Episodes
Sunday Aug 01, 2010
The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter Twenty-one
Sunday Aug 01, 2010
Sunday Aug 01, 2010
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Paula and Greg sat looking at the house across the way. They were both getting very tired. Greg stood and stretched, looking at John Graham’s now darkened house. “I guess we could call it a night, and head back to your motel,” he said.
Paula was looking at the house, too, but when Greg suggested they go, she turned to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “Why would I want to go back to my motel and sit in my room by myself,” she cooed in his ear, “when I could just stay here with you?”
Her words made sense, and the long kiss made a negative answer impossible. “Well, I guess we shouldn’t desert our posts, even though it looks like a pretty slow night,” Greg observed, looking around the partially furnished house. “Do you want the couch or the futon? I don’t think we’ll both fit on either one.”
“Are you saying I’m fat?” she said, pouting out her lower lip, pretending to be hurt. Now it was his turn to wrap his arms around her waist, and without answering, kiss her long and hard. She seemed to forget the question.
“Go ahead and go to sleep,” Greg said. “I think I’ll sit here and watch for a little longer. You look tired, so turn in.”
“Yes, sir,” Paula Rogers said, saluting sharply. She crossed to the futon, and taking off her shoes, plopped down and was asleep almost immediately.
Cody was almost going crazy trying to figure out how to help John Graham. He thought back to the things he had been learning, searching for some answers to help him get this guy off his guard. As a paramedic, his first duty was to take care of the medical emergencies, but the other big part of the job was to make sure the injured parties didn’t panic, since that would further complicate the episode. Since they had at least another half hour to drive, Cody decided it was time to try out his “roadside” manner.
“So, does this John Graham guy owe you some money?” Cody tried this shot in the dark as a good starting point. Most people were about money.
Raymond Johnson grumbled to himself, but not because Cody was prying. “Yeah, you might say that he owes me some money.” Ray smirked thinking about a drama teacher stealing from him.
“You’re not gonna have to use the gun, are you?”
“Depends on what happens when I get to this guy’s house,” Ray admitted freely. “If everything goes well, nobody, including you, gets hurt. But I know how to use the gun, if that’s what you were wondering.”
Cody had no doubts that the gunman was proficient. But it did seem like he was beginning to open up. “You don’t look like a guy who would shoot people.”
“Nobody looks like someone that shoots people,” Ray interjected. “That’s why so many people get shot by surprise. The last person in the world they expect to get shot is them. You ought to see the look in most peoples’ faces after the bullet hits them. It’s like a kid looks when you take his candy away.”
Cody tried not to shudder visibly. Johnson was a guy who obviously had done both – shot people and taken candy from kids – and that was the way he was describing both sets of victims. While he had heard of cold-blooded murderers before, Cody never thought he would be driving one to his teacher’s house.
“So, this is over a lot of money, then. I don’t think you would kill someone over a little amount, would you?” Cody studied the man in the mirror, and saw that the softening was starting.
Ray smirked again, “Yeah, this is over a lot of money. But don’t get me wrong. I will kill you if you cross me, and that’s not over money.”
Cody knew this was true, and he was startled that Ray thought this conversation was about saving Cody’s life. But the hypnosis had begun. Part two, according to his training, was to get the other person to see you as a real person. Next, they would talk about what kind of training a paramedic had to go though.
Greg Jones sat for a while in the darkness watching John Graham’s house, wondering why Smitty hadn’t called about the capture of Raymond Johnson. Probably too busy with processing Johnson into the jail. But since there seemed no immediate threat at the time, Jones was able to sit thinking about other topics.
He intertwined his fingers and smiled. He looked over a Paula, by now fast asleep. He felt like a lucky man, indeed, and wondered at her patience and his thick-headedness. It was fortunate for him, he thought, that she was so determined.
He watched her breath rise and fall, and she seemed so peaceful. Not the fiercely determined reporter most people saw weekly on their television. Her blonde hair was short, fashionable, attractive. She had a great figure, and her personality was as tenacious as her reporting. She was no wall flower. Greg thought when she was younger she was probably the one leading the way of mischief in school. Then she would probably proclaim her status as the leader and most responsible, thus deserving of the most punishment. Which of course, always resulted in less punishment for everyone, including her. That leadership quality had served her well in tracking down murderers, rapists, con-game operators, neglectful mothers and fathers. Her determined questioning raised eyebrows at times, but the directness often caught her victims unaware, and they would confess into the microphone. Paula’s interviews had been used more than once to convict the guilty, and those who were convicted of their guilt without a trial often pled to lesser charges and were finally removed from the possible pool of people Greg had to round up.
