Spiritual Guidance
by Brian Lawrence

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Marble Hill Police Chief Tom Petrosky shivered from a sudden chill.  In his peripheral vision he saw movement.  He tore his gaze away from the swinging body, narrowed his eyes, and tried to discern the hazy image in the corner of the holding cell.  Ready to chalk it up to blurred vision from fatigue, he started to look back at the hanged prisoner, when the image in the corner sharpened.

Tom’s breath caught.  An adrenaline jolt cleared his sinuses.  The smell of rotten cloth filled his nostrils.

A man floated in the corner of the cell, his head inclined at a sharp angle, his open eyes looking imploringly at Tom.  The floating man opened his mouth.

Tom squeezed his eyes shut at the piercing scream that issued forth, then jumped when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He opened his eyes.  The apparition was gone.

He shook his head and turned, realizing the shrill noise he’d heard had been the cell door being opened by Officer Allen Compton.

“You okay, Chief?  You look pale as a ghost.”

“Fine, Allen,” he replied, though his heart hammered in his chest, his breathing came hard, and he wondered what the hell he’d just seen.

“Did you see...Never mind.  What did you find out?  And where’s Brunts?”

Allen replied, “The medical examiner will be here about ten.  There’s an accident on Interstate 80.  He’s finishing up.”

The tall, blond officer opened a stenographer’s notepad.

“I talked with Doris.  Officer Cornwell brought the prisoner in about eleven-fifteen last night.  As far as Doris knew, Leornard Grimwood was still alive when she left forty-five minutes later.”

Tom glanced over his shoulder.  Now, Mr. Grimwood swayed from his pants in the holding cell of Tom’s police station, and would remain doing so for another hour.  Another fun Sunday in Marble Hill, Iowa.  At least Tom would get out of attending church with his mother.  Though after what he’d seen, maybe he needed a little spiritual guidance.

“What was Grimwood’s state of mind when he was brought in?”  Tom pushed Allen back and eased both of them out of the cell, pulling the door closed.  The swaying of the body caused the light fixture to creak, and that was freaking him out.  Imagine that, the heebie-jeebies, even after seventeen years as a Chicago police officer, and most of those in homicide.

“Doris says he was pretty rowdy.  Called Officer Cornwell a few choice names.”

“And what was he charged with?”

“Drunk and disorderly and assault.  Apparently got in a fight at Buddy’s Bar last night.  And of course, being from out of town, he’s the one that got busted.”

“Of course,” Tom muttered.  Then he added, “Call the State, see if Officer Johnson is available.”

“For a suicide?”

“Just in case.  And get Cornwell out of bed.  I want him in my office in ten minutes.”

“Will do, Chief.”

Tom escaped to his office.  From his desk drawer he pulled an aspirin bottle, popped the top, and swallowed three dry.  How many beers had he drank last night?  Had to be the hangover that caused that little episode in the cell.

He and Officer Patricia Johnson, State Police Forensics Specialist, had been out until well after midnight listening to a local Iowa band, the Nimrods, at a place called “The Hole” in Oskaloosa.  After a year of dating, he concluded Patricia was a bad influence on him.  He was forty-two years old, dating a twenty-eight year old, and acting sixteen.

He slumped in his chair and waited for Officer Frederick Cornwell, the new kid on the block.  Started three months ago, a transfer from Des Moines where political problems with his boss had forced him to quit.  The kid seemed competent, enthusiastic.  Not his fault Grimwood was stupid-drunk, started feeling maudlin and hung himself.

“But what the hell did I see in the corner?”

And why had the man’s face looked familiar?  Again, Tom shivered, though the temperature outside was above 90 already and inside, only slightly better with the air-conditioner on the fritz.

Eight minutes later, Cornwell stood outside Tom’s office door.  Tom waved him in.

“Good morning, sir.  Allen said my prisoner hung himself?”

Tom nodded.  “Sit down.”

Cornwell sat.

They talked for thirty-five minutes.  During the conversation, through the glass on Tom’s door, he saw first Dr. Brunts enter the holding cell, then Patricia.

“And you never checked on Grimwood?” Tom asked.

“No, sir.  It was pretty busy last night.”  Cornwell spoke in clipped, well-enunciated words.  “A lot of rabble-rousers making trouble, sir.  However, Leornard Grimwood was the only arrest.”

Tom stared at his new officer, envying his thick, black hair.  The kid’s light-colored eyes did not waver from Tom’s gaze.

“I wish you’d have checked on him.  Our daytime dispatcher will probably be out a week after finding that man hanging.”

“Sorry, sir.”  Cornwell hung his head.  “It won’t happen again.”

Dr. Brunts appeared outside Tom’s door.  The rotund medical examiner crossed his arms and tapped his foot.  They’d waited two hours for him, and now he was impatient.

Tom said to Cornwell, “Go on home.  Get some sleep.  But tonight I want you to write down everything that happened with Grimwood.  Everything.  You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cornwell left.  Brunts entered.

“Morning, Tommy.  You’re looking a little ragged.”

After two years back in Marble Hill, Tom was almost ready to give up hope that the occupants would ever stop calling him “Tommy”.

“When did he die?” Tom asked.

“Not real sociable today, are we?”

Tom shook his head.

The white-haired, red-faced medical examiner eased himself into one of Tom’s metal framed chairs.  The chair groaned in protest.

“I’d guess between three and four,” Brunts said.  “Looks like he hung himself.”

