Outlier: One mistake can destroy everything. (12 page)

Sean had received no less than two texts from the mayor, Winnie Rodriquez, since he left Dr. Nguyen’s office. He tried to recall the last time she’d texted him rather than left a voicemail. He couldn’t. They both said urgent. He wondered what in the world could be urgent to the mayor of a town of less than 50,000 on a Saturday evening. Something happen to the chief?

He called her as soon as traffic allowed. She was at home, where she requested his presence. He pulled up to the curb 30 minutes later.

“Sorry for the theatrics,” she smiled, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She motioned for him to follow her into her office. “Get you something to drink?” she asked. Sean declined.

Sean sunk into the deep blue fabric recliner, opposite her equally deep leather recliner. Behind her were pictures of family, grandkids, local sports teams, and various businesses. One picture was of her standing with a Texas congressman congratulating her on her first election victory, decades earlier. She was more a mother to this town than a mayor. Between them was a rarely used fireplace. To his right was a bookcase loaded with law books. She’d been a lawyer for a few years before deciding to come back to Rockport, her hometown.

“I’ll make it quick. I’ve got two things that may end up impacting each other. We aren’t really sure yet.” She leaned back into the recliner, putting her feet up on the extended footrest.

“First, you know the chief doesn’t have much time left before he is going to be forced to retire. He can barely get out of bed some days. Have you considered his replacement?” she asked, smiling. He knew what she’d meant.

“I’ve been kind of on the fence.” He didn’t want to mention his plans on law school. He still hoped he might get the city to pay for it.

“Well, I know you aren’t but thirty, but I think your record speaks for itself. There is, however, something that has come up that may make things a bit, shall we say, sticky,” she said. Sean was curious what this issue was.

“What can you tell me about Bethany Edwards?” she asked without judgment.

Fuck.

“Oh, Jesus, Winnie. What have you heard?” He knew the chief, while not elected, was appointed by the mayor, who
was
elected. He didn’t think it would look so good to have a new chief banging the first female he’d talked to within 24 hours of finding his fiancée’s corpse.

“Well, Sean, it’s not good. There’ve been stories that you and she have been, uh, planning things.” She didn’t dare say more, as she was sure Sean understood the implications.

“What the hell? Planning things! I could barely remember her when I first saw her!” He stood, visibly angry.

“I know, honey; I know,” Winnie said, standing, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sit down; let’s talk about this. Just tell me what happened.”

Sean explained everything—which was basically three drunken one-night stands with the same woman. How could he be so stupid?

“Jesus, Winnie, I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I just wasn’t thinking. What now?”

“Well, I really hate to ask this, Sean, about the autopsy. You know people in this town, the things they’ll gossip about just to pass the time.” She looked at him sadly.

He knew what she meant. Bethany had obviously liked him. And he had basically used her. How else would she respond? But now people were likely suggesting he’d killed his future wife to be with Bethany. Sean leaned forward, putting his face in his hands. Winnie waited patiently.

“Autopsy does not suggest any foul play. Dr. Nguyen is clear on that,” was all he said. What a shitstorm.

“OK, Sean. I’m sorry I had to ask you that. For the time being, I’m going to tell Chief Hernandez he’s desk-bound, and I don’t think he can even handle that. Until further notice, you’ll report directly to me. We’ll just wait until things settle down. And Sean,” she said, waiting for him to meet her eyes, “things will settle down, OK?” She smiled.

Sean nodded, got up and left.

He wanted to be anywhere in the world except for Rockport.

Sunday, 9 a.m.

Jay was up early. Happy. Excited. All last night he’d dreamed about great things. People fearing him. People admiring him. Government agencies begging him to help them. Afraid of his response. He’d woken up at seven, not sleeping in like he normally does. He wanted to go out and have fun. Not
too
much fun, just to test his abilities on bigger things.

Most of the time, people didn’t even notice Jay. But today, somehow, they were looking at him. As soon as he made eye contact, they immediately looked away. If they were walking toward him, they either turned around or crossed the street. He was sure they knew about his powers somehow. He was going to rule this town very soon. He imagined all the things he would make people do for him. And nobody could stop him. So long as he kept to the rules. Don’t touch anybody, and don’t tell anybody. He was special. Mr. Goldberg had said so.

He stopped on the corner and sat at the bus stop, even though he knew there wasn’t another bus for 45 minutes. He looked at the cars driving by. He noticed that many people seemed to be looking at him in fear. Across the street was a small grocery store and a parking lot with a few cars. He tried to push in the metal on their doors. He made three small dents in three cars. Very proud of himself. They crinkled when they went in. Don’t tell anybody and don’t touch anybody or anything, and he was safe.

