The dark circle, p.1
The Dark Circle, page 1
THE DARK CIRCLE
A JAKE CANTRELL MYSTERY
Robert J. Mrazek
To my friend Howard Milstein, whose philanthropy has changed the world.
1
Deborah Chapman went missing on Friday, May 13. Her disappearance coincided with my termination as a campus security officer at St. Andrews College.
It was the last day of classes and a week before final exams. I’d been looking forward to the arrival of summer, when all the students would be gone and there would be nothing to do. I do that well.
It was morning at the end of the midnight shift. One of the new provisional officers was at the intake counter, sorting through the daily quota of parking tickets she had been ordered to issue to bump the college’s bottom line.
The bells at the top of the college bell tower began to chime a crawling version of the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride.” When it ended, the bells would ring eight times, and my shift would be over.
Captain Emily Ritterspaugh was standing by the whiteboard mounted on the far wall of the squad room, updating the current threats to the campus. She had assumed command of the campus police department after Janet Morgo, the previous commander, was elected county sheriff.
A petite blonde, Captain Ritterspaugh had the same delicate, small-boned features as the girl in The Glass Menagerie. Prior to joining the force, she had been a professional grief counselor, which some idiot in the college administration had decided was a good fit for law enforcement.
She had recently created a new investigative template for assessing pending threats. It ranged from one to four stars. That morning, there were already two threats on the board, the first one starred twice.
An animal rights protestor who claimed to represent an organization named Save the Ichthus had chained himself to an aquarium in the biology lab to prevent the fish from being used in experiments. He was demanding that all the fish be released into their natural habitats.
I watched the captain mark three stars next to the second one, which meant it was more serious. A residential counselor at the Latino Living Center had phoned the 911 line to report that someone had illegally disposed of two large bags of garbage in their dumpster. PERPETRATOR DID NOT SEPARATE RECYCLABLES, Captain Ritterspaugh added in perfectly formed block letters.
Not for the first time since moving back to Groton, I felt like I was marooned on another planet, a few billion miles from home. Wherever that was. Thankfully, the tower bells stopped tolling.
In the locker room, I took off my ridiculous burgundy and gold uniform, and changed into a blue work shirt, jeans, and my well-worn Rockports. When I returned to the squad room, the phone on my desk was ringing. I stupidly picked it up.
“Officer Cantrell?” said the female voice.
“Yes, Carlene,” I answered.
Carlene was one of the regular police dispatchers. Her fiancé had recently ended their engagement, and Carlene was being grief counseled by Captain Ritterspaugh.
“Sergeant Goodrich is requesting assistance at the Slope Day celebration,” she said.
“My shift just ended, Carlene.”
Her voice went up several octaves.
“All off-duty officers are being asked to provide back up,” she said. “Personally, I don’t care what you do.”
I debated whether to put my uniform back on, and decided to head straight over to the grassy slope below the campus library in one of the squad cars. Spring had finally arrived in upstate New York. It was a time of renewal, of the earth reborn, of new possibilities, time to take stock of one’s life. When I started taking stock of my own empty life, my good mood disappeared.
Approaching the crest of the long, grassy slope that ran several hundred yards below the library, I heard the pounding roar of amplified guitars and drums through the open windows of the squad car.
The Slope Day celebration started on the campus years ago as a reward for having survived the academic grind over the trials of another dark, frigid upstate winter. In its infancy, the merriment had involved a small percentage of the student body, but it had grown steadily larger with each passing year, the ranks swollen by high school students and townies driving in from fifty miles around Groton.
Once the college administrators realized it had become a free-for-all alcohol and drug binge, they attempted to bring it under control by erecting storm fencing to restrict the participants to St. Andrews students with campus ID cards and by monitoring the flow of alcohol served inside the fence line. A joint team of officers from the Groton Police Department and the campus security force kept things reasonably safe.
I parked near a small grove of elm trees that fringed the top of the slope and gazed down to the area surrounded by storm fencing. It was roughly the size of two football fields.
A temporary metal bandstand had been erected at the foot of the slope, and a dense mass of several hundred students was surging back and forth to the rhythm of the music. They had already trampled the grass in front of the bandstand into murky yellowish dust. It clung to the ground near their ankles like sea smoke.
I could see that something was wrong. On the fringes of the crowd, a number of students were lying on the ground, being attended to by medical technicians. There were two more crawling along the fence line on all fours.
I showed my police badge to a Groton officer at one of the gates in the fencing and headed farther down toward the crowd. As I neared the edge, a young man came reeling toward me, flailing his arms to keep his balance, his eyes unfocused. A moment later, he began vomiting up stringy bile. I helped him to the ground and called out to a fire department EMT who was standing nearby. He hustled over, carrying his medical bag.
“Another opioid overdose,” said a voice next to my ear.
