Orientation

Another fresh crop of incoming cadets, another decline in the class harvest.  Pennsylvania may have been doing just fine and Governor Shapp couldn’t miss it seemed, but Luzerne County was still waterlogged from Agnes, and the precinct’s dwindling allotment of badges and parking spaces reflected it.  Normally an appearance by the chief in a precinct that looked more barren than bustling meant that someone decked in blue landed the back page for something heroic, or was about to be on the front page for something heinous.  But today was unfortunately neither for Officer Druski.

The former detective eased back into his desk chair like he was submerging into an ice bath.  After not making a sound, hopefully the few remaining busybodies didn’t notice his absence just like they didn’t notice him chatting with the chief in the conference room moments earlier.  Chief’s deputy had offered him fewer hours on a previous pilgrimage, but Druski had been around long enough to know that was always the first step to losing your badge.  Another pay cut it is.

Rumors were apparently the only department that didn’t get the memo regarding the county wide cutbacks.  In fact, the precinct grapevine was as robust as ever, and along with the chief’s toupee, Druski’s recent adjustment became the popular gossip currently being harvested, sidetracking occasionally to his wife’s past or his late brother.  He’d learned to ignore the baseless chatter about Nora’s history and they all knew better than to mention big brother within earshot.  So as far as Druski was concerned, that’s all that benign buzzing would ever bleed out of him.  What he did find concerning, however, was what the gossip wasn’t saying.  Not even broaching it in fact. 

Nobody on the force ever talked about it and yet each and every one of these nightstick wielding chatterboxes knew all about them.  Even worse were the men in blue who not only knew about them, but were moonlighting as members.  Not to mention their fathers and their uncles and their sisters, many of whom were wolves in officer’s clothing.  Back when the business card still read Detective Druski, he’d made the cardinal sin of investigating the Crime Carnival one time too many, and the consequences had been both swift and severe. 

That fallout was almost fifteen years ago, barely the blink of an eye in terms of police careers.  They all knew he’d been framed for assaulting a confidential informant, (a woman no less!) but not one man deputized to uphold the law stepped up.  Even though his work on the case had always been off the clock and his accusations were never more than whispers, they all somehow knew why he was being professionally castrated.  His career had floundered ever since that suspension, while the lesson had been steadfast. 

There was of course the occasional bait over the years.  A few veiled references from people he’d always suspected, sometimes a message not so cleverly hidden among his effects.  One time after an overnight shift, there was a pie waiting for him in the front seat of his car. Besides the empty calories, there was nothing but a boysenberry scented note stuffed between the crust and the tin.  Most delicious smelling ride home by a long shot, but he didn’t dare a single nibble.  If it reeked of the Carnival, it was either a trap or a test.

This particular cadet approaching him, however, didn’t appear to be any of those things. He was far too young and looked like a cautionary tale in the making.  The big eyes, the creases in the shirt purchased more recently than his groceries, the shoes with no scuffs and likely his father’s tie.  He had that same overwhelmed look that men get when they struggle with heavy tools and their jagged edges.

He could be the perfect candidate someday and he sat down on the other side of Druski’s desk without asking.  Druski had put up with quite a bit during his career’s downward spiral, but having the desk near the public entrance was the biggest challenge.  Not even pleasantries this time.  Just a quick glance at the obligatory wedding photo affixed to every cop’s desk and one over rehearsed compliment about Nora.  Then the Academy’s latest cut of fresh meat made himself comfortable, snatching up the pen and pad within reach.  Druski made a show of reclaiming them before shutting them away in the only desk drawer he currently commanded.  His jurisdiction consisted mostly of paperwork in various stages of their office lifecycle, along with a set of broken handcuffs, an unopened packet of pens and a faded red thermos.  The only thing left on Druski’s desk besides his wedding photo was a dirty coffee mug, an olive colored phone with a tartar breath flavored receiver, and yesterday’s crossword.  A typewriter sat off to the side on top of his lone file drawer, a stained cover protecting it, both crooked and torn.

After the lingering silence floated away from their exchange, Druski gave a cursory rundown on the kind of day-to-day activity to expect as a rookie serving just about anywhere in Pennsylvania, but he could see the kid wasn’t absorbing enough of it.  As an impromptu peace offering, (numbers were down after all) Druski opened and reached back into his underutilized little drawer for his notepad and slid it across his desk along with a new pen.  That was all the comradery the boy needed. A few sentences later and he leaned in close to whisper a question about the Crime Carnival, prompting Druski to let loose. 

