“Lieutenant!”
She tore her eyes away from Cassie and raised them to take in the two patrol officers who no doubt had accompanied the ambo—had more likely led it through the traffic to the hospital. She hadn’t noticed their unit in the parking lot. Walking toward them meant walking toward Cassie, so that’s what she did. “Any word?” she asked.
“Maybe,” one of them said.
“One of our patrol units may have spotted the truck,” the other one said.
Before Gianna could query further, two things happened simultaneously: She heard her name called, and Cassie grabbed her hand. She focused on Cassie, whose eyes were flickering open and closed like a blinking neon sign with one of its bulbs burned out. As she leaned down close to Cassie, she saw who’d called her name—the young doctor who had operated on Mimi last year after she was attacked in the lobby of her newspaper. Perversely, Mimi’s attacker had been a Muslim who objected to stories she was writing about lesbians.
“We must stop meeting like this, Lieutenant,” the young doctor said, and she didn’t mean it as a joke.
“Officer Ali is a Muslim. She’ll need a female physician,” Gianna began but the doctor was already nodding.
“We know and we’re ready.” She looked down at Cassie. “We need to take her right now.”
Gianna leaned in close to Cassie. “I’ll be back later, Cassie. You hang in there.” She started to stand but Cassie pulled her down with surprising strength and whispered something. Her eyes flickered closed, then back open.
Gianna leaned in closer to hear and wished she hadn’t. “I love you, Gianna,” the young cop whispered as blood gurgled up her throat and out of her mouth, causing the medical personnel to spring into action. Somebody pushed Gianna out of the way, and the gurney bearing Cassie headed toward the surgical suite at breakneck speed. Then the young doctor hopped on, straddling Cassie, and began chest compressions.
Gianna couldn’t watch any longer and sped down the corridor in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot. Then she heard the doctor yell, “Come on, goddammit, come on!” and turned to see that the doctor, still straddling Cassie and pumping on her chest. “Come on, come on, come on!” The young doctor was still yelling and pumping as the gurney disappeared through the swinging doors, but Gianna knew it was too late. She knew that Cassie was gone and she almost smiled to herself because she knew that Cassie would never have said what she said if she knew she’d have to face her boss again.
“Lieutenant Maglione!”
Oh God, would people please stop calling her name! Who was it this time? She looked up and into the face of Cassie’s father who was climbing out of the back of an ambulance and following close behind another gurney. What the hell . . .?
“My wife!” he exclaimed. Then, “You’ve seen Cassandra?”
She could not tell this man that his only child was dead. “She’s in surgery. They made me get out of their way,” she added.
He nodded. “Hopefully I can check on her when they take Aisha back.” He touched his wife’s shoulder. She, too, was bleeding, though not as severely, it seemed, as Cassie had been. “Cassandra saved her life, Lieutenant.”
“What?”
“She and her mother and three other women were walking to the mosque for evening prayers. Aisha said that Cassandra heard the truck coming and she knew something was wrong. She told the women to get down; then she pushed her mother down and fell on top of her.” He stopped talking because the gurney carrying his wife was speeding down the hall toward the same surgical suite where his dead daughter was. He nodded at Gianna and took off after it.
“Mr. Ali! Why are you barefoot?!”
The man skidded to a stop and gave an astonished look down at his feet in their black nylon socks. Then he almost laughed. “We all ran out of the mosque when we heard the gunfire. We’re all barefoot, I’m sure.”
“What kind of shoes, Mr. Ali?”
“Black loafers,” he called out, and disappeared behind the swinging doors.
She should have told the man his daughter was dead . . . but then she didn’t know for certain that she was . . . yes, she did. She inhaled deeply when she got outside, surprised that it was fully dark. She pulled out her phone to call the Chief. He’d be beyond furious. Then she’d call Eric. He’d be inconsolable. And Mimi. She had to call Mimi, who must be sitting at her desk watching the story unfold on the television stations, and they all must be weighing in—from Al Jazeera to the BBC. The reporters would try valiantly, and in vain, to have something new to say from minute to minute but the cops had sealed off the site and any and all information related to it. It was looking to be a long night for cops and reporters alike—unless the cops caught a break.
“We got ’em, Chief! We got the bastards!”
“Tell me,” the Chief said, almost quietly.
“First and best, the eyewitness descriptions were damn near perfect for a change: Silver or gray pickup with a double cab and Indiana plates, though the wits didn’t know the Indiana part—they just knew out of state. Three perps inside, two of ’em refusing to talk, the third unable to shut his mouth.”
“Where were they?”
“They had just turned off of Brook Parkway onto Capitol Hill Drive.”
The Chief looked perplexed. “Why the hell were they going that way? Every cop in D.C. is in that direction. Even being from Indiana they’d have to know that. Why weren’t they headed for the interstate?”
The Anti-Terrorism Task Force cop who was relaying the info to the chief now looked perplexed and confused himself—as well as slightly amazed. “It seems they thought they’d be safe if they could get close enough to the White House to tell the president that they had just helped him make America a better place for Americans.”
