OFFICER INVOLVED

by Lynch, Sean

  He’d departed Farrell’s apartment in San Francisco with the intention of obtaining a hotel room for the night and beginning his search for an apartment in the Dublin/Pleasanton area the following morning. But when he went to check in at the hotel, he realized he didn’t have his credit card. He’d inadvertently left it, along with his recently-obtained college diploma, his military papers, and a stack of other important personal documents, in a box on a shelf in Paige’s bedroom closet.

  As Kearns neared Paige’s front door, the adjacent door’s porch light flickered on and the door opened. There, peering out at him, her wrinkled face wearing an ear-splitting grin, was Mrs. Murphy. The ever-vigilant old busybody had undoubtedly seen him approach on foot.

  “Good evening, young policeman,” she said. “That’s a mighty spiffy suit you’re wearing tonight. You and Paige got a hot date?”

  “I’m afraid not. How are you?”

  “Can’t complain,” she said. “It’s my favorite night of the week. Father Dowling Mysteries is coming on at eight. Already tuned in the station and poured myself a glass of wine.” She moved her glasses lower on her nose and squinted over them at him. “Say, where ya’ been? Didn’t see you leave this morning? And where’s your car?”

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you?” Kearns said.

  “These eyes are almost ninety years old, but they still get the job done,” she said.

  “I’m not staying here anymore,” he answered her, seeing no point in being evasive. “Things didn’t work out between me and Paige.”

  “Can’t say I’m too surprised,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Never really saw you two as a couple. She’s a little stiff in the neck, if you ask me.”

  “You’re not the first person I’ve heard say that,” Kearns said.

  “Don’t give it another thought,” she said. “Good lookin’ young fella like you oughta’ have no trouble attracting pretty girls. Plenty of fish in the sea, I always say.”

  “That’s probably a good thing if you’re a fisherman,” Kearns said. “Unfortunately, I’m not.”

  Mrs. Murphy guffawed, and patted him on the arm. “Course you’re not. Say, would you mind helping with the garbage, even if it’s the last time I’ll be able to wrangle you into doing it for me?”

  Kearns suddenly realized it was Thursday, and Friday was trash pick-up day. It had become his habit over the past few months to knock on Mrs. Murphy’s door each Thursday night and collect her garbage. The community dumpster was more than fifty yards away. Not especially far for most residents of the townhome complex, but to an eighty-nine year-old woman barely five-feet tall, lugging a bag containing a week’s worth of trash to the receptacle and back could be a time-consuming and arduous task.

  “I’d be glad to,” he said. She stepped back from the door and motioned him inside. Kearns knew the layout of Mrs. Murphy’s townhome because it was the mirror image of Paige’s. He went directly to the kitchen and to her bin under the sink, and began to collect the garbage.

  “I’ll be right back,” Mrs. Murphy announced. “Don’t go away. I have something I’ve been meaning to give you.” She ambled off to her bedroom before Kearns could protest.

  He wrapped up her garbage, which was surprisingly heavy on account of the large amount of cat litter it contained. Mrs. Murphy’s aging Siamese cat, Molly, was no doubt snoozing on her bed; its favorite resting place. Kearns hoped Paige would remember to help Mrs. Murphy out each Thursday night from now on. He didn’t like the idea of the elderly woman schlepping her trash out by herself, especially during the rainy season, and he made a mental note to remind Paige when he saw her.

  Instead of waiting for her to return from the bedroom, Kearns used the time to exit Mrs. Murphy’s townhome. He walked across the lot to deposit the trash. As he was heading back, he saw a large, older sedan cruising slowly down the main access drive into the complex. It looked like a late 70’s or early 80’s Ford Ranchero.

  Kearns paid the vehicle no mind. There were speed bumps on the road throughout the large complex, and consequently every vehicle was forced to drive slowly. He presumed it was a newcomer to the community, possibly a guest looking for a particular address, which could be challenging because all the townhomes looked alike. Also, since it was still light outside, the address displays on the townhome exteriors weren’t illuminated yet.

  He found Mrs. Murphy waiting for him at her door again. She waved him in again with a mischievous gleam in her eye. Once he stepped in she closed the door and took him by the arm into the kitchen.

