Where Crime Begins: A Short Story

Chapter One

“Why did you turn yourself in to the police if you hadn’t committed a crime?” I asked my patient. You may be wondering why I’m beginning my story here. It’s simple really, nothing had ever interested me more than the man sitting across my desk. Morton Douglas looked around every corner of the room as wide-eyed and paranoid as a squirrel with a nut.

“I…I…I…was … .uh” he sustained that note before continuing, “planning to rob a bank.” A crumpled piece of paper appeared on the table from his pocket.

“What is this?” I asked, straightening it out.

“It’s the uh…” he scratched his long neck with a look of painful irritation on his face, “the map..the plan…the route…everything.”

“I see.” I tried to make sense of the scribbled mess of writing, arrows, and hand drawn schematics but it was all hieroglyphics to me. “So Mr. Douglas…”

“Morty, please. You can call me Morty. Please call me Morty.”

“Sure Morty, that’s just fine. So, tell me how you were planning to do this.” Before I could blink, he ripped the paper out of my hands and pressed it against the table, fingering it intently and mumbling his process rapidly.

“It would have been easy. Easy.”

“And do you own a gun, Morty?” I signaled the guard to stay back.

“No, no, no you don’t want to put a gun in my hands.” The idea was ridiculous as it seemed from his scoffing.

“Why not, Morty?”

“Would you put a gun in my hands? Why, why. Someone’d get hurt. You don’t wanna put a gun in my hands. Besides, guns make me nervous. That’s what I’d tell daddy. Guns make me nervous.”

“So why did you want to rob a bank?”

“I didn’t want to rob a bank. Who said that?”

“Well you, Mr. Douglas,”

“Morty, please. You can call me Morty. Please call me Morty.”

“I’m sorry, Morty. But isn’t that why you turned yourself in to the police?”

“No, I said I was planning to rob a bank. I would never do that. I could never do that!”

“Then why turn yourself in? Planning a hypothetical bank robbery is not a crime. If anything it’s a good brain exercise akin to a puzzle.”

“It’s wrong, Doc. It’s evil. What if this got in the wrong…in the wrong hands, Doc?” Morty had a grave look in his eyes as he held the wad of paper in his hands before me. “Think what people could do.”

“Then why plan it?”

“That’s why I’m here, Doc!” He shot up abruptly and the guard hovered over his holstered baton. “There’s something wrong with me. I should have never done that, Doc. It’s wrong. It’s evil.”

“Why did you say it that way again?”

“Say what?”

“You repeat certain phrases the same way every time. Why do you do that?”

“Must be the devil in me,” Morty unbuttoned his collar. “That’s what people say, ‘that boys got a devil inside him’ is what they say.”

“I’m a man of science, Mr…” I caught myself, “Morty, I can assure you it’s no devil. Plenty of people who’ve fallen on hard times have thought of robbing a bank and even those who have are not devils, they’ve just made poor choices. Now, as far I see it, you haven’t done anything criminal.”

“But every crime begins in the heart, Doc. No crime has ever been committed without planning. I’m one step away, Doc. Lock me away before I hurt somebody.”

“Morty, your heart is an organ that pumps blood throughout your body. There is nothing evil about it. You have a strong conscience, probably from a religious upbringing. According to your chart, the only crime you’ve committed was uh,” I looked over his chart, “contempt for insisting on arrest.”

“It’s not safe out there for a guy like me. I need to be locked up.”

“Are you afraid for your safety, Morty? Has someone threatened you?”

“The only threat out there is me. I’m a bad man…I, I, I think bad thoughts. I need to be locked up before I do something bad.”

“We all think bad thoughts from time to time, but that is different from doing them. No one’s ever been tried for their thoughts but for their actions. Now, we will keep you here for the night and I’ll prescribe you some pills that’ll help calm your nerves. Tomorrow, have a nice hearty breakfast and we can talk more.”

Chapter 2

I went to see the Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. Browning, about Morton Douglas because he was clearly tormented but hadn’t presented to be a danger to himself or others. Dr. Browning was a stout middle-aged man who smoked 10 cigars a day and always looked at everyone over his low-sitting spectacles with a listening look of disbelief.

“He can’t stay here,” He decided in his grizzly charred voice.