I turned and looked up to see Lauren Kenniston, a reporter for the Groton Journal. Tall and slender, she was in her thirties, and her long auburn hair was tied in a ponytail. Her face was coated with the yellow dust. We weren’t close, but Lauren had been very helpful to me some months earlier in solving a high-profile campus murder. It’s a long story.
The emergency medical technician began ministering to the boy on the ground as another kid peeled away from the crowd. He looked angry and disoriented and began screaming obscenities.
“How do you know it’s opioids?” I asked Lauren.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of the students. At least four different people were handing out free pills about an hour ago to anyone who wanted them. They quickly spread across the slope. One of them dropped this.”
She held up a pill jar the size of a big mayonnaise bottle. It was still half filled with oval-shaped white pills. Behind her, a female student emerged from the crowd. She was naked above her jeans and smearing ice cream on her breasts.
“If it’s what I think it is,” said Lauren, “we’re dealing with something new, Jake. A different type of drug that’s powerful and incredibly addicting. We’ve begun to see it all over upstate … Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton—all the way to Buffalo.”
“Look over there,” she added, pointing to a small grove of hemlocks at the edge of the fence line.
At least a dozen couples, male and female and in different combinations, were coupling on the grass. Most of them were naked. I couldn’t describe the physical acts as making love. Affection wasn’t part of it.
“Any descriptions of the people dispensing the free samples?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”
The rock band finished a set, and it suddenly went silent. I was watching two kids being carried on stretchers toward a group of ambulances when I heard a harsh clang followed by a second one.
Looking across the fenced area, I could see another group of maybe fifty students gathered in a rough circle. The clanging noises were coming from inside it. There was an open patch of ground inside the circle, and two big men were facing one another, holding oversize metal baseball bats.
I’m six three and two hundred twenty pounds, but they towered over me. Both were wearing St. Andrews football jerseys over cutaway workout shorts. Built like defensive ends, they weighed more than three hundred pounds apiece. The only physical difference was that one was Black, the other White.
The White guy swung hard again at the other man’s head. The Black man parried the blow with another loud, clanging noise before taking his own swing. If one of them connected, the other would be dead or brain dead.
“Stop!” I yelled as I pushed through the crowd, but my voice had as much impact on the two gladiators as a barking Chihuahua. I didn’t have a Taser gun or pepper spray, much less my service revolver. And I wasn’t in uniform.
Their demented eyes were locked on one another as the White guy took another wild swing. It grazed the Black man’s face, and blood began to spurt from his nose. Oblivious, he lined up his own bat for another swing.
Reaching down, I grabbed two clumps of loose dirt from the heavily trampled grass and hurled it in their faces. As they tried to clear their eyes, I grabbed the bats and tossed them as far as I could.
The White student recovered first and went absolutely berserk, making inarticulate grunts as he came straight for me. Trying to avoid his charge, I tripped over someone’s leg and went down on one knee.
His roundhouse punch connected with the side of my head. My ears rang and my knee buckled as I went down. He tried to kick me in the head, but I scuttled to the side, and his shoe glanced off my shoulder.
From the ground, he looked big enough to stop an earthmo ver. I grabbed the heel of his foot and jerked it forward. He toppled over on his back with a loud thud, but it didn’t faze him. We had both gotten back on our feet when he charged again.
Grabbing his head by the hair, I pulled it toward mine and broke his nose with my forehead. He was trying to get his hands around my throat when I kneed him in the groin. As he went down again, I twisted his arm behind his back and sat on him.
“Help,” I yelled, but the students in the crowd just stared down at me. Across the slope, I saw a Groton police officer running toward us, his Taser ready to fire in his right hand.
“Look out!” screamed a voice.
Lauren Kenniston’s face swerved into view as something clubbed my right arm, sending a hot flash of pain from my shoulder to my fingertips. The Black football player loomed over me. He had retrieved his bat and was about to swing it again. I was still looking up at him when the bat suddenly dropped from his hands and he reeled backward from the charge of a Taser.
Lauren Kenniston was at my side, and her worried green eyes connected with mine.
“Opiate rage,” she said.
2
Three days later, I was sitting in Captain Ritterspaugh’s office in my burgundy and gold uniform, pants creased and shoes polished. My bandaged arm was still in a sling, and the doctor at the emergency room had told me I was lucky there wasn’t permanent damage to the tendons and nerves.
The captain was on the phone when I arrived, but waved me into the chair near her desk. Her uniform was exactly like mine except for the two gold stars on each collar point of the burgundy blouse.
The aroma of incense filled the office from the small Buddhist shrine burner next to her iMac computer. She ended her phone call and jotted some notes on a pad before looking over at me. She didn’t bother to inquire about my injuries.
“Officer Cantrell, I’m deeply troubled by the recklessness of your actions during the Slope Day celebration,” she said. “Two of our scholar-athletes required hospitalization. One of them will need reconstructive surgery on his nose.”
“Those two scholar-athletes assaulted me,” I said. “I’m lucky that I’m still able to use my arm.”
