“It’s horrible, I’m sure, but that’s no excuse for murder.”
A beep came through Dr. Rooker’s telephone. The secretary announced a call on line one for Detective Anderson. Dr. Rooker handed Lucas the phone.
Lucas said, “Good. That’s what I thought. Thanks.” He put the phone in its cradle.
Lucas looked at Dr. Rooker. “You’re A through F.”
“What?”
“The way your counseling staff divides up the students. You’re A through F.”
Dr. Rooker caressed his beard.
“For example,” Lucas said as he sat straight in his chair and glanced at his notebook, “you counsel kids with last names like Coulter, Barrett, Franklin, Crew, Drake, Flinn, Blevins, Black, and Daniels. Those are your clients.”
Dr. Rooker slumped slightly.
“That was Detective Spurlock on the phone. We got a search warrant. He found the rifle. A Ruger Mini 14 with a night scope attached. It’s on the way to the GBI for ballistics.”
Dr. Rooker swiveled in his chair, away from Lucas. “I know... you know... what it’s like. You see it just like I do.”
“What, Dr. Rooker?”
Rooker swiveled around quickly. “Day after day they come in here. Year after year. Kids who exist in a living hell. A long time ago I thought I could make a difference. Help them adjust.” His voice cracked.
“Isn’t that what counselors do?”
Rooker’s fingers supported his forehead. “That’s what you think when you’re just out of school.” He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair when he said, “But it’s impossible! What can I do about parents who are drunkards or dopeheads and abusers? What can I do when the kid has to eat his stepdaddy’s vomit?”
“You call Family and Children’s Services,” Lucas said.
Rooker laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, right. And the kid’s back in the home within weeks. Months if he’s lucky.” The counselor rubbed his face with his hands, then held them still. “I used to tell them, wait. Just wait and hang in there and in a few years, you can be out on your own.” He rested his face on his fingers and shook his head. “That is not good enough.”
“So you took care of it yourself.”
Rooker pounded his fist again. “Yes! Every one of those kids has a whole new life and I can prove it.” He pulled out a raft of folders from his desk drawer. “Better grades. Teacher evaluations praising improved behavior. Club activities.” He threw the folders at Lucas’s feet. “It’s all there.”
Lucas let the folders lie. The detective wanted to mention that he had no kids. He hadn’t abused anybody, and yet only a gnat dog had saved him.
But Lucas didn’t say anything. His anger had diminished. “You can’t kill people, Doctor.”
Rooker stared at Lucas. Tears emerged from the counselor’s eyes. “Maybe you don’t know what it’s like.” He unbuttoned his left sleeve and pulled it up.
Lucas winced involuntarily at the sight. He’d seen it before — scar tissue left from cigarette bums.
Rooker let his sleeve drop. He said quietly, “Detective Anderson, the death of the spirit is much harder than the death of the body. Sometimes... life forces cruel choices.”
And then Dr. Rooker wept.
Detectiverse
Rind Justice
by Deborah Lee
© 1994 by Deborah Lee
Double Con
by Jeremiah Healy
© 1994 by Jeremiah Healy
One of the most popular of present-day private-eye writers, Jeremiah Healy recently received a nomination for the Shamus Award for best short story from the Private Eye Writers of America for his story “Rest Stop” (AHMM, May, 1992). In this new adventure, a very clever con man lures sleuth John Francis Cuddy to the backwoods of Tutham County...
1.
Once you’ve heard it, there’s a sound you’ll never mistake for any other. My first time, in Vietnam, I thought crazily that it was the whumping noise my mother used to make with her broom cleaning a rug over the clothesline. After that, though, I knew what it was. The sound of a high-velocity bullet impacting human flesh.
Frank J. Doppinger’s hand was wrenched from mine, the slug lifting and dropping him akimbo on the ground at the edge of the old firebreak. I’d arrived at this spot after driving an hour from Boston, after passing through Tutham Center, and after six miles of paved rural lane. Enjoying the foliage, I’d carefully watched for the sign screwed to a little post saying Fire Road #7. On the fire road, the acorns launched by the front tires of my Prelude had whacked vigorously at the undercarriage of the car, and I’d spooked a pheasant at the first curve. It was shaping up to be a nice fall day in the country.
Until somebody shot my client out of our handshake.
I was cowering behind a rough-cut boulder, probably pushed up and over by the bulldozer that made the firebreak long ago. I wasn’t fully conscious of picking it for cover or getting to it. I also couldn’t place where the shooter was on the ridge wall across the little valley below the fire road, but from the report of the weapon and the size of the hole in Frank J. Doppinger’s green windbreaker, I knew the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard over my right hip was significantly outgunned.
I counted to ten, heard nothing further, and took it up to thirty. Then I crawled and crab-walked from boulder to log and log to stump until I had circled around to the Prelude. I opened the door, climbed up and in, and started the engine. Then I backed out as fast as reverse would take me, the acorns this time sounding like bullets against the chassis and scaring the hell out of me. Again.
I fishtailed onto the main road and drove headfirst for Tutham Center six miles away.
2.
They were both in their thirties. Lacy, the guy in uniform, was tall, blond, and baby-faced. Perrault, the guy in plainclothes, was short, dark, and bearded. Lacy’s uniform wasn’t particularly well kept, the “Tutham Police” patch the only part that looked clean, much less ironed. Perrault’s plainclothes were plain to the point of homespun, a jaunty lumberjack who’d stumbled into the police station.