From A Dead Sleep

CHAPTER 4

Chapter 4 “That doesn’t make sense!” stormed Lumbergh with his arms crossed and his slender body aligned against the front of his desk. “Why would someone kill himself by shooting himself in the back of his head?”

His eyes were filled with doubt, and the skepticism didn’t go unnoticed by Sean. After noticing a large peculiar coffee stain on Lumbergh’s shirt, Sean replied with a head shake. “I don’t know.” A moment of silence ensued and with a glance at the ceiling, he shrugged his shoulders and offered up: “I can tell you one thing; he wasn’t Chinese.”

“Chinese?” Lumbergh enquired, interested. He leaned forward, his eyebrows narrowing the gap between them. “What do you mean?”

Sean’s eyes returned to the ceiling, and his tongue slid to the corner of his mouth. He momentarily pondered his own words while trying to recall the details of an old episode of Hunter that featured a disgraced immigrant taking his own life. He soon shook his head in digression. “Oh, never mind . . . I’m thinking of a dagger through the stomach.”

Lumbergh deflated back to his desk. “That’s Japanese,” he muttered indignantly under his breath, frustrated with himself for giving Sean an inch. “And it’s called seppuku.”

An annoyed and unimpressed grunt escaped Sean’s mouth. “Well, very good; someone just earned themselves a gold star by their name.”

Lumbergh ignored him, not desiring to fuel another unproductive outburst. “I’m trying to make sense of your story, Sean. You don’t have the best track record for credibility.”

“Oh, Jesus, Gary, don’t start this s**t again! Do you think I’m just making this whole thing up?”

Lumbergh’s eyes left Sean for a moment, taking a breath and searching for the right words. “I’m not saying that, Sean. But you have a way of letting your imagination run wild. You know you do.”

Sean glared at him, shaking his head in disgust. “I’m not making this up, Gary. It happened, goddammit. Right in front of my eyes!”

Lumbergh took a breath. “Sean, you had a lot to drink last night. I think that’s pretty safe to say—”

“Oh, give me a f*****g break! I’m hungover. I’m not crazy.” Sean’s blood was beginning to simmer again. “Are you going to check this out or not?”

Lumbergh looked sympathetically into Sean’s eyes—the same way a father would look at a son who just missed the game-winning field goal. “Sean . . . I’ve given you a lot of leeway for obvious reasons . . .”

Out of frustration, Sean’s face twisted and he quickly lunged forward, slamming his fist hard across the top of the desk.

Lumbergh’s body jolted, but he kept his cool, raising his eyebrows to direct a silent warning.

“I’ve never asked you for anything, Gary!” Sean shouted. “And I don’t want you to start doing me any favors! I just want you to do your goddamned job! You run this place like a Chicago police department, but when someone reports a dead body, you blow him off? Are you kidding me?”

“Enough!” Lumbergh held up both palms in front of Sean’s chest. With his eyes large in sincerity, he said, “I’m going to check it out, okay?”

“You are?” said a stunned Sean. He alertly stood up straight.

Lumbergh held his hand beside his mouth and yelled, “Jefferson!”

Three seconds later, Jefferson was heard racing down the hallway. He opened the office door and poked his head inside. He purposely didn’t make eye contact with Sean.

Lumbergh didn’t look at his officer. “Pull the cruiser around back. We’re going to Meyers Bridge.”

A sly smile formed on Sean’s face, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And make it snappy, Jefferson,” he added in a gloating tone.

“Shut up, Sean,” said Lumbergh.

Jefferson pretended not to hear the exchange and attempted to leave, but Lumbergh stopped him.

“But first,” the chief said, “give Sean’s uncle a call and have him pick him up.”

At the same time, but in different tones, both Jefferson and Sean replied with, “What?”

Lumbergh held his hand up to Sean. “You heard me, Jefferson.”

Even before the door closed behind the officer, Sean was up in arms. “What are you calling him for? I’m coming out with you guys!”

Lumbergh shook his head and discreetly rolled his eyes. “We can take it from here, Sean. I’ve got the location. I’ll have Jefferson call you if we have any questions.”

“This is unbelievable! This is un-f*****g-believable! I witnessed the whole thing!”

“And I listened to your entire story,” Lumbergh sharply added. “Now you have to let me do my job! If what you say is true, a crime wasn’t even committed. This will be open and shut.”

Sean’s eye twitched as he glared back at Lumbergh.

The chief lowered his head and took a deep breath. He then pressed his thumb against his police chief ’s badge, which shined proudly on his dress-shirt pocket. “Sean, this badge means that I have a duty to the people of Winston. They elected me to serve them to the best of my abilities. I’m convinced that having you there would only hinder our investigation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jefferson and I aren’t going to have time to answer all of your questions and entertain all of your theories. And we certainly don’t need your abrasive attitude at the scene.”

Lumbergh meant every word he said. Sean was a liability—a dreamer with a wild imagination—which often led him to overstep an imagined level of authority he never had in the first place.

“Gary, come on! I know what I’m doing!”

Lumbergh took offense to his words. “No, you don’t, Sean! No, you don’t! Watching Law and Order every week doesn’t make you a cop! That badge you wear isn’t a real badge; you’re a security guard!”

In Sean’s eyes, Lumbergh had just crossed the line. Sean was proud of his job, and he didn’t like it being disrespected. “Do you think your badge scares me, Gary?”

He leaned in close with his forehead almost touching Lumbergh’s. He glared into the chief ’s eyes with frightening intensity, and his right index finger pressed imposingly into the officer’s chest. “Just between you and me, I would have kicked your scrawny ass years ago if it wasn’t for Diana!”

Lumbergh bit his lip and twisted his body away from Sean. Retreating to the back of his desk with a red face, he suddenly held his hand in the air. “Are you threatening me now, Sean? Is that what you’re doing? How many times do you think you can hit rock-bottom before you won’t be able to drag yourself up again?” At that point, Lumbergh should have stopped. He immediately regretted that he didn’t. But Sean knew just how to push his buttons, and Lumbergh let his bitterness get the better of him. “And the fact that you don’t think I’ve done you any favors is a joke! Do have any idea what sacrifices Diana and I have made for you?”

Sean took a step back, his jaw squared and his chest heaving in and out. It took a second for Lumbergh’s words to settle in, but once they did, he found himself at a loss for words. Lumbergh’s eyes lowered to the top of his desk in guilt, and neither man spoke for what seemed like an eternity.

Sean finally mustered up enough nerve to respond. “So that’s what this is all about, Gary? Sean’s too incompetent to care for his own mother, so Hollywood has to quit the big time and move out here with his new wife to Jerkwater USA? Diana said she was homesick, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Lumbergh had promised Diana that he’d never bring up the sensitive topic with Sean. It was to remain a secret—an unacknowledged burden. However, the heat of the moment finally let the truth slip out into the open. Diana loved her brother dearly, but she knew he didn’t have the patience or the capacity to effectively care for their stroke-stricken mother. Lumbergh couldn’t bring himself to respond to Sean’s question. Instead he just kept his head lowered.

After several seconds, in a tone odd in its composure, Sean said, “Well, Gary . . . I’m sorry I f****d up your life.”

He then immediately spun around and sidestepped the fallen blind. Without another word, he opened the office door and gently closed it behind him on his way out.