Betrayal (14 page)

“Hello.”

“Hello. Evan, is that you?”

“No. This is Stephan Ray. Do you want Evan Scholler? I’m his therapist.”

“Yes, please, if he’s there.”

“Just a second. Can I tell him who’s calling?”

“Tara Wheatley.”

Stephan repeated her name away from the phone and then she heard Evan’s voice, unnaturally harsh and unyielding. “Tara Wheatley? I don’t want to talk to any Tara Wheatley. I’ve got nothing to say to her.”

Stephan must have covered the mouthpiece with his hand, because his next words were muffled, but even through the muffling, there was no mistaking what Evan said next. It was loud enough they probably heard it at the Pentagon. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m not talking to Tara Wheatley. Get it? I’m not talking to her! Tell her to get out of my life and stay out! I mean it.” Next she heard what sounded like a heavy object being thrown against a wall, or knocked onto the floor. And swearing, Evan insane with rage.

Or just insane from what he’d been through.

Back in Redwood City, Tara stared at the mouthpiece that she held in her shaking right hand, then slowly, as though the violence she’d heard in it might escape and hurt her further, she lowered it into its cradle.

F
IVE MONTHS LATER,
at the main Redwood City police station, Evan Scholler sat waiting in a hard chair just outside the room to which he had been summoned, the small wire-glass-enclosed cage that was the office of his boss, Lieutenant James Lochland. Evan’s shift had ended twenty minutes ago, at five o’clock. The summons had been taped to his locker downstairs. Now, as he sat, he could see Lochland at his desk, moving paperwork from a pile in the center of it to one of the trays at the far right corner. When the surface of the desk was clear, the lieutenant drew a deep breath, looked through his wired glass, met Evan’s eyes and, in his no-nonsense style, crooked an index finger at him, indicating he should come on in.

Lochland was a young forty and considered a good guy by most of his troops, who, as patrolmen, were by and large, like Evan, young themselves. The scars from a severe case of teenage acne marred what would have been an otherwise handsome face, so that now he came across as approachable. He wore his brown hair a little long by cop standards, and cultivated a mustache that could use a trim. Now he told Evan to shut the door behind him, to take one of the two seats that faced his desk. He had his hands clasped loosely in front of him on the pale green blotter and waited while his visitor was seated.

“What’s up, sir? You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah, that’s why I sent the note. I thought maybe it’d be a good idea if we had a little informal chat and maybe nip a couple of habits, or tendencies, in the bud before they get you in trouble. But before we go into any detail on those things, I wanted to ask you how you think things are going in a general way. In your life, I mean.”

“Pretty good, sir, I think. But, listen, if there’ve been complaints—”

Lochland held up a restraining hand. “If there have, we’ll get to ’em, promise. But we’re not there yet. Meanwhile, what I’m really asking about is your state of mind. How you feel about being back here, in the job.”

“Pretty good. I feel okay about it. I’m glad to be back.”

Lochland nodded, put on a tolerant look. “You sleeping?”

Evan let out a breath, started a smile that went nowhere. “Most nights. Whenever I can.”

“You need help with it?”

“What’s that?”

“Getting to sleep?”

“Sometimes I’ll have a drink or two, yes, sir. When I can’t get my mind turned off.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Evan shrugged.

“Iraq?”

He let out a long sigh, lifted his shoulders again. “I can’t seem to get it out from inside me. The guys I lost. My girlfriend. The whole thing.”

“You talking to somebody?”

“A shrink, you mean?”

“Anybody.”

“I talked to some woman at the Palo Alto VA until my discharge came through.”

“And that was just before you started here, right?”

“April nineteeth. Not that I’ll have a party on that date for the rest of my life or anything. So, yeah, a couple of weeks before I started here.”

“And you’re not talking to anybody since then? They didn’t give you any referrals for when you were done with them?”

This brought a snort. “Uh, no. I’m reading between the lines here, but you’re saying you think I’ve still got issues.”

“I’m asking, that’s all. I’m asking if maybe it’s a little too soon. If you feel like you’re under too much stress.”

“You mean post-traumatic stress?”

Lochland shrugged. “Any kind of stress. Stress you don’t need if you’re trying to do a good job as a cop. What I’m saying is that there are programs we’ve got here, and people we could recommend if you think you need it.”

“I don’t want to go down that road.”

“What road?”

“PTSD. You get that label, you’re damaged goods. The Army says I’m good. Physically and mentally I’m the miracle child. Now, if one of our own shrinks says I’ve got PTSD, I’m done.”

