“The bakery,” Ortega yelled to me. “There’s only one way in and out.”
I hadn’t frequented the bakery in over a year, but I remembered there wasn’t a back door. Totally illegal by today’s standards, but this building was grandfathered in, so only one way in and out didn’t break any codes. It never occurred to me how dangerous this would be. It was still early morning, so as we closed in on the subject, I saw the bakery was packed with customers.
As I looked at the people inside, they were minding their own business, staring at the pastry cases. Most assuredly, they wouldn’t be hungry for the rest of the day. Or, you never know, maybe they wouldn’t care, and would order their breakfast before leaving the building.
The mostly naked man looked into the bakery, too. I didn’t know if Ortega’s words made the man look, or if he planned to enter the bakery before. In a last-ditch effort, as we drew close enough to Naked Guy to see he had garden shears in his hand, I made a judgment call.
I stopped, planted my feet, and yelled, “Stop, and drop your weapon.”
CHAPTER 3
You know that feeling that everything is moving in slow motion? I’d felt it before, when I’d been bucked off a horse. It seemed to take forever to hit the ground, when in reality it was a split second. That act of your brain processing, then splat.
Naked Guy turned around and faced us. Good, because he was no longer headed into the bakery. Bad, because the look on his face was pure rage. It was a handsome face, with maybe a day’s growth on his chin. He had dark hair, tanned skin, and he looked to be in his thirties. The rage distorted his features, making him more animal than human. He held the garden shears out in front of him, coming at us, scissoring, stepping forward with his right foot, and then back, then stepping forward with his left foot. It was when he held the garden shears high, his trench coat wide open, I saw his hairy chest and massive erection.
The sounds of the people, bustling, screaming, and chattering was white noise as my mind focused solely on the man in front of me. I yelled, “Drop it.”
Ochoa whispered in my ear, “Shoot him, chicken shit, shoot him.”
Chicken shit had nothing to do with it. I didn’t need to shoot at that moment. I pulled my Taser out and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The man jolted for a few seconds, as if his body was processing the charge of electricity, then he charged forward. Lunging forward in huge steps, the razor sharp shears stabbing at us. I sent another jolt through him. Again, a slight twitch, and he came at me.
That’s when the slo-mo kicked in. Instead of surrendering, Naked Guy’s arms came forward at full force, as he heaved the shears in my direction. By the time I raised my gun, Ortega had fired. He’d been in a defensive stance, not ten feet from me. The shears landed between us, missing me by only inches, as I leaned to my left just in time.
Naked Guy’s body bucked with each hit, as the force of the bullets propelled him backward. Blood splattered on his skin, and the fabric of his trench coat. Eventually, his arms dropped to his sides, and he fell back on the sidewalk. The sound of his head cracking when it hit the cement seemed louder than the gunshots.
“Damn, baby, you done missed your chance.”
The screams coming from the bakery, moved beyond the white noise in my ears, and brought me fully back into the moment. I ran to Naked Guy. His eyes opened, blinking, but his chest wasn’t moving. I’d expected it to be heaving, after sprinting, the Taser, the confrontation, and getting shot. As I reach down to check his pulse, his eyes stared at me, and he spat blood in my face.
“Motherfucker!” I knew I said it too loud, but I didn’t care, as I pulled out my shirttail and wiped my face.
“That’s right,” Naked Guy whispered. Then I saw the life leave his body.
What the hell did that mean? Was he a motherfucker? Or he’d had his last hurrah at my expense? If this asshole was HIV-positive, or had hepatitis C, well, God help me.
I turned to see if Ortega had radioed in the shooting, or call for an ambulance, or at the very least, kept the people inside the bakery. No, he was glued to the spot where he’d been when he pulled his gun. He stared at the ground, but I didn’t think he saw anything in that moment.
I grabbed my radio, “Shots fired, suspect down.”
I jumped up and started to radio to ask where my backup was when I saw Wyatt’s Explorer pull up. So instead, I asked for an ambulance, and stood up to block the entrance of the bakery.