He stood and walked across the street to the grocery store. He didn’t think he could do it now, but pretty soon he thought he would be able to walk into traffic and force the cars to stop. Skid to a stop like in the movies. He would just pretend he didn’t know what was happening, and nobody would know.
Don’t touch anybody and don’t tell anybody.
He smiled to himself.

He walked into the grocery store, noticing how the doors automatically opened.
Soon, I’ll be able to do that to all doors,
he thought to himself.
People will think I’m magic. Maybe I’ll do magic tricks in Las Vegas. Then all those Las Vegas girls with big boobs would fall in love with me.
He stopped in his tracks. Weren’t there games in Las Vegas where you rolled the dice? He would need to practice. He could make a lot of money. What would he do with all that money? Buy a nice house where he didn’t ever have to look at his mother again.

He continued walking through the grocery store. Slowly, calmly. He stopped at the end of the produce section. He looked at the apples. At first, he tried to move them by looking only out of the corner of his eyes. Nothing. He looked around and saw two women looking at him in utter terror. They must know him. Everybody must know him. He looked at them, smiled, and looked at the apples.
One, two, three,
they plopped onto the ground. One woman screamed, backed away slowly, and then ran.

The other didn’t. She was typing something into her phone. That scared him. If somebody filmed him and put it online, he might get in trouble. Mr. Goldberg hadn’t said anything about that. He’d have to call him. He didn’t have his phone and he didn’t know Mr. Goldberg’s number. Was it on his card? He turned to walk home.

He didn’t make any eye contact on the way. He walked very fast, rushing straight to his room. He found the number and then thought about something. Maybe that woman knew him and had already put it on the Internet. He’d have to check before he called Mr. Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg might be angry, so he’d better make sure. He Googled his name and was horrified at what he saw. The first results were all from Twitter. He clicked on the third one.

Jay Hutchins dangerous. Stay away. Will hurt you.

#JayHutchins #Rockport #Evil

Beneath was a picture of Jay taken from the school website.
Those fucking kids.
He looked down and saw that it had already been retweeted 487 times, about the number of students at school. They were ganging up on him! They were telling everybody he was bad! He wasn’t bad; they were bad! They were trying to hurt him!

He clicked on another link. Same tweet. Only this one had a picture of that girl he’d hit in the face when she was in the hospital. Her eyes were black; her nose had white bandages all over it. Her face was puffy. The picture had a caption on it:

Jay Hutchins did this.

Jay stood up, furious. His computer flew off the table, smashing into the wall. Jay stopped. They were going to come here. Mr. Goldberg would leave. The police would come. They would find him!

He had to hide until tomorrow. He would go to the school. He would go to the school and make them all pay. He’d better start practicing so he could make the police leave him alone as well. If they came, they’d be sorry. Nobody would stand a chance against him.

Sean sat in his apartment. He thought about calling Bethany, but figured he’d just leave her alone. Let her stew in her own gossip. He was just staring out the window, lost in thought. He’d looked up the cost of law schools and then checked his bank balance online. He had enough to pay for the first two or three weeks. He’d heard horror stories of kids fresh out of college borrowing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for advanced degrees only to get jobs waiting tables. But he had experience. He checked the starting salaries of Assistant District Attorneys. He didn’t want to defend criminals; he wanted to punish them. He tried calculating how long it would take to pay off a law school loan with an ADA salary. Too long. He sat in silence, wondering.

He decided he had one more option. He thought about it, shrugged his shoulders, and made the call.

“Agent Long, Detective Lovac. You got a few minutes?”

“Sure, Sean. How’d things go last weekend?” Agent Long asked. This was the first time they’d spoken since Sean’s second walk-through at Sheryl’s house. Sean gave him the details about the drug trials and how that was a dead end. Before he got to asking him about career advice, he thought he’d ask him his advice about Jay.

“Let me send you a video; tell me what you think.” He waited until Long had received it and watched it.

“And you said nothing in the locker, right?” Long asked.

“Correct. Opinion?”

“And this Jay, he was the only one in the trials?”

“Correct. Opinion?” Sean repeated the question. He was growing frustrated. He doubted the FBI was going to get involved in this. Long had already begged out of visiting BioGyn.

