Hearts of Stone

by Brad Smith

  He was about to shout out when he saw Carl slow, his eyes fixed on both Billy and the boy, and then stop. Dunbar was directly behind Carl now, fifty yards back. He kept his eyes on Carl’s right hand in the jacket pocket. Billy and the boy went into the woods, the boy still bouncing on his father’s shoulders.

  Carl let them go.

  Dunbar stood still in the parking lot and watched. After a long while, Carl turned away and began to walk aimlessly toward the river, his motions slow and robotic. He stopped at a wooden bench along the bank and sat down. Raising his chin, he looked out over the water.

  Dunbar put his gun away and followed. Carl didn’t see him until the very last. He was staring straight ahead at the river and seemed weary to the point of collapse. Dunbar sat down beside him. He waited a couple of minutes before he spoke.

  ‘Give me the gun, Carl.’

  Carl did it, pulling the forty-five from his jacket and handing it over without a word. Both men watched the river flow past. Dunbar waited, thinking that Carl might say something. He was hoping he would, because he himself was having trouble coming up with any words that might fit.

  ‘You know this is my last day on the job?’ he finally asked. ‘I’m retiring.’

  Carl glanced over at him, as if confused by the news.

  ‘I’d rather my last act as a cop was something different.’

  Carl nodded.

  ‘But I’ve had a pretty good career,’ Dunbar said after a moment. ‘I’ve had a good life, I guess. I’m married, you know. I guess you wouldn’t know that. But I am, and it’s a pretty fair marriage. Not perfect, but I can’t imagine there is such a thing. My wife and I – her name’s Martha – have plans now. She retired a year ago, and we figure to travel and whatever. Typical things, I suppose.’

  Dunbar shifted on the hard bench. He realized he was still holding the forty-five in his hand and now he put it in his coat pocket. He sat quietly for a while, thinking of all that had happened since he’d first met Carl Burns lying in a hospital bed, half dead from loss of blood, six months earlier. All the things that had led them to this spot on this day. It seemed like six years.

  ‘Thing is, I don’t know what I’d do if somebody took her away from me,’ he said. He looked at Carl and got to his feet. ‘I have to read you your rights now, Carl.’

  Afterward they walked up the slope to the parking lot. Dunbar put Carl in the back seat without handcuffing him. Then he slid behind the wheel. He put the keys in the ignition and he stopped. He sat there for a time, watching the activity in the park along the way. The kids running and playing, taking turns on the slide, the parents watching, talking among themselves. The way life should be but not the way it always was.

  Dunbar opened the door and got out of the car and started for the river. When he got to the bank, he took the gun from his pocket and threw it as high and as far as he could. It splashed down fifty yards out and sank like a stone.

  He left Carl standing in the parking lot. Before driving away he rolled the window down.

  ‘I’m late to a retirement party,’ he said. ‘Go home, Carl.’

  Carl watched as the cruiser pulled out of the lot and headed back to the city. The wind came up then, whipping across the river, creating tiny whitecaps out in the current. Carl put his collar up and began to walk.