for a press release? I need a few details to do what I can to sugarcoat the bad shoot.”
Bad shoot.
I spring out of my chair, slamming both my palms against Adam’s chest, and push him through the doorway and onto the closest desk, scattering papers, files, and a stack of mug shots.
Mark’s voice: “Sam!”
Tiff ’s voice: “Sam, what are you…?”
I push myself off Adams and spin toward Tommy, who stands quickly and begins walking hurriedly in the opposite direction.
“Sam!” It’s Mark from somewhere outside of my head. “Get back in here.”
I do a fast zigzag around the desks to cut off the big detective. “You fucked up my shot,” I hear someone say, menacingly. “You fucked up my shot!” It’s my voice.
Mark from somewhere: “Sam, stop! Harrison, Pederson, get Tommy out of here!”
Several detectives scramble to block me, tentatively, like men having to corner a dangerous animal. I stop. Tommy is hustled across the room, out into the hall and probably toward the elevator.
As quickly as my rage erupted, it ebbs. Within half a dozen seconds, I’m back in the moment. My arms relax and my fists unclench. I stare unseeingly at the floor.
The remaining detectives form a loose circle around me, every face fearful. Some of these guys are very old friends and I’ve just forced them to have to corral me like a berserk stallion.
“I’m sorry,” I say, so softly to the floor that they probably don’t hear me.
“Take him home,” Mark says, as he and Tiff move up on each side of me. Apparently, now I’m something that has to be dealt with, a wild and out-of-control thing. “I’ll call you later, Tiff. He’ll have to come in for more interviews, but take him home and make him sleep. No coffee, no stimulants. Milk and rest only.”
“I’m sorry, Mark,” I mumble. I look over at the PIO who is standing now and shakily straightening his suit. “Adams, sorry to you, too.”
“Go home, Sam,” Mark says. “I’ll call you later.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
*
The kitchen phone is ringing as we come through the living room door; seems louder than usual. Tiff goes into the kitchen and grabs it.
“It’s Mark.” She extends the receiver toward me, avoiding my eyes, then turns and heads toward the bedroom.
Tiff ’s been quiet all the way home. At one point, I started to tell her what had happened, but she interrupted me and said it might be best for me to just sit calmly and not talk about it. Good concept, but it was how she said it: acerbic with an almost imperceptible wrinkle of her nose. Almost imperceptible.
“Mark.”
“Sorry to call so soon, buddy.”
“But?”
“Is Tiff there? Will she be staying home with you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Long pause, then, “The deputy chief just called.”
“Yeah?”
Silence.
“Come on, Mark.”
“There were nine millimeter hits in both the suspect… and the boy.”
I claw at my face, as if doing so might stop my flesh from burning. My phone hand is shaking so hard that the receiver is tapping a Morse Code message against the side of my head: Y-o-u d-i-d i-t.
“Mitchell carries a Forty-Five,” Mark’s voice says from the bottom of a fifty-gallon barrel of oil. “There were six Forty-Five rounds in the perp, and two Nines. There was only one round in the kid… I’m sorry. It was your weapon. That’s unofficial but—”
I smash the receiver against the refrigerator, sending hundreds of pieces of plastic raining down on the tile.
*
I’m in my garage, slamming my fists over and over into the hanging heavy bag, each hit landing on the brown leather harder and faster than the last, my bare upper body dripping sweat, my shoulders, elbows, and wrists aching. I ignore my bleeding knuckles and I ignore Tiff when she steps out the kitchen door and leans her shoulders against the wall.
“I just talked to Mark,” she says flatly, her arms hugging her middle as if she were cold. “I called him back when you wouldn’t tell me what he said.”
I change to triple blows - jab, cross, hook; jab, cross, hook. Blood from the torn flesh across my knuckles splatters the leather, my chest, the cement floor, and the scattered dumbbells lying about.
“My God, Sam…”
I clinch the bag with one arm to keep from collapsing and look at my other hand, blinking dumbly at the bloody mess. My lips curl back as the pain from the raw flesh finally penetrates my dull brain. I take a couple of deep breaths to will it away. I look at Tiff and start to tell her that my hands hurt, but I have no energy to speak. Instead, I rest the side of my face against the side of the bloody bag.
“That boy is dead,” she whispers, shaking her head.
I jerk my head back as if she’d slapped me. Never have her eyes looked at me as they are now… as if I were loathsome, something… vile, like dog shit on the floor.
Her beautiful face twists ugly. “I don’t understand, Sam. Talk to me. What hap—”
“Shut up,” I hear myself whisper, without thinking it first. I look away for a moment. Then I feel that extraordinary heat in my face again, growing ever hotter. I look back at Tiff and feel my eyes narrow, burning like embers. Then just short of yelling, I say it again. “Shut up!”
If my intensity frightens her, she doesn’t let on. Instead, she drops her arms and looks at me, dazed. “Talk to me, Sam.” When I don’t respond, she says, “I can’t even begin to fathom—”
“Shut up!” I scream. “Shut up!” I slap the bag, leaving a bloody palm print on its side. Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why are you looking at me like that? I…”
I want her to hold me.
I want her the hell away from me.
“Just… get out! Get out!”
“My God, Sam. What’s happened to you?.” She turns and rushes back into the house.
I step toward the door, then stop, my body rigid, chest heaving as if I had been running sprints. I turn back toward the bag, my arms hanging limply at my side, my eyes unfocused, unseeing. My heart thumps a hundred miles-per-hour, each beat clarifying the image of the naked man drawing the knife across the boy’s neck.
The