  “There you go,” she said, pointing to a fabric-covered object on the table. “I’d been waiting to give it to you, but with you moving on, I guess now’s the time. Go on, take it.”

  “Mrs. Murphy, I can’t-”

  “Oh shut up,” she ordered. “I wasn’t asking. You’re going to take it, and that’s final.”

  Kearns picked up the heavy parcel and stripped away the oiled cloth encircling it. Inside was a large revolver.

  He recognized the gun as a Smith & Wesson M1917; a large-frame, double-action military sidearm chambered in .45 ACP. The big revolver, along with its counterpart the Colt M1917, was introduced during World War I to supplant the newly-adopted Colt M1911 Government Model .45 semi-automatic, which was in short supply. The wheelgun sported a five-and-a-half inch tapered barrel, narrow, un-checkered wooden grips and a lanyard on the butt. Despite its age, the weapon was in mint condition.

  “My husband Roger brought it back from the Great War,” she said. “Far as I know, he only fired it once, back in the fifties, on the old shooting range out on Bay Farm Island. But every year he would bring it out and clean and oil it. Not sure why.”

  “Good soldiers tend to take care of their weapons,” Kearns said.

  “I imagine you’ve already got a fancy new-fangled gun to use at your job,” Mrs. Murphy said. “I got no use for this one, and having a gun lying around doesn’t sit well with me. If it’s something you can make use of, I want you to have it.”

  “I can’t take this,” Kearns repeated. “It’s valuable. If you no longer want it, I’d be glad to sell it for you and make sure you get paid what the gun is truly worth.”

  “You’re a nice young fella,” Mrs. Murphy said, “but you don’t hear so good. Like I already said, I want you to take it. I don’t care about money, and even if I did, I don’t want just anyone to have it. Roger and I were sweethearts when he got sent off to France, and that gun brought him home to me.”

  Mrs. Murphy’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Our only boy, Lawrence, died at Anzio in forty-four,” she said. “Otherwise he’d own it. You remind me of him. Please take the gun, Kevin. It’d mean a lot to me, knowing someday it might help bring you back to somebody you love.”

  “I’d be honored,” Kearns said. He leaned down and gave Mrs. Murphy a hug. They were still embracing when the gunshots erupted next door.

  Chapter 22

  Deputy Daniel Gregory strolled along the walkway towards Paige Callen’s townhome. He was carrying a six-pack of Anchor Steam, and already had a six-pack of Budweiser inside him.

  When he arrived at work at the Santa Rita Jail that morning he found his fellow deputies, as well as his supervisor and watch commander, ready to greet him. The anticipation was palpable on their faces. They eagerly awaited the juicy details of the lethal gunfight in San Lorenzo he’d so persistently bragged about being able to extract from his former academy roommate.

  Within an hour of the shooting, the identities of the dead deputies spread throughout the department like wildfire. Though Deputy Kevin Kearns’ name wasn’t specifically mentioned when the story first broke, Gregory knew who his ex-roomies’ field training officer was, and he milked this inside knowledge for all it was worth. He spent the better part of the previous afternoon boasting about the fact that while he might be the junior deputy assigned to that wing of the correctional facility, he’d have the real scoop on the shootout before the sheriff’s investigators in downtown Oak
land.

  When he was shamefacedly forced to admit that he’d been unable to come up with the goods, none of his co-workers had a belly for his excuses and they weren’t shy about letting him know it. Deputy Danny Gregory spent the remainder of his shift doing every dirty, filthy, unpleasant, unwanted, and undesirable job a jail deputy could be lawfully ordered to perform, and he was told in no uncertain terms by his supervisor that he could expect similar duty every day henceforth.

  When he left the jail at end-of-watch, the jeers of his co-workers still ringing in his ears, Gregory drove straight to a convenience store and bought a six-pack. He sat in the parking lot fuming, drinking, and cursing his so-called-friend Kevin Kearns, who had obviously put him in trouble with his co-workers to begin with.

  As he sat and consumed beer after beer, his mind raced to come up with a way out of his workplace dilemma. By the fifth beer Gregory settled on a fairly simple plan. He would go back and take another shot at Kearns.

