An Old Fashioned Family Tradition of Service – Conclusion

This time, it was the Sergeant who broke the silence.

“What … What is the name of the cat food company, if’n you’d not mind saying, Sir? I have a couple of muggins meself and, if the price is reasonable … ”

Everyone turned horrified eyes on the older man. The lawyer looked as if he wanted to puke, while the Assistant DA looked torn between terror and greed. The Sergeant looked around and said, “What?!?”

Captain Reynolds tore his eyes off of his baffled Sergeant and, fist gulping to work up a little spit, said, “That’s all well and … well and good, Mr. Taylor, but it doesn’t explain what happened tonight.”

“Oh … that,” shrugged the slight man. “Well, you have to understand that many of our clients are either currently or have been major drug abusers. As such, the worse of them sometimes develop a sort of immunity to lesser drugs, such as the knock-out gas we utilize. Oh, it puts them out, but only for a few minutes. Then they generally leap to their feet, deep in some drug nightmare (often about alien abduction … y’know, there might actually be some bit of truth there, Captain. So many of our subjects have the same nightmare or type of nightmare that it might actually be worth looking into. Just a thought …. )” Al Taylor looked puzzled for a moment and asked, “Where was I?”

“Drug addicts have a slight immunity to your knock-out gas … ,” his attorney supplied in fascination.

“Oh. Yes. Well, they wake up while we’re collecting subjects and start screaming about being probed or some such, then burst down the locked doors and race into the hallway. We dismiss the security once everyone is locked down, so it become necessary for Laura and I to hunt the stragglers down. We generally find them hiding in the laundry area or in the showers, sometimes they even managed to elude us for over an hour, seriously throwing off our schedule and forcing us to conceal that nights harvest, for lack of a better term, in the various private areas that don’t show up on the blueprints.

“Well, in this instance, the subject actually managed to make it to the third floor, where he broke out a hallway window, leapt to the ground, and led us a merry chase into the nearby park before we could subdue him. Sadly, a few of your officers were close enough to notice the brief tussle and came to investigate. You know the rest.” Al Taylor sat back and picked up a cookie from the tray the Sergeant was nice enough to put out. “These are really quite good,” he complimented, mildly surprised. “Might one inquire as to their name?”

“Um … I think they were, um,” the Sergeant searched him memory. “What’s the brand that made by elves?”

“Elves?” Al looked at the slim cookie with growing respect. “These are made by elves?! Seriously?”

“There you are!”

A five foot whirlwind burst into the room and threw itself at the prisoner, planting frantic kisses all over his face. The Captain stared openly, his composure at the breaking point. Maxwell Hassler moaned and wiped one large hand over his craggy face, anticipating having to somehow convince Laura to request a separate trial. The Assistant DA, now on his third yellow pad of notes, raised both eyebrows, pleased to be able to include a little sex into the story.

The Sergeant was busy trying to remember the brand name of the cookies.

“Darling!” Al cried in surprise and despair. “What are you doing here?! You should be half way to the islands by now!”

“What? Why on Earth would I want to visit the island estate at this time of year, you silly goose? We’ll go at the same time as last year, if you don’t mind. Now,” Laura Taylor turned, still seated in her husband’s lap to face the official, “what, exactly, is going on here? Why is my husband handcuffed to that chair? Is he under arrest?”

Captain Reynolds silently counted to ten before replying, “Your husband, Madam, put two of my men into the hospital this evening, was found in the presence of a recently murdered man, had the decease’s blood on his clothing, and has spent the last hour or so confessing to a career as a serial killer that would be the envy of Hannibal Lecter. A career that he stated, under oath, that included your willing, not to say inspired, participation. A warrant for your arrest in connection with the assault on my officers was issued when your husband was brought in, so please stand and place your hands where I can see them.”

“Oh, don’t be such a silly! Doctor VanAllen! Oh, Doctor VanAllen!” The doors opened and the city’s leading psychiatrist walked in. “Oh, there you are, Doctor! Doctor, please inform these gentlemen as to whether or not my husband is a mass murderer.”

“Good evening, Captain,” the slender man put out a languid hand. “Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Phillips VonAllen and …”

“Oh, drat! That’s right; VonAllen, not VanAllen … honey? Who do we know named VanAllen? Was it that silly fat man in Paris who wanted you to buy some painting?”

“No, Sweets; that was Professor Vallen of the Louvre.”

“So who was VanAllen, then?” Laura Taylor stuck a manicured finger into her mouth in puzzlement.

“Mrs. Taylor, if you don’t mind? Thank you. As I was saying, Sir, my name is Doctor Phillips VonAllen and I’ve been seeing Mr. Taylor for the past twenty-five years. Would I be correct in assuming that he confessed to a rather gaudy career as a righter of social wrongs? A man dedicated to making the world a little better by removing the parasites who bleed it and so forth?”

“Um,” the Captain glanced at the tape machine and the several stacked tapes sitting next to it. “Well, yes. With a more than generous level of detail, as a matter of fact.”

“Please take a moment to read these documents, Sir. All will be made clear.” He handed the Captain a folder, then turned to Maxwell Hassler and handed him a smaller file. “By the way, Mr. Hassler; your secretary wanted us to hand this to you as soon as we saw you.”