“Oh for Christ’s sake, if I had a nickel for every time one of you starry eyed virgins came over to my desk like a toddler that can’t sleep, puppy dogging me for anything I got about their case.” Druski was already drawing attention.  “Wasting my time if I tell you, because I’ll never hear them words from you again!  Now is that because you were scared off or just lost interest?  Or is it because just mentioning their name is no different than charging a jittery cop with a loaded weapon.  You sure you wanna keep going here?”

“I’m not afraid of them.” 

“Save your epitaph for the undertaker.”  Druski could feel his insides warming.  If he didn’t stop, the brow sweat would start and then the red ears.  Just what the grapevine wanted.  The boy didn’t deserve his projections.  “Look, not here, OK?  These walls have ears.  They’d catch wind and just change things up anyway.  They’re nomadic like that, but don’t let the chaos fool you.  It’s a seasoned formation of disciplined and cunning killers.” 

“You sound paranoid.  Is that what you think happened to all the others?”

“The other who?  The other virgins?”

“The other grads you said you scared off.  Think they met one of the carnival’s knife throwers?  Heard that’s why applications are down.”

“Being a good cop means not believing everything you hear.  I think one way or another all you classroom heroes realize there are other things in your lives that you value more than crashing the carnival.  Now, whether or not you come to that conclusion on your own or someone convinces you with subtle threats or overt blades of sharp metal against your throat?  No idea.  My guess is a little of both.”

“You ever meet a carny?”

“That’s the scary part son.  We all have.  You probably graduated with at least one.”  Druski leaned back and focused on the twisted up phone cord dangling over the corner of his desk.  “What made you suddenly start caring about Pennsylvania’s oldest death wish anyway?  You don’t look old enough to have heard of them, much less all the vim and vengeance.”

“My mother.  She died in the Altoona massacre.”   

“That was your mom?”  Druski grabbed the cord and began untangling it while they continued.  “Damn.  Anniversary was just last week.  So that’s why you wanna be a cop?”

“I already am a cop.”

“I don’t see a badge or gun.”

“And I don’t see someone that’s passed the fitness test for at least five, maybe ten years.”

“You’ll be lucky to make it five, maybe ten months if you talk to other cops like that.  You can move along then, I got work to do.  Welcome to the force.”  Druski let go of the cord and grabbed his crossword.

“Sorry. You’re right.  I shouldn’t have said that.  And look, it wasn’t just because of my mom.”  The kid exhaled a long breath and looked at the ceiling in silence for a moment before looking back at Druski.  “I used to love these detective books I’d get from my library when I was a kid.  I’d go there when Dad had to work. Free babysitter, free bathroom, free books. Best deal in town he used to say.  And then once Maltese Falcon came out at my local moviehouse, I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.”

Druski eyed him quietly.  Moments like this were pivotal in relationships.  It was too soon to test the kid.  Besides not being vetted, he wasn’t near ready.

“Spy novels for me.”

The kid’s eyes beamed.  “Spies?  My library didn’t have anything like that.  You mean like James Bond?”

“Not like James Bond.  It was James Bond!  What do you think those movies are based on?  You think Hollywood is coming up with stories that good on their own?”

“So being a cop is like being James Bond?”

“That’s not what I said.  Some cop you’ll turn out to be.  I said I became a cop because of James Bond novels the same way you became a cop because of Humphrey Bogart.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t a cop.” 

“Now you sound more like a lawyer than a cop.”

“That’s Officer Lawyer to you.”  He smirked at his own wit, but Druski didn’t even come close to reciprocating.  “So you gonna recommend some spy novels for me then?”

“Ahh, what’s the use?  It’s all crap these days.  Same four or five stories over and over again.  Nothing original.”

“Well if you’re not going to give me the names of books,” the cadet picked up the notepad, “can you at least give me somewhere to start with the Carnival?  I don’t know where I’ll end up being assigned, but what I do know is that I plan to go after them every free second I get.”

“Back on this again.  They never listen.  You think just telling strangers you’re not afraid is gonna convince career criminals that you aren’t vulnerable like some kind of Vulcan mind control?  Well let me ask you something Officer Spock, since you got nothing to lose, how exactly do you plan to win?” 

“I wouldn’t go toe to toe with them like every macho army that got spanked by the British Cavalry.  Got no chance on their playing field.  So I need to trick them into playing on mine.”

“And what playing field is that?”

“The one where I make their entire circus tent collapse by removing one stake at a time without anyone noticing.” 

“Well, there’s your problem.”  Druski grabbed his crossword again.  “Like I already told you, they notice everything.”

