The Bullet

by Mary Louise Kelly

  “Never handled firearms before?” asked the woman. A name tag identified her as Irene. Her skin was bad and her black hair hung in an unflattering bowl cut, but—from what I could see of her jeans behind the counter—she had a fantastic figure.

  “Never,” I confirmed.

  “You looking for a revolver or a semiautomatic?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  She and Tony exchanged glances. “Why don’t you try ’em both out, see what you like. Personally, I love me a revolver. Just as accurate, won’t jam on you.” She took out a gun, spun it open to demonstrate it wasn’t loaded, laid it on the counter. “Is this for carrying in your purse or keeping in your nightstand? Picking the right gun’s all about trade-offs.”

  I glanced down at my purse, a black Chanel clutch that I’d bought in Paris years ago. It had taken months to pay it off on my credit card, and it was barely big enough to fit my car keys and a lipstick. “Nightstand, I guess.”

  “So you could go with a bigger gun. Less kickback.”

  “Wouldn’t a bigger gun have more kickback?”

  “I knew you’d ask that.” She smiled sweetly. “Beginners always do. But think about it. You fire the same bullet from a big gun and a small one, the bigger one’s gonna absorb more of the recoil. Basic physics. Let me get you two set up. I’m not busy, it’s quiet as a church in here today.”

  Irene strung a target halfway down the firing range. She showed me how to hold a gun, how to load it, how to aim. Easy. The target had a blue bull’s-eye and a helpful Shooter Tutor. If your shots were going wide to the left, it told you to adjust your trigger finger. If they all went low, you were anticipating recoil. And so on. But the only thing consistent about my performance was that every shot missed, by a mile.

  After my first ten attempts, Irene reeled in the target to a mere five yards away. “Doesn’t need to be too far, don’t worry. Let’s be real, you want a gun for personal protection, you’re not gonna be shooting the guy from twenty-five yards, are you?”

  The trouble may have been my utter lack of athletic ability, I don’t deny it. I had demonstrated lamentable hand-eye coordination convincingly and humiliatingly in year after year of childhood sports events. But you try shooting left-handed when you’re not. My dominant right hand dangled in its brace. At the start I had tried to wrap it around my left, for stability, but the kickback hurt too much, no matter which model gun we tried.

  After half an hour, all three of us could tell it was a lost cause. I paid and tipped Irene. She handed over my Shooter Tutor as a souvenir.

  In the parking lot, I crumpled it into a ball. “Well, that was embarrassing.”

  “You did fine,” Tony said. “It’s my fault. I should have taken into account how hard it would be to shoot with one arm in a brace.”

  “You looked ready to disown me as your sister in there.”

  “Only when you were asking genuinely idiotic questions, like whether there’s a difference between a revolver and a semiautomatic.”

  “Well, is there?”

  “For chrissake.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I said nastily, “you can disown me anytime you like. Since we’re not actually related.”

  He spun around. His face was purple. “Don’t say that again. Ever.”

  I jerked open the car door, threw myself inside, and slammed it shut. He stood frozen in the parking lot, watching me through the window the way you would watch a rabid possum.

  We drove home in silence, Tony at the wheel, staring grimly out the windshield.

  As we crossed the Key Bridge into Georgetown, I stretched my left hand to rest on his shoulder. He did not swat it away. That’s as close to saying sorry as Tony and I tended to get.

  • • •

  AT LUNCHTIME BEAMER Beasley telephoned. Again.

  I was surprised to hear from him so soon. The formal interview had gone fine this morning. An unmarked police car had delivered me to and from the session. Both Beasley and Gerry Fleeman, the head of the Cold Case Squad, were on the video linkup asking questions; I’d thought I’d answered them satisfactorily.

  But apparently, not until afterward did Beasley finish digging through the boxes. He had found evidence bullets. Several, fired from two different guns. They would have something to compare my bullet with after all.

