by Frank Zafiro
Heroes Often Fail
( River City Crime - 2 )
Frank Zafiro
Frank Zafiro
Heroes Often Fail
No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world’s demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.
William James
ONE
Monday, March 13, 1995
Day Shift
0729 hours
It was a secret place and like most secret places, it was forbidden and dangerous.
Kendra discovered it when she took the long way home from school one day, and immediately shared it with Amy. The two girls swore each other to secrecy in hushed tones, their pinkie fingers locked. Amy was the one who named it the Fairy Castle.
She and Amy didn’t want Kendra’s brothers or other neighborhood boys finding out about Fairy Castle, so they kept their secret as best they could.
Of course, Kendra told her mother everything and so it was only a matter of time before Mrs. Ferguson was down at Fairy Castle to check things out.
“Ugh,” she’d said. “Girls, this place is so dirty.”
“You have to use your imagination, Mom,” Kendra had told her. She swept her hand across the small dirt cave. “This is the ballroom, where we have our dances, and-“
“Kendra, honey, this is a dirt cave dug into the side of a pile of dirt and held up by a couple of boards.” She pointed to the two pieces of lumber jammed up into the low roof ceiling. “You don’t know if animals come in here or other kids-“
“Mom, it’s a secret place,” Kendra told her. “No one knows but us.”
Mrs. Ferguson shook her head. “It’s not safe. I don’t want you playing here anymore. Do you understand?”
“But, Mom-”
“No buts. You are not allowed to play here anymore and that is final.”
After Kendra’s Mom said they couldn’t go there any more, Amy didn’t dare tell her parents about Fairy Castle. School was out for a whole week and the two girls were planning on spending as much time as possible at their secret, forbidden place.
Last night’s rain covered the city streets and left behind small puddles in the cracks and holes in the roadway. Kendra jumped in the air and landed in a small puddle, sending a spray of water in Amy’s direction.
“Knock it off, Kenny,” Amy said, knowing her friend hated being called that.
Kendra frowned for a moment and considered splashing Amy again. She decided not to and quickly caught up to her, skipping her way to Amy’s side.
“I think we should have a wedding today,” Amy said.
Kendra smiled. A wedding. That was perfect.
“You can be the bride,” Amy said, pushing a lock of her dark her behind her ear. Kendra has seen Mrs. Dugger do that, too. “And I’ll be your maid of honor.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like the bride’s best friend. She gets to stand next to her while she gets married.”
Kendra beamed. She would get to be the bride and have her best friend next to her. What could be better?
“Who will you marry?” Amy asked her.
That was a serious question and Kendra gave it considerable thought.
“And no one from school,” Amy blurted. “You have to marry a movie star or some famous person.”
Her first inclination was to choose Prince Charming from the movie Sleeping Beauty, but he was only a cartoon. She knew Amy would be quick to point that out and then she would just have to choose again, anyway, so she dropped the whole idea and gave it some more deep thought.
The girls turned onto Stevens and headed for the empty lot on the corner, less than half a block from Fairy Castle now. Kendra felt a small surge of panic. She had to decide who she wanted to marry before they reached the secret place. But who?
“I know who I’d marry,” Amy whispered.
The sound of a vehicle turning the corner behind them caused both to move to the sidewalk.
“Who?”
Amy gave her a secretive smile. “You can’t tell anyone.”
Kendra raised her hand, small finger extended. “Pinkie swear.”
Amy reached out and locked fingers. “I’d marry Westley.”
“Westley who?” she asked
“You know,” Amy said, and Kendra did. Westley was a character from their favorite movie, The Princess Bride. He was handsome and nice and more importantly, he was real and not a cartoon. Kendra wished she had thought of that first. Maybe-
“That’s who I was going to say,” she told Amy.
“Too late,” Amy teased. “He’s going to be my husband and we’re getting married tomorrow at Fairy Castle.”
“But I’m getting married today.”
Amy shrugged. “You’ll just have to marry someone else, I guess.”
“But I wanted to marry Westley, too.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
Kendra bit her lip. “I was…thinking about how my dress should look, that’s all.”
“Liar,” Amy said, shaking her head.
“It’s true!”
“Nuh-uh, Kenny.”
“I’m not lying-“
The chirp of tires coming to a sudden stop caused both girls to turn their heads toward the street. A blue van had pulled to a stop next to them. The side door slid open and a tall, thin man stepped out with a black ski mask over his face.
Kendra’s eyes widened and struggled to think of what she was taught to do in these situations.
The man reached for Amy, who stood frozen in place just like her.
She watched the man’s white hands grasp Amy by the upper arms and pull her to his chest.
The man’s eyes flashed to her and she saw something in them she knew instinctively was bad for her. She turned and sprinted away as fast as her legs would carry her.
The sound of the van door slamming shut and the engine gunning spurred her to run even faster. She knew she couldn’t outrun the van and hoped wildly someone would save her before the van screeched to a stop next to her and the man in black gobbled her into his arms, too.
