Drt (11 page)

I turned to the woman in the middle of the room, “Thank you.”

“Wait a second,” She leaned down under her desk. Her great wide back looked like a manatee that had submerged to look for vegetation. She materialized again with a small brown cardboard box. “Just put everything in here. Hopefully that helps.”

“Thanks again.”
 

“Please extend my sincerest condolences to his family.”

I made haste to the door that Phyllis held open for me, determined to not spend another second in this office that made me feel cold all over. We got outside and she led me to a giant metal barn that housed two tractor trailers. As we entered, the employees in the garage, men and women who looked like truck drivers and mechanics, stopped smiling and joking when they saw Phyllis. We walked through the now silent garage and toward a small room on the side of the building with no door.
 

The locker room was small and the floor was smeared with grease. There was a yellow quality to the walls. Phyllis walked to the locker marked “MORRIS, J” and pushed a key into the knob.
 

The door opened with a clang and Phyllis walked away. I stuffed the locker’s contents into a box and got the hell out of there.
 

14

“News time 1:18.”

Without thought, I gave the report on the road construction around the Beltway and discussed the lack of incidents that could slow a driver down. I finished the report and popped the microphone off. I turned to the phone, picked it up and pushed the button for Montgomery County. The phone buzzed.
 

“Maryland State Highway, Sergeant Conroy.”
 

“Hey, do you have any accidents or road closures?”

“Yeah Greg, let me look.”

“If you have a moment, I also have another question for you tonight.”
 

“What do ya need?”

“Do you have a public file about that tractor trailer crash near Old Georgetown last Thursday morning?”

“The truck crash week? Of course.”

“What do you collect for a fatal?”

“Well, we do inventory. There is a standard autopsy for insurance reasons. Why?”
 

“The driver was a friend of mine. I’m collecting stuff for his wife.”

“You are consoling a grieving widow with more information about her husband’s death?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Wow, you dog! I mean, it’s a desperate move but effective.”

“…”

“I’m not judgin’ or anything. Is she hot?”

“Sargeant Conroy?”
 

“Sorry Greg. Whatever you gotta do, man.”
 

“It’s not that…I am trying to help the family out. Believe me.”

“Were you close with the deceased?”

“No.”

“OK.”

“I just want to collect information about what was in the truck.”

“Okay, okay. I probably can’t fax or email you the file. With a fatal there is a ton of paperwork, so you are gonna have to pick it up. There’s stuff from the reconstruction. Do you need that?”

“No, just the contents of the truck will be fine. I’ll be down there this morning after I get off at five.”
 

“I actually get to meet you? I’ve been talking to you for ten years and now I finally get to see you face to face.”

“You guys are down on 355, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you at five.”
 

I placed the phone on the cradle.
 

I hadn’t looked at the contents from the box that I got from InTransition. Touching anything that had been in that place gave me the creeps and I wasn’t really sure why I was doing this anyway. I wasn’t a detective, even though I kind of felt like one. I was collecting evidence, just like Sylvia suggested that I do. Since I started doing this, Jerry Morris hadn’t shown up. I figured that I was on the right track. The ghost of Jerry Morris wasn’t subtle when it came to making sure I knew when I was doing something wrong.
 

 
I got off work and drove down Rockville Pike to meet Sergeant Conroy for the first time. It only took me 15 minutes. The streets were still dark and empty, some of the signals still flashing yellow as I passed the intersections.

The police precinct was like a giant glass tombstone with multiple layers and rounded edges. I walked to the front and pushed a gray button. I waited to hear a voice through some speaker but the door buzzed and I pulled it open. I walked into the lobby, where a young man sat at the reception desk with his arms folded.
 

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I am here to see Sergeant Conroy? Javin Conroy?”

“Is he expecting you?”

“Yeah, I talked to him on the phone.”

“Just sit over there,” said the receptionist.
 

I took a seat and waited for the Sergeant. The receptionist kept his arms folded and a sour look on his face. “I’m not a receptionist, just so you know,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m not a receptionist.”

