Vandermein

V

The chandelier above the table buzzed in the abject silence that hung in the room. None of what Veronica said made sense to me. I'd known Bill Boone for years, I've had his routine, his life, charted out carefully. The man went to confession every Tuesday night for God's sake! And now I'm finding out that he's a bitter, violent drunkard?

Worse yet, he's a bitter, violent, dedicated drunkard. My empty stomach groaned, and despite its emptiness, I felt the need to heave.

If the game isn't fun anymore, then a large part of who I am is a fiction.

My skin was cold a prickly and darkness was moving in around my peripheral vision before Kenzie broke the quiet.

"Veronica, do you paint?"

"What?"

"Painting. Have you ever painted before?"

"Umm...No, I've never been very good with art."

Kenzie clapped her hands together. "I'll be right back, you stay put. Drink your coffee."

There was more quiet in my wife's absence so I sniffed before I spoke to ease Veronica into more sound.

"Detective Guzman, are you afraid for your life?"

She ran her thumb over the rim of her cup for a second before answering. "I'm not here looking for your protection, Doctor."

"That's not what I was asking. I have two children asleep upstairs. If Boone is who you say he is, and he finds out you're here talking to me, that might mean my children's safety is compromised. Your safety is none of my concern nor my interest."

"Boone knows how to get into your home. Your safety's been compromised long before I came along. He talks about that, you know. He says that if he snuck into your house and wasted you and your wife, he'd be doing the world a favor." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "He's also said that when you pull weeds you also have to pull the root, if you know what I'm saying."

My disbelief turned to anger. I might be operating on the creative side of the law, but threatening my wife and children? How could I ever feel safe again with that madman running around? That is, of course, if what Veronica was saying was true.

If she were lying, put up to it by Boone to smoke me out and catch me pursuing him, then I would be dead to rights and he would have caught his Moby Dick. But it was so unlike Boone to operate with deception. Honesty was always his Achilles heel.

But the way Veronica is describing Boone was an even further departure from the straight-laced clean-cut cop I knew. Could Boone be banking on me disbelieving her story? What if I exhausted my resources vindicating both me and the detective and inadvertently producing extra-legal evidence in support of his high-profile case? It was convoluted, but it made so much more sense.

Kenzie strolled in with a couple blank canvasses and a bag of paint bottles.

"Veronica, you and I are going to paint this out." This wasn't a question my wife was asking, nor was it an invitation. This was a courtesy warning that painting was going to be done. I've been in the crosshairs of this paint-based-hostage-situation countless time, and I know there's no way out of it. The attic is filled with my lackluster masterpieces titled after the emotions my wife told me I was feeling at the time.

"I have some work I need to do," I told the two women. "Veronica, I thank you for being here, but I must admit that this troubling news is extraordinary. I fear I'm not ready to accept it on your word alone." I retrieved a bottle from my cupboard and placed it on the table between the paintbrushes and the sponges. "I'll need you to pee in this. I'd like to test whatever it was you've been injected with."

Veronica nodded, but her attention was now being drawn to my wife, who was preparing a lengthy lecture on the merits of internal family systems.

I retreated to my office, only to find myself with even more unexpected company.