“You don’t think there’s anything wrong with him?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that. I said he can’t stay here. Unless he’s self-admitted and the family will pay for his stay, it doesn’t sound like they’re capable of that sort of investment.”

“Surely you see that Mr. Douglas is struggling with paranoia and likely schizophrenic. Maybe by keeping him here we can try to prevent an episode before it even occurs,” I reasoned, not too sure it was the best solution.

“While I can appreciate your perspective, Dr. Hawthorne, the insurance companies couldn’t give a rat's ass about preventing a hypothetical crime. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough evidence to make a case for paranoid schizophrenia or any other psychosis unless the police press charges and the government fronts his bill. He’s got another 24 hours on Uncle Sam’s tab and then you gotta turn him loose.” Dr. Browning turned back to the newspaper in his hands before realizing I was still standing in his office pondering. “Was there something else, Dr. Hawthorne?”

“I’m concerned about releasing back to that family of his. They seem to be under the impression that he is possessed by a demon and Morty will become the beast they are making him out to be, a self-fulfilled prophecy.”

“If it was our job to institutionalize criminals before they have the chance to commit crimes, we would lock up the entire county. We all have the propensity for evil, but we exercise restraint to maintain societal decency. Unfortunate circumstances will break the human function of restraint in the brain and it is our job to rehabilitate the person back to decency. While Mr. Douglas may be unpleasant, he has yet to disrupt decency; therefore, we can do nothing for him.”

“What would you say to prescribing a treatment of antipsychotics to see if the paranoia subsides?”

Dr. Browning brushed his thick mustache with his hand and sat deep into his chair, “Perhaps but you may escalate his situation to a problem that may not have been. We have best practice protocols for a reason. They may be colored with indifference but they keep you from burning in the same fire you’re trying to pull them from.” He lit a cigar from the humidor on his desk and swiveled his chair to face the window behind him.

I was deeply troubled when I returned to my office. Morty was sitting in his dorm like a lifeless wax figure sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blankly at his white wall. Part of me wanted to be in his head to know what he was thinking, but I was afraid of what I would find. Morty could be thinking of murdering his parents or burning down his church, which would validate my reluctance to release him. But he could also be thinking of nothing, which means I could be contemplating the imprisonment of an innocent man.

How long would I hold him? When would he be safe to release into the public with the thoughts that he thinks? Is it worth having another session? Maybe Dr. Browning is right. It is not my job to prevent crimes. I am not God and even he allows crime or there’d be no devil. He is heavily medicated now. Another session wouldn’t be adequate in his present condition. Why do I feel such a burden of responsibility?

Chapter 3

“How have you been feeling, Morty?” I asked.

“I don’t like those pills, Doc.” Morty blinked incessantly, biting the skin around his nails. “They make me feel strange.”

“Have they helped against the intrusive thoughts?”

“I…I…I guess they help because I don’t think about nothing on them pills. All I can think about is how I can’t think about nothing. It’s just nothing. My voice sounds loud in my head. Like in an empty cathedral.” Morty looked down at the floor. “Those always freaked me out. Maybe it was just the cinder block walls in my room,” he looked at me for reassurance.

“I’ll tell you what, Morty. Why don’t you finish the bottle I gave you? It’ll last you another week or so. Then, I want you to write down any intrusive thoughts onto a piece of paper and burn it. It’s a good practice of rebuking your own psyche to keep those thoughts under control. Think about it like an alcoholic emptying the bottle of wine down the toilet. Once you get it out of your head, it becomes a pile of ash.” I could tell Morty was visualizing it as I spoke to him.

“Can I ask you a question Doc?”

“Ask me anything.”

“Where do the thoughts come from?” The sincerity with which he asked was unsettling because he momentarily ceased to look like the spastic Morty, but simply looked normal. His shell appeared calm and concentrated.

“I am not sure. I wish I had a better answer for you, but scientists have been debating if it is a product of nature or nurture. It could be a chemical imbalance or a response to some perceived threat,” I let out a long exhale. “We simply don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s scary when people who should know things don’t know. I always felt scared when Papa or my teachers didn’t know something. Now I’m scared of my own mind because it can do things scientists don’t know nothing about.” Morty laughed loud with his mouth but anxiously with his mind if you can imagine the sight. Then he headed for the door with his coat and hat. “I’ll see you later Doc. Have a good weekend.” Then he was gone. I was hoping that my underlying sense of dread would leave with his release, but it rose to the surface. Goose pimples appeared on my skin accompanied by a cold shiver down my spine.

