Cop Town

by Karin Slaughter

  Somehow, Kate managed to sit back in her seat. She clenched her hands in her lap, tightened her jaw so hard that her head ached. She hissed out, “You asshole.”

  “Asshole?” Jimmy kept laughing. “You cringe like a nun when I say ‘motherfucker’ and now you’re calling me an asshole?”

  “Asshole.” Kate practically spit out the word. She was shaking. Her fists would not unclench. A volcano raged inside of her.

  “I’m the asshole?” Jimmy swerved the car into a sharp turn. He slammed down the brakes. Kate grabbed the dashboard before she hit it again. “Let me tell you, sister—what happened back there? That’s why you don’t belong out here.”

  She stared at him. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “Why’d you let that pimp talk to you like that? What are these for?” Jimmy grabbed at her flashlight, her nightstick, her gun. “These for show, girlie girl? You like the way they make your hips look?”

  “Stop.” Kate tried to push him away. He was made of stone. Nothing would move him. She started to panic. “Please.”

  “Shit,” Jimmy muttered, finally returning to his side of the car. “Better it comes from me than some pimp raping your ass.” He stared at Kate with obvious disgust. “Go on and cry. Get it out so I can take you back to the station.”

  Kate would gouge out her own eyes before she cried. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  “What do I want?” Jimmy leaned over again, crowding her against the door. “I want you to get out of my car and take off that fucking uniform and go find a husband and have some kids and bake pies and play house like a normal fucking woman.”

  Her fingernails cut into her palms. She struggled to bring air into her lungs. “Get away from me.”

  Jimmy leaned closer. “Why don’t I drive you back to Romeo? He’d cut your slit open like a fish. And then he’d pump you with H and toss you back into the street until you’d suck a fucking dog to get that needle in your arm.” Kate tried to turn away. Jimmy grabbed her face with his hand. “I watched my partner’s head explode. I got bits of his brain in my eyes and teeth. I tasted his death in my mouth. You think you can handle that? You think you can come out here every day knowing what death tastes like?”

  Her throat filled with sand. He was almost on top of her. Her face was covered in his spittle. His fingers dug into her cheeks.

  “Can you?” he demanded.

  From somewhere deep inside, she found the courage to ask, “Can you?”

  Jimmy wrenched away his hand. “You got no fuckin’ idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

  Kate touched her face. She could still feel his fingers digging into the flesh. “What is this?” she whispered. “What happened?” She wasn’t talking to Jimmy. She was asking these questions of herself. “What gives you the right to talk to me like this—to treat me like this—just because you don’t want me here?”

  Jimmy shook his head like she was the stupidest person on earth.

  Kate pushed open the door. She got out of the car.

  “Where are you going?”

  Kate started walking. The smell wasn’t so bad. She could deal with it. The capitol dome would guide her back to police headquarters. She had a spare key in a magnetic box over the back tire of her car. She would drive to the hotel, get her things, and then go to her parents’ house. There was nothing her family could say that would be worse than what she had just experienced.

  Jimmy got out of the car. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Kate took off the hat. She unbuttoned her shirt collar. The temperature was just under forty degrees, but she was burning up. She breathed through her mouth, pulling great gulps of filthy air into her lungs. Jimmy was right. The awful women in the locker room were right. Her mother was right.

  She wasn’t cut out for this.

  “Hey.” Jimmy grabbed her arm. She shook him off. He grabbed her again and spun her around. “Just stop a minute, okay?”

  She punched him in chest. He wasn’t expecting it. He stumbled back on his bad leg. Kate knew exactly what to do next. It came to her like breathing: she kicked his leg out from under him.

  Jimmy looked stunned. He slammed flat on his back into the ground. The air huffed out of him. Dirt clouded up.

  “You asshole!” Kate wanted to kick his head in. “I had a house. I had a husband. I had a life before all this, you fucking animal.”

  He tried to sit up.

  She shoved him back down.

