Bad Games

71



Homicide Detective Michael Henry waited a few days before talking to Amy and Patrick Lambert in detail. He’d taken brief statements from them the night they were brought to the hospital, however there were still things to discuss. He had questions, but most significantly, he had information.

“He’s not dead?” Patrick asked.

Detective Henry shook his head. “Afraid not. He’s currently being treated over in the east wing.”

“He’s in this hospital?” Amy blurted.

Henry nodded.

“Shouldn’t he be in jail or something?” Amy asked.

“They’ve got to treat him first. Don’t worry; we’ve got him under constant supervision. If he so much as sneezes, we’re there to say ‘God bless you.’”

Amy snorted. “Even God wouldn’t waste His time on a psycho like that.”

Detective Henry gave Amy a slight nod in agreement.

Patrick sat up in his bed. “What about the other one?”

“James Fannelli?” Henry asked.

“Yeah.”

“Very dead.”

“Good,” Amy said. She reached behind her head and folded her pillow in half to prop her head higher. “What else?”

Henry pulled at his tie. He felt sweat on the back of his neck. “Your friends…”

“Lorraine and Norm?” Patrick said.

Henry lowered his head. Amy started to cry.

“Yeah, we kind of knew already,” Patrick said. “Arty he…basically told us what they’d done.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said. He let a moment of silence go by before continuing. “The mother is still alive,” he said. “She’s being treated here as well.”

Patrick turned to his left, exchanged looks with his wife. She was wiping tears from both eyes. “What’s her condition?” Patrick asked.

“She’s stable, but she’s been pretty out of it since she’s been here. Came to for a short while, but just babbled a lot of nonsense. Her records show she suffers from dementia.”

“Yeah, we know,” Patrick said. “We got the whole inside scoop from the psychos themselves.”

Henry gave a sympathetic smile. “Right; you mentioned it in your initial statement.”

Patrick nodded with a slow blink.

Henry looked over his notes again. He flipped a page and ran his index finger down the paper, muttering to himself as he skimmed each line.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Patrick asked.

Henry glanced up from his notes. He appeared startled out of thought. “Who?”

“The mother. What’s going to happen to the mother?”

Henry lowered the notes to his side. “I imagine she’ll be here a bit longer.”

“We mean when she gets better,” Amy said. “What will happen to hear when she heals?”

Detective Henry shrugged. “With her condition—and I’m talking about the dementia, not the gunshot wound—there’s no way to be sure. You said in your statement that she had no recollection of being a mother, and she was calling for her deceased husband the night she was shot by her son.”

“That’s right,” Amy said.

“Well then my guess would be that things for her will only get worse. Without her sons around to look in on her she won’t be trusted to live on her own. She’ll likely be committed to a rest home of sorts.”

Patrick frowned and shook his head. “Poor ignorant woman. Maybe it’s for the best she loses her memory after all. I mean, I’m sure the last thing she’d want to remember is giving birth to two f*cking psychopaths that could shoot their own mother.”

Henry fingered his notes again. He kept his head down as he read. “Her attending physician here was able to gain access to her medical history from a previous doctor in Philadelphia. According to those records…”



* * *



When Detective Henry had finished talking, Patrick and Amy asked him for a favor. At first he rejected their request, stating that it was unorthodox and unnecessary. The couple pleaded their case, running through the events of that final night in grizzly detail. Henry had looked away halfway through their plea. The Lamberts continued to talk, to outline the just cause of their favor; how it would bring closure to a nightmare that may never have closure.

When Henry turned back around and faced the couple, his face was red. Whether it was red with anger at the ordeal this poor family had endured, or red from frustration at the Lamberts’ inability to take no for an answer, the couple hardly cared. The only thing they did care about was when detective Henry broke down and said, “Okay.”