Fuzzy Navel

by J. A. Konrath

  Mary had only seen it once before, more than forty years ago, on the Job. A homeless man had killed his friend over half a bottle of wine. Mary had hit the offender with her billy, over and over, but he wouldn’t go down. He just continued to stare at her with those black, bottomless eyes. Eyes without a trace of humanity. Eyes that dared her to kill him.

  The same eyes Alex has.

  “I bet it hurt,” Mary says, “when my daughter tore your face off.”

  Mary doesn’t see the blow coming — it’s too fast. But she feels it, the fist connecting with her mouth, the explosion of pain in her lips, her head snapping back. She had been punched before, in the line of duty, but never so hard or so viciously.

  Then Alex is standing over her, running a hand through Mary’s gray hair in a warped parody of kindness.

  “Maybe later I’ll show you how much it hurts,” Alex says.

  And Mary Streng realizes she’s going to die.

  It isn’t as scary as she thought it might be. She’s lived a long, full life. She’s done everything she ever set out to do. She’s made some mistakes, of course. Some big ones. A failed marriage. A child out of wedlock, put up for adoption when she was still a teenager. A feud with her mother that never got resolved before she died. But Mary managed to forgive herself, to learn from her errors, to keep on going. She knew she could meet death — even an unpleasant death — with grace and dignity and no regrets.

  But this isn’t just about her. Alex also wants to kill Jacqueline.

  That scares Mary to the core. Mary would die for her daughter. She’d also want to die if her daughter were killed. Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children, and Jacqueline is too good a person to be murdered at the hands of this lunatic.

  She has to warn Jacqueline. Has to make sure Alex can’t get her.

  “Do you bake?” Alex asks.

  “What?”

  “I know it’s a stereo type, that all old women bake. But do you?”

  “Yes,” Mary says.

  “What do you bake? Cookies? Bread?”

  Mary doesn’t like these questions. They seem too intimate. She forces herself to say, “I make pies.”

  “What kind of pies?”

  “Peach. Cherry. Apple. I was going to make an apple pie today, for after dinner.”

  “You’ve got all of the ingredients?”

  Mary nods.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Alex says. “Let’s make a pie.”

  Alex takes Mary’s hand, leads her into the kitchen. Mary doesn’t understand where this is going, what Alex’s ulterior motive is. But she has no choice other than to let it play out.

  “What do we do first?”

  “There’s some dough, in the refrigerator.”

  Alex opens up the large stainless steel door and takes out a bowl with a wet towel covering the top. Mary stares at the gun in the back of Alex’s jeans. She needs to get closer.

  “This the dough?” Alex asks.

  Mary nods. “Yes.”

  “It’s done rising, or what ever?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else do we need?”

  “Apples. Brown sugar. Lemon juice. Flour.”

  “You want to lend a hand here, Mom? This pie isn’t going to make itself.”

  It’s silly. Mary has been slapped, punched, and threatened, and she stayed stoic. But a simple act of baking makes her eyes well up with tears.

  Maybe it’s the perversion of a normally enjoyable activity. Mary loves to bake. It’s one of the simple joys of life. But being forced to by this murderer makes the whole experience seem tainted, dirty.

  Alex acts normal the whole time. She rolls out the dough. She slices the apples. She’s chatty and cheerful and asks many questions about the process. But she never lets down her guard and gives Mary a chance at the gun.

  Jacqueline loathes baking, has no patience for it. Mary hasn’t baked with her daughter since she was twelve years old. That fact makes this experience even worse. Mary should be bonding with her daughter, not with a psycho.

  “Why do you bake if it makes you so sad?” Alex asks.

  Mary wipes her face with the back of her hand, furious with herself for showing weakness.

  “Or are you just upset because this is the last pie you’ll ever make? There’s a last time for everything, Mom. At least you can savor it, knowing it’s the last time.”

  “The oven is done preheating,” Mary says. “Put the pie on the bottom rack.”

