The Pain Scale (27 page)

Her eyes drilled into me. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold her gaze for another second, she spoke.

“Fuck you,” she said.

Then she turned around and left.

I sat there stewing for an hour and made half a dozen attempts to get my head back into the case. Every time I tried, though, the pain in my arm or shoulder would flare, and I’d get pissed off either at Jen or at myself. The longer I kept at it, though, the more I blamed myself.

And the more the pain burned in my arm and shoulder.

I looked at photos of Bailey and Jacob. Watched a few videos. Opened Sara’s Facebook page.

Nothing pulled me in.

Jen knew me better than anyone. Better than I knew myself. She’d been watching me and watching my pain. She’d figured out what was going on almost as quickly as I had. By the time she understood out how to read my pain and place it on the scale, she
knew what the work was doing for me. She’d even hinted at it and waited for me to talk about it.

But I wouldn’t. Fear stopped me. I worried it might change things. If I acknowledged what was going on, somehow the effect might dissipate and disappear.

I should have talked to her. She deserved it.

When she answered her cell, I said, “I’m sorry.”

“You are? Since when?”

“I was born sorry.” I imagined I could sense the tension ease. “Where are you?” I asked.

Twenty minutes later, I met her at Berlin, a coffeehouse across the street and a block down from her building on Fourth Street. It was attached to Fingerprints, a new and used music store that had moved to the East Village from Belmont Shore and expanded. They had a reputation for bringing big-name musicians to play at in-store events. I’d never been to one, but the few people I knew who were cool enough for things like that said lots of good things about them. Apparently, Foo Fighters had recently made a big splash.

The café had large sliding doors that, when opened, gave the impression that the place didn’t have a front wall. They filled the space between the sidewalk and counter with a large communal table. The sight of it made me grimace. I’ve always believed communal tables should be banned on Eighth Amendment grounds.

Of course, Jen was sitting right in the middle of it, watching me walk up.

“You sat there on purpose, didn’t you?” I didn’t worry about the people at the ends of the giant slab hearing me.

“Yeah,” she said. “Get over it. I got you a coffee.” I couldn’t decide whether to sit across the table from her or to go around to the other side and sit next to her. The table was big enough to
make either choice awkward, so I reached over, picked up my coffee, and took it through the café and into a back corner of the store that was filled with used books and comfortable furniture. I sat on an oversized leather couch and hoped she’d follow me.

When she didn’t, I sent her a text message. One word:
Please
.

I tried a sip of my coffee. She’d gotten me a mocha. It burned my tongue.

While I was wondering if some ice water would do me any good, she sat down next to me.

“You ever going to talk to me about it?” she said.

“I think you know everything there is to know.”

“Work is the only thing that lessens the pain?”

“Some other things help a little.”

“But not like the job.”

“No.”

I wondered how far she’d go. If she’d actually give voice to the thought that had been haunting me for weeks.

Looking at her, I didn’t know what to do with all the sadness and compassion I saw. She knew, but she couldn’t say it out loud, either:

The only thing that could truly ease my pain was death.

I
F IT WAS
the truth that I’d told Jen, it didn’t set me free. It left me feeling awkward and exposed. My natural inclination was to withdraw, but I knew I should resist it if I could.

When I’d last spoken to Harlan, he’d invited me over that evening. I’d said I might stop by if it wasn’t too late when we wrapped things up. It wasn’t unusual for Harlan and me to stay up well past midnight, so I stopped at the Ralphs on Fourth Street and picked up a six-pack of Samuel Adams and drove the short distance to his house. He usually left the porch light on all night. But when I got close enough to the door to knock, I realized none of the inside lights were on. It wasn’t long past ten, but he’d been particularly tired the last few days, so I crept off across the front yard as quietly as I could and went home.

I’d been looking forward to a beer with Harlan since I’d left Berlin, but as soon as I put the bottles down on the kitchen counter, I felt a sudden thirst for Grey Goose and OJ. The burning in my shoulder had started near the elbow and radiated up and into my neck. Vodka, I wondered, or Vicodin?

In the few seconds I allowed myself to make the decision, I realized that I was likely in for a very long night alone with my pain and my guilt, and that was unlikely to change no matter how I decided to begin it. So I walked through the dining room and out the front door into the damp chill of the Long Beach night.

