by Mike Markel
In an instant I realized that what I had heard was the creaking of the floor boards in the hallway outside my bedroom. But the sounds had stopped. Then I realized I have a thick carpet in my bedroom.
I started to reach for the 9mm in my nightstand, but it was too late. I felt a body pushing me down, back into my bed. Not his hands. It was more like his whole body was falling onto me. He was big and heavy, and he smelled like booze. Under his crushing weight I heard the breath explode from my lungs, then the sound of rustling fabric. I felt a cool, thin cloth, like the nylon shell of a down vest or jacket, close over my nose and mouth.
I tried to push him off my face, but he was too heavy. The pillowy stuffing beneath the nylon fabric closed in over my face.
I knew it was only a few seconds before I would lose consciousness. I tried to jerk a knee up, hoping I could land it between his legs, but my own legs were pinned under the sheet and two blankets and the guy’s suffocating weight.
I struggled to free my arms from under the blankets, but my right arm was pinned under his body. With my left I started to scratch at his face, then formed a fist. I landed a blow on his right ear and another on his face, but since my fist was hooking around from the side I wasn’t able to generate much force. He groaned, low and slow, but he didn’t react otherwise.
I felt along his right flank, but it was protected by his coat. I slid my hand down until it reached the bottom of the coat. Grabbing the fabric, I heard it rip as I pulled it up toward his shoulder to expose his flank. Forming my hand into a spear, I jabbed it into his flank between the bottom rib and the hip bone. He didn’t respond.
I started to see spots. I could tell I was losing consciousness. Even though I had been without air for only fifteen or twenty seconds, I was exerting too much effort trying to push him off me. I knew I had only a few more moments. I tried again to spear his flank, this time twisting my fingers back and forth after they landed.
He cried out in pain. I repeated the spear and twisted again, harder. Then again and again. He made some groggy sounds, the way drunks do when they start to come to, and began to roll off of me. I gasped for air as his jacket pulled away from my face, but the weight of his trunk as it rolled toward the side of the bed crushed my ribs on the right side.
I knew if I could get him to roll off the bed I might have a chance. For an instant his movement stopped, and I feared he would fall back onto me. I took a deep gulp of air in anticipation.
But he kept rolling, and finally his enormous weight lifted from my ribs. I heard a thunk, then he cried out as his head hit the corner of my end table. The table where I keep my 9. I reached into the drawer and pulled it out. I keep it loaded—I live alone—but I wasn’t planning to shoot him. At least not yet.
It was too dark for me to see him clearly, but I could make out the outlines of his head and body well enough. I lifted the pistol high and swung it down, toward his head. I felt it land, almost silently, on his scalp. This time he didn’t make a sound, didn’t move. I stayed there a few moments, the pistol trained on him. He was out.
I swung my legs out of the bed and turned on the light on the end table. That’s when I saw who it was.
Chapter 9
“Oh, Jesus,” I screamed. “Oh, God, no.” I was out of the bed, on the floor next to his body. I put my ear next to his mouth. He was breathing, but it was very faint. The blood on the right side of his scalp matted his brown hair. I slapped his face. “Come on,” I cried. “Come on.” But he didn’t seem to hear me.
I started to shake, out of control. I picked up my phone, opened it, and tried to dial 9-1-1, but my fingers couldn’t hit the right numbers. My stomach started churning real bad. The acid swept up into my mouth. I put the phone down on the end table and vomited all over the wall and the carpet. I began to choke. I held onto the window frame, gasping for breath. After a few seconds I was able to cough the crap out of my windpipe and start to breathe again. I was on my knees, puke all over my tee-shirt and my thighs, trying to get my breathing under control. I dug my fingernails into my thighs, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. It took another ten or fifteen seconds.
I looked down at Mac. He was on his back, his bloody head twisted to the side. His eyes were closed. I picked up my phone and dialed 9-1-1.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance.”
She asked me for my address, with the cross-street. Then, my full name and phone. I gave her all the information.
“All right, ma’am. I’m dispatching an ambulance. Please stay on the line. Tell me what happened,” the voice said.
“This man fell, hit his head on a table.”
“Are you with the man now?”
“He’s right here.”
“How old is he?”
“Not sure. Maybe fifty.”
“All right, ma’am. Is he conscious?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Is he breathing?”
“Yes, he is. I think he is. He was a minute ago.”
“Is he bleeding, ma’am?”
“Yeah, a little. On his head.”
“Okay, try to stop the bleeding if you can. Get a cloth, apply a little pressure. Just sit tight, okay? The ambulance will be there in about six minutes.”
I grabbed a sweatshirt and stopped the bleeding on Mac’s scalp. There wasn’t that much blood, but the scalp felt soft and squishy. I started to cry, panicking as I thought maybe I’d fractured his skull. I took a pillow off the bed and put it under his head. I didn’t know why.
As I waited for the ambulance, I kept checking to make sure he was still breathing. I looked down at his head. There was another red bruise, near his left eye. That would be from when he hit the night table.