  Alex obeys. Then she pats the excess flour off of her shirt and laughs at the cloud it makes.

  “You never baked with your mother?” Mary asks.

  “I might have. I don’t remember. When I was small, Father tied her to a beam in the basement and whipped her until she died.” Alex pops a stray apple slice into her mouth. “He made me help him, made me beat her.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

  “Not really. He let me rest when I got tired.”

  Alex turns away, looks past the living room, out the large bay window facing the street. “Does Jack still drive that shitty Nova?”

  Mary doesn’t answer, sees a car coming up the driveway.

  Not Jacqueline’s.

  Oh, no. It’s Latham.

  Mary takes a deep breath, ready to scream out a warning, but Alex is on her, tearing at her house dress, pulling off a sleeve and shoving it past her split lips, wadding it into her mouth. Then the gun is out again, pressed up against Mary’s temple, and they both wait in silence for Latham to come in.

  6:42 P.M.

  JACK

  LEAVITT STREET BUZZES with activity. As in the previous crime scene, cops and onlookers surround the house, a walking, talking wall. The media already arrived, two news vans sending live feeds to their networks. I park in the center of the street, since nothing is getting through anyway. Herb extricates himself from my car with much grunting, but I refrain from making any jokes involving power bars or extra energy.

  It’s dark now. Dark and cold. The streetlight in front of the house isn’t working, but there are enough emergency vehicles with their headlights on to provide adequate illumination.

  We push through the crowd, duck under the cordon, and head for the house. This one is bigger than the two-flat we just left, a single-family home with a giant bay window in front. Through the open blinds I can see cops milling around inside. Herb and I don our booties and go in, seeking out Detective Bobalik to get an update.

  She directs the crime scene from the front room, standing a few feet away from Chris Wolak’s body on the floor. I pause, taking everything in. Ten, maybe twelve police officers in the room, most of them CSU. Decor is retro Norman Bates, stuffed ducks and pheasants and animal heads adorning the walls and shelves. A computer desk, the monitor showing porn. A large leather sofa. A framed picture of a smiling man holding the antlers of the buck he shot. An entertainment stand, TV, DVD, stereo. I examine the bay window, find the bullet hole, see the crowd outside looking back at me.

  Bobalik is short, wearing glasses, and has really good hair, the kind that moves when she moves.

  “I want ALS done before the ME arrives,” she says to her team. “Bruen, organize the door-to-door. Let’s move, people, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here.”

  I walk to her, my hand extended in greeting, and then her head explodes.

  It looks a lot like someone kicking a pumpkin. The top of her scalp comes off, spins through the air, and bounces off the TV. A fine mist of blood rises up around her shoulders and hangs there even after she crumples to the floor.

  “Down!” I yell.

  A tug at my waist. Herb tackling me even as I dive for the carpet.

  Another shot.

  The bullet rips through Bruen’s chest, blood erupting from the exit wound, splashing the wall several feet behind him.

  Screaming. From in the house. From the street outside.

  I look right. Herb on the floor, between me and the window.<
br />
  The carpet below me is cold and damp.

  Another shot.

  A CSU member falls, the round slicing through the sofa he hides behind, taking a hunk out of his neck.

  I look left. The victim, Chris Wolak, face-to-face with me, except there isn’t much face left. A white male, in his thirties, a hole in the back of his head, just like Rob Siders.

  I’m lying in his blood.

  Another shot.

  A detective. On the floor next to me, only a few feet away. The bullet enters his hip, exits up through his neck. A long way for a slug to travel through tissue.

  We’re not safe on the floor.

  I scream, “Get away from the window!”

  A uniform stands up, runs for the hallway.

  Another shot.

  A miss.

  He makes it to the end of the hall.

  Another shot.

  He dives to the floor.

  No — he doesn’t dive. Blood volcanoes out of his back.

  Herb gets to his feet, attempting to make the same run.

  “Herb!” I yell.

  He gets two steps down the hall.

  Another shot.

