Click- click!
“Do you ever have nightmares about the Chosen killer? About that night?” Doctor Faulkner clicked his pen again, looking over the top of his notepad at Kacey, who barely registered the question; her attention was directed at the small window nearby and the steady rainfall just outside.
“Detective Dean?”
“Yeah?” she said, forcing her eyes back to the older man with the thin gray hair plastered to his pale skull; his glassy, bulging eyes gazing back expectantly.
Click-click!
I really, really want to shove that pen up his ass.
“I mean, ‘no.’ No I do not have nightmares about Declan,” she lied. “Or about the night I shot him.”
Images flashed through her mind: of that night six weeks ago, of the old asylum, of Declan Crowe silhouetted against the window frame and the night sky, a gun in one hand and in the other…
What? What was it? What had she seen? Why couldn’t she remember?
“Did you attend the funeral?” Faulkner asked, rousing her from her reverie.
“No, I thought that would be in poor taste.”
“You have an impressive record, detective. First in your class at the LAPD Police Academy, near-perfect scores on your exam and you made detective by age twenty five.”
Kacey raised her eyebrows. Where was the old coot going with this?
“And you left it all to come here,” he continued. “Do you want to talk about what happened in L.A.?”
“Actually I’d like to do that, but the opposite. I’d like to not talk about that. Ever.”
Click- click!
“Okay. Okay then…” Faulkner wrote something on the pad. Probably something like “Patient continues to be a royal pain in my ass.” Kacey’s eyes wandered the small office: certificates, diplomas, a bookshelf, lots of potted plants, soothing colors… and between the two of them, a small glass-top coffee table. Everything situated just so; a carefully constructed scene to make patients feel comfortable… which, for whatever reason, had the effect of making her feel particularly uncomfortable.
“So why transfer to Washington State?” Faulkner asked.
Shifting in her oversized seat
whatever happened to shrinks using couches?
Kacey deadpanned: “I came here for the sunshine.”
Faulkner smiled. “Ha ha! Yes! The sunshine…” He let out an exaggerated “ahhh…” then: “Don’t you have family here?”
“Yeah, a brother. I grew up here.”
“I see. And how do you and your brother get along?”
“Famously.” That was a lie. Her brother had avoided her ever since she arrived. The two of them had never gotten along very well, and after the death of their parents, after she had left…
“So you come here, to ‘sunny’ Pleasant Hills, back to your roots… and not six months later you have to deal with this… Chosen situation.”
Yeah, and what a situation that was: Declan Crowe, a well-respected businessman— a pillar of the community, some might say; and somehow it turns out he was able to convince seemingly random individuals to commit murder, each act beginning with the attacker speaking the words “I am chosen.”
The press ate it up.
“I had the opportunity to speak to Amanda Bingham at Bellingham Hospital,” Faulkner continued. “It was a one-sided conversation, as she suffers from a complete and irreversible dissociative fugue following the incident…”
“Incident,” that’s cute. Amanda Bingham walked into the Freddie Jones real estate office on Pine Street with a pair of long-handled pruners, strode right past the receptionist to where Duncan Styles sat at his desk; she said “I am chosen,” opened the pruners, shoved them against Duncan’s throat, and sliced through his windpipe with one clean snip.
“The stupor which followed is the same in every case, I’m told,” Faulkner continued. “Fascinating.”
“If by ‘fascinating’ you mean ‘terrifying,’ then yeah.” After each killing, the murderers became completely unresponsive. Basically vegetables.
Kacey checked the time on her phone. Almost free, thank God.
Faulkner turned over his notepad and leveled a somber glare on Kacey. “I have to ask, Detective Dean: have you experienced any feelings of depression? Have you contemplated any acts of self-harm?”
Kacey smiled. “Only in the last hour.”
Click- click!
“You’re quite skillful at deflecting. Please understand that I’m only doing my job. You fired your weapon in the line of duty; a man is dead. I’m here to help you, and to assess your mental fitness, so to speak. To gauge your readiness to go back on the job.”
Glancing once more at the phone, Kacey lit up. “And we’re done! Passed with flying colors, I’m sure.”
Faulkner set his notepad on the coffee table. “Not just yet. I should like to see you once more, at least. With any luck, I hope to earn a bit of your trust.” Faulkner stood and grinned. Kacey allowed him a half smile as she headed for the door.
Click-click!
“Oh, one last thing,” Faulkner spoke from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder. The old man’s features had gone slack. His bug eyes stared vacantly. Kacey’s heart leapt into her throat as she turned to face him. Something was very, very wrong about the old man; about his vapid stare and about the way he was holding that pen.
“I am chosen,” Faulkner said.
