10. A Dead End

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Read Part 9

It was nearly 5:00 pm when Gilbert finally awoke in his apartment. The sun was already setting on what appeared to have been a cold winter day. He couldn’t remember any details about the weather, only that they were finally making some progress on their murder case. He rolled over and grabbed the phone.

Parme picked up his cell phone on the second ring. “What?”

“Did the lab call? About the DNA.”

“Yeah,” his partner growled on the other end of the line.

Gilbert rolled out of bed, sitting up on the edge and letting his bare feet touch the cold hardwood floor. “Well, are you going to tell me?” He could hear Parme spit on the other end of the line. He must be outside or in his car. Now that he listened, Gilbert could hear street traffic. Not much of a rush hour in this town, it seemed.

“It’s not him. We cut the little bastard loose this afternoon.”

Gilbert blinked. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, he never really believed the little man was capable of the brutal murder he was investigating. On the other hand, he was really looking forward to cracking his first case. He didn’t have to guess how Parme felt about it. He decided not to rub it in.

“So…,” Gilbert started.

“So, we keep working the case. I’ll see you at the diner first thing in the morning. And Rob, don’t be late.” There was an edge to his voice that made tardiness sound like a very bad idea.

“Yeah, right. Good night.” Gilbert hung up the phone. The sun was just falling below the horizon. Darkness was coming. He thought about Eagan. If he hadn’t committed the crime he tried to confess to, he must be crazy. Crazy and alone. And heading home in the dark. Whatever he was afraid of would be waiting for him there.

Gilbert thought briefly of going over to Eagan’s apartment, but the thought withered when his mind went back to the case. You don’t waste time on dead ends. That just creates cold case files. Better to focus on the investigation, continue to run it to ground. Anything else was a waste of his time.

He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

Across town, his partner shut his cell phone and dropped it unceremoniously into the cup holder next to his seat. He couldn’t believe that little shit wasn’t the perp they were looking for, but he’d learned long ago not to question the lab results. That’s a battle the detectives never won.

He had toyed with the idea of pressing charges against him for popping him in the nose, but had decided it wasn’t worth the crap the other detectives would give him. He was too old to chase down punks like Eagan and give them the beating they deserved, so he let it go.

Letting go of things was something Parme had become good at over the years. Everything was a lot easier that way. It was a lesson he wished he had learned on his first ex-wife. He hadn’t. It had taken a second divorce to get the lesson through his thick skull, but now it was one he wouldn’t forget. He was practicing with his current girlfriend. They were close, but he knew that he could drop the whole thing in a heartbeat if he needed to.

He watched her from the car as she left the diner and headed to the curb, making a beeline for his car. She looked as pretty as she had when she’d served him breakfast that morning. She always did. She leaned against the passenger door and put her head in the window.

“Hey, sailor. Give a girl a ride?”

Parme smiled in spite of himself. He knew he looked like a dork when he smiled, but she brought it out of him. He looked down at her blouse, stained from a long day of moving food from counter to table and back again. She still wore “Barb” on her name tag because it was the same old pin her mother had worn. Not good at letting go, this girl.

“Sure,” he said. “Get in.”

As Pat was slamming the door of Parme’s car, Arlington Eagon was opening the door of his apartment building. He had been released earlier in the afternoon and took a cab from the precinct house back to his apartment, but at the last minute he had asked the driver to pull over and let him out a few blocks away from his building. He had been wandering around the neighborhood since then, afraid to go home. Now, he was almost frozen and had chosen to enter the building instead of risk hypothermia.

Eagan new he was sick. Crazy, actually. Which might be the same thing, but he wasn’t sure. He had been to doctors and therapists and psychic healers and they’d all told him pretty much the same thing. He had a victim complex and people who had that were going to get victimized. That’s just how it worked.

He had hoped that by simplifying his life, he could avoid much of the confrontation that led to his eventual victimization and it had worked, for a while. But now that he knew he was not in control of his own body when he fell asleep, his fears had taken on a whole new dimension.

He had thought about what he could do about his situation for hours, as he walked the streets of his neighborhood. He kept coming back to the same solution. The only solution. He would have to run. Fast and far. And he would have to start this very night.

Deep down, he knew he hadn’t killed that girl. He was pretty sure he had never hurt anyone in his life. He figured he was probably incapable of it. He froze up during conflict of any kind. The whole confession thing was just a desperate attempt to run away from his apartment. It was a strategy that was woven out of panic and, predictably, it had failed.

This time, he would plan his run to freedom better. He would not panic. He would simply pack up the few things he needed and call a cab. He would meet the cab at the curb and then take it to the nearest hotel, where he would spend the night. Tomorrow, he would check himself into the nearest psychiatric facility, telling them that he was having visions of murder and that he was afraid he would hurt someone. They would have to take him.

They would put him in a room he could not escape, probably give him medication to help him sleep and make sure that he was never lured away into the darkness again. He would finally be safe.

He went over this plan again as he walked up the four flights of stairs to his floor and then down the hallway to his apartment. He was feeling much better when he inserted the key and opened his door. He stepped into his apartment and his plan was immediately forgotten.

There was a man standing in his living room. A large, hairy man. He squinted up at him for a moment and then recognized him as the factory worker who lived down the hall, Mike or Mitch or something, he couldn't remember now. The man was holding a crowbar and staring at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

The girl on his couch caught his eye when she moved, bringing a lit cigarette to her lips in a smooth motion. She was small and blonde. Eagan couldn’t remember ever having seen her before. She wasn’t wearing much clothing. She had the same half-asleep looking eyes. Were they both on drugs?

“What is this,” Eagan stammered. “I don’t have any drugs...or much money.”

“Do it, Mark,” the girl said calmly. “Do it now.”

The big man took a step toward Eagan and swung the crowbar at his head.

Read Part 11