The Best American Mystery Stories 2012

by Otto Penzler

  “So, I’m laughing at Negron, he’s wiping his shoe on the edge of the porch. I start up the steps.”

  “How many steps?”

  “Four, maybe five.”

  “Where’s your gun at this point?”

  “Well, I have two guns on me. My Glock is in a belt holster under my coat, and a thirty-eight revolver is in the right coat pocket.”

  “Both regulation sidearms?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is your coat open or buttoned up?”

  “Open. You know, it was warm inside the car, so it’s open.”

  Cash glanced at the now tightly closed coat, the warmth of the room unable to reach Miles’s chill. “Go on.”

  “The old lady told us this guy didn’t have a weapon, none that she saw, anyway. We figured it for a dispute between two homeless squatters, we’d check it out and then leave. So while Negron is still scraping shit off his shoe, I go up maybe two, three steps and I hear something coming from inside the doorway.”

  “What did you hear?”

  Miles’s shoulders twitched and his right hand jerked out of his lap, fisting. “A sharp double metallic click. Like a weapon being locked and loaded. Negron heard it, too. He said Fuck! and I saw him duck in front of the porch and go for his gun. I just stood there, frozen.”

  Cash sat back in his seat, eyeing the young, trembling cop. “Go on,” he said softly.

  “All of a sudden this guy, this enormous fuckin’ guy, is right there, right in the doorway, maybe eight, nine feet away from me. A huge, crazy-looking guy, and he’s got a fuckin’ rifle in his hands. A rifle!”

  The words were pouring out now, and Cash held his questions. Let him spit it out, get it all out and over with. The details, actual or invented, could wait.

  “I almost peed myself. I mean, this guy looked like a real maniac, sweating, cursing to himself, stepping out onto the porch and swinging that rifle back and forth.” Miles spasmed slightly. He took a deep breath, held it briefly, then continued. “So I say, Hey, you know, like a fuckin’ idiot, and the guy zeroes in on me, he don’t hesitate for a second. I’m telling you he was crazy, and he starts yelling at me, something about his old lady, about his kid, something like that, and he’s pointing the rifle at me and I know he’s gonna kill me, and I’ve got my left hand on the banister, you know, I was climbing the stairs, and so I push myself backward. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, just throwing myself down the stairs. Then I hear this tremendous explosion and there’s a giant flash of light and I’m rolling down the stairs into the dirt, and Jesus Christ, I swear I did pee myself. I mean, I felt it, you know, the warm piss in my pants. I thought it was blood, I thought I was shot. Mr. Cash, I swear to God, I don’t remember taking it out, but my thirty-eight was in my hands and I’m pointing it at the guy and he’s swinging his aim over toward Negron, who’s down behind the front of the porch yellin’ something about us being cops, and the guy starts screamin’ he’s gonna kill us and he swings the rifle back at me, right at my fuckin’ chest, and he jacks another round into the chamber and my gun goes off and the guy just blinks like bullets can’t hurt him, and so I figure I missed. Then he fires again and I think I’m hit again, I’m going to die, and I start firing over and over. The last shot I see his shirt, he’s wearing a T-shirt, and I swear to God I see the shirt tear. It’s like slow motion. The shirt gets pushed in, like somebody poked him with a pencil or something, and then it pops out, out of the hole in his chest, and it’s torn, you know, the shirt is torn and it’s red with blood, and it just popped in, then out of his chest. Blood sprayed out of the hole—some of it hit me. It was like slow motion. Then he falls down, sits down actually. Negron goes rushing past me. The guy drops the rifle and it slides down the steps and Negron, he’s all red and excited and he sticks his Glock in the guy’s face and says, You son of a bitch, and the guy just plops onto his back and his head hits the porch, and that’s it. That was it.”

  Cash let a few moments elapse before asking, “Would you like some water or something? Coffee? Maybe the doctor can give you something more to relax you.”

  “No, sir. No.” Tears welled in Miles’s eyes, and he wiped them quickly away. He sighed and looked down at the floor, his right leg shaking, anger and shame weighing heavily on him. The tears welled again, and Cash rose and turned to face the window, his back to the young man. Uneasy moments passed before he sat down again and spoke.

