They Call Me Crazy (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Daze

“I
shined that light on her and damn near keeled the boat when I saw him layin’ next to her. Couldn’t even tell it was Roland from where I was, but I could sure tell, whoever it was, they was dead.”

People are packed into the VFW tighter than a bucket full of crawdads. Most came out tonight for one reason. Pauline has turned down the jukebox, and I try to talk loud so most can hear me.

“I didn’t hardly recognize her. Had her hair cut short and dark, and she was covered with mud. Looked like some damn mud dauber from hell, which I guess is exactly what she is. I pulled out my flare gun and my cell phone and pointed the gun at her while I called the station. Of course, no one answered, it bein’ a Saturday night and all, so the phone rolled over to Benny’s house, and I got Grace. I told her to get the war hero on out here and I’d keep the crazy bitch tied up if I had to.

“Cass didn’t say nothing. I guess staring down the barrel of a flare gun when you been caught red-handed had a way of shutting up that sassy-mouthed bitch. I had to get
Molly
off to the side and tied up while holding the gun, and it was a chore, I tell ya. I wanted to stand up, but I knew that little V-bottom wouldn’t have that, and I wouldn’t be much good in the river with a wet flare.

“She started walkin’ up the hill, goin’ like she had a reason—stompin’, more like it. I yelled at her to stop, but she just kept on going. I swear she was going for that shovel, thinking she was going to do me the same way she done Roland. But I wasn’t afraid of her. I shot that flare gun over her head just to show her what it would do.

“That stopped her ass. She sat down on the hill and crossed her legs and just stared at me. Gave me chills, I tell ya. The way her eyes were all wild and shit, I swear I was seeing the devil.”

I stop talking for a minute and take in the room. Jimmy Ray’s mouth is wide as a prize bass.
Damn, this is fun.

“When Benny got there, I yelled to him, and he ran right down and put those cuffs on her. He had Roland’s brother with him, and Clay stayed with ol’ Cass while Benny and I went back to the dock.

“It wasn’t pretty. Roland had been in the ground, and he was covered with dirt, and God only knows what else had gotten to him with the rain and all. His eyes were wide open, and he was staring up at us. It was creepy as hell. I’ll go to my own grave still recalling that.

“So Benny called for the coroner and went back up the hill. I sat in
Molly
and fumbled around for that last beer. It was warm as piss but sure went down smooth. Hell, I’d rather sit in my boat watching Roland do nothin’ than be any closer to that thing on the hill. I sat there until the coroner came and hauled Roland away, then I set course for my trailer and went on home.”

I sit back and let out a long breath. This is the fourth time I’ve told my story today, and each time, I have a few more listeners. I can’t say the attention ain’t fun, but still, it’s something I never want to do again.

“Last time, you said you had to tackle her ‘cause she was running,” Pet says as he hands over another PBR.

“Yeah, and you also said she was laughing louder than a demon the whole time,” someone behind me says.

“And what about the canoe?” another asks.

Pauline is wiping the bar and stops when she gets to me. “They’re right, Daze. You better get it straight. You’re gonna be the star witness when this all comes to pass. Better get one story and stick to it.”

Star witness.
I sit back and cross my arms across my chest. I get to be the one who burns the witch.

Chapter Fifteen

Cass

A
streetlamp right outside my barred window casts a shadow of three lines on my cell floor. It is the only light there is, and I can’t sleep in the dark, and those three lines aren’t enough.

I can hear R.T. in the cell across from me. He’s tossing and turning, grunting, and making noises, so I know that he can’t sleep, either. I decide I’d rather make small talk with the wife-beater than lie here on this mattress and think. I get up, walk the few steps to my cell door, and rest my hands on the crossbar. It’s too high, so my arms angle sharply, similar to a kid peering over the back seat of a car.

“Hey, R.T., you up?” I don’t exactly whisper, but I try to keep my voice down so I don’t have anyone running down the stairs to tell me to shut up.

His bedsprings squeak, and I imagine him rolling over and sitting up. “Yeah, I can’t sleep in this hole. I want my own bed.” He walks to his cell door so we’re facing each other.

The small corridor separates our two cells. In the dark, his tall frame casts a monstrous shadow across the floor.

“Shouldn’t have hit your wife,” I say. “Then you’d be in your own bed. If she’s smart, she’s got someone keeping it warm while you’re in here.”