…

After pulling into the driveway that evening, I sat in the car a few extra minutes to catch my breath. My wife, Brenda, was preparing dinner in the kitchen when I finally walked through the door. “Hello, Peter.” She greeted me dryly. While she acknowledged me with her words, she didn’t bother to look in my direction. She is busy cooking.

“Hello, honey.” I let out another long sigh as I undressed at the coat rack and into the bedroom.

At the dinner table we hardly spoke a word. This had become common practice at the Hawthorne residence. We had a quiet empty home. I didn’t mind so much because my head was still spinning.

“How was your day?” She asked, her eyes fixed on the plate.

“Fine,” I said. She made a face to herself that I didn’t know how to interpret and kept eating. We said nothing else for the rest of dinner. Brenda looked beautiful, even expressionless. We’ve been together almost twenty years now. She has her routine and I have mine. We have a tv in the living room where I watch the news and one in the bedroom for her to watch sitcoms. Brenda goes to bed sooner than I do. I’ve grown accustomed to falling asleep on my chair and then finishing off in the bedroom, but Brenda was still awake when I stumbled in.

“Can we talk?” her eyes were already moist.

“What about?” I ask, very tired. She rolled her eyes.

“We haven’t been talking at all lately.”

“Well, you’ve been very quiet.” I suggested.

“Haven’t you wondered why I’ve been quiet?” She asked.

“I figured you needed space.”

“You give me nine hours of space during the day and then walk around the house like a ghost. I feel like I live in this house all by myself and it’s incredibly lonely.”

“Brenda, I come home to you every night. We spend every weekend together. I live my life for you.”

“Then why am I so unhappy?” She finally liberated the tears, large full tears.

I tried to answer her question literally, “Well, you know Freud’s trials on women…” but I was interrupted by a scornful glare. “I’ll make us some coffee.” There was something else between us that I had avoided because it was too painful for me to discuss. All possibilities of how the conversation could go formed a lump in my throat. It had to be said if we hoped to have an honest relationship.

She liked her coffee with two scoops of sugar and a splash of cream; mine was black. Neither of us wanted to say what was on our minds and we weren’t prepared for what either had to say. “I can’t keep living like this, Peter.” Brenda sobbed like a little girl. I don’t mean that to belittle her tears, but it softened my heart as if she were a child, alone and longing for her mother’s arms. Those arms were out of reach and mine would be as cold as rod iron bars. “I’m sorry I could not give you a child but don’t you think that misfortune is punishment enough.”

“What?” I was appalled. “I’m not punishing you, Brenda.”

“It certainly feels like a punishment. You don’t talk to me anymore and I have no one…”

“You found someone to talk to.” The words forced their way out of the anguish of my heart. Her furrowed eyes were offended and then softened to a wide open shock. Brenda fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, forgetting that I’m a psychologist, reading her every movement.

“What are you saying, Peter?”

“I found the letters.”

“You were rummaging through my things. I didn’t think you were the jealous type.”

“I was looking for my old lighter. I checked every drawer and found the notes from John…I am jealous. How long has this been going on?”

She wiped away a stream rolling down her cheek and took a sip of her coffee before responding, “Nothing untoward has happened, Peter. I promise you. It was after we lost the baby. I was in so much pain and so were you but I didn’t feel like I could talk to anybody about it.”

“You could’ve talked to me!” I stood furiously out of my chair.

“Every time I’d bring it up, you would despair, and I didn’t want to upset you. But my pain and loss was still so strong.” Brenda’s words were getting choked away by the lump in her throat.

“So you turned to Johnny, my friend?!”

“No, he came to see you when you went out fishing with my father. He asked me how I was and I just broke down and wept. He comforted me like a gentleman, very respectfully. Then, he opened up about how he had been let go from his job and Elaine was always gone. We talked and he started writing me letters, so I wrote him back. I didn’t think he would fall in love with me.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Do you really think that low of me?”

