Detective Branch, Detective Kevin Richter, Gloria Dennison, and Robert Adams arrived at the apartment. Adams opened it with his key and stood back as Detectives Steve Branch and Kevin Richter started rifling through Robert’s things.
“Do you have any guns?” Kevin asked.
“No.”
“Knives, drug paraphernalia, needles?”
“Nope.”
Kevin found some porno in Robert’s desk. They were white girls in typical porn situations, nothing spectacular, and nothing that Kevin himself didn’t have. Too bad. He liked being titillated. He had a wild hunch that it wasn’t going to happen this time and that Robert Adams might actually be a bit of a nerd.
After a half hour of looking, they were done.
“He’s clean,” Branch said.
He looked at the kid.
“Listen, we are sorry for what we put you through.”
“Is that it? You are just sorry?”
“Yea,” Branch said. “That’s pretty much it. I had to scare you in case you were a part of what your dad did today. I needed you to confess so I could book you. But you didn’t, did you?”
“So, what did he do?”
“Gloria will fill you in. Sorry, I was such an asshole to you, but that’s my job. I know I suck. It’s my job. And I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
Steve and Kevin left. After the door closed, Kevin covered his eyes.
“What’s this about?” Robert asked. “Is it about my mom dying this week?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“Your dad was shot to death today, Robert. I thought they told you that.”
Robert covered his face. He suddenly shook. A tear came from his eyes. A moment later, a long slow trail of tears moved down across his cheek, but he was all numb thinking about his father’s death and could not feel anything. His mind was in a momentary state of shock and inner paralysis. He had been pushed nearly to the point of breakdown.
He figured some creep in the city tried to hold him up and ended up killing him. Now he had no one. Now he was a complete orphan. How would he break it to his sister?
“What happened?”
“He went postal, Robert.”
“Postal?”
“He shot people, Robert.”
“How many people?”
“Lots of people.”
“Why?”
“We aren’t sure. Revenge, perhaps.”
“You have to be kidding. That’s not like my dad.”
“We think it was to protest how Obama Care treated your mother’s cancer.”
“They didn’t treat it at all. They just let her die.”
“Sounds like a reason to me, Robert.”
Robert thought about it. If this were true his dad had hatched this all on his own. He kept it hidden from Robert. He hadn’t let on about it at all. Or had he? Robert seemed to remember his dad saying he had something up his sleeve concerning his mother’s death and how unfair it was.
“He never told me a thing about this,” Robert said. His chin wobbled. Suddenly, Robert was crying. He missed his dad already. “The poor man,” he said. “He was so distraught, but I never dreamed he’d kill people. He’d never done anything like that in his life. At least not that I ever knew.”
“Do you have a girlfriend or a best friend or a relative who can stay with you?”
“I have a sister and a girlfriend.”
“I’ll call them.”
Gloria reached both of them. They already knew about his father’s death. She explained how the police had roughed up Robert for no reason at all. She asked if they’d keep an eye on Robert for a week or so, that he might be a suicide possibility. Then, Gloria went over to him and held him. He wept on her shoulder like a baby. She knew what he had been through with his mother dying, then being man handled, then discovering his father was a mass murderer and was dead. She knew that anyone with such a recent set of traumas was a perfect risk for self destructive intentions.
“You poor thing,” she said. “I would be doing exactly the same if this happened to me. Just let it all out, babe. Don’t keep a thing pent up inside you. Let it all out.”
And he did.
He cried harder and harder, until finally he reached a point where he had to stop just to breathe air again.
His sister and girl friend showed up, and Gloria explained how they shouldn’t leave him alone for several days or weeks after what he’d been through. They thanked her. She gave Robert a big hug and left.
“Thanks,” he told her. He wanted to say more but couldn’t muster his voice. He’d call her in a day or so and thank her correctly.