Nobody Lives Forever (30 page)

He strolled into the kitchen, found a big brown, double grocery bag and carried it folded, at his side, into the bedroom. A lanky uniform cop stood a few feet inside the front door, his nose wrinkled in distaste at the odor. “Do me a favor, will ya,” Jim said. “I think the medical examiner's wagon must be lost. They should've been here by now. The driver is probably having a problem with the address. Go down to the corner and see if they're looking for us on Sixty-seventh Terrace instead of Sixty-seventh Street.”

“I thought you just called them.”

“Nah, they should've been here already.”

The officer shrugged and stepped out onto the porch.

His heart thudding painfully in his chest, hands shaking, Jim filled the big brown bag with the stacks of bills and the smaller metal box. He moved fast. There was
so
much. He stuffed old receipts and bills from a bureau into the top of the grocery bag along with some newspapers to camouflage the contents. He dropped all of the old man's unopened mail, old papers and letters into the file box. He would conspicuously examine it in front of witnesses at the station, in case someone asked questions later.

He carried the grocery bag out the door, past two young patrolmen, and set it on the front seat of his unmarked Plymouth. “Give me a hand, will ya, and bring out the file box in there.”

An officer carried the box out onto the porch. “I haven't look in here yet,” Jim announced, “but there may be some clue to next of kin. Open it up.” He lifted the scrapbook and stirred all the papers he had shoved beneath it. “Yeah, there must be a name to contact in here. Somebody's got to foot the funeral bill,” he said. “We don't want to stick the taxpayers with it. Put this in the trunk for me, I'll go through it back at the station along with that other stuff in the bag.”

The young cop nodded, closed the box and placed it in the trunk of Jim's car.

“Jesus, that damn pizza.” Jim winced and pressed his fist into his chest to relieve the heartburn. No more lousy rubbery pizza for me, he thought, sliding heavily behind the wheel. This is it. Time to retire. Thank God for the call from the neighbor across the street. The treasure trove he had found was a crack monster's dream. Had one of them broken in, there would have been nothing left.

He wondered what the gold coins and silver dollars were worth. The dead man had held them for decades. He would call Rick after the meeting at the detention center. He would just tell him, at first, that he was putting in his papers. It was over. Never again would he see or smell another dead body. He was never again going to have to look at maggots, wipe gore off his shoes or be stared at by the empty eyes of some corpse.

He wondered why the old man had never moved out of that crummy house and this stinking neighborhood. He could have had the best. Sometimes, Jim thought, we cling too long to familiar things. This neighborhood was one of the worst. He shook his head as he drove past rows of dilapidated homes and run-down apartment buildings. This guy was lucky he didn't get ripped off a long time ago. Probably because he looked like he had nothing to steal. He obviously did not whip out his gold pocket watch to check the time in this neighborhood. In the thirties and forties, it had been top drawer. But that was long ago. The corner he was passing now was where the 1980 riots had begun, a bad neighborhood.

His career was at an end. Fuck the police department. Fuck all the dead bodies. He almost said it aloud, thinking for a moment that Rick was beside him. They had been partners for so long they could almost read each other's thoughts. He knew what Rick would say about what he was doing. He could hear his voice: “It makes you as bad as they are.”

He remembered the pastor. “There is justice … a higher justice.”

Shit, he hated the pricks, the connivers, the thieves on both sides of the badge. He sighed aloud, knowing suddenly that he could never be one of them. No matter how justified or providential it might seem, he thought, this just ain't right.

He sighed again. Some damn relative, who probably never gave a hoot about the old man, is about to come into a nice inheritance. He had joined the department an honest man, and that was the way he would leave it. At least he would have that. He shook his head and almost smiled. Once a chump, always a chump.

The squeezing sensation in his chest intensified—heartburn city. He rolled the window down for some air and breathed deeply. The pain struck with such cataclysmic intensity that his knees jerked up and cracked against the steering wheel. He knew what it was. But it can't be, he thought. Not now.
Not now
. The pain was agonizing. His clenched hands gripped the wheel as the car mounted the sidewalk and thudded to rest against a telephone pole.

