On The Job

by Sandi Wallace

  Matching her pace, he tossed her a sneaker.

  She grasped it smoothly, then checked out the guy ahead, whose gait combined a stagger-roll-jog. He’d be easy to catch. ‘As a matter of fact, I am.’

  ‘Before you go…’

  She half-turned. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m fine with you being a cop. So can I take you to dinner sometime?’

  Heat prickled her cheeks, as she nodded. ‘We’ll talk at the park tomorrow.’

  Nessa watched Jake spring up, clicking his heels together.

  She jogged on to stoop over her crook, who’d collapsed on the bitumen. She badged him, grinning. ‘You’re busted, Cinderella!’

  The Job II

  Some things can’t be unseen…or unfelt, unsmelt or unheard

  They churn in your gut

  bang in your brain like wet towels in a dryer

  drip off your tongue too quickly or stick in your throat, impossible to say

  Can’t sleep because the flashbacks are worse

  imprinted on the inside of your eyelids they play over and over and over again

  too loud, too bright, too clear, too horrific

  Might be the end of the line, think this might be the point of no return

  But trading the blue uniform for jeans and a flanny shirt

  filling in the days reading, listening to the radio, watching the footy, pottering in the garden

  while crackles on the radio, wet knees from crouching on the ground, a familiar face, a child’s bike, a foggy day or just breathing could trigger a flashback

  Sometime, anytime, it will all come back

  too loud, too bright, too clear, too horrific

  Impact

  Finalist in the international 2012 ‘Cutthroat’ Rick DeMarinis Short Story Contest

  Tony McCain cornered without slowing. His offsider gripped the dash and braced while she spoke into the mike over the clamour of the siren, updating their ETA.

  The sergeant’s spine cracked as they took the hairpin bend.

  Down the long straight, around one more corner.

  Central communications had relayed a sketchy report. A vehicular collision with a pushbike. The location. Minimum of one serious injury. The anonymous male witness refused to remain on the scene or elaborate. Every instinct from twenty-nine years on the job told McCain it’d be gruesome.

  He glimpsed the young constable in the passenger seat. Her face was dappled in the premature dusk of winter and he saw that a curly tuft of black hair escaped her bun. A strange thing to notice, in the circumstances.

  His mind made another odd sidestep. Sara Pratt. If ever there was someone who didn’t fit their surname, she sat next to him in the divvy van. Alert, sensible, resourceful, certainly not foolish, he could see her advancing her career in any direction and quickly. Maybe she’d be the next female chief commissioner. He hoped she wouldn’t end up crucified if she made it to the top.

  Politics and policing, oil and water, greasy like the wet bitumen under the van’s tyres, and it was why he stayed in the operational side of coppering. He could have gone for promotions but he joined the force to help the community, not sit behind a poncy desk, shuffling files.

  His mouth twitched as he acknowledged his habit of deflecting from the situation ahead. He inhaled through his nostrils and figured they’d confront it soon enough. In less than two minutes in fact.

  Hold it together, man.

  He was trying to. But he knew a string of young families near the address. Too tragic to think the pushbike belonged to a kid he trained at basketball or one of his groupies at the local pre-school or primary school he visited with the station’s ‘little red car’. Once a month he talked to ‘his kids’ about all things policing, from cyber-bullying to safe cycling.

  Safe cycling.

  A mental image struck of his front-row favourites at the pre-school: Lily, Bella and Zac.

  Too young to be out on the road. His shoulders loosened. Then he took a sharp breath. Unless it was a driveway incident.

  A sharp pain stabbed his eye. McCain white-knuckled the steering wheel and focused on driving.

  Seconds later, his brain resumed its jumping jacks. He’d often smugly thought that working hands-on in the hills outstripped his previous flat-land postings. Here his team tackled country policing in suburbia. They managed a population of 700-odd households with a transient tourist count of over a million each year, which made every shift varied and community oriented.

  Today reminded him of the flipside of living and working in an intimate neighbourhood. He wasn’t a born-again nutter but he prayed: God, let the vics be tourists, not locals.

