10-33 Assist PC

by Desmond P. Ryan

  Now there was barely three feet between the two of them. If he had wanted to, Mike could have reached out and touched Sal’s back...

  *****

  For the rest of his life, Mike could never recall how many shots were fired.

  One?

  Maybe two?

  Definitely no more than four.

  The pathologist who presided over Sal’s autopsy said it was one, so it must have been one, although Mike was sure he heard at least two. What he could never forget, though, was how many steps he took before his partner’s brains splattered all over his face.

  Three.

  Three steps from the moment he landed on the parking level floor until his partner was gunned down.

  First step. Sal raced through the open door.

  Take another breath, Mike. Take another breath, he had told himself. You can’t run if you can’t breathe.

  Second step. There was a flash and a loud bang. Or two. Or three. Maybe even four.

  Breathe, Mike, breathe. You can’t move if you can’t breathe.

  Third step. He was right behind Sal now, and shards of something wet were hitting his body.

  Shake it off, Mike. Shake it off. It’s only…

  Three steps, and he was sweating buckets. But why was his shirt beginning to get wet from the outside in?

  What the fuck?

  Three steps, and he was wiping something wet off his face.

  What. The. Fuck???

  Three steps, and Sal was flopping backwards onto him.

  Three steps, and he was screaming, “Sal? Get off of me, Sal! Move!! Sal!”

  And then he was looking up and seeing the barrel of a gun aimed at his head. He saw the muscles of the fingers around the handle of the gun tightening. He saw the tip of the index finger disappear as the trigger was pulled.

  And then…

  Nothing happened.

  As he held Sal’s sagging body against his own, he looked up from the gun to the shooter’s face. So young. So clean. So…?

  There’s something on my face. My face is dirty, he thought, and he swiped his cheek with his other hand and pulled away chunks covered in blood.

  Sal? Get up, Sal! Sal?

  He looked at Sal, but Sal’s neck was limp and his head was resting on Mike’s shoulder.

  “Stand up, Sal! Stand up,” he choked out. “Sal!!”

  He felt something warm oozing down his back, and then he noticed that the back of Sal’s head was gone.

  “Oh fuck, Sal. Oh. Fuck,” he whispered. “Sal…?”

  He looked at his hand again and saw that what he was holding were bits of Sal’s brain.

  “Here, Sal. Take them. You can’t live without your brain, Sal.”

  He staggered backwards, and Sal slumped to the ground. He stood motionless over his dead partner for a second, and then looked again at the shooter, who was now standing beside him. The killer’s eyes moved from Sal’s body to him.

  In that moment, time stopped. No fear. No anger. No hatred. No thoughts. Just Mike. And Sal. And the shooter.

  The ringing hadn’t started in Mike’s ears yet, and the dual stink of gunpowder and blood hadn’t permeated his sense of smell.

  At that moment, there was no parking garage or pools of blood. There was just Sal, lying so still, face-up on the ground, his eyes unblinking against the glare of the fluorescent lights. Just Sal, his arms stretched out as if in anticipation of a hug that he would never know. Just Sal, on the ground, blood pooling around his head, his shoulders, his body, Mike’s feet. And the shooters feet.

  Mike blinked.

  The inquiry into Sal’s death said that the clock in the top right-hand corner of the security video showed that it took less than two seconds from the time Sal entered the parking garage until his body lay dead on the cement floor. But in the moment, and for the rest of his life, Mike felt like there was no beginning and no ending to those two seconds. There was only calm, quiet, a sense of peace.

  But then time resumed. His ears began to ring, and the distinct smell of gunpowder practically smothered him. Calm gave way to anger, and anger gave way to white-hot rage. His partner had been shot. And then that same fucking murdering asshole had tried to shoot him, but…

  The gun must have jammed.

  The shooter, too, seemed temporarily paralyzed, but he regained his composure before Mike did and turned and ran a few feet. Mike watched as a car pulled up and the man jumped into the back seat.