  The bullet smacks the wall, stripping off wood paneling.

  Two more steps.

  Another shot.

  Over Herb’s head, destroying a dome light.

  Two more steps, and he’s next to a door.

  Another shot.

  Herb falls through the doorway.

  “Herb!”

  Silence.

  I roll, away from the vic, hands tucked to my chest.

  Bump into Bobalik. Roll over her.

  Another shot, tearing up the carpet where I was a second ago.

  I continue rolling, angling toward the window.

  Then I ram into the wall. The wall the window is on.

  Out of the line of fire. Safe.

  I reach up for the turning rod on the blinds, twist it, closing the slats on the window nearest to me, blocking the sniper’s vision.

  Another shot. Through the window.

  Then another, higher up.

  The blinds fall off the wall, clatter to the floor.

  “Herb!” I yell with everything I have.

  Herb doesn’t answer.

  Another shot.

  Then another.

  The gunfire isn’t hitting the house. I open up my clutch, remove a lipstick, one that has a tiny mirror on the case. My back to the wall, I angle the mirror so I can see out the front window.

  Most of the gawkers and media have fled. Cops are behind cars, weapons drawn. Handguns and shotguns, nothing long enough to hit a shooter two hundred yards away. Some are shrugging on bulletproof vests — Type IIIA — which won’t offer any protection against high-velocity sniper rounds. A .338 will punch through them like they’re tissue paper.

  Another shot.

  I watch a patrolman’s head snap back — he’s behind the trunk of the patrol car, and the bullet slices right through the metal.

  I turn back to the room. Five cops down in here, plus the original victim. Five more cops tucked into corners and behind furniture. Plus me. And Herb, if he made it.

  I know it will take a minimum of ten minutes for the Special Response Team to gear up and arrive. They’ll have rifles, and heavier body armor.

  But in the meantime, we’re ducks in a pond.

  I try again. “Herb!”

  A second passes.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Then, “Jack!”

  I blow out a pent-up breath, a million kinds of relieved.

  “Are you okay?” I yell.

  “Yeah! My wife called, hysterical. Saw us on TV. She said she’d hold you personally responsible if I’m killed.”

  I wonder if I should call Latham. Perhaps I won’t have another chance.

  I push back the maudlin thoughts, focusing on how to escape. I glance at the door, so far away. Then I lock eyes with a stag head, hanging on the wall.

  Chris Wolak is a hunter. He’ll have long guns.

  “Herb! Check to see if there are any rifles in there.”

  “Hold on.” The pause lasts forever. Then, “Found a gun locker. Need to break it open.”

  Another shot.

  A crime scene techie, crouching behind the entertainment stand, wails like a siren, clutching the remainder of his foot. The pain must be unimaginable.

  “Keep your head down!” I order the techie.

  His keening cry goes on and on, and he rocks back and forth with his knee pressed to his chest, his head peeking out over the coffee table.

  “Keep your—!”

  Another shot.

  The techie slumps to the ground, bleeding from the shoulder. A bad wound, gushing fast. He won’t live until the SRT arrives. He needs medical help now.

  I’m not the type who prays, but I beg the universe for Herb to find a rifle.

  6:46 P.M.

  MUNCHEL

  MUNCHEL PAUSES TO ADD another hash mark to the butt of his rifle, using a black permanent marker. That makes nine so far. The number pleases him, but he’s angry at himself for missing that fat cop, the one who came late to the party. Moves pretty fast for a porker. He arrived with that good-looking split-tail who parked in the middle of the street. That pisses Munchel off. Why should cops be able to park wherever the hell they want to? It’s bullshit.

  Munchel checks his watch, figures he has a few more minutes before reinforcements arrive. Maybe he’ll have another chance at Fatty, and the double-parker.

  His cell rings. Swanson again. Munchel picks up.

  “What the fuck are you doing!” Swanson is yelling, his voice high pitched and girlish. Not a soldier’s tone at all.