A fucking heart attack. He hoped the pain would ease up long enough for him to use the radio. Faces—he saw faces in the shadows out on the street. They had seen the car mount the sidewalk and roll into the pole. He reached for the walkie, next to the paper bag on the seat next to him. But the radio slipped from his trembling grasp and fell to the floor as pain convulsed his entire body. He needed help. Groping blindly for the door handle, he pushed it hard, with all the strength he had left. It fell open, swinging wide. He would have fallen with it, but his seat belt held him securely in place. He saw the faces. Closer now, wary and curious at first, now more confident. Help—they would get him help. The first was a scrawny, swaggering teenager, a street thug, the local purse snatcher, Jim thought. But he was a cop, and he needed help. “Help me, call the squad,” he gasped. “Police.”

The thin young face with crafty, soulless eyes was close to him now. “Police,” he repeated. He was grinning and unfastening Jim's watch. The detective saw a glint of gold tooth as the still grinning youth reached across him for the police radio. Other faces moved in closer, bolder. The car doors were all open now. Jim felt hands on his body. His gun, his wallet, his badge case. The big brown bag disappeared from the seat beside him, passed from hand to hand with inquisitive murmurs until there was a sound like a sigh and then scrambling noises among the scavengers that surrounded the car.

No! No! he thought, gasping for breath. Not like this. This isn't fair. Molly! Oh, Molly! Pain exploded in his chest. He listened to his own moans and could not move. His last conscious thought was about his shoes. They were taking his goddamn shoes.

The medical examiner's wagon arrived ninety minutes later after Jim had left the dead man's house. Twenty minutes later, after the body was removed, the waiting uniforms checked back into service, or tried to. Their radio transmissions to the dispatcher were disrupted by playful citizens. Hoots and hollers. “Hey, we got your radio!” Loud laughter and music. A police radio had obviously fallen into the wrong hands. It happens. Forgetful officers occasionally leave them in restaurants or on the roofs of their cars. Sometimes they are stolen, or dropped during a foot chase. Strange voices intruding on police frequencies could also mean the officer that radio was assigned to is in trouble and needs help.

Between the curses and insults broadcast over the wayward walkie, the dispatcher conducted an on-the-air roll call. Every man and woman on duty responded, except one. Jim Ransom. The location of his last call was broadcast and a manhunt launched.

Rick heard the news when he went to the station to pick up his belongings and wait for Jim to come back from the conference at the women's detention center. He joined Dominguez and Mack Thomas. “Jesus, will you look at that moon,” Dominguez said, as they drove toward the address of Jim's last call. The huge yellow disk hung low over the city. “We are in for it tonight.”

“Never fails,” Mack said.

They passed the corner where the 1980 riots had started.

“Something's wrong,” Rick said. “It's too damn quiet.”

“Yeah,” Dominguez said. “Where is everybody? Nobody's out on the street.”

“If this neighborhood had birds they wouldn't be singing. This must be how the settlers felt just before the Indian attack,” Mack said, scrutinizing the oddly deserted streets and alleyways.

Rick saw it first. “Is that … that
can't
be one of our cars. It is!”

“Oh, shit!” Dominguez said, screeching to a stop. Jim's unmarked was difficult to recognize. The hood and the trunk lid were up, the battery was missing and the city tag was gone. So were the tires and the wheels. Pale bare feet hung out the open passenger side door. The dead driver was sprawled naked across the front seat.

Rick called the married daughter in Orlando from Jim's desk at the station. He asked her to call Molly. He sat there alone for some time. The office was nearly empty. Everybody was out on the street.

A clerk switched on a TV news report. The police chief expressed his outrage. The mayor delivered an emotional speech. “What has this city become,” he asked, “when scavengers rob the dead? When a dedicated public servant, a law enforcement officer who devoted his entire life to the city of Miami, is picked clean by human vultures and left to die like an animal in the street?”

