Love Gone Mad Page 17

  Wilson lies in a limp heap. Adrian wonders if Wilson’s faking, playing possum.

  He whirls the weapon; the muzzle snaps into position at Wilson’s head. He pumps another round into the chamber.

  Goodbye, motherfucker.

  A rush of rage ramps through Adrian. He knows he can pull the trigger and blow out Wilson’s brainpan.

  You’re one squeeze away from over. Yes … Goodbye, motherfucker.

  Adrian’s hands shake—a violent and sick trembling. His finger slides onto the trigger and begins the squeeze; the mechanism engages, ready to release the hammer, hit the load, and spew a burst of pellets.

  But he doesn’t do it. Instead, his foot slams into Wilson’s groin.

  No response.

  Adrian tastes it and smells it—the urge to kill—to batter Wilson, smash him into pulp. He’s in another world. The graveyard’s pale light, the weight and heat of the shotgun, its oiled smell, the scent of earth and sweat and blood, and the singed stench of spent buckshot in the wind—it’s woven a sick spell, taken Adrian from himself.

  A shell sits in the gun’s chamber, waiting to take a life—the life that would have taken Megan’s and his. This man would’ve killed him—wasted him with no remorse. He deserves neither mercy nor pity. Adrian knows he can snuff him out, ending his existence, and in that moment, he feels an overpowering wish to bring death to this man.

  The sirens are closer. There’s still time. Adrian can kill this maniac—blow him away—and no one would ever know the difference. Not a soul on earth would know it was in cold blood.

  And you’re not a physician, not here, not now. This is no operating theater. You’re standing in dirt and mud and rocks, you’ve come through woods and hills where you’ve been hunted like prey, and you’ve survived. You should terminate this son of a bitch. For Marlee’s sake, for Marlee’s, and for yourself; too, you should end it, here and now.

  Adrian yanks the pump mechanism. It slides back, clacks loudly, and a shell ejects and hits the ground. Don’t murder him … The man’s crazy, he thinks. But then an overpowering urge—an insane surge of rage seizes Adrian—and he pushes the pump action forward. There’s a snapping sound. Another cartridge slaps heavily into the chamber. The weapon is locked and loaded—ready to fire.

  Nobody gets out of this life alive, motherfucker.

  The barrel’s at Wilson’s head. The trigger yields gently. It takes so little pressure—an ounce, maybe two—and he presses harder so the trigger nears the point of no return.

  Adrian jerks the shotgun skyward. A hot flash roars from the muzzle. He feels the blowback from the gun’s breech as it blasts into his shoulder.

  He racks the gun again and pumps another shot into the night.

  He pumps again—a shucking sound—and shoots, then pumps and shoots again and again, emptying the chamber.

  Eight shells, one after another, all blown out. Yellow plastic casings litter the earth. The air smells of propellant powder—a mix of charcoal and sulfur. The sooty odor stings Adrian’s nostrils. His ears ring and his arms feel dead. His eyes fill with water.

  Wilson will never know how close to death he came. He’ll know only the bleakness of prison—the cinder-block walls and razor wire—caged like the beast he is, behind bars with the scum of the earth, extruded from society with tattooed shit-flingers and bellowing psychos in some gang-infested, filth-ridden hellhole.

  Adrian pats him down. No weapon. No cell phone. No wallet, nothing. Just Conrad Wilson, lying in a lake of his own blood with his tongue protruding.

  Adrian’s blood hums. He feels incendiary, yes, like he’s on fire and could explode. Adrian tells himself his job is to mend, not destroy. Not to shoot, stab, smash, or pound. He’s spent years studying biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology. Countless hours in hospital wards and operating rooms, forestalling death, preserving life. Adrian realizes he’s viewed it with a certain reverence; it’s been his life’s work. He’s a healer. It’s been his way in the world.

  Fixing God’s mistakes.

  But nothing stays the same. Everything changes if you give it enough time.

  The moon’s luminescence gives Wilson’s shattered face a ghoulish look, with his blood-drenched hair and crushed cheekbone, blood leaking onto the granite slab.

  Adrian wonders how this man could have been someone with whom Megan shared her life.

