Quiet Threat — Franklin's Bennies - Episode 6

Chapter 16: Nora

The drive home takes 40 minutes, down one of America’s better known highways, I-70, past Tucker’s Prairie, a preservation of what a real prairie once looked like, and Clyde’s Corn Maze, an attraction for moms and dads.

I put my old Ford Escape in cruise control letting the rulers of the road, the Peterbilts pass by. Why did the Sergeant give a shit about Mr. Franklin? His curiosity about him only gave credence to Franklin’s theory that his new cellie is a plant. 

I took the first exit off I-70 to pick up Nora and the drive through downtown, which is busy. My town, like the one I work in, is a college town, but with the state’s largest university. So the small shops, bars and eateries are always full of students. During the height of Covid many were closed. Some businesses succumbed to the hardships of trying to make it. Vacant signs are posted in what was once the windows of a thriving mom and pop. 

I picked up Nora at the Family Clinic where she works as a nurse. Her nursing degree is from the National University in Galway. It is a four-year degree and gives her a one-up on the licensed practical nurses who have one and two year degrees. She has been placed as the charge nurse, even though her degree is from a foreign school. She got a work visa and is working on citizenship. She has a temporary suspension from taking nursing exams. 

Her days are full accommodating packed waiting rooms of crying kids and destitute, jostled moms. She lit up a smile and scooted in the car. 

She gave up a lot to come across the Atlantic, leaving her family for me. I hope she is happy. But my doubts always trump her upbeat disposition. The recent news we’d gotten from Donegal was that Nora’s 10 month-old niece, Maura Ann, needed corrective surgery for her cleft palate, which Irish health insurance, for some reason, won't  cover. 

She kissed me, tucking the loose stethoscope into the pocket of her scrubs. “This makes it all worthwhile,” she said. 

“Just keep thinking that,” I said. “How was your day?”

“We saw over turty-tee, (30).” The Irish have a hard time, given the Gaelic language pronouncing th’s. “Kids in with croup and ringworm. But we sent them all on their way. No complaints. Doc Sarah is wonderful.”

Doctor Sarah is the MD Nora works for. She said Nora’s brogue is a settling thing for the patients. I know this to be true.  

“Pizza?”

“Tomasso’s”

“Tomasso’s it is.” 

At Tomasso’s, one of the downtown restaurants, we take a booth in the back. Business was slow, but we are regulars. The fewer patrons the better for us. Tomasso is a Greek immigrant who’d opened the establishment decades earlier and now is playing second fiddle to his daughters who run the show. He’s told me he is having financial troubles, something about the local landlord who has threatened to evict him if he couldn’t meet the rent increase, which has almost doubled.

Tomasso hobbled over to the booth and scooted in next to me. “So how is my most lovely customer?” he said, taking Nora’s hand and briefly stroking it.  

Nora gave a mirthful laugh and pats Tomasso’s hand in a kindly way. “You are making me jealous, Tomasso,” I said.’

He chuckled and with his broken accent said, “If you aren’t good to this one, I will take her. That’s what we Greeks do, you know.” 

A waitress arrived, someone I haven’t seen before. “This is Arianna. She is from my village, Fidakia. This darling too, is new to America,” Tomasso said about Nora.

The girls trade niceties. We ordered the special pan-baked cheese concoction called Tomasso's Splendid. “And salads too, sweetie, with my red for this miss and a Volken for the Mister,” Tomasso said.  

He got up tapping the table. “I’ll be back. Enjoy.”

At the entrance a young woman, 30ish, attractive, hair tied in a  ponytail, wearing a blue blazer, arrives accompanied by a straight-laced type in a tie and scruffy shoes. Tomasso greeted them with a worried look and walked them to a small table by the cash register. 

“I hope he is alright,” Nora said.  

I scooted into the back edge of the booth so I could watch Tomasso over my shoulder. Arianna served our drinks. “Slainte,” pronounced slawn-che, meaning health in Irish.