This line of thought led him to wonder if her blunt questioning during the past days had made him confess the love he felt for her. His firm conviction of love proved her talent yet again, and he was glad that she had been so direct, after waiting for so long. Greg Jones knew how it felt to be trapped under the spell of Paula Rogers, and while it was an uncomfortable thought for the macho man in Greg to admit it, he was glad to be trapped. He thought that most of the people she usually trapped were probably happy to be out from under the burden of their crimes, guilt, or misery as well.
As Greg’s hands rubbed across his face, his brown hair ruffled at the sides. He marveled at the beauty placed before him, and counted himself the luckiest man in the world. But he shouldn’t let it detract him from his job. He should probably at least go to the car and check in with Smitty, or someone, to see if this lonely outpost he was enjoying so much was to be closed for the night.
John Graham continued to dream. Having gone back to sleep after the dream of losing the money, being laughed at by others and humiliated by his own stupidity, he found himself ready to sleep again, and was of the firm belief that one could control one’s dreams. He wanted to will this dream to be a good one, to show he had made the right decision, and that all would be well. He had changed his lucid dreams before, and now sleeping soundly, he was determined to find the happy ending in this complicated affair.
He was jogging again. Plodding again. What had happened during the past few days seemed like plodding, too. The package. The money. Prepare the fake bundle. Go see Greg. Watch the town get turned upside down as Raymond Johnson fell for the trap, killed Larry Skinner, shot Greg Jones with Larry’s gun. Then he had fled Ridgeway in Larry Skinner’s car. Paula Rogers had done the broadcast, and the videotape had shown Raymond Johnson looking very determined indeed to get the money.
Another step into the path. John Graham plodded on, wondering where this run would take him. In his dream, he struggled to look ahead to the finish line, to see if monetary gain or personal shame awaited. But the finish line was just too far away, just like in the marathons he had run. The wall awaited, telling those foolish enough to start the race that here was where it ended. The wall would win and the runner would stumble. Buried under the prospect of what lie ahead, the eager plodder would find that no amount of miles behind could overcome the short miles ahead.
In his dream, John Graham wondered why the wall often came at nineteen miles, instead of thirteen, fourteen or fifteen. If you were just over halfway, wouldn’t that be a greater cause for distress than being three quarters done? It didn’t make sense in his dream, and it never made sense in the marathon either. But there were only two answers to the despair of the moment. Quit; or keep putting one foot in front of the other.
One step. Then the choice again. Quit. Or step.
Another step. And plodding on, step after step, the runner doesn’t quit, doesn’t stumble, doesn’t even have to think about the next step, because the crisis has passed, and the wall has been overcome. All that remains is the victory of the finish line, no matter how ignoble the length of time it took to complete the journey.
So John Graham looked ahead. He knew the wall of the struggle he found himself within was just ahead, and after that wall was behind him, it would be smooth sailing to the happy conclusion. He put one foot in front of another, in his best plodding style, and came over the crest of a small hill. Always difficult, even the smallest uphill stretch greeted the runner with the challenge of walking, plodding or running. John plodded slower, but he did not stop.
Cresting the hill, he realized that now with the hill behind him he could enjoy the fruits of that small labor, and would take bigger, striding steps on the downhill side, making up for lost time on the hill.
But at the crest of this particular hill, there stood the figure of Raymond Johnson, holding Larry Skinner’s gun, pointed at John Graham’s head. John stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the barrel of cold steel, noticing the limp body of Larry Skinner lying in pool of blood behind his confronter. His race had stopped, and the wall was in front of him.
John Graham looked into the face of his adversary. He was short, with reddish hair that was beginning to grey, and was no longer a vibrant red. The lighter color didn’t soften the desperate look he saw in Raymond Johnson’s eyes, the steely resolve which told him that the end had come. The money would do him no good, because he would be dead and Raymond Johnson would escape to spend it elsewhere. The squat body of the gunman was stocky and not fat, but also not lean. His determined posture reinforced the message that John Graham had reached the end of his race. It was time to die.