  “Hi, Greg. You at the rendezvous point, sucking down a cool one?”

  “You asshole! You’re live on CNN!”

  “Cool.”

  Munchel pulls the bolt back, ejecting the empty cartridge, then jams it forward to force another round into the chamber of his TPG-1. He peers through the Leupold scope. All the cops in the street are hiding or have run off. Of course they have. An entire platoon is no match for a single skilled sniper. Munchel can shoot the petals off a daisy at three hundred yards. Killing cops at less than two hundred is child’s play.

  “What if they catch you?” Swanson whines like a baby.

  Munchel’s voice is pure Stallone. “If they take me, it won’t be alive.”

  Munchel puts his face against the cheek pad. Aims. Fires. Another head shot. He rubs his shoulder — it’s getting sore, even with the built-in recoil damper — then he uses the marker to draw the tenth kill line on the stock.

  “We’re going after perverts, not cops!”

  Munchel looks down, sees he’s dropped the cell phone. Swanson is still bitching. He picks it up.

  “You say something, Swanson?”

  “You’re going to ruin it for us!”

  “Relax,” Munchel purrs. “I’ll make sure I kill all the witnesses.”

  “You dumb son of—”

  Munchel hangs up. He doesn’t need Swanson, or anyone else, telling him what to do. James Michael Munchel knows what to do. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter who they are.

  The memory comes, unbidden, and Munchel frowns.

  “Military bastards,” he says to himself.

  He doesn’t like to dwell on his rejection by the armed forces, but he dwells on it every day. All those stupid tests he had to fill out, being told by the recruiter that there were no wrong answers. A bald-faced lie. Obviously there were wrong answers, or else he’d be in a foxhole in Baghdad right now, killing insurgents.

  Munchel chambers another round, imagines it’s Osama in the crosshairs, not some stupid pig.

  BANG!

  That makes eleven, plus the original target. He doubts any marine sniper could do better. Another hash mark on the rifle. Pessolano will probably have a shit-fit when he sees how he marked up his precious gun. May
be Munchel can buy the rifle from him. He respects Pessolano, because Pessolano actually toured, saw combat in Desert Storm. Pessolano always wears yellow shooting glasses, those high-contrast ones that block out blue light. Pessolano is hard-core, but he needs to lighten up. Him and Swanson both.

  Munchel looks in the suitcase, finds the pair of yellow glasses he bought from that late-night infomercial. He slips them on, but they make everything too bright and give him an eyestrain headache. He takes them off again. Real snipers don’t need fancy sunglasses.

  Another glance through the scope, and Munchel grins.

  Fat Boy is back. And it looks like the cop found a rifle. Some dinky little model, but a rifle nonetheless.

  This might be interesting.

  Munchel works the bolt, takes aims, and squeezes the trigger.

  6:49 P.M.

  JACK

  MY PARTNER’S LEG crumples beneath him when the bullet hits. He cries out, pitching forward, the rifle slipping from his grasp and taking flight.

  Herb tumbles to the floor. The gun remains airborne, spinning like a Frisbee, the barrel aiming my way.

  I bunch up my shoulders and cover my face — not much protection against a dropped weapon, but a reflex action.

  The rifle bounces onto the floor without going off. But it’s ten feet away from me, directly in the line of fire.

  So is Herb.

  I tug out my .38, aim where I’d seen the muzzle flash over a hundred yards away, and fire twice.

  My bullets won’t hit the mark. A snub-nose revolver isn’t accurate beyond twenty feet. But Herb needs time to crawl back into hiding, assuming he can still move.

  I press my back against the wall again, not wanting to leave my head exposed longer than necessary, and see Herb dashing across the carpet on all fours like a coked-up squirrel. Maybe those power bars have something to them after all. He makes it back through the doorway, leaving a spotty trail of blood.

  “How bad?” I call to him.

  “Calf! I’ll be okay! Did you get the rifle?”

  I stare at the weapon. Ten feet away might as well be a hundred.