“You keep trying to scare me by telling me what they know about us.  I’m sitting here because I want to know about them.  Now are you going to tell me or not?”

“Only thing I’ll tell you in here is that if there’s anything or anyone in your life besides Dad and his cheap ties that you would miss if it suddenly disappeared, then stop asking these questions and go back to shaking down parking meters with the other rookies.”

“How about we speak in your squad car instead?  Plenty for me in there to still learn too.”  The kid wagged the notepad.

A quick lap around the lake near Druski’s home was always welcome when things were slow.  And it meant he could also swing by for a peek at the garage to make sure they started working on Nora’s car.  Just been sitting in their lot for two days now. 

The recent graduate didn’t waste any time after a hasty glance at the vehicle’s dashboard and console configurations before getting right back to begging for ghost stories.

“Fine.  Here’s the crash course, Wyatt Earp.  Back when police were still allowed to be policemen, this is back before the politicians showed up.  Now we gotta get permission slips signed and tell the sheriff who we voted for before we can gas up the cruiser, much less serve a warrant.  Back then we had this network of badges.  Mostly young cops and detectives.  Your mom too, but the Altoona sting wiped all that out.  We operated mostly out of York, but all over the keystone for centuries.  We’d influenced Valley Forge, Gettysburg, even rumors about a woman way out in Ohio Valley that swung the pendulum fighting for the Indians.  But after we got caught with our pants down in Altoona, my brother may he rest in peace gave us the biggest piece of intel we ever had, still to this day.  It’s the closest thing to an organizational chart on the Crime Carnival.  Rosters, mission names, ledger photos, even a few of the spymaster’s codes over the years.”

The kid’s eyes grew wider with each syllable, like spots on a little fawn.  There’s no way in PA this is a trap or a test.  Druski had been like that too, on his way up at least.  But then why was this kid lying?

“Maybe we can sit down in my house for dinner one night.  Nora makes the best stuffed peppers.  Especially this time of year.   One bite of her peppers and you won’t have a single sinus problem this winter!”

The kid feigned a smile of satisfaction – he was gonna have to work on his rapport and authenticity, that was half the job after all – before fumbling through an empty thank you followed by a stuttering request for a little something more to go on.  Druski warded off his empathy and resisted the temptation to divulge any more.  He settled on the oldest clue, it was practically common knowledge in most circles anyway.

“All I’ll give you for now is one name.  And it’s only because it’s already out there, they know we know.”

Out of his own shirt pocket, the cadet grabbed Druski’s notepad that apparently he had commandeered, his hand now holding the pen just millimeters away from its surface, fingers cocked and poised like a reptile about to strike.

Druski grabbed the pen and gently removed it from the boy’s hand.  “If you can’t remember one name, you ain’t cut out to be a cop.”

“Right.  So?”

“Thaddeus.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it?  I told you I’d tell you one name and I just told you one name.  Were you expecting me to say Jesus Christ or Gerald Ford?”

“No.  Of course not.  Thank you.  Thank you for sharing it.  I just, I just don’t know how that’s supposed to help me.”

“Now you know how the Pennsylvania state police, the Pennsylvania task force, the OSS, the FBI, all the way back to the damn PA Long Rifle Militia feel.”  Druski peered across the lake and spotted Nora’s car, and of course it still hadn’t moved.  That settles it, he’s stopping by on the way home and for good measure it’ll be before changing back into his civvies.  They think they can just take a deposit and then let their phone ring off the hook? “I need to get back to the station.  If you want to talk more, leave me your number and I’ll call you with dinner time and an address for Sunday night after I talk to Nora.” 

Officer Druski picked up the phone on his desk as soon as the precinct’s front door had shut behind the exiting cadet.  “Ramsay?  Yeah, it’s Druski.  Yeah.  They’re back.  You know who I mean.  Yes, them.  How do I know?  They just dangled a scout pretending to be fresh out the academy.  Kid told me his mother died in ’58.  Yep.  Altoona.”

Druski grabbed his wedding photo, fidgeting with the back of the frame while he listened.

“Don’t you get it Ramsay?  It ain’t the kid they just dangled that’s got me nervous.  They must be getting sloppy or desperate.”  Druski finished unfastening the back of the frame and removed his wedding photo along with a second photo that had been nestled behind it.  “I understand them circling me for intel, but the bit about the mom with this kid?  I know that’s a lie.  And what scares me is they know I know that’s a lie.  So what the hell are they up to?”