  Blue car. Four-door. Audi. SUV. Probably the Q4. Tan interior. Newer licence plate. Four letters, three numbers. First letter…C. First number…6.

  He knew he could remember that, and years later, he knew that was what he remembered.

  He watched as the car sped away. Later, the inquiry into Sal’s death would say that the timer on the security video showed three seconds passed from the time the shooter got into the car until the vehicle exited the garage.

  In those three seconds after the shooter fled, the security video showed Mike kneeling down beside Sal and putting his lips to his partner’s mouth to begin CPR. There was no audio on the video, but he knew he would never forget the bubbling sound of the air passing through Sal’s mouth as it exited out the back of his shattered skull into the blood that had pooled around them both. That sound would come back to him over the years whenever the wind blew a certain way.

  Fuck fuck fuck. Officer down. Officer down. Hang in there, Sal…

  He wiped Sal’s blood from his own mouth and grabbed his portable radio.

  “10-33. Assist PC. Officer down. Officer down. My partner’s been shot… 10-33. Assist PC. Officer down. Officer down. My partner’s been shot… 10-33. Assist PC. Officer down…”

  The security video showed Mike wiping blood from his mouth and calling for help on his radio. Even without any audio, the strained look on his face and the way he was waving his free arm made it clear that he was screaming for help. A forensic analysis of the tape was able to determine by the movement of Mike’s lips that he screamed “10-33. Assist PC” several times, advising that an officer had been shot. Then video showed him putting down the radio and giving the dead man beside him a couple of good chest compressions, as if that might undo the mortal damage that had been done.

  The video showed everything: Mike standing up and looking towards the now-closed garage door where the shooter’s escape vehicle had exited the building. Mike kneeling down again and holding his partner. Mike picking up something lying on the ground to his left, something that appeared to be a tuft of his partner’s hair from the back of his head. Mike trying to patch the hole in the back of Sal’s head with this tuft of hair.

  All of this was captured on the video from the security cameras.

  But none of Mike’s calls for help were heard. His radio transmission did not go through. He was in a dead zone.

  Then the video showed a woman who was later identified as Detective Constable Julia Vendramini running into the garage.

  *****

  “Holy Mother of God!” Julia gasped, crossing herself as she pushed open the door to the garage and saw Sal’s body lying in a pool of blood.

  “Hoagie! Hoagie!” she shouted. “Stay upstairs and tell the dispatcher we have an officer down. Looks like he’s been shot.”

  From the main floor of the building, Hoagie relayed Julia’s words to the dispatcher.

  “Two officers down!” Julia screamed when she saw Mike hunched over Sal. “Oh, dolce madre di Dio!”

  Mike was still trying to gather up Sal’s brains and stuff them back into the shattered skull.

  “Come on, Sal,” he was pleading. “Work with me, buddy. You can’t be going around looking like this….”

  “Mikey?” Julia said tentatively.

  Mike turned from his dead partner and looked up at Julia.

  “Jesus, Mikey. Have you been shot? We heard gunshots—”

  “No. Just Sal. I think he’s dead, Julia,” Mike m
umbled, his shoulders beginning to shudder as the adrenalin that had fueled him at the start of the chase continued to dump into his body with nowhere to go.

  “Have you been shot?” Julia repeated.

  “No. I’m okay. But Sal…” Mike said, holding his gory hand out to Julia.

  Julia saw the hand contained brain matter. Sal’s brain matter.

  “Oh, God! Hoagie!!!” Julia screamed. “Officer down. Officer down. Sal’s been shot. Mikey is going into shock.”

  “Officer down!” Hoagie yelled into his radio. “Repeat: Officer down!”

  Julia fell to her knees as she struggled to grasp the zipper of her coat with shaking hands. “Here, Mikey. Take my coat. Here, put it on.”

  “The shooter. Male. White. Thirty to thirty-five,” Mike recited automatically as Julia fumbled to wrap her coat around him. “Average build. Dark jacket. Blue jeans. White runners. With blood on them. Lots of blood.”