“Sean, why exactly did you call me? Do you really want advice on this case? Because it seems to me there’s nothing you can do. No evidence. No apparent motive. Let me ask you a hypothetical. Let’s say you catch this guy, Jay, in the act of doing something like that. Knowing nothing would really stand up in court, especially if there were witnesses. What would you do?”

Sean thought about that. He wasn’t sure.

“Sean, let me ask you again; why did you call?” Long asked patiently.

“Tell you the truth? What kind of education reimbursement program does the FBI have?”

“A pretty fair one.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can stay here, Alan. But I don’t know where to go.”

“I see. You studied criminal law, right?”

“Yes. You know that. You’ve got all my records. You tried to recruit me when I graduated.”

“Humor me.”

“OK, I’ve got nothing else going on. I may as well play along. Criminal justice.”

“Why did you study that?”

“I guess to learn the law. Learn how to make sure people stay protected. And that people who violate the law get what’s coming. To make sure justice is served.”

“Because of what happened to your mother?” Agent Long asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sean answered.

“And right now, in Rockport, is justice being served, Sean?”

Sean thought about that for a minute. “No. It is not.”

“Tell me about the law, Sean. The criminal law you studied. What are its roots?”

“What the fuck?” Sean said, perplexed. He hadn’t expected a philosophical discussion.

“Like I said, humor me. I’m bored, you’re bored. Just play along.” Sean could hear the smile in Long’s voice.

“Fine. The roots of the law are natural law. As societies formed and became more complex, they needed more complex rules. Governing institutions, democratically elected, collectively chose laws that were best for all parties.”

“Very good, Sean. If you were a first-year student, I’d give you a B+.”

“Very funny. You got any more goofy questions, Agent?”

Agent Long laughed. “Tell me about now, Sean. The laws that exist in Rockport, in Texas, and in the United States; do they conform to that academic description?”

Sean thought about Dr. Nguyen and how he described the pharmaceutical companies. How they lobbied Congress and wrote the laws for Congress. Used the laws to increase their power and decrease their culpability and responsibility to the public. About the doctor’s worry that they could strip him of his medical license. About that fucker Goldberg.

“No, Agent, they do not,” Sean answered, starting to feel anxious.

“Tell me once more, Detective; who is the law supposed to protect?” Agent Long asked, very patiently.

“Citizens,” Sean responded. Obviously.

“And do all laws protect citizens?” Long asked.

Sean paused. Where was Long leading him? “No, they do not.”

“The laws that do not protect citizens—who do they protect?” Agent Long asked, all trace of humor gone from his voice.

“The powerful. The rich.” Sean finally understood where this was leading. What was he getting into?

“And tell me, Sean, which laws do you uphold? Which laws do you enforce?” Agent Long asked, speaking slowly and deliberately.

Sean didn’t like this question. He gave the textbook answer. “I am sworn by my duties as a peace officer in the State of Texas to uphold all the laws of the State of Texas.”

Agent Long paused, letting Sean sit with his answer. “Sean, I’m going to ask you a very personal question. Please do not be offended.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you feel it is just, even as a sworn peace officer, to uphold an unjust law?”

Sean waited.

“I can’t—I don’t know how to answer that,” Sean finally said.

“Please do, Sean. I implore you. Please do,” Agent Long asked with pure sincerity before ending the call.

Sean gazed out the window, devoid of focus. Remembered Chi, that poor frightened kid at school. All the other kids. Terrified. Sheryl, lying in a pool of her own blood. The engagement ring he didn’t know what to do with. That motherfucker Goldberg and his pharmaceutical overlords. It hit him. Where Long was leading. Could he do that?

He thought of his mom getting smashed by that rich drunk who had gotten off. His decision to defend the law. To uphold the law. Up until now, the law was clear. The rules were unbending. Find the suspect, find the motive, find the evidence. What evidence could he possibly get on Hutchins? How could he possibly convict him? What if Hutchins had made that book fly out? What would happen if he could do that with larger objects? With people? What of the law then? What would happen if he crossed the line that Long had alluded to?

The events of the last week weighed upon him heavier than he thought possible. The raw emotions of his girlfriend and future wife were still bottled up, yet to find release. All of his unborn children spilled out onto her kitchen floor. Those lifeless eyes. He knew those emotions would find a way out. And he would rage.
Not yet, Sean; not yet. Focus on the task ahead. Focus on your job to protect and to serve.
Who was he protecting? Who was he serving? What if the law was wrong?
What would that mean, Sean?

After many quiet minutes, he stood. “I’m coming for you, Jay.”

“I’m coming.”