  The road dipped. The fog thickened and wrapped around the blue-and-white, limiting visibility to mere metres.

  ‘Are you ready, Sara?’

  Despite the siren, radio and road noise, he sounded too loud. And he could smell his offsider’s perfume. His senses were in overdrive.

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  Two controlled words. Apprehensive, yet professional, Pratt was as ready as she could be.

  McCain unconsciously twisted his gold wedding band as their fog lamps flared on a yellow warning sign at the final curve. He made the turn, easing off the accelerator.

  His guts plummeted.

  Fog lamps illuminated the scene as he braked.

  He stopped, diagonally blocking the thoroughfare.

  Nissan Patrol and pushbike.

  He groaned, raking fingers through thin, more-salt-than-pepper hair.

  ‘Jesus,’ Sara whispered.

  Compressed like a piano accordion, a pink pushbike lay metres from the SUV. Incongruously, its holographic handlebar streamers fluttered in the icy wind and one purple training wheel spun slowly.

  The Nissan driver blocked the rest of their view. He’d crumpled to the wet bitumen, head in hands. Something infiltrated his shock. It could’ve been the flashing red-and-blue lights on their vehicle or the screech of McCain’s door.

  Before alighting, Sara alerted D24 to their arrival.

  McCain heard her ask, ‘ETA on the ambos?’ and moved beyond earshot.

  The driver rose, stumbled but righted himself. Ashen faced, his hands shook visibly from ten metres away.

  ‘I didn’t…I couldn’t…I couldn’t stop!’

  As the man shifted, McCain saw shiny black shoes with primrose bows, topped by pink ankle socks with sky-blue bobbles.

  ‘She came out of nowhere! Like a bat out of hell.’

  McCain took in stick-thin legs. His mind in hyper-state, he grasped the pose was too slack and still. A cop’s nightmare is an incident where little kiddies are injured. Almost thirty years on the job and yet, as he mentally processed the scene, his stomach flipped.

  Sara hurried to the driver. She laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke in a gentle tone. The man bent forwards, sobbing into his chest.

  The sarge ignored them and moved to the little girl.

  Only about thirty seconds had elapsed since their arrival but time slowed and detail amplified.

  He gazed again at the socks, then her multi-hued pleated skirt, woolly pink vest and raspberry T-shirt with frilly sleeves.

  Not for the first time at an accident, McCain wished he could rewind the clock and somehow prevent it.

  His eyes flicked to the child’s delicate hands. They lay supine. Her soft white palms speckled with red droplets and road grit.

  McCain drew a deep breath a metre from the body. So close, he could smell and almost taste blood.

  The little girl’s eyes were open.

  And vacant.

  Fingers gripped his bicep, forcing him around.

  The driver pummelled him. McCain took it for a few moments, until Sara reached for the man and led him away.

  ‘She came from nowhere.’ The man’s voice broke. ‘Looking over her shoulder, not at the road. There was nothing I could do. You have to believe me! It happened too fast.’

  McCain knelt. His knees cracked. He placed t
wo fingers on the girl’s neck, feeling for a pulse. None, but he hadn’t thought there would be. He leaned close to check her airway. As he tilted her head back, the mass of contusions across her pixie face shut down his brain.

  Then it became clear. He knew this child.

  Oh, God. No.

  They were all trained to perform CPR with the option to do just compressions. But as if he had a choice when it came to a kiddie.

  He ran through it in his mind. Thirty compressions. Two effective breaths. No stopping.

  ‘How long for the ambos?’ he called to Sara, before placing his hands on the little girl’s chest and commencing compressions.

  ‘Nine minutes.’ She touched his arm. ‘I think she’s gone, boss.’

  He shrugged her off. ‘I’m not playing God. We do everything we can until the ambos take over. Got it?’

  She hunkered beside him. ‘I’ll breathe.’

  They worked robotically, counting, breathing, pumping.

  McCain focused on his hand position and compression rhythm.

  He dimly heard Sara’s voice, ‘…twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…’ and counted two beats while she exhaled, making the slender chest rise under his hands. Each time, he sent up a prayer for a spontaneous sign of life. Each time, his heart constricted further.