  “I thought you didn’t have sample bullets,” I said, shocked. “The one that hit Boone, I thought the killer gouged it out of the doorframe—”

  “These aren’t from your crime scene. These are bullets collected as a precaution, for the purpose of comparison.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Easiest way to match a bullet isn’t against the gun that fired it. It’s against another bullet. You compare like to like. You know what rifling is? It’s the spiral grooves, on the inside of a gun barrel. Every rifle, every handgun, has rifling almost as unique as a fingerprint. Even ones made in the same batch, in the same factory. And the differences get more pronounced over time, as the gun gets cleaned and fired. So when you fire a gun, it leaves its signature on the projectile. We’re talking tiny markings. Microscopic. But a good lab tech can spot them. With homicide cases, you always fire sample shots from a weapon recovered from a crime scene.”

  I was still struggling to follow this. “The point remains that you didn’t find a gun in my parents’ house. Or a bullet.”

  “True. We did have suspects, though. Remember? I told you about three separate men who we brought in for questioning, for one reason or another. Two of them owned guns. Nothing illegal about that. We didn’t have cause to seize the firearms. But we did fire test bullets from them, into ballistic gelatin. Just in case. Just in case another bullet ever came along to match.”

  I sucked in my breath. “You’ve been hoping all this time to get your hands on the bullet in my neck.”

  “That’s an ugly way of putting it.”

  “But—but why didn’t you tell me about the other bullets before?”

  “I didn’t know. I’ve worked homicide on and off for forty years. We’re talking hundreds, maybe a thousand murders. Not making excuses, but that’s a lot of evidence to keep straight in your head. And like I told you, back in ’79 we were getting slammed by a new murder nearly every day here in Atlanta.” Beasley swallowed. “I was praying we’d had the sense to collect evidence bullets during your mama and daddy’s investigation, but I wasn’t sure. Couldn’t remember. Nothing in the paperwork that I had kept indicated one way or the other.”

  I sighed. “I suppose it’s a miracle they weren’t thrown away. That you were able to lay hands on them after so much time.”

  “If you could see what passes for a filing system down here, you’d know that that’s the truth.” He harrumphed. “Meanwhile, I gather your operation’s been bumped up to Monday.”

  “Yes, and I really wish you hadn’t hassled my surgeon without checking with me first.”

  “Ms. Cashion. It’s my job to collect the evidence. And to do what I can to protect you. Trust me, it’s in your interest to hurry up and get that bullet out. If I had my way, they’d be wheeling you into the OR this very minute.”

  Thirty-two

  * * *

  Beasley’s news shook me.

  Perhaps the most frustrating aspect was that I could do nothing but wait. Wait for next week’s operation, wait to see if I ended up paralyzed, wait to see if the bullet proved useful. I paced my bedroom. Picked up a book, tried to concentrate, snapped it shut after I found myself reading the same paragraph on Jean-Paul Sartre a fourth time. I resumed pacing. Feeling frightened, furious, and at loose ends—all at once—proved a dangerous combination. By six that evening I gave in to temptation.

  Will’s cell did not answer, and his work phone went straight to an answering service. His house, then. It surprised me to realize I had only a vague notio
n where he lived. Helpfully, Zartman is an unusual name. The white pages online listed a phone number and a home address. Lorcom Lane in Arlington, Virginia. Just across the river.

  I could hardly drive there myself. Not after the burglary, not after what Beasley had told me. I was a prisoner in my childhood home. I sat pondering the problem. Then I called Martin and told him I needed to see someone, that we were headed to Arlington, and that he would have to wait in the car.

  He picked me up an hour later. “Let me guess. Your Dr. Sprockets.” Martin smirked.

  I shot him an annoyed glance, said nothing.

  “Tony said he’s a great guy. Why don’t you just invite him up to the house? Are you hiding him from Mom and Dad for some reason?”

  “As it happens, he’s not returning my calls.”