Then John Graham’s point-of-view switched, and suddenly he was inside Raymond Johnson’s eyes, looking out at the pathetic figure before him. The gun held straight out the end of the short arm, the trigger about to be pulled ever so slightly and smoothly. John felt the supreme confidence of his killer, and looking through his killer’s eyes, he only saw weakness before him. John Graham appeared small to himself, though others often told him he was a monster of a man, tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair and stunning features. The man who usually inspired confidence in his students and others now appeared to himself to be only greedy and weak.
He could see himself holding onto the bundle of money now, preparing to hand it over, with a look of puppy-dog shame in his eyes. Ashamed at the shame he saw on his own face, John Graham almost took pleasure in feeling himself pull the trigger to end his own life. He watched in slow motion as the handle pulled back, then went forward slowly, as the bullet crept out of the barrel and crept in slow-motion toward his own head.
John Graham jolted straight up in bed just before the impact of the bullet hit his forehead in his dream. Reba awakened for a moment and then collapsed back to her pillows. John realized he was damp from the night sweat of the nightmare. Trying to calm down, he reassured himself that it was only a dream – a very vivid and realistic dream, yes – but still a dream; that now he was awake, and alive, not shot through the head. He even tried to humor himself, muttering under his breath that the important part of dreaming was to wake up before you hit the ground. Or before you were shot, in this case.
He decided to walk to the kitchen and get a drink of Pepsi. John Graham needed to calm himself, and a jolt of caffeine might do the trick. One thing was certain; he would be glad when this whole situation had resolved itself, and he could get back to his normal nightmares of unruly high school students.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Chapter Twenty-oneSunday Aug 01, 2010
The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter Twenty
Sunday Aug 01, 2010
Sunday Aug 01, 2010
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cody was sweating, even though the night was cold and crisp. He had always thought of himself as a cool cucumber, someone who could handle the most horrifying accident, who could make it through what others could not. He hadn’t contemplated how he would react to having a gun, his own gun, pointed at his back as he prepared to drive through a police checkpoint. He was feeling like a criminal himself, and wondered if there was any way to help these officers collect the human trash they were searching for at the checkpoint.
He had read about false bravery, and those who risked their lives to appear fearless. The families left behind had nothing good to say about the bravado of challenging someone to shoot. Cody wondered about the training he had just completed and realized nothing he had studied could prepare him for this event. But the bigger worry was if he would survive this night and get the chance to use his newly acquired skills helping others. Or if he would just end up on a list of those killed by the desperate man in the back of his car.
Cody pulled up to the checkpoint. He looked at the officer’s name badge, and asked politely, “Looking for somebody?”
He realized almost immediately this was the wrong question, since most of the people in the line had no idea why the roadblock had been set up. Cody knew why they were all stopped, but had he just tipped his hand?
The officer refused to answer, simply waving his flashlight in the back and asking, “Who’s that in the back?”
Cody swallowed and tried to look convincing. “Oh, Dad’s just trying to catch some Z’s before we pull into town.”
The flashlight stayed on the backseat while the officer paused.
Then he turned the flashlight on Cody.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” said the officer routinely. “Please pull ahead.”
And that was it.
As the car pulled forward, Jack Arness motioned to his partner. As the other officer crossed over in front of the next vehicle, Jack said, “How much longer do you think we’ll have to do this tonight?”
The yellow Honda was slipping into third gear as it disappeared into the night.
John Graham by this time was fast asleep. He had eaten well, enjoyed the evening with his wife, and then crawled into a warm bed. As he slept, he dreamt of spending money. He had much more than the $100,000 he knew would soon be his, and when the unreality of the amount entered into the dream, he justified the spending by inserting his own financial prowess into the equation, and the dream continued.
He was driving a Ferrari. Red. With the top down. Even though he had no thoughts of leaving his wife for another woman, he enjoyed the attention he was receiving from the beautiful women he passed on the street. He kept eye contact with them as they stared first at his car, and then at his handsome face. It was the ultimate ego trip, with the sound of the motor underneath him and the attention of the world being showered from the outside.
