The Caretaker of Lorne Field

“But what if it does? According to your statement, you waited forty minutes after Dan Wolcott stepped into the field before you set fire to his jeep. What if you used those forty minutes to drive his body somewhere?”

He shrugged. “If that happened, then I guess I’m crazy.”

“Why don’t I try to find out?”

Durkin looked back at her, his eyes staring unfocused into the distance. He nodded glumly.

When the psychiatrist met later with McGrale and Goldman, she explained to them how she couldn’t hypnotize Durkin.

“I thought I had him under,” she told them. “But I guess I couldn’t get him under deep enough.” Sighing, she added, “Not everybody can be hypnotized.”

“What makes you think you couldn’t get him under deep enough?” McGrale asked.

“Because I couldn’t tap into his unconscious. I was stuck in his false memories of watching the victim being torn apart by the weeds, and then with him spending the next forty minutes trying to figure out how to deal with the weeds. I couldn’t budge him away from the field. I couldn’t get him to remember what he did with the victim’s body.”

“Would additional hypnotherapy sessions work?” McGrale asked.

“Not in my professional opinion, no. He either can’t be hypnotized and is faking, or the false memories are locked in too tightly.”

McGrale rubbed his jaw. Goldman asked whether she’d support his client being declared incompetent.

“Absolutely not. He’s lucid and, outside of his fantasies about those weeds, quite rational. I would oppose any attempt to do so.”

“How about whether he’s criminally insane?” McGrale asked, a pained look spreading over his face.

“He could be. He does believe these weeds are monsters. I have no doubt about that, and it’s possible he murdered and disposed of the victim without any conscious awareness of it for no other reason than to erase self-doubts he may have been having about the true nature of those weeds. It’s equally possible that this could be a calculated act to convince others of the existence of these monsters. This is a man who badly needs other people to believe this. The lack of respect he has been receiving in his Caretaker role has been devastating for him, especially since he feels as if he has been sacrificing his life for the world’s sake. For that reason, and because I find it curious that his only supporters are both dead, I’m leaning more towards the latter explanation.”

McGrale stood up, walked around his desk to where Goldman was sitting hunched over, and clapped the younger attorney solidly on the shoulder.

“Well, counsellor,” he said. “For better or worse we’ll be bringing this three-ring circus to the courtroom. Charges will be filed tomorrow.”

That night Goldman visited Durkin to tell him about the arraignment hearing the next day and also that he went to see Jeanette Thompson, but that she claimed she never saw either the contract or book, and doubted whether they even existed. The news devastated Durkin. He sank back into his hospital bed an old man. Goldman was going to ask him for names of anyone else who might’ve ever seen either of those items, more to satisfy his own curiosity than anything else, but one look at Durkin and he knew it would be worse than beating an already whipped dog.

The next day Durkin was taken to the District Court in an ambulance and wheeled into the courthouse with a blanket covering the lower part of his body. The reporters and photographers lined up outside pressed towards him, but he stared blindly ahead and gave them no notice. Inside the courtroom he was charged with manslaughter in the first degree and remanded without bail. When the trial date was set for April tenth, Durkin grabbed Goldman by his oversized suit jacket and pulled him close.

“That’s too late,” he croaked frantically. “That’s going to be at least two weeks after spring thaw. If the Aukowies are left alone for that long-”

“Please, Mr. Durkin, let go of my suit,” Goldman whispered, grimacing. “And don’t worry about the Aukowies. If they’re what you say they are it will only help our case.”

“Help our case? You don’t understand a thing. If they get too big there ain’t nothin’ anyone can do about them.”

“I’ll be checking on them everyday, Mr. Durkin, don’t worry. Please, let go of my suit.”

Durkin noticed people in the courtroom staring at him. He let go of Goldman’s suit jacket, his face flushing a deep red. As he was wheeled out, he caught sight of Lydia sitting in the courtroom watching him. Lester, also. In the back row was Jeanette Thompson looking at him as if he were a bug. He pretended not to see any of them.

A week later Durkin was fitted with a prosthetic foot and, after another two weeks of physical therapy, was brought back to a cell in the County Jail. It was December second when Goldman visited him, telling him he had some good news. Lester had recanted his earlier testimony and was now saying that the Aukowies bit off his thumb.