I looked around, Ochoa was gone.
Several customers stood in the picture window, their damn cell phones recording every move Ortega and I made. Well, that was fine, because I was recording, too. The new chief had made chest cameras mandatory along with the hats, and I’d remembered to turn mine on before exiting my car. They’d see the incident from the perspective of the cops for a change, and not from some armchair judge in the peanut gallery.
Wyatt came running toward us. He took in everything with his eagle eye gaze, and looked at me as he went immediately to Ortega. The young officer hadn’t moved. His gun still in his hand, but now down at his side. He was in shock.
“Ortega, can you hear me?” Wyatt asked him.
He didn’t move, but his eyes seem to say yes.
Another car pulled up, and Officer Bronson got out, staring wide-eyed at the scene before him
“Bronson, take over for Leigh.” Wyatt motioned to me. “Leigh, get your ass over here.”
I waited for the officer to take over my position at the door, then approached Ortega and Burke with caution.
“Ortega, you’re going to ride back to the station with Jacoby when he arrives. Leigh, you’ll ride with me.” Wyatt sounded like a psychologist talking to a patient on the verge. The verge of anything, because Ortega was on the verge of something, but we didn’t know what.
“It was just, I mean, we…”
Before I could finish, Wyatt put his hand up. “Not here. We’ll talk at the station.”
He looked at Ortega, then at me. His face was flushed. Just more bullshit for him to have to deal with, I thought. It was all bullshit with Wyatt. That much hadn’t changed since I’d been gone, either.
“Dammit. Please tell me everything was by the book, and you had your cameras on.” Wyatt looked down at Ortega’s camera, which hadn’t been engaged. “Shit.”
I said, “Mine was on. I wasn’t about to have my ass handed to me on a platter my first day back.” I squeezed my eyes shut, and then opened them again. “I also had no plans to kill anyone.”
That’s when Ortega came to, well, sort of. “I killed him?”
Wyatt reached down and took the gun from Ortega’s hand, then said, “Let’s go sit in my car.”
“I’m still recording. You want me to leave it on?” I wasn’t sure of the protocol, since the chest camera was new to me. I knew most cops went their whole career without ever drawing their weapons and firing in the line of duty. This was my second time being in the situation.
“Leave it on until we get to the station.” Wyatt led Ortega from the spot where he’d been rooted.
By the time he had the kid in the car, the chief had arrived, along with the media.
“Great,” I said. “As if this isn’t going to be hard enough.”
But the chief had more backup, who immediately began securing the area. Then slowly, one at a time, the patrons of the bakery were allowed to leave. Each one was pulled aside and questioned before being let go.
I could hear some of the responses from where I stood:
“It all happened so fast. I was deciding whether I wanted a bear claw or the crème brûlée cupcakes, when I heard gunshots. I swear my head exploded, it was so loud. I turned and the cop had his gun out. The other cop was just standing there.”
“He had a boner, man. The dead guy had a boner. Is that what happens when you die?”
“I heard yelling, and I turned to look. That’s when the guy on the ground threw something at the female cop. She had her hand on her hip, like she was goin
g to pull her gun out, but before she could, the Mexican cop shot the dude. I mean, he unloaded on the guy.”
The process seemed to take forever, and I wasn’t allowed to question any of the witnesses, just stand by and listen. Most of them saw the incident as I did, but one asshole had his own version. I figured the guy had his share of run-ins with the cops, and this was his revenge moment.
“The guy came up to the door of the bakery, and then I heard the cops warned him, ‘Stop right there, or I’ll blow you away. I said stop, asshole.’ Then when the man stopped and turned towards the officers, he had his hands in the air, and the little puny dude emptied his gun on the innocent man. The guy wasn’t doing nothing, just walking into the bakery. He wasn’t even armed. I mean he was naked, where was he going to put a weapon?”
