Interest of Justice

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Then, four years ago, the incomprehensible had occurred: Hank Carlisle had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

  His police cruiser had been found abandoned alongside the Interstate just outside the Arizona/California state line—that long, dusty stretch of road highway patrol officers call no man’s land. The car doors as well as the trunk of the police unit had been left standing wide open, and no blood or other evidence was found in the vehicle. He’d made no radio transmissions the hour prior to his disappearance.

  The investigators had put it together only one way: Sergeant Hank Carlisle had made a routine traffic stop that summer night four years ago, probably to issue a speeding citation. The motorist he’d stopped was a wanted criminal. Knowing the policy of the highway patrol was to check wants and warrants on all traffic stops, the person or persons had jumped Carlisle as he walked back to his unit to use his radio. The most likely scenario was that he was struck from behind with something heavy, the butt of a weapon perhaps. Then when he was unconscious, he had been disarmed, transported to another unknown location and executed.

  After months of digging in the miles of barren, sandy earth, the authorities had failed to locate the body. They’d used dogs and helicopters, the most sophisticated aerial photography, canvassed the area on foot and in four-wheel drive vehicles. But they found nothing. No body, no evidence, not a single thread they could pursue.

  Ann had suffered through grueling interviews from highway patrol investigators, question after question about their marriage, their finances, their friends and associates. They had to rule out everything, they told her, even the possibility that her husband had purposely staged his disappearance for some reason they had as yet to uncover.

  Thank God, Ann thought now, the ruling of foul play had officially been entered in the file. The ruling was important for more reasons than her peace of mind. Although the department had been issuing Ann small checks each month from Hank’s retirement fund, they had as yet to release his life insurance money. She could use that money to put David through college.

  Ann reached her ‘87 black Jeep station wagon, nearly alone in the parking lot. Once she was in the driver’s seat, she turned the key in the ignition. There was only a click. “Damn,” she said, trying it again. Her response met with another metallic click; the engine wasn’t engaging at all. It couldn’t be the battery she told herself, getting more annoyed by the second. She’d just replaced the battery last week. This time it had to be something more costly—like the starter. Getting out of the car, she slammed the door and tried to figure out what to do.

  Glancing back at the court complex, Ann thought of returning to call the emergency road service. For a few moments she just leaned back against the car and let the cool evening air brush across her face, telling herself that she mustn’t let little things like this get to her.

  Her eyes rested on the windows of the jail, and she watched as shadowy figures moved around inside. The complex took up an entire city block, housing almost every official agency in the county. During the day it was next to impossible to find a parking place, though Ann estimated there were enough slots for five hundred or more cars. The county had also sprung for some decent landscaping. Oleander bushes formed a tall hedge all around the parking lot, filtering the noise from Victoria Boulevard, a major divided thoroughfare in Ventura. Ann thought they were nice, since they softened the concrete and gave her a little greenery to look at from her window.

  Deciding the road service could only tow her to the nearest garage if it was the starter like she suspected, Ann decided to walk home. It wasn’t that late, and David had probably snacked all afternoon anyway. In the morning she’d ask her supervisor’s husband if he would have someone look at her car. He was the service manager of a local car dealership and frequently had Ann’s car repaired for free. Besides, she told herself, her house was only five blocks up Victoria. If she walked briskly, she could be home faster than if she returned to the building and hailed a cab.

  Ann began walking toward the exit that she normally used when driving and then changed course. She’d spotted an opening in the oleanders in the far corner of the lot that would place her right on the sidewalk for Victoria Boulevard. From there she could walk straight up the hill to her house.

  Just as she reached the opening, Ann heard a loud pop and jerked her head around. It sounded like a gunshot. She scanned the empty parking lot and then peered through the foliage to the street. There was nothing. Steadying her nerves, she decided it must have been a car backfiring. People were always mistaking cars backfiring for gunshots. When she had been a cop, she’d responded hundreds of times to these type of false alarms.

  Bending down, she ducked inside the bushes. As her heels sank into the mud, she scowled, thinking her shortcut might not have been such a good idea after all. The automatic sprinklers had just gone off, and the ground was soaked. “Shit,” she said, squatting down even lower to inspect her shoes. Mud was oozing out around them. She’d have to remind herself to clean off her shoes before she went in the house, or the carpet would be ruined.

  Pushing back the branches of the tall shrubs, Ann was about to step out onto the sidewalk when she heard another loud crack.

  Her shoulder…her left shoulder.

  “Oh, God,” she cried. Her mind began spinning, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Instinctively her hand flew to the spot where the pain was, and she touched something wet. When she brought her hand to her face and saw the blood, she screamed. “I’ve been shot…God, help me…someone’s shooting at me.

  She heard an engine roar, tires squealing, and smelled the distinctive odor of burning rubber.

  Get down, she told herself, but she was unable to move, paralyzed with fear. Stumbling forward, lashing out at the bushes with her hands, Ann fell forward onto the concrete sidewalk, her good arm cushioning her face from being badly scraped. “I’ve been shot. Someone help me. Please…get an ambulance…police.”

  Even though Ann was desperately trying to scream and draw attention to herself, she could hear her own words mumbled against the sidewalk. Like boiling water poured over her back, she felt the hot blood spreading, dampening her blouse.

  She tried to slow her racing heartbeat, tried to find strength inside the panic. The bullet could have struck an artery. Stretching her fingers forward, fighting against the pain and raging fear, she found them resting in a spreading puddle of her own blood.