The Chief’s phone rang, saving those close to him from the eruption that was coming. The look on his face when he saw who was calling caused everyone but Eric Ashby to take a step back. Eric moved a step closer. When he saw the Chief’s eyes close for a moment after he listened to the caller, Eric grabbed his own phone and waited for Gianna’s call.
“Everybody,” the Chief said, and he didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. Every pair of eyes and ears were his. “Those bastards have killed a member of the D.C. Police Force. Officer Cassandra Ali, a member of the Hate Crimes Unit, just passed away at the University Hospital Trauma Center.”
Eric’s phone rang at that moment. He met the Chief’s eyes. The Chief nodded and Eric stepped away.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked his boss and good friend.
“Come here to be with Cassie’s parents. But first, Eric—please go get Jamal Ali’s shoes,” and she explained how it happened that the man had arrived in an ambulance with his wife without shoes. Then she told him that Cassie had, in all likelihood, saved her mother’s life at the cost of her own. Then she called Mimi.
Mimi could almost feel the energy shift through the computer screen as all of a sudden cops and reporters were in motion—the cops first, then the reporters as they tried to surge past the police barricade that was keeping them far away from the scene of the massacre. The long lenses of the television cameras were able to capture the image of the cops as they gathered in front of and around the Chief, but no matter how they tried, their microphones could pick up only ambient noises. Then her cell phone rang. It was Gianna. She grabbed it and ran out into the hallway near the water cooler. It was understood that when a person was back here, privacy was required.
“Sweetheart?”
After the briefest second in which she heard Gianna inhale: “Cassie Ali is dead. Some dumb fuck killed her and at least two other Muslim women as they were walking to their mosque for Friday evening prayers. Cassie’s mother is injured but, Mimi, Cassie knocked her mother to the ground and covered her with her own body. She probably saved her mother’s life.”
Mimi couldn’t speak. There was nothing to say. She held the phone and they listened to each other breathe for a
moment. “Where are you?”
“I just left the hospital and I’m heading to the scene.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“You won’t be assigned to cover this?” Gianna was genuinely surprised. Mimi was a top reporter and got assigned to cover top stories. Usually.
“Nope. Weasel Boy is all over it.”
Gianna snorted a laugh. “I met him. That new guy, right? He’s an idiot.”
“No shit, Sherlock . . .” Mimi stopped mid-sentence when she heard a sharp intake of breath from Gianna. “What is it, Gianna?”
“That’s . . . that was one of Cassie’s favorite expressions: ‘No shit, Sherlock.’” She signed deeply. “That kid is really going to be missed.”
“I know,” Mimi said. And she did know. She’d met Cassie Ali several times and she knew how protective Gianna was of her—the youngest member of her Hate Crimes team. She also knew that the young cop harbored a secret infatuation with her boss and she wondered if Gianna knew, and thought that she probably didn’t. Gianna probably also didn’t know that Cassie Ali wasn’t the only woman on her HCU team who had the hots for the boss, Detective Alice Long being the other. Of course, Alice also had made a play for Mimi a while back. . . . Gianna said something that Mimi didn’t hear. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I have no idea what time I’ll finish tonight, or even if I’ll finish.”
“Whenever,” Mimi said. “I’ll be waiting for you at your place.”
Sergeant Eric Ashby walked slowly through the front door of the University Hospital Center. There was no need to rush. Cassandra Ali was already dead and he was in no hurry to talk to her parents. Even if there existed some appropriate words for them, he didn’t know what they were. He knew he could proceed directly to the ER and the administrator would meet him. Like practically every cop in the city, he knew exactly where the ER was, and the closer he got the larger the lump in his chest grew, so that by the time he got there, tears swam in his usually bright blue eyes, dulling them.
“Sergeant Ashby.”
He turned around to see who was calling him and when he recognized Cassie’s father, the tears spilled out and down his face. Mr. Ali was weeping, too, and he grabbed the cop and they held each other tightly for a long moment, their love and respect for their daughter and colleague their bond.
“Thanks,” Jamal Ali said as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and blew his nose.
“For what, sir?” And Jamal Ali pointed to the black loafers that Eric had forgotten he carried. He gave the man his shoes and then supported him as he stepped into them, one foot, then the other.
“Have the reporters showed up yet?” Eric asked.
Ali nodded and scowled. “Thank heaven they can’t get in.”
“Even if they do, you don’t have to talk to them.”
“I know. The Chief told me. He called a few minutes ago to tell me that he planned to make the announcement about . . . Cassandra . . .” He tried to take a deep breath but it got caught somewhere in his chest and he started to cry again, which caused his chest to constrict even more. Eric clapped him on the back, hard, until he was breathing again and could talk. “He’s a very decent man, isn’t he? He said he wouldn’t talk about Cassandra if I didn’t want him to.”
“Yes, he is a very decent man, and he meant what he said: If you asked him not to speak of your daughter tonight, he won’t and he’ll let the reporters howl at the moon. He knows you need time.”