It took everything in me to keep from running at that prick and plowing him into the ground. Lying asshole. I leaned forward, ready to at least dispute his words, when Wyatt grabbed me by the arm.
“The chief wants me to get you back to the station. You’re going to ride in my car. Someone has already been dispatched to pick up your vehicle. Ortega’s, too. He gave me his keys. I’ll need yours.”
I didn’t argue. I was ready to be done with the scene. “Welcome back, huh?” I said as I handed him my keys.
“Welcome back.”
Wyatt walked Ortega to Jacoby’s car, and I saw them talking, but I couldn’t hear anything. They were too far away for me to even read their lips. I hated not knowing everything that was going on. I only knew that I was going to be riding with Wyatt back to the station.
There was lots of static and chatter on the police radio as we drove, then Wyatt asked, “You feel like talking about it?”
I explained the situation after we responded to the call, and then said, “I think that guy might have wanted to die.”
“What makes you think that?” Wyatt’s face creased with concern.
“He spit in my face when I went to check to see if he had a pulse. And when I cursed him for spitting at me, he said, ‘That’s right.’ I’m assuming, of course, but his defiant attitude made me think he got exactly what he wanted.”
“Great.”
“Of course I’m guessing at all of this, because he died right after that. But it was the unholy grin on his face, and the fact that he had that erection that maybe think he really was getting exactly what he wanted.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Wyatt said. “But we have your version of things on the camera, and on audio, since you’re still rolling, so we should be okay here.”
“I’m not sure about Ortega. Wasn’t he in the military before becoming a cop? I mean, this can’t be the first time he’s killed a person, can it? He doesn’t look like he’s handling it very well.”
“We can’t all have ice water running through our veins, Harper.” Wyatt slowed his car as he turned into the station’s official vehicle lot.
I wasn’t sure if he’d insulted me or not. I decided to take it as a compliment, and said, “Thanks.”
I was pretty sure the insult/compliment had nothing to do with killing a man. I tried not to look at Wyatt, knowing I’d see the heartbreak in his eyes. I swore it was always there.
The media were already hovering outside the police station. As Wyatt drove into the parking lot and maneuvered into his space, men, women, and cameras swarmed us. I looked into the side mirror, and saw Jacoby drive in, then stop, put his car in reverse, and leave. I was glad we were a distraction, so he could take Ortega in another door.
I never saw Ortega, because as they took him directly to his own interview room. Wyatt put me in the only other interview room our station had, and left to go get me a bottle of water. As I sat and stared at the carpeted walls, the video recorder, and the microphones, I realized what it must feel like for the criminal to be left alone in the space with only their thoughts.
Who the hell knew my first day back would go down like this? I hadn’t even been on the streets for an hour. And it was a simple call, a trespasser. The possibility of a do over ran a repeat reel in my brain: maybe I could have arrested the weed dude, then I’d have been on my way back to the station, right? But what would that have changed? What could I have done differently? I really couldn’t answer that question, because I couldn’t go inside Ortega’s head.
I thought about what bothered me the most. It was him standing there, cemented in place, his mind stopping like that. Anything could’ve happened after he fired his shots. Someone could’ve come from around the corner, or the suspect could’ve pulled a gun from his trench coat, and fired back. Ortega was worthless in those moments. Completely and totally left me vulnerable. I wanted to be mad, but I needed to understand his thought process first. When the door opened, Wyatt’s face startled me: his lips were thin, a straight line, his eyes looking at the floor. I could see the tension in his temples, and the flare of his nostrils.
“Where’s my water?” My throat was so dry.
“Is your chest camera still on?”
I looked down. “Yes.”
Had I talked to Ochoa out loud? No one would know if I looked for him, but if I had talked to him? Oh, shit, not on day one. No one knew. No one outside West Coast Post Trauma knew about Ochoa.
“Turn it off.” He sat down across from me and placed the water bottle on the table.
“What’s up?” I grabbed the bottle and twisted the cap slowly, waiting for his answer.
“The man Ortega shot was a mental patient.”