  As her life pumped out on the sidewalk, Ann could hear her internal organs with unnatural clarity: her lungs straining for oxygen, her heart pulsating and pumping, pumping, like the sound an oil rig made. She was going to die. But she couldn’t die. It wasn’t fair.

  She’d already paid her dues in suffering…her precious child. He needed her. She was all he had in the world. If there was a God, she kept telling herself…He just couldn’t let this happen.

  Cars were zipping by on Victoria Boulevard, the exhaust fumes choking her as she gasped for breath. Without success she tried to make her cries louder, attract someone’s attention before it was too late and she passed out. “Help me…please help me…I’ve been shot.”

  As soon as she uttered the words, her face fell back to the cement, the coarse surface scraping her chin. Black spots were dancing in front of her eyes. She was nauseous, both hot and cold at the same time. “I can’t pass out,” she told herself. If she passed out, she would bleed to death for sure.

  Gritting her teeth and pushing with all her might, Ann managed to get up on all fours. Then she collapsed again and had to struggle all over.

  Ann could hear noises: cars passing, people’s voices and laughter, a siren somewhere in the distance, a jet streaking over her head. “I’m right here,” her mind kept screaming. People were all around her. Why couldn’t they see her, hear her? “Help me,” she cried again, this time louder. “Please help me.”

  Turning her face toward the sound of voices, Ann realized the parking lot for Marie Callender’s was right a
cross the divided parkway. People were walking in and out of the restaurant. She was so close—yet not close enough. The traffic, the wide divided roadway, Ann’s position right outside the line of shrubbery made her all but invisible in the darkness.

  “Help me,” she called again, fixing her line of sight on a couple with a young child who were about to get into a dark blue station wagon. The woman was laughing and talking to the man, the little boy’s hand clasped in her own. Just then the boy turned and walked across the street toward Ann. “I’m here…over here,” she yelled, lifting her head off the concrete. “I’ve been shot…get help.”

  While Ann watched in agony, the little boy’s mother jerked his hand. Not breaking stride, the family got inside their car and were soon pulling out onto the street. “No,” she cried, a pathetic wail. “Don’t…leave…”

  She was going to die.

  As the puddle of blood increased and the pain intensified, Ann tried to focus on the image of her son’s face, use it to fuel herself, give herself strength. Once again she tried to push her weakening body to her feet, blocking out the pain. It’s not an artery, she told herself. You’re going to be fine. Maybe it wasn’t even a bullet. Maybe she’d backed into a jagged metal wire…something sharp.

  “Stay calm,” she could hear her father say. He’d told her that right after she graduated from the police academy and had seen her first dead body—that of a child. She’d come home and told her father she couldn’t do it, wanted to resign. She was too young, too sensitive to be a cop. “Everyone is sensitive to death. If a person wasn’t sensitive to death, they wouldn’t be human. Take some deep breaths and call on your inner strength,” he’d said firmly.

  Ann suddenly felt herself fully upright. Her vision was blurred and distorted, perspiration streaming from her forehead into her eyes, but she was standing. She knew now what she had to do. She had to make it across the street.

  “Are you hurt?” a concerned voice said from behind her. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m…I’ve been…” She tried to hold on, to turn around, to speak. Help was here…it was going to be all right now.

  Ann felt her strength evaporating. As soon as she felt an arm brush against her side, felt the comforting warmth of another body against her own, she allowed the person to lower her back to the ground.

  “You?” Ann mumbled as a disembodied face floated in front of her. Gentle, caring eyes looked down into her own, the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen.

  “Get an ambulance,” a voice yelled so loud she was startled. “Quick, she’s hemorrhaging. She’s going into shock. And…blankets. Get blankets. Look in my trunk.”

  The next second the voice was calm and soothing, and Ann saw a man leaning over her body, his shirt brushing against her face. “We have to apply pressure. The bullet struck an artery. Be still and relax. The ambulance is on the way.”

  The man moved to the other side of Ann’s body and she felt his hands on her. She kept watching his face, lost in his eyes. From somewhere far away Ann remembered them, knew she had seen them. She was swimming now somewhere between consciousness and blacking out, aware but not really awake—a murky wavy world, almost as if she were under water. She heard other voices, heard other feet pounding in her direction. All she could see was this face, hear this reassuring voice, feel the warmth of this person’s touch on her body.

  Through the fog Ann heard a shrill siren piercing the night. With his free hand the man stroked Ann’s forehead, gazed down in her eyes again. Hair brushed across her face. “Your hair…” Ann said. It was like a soft blanket.

  “You’re going to be fine,” the voice assured her. “The bullet entered near your shoulder.”

  Ann strained to see, hear. The face was becoming distorted. She felt a rush of emotion—love—mixed with a feeling of complete peace. “Hank,” she whispered. “I knew you’d come back.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered and then closed involuntarily. She felt an unknown force pulling her down into the darkness. She desperately held on to the image of the man in front of her, refusing to let it go. It was the only thing between her and the nothingness that was calling. Then she was sinking, unable to hold on. She heard Hank’s voice, smelled his body next to her own, recognized his firm touch. Hank was here. Her son would have his father. She could let go.

  A few seconds later, she let the darkness take her.

  About the Author

  Nancy Taylor Rosenberg worked for the Dallas Police Department, the New Mexico State Police, the Ventura Police Department, and as an Investigative Probation Officer in Court Services in Ventura County, where she handled scores of sex crimes and murders. Her first novel was the New York Times bestseller Mitigating Circumstances.

  She lives in Laguna Niguel, California.