  He would appeal again to Kevin’s loyalty as a friend. He would beseech Kearns to take pity on his plight. He would implore his ex-roommate to share enough of the shooting incident to placate his irate supervisor, if not his co-workers. And if that couldn’t return him to his colleague’s graces, at least Gregory might dilute their ire, and rid himself of the crap details he was destined to be relegated to for the foreseeable future.

  Deputy Danny Gregory resolved to do whatever it took to avoid another day like the one he’d just spent. Cleaning hurled feces off cell walls, conducting strip-searches of combative prisoners, and monitoring the violent inmates in the behavior modification pod, which was dangerous duty on even an uneventful day.

  Gregory returned to the convenience store, bought a fresh six-pack of Kearns’ brand of beer, and headed directly to Bay Farm Island. One way or the other, Kevin Kearns was going to spill the beans.

  He got lucky, and entered behind a van driven by a harried-looking woman too busy with her fidgeting kids to challenge his entry into the gated community. He found a vacant guest parking spot, parked his truck, and headed for the townhome Kearns shared with Paige Callen.

  Gregory conceded he was envious of Kearns, and he wasn’t the only one. Paige Callen was one hot-looking blond bombshell, and the locker-room topic of every deputy who ever crossed her path in court. But she was cold-shouldered, and rumor had it she’d successfully fended off innumerable deputy’s advances before settling on a rookie a couple of years her junior who was still in the academy. This was to the chagrin of a lot of scorned, veteran deputies. It was another of the many reasons why Kearns wasn’t particularly well-liked by his fellow lawmen.

  It was Kearns’ own fault. He apparently thought he was too good for everybody else. While assigned to the jail, fresh out of the academy, Kearns declined invitations to hang out after shift each morning and drink beers with his fellow deputies. Instead, he preferred to hit the departmental gym by himself, and then drive into Hayward to attend college classes at Cal State.

  ‘College Boy,’ the other deputies called Kearns, who seemed to take it in stride. Every new rookie assigned to the jail was given a nickname, and Gregory despised his designated moniker; ‘Ichabod.’ He knew he was awarded it on the basis of his tall, gangly appearance, and he cringed every time he heard it. That Kearns didn’t seem bothered by his nickname irritated Gregory even more.

  The other deputies abruptly stopped calling Kearns ‘College Boy,’ however, the day he showed up at work, barely out of the Jail Training Program, and formally served his supervisor with a copy of his diploma. The sheriff’s office had an education incentive program which few deputies participated in, even though possession of a Bachelor’s degree was an automatic, permanent, two-hundred dollar-a-month bump in pay. With just over six months on the department, Kearns was now earning only one pay grade less than a senior deputy, and wasn’t even close to the top step yet.

  And if that wasn’t enough to alienate Kearns even more from the rank-and-file deputies, not a week later he received orders to report to the Field Training Program. Successful completion of the twelve-week F.T.O. program was almost always followed by assignment to the Patrol Division, something most deputies had to wait at least five years for. As Gregory saw it, his pal Deputy Kevin Kearns seemed to get all the breaks.

  Kearns had finally screwed up, Gregory surmised. His meteoric rise above and away from his former academy roommate had come crashing down to earth with the death of his field training officer yesterday. And tonight, no matter what, Deputy Danny Gregory was going to find out the real story of how it went down.

  It was still an hour before sunset, but Bay Farm Island was on the bay, and the fog had rolled in. The temperature had also dropped markedly, and though not yet dark, the overcast made it close enough that some of the photo-electric street lights in the townhome complex had started to blink on.

  Danny Gregory stepped up to Paige Callen’s door and was extending his hand to knock when he sensed motion and heard the voice behind him.

  “You killed my brother,” the accented voice said. “You are one dead motherfucker.”

  Chapter 23

  Kearns swept Mrs. Murphy up in his arms and rushed her into the kitchen. The explosions going off seemingly just outside her front door were unquestionably gunshots.

  He deposited her in front of the refrigerator, which would provide the most protection if bullets began puncturing the walls, and handed Mrs. Murphy her phone from its cradle above her kitchen table.