  Julia called up the description to her partner, kneeling beside Mike as she held her coat around him, trying not to look at Sal’s lifeless body.

  “Blue car. Four-door. Audi. SUV. Probably the Q4. Tan interior. Newer licence plate. Four letters, three numbers. First letter…C. First number…6,” Mike continued to recite.

  “His face, Mike. What about the driver’s face?” Julia looked into Mike’s eyes, trying to wipe the blood from his cheek with her hand.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it,” Mike said. The world around him was disappearing again. It was no longer a parking garage. It was just him. And Julia. He felt the warmth from her body through the coat that she had wrapped around him. He heard the rasping of the stubble on his face against her hand as she stroked his cheek. He could smell her faint perfume. Armani? Yes, it was Armani.

  “It doesn’t matter, Mikey. They’ll find the car,” her warm voice reassured him as she continued to stroke his cheek. “Hoagie’s called it in. This is a city-wide. There’ll be thirty, forty marked cars here in a couple of minutes. And you know every squad guy in the city is on their way over. Don’t worry, Mikey. You did great. You’re doing great. Oh God, Mikey! Don’t worry. They’ve probably caught those fuckers already.”

  He heard something. Sirens. Many sirens. Getting louder and louder.

  “I’ve never heard you swear before,” he slurred, smiling at her.

  “Down here! We’re fucking…” Julia smiled at Mike as she screamed, “…down here! Hoagie, stay up there with the radio. Send the goddamned paramedics down. Sweet Jesus, Mikey! Stay with me!”

  *****

  He was done now. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to understand what Julia was saying, but her words just echoed in his head. He felt her holding him, shaking him, but he was floating away. Her words were becoming increasingly garbled, but he was feeling more and more at ease.

  Suddenly, he felt something on his arm. He opened his eyes and saw a blue latex glove attached to a paramedic. He felt himself being pulled to his feet as he watched another paramedic roll Sal over onto his face.

  “Hey! Be careful!” He shook himself awake. “He’s hurt!”

  The paramedic who had a hold on him began to lead him away.

  “Mikey, go with the paramedics,” Julia directed, stretching her hand out as she got up from her knees, her black sweater drenched in the blood from Mike’s shirt. “You got your gun? Give it to me. You can’t be taking that into Emerg.”

  Mike automatically reached behind his back, removed his handgun from its holster, and handed it to Julia.

  Shit! I never even took my gun out.

  He looked down at the paramedic and Sal. “Roll him back!” he shouted, seeing Sal face down in a pool of blood. “He’s gonna drown in that blood!”

  “Mikey, just go, okay?” Julia whispered, sliding Mike’s gun into the back of the waistband of her pants. “Just try to relax a little and do what they tell you to do, okay?”

  “What about Sal?” he screamed. “Who’s gonna look after him? He doesn’t have any brains left!”

  Julia nodded to the paramedic to give Mike a moment. The paramedic loosened his grip and stepped back. Mike looked at Julia, and then down at the body of his partner.

  “Amore mio, Mikey,” Julia whispered. “He’s dead.”

  “No, he’s not,” he insisted. “He’s just a stupid kid who never had any brains in the first place. He’s just a stupid fucking bastard who drinks shitty coffee and spits sunflower seed shells on the floor.”

  He began to sob.

  “Can you just get him up the stairs, please?” Julia directed, nodding to the paramedic to take hold of Mike’s arm again. “My partner’s at the top. He’ll help you get him into the ambulance.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” Mike began, shrugging the paramedic’s hands off him. “Sal does. They need to do an emergency run. Put his brains back in his head. Get off me!”

  “Just go with the paramedic, Mikey. I’ll watch over Sal.”

  “Then you’ll need this.” He held his bloodied hand out again to Julia. “They’re going to want to put it back.”

  “Mikey,” Julia said, taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes for a second. Then, eyes welling up, she tenderly took the tuft of Sal’s hair Mike had given her. “It’s too late. Sal’s dead. You need to get checked out, okay?”

