by Mike Markel
I looked through the glass, watching the dance. The chief saying something, the attorney responding. Higley leaning in to whisper something to the lawyer. I turned on the speaker to listen in.
“We don’t think you meant to kill Maricel, Jared.” The chief was talking. His hand was extended, like he was saying we’re all adults here. Things can sort of happen. But we can work this out. “Way we see it, you got in an argument with her about that three-way, and things just got out of hand. Maybe she’d yanked the earring out and you got pissed. Anyone would understand that. And you just went for the knife. You weren’t even going to stab her. Maybe you were just trying to defend yourself. But the two of you were wrestling for it, and she got stabbed. We could see involuntary manslaughter.”
It sounded like the chief knew he couldn’t get Higley on murder, so he was hoping to get something else. I turned off the speaker and left the corridor. I headed back to the detectives’ bullpen. I glanced at my desk and Ryan’s, head-to-head near the center of the room. I walked over to the coatrack, grabbed my coat, and headed down to the parking spots out back. I drove over to the hospital, got Ryan’s room number, and headed up to the third floor, where the ICU is.
There were ten beds in the ICU, arranged in two rows of five. Down near the end of one of the rows, I saw his wife.
I walked over to her. “You must be Kali.”
She looked startled as she turned to face me. “Karen?” She had an infant in her arms, a little boy. She shifted him to her other arm and pulled me in for a kiss.
I’d never met her. I don’t socialize much, never have. I’d made a point of not going over to Ryan’s house, even though he’d invited me six or eight times—for dinner, picnics, all kinds of things. The good reason was that I knew a little of me goes a long way, and an eight-hour shift, five days a week, is more than a little of me. These were precious years for Ryan and Kali, with a three-year old and an infant. I didn’t want to intrude.
The real reason, though, was that I was ashamed. Of myself, of my drinking—and some other things. He must have told his wife about how I crashed and burned, been fired, then disappeared into a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for half a year. I just didn’t want to be in a room with her, making small talk. She didn’t do anything wrong; she shouldn’t have to do that.
Even with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and held by a rubber band, no makeup, jeans, and a washed-out BYU sweatshirt, she looked terrific. It was her smile. The same one that