  “What the hell is—”

  “Shut up.” Kate leaned down to get in his face the same as he’d done with her. “If my husband were alive, he would kill you. Do you know that? He would wrap his hands around your neck and strangle the miserable life out of you.”

  Jimmy stared at her, his eyes wide with surprise. He didn’t have a comeback, couldn’t seem to find the words to cut her with, so he just shrugged, as if to say, So what?

  It pulled the rage out of her. It brought her back to her senses.

  Kate saw that an audience had gathered. Men, women, and children. They’d probably never seen such a show. She had certainly never been a part of one. Kate had never hit anyone in her life. Even at the academy, they’d only let them punch padded dummies.

  So what?

  Jimmy was right. Patrick wasn’t going to save her. No one was going to save her. Wasn’t the point of this idiotic experiment to prove that Kate could save herself?

  Why had she remained silent when Romeo first leaned into the car? Why hadn’t she told Jimmy to stop? Why hadn’t she asked, told, then made them stop? Kate had an arsenal at her disposal—her back had been aching from her belt the moment she’d loaded it: The heavy flashlight with its four D-cell batteries. The metal nightstick with the rounded tip. The revolver with five bullets in the cylinder.

  Any one of them could’ve been used to stop either man, and Kate had just sat there like a helpless simpleton.

  Jimmy sat up. He brushed the red clay from his pants. “What happened to your husband?”

  She looked down at him. He was kneading his thigh to work out a cramp. “None of your goddamn business.”

  “You got a mouth on you, lady.”

  “Shut up.” She turned on her heel and headed toward the car.

  Jimmy asked, “Where are you going?”

  “Back to work.”

  “That’s it?” He laughed at her again, this time with surprise. “After all that, you’re just going back to work?”

  She turned around. He was still on the ground rubbing his knee. “Yes.”

  He held out his hand. “Help me up.”

  “Help yourself, motherfucker.”

  The crowd of spectators cleared a path as Kate walked to the car.

  8

  Fox felt that tickle in his throat that came from smoking too much. He took a swig of bourbon from the pint he kept in the glove box. Just enough to wet his whistle, as his father used to say.

  He hated that his father was on his mind so much lately.

  But it wasn’t his father, really. It was his mother. The two were indelibly linked, the yin and yang of Fox’s life. Black and white. Dark and light. She had been a kind woman. Always forgiving. Always looking to keep the peace. That these qualities had made her a victim was a fact that Fox had a hard time accepting, even all these years after her death.

  He still missed her. When he was growing up in juvie, when he was stuck in the Army, when he was fighting in the jungle, when he was breathing or walking down the street, every day of his life, he missed her.

  Maybe that was why Fox was drinking too much. Smoking too much. Watching Kate Murphy too much.

  He had never killed a woman before. Sure, he had slapped around a couple when they got out of line. But he had never killed one. Fox didn’t know what was making him hesitate. The evidence against Kate was clear. Fox had pages and pages in his clipboard. She was a liar. She was a charlatan. She didn’t belong.

  So why didn’t he just shoot her?

  Draggin
g it out was not Fox’s style. Quick and painless, that was how he had always done it. He was an executioner, not a murderer.

  How it usually worked was like this: The target presented itself. Fox studied it. He tracked it. He kept a detailed log on all the reasons why the target should be eliminated. Or not. Occasionally, after a few weeks of surveillance, he decided that the target should not be removed. There were redeeming qualities, extenuating circumstances. Of course, sometimes the information yielded a definitive yes. In those cases, Fox acted quickly. He studied his clipboard. He picked the right place and time. He shot the target in the head. No muss. No fuss. That’s how it was with rabid animals. You had to take them out fast before they infected other people.

  Kate Murphy was not an extenuating circumstance. She embodied the rabid animal. She was the cancer that needed to be cut out. Somewhere deep in her soul, she probably knew this. That was the way most of them were. By the time Fox came around to take care of business, they had already accepted what was coming.

  So why wasn’t Fox acting?

  There was no point in continuing his surveillance, because he already knew when Kate was with her family, when she was alone, when she was at her most vulnerable. He should put her down just like the others and move on to the next targets.