“Why are you working the desk?”

“Because of a bunch of bullshit.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t belong behind a desk, okay? If that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re wrong.”

“I wasn’t thinking any-”

“Let me ask you a question, okay? Wouldn’t you want a police officer to go the extra mile to protect the public? You’d like that, right?”

“Uh…yes.”

“See there you go, thank you. You should tell that asshat Conroy that when you meet with him.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, the fucking orders were to disperse the crowd. If you were going to disperse a crowd how would you do it?”

“Uh…I don’t know…”

“I mean I got the job done, didn’t I? So I guess there is a special rule somewhere that says you can’t fire your gun in the air in the middle of a crowd. It’s not like I was fucking pointing at anybody. I would totally understand them getting all bent out of shape if I actually shot someone but let’s look at the bottom line…what did you say your name was?”

“Greg.”

“Let me ask you Greg, don’t you think that the bottom line should be: Did I disperse the crowd? I did. They left really fast. So I got the job done. Why the fuck do I have to be on suspension for doing my job? Can you answer that for me?”

“…”

“Right, you can’t. We are supposed to disperse crowds and I dispersed that goddamn crowd. I mean, what the fuck? Should I just assume every crowd has a permit? What if that crowd was actually a crowd of criminals DRESSED like a crowd of protesters? Greg, seriously, have you ever heard of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving?”

“Uh…”

“Right, me neither. I guess asshat Conroy thinks that everyone’s heard of them. I saw a crowd of people gathered in a park and they were carrying signs saying ‘MADD.’ What the fuck was I supposed to do? Ignore my job? Of course not, it’s PROTECT and serve. And now I’m on fucking suspension for doing my job.”

A man with gray hair and a dominant chin walked out from the back. “You must be Greg,” the man said, “I am Sergeant Conroy, Javin Conroy.” He held out a meaty hand.
 

“Nice to meet ya,” I said, relieved to talk to someone else other than the receptionist that wasn’t a receptionist.

“Nice to finally put a face to the name. Do you want to come back to my office?”

“Yes please,” I said. I nodded at the man behind the desk. “Nice meeting you.”

The receptionist stuck his tongue out at Conroy when he turned his back.

We walked back to Conroy’s office. It was small with enough room for a desk and couple of chairs. Conroy sat down, “Sorry to keep you waiting, Greg. Hope Lewis didn’t chew your ear off. We would fire him but it’s a union thing.”

“It’s okay.”

Conroy had a manila envelope in his hand. “You’re here for this? I need you to keep that to yourself. I mean the specifics. If you are going to use any of that just make sure that you leave the victim’s name out of it.”

“Is this everything?”

“All of the evidence collected at the scene. Like I said, it was a DRT case so it was all pretty self-evident. Obviously if you want to look at the actual items found in the cab or whatever, you have to fill out the paperwork, but there are pictures of everything in there. We haven’t get the toxicology back yet but I can say for sure that it wasn’t alcohol. We would have smelled that on him, with all his injuries.”

“This looks like pictures of things.”

“Some of the things in the cab were bloodstained. It was a really messy scene, Greg.”

“I saw it in the cameras.”

“Might want to leave some of the details out when you are talking to the widow.”

I leafed through the folder. I pulled out a death certificate. “Why is this in here?”

“We haven’t delivered that to the widow yet. She’s apparently been hard to track down. She’s never there when we knock on the door. We were going to mail it but I guess you can take it to her personally.”

“Okay,” I said. I pulled out the cover letter for the Death Certificate. It was addressed to Leigh Ann Morris. For some reason, the name sounded really familiar. Maybe someone had said it on the news.
 

“Damn shame. Poor guy is going to work just like everyone else and he winds up dead. How’s that for rotten luck?”

“No kidding.”

“It’s always the fatals that bother me the most, the truck drivers that are just trying to earn a living. Those trucks are not designed with any kind of safety in mind. It’s all about collecting the largest profit you can with the biggest trucks.”