  “Call the police,” he said. “And stay here.”

  Kearns drew his gun and headed to the front door. His mind raced. It was as if yesterday was happening all over again. He could discern the signatures of two different weapons; the rapid-fire ‘cracks’ of a handgun and the repeated ‘booms’ of a heavy-caliber rifle or shotgun fired in slower succession.

  The shots abruptly stopped. Kearns knelt down and silently opened Mrs. Murphy’s front door. He peeked out into the semi-darkness over his .38 revolver.

  He saw two men, standing over a third man lying supine and unmoving on the ground in front of Paige’s townhome only a few yards away. The air around them was thick with the scent and visible residue of burned gunpowder, and the ground was littered with spent shotgun shells and brass pistol cases. There was a large pool of blood, and a paper bag containing what had been bottles of Anchor Steam beer lying shattered on the sidewalk.

  The two men were both Hispanic, and each was of less than medium height. One had a slight build, the other a muscular frame Kearns instantly recognized as belonging to the man he’d seen flee the apartment in San Lorenzo the day before. The smaller man was holding a pistol-gripped shotgun down at his side, and his partner was holding a silver semi-automatic pistol with the slide locked back.

  “Eso es para mi hermano, perra,” the larger man said. He spat on the body lying at his feet. This time, Kearns was able to get a good look at his face. The other man also spat, but said nothing.

  “Drop the guns,” Kearns commanded, elbowing Mrs. Murphy’s door fully open. He pointed his revolver at a spot mid-point between them.

  The smaller man with the shotgun raised it towards Kearns as the other man, just like yesterday, instantly spun and fled. Kearns fired as the shotgun levelled, and didn’t stop until his revolver clicked on an empty case. The distance between them wasn’t more than fifteen feet. The Hispanic man slumped to the ground and didn’t move.

  Kearns dumped the five empties from his revolver and drew the Speed Strip from his pocket. As his fingers indexed the fresh rounds into his weapon he was conscious that only yesterday he’d been forced to reload under similar live-fire conditions.

  He’d finished re-stocking his gun when he heard a car door slam and an automobile engine fire up. He dashed out from behind Mrs. Murphy’s door and ran down the walkway, leaping over the two inert bodies lying on the sidewalk, and made for the parking lot.

  Kearns saw a Ford Ranchero screech out of the resident parking stall it had be
en strategically backed into. He aimed his revolver at the fleeing car, this time determined to take a shot, when suddenly a barrage of fully-automatic gunfire spewed at him from within the vehicle.

  Kearns threw himself to the ground as bullets raked the row of parked cars above him. Glass, metal debris, and ricochets filled the air. By the time the shooting stopped, and Kearns rose to again take aim, the Ranchero was turning a corner and exiting the complex. The electronic gate was triggered by departing vehicles.

  Kearns took a slow, deep, breath and looked around at the carnage. He holstered his gun and headed back towards Mrs. Murphy’s townhome. He stopped when he reached the two bodies.

  A quick examination of the Hispanic man, still clutching the shotgun in his lifeless fingers, confirmed he was dead. One of Kearns’ shots, probably one of the latter ones, had entered his throat and taken out his spine. Muzzle-rise wasn’t uncommon when rapid-firing short barreled revolvers, and as the eye of the shotgun winked at Kearns he’d certainly fired as fast as he could.

  Kearns recognized the other body, despite the destruction the point-blank pistol and shotgun blasts had done to him, as belonging to his former academy roommate. He could hear sirens, a lot of them, growing louder in the distance. Deputy Danny Gregory had spread his last rumor.

  “You all right?” Mrs. Murphy’s voice called from the doorway. “Sounded like the Fourth of July out there.”

  “I’m okay,” Kearns said. “Better go back inside, Mrs. Murphy. You don’t want to see this.”

  “Hell if I don’t,” she said. “This beats Father Dowling Mysteries any day.”

  Chapter 24

  Deputy Kevin Kearns had to admit he’d been wrong when he’d told himself the day his field training officer had been killed, along with another deputy, had been one of his top three worst days ever. Today was certainly shaping up to be a serious contender.