Dead Shot

by Ethan Johnson

  Diana returned to the cluster of officers, who kept their guns pointed upward, and one of them shouted as Diana waved the scarf from around the corner. “Don’t shoot, I’m on your side.”

  The officer who let her off stepped forward, waving two of his fellow officers forward as backup. “Who the hell are you?”

  Diana stepped around the corner and held her shotgun away from her body. “I couldn’t find any elephants.”

  The officer stepped forward and cocked his head as he trained his sidearm on her chest. “What are you saying? Are you saying you sent us that roasted punk? How?”

  She shook her head. “Not one. All of them.”

  “Bull.”

  “See for yourself.” She set the shotgun down and dropped to her knees as the backup officers pushed her onto her stomach. One of them pulled her gun from her waistband and pulled her wrists together. She heard the jingle of handcuffs when a shaky voice sounded around the corner.

  “Uh, guys, let her go.”

  “Come again, Preston?”

  “I said, let her go. Holy crap. You’ve got to see this.”

  The arresting officer removed his knee from her back and let go of her wrists. They walked backward, keeping their guns on her, then looked off to her left.

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, Jesus. Or something.” Officer Preston stepped into view. Diana rose to her feet. “You uh, you’re one of the good guys, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What outfit?”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t jerk me around. What outfit?”

  “Sparta Meat Market, sir.”

  The third officer stood beside him and lowered his gun. “She cleared the roof by herself?”

  Diana smiled, then looked off into the distance. She bent down, scooped up her gun, and aimed to her right, just past his shoulder. She squinted and pulled the trigger. The officers whirled around, wondering what she saw. A man with a scarf over his mouth laid bleeding in the street with a single shot to the head.

  Diana lowered her gun. “I did now, sir.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Officer Preston stood back as another officer extinguished the flames on the roof of the cruiser. He looked up as another one waved from the roof where the bottle throwers had been. He squinted and said, “Yeah?”

  “Like she said, it’s clear. And you’re not going to believe this, Eddie.”

  “What?”

  “Three of them. She took them all out.”

  “Hey, over here.” A voice sounded from behind him. Officer Preston whirled around and put his hand over his eyes as a visor. “One more up here. One in the head.” He mimed a bullet passing through his skull.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. He looked around and counted bodies. “Three up here, three over there, and one little girl. Am I getting this right?”

  “I’ll sign that report,” said the officer on the other rooftop.

  “Maybe. I’ve gotta think about this. I mean, thanks for saving our collective asses, but this is a laundry list of charges when it comes down to it. Murder One, times six, unlawful possession of a firearm, curfew violation, and that’s just for starters. This kid’ll be lucky to get life with parole for special circumstances.”

  Another officer stepped in front of him. “Are you fricking kidding me? She just single-handedly took out six terrorists. The only way she’s seeing the inside of a jail cell is if she asks for a tour.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what?” The officer stood with his hands on his hips.

  “But no good deed goes unpunished. So, I say, in for a penny, in for a pound. Come here, kid.” He waved Diana over. She stepped forward and kept silent. Officer Preston led her to the trunk of a cruiser and popped the trunk. He reached in and peeled a sticker from its backing. He stuck it on her shirt above her left breast. He stepped back and gave her a salute. “Welcome to the force, kid. What’s your name?”

  “D-Diana, sir.” She looked down and saw the design was a shiny police badge that said JUNIOR OFFICER.

  “Mine’s Ed. Well, my friends call me Eddie.” He spat on his palm and gave her a hearty handshake.

  “Alright, Eddie.” She looked at her wet palm and tried not to wipe it on her pants right in front of him.

  “Okay, look, we’ve got reports to do, and lots of explaining after we get back to the station, whenever that’s gonna be. We’re all forever in your debt, but we’ve got to get you home. Just say where, and you’re getting a police escort right to your living room.”

