by Bolz, Stefan
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”
Both shook their heads no.
“What was the last thing she said to you on the phone?” the officer asked.
Jack and Kasey shared a glance.
“The dolphins are dying,” Jack said. “That’s what she said. The dolphins are dying.”
“We got a wire ten minutes ago. Some kind of a mass slaughter of dolphins up and down the coast,” Carpenter said. “Crazy.”
“It’s not slaughter,” Jack said.
“What happens next?” Kasey asked.
“The EMT’s are going to take your mom to the hospital. It’s standard procedure. You’ll have to fill out some paperwork.”
“Okay,” Kasey replied.
“Officer Carpenter,” Mills’ voice came from the living room.
“Excuse me for a moment.” Carpenter got up and went to the living room. The EMT’s came out, carrying Kasey’s mom on the gurney. She started to cry again. There was a part of her that refused to acknowledge that this was actually her mom being carried out of her house, out of her life.
The two officers were still watching the TV. There was something odd about it. Kasey registered that they didn’t turn around or say anything when the EMT’s left.
“Officer Carpenter?” Jack said.
“What?” Carpenter said absently, without looking at Jack.
“It wasn’t slaughter,” Jack said.
“What?”
“You said it was slaughter. It wasn’t.”
“What was it then?” she asked, still facing the TV.
Jack looked at Kasey but didn’t say anything.
“It was suicide,” Kasey said.
Officer Carpenter turned. Her face showed absolute terror. When Mills shifted his body, Kasey could see the TV. It showed images of the dolphins on the shore, twitching in convulsions. And even though Kasey couldn’t hear the cries through the TV, she heard them in her mind. They were loud and piercing and for the first time, she realized that something must have pushed them out of the water, that they didn’t go on their own.
“We gotta get out of here!” Carpenter said. Her voice was urgent. “Mills. Mills!”
Mills turned his head toward her, a dazed look on his face.
“We gotta go!” she said, her voice trembling. “Okay? We gotta go. Now!”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Mills said. “Gotta get CSI in here, the works. Where the EMT’s?”
“There was no crime committed. We can take a statement down at the station. It’s safer there.”
“What the hell you talkin’ about?” His voice was suddenly loud.
“We can’t take the statement here. It’s not safe here!” Carpenter yelled.
“You wanna tell me how it’s done, bitch? Huh? I have thirty years on the job, you bitch!”
Kasey held Jack’s hand, squeezed it. She could feel the tension rising. This was a nightmare and all she wanted was to wake up from it.
“Come on,” Carpenter said to Jack. “I’ll drive you down to the station. You’ll give your statement and you’re done.”
“I’d like to go… to the hospital… to see my mom. Her… body,” Kasey said in tears.
“You’re not going anywhere until I say so—”
“John!” Carpenter cut him off.
For a moment, Officer Mills seemed to remember something. He hesitated. Then he pressed the button on his walkie-talkie.
“Officer John Mills. 48871. We need a CSI unit at 256 Sawyer Avenue, West Babylon. Suspected homicide.”
The words didn’t register at first. Kasey felt detached from their meaning. They were pieces of information flowing into a pool that was already overflowing.
“…don’t have any available units at the moment,” the voice responded.
“You have what?” Mills replied.
“Seal the crime scene and stay there until we can send another car. We have about a dozen scenes going and we don’t have a unit available right now. The next one has to come from Brooklyn.”
“How long is that gonna take?” Mills’ face was red.
“Three hours—”
“Three hours?!” he screamed. “That’s bullshit!”
He ripped the walkie-talkie from the holster. He pulled it off his belt and threw it onto the ground. He took out his handgun and shot at it five times. When he turned, he pointed his gun at Officer Carpenter.
“This is all your fault, you bitch!”
He shot her in the chest. She flew backwards and landed on the floor close to the front door, gasping for air. Kasey and Jack moved backwards and under the table when Mills pointed his gun at them.
