Like a Train by Kihin Ranno

He’s sitting in the waiting room, his legs shaking with nervous spasms. He’s anxious, and he doesn’t care about showing it. His hands occasionally tear through his hardened hair that’s crusting with flaking gel, covering them in grease thanks to the shower he didn’t take that morning. He’s starting to smell; after all, he’s been there for going on twenty-four hours and he’s never had the best hygiene to begin with. A nurse occasionally comes by to tell him that nothing has changed and that he ought to go home. He wonders if she just doesn’t want to deal with him anymore.

It’s a feeling he’s used to. Sheriff Lamb acts that way all the time. The sheriff rolls his eyes and sends him on an errand for coffee or donuts or some other mindless errand that someone who hasn’t been there since before Sheriff Lamb was the sheriff should be doing. He’ll be standing in line for the donuts, thinking that the sheriff must have wanted to get rid of him again. It depresses him, being unliked by one of the most unliked men in the whole county. Sometimes he thinks about spitting in the sheriff’s coffee or something, just for silent revenge. But then Sheriff Lamb’s always happy when he comes back, and he feels guilty about wanting to do that to a man he’s always thought of as a friend.

Now he thinks that Sheriff Lamb was probably just happy the food was there, but he still shakes his head at the nurse and says, “No thanks. I’ll stay.”

After all, it isn’t as if he has anywhere in particular he needs to go. He doesn’t have a child to kiss good night or a wife to go home to. He doesn’t even have a dog that’s going to mess up the house if he isn’t let out at exactly 9:05.

More to the point, he doesn’t have anything he needs to do. A fellow deputy has already interviewed him about the incident and taken his gun. He’s going to be on desk duty for awhile, just until they declare it a good shoot. With Sheriff Lamb lying on an operating table, he doesn’t know how they could say it was anything but. Steve Batando is dead, and Sheriff Lamb is hurt because of him.

He’s been told before that it’s natural to feel remorse or doubt after killing a man. No one has said that to him tonight.

Thoughts like that make him antsy and he jerks his head up suddenly, twisting his neck to crack it just so he doesn’t look too strange. He catches sight of a few people looking away, and he wonders if other people are giving him strange looks now. He’s still wearing his uniform that has spots of the sheriff’s blood on it. It must be disturbing for other people to see even if most people in Neptune are used to gore and corruption.

Some of the patients waiting to be triaged come in looking like they’ve been beaten up. He watches them give him looks he interprets as glares, an extra shot of malice directed at him. He assumes they want him out on the street, catching the criminals who caused the hit and run or jumped them from behind. He even thinks about doing that sometimes. It might be better than just sitting – waiting.

He tells himself that he’ll stay.

He’s just gone through this cycle again when the nurse comes by. He’s ready to hear her repeat her assurances and to tell her the same thing all over again, when he takes a good look at her face. Up until that point, she’s been looking at him with a patronizing kindness. Everything about her has reminded him that she’s been incredibly patient with him, even though he doesn’t think he’s done anything to make her patience at all noteworthy.

She doesn’t look like that anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she starts, her eyes remaining locked on his the entire time. “I’m afraid Sheriff Lamb’s head trauma was too severe. I assure you that the doctors did everything they could, but he’s gone.”

She starts giving him all the technical reasons for why this happened, but he’s not listening anymore. He’s thinking about how Sheriff Lamb used to yell at him for filing things under the wrong letter, for being too kind to Keith and Veronica Mars and accusing him of disloyalty, and how he got drunk after inadvertently smuggling Duncan Kane into Mexico. After getting chewed out by the Xena look-a-like from the FBI, Sheriff Lamb pulled him into the office and spent a good thirty minutes telling him how horrible a deputy he was. The sheriff passed out mid-sentence and didn’t remember it in the morning.

But he also thinks about the annual barbeques, tag-teaming on interrogating suspects, won and lost baseball games on Saturdays. He even thinks about how things were before Lilly Kane died and Lamb was still a deputy, like him. He remembers when they were on even ground. He remembers when he never would have thought of spitting in his friend’s coffee.

But no amount of recollections can push out the knowledge that the sheriff is dead.

It hasn’t hit him yet, but Jerry Sacks knows that at some point it’s going to hit him like a train.

-----

The next day, he shows up for work and finds that everything is operating as if nothing happened. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe he thought there would be black cloths thrown over the mirrors or Olga would be wailing with grief and spouting nonsense in German. But when he walks in, things look normal. People are still doing their jobs without hesitation, without pausing to collect themselves before answering the phone. They might look a little sadder, but they’re acting as if one of the drug dogs has been killed. They’re not acting like the sheriff was just murdered.

“Sacks.”

He turns around, straightening at the familiar voice. He blinks when he sees Keith wearing the uniform, and he remembers when Sheriff Lamb called him after driving past the private detective impersonating his former occupation. He had found it hilariously pathetic, but Jerry couldn’t quite work up the energy to join him in the laughter.

“Keith?” Jerry asks, his voice hoarse.

He swallows, looking awkward, and it takes him one second too long to answer. “It’s Sheriff Mars now, Deputy. The County Commissioner reinstated me last night.”

Jerry stares. He doesn’t know why he didn’t assume this would happen. In reality, there’s no one else who can take over the job until the inevitable special election. Jerry might have been there the longest after Sheriff Lamb, but he can’t run things in the interim. He’s the one who just stared dumbly at all of that blood seeping out of the sheriff’s head, frozen in shock. Keith was the one who had to tell him to call an ambulance, and Jerry had almost shot him coming up the stairs.

“Oh,” Jerry responds, finally.

Keith narrows his eyes. “Didn’t anyone call you?”

Jerry tries to remember if the phone rang. It must have, but he didn’t hear it. He doesn’t know how that happened; he hadn’t done anything the night before. He’d spent eight hours staring at the wall until he finally went to sleep upright on his couch.

“I must have missed it,” Jerry lies. It’s easier than explaining the whole thing, and he doubts Keith wants to hear it.

Keith nods like he knows exactly what happened. He’d always had that ability, and Jerry has never liked it. Sometimes, he wants to hide things.

“Maybe you should go home,” Keith offers.

“No,” Jerry responds, a little too quickly. He opens his mouth to say more, to explain that he can’t spend another day staring at a wall, that he needs to do something active, that Sheriff Lamb would rip him a new one for skipping a day of work for this shit.

Once again, Keith already knows. He smiles kindly. “All right. Then you can go bring Mindy O’Dell in. I know you’re supposed to be on desk duty, but we’re a little short-staffed today. She shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

Keith’s going too fast for him. “What?”

“Weevil Navarro found a bloody shirt stuffed into the furnace at Hearst College,” Keith explains. “It belongs to Hank Landry. I’d like to question her about it, since we’re more likely to get her to crack before Landry. You can pick her up and help me in the interrogation.”

Jerry nods. “Sure thing.”

It would have been better to thank him, but there’s no point. Keith already knows.


-----

It doesn’t happen when Lamb’s family comes into town and calls Jerry because his was the only name they remembered. It doesn’t happen at the wake when Jerry watches Lamb’s younger cousins try to keep from crying, his mother sitting numb in a corner, and worst of all, his uncle checking his watch. It doesn’t happen when Keith gives him awkward smiles at work when he’s not too busy with the O’Dell case, and it doesn’t happen when it’s days later and Sacks still hasn’t seen anyone really mourn for their fallen comrade… maybe friend.

It hasn’t hit him yet, but he knows that at some point it’s going to hit him like a train.


-----

Jerry keeps himself busy before the funeral. He works overtime, files paperwork on time, and goes through the motions of the inquisition – seeing the shrink and giving the same interview at least ten separate times. He doesn’t know why the process is being dragged out; everyone knows what happened and they know that he isn’t lying. They should just let him get back out into the field so that he stops working off restless energy in the weight room and the newly re-licensed Seventh Veil.

On the day of the funeral, it’s infuriatingly sunny, but Jerry guesses this is the price of living and dying in Southern California. He arrives late, having overslept. The hangover he has isn’t helping matters.

He’s surprised at who he finds there. Naturally, the whole Sheriff’s Department has come out. He notes that they look much sadder now with the newspaper photographers hidden in the bushes then they did when no one was watching. Leo D’Amato is also there, standing apart. He seems ashamed of his own presence, like he’s a traitor. Then again, that’s probably because he is one. Sheriff Lamb’s mother is there, her scarred face hidden behind a handkerchief she’s been given. His father is not there of course. He drank himself to death years ago. He also notes that Madison Sinclair, that girl the sheriff was fooling around with that Jerry wasn’t supposed to know about, is also absent. He doesn’t miss her.

But nothing is more shocking than seeing Veronica Mars there, flanked by her father and a few of her friends Jerry has never bothered to get to know. She’s dressed in black and looking honestly solemn. He watches her through the whole funeral, and he knows she notices. It’s rude, but he can’t help it. He knows how much Veronica hated the sheriff, though he never knew why she felt that way. He can’t help but think that she’s come to spit on his grave, but she acts perfectly behaved, blending in so well that a casual observer might not think she and Sheriff Lamb were enemies at all.

After it’s over, she comes over to him. She seems hesitant, cautious. He’s never seen her that way before, and it makes his skin prickle.

“Hi, Sacks,” she says quietly.

He hesitates. He has no idea how to respond to that.

Veronica looks at him, waiting. Eventually, she nods slowly, assuming correctly just like her father. “You’re angry. I didn’t think you would want me here.”

“I don’t--" he starts. He stops when he realizes that he was about to say that he doesn’t have any sway over the funeral. He’s had no part of it. He doesn’t continue because he almost likes the idea of Veronica Mars thinking he’s in charge of something. “I just didn’t expect you to be here.”

Veronica makes a strange face, pinching her lips together and raising her eyebrows. Jerry pauses for a moment to wonder why he thinks that’s strange, but then there’s always something about Veronica’s facial expressions that set him on edge. “Neither did I.”

“You and the sheriff didn’t get along,” Sacks continues, still feeling out of his depth.

Veronica glances up at him. He watches that spark flash into her eyes, making her look like herself again. It comforts him to know that this isn’t some imposter or robot standing in front of him, but her old feelings for the dead rival infuriates him all the same. He doesn’t want to hear her quips about the sheriff right now, and he’s afraid that he’ll snap if she says one word about it.

But she restrains, swallowing her words. He wonders how that must taste.

“No, we didn’t,” Veronica finally acquiesces. “But that doesn’t mean…” she trails off, knowing that what she’s about to say is a lie.

Jerry shakes his head, putting his hands in his pockets. It’s probably the best place for them. “You wanted him dead, Veronica,” he accuses quietly, ignoring the fact that Keith is coming up behind her. “You were just too self-righteous to do it yourself.”

He turns to go, knowing that he hasn’t said anything particularly clever or cutting. He’s never been quick like that. But he knows that he hurt her all the same. It comforts him on a day when he thought nothing would comfort him. It’s almost like carrying on the legacy of the man who’s being lowered into the ground as he walks away.


-----

It doesn’t hit him when he busts up a party at the Neptune Grand and takes the liquor knowing that Sheriff Lamb isn’t going to have any. It doesn’t hit him when Logan Echolls gives him a dirty look, letting Jerry know that somehow he knows what was said to Veronica. Jerry doesn’t doubt that if the over-privileged orphan was still sixteen and organizing bum fights, Jerry would be hurting. It doesn’t hit him when he finishes helping Sheriff Lamb’s mother pack up his apartment, even though the thought of packing up a person’s whole life and putting it into storage makes him feel nauseous and apprehensive of the future.

It hasn’t hit him yet, but he knows that at some point it’s going to hit him like a train.


-----

“I trust you remember me from our previous session.”

“I don’t have any problems with my memory, Doc.”

“No, I suppose you don’t. Do you know why you’re here Deputy Sacks?”

“Because Keith doesn’t--"

“You mean the Sheriff?”

“…he doesn’t think I can go back into the field. So, he sent me back to you.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“How should I know?”

“I think you do.”

“Well, I don’t. I’m not him. I can’t get inside his head.”

“No one said you had to.”

“Then why are you asking me why I’m here? He sent me here. He obviously has his reasons, but he hasn’t explained them to me. He just told me where to go when I came into work this morning, so I came. End of story.”

“He thinks you’re not handling the former sheriff’s death well.”

“Oh, so you can get in his head.”

“No, he told me this, Deputy.”

“But you could, couldn’t you? Get inside his head?”

“Deputy Sacks, there is no need to be hostile.”

“Yes, actually, there is a need to be hostile. I’m being ganged up on by my boss who thinks I’m an idiot and some damn shrink who has never met me.”

“You think Sheriff Mars considers you an idiot?”

“I know he does.”

“How?”

“…I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to sometime.”

“Why do I need to talk about Keith—"

“Sheriff Mars.”

“—thinking I’m an idiot?”

“I’m not just talking about that, Deputy.”

“…I don’t want to talk about what happened.”

“Deputy—"

“I’m not crazy. I’m not depressed. I’m not going to do something stupid, so I don’t see why I need to be here.”

“The Sheriff thinks—"

“The Sheriff is dead.”


-----

It doesn’t hit him when he storms out of the interrogation room where the counselor was trying to get him to talk about his feelings. It doesn’t hit him when Keith puts him on forced vacation in order to deal with his issues. It doesn’t hit him when he wakes up in bed that morning, terrified because he has nothing to do.

It hasn’t hit him yet, but he knows that at some point it’s going to hit him like a train.


-----

He decides to go to the gravesite, just to get out of his apartment. It’s probably a stupid place to go, a masochistic thing to do, but he doesn’t care. It’s something he has to do.

It takes him over an hour to find the damn thing because the funeral home has ridiculously bad records, and they haven’t had enough time to get the headstone made. Jerry figures he should probably remember it from the funeral, but there’s not a lot about that day that he remembers without a gray haze. Finally, he finds Lamb’s plot.

He finds it because Madison Sinclair has found it for him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks as he stares at her cashmere covered back, hoping that she doesn’t turn around because he’s afraid of shaking her when he sees her eyes, hoping that she turns around so that he can see her destroyed by this, hoping she doesn’t turn around because it is impossible to destroy Madison Sinclair.

She shrugs, laughing without opening her mouth. It sounds like she’s being smothered and tickled at the same time. “I’m not allowed to pay my respects?”

“There was a funeral,” he reminds her.

“I had midterms,” she insists, her voice hissing out through her nose. It’s no wonder people say she’s snotty.

Jerry shakes his head, looking away for a minute. He uses the voice he uses with younger, softer criminals. It’s supposed to remind them of their fathers. “Always making excuses.”

She stiffens, and it occurs to Jerry a second too late that reminding Madison Sinclair of her father might not have been such a great idea. She almost turns around, and then decides against it. He wonders what’s stopping her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You think he didn’t tell me?” Jerry demands.

He sees the muscles in her back clench and her knees lock. She’s probably chewing on the inside of her cheek, but he can’t see that. “I don’t see why he would,” Madison snits.

Jerry exhales and looks down at the ground. He hates that she’s chastened him with only her voice. “We were friends.”

Madison laughs again. “If you say so.”

“And what were you?” Jerry asks loudly, fury knotting itself up in his chest. “What were you except some--"

“Whore?” she finishes. He can hear her rolling her eyes in her voice. “Save it, Deputy. I’ve heard it all before.”

Jerry’s hand tightens into a fist. He hates that he can’t even finish a complete insult. He wants to bring her to her knees so that he can say that he did that for Sheriff Lamb – get back at her for avoiding the funeral. He wants to, but he knows he can’t do it. He isn’t bitter like Veronica, clever like Keith, and he doesn’t practice like the Sheriff did.

“You weren’t just that,” Jerry says finally, his voice so soft he wonders if she can hear him. He doesn’t see her shoulders straighten or any other indication that she’s listening. Then again, she never really listens, so he finds no reason to stop talking. “You were important for awhile. He liked you, more than just… you know.” He nods awkwardly and licks his lips. He glances down at the plot and decides to go. He’s not welcome with her there, and he wouldn’t want to be.

He turns and starts to walk away, his hands shoved in pockets and his empty wallet pushing against his flesh as he puts one foot in front of the other. He doesn’t stop and he doesn’t look back. He only pauses when he hears a strange sound to put all of his concentration towards identifying it.

It almost sounded like crying, but he decides that’s ridiculous and keeps walking. There’s no one there capable of shedding tears, not him and especially not Madison Sinclair.


-----

It doesn’t hit him on the drive back when he runs two red lights and one stop sign. It doesn’t hit him when he gets back to his apartment and immediately puts in a bad porn video, not because he feels like getting off but because he needs background noise and his stereo’s broken. It doesn’t hit him when he heats up yet another microwave dinner and burns his tongue on the entrée. It doesn’t hit him when he cuts his finger when he opens a can of beer.

He thinks maybe it almost hit him when he threw the can against the wall, stomped on it underneath his foot, and then – because he was sick of the noise and couldn’t find the remote, puts his foot directly through the television set. But it didn’t, not really.

It hasn’t hit him yet, but he knows that when he lets it, it’s going to hit him like a train.