Druski placed his wedding photo on his desk facedown and instead focused on a picture of him with a different woman in a bathing suit at Hershey Park.

“Come on, Ramsay.  I was the one that arrested her.  I was the one that flipped her.  I was the one that mourned her.  I was all the family she had. I know for damn sure she never told me about any kids and not a single one showed up to her funeral either.”

Druski placed the second photo on his desk face up and gently ran his finger around the contours of the woman in the photo.  He heard the entrance door chime and quickly returned both pictures to the frame as they were while wrapping up his phone call.

“They’re back.  And my guess is that we’re looking at some sort of changing of the guard.  The new varsity squad is here and all that clandestine nonsense might make things hard for us, but it might mean those guys don’t know their own history either.  Maybe they know me and are just sizing me up after all these years, or maybe they don’t and just made a huge mistake.  But either way, the Carnival is back in town.”

 It wasn’t how Green wanted to spend his first free Sunday as an Academy Graduate.  He still hadn’t finished unpacking his suitcase at the long term motel and he owed his girlfriend a letter, but this dinner was an investment.  Now that detectives were peers and not just role models, he’d be able to get a whole heck of a lot further than just the microfiche and public records he’d sniffed out while being raised by the public libraries of Pennsylvania.  And while this Officer Druski was no longer a detective – and never had been much of one, based on what he’d heard – he still had insights and experiences that could impart the competitive advantage Green needed to hit the career fast track.  Academy Instructor Roberts had given him Druski’s name as a possible mentor, as Druski’s family had a long tail that went way back in the Luzerne County history books. Roberts had also given him a warning: do NOT ask why he’s only on the desk after so many years and do NOT, under any circumstances, ask about his older brother.  Green was at Osterhout Library the next morning waiting on the librarian with the key to let him in, invigorated by his own curiosity. 

Druski’s address and directions had been easy enough to follow, but the home looked nothing like Green had imagined. He’d expected messy hedges, a neglected lawn and house paint predating the Korean War.  Instead he admired in wonder at what he saw in its place: curb appeal and the hours upon hours required to demonstrate such meticulous care.  This wasn’t a home trying to blend in with its acreage, overlooked or forgotten by all passersby.  It was a bright and shiny beacon for all the other subordinate homes, lending them its aspirations while they knelt at this neighborhood altar of groomed rose bushes and daffodil placements so aesthetically pleasing that their arrangement was likely mathematical. 

Green checked his notes again.  This was the right place.  As he approached the front door, the stench of freshly cut grass was borderline nauseating.  So perhaps Druski didn’t always live like this, he merely spruced up the property because he knew he was having a visitor.

That feeling dissipated quickly when the inside of the house made the lawn feel unkempt.  Druski hadn’t even opened the front door wide enough to let anybody inside and already Green could hear Nora yelling from the kitchen about her shoe removal policy.  The sheen on the walls sparkled so brightly Green felt himself squinting while navigating the sun drenched hallways.  Every end desk and coffee table existed free from clutter of any kind.  Every chair pushed in, every window open, and every curtain drawn.  There was the faint smell of tomatoes, garlic, and onion, at least until some custom concoction of ammonia and lemon met Green like a Gestapo guard upon reaching the kitchen.

“Well, well, well, if you aren’t the prettiest crop in this year’s harvest, then Lord better make me a farmer.”  Nora wiped her hands on her apron, the phrase ‘Compliment the Chef’ in faded cursive, before hugging the boy. “You must be our dinner guest.  My name’s Noreen but if you’re a cop, then you can call me Nora.”

“Don’t give him a big head Nora, that’s the last thing he needs fresh out the Academy.” Druski pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and motioned toward Green. “Sit.  Beer?”

“Don’t you listen to him honey.  You don’t need no beer, especially if you’re about to have some of my peppers.  You’re better off with something harder for now.  You can thank me later.  Peppers is done, but I made some marinara just for you sweetheart.  And it’s gonna need another 15 or 20 minutes before it’s ready.”  Nora sampled the boiling sauce bubbling in the cauldron with her wooden spoon, making no acknowledgement of its heat, only its blandness.  “Maybe more like a half hour.  Onions still ain’t doing their job.  Why don’t you two boys make yourself comfortable in the den and I’ll holler when it’s time for supper.”

The den felt much more like Druski.  It brandished the lone carpet in the house without vacuum tracks and the air smelled only of tomato-kissed stale smoke, unlike the cleaning aromas permeating every other room not named kitchen.  There was a crooked picture of the Wilkes-Barre skyline on the wall, allowing Green a peek of the original taupe before the paint suffered its nicotine infection.  While Druski drifted toward the liquor cabinet, Green plopped into the recliner.  Once Druski finished pouring the second drink, he turned and harumphed before handing Green his drink and settling into the chair likely reserved for Nora.