  The firies beat the ambos. A patrol car joined the line-up with two of their blokes. Onlookers gathered, shocked, yet transfixed, unable to turn away from a sight that would haunt their dreams. While the cops tried to breathe life back into the limp body, the rest of the emergency crew settled into the industry of disaster.

  Control the crowd.

  Secure the area.

  Set up detours.

  Pratt and McCain kept breathing and pumping until the paramedics arrived and took over. Hope sparked with a brief return of beat on the monitor but even as the ambos loaded the child into their truck, the veteran cop knew she’d be DOA.

  The ambulance disappeared, lights and bells screaming.

  Only then did McCain say to his constable, ‘It’s Bella.’

  Their breaths plumed in the frosty air. The light seeping from the glazed fanlight above the front door gave it an ethereal look, jarring with the reason for their call. Sara’s pulse pounded in her temples as they waited.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Sarge? You don’t have to. I can handle it. Or Patto can come with me, if you like.’

  ‘It’s my responsibility.’ McCain’s voice was cut glass, his face puffy, although the redness had subsided.

  Sara had witnessed the boss fight emotion and frustration on occasion. He’d once whacked a brick wall so hard he fractured his pinkie. But until today, she’d never seen him bawl and wished the memory could be erased.

  When the ambulance tore away and he named the local child, she saw him lose it. The signs: stricken eyes, taut jaw line and quivering mouth. She’d dragged him to the van and let him cry, realising he’d hate their colleagues or the firies to see his breakdown. She had patted his arm, muttered the usual well-meant but essentially futile placations and predicted they wouldn’t talk of it. Ever.

  Now, she simply nodded and adjusted her hat.

  Her palms moistened when a bright light came on overhead, the handle cranked and the door swung. She wiped them on her pants. Notifications were never easy but having to tell parents about their pre-schooler’s death had to be the worst.

  ‘Mr Avery?’

  ‘Yes.’ The tall, polo-necked man squinted at Sara, then past her. ‘Tony?’

  Sara wondered at his calmness. Sure, he seemed curious, perplexed even, as to why they were on his doorstep. Yet, he acted far from alarmed.

  Oh, hell. She gulped bile. They’d failed to raise the parents on the landline and anticipated it was because they were searching for their daughter.

  They have no idea she was even missing. No clue what’s coming.

  She said, ‘Can we come in?’

  Michael Avery smoothed his eyebrow with manicured fingers, then gestured to inside. ‘Yes, of course.’

  They trailed him into a formal lounge.

  ‘Come in. Sit.’

  They perched on a white sofa that was too low and hard.

  The sarge managed, ‘Is Julia home?’

  As the husband said, ‘She’s just…’ Sara glanced through to the kitchen and noticed an array of green shopping bags. A woman with bobbed strawberry-blonde hair moved into view and did a double-take.

  With bottles of tomato sauce and olive oil in each hand, she rushed into the living room.

  ‘Tony?’ She addressed McCain. ‘Is everything okay?’

  When the boss’s mouth flapped mutely, Sara said, ‘Mrs Avery, Mr Avery. I’m Sara Pratt and you know Tony McCain.’

  Polite murmurs and nods followed by rote.

  She started the terrible part. ‘It’s Bella.’

  The woman’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Bella? She’s upstairs, having a little nap, isn’t she, Mike?’

  ‘Mrs Avery,’ Sara cut in. ‘Bella’s not upstairs.’

  ‘What?’ The sauce dropped onto the pristine white carpet as the mother covered her mouth.

  ‘Julia!’

  The husband’s sharp reproach seemed excessive. The bottle had splintered on impact, its contents splattering the shag pile – but what was tomato sauce on the carpet compared with their daughter’s well-being?

  Julia froze, except for her eyes, which darted between her husband and the nestled bottle. Her soft-rose complexion drained to waxen.

  Maybe they’re reacting to us, not the sauce. We’re oozing an aura of doom.