“At least I didn’t kill her.”

R.T. and I have had a few conversations today. At first, I wanted to send him off with Roland, just because I knew what he’d done. In my eyes, there isn’t any excuse for hitting a woman. But R.T. was quick to point out how hypocritical it was for me to say that, being that I’m in here for worse than hitting my husband. I guess he’s right. We all have our own reasons for doing things, and usually, no one else knows what’s going on between a man and his woman. I get that.

“Can I ask you something?” I sit down on the cement floor, feeling the coolness through my thin cotton pants. I cross my legs and put my elbows on my thighs, resting my chin in my hands. Roland used to call it my “thinker pose.”

“Sure, Dolores.”

I told R.T. about the book Clay brought, and he thought it was so funny he started calling me Dolores. I’ve already got a jail nickname. “What do you think they’re going to do to me?”

After almost three days without my medicine, my mind is starting to clear, and finally, I’m thinking about what could happen next. I guess I thought with Roland gone, I could go about my own life and no one would even bother with me. I didn’t think anyone would find out, first of all, and I didn’t think much about what would happen if they did. Now, I’m thinking about it plenty.

R.T. shrugs in the dim light. “They could give you the death penalty. That’s the worst, I guess. But they won’t kill ya. Kansas hasn’t fried anyone in over thirty years. And you’re a woman. Everything’s easier for a woman.”

I laugh, a little too loudly, and cut it off real quick. I glance to the top of the stairs but don’t see anyone through the glass window. “What if I told them why I killed him? Wouldn’t they just let me go home?”

R.T. seems to know a lot more about these things than I do, and although I know I should be talking to Richard about it, I feel more comfortable with the wife beater.

“Why did you kill him?”

He’s asked me this before, and I wouldn’t answer him. I want to tell. But I’ve heard of people in jail showing up at someone’s trial to burn them. They cut a deal and such. I don’t want to tell him too much.

“I don’t really know.” That isn’t entirely a lie. Of course, I knew Roland cheated on me, and I hated the way he talked to me, especially when he was drinking. And I also knew he lied to me. Sometimes he said cruel things. But those aren’t reasons to kill someone. Most women would just leave. But I was more afraid to leave him than I was to kill him. And for that, I don’t know why.

“If I was you, that’s exactly what I’d tell the judge and the jury. They already think you’re crazy, so you oughta go with that. Crazy people don’t get the same treatment as us normal folks. They get to go to a hospital and take pills until some doctor says they’re cured.”

The thought of being in a hospital for the rest of my life is worse than going to prison. “I don’t want any more pills.”

“Hell, Dolores. I don’t know. I guess you could say he beat on you. Did he?”

No. Not really. But I don’t answer. I hate to lie to anybody, even R.T. Sometimes it’s better not to talk at all. But I want to talk. I need to talk to somebody.

Clay would understand. Clay is different from most people. He never makes fun; he never judges me. He has always treated me like a person, an equal, not someone you can toss a pill at and hope she shrinks away until there’s nothing left.

When we were teenagers, it was always Clay and me who ended up doing, while Roland and Maryanne did the watching. We went over the fence at the witch’s graveyard together, we climbed to the top of Bingham’s chat pile in the dark, and we took flowers from Ms. Harper’s rose bin when she turned her back. Not Roland and Maryanne. They just stood there and said we were going to be cursed or fall in a mine shaft or get in trouble. Clay was never afraid. I always thought of Roland as being the one by my side, but thinking back, I realize Clay was there, too.

And he still is. He doesn’t seem mad that I offed his brother. Instead, he seems more worried about me. I’m glad. I need someone like him right now. I need
him
.

I hear R.T. get back in his bed. I guess he’s tired of me not saying much. I put my hand in the light shadows on my floor and trace the lines on the cement.

“Goodnight, R.T.” I say it so softly, I’m not even sure he hears.

“Goodnight. And Dolores? Take my advice. Play the crazy card. It’ll work, and you’ll be much better off in the long run.”

The crazy card. That’s the one I always play.

Chapter Sixteen

Benny

A
fter being at the station all night and day, I only want to have a nice dinner and go to bed. Then the fax machine in my spare bedroom, also known as my home office and campaign headquarters, starts singing. The papers say Cass is certifiable.

“I’ll be damned. She really is crazy.”

“Benny! You shouldn’t say that.”