Tom smiled wryly.

Patricia opened Tom’s door without knocking.  She didn’t look a whole lot better than he felt.  Her wide brown eyes were swimming in red.  She had pulled her short dark hair back with a green ribbon, thrown on a T-shirt and jeans with a hole in one knee.  An ensemble not unlike his own, only she wore running shoes, he had on cowboy boots.

In a sing-song voice, Tom said, “Good morning, Officer Johnson, and how are you today?”  After all, it was her fault they felt like they did.

She gave him the finger, which Brunts didn’t see.

Tom laughed and Brunts looked over his shoulder.  Patricia grinned at him.

“Find anything?” Tom asked.

“A few hairs that don’t look like they belong to the deceased.  A couple brown fibers.  But it looks like a suicide.  He tied one pant leg around the light fixture, climbed on the bunk, tied the other pant leg around his neck, and jumped.”

Tom nodded and said thanks.  Both Patricia and Brunts left, saying they’d have a report for Tom Monday afternoon.

*****

Late Sunday afternoon, the Marble Hill police station fell silent except for the whump, whump of the overhead fan.  Tom had sent Allen to talk to Buddy of Buddy’s Bar.  Patricia was probably at home doing those things around the house she’d mentioned last night, and Brunts had called an hour ago to tell Tom that Grimwood had died of strangulation.  There was a revelation.

Tom leaned back in his chair and stared out his open door.  He could see the holding cell door with its small square window about head level.

He blinked.  Had a shadow passed over that window?  He stood.  There it was again.  Definitely a shadow.

Who the hell would be in there?

Gripping the .38 at his belt, he cautiously approached the holding cell.

He looked through the small window.

“What the hell?”

He flung open the door.  Hanging from his pants, was the same man Tom thought he’d seen earlier in the corner of the cell.

Tom blinked.

Still there, swaying gently, eyes open, tongue out.

Tom reached for the body, but his hands passed right through.

The pants disappeared and the apparition of the man hovered before him, then floated out the barred window.

Tom moved quickly to the window and looked out.

A busy street replaced the alley that should have been there.  The side of the Quick and Ready Food Mart was gone.

Tom blinked again.

A squad car drove by on the street.  Des Moines Police?

Tom’s vision wavered, and the red brick side of the Quick and Ready reappeared, back where it belonged.

Tom slumped onto the bunk and rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of his hands.  He needed more aspirin.  How much had he drank?

*****

On Monday morning, after sleeping on the odd events of the day before, Tom drove to Des Moines.  Maybe there was a logical explanation.  He visited the downtown library.

Around lunchtime, his stomach growling, he finally found the news story he was looking for.

“That’s why I recognize him,” he said softly.

He stared at the microfiche screen, at the picture of a man named David McCaffery, the man Tom had seen in his holding cell.  A man who, thirteen months ago, had been found dead in a Des Moines city jail cell hanging by his pants.  McCaffery had been arrested for drunk driving, had been belligerent, charged with resisting arrest, and sometime in the middle of the night, had hung himself.

Tom scanned the article.  He’d remembered the case because McCaffery had turned out to be a fairly prominent businessman and not one who tended to do rash things, such as commit suicide.  The family had put up a huge stink, insisting there must have been foul play.  No evidence of such had been found.

Finally, Tom located what he’d been looking for.  The arresting officer had been Frederick Cornwell.

*****

“Come on in, Officer Cornwell,” Tom said.  “Please have a seat.”

In Tom’s office, Patricia Johnson was already seated, a spiral notebook resting on her lap.  Allen hung around in the reception area, trying to look inconspicuous and failing miserably.

Cornwell tentatively entered Tom’s office and sat in the remaining chair.
 It was Monday evening, five minutes before eight, almost the beginning of Cornwell’s shift.

“Yes, sir?” Cornwell asked.  His gaze darted from Tom to Patricia and back.

“It’s about that hanging yesterday morning.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Ms. Johnson,” Tom tilted his head toward Patricia, “found some black hairs on Grimwood’s body.”  He leaned over the desk.  “Hairs that look very similar to yours.  She also found brown fibers that probably came from one of our uniforms.”

“Well...I...what do you mean, sir?”

“How do you think they got there?”

Cornwell’s eyes grew hard.  He frowned.  “What’s going on here?  I arrested Grimwood.  Had to drag him into his cell.  I’m sure I got hair and fiber all over him.”

Tom switched his gaze to Allen in the lobby and caught the young officer’s eye.  He nodded slightly.  Allen moved closer to Tom’s door.  Tom then bore his gaze into Cornwell’s cold eyes.

Softy, slowly, Tom said, “The hair and fiber was found on Grimwood’s underwear.”

For a moment, no one moved or spoke.

Cornwell erupted from his chair.  His hand went to his gun, but Allen stepped quickly through the office door and put Cornwell in a headlock.  The shorter, softer city boy was no match for the beefy farm boy.

Later that night, Tom was about to leave the holding cell where Cornwell sat stone silent staring at the wall, when out of the corner of his eye, Tom caught movement.  He looked up toward the barred window.

An apparition floated there, the face of David McCaffery.  Tom was about to say something to Cornwell, to make him look and confirm what he saw, but McCaffery held a finger to his lips.  Then the ghost, for Tom finally admitted that’s what he saw, winked and waved, then vanished.

Tom left the cell thinking there were things in this world that he had no explanation for, and actually glad of it.
 

Copyright 2000, Brian Lawrence