He looked like shit. His tousled hair had an oily sheen. I’d put his beard at three to five days. The hangdog bags under his eyes were greyer than usual. His dark blue down coat was encrusted with dirt, grease, and solid stuff I didn’t want to identify. His gym-grey sweatpants had piss stains near the crotch. He wasn’t wearing socks. The black sneakers were untied. He smelled like Scotch and shit.
I’d met Mac at AA about a year ago. It was some time after my drinking had cost me what was left of my self-respect, long after it had cost me my family and my job. Our bond, based on intense self-loathing earned over years of lying, deceiving, and betraying the people in our separate lives, made us quite comfortable with each other. When you feel you don’t deserve anything good in your life, you don’t waste a lot of time trying to look your best.
Mac left me about six months ago, when his wife got a really bad diagnosis. It was the right decision for him. We didn’t stay in touch.
I didn’t know whether he was back on the booze full-time or whether he was simply spring-breaking it. It wasn’t news to me that Mac was weak, of course, but I assumed he was gone from my life. Those were the terms, and I’d lived up to them. I’d never called him, not once.
Now I checked him one more time. He was unconscious but still alive. The bleeding had stopped. I went into the bathroom and washed the puke off my face and my thighs. Brushed my teeth and put on a bra and a clean tee-shirt and a pair of jeans.
I heard the doorbell and went out to let the paramedics in. Then I realized how Mac had gotten in. A big chunk of the door frame was splintered, and a sliver of trim dangled from the chain. I must have been out pretty deep.
“This way,” I said to the two young paramedics, one beefy middle-aged guy and a skinny young one behind him. They half-lifted, half-dragged the gurney up my concrete steps. As I turned to lead them into the bedroom, I noticed the middle-aged guy running his finger down the busted doorframe.
“Over there.” I pointed to Mac’s legs, which were visible between the bed and the wall.
The older paramedic stopped when he saw my pistol on the night table. He turned to his partner and pointed to it. “Call the police.”
“I’m the police,” I said. I hadn’t realized my pisto
l was still out in plain view.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“My name is Seagate. I’m a detective, Rawlings Police Department. I’ll take care of it.”
He was shaking his head. “Is that your gun?”
“Yeah, that’s mine.”
“And you busted down your own front door?”
“No.” I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, this guy broke in. But I know him. It’s complicated. I’ll take care of the breaking and entering.”
The young guy looked up from his phone, his gaze shifting from me to his partner. He didn’t know whether to call it in, like his partner said.
“Listen, Detective,” the older guy said. He turned to the young guy. “Call it in, Ronnie.” Then, he turned back to me. “My protocol is clear. If I see evidence of a crime, I call the police. I don’t know what the hell happened here. Me and my partner are going to get this guy’s vitals and do what we need to do to keep him alive while we wait for the police, but we’re not getting in that ambulance without a cop sitting right next to us. You understand me?”
I nodded. The young paramedic called it in.
While the paramedics took Mac’s vitals, put him on the gurney, and set up an IV, I stood there, not knowing exactly what to do.
Mac had always been real good about my job. He gave me plenty of space, never tried to interfere. He knew he was toxic. Standing there, watching the paramedics work on him, wondering whether I’d just fucked him up bad, I began to think about how this was going to fuck me up, too.
The paramedics were right to call for the police, to insist on having a cop in the bus with them. It’s in their protocol for a good reason. Not that Mac would ever get violent with them. Not when he was sober, anyway.
Couple minutes later, I heard the knock on my door. The paramedic must have told them not to use the lights and siren.
It was two uniforms: Garcia and Abernathy. I recognized them.
“You okay, Detective?” Abernathy said. He was the senior one, about forty, couple years younger than me, a big, strong guy who liked to do community work. No interest in becoming a detective. He looked concerned.
“Yeah, thanks.” I shook my head and looked down at my feet, which was my way of acknowledging that bad shit had happened here tonight while signaling I didn’t want to talk about it.
“You’re gonna have to come in and make a statement.”
“I know that.” I paused. I pointed to the hall closet and the two officers stepped out of the way so I could get my coat.
Abernathy turned to his partner. “You go in the bus with the paramedics, okay?”
Garcia nodded and walked back toward the bedroom to check in with them.
Abernathy shifted his weight. “You ready, Detective?”
“Let me just get my bag.” I went back into my bedroom and grabbed it out of my closet. I took a quick look at Mac, who looked pale and fragile and pathetic.
Abernathy escorted me out to the patrol car and opened the door for me, which I took to be his way of saying he was sorry for having to bring me in. We didn’t talk on the drive to headquarters.
Abernathy carded us in and walked me into the detectives’ bullpen. There must be a couple of things more embarrassing than hearing a uniform tell the detective on duty that there was an incident at your home and you need to make a statement, but none that came to mind at that moment.
Pelton was the night detective. He was about fifty-eight or sixty, a little bit on the short and stocky side, but a good cop. He had two more years, I think.
“Let’s go into an interview room, Karen,” he said. I appreciated that he was trying to do this as quiet as possible.
We got settled. “Do you have to do that?” I said as Pelton turned on the recording unit from its controls on the wall.
