Blindside (Michael Bennett)

by James Patterson

  I didn’t answer. I did a quick scan to see if I could find any blood spatter on the cuffs or collar of the heavy coat he was wearing.

  But that was the least of my worries at the moment. Now the man leaned in close to RJ and said, “Shoot this cracker in the face. You feel me, RJ?”

  The younger man kept his eyes on me. He raised the gun slightly so he could sight more accurately. He mumbled, “Okay, Tight, okay. Give me a second.”

  I felt the shift in the young man. He was scared of his friend. I would be, too. The man was giving him almost no choice but to pull the trigger. At that point, I knew if RJ didn’t shoot, I’d be facing that .45.

  The man told RJ, “You own his ass. Now you can take everything from him. No feeling like it in the world.” Then the man looked at the Chevy Impala. He craned his head to stare into the interior.

  “Hold on, RJ. I think this dude’s a cop. He seen us both. You gotta do it now.”

  Now the crazy guy was using logic. And he wasn’t wrong. I’d have been willing to forget about RJ, but I needed to check out his friend “Tight” regarding the homicide a block away.

  That wasn’t going to happen, though. I swallowed and had a quick thought of each of my children. When you have ten kids, you can’t spend a lot of time on each one as your life flashes before your eyes.

  RJ was ready. He used his left hand to steady the gun. He started to squeeze the trigger.

  CHAPTER 5

  AT A MOMENT like that, facing a gun, there’s no telling what will go through your head. I was hoping for a miracle. And I said a quick prayer. It wasn’t specific or particularly elegant. Just a Please help me, God. At least I think that’s what I prayed.

  Then it happened. A car coming from a side street onto this main road squealed its tires. It wasn’t long or really loud. But it was enough. Just enough.

  Both men looked over their shoulders to see what had caused the noise. Just a basic reaction, like an instinct. It was a gray Dodge racing away from us.

  I took my chance. A movement I had done in training more than a thousand times. I shifted slightly. Reached back quickly with my right hand. Flipped my coat out of the way. Took a firm grip on my Glock semiautomatic pistol. Pressed the release on my holster and slid the pistol out. It felt natural because of all the practice. The idea that a human would be in my sights didn’t really come into the equation.

  Just as my barrel came to rest, pointing at the robber’s chest, I shouted, “Police. Don’t move.”

  I aimed at RJ because he had his pistol out, although I thought the other man was going to be the real problem. But RJ steadied his hands and brought the barrel of his pistol back toward my face. I squeezed the trigger of my own pistol. Once. Twice. I knew I’d hit him center mass.

  The young man’s arms lowered and the pistol dropped from his hand. It made a loud clank on the hood of my car, then slid down to the asphalt. RJ followed a similar path, staring at me the whole time as he tumbled to the ground.

  My natural inclination was to follow the body to the ground with my pistol. I don’t know why. It’s not like cops are in so many shootings that we get used to them. Each one is traumatic and devastating in its own way.

  As soon as RJ hit the asphalt, I realized he posed no more threat. Now I had to deal with Tight, who was already rushing backward, away from me. He fumbled for the pistol in his belt line, and I fired once. Then he spun and sprinted away. I didn’t know if I’d hit him or if he’d dropped the pistol. The only thing I could think about was the young man bleeding on the street right in front of me.

  I let the crazy man in the fur-trimmed jacket run away.

  I dropped to one knee and immediately checked the pulse on the young man I’d been forced to shoot. Blood was already pumping from his chest and filling the indentation at the bottom of his throat. I opened his ratty coat all the way and ripped his Jets T-shirt right down the middle, then used part of the T-shirt to help stop the bleeding.

  I quickly reached into my pocket and fumbled for my phone. I hit 911. As soon as the operator came on I almost shouted, “This is Detective Michael Bennett. I am on Third Avenue near 146th Street. I need immediate assistance. I have shots fired, a man down, and require an ambulance ASAP.”