  Diana looked at her feet. “Oh, well, I was actually waiting for somebody to pick me up, but he’s stuck in traffic.”

  “Was.”

  “No, he’s close to Hackensack. He told me he barely moved in two hours, and traffic is a wreck.”

  “Was.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Tell me where he is, and I’ll frickin’ hand-deliver you. Or him. Whatever you want.”

  Diana gasped, then patted her back pocket. She pulled out her phone and wondered if there was enough juice to make contact. “Let me find out.”

  Officer Preston pressed her hand down. “How about we surprise him? What’s his name?”

  “Gabriel Hinajosa.”

  “Eena-what? It’s fine, we’ll figure this out. See Officer Perez over there? Let’s put him on this. Hey, Rico!”

  Officer Perez looked up from his clipboard. “Yeah?”

  “We need to locate an MIA boyfriend. Think you can run a trace?”

  “Not without a warrant.” He glared at Officer Preston, then laughed. Officer Preston laughed louder, and Diana let herself giggle a bit. “Over here. Who am I pinging?”

  He waved Diana over to another cruiser, and he slid into the driver’s seat. He punched buttons on his command console until an orange cursor flashed intently. “First and last name.”

  “Gabriel Hinajosa.” Officer Perez tapped his name in one letter at a time with one finger, then raised his eyebrow at her. “Hm?” Diana nodded, unsure of how to spell it, and hoping for the best. Officer Perez pressed another button, and another one rapidly until the cursor blinked elsewhere on the screen. “City? State?”

  “Hackensack. That’s in New Jersey, right?”

  “Last I checked.” He tapped some more keys, then pressed a big white one. “Showtime.”

  The cursor stopped blinking, but the screen didn’t change. Diana tipped her head and wondered what was supposed to happen. She shifted her weight onto her other foot, and the screen added a line of commands at the bottom. “Okay, let’s see how far he got.”

  He pressed a red key, and the screen changed to an area map. The lines glowed red and had orange circles placed at random, and a green arrow pointed to a thick line next to a blue patch. Diana assumed it was a river.

  “Found your boy. Jersey Turnpike. God, that was stupid. Not the best place to be right now, but we’ll make it work.” He stepped out of the cruiser and waved to Officer Preston. “You doing the honors?”

  “Betcher ass, I am. Send it to my inbox.”

  Officer Perez sat behind the wheel once more and tapped a few more keys on the console. “Okay.” Diana gave Officer Preston a thumbs-up, and he nodded and returned the gesture.

  “Got your things, kid?”

  Diana walked toward him and shrugged. “Just need my shotgun.”

  Officer Preston put his hand on his hip and gave her a paternal stare. “Do I wanna know where you got it from?”

  “It was a gift from my boss.”

  “Yeah? And where is he now?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Dead.”

  Officer Preston leaned back in his seat and pressed on the accelerator. Diana reached for the handle over the door for support. “I really appreciate this, Eddie.”

  He blew a sharp breath through his lips. “Pfft. Thanks to you, I’m not a lump of charcoal. Giving you a ride to Hackensack is the absolute least I can do.”

  �
�You let me keep my guns.”

  “That too. On the house. But do me a favor and keep them in your hope chest or something. For the burglars, ya know? After crap like this,” he waved across the window at a pillar of black smoke, “people get stupid. They think the law went out the window because some whack job detonated a bomb. We bust some heads, we double up our street presence, and inside of a month, things get back to normal.”

  Diana nodded. “Our secret, honest.”

  Officer Preston looked over at her and winked. “Glad that’s settled, then. But I was serious. You want in on the force, consider me your red fricking carpet.”

  Diana nodded slower and stared into the middle distance. “That’s… nice of you. I’m not from around here.”

  Officer Preston snorted. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I don’t… I can’t find my papers.”

  “Your papers? What is this, North Korea? Do I look like Checkpoint Charlie?”

  “I don’t have my birth certificate.”