“I don’t know what to think. This is not something I ever anticipated happening. My mind is just reeling. I’m confused.” I felt her delicate little hands wrap around my waist and her body pressed against my back as I leaned over the sink. “I love you, Brenda. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Then, I started sobbing like I hadn’t done in years. The more I sobbed, the tighter she held me. Before long, we were holding each other, weeping on the kitchen floor like vagabonds in the streets huddling together to keep warm. “I never meant to make you feel punished or alone, but I didn’t really know how to process the miscarriage. I should’ve let myself cry about it with you and comfort you and confide in you, but I was trying to protect myself. It was selfish and I abandoned you when you needed me most. Will you forgive me?” We looked into each other through a watery haze, more in love than ever before.

“Of course I forgive you, Peter.” She kissed me softly on the lips. “You’re the love of my life. That’s all I needed to hear from you.” I knew something was coming by the way she caressed my hair. It had always been an indicator before she’d ask to buy a new piece of furniture. “There is something that happened,” Brenda paused for a moment. “Johnny kissed me, but it wasn’t reciprocated. It hasn’t happened again since. I stopped writing to him and then he wrote me that letter about how he felt. Will you forgive me?”

I was furious. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to go over to the backstabbing bastard’s house with a pipe and beat him within an inch of his life, but this was the first honest and intimate conversation we had in a long time. “I’ll deal with Johnny later,” I told her. Then, she kissed me and I kissed her back. Passion poured out on the kitchen floor, table, and culminated in the bedroom.

We embraced each other in bed like we used to in high school on the hood of my car over the lookout point. Her soft cheek rested on my bare chest. “Is that what has been occupying your mind lately?” she asked me.

“Believe it or not, it isn’t. It’s been on the back of my mind, but there is a patient I encountered recently that I’m unsure how to treat.” I told her about Morty, what Dr. Browning said, and my dilemma about releasing him to the public in his condition. “He worries me, Brenda. I’m not sure if I did the right thing.”

“I don’t mean to dismiss your dilemma, but I miss doing this.”

“Me too,” I chuckled.

“That’s not what I meant. I miss you sharing everything that’s troubling you with me. It makes me feel trusted and valued.”

“It is a huge burden you’re helping me unload. What does my wise and intelligent wife suggest I do about this problem?”

“Well, he stopped being your problem when you released him today, so you don’t have to give him another thought if your conscience will let you. If not, what can you do to feel like you did everything you could?”

Chapter 4

The next morning, I decided to give Mr. Douglas, Morty’s father, a phone call from the office. Any parent would do everything for the benefit of their child, I thought; but there were some things Morty shared that concerned me about the family’s approach to dealing with his eccentricities. After a few rings, a man picked up the phone.

“Hello,” answered a deep hollow voice.

“Good morning. This is Dr. Hawthorne from St. Augustine Mental Health Facility; I’m looking to speak with the father of Morton Douglas.”

“What do you want with me?”

“It’s a pleasure to speak with you, Mr. Douglas. I wanted to discuss Morty’s treatment and how you can support him at home.”

“Didn’t you release my son from the facility already?”

“Well, yes sir, he was but I believe...” He didn’t let me finish.

“Then he ain’t your problem anymore. If you wanted to help him, you should’ve kept him in there. Now he’s my problem.”

“Morty isn’t a problem, Mr. Douglas. He needs support and…”

“All due respect, I suggest you just mind your business, Doc. Leave us alone.” Then he hung up the phone. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Mr. Douglas clearly didn’t want me involved anymore, but it sounded to me that he preferred Morty locked up in an institution. Maybe he would have been better off if he stayed. There wasn’t much else for me to do anymore, so I tried to move on and busy myself with other patients. There was paperwork to complete, files to close out, and plenty to do; however, I couldn’t get Morty off of my mind. What else could I do? He was no longer my patient. His father didn’t want me involved. Then I remembered the church.

Morty was clearly influenced by the church. He made it known that people in the church accused him of having a devil possessing him to behave like he did. If Mr. Douglas didn’t want to help Morty, maybe the church reverend would. Then I could hand off the responsibility to the clergy and get back to work with peace of mind. I decided to pay him a visit at lunchtime. When that time came around, I grabbed my coat and headed out the door until Dr. Browning saw me pass by. “Dr. Hawthorne, would you kindly step into my office for a minute.” He coughed from straining his voice to summon me. I walked into his office. “Have a seat, Hawthorne.” I sat.