  I ignored her other questions and went back to working on young RJ. I held the folded T-shirt rag directly on the bullet hole, hoping to stem the bleeding. Blood soaked the cuff of my shirt and speckled my chest. People started coming out of the bodega and some of the apartment buildings.

  A young black woman kneeled down to help me. She said, “I’m in nursing school. Let me keep pressure on the wound.” She wasn’t panicked and kept a very calm tone.

  That helped me focus. I kept saying to the young man, “Hang in there, RJ. Help is on the way.” About a minute later, I heard the first in a storm of sirens heading our way.

  It wasn’t until paramedics stepped in and took over the first aid that it really hit me what had happened. I could have been killed. I should have been killed. And I had been forced to use my duty weapon. It was the last thing I’d wanted to do. It’s the last thing any cop wants to do. But I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t. Not when I hugged my kids tonight.

  And now all I could do was stare helplessly as paramedics did everything they could to save this young man’s life.

  CHAPTER 6

  AS MORE PARAMEDICS and squad cars arrived, I simply walked down the street a short distance and plopped onto the curb. I had nothing left. I wasn’t even ready to call Mary Catherine. I just stared straight ahead into the empty street. I noticed everything from the rough asphalt patches over potholes to the random Three Musketeers wrapper blowing in the light breeze. It felt as if the city had gone silent.

  Even though the paramedics were still busy, I knew RJ was dead. My mind raced, but I couldn’t settle on a single thought. I vaguely realized it was some sort of shock settling over me. It’s a common occurrence after a police shooting.

  It had all happened so fast. Virtually all police shootings do. I’d acted out of instinct. Now I had to let things take their course.

  All I knew at the moment was that I couldn’t leave the scene. I just wanted to sit here with my thoughts. Silently I prayed, Dear God, have mercy on this young man’s soul . I thought about calling my grandfather, Seamus.

  Then I heard someone shout, “He did it.” It didn’t register immediately, then someone else said it. I looked up and over my shoulder to see a small group of people facing me.

  A heavyset African American man of about thirty-five pointed at me and shouted, “That cop shot RJ for no reason. He murdered him.”

  I let him talk. It never did any good to speak up. People had to vent. This neighborhood had fought to shed its reputation from the 1980s. Crime, especially homicides, was down. Cops could only do so much. Neighborhoods and the people in them had to decide to change. And this one had. I could understand some misplaced anger over a shooting.

  The vast majority of cops try to do the right thing. That’s why they get into the business. A few go overboard. And like anything else, most groups are judged by the actions of a few. It’s been like that since the dawn of time.

  I recognized that prejudgment was contributing to this crowd’s growing fury. They were pissed off. Right now they were pissed off at me. I just took it.

  My heart fluttered and my hands shook.

  This heavyset guy gathered more followers. He was like a singer energized by the crowd. He turned to face the crowd and yelled, “We’re tired of cops treating us like criminals. Now this guy shot RJ for just standing there.”

  No one was speaking in my defense. Someone had to have seen what happened.

  Someone tossed a bottle, which shattered on the sidewalk next to me. A young patrol officer who had been near the paramedics stepped toward the crowd with her hands up like she was trying to calm them down.

  An older, lean woman scowled at the officer and said, “Keep your ass over there. This don’t concern you.�
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  Another bottle sailed through the air. Then a half eaten McDonald’s hamburger smacked me right in the face.

  I wiped some gooey cheese from my cheek with my bare hand.

  The mob of fifteen or twenty people moved toward me now. I just sat there. Numb. I understood these people’s anger. Every interaction with a cop was viewed with suspicion. Some cops’ attitudes didn’t help, treating everyone like a criminal. Forgetting that most people didn’t cause any problems at all.

  I cleaned the rest of the hamburger from my face and stood up. I faced the crowd. The young patrol officer and her partner started to move toward me, but I held up my hand to stop them. They would only make things worse.