  “Please, Julia. He’s my partner. I can’t leave him here,” Mike pleaded.

  “He’s dead, Mikey. You have to go,” Julia replied, gently wiping away the tears on his face. “I will stay here until the end. I promise.”

  “Everything okay down there?” Hoagie called out. “Come on up, Mike. Julia’ll look after things down there. Ambulance is waiting, buddy.”

  Julia looked at Mike, her dark eyes even darker, tears now flooding down her face.

  “I didn’t see—” Mike began.

  “It’s okay. You were great.” Julia smiled, biting her lip.

  “My gun—” Mike objected.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got it, Mikey. I’ll turn it over to the duty inspector when he gets here.”

  The paramedic held Mike’s arm to steady him. But there was no one to hold Julia, and she stood there swaying, fighting back the urge to drop to the ground and wrap her arms around the dead man at her feet, to will him back to life, to wake herself up from this nightmare.

  “I didn’t even take my gun out,” Mike whimpered, his eyes looking up at the ceiling as the tears flowed.

  “It’s okay, Mikey. It’s okay.”

  “I didn’t know— ”

  “Just go, Mikey.” Julia nodded to the paramedic, who began to slowly guide Mike away from the body of his partner.

  “I tried to put him back together…” Mike said, looking down at Sal’s body as the paramedic helped him to step over it.

  “It’s too late. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  Mike looked back over his shoulder as the paramedic led him closer to the door to the stairwell.

  “He’s gone, Mikey. Let him go,” Julia sobbed, looking down at what was left of her colleague, her friend, the guy she loved to tease as much as he loved to tease her.

  The paramedic held Mike by the arm as he ushered him up the stairs to the main floor. Mike saw Hoagie nod at him as the paramedic led him over to the stretcher behind the ambulance. There was a wall of flashing lights all around him. He felt himself being gently pushed down onto the stretcher, then felt some drops of rain beginning to fall on his face, mingling with his tears, as the paramedic tightened the straps around him.

  The rain was cold. Sharp. An uncomfortable reminder that he was alive.

  The scent of Julia Vendramini’s perfume mixed with the smell of blood filled his nostrils. Her coat was still wrapped around him.

  And then the sky opened up and the rain poured down on him, washing Sal’s blood off his face. The paramedic scrambled to get the back of the ambulance open, jolting the stretcher as he forced it into place. Mike clench
ed his fist, still feeling the ooze of Sal’s brain between his fingers.

  He remembered Sal falling against him, remembered looking up at the shooter. “He had a scar. The shooter had a scar. Tell them the shooter had a scar,” he yelled.

  “Just sit tight, sir, until we get ourselves away from here, okay?” the paramedic advised as he settled into the seat near Mike’s head. He called to his partner over the sound of multiple sirens. “Lights and siren or no?”

  “I don’t think so. Roads look pretty greasy, and I can’t see fuck all. That okay with you?” the driver called back.

  “Yeah. No issues back here,” the paramedic said before strapping himself into his own seat.

  “Tell Julia that the guy who shot my partner had a scar,” Mike repeated before closing his eyes and letting the world take care of itself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday, October 31st, 2005 - 2:12 p.m.

  “Officer down!” Rose heard the transmission through her headset. “Repeat: Officer down!”

  The seasoned dispatcher immediately swung into action. “All units stand by. We have a priority,” she commanded, her voice calm and steady, although her heart was pounding. “Location, please?”

  Hoagie gave Rose the address on Dawes Road, advising that an undercover officer had been shot in the underground garage of the apartment building and that the shooter had fled in a vehicle. He relayed the information as he had heard it from Julia, then confirmed it as the dispatcher recited it back to him.

  Rose pressed the red button on the right side of her workstation. Within seconds, both her supervisor and the unit commander were standing behind her, looking over her shoulder and reading what she was typing onto the screen in front of her.

  “Injuries?” she asked as she connected the line with ambulance services.

  “One likely dead, Dispatch,” Hoagie replied, his throat tightening with every word. “The other, unknown.”