“Get up and don’t make me tell you twice! Now!”
Jack helped Kasey up. She had not yet had time to process anything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes.
“Get into the kitchen, go!”
He walked toward them, not giving Carpenter, his partner of four years, another look. “We’re gonna have a talk now. That bullshit story you told us is something you can tell the EMT guys but not me. Don’t believe for a second that you can fool me as easily as them. That woman didn’t commit suicide. You killed her. With your own hands. You’ve got her blood all over you.”
“But we didn’t—”
“Don’t patronize me!” he pushed his gun at Jack’s temple and grabbed his throat with the other hand.
When Kasey saw the pool of blood on the floor, she began to cry again.
“Stop with the whining! First you kill ’er and now you’re all remorseful and shit. That doesn’t fly with me, you got that?”
He pushed Jack into a chair and gestured for Kasey to take the other one.
“Why’d you kill ’er? Huh? Why’d you kill ’er?” Mills looked at Kasey. His voice was shrieking.
“I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t kill her…”
“You whore, of course you did!” John grabbed Kasey’s hair, pulled it back and held the gun to her cheek. “Don’t you lie to me. Don’t you lie to me!”
“Let her go.”
Kasey saw Officer Carpenter in her peripheral vision. She swayed, tried to stay standing, her gun pointed at Mills.
“I won’t tell you again.” She sounded as if she had to push out each word under tremendous strain. “Let her go.”
Still holding Kasey’s hair, Mills turned his gun toward Carpenter. Kasey heard the shot and Officer Mills fell past her and crashed to the floor. A few drops of blood trickled from a bullet hole in his forehead. Carpenter let go of her gun and frantically unbuttoned her uniform shirt. She moved her vest and touched her ribs. There was no blood.
“Thank God. Thank God,” she said. “Thank God!” She closed up her shirt.
She went past them and knelt next to Mills’ body, feeling for his pulse.
“You okay?” she asked Kasey.
Kasey nodded. Even though she was not okay. She was far from okay. She didn’t believe that she would ever be okay again.
“We should go,” Carpenter said. “We can’t stay here. You wanna grab a couple of things while I call it in?”
“Okay,” Kasey answered, even though she didn’t hear half the question. But the matter-of-factness in Carpenter’s voice was strangely comforting. Kasey got up. Jack held her hand while they went up the stairs. When she got to her room, she stood in the doorway, completely overwhelmed by what to take with her.
Where? Where would they go? This was her home, had been for the last four years. She hadn’t liked it here at first, had missed their house on the beach. But after a while, she began to feel better about it and over the last year or so, she enjoyed her room, loved how the light would come in during the afternoon and how warm and cozy it was during the winter.
“You have a backpack?” Jack asked. He didn’t know that Kasey, at this very moment, felt completely dependent on him.
“Yes. In the closet. I gotta call my dad. I gotta tell my dad.” She began to cry again.
“I
’ll call him if you want.” Jack pulled the backpack out of her closet. It was the one with the camouflage patterns she got from the Army store in Babylon. “What do you want me to pack?”
“I… I don’t know. I have no idea. Underpants?”
“Where are they?”
Kasey pointed at her dresser. Jack opened the first drawer and took out a couple of pairs of underwear together with a few bras, a couple of shirts from the next drawer and a bunch of shorts. A hooded sweatshirt hung on a hook next to the mirror. It said “StrongIsland” on it and had a map drawn on the back. She had bought it with her allowance a few years ago when Hurricane Sandy devastated many of the coastal towns on the island. Jack took that one also, together with a pair of long khaki pants that lay on the floor. The pair of Army boots she got when she bought the backpack were the last items.
“You have a toothbrush?”
“What?”
“A toothbrush? You have a toothbrush?”
“Yes.”
Kasey went into the bathroom. When she grabbed her toothbrush, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were swollen. Part of her face was smeared with blood. She must have touched it after she’d touched her mother’s wrists.