“Did you need to respond so violently in subduing them?” she asked.
“I was only defending myself, Captain.”
“According to witnesses, you were out of uniform and threw soil in the eyes of both young men without any provocation.”
“I was trying to get them to stopping trying to kill each other,” I said. “They were out of their minds on some kind of opiate. Did anyone do blood tests on them?”
“Because of the number of students needing immediate medical attention that morning, it apparently was not done,” she said.
“I see.”
She opened her desk drawer, took out another incense stick, and put it in her urn.
“Do you recall my speaking to you some months ago about your aura, Officer Cantrell?”
I remembered. It was one of the most idiotic conversations I could recall ever having with another adult.
“You project an aura that others interpret as intimidating and violent, “she said. “You remember that after your aggressive words to Carlene last year, I recommended that you seek awareness therapy to bring you into contact with your inner self. Did you pursue this therapy?”
I’d rather have had a colonoscopy from Roto-Rooter.
“No,” I said, “but this has nothing to do with my aura. Those students attacked me after I tried to stop them from attacking each other.”
“May I assume that you received training in the army for handling physical confrontation?” she asked next.
“Yes, Captain,” I responded. “I went through extensive training at Ranger School and served two fifteen-month tours in Afghanistan.”
“Weren’t you trained to know how to employ physical restraint in dealing with the local residents over there?”
I thought about explaining to her that the local residents over there were well-trained, merciless Taliban guerillas and slightly different from the typical residents in Groton.
“We were trained to fight and kill the enemies of our country,” I said finally.
“Do you consider our students here at the college to be the enemy?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you recall saying anything to one of the students that might have provoked him to attack you?” she asked next.
“I never said a word but stop.”
“The African American student alleges that you called him the n-word.”
“That’s a fucking lie,” I said too loudly.
It was clear from the stunned look in her eyes that I had confirmed her worst fears about my aura.
“The student’s lawyer has provided this department with a sworn affidavit from an eyewitness who heard you call him the n-word and is prepared to testify to that in court,” she said. “He is also seeking financial compensation.”
“I served with many Blacks in Afghanistan,” I said. “I wouldn’t dishonor them by ever using that word.”
“I only have your claim for that,” she said.
“Why are there are no Blacks working in this department?” I asked.
She actually blushed.
“We’re actively recruiting minorities right now,” she came back, “but that does not excuse your predatory behavior in this incident. As of now, you are suspended without pay.”
I tried hard to control my aura and simply stared at her for a few moments without responding. She averted her eyes and began jotting notes again on her yellow pad.
“That won’t be necessary, Captain,” I said, removing the badge from my burgundy blouse. Standing up, I dropped it on her desk next to the Buddhist incense urn.
“You’re resigning?” she asked, and I nodded.
I saw the relief in her eyes.
3
There was nothing personal for me to take from my desk. In the locker room, I took a quick look in the mirror while wearing the uniform for the last time. I no longer recognized the guy, the now grayish hair and weather-beaten face.
I left the uniform in the locker room, found my Chevy pickup in the parking lot, and drove over to the Fall Creek Tavern to consider my options.
It was actually the new Fall Creek Tavern now, still the closest watering hole to St. Andrews College. The old one had been perched on the same crest over the two-hundred-foot-deep gorge that cuts through the campus until it had collapsed into the abyss during a hurricane. I almost went with it.
Chuck McKinlay, whose family had owned it for nearly a hundred years, had succumbed to the pleas of his regulars to replace the hallowed halls. He’d found an old Adirondack-style lodge near Romulus that had been abandoned for years. It had the same seedy charm of the old Creeker.
Many of the tavern’s regulars were carpenters, laborers, plumbers, and electricians at the college, and they came together for an old-fashioned “Creeker raising” party, using the disassembled roadhouse and reconstructing it on the foundation of the one destroyed by the storm.
The Creeker was still frequented by a mixture of professors, grad students, tradesmen, construction crews, students, and barflies, many of whom called it home. I was one of them.
Kelly was working behind the bar when I walked in. She looked stunning in a tight-fitting, red elastic jumpsuit, which set off her natural blonde hair. Even in her forties, she had lost little of the figure that had long ago graced the pages of Playboy.
She sullenly took my order and came back to slam the small tumbler of George Dickel sour mash down in front of me before walking away without a word. We had been in a relationship for five months, but I had broken it off, and she was still angry. Even though she wasn’t divorced yet, she had wanted to move in with me if I would only put my dog down.
“Bug is so old,” she said after a wonderful lovemaking session in her king-size bed surrounded by her collection of stuffed animals. “I can’t move into your cabin with my things when she drools and messes the bed.”
Bug had saved my life—twice in fact: the first time in Afghanistan and the second time when a local hood named Sal Scalise attempted to shoot me in my cabin. Scalise had kicked her teeth in after she had seriously bitten his shooting hand.