How I ever managed to get Grace is beyond me. I was quite the rabble rouser in my day, and Grace… well, she’s one of the kindest people on this planet. She wouldn’t say shit if she had a mouthful. And Grace will give people like Cass Adams the benefit of the doubt until the four horses of the Apocalypse come galloping by. I tend to differ.

“Grace, you should read this medical report Doc Kenney sent over. Actually, I need you to read it and translate.” I’m pretty sure there’s some federal regulation that says I shouldn’t be showing medical records of an inmate to my wife, but as long as Uncle Sam can’t see inside my dining room, I’ll give her whatever I damn well please.

I hand the report to Grace and fetch my sweet tea. She’ll know what all those words mean: psychotic, schizotypal, paranoid personality disorder. I know one alone is bad enough. A little bit of three and you’ve got a lot of crazy.

Grace has been a nurse for a lot of years. She says it was more of a calling and that she wanted to take care of people. And she does a damn fine job at it, at least when it comes to me. She carefully parks her reading glasses on the tip of her nose and picks up the report, ready to give it her full attention. I have a feeling I’m going to need her a lot over the next few weeks.

Grace is the one who called me last night to tell me Cass had wigged out. Daze rang the station, but Jimmy Ray was downstairs playing cards with R.T. Since it was late, after three rings, the call rolled over to my house. Grace knew I was at Fat Tina’s—I ain’t got no reason to lie, just doing my job—so she called me on my cell to give me the report. She was calm as she told me what Daze had said, and then she went back to bed. She acted as if murder was a common thing in Deacon, nothing to get too twisted about. But it’s the first one we’ve had since I joined the force, and I believe the first one this town has seen in fifteen years.

When I got off the phone, I saw Clay Adams talking to Fat Tina. I had never seen him out there before, and then the night his brother was killed, there he stood.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen him out much of anywhere. I’m not really sure he even likes girls. But hey, that’s his business. I kind of think that’s why he got kicked out of the Army in the first place, but I’m not one to spread rumors.

The funny thing was Clay’s reaction. He didn’t seem surprised that Roland was dead. He didn’t even seem sad about it. Clay had been out searching for Roland, so he knew his brother was missing. I guess he’d already considered that something bad might have happened.

But it was what he said that has stayed on my mind: “Cassie.”

That took me by surprise. My grandma was a seer, and sometimes I think I have some of her in me. Two generations removed from the reservation. That was one of those times. I got that funny I-should-be-seeing-something feeling, but there wasn’t anything there. I can’t get that out of my mind.

Grace is reading carefully. She shakes her head a couple of times. I love that she’s a quiet woman. She only speaks when she has something that needs saying. I’ve had enough of the other kind lately. Between Babe Shatner screaming in my ear all day and that Lola with her fancy clothes and her husband telling me about Cass’s rights, I swear, if I weren’t running for sheriff, I would have knocked the talk out of all of them.

Then, there’s the prisoner herself. Cass doesn’t say much, which she isn’t supposed to unless she’s talking to her attorney, but when she does, it’s downright mean. Sure, it used to get under my ass—excuse the pun—when she’d make fun of my war injury, but my medal is as purple as anyone else’s, and I feel kind of proud that I took that round in a spot that didn’t cause any trouble. Well, not much trouble. It missed my spine by that much.

Grace puts down the papers, takes off her glasses, and rubs that spot between her eyes. She leans back in her chair and lets out a small sound. Her voice is low and shaky as she turns to me and says, “Poor little thing.”

Poor little thing?
She killed her husband, buried him in the yard, then changed her mind and dragged him down a hill to the river. She was going to make him fish food before Daze stopped her. The one to feel sorry for is lying up at the coroner’s office, not getting three squares and a cot at the local jail. “Poor little thing.” That’s the professional collaboration I get.

“Damn it, Grace. Just give me the straight dope, now. She killed a man. She’s a murderer.”

She sticks out her bottom lip, and it’s hard to be mad at her. I’m tired, and I need to sleep, but I also need to know what I’m dealing with. I sit down at the table and wait for her to talk. She stares behind me as if she’s focusing on one of my dolls—Penny Brite, 1965, still in her box and decked out in her candy-apple dress. Yeah, I know where each one of them sits.