With no plan or direction in mind, I walked over to Park Avenue and angled off onto Appian Way as I passed Colorado Lagoon. I thought about the case as I walked, and as I did so, the pain receded farther and farther into the periphery of my consciousness. I ran through the details. Every fact I could come up with. When one didn’t lead to another, I forced my attention back on Sara and the children. I focused on the memory of the three of them on their autopsy tables, and then I tried to remember each of the video clips I’d seen of them. After watching them so many times, it seemed I could recall them at will—Bailey on the merry-go-round, Jacob sleeping in the sunlight next to the window, and all the others.

I was getting better at it. Every time something pulled my attention away—a street to cross, a dog walker, an oncoming car—I registered the moment and then went back to my concentrated focus.

Before I knew it, I had walked all the way down Appian Way, looped around Naples Island, and was approaching the intersection of Second Street and The Toledo.

It was 11:45. I hadn’t thought to check my watch before I’d left, but I’d been walking for well over an hour, and it would be another half an hour before I made it home.

Halfway along the Second Street business district in Belmont Shore, I decided to detour into the Shorehouse, a 24/7 café that, at least after the other restaurants along street closed for the evening, catered largely to the bar patrons who frequented the fifteen-block stretch. It was too early for the drunks to be out in force, so I settled down in a booth that looked out on the sidewalk, and studied the menu. It hadn’t occurred to me until I sat down that I had never eaten dinner. After carefully considering half a dozen dishes, I gave up and ordered the same thing I had just about every time I ate there: an omelet with carne asada, jack cheese, and sour cream. I took my time eating it and then drinking a cup of decaf and three refills before getting up and heading home.

During that last portion of the walk, it occurred to me how easy it was becoming for me to shift my focus to the Bentons and the details of their murders, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the implications of my actions.

Yes, concentrating my attention on the case helped me. It eased my pain. From a certain point of view, I could even make the argument that focusing relentlessly, even obsessively, on the murders would actually be a net benefit. The more time and attention and effort I put into the case, after all, the more likely we’d be to close it. Even as I thought that, though, I knew it wasn’t as simple as I wanted it to be. And I couldn’t even convince myself that what I was thinking about was just hard work.

It was something more than that. What it was, exactly, I wasn’t yet certain. And I knew that as beneficial as it might be as a way of dealing with my chronic pain, it wouldn’t be only that. Nietzsche even had that famous cliché about it. I was sure the abyss was gazing into me as I walked up Second Street.

I knew there would be a cost. But what would it be?

This time, after the saw has finished its work and my severed arm has thumped to the floor and released me from my pain, I see two small figures in the shadows. They drift toward me. Before I can even see them clearly, I know who they are. They come closer still, the harsh light illuminating their frightened faces, and they stand before me—Bailey and Jacob, blood languorously dripping from their bullet wounds. They look at me, sadness and longing in their expressions, and I know what they want.

They want me to use the saw on them.

I can’t,
I tell them. Where would I cut?

And judgment is just like a cup that we share

I’ll jump over the wall and I’ll wait for you there

—Iron & Wine,
“Rabbit Will Run”

T
HE CONGRESSMAN’S OFFICE
was on the top floor of a three-story mixed-use building at the corner of PCH and Main in Huntington Beach. It was directly across from the pier and had an unobstructed view that stretched from Newport to the south, to Long Beach Harbor to the north. It must have been one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the city. So Jen and I were surprised to find Jack’s Surfboards, La Rocco’s Pizzeria, and a Jamba Juice on the first floor. The congressman really didn’t seem like the kind of guy whose office would be over a place that had a Mr. Zog’s Original Sex Wax display in the window, but indeed it was.

The office itself surprised us, too. It was smaller than I’d expected and looked more like a dermatologist’s workplace than a politician’s.

“Not as upscale as I would have imagined,” I said to Jen as we entered.

She wrinkled her eyebrows at me, and I realized that she was worried that the assistant at the reception desk opposite the door had heard me. The young woman was finishing up a call, so I didn’t share Jen’s concerns. But she was right. I had been careless.

There was a brass-colored nameplate on the desk that read,
M
ELANIE LEVINE
. She looked like a college student, and I wondered if she was an intern or actually on the payroll.