  The puddle of blood spreads, glistening like an oil slick in the moonlight. Scalp wounds can be nasty. The bastard will bleed out, go empty, and die. It serves the fucker right. And you’ll go on with your life and try to forget this night and what you did.

  Or you could rip off your shirt, stanch the bleeding until the medics get here … You’re a physician … a healer … You know what to do.

  Pressing his ear to Wilson’s chest, he hears the man’s heartbeat rushing in a thready symphony, like a hummingbird’s fluttering wings—a sure sign he’ll lapse into shock. In maybe a minute or two, he’ll bleed out and be gone.

  Does he really want this bastard to die?

  Yes, he does.

  Shame shudders through him. He’s appalled by his own fury.

  Adrian waits for numbness, hoping for some kind of disconnect from the rage, from the wanton wish for this man’s death, from his own remorse, from fear and guilt and the absolute horror of it all. He’s appalled at himself. It’s stomach-churning revulsion, and it sickens him to his core. Jesus, how he wants to not care, to not give a shit, but that’s not him. It’s an impossibly callous level of indifference. So Adrian tears off his shirt and presses it to Wilson’s scalp. Blood blossoms into the cotton and seeps through the fabric, soaking Adrian’s fingers. He presses harder; the bunched shirt squishes in his hand.

  The wind kicks up and whistles in a shrieking eddy between the granite stones. Adrian’s feet are soaked, numb. His palms burn; he’s torn and bleeding. His arms and legs feel weak, jelly-like—dead. There’s a high-pitched ringing in his ears—he’s shotgun deaf—and everything sounds muffled, clogged, distant.

  Sirens wail, then burp; then there’s a dying whine. Adrian hears car engines. The cops are here. Doors slam. Shouts carry on the wind, which now gusts through the headstones with lusty howls. Lights whirl in a multicolored frenzy; some pulse and flicker while others shoot blinding beams into the night. Adrian hears voices, radio static, crepitating commands, police jargon, men running.

  On his knees between the graves, in milky moonlight, Adrian presses his blood-soaked shirt to the slippery wetness of Wilson’s wound, trying to keep a life from leaking away—trying to stop the dying of this man so mired in hatred, rage, and violence.

  The wind gathers more forcefully, and a shrieking eddy of air lashes between the gravestones. Flashlights approach, gravel crunches beneath jump boots, voices grow louder and frantic, and Adrian hears a police dog’s throaty barking, followed by growling; the dog must smell blood.

  Crouched beside the man who tried to kill Megan and then him, Adrian shivers, surrounded by tumult, and inhales the organic smell of earth and blood and torn flesh. He waits in this graveyard above the dust of the dead—weak, drenched, bruised, and bleeding—and amid a swirl of lights and clamor of voices, he cannot believe he somehow managed to survive this night.

  Twenty-four

  Dr. John Grayson nods at the cop sitting in the chair outside Conrad Wilson’s hospital room. The cop nods back. It’s the same Eastport officer who was here yesterday, and he’s been told that Grayson is evaluating Wilson’s mental state.

  Wilson occupies a single room. He lies in bed, wearing short-sleeved, blue hospital pajamas. His left wrist is cuffed to the bed-rail. Entering the room, Grayson notices the television is on and muted. Wilson’s bed is in the half-raised position, and he stares off into space.

  As a former NCAA basketball player at Duke, Grayson’s encountered some pretty big guys, and while Wilson’s by no means the tallest, he’s possibly the most formidable-looking man Grayson’s ever seen. He looks like what he o
nce was, a champion wrestler—a bulldozer of a man. He has plenty of bulk, but he’s sinewy and athletic-looking, too. His thick forearms ripple with bands of tendon and muscle, as though heavy-duty cables reside within them. And his face—tough-looking, sullen—reminds Grayson of the mixed martial arts fighters he’s seen on Spike TV.

  Huge purple swellings bulge beneath Wilson’s eyes. His right cheek was reconstructed by the plastic surgeons and it’s swollen and discolored. The hair over his right ear has been shaved where the scalp was sutured and bandaged. Grayson thinks the guy looks like a gargoyle.

  “How’re you feeling?” Grayson asks.

  “Could be better,” Wilson says with a grimace. His nostrils quiver slightly, as though he’s sniffing something. Wilson pulls at the handcuff and rattles the bedrail. His forearm muscles writhe beneath snakelike cords of veins.

