Crystal Grader by Tag Cavello (read my book txt) 📕

May I ask you some questions about…” Cookie paused. The ground got treacherous from here. A criminal’s past was never anything but. “About what happened to you eleven years ago, in Monroeville?”

The patient’s head turned ever so slightly. “Fuck off,” his tongue slithered.

Cookie smiled. Anger was often the first emotion he received from his patients. Coming from this one, especially in his current state, he’d expected no less. There were ways around it, however. Tricks of the trade.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, feigning disgust. “Maybe we can get the bastard locked up in solitary.”

“This prison doesn’t have solitary,” the patient, whose name was Jarett Powell, got out through his broken mouth. “It’s not politically correct, Doctor.”

“Neither is getting the shit beat out of you in the shower.”

“And fucked. Don’t forget fucked.”

“You were raped?”

“Either that or someone gave me a colonoscopy with a baseball bat.”

“I see,” Cookie said with an inward wince. “Well I’m sorry to visit you at such an inappropriate time, Mr. Powell. But I feel that your story would easily be the most fascinating in my book, should you wish to discuss it.”

This last part was a lie. At least three other inmates here at Mansfield Correctional had done things the doctor knew would never be topped. One of them had caused a plane crash at the Huron County air show last year by shining a pen laser through the pilot’s window during a difficult stunt. The plane had spun directly into a crowd of senior citizens who’d been driven to the show in a nursing home shuttle bus. All of the senior citizens, plus the pilot, had been killed instantly.

“I don’t wish to be fascinating,” Powell said.

Blood and spit dribbled down his chin. Cookie ripped a piece of tissue off a roll on the side table and wiped it.

“Maybe not,” he said softly, in total drama mode now. It was a method he had coined himself as controlled tenderness. Given in proper doses at the correct times, a little compassion—whether real or fake—could go a long way towards getting a patient to talk. “But you are anyway.”

“Go to hell.”

Cookie sighed. So much for controlled tenderness. He threw the balled, bloody tissue over his shoulder, where it struck a nurse who just happened to be passing by. A young, pretty nurse. Of course. One more fling that would never happen.

“Was that really necessary?” she scowled.

“I’m sorry,” Cookie said. “My fault.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re Doctor Cookie, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, Doctor Cookie, it’s after hours here. Finish whatever the hell it is you’re doing with this patient and get out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And pick up that fucking tissue while you’re at it.”

Now Cookie’s mouth gaped. And not for the first time, he wondered what the hell was becoming of women these days. They all talked like truck drivers trying to back a rig into a tight dock. Jesus, where were June Cleaver and Margaret Anderson these days?

“Yes, ma’am,” he said for the third time.

He picked up the tissue, and when he turned back around, Jarett Powell was grinning from ear to ear. Mr. Sardonicus with no teeth.

“Nurse Fries. Holly Fries. Don’t let that pretty face fool you, Doctor.”

“I won’t. At least not anymore.”

Jarett laughed. “Cookies and Fries.”

“Not likely. In this lifetime, anyway.”

“So what do you want to know about Monroeville?”

Cookie’s eyes widened for a moment. “Just what happened in the early morning hours of February fifteenth, two thousand seven,” he said, pleased by this sudden turn of fortune.

“You look giddy, Doctor.”

“I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

“For a book?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s a shitty business to be in, Doctor,” Powell said, sighing. All traces of humor had left his features. “Writing books. Why not stick to treating head cases?”

“This book will help me to understand my patients better. Why they do what they do.”

“So you’re writing it for yourself?”

“Mostly.”

“No plans of getting it published?”

Cookie folded his hands together. “I’m not sure yet,” he admitted, truthfully enough. “It depends on the quality.”

The remark earned a snort from the pillows. “No one in literature cares about quality, Doctor. They don’t even know what quality is.”

“What do they care about?”

“The same fucking things that everyone cares about,” Jarett grunted. “Cheap thrills. Free rides. Effortless stimulation.” His gaze turned beady. “You want to sell your book?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dumb it down. Make it as stupid as you possibly can. The goddamned thing will fly right off the shelves.”

“I think you’re letting your recent experiences…upset your opinion.”

“Put a naked girl on the cover. Tits and ass.”

“Mr. Powell…”

“All right, all right. February fifteenth.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank nurse Fries. She always cheers me up.”

***

“Jarett!” Crystal screamed. “You asshole!”

“What?” he said, laughing. “It isn’t loaded. Jesus, you really think I’d point a loaded gun at my own head and pull the trigger?”

He watched her storm across the room, her face a crimson circle of fury. Her hand flew through the air before he could react and slapped him hard enough make the gun drop from his grasp. It hit the floor. Clunk!

Jarett rubbed his cheek, but he was still laughing. “You look so cool when you’re mad. I love it, Crystal.”

The girl blinked and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe the stupidity on display. “What on earth is wrong with you? Don’t you realize the trouble we’re in?”

“I realize it. But I had to get you once, Crystal. Just once. Your mother was right. It’s fun.”

