Pieces of a Whole
by: Betsy J. Bennett
CHAPTER 5
After the interview, Decker insisted on dragging him to a small, crowded deli. “There’s one other thing, Richard. Since you haven’t mentioned it, I suspect you don’t know, although there is no secret about it.”
“What?”
“I’m writing a book.”
“On what?”
“Your life as a fugitive.”
“Heaven help us all. It must be as dry as day old toast.”
“While the book is about you, it’s specifically about the people you helped along the way.”
“What?”
Decker picked up a pickle, used it to point at Kimble before he bit into it. “Honestly it started as testimonials. I wanted to have all this information in one place, in the event your case ever got reopened. I wanted to show you were not the crazed fugitive the press were painting you. That everywhere you went, you helped people.”
“You’re romanticizing this. I only helped myself, usually at another’s expense. If anyone should understand that, it’s you.”
“Go on believing that, doctor. It’s not the truth. Knowing you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and at least half-a-dozen other people feel the same way. I have proof of that much, and I’m willing to believe there’s at least a couple dozen more.”
“I helped no one. Sometimes I was desperate enough to think I did, but I understand delusion. More and more it’s the life I’m leading.”
“I’ll never accept that.”
“I went to you, I begged for help, with complete disregard on how I disrupted your life.”
“I was a two-bit hack reporter scrambling around supermarket openings, dreaming of a Pulitzer, when into my life walks one of the most wanted fugitives in the country. Now I’ll admit I believed you innocent, but I’m the one who used you.”
“And was sent to jail for it.”
“And now I have a reputation as a great reporter, and one who saw the truth long before anyone else. Based on this reputation, I’m getting stories now, good stories. And I’m not the only person better for knowing you.”
“I’m sure the list is endless,” Richards tone was self-mocking. His food sat basically untouched.
“I’ll give you an example. A few years back there was a murderer on a bus, with a knife against a woman’s throat. You jumped him, and from all available testimony, saved her life.”
He closed his eyes, went back a few years, and rubbed a scar, long healed against his abdomen. “I remember.”
“She gave me an interview, wanted me to know that you were kind, that she could never believe you were a killer. She wanted it written down, and would gladly testify in case there was ever a parole hearing.”
“Ok. You do remember that Indiana wasn’t really interested in granting me parole. They were too busy polishing the electric chair.”
“This is what I understand: you could have ignored the fight. It wasn’t your battle, and you had reason enough at the time to keep a low profile.”
“Still do, if you’re wondering.”
“And in helping her, you were stabbed.”
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
“And taken to the local penitentiary.”
“It was not my first choice for a place to recover, but I wasn’t given a lot of say in the matter.”
Decker picked up his corned beef sandwich, took a large bite, chewed for a minute before he spoke again. “And there was an inmate there who was implicated in theft of some morphine.”
Kimble nodded, said nothing. The ashtray on the table was already starting to overflow.
“He was two weeks away from parole himself, and innocent.”
“I stole the morphine. I made sure my prints were on the bottle. Made sure that the note I had was put in the warden’s hands, implicating no one else but me.”
Another crime. Someone should be after him for that. Maybe this exoneration would be short-lived.
Decker was eating potato salad, used the fork to punctuate his sentence since the pickle was long gone. “When you could have walked away scot free, you absolutely made sure no one innocent would suffer.”
“I broke into the narcotics cabinet. I am the one who stole that drug. My back was against the wall, and there were armed guards all around, but that doesn’t give me an excuse. I knew what I was doing when I did it.”
“You’re missing the point. For all practical purposes you saved that trustee’s life. He got his parole. He’s still free, if you’re wondering. He hasn’t been sent back to prison for anything.”
“You’re missing the point. I stole narcotics.”
“No.”
“I’m sure the warden will see things differently, why don’t you ask him?”
Decker was a large, boisterous man who loved to laugh. “I don’t have to. He wrote to me. I got almost all this information from the warden.”
“What?”
“He too wanted it understood that you deliberately implicated yourself so that trustee would not lose his parole.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve got the letter back at my office. I can show it to you, if you’re interested. The warden said he’s seen a lot of criminals in his twenty-plus career in the prison system, and from your actions, he couldn’t believe you were guilty of anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He said you were being blackmailed to provide the morphine.”
“Yes, that’s true. I was recognized.”
“And that while you stole the morphine, you did not hand it over.”
“I’ve seen what that stuff can do. Used by a doctor, it’s one thing, by an addict, another.”
“You filled the vial with distilled water, and before you left, you made sure the trustee could get his parole. He, the warden, said you didn’t have to do that. You were under no suspicion, and that it would have been easy for you to escape, and leave someone else to take the fall.”
“I couldn’t hurt him. He did nothing wrong.”