Kendra’s heart pounded in her chest, her neck, her temples. She couldn’t get enough air into her tiny lungs. But her legs pumped like two pistons, running straight and hard.
The roar of the engine faded and then she found herself alone, too scared even to cry.
TWO
0807 hours
Bang!
Stefan Kopriva lowered his.40-caliber pistol to a ready position and scanned left and right before holstering. He snuck a look at the silhouette target just five yards away and was glad to see that his shots were in the ten-ring.
“Are all weapons holstered?” boomed the voice of Sergeant Morgan, the range-master. There was no response. After two seconds, the voice boomed again. “All weapons are holstered. Move back to the seven yard line.”
Kopriva shuffled back two yards to the red stripe painted on the concrete. His bad knee gave him a twinge of pain. He glanced up and down the line at the other ten officers who were qualifying that morning. From two positions away, Katie MacLeod gave him a small, secretive smile. Kopriva felt a small flutter low in his stomach and grinned back at her.
The outdoor intercom clicked again and the range-master’s voice boomed. “From the seven yard line, you will shoot nine shots. All nine will be one-handed. The first five will be with the strong hand. Then switch. The last four will be with the weak hand. You will have fifteen seconds.”
Kopriva inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled steadily through his mouth. Five with his right hand, four with the lef
t. Fifteen seconds. His stare bore into the target, which was now turned away from him. He concentrated on the one-inch sliver of wood that the silhouette was stapled to.
“Assume a ready position. Remember to focus on the front sight.” There was a pause after Sergeant Morgan’s final instructions, then the target turned to face the shooters.
Kopriva drew smoothly and leveled his weapon at the target. His eye focused on the front sight. He found the target, which was appropriately fuzzy. He squeezed the trigger.
Bam!
Taking only a brief moment to reacquire his target, Kopriva squeezed off four more rounds. He paid no attention to where they may have hit. Switching hands, he raised the pistol again and put the front sight on the fuzzy target.
He felt the dull ache in his shoulder and upper arm. Ignoring it, Kopriva squeezed the trigger. The gun gave a sharp report and bucked in his hand. Slivers of pain shot up and down his arm.
He squeezed and the gun kicked again. The pain increased slightly. Kopriva ground his teeth and fired a third time. By the time he fired the fourth and final shot, the pain was buzzing like an electrical current from his elbow to his collar bone and back again. Even his left knee, which had only been a distant ache all day, seemed to sing out with more pain in answer to his arm.
Kopriva swallowed hard and scanned briefly before shifting the gun back into his right hand. He holstered a little awkwardly, still not used to the plainclothes holster after almost four years of wearing a patrol duty belt.
The target turned before he could get a look at where he’d hit.
At the fifteen-yard line, he fired five rounds while kneeling and nine rounds while standing. He knelt on his right knee to spare his left from the pressure, but it throbbed in protest even at being bent sharply. Sweat trickled down his back, even though the Spring morning was cool. He forgot to look to see where his rounds landed before the target turned.
The final distance for the department qualification shoot was twenty-five yards. He fired another fourteen rounds, kneeling and standing. There was no time limit, so his target remained facing him until the last officer finished firing. He rose slowly after his last shot. His knee felt ragged and his left arm and shoulder throbbed from the effort of being a support side as he’d fired. He tried to ignore the pain, thinking of the pills in his car. Instead, he strained to see if any rounds had hit outside the black silhouette.
After Sergeant Morgan had directed everyone to clear their weapons, he was allowed to go forward and retrieve his target. He was at the seven-yard line when he saw the small hole in white paper, just over the right shoulder of the silhouette.
A clean miss.
He had two groin shots, which cost him points, but he didn’t worry so much about those. It was still a hit and an effective one on a human target. He had a tight cluster of holes punched in the center of the target and a few drifting outward, but all were good hits. Except for the one.
Kopriva carried his target back towards the range building to score it. Co-ops, who were college students studying law enforcement at the local community college, had already begun to pick up the expended brass at each position.
Kopriva suppressed a sigh. He preferred combat shoots to department qualifications. Punching holes in paper was fine for the basics, but he found that not only did he enjoy the combat shoots more, he was better at them. The range personnel usually did an excellent job of setting up a challenging course to put officers through. They used hostages, metal targets and pop-ups to effect a sense of realism.
“How’d you do, Stef?” Katie asked as she fell into step next to him.
Kopriva shrugged. “Dunno yet. Threw one, though.”
Katie held her target up for him to see. A hole the size of a small saucer was torn raggedly in the center of the target. One errant round was just to the left in the eight-ring.
Kopriva tried to appear disgusted.
She wouldn’t even have to add hers up. Fifty rounds, ten points each. She got one eight, forty-nine tens. Four hundred and ninety-eight. She’d get rated as a Master shooter again.
“Nice shooting, show-off,” he muttered.
“Jealous?” Katie’s eyes shined.
He shook his head. “No. I’d like to see you try that naked, though.”
“I’ll bet you would.” Katie smiled, but looked around to see if anyone had heard.
They entered the range building. Katie put her target in the used target stack and filled out her slip, handing it to Sergeant Morgan.