She went to the closet and started throwing his clothes onto the bed. Jarett watched her hands shake, listened to her breath coming in and out. His smile faded. Oh God, what was he doing to her? Why was he acting this way? Less than a month ago he’d been professing his love for her, laying it on the bathroom tiles like a lamb to be sacrificed. Now, she was his stooge. A girl sitting in his dunk tank.

Jarett put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry. That was stupid.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “It’s just that this is a lot to take in, dear. A hell of a lot. My whole life is dumped upside-down.”

“And you’re blaming me for that?”

He decided to take a chance with the truth. “Of course,” he said. “But I also blame myself. Either way, there’s no excuse to be acting silly now.”

The girl turned all the way around and looked at him without saying a word. Jarett waited. He owed back the time.

“All right,” she said at last. “We can get out of this, Jarett, but you have to do what I say from now on.” Her brow arched. “Are you going to do what I say from now on?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Good. Help me pack these clothes. We need to leave town.”

In a blizzard? Jarett almost asked.

The question was too stupid. Of course they had to leave town tonight.

We’ll get stopped by the cops. No one’s allowed on the roads.

“No choice,” he muttered. “No choice.”

“What?” Crystal asked, sounding ready to flame up again.

“Nothing,” Jarett replied. “Nothing at all.”

***

At this point the patient stopped talking. His eyes wandered down to the end of the bed. Cookie thought that what he saw there wasn’t the sheet, or the flaked metal frame that squeaked whenever its occupant shifted his weight. No doubt it was the girl he saw. Crystal, sitting primly on the mattress. Or standing next to it, with her hands on her hips and her eyes all but stabbing him to death with vitriol.

“I don’t think we would have made it,” he said, “had we gotten the chance to try. I mean sure, I had a truck, but…that was one hell of a storm. I’m sure she felt the same way. Hell, last I heard, she thinks I was killed in a police stand-off outside the house.”

Cookie grunted. The Saint Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 2007 had lasted for two days. By the end of it, Mansfield was buried under seventeen inches of snow. He’d not been able to drive to work. That part of it was fine. But being cooped up with his wife for three days…

“A grunt,” Jarett said, suddenly back from his reverie. “What’s a grunt? Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes, of course,” Cookie insisted. “Absolutely.”

“Well don’t grunt. You want to grunt, go home and fuck your wife.”

“I’m sorry.”

“All right then.”

***

Jarett put the gun on the side table before they started packing. The job took an hour, during which time they discussed where to go and how to get there. Suddenly the pragmatist after years of wanton behavior, Crystal wanted to know how much money Jarett could get his hands on in an immediate manner, and whether or not his truck ran well enough to undertake a long journey. Jarett assured her that the truck would be fine. And as for the money, he had his ATM card.

“Great,” Crystal said with a curt nod. “You’ll need to buy me some clothes. I’m not going back to my house for anything.”

“All right.”

“But first let’s get the hell out of this crummy town.”

It was the very last order she ever gave, the very last time she spoke like a girl with her fist on the table. Jarett went down the hall to shower and get dressed, leaving her to brood over the suitcases. He closed the door. Minutes later, while toweling off, the walls began to shake with the heaviest footsteps he had ever heard in his life. A picture of a duckling swayed and then fell into the bathtub. Panicked, Jarett threw his clothes on quickly.

“Crystal?” he called as his fingers moved to get things buttoned and zipped.

The footsteps stopped about halfway down the hall. Moments later, they began to descend the stairs.

***

“My blood just about froze, Doctor,” he whispered. “Because I knew it wasn’t Crystal, you see. I just knew it. She’d left her boots downstairs by the door. And even if she hadn’t…” He laughed. “You know, she’s a very small girl. Pert. Graceful. She could never walk like whoever was in the house with us.”

Cookie opened his mouth to remind Jarett that this was the part of his story where he and the local police, the FBI, and every doctor he’d spoken to, broke ways. He wanted to ask Jarett for the truth. The truth, goddammit. What the hell had actually happened at the Jackson farm that night? But no—he couldn’t do that. It would only rile the patient up again. Get him talking about sex with his wife. God, please, anything but that. Even bullshit would suffice.

***

Slowly, Jarett opened the bathroom door and called Crystal’s name again. She didn’t answer, though her legs were in plain view. She was sitting on the end of the bed.

Jarett crossed the hall. His eyes leaped over the railing, not knowing what he might see on the steps below. To his relief there was nothing but shadows, all of which were utterly still.

“Hey,” he said to Crystal as he went into the bedroom. “Was there someone in here just now? I heard footsteps.”

Her face was pale when she looked up from the gun in her hand, her eyes vacant.

“What are you doing with that?”

She looked back at the gun for a moment before answering. “There was a man in here. I heard him come in and thought it was you at first. But when I turned around it was someone else.”

“Who?”

“The one I told you about. The one I saw in the window when I was twelve. The one who answered the phone when I called you. I got scared and grabbed the gun. But he didn’t look like he wanted to hurt me.” Smiling, Crystal pointed Jarett’s gun at the closet door and squeezed the trigger. The hammer clicked. “Not that this thing would have done me any good regardless.”

“Crystal, I’m not following you.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m going to go home and do the right thing. Or at least as much of the right thing as