“That’s not exactly accurate.”

Evan shook his head. “It’s close enough. Post. Traumatic. Stress. Disorder.
Disorder
, Lieutenant. That’s a mental illness. I’m not copping to that, period. That’s not what I’m dealing with. I’m fine, sir. Maybe I just need to let a little more time go by.” Again, Evan let a long breath escape.

“There!” Lochland said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“You don’t feel that when you do it? You’re sighing like a bellows, Evan. Every time you open your mouth, it’s like you’re lifting this burden and dropping it on the side before you can say anything.”

After a second, Evan hung his head. He came close to whispering, “That’s the way I feel.” Raising his eyes, he looked across the top of the desk. “So how am I screwing up? On the job, I mean.”

In spite of military guidelines supposedly guaranteeing that police officers who got deployed to active duty from the reserves or the National Guard would be returned to their civilian work without demotion or loss of time served, Evan’s assignment since he’d come back to work as a Redwood City patrolman was roving grammar school officer for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. In that role, he visited classrooms of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders all over the city, spreading the doctrine of clean and sober living. Though it wasn’t a technical demotion and paid what he was making when he’d been called up, it still was not a job normally held by someone with three full years on the force. But it was the only opening they’d had when he was discharged and ready to go back to work, and he had taken it.

Now Lochland reached out and took a small stack of papers from his top tray. Removing the paper clip from the top, he leafed through them quickly—there were perhaps a dozen pages—then put them all down on his desk. “I don’t think we have to go over these one by one, Ev. They’re pretty much the same.”

Evan sat stiffly, his back pushed up tight against the chair. He had little doubt as to what the complaints had been about. “I just can’t stand to see these kids who’ve got everything—I mean
everything
, Lieutenant—iPods, two-hundred-dollar shoes, designer clothes—I can’t stand to see how spoiled they are. How they don’t take anything seriously. I mean, this whole DARE thing, it’s a joke to them. And when I think of the kids I saw over there in Iraq, with
nothing
, no shoes, no food, begging for MRE handouts…” He shook his head, the rave worn down by its own momentum.

Lochland sat forward, elbows on the desk, hands templed in front of his mouth. “You’re not there to yell at them, Evan. You can’t let yourself lose your temper.”

“They don’t listen, Lieutenant! They don’t listen to a word I say. They’ve got everything going for them in the whole world and they don’t give a good goddamn!”

“Still…” Lochland pushed the papers around in front of him. “The point is, school’s out soon enough anyway. Anywhere you get assigned next, I solemnly promise you’ll have more aggravation than these kids could give you on their best day. Serious aggravation. You can’t go out there on the streets half-cocked and ready to explode. That just can’t be any part of the job.” He pulled himself up in his chair, lowered his voice. “Look, Evan, we’re all proud as hell of you, of what you’ve done, of the fact that you’ve come back at all. You’re our poster boy too. But you’ve got to get yourself under control. You’ve got to let this stuff go.”

“Yes, sir. I know I do. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s a good start, but I’m thinking maybe you want to think about anger management, maybe take a class, maybe talk to somebody, some professional. I’m afraid that if I get any more complaints after this little talk, it won’t be a request. And next time we’ll have an HR person in here with us. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You think you can do this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think you can, too, Evan. But get some help. And some sleep.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll try.”

H
E WASN’T SUPPOSED
to engage in any sports that had a physical risk or contact element for at least another year and, depending on his follow-up neurological examinations, maybe forever. This left out his favorites, softball and basketball—he’d been active at least a couple of nights every week on a city-league men’s team in both sports before he’d been deployed. But the police department had a bowling league and while it wasn’t much in the way of exercise, it was something to do to get out of the apartment at night and mix with some of his colleagues, even if they were generally from a somewhat different subset—heavier, slower, and older—from the softball and basketball guys.

The positive aspect of this population was that it included men who had attained seniority or rank—Evan’s three teammates included two sergeant detectives and a lieutenant. All of whom were more than happy to have recruited a returning young war hero with an average of 191—they all thought the kid had a chance to seriously turn pro. He was a natural. Tonight his three-game score of 621 was fifty points better than any of them individually, and more than enough to ensure the Totems’ victory over their opponents, the Waterdogs.

“So here’s to the Totems,” intoned robbery-division sergeant Stan Paganini, hoisting a gin and tonic in the Trinity Lanes bar after the games, “and their upcoming undefeated season.”

