. I always liked you, Zach T. You kept things… interesting… around here.”

He eyed me for a moment and then smiled.

“Looks like you learned to pitch after all, huh, kid”

I grinned back, gave a silent salute, and walked in silence to the parking lot.

Dad was waiting for me there.

He stood by Rachael’s red Saturn, hands buried in his overcoat pockets, the same undertaker pose he’d had in the 67th Precinct’s parking lot. The wind gusted around him, whipped and tugged at his collar, as if unhappy with his presence here. I could sympathize.

“Son,” he said.