I am at that point now. It’s like a need, I guess, or a craving. I’ve opened this investigation. I’m experiencing the exact reason for so many divorces in the police department. Unless I put the folder down right now, I’m going to end up spending my entire weekend sitting on my bed and reading. Working. Stressing. But it is a challenge. .
I walk over to the sink and splash cold water on my face. Do I want to be this dedicated? Who am I to spend my weekend solving a crime I’ve no real interest in?
Ah, and that’s the problem. I am interested. Have been for the entire week. How can I not be? Is this a product of my lack of a life? Must I solve a murder to enjoy myself?
And here’s the killer blow-I actually am enjoying myself. Sure, all along I’ve been enjoying narrowing down my suspects, but I’ve also enjoyed everything about the entire investigation. I like the espionage-the way I feel like James Bond, sneaking into Mr. and Mr. Gay’s house, darting into the cubicles and offices at the station. The long hours. The continuous mind drain. The logic and the reality. It’s all been a buzz.
The problems are the late nights. The dreams. Not waking on time in the mornings. The disrupted routine. But I don’t want my life to be a routine. After this, I might take on another case. The satisfaction of knowing I am better than anybody else at the police department satisfies my ego, but is that enough of a reason to keep doing this?
I think it just might be. Sometimes killing is all about ego, especially for other people, but I remain comfortable with the knowledge that I’m not like other killers. I know what I do is wrong, but I won’t attempt to justify it. I won’t say God or Satan made me do it. I won’t say they had it coming. Nor will I pretend an abusive childhood sent me spiraling onto this dirt road from the main highway of life. My childhood was normal, at least as normal as it could have been with my crazy mother. She never abused me, never neglected me-though it would have been easier growing up if she had. The abuse would have given me a reason to hate her. The neglect would have given me a reason to love her.
If I could point to my childhood and choose one thing that made me the man I am today, it would be the exact opposite of neglect. It would be the constant talking, the constant explaining, the always being there. So no deep-seated reason why I grew up to enjoy killing people, no inner turmoil or conflicts or resentment at the world or at my parents. Neither of them was an alcoholic. Neither of them molested me. I never burned down the school, never set fire to the dog. I was a normal kid.
I turn away from the sink and look out my small window onto the city. It’s still gray out there. I run some more water over my face, then towel myself down.
Just how dedicated do I want to be?
Dedication is willpower. I squeeze my eyes shut. To work or not to work? That is the question.
The phone rings. It startles me and I look at it expecting to see it rattling on the hook. My first thought is Mom. Has something happened to her? I’m not sure what the statute of limitations on premonitions is, but the one I had yesterday morning must have expired by now. Mom’s okay. Mom’s always going to be okay. I snatch it up before the answering machine kicks in.
“Joe? Is that you?” she asks before I even get the chance to say anything.
“Mom?”
“Hello, Joe. This is your mother.”
“Mom. . why. . why are you ringing me?”
“What’s this? Do I need an excuse to ring my only child who I thought loved me?”
“I do love you, Mom.”
“You have an odd way of showing it,” she says.
“You know I love you, Mom,” I say, wanting to add that I wish that for once she could say something positive toward or about me, because if she could it’d make loving her a whole lot easier to do.
“That’s great, Joe.”
“Thanks.”
“You misunderstand,” she says. “I’m being sarcastical.”
“Sarcastic.”
“What, Joe?”
“What?”
“What did you say?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“It sounded like something.”
“I think I have a bad line,” I tell her. “What were you saying?”
“I said I was being sarcastical. I’m saying that it’s great that you now think I’m only imagining you love me. Are you saying I’m supposed to assume that you love your mother? I don’t see how I can assume such a thing. You never visit me, and when I call, you complain! Sometimes I just don’t know what to do. Your father would be ashamed to see how you treat me, Joe. Ashamed!”
Part of me wants to cry. Another part wants to scream. I do neither. I sit down and let my head and chest sag down slightly. I wonder what life would be like if Mom had died instead of Dad. “I’m sorry,” I say, knowing I can only apologize rather than try to correct her way of thinking. “I promise to be better, Mom. I really do.”
“Really? That’s the Joe I know. The loving, caring son who I knew I could only have had. You truly can be an angel at times, Joe. You make me so proud.”
“Really?” I start to smile. “Thanks,” I say, praying she isn’t being sarcastical.
“I went to the doctor today,” she says, changing the subject-or more accurately, getting around to the reason she actually called.
The doctor? Oh Jesus. “What’s wrong?”
“I must have been sleepwalking last night, Joe. I woke up this morning with my bedroom door open, and I was lying on the floor.”
“The floor? Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“What do you think?”
“What did the doctor say?”
“He said I had an episode. Do you know what an episode is, Joe?”
I feel closer to crying than screaming. I think about Fay, Edgar, Karen, and Stewart from Mom’s favorite program. Yeah, I know what an episode is.
“What kind of episode?”
“Doctor Costello says it’s nothing to be worried about. He has given me some tablets.”
“What sort of tablets?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll tell you more when you come over. I’ll cook meatloaf. It’s your favorite, Joe.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Doctor Costello seems to think so. So what time will you be coming over?”
Suddenly I’m not so sure there was an episode. In fact I’m almost positive Mom is making all of this up to make me feel guilty. “Do you have to go for more tests?”
“No. Around six? Six thirty?”
“No tests? Why? What more are they going to do?”
“I have my pills.”
“I’m just worried, that’s all.”
“I’ll be better when you get here.”
I suck in a deep breath. Here we go. “I can’t come over, Mom. I’m kind of busy.”
“You’re always busy, no time to spend with your mother. I’m all you have, you know. All you have since your father died. Where will you be when I’m gone?”
In paradise. “I’ll come by on Monday, like normal.”
“I guess we’ll find out on Monday.” The line suddenly goes dead.
I stand back up and hang up the phone. Hearing it ring reminds me that I never called the vet back, but being reminded doesn’t make me want to do it now. I walk over to my battered sofa. I sit down and throw my feet up onto the scarred coffee table. In the silence of my room I can hear the pump circulating the water around in the fishbowl. I wonder what kind of peace I could find if I was a goldfish with a memory that spanned only the last five seconds of my mother’s conversation.
I look over at the folders containing the printouts of the four men left on my suspect list. If I start looking through them, I’ll at least stop thinking about my mother. Meatloaf on Monday. It’s a prelude to having her nagging me for not living there, for not having a life, for not owning a BMW. Will reading the files put her out of my mind?
I figure it’s worth a shot.
I pick them up and begin looking through them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE