Ring of Silence

by Mark Zubro

  “We thought of that. That’s not how it works.”

  “That’s more tons of bullshit than produced by all the bulls on the planet since the big bang.”

  Turner wondered where Fenwick was. Where the sniper was.

  Labato asked, “Do you think we haven’t had you in our sights for a long time? Did you think Carruthers was working with the Catholic Church without direction and guidance? What kind of hubris do you have that you didn’t think what you were doing wasn’t being noticed? Did you think the church was going to go quietly or take this lying down? You caused scandal to the faithful.”

  Turner could imagine Fenwick’s snort. With his arm still on Fong, he felt the man still breathing. The wind still drove the rain onto them. He asked, “Why save Carruthers all these years?”

  “You know the drill. Family, connections, clout.”

  “You condone incompetence?”

  “Do you think that makes a difference?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “And you’re so fucking perfect?”

  “You want us dead because we’re competent?”

  “Because you broke the code.”

  “Fuck you and your code.”

  “You sound like your partner.”

  “It’s catching. Why didn’t you have the sniper kill us?”

  “Efficient in the short term, you’re right, but there were some among us who objected to blatantly killing two detectives. A few were pushing to simply destroy your careers. That was untenable. And besides, if we had to, we wanted to blame your deaths on activists getting even with cops.”

  “Innocent people died.”

  “We could have killed two random people anywhere. Or one. Or a thousand. We didn’t care. In this case, only two. It was fun to watch you two scramble around, basically watching you try to solve your own murders.”

  “And Carruthers shooting us?”

  “Blamed on the kid for being a danger. Collateral damage. And we were willing to sacrifice Carruthers. He’s hated you for so long. It was his idea. Couldn’t plan it, of course, but the germ came from him. Collateral damage from a street killing.”

  “One of his few ideas ever,” Turner said.

  “Don’t care how many he had.”

  The storm continued unabated. Labato was hunched nearly double. Their faces were barely a foot apart. Rain pounded on the metal roof. Being under the canopy continued to keep them from the worst of the drenching downpour, but the spray blown by the wind was as bad as ever.

  Lightning struck at the top of the bridge over the Eisenhower Expressway a block behind them. The explosion of sound made Turner jump.

  “You were never going to win,” Labato said. “You cannot win. The forces of the world are arrayed against you.”

  Turner looked at the metal around them and said, “I think we should move from under here.”

  “You afraid for your immortal soul? You should be.”

  Turner put his arms under Fong’s shoulders, and with him began to edge backwards toward the station. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take the stairs and go higher up, but he felt exposed and vulnerable from the words, and the weather, and the sniper he was sure had to be nearby. He then realized he could barely see to the buildings on the far side of the surrounding streets. The sniper would have the same barrier to seeing him.

  Behind Labato, lightning hit the juncture of the walkway where the metal canopy met the concrete walkway. Flashes of electricity surged toward them.

  Turner threw himself on top of Fong.

  Labato gave a triumphant snarl.

  Turner looked up.

  The flash rushing toward them must have hit some kind of transformer a few feet behind Labato. A cascade of sparks flew around him, illuminating him like a saint in a medieval painting. Labato fell to the ground.

  Turner heard the sound of metal twisting and grinding against itself. It rose to a screech that almost drowned out the din of the storm.

  Turner yanked and dragged the still unconscious Fong until he and the comatose man were at the next strut. It took only a few seconds. He turned to go back for the prone superintendent, but the lightning hit the far end of the overhang and travelled down it towards them. It hit the twisted break in the overhang, burst into a shower of sparks. The metal groaned louder than the thunder and crashed to the pavement crushing the Superintendent under it.

  As Turner looked up, he saw the canopy come crashing down toward him. Electricity crackled for an instant around them, and it was gone.

  Turner glanced back. The rain sluiced through the blood coming from the mush that was the Superintendent. Labato was crushed, the entire top half of his body smashed to pulp under the weight of the fallen canopy.

  Turner scrambled back on hands and knees. The next canopy, hanging by a few fragile strips of metal, swayed in the wind, creaked, and caught him a glancing blow as it fell.

  Turner attempted to rise, but found that his leg was pinned by the wreckage. He looked back. Fenwick was dashing down the concrete stairs, then thrusting away debris, and hurtling toward him.

  For a few seconds, he lost sight of him behind some debris, but then Fenwick emerged from the other side of the crumbled mass. He rushed forward. He stopped at Fong, rushed to Turner, “You okay?”

  Turner nodded. He pointed at the Superintendent. “He was behind it all.”

  Fenwick glanced at the Superintendent. Fenwick said, “I hope it lasted long enough to hurt.”

  Saturday 10:05 P.M.

  Minutes later, Fenwick had inched Turner and Fong toward the next still standing overhang. Turner’s leg was still caught. Fenwick heaved at the metal strut but couldn’t budge it.

  Turner looked back at the quickly dissipating bloody gray rivulets of remnants of the Police Superintendent.

  Turner saw two men running from the far end of the platform toward them. They passed the Superintendent. They carried guns in their outstretched hands. Fenwick began to reach for his weapon.

  Turner stopped him.

  Up close, they were two young men in their early twenties. They stopped at Turner and yelled, “You Paul?”

  Turner nodded.

  “You’re okay?”

  Turner nodded.

  “You’re safe.” It wasn’t a question.

  Another nod.

  Fenwick bellowed, “Who the hell are you guys?”

  The youngest said, “Neighborhood watch. Your sniper is on top of that building.” He pointed across the lines of barely moving traffic to a three-story building. “He’s not going anywhere, but he’s very wet.” He put his gun away.

  Fenwick shouted, “We gotta move this overhang off my partner.” The two newcomers and Fenwick heaved. With Turner pushing from underneath, they managed to raise it enough so he could scrabble away. They let it thunk to the ground.

  Pain shot from his leg.

  Fong stirred. On their knees, Fenwick, with as much help as the new guys could provide, got them just inside the first door of the station. Seeing they were inside and out of the storm, the two newcomers dashed off down the platform continuing to the farther doors, up the stairs, and away.

  Turner sat up against the glass. He listened to the rain still slashing against the pane, an inch the other side of his ear. Once again, he was sodden. They had propped up Fong next to him. Fenwick was on his feet on his phone. Turner heard sirens in the distance. Through the downpour, he began to see rotating lights.

  Fong stirred. Turner put a hand on his arm. Fenwick knelt on the other side. Fong made eye contact with Turner. Fong said, “I’m not dead. Good.”

  Turner asked, “What happened?”

  “The Superintendent was on the platform. He asked to use my phone. I got bashed.”

  Turner said, “He confessed. None of it got recorded.”

  Fong smiled. “I’ve been wearing camera devices since all this started.”

  “Devices?” Fenwick asked.

  “Backups to backups.”

  “It reco
rded while you were unconscious through this storm?”

  Fong gasped and winced. “I think I broke some ribs.” He gave a grin. “Of course it worked through all this. Am I an electronic genius? Yes. It’s on the devices here. It was streamed live to my basement. Remember I offered to set up 360° recording for you guys? I set myself up that way. I’m no fool.”

  In the hospital, they were hooked up to a million things. Molton appeared.

  Turner thought it was kind of amusing to watch Fenwick hover like a mother hen. A nurse at one point tried to shoo him out. That didn’t work.

  Although his leg throbbed, Turner thought it was being dry that most helped him feel better. The doctors quickly determined that his leg was not crushed or broken, but everything just short of that. They stitched him up and applied cold compresses.

  Once he was treated, Fong set up a computer, and they watched his recording. Molton knew a friendly judge who was summoned. They watched again. The judge ordered arrests. Molton sent out his minions under the direction of Roosevelt and Wilson. However, he left to help effect the arrests of the highest up brass.

  DeGroot was found half-drowned, but alive, tied next to a sniper rifle with his prints on it.

  Saturday 11:15 P.M.

  Much later, after Ben had sat with Paul until he was ready to be discharged from the hospital, they parked in their own driveway. Paul saw Mrs. Talucci on her porch. He said to Ben, “I’ll be right in.”

  Paul climbed Mrs. Talucci’s porch and leaned his butt against the railing. Despite the pain pills he’d been given, his leg still hurt, and he limped.

  She put her knitting down but continued a gentle rocking. A few lingering showers were predicted, but the air was cooler. The front had finally passed.

  He told her what happened.

  He finished. “The guys who caught the sniper, the ones who joined Fenwick and me on the platform, said they were from the Neighborhood Watch. There is no Neighborhood Watch.”

  Mrs. Talucci smiled. “Fenwick called the station. He got Barb Dams. She called Molton, and all the cavalry she could think of, including me. She and I figured there had to be at least one sniper. I couldn’t mount an assault. I am not all-powerful, despite my reputation, but I could do a little.”

  “You did a lot.”

  “Enough, I hope.”

  He hugged her.

  She said, “The boys were never going to lose their father or Ben his husband. Not if I had anything to say about it.” She ceased rocking. “I haven’t seen the news. What will happen now?”

  “Much of it has happened or is just finishing up. Fong was wired. He was lucky the lightning was not directly attracted to him, but we were under that overhang that saved us while it killed the bad guy. We’ve got enough to break this ring of silence.” Turner smiled. “As far as I know, Fong may have posted it online, sent it to every media outlet on the planet. Although the key probably is that U.S. Attorney Whitaker is doing the investigating and taking a lot of it out of the hands of the corrupt local folks. He even said he got a lead on two detectives from Area One that the assistant Chief of Detectives put up to trying to impersonate us. Roosevelt and Johnson found that out and told us when they stopped by the hospital.”

  Mrs. Talucci said, “Hell of a nerve.” She picked up her knitting. “I hear they’ve arrested nearly half the top brass in the city.”

  “Maybe not quite that many. Molton’s going to hold a press conference tomorrow to answer questions about how Superintendent Labato, assistant Chief of Detectives Clayton Griffin, Commander Palakowski, Adam Edberg from the mayor’s office, State’s Attorney Brandon Smeek, and a few small fry conspired to protect Carruthers and kill me and Fenwick. I don’t think he’ll try and explain the intricacies of who did what. They’ll sort out Fong’s video. According to Molton the more of them who hear it, the more of them who are trying to make deals, on Carruthers, us, and the deaths of Shaitan and Bettencourt.”

  “So those last two died for nothing.”

  “The conspirators didn’t care. Once Carruthers missed, that plot was set in motion. The rumors about the killings got on the news so fast because it was planted by the conspirators. We know the Superintendent was behind the whole thing.”

  Mrs. Talucci nodded. “Corruption in the department? Has to go to the top. How can it not?”

  “At least it did here.”

  Fourth of July 4:31 P.M.

  “So all that heroic bullshit that first day was to save our own butts? We weren’t heroes?”

  Madge stirred the coals. The two families were enjoying their Fourth of July holiday together in the Turner’s backyard.

  Madge said, “Bullshit? An heroic action doesn’t become less heroic because of its motivation. The result was heroic.”

  Fenwick said, “I feel like a damn fool.”

  Madge said, “And this is new?”

  “I don’t like to feel like a damn fool and get shot.”

  “You saved DeShawn. He’s out of the hospital, and he and his parents plan to be at the ceremony honoring you both, which you have been grumbling about continuously.”

  “And you’ve been nagging about my grumbling for just as long.”

  Madge took out her phone and checked the time. She said, “You have two minutes of free grumbling.”

  Fenwick looked at Ben and Paul. “She does this.”

  Madge said, “One minute fifty seconds.”

  “Fine.” Fenwick gave it his best silent fume, shoulders hunched, lips pursed, gut sucked in.

  Madge was immune.

  Turner stopped setting out plates and utensils. Ben reentered the kitchen and moments later backed onto the porch. He was carrying a Fourth of July sheet cake with red, white, and blue icing in the shape of a flag.

  They oohed and aahed.

  Ben put the cake down then pulled several sparklers out of his back pocket. He placed one on each corner of the cake and lit them. They glistened in the afternoon light.

  Fenwick said, “We were discussing heroism.”

  Brian said, “Are we for or against it?”

  Fenwick said, “We lived through it.”

  Paul said, “That’s about all you can expect, really.”

  Fenwick, “So they were a bunch of delusional fools? Or were we the delusional fools?”

  Ben asked, “Are we talking about the protesters, the police brass, or both?”

  Paul said, “All of the above?”

  Fenwick said, “The cops all got their asses arrested. We’ve got too many recordings of too much for any of them to survive unscathed. I just wished I’d have been there to laugh in their faces as they got hauled off.”

  Madge said, “Probably not as helpful as anyone would have liked.” She smiled, “But an eminently satisfying moment that you can fantasize about.”

  Ben cut the cake.

  Fourth of July 11:04 P.M.

  Jeff helped with the cleaning from the party late into the evening. Mostly, he tried to get out of chores. His luck had run thin in recent years, as the manipulations “I’m in a wheelchair,” or “I’m on crutches,” and “I’m smart and have too much homework,” had long since ceased to get him surcease from familial responsibility.

  Paul took the time with him putting away the last dishes as Jeff dried them. Paul could hear the murmur of Ben and Brian’s voices from the swing on the front porch. All the doors and windows were open to catch the fresh breeze. A new storm system was expected, but with nothing as severe as the previous one.

  Paul suspected Jeff’s delaying and helping meant he was up to something, or he wanted to talk.

  Last dish done and counter wiped, Jeff said, “Can you help me onto the back porch?”

  Jeff didn’t really need such help as the whole house was wheelchair accessible, but Jeff reached for his crutches, pulled himself out of the chair and toward the back door. Paul followed and was ready to help as Jeff needed.

  Paul sat down on the swing next to him. Jeff kept his eyes focused on his em
pty lap. Paul looked out at the mist-enshrouded back yard. He let the silence stretch. The shadows of night gathered around them.

  Jeff broke the new silence. “Are they still going to try to kill you?” The light from the kitchen drifted onto the porch and he could see the near-tears in his son’s eyes.

  Before Paul could answer, Jeff continued, “Don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid. I know you solved all this. I know powerful people have fallen. I read the papers. I listen to you and Ben talk. It’s what you don’t say when we’re around.”

  “Uh?”

  “You leave out danger and foreboding completely. And yet when you go out, you always check everything.”

  “I always do. I’m a cop. We’ve discussed my job. What more can I say or do to help you?”

  Jeff gave a gruff, “I’m not sure,” in his newly discovered older-teen voice. He continued, “Sometimes bad guys win. Some of those guys might get away with what they did.”

  “Sometimes they do. But it’s the kind of person I am that makes a difference. Not what I can get away with and lie about. For me, it doesn’t matter how much money or power you have. The key is always kindness, rich or poor.”

  They sat next to each other in silence for another while. The noises of the neighborhood muttered and flowed around them.

  Jeff said, “Good is something you do, not something you talk about. Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket. You know who said that?”

  Paul shook his head.

  “Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling champion who saved over eight hundred Jews in World War II. That’s what you and Mr. Fenwick do. You always do right.”

  “As best we can.”

  “And Mr. Fenwick just doesn’t want the publicity.”

  Paul felt his son snuggle slightly. He looked down at him. Jeff’s eyes met his in that forthright way they’d had since he’d met his eyes the day he was born.

  “Did you almost die?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was scared for you.”

  “I appreciate that. How did you know things were bad?”