Hassler, who had known about his client’s odd habits for the past twenty-five years, but who hadn’t known he was seeing a headshrinker (but approved), accepted the folder. It wasn’t one from his office and he knew for a fact that his secretary would never handle any official material in such a fashion. He glanced at where the Captain was engrossed with his own folder, the glanced at the District Attorney, who was filling page after page with notes, then opened the file to glance at the contents.

There was one document. It was hand written. It said, “He’s nuts, don’t worry.”

He raised baffled eyes up to the expensive shrink, who winked. Hassler’s jaw fell open in surprise. He glanced at Laura, who was watching him with an intensity that was frightening and quite out of character with her endless nattering at her husband. She paused to say, “I think there’s more on the back, Max.”

Frowning, he turned the paper over and read the additional message, paling slightly. Without saying a word, he nodded to her, slid the folder into his Barantani briefcase, and sat back, expressionless.

The Captain handed the folder back to the doctor and asked, “And you would be willing to testify to this in a court of law?”

“Certainly, if necessary, Captain. Mr. Taylor, you must understand, is not a danger to himself or those around him, provided nothing occurs to trigger his delusional paranoia. In this instance, stumbling across a robbery victim in the dark while cutting through that park was more than enough to shift him from Thomas Albert Taylor to Al Taylor, scourge of society wrong-doers. Out of professional interest, if you don’t mind telling me … was he ranting about prostitutes or the homeless?”

“Both, actually. One and then the other.”

“Really? Oh, dear .. that’s not a good sign. Oh, well, that’s why he pays me the mega bucks, right?” The doctor fished out one more document out of his attache. “This is a court order, signed by Judge Petersen, releasing Mr. Taylor into my care. I’ll take him directly to my clinic and we’ll see if we can get Thomas Albert Taylor back before Monday.”

“Well,” the Captain slowly replied, scanning the legal document. “This seems to be in order. However, before I release Mr. Taylor, there is the matter of him putting two of my men into the hospital. If he’s not a psycho-killer, how the hell did he manage that little trick?”

Doctor VonAllen spread his hands and shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest, Sir. I know that Mr. Taylor is a practitioner of some obscure martial art form … perhaps, aided with hysterical strength, it was enough to catch your men by surprise?”

“Yeah … maybe,” Captain Reynolds regarded the doctor, then the wife, and then the wealthy nutjob. “Fine, I’ll officially release him into your custody. It will take a few minutes to process, but we should have you all on your way in just a little bit. Is this okay with the District Attorney’s office?” he asked the Assistant DA.

“What? Oh! Sure, yeah; no problem.” So much for the book. Who the hell would buy the rantings of a crazy rich guy? On the other hand, his career was now no longer past tense, so … okay. Hell, the DA probably had no idea his wife was cheating on him, either. “No problem whatsoever, Captain. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll run back downtown and write up the report before I head home.” With that, the Assistant DA left.

“Will you be needing me any more tonight, Captain?”

“Naw, Mac; but wait around for a bit. I’ll buy you a drink before we go home. My way of saying thanks for staying past your time.”

“Sure thing!”

“Doctor; Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Taylor: You might be a great deal more comfortable waiting in the lounge, rather than here. I’ll send out a man with some coffee if you like.”

Al Taylor rose and shook the Captain’s hand, apologizing for his wife’s interruption and promising that every word he spoke had been the truth. Mrs. Taylor shook the Captain’s hand and silently mouthed, “Oh no it wasn’t!” Doctor VonAllen shook his hand and shrugged. Maxwell Hassler stood carefully up, shook the Captain’s hand gently, and staggered toward the door, where they all trooped out, following a female officer to the VIP waiting area.

“No reason for us stick around, Captain?” Sergeant McDaniels asked, hopefully.

“No, none at all. However, I’d like you to meet with me tomorrow to arrange a stake out of the Taylor Foundation Shelter for the Homeless. I want a count of how many go in and how many come out the next morning. We’ll rent an office across the way if need be, but I want numbers I can take into court!”

“Why, Cap? You heard the man, Mr. Taylor’s loopy. I mean, he talked a mean game, but … well, c’mon! The rich don’t kill people and they specially don’t kill them then feed them to cats, y’know what I mean?”

“Perhaps … but they also don’t casually shrug off handcuffs, right?” Mac followed the Captain’s pointing finger and, sure enough, the handcuffs were still attached to the chair. “I didn’t see anyone unlock those, did you? I also need to review the tapes and see if I can make out what was on the other side of that note they slipped Hassler. The front baffled him, but the other side scared him to death. Maybe Taylor is nuts, but there’s nuts and then there’s nuts.”

Captain Reynolds stood and watched as Al Taylor, arms waving about, cracked up everyone in the squad bay with some story. He watched his eyes.

For an instant, a scant instant, they locked eyes and Captain Reynolds knew what kind of nut Al Taylor was.

Then, for no reason he could see, both Laura Taylor and Doctor VonAllen were staring at the Captain, too, and he felt his testicles retract. He found himself nodding and, without breaking eye contact, saying, “On second thought, what the hell.  He’s just a looney.  Screw him.  Let’s go get that drink, Mac.”  All three of them nodded back and broke eye contact, and Captain Reynolds realized he just was given his life back.

But would he ever be able to sleep again, that was the question.

End