“Slainte.” 

Nora told me about an email she had gotten with the update on her niece, saying that her sister is trying to appeal to the Irish health insurance department who has rejected repairing the young girl’s cleft palate. Her sister had said that such a condition had been covered on some government plans. “My sister is beside herself. I suppose I should send them something,” she said, waiting for my input. 

Nora’s father had died when she was young in a fishing accident off the Donegal Bay. A big part of me wants to save the day with a, “no worries. I will pay for little Maura Ann’s surgery.” I know Nora hadn’t married me for my deep pockets. “We can help. Let’s check the budget. Or look into the surgery here in the states.” 

Arianna served our salads followed by the main course. I kept an eye on Tomasso and the two he was talking to. Their manner, aloof, but in charge said plainclothes cops. I hadn’t known about any difficulties with the law Tomasso was having. He had shared with me concerns about his personal life, even though he was some thirty years my senior. I guessed it had to do with my counseling position, as if that gave me some insight into handling all of life’s troubles.

The restaurant traffic didn’t improve while we dug into our pizza. Arianna obliged me with another Volgen and Nora with a refill of Merlot. 

As we finish, Arianna takes a seat next to Nora for a chat about life in America. My phone beeped a text from Maria Calderon. “Sergeant Boyce called me, serious about your visits with your man. Just thought you needed to know. We’ll talk tomorrow.” 

I felt a pang in my gut that I was being surveilled by the prison PO POs, just as the inmates are.

Nora and Arianna were deep in conversation about shopping as Tomasso scooted in next to me.  “You had some visitors,” I said. 

Tomasso checked the front of the restaurant as the visitors departed. He ran his hand through his thick black mane. Not a gray strand for all his 70 plus years. 

“They were detectives and asked me about my landlord, Bernie Weiner. They asked me if I knew anything about the other tenants in the building. I told them I keep to myself. But there are always people moving in and out the best I can tell.”

Tomasso fidgeted with a napkin. “So what do you think?” I asked.  “That Weiner has been your landlord for how long?”

“Not so long. He bought the building from Mr. Grimey or rather his son, after Mr. Grimey died. He was, the old Grimey was, that is, a saint. Not raise my rent, but twice over all the years. The son just wanted out of the rent business.” 

“And this Weiner has done so how many times?” Nora half listened to Arianna while Tomasso said, “This is the first time, but has raised it so much, doubled.” 

“I wonder if he is doing that for your neighbors upstairs?” 

Tomasso said that was what the policemen asked him. “They didn’t say much else, only asked me to keep an eye on the traffic upstairs. And that they might want to put one of their people here to watch what happens. I told them OK, whatever that means. Do you think that is OK, Peter?”

“I suppose they have their idea about what might be happening. Always best to cooperate with law enforcement.” 

Chapter 17: Tomaso

We left the restaurant promising Tomasso a quick return visit and with some extra to-go treats in a Tomasso box. Nora had made a new friend in Arianna. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I saw, who I guessed was landlord Weiner entering. “I think we should have Arianna over for dinner,” Nora said. “What do you think?” 

I immediately went into a wondering about Weiner pressing Tomasso with a rent increase because he has other plans for the restaurant. Pressing is a prison word which I had found myself adopting. My mind went to Weiner needing a place to launder money, and that he is pressing Tomasso with a rent increase unless of course Tomasso would accommodate Weiner. That is a stretch. Still, the local detectives visited the restaurant for a reason.

There is a disorder I have come across called maladaptive daydreaming which is applicable to me. It is somewhat common to people with anxiety, or OCD  and takes the shape of sending its sufferers into a trance state. Stories are fabricated. One feature is that the sufferer becomes a rescuer in the dream. A dream can last a minute or for someone who is debilitated, hours. Nora brings me back to earth. “Is that OK?” she said. “This Friday. Is that OK, about Arianna?”

