Remote Control

by Stephen White

  Lane replied, “Damn it to hell. I don’t believe this.”

  Lauren had stopped being able to feel her toes. She shifted her weight back and forth from one foot to the other, trying to prod her blood to circulate. She wanted to know what, or more precisely, whom, the police had just found in the street. But she also recognized that she was standing in the shadows of the porch of a house that wasn’t her own, and was loitering in a quiet residential neighborhood in possession of a gun that she had just fired.

  That state of affairs, she correctly surmised, wouldn’t look good to any cop confused about why he had a body in need of an ambulance lying in the middle of the street in a blizzard.

  She shivered. She couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold, or from fear. Though she really couldn’t see it anymore, she tried to imagine the terrain in front of her, the slope of the hill, the curve of the street.

  She told herself she had aimed high enough. She had.

  The next vehicle to slip-slide up the hill was an ambulance. One long screech of siren pierced the quiet night.

  Two more patrol cars followed the ambulance to the scene. All over the block, residents turned on their outdoor lights and huddled in their front rooms, silhouetted in picture windows. A few brave folks ventured out onto the shelter of covered front porches to see what the hell was going on.

  Part of what Lauren felt as she struggled to process the commotion unfolding on the street was relief. She couldn’t imagine that the man who was threatening Emma would have hung around now that police were staked out all over the block. Lauren’s duty as sentry could stop for the night. She could find Emma and help her rethink what to do next.

  Through a fresh crease in the storm she thought she could make out a fat white swell in the landscape, like a big mogul, about where she thought Emma’s predator’s car had been parked.

  If that’s his car, he must still be around.

  Where?

  The paramedics hurried from the ambulance and hunched over the body in the street. Two patrol officers held umbrellas to try to shelter the EMTs. But the crazy winds picked up again, blowing snow in every direction but straight down, turning the umbrellas into affectations.

  One of the paramedics said something that Lauren couldn’t hear.

  A deep baritone voice called back, “What did you say?” Then in a different pitch, “What’d he say? You hear him?”

  The wind changed and the next words were so clear to Lauren that they actually seemed to blow right into her face. “I said I think this guy has been shot. He has what looks to me like a gunshot wound in his back, low, just to the right of the spine. We’ve got to evacuate him stat. His blood pressure is falling like a rock. I think he’s going out.”

  The words registered slowly with Lauren.

  This guy has been shot….

  She raised her right hand and stared with revulsion at the gun she gripped, as though she couldn’t believe what it had done.

  Aloud, she said, “Oh my God, I shot him.”

  A strong gust from the northeast returned the whiteout with a vengeance. Lauren used the shield of the thick snow as cover as she edged back down Emma’s driveway to the sidewalk in front of the closest neighbor’s house.

  She knew she would have to turn herself in and tell the police she had fired the gun. The question was whether to do it here, or downtown at the station, or even at her office. If she turned herself in at work, at the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, she’d be sure to get some support from her colleagues. Whatever she did, though, she knew she couldn’t afford to leave a trail to Emma’s door. The stakes were too high.

  The police could not know what she was doing up here tonight. If they discovered the reason behind her visit, Emma Spire would be as good as dead.

  The wounded man was loaded onto a stretcher and then carried to the waiting ambulance. Seconds later it took off down the hill toward the hospital.

  Lauren made her decision. She stepped off the sidewalk onto the street, walked up behind the closest police officer, and tapped him gently on the shoulder.

  “Officer?”

  He turned her way but didn’t look at her. His dark hat was completely covered in snow. His mustache was caked with ice and his nose was running.

  “What?” he barked.

  “Officer,” she said again.

  He eyed her this time. She turned her head to the side and felt she recognized him, had seen him around, probably at the Justice Center or during one of her workday visits to the police department, but she couldn’t pin a name on him.

  “I’m Lauren Crowder, I’m a deputy DA here in Boulder County.”

  He was flustered. “Shit, that was quick. Who called you? We don’t even have a detective here yet.”

  “I was in the neighborhood already, Officer, on personal business. I think that I may be able to be of some help. You know, with what’s been going on.”

  “Well good, I could use some help. What a mess this is turning out to be. I woke up this morning already feeling like I’m getting the friggin’ flu and standing out here like a polar bear is not going to help the situation any, if you know what I mean.” His voice softened as he appraised her attractive face, and he took her by the elbow. “What do you say, let’s get in the car. You can tell me all the ways you can help me.”

  “All right,” Lauren said. She couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t tell what part of her anatomy he was staring at. Still, she felt that this cop had started flirting with her and wondered if she could use it to her advantage. She was suddenly intensely aware of how cold she was, so cold that she had trouble forcing the muscles in her mouth to form the simple words of assent.

  The cop yelled to his partner that he was going to do an interview and that the partner should get a perimeter up, and then he led Lauren over to the nearest patrol car, never removing his hand from her arm. He brushed as much snow off of himself as he could, slid into the driver’s seat, and told her to get in on the passenger side.