“We should get going,” Officer Carpenter called from below.
Kasey gave the toothbrush to Jack.
“You ready?” Jack asked.
There was no answer she could give him. They went downstairs, Jack carrying Kasey’s backpack.
“Do you have keys to the apartment?” Carpenter asked.
“Don’t you have to stay here?” Jack asked. “To make sure the scene isn’t being altered or whatever?”
“Yes,” Carpenter replied.
It was clear from the officer’s expression that she had made up her mind. They left the house. Kasey locked it. Last time, she thought to herself without knowing where the thought had come from.
“We’ll take my car,” Carpenter said.
When they approached the police cruiser, they saw that the two tires on the driver’s side were slashed.
“Shit. Shit. Shit! Where’s yours?” Carpenter asked.
“Over there,” Jack answered, pointing at the Jeep.
“You mind if I drive?” she asked.
“No,” Jack replied.
Carpenter opened the driver’s side door and slid onto the seat. Kasey and Jack got into the back seat.
“There are twenty-five hundred police officers in Suffolk County. It’s one of the largest police departments in the U.S. Do you know what it means if they tell me they can’t send somebody to watch a crime scene because there aren’t enough personnel?” She started the car and they pulled out of the parking spot.
“That’s a lot of cops,” Jack said.
“Yes.”
“Dispatch to all units. Please be advised that Sunrise Highway has been shut down in both directions at the Babylon Town Hall, due to a multiple vehicle accident and spill of liquid nitrogen. There was an accident on Southern State Parkway south bound between Belmont Avenue and Straight Path and several cars have been spotted driving against the traffic on the L.I.E.”
“Good lord,” Carpenter said under her breath. “What the hell is going on?”
Kasey watched Carpenter’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I’ll call your dad,” Jack said.
“That’s all right. I’ll do it.”
She found her dad’s contact on her phone and dialed.
“All circuits are busy. Please try again later. Message 0414.”
“Can’t get through,” Kasey said.
“I’ll get your dad on the landline once we’re at the precinct,” Carpenter said while looking at Kasey in the mirror.
Kasey nodded. “We’re being followed,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Carpenter asked.
“Are you sure?” Jack added.
“Yes. It’s a black SUV. Two cars behind us. It came out of a parking spot on our street when we left the house. Since then, it’s been following us.”
“Are you serious?” Carpenter asked.
“Yes. I’m serious.”
“Hold on,” Carpenter said while turning the wheel, driving into a side street and accelerating. “We’re five minutes from the station.”
Kasey watched the road behind them through the rear window. The black SUV turned onto the street about a hundred feet behind them.
“Shit!” Carpenter slowed the Jeep down and turned left onto Frederick Avenue. The Jeep flew down the street until Carpenter hit the brakes hard, pulling into a driveway and stopping the car behind the house.
“Stay here,” she said while she jumped out and ran to the corner of the garage, looking toward the road. After a few seconds, she ran back and climbed back in.
“Whoever that was is gone. They drove past us.”
She put the car in reverse, pulled back and onto the nicely manicured lawn. From there she slowly drove onto the road. The SUV was not in sight.
“So far so good.”
“I’ve got their license plate number,” Kasey said.
“That’s very clever of you,” Carpenter said. It was the first time she smiled. She pushed the button on her walkie-talkie.
“Dispatch, this is 87219, can you get me the owner of a plate?”
“234TWD,” Kasey said.
Carpenter repeated it into the walkie-talkie. There was silence on the other end for a few moments.
“Plate belongs to a corporation. Dovah Enterprises.”
“Where are they located?”
“An industrial complex on Corbin Avenue in Bay Shore.”
“Copy that,” Carpenter said. She turned her head toward Jack and Kasey for a moment. “I’ll check that out once we’re at the station but I have the feeling that it was a coincidence. Looks like we’re in the clear!”
