Lone Wolf

“Did you ever do anything that might have made people think you were angry at your father?”

I hesitate. “Not yesterday.”

He leans back in the booth. “Here’s the deal. The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to kill your father, that you thought about it in advance, and that you wanted to do it with malice. You clearly wanted to hasten your father’s death. Premeditation counts, even if you thought about it only seconds before you acted. So the sticking point here-the one we can use to hang our hat on-is malice.”

“You know what’s malicious? Keeping someone alive with machines,” I argue. “How come it’s okay to prolong life artificially, but not to let someone die by getting rid of all those special measures?”

“I don’t know, Edward, but I don’t really have time to argue the philosophy of euthanasia right now,” Joe says. “What happened after you pulled the plug?”

“I got tackled by an orderly, and then security came and brought me to the lobby. The cops picked me up.”

I watch Joe take a pen from his pocket and scribble something on a napkin. “So here’s our spin: this isn’t murder, it’s mercy.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll need you to get me that letter your father signed,” he says.

“It’s at the house.”

“I’ll pick it up later.”

“Why not now?” I ask.

“Because I’m going to talk to everyone else who was in that hospital room.” Joe slaps a twenty-dollar bill down on the table. “And you,” he says, “are going to the police station.”

The bail commissioner is the same one I met yesterday. “You know, Mr. Warren,” he says, “you don’t get frequent flyer miles for coming back.”

It is like a massive deja vu, with another criminal complaint being handed to the commissioner, another detective with his arms crossed, and Joe by my side. The commissioner reads over the charge, but this time, I can tell, he’s surprised.

“Attempted murder is a very serious offense,” he says. “And it’s your second arrest in as many days. This one’s out of my comfort zone, Mr. Warren. I’m setting bail at five hundred thousand dollars.”

“What?” Joe explodes out of his seat. “That’s astronomical!”

“Take it up Monday with the judge,” the commissioner says.

Joe turns to the cop in the room. “Can I have a moment with my client?”

The bail commissioner and the detective finish up and leave us alone in the interrogation room. Joe shakes his head. I’m sure he’s wishing he wasn’t married to someone whose baggage includes a son like me, who can’t seem to stay out of trouble.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “When you go to superior court for your arraignment, the judge will never hold you to those bail guidelines.”

“But what do we do in the meantime?”

“We need fifty thousand dollars to post bail,” Joe explains, looking down at the floor. “And, Edward, I just don’t have that kind of money available.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It means,” he says, “that you have to spend the weekend in jail.”

If you had told me a week ago that I’d be in a New Hampshire county correctional facility, I would have told you that you were insane. In fact, I had believed that by now, my father would be on the mend, and I’d be on a plane back to my students in Chiang Mai.

Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth, though.

The correctional officer who’s processing my information types with one finger. You’d think that since this is his job, he’d be better at it by now. Or he would have taken a keyboarding course. He is so slow that I wonder if I will spend any time in a cell, or if I will still be sitting here when they come to get me for the arraignment.

“Empty your pockets,” he tells me.

I take out my wallet, which has thirty-three U.S. dollars in it and a smattering of baht, the key to my father’s house, and the rental car keys.

“Will I get this stuff back?” I ask.

“If you get released,” the officer says. “Otherwise, the money will be set up in an account for your pending trial.”

I cannot even let myself think about that. This is a misunderstanding, that’s all, and Monday Joe will make the judge see that.

But there are doubts that keep running across my mind like shadows in an alley. If this weren’t serious, why would the bail have been set so high? If this weren’t serious, why would the county attorney himself have been the one who called Joe to tell him I’d been indicted? If this weren’t serious, why would I have been driven to the county jail in the back of a sheriff’s car?

I am no expert on law, that’s for sure. But I know enough of the basics to understand that while the hospital might have filed the complaint that got me charged with assault, the state would have to be the one to file criminal charges for murder.

How could the county attorney even have heard so quickly about what happened?

Someone told him.

It would not have been the doctors, who-let’s face it-were crystal clear in explaining my father’s bleak prognosis. It would not have been the hospital lawyer, who (if all had gone according to plan) would welcome the turnover of the bed for a patient they could actually help. It wouldn’t have been the organ donation coordinator, because that would be counterproductive for her organization.

Which leaves one of the nurses, possibly. I’d met all sorts coming in and out of my father’s room. Some were funny, some were kind, some brought me snacks, and others brought me prayer cards. I guess it’s possible that someone conservative who believed in the sanctity of life at all costs might become a nurse to preserve that gift- and that terminating life support would morally upset her, even if it were part of her job description. Add to that Cara’s outburst and-

Suddenly, I trip over my own thoughts. Cara.

For all I know, she sold me out. After all, who’d pick an alleged murderer to be someone’s legal guardian?

I find myself shivering, even though the heat has been cranked up to approximately the eighth circle of Hell in here. I fold my arms, hoping I can hide it.

“You got a hearing problem?” the officer yells, standing over me. I realize I have not been listening to a thing he’s been saying.

“No. I’m sorry.”

“This way.”

He leads me into a tiny, airless room. “Get undressed,” he demands.

I don’t have to tell you the stereotypes about gay men and jail. But when he says that, I cannot pretend this isn’t real and happening anymore. I, who have never even returned a library book late, now have a criminal record. I am about to be strip-searched. I will be locked in a cage with someone who actually deserves to be here. “You mean, like, in front of you?”

“Oh!” the officer says, widening his eyes in mock horror. “I’m so sorry! You must have booked the private cabana with the beach view. Unfortunately, that package isn’t available right now.” He folds his arms. “I can, however, offer you this choice: You can take your clothes off, or I can take them off for you.”

Immediately my hands go to the belt of my pants. I fumble with the zipper and turn my back to the officer. I unzip my father’s jacket, unbutton my father’s shirt. Then my socks and finally my boxer briefs. He picks up each item of clothing and inspects it. “Face me and raise your arms,” the officer says, and I do, closing my eyes. I can feel his eyes on me, like a minesweep. He snaps on a pair of latex gloves and lifts up my testicles. “Turn around and bend over,” he instructs, and when I do I can feel him moving my legs apart, probing.

Once at a bar in Bangkok I met a man who was a prison guard. He’d kept us all in stitches with stories of inmates rubbing themselves with their own feces-which the guards called self-tanning-of one guy who dove from