  “Okay, so what? You see this magic box here?” He tapped the command console between them. “Anything I ever want to know, it’s right here. You wanna know your bra size? This thing will tell you.”

  Diana blushed and looked at her lap. “I know my bra size.”

  “Mine’s 48D, last time I checked,” he said, and gave her a playful smile. She smiled back and turned away.

  Officer Preston tapped the console and alternated between looking at the road and the screen. “Okay, Diana. Diana what?”

  Her eyes darted side to side as she considered telling him her real name. “Pembrook.”

  “P-E-M-B-R-O-O-K, is that right?” He tapped the keys one at a time. She nodded. “Place of birth?”

  “Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln what?”

  She sucked in a breath. “Nebraska.”

  He punched in the information, then pressed the white key. The cursor stopped blinking, and Diana held her breath.

  The console beeped, and the screen changed. A short list of names, addresses, and birth dates appeared on the screen. Officer Preston frowned at the list, then at her. “Which one of these are you?”

  Scott told her there weren’t any, not for 75 years. She balled her fists and wished he was here now to see this. Diana scanned through the list and looked for one born at least 20 years ago. She found one born 25 years earlier, and she pointed to her information. “Got it.”

  “Oh yeah?” He pressed a button, and the screen pulled up a wealth of information. “Wait, you died in a hit-and-run three years ago?”

  “Oops, I meant the other one.”

  “What other one?”

  “Pull the list up again and I’ll show you.”

  Officer Preston shot her a wary glance, then shrugged and pressed another key. The list returned, and Diana found one born two years earlier. She pointed to the entry and hoped for the best. “There.”

  He pressed a key, then the screen changed. “Huh. Born and raised in Oklahoma, it says. Guess I hit the national name search or something. What brings you out to the big city?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Hackensack is at least an hour, even in this thing.” He swerved around a barricade and swore.

  “I lost my job, and my aunt Mabel sent me out here to live with my cousin. Fresh start.”

  “They don’t got jobs in Nebraska?”

  “Not like here.”

  “You grow up on a farm or something?”

  “I did, why?”

  “I’m wondering where you learned to shoot like that.”

  Diana smiled and heaved a sigh. “Daddy taught me.” She felt a pang of guilt at the lie.

  CHAPTER 16

  Officer Preston shifted in his seat and gave a casual wave across the windshield. “It’s thinning out on the roads. Shelter in Place is starting to stick. A fat lot of good it does to declare it when the turnpike is jammed anyway, but at least a lot of new traffic isn’t joining in. Besides us, I mean.”

  Diana nodded. Traffic heading south was still thick, but the northbound lanes where she and Officer Preston rode were moving along nicely. She wondered how far south Gabe had traveled, and as the thought entered her mind, Officer Preston tapped a button on the command console. “Let’s see if we’re still going to Hackensack.” The screen froze, then loaded a map with a blinking dot on a thinner line than when Officer Perez pinged his location.

  “Your boy wised up. He’s off the turnpike. But he’s not making this easy on me.”

  Diana squinted at the map, pretending to understand what she was looking at. “Why would he get off there?”

  Officer Preston snorted and shot her a conspiratorial grin. “Right? I mean, I’m proud of ya, getting off the Turnpike, but East Rutherford, really?”

  Diana threw her hands up in disgust. “Un-fricking-believable.” She remembered somebody saying that at her office cleaning job when a file went missing and chaos ensued for hours.

  Officer Preston nodded along. “Christ, no offense, but I already hate the bastard.”

  “It is what it is,” she said, shaking her head. She’d heard that too, from one of the office staff about the computer system that allowed the file to vanish.

  “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head in unison.

  Diana considered reaching for her phone. “Want me to contact him, and tell him to straighten up and fly right?” Mabel said that a lot—to her—usually during arguments over chores.

  “Naw. We’ll tough it out. We’re supposed to surprise him, right? He can drive to Clifton, for all the good it’ll do him, but I’ll get you two back together, believe me.”