He was dressed in a fancy Joseph Abboud suit, which was custom-tailored. A soft olive color, he knew it had silk-lined pants even though he couldn’t see them in his dream. There were suspender buttons sewn into the pants, and the styling was perfect. As if on cue, he arrived wherever it was that he was going, and got out of the car so those walking alongside him could admire his finely tailored clothes.
His shoes were Gucci. His jewelry was gold. Some of his high school students walked by admiring the ensemble and were appropriately complimentary, to which John Graham replied in his dream, “Extra credit.” It was a joke he often used in his waking moments to illustrate to students just how desperate some of them were for high grades, high scores, and the adulation of parents and teachers. Students would do anything for extra credit, just so they could have the highest scores possible.
But this was where John’s dream began to change. He looked back at the student’s to see if they were laughing at him behind his back, praising him unjustly and without sincerity. It seemed to Mr. Graham that the sudden respect he was receiving was the same false respect some students gave to teachers, the same butt-kissing that went on in the schools, but that this time everyone was catering to him and expecting some money in return.
The car, the clothes, the shoes, the glamour seemed to tarnish as he looked around and saw the crowd toadying to him, trying to win favor, and in the process, trying to gain money. He pulled out the pockets of his pants, and noticed they were empty. No money. The crowds around him looked at the white pockets turned inside out, obviously devoid of coin. They turned en masse, and suddenly the backs of the entire world were turned upon him.
John fought for the attention he had so recently enjoyed. He extolled his virtues – he was a great teacher, a caring person, a loving father, that he was more than just about money. He deserved the praise of the world, and its respect, but the world would have none of it. They continued to walk away, and suddenly John Graham awoke. The fear of the dream was still with him. The money sitting in the top of the closet hall seemed to mock him, and his only desire at that moment was to take the money back to the bank.
But it was the middle of the night, his rational mind assured him. No one would be at the bank right now. His paranoia began to ease, as he ticked off the reasons why he should be keeping the money, his fears subsided, and slowly, but surely, John Graham talked himself back to sleep.
Cody Merring was contemplating his options. As his car pulled away from the checkpoint, he realized that if he didn’t act fast, and smart, that he would probably be dead very soon. This guy didn’t need a driver, and he didn’t want a witness around either. So instead of waiting for Raymond Johnson to speak up and praise his performance with the officer, Cody spoke up first.
“That went better than I thought it would,” he said quickly. “But don’t sit up yet,” he cautioned Ray in the back seat. “I can still see the police cars.”
“Yeah, thanks for the heads up,” Ray said, not getting the irony in the statement.
Cody jumped back into the conversation. “Look, I know you probably just want to get rid of me as fast as you can, but if you shoot me now, it won’t be long before they find me, or maybe someone hears the gun.”
Ray didn’t speak.
“So, see what you think about this plan,” Cody continued. “We are about 40 miles from Ridgeway. In about 20 minutes, you drop me off and let me walk to town, which should take me over an hour. I don’t know where you are going, I can’t contact anyone for an hour, and you have one less body to worry about someone finding and pinning on you.”
The proposition hung in the air. Ray sat up slowly, looking out the back window.
“What’s to stop you from flagging down someone and getting the cops on me right away?” Ray asked.
“Tie me up so it takes me a while to get undone, or to find someone to untie me.”
Ray grunted. He tossed the idea around in his mind some more, trying to figure out the angle this guy was playing. Everybody always had an angle.
“Look, can I be honest with you?” said Cody. Since Ray said nothing, he continued. “I have just graduated from an emergency medical technician program. I’ve spent a lot of my parents’ money, and a lot of hours trying to get ready to help people out. That’s why I stopped to help you tonight. I want to help people, but if I’m dead, none of that will matter. It would be a waste of all that effort. You can understand that; you’re going to a lot of effort right now.”
Ray leaned forward and pushed the gun next to Cody. “That was a nice speech kid. The kind I’m used to making in front of judges just before they make me sit in a little room for a few years. None of my ‘efforts’ have ever got me anything but trouble. So that sales pitch probably is not the best one to use tonight. But the more I think about it, you would make a very good hostage, since those bleeding hearts out there don’t want a young man with a future to suddenly meet his end. That’s the kind of a hostage I might be needing in a very short while.”