  But Fox couldn’t.

  He could only drink too much and smoke too much and drive around too much and make too many notes on his clipboard.

  Gluttony, Fox the Senior would’ve called it, using that tone of voice that indicated Fox was a piece of shit that had gummed into the treads of his shoe.

  Fox hoped it was gluttony, because the alternatives would’ve pissed off Senior even more. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride. Lust.

  Lust.

  Fuck yes, he lusted for Kate Murphy. Every man who laid eyes on her did. One more reason she didn’t belong on the city’s payroll. On the streets. In the grocery store. Anywhere an unsuspecting man of good character might see her.

  Unfortunately, being lusted after was not a redeeming quality. If anything, it made Kate even more irredeemable. How could Fox in good conscience leave her out in the world where she could do more harm? Just entertaining the thought showed an unprecedented lack of discipline.

  And like that, there was Fox’s father back in his head again.

  Senior was the kind of man who valued discipline. Or at least he claimed to. Every lesson he gave Fox had something to do with self-control, doing the right thing. He never talked about how hard it was to stop somebody else from doing the wrong thing.

  Lesson one: Do as I say, not as I do.

  Senior was a Navy man. Four years was all he lasted. He had gone to college. Another four years down the drain. He had gotten married and fathered a son and lucked into a job at the factory, which took him into what was left of his miserable life.

  Senior insisted that he had done everything that a man was supposed to do. Was it his fault that wasn’t good enough anymore? There was nothing wrong with Senior. Hell no. It was the system. It was the machines. It was the pushy broads. It was the uppity blacks. It was the lying Jews. It was the greasy Italians. It was the world turning upside down so that nobody really knew their place anymore.

  The factory job was beneath Senior. He made that clear to Fox. He made it clear to Fox’s mother when she was beneath him, too. He was a better man than this. All of this. The walls were thin. Fox heard them at night: the way Senior took out his disappointment. The way his mother begged for mercy.

  Fox begged for mercy, too.

  Not for himself. For his mother. For Senior, too, because why was it that all the lessons Senior was trying to teach Fox disappeared the minute the bedroom door was closed?

  Lesson two: Never hit a girl.

  Fox was twelve years old, just a kid, the first time he realized what was really going on in the next room. He felt powerless. He tightened his fists. He tensed his muscles. He thought about jumping out of bed and saving his mother. Like Superman. Like Spider-Man. Like any man worth his salt.

  Lesson three: It’s a man’s job to protect the weaker sex.

  That same year, the old man took him to see a dentist. Too much money, but the teeth were literally rotting in Fox’s head. The office building was the tallest Fox had ever seen. Six stories of concrete and glass. Floor-to-ceiling windows that sparkled against the sun like diamonds.

  Fox had never been in an elevator before. He stood at the back of the car with Senior. A woman got on. She was made up to be pretty, not pretty in a natural way. Her perfume smelled like too much candy. She was wearing a furry white coat. Fox remembered the way his nose tickled from just thinking about how soft the coat might be, because you would want to put your face in something like that—the coat, not the woman. Okay, maybe the woman, but Fox was at the age when those kinds of thoughts made him nervous.

  The bell dinged. The elevator doors opened. Fox started to leave, but Senior grabbed him by the collar. Fox croaked like a frog. Senior smiled at the lady in the white coat. Fox was of the opinion that there was more to the smile. Not flirting, because his father didn’t punch above his weight, but a sort of “Please excuse my son’s ignorance,” because Fox still had a lot to learn.

  Lesson four: Ladies always go first.

  Fox was recording everything on his clipboard by then. Not Lessons, but Facts. The date and time to begin with. Then the number of blows at night. The number of apologies during the day. The way his mother struggled to muffle her screams. The way his father pushed her to let them out. The way Fox used to press his face to her stomach when she hugged him, and he’d smell washing detergent on her dress and sometimes onions if she was in the middle of making dinner.

  Fox took another sip from the bottle. The familiar anger scratched at his chest, begging to be let out.