  She did, feeling her way cautiously around the car. The engine was running and the interior was warm. The patrol officer blew his nose loudly into a handkerchief that he pulled from inside his jacket and said, “So you know something about this?”

  Lauren still had enough of her wits about her to ask, “What do you have so far, Officer…?”

  “Oh—Riske, Lane Riske. It’s pronounced like it has a y but it doesn’t. Boy, do I hate it when my mustache freezes. Hard to talk, feels like my face is going to crack. Anyway, here’s what I got.” He emphasized the personal pronoun. “I get a call not too long ago about a body in the middle of the road. Guy who called nine-one-one from a cell phone. Anyway, I get the call, I figure it’s a crank. Maybe CU kids, maybe some imports from Denver, I don’t know, I don’t care, I mean, this isn’t the type of neighborhood where we get too many unexplained bodies in the middle of the road, or anywhere else for that matter. Somebody just wants to fuck with us, you know, excuse my French, get some laughs, yuk it up making some cops climb up a mountain in a blizzard? You know how it is.”

  As his speech progressed he seemed to become more and more aware that he was sitting with a most attractive woman and he became more animated.

  “So Loutis and I slalom up here and sure enough there’s a big pile of snow in the middle of the road. Could be a body, I think, but most likely is just a drift. Maybe a dead deer. We get those sometimes up here. So I tell Loutis to get out and take a look and, yep, I’ll be damned if it ain’t a body, the guy looking like he’s been run over. I mean, he has tire tracks still crusting in the snow on his legs. We cover the guy best we can and we call for an ambulance. Two minutes after the paramedics get here, they tell me the guy’s been shot. Screws my night. So that’s what I have. That’s all I have. So what can you do for me that can help me feel better about my shift?”

  Lauren briefly weighed whether Officer Riske’s juvenile behavior provided her with any leverage. She decided it wasn’t enough to make a d
ifference in what she had to do.

  She said, “I think, Officer, that you should reach into the pocket of my coat. Please reach in slowly. My hands will stay where you can see them. In my pocket, the one closest to you, you will find a handgun, a nine-millimeter Glock, with one round missing. The safety is on. I fired that gun tonight.”

  Riske looked down at her pocket, his eyes bulging. He didn’t reach toward the gun. He didn’t move a muscle. Finally, he said, “What did you say your name was? Do you have some ID with you?”

  Her purse was in her car. Her car was in Emma’s driveway. She wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Not with me, no. My name is Lauren Crowder. I’m a deputy DA with Boulder County. I’m sure you’ve seen me around the Justice Center.”

  “You do look familiar. And you say you have a weapon in your pocket?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Did you shoot this guy we found in the street?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that question. She said, “Not that I know of.”

  “But you fired your weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  Riske stared at her for a moment before he said, “Please lean forward and place both your hands on the dashboard. I’m going to remove the weapon from your pocket now.”

  She did as she was instructed.

  He tried to reach into her coat pocket but his thick gloves wouldn’t fit into the narrow slit in the fabric. Using his teeth, he tugged the glove from his right hand and finally wrestled the gun from the pocket of Lauren’s coat. When he removed his hand, he held the Glock G26 by the grip, using only his index finger and thumb.

  “I am going to need to ask you to move to the backseat of the patrol car, ma’am. While we sort this out. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  But she didn’t want to move. In her mind, the backseat of a police car was just a waiting room for a jail cell. A one-way street she didn’t want to be on.

  Her loss of control would start the second she moved to the backseat.

  “I am going to hook you up before I move you. Just a precaution. You understand why I need to do that?”

  She wanted to argue that handcuffs weren’t necessary. I’m a deputy DA, you know you don’t need to do that. But she knew there was no point in protesting. She held out her hands. He cuffed her wrists loosely in front of her, then reached across her chest and opened the passenger door. In a moment he joined her outside the car and opened the back door on the passenger side. As she stooped to get in the car, she felt his hand guiding her head into the backseat.

  She started to cry. That hand-on-the-head thing did it.

  Now this mess was real.

  She had an urgent need to call her husband, Alan, and tell him she would be late.

  For five minutes or so she sat alone in the close, warm car, fighting the return of tears, saying quietly, “I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry.” Snow wrapped the windows and collapsed the sense of space. The backseat was made of hard plastic and there were no handles for opening either the windows or doors. The blaring heater that had felt so good a few moments ago now felt oppressive. Awkwardly, she removed her gloves and laid them in her lap. She unbuttoned her heavy coat and pulled off her dripping earmuffs. She began to feel the ache of sensation creep into her toes.

  Officer Riske returned and slid into the front seat. His voice had hardened and he didn’t look her in the eyes. “I’ve been instructed to ask you for your gloves, ma’am. Were you wearing these gloves when you fired the gun?”

  “Yes, I was.” Immediately she doubted herself, wasn’t sure she should have answered the question.

  “May I have them, please?”

  He reached his hand through a narrow opening in the metal mesh that separated the front and back seats of the car. Seeing the movement, she lifted the gloves from her lap, felt for the slit, and passed them through.