Kasey couldn’t tell for a moment where the blood came from. It was all over her arms and hands. She also felt it on her face. Jack had some on his as well. He looked at her in disbelief as the Jeep turned toward the sidewalk, jumping over the curb and into someone’s front yard. There, it mowed down a few small fences and came to a stop half inside a hedge.
Officer Carpenter’s chin rested on her chest. Now Kasey saw that half of the back of her head was missing. The windshield had a hole in it. She didn’t have time to scream. The passenger door was pulled open. Two men appeared. One of them pulled the back of the seat forward and reached for Jack. He tried to resist and moved toward Kasey but the man grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the car.
Kasey watched as the other man punched Jack in the face hard several times, then ripped open his shirt. Part of her registered that he was still wearing the amulet. She had completely forgotten all about it until now. Both men pulled Jack around the Jeep and toward the SUV. The door opened from the inside and the men lifted Jack onto the back seat. They walked around the SUV and disappeared behind it. Moments later, it accelerated down the street. Within two seconds it was gone.
Saturday, June 22nd, 09:56 a.m. to 12:18 p.m.
There are moments when time slows down. When sight is clearer than usual. When hearing brings out the most subdued sounds. When the air seems to vibrate in a frequency so high, it’s almost palpable. Something in Kasey took over for a moment. Like a bodyguard stepping in front of the protectee and shielding her from a blow. Whatever it was that took hold of her in that instant absorbed the first wave of shock.
She felt the pain, the loss, the confusion, but it wasn’t head on. As if it was diverted somehow. She saw the open door, was aware of the blood splatters on the seat around Jack’s shape, where he had been sitting just a minute ago. She saw the blood dripping from her own face onto her bare legs. When she met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror, she saw the white sclera in stark contrast to the blood that covered the rest of her face. The car was still running. It was still in “D,” pushing forward against the resistance of the hedge.
Kasey said something into the sile
nce that she couldn’t understand at first. Only when she said it again, did she actually hear herself say it.
“Take control.”
She had no clue where this came from but it calmed her enough to move to the center of the back seat. From here, Officer Carpenter’s head looked much worse.
“Take control.”
She climbed up front and onto the passenger seat. There was an engagement ring on Carpenter’s hand. Kasey moved Carpenter’s foot to the side and put her own foot on the brake. She put the car in reverse and slowly let go of the pedal. The car moved backwards and cleared the hedge. She pushed the brake again and this time put the Jeep in park. She got out, walked around the car to the driver’s door. When she opened it, Officer Carpenter’s body fell into her arms.
She let out a startled scream but caught her and gently laid her on the grass. She could only handle taking a brief look at her face. It was too deformed. She straightened out the officer’s legs so that she wouldn’t back up over them. Then she took the walkie-talkie and pushed the button.
“This… is Kasey Byrne. I’m calling you from Officer Carpenter’s walkie-talkie. She has been shot. In the head. We were driving down… we were driving… when suddenly… Two men kidnapped my boyfriend. Jack. His name is Jack. There was a third man. They pulled Jack into a black SUV. The same SUV officer Carpenter called you on only a few minutes ago. My name is Kasey Byrne. I’m here. Awaiting instructions.”
She let go of the button. No sound came out of the walkie-talkie. She pushed the button again.
“Hello?” she said. “Ma’am? Are you there? Is anybody there? Hello?”
The silence was loud as thunder.
“Hello?”
The darkness came over her in an instant. The only warning was a second of blurred vision and officer Carpenter’s white shirt changing to dark gray. Then there was blackness. Kasey’s eyes were open. She blinked several times, wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands.
I’ve gone blind, she thought. I’ve gone blind.
A wave of terror swept over her. Complete darkness was never her thing. She always had to have a light on at night, even if only a small one. The darkness she now experienced was utterly and terrifyingly complete. From behind her, she heard the screeching sound of metal against metal when a car came to a stop not far away. The motor was still running when a door opened. A woman’s scream reached her, then a crashing sound when she must have stumbled over one of the garbage cans.