  Still mulling whether the sauce, their presence or the three words Bella’s not upstairs had rattled the couple more, Sara guided the woman to the sofa. Crouched before the parents, she scanned to McCain but the sarge remained impotent.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Avery, we have very bad news concerning Bella.’

  Michael rose and yelled, ‘Bella, come here!’

  His wife’s knees trembled. Her pressed pants made a rustling sound.

  ‘Mike, sit down.’ At last, McCain had found his voice. ‘Bella’s not upstairs.’

  ‘Not possible. You,’ Julia frowned at her husband, ‘you said Bella was tired and needed a nap. That’s why I couldn’t get through to you about the chops; you had the phone on silent so she could rest.’

  She dashed upstairs. They heard her footsteps above them. Doors opened and closed and her cries grew more frantic.

  Sara shadowed her to the base of the staircase. As she hovered, uncertain, her boss said, ‘Best give her a moment.’

  She nodded and sat again, listening to Julia’s agitated motion and watching the husband. There was something a little odd about him. Then again, there’s no textbook reaction to sudden loss. The one certainty in a death knock: they must be prepared for anything and everything, including denial, anguish and aggression.

  ‘Where is she, Mike?’ The woman’s pupils glinted hard and black against pasty skin as she lurched down the last treads.

  The knees of her pants were creased now as if she’d been crawling on the floor, searching under beds for her daughter.

  Her husband lifted his palms helplessly. He approached her, reached out. She flinched but allowed him to lead her to the sofa.

  Sara gave McCain’s foot a discreet nudge. He got it. They stood together.

  ‘Little Bella isn’t here. We have very bad news about her.’

  The words sounded awkward and inadequate in Sara’s ears. She’d practised phantom scenarios in bed since her academy days and been part of two reality dramas on the job, although never as the informant, yet the script felt wrong.

  She dug her nails into her palms, to sharpen her wits. ‘I’m…we’re very sorry, but your daughter has been involved in a fatal collision this afternoon –’

  ‘But how –?’

  ‘It appears that she rode her bicycle into the path of an oncoming four-wheel drive.’

  She omitted that th
e kid cycled onto the road ‘like a bat out of hell’ according to the driver, shooting backward glances, oblivious to all else. She’d find a kinder way to explain after their initial shock.

  ‘Unfortunately –’ Sara’s body iced and her tongue thickened, slurring the word. She tried again. ‘Unfortunately, the driver couldn’t avoid impact with Bella. We attended the scene and an ambulance arrived quickly after.’

  The parents drilled her eyes with theirs.

  ‘Every effort was made to revive your daughter, but…I’m…we’re so sorry to tell you, she died.’

  Julia mouthed my baby and her husband tried to embrace her.

  Sara paused for the parents to absorb what she’d told them, giving opportunity for the sarge to belatedly take the lead. She reflected upon tragedy and the way it solidified some families, shattered others. When Julia cringed from her husband, she figured them for the latter.

  And so the waves of the impact would continue to crash. Foremost affected were Bella’s loved ones, of course. But the poor driver and his family would be irrevocably altered, too. Along with each person who saw or touched the broken child – the other emergency service workers, tow-truck driver, civilian onlookers, right down to the mortician who prepared her for burial.

  Sara flashed to the sarge’s grey face. He looked suddenly old. Her stomach knotted. Please don’t let this push him into early retirement.

  At length, she and McCain let themselves out of the Avery residence. Sara’s gaze fixed on the toes of her boots as they trod to the van. Inside the cabin, she looked through the rain-speckled window. A curtain twitched on the picture window of the formal lounge. She couldn’t see if the mother or father stood there.

  McCain fired the engine and slowly reversed. As the house receded, sadness pulled at Sara’s chest. She recalled the mother shrinking further over the duration of the interview, and visualised her recoil when they gave more detail of the incident and mentioned formal identification of the body and an inquest. The solitary instance Julia became animated was when she asked what Bella was wearing – which the boss described in disturbing detail. That last-ditch hope crushed, she’d dropped into an uncommunicative state, while her husband sobbed tearlessly.