“But he has a job to do. I could tell he was mad—”
“You have no idea!” Eric hadn’t intended to speak but the words were out before he could control them.
“I’m mad, too, and I want people to know what happened to my daughter. But I would like for her mother to be left out of it—at least for now.”
“Did you say that to the Chief?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then he will honor your request—” Eric saw the head of the emergency department coming toward him as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. And perhaps they were: dozens, perhaps hundreds of reporters and cameras, clamoring for information.
“I gotta tell ’em something, Sergeant Ashby!”
“I know you do. Put ’em in a room with a TV and tell ’em the Chief is about to make a statement. Then I’ll come in and tell ’em what the Chief told ’em, and I’ll say the same thing a dozen different ways until they get tired of hearing it. Or until I get tired of saying it—whichever comes first.”
The administrator nodded his thanks and hurried away. Eric gave Jamal Ali his card. “My cell phone number is on the back. You call any time. I’ll be here in the hospital, probably most of the night—at least until we know for certain how Mrs. Ali and the other women are.” And after a brief hug, he left Jamal Ali to his grief and followed the hospital administrator so he, too, could watch the Chief on TV.
Between the lights of the crime scene investigators and those of the TV cameras, the area where a massacre had taken place less than four hours ago was lit up like it was the middle of the day instead of the darkness an hour past sundown dictated. All of the women’s bodies had been removed, but the two assailants still lay on the sidewalk, covered, while the techs continued collecting evidence, so all of the reporters—dozens of them—were still being kept a good distance away. The Chief stood in front of the ATTF SUV, a very impressive-looking vehicle, on top of a step stool, so everyone could see him, looking very impressive himself. He was not a tall man, but he was muscular and he exuded both physical and mental strength and confidence. He looked out at the assembled reporters, not recognizing just as many as he did recognize. This was, he knew, an international story and he was about to make it bigger.
His Public Affairs Officer had printed out and was distributing the single-page statement that he would make. They had agreed on the language and on which facts would be made public. There was still too much that was unknown for him to say more, but he knew from personal experience that not giving reporters even a small bone to chew on only served to make them more ravenous. And now, with a government in Washington at the federal level that cared nothing for truth and facts, he was determined that every word that came out of his mouth would be verifiable.
He raised his hands, and the crowd before him immediately silenced. “I wish I didn’t have to be out here with you on a Friday night with the kind of bad news that I have for you. Something terribly ugly happened at this location several hours ago. We don’t know all the facts yet, so what I’m able to share with you is, of necessity, sparse, and it comes with some rigid ground rules that I’m going to insist that you respect. Are we clear?”
He waited for the answer, and he waited long enough that the reporters finally understood that if they didn’t agree, he was done talking. They agreed. “First, the bad news: Five Muslim women were walking to their Friday evening prayers at the mosque over there when they were attacked and fired upon by five men in a pickup truck. As of this moment, two of those women have died and a third is in critical condition with a guarded prognosis—the doctor’s words.” He stopped talking and inhaled deeply. “One of the victims, one of the murdered women, was one of our own—”
Almost as if they were cued by a director the reporters started to yell out questions—so many voices raised at once that none of the questions could be clearly understood, but it didn’t matter because the Chief didn’t intend to answer them. He waited for five seconds, and then he raised his hands. Most of the noise stopped. One loudly insistent questioner did not.
“Why won’t you answer the question, Chief? Are you hiding something?”
“I don’t answer stupid questions,” the Chief snapped. Then: “I’d like to finish if you all would like me to finish. If not, I’ll go back to my office and get the latest reports from the arresting officers.”
Arresting officers. The reporters heard those two words and silence fell as if it were an animate object. “The murdered officer wa
s Cassandra Ali of the Hate Crimes Unit who was walking to the mosque with her mother—”
“You allow Muslims in the D.C. Police Department?” This from the same loudly insistent questioner, the one the Chief had implied was stupid.
“Do they pay you to ask stupid questions or is that your idea?”
“It’s not a stupid question; it’s a legitimate one! Do you allow Muslims on the D.C. Police Department?”
“Same as we allow Baptists and Catholics and Buddhists and Methodists and Episcopalians and Presbyterians—who am I leaving out?”
“Quakers!” somebody called out.
“Lutherans!” somebody else said.
“Hindus!” somebody else said.
And the Chief said, “The way it works in this country is that people can be free to worship their own god in their own way. That’s the American way, no matter how desperately some people are trying to redefine what it means to be an American. Like the people who murdered Officer Ali this evening.”
The Chief pointed at the reporter who had interrupted him twice and who was preparing to do it again. “Do not interrupt me again. If you do, I’m done talking and you can get all further information about this incident in the form of press releases from the Public Affairs Office.”
“What are you hiding, Chief?” the reporter yelled out.
“Shut up, motherfucker!” one of the other reporters called out.
There was a scuffle that lasted several seconds, followed by calls from several reporters for the Chief to continue. He did.
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