9

“WHO IS THIS GUY again?” Mike asked, giving dispatcher Gordie Rheaume a quizzical look.

“He claims to be a professor of Native American studies down in Orono at the university.”

“And he claims to have information about our missing shoveler?”

“That’s what he said. He wanted to talk to someone in charge, and I told him you would be in this morning. But he said he had to speak to you in person, that this wasn’t something he could do over the phone.”

Mike put his hands on his hips. “Did this guy sound rational?”

Gordie shrugged. “He sounded normal to me, but how can you really tell? He just said it was imperative he talk to the officer in charge of the investigation into the missing homeowner and the tortured dog, that he had information, and that it was critical you get that information as soon as possible.”

Mike McMahon sighed as he watched the storm raging outside the police station’s front window. It had taken three times as long as it should have for him to get to work this morning, and now he was looking at a three hour drive down to Orono in this mess. He certainly couldn’t ask the professor to drive up here, not with the conditions still deteriorating and not forecasted to improve any time soon.

He turned to Shari Dupont, who leaned against a desk, arms folded, watching the exchange between Mike and Gordie with a look of amusement on her face. “I don’t know what you think is so funny,” he said. “Guess who’s coming to Orono with me?”

***

BACK IN THE POLICE SUV, coffee in hands, the two officers warily eyed the two-lane blacktop that would take them south to Orono and a meeting with the university professor supposedly in possession of urgent information. Without any evidence to speak of or a single usable lead, Mike McMahon felt he had no choice but to take to the road and probably waste a good chunk of the day on what would likely turn out to be a wild goose chase.

The deserted road was covered with what looked exactly like the topping on a glazed donut. The ice continued to thicken by the hour and still the freezing rain fell in torrents that forecasters predicted would continue for at least another two days. Schools remained closed, and fortunately most people had finally come to the conclusion that staying inside and out of the storm was the best option, at least for now.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Shari Dupont.

“Glazed donuts, if you must know.”

She laughed. “Jeez, a cop with a thing for donuts. You’re a walking cliché, did you know that?”

“Hey,” he protested. “A man’s gotta eat, right?”

“I wouldn’t call what you do ‘eating right,’ not even a little bit.”

“I’m a guy, remember? Donuts, takeout and frozen pizzas are the only things we know how to make.”

“Then I’ll have to make you a home-cooked meal,” Shari said and stopped suddenly, obviously concerned about stepping over the line with her new boss. Her face reddened.

“That’d be nice,” he answered quietly. “I haven’t had a real home-made dinner in quite a while.”

An awkward silence descended over the vehicle and the next few minutes passed slowly. Finally Shari spoke. “Weren’t you going to tell me why you decided to move up here to the outer edges of the inhabited universe when you had a thriving career going in a real city?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “It’s really not a very exciting story.”

“Well,” she countered, “it’s not like we don’t have time on our hands, right?”

“That’s certainly true,” Mike agreed, eyeing a tractor-trailer inching along the northbound side of the two-lane, wondering if there would be anything left of him and Shari if that behemoth were to jackknife as it passed, crushing them like a couple of bugs.

“We were negotiating a hostage release, or trying to, anyway,” he started without preamble, not wanting to relive that day again but unable to stop himself. “A father had snapped. He was separated from his wife and he entered a crowded bank with a semi-automatic weapon, taking the wife and their seven-year-old daughter hostage, along with a full complement of bank employees and, of course, all the customers in the place at the time. It was early on a Friday morning and the building was full. The situation had the potential to get very ugly very fast. We evacuated the area around the bank and called a hostage negotiator to the scene. He stabilized the situation and slowed everything down, and it looked like we might get lucky and avoid a major tragedy.

“Along about the twelfth hour of the standoff, a customer tried to be a hero inside the bank building and made a play for the dirtball’s gun.”

Mike could feel Shari looking at him as he stared out the window of the SUV, seeing not the wilderness of Paskagankee, Maine, during an early November storm, but a blue-collar suburb on the outskirts of Boston on a sweltering July evening. “I’m assuming the customer was unsuccessful?” she said finally.

“That’s one way to put it. The perp put a bullet in the hero’s head and then for good measure did his wife too, just to keep everyone else in line. That’s when everything changed. We went from a posture of containment to one of attack. The moment he demonstrated his willingness to kill, especially multiple people at once, we knew we were running out of time and had to take action quickly.”

Mike paused and tried to collect himself. The whole scene came flooding back to him so fully and felt so real. He lived it day after day and night after night; he dreamed about it; it permeated his entire existence: The grit of the dirty pavement under his feet. The jitteriness and exhaustion resulting from adrenaline pounding through his body for hours with no outlet. The feeling of sweat running freely down the inside of his uniform shirt. The knowledge that innocent people had died and more were likely to unless something was done, and soon.

“Mike?”

He jumped, startled. He had been a couple of hundred miles away. He glanced across the SUV at Shari and saw the concern evident on her face. Her eyes were big and blue and beautiful. “Are you okay? You’re white as a ghost.”

He chuckled shakily. His mouth was dry and the inside of the police vehicle felt stiflingly hot. “I’m fine. Where were we?”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said softly. “I understand if you just want to leave it in the past.”