  My brother cocked his head sideways. “I hate to break this to you, but generally speaking, that’s a sign that a guy isn’t interested.”

  “Thank you for that deep insight into the male mind,” I retorted. “I know what it usually means. But I think—I’m hoping—he’s avoiding me because he’s trying to do the honorable thing.”

  I explained about doctor-patient relationships being verboten. About Will’s squirming and then storming out the other night.

  “You could switch doctors,” Martin said.

  “That’s what I told him.”

  It was quiet on Lorcom Lane. The streetlights had switched on to illuminate two- and three-story brick colonials, well-kept, typical American suburbia. I felt uneasy. I had imagined Will living in a condo, maybe a converted loft, all exposed brick and soaring ceilings.

  When we reached the right address, Martin swung the car into the driveway.

  His headlights picked out Will’s Jeep. A basketball hoop hung suspended above the garage. Below it a child’s bike lay on its side.

  All of a sudden, I understood.

  • • •

  YOU WANTED A scene? You wanted to read about me bursting into tears, about the clichéd confrontation with the pretty wife who answers the door, about who slapped whom first?

  I’m not that girl.

  I told you already: I’m not prone to outbursts, not a volatile person.

  Martin, on the other hand, was outraged. He trained his brights on the child’s bike, trying to make sense of what this object could be doing in my boyfriend’s driveway. He took a second or two longer than I had to figure out that Will must be married, that he was a father.

  “Do you want me to kneecap him?” Martin asked. “Spell out dickwad on his lawn?”

  “Just turn around. Hurry up. Before someone comes out of the house and sees us.”

  We drove home in silence, me staring out the window, clutching my right wrist, wishing I’d let Tony buy me that 9 mm Baby Glock after all.

  • • •

  MARTIN WALKED ME up our parents’ front steps and onto the porch, muttering, “He’s a dickwad, whether we trash his front lawn or not. You are so out of his league. Christ, do I want to call Tony and invite this guy to join us for a friendly beer. Give him a little education on how to treat our sister.”

  “Thank you, but I’m fine.” I was turning my cheek for him to kiss me good-night when I saw it. The gray car. Parked just as before, across the street and a few spaces down. How could such a nondescript car be so noticeable?

  “Martin,” I whispered. “Do you see that car?”

  “An education that would leave him unable to walk for the next week.” My brother was still muttering.

  “Martin! That gray car. Do you see it?”

  He turned, shaded his eyes against the porch light. “What about it?”

  “It was parked outside my house on Q Street the other night. The same car.”

  “Are you sure?”

  No, I wasn’t sure. It was your run-of-the-mill, gray, compact car. Utterly unremarkable. But either I was going crazy or I had seen this car before, and I went with the latter. “I—I think so. There was a man inside.”

  My brother scowled, squinted across the street again, started loping down across the lawn.

  “Martin!” I hissed, “Stop!”

  The car’s ignition started up. The headlights blinked on, and suddenly it was reversing. It knocked into the bumper of the car parked behind, then lurched into the street, engine roaring, tires squealing.

  “Get inside,” said my brother.

  I stood frozen, glued to the porch.

  “Sis! Get inside!”

  I didn’t wait for him to tell me a third time.

  Thirty-three

  * * *

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2013

  Dr. Gellert commenced operating at 11:07 a.m.

  He was assisted, I was later told, by the on-duty anesthesiologist, two nurses, and three residents who had had their plans for a lazy weekend morning rudely interrupted by urgent summonses from the hospital. The procedure was not filmed. No cameraman could be located on such short notice.

  The gray car had achieved what Beasley had wished for but had not been able to achieve: instant surgery.

  Last night, within minutes of my phone call to 911, three police cars had swarmed the street in front of my parents’ home. Sirens wailed to wake the dead, blue lights blazed, cops muscled their way through the front door. Phone calls had been exchanged with Atlanta, most of which I was not privy to, other than one short exchange with Beasley, during which, as usual, he made me walk him step-by-step through what I had seen.

