The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 52

A gray, deflated version of Mitch Tarpick opened his eyes to find his partner, Frazier Stoudemire standing at the side of his hospital bed.

"How's it going, pal?" Frazier asked. "I see they closed up that gash on your cheek. Looks sore."

Tarpick shrugged and closed his heavy eyelids. "I wish they hadn't revived me."

"From a panic attack?" Frazier thought but decided to keep it to himself. Instead, he put on his motivational coach's hat. "Hey, hey, buddy, that's no way to talk."

Tarpick didn't respond.

Frazier walked to the doorway and closed the hospital room door and then returned to his partner's bedside. He leaned in and said, "It's gonna be okay."

"Okay?" said Tarpick, hemorrhaging despair. "I gotta wife in prison, I probably lost my job and my pension, and I'm lying here in a hospital bed. That doesn't sound so hunky-dory to me."

"Inside that big bag of marijuana was some paperwork for a medical clinic here in Cincinnati. A medical marijuana dispensary."

"What?"

"Some pot farmer in Colorado probably wanted to save himself some money and the aggravation of filling out all the damned paperwork. It looks like he hired your son to make the cross-country delivery."

"To a licensed medical marijuana dispensary?"

Stoudemire nodded. "They checked out."

"How did I miss that?" Tarpick closed his eyes and berated himself. "And you call yourself a cop."

"Except instead of making the delivery," said Frazier, "your boy stopped home first and then probably crapped his pants when he discovered the weed was missing out of his minivan. At that point, I suspect he and his hippie girlfriend got the hell outta Dodge."

"So you're telling me my kid's not a dope dealer?"

"Doesn't look that way."

"The dope sure looks like a dope dealer." There was no place on his face for a smile.

"So, Mitch. Tell me. Why did you stash the bag in the trunk of your wife's car?"

Had it been Lizzie asking the question, undoubtedly, she would have added, "That doesn't even make sense."

"I panicked. Flipped my lid. I didn't know what to do with a garbage bag full of hippie hay." Tarpick grimaced. " Chloe hasn't driven that car in weeks. She said it was on the fritz."

Frazier hadn't heard that expression since his grandmother thumbed through the yellow pages looking for a repair man because her TV was on the fritz. 

"Well, you can relax," Stoudemire said. "I explained the situation to the arresting officer and his superior and they released Chloe this morning."

"She's out of the slammer?"

Stoudemire nodded.

"I'll bet I'm still in Dutch with the Commander."

On his way to the door, Frazier said, "Take it one day at a time and try to get some rest."

"Ten-four," said Tarpick, watching his partner go. He wished he had it in him to rip the IV needle out of his arm, bolt from the hospital room, and make a beeline for those cornfields in Kansas. Instead, he looked up at the ceiling and mumbled, "My wife's gonna kill me."

........

On her way home from the bus stop, Lizzie had mixed feelings about spending her afternoons at a new school. She had every reason to be happy about dropping Poetry, Creative Writing, and English Lit classes, all the subjects that she found confusing. And Physical Education, which was pointless. She'd negotiated mutually-beneficial agreements with her gym teachers. All parties conceded that it was better for everyone involved if Lizzie sat on the sidelines and read rather than showcasing her ineptitude at basketball, volleyball, softball, soccer, and multiple other games that demanded skills she didn't have, like balance, hand/eye coordination, and the ability to remember a long list of perplexing rules. She was good at reading, but terrible at sports.

Leaving all of these unpleasantries behind was a reason for celebration but she wasn't in a celebratory mood. Lizzie didn't like new things. The thought of getting on a new bus every day and enrolling in a new school with new kids and new teachers made her anxious and uncomfortable.

The Principal and the Counselor seemed encouraging, giving her the impression they thought it would be an excellent opportunity at the new school but Lizzie sensed ulterior motives. For most of her life, Lizzie hadn't been able to sense much of anything about people. She'd been unable to puncture the surface layer of what their faces and their voices indicated but with more regular and immersive exposure, she'd gained a better understanding of visual and audio cues. She became more circumspect of human intentions. Were Ms. Crocker and Mr. Beeman acting on her behalf or were they in on some plan with the teachers, devising a way to get Lizzie out of their classes and into another school where she'd become someone else's problem?

Lizzie climbed the porch steps, found the key to the front door, and entered the apartment building. Outside Ms. Brennan's first-floor apartment door, she wondered what her neighbor was baking. Her pecan putters were aromatic. The new odor was gross. In fact, the unidentified smell was right up there, high on the list of odors that made Lizzie retch, which included the sewer near her bus stop, the piece of cheese Scooter's mom found in Mr. Gibbs' refrigerator, and Mr. Beeman's breath.

She labored up the stairs, the thoughts of the new school still rattling around in her mind, optimism banging back and forth with dread.

When she arrived at the first landing, she came to a full stop. The burnt chemical smell was stronger and something about Frederick Gibb's apartment door didn't look quite right. She took a step back and carefully examined it. It was as if the door had been removed and replaced with a replica that had fallen short of a few details. Maybe the color was just a little too dark, or the finish was just a bit too glossy. Her eyes came to rest on the doorknob protruding from its mounting bracket slightly askew.

"Oh, geez. Who broke this?" She reached for the doorknob.