Ray pulled the gun from Cody’s head. “So your first story was not so good, but the story you’re gonna tell your kids will be a whopper. Let’s call it ‘Hostage for a Day’. Just keep driving, and I’ll tell you what comes next when we get to Ridgeway. Just don’t do anything stupid between here and there, and we’ll all have a happy ending to tell the grandkids.”
Smitty was on the radio trying to find someone who could get Greg Jones on the phone. He imagined that Jones and that TV woman, Paula Rogers were busy playing house. He wondered if there was someone in Ridgeway he could call to go over and knock on the door of the “supposedly” empty house. That would be quite the wake-up call, at 11:00 P.M. at night. He was trying to be sensitive to Darrell, whose brother was dead because the state police hadn’t put the pieces together fast enough. If Larry was still alive, he would be the go-to man. He would have been able to get Jones on the speaker.
So now, as the four of them all sat silently in a car racing toward Ridgeway, Smitty turned over the details in his head. He was almost positive that this teacher, John Graham had found the rest of the money, and sent the fake package to the police. It didn’t make sense for Raymond Johnson to plan some elaborate decoy, and then go back for the decoy as if it were the real money. And now, Smitty was betting that Johnson was on his way back to Ridgeway to collect the rest of his money.
But the gasoline skip didn’t fit that either. The cashier had positively identified both the truck and the driver, but if Johnson had picked up the money from the evidence safe, and had the cash from the Mike Shepherd money, then why chance getting caught stealing gas. That made Smitty think back to the smug look on Simon’s face. He had the smile of a cat that just ate a bird, and had remembered to get the feathers away from his mouth. Smitty thought to himself that he would have to go back and see if Simon would cough up the money.
The gasoline theft had pointed them in the right direction, back toward Ridgeway, even though Johnson had left Simon’s house in the other direction. Smitty knew Raymond Johnson was planning on a rendezvous with the rest of his money, and the deaths of at least four people hadn’t bothered his conscience yet. Smitty wondered how many more would have to die to stop this maniac.
Ray handed the address to Cody. Cody looked at it 3 or 4 times and kept looking back up at the road. Ray thought that for a smart graduated guy, he sure couldn’t read very well. “Want me to read it for you?” Ray volunteered.
“I can read it, sorry. I was just trying to watch the road,” Cody explained. “I know right where this is in Ridgeway. It’s on the other side of town from my folk’s house.”
What Cody Merring didn’t say was that he also recognized the name. John Graham had taught him in high school, less than 2 years ago. Graham had been one of his favorite teachers, and Cody remembered how much fun they had in classes where laughing had an equal part with learning. John Graham was one of the reasons he had stayed in school, instead of dropping out like his older brother. Graham had talked honestly with him, stressing to Cody how much richer his wallet and his life would be to have a degree. But the main message had been to finish what you start. Many of Cody’s friends had dropped out in their junior and even their senior years, just months away from completing a twelve year hike toward a diploma. Cody had been tempted to try to get a job at the local gas station at minimum wage, and now that his EMT training was done, he was overwhelmed that the man who had helped him see the light at the end of the tunnel was the same man who this crazy man in the back seat wanted to see tonight. He tried to think of how to salvage what was turning into a terrible nightmare.
Cody began to try to pry some information from Ray. “So this guy, this John Graham, he lives at this address?”
Ray shrugged. “I guess. It’s just the address I have for this guy. Do you know him?” the gunman asked.
“I think I know who he is,” Cody revealed, but tried to hide his true involvement. “I think he’s a teacher at the high school.”
A light bulb went off in Ray’s head. He had seen how small the town of Ridgeway was, and this kid was trying to say he didn’t know the guy? Something wasn’t adding up.
“The high school you went to?” Ray demanded.
Cody looked into the rear view mirror. Ray didn’t look happy. “Yeah,” Cody said slowly.
“He taught at your high school, and you don’t know much about him?”
“Well,” Cody said as he searched for what would satisfy Ray’s curiosity. “He was the drama teacher. I was more into the sciences.”
It must have been the right thing to say, because Ray slowly relaxed and began to chuckle to himself. “The drama teacher. This is gonna be a pushover.”
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