“So does your wife know about the Crime Carnival?”

“For Christ’s sake kid, I haven’t even taken a sip yet.  You’re gonna need to work on your bedside manner if you’re planning to stay in this line of work.”

“Sorry.  Just anxious I guess.”  Green took a sip of his own drink.  “Thanks, Druski.  What is this?”

“It’s called Sprite with cheap bourbon.”  Druski raised his glass.  “Nothing but the best for Luzerne County’s finest.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.  Green tried to ascertain what he could about Druski the man as well as Druski the cop based on the room.  He wasn’t coming up with much, other than the fact that both apparently enjoyed their crosswords.  There had to be at least two months’ worth of Sunday Crosswords stuffed into the magazine rack underneath the end table where Green rested his drink.  The majority of them were mostly scribbled out letters and blank boxes.  The clue Union Balloon Pilot Lowe had been circled many times on the latest edition. 

Green grabbed his drink and stood, wandering to the two shelves upon which sat the rather quaint Druski family library.

“Doubt you’ll see anything you like.  Mostly just spy novels and my wife’s Agatha Christie collection that nobody but her is allowed to touch.  Nothing about carnys.”

“Got a favorite?”  Green pulled The Quiller Memorandum off the shelf and skimmed its back cover.

“Ha, at least you got a cop’s instinct.  That’s a good one right there.  Right up your alley.  One guy tries to take down an entire Nazi organization.”

“Sounds more like new journalism than fiction.  Or maybe autobiographical.”  Green smirked while putting it back on the shelf.  “Probably not enough action for me.”

“Spoken like a true novice.  When you’re older, you’re going to be awful embarrassed you blabbed that nonsense.”  Druski stood and grabbed Day of the Jackal.  “This one has all the action you’ll need.”

“Wow, there’s a book too?  One of the grads in my class wouldn’t shut up about the movie.”  Green glanced at the inside cover flap before reshelving it.  “Not gonna bother with that one since I already know how it ends.  What about this one?  Ipcress?  Who’s he?  Wait, this is a movie too, isn’t it?”

“Patience.  Put it back where you found it, young grasshopper.”  Druski knew the kid would inevitably fall down the same rabbit hole as every other budding spy novel enthusiast.  He reached for the only copy he owned, its dust jacket long gone.  “Take this one with you.  JFK’s favorite.”

“Who’s this?” Green asked without bothering to investigate the spine or title page.

“Fleming.  Ian Fleming.” 

“Never heard of him.”

Green could feel Druski’s eyes on him.  He looked up to the man staring at him, utterly dumbfounded.

“Get to stepping and bring me the red wine!” Nora bellowed from the kitchen. “I’m starting without you.  And you better be showing him where he can wash his hands!”

The stuffed peppers’ reputation that preceded the meal segued nicely to the centerpiece of Sunday dinner conversation at the Druski household. Luckily for Green, he had a natural tolerance to the advertised heat, and one large glass of water as well as an ice cube to suck on was all he needed to get through the waves of fire that Druski had warned him about.  However, it was the marinara that Green couldn’t stop complimenting throughout the meal, and Nora couldn’t have been happier.

“You know, I’m so glad you said that.  My husband told me all about you the other night when he came home from work, and I could just tell by the way he described you that you were in need of a homecooked meal.  I hope you don’t mind but I put some of the sauce you liked so much aside for you special.  It’s in that glass jar over there, you see it?  You just make sure not to forget it when you leave.  You’d be surprised how far just a dab will do you.”

Nora could be any person to any particular thing or any unique situation. Noreen on the other hand, recognized only one allegiance and it provided the fulcrum upon which every decision was weighed.  It rendered her loyalty into an unconditional faith devoid of empathy.  Sometimes that meant lying to a spouse and sometimes that meant exposing a friend’s most sensitive vulnerabilities or just loosening all the distributor caps on their car’s engine.

Or sometimes it meant poisoning a nosy stranger that makes your hair tingle.

She’d spent more time chopping the onions than she did lamenting the reasonable doubt she’d had about the boy’s true motivations.  But the Crime Carnival was stalling more than it had ever been by her rough estimation, and moving the pace along like a skittish snail no longer suited her.  The Keystone State was badly in need of being recut, and she fancied herself the new butcher.  She’d spent her pre-carny life as a gourmet chef anyway; both jobs required a delicate touch and a sharp knife.