Had he been with Jim, Rick thought, he might have saved him. He knew he could have prevented what happened after. What was it Jim had always said? Even the dead aren't safe in Miami. Jim was right. He shouldn't have died alone. He wouldn't have—I would have been with him, he thought, had it not been for Laurel. Dusty would have been with him, if not for Laurel. He remembered what Jim had said about Laurel. In the rescue van, after the shooting at the Japanese Garden, when Rick thought he was dying. Jim had held his hand, raging, “I shudda been there. I shudda realized … she knows everything.”

She knows everything. Everything. He checked his watch. The session at the women's detention center was already under way.

Though the doctor and lawyer could scarcely conceal their elation, Laurel appeared nervous, gnawing at her lip. She faced them across the wooden table in the interview room. They were somewhat relieved that no one from the department had joined them after all. They could speak more freely.

“I thought I was going to the hospital right away,” Laurel said, her voice tense. “I don't want to stay here another night.”

“The admittance had to be arranged,” Sloat said. “First thing in the morning—you're outta here. Don't worry. Things could not be progressing better.”

“You would not believe the interest your case has already generated,” Feigleman said.

“We've already had inquiries about book rights and at least one call from a major Hollywood studio. Once we sort out all the offers, we can negotiate a deal,” the lawyer said.

Laurel acted as though she had not heard. “What will it be like?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, the hospital.”

“It's a private hospital,” Feigleman said soothingly. “You have your own room, your own color TV, arts and crafts if you care to participate, and I'll see you there every day.”

“I don't want to go to prison.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and she looked stricken.

“You won't.” Sloat's words rang with confidence.
“Never
happen. Tomorrow you kiss this place good-bye for good.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He leaned forward, his smile almost a leer. “The treatment for multiple personality disorder is psychotherapy, individual analysis for each of the personalities, with fusion the ultimate goal.”

She still looked confused.

“Do you realize how long that will take?” Feigleman said. “Years and years.”

“During that time,” the lawyer continued, “you will be incompetent to stand trial. Under Florida law, when a defendant is not declared competent after five years, all charges are dismissed—forever. That's not all.” His shiny fingernails tapped a burnished leather folder. “I've done my homework. Should you go to trial, you stand an excellent chance of acquittal. There are precedents. An Ohio man with twenty-four personalities was found innocent, by reason of insanity, of kidnapping, raping, and robbing three women. In another case, a California man was acquitted of killing his wife after his doctors convinced the jury that the crime was committed by one of the husband's separate identities, not him.”

“Young lady,” Feigleman said, “you don't have a worry in the world.”

“Except,” Sloat said, “maybe, who plays you in the movie. You're going to be a celebrity.”

Both men laughed, caught up in their own excitement.

Laurel stared at the floor.

Her eyes darkened as she raised her head. Her elbow found the table, her fist balled under her chin. The other hand was open and on her hip.

“What happens to us if this fusion therapy works?” the husky voice asked.

The two men exchanged glances, and Feigleman hesitated a moment. “After the problems of each personality are solved in analysis, all are eventually absorbed into a single well-rounded individual.”

“Who is the one who survives and keeps control?”

“I think the answer to that will come later, during therapy,” the doctor said uneasily.

“Remember,” Sloat said quickly, “the course we are taking means treatment and hospitalization rather than prosecution and imprisonment.”

His client nodded. “One more thing.” Doctor and lawyer sat at attention. “Jennifer wants her Teddy and her blankie. She says she can't sleep without them.”

“Teddy and blankie,” the lawyer repeated solemnly, jotting it down in a notebook. When he looked up again, his client's body language had assumed a straight-backed, prim posture. Staring with distaste at a rude word some other inmate had scrawled in pencil on the smooth tabletop, she tried to rub it clean with her handkerchief, then stared at the two men.

“What about my right to the house? That is my home.”

The lawyer nodded and scribbled another note. “That may be a touchy matter since you were not married and the relationship was of relatively short duration.”