  Grayson pulls up a chair, sits down, and crosses one long leg over the other.

  Wilson shifts his bulk. “Hey, Doc, you’re not gonna ask me where we are or what the date is, are you? Or if I can spell ‘world’ forward and backward?”

  “I won’t insult your intelligence.”

  Wilson exhales. “I don’t have time for dumb questions.”

  “Just one more question,” Grayson says. “How much is one hundred forty-four divided by twelve, plus the number of days in the month of April, divided by two, minus the number on a clock when the long hand is at three forty-five?”

  “Twelve,” Wilson says quickly. He peers out the window, obviously bored.

  Grayson can barely believe the mind-blowing speed of Wilson’s calculation. He’s megasmart; his intelligence level is off the charts. He decides he’ll have Jim Morgan give him a battery of neuropsychological tests and then an MMPI.

  “You’re right,” Grayson says, nodding.

  “Piece of cake … and boring, too.”

  “Let’s get back to three nights ago,” Grayson says. “You stashed the pickup in Tommy Parker’s garage. Then took his Hummer and drove to Dr. Douglas’s house, right? What then?”

  “There was that cop in his cruiser out front. I snuck up on him, dragged him outta the car, and punched his lights out, roped him like a rodeo calf, and drove the thing to the back. Then I waited for Douglas down the road. You know the rest of the story. And I woke up here. And now you guys’re testing me every hour … neurologists, X-rays, an MRI, and now you … a tall shrink who needs a shave,” Wilson says, glancing at Grayson’s three-day stubble.

  “Hey, look at that bitch,” Conrad blurts, his eyes fixed on the TV. A redheaded reporter is speaking on CNN. “She reminds me of that whore Megan Haggarty.”

  “Why do you say Megan’s a whore?”

  “It’s obvious. She hooked up with this Douglas bastard at Yale six years ago.”

  “Six years ago? What makes you say that?”

  “I checked the cafeteria out at New Haven and at Eastport General, too. I could smell sex in the air.”

  “But they met only a little more than a month ago.”

  “Bullshit. We break up. She gets a restraining order. I go to Colorado. Then she and Douglas leave Yale—together. And they both come here … to Eastport General. That’s no coincidence. It was planned. And the restraining order was part of the deal. I couldn’t get within five hundred feet of the cheating bastards.”

  Grayson’s thoughts whirl. Wilson’s opening up, showing some emotion. Not acting like an android or automaton, the way Pat Mulvaney described he’d been at the police interrogation. Though Grayson isn’t sure, he finds himself thinking that maybe someone can reach Conrad Wilson, bring out some humanity.

  “Conrad, tell me about your father.”

  “I don’t have one …”

  “I mean your adoptive father.”

  “The bastard beat the shit outta me. He’d take off his belt and strap me across the ass till I couldn’t sit for days.”

  “And your mother …?”

  “You mean the woman who adopted me?”

  “Right.”

  “She let that bastard abuse me. She bought a cushion so I could sit after he beat my ass.”

  “How did you feel about your father?”

  “He wasn’t my father.”

  “But how did you feel about him?”

  “How the fuck ya think I felt?”

  “And your mother?”

  “She never stopped that bastard.”

  “You think it’s why you’re so angry now?”

  Wilson stares out the window.

  “Don’t you want to understand your anger … your rage?”

  “There’s nothin’ to understand. Except my ex-wife was doin’ another guy and it’s gone on for years … like I was a worthless nobody.”

  “Like the way you felt as a kid … worthless? You didn’t know your real parents?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Doc.”

  “But how can you be so sure about Megan and Adrian Douglas?”

  “I just am; that’s all.”

  “It would be good to have proof, wouldn’t it?”

  “What’re you tryin’ to imply, Doc, that I’m paranoid?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m—”

  “That’s exactly what you’re sayin’. You shrinks gotta label everyone. If a guy can’t get it up, it’s erectile dysfunction. So you prescribe Viagra ’cause you’re hooked into the pharmaceutical industry.”

  Grayson smiles and says nothing.

  “I know your game, Doc, because I read. I’m smarter than you think.”

  “I know that, Conrad. But the past can explain some things.”