The only real problem was going to be her husband.  Lying was just another thoughtless habit at this point in the marriage.  She lied about not being able to have kids shortly after their meeting, arranged by her handler Patrice of course.  Was this any worse?  Unfortunately, she’d already set too many wheels in motion, particularly the one sitting in a jar that was in Green’s motel room, and hopefully still unopened.  Even if her husband was a second rate cop, it wouldn’t take long for him to figure out that Nora’s sudden need to visit a sick relative that she’d never mentioned before was not adding up.  It was the only thing she could think of when she blurted it in a pinch on the phone earlier.  Thank goodness she had the Ford to blame.  It would at least buy her a few precious days before any suspicion would begin to materialize if she ended up needing that kind of time to clean up this mess that had just been created.

The bigger problem that was not her own however, had not yet metastasized from the benign blessing that it currently resembled.  Noreen had been sloppy in choosing poison, a method she trusted more than once in the past.  Success would cling to the hope that the county wouldn’t opt to test the boy’s blood or perform any toxicology.  Quite the oversight to assume as much, given he was such a young healthy man, making his sudden death curious enough to warrant further investigation.  But if she had to hear her husband complain about department cutbacks even one more time, she might consider taking the poison herself.  So it had been a calculated risk but a necessary gamble.  An unfortunate tragedy that was still too expensive to investigate further. 

That was before learning that somebody else got to Green first. 

If he had even ingested it yet, which was unlikely, her poison would’ve incapacitated him, and it would’ve killed him from the inside out, but this gaping knife wound above his heart made protocols pretty straightforward for the county.  That may have been great news for the suspicion that might eventually cast her way thanks to her reckless choices, but the news was catastrophic for those responsible for Green’s assault.

Alone in a motel, her first night without her husband sleeping next to her in years, would be mostly a waiting game.  Her and Patrice hadn’t made contact for nearly a decade; Operation AppleEye had only one objective and it was completed when Nora said “I Do.”  Any other efforts on behalf of the Crime Carnival had been at her own discretion or through the guidance of others in the Pocono network, and the lack of reprimand led her to believe they were satisfied with the current state of their union. 

But her husband’s instincts suspecting the boy had nagged her own intuitions.  Still a teenager with no older relatives on the force somehow knowing all about the Carnival?  Coupled with lying about his own mother?  The jury room was no longer necessary because she had her verdict. 

So now, in a forgettable motel room paid for in cash just to make a phone call in the middle of the night to a person who may no longer be alive on a number that might be disconnected or belonging to an old couple trying to sleep.  And then she’d be forced to spring on her old handler that she tried and failed to poison a cadet on a whim, even though he ended up in a coma anyway.  It was the only contact she could reach out to, everyone else had conveniently omitted ways to communicate.  Perhaps Patrice would hear the tale and Noreen would finally be initiated into the Spymaster’s orbit, having been impressed by her cunning initiative.

Perhaps they’d tell her to sit tight at the motel and then one of the Carnival’s knife throwers would arrive to remove the loose thread that she had become in their assessment. 

Subterfuge may have been Noreen’s calling card, but everyone under the big top was on the same team, meaning the truth was the only acceptable currency.  Unconditional loyalty meant decision making devoid of empathy, including being empathetic to herself.  Telling Patrice the truth might incriminate her capabilities, but it would exonerate entirely any treasonous motivations.  Carnival over carny prevailed and she planned on providing Patrice with every last detail, because as of right now she had no way of sneaking into the boy’s motel room two doors down from her moldy room to retrieve the smoking gun that hadn’t even been fired.  But first she needed to line up her most important play.

By now, her husband would be home, at least according to their phone call earlier when she learned about Green’s stabbing.  He would see that both she and the Ford were gone, but he’d have no reason to suspect anything.  Yet.  And now that Green was about to be front page news, she only saw three outcomes.  The first of course, was the prevailing of sheer optimism: the Times Leader runs a heartfelt article about a life ruined too soon as well as hospital visiting hours, and Pennsylvania grieves accordingly with none the wiser. The second, and now more likely option, was a fully funded investigation into why a young man with a clean rap sheet, a future employee of the state, was viciously assaulted, his blood soaked body left where he was stabbed on the Back Mountain Memorial Library front steps for the morning shift to discover.  If forensics is able to deduce the nature of the attacker or if any motive is discovered, they will no doubt conclude the actions were forged through criminal channels.  Public panic will commence, refurbished rumors will reappear, and every available spotlight will be turned on.  The kid’s motel room will be combed over like a crime scene, which might as well be a trail of guilty bread crumbs to her and her cop husband’s kitchen.  And if in fact it was the Crime Carnival behind his attempted murder, then she could always rebrand her own folly as great minds thinking alike in that the Carnival and she were seeking the same result by removing him. 

