Andrew Kaufman: The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller

Breathing heavily now, sweat crawling down the back of my neck, I began rifling through the glove compartment like a madman looking for a fix. Found an old map and a broken pencil, the point flattened. With shaky hands I scrawled fragile three times, barely readable, before the pencil tip broke off. I hurled it against the windshield as hard as I could, then felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

I closed my eyes and dropped my head onto the steering wheel, keeping it there for a long time.

If I never saw Black Lake again, it would be too soon.

Chapter Three

From my earliest memories, my mother’s moments of affection were as fleeting as they were inconsistent. Not many encouraging smiles or gentle touches, and the ones she gave often felt flat and shallow. She carried herself as if to discourage human contact, if not block it entirely. When I was young, I’d often grab for her hand as we walked, but she’d quickly pull it out of reach; the reaction seemed almost instinctual, like flinching from a blow or pulling a finger from a hot flame. Even as we moved through stores or crowded streets, I’d often find myself several feet behind, chasing after her, trying to keep up.

Once before bedtime in a half knee-jerk, half desperate bid for affection, I threw my arms around her; but I might as well have been reaching around a giant boulder, hard and cold. Her entire body grew stiff and unyielding, and she turned her head away.

Feeling rejected and confused, I pulled back and gazed at her.

“I have a cold,” she said, rising and moving quickly toward the door, cool and detached. Then she turned off the light and left my room.

I don’t think I understood her rejection or its impact on me at the time. I thought all mothers kept their affection under lock and key. In my world, it was normal to want love and not get it, no different from wanting a toy in a store and being told we couldn’t afford it. My mother didn’t indulge in affection because emotionally, she was bankrupt.

But as I grew older and watched other kids and their parents, I began realizing my world was terribly out of whack. Of course, knowing this, I did what any kid would do: I blamed myself, often wondering what it was about me she found so appalling.

Then, one day I got my answer.

We were driving home from church. Something had gotten under her skin—as was often the case—and for most of the day, her mood veered between silent sulking one moment and angry ranting the next.

“I hate it when you comb your hair like that,” she said with a snarl, alternating her glance between the road and me. “That part in the middle. God, Patrick!”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked, now studying my reflection in the side view mirror.

She gave a flip laugh that pushed my question into the category of preposterous. “You look like a horse’s ass, that’s what’s wrong with it.”

The comment stung, and tears filled my eyes. I know she saw them, but she didn’t appear the least bit concerned.

We drove on in silence for a while, the tears streaming down my face. And then I had to know. “Why don’t you love me?” I practically blurted the words out through my sobs.

“What?”

“Love me,” I said. “How come you can’t?”

She fell silent for a moment, keeping her attention on the road, then let out an exasperated sigh.

“Because, Patrick…quite simply, you can be rather unlovable.”

Chapter Four

On the plane trip home, my mind kept drifting back to the fight with Warren. I was pissed at myself for letting him get to me. I shouldn’t have. I mean, I’d hoped to make a clean break, but cutting off my nose wasn’t part of the plan. Still, all bets were off the moment he started singing my mother’s praises. She was my hot button, and he’d pushed it.

If I didn’t know it then, I certainly did now: returning to Black Lake was a huge mistake.

But what the hell did I expect?

Luckily, for me, I lived several thousand miles away. And my mother was dead. She couldn’t hurt me anymore. Maybe now I could finally bury the past with her and move on, let Warren go as well.

After taking a cab from the Oakland Airport to my apartment in Hayward, I let my suitcase drop to the floor and took in my surroundings. Desolation greeted me, followed by wretched despair—my two closest companions these days. There’s something about returning home from a trip that draws one’s innermost feelings of isolation and loneliness to the surface, makes an empty apartment seem emptier.

I’d been single for a couple of years now but was still reeling from the effects. I suppose it takes time. Samantha and I were together for nearly three years, and while I wouldn’t consider it a nasty break-up, it wasn’t the friendliest, either. I blame myself for that. I was neglectful, took her for granted, gave more attention to crime reporting than her. I’ve been working for News World Magazine, West Coast Bureau, for seven years now. It’s a nice gig. I get to do what I love, work my own hours from home, and as long as I file my stories on time, they pretty much leave me alone. Dead bodies and horror stories over a loving relationship: hardly a fair trade-off, but I took it anyway, foolishly. And lost out big time. Don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like her again.

It all came to a head on New Years Eve. I’d promised Sam a long overdue evening out; we’d ring in the New Year at Bella, her favorite restaurant. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks, bought a new dress, got her hair done.

Then that afternoon, I got a break on a story I’d been working. Unfortunately, the news hardly ever waits for a convenient moment to happen.

A woman on her morning jog along Half Moon Bay came across a body—or rather, what was left of one. What she actually saw first was a Manolo Blahnik pump sticking up between two boulders. It belonged to Sherrie Jensen, wife of Concord cop Rick Jensen. She’d been missing for almost two weeks. Authorities suspected he’d killed her but had nothing to prove it, and this was their big break. Mine too.

I got the call at noon and arrived on scene within a half-hour; of course, so did every other major news outlet. This was a big story, and everyone wanted a piece of it, so we camped out, knowing it was going to be a long day.

Which stretched out into a longer evening. I’d figured it would take some time to extricate the body; I just hadn’t expected it to take that long. But it did. I phoned Samantha all afternoon with updates. Each time I could hear the disappointment in her voice rising to more detectable levels. She knew what was coming; I did, too.

I called her at 11:00 p.m. to tell her we were still waiting on a body.

And she promptly hung up on me.

Finally, the very moment the ball dropped, as if on cue, the rest of Sherrie Jensen’s body came up for air. I’d waited twelve hours for a rib cage with some flesh attached to it.

Happy New Year.

I rushed home covered in sweat and grime but still determined to salvage my relationship with Samantha.

No such luck. She was gone, and taped to my laptop, a note:

Hope she was worth it. Goodbye.

Jenson went to Death Row, and I took several press awards, along with an abrupt and unceremonious leap into bachelorhood.

It takes a certain kind of person to put up with a journalist, but I’m not even sure if one actually exists. Most people I know in the business are either born-again-single or stuck in dysfunctional relationships. It’s a double-edged sword, I suppose. We love our work, and we long for love, but neither seems conducive to the other.