“What’s on your mind, Dr. Browning?” I asked.

“I got a strange phone call this morning from a Mr. Douglas. He says you’ve been harassing his family and asks that we respect his privacy.”

“I would hardly call it harassing. I simply called to follow up with a patient and encourage them to support him with his meds and treatment. This is incredible.”

“Dr. Hawthorne, I believe I told you to let this patient go. These are peculiar folks who might cause trouble for us if we don’t leave them be. I understand the feeling you get when you really want to help someone. It nags and nags at you until you do something, but I promise it won’t do any good. You can lead a horse to water, and that’s what you did. Now let the horse drink or die of thirst. Some people just don’t have the faculty to survive. That’s natural selection. Now, if this turns into a problem for the institution, it will become a problem for you. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, sir.”

“Where are you headed? It looked like you were going somewhere in a hurry.”

I started to get nervous and my palms were sweaty. “I was just headed to lunch. You know how it is when you’re ravenous.”

“I’m quite hungry myself. I think I’ll join you. Do you mind?”

Dammit, I thought. There was this sense of urgency I felt about meeting the reverend. Where would I take Dr. Browning for lunch?

“Where are we going? I feel like a good burger with bacon,” he mumbled as he pulled his coat over his shoulders and grabbed his briefcase. Before I had a chance to respond, the secretary chimed in.

“Dr. Browning, your wife just called. She wants to know when you’ll be picking her up from the salon.”

“Oh hell, I forgot about Louise. I’ll have to take a rain check on that burger, Hawthorne. I gotta go pick up the missus.” Dr. Browning left immediately, faster than I’d ever seen him hovel before. If I believed in a cosmic force controlling the universe, it would have seemed to be on my side at that time.

About a half hour later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Grace United Baptist Church on the south side of town. Morty was mowing grass on the side of the church. I was hoping he wouldn’t see me, but then he waved excitedly and started walking towards my car. “What in the world are you doing here…doc…doctor?” Morty shaded his brow from the sun with his arm. He looked happy.

“I came to see how you’re doing and to speak with the Reverend.”

“I’m doing very well, thank you. My p…p…parents asked me to come by the church and make myself useful. Reverend Daniels says there’s lots of work to be done around here. I like it here.” Morty surveyed the property with a grin until he spotted something that dropped his countenance. “I gotta go.” He left abruptly, muttering and stuttering back to the lawnmower.

I looked behind me to see what soured his mood so suddenly, and it validated all of my concerns. She was young and beautiful. A little blonde belle in a short blue dress was assisted out of a black Lincoln. Her sunglasses glanced my way before following her mother into the church. “I’ll see you around, Morty,” I called out, but he didn’t hear me over the mower’s roaring engine.

The church was a small building, but everything inside looked like it was cut out of the same log of antique wood. The walls and floors were pristine yet ancient at the same time. I wandered down the halls looking for the secretary but found someone else instead.

“Are you new here?” she asked, sitting on a high table. Her long legs were swinging gayly over the edge.

“No, I’m looking for Reverend Daniels.” I said as a matter of fact.

“He’s in a meeting with my mother.” The girl looked me up and down. She appeared to be too old to be sitting on a table like that. It made me uncomfortable. “Are you interested in joining our church?”

“No, I’m just here to talk with him.”

“What about?”

“I’m sorry but that’s confidential.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to pry. You must think me very rude. My name is Summer Dory,” she offered her hand.

“Dr. Hawthorne,” I shook her hand.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Summer left her hand in mine for a moment too long before drawing back with a mischievous smile. “So you’re a doctor, not a lawyer. Is the reverend sick?”

“Even if he were my patient, I wouldn’t share that sort of information.” Thankfully, the office door opened, and the mother walked out, followed by the man I came to see. I was becoming agitated by her investigation and blatant flirtation. She had no reverence in a place of religious worship and practice.

“It was a pleasure chatting with you, Dr. Hawthorne. I’ll be praying for the Reverend’s health.” Summer curtsied and her mother walked her out, arm in arm.

