What kind of force would it be?
Don’t know, but it’s obviously out there and it’s obviously making me kill. The evidence is in the morgue, they’re stacking up in there.
So if it’s out there somewhere, it’s probably waiting for me. Come on out Sam boy. And don’t forget to bring your gun. You got more killin’ to do.
Bite me. I’m not going out.
There, that was simple. Like my approach to the martial arts. Keepin’ it simple. I’m staying in because when I’m in, it, that big, evil it out there can’t make me shoot anyone.
I turn around and lean against the windowsill. “Okay, this is ridiculous,” I say to my reflection in my closet-door mirror across the room. “I’m not even going to think about how little sense that makes.”
Still, it’s true. Don’t leave the house, don’t leave the house, don’t leave the house.
I turn back to the window. As if to taunt the beast outside, I lean my forehead against the cold glass, fogging it with my breath. As the fog dissipates, the only beast I see is that same white cat out on the sidewalk, walking slowly, sensuously, ever ready to pounce or to flee. It alerts on a blue car that passes slowly under the streetlight, a Toyota, I think.
I turn and flop down onto the bed, face first. Ahh, sweet blackness.
It’s noon. I can’t believe I’ve slept a full nine hours and I’m doubly amazed that I’m still so exhausted. The two big knuckles on both my hands feel like they’ve been skinned because, well, they have been, and my shoulders and legs have barely recuperated from last night’s assault on the heavy bag.
What triple amazes me, as I sit here on the edge of my bed scratching myself, is that now I want to leave the house. My middle-of-the-night thoughts convinced me that I would never go outside again, but the four walls are suddenly making me feel like a caged panther. Talk about your extreme convictions. Is this another one of those “normal reactions to an abnormal event” that Kari talks about? Is going crazy a normal reaction?
I stumble into the bathroom, do my thing and then walk down the hall to the kitchen. I pull the coffee pot out from under the shelf, hesitate, and push it back. If I don’t get out of here, I’ll go nuts. Okay, I’ve already gone nuts. Maybe I’ll just cap a round in my own medulla oblongata. I sputter-laugh at that and then stop abruptly. I’m definitely going nutso. I’m getting out of here and I’m going to walk the three blocks to the Coffee Bump.
Two minutes later, I’m dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and heading toward the living room door.
I’m greeted by a warm morning sun, a soft breeze, and a newspaper lying on the porch, its headline blaring: Cop Slays Child.
The bold font lands three hard punches into my heart: Cop. Slays. Child. The earth tilts and I stumble back.
“Son-of-a-bitch!”
A crow answers my curse from high atop a tree.
“Damn them!” I shout, kicking the paper off the porch and into a holly bush. The damn media.
Wait…
I don’t subscribe to the newspaper.
My cop instinct kicks in. I quick-scan my yard, the sidewalk, and the street beyond. Nothing. So who would have put it here? Only my friends and a couple of old partners know my address, I have an unlisted phone number and my Dodge pickup is registered to the precinct.
Mark? He knows I’m not coming in today so maybe he left it so I’d know what to expect. Tiff? Maybe she left it as a dig? Could she be that mean? No, I refuse to believe that. Maybe it was a neighbor. A couple of them have never been friendly.
Damn. A simple newspaper lying on my porch is charging my fight-or-flight juices, and I’m leaning toward flight—back into the house. Not because I’m afraid, but because I don’t want to hurt anyone again.
No no no. I can’t go back inside. I got to face it… it.
I scan the yard and street once more—a school bus passes, a couple of cars—and I pull the door shut behind me. I stand on the porch for a long moment, as if I were on the ledge of a thirty-story high-rise deciding whether to jump across the yawning space to the ledge of another roof.
I inhale, counting slowly to four, hold it in for a count of four, exhale for a count of four and hold empty for a count of four. Combat breathing. It’s a technique I’ve taught for years to cops and my martial arts students as a fast way to get calm and collected.
By the time I finish three cycles, my boiling juices drop to a simmer. I’m almost calm. Now I got to step off the porch before the feeling passes. Come on. Come on.
I step.
My heart thumps against my chest with frightening intensity. I force myself to take another step, and another. I make it to the sidewalk where I pause under the big Douglas fir to take a couple more combat breaths. Then I begin to walk, actually walk, heading west toward the strip mall three blocks away.
A couple of painless minutes later I’m at the end of the block. One down, two more to go. I’m feeling better. My anxiety seems to be lessening, the spring air is clean and cool, and the lawns and trees smell invigorating. Maybe I’ll get a breakfast roll with my big Americano.
Two blocks down now. One more to go.
I’m there.
The tables on the sidewalk outside the Coffee Bump are filled, and a line of folks wanting a noontime, four-dollar cup of caffeine stretches outside the doors. I hesitate for a moment, not sure if I want to wait. Okay, I’ll wait; it can’t take longer than fifteen minutes.
I step to the rear of the line behind a woman in a dark blue suit reading a paperback. She turns slightly, looking at me over black rimmed glasses. “Need a jolt, huh?” she asks with a teasing smile.
I nod. I’m not in the mood for chit chat no matter how attractive this woman.
“Me, too. Been one of those days. Know what I mean?”
I nod again. Indeed, I do, lady. Indeed I do.
She turns back to her novel, frowns, then looks back at me. “Excuse me, but are you… you look like… aren’t you that police officer in the paper today who—”
“No,” I say quickly. Got to get out of here. It was a big mistake leaving the house. I turn to leave, but a heavyset man in a blue flannel shirt blocks my way. Judging by the look of contempt on his face, he’s not here for a caramel frap.
“Why you lyin’ to the lady, Dee-tective Reeves?” the guy says in a voice like a deep blast from a tuba. “We all saw it on the news,” he spits, “read it in the paper, and saw your picture.”
“It was you,” the woman declares, looking at me with the same face Tiff did last night. “Oh my—”
“No it wasn’t,” I say quickly, but lamely. I sidestep