  “What happened next?”

  Miles shook his head clear. His voice was low, flat. “Sanchez came up and started running his hand over me. You know, I was down on the ground, the guy had fired right at me, so Sanchez figured I was hit. He kept saying, Holy Christ, are you okay, are you okay? I stood up. Sanchez took the gun out of my hand and put it in my pocket. We just stood there looking at each other. Then Negron said, Come on, and he ran into the house. There coulda been a second perp, we had to clear the place, so me and Sanchez followed him.”

  “Did you look at the body?”

  “No.”

  “Go on.”

  “The old lady told us the guy’s room was on the second floor. We went up. It was very dark. Then we saw an old kerosene lamp in what we figured was the guy’s room, that was the only light. Negron and Sanchez went in. That’s where they found the heroin on a small table against the wall. I just sorta wandered into the bathroom. And for the first time in my life, my mind was a total blank. I wasn’t even thinking, Hey, you’re not thinking about anything. It was just completely blank, empty. I had a pencil flash in my pocket. I took it out and turned it on. That’s when I saw myself in the old mirror, in the bathroom, you know, and I started . . . I started crying. But it was crazy, like I was crying for no reason, because my mind was blank, totally blank. I was just looking at my reflection, then I started shaking like a leaf and threw up in the sink. Just like that, I puked, and I felt so embarrassed. Negron came into the bathroom, he had his light on, too. I don’t know what he was saying, I felt so ashamed, and then he just went away and I was alone. I shut the door. I wanted to wash out the sink, clean myself up, but there was no running water. I didn’t want to leave the bathroom. I was embarrassed.” Miles shook his head slightly. “Then it dawned on me, what the hell, I did my job, I’ve got no reason to be ashamed. Then, all of a sudden, I got real hostile . . . like I was thinking, Fuck everybody, fuck them. It was stupid, I guess.”

  Cash didn’t comment. Instead he asked, “What happened next?”

  “Sanchez came in, didn’t knock or anything, just opened the door and walked in. He said he was going to seal the building and call for the detectives. I think that’s when he told me they had found some crack, too, I don’t remember for sure. Anyway, I walked out of the bathroom. There were uniformed cops everywhere. Sanchez had put out a Shots fired—ten-thirteen. I wandered off, went downstairs. Some neighborhood people were standing outside the house, a little crowd of them. I guess the radio cars woke ’em up. It was very weird, this deserted street all of a sudden with this crowd . . . They looked like . . . like zombies or something. Like it was Halloween. They were talking and looking at the dead body and having a good time. I think some of them made me for the cop who shot the guy. I got some dirty looks, you know, and some mumbles. Most of them didn’t seem to care much, though. One old guy wanted to shake my hand, told me there were a few others around needed killing.”

  “Where was the woman who started the whole thing?” Cash asked.

  “Some uniform was holding her in a black-and-white, waiting for the detectives. Anyway, I went to look at the body. You know . . .” He shrugged and let his voice trail off.

  “You said the people were looking at the dead body. How’d you know it was dead?”

  This seemed to stun Miles. “I just figured. I don’t know, he looked dead.”

  “You said before you hadn’t yet looked at the body, so how’d you know it looked dead?”

  Miles did not respond. Instead he seemed puzzled, confused.

  Cash sa
id softly, “Listen, Anthony, I’m only asking you what others will ask. And you have to provide the right answers. Just off the top of my head, you had better polish up your demeanor and change some terminology about certain things when you’re speaking to the investigators. And you need to make eye contact with them, not stare out the window like somebody reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy. You can’t say you responded to the call because Negron wanted ‘action’ or because you were ‘bored.’ You can’t say you didn’t know what you were doing when you threw yourself down the stairs, you can’t say you don’t know how your weapon got into your hand. You can’t say you felt hostile or pissed off. Look, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, Anthony, but you need a tighter version, a neat, professional version. You took the call because the woman made an official complaint, you defensively threw yourself out of the way of the first shot, you drew your weapon, and after Negron’s shouted identification as police officers and the perpetrator’s second shot, you fired that weapon. Your gun just didn’t ‘go off,’ you fired in defense of your life and the life of your partners. Now I’ll ask you again, how’d you know the man was dead before you looked at the body?”

