I’d been told to wait for the negotiator. But I knew that guy was playing poker tonight, and he wouldn’t respond until at least the third page. By this point, they’d paged him once, maybe twice. So it was up to me. Now, staring out into the open sky, I realized I should have waited.
I balanced on a two-foot wide ledge that surrounded the old water tower. I don’t think it hadn’t been used since the ‘80s. I was a bit busy, so I didn’t bother to call the town historian to find out. The wind blew in from the south. Fortunately, I was on the north side. Unfortunately, while the circular contraption protected me from the full thirty-mile per hour gust, I found myself being pelted by two razor thin wisps of wind that followed the gracious curve of the tower and met precisely where I stood.
I had a moment of clarity, during which I questioned my sanity by blurting out, “Fuck me.”
I suppose I could have tried to say something to Roy, who had climbed over the waist-high railing about thirty seconds ago. There was the temptation to let him jump. The sooner I got off that tower, the better.
I watched him release one hand, then the other. He leaned back against the railing, sometimes jerking forward and back because of the wind that whipped around and pelted him, the same as it did me.
I knew I should have said something to the guy. Sanctity of life and all that bullshit. That's the reason I got into homicide to begin with. To give a voice to those who could no longer speak. This guy could still speak though. And it wasn't like someone was taking his life here. He was prepared to do that by himself.
I could no longer hold my tongue. I was hot and sweaty and starting to have a panic attack, dammit.
"Well, then jump you bastard," I said.
He looked over his shoulder. The only light up on that tower came from the moon, and while it was full on this night, wispy clouds raced by and at that moment, they covered the entire white orb.
I couldn't get a read on the guy. His eyes looked black as coal. I could tell his mouth hung open from the dark hole in the middle of his face.
"Look, man," I said. "I'm cramping up here. So either you jump, or you get back over that railing and we go downstairs, and then I kick your butt on solid ground."
Roy turned his head forward and tucked his chin to his chest. He said nothing back to me.
Pissed me off.
I reached out for the railing and leaned forward. It was amazing I was up there in the first place. I’d been scared of heights since the age of eight or nine, when I climbed higher in a tree than I ever had. The reason? To save a one eyed tabby cat for the cute thirteen-year-old girl next door. Her name was Victoria. The cat, that is. I don’t remember the name of the girl anymore. Maybe if she had thanked me, I would. It hadn’t been the fact that I was higher up in the tree than I’d ever been before. Hell, that had been kind of cool to my eight or nine year old self. What did me in had been the branch that snapped when I was twenty feet off the ground. I’ve been told that it doesn’t matter whether you weigh eighty pounds or eight hundred, twenty feet passes pretty quickly when you fall out of a tree.
And that’s why I felt my stomach higher in my throat with every step I took forward. Those boards below my feet were old and splintered. At least, I imagined they’d be if I had a light to shine on them. Not that I’d look. Hell, it could have been plastic wrap under me. No way I was looking down. Not a hundred feet or so up in the air.
“Don’t come any closer,” Roy said.
“Oh, now you can talk?” I said, my panic at an all-time high as I realized I stood more than ten feet away from the door that led back to sanity.
He eased along the outer edge, further from me. I glanced down and saw that only his heels remained on semi-solid above-ground ground. Big mistake. Not him on the ledge. Me looking down.
A doctor might say it’s impossible for a stomach to turn, but I swear mine did at that moment. My knees went a bit weak. A lot weak, as a matter of fact. Next thing I knew, my armpit collided with the metal railing.
“I got five bucks you hit the ground first,” Roy said.
His words jostled me forward. “You don’t know your physics,” I said. I stopped before explaining any further. It would have been lost on him.
The episode I suffered through a moment ago seemed to cure me, at least temporarily, of my fear of heights. I rose and let go of the railing and walked toward him. This time he grabbed the railing with his left hand and spun, stopping so that his right leg hovered out in the air while the tip of his left foot balanced on the ledge.
Crazy SOB, I thought. “Get back over here,” I said.
Red lights bounced off the trees. I saw the same lights reflected off the water tower. I looked down, twisted stomach and all, and saw a ladder and engine pull up to the tower. A moment later a flood light shone up at us.
I got a good look at the man who stood in between life and death. I’d just upgraded him to person of interest in his wife’s death. Thus far, we’d labeled Dusty Anne Miller’s death as accidental. But I didn’t believe that now. Roy’s actions on this humid, windy night only served to convince me that he was guilty as sin. Maybe more so.
“C’mon, Roy. Let’s go downstairs, have a Starbucks, and talk this thing through.”
I wasn’t a fan of coffee I didn’t make myself, but since I seemed to be in the minority, I thought it a good line to use.
Then Roy said something I don’t know that I’ll ever forget. He said, “Coffee? It’s almost midnight.”
Did dead men care about such things?
Roy looked down for an awfully long time. He eased his butt to the railing again and placed both hands on it. His stare remained focused on one of the fire trucks below. I wanted to look over, too. I’d never been involved in a jumper situation and found myself wondering if they pulled out one of those circular bouncy things like in the old cartoons. Might be fun, for the right person.
I didn’t look though. With Roy distracted, I reached out and grabbed hold of his collar. He yelled something indecipherable. I pulled back as hard as I could. He toppled over backward, landed on his head. I hovered over his body, leaned forward.
“Roy?” I said.
Roy said nothing. His eyes were shut, his mouth open a bit. I felt for a pulse. Found one. I pinched his hand and he winced in pain. A good sign, I thought. If his neck was broken, he wouldn’t have felt that.
Roy came to somewhat and said, “What the hell, man?”
I grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him around the water tower until we reached the door. The wind had blown it shut. Luckily, it hadn’t been locked.
Now, that tower ledge was at least a hundred-fifty feet off the ground. There was no way I was going to carry that guy down the stairs. So I pulled out my radio and called in for back up. Soon, the firefighters’ flashlights lit up the corridor.
Jerry Haynes appeared first. Jerry and I go way back, before he was a firefighter and I was a cop. Together, with Sam, the three of us raised some hell as kids.
Jerry said, “You OK, Mitch?”
“Yeah, just remind me to check my shorts when I get back on solid ground.”