  “Your earmuffs, too, please.”

  She had to scrunch them to fit them through the opening.

  “Where were you standing when you fired your gun?”

  She tried to look outside. All she saw was white. “I’m not sure. The storm, it’s so confusing.”

  “You’re not sure? Indoors or out?”

  “Out.”

  “Around here, though? This neighborhood?”

  “Yes.”

  “This block?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “On the street or in someone’s yard?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t recall where?”

  “Not exactly, no. There was a light.”

  “A light? What about a light? You fired at a light?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “How about approximately?”

  “So much snow, it was so hard to see. You know, you’ve been out there.”

  “About what time was it when you fired your gun?”

  “I’m not sure of that, either, exactly.”

  “Can you make a guess?”

  “The last hour or so. But that’s an estimate.” She was sure one of Emma’s neighbors would have heard the blast and would be able to time the shot. No point in trying to hide that fact.

  No point in drawing them a map, either.

  She caught herself.

  God, I’m thinking like a felon.

  “A guess then? Why did you fire your weapon, Ms. Crowder?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Am I under arrest, Officer?”

  “Should you be?”

  “Am I?”

  “At this time, my instructions are to hold you as a material witness in the investigation of a first-degree assault and, maybe—I don’t know—an attempted murder. By now, who the hell knows, given the way that guy looked when we loaded him into the ambulance, a possible homicide.”

  The passenger side door opened. Detective Scott Malloy pulled himself onto the front seat. The act was not graceful. He was covered with snow and he moved his limbs as though they lacked the requisite number of joints.

  “Hello, Lauren. Hello, Lane. May I have a minute or two here please, Officer Riske? See if we can clear this up.” His demeanor was pleasant, his voice matter-of-fact.

  Lauren managed to say, “Hello, Scott.” She didn’t add, “nice to see you.”

  Riske hesitated, pointed to the paper bags on the floor of the front seat, and said, “Her things, like you asked. The weapon, too.” He opened the door and left the patrol car.

  Lauren and Malloy had done a number of cases together over the last three years, since Scott Malloy made detective. They weren’t buddies, weren’t adversaries. She had always thought Malloy played fair, did his homework, and she couldn’t recall his work ever being sloppy or backhanded enough to leave the DA’s office looking like fools.

  As for Malloy, he had always considered her to be a prosecutor with her toe slightly over the line onto the cops’ side. She wasn’t blatantly pro-cop like some DAs, but she was all right. He knew there were a few cops, even one or two detectives, who didn’t trust her, considered her a Brownie.

  Malloy wasn’t dressed for the weather. His shoes were rubber-soled dress shoes, the ones he always wore on the job. And the unlined nylon shell he wore over his sport jacket was more appropriate for an Indian summer rain than for early winter snow.

  “This cold, let me tell you. Stiffens me up. When you have kids, don’t let them play football. I hate being stuffed in patrol cars.”

  Lauren didn’t respond.

  Scott Malloy, his voice different, all business, said, “So this is weird, isn’t it, being here with you hooked up like that? What’s going on? What’s this about you firing a gun up here tonight? Is that true?”

  She had already thought about what she was going to say. “I didn’t fire at anybody, Scott.”

  He winced and a tiny moan escaped his lips. She wondered if it was an old football injury flaring
up or indignation at what she had said.

  He said, “A: Someone was shot in the middle of this street. B: Officer Riske says you admitted firing a handgun. Let’s face it, it would be quite a coincidence if the two events are unrelated. This isn’t D.C. or L.A. Maybe, you’re saying, the shooting, it was like an accident?”

  “Maybe. If, indeed, I shot anyone.”

  Scott Malloy was puzzled. He hadn’t expected her to talk like a lawyer.

  “What were you doing up here in a blizzard? You visiting someone? You don’t live in this neighborhood, do you? I thought you and your husband lived on the east side.”

  No harm in confirming her place of residence. “That’s right, we live in Spanish Hills.”

  “But you were up here with a weapon?”

  She allowed the question to hang in the air.

  “The Glock you gave to Riske, is it yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I assume you have a carry permit for it?”

  “Yes. Sheriff has the records.”

  “Has someone been threatening you?”

  “Not recently, no. A while back, I received a threat from the family of a guy I was prosecuting. That’s when I got the permit.”

  Malloy was perplexed at how the conversation was developing. Lauren was being cautious, holding back on him. As soon as he had heard the news that Deputy DA Lauren Crowder was involved in an apparent shooting, Malloy had expected that she would provide some acceptable explanation for the events of the evening. It might be something that would make her and the DA’s office look foolish, but at least it would let him button this up and get home to his bed and his family before breakfast.

  Instead, she was giving him nada. That worried him. Here he had a possible capital and a lady deputy DA was acting guilty. That, he hadn’t expected.

  “You going to tell me what happened? Why you fired your gun.”

  No response.

  “You were in danger here, is that the way it came down? This guy attack you? Attempted rape? Carjacking? Robbery? What? Give me something here, Lauren, so I can unhook you and get you home to your husband.”