  Miles was sweating heavily at this point and at last opened his coat. He shifted in his seat and looked into the lawyer’s eyes. “I knew he was dead because . . . because Negron had examined the body shortly after the shots were fired, and he told me that the perpetrator appeared to be dead.”

  “All right,” Cash said with a curt nod of his head. “And after they sealed the house, what then? Did you speak to anyone? What did you do?”

  “Sanchez approached me. He told me not to talk to anybody, not even another cop, until after Negron got ahold of the union lawyer. Then he slapped me on the arm and walked away; he was trying to disperse the crowd. In the meantime, more cops poured into the area. Negron was keeping guys away, you know, so they wouldn’t mess up the scene. I just sorta got lost in the crowd.”

  “Is that when you looked at the body?”

  Miles squirmed slightly in his seat. “Yeah. I walked over and there he was, just where he fell. His eyes were open.”

  “What did you think when you looked at the body? Did you think, This guy almost killed me, something like that?”

  Miles hesitated. “Look, Mr. Cash, I didn’t think anything like that. And what does it matter what I thought? Thoughts don’t mean much. I had . . . I had crazy thoughts, but they weren’t anything like you might think.”

  Cash smiled a thin, tired smile. “You’re right, Anthony, most thoughts don’t mean much. But tell me anyway. I need to get the whole picture in order to best protect you.”

  Miles looked pale. He was trembling more noticeably now and clasping his hands together in an attempt to steady them. He suddenly removed his pea coat, folding and dropping it neatly to the floor. He peered up at Cash. “All right,” he said. “You want to hear it, I’ll tell you. But like I said, it was a little crazy. I don’t really understand it, but here it is. I went over and looked at the body. It seemed sort of . . . sort of fake, you know? Like a mannequin or a pile of laundry. It was like . . . like a machine that somebody unplugged. And then, all of a sudden, I started thinking about . . . about college. When I took an anatomy class, senior year. The professor I had was great, he made it very interesting, you know? We learned about the human body, the bones and muscles, the glands, the brain, the blood and heart, all functioning together, forming a human being. You know, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you’re rich or poor or whether you’re good or evil, everybody’s got the same stuff inside, like a computer or something. Your values, your personality, that’s all secondary. What’s important is your body, your anatomy. That’s what I thought about when I looked at the guy. My anatomy elective.”

  Cash said nothing when Miles fell silent. Over the years he had interviewed enough people to know when to be silent and when to speak. He knew Miles would continue. Cash didn’t care about body parts, he cared about the facts surrounding the shooting. And he was willing to let Miles digress for a while if that’s what it took to gather those facts.

  “Anyway,” Miles continued, as though there had been no break in his narrative, “I just kept on thinking about anatomy and my professor. The human body was like God to him, he worshipped it. Like even though he spent years studying and teaching, he was still fascinated by it. Some of the students didn’t give a damn, but I did. I found it all so amazing. I remember discussing it one day with some blonde who sat next to me in class. She said it was boring, she only took the course because it fit into her schedule and was offered as a pass-fail. I tried to explain why it was so fascinating, but she was completely turned off by it. Then she said something that had never occurred to me. And it all came flooding back into my head while I was looking down at the bloody hole in that guy’s chest.”

  Cash found himself frowning. “And what was that?”

  Now Miles raised his eyes to meet Cash’s. “She said, This guy, meaning the professor, the one I figured was so cool, This guy is a real cold bastard. He talks about people like they’re meat. To him, there’s no difference between anybody—just between dead and not dead. That’s what she said. At first it kind of pissed me off. But then after I thought about it, I began to see her point. And I had it filed away in my head all these years that she was right, you know? Like people really are more than just blood and veins and body parts. But when I looked at that body tonight, I realized the only difference between it and me was that it was dead and I wasn’t. The only difference. Its systems were shut down, mine weren’t. Its heart was stopped, mine was beating.” Miles shrugged. “See? Crazy, right?”

  “Yes, well . . . people have odd thoughts at times like that.” Cash wanted more relevant information. “What about the perpetrator, Anthony? How many times had you shot him?”