That left the third option.  Noreen called her husband at home, told him she made it to her niece’s but it turns out the wrenches at the garage were right and the Ford crapped out less than a mile from the house.  There’s a local auto shop that can take a look in the morning, but either way it might be a few days before she can make it back.  She now had the time she needed to execute option three and get that marinara in that locked room before the authorities inevitably did.

Officer Druski might as well have been in rigor mortus, his defeated body nearly catatonic with melancholy.  He’d managed to pour a cup of coffee and fold the morning paper to prepare his daily crossword, but that was over an hour ago.  It sat undisturbed next to Funeral in Berlin, the book he’d planned on lending his new protégé. 

There’s a saying amongst the Keystone Cops.  You’re not a cop until you slap cuffs on a friend.  Luckily, Druski had never had the honor.  Perhaps that’s why his career trajectory never soared to the heights he once envisioned?  Just another casualty of the damn Crime Carnival.  Or perhaps he no longer had the sharp insights needed to be a cop.  Even worse, maybe it wasn’t the insights he was lacking, but rather the fortitude. Or most likely, he just didn’t want to follow the facts because of the truth they would tell him.

Druski was still a good enough cop however to recognize that he was well past the point of denial, and it was time to face his inevitable conclusion.

Nora was lying about something, just like the kid was.

There had been a long weekend once.  Said she was going to meet up with some old friends from high school, then she hopped in her Ford and disappeared.  She had left on a Thursday evening and didn’t come back until Tuesday, middle of the night.  No phone calls, no nothing.  That’s an awful long time, but never thought anything of it.  It was easy to lose track of time when you’re laughing and drinking with old friends.  While they were swapping childhood stories when they first started dating, she had told him she hated her high school years and never wanted to be reminded of them again.  But he never gave the offhand remark much more thought until yesterday.

Just like Green’s mother didn’t have a son, Nora didn’t have a niece, at least not by blood.  When they had been married, she told the priest in the days leading up to the nuptials that she was an only child.  Topic never really came up again because she lost both of her parents at such a tragically young age.  She didn’t really like talking about it, just like her high school years, and Druski had always been more than happy to oblige her.  Too painful to discuss, much less survive.  Just like where this all seemed to be going.

He pushed the swelling wave of pain washing his brain’s focus aside when he saw a necktie that he recognized.  A man around his own age had just wandered in after sheepishly pushing through the front door.  He was mostly bald, but the few white hairs remaining were disheveled, outrageously so.  Despite the fall season, his eyes and nose were all puffy and flushed with irritation.  His cream colored button down shirt was at least a size too big, and once he looked to his left and saw that both chairs near the window to sign in were occupied, he gave Druski an obligatory glance before collapsing into the chair across from him.

Druski knew who he was immediately, and only wanted to hug the man.  But he couldn’t take his eyes off that tie.  He even recognized the same Full Windsor knot.  Druski’s father had tied his ties too his first year out the Academy.

After a belabored introduction, nothing more than a transparent effort to avoid discussing what pained them both, they both sighed loudly with their heaving chests.  Policemen and police stations can have funny effects on people.  Almost like some sort of moral amulet.  Lot of times when people see an officer in uniform, they either stiffen up like they’re auditioning for the Queen’s Guard or they babble on about every legally grey moment they’ve had since graduating college.  Sometimes it’s useful, but mostly it’s just a waste of time for the cop and free therapy for the citizen.  Druski liked to believe that inherently bad folks were the ones that became instinctively obstructive in the presence of the law.  But he also believed that the good folks were only trying to become the best versions of themselves by purging their legal woes to the boys in blue. And then, despite the pain and mourning they’d just shared, moments after meeting, Green’s father confessed to one tiny mistake and the lifetime of anguish that followed it.

“I was always ashamed of how things worked out between his mother & me.  Pregnancy wasn’t planned, I wasn’t ready to be a father and she wasn’t willing to take a chance that I would be anytime soon.  Can’t blame her, but God had other plans.  Turns out it was her that wasn’t ready.  She’d cut me out completely after a fight we had early on in the pregnancy.  Then, must’ve been almost a year later, she just dropped him off at my front door all bundled up in rags that smelled like a filthy auto shop, grease marks and everything.  No note, no way to find her, no nothing.  Just a crying baby.  Poor thing had chicken pox to boot.  Can you believe a mother would ever be capable of something so heartless?  Saw her name pop up on the news a week or two later when cops arrested her and a couple others at Wilkes Barre General for jumping a nurse and stealing morphine.” 

The seats next to the welcome desk were now open.  Mr. Green glanced over at them but made no movement to claim either one.  Instead, he reached into the pocket of his pants for a handkerchief.  After grinding it into his puffy face, he regained his composure but his voice remained resolute for only so long.

“I just remember being so embarrassed when it happened, not like it was all my fault, but the boy being cursed with such a poor mother?  I felt culpable in that I suppose.  She never would’ve failed him if it wasn’t for my two cheap bottles of wine and whatever the hell she was on the night we spent together.”  Mr. Green folded his handkerchief with more and more hostility until finally just burying his eyes in it, the words dripping in shame and regret.  “And not to be outdone by her fatal fix, I ruined the boy even worse with a decision I thought was the right thing but ended up shaping the boy’s whole damn life.  And probably his death too, if you believe the doctors.  I made up a story about his mother when he was old enough to start asking.”

For the first time since being assigned that desk, Druski didn’t label the person in front of him according to his pessimism or his suspicion, a dirty habit he’d always enabled by claiming it was necessary for the job.  He only saw a man that believed he had destroyed something that he loved.  He didn’t know what to say, not being a father himself, but the silence seemed to be soothing enough.  He chose to wait for the other to speak first, behavior normally reserved for when he needed a confession, and not a connection.  Not unlike confessors, Mr. Green had plenty more to say once the seal had been broken.     

“My son and I, my own family too, we was from Altoona you see, so I remembered the story about the undercover woman that got killed during some sting.  Made headlines if I recall because of all the fuss about female cops it created.  We’d moved seven counties away since then, so I figured I wasn’t hurting nobody by telling my son that was his mother.  Figured it to be motivational at least.  What I didn’t figure was that it would inspire him to spend his entire childhood at the library looking for clues to find the people behind that massacre.  Never did arrest anyone if memory serves.  I tried talking him out of that constant obsession any way I could, but he just wouldn’t let up.  Addictive mind I suppose, just like his mother.  There were days I considered just giving him the truth, you know, because it’s my boy and I love him, right?  How can you go wrong with telling someone you love the truth?  Problem is that telling him the truth is not only telling him that your father isn’t who you think he is because he’s just a phony dumbass no good liar.  It’s also telling him that his mother, well she isn’t who you think she is either.  She isn’t this heroic martyr that not only birthed you, but also your life’s inspiration.  No, the truth is she loved drugs more than her own flesh and blood, and based on the obituary I read a few months after you were left at my doorstep, she never changed her mind on the matter neither.”

He folded the handkerchief back up and delicately slid it back into his pocket.  “If I would’ve told him anything other than all that I’m just replacing one lie with another.”

Despite the gloom permeating every corner of the precinct, outside the sun shone like a beaming parent, brandishing it rays like sparkling badges.  The grapevine had the nutrition it needed.  All that was missing was a little water, or even better, a little dirt.  Druski picked up his crossword once Green’s father sauntered back toward the main desk to commence his administrative portion of the grieving process.  

Just as Druski contemplated a twelve letter word for Autumn ultimatum, Chief and his toupee trudged back into the precinct.  And to Druski’s surprise, Chief sunk into the same chair Mr. Green had just vacated, also without asking.

The grapevine had a way of garnishing its chatter with a buffet of melodramatic spices.  But this time, there were no conflicting versions. No he said, she said.  They were all on the same page for once, and even though it got rehashed again and again in the break room over the following weeks, the story never changed a word, no matter whose point of view was being regaled.

Witnessing the Chief tell poor old Officer Druski that his wife had just been arrested when they discovered her tampering with evidence at a nearby motel is something no person with love in their heart should ever have to go through.  Chief didn’t even say so much as sorry, just warned the former detective he’s going to need a lawyer.  They say you aren’t a cop until you have to slap the cuffs on a friend.  Well, the day you stop being a cop is the day you get home late and no one notices.  The precinct never heard from former Detective Druski again after that chat with the Chief.  Last time anyone saw him, he was shuffling out the front door with nothing but a faded red thermos and a couple of photos in his hand.  About a week or so later, a call came in about an abandoned Ford parked at the mouth of the Water Street bridge. 

Had to be towed because it wouldn’t start.