“I know.”

“You know they don’t even have 18 wheelers in Europe? I was talking to someone from England yesterday and I mentioned a semi and he had no idea what I was talking about.”

“Really?”

“I know. Maybe they have it right. Maybe it’s too dangerous to have trucks that big on the road.”

“Well, their roads are a lot narrower.”

“That’s probably the reason they don’t have them, less surface area, too.”

I slid the documents back into the folder. “Thank you for this. I will make sure I get these in the right hands.”

“Don’t mention it Greg, and please know I am trusting you to keep this between you and me. It could be my ass if people find out I gave you that info.”

“I promise I will keep a lid on it, Sergeant!”

“Take care, Greg. Have a good one.”
 

I turned around and left. When I went back through the lobby the young guy in uniform didn’t even acknowledge me. I walked outside to my car, threw the envelope in the passenger seat, and drove toward home. I stole occasional looks at the envelope, thinking about its contents. There was one piece of paper that caught my eye, more than the name of Jerry’s wife and kids.
 

I got home and I fell on the bed with the envelope in my hands. I pinched the fastener and popped it open. I pulled the paper out of its resting place and fanned the contents out on the mattress.
 

At first nothing really made a lot of sense. It was just a random series of letters and numbers. There were some gruesome pictures of the crash scene. Nothing I hadn’t seen before but I think I had seen enough of Jerry Morris’ blood to last me a lifetime. I rubbed my eyes for a moment. My brain was tired from the combination of just getting off an overnight shift and the lack of sleep.

I pushed the contents around my bed. I thought about looking at the stuff in the box from Jerry’s locker but I decided that I needed to look at all of this info with a fresh set of eyes in the morning. Then I opted to take one more look before I drifted off to sleep. I found a paper with four names typed out on it.
 

The four names were: Jerry Morris, Leigh Ann Morris, Hayleigh Morris, and Elroy Morris. Those were the names of the wife and kids that were left nameless in all the articles. I walked over to my clothes pile and pulled out the newspaper article. I held up the picture of the family. They looked so blissful in that picture. I knew how the story ended for them, while they smiled oblivious in a picture from a past happiness. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

15

“Sylvia Barrio.”

“Hello.”

“Greg! How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“What have you found so far?”

“Well, I don’t really know yet. I haven’t had a chance to go through everything.”

“Would you like to meet with me tomorrow?
 

“That would be fine,” I said, containing my elation.

“Will that give you enough time to go over everything?”

“Sure, I’ll do that tonight.”

“So where did you go today?”

“Yesterday I went and got the contents of his locker from where he worked and last night I got the public file on the crash.”

“Anything interesting there?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out. They gave me the actual death certificate.”

“Are they supposed to do that?”

“The sergeant on duty last night is a friend.”

“Well, wasn’t that lucky! So you have all of the contents of the locker and the contents of the truck cab? Just that easy?”

“Yes…wait…no. I mean, I didn’t get the actual contents of the truck. I only got the summary with pictures.”

“Anything interesting you can see there?”

“…”

“Greg?”

“Honestly, I haven’t looked at all. I called you first.”

“That’s…nice,” she said with a smile.

“I’m…excited to see you tomorrow.”

“I’m excited to see you too.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m very proud of you gathering all this stuff, Greg.”

“Thank you.”

“You should be proud of yourself, too.”
 

“Yeah,” I wasn’t used to compliments, or conversation, for that matter.

“Well, I have to go. I need to do some work. So what about tomorrow? How about we meet at the U-Street stop on the Metro around 1:00?”

“That would be great.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

Sylvia said goodbye and hung up the phone. I didn’t want her to hang up. I wished that she wasn’t busy, that she didn’t have to work. I wanted to keep feeling good.
 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the box. If I wanted these good feelings to last, I needed to make sure I didn’t die. I remember that moment. It wasn’t so much a decision, but more of a truth I accepted. For the first time in years, I wanted to avoid dying.