The Prison Inside Me (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

S
usan was born in 1948, the second daughter to her parents. Her sister, Elizabeth, was three years older than she and all but adopted her, constantly playing with her as if Susan were some kind of doll. She learned how to change Susan’s diaper, much to the delight of their mother, and even how to hold her and give her the bottle. Elizabeth loved having a real, live doll to play with—so much, in fact, that their mother had to admonish her to leave Susan alone when she was taking her naps and not to wake her up in the morning until she was ready to get up by herself. As they grew up together, Elizabeth became her protector and constant companion. Thus, Susan walked and spoke very early, emulating her older sister as best she could at every opportunity.

Even her toilet training was facilitated by her imitation of Elizabeth, as were her food choices, eating with utensils, and every other aspect of growing up. Elizabeth’s word was law, as were her actions, which Susan tried to imitate at every turn.

However, Susan’s father had hoped with this second child to have a boy. He wanted an athlete, a progeny he could mold into a real man, someone who would become a lifetime companion with whom to play sports, go to ballgames, go on camping trips, fish and hunt, and generally do all those things that were in the traditional domain of manhood. He mentioned these desires to his wife during her second pregnancy. In these days before the gender of the fetus could be determined, his wife warned him not to count his chickens. She also soothed him with the consolation that women were coming into their own right in lots of fields previously reserved to men. Women were in the armed forces and played all types of sports; they were achieving their rightful place in the world. If the baby was a girl, she could still go camping with him, play sports at school, and become a championship swimmer, softball player, soccer player, golfer, tennis player, or any other sport he could name, minus football. “You know, you can take your daughters fishing and hunting, and even to ballgames. All daughters love being with their father, no matter what the venue!”

As Susan grew up, her father invested a great deal of interest in her athletic ability. He had her take swimming lessons at the same time as Elizabeth. She was barely two years old when she could practically outswim Elizabeth, who was three years her senior. Her father thought it was his interest in Susan that brought out this skill and determination. He could not understand that Susan was trying with all her might to do whatever it was that her sister did.

When Elizabeth started kindergarten, it marked the first time that Susan was separated from her for any extended period. Elizabeth began to make friends at school with whom she preferred to play after school. She began to resist the athletic activities that her father insisted she participate in. However, Susan, now left alone, no longer the little doll her sister wished to play with and care for, began leaning toward her father’s interest in sports. When he came home from work each day, she begged him to help her learn how to hit, how to throw a ball, how to catch it, how to run the bases—whatever she sensed pleased her father and drew his attention to her, attention she had received previously from Elizabeth.

But, alas, Susan wasn’t all that coordinated. As she grew older, started school, and played games with others her age, she wasn’t anywhere near the best athlete in her class. She tried so hard; she couldn’t understand how others had such an easy time catching balls that she couldn’t reach, ran faster than she could, and often were chosen before her when team games started. Her father noticed her diminishing coordination, which only made him try harder in their play sessions together to make her overcome her natural shortcomings.

As Susan aged, sports became less and less attractive to her. She loved her father’s attention, but the constant badgering, corrections, and words of disappointment became quite unpleasant. She began to doubt her self-worth as time after time her father’s previous words of encouragement became more and more negative: “Susan, you’re not trying. You’re not listening! You can do better than that. All this time and you can’t do better than that? What’s wrong with you?”

Elizabeth was still her mentor of choice. Her big sister was now in high school and spoke like an adult, even at fifteen. When Susan would complain that she just couldn’t do what their father expected of her, Elizabeth counseled, in no uncertain and very adult terms, “You don’t have to take that shit from him. Do like me. He doesn’t ask me to play all these games that I hate. Tell him you want to take ballet or piano, that you are joining the school band, taking clarinet, or whatever. I told him I have my own friends, and I don’t want to play his silly games. Mother supported me, and she will support you, too. Do it; it’s easy!”

Easy for you,
thought Susan.
He has me as his athlete; he doesn’t need you. I was your doll; now I’m his athlete. I can’t do that. You’re all grown up and can talk back. If I do that, I’ll be locked in my room for a year. Life is what it is; let me get on with it.

Getting on with it now included going camping with the family, Elizabeth included, under shouting duress, as she preferred weekends with her friends at the pool or at the club. But both girls were fascinated by fishing and the techniques their father taught them in baiting the hook, casting, taking the hook out of the fish’s mouth, preparing the fish for frying, and especially eating what they caught. That was great fun—no pressure to win, since whoever caught a fish was a most excited winner; no ugly words when you couldn’t compete at Father’s desired level.

And so was going to the shooting range. Susan and Elizabeth were both taught to handle firearms, first with hunting rifles and then with sidearms. The girls enjoyed comparing their marksmanship with each other as the paper targets were hauled to where they stood. Both found firing weapons enjoyable as they learned how to handle weapons safely, aim them, and hold steady as they squeezed the trigger. They also learned how to clean the weapons. Telling their classmates of their newfound prowess always made them the center of attention. Like fishing, this was great fun, and it only took an hour or so away from their friends rather than a whole weekend of camping.

Susan did make the girls’ volleyball team in high school, but only as a substitute. Her parents came to see her play at each home game. She never was a starter, but she did get to play a few minutes in every game, mostly when her team was either way ahead or behind. Her parents cheered loudly for her and praised her for her efforts after the games. Susan liked the companionship of her teammates, but, truly, she hated the sport, doing it only for her father. It was the only sport she played either in high school or college.

As Susan entered tenth grade, Elizabeth went off to a prestigious college in the Northeast. Elizabeth had been very frank about her own love life and dating habits in her late-night talks with her sister. They still shared the same room. Susan loved any time she got with this mentor–big sister. Their late-night conversations covered all topics. When Elizabeth told Susan that she was no longer a virgin, that it was what all boys were interested in, and that you had to choose the one who was kind and sweet, who wouldn’t hurt you, who knew what he was doing, and who wouldn’t boast about it to everyone, Susan was agape. “How could you go all the way? You could get pregnant, and that would ruin your life. Mom and Dad would go crazy!”

“Not to worry,” Elizabeth answered, and she mentioned the types of precautions that knowledgeable people took, how much fun it was, the thrill of it all to see a boy so excited. She said that she couldn’t wait to get to college where she could get birth control pills, making even more sure that no accidents could happen. Susan was floored by her sister’s desires but even more by her openness in discussing this with her, a taboo among her fifteen-year-old friends.

When Elizabeth came home from college during vacation, Susan noticed that her sister had become a woman. She spoke differently; she left the house at night, borrowing the family car without telling her parents where she was going; she didn’t have to be in at a preestablished time. She did what she pleased. Best of all, she told Susan about the wonder of being out in the world on your own, the fascinating subjects she was taking at college, and what campus life was like in the dormitory and soon in her sorority house. Elizabeth never mentioned anything about dating habits or her personal love life. Susan thought,
This big sister of mine is no more; she is now a truly independent woman, even at age twenty, who sees the world clearly and where she fits in it. One day I’ll be like that.

Susan was junior in high school when she had her first sexual experience. The boy was a senior. They always had lunch together with their combined crowds, and he asked her to a school dance and then to his senior prom in a few months. It was a big deal for a junior to go to the prom; she would need a special dress, which her mother helped her choose. Two weeks before the prom, they went together to the senior class picnic at a local state park. He had his father’s station wagon to take Susan home afterward, and heavy necking started in the front seat as they parked in a remote place in the park just as it got dark. He invited her into the back of the station wagon, where he had placed a blanket. She told him she was worried about “accidents,” and he showed her the precaution, even letting her put it on him as he instructed her. She really loved seeing him so excited, and she felt the thrill of her first encounter.
Finally,
she thought,
a man who loves me for what I am, not for being the athlete he wants me to be. Wait till I tell Elizabeth.

After the prom, she never saw him again. He moved off to a distant college, and his family moved too. It was what later came to be called a “one-night stand.”

Susan graduated just above the middle of her class. She enrolled at Demotte State to major in psychology. Finally, she was out of the house—no more sports, just some workouts with her friends in her class to keep in shape. She loved the dormitory life, sharing thoughts at all wild hours with classmates, drinking the occasional beer, and attending the great parties at frat and sorority houses. She decided that casual relationships were not for her, and she rejected all the men who made advances to her on the spur of the moment. She got deep into her studies, and although she continued to go to social functions with girlfriends, she never made serious contact with any male students. Many of them tried, because Susan was indeed attractive, with the body of an athlete gained under the years of her father’s tutelage. Susan, just like her sister, was finally discovering who she was and what she could do without her parents’ interference, especially her father’s. She may have been raised to be a tomboy, but she was something different now, her own woman.

The fateful moment occurred at the end of her sophomore year as she studied in her dorm for finals. A very loud argument started in the next room.
I can’t stand this,
thought Susan.
I’m off to a quieter place.
She headed for the library, taking a short detour to get a drink at the quad cafeteria. The quad was strangely empty this warm spring day, with only a few students sitting on the steps, books in hand, all deep in study. She noticed one young man, quite good-looking and well groomed, sitting alone far from the others. She sat down next to him, opened her psych text, and then turned to him and said, “Hi, I’m Susan Campbell. I think we met somewhere.”

The man looked at her. “Maybe it was at the big Phi Delt party last year. I’m George Nichols.” Looking at her book, he asked, “What are you majoring in?”

“I’m a soph going to major in psych. What are you into?”

“This is my last year; I graduate in a few weeks. I’m a math major. But I’m going to stay on campus. The department has arranged an assistantship for me to get a master’s. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing—probably teaching a freshman makeup class or two, and maybe tutoring, probably mostly athletes, who need math grades to remain eligible. Anyway, whatever it is, I’ll be here for two more years until I finish my degree, and the tuition is all on Demotte.”

“Wow,” Susan marveled, “that’s great. I’m nowhere in math. How’d you get so smart?”

“Some gift I was born with; always had it in school. I’m not sure what good it will be, but with computers coming in, I may be able to make something of it.”

“So what will you do until fall semester?”

“I’m here on campus, taking graduate courses this summer and starting tutoring assignments the department will arrange for a few hours each week.”

“That’s neat. Aren’t you going home after graduation? Your family will be here to help you celebrate.”

“Yeah, my folks will be here, but really no one else. I don’t have any brothers and sisters, and my favorite uncle lives in Thailand. Would you like to come to graduation? I have some extra tickets.”

“Gee, that’s very kind. I would love to come. The only way we ‘outsiders’ can get in is to volunteer to be ushers when we are juniors. I’ve never been to our graduations. I’d love to see one, but I’d love even more to be one of the graduates!” Susan giggled.

“Well, then, come on. I’ll leave a ticket at your dorm. Hey, you know,” he added, suddenly overcome by some emotionally inexplicable outflow of attraction for this pretty sophomore girl, “I wasn’t going to attend our prom. Maybe you’d like to go with me?”

CHAPTER FIVE

W
hen Heather Thompson arrived at her reporter’s job at the Trout Lake
Herald
at 8:30 a.m. that Wednesday morning, she was greeted by the city editor. “Good morning, Heather. After we went to press last night, the police radio reported a suicide on Andrews, some guy named Nichols. The night editor left a message in your inbox. Szysmanski answered the nine one one call. He can give you the details.”

“Stop reading my internal memos,” Heather joked, “or at least give me some follow-up of something with legs, like the Simmons break-in or the Jay Street shooting.” Heather had been at the
Herald
first as an intern and then as a cub reporter, and she was now covering city news, mostly from the police blotter.

Heather looked at the mess of papers on her desk and booted up her computer. She found the curt note from the night editor, pulled out her cell phone, scrolled the stored numbers, and hit “talk” when she reached Szysmanski’s entry.

Szysmanski answered on the second ring. “OK, Heather, I have no more news for you today. For a change, you’ll have to work to create your own, but I promise that if anything breaks on the Jay Street thing, I’ll call you. You don’t have to call me.”

Putting on a fake hurt voice, Heather cut in, “Oh, Siz, how can you be so cruel? Not even a good morning? And all I wanted to do was invite you over for a cup of coffee!”

“OK, Heather,” sighed Siz with a tone more appropriate to speaking to his own daughter, as if she were about to ask him for a loan, “let’s cut the crap and just come out with it. What is it today?”

“Siz, what about this suicide? Anything there that I can spend the whole day on so it will look as if I’m doing something to earn my keep?”

“Routine garbage. Gunshot wound to the head, instantaneous, no note, no reason, no nothing. Some old guy kills himself for no good reason. Happens every day. Why don’t you call his wife and get details?”

“If this is George Nichols, I know him—or better, I know of him. He used to run the summer camp by the lake, working with kids who have special learning needs, mostly. Lives on Andrews, I think, wife some kind of a social worker. All very unexciting. And as for details, we don’t do that anymore. City reporting is not allowed to compete with the obituary publication. That makes money for us. Background, family, profession, education, survivors, et cetera, that’s all gotta be paid for as an obit announcement. I’ll call advertising to contact her for our mutual benefit.

“Siz,” she continued, “help out an old buddy, even if I am a young buddy. Tell me he was screwing some old lady, or she caught him using her checking account, or there’s some hidden stash of cash in Mexico, or anything so I’ll have some copy.”

“Hey, Heather, you’re good. You don’t need me. You can make up a story better than I can, or anyone else. Why not say it was police brutality? That always sells.”

“Siz, you’re no help. One day you’re gonna need me, and then what will you do when I’m not around because they fired me for lack of work?”

“Heather,” Szysmanski said very kindly, “you have a nice day. See you in jail.”

Heather turned to her computer, called up the city telephone directory, found George Nichols on 2456 Andrews, hit the “call” icon, and picked up her desk phone as the ring began.

“Hello?”

“May I speak to Mrs. George Nichols?”

“This is Mrs. Nichols.”

“Thank you. My name is Heather Thompson. I am a reporter for the
Herald
. Please accept the
Herald’s
deepest condolences on the death of your husband. Mrs. Nichols, I wonder if I could ask you a few questions.”

“What kind of questions?” Susan answered in a tone so hostile that its coldness took Heather aback. Heather wondered what she was afraid of.

“Nothing very complicated,” she answered rather softly, “just some details of his age, how long you’ve lived in Trout Lake, anything else you think you’d like to see in the short item for tomorrow’s edition.”

“OK, go ahead.”

“How old was Mr. Nichols?”

“Sixty-four.”

“He ran the summer camp up at the lake, right?”

“Yes.”

“How long had he had that camp?”

“Almost thirty years.”

“How long have you lived in Trout Lake?”

“Almost thirty-five years.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to see in the article to inform your friends, neighbors, and professional acquaintances?”

“No, that would be more than enough.”

“Mrs. Nichols,” continued Heather, “we publish very wonderful and consoling obituaries in almost every edition. The
Herald
has highly skilled, special writers who can help you compose a fitting obituary for your husband. May I have that department give you a call to assist you with this?”

A long pause followed. Finally, Susan answered, “No, thank you, that won’t be necessary. If we decide to publish an obituary for George, I’ll call the paper. Thank you. Good morning.” She hung up.

Heather looked at the now-silent phone in her hand.
Strange,
she thought,
one day away from her husband killing himself, and she is as cold as ice. What kind of questions? What was she thinking? Did she think I was about to start an investigation of why he killed himself? What did he do?

Heather reached for her cell phone again and called Szysmanski.

“What now, Heather?” he answered. “Haven’t you anything better to do than tie up my phone?”

“Siz,” Heather said in a puzzled voice, “I just spoke to Mrs. Nichols. Is she all right? She first sounded afraid that I would ask questions she didn’t want to answer. Then she answered some simple things about his age and how long they’ve lived in Trout Lake with a tone that was cold as ice. Does she know that her husband is dead? I don’t think so. There’s something wrong here, and it’s not just my reporter’s limited intuition after only a couple of years on the job. What is it, or is it me?”

Szysmanski hesitated a moment. He liked this young girl trying to get started in the newspaper business. He, too, thought the whole deal was strange, but was he about to exchange trade secrets with this novice?

“Look, Heather,” he said, “death brings out all kinds of strange emotions from people. When you’ve been around for a while and dealt with more of these situations, you’ll see the full gamut of human response. Each one may be different, each one like ‘I wouldn’t do it that way.’ This is just another one, a suicide, sudden, quick, no lingering illness to wind down. Take it for what it is, forget it, write your story, and go on. It’s the way things are.”

“Siz, it still stinks. She sounded like she lost a pet dog—in fact, like someone else’s pet dog. Or maybe like she was the one who killed the dog!”

A smile crossed Szysmanski’s face.
Is this kid reading my mind?
“OK, Heather, thanks for calling and sharing ideas. Now be a good girl and get your story written. See you soon.”

Heather turned to her keyboard and began, “Mr. George Nichols, age sixty-four, former owner of The Recovery Camp on Trout Lake, committed suicide late Tuesday night with a gunshot wound to his head at his home at 2456 Andrews. Nichols had lived in Trout Lake for thirty-five years…” When she finished, she transmitted it to the city desk, where her e-mail address was added to the bottom. The city editor made no changes and forwarded the article to layout, indicating “Page 2 or nearby in editions of Thursday.”

When Heather arrived at work Thursday, she picked up a copy of the edition to see if any of her other submissions had been approved and found their way into print. Without being asked by the city editor, she had taken some time to write about a thousand words on the Jay Street random shooting, hoping that this two-week-old story still had “legs” that would interest the
Herald
readership. She found nothing but the one hundred words on the Nichols suicide.

She booted up her computer. It began to flash with notices of arriving e-mail messages. She saw that the first one was from an unrecognized sender,
[email protected]
. She opened it and read:

My name is Glenn Scott. I live nearby and subscribe to the
Herald
. I read your article about Mr. Nichols’s suicide. I cannot tell you how happy I am to read your article. I was a camper at Recovery when I was nine. I had a lot of learning problems. My parents sent me to the camp to get the skills I needed to do well in school. Mr. Nichols touched me all over and took pictures of me in the nude. I was invited to take late-night tutoring lessons with him in his office. He gave me lots of good things to eat and then would touch me all over. I am so ashamed at what I did. Now that he is dead, I want to tell the whole world what a bastard he was and how he ruined my life. I hope he burns in hell!

Heather stared at her screen. She looked at the time display at the bottom. It was 8:38 a.m. She looked up at the time of the Scott e-mail: 6:47 a.m. The delivery person could only have delivered this edition at about 6:30 a.m. Distribution tried to get it to the delivery points by 6:00 a.m. She scanned the other e-mails in her inbox but was able to recognize all the other senders as reporters, friends, and the usual advertisements.

She called up the city telephone directory. No Glenn Scott appeared.
He must live in some suburb—no, not across the state, since the edition is only distributed locally after six thirty. Oh, my God,
she remembered,
we have an electronic edition that has been out since two in the morning. This Scott could be anywhere.
She picked up her phone, looked at the internal telephone sheet attached to it, and dialed the four digits of the circulation department.
I’ll find him either through local circulation or subscription to the e-edition.
The phone rang twice, and the recorded voice answered. “If you failed to receive your paper, or if you received a wet paper, please press one. For all other matters, the circulation department opens at nine in the morning. Please call then.” She looked at her screen again. It was 8:42 p.m.

She called across the room to the city editor. “Fred, I think you want to see this.”

At police headquarters, at about 8:45 a.m., the desk sergeant rang Szysmanski’s line. “Siz, I think this call is for you, if you are handling the Nichols suicide.”

A voice came on. “Who is this, please?”

“I am Detective Robert Szysmanski of the Trout Lake Police Department. To whom am I speaking?”

“Never mind,” the somewhat elderly voice answered, “who I am is not important, and I don’t want any police people coming around my house.”

Szysmanski smiled, knowing that the caller’s telephone number and location were already in the police computer. “No problem, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I just read in the
Herald
that this guy, George Nichols, killed himself. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir, just as you read it; it is a suicide. Is there something you want to tell me about that?”

“Yeah, I’m an old man with cancer, not too much time left, but this has been burning inside me for thirty years. My kid, never mind his name, was having trouble at school, gettin’ bad grades, makin’ trouble. I saw a social worker lady, and she told me to send him for special tutoring on the weekends to this camp up on the lake, and then I put him there when I couldn’t afford it for the summer, too. Yeah, he did better, but he came home with stories about this Nichols guy touchin’ him you-know-where, givin’ him lots of candy and cookies, even takin’ pictures of him in the nothin’-at-all. I told my boy that he was lyin’ just to get out of the work; no grown man who’s a good teacher does a thing like that to a nine-year-old. When my boy saw how angry I was, he started to cry. I thought he was ashamed that he lied to me, but now he’s a grown man, and I’m dyin’, and he asks me why I didn’t believe him. He ruined my kid, and he ruined me, too. I hope someone killed the son of a bitch ’cause I sure would have liked to do it.”

“Sir,” Szysmanski interrupted, “why don’t you give me your name, and let me come out and talk to you for a few minutes?”

“You keep away from here, y’hear? I don’t want nothin’ to do with cops. The bastard is dead. I don’t need no more than that!”

“Sir, maybe I can talk to your son. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?”

“No way. You leave my kid alone. He’s had enough trouble in his life without you addin’ to it. Leave him alone, y’hear?”

“Sir, the Trout Lake Police Department is here to help you and everyone else. I am sure that others need our help, too. We need more information. Just a telephone call without knowing who is calling is not enough for us to do anything. Please give me your name and your son’s. Together we can make sure that whatever is coming to Mr. Nichols, and to you, will be done. Please let me help you.”

“I’ll talk to my boy and call you back.” The line went dead.

Szysmanski looked at the dead phone for an instant. He pressed the disconnect key and punched in four numbers. The voice answered, “Donna Baker, records department, how may I help you?”

“Donna, Siz here. I need a hand on this Nichols suicide that you may just be entering in records. Do me a favor and see if we have a prior sheet on him. If we don’t, can you get some recent bio and find out where he lived before he moved here thirty-five years ago? Maybe there’s a prior item on him somewhere else. No, I don’t know where he lived, but if you do a search, I’m sure you’ll find a bio. He was a successful camp operator on the lake and helped lots of kids with academic problems. Thanks, and if you get something, you can call me or send me an internal e-mail.”