“Dr. Hawthorne, I presume,” we shook hands. “I’m Reverend Daniels. What can I do for you?”

“Morton Douglas was a patient of mine. I wondered if we might have a word about treatment and the support of his community.”

“Why don’t we step into my office,” he offered me a cognac and I accepted to calm my nerves. “I see you’ve met Ms. Summer.”

“Yes, she’s quite the handful, a mischievous little thing. I noticed Morty changed after seeing her outside. Do they have a history?”

“Why, they have a present. That’s what her mother came in to talk to me about. She seems to be under the impression that Morty is stalking her, but I’ve seen Summer teasing and flirting. That girl’s got the spirit of Jezebel in her. She’s got all the men of the church under a spell,” he took a long drink and finished the glass before pouring himself another.

“Reverend, that’s a very serious allegation. I would take extreme caution with a person like Morty. He has the best intentions, but you know what they say. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If he gets it in his head that the girl wants some kind of relationship with him, it will consume him.”

“Do you believe in hell, Dr. Hawthorne?”

“I believe that hell is a worst-case scenario. A person living in a prison of their own making because they failed to protect their best interests for easy pleasures. Consider a heroin addict who contracts AIDs, or a Casanova driven mad by syphilis. A wealthy man despised by his children; that is hell to me, Reverend.”

“That is the only heaven some people will ever know, Doctor. Morton’s family sent him here because they believe close proximity to the church will cast out the demons penetrating his mind.”

“Do you believe that as well?”

“Of course not, I’m a learned man like yourself. Some of the most heinous crimes are committed at church. While I can understand your exposition of hell, it falls short of the real, fundamentalist view. There are wicked people, Doctor. You may not agree with it, but you also cannot deny their actions far exceed the threshold of normal transgressions. We may all tell a lie, steal, covet or use the Lord’s name in vain every now and again, but we likely won’t commit genocide or rape and pillage a small village. Hell is a place for people who not only commit those acts but even those who desire it, dream of it, and would hand the baby over to the altar though they wouldn’t burn him themselves. What kind of diagnosis do you give people capable of such atrocities?”

“Well, there is usually one charismatic sociopathic leader who manipulates impressionable people into thinking somehow, they are doing a good deed. From my understanding, those people would be the exception, not the rule. There are countless variables that could have influenced an individual to develop a distorted sense of reality. They are driven mad by circumstance and then narcissism gives them a godlike authority to control others and bend morality to their will.”

“I don’t disagree with you, but what you call sickness, I call evil. Evil that cannot be cured or treated by medicine. It is like a disease that other people carry dormant inside of their soul until someone else infects them and activates that evil desire into malice. Some of us may catch a cold but won’t surrender to malevolence completely. We are penitent and subdued people of simple vices. Others live to watch the world burn. What can be done about those people?”

“Forgive me, Reverend, but that’s a bit narrow minded. Don’t you think we have a responsibility, especially you Christians, to forgive and rehabilitate such individuals to health and stability? If we just dismiss them as mongrels they’d be thrown in the furnace at the first sign of impropriety. I’m concerned about Morty. I don’t believe he is ill willed but a product of a misinformed and possibly abusive home environment. A person with poor judgment and a distorted sense of reality can easily make a bad choice if not properly monitored.” I was beginning to realize I had made the wrong choice by letting him go. The world wasn’t a safe place for a guy like Morty when there are parents like his, girls like summer, and a dismissive Reverend like this. Then again, who was I to keep him locked up without having the chance to refrain or commit the crime. It’s a hell of a gamble.

“You misunderstand me, Doctor Hawthorne. I do believe in repentance and even regeneration through the Holy Spirit; but I am not the Holy Spirit. Not everyone who comes to my church, comes with the right intentions. Take you for example. You didn’t come here looking for Jesus.”

“I came here looking for someone to help me keep that poor man out of trouble.”