“Sure. And tell her to bring a guest if she wants to.” 

Evenings at home during midweeks, are times when Nora and I disappear into our own shells. She, with reading, usually some British novel, a light mystery. And me, tuning into a streaming  series, also often foreign. I’d just finished watching The Tunnel with the French Actress, Clemence Posey and the British actor Stephen Dillane. Posey played the mildly autistic French detective Else and had just died in Season Three. An unlikely end to the series it seemed. I searched Google for any other movies and series she had starred in. But then got distracted thinking about Franklin at work and about Tomasso’s concern about landlord Weiner.  

On Google, I found no listing for a Weiner in town. What was I looking for? 

Tomorrow, I’d visit with Franklin. The call-in with his name on it should bait the Mr. Curious Sergeant. And draw out what his interest was all about. But if Franklin had something very personal to share, I needed to visit him in his housing unit and circumvent any prying eye of the sergeant. I made a note to do a call out to his house in the AM and tell the duty corporal at Franklin’s house, I’d be over for a visit. 

Tomasso’s worry got my dander up so I decided to call my cousin Pat Riordan, a professor at the university, who had become a minor sleuth himself in recent years. I hadn’t talked to Pat in sometime. He had run into some trouble with law enforcement in the past year or two when he was named a person-of-interest in missing women cases.  

He’d been exonerated of wrongdoing, and had told me in a stern way to stay away from him for fear of me being implicated in anything by association. “I don’t want you in any of this. Don’t call. I’ll call you.” And so I respected his directive. He was some ten years my senior. He knew Ireland, as I did, and when Nora and I had married he’d given us matching Claddagh rings to wear, an Irish custom, which we appreciated.   

“Dia dhiut,” I said, Gaelic for hello, my pronunciation was off. 

“And that’s all you know,” Pat said, chuckling, repeating the phrase. “I was just thinking about you little cousin. Good to hear your voice. Still married?” 

I told him I was and Nora and I still wore his wedding gift, Claudaugh rings, even though I’d misplaced mine. I had called him with the surreptitious reason of bending his ear about Franklin and now Tomasso’s plight. Not that he’d have any answers to give me, or that I could articulate what it was I was feeling. But I could tell him anything without the concern of him sharing information.

I asked him about his lovelife with Colleen. “We are just friends, but she is back in town. And she likes Pig and Laddie,” his cat and dog. “But you didn’t call to hear me harangue on. So to what do I owe the honor of this call, cous?”

I started with Tomasso, whom he knew. “Nora and I had dinner at Tomasso’s and he was riled about his rent going up. Doubling.”

“Wow. Sounds like the landlord wants him out.”

“Well, while we were there two detectives visited him. And asked him about other renters in the building. Tomasso said he doesn’t know the renters. When Nora and I left we saw his landlord, a guy named Wiener, show up.”

“Bernie Weiner?”

“You know him?”

Pat cleared his throat. “Hold on.” I waited. Nora came into the dining room, touched my shoulder, then picked up some yarn and a knitting needle. 

Pat returned. “Had to get a brew. So, I don’t know this Weiner fellow, but you know the more I live in the town, all of some 125,000, I am convinced more goes on here than meets the eye. I mean you’d think some college town, in the middle of the country would be quiet and without much sinister stuff brewing. But we have an underbelly, only just now that law enforcement is catching onto.” 

I listened, while he digressed and related a story printed in the old Life magazine in the 1970’s. “A little before my time at the university and long before your time. But the story was about how the town was the stop off for the drug trade because it was right in the middle of the country. I remember in the magazine there was a picture of a house, actually not too far from my apartment. It showed long hairs sitting on the porch. The message being, this is the place.” 

He continued saying that in his observation the police force in recent years had a high attrition rate, which meant that no officer really knew the city. “Once a cop begins to feel comfortable, it is time to move on. Can’t run a factory that way,” he said. “But to Tomasso and this Weiner. Just heard of the guy.”