“See? I’ve got nearly a dozen other testimonials like that. When I wrote the piece a few years back about your innocence and how we tried to prove it, I kept getting letters from people who met you, who you helped. A lot of letters. I let them start piling up, until I decided there was enough for a book. Richard, I was going to tell you before I submitted it, I want you to understand that. And if you say no, I’m not sure I’ll stop, but I’ll certainly take your feelings into consideration.”
“No. Go ahead. I doubt anyone could possibly think any worse of me.”
“Then you’ve missed the entire theory behind the book. This is to prove, without a doubt, that even on the run, you never lost your humanity, that you helped people, a lot of people, even when it wasn’t in your best interest.”
“You can go ahead with it. I’ll not stop you. I don’t believe I have the right to.”
“I’ll let you read it. It’s nowhere near finished, but I’d love your input.”
“Ok. Ask me later, when you’re done. I’d like to see it. I’d like to think I helped some people. Sometimes,” who was he kidding, all the time, “in the dark nights, I could only think I was putting innocent people in danger because they knew me. They would be kind and I would thank them with a six month stay for aiding and abetting.”
“Stop apologizing for that. I’ll live off that for the rest of my life.”
“Now, can I take you and Paula out to dinner tonight? I’d love to see her again.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got a deadline. I doubt I’ll be home at all tonight.”
“Got an exclusive, do you?” Richard joked.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
And when Richard left Decker he realized the stop had been healing. He hadn’t hurt all those people while on the run. Maybe he had helped them as they helped him. Maybe he could hold his head up.
Her breathing was shallow, her eyes sunken, her skin cold and felt like tissue paper. Richard knelt by the bed, took her fragile hand in his.
“Sister Veronica?”
“She’s in and out,” the nun said. “And she’s not likely to recognize you if she comes to.”
“Thank you. I am grateful she’s had such good care. She’s a special lady. She deserves a special place in heaven.”
“Yes, we think so too.”
The building was a retirement center for nuns and clergy, too old to perform their religious duties any longer. There was no IV, no high tech med equipment he would have called for, had she come to him, back when he was practicing medicine.
“Is there anything that can be done for her?” The question was more of concern than academic. He could see she was dying. Sister Victoria had been promised only six more months of life over a year ago when he had last seen her.
“No. She’s getting the best care, and I can promise you she’s comfortable.”
“Yes, I can see that.” The room, although Spartan, with little more than a small single bed, and a crucifix on the wall, was spotless. The sheets were clean and if it smelled of death, and it did, it did not smell of decay or human waste or suffering.
“I want to thank you for letting me see her. There was a time she meant a lot to me.”
“Are you religious, Mr. Kimble?”
“No, no, too much has happened, but with Sister Veronica she made me believe in miracles.”
“Yes, she had that effect on people. She has an inoperable brain tumor, you know.”
“Yes. I know.” He was a doctor, and he cared, so he took her fleeting bird’s pulse. “What’s she doing here, in Detroit? The last time I saw her was in Los Angeles, she was running a girl’s school.”
“This is the retirement community. She came here to be made comfortable.”
“I’m glad she had you. She looks very comfortable.”
“It won’t be long,” the hospice sister said.
“No. No. She might surprise us and last through the night, but I doubt much more than that.” His voice was deeper than normal, the words painful as he remembered this dynamic force of nature in a black habit who had gotten him through roadblocks, and a dozen other challenges as they traveled together, and who once, when it really mattered, had let him down.
“Richard?” the voice was less than a whisper, more an exhalation of breath. “Richard, is that you?”
“Sister Veronica, I’m here.”
“I prayed you’d come, if you could.”
His smile was sincere, and lauded in the love he felt for her. “Are you in pain?”
“Only that I need your forgiveness. Then I can go. I hear angels. Do you hear angels, Dr. Kimble?”
“Now I do, Sister Veronica.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive, now or then. You did your best, and no one, not even your God could ask more than that. You will always have a place in my heart for the grace you gave me. So many times I wanted to give up, give in, I would think of you, and I would have the strength to go on.”
She tried to squeeze his fingers, an action with no life behind it. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. And now you’re free.”
“Now I’m free,” he agreed, “now that I’ve seen you. I needed to thank you. I’ve met a lot of people on my travels, but not one of them effected me the way you did.”
“I need you to do one thing for me.”
“If I can, you have only to ask.”
“There’s a clinic, near here. Go there, and speak to the doctor. Tell her thanks from Sister Veronica.”
“I will do that.”
“And now you’re free,” she repeated as her body went limp.
“And so are you, my friend.” He squeezed her hand gently, but knew there was no need. The angels she had heard singing had come for her, and taken her home.
Link to Chapter 6