  “Okay, but it’s no problem, really.” The command console squawked.

  “Appreciate it. Hold on, the station wants something. Cover your ears.” He reached for a button on the command console and looked over at Diana, who intently pressed her hands over her ears. He swatted her arm with the back of his hand, and she uncovered her left ear. “Just messing with ya. You can listen, just stay quiet. Listen and learn.”

  Diana clasped her hands on her lap and nodded. That she could do.

  He pressed the button and stiffened up in his seat. “Preston.”

  “What are you doing in Secaucus? Why aren’t you at your post?”

  “Emergency delivery. I’ll explain later.”

  “Oliver says you left them a huge mess to clean up.”

  Officer Preston shook his head and rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah, well, news flash. We’ve got a buttload of burning buildings on both sides of the Hudson. He’s going to have to buck up and handle it.”

  “He needs you back at the command post. So do we. Cancel your side errand and get back there.”

  Diana felt fear creeping up on her. Gabe was close, closer than he’d been all day. Maybe Officer Preston could drop her off someplace and he could circle back and pick her up there. It had to be easier than going all the way down to Newark, which was no longer necessary.

  “Negative. Explain later. Tell Oliver I’ll be back in sixty.”

  “He said something about a minor before Perez took over on the comm. Are you transporting a minor, Preston?”

  Diana’s eyes widened. She shook her head, and mouthed, “I’m twenty-three.”

  “Negative. I told you about Oliver not getting his facts straight. If you must know, I don’t have a minor in the vehicle.” He glanced over and winked. “I’ve got two of ‘em. I’m getting them back to the orphanage as a favor to Sister Kate.”

  There was a long pause on the comm. “Sixty minutes.”

  “Ten-four.” He tapped a button on the console and broke out into laughter. “Flippin’ Oliver. Any chance you could frag that greasy bastard and make it look like an accident?”

  Diana smiled and relaxed in her seat. “Just say when.”

  Officer Preston’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t say it unless you mean it, Pembrook.”

  “Anything for you, Eddie.”

&nb
sp; He looked over at her and nodded appreciatively. “Good to know.”

  Officer Preston brought up the map on the console again. The flashing dot had moved to the right, and Preston shrugged. “I wasn’t kidding about Clifton. He’s not there yet, but damn near.”

  Diana had no idea what that meant. She frowned and shook her head. “No idea.”

  “Yeah, me neither. I mean, I get that he’s gotta cross the river, but he’s backtracking. Unless he knows something we don’t.”

  “No idea.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Hold on, let’s see how bad we got hit.” He tapped a few keys in-between glances at the road, then pressed a green button. The screen went blank, then loaded a map with flashing sections of road. “Bridge out… bridge out… that one’s just got heavy traffic, but it’s as good as out… huh.”

  “Huh?” Diana leaned over to stare at the console.

  “Your boy made it over the river in Passaic, looks like. But he’s heading northwest.”

  “Huh.” Diana rubbed her forehead, simulating deep contemplation.

  “Maybe he got cold feet.”

  Diana felt a surge of anxiety, but she tried to pass it off as mere annoyance. “Maybe, but he’s not like that. What if he’s not driving?”

  Officer Preston shot her a concerned glance, then rubbed his chin. He flipped on his lights and tapped the siren a few times to clear a lane. Diana was pressed against her seat as Preston mashed down the accelerator. “Not on my watch.”

  Diana held on to the overhead support handle and tried to stay upright in her seat as Officer Preston darted and weaved through traffic, not waiting for traffic to yield. The flashing dot was getting closer, little by little, which suggested whoever was driving Gabe’s car wasn’t putting the pedal to the metal. They cleared the bridge in Passaic, and the map screen showed a straight shot to his car. Preston glanced down at brief intervals and appeared to decode where the target vehicle was located now, and where it was headed. Diana wished she knew the area better.