I set the bottle down without taking a drink, then leaned back in my seat. “Oh, shit. Where did you hear this?”
Wyatt put his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. He rubbed his forehead with the heels of his hands, and said, “Someone had a cell phone video, and it’s already hit the news.”
I groaned. I hated cell phones.
“The man’s guardian call the hospital, and the police station. She wanted us to know we killed her son.” Wyatt never even looked up at me as he spoke.
“This isn’t good at all.” I stood and paced the small space between the table and the door. “But what else can we do? The man was all juiced up, on what I don’t know, but Jesus, Wyatt, the guy had a hard-on, for Christ’s sake. And when I hit him with the Taser, it didn’t even faze him.”
That got him to look up. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I took the SD card from my camera and handed it to Wyatt. “Watch this. I’m telling you, the man was getting a rise, literally, out of the chase. Or maybe it was his antics at the woman’s back door that had him aroused. But he had a raging, rock hard, hard-on. His erection was still pulsing when he was on the ground. I think he was turned on by the incident. And several jolts from my Taser barely made him flinch.”
Wyatt took the SD card and slid it into the computer slot. The flat screen came to life, and I got to watch the entire incident again, from my own point of view. I could hear a lot of huffing and puffing as I was running, and the camera footage nearly gave me motion sickness, but it was all there. The story I told Wyatt in the car played out for us to watch.
I almost laughed, because I must’ve been startled by Naked Guy’s erection, and my body seemed to stop and take a good look. In my defense, he was huge.
“Do you know his name?” I needed to call him something other than Naked Guy.
“Bernard Legault. Apparently his mother called him Bernie.” Wyatt rewound the footage and watched it again. “You two were by the book. Nothing wrong. Only I’m not sure Ortega needed to fire more than once. It looks like his first shot was straight into the man’s chest.”
From my camera’s point of view, we watch the bullets hit Bernie, and knock him back. The next bullet hit his shoulder, then another hit his groin. “Maybe Ortega was jealous of his dong.”
Wyatt glared at me. “This isn’t the time for levity. We’re being recorded.”
I looked up at the video camera and waved. “Sorry, but I don’t know why he kept sho
oting.”
Wyatt replayed it again, in slow motion. And now I saw it. After the first shot, Bernie stepped forward. He hadn’t even known he’d been hit. Sure, his body jolted, but he was coming at us still. One more step, then he was knocked off balance from the wound to his shoulder.
“Wyatt, I know the camera doesn’t show it, but the amateur hour cell video might. I think I saw Ortega take a step back. He might have been ready to run, or he might have been trying to get a better angle. I don’t know, but I do know that Bernie didn’t feel what hit him. He only went down because he was knocked back by physics.”
Wyatt replayed the video again. Then he let it run through to the point where I ran up to Bernie and checked his pulse.
Chest cams are definitely not cinematographers: they don’t get the correct blocking for the scene, but they do catch most of what is needed, and they definitely catch the audio.
I cringed and close my eyes when Bernie spit on my camera on the screen.
At this, Wyatt turned off the playback.
“He’s defiant.” Wyatt pushed at the slot on the computer, and pulled the SD card out. “It’s like he planned it or something.”
“I think we need to get his mother in here, and have a talk with her,” I said. “No way is the media going to slaughter us when they didn’t have all of the evidence.”
“The thing is, what are they going to show on TV?” Wyatt’s face was red.
I wasn’t sure if it was the heat of the room, or the heat of the situation.
“This is going to be a field day for them. The news will probably be playing this on special reports all day. We’re screwed, and we don’t even know why yet.” I could feel my face getting hot.
CHAPTER 4
If the public only knew how exhaustively a police shooting was investigated, they’d have more respect for police departments everywhere.
It should have been my first day back on the street. Turned out I was only patrolling in my vehicle for merely an hour or so. I was in the station for the rest of my shift, answering questions and filling out paperwork.
Uncertain Calm (Uncertain Suspense Series Book 1) Page 3