  The result of all this midnight conferencing had been that Mom and Dad, white with worry, drove me to Sibley Hospital’s emergency room. A police car—sirens mercifully silenced, but blue lights flashing in full glory—had led the way. We arrived before dawn. I was transferred from the car to a wheelchair and then to a gurney. A plastic bracelet was strung around my good wrist. More phone calls were made. My clothes were removed and replaced by a paper surgery gown. A somber, whiskery anesthesiologist appeared, introduced himself, explained his plans to make me comfortable. I forgot his name before he even left the room.

  Drugs, I was thinking. Please just give me the drugs. Give me everything you’ve got. During the long, long night we had just endured, pain had seized my neck and my shoulders, pain so severe it had felt my body would break in two. This was not the sharp pulsing I had grown used to. This was more dense. Heavy. Like an apron of lead, the kind they swaddle you in before taking an X-ray.

  Smiling nurses appeared. Guardrails on the sides of the gurney swung up and locked into place. The gurney began to roll. A mask came down over my face, Breathe deep, said the smiles. My mother was walking beside me, still holding my hand.

  • • •

  DARKNESS.

  I came to in a postsurgery recovery room. Cold. I was so cold. I had never been so cold. My legs would have to be amputated, they would not survive, the frostbite was turning my skin to wax.

  I sensed someone beside me. “Blanket,” I tried to tell them. It came out mush. “Bl-shhh-ont.”

  The person leaned down. “Caroline?” Will’s voice. Soft, worried. He laid a hand on top of mine.

  Noooo.

  I wanted to turn my head away. It would not obey. “Blanket,” I said again.

  He would not listen. “Caroline. It’s me. Everything went fine. You’re going to be fine.”

  Something scratchy was wrapped around my neck, the only part of me that was warm. I willed myself to go under again, to sleep.

  Thirty-four

  * * *

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013

  They only kept me in the hospital for one night.

  The surgery had gone beautifully. The bullet had popped—Dr. Gellert pursed his lips and made a loud pop as he recounted this to me—popped right out.

  “Like squeezing a boiled tomato from its skin,” he added, clearly pleased with himse
lf. “Big old thing. Half an inch long.” He held up his thumb and forefinger in approximation.

  “Where is it?”

  “I cleaned it up, sealed it in a sterile envelope. Handed it to the police myself.” His fingers were sliding up and down a Perspex clipboard, rising and then striking the edge as if it were the keys of a baby grand. “They rushed the bullet straight to the lab. It was an Atlanta cop who turned up to get it. Flew up here specifically for that purpose, warned me not to let DC police anywhere near it.” Gellert eyed me with curiosity, but did not ask.

  I nodded. Tried to nod. The bandages made it impossible to move.

  “At any rate, the headline is—we got it out. You did great. The incision on the back of your neck is less than two inches wide. You’ll have a scar, but it’ll fade, and your hair will cover it.”

  “I don’t care about that. What about my—my spinal cord? Will I have full range of movement?” At the moment I felt no pain at all, but I was pumped so full of painkillers that it was hard to say whether that meant much.

  “We’ll have to wait until the swelling subsides. And it will take time for everything internally to knit back together. But so far, so good. I’ll see you tomorrow, in my regular office, to check the stitches and make sure everything’s draining properly.”

  At my parents’ house, they had made up a bed in the living room so I wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. All afternoon I dozed. Dad sat vigil in an armchair by the window, answering e-mails and cursing at the New York Times crossword puzzle. Hunt lay flopped across his feet. Mom wandered in and out, inventing ways to make herself useful. I was hungry. Starving. I had been forbidden from consuming anything except liquids until I either produced a bowel movement or passed gas. I achieved this milestone—the latter—as twilight fell. I felt undignified, to say the least. But I was rewarded with crackers and a cup of Mom’s homemade beef noodle soup.

  Thirty-five