  His mother had died exactly one month before his thirteenth birthday.

  There were times before she died when she was happy. Fox didn’t have actual pictures of these moments, but his memories were photographic. His eyelids were like a slide carousel. He could blink and see images of her doing the things that brought her pleasure. Baking cookies. Letting Fox lick the batter off the spoon when she made a cake. Ironing Senior’s shirts.

  She had actually smiled when she ironed Senior’s clothes.

  And she had stood up to him. Fox didn’t know where she’d found the strength. Like every bully, Senior only had to be backed down once. He raised his hand to correct her, and she gave him this wilting look that sent his hand back down to his side. His bullying days were over. Yet again, the world had turned upside down. Fox’s mother forgot her place. Or maybe she remembered it. Maybe for her, the world was finally right side up again. Life had dragged her back by the collar the same way Senior had grabbed Fox in that elevator.

  Please excuse my wife’s ignorance. She’s still learning.

  Why was Fox thinking about this now? Why was he sitting in his car drinking and thinking about the way his mother had finally found her ability to fight back?

  Because of Kate Murphy.

  Kate was the answer to a lot of his questions lately. He was watching her too much. Thinking too much. Letting his mind consider the options too much.

  Like his mother, Kate was a fighter. She had knocked Jimmy Lawson to the ground right in the middle of the goddamn projects. Fox had laughed when it happened. He had known from the beginning that Kate was different.

  He hadn’t expected to like it.

  9

  Maggie drove past Mellow Mushroom pizza on Spring Street. Her stomach grumbled, but she saw the cops eating inside and decided to go somewhere else. She could always skip lunch and grab a coffee from one of the diners. Or she could keep taking mindless calls for the rest of the day while the boys ran up and down the city bashing in heads.

  The radio had been buzzing all morning with hot tips that turned out to be nothing. Even the black officers were in on it, urgently sending units across town only to find out the guy who was going to talk
wasn’t talking anymore or was lying about what he’d said in the first place.

  This latter situation didn’t cause the problems you’d think. One of the things that had disheartened Maggie the most about being a police officer was the constant lies that people told; not the bad guys, but the regular citizens who were supposed to be helpful. They gave false names, false jobs. They lied about where they worked, what car they drove, where they lived. That they did all of this for absolutely no reason was as maddening as it was alarming. These were the same eyewitnesses who put men in jail every day.

  Eyewitnesses like Jimmy.

  The report Terry had read during roll call this morning was a load of bull. Maggie had nearly bitten off her tongue trying to keep quiet. Fifteen feet away? As in, Officer Jimmy Lawson was standing ten, fifteen feet away when Officer Don Wesley was shot in the head?

  Maggie had seen the dried blood on her brother. The only way Jimmy could’ve been sprayed like that standing ten or fifteen feet away was if Don had been shot with a bazooka. Jimmy was either lying to save face or lying for the sake of lying. And he was going to get away with it because no one on the force—especially Terry—wanted to hear that their darling golden boy had screwed up.

  Golden Boy.

  The sports reporters had called Jimmy Lawson Atlanta’s Golden Boy. He was still in junior high then, but Friday night football games were the most important entertainment in town. At the beginning of the season, there was always a pullout section in The Atlanta Journal that highlighted all the up-and-coming players around the state. Jimmy’s picture had been on the front page. Maggie still had the article somewhere. Probably in the scrapbook she’d kept on him since his first game.

  Maggie heard the sharp blast of a siren. She waved, recognizing Rick Anderson and Jake Coffee as they passed her on the opposite side of the street. She’d seen them twice today, which wasn’t unusual, as their beats overlapped. What made their presence noteworthy was that none of the guys were sticking to their beats today. They were barely sticking to their zones.

  Contrary to Cal Vick’s warning about cowboys, they’d all declared open season on the population. Maggie had stopped counting the radio requests for paddy wagons when the number reached ten. There probably wasn’t a black man in Atlanta who wouldn’t be fingerprinted by the end of the day. The mayor would be wise to stay in his office.