He hit a button to pause it. “Way I see it, Karen, you want to get out in front of this. Be absolutely straight with us. If this guy broke into your house, that’s what you say happened. If it turns out he’s hurt bad and you had something to do with that …” He paused. “If his lawyer comes after you—or his family’s lawyer does—what you say over the next few minutes is gonna make the difference in whether you’re on the force. Or in prison.” He still had his hand on the button.
I nodded.
He hit the button again to start up the system. He came over and announced the time and who was in the room.
“Detective Seagate, do you want to have counsel present or do you want to make a statement now?”
“I’ll make a statement now.” I realized Pelton was right. This was important. I realized, too, that I was clean, and that not asking for a union rep or a lawyer would help make that point. This was all on Mac.
Pelton walked me through what had happened. I told him the truth: I was awakened by the sound of someone outside my bedroom. He fell on me, I couldn’t breathe.
“At this point, were you afraid for your safety?” Pelton was lobbing the slow pitch over the plate for me.
I told the truth. “Yes, I was. I didn’t know who the person was, but I was suffocating under his weight. I didn’t know what he was going to do.” I knew I had to say the next sentence. “I thought he was trying to kill me. Or rape me.”
And with that on the record, I knew I had just put Mac in a very bad place.
But as I was telling Pelton what had happened, telling it straight, I realized that it was Mac had put himself in that place. And that I didn’t have any other option. It would be up to Mac and his attorney to deal with what he’d done.
“Did you try to defend yourself?”
I tried to keep my voice steady and clear as I described how I pushed him off of me, how he hit his head as he fell off the bed, and how I hit him with the barrel of my pistol.
“Why did you hit him with the pistol?”
Again, Pelton helping me out. “I was afraid he might keep coming at me.”
“Detective Seagate, did you tell the paramedics that you had hit Mr. McNamara with your pistol?”
“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was upset. I was hoping this whole thing didn’t have to get written up.”
“Why is that, Detective?”
“I didn’t want to get Mr. McNamara in more trouble than necessary.”
“If your account of the incident is true, shouldn’t Mr. McNamara have to take responsibility for his actions?”
I was silent for a moment. “Mr. McNamara and I were in a relationship. It ended some months ago.”
“But you didn’t know it was Mr. McNamara who had broken into your house, is that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And regardless of whether you knew it was Mr. McNamara who had broken into your house, as the incident was occurring, you were trying to defend yourself. It was only after you had defended yourself against the attacker that you learned the identity of the attacker. Is that the case?”
“Yes, that’s the case.” I wiped at my nose. Suddenly I was dead tired, struggling to keep my eyes open. I saw Pelton lean in, looking hard into my eyes. He announced the time and ended the interview, then got up and walked over to the controls and shut down the system.
I heard myself crying as I put my head on the battered, scratched-up steel table. I was out for a few seconds. I felt Pelton’s hand on my shoulder. He was half lifting me out of the seat. Next thing I knew I was in the storage closet where we had a couple of cots for cops who were in the building when they should’ve been home. My head hit the pillow, and I was out.
Chapter 10
“Karen?”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I tried to rouse myself. All I could see was a silhouette of a man framed by a rectangle of light coming in from an open door. I had no idea where I was.
“It’s Ryan,” the voice said. I heard him walk toward the open door, then the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling started buzzing and lit up. I covered my eyes with my hands. My eyes stung and I had a screaming headache. It took me a few seconds t
o orient myself, and then I remembered the episode with Mac. I started to cry but tried to cover it up so Ryan wouldn’t see me falling apart. I wiped at my nose.
“What time is it?”
“Eight-twenty.”
“Shit.” I sat up quickly, which my head really didn’t like. “We were supposed to interview that professor at eight-fifteen.”
“It’s okay. I called her. Told her something came up. We’d be there at nine.”
I sighed. “Great, thanks.” I tried to pull myself together. “I’m really sorry about this.”
He raised his eyebrows. “About a guy breaking into your place and attacking you?”
He’d been briefed by Pelton, or the chief, or someone. “I don’t know what the hell happened.” I shook my head.
“A guy pushed your door open hard enough to pop the chain, break the door frame. He’s in your bedroom. You had to assume he was going to attack you.”
“Yeah.” I looked at my clothes: a tee shirt, sweatpants. “Do you think we could swing by my place so I can get some clothes?”
“You ready to go now?”
I looked around for my coat. Ryan retrieved it from a utility desk in the corner of the room and held it for me to get into. “Thanks.”
He led me out to the Charger. “I’ll drive, okay?” He gave me a gentle smile.
The sun was an indistinct glow above the horizon as we headed over to my place. “Who filled you in?” I said.
“Pelton,” Ryan said. “He told the chief, too.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“Yeah, I know. But I was kind of hoping I could go a whole year without bringing any personal shit into headquarters.”
Ryan pulled into my driveway and shut down the Charger. “It was that guy did it. You didn’t have any other options.”
I looked at my watch. It was 8:35. “You think I have a moment to call the hospital?”
“I called over at eight. They’re still working on him.”