“That’s exactly the problem. I can’t leave it in the past. It’s with me every day, a living, breathing entity. It’s become a part of who I am. Maybe telling the story will help, I don’t know. I’ve never really talked about it with anyone, not even the shrink the department made me see afterward.”

“Okay. So, the father murdered two people in the bank in cold blood.”

“That’s right.” Mike’s hands shook as he gripped the steering wheel. His palms felt sweaty and slick and his stomach churned. “Anyway, Lieutenant Blackburn, who was in charge of the operation, told us to take the guy down if we were able to get a clear shot. This particular branch office had a big plate-glass window fronting the street, and the suspect had been sighted numerous times over the course of the afternoon and evening walking back and forth in front of it. He became extremely agitated after shooting the two victims and cut off all communication with the negotiator.

“The SWAT guys were preparing to storm the bank, but the lieutenant wanted to wait just a little longer before sending them in. He was afraid once they hit the door that more people would get slaughtered by the guy before SWAT could put him down, even if they used flash-bangs to disorient him. There were so many people inside that damned building that even if the guy fired randomly, he was a lock to hit other people. Blackburn rolled the dice, hoping the guy would take another stroll in front of the big window and one of us could take him out before he killed anyone else. It was a calculated risk.” Mike wiped his sweaty hands on his pants.

“You took the shot, didn’t you?”

Mike took a deep, shaky breath and blew it out forcefully. “Oh, yeah.”

“And?”

“Well, the guy had been using employees as human shields all day. Whenever he walked around inside the bank, he pushed an innocent person around in front of him. This time, he did the same thing, but as he turned to retrace his steps, I had a clean shot for a split-second. So I took it.

“The thick plate glass deflected the path of the bullet even though it was almost a straight shot. It struck one of his hands, if you can believe that, and knocked the weapon to the floor. Several hostages jumped him after he fell and subdued him.”

Mike felt Officer Dupont eyeing him closely despite the fact he continued staring straight ahead through the windshield. “So you were a hero. You saved all those people and, in the process, didn’t even have to kill the suspect. All-in-all it sounds like a pretty good day to me.”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed bleakly. “A pretty good day. There was only one problem. After the bullet struck the perp’s hand, it ricocheted at an angle down and to the left, where he had handcuffed his daughter to a desk leg. It struck the little girl in the head and she died instantly.”

The inside of the SUV grew silent. The tension was electric. “But you have to know that wasn’t your fault,” Shari protested. “That was nothing more than the worst kind of terrible luck.”

Mike wiped his forehead with his uniform sleeve. He knew it wasn’t hot in the car, but it felt like a sauna to him. This was the visceral reaction he felt every time he thought about that awful day in Revere, Massachusetts. “Yes, I know that,” he finally said. “The department conducted a full hearing afterward, just as they do whenever an officer is involved in a shooting. I was completely exonerated.

“Of course, the poor little girl’s family didn’t see it that way—what was left of her family, that is—and who could blame them? From their perspective the people who were being paid to protect her from harm were the ones that killed her. The grandparents filed suit against the city for millions—a lawsuit which is still pending, by the way.

“After that, the mayor’s office informed the chief it would probably be best if I just went away quietly, so I did.”

Shari Dupont sat motionlessly, mouth agape, her face flushed with anger and her eyes flashing. Even from deep inside his personal hell, Mike thought her emotion made her look more beautiful than before, if that was possible. “You should have stayed and fought for your job,” she sputtered. “You did nothing wrong! They couldn’t just fire you for doing your damned job!”

“You’re not getting it,” he said, a faint smile crossing his face as he took in Shari’s reaction. “I wasn’t fired. They made a suggestion, one with which I agreed wholeheartedly, and I took it. I had been considering getting away for quite a while, trying something new, but my wife loved Revere and didn’t want to move. It was where she had grown up, where her family and friends were and still are.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Shari said in surprise.

“Five years,” he answered. “But after the shooting things were never the same. There was so much negative publicity, so much pressure on both of us, none of which was her fault, she just couldn’t handle it. She left me four months later. I don’t blame her, really,” he said reflectively. “I wasn’t the same guy after that shooting.

“Anyway, like I said, I had been wanting to do something different for a long time, I just wasn’t able to decide what it might be. I figured there was nothing holding me in Revere anymore, so when I read about the opening for chief here in Paskagankee, I decided to give it a shot. Little did I know the last guy to hold the job would want out so badly, I would be hired almost immediately. Now, here I am.”

Mike breathed deeply. The temperature in the SUV was returning to normal for him, and the nausea he felt every time he thought about that horrible day in July sixteen months ago was beginning to ease.

“That’s quite a story,” Shari said quietly. “I remember seeing something about it on the news, even way down at the FBI Academy in Virginia, but I had no idea how horrifying the tragedy was.”

“You want to hear something funny?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the slick road. He still clutched the steering wheel with both hands like a drowning man holding a life preserver.

“Sure.”

“That night was the only time I ever fired my gun on duty. I drew it plenty of times, shot thousands of rounds at the practice range, but that was the one and only time I ever actually fired on someone. And I killed a little girl.”