Grace turns her gaze back to me, her forehead bunched. I’m sure she’s trying to figure out a way to explain all that medical mumbo jumbo to a bonehead like me. She moves her chair closer to mine. “According to this, Dr. Kenney has been seeing her since she was a kid. He started treating her about six years ago for hysteria. Jesus, how old is this guy? Anyway, he gave her some drugs. Things didn’t get better, so he called it something else, and gave her more drugs. This has gone on for the past six years.”

“What about all those other words? The schizo stuff? That sounds pretty bad.”

She nods. “Problem is, Dr. Kenney is just a general practitioner. A psychiatrist should have been seeing her. They’re the only ones who can really diagnose these things properly. And all these pills on top of pills…”

I’m not quite sure what the problem is. Doc Kenney is, after all, a doctor. I’ve seen his diplomas hanging on his wall, and he’s been around here for as long as I can remember. “So what are you saying, Grace?”

She looks off again, this time over my left shoulder—Baby Crissy, 1973. “Didn’t you tell me her mother killed herself when she was just a baby?” Grace asks the doll.

“Yeah. Hung herself right in Cass’s closet. She wasn’t no baby, though. She was five years old.”

Grace blinks several times.

“So is she bonkers or not?”

She taps her fingers on top of the pile of fax papers. “She’s got some problems. Real problems. But not nearly as many as a prosecutor is going to have. “

“She killed her husband. I doubt he’s going to have many problems with that.”

Grace rests her arms on the stack of papers. “A good doctor, a practicing psychiatrist, is going to have his way with any prosecutor you’ve got. She’s taking hypnotics, narcotics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants for illnesses that Dr. Kenney has no expertise in diagnosing. She hasn’t had blood work done in three years. God only knows what kind of buildup is in her system. Roland was filling some prescriptions from a pharmacy by the mop factory and some at Milo’s downtown, and Dr. Kenney was handing out samples, too. Not even a pharmacist was able to keep track of the different pills. Some of those drugs can interact with others—”

“So the drugs have been making her loopy?” I’m still a step or three behind, but I’m not familiar with all this medical lingo and not too skippy on the idea that there might be a problem with prosecuting Cass Adams.

“I’m saying a lot of things were missed. She’s been misdiagnosed and overmedicated, and no one was checking. I’m saying that any doctor worth his salt is going to say that she had no idea what she was doing, and they’re probably right.”

I let out a deep breath.
Damn.
“I really need to learn about some of this stuff, Grace. Is there a dummy guide for this?”

“I think you already know all you need to about Cass.” She leans closer until I can smell her Estée Lauder. “I’m pretty sure she’s been misdiagnosed. I’ve been working around veterans for a long time.”

“Veterans? Cass Adams ain’t never served. Shoot, they wouldn’t let someone—”

She strokes my cheek, her fingers soft against my five o’clock stubble. “Posttraumatic stress disorder. Untreated for over thirty years. It doesn’t just happen in war, you know. Seeing your mother hanging from a belt would do it, too. I’m no doctor, but I have had experience with PTSD.”

I lean back in my chair and let out a long sigh. PTSD. Yes, Grace is quite familiar with that one.

And so am I.

Bacon and coffee. There really isn’t a better mix of smells in the world, especially when you’re lying in your own bed and someone else is cooking. Grace must have covered me when she got up because I’m never this tucked in first thing in the morning. I love that woman.

I haven’t ever told Grace Cass’s entire story. I was feeling soft, so I told her about Cass’s mother. To hear Grandma Carrie tell it, Cass’s mother had been in and out of mental hospitals her whole life. She went in one time after a botched home abortion and came out with Cass. Five years later, Cass found her swinging from a belt in the closet of her bedroom. That screwy broad had to know one of those girls was going to be the one to find her. Who does that to a kid? Some things never leave you. I suspect that’s one of them.

“Can I volunteer at the jail?” Grace asked. She seemed to think that the boys and I wouldn’t be as kind to the girl as she would. She said Cass needs someone who understands her.

“You cannot.” I have to draw the line with her sometimes. Bringing home stray puppies is one thing, but when you start collecting people, you have problems.

Just to keep the peace, I promised that I would talk to the brother-in-law, her lawyer, about getting an in-depth evaluation of her mental health. I know I’m supposed to stay out of it, but that was a pretty easy promise to make. Richard Warner is a damn fine attorney, and given that he knows Cass’s history, I’m sure he’s got someone already on tap. I’m fully expecting an insanity plea.