  “Well, there was the chest. There was also a side wound, the right side, by the ribs. And one of the bullets hit him in the hand. The EMT found that one. The detectives checked my gun. I had fired all six rounds.”

  Cash reached across the table and patted Miles’s shoulder. “This sounds like a very clean shooting, son. If Sanchez goes along and the crime scene unit confirms those two rifle shots, you’ll waltz through the mandatory grand jury inquest. You did what you were forced to do. You need to realize that, calm down a little.”

  Miles looked up at Cash, his sad eyes hooded. “Mr. Cash,” he asked softly, “have you ever wept?”

  The question surprised the older man. “Sure, son, everyone cries. Don’t think because you’re a man or a police officer that you’re not allowed to cry.”

  Miles shook his head sharply and leaned forward in his seat. His tone implored Cash for understanding. “Not cry. I’m talking about weeping. When I looked at that guy, I sat down on the porch next to him and I wept. I mean, really wept. In my whole life I never did that; sure, I’ve cried—from pain, frustration, anger, sorrow, but I never wept. Not until tonight.”

  Cash straightened in his seat. Jesus, he thought, the kid was really taking this hard. All this crap about weeping and crying, as if there were some difference. “Look, son, it’s tough, we all cry, and no cop who saw you will ever mention it. They know it could be them next time.”

  Miles reacted sharply, almost rising from his seat. “No, dammit,” he said in a suddenly strong, clear voice. “It’s not the macho thing, it’s not about crying, it’s about weeping! You don’t understand. I didn’t care about that guy, or his family, or his friends, nobody. I only cared about his body, his blood and his brain, his chemistry, his parts, his fuckin’ anatomy. All that incredible machinery, broken, dead. I wept for that. Don’t you understand? Nobody ever thinks about that or cares. But that’s all there is, Mr. Cash, that’s all there is to care about.”

  Cash leaned back in his seat. “Listen, Anthony, you’re tired, you’re upset. You’re not making a hell of a lot of sense here, and tomorrow no one will appreciate that kind of talk. It doesn’t sound . .
. just doesn’t sound right, do you understand?”

  Miles shook his head and abruptly stood up. He was still trembling. He stepped around the table to the window. “I don’t care how it sounds, it’s true. Just look out there.” He gestured at the window. Cash turned somewhat nervously, as much to keep his eye on Miles as to glance out the window. “Look out at Camden. Tell me, what value does a person have if he’s a rapist, a murderer, a junkie? Or a liar or a cheat, or a mean bastard or skinflint for that matter? How many people out there fit that description, or part of that description? If some terrorist blew it all to hell, what would be said? All those poor people, those poor human beings, murdered. But they’d be talking . . . about something else, something totally different from what I’m saying. They wouldn’t care about the bodies, the machinery. That’s why I wept for that guy, because I destroyed his body. If his soul even existed, it wasn’t worth a damn to him, me, or anybody else. Humans are pompous fools, they award themselves souls so they can look at a cow or a monkey and say, I’m better than that, I’m a human being. So what, Mr. Cash? How can anyone really give a goddamn?”

  Cash rose from his chair and moved closer to Miles. He faced the window, speaking to his own reflection in the darkened glass. “Anthony, you killed a man tonight. When you took this job, you must have asked yourself at least one time, Am I willing to chance being killed? Am I willing to chance killing someone? Well, tonight it came to pass, son, and you did what had to be done. If you’re going to get all philosophical about it, you’ll only cause yourself a lot of grief. You wouldn’t be so damn philosophical if you were lying in the morgue right now, or up in the OR with a bullet lodged in your spine. You killed a man; I don’t give a damn if you think you killed his soul, his body, or his goddamned asshole. He’s dead and you’re not. So when you’re interviewed tomorrow, you forget about all this bullshit and you talk facts; you talk distance in feet and inches, you talk lighting and visibility, and you talk police procedure. You talk it because that’s what they want to hear. That’s what they need to hear. If you have a problem with something, talk to a priest. If you can’t handle it, go see a psychiatrist. This is a police shooting and we talk facts, not bullshit. Do you understand me, Anthony?” Cash turned and peered at the young officer. “Do you understand me?” he said into the bloodshot eyes glaring back at him.