Lieutenant Fred Spinoza raised his glass of bourbon on the rocks. “And to our own uncontested rookie of the year,
Doctor
Evan Scholler!” Spinoza often bestowed random honorifies, such as “Doctor,” on his colleagues when he got enthusiastic or excited. “Six twenty-one! That’s got to be close to the record set. I know I’ve never heard of a higher one. Three two-hundred games in a row! That just doesn’t happen in this league. In any non-pro league.”

“They ought to write you up, Ev. Get your name in the sports page.” This was white-collar-division sergeant Taylor Blades, drinking a Brandy Alexander.

“Thanks anyway, guys.” Evan had acquired a taste for scotch but couldn’t afford any of the single malts, so he was drinking a Cutty Sark and soda on the rocks. “But I’ve been in the paper enough to last me for a while.”

“Yeah, but not as a sports hero,” Paganini said. “You get known as a sports hero, you become a babe magnet. It’s a known fact.”

“He’s got a point,” Spinoza acknowledged. “Your teammates could benefit too. We could pick off stragglers from the swarm around you. Think about that, what it could mean to us and our happiness.”

“Yeah, but you guys are all married anyway,” Evan said. “You’d just get in trouble. And besides which I think the whole babe-magnet question in an amateur bowling league, even if it’s a really good article, is going to be more or less underwhelming.”

“No!” Blades said. “There’s got to be bowling groupies. In fact, I think I see a bunch of ’em coming in right now. Maybe the word got out about your set already.” He snapped his fingers. “YouTube. Somebody was filming you on their cell phone, and they posted it right up, and all these chicks…”

But Spinoza was holding out a hand, stopping Blades midrant. “Ev?” he said. “Is everything all right?”

I
N THE BATHROOM,
Evan threw water in his face a few times, checking his reflection in the mirror to make sure nothing showed in his expression. When he went back to the guys, he told them that he’d just gotten whacked by a wave of dizziness—an occasionally recurring symptom from his head wound. He excused himself, apologizing for raining on the postgame parade, saying he thought he’d better go home early, like now, and lie down, if he was going to be any good for work the next day.

Instead, he went outside and moved his car to the back of the parking lot so they wouldn’t see it when they left. A half hour later, after he’d seen them all leave, he got out of the car and walked back into the alley, where he took a stool at the bar and ordered another Cutty Sark, a double this time, on the rocks.

Tara’s lane wasn’t fifty feet from where he sat. She was with three girlfriends, all of them acting animated and happy. She wore a short white polka-dotted red skirt that showed off her shapely legs, and on top, a red spaghetti-strap silk blouse that he fancied he could see shimmering to the beat of her heart.

Drinking off his scotch in a couple of swallows, he ordered another double and watched the group of young men from the next alley strike up, if not a conversation, then from the body language a running, flirtatious banter. At least, Evan thought, she wasn’t here with Ron Nolan. That would have been very hard to take, far harder than seeing her alone, which was difficult enough. Was she still seeing him, he wondered, or could she in fact be unattached again? And if she was unattached…?

But what was he thinking? This was the woman who hadn’t even cared about his near-death in Iraq. Whose self-righteousness made her write him off forever when he was simply trying to do his duty. Who never even wrote him one letter or returned one e-mail from the minute he left.

Looking at her now, so carefree, it suddenly seemed impossible to him that the person he’d known and loved for two years had changed so much. She had always had strong opinions, but one of her best traits, and what his mother had always loved about her the most, was her innate kindness. Tara had always been a good person. What had happened that had changed her so very much?

Well, he was going to find out.

Putting a twenty-dollar bill in the bar’s gutter, he again emptied his glass like a man dying of thirst. When he stood up, the dizziness he’d invented for his teammates came and whopped him upside the head for real. He stood leaning against the bar for a few seconds, getting his bearings, surprised at how tipsy he’d become—he’d only had four or five beers during his games and then the five shots of scotch in the bar. Or were they all doubles? He took a step or two and had to grab the back of a nearby chair at one of the tables for support.

This wouldn’t do.

He wasn’t about to approach Tara as a stumbling and slurring drunk. He didn’t want to make it easy for her to dismiss him out of hand as a common nuisance. He would pick another time, when he was sober. Looking down at her and her friends one last time, he concentrated on his walking and made it to the front door without mishap, then down the steps and out to his CR-V in the darkness at the back of the lot.