“And what do you expect me to do, follow him around everywhere he goes and slap his hand when he reaches for a girly magazine? Do you want me to tell his parents to do better? Don’t you think if I could, I would stop the whole church from sinning every chance I got. I’m a preacher. I’m not a preventer or a guardian angel and neither are you. I preach even when people aren’t listening and I warn them of the evil lurking inside of them so they can protect themselves and others around them from their own wickedness. But do they listen? I provide counsel, I pray, I teach, I marry, and I baptize. Then I go home and take responsibility for the ones I am truly responsible for, my family.” I was speechless. Is that what I was trying to do? Was that what Dr. Browning was trying to tell me too?

“You are a psychiatrist. You treat your patients if they are sick and release them if they are better. Now, if you released Morty then you must have thought he was well enough. Maybe you were right or wrong, but that is not in your control. Just like I don’t hold the keys to heaven and hell, you, Doctor Hawthorne, don’t hold the keys to freedom and punishment. That is a fate decided within every man before he was born. Like a tree doesn’t decide which fruit to bear, everything was determined within the seed before it was buried in the earth.”

“I’m not a determinist, Reverend Daniels. I believe I have some choice in what happens in my life.”

“I’m sure you read Oedipus Rex by Sophocles at University. You’re right, he made every choice of his own free will, yet he could not escape his destiny. Nietzsche wasn’t a Baptist but even he and Marcus Aurelius knew there is a fate that is out of our control. The more you try to escape it, like Oedipus, the more you will suffer as it inevitably unfolds; but if you can learn to surrender to fate, you can face it with strength and serenity. I relinquish control of my congregation to their fate, but I also do everything I’m responsible for and wash my hands of the rest. Call me what you will, but I sleep well at night. Can you say the same? I tell you this, Doctor, so you can let go of the burden you’re carrying. Are you married?”

“I am.”

“How is this affecting you two?”

I told him how we lost our child to miscarriage, and we hadn’t really spoken until last night. He was right about the burden I was carrying by trying to prevent something horrible from happening, but I didn’t even know what that was because it hadn’t happened. I was so preoccupied with the future that I wasn’t aware of the present danger to my marriage and my job. It felt nice to open up and talk to someone about it, even though the reverend and I disagreed on many things. Rather than going back to the Office and obsessing over this anymore, I went home to be with Brenda.

Chapter 5

Before I left the church, I told Morty to take care of himself and to call me if he ever needed anything. It wouldn’t be long before I’d see him again. Brenda and I decided to go on a short vacation to the beach. It had been a while, and we were like old high school sweethearts meeting again at a reunion. At first, we were a little awkward and hesitant, but it didn’t take long before the muscle memory developed back to where we left off. I told her about my conversation with Reverend Daniels then she wanted us to attend mass, and I went along, dragging my feet.

When I finally returned to the office, there was a stack of cases on my desk that required immediate attention. It took me a few days to get to the bottom because the secretary would throw another one on my desk every now and again. Then she came in again and gently placed the manila folder on my desk, backing away quickly to slip out unnoticed. I noticed. Suddenly, a brick dropped in my stomach and made me dizzy. The file read, “Morton Douglas Jr.”

My palms were sweating as I reached over to pick up the file. The photographs were gruesome. They were of Summer Dory, who had been missing until she was found murdered while I was on vacation. That explains why we hadn’t heard about it. I felt sick, like a little boy who lied about his homework and now the teacher was calling his mother. This is my fault. That’s why the secretary couldn’t wait to get out of here. Dr. Browning’s coming in any second to arrest me. My heart was beating through my ears. This is a panic attack. I just needed to breathe and put my feet on the ground to collect myself.

The public defender was pleading insanity for Morty, but he required a psychological evaluation. The corrections officers guided me through the labyrinth of iron bars and hopeless hallways to a dark corner of the jail. Morty was cradling his head in his arms and sobbing as if he were humming himself a lullaby. When they closed the door, he looked up at me through desperate tear-stained eyes. “D.D.D.…Doc…D…D…Doc… Doctor Hawthorne!” he coughed out. The stuttering was significantly worse than before. His hair looked like it had been torn in patches out his head. There were claw marks on his face as if someone struggled against him. The sobbing and stuttering were so severe, it took him a full minute to finally say, “I didn’t do it, Doctor Hawthorne. I swear…to..to..to God…I” his mouth froze open for a few seconds before continuing, “I…I…I didn’t do it.”

I didn’t do it.

I didn’t do it.

I didn’t do it.