“See you later,” she whispered to Kopriva as she walked by and out the door.
Kopriva watched her go. He was glad she was careful about letting people know they were seeing each other. It was no one’s business and if it became common knowledge, it would invariably cause trouble. It was trouble he was willing to endure if necessary, but he did not particularly welcome it. The rumor mill at the River City Police Department was grinding, always grinding.
Kopriva was surprised that he missed her already.
He added up his score. He came up with four hundred and sixty when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Sergeant Morgan stood beside him. The stern range-master pointed to Kopriva’s single miss with the end of his pen.
“Good target. Except for that.” He looked to Kopriva for an explanation.
Kopriva thought about the dull throb in his knee and the buzzing current in left arm. “No excuse, Sarge,” he said.
“Take your time,” Morgan told him gruffly. “You can’t miss fast enough.”
Kopriva nodded as if he hadn’t heard the same piece of advice as many times as “focus on the front sight.” He knew Morgan’s concern was sincere and even if he was a zealot, it didn’t bother Kopriva. The training had saved his life on at least one very infamous occasion.
Sergeant Morgan gave him a fatherly nod and wandered off to inspect the results of other officers.
Kopriva put his target in the used stack. A Co-op stapled new targets onto the old ones. He recognized Kopriva. His eyes grew eager behind his acne-riddled face and Kopriva knew a question was coming. He knew exactly what the question would be.
“You’re Kopriva, right?”
“Yes.”
“You were in the shootout at the Circle K.”
Kopriva nodded.
“Oh, wow, man.” The Co-op’s eyes shone with admiration, then turned serious. He leaned forward intently. “Did shooting these targets help? I mean, when things were for real and guys were shooting at you, did any of this really help?”
Kopriva glanced away and shifted his weight to his right leg. “Yes,” was all he said.
“Did you-” the Co-op started to ask, but another voice interrupted in a harsh, sarcastic tone.
“Excuse me, can I get through?”
Kopriva stepped aside as Jack Stone moved forward to put his target on the stack. Obvious disgust filled the fifteen-year veteran’s face. The Co-op didn’t seem to notice, but Kopriva could feel the hostility radiating off of Stone. He knew Stone as a by-the-books officer, even if he was gruff with the public. Kopriva had heard that Stone generated more than his fair share of citizen complaints. He also knew that he required a backup unit for virtually everything and despised “code-four cowboys” who did things with what he considered insufficient back-up.
Stone was not alone in his feelings among patrol officers, Kopriva knew. Since the shooting at the Circle K, his reputation as the eminent code-four cowboy had soared.
Stone turned from the rack and regarded Kopriva with a curled lip. “What would you know about following training?” he said in a low voice.
Kopriva felt a surge of dull anger at the veteran’s condemnation. He knew when he was code-thirteen, needing a backup, and he knew when he was code-four and didn’t. That night at the Circle K, he needed everyone he could get as he stumbled onto an armed robbery in progress. The robber had been known as Scarface, who had a run of about twenty robberies in little more than a month. When he was ambushed at the scene by I
saiah Morris, a Compton Crip, and shot three times, he needed even more help. It seemed like forever before backup arrived.
But his reputation persisted. One thing Kopriva had learned on the police department was that a reputation, once applied, stuck. Only an edict from the Pope could get it removed.
As he returned Stone’s stare with his own, Kopriva knew it might be something more, too. About a week before the shootout at the Circle K, he had been with Karl Winter when the veteran officer died in the street from the gunshot wounds Scarface gave him. He took three bullets from the robber’s thirty-eight caliber when he’d stopped the getaway car one August night. One had nicked the officer’s aorta. Kopriva had arrived in time to hold Winter’s hand as the man’s life bled out into the warm asphalt.
Once the sound and fury over his shooting had simmered down, Kopriva heard rumblings that some of the older officers blamed him for not doing more to save Winter that night. No one had ever said anything to him directly, but the idea had been grist for the rumor mill for some time and seemingly still was.
When it was clear Kopriva wasn’t going to answer, Stone grunted and moved away, having made his point.
The Co-op started to ask another question, but Kopriva raised his hand to stop him. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. I have to go.”
He left the Co-op standing there as he gathered up his duty magazine and ammunition and left the range building.
Once in his truck, Kopriva drove toward the police station at a leisurely pace. On duty, he used to drive like Al Unser, but off-duty in his own rig, he was far more conservative. He knew that his chances of getting a ticket inside River City were almost nil, but he didn’t like to take advantage of that job perk. The rush-hour traffic had subsided and the drive was a pleasant one.
He felt momentarily guilty for having left the range without cleaning his duty weapon, but remaining there would have meant withstanding more questions and hero worship from the Co-op student. Kopriva appreciated all of the volunteers who worked with River City PD, including the college students who went out and took some of the crap calls, freeing officers up for the more pressing calls. However, most of the Co-ops were looking for a career in law enforcement and had some unrealistic ideas about what it was like. Kopriva didn’t want to be their hero.