  I mumbled, “Let them vent for a minute. We don’t want a riot.” I’d been in riots, and they were no fun. This crowd could go either way. There didn’t seem to be outside agitators, who could kick demonstrations up a notch to a riot. No one wanted to destroy their own neighborhood.

  More garbage flew through the air. A few more steps and the mob would be right on top of me.

  CHAPTER 7

  I KNEW NOT to say something stupid, like “Let’s all just calm down.” That had never worked in the history of law enforcement. I couldn’t explain that I had done everything I could to avoid shooting RJ. No one wanted to hear that. Not the crowd, not the news media, and certainly not RJ’s family.

  The crowd was close enough that I could see the heavyset man who was leading them had a cracked front tooth. That was too close for comfort. For the first time it started to sink in that I was in real danger.

  Then I heard a voice—a booming, commanding voice. I recognized it immediately. It may not have been God, but it was the best I could hope for right now. It was just a simple “Everyone freeze.”

  And they did.

  My lieutenant, Harry Grissom, stepped out of a black, unmarked NYPD Suburban. The tall, lean, twenty-six-year veteran of the force looked like an Old West gunfighter, his mustache creeping along the sides of his mouth. He was toying with the NYPD grooming policy, but so far no one had the balls to say anything to him about it.

  A gold badge dangled from a chain around his neck. His tan suit had some creases but gave him an air of authority. As if he needed something extra.

  He kept marching toward the crowd without any hesitation. As he got closer, he said in a very even voice, “What’s the problem here?”

  The pudgy leader yelled, “He shot an unarmed man.”

  Someone in the back of the crowd added, “For no reason.”

  Other people started to crowd in around Harry to tell him why they were so angry.

  And he listened. At least to the people not shouting obscenities. Harry was an old-school pragmatist. He’d been part of the enforcement effort that helped clean up New York City. He didn’t need to knock heads. He could talk.

  He engaged the heavyset guy. “Who is an actual eyewitness?”

  No one answered.

  Harry kept a calm tone. “What do you say I give you my card and we talk in a couple of days? That way you can see what we find out. The shooting will be investigated thoroughly. Just give it forty-eight hours. Is that too much to ask?”

  The heavyset man had a hard time ignoring such a reasonable request. He tentatively accepted Harry’s card.

  The crowd wasn’t nearly as discerning. That’s how it always is. In sports and politics and real life. A rowdy crowd drives the conversation and clouds the issues.

  Harry stood firm and gave them a look that had withered many detectives under his command. More police cars arrived, along with a crime-scene van.

  The crowd could see things were happening, and they started to lose their initiative.

  Harry turned to me without any more thought of the crowd behind him. It was that kind of confidence that had inspired countless cops and defused dozens of confrontations.

  He said in a low tone, “You doing all right, Mike?”

  “I’m not physically hurt if that’s what you mean.”

  He led me toward his Suburban and simply said, “That’ll do for now.” It was a complex and touchy subject; he wouldn’t be part of the investigative team and, by policy, couldn’t ask me any probing questions.

  It didn’t matter. When I slid into his SUV, I realized he wasn’t acting as Harry Grissom, lieutenant with the NYPD. He was just being my friend.

  That’s what I needed right now.

  CHAPTER 8

  HARRY DROPPED ME off at my apartment on West End Avenue a little after six. I had done all the procedural shit that overwhelms a cop after a shooting. I talked to a union rep, a Police Benevolent Association attorney, and a psychologist. Finally, I told them I had a tremendous headache and needed to lie down. Really all I needed was my family.

  As I walked down the hallway to my apartment, my neighbor, Mr. Underhill, spoke to me for the first time in all the years we’d lived there.

  He said, “You doing okay?”

  I just shrugged and said, “Yeah, you?”

  The older, corpulent man nodded and smiled. Then he disappeared back inside. It was the only conversation I had ever had with the man. It was unnerving.