Pat said he’d do some nosing around and get a picture of Weiner, then check out the guy on some photo data-base that his secretary, named Leon, had just acquired. 

Chapter 18: Beaten Down Men

It was mid week and I knew Franklin wouldn’t be moved to another prison, before Thursday. I had a day to do a follow up with him about his worries.

The drive into work was reflective, ruminating over what to do about Wanda’s letter and how to deal with what might come of nosey COs. It was early and after passing through the prison gates,  I stopped in to say hi to Dr. Amman.

He saw consternation on my face. “You seem perplexed this morning, Peter.”

Should I share the little I knew about Franklin? “Seems I am under the inquiry of the sergeant.” 

“Easy to be in here… Tell me more.” He leaned back, motioning for me to sit. 

I told him about the sergeant being all too interested in my contact with Mr. Franklin. And Maria’s comment that the good sergeant was in fact nosing into my dealings and that for some reason I believed Mr. Franklin’s worries could be legitimate.

“We hear things in here, Peter. And much of what we hear we never know is truthful or not. But that said, we do get a sense when something said is genuine or not. Does Mr. Franklin have some information the Sergeant is interested in?”

“He hasn’t told me the whole story. I need to see him in his House today, without the sergeant hanging around,” I said. 

The phone rang. “Yes, Yes that will be good,” he said into the receiver, then quickly hung up. “Still early. Will you walk with me to my first appointment? It is in Three House. I only have one man there. Then we can walk over to your man’s House. I will be your cover.” Chuckle.  “And you can call him out.”  

My real bond to Doc Amman is related to the sense of comfort he offered to those in his presence. His mission was somewhat spiritual, that of helping the least among us. The thousands of men we see as mental health clinicians each year are considered by many, to be the dregs of society. The real shame of it all was that these men had long ago concluded that they were that. And that assessment in their minds had happened long before they committed any crime. Most men in prison were beaten down, fallen beings. Dr. Amman understood that. He tried not to judge them. 

Before we left I called Mr. Franklin’s house and told the CO there I would be over to call him out. The jaunt to our first stop was brisk.  A correction officer walked Dr. A’s man down, cuffed and led him inside the interview room. He stood by, watchful eye, next to me sitting outside, the Doc with the inmate.  

Dr. A’s primary duty is to do a medication assessment for the man. He nodded several times as the man spoke loud enough to be heard through the door, his voice, raspy and grating, likely from years of tobacco use.  

“I can’t sleep,” the inmate screamed. The CO stepped closer to the door. I knew what the Doc’s response would be: no sleep medication is allowed in this prison. The man continued haranguing on, “I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep. I need my meds.” The young CO moved closer to the door to intervene at a possible altercation. Dr. A waved him off with a gesture that all was well. Within several seconds the interview ended. The man got up, still cuffed, saying something in a near whisper. The Doc got up as the CO opened the door and escorted the man back to his cell. 

Another. ‘I want sleeping pills,’ I said, entering the room. 

“It is a catch 22, as they say, Doc Ammnan said. “The men are sleep deprived, even if that is all they have to do all day. And that makes them irritable. And gets them put in this House. But DOC won’t bend their rules. I don’t know what to think.” 

We are buzzed out of the House and make our way to Six House where Mr. Franklin resides. The Doc had called ahead telling them he needed to talk to Mr. Franklin also. In Dr. A’s presence, fewer questions will be asked as to why I hadn’t called the man to my office.

The plan is to have Dr. A call down Mr. Franklin under the guise of checking on his medication; afterwards I’d step in. 

In minutes Mr. Franklin arrived, cuffed, grasping his legal brief folder. He lit up seeing me, then frowned when escorted inside the interview and told to sit for Doc Amman.   

The CO stood by the door. I watched through the glass. 

After a few minutes the Doc motioned me inside and out.  The CO answered a call on his radio. stepped