The Dead Room

9

Darby stood with Pine and a Belham patrolman around the corner from the nurses’ station, next to a trolley holding discarded cafeteria trays. The odours of sour milk and steamed vegetables were a welcome relief from Pine’s cigar stench.

The patrolman’s name was Richard Rodman. His thick grey hair, carefully combed and parted, did not match his youthful face. Darby thought he looked like a budding politician stuffed inside a cop’s blue uniform. He held a white-paper mailer spotted with blood from the teenager’s bloody T-shirt. The emergency room physician had cut the shirt off the teenager and then had the good sense to transfer it to a paper bag. Plastic bags broke down DNA. Not all doctors knew this.

‘I was sitting on a chair outside his room when he opened the door and asked if I knew a Belham cop named Thomas McCormick,’ Rodman said. ‘I said no, I didn’t, and the kid said everyone called McCormick Big Red. Kid said he needed to talk to McCormick but wouldn’t tell me why.’

Rodman looked at Darby. ‘I remembered seeing you on TV last year when you caught that whack-job, what’s his name, the guy who shot women in the head, put Virgin Mary statues in their pockets and dumped them in the river.’

‘Walter Smith,’ Darby said.

Rodman snapped his fingers. ‘That’s the guy. What happened to him?’

‘He’s in a mental institution. He’ll be spending the rest of his life there.’

‘God bless us all. The news story I saw did this profile on you and I remembered something about you growing up in Belham and your old man being a cop. So I went to the nurses’ station, used a computer to do a Google search, then called operations and here we are.’

‘Did you tell the boy that Thomas McCormick is dead?’

‘No. I figured it might be better if you tell him. You know, use that as your way in.’

‘Has anyone come to see him?’

Rodman shook his head. ‘No phone calls either.’

‘I think it’s better if I see him alone.’

‘I’m fine with that. The less, the better, I say. The kid’s really shook up.’

Darby turned to Pine.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Pine said.

Darby pushed herself off the wall and grabbed the small digital tape recorder from her back pocket. ‘Where is he?’

‘Straight down the hall,’ Rodman said.

Darby opened the door. The teenager had turned off the lights in his room. In the dim light coming from the window next to his bed, she could see that someone had worked him over good. The left side of his face was swollen, the eye nearly shut.

He sat up in bed, a blanket covering his legs. His bandaged arm, perched in a sling, rested against his bare chest, tanned from the sun. Tall and lean, he had barely any muscle tone.

‘Hello, John. My name is Darby McCormick. I understand you wanted to see my father.’

‘Where is he?’

His voice was raw. And young.

‘May I come in?’

He considered the question for a moment. His blond hair was cut short, his forehead damp with sweat. All-American good-looks. The ER doctor had used butterfly sutures on the split skin.

Finally, he nodded.

She shut the door and sat on the end of the bed. The skin along his wrists and eyes was red. Patches of missing hair above the ears. She could see that he had been crying.

‘Where’s your father?’ he asked again.

‘He’s dead.’

The boy swallowed. His eyes went wide, as if a door had just been slammed shut in his face.

‘What happened to him?’

‘My father was a patrolman and pulled over a car,’ Darby said. ‘The person behind the wheel was a schizophrenic recently released from prison. My father approached the vehicle and for some reason this person shot him.’

‘And he died?’

‘My father managed to radio for help, but by the time he was rushed to the hospital he had lost too much blood. He was already brain dead. My mother made the decision to pull him off life support, and he died.’

‘When?’

‘Before you were born,’ Darby said. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’ll be thirteen next March.’

Twelve, Darby thought. Someone had tied a twelve-year-old boy down to a kitchen chair seated across from his mother.

‘What happened to your arm?’

‘I strained a muscle or something, and the doctor gave me this sling,’ John said. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘You can ask me anything you want.’

‘The person who shot your father, did they catch him?’

‘Yes, they did. He’s in jail.’

The boy looked at the gun clipped to her belt. ‘Are you a cop?’

‘I’m a special investigator for the Criminal Services Unit. I help victims of violent crimes. Can you tell me about the people who taped you down to the kitchen chair?’

‘How’d you –’ His lips clamped shut.

‘The skin along your wrists and your cheeks,’ Darby said. ‘Those are marks left from duct tape.’

He turned his head to the window. He blinked several times, his eyes growing wet.

Darby placed a hand on his knee. The boy shuddered.

‘I’m here to help. You can trust me.’

He didn’t answer. From outside the room came a steady beep-beep-beep from some piece of machinery and the murmured voices of Pine and the patrolman. The talking stopped. Darby wondered if they were standing near the door, trying to listen.

‘But how do I know?’

‘Know what?’

‘That I can trust you,’ he said.

‘You asked for my father.’

‘And you said he’s dead.’

‘I’m his daughter.’

‘So you say.’

Darby reached into her pocket. She removed the creased photo from her wallet and placed it on his lap.

‘This is a picture of my father,’ she said.

He picked up the photo of her father dressed in his patrolman’s uniform. A gap-toothed six-year-old girl with emerald-green eyes and long auburn pigtails sat on his lap.

‘Is this you?’

Darby nodded. ‘Do you recognize him?’

‘I’ve never met your father.’ He handed the picture back to her. ‘For all I know this photo is a fake.’

‘See this laminated card hanging around my neck? The picture matches the one on my licence. Here, look.’

He did.

‘I’m Thomas McCormick’s daughter.’ She said the words softly; she didn’t want this to be a confrontation. ‘You can trust me. But if you want me to help, you have to be honest with me.’

He said nothing.

‘What’s your father’s name?’

‘I don’t know,’ John said. ‘I never met him.’

‘Do you have a stepfather?’

‘My mom never got married.’

‘Do you have any other siblings?’

‘No.’

‘What about aunts, uncles or cousins?’

‘My mom… It was just me and her.’

His lips clamped shut again, then his eyes. His chest heaved in the air and he started to tremble.

‘It’s okay.’ Darby took his hand. ‘It’s okay.’

‘My mom…’ He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘She said that if something happened to her, if I ever got into trouble or was scared, I had to call Thomas McCormick. She said he’s the only police officer to trust. She told me not to talk to anyone else, under any circumstances.’

He started bawling.

‘My mom’s dead and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.’