I called in the auxiliary last night. There was some talk that picketers were going to be at the jail this morning, and I don’t want anything getting out of hand. I’ve already heard from two news people and one abused women’s advocate, and Jimmy Ray called to tell me that Daze Harper was out there shooting his mouth off all night. The stories are getting out of control. Did Roland abuse her? Did she have one of those hallucinations Grace was talking about?

I don’t know why she did it. No one does. She hasn’t been talking.

Okay, that isn’t exactly true. She confessed to me right out on that hill, sitting in the rain with her hands still dirty. She’d probably have kept on if Clay hadn’t told her to stop.

And I wonder what that was about. That woman has never been able to control that smart-ass mouth of hers, but one word from Clay Adams and she shuts up tighter than a church on Monday. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her get sharp with him at all. What keeps her from lashing out at him? God knows how easy that would be. The guy got kicked out of the Army, raises worms, and doesn’t seem to care much for women. Maybe they have a kindred crazy connection of some kind. It sure has me scratching my head.

I also wish he’d brought enough of that spice cake for all of us. The man makes a mean spice cake.

Then there’s the witch, Babe. I had to make Lola drive her home yesterday. She was lighting incense in the station, throwing around all kinds of leaves, waving her arms, and speaking in tongues, or whatever the hell that is she does. Every time she sees me, she screams, “She didn’t do it!” It’s enough for any man.

At least Lola seems to have a bit of sense about her. She must have bought that, too. But right now, she’s the most levelheaded of the bunch, and I wish I could go through her instead of that arrogant bastard she married. She’s the only one I really care to talk to—except Clay. I really want to talk to him.

I know a lot about posttraumatic stress disorder, and thank the Lord that Grace is the only one privy to that little secret. People in town call me a war hero, and while I do have a medal, if they knew the whole story, they might feel differently.

I was always a badass, a bully in school, and I guess when I went into the military… well, habits die hard. There always seemed to be that one guy who was a bit slower than the rest, and I never hesitated to let him know how worthless he was. I walked into the latrine one time and found a guy crying. I never did let him live that down. It didn’t matter to me that his wife had just sent him a Dear John letter. Yeah, I was a real tough guy. Thinking back, I was a real asshole.

I had planned to be a lifer. I felt invincible, indestructible, but one bullet to the ass changed all that. It’s not too often that your own platoon sergeant nails you, and I still don’t think it was an accident. He never liked me, but shooting me seems a bit much.

I spent a lot of weeks at the VA hospital in Muskogee. The bullet sat in there way too long. By the time they got around to digging it out, I had an infection and poison in my blood. I damn near died. And it never has healed right. Doc says I have tiny fragments still in my system, and once in a while, they decide to cause some trouble. But Grace takes care of that; she always has.

She was my nurse at the hospital—one of them, at least. The nice one, I’ll say. I’m sure that was pretty difficult, since she worked nights, and that was when I started having those dreams. I still have them once in a while. I wake up in a sweat and see my entire platoon standing around me and covering me with tiny red dots. It’s never the enemy; it’s always my own squadron.

Anyway, I had to start seeing a psychiatrist while I was in the hospital, and I wasn’t too happy about it. But I have to admit, I did feel better after I talked to him, and after I was discharged, I didn’t mind driving to Muskogee to see him. I knew I could see Grace, too, and that made the trip worthwhile.

Grace is the one who bought me my first doll. I wanted to laugh, but even then I knew she meant well. She said having something pretty around when all those bad images came into my mind would help. I remember bringing it home and sitting it on the dining room table. Totsy, 1987, with her thick auburn hair, big green eyes, and that plaid dress. She did make me smile, probably because she reminded me of Grace.

Later, I found Minda when I was going through my grandmother’s things after she died. The doll was still in her box, wearing her tribal dress, her long black hair almost to her knees. I don’t know how everyone else had missed her. She reminded me of my grandmother. I brought her home to keep Totsy company.

By the time I brought Grace to my house for the first time, I had six dolls. I kept them in my bathroom off my bedroom, the one room in my house that nobody but me was allowed in. By that time, I was the chief of police, and I didn’t want to try to explain owning a collection of porcelain dolls. But Grace would have none of that. She put them all in the living room and said if anyone asked, I could say they were hers. Thirty-eight dolls later, that’s still what we tell everyone that comes over. They’re Grace’s dolls.