  “Ah … that’s all crap that can’t be redone.”

  “You think it scarred you? Never knowing your real parents and being abused?”

  “It killed part of me. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “All that matters is what’s ahead of you. And you know what’s ahead for me? Some Legal Aid lawyer was in here. Guy named Kovac. He talked about coppin’ an insanity plea.”

  “Kovac’s a damned good lawyer. You’re lucky, Conrad.”

  “So what do I have, a shrink and the public defender? What a team.”

  “Maybe … we’ll have you seen by a few psychiatrists.”

  “Like I don’t know which end is up?”

  “Well, this whole thing about Megan Haggarty … and Adrian Douglas.”

  “Is that crazy? That I still think about what that whore did? That’s crazy?”

  “Well, I …”

  “In a way, love is crazy. It’s fuckin’ mad, isn’t it? It means that someone … Ah, fuck it!” Wilson turns away and stares out the window once again.

  Grayson’s eyes follow his. The air is dazzling on this sunlit autumn morning, so radiantly clear, Grayson thinks he sees across the Sound to Long Island’s North Shore, to Stony Point, where he was a high school point guard before going to Duke on a basketball scholarship.

  “And just who defines crazy, huh?” Conrad says. “The psychiatrists? The lawyers? The crooked judges? The corporate crooks and the union big shots? White-collar robbers pickpocketing the public? All a bunch of money maggots? Who’re you to decide I’m nuts?

  “And Megan Haggarty—the bitch kept her maiden name. I’m surprised she didn’t name the kid Haggarty, too … or Douglas. After all, I didn’t match up to the fancy doctors at the hospital.” Wilson pauses and seems to be thinking. “So now I dream about snappin’ her neck, and in the dream I hear the bones crack. The whore.”

  Grayson realizes that for the first time, Conrad Wilson’s eyes seem alive.

  “And when I think about Douglas, I just wanna kill ‘em both for what they did.”

  “She’s a big part of your life, Conrad.”

  “It’s all so goddamned crazy,” Conrad says, gazing out the window.

  Grayson notices Conrad Wilson’s huge right hand curl into a white-knuckled fist, and sitting there, he has a strange feeling about Conrad Wilson—an eerie sense that this ma
n is like no other patient he’s ever seen in his entire career.

  Part III

  Twenty-five

  Adrian enters Bridgeport Superior Court with Jack Farley, the ADA assigned to the case. Farley wears a blue-black suit with barely visible pinstripes, a white shirt, and a navy-colored cloth tie. He looks like a mortician. They’ve already met to discuss Adrian’s testimony.

  Farley shows the court officers his attorney’s pass as Adrian goes through the metal detector. “It’s the defendant’s right to a speedy trial,” Farley says at the elevator bank. “But this is a competency hearing to see if Wilson’s fit to stand trial. The whole thing is moving at lightning speed because of Walter Kovac, Wilson’s attorney. He’s a very aggressive guy. In fact, he’s leaving the public defender’s office and joining a criminal defense firm. This is a trophy case for him because Wilson’s pleading an insanity defense.”

  “So that’s why there’s a competency hearing?”

  “Yes. If he’s claiming insanity, the judge has to be satisfied Wilson understands things and can cooperate with his lawyer.”

  “Insanity defense … like he’s just nuts, so he can get away with what he did?”

  Farley laughs and says, “People have misconceptions about the insanity defense. It’s used very rarely and hardly ever succeeds. It gets attention because the big-name cases are in the public eye—John Hinckley, the Unabomber, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy. And believe me, Kovac wants publicity.”

  Adrian thinks, Maybe Wilson is nuts … Megan certainly believes so.

  “I’m glad you could come,” Farley says. “I know you’re busy, but I want you to see Kovac in action.” Farley smiles, showing pink gums with squarish teeth. They remind Adrian of a row of Chiclets.

  The walls, benches, desks—everything in the courtroom—is blond oak. The windowless room is lit by recessed fluorescent lighting.

  A woman and two men sit in the gallery’s first row. Farley tells Adrian they’re the psychiatrists who evaluated Conrad Wilson for the competency hearing. Farley and Conrad’s attorney, Walter Kovac, shake hands; each stands behind a lectern facing the bench.