  People wondered how an NYPD detective could afford such a great apartment on the Upper West Side. If they were bold enough to ask, I usually just said, “Bribes,” and left it at that. In reality, the apartment had been left to my late wife, Maeve. She had cared for an elderly man here for years. In that time, her personality and warmth had brought the man from a dour, solitary existence to happiness. He felt such joy being around her that when he passed away he left her the apartment and a trust to help pay the taxes. He had wanted Maeve and her growing family to enjoy it. The apartment was a constant reminder of what a ray of sunshine Maeve had been to everyone she met.

  Occasionally, when I was in a weird mood, the apartment could make me sad. The idea that my wonderful wife had meant so much to someone that he had changed our entire family’s life was amazing. The fact that she had only gotten to live here a short while was tough to swallow.

  The smell of pot roast hit me as soon as I opened the front door. So did two kids. Shawna, my second youngest daughter, and Trent, my youngest son, barreled into me like out-of-control race cars. I didn’t mind one bit.

  When I dropped to my knees, Shawna gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re home safe, Dad.”

  Trent chimed in, “Me too.”

  So much for my hope that I could ease everyone into what had happened to me. And now I understood Mr. Underhill’s gross show of emotion. I had known word would leak out. Obviously I’d spoken to Mary Catherine about it. I’d told her not to make a fuss. Have something serious happen to you, then try to tell an Irish woman not to make a fuss. It would be easier to keep the sun in the sky an extra two hours.

  Before I could even navigate into the kitchen, Mary Catherine found me and gave me a huge kiss.

  “I appreciate the attention, but I’m fine.”

  Mary Catherine said, “And I thank God for it. But your name has already been on the news. The guy who has the cable access show, Reverend Caldwell, is already in the Bronx saying that you’re a murderer walking free.”

  “I thought you’d learned by now that most people don’t have any clue about the facts when they’re spouting garbage like that.” I half expected Mary Catherine to ask me if it was a good shooting. The only thing I had heard the news got right was that there were two men and a police officer involved.

  Shootings were ratings monsters, so every news team covered them from start to finish. They always had the same elements: sobbing family members telling the world that their dead relative had been sweet and would have never hurt a fly. And in New York, no shooting was ever complete without the commentary of the Reverend Franklin Caldwell. The “people’s voice.”

  To distract myself, I wandered back to the corner of the living room where my teenager Eddie had his face in a computer monitor. I needed something normal like
this. Foolishly I said, “Need a hand with anything, Eddie?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. Another common occurrence. He said, “Thanks, Dad. I think I’ve got this. I’m writing an algorithm to find documents where references to The Lord of the Rings are made. Google just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. Do you have any ideas where I should search?”

  All I could do at this point was lean down and kiss the teenager on the top of his head. In his case, I’d never be the smart dad. The best I could be was a loving dad.

  Even though all ten of my kids are adopted, I’m still at a loss to understand where they each got their unique skills. Eddie is a standout, with his phenomenal computer knowledge.

  A few minutes later, my grandfather, Seamus, arrived. He was wearing his usual clerical collar, which identified him as a Catholic priest. Even though he’d joined the priesthood very late in life, he loved nothing more than walking around in his tab-collared clergy shirt.

  He was the one man who knew not to coddle me. He was also the reason I didn’t like being coddled. He said, “Hello, my boy. Will you share a glass of wine with me? Think of it as a way to laugh in the face of death. You can drink and none of it is going to leak out through holes in your stomach or chest.”

  Then he shocked me by giving me a hug. “Thank God the NYPD trained you well.”

  We all filed into the dining room. I heard the news come on the TV where Ricky had been watching a cooking show. All I heard was the first line: “The Reverend Franklin Caldwell says he will personally investigate the claims that NYPD detective Michael Bennett shot an unarmed man in cold blood today.”

  I cringed at the fact the kids had to hear something like that. My grandfather stomped to the TV and shut it off as he threw a quick scowl at Ricky for not turning it off after the show.

  We all took our seats at the long table. One chair, as always, was left open for my son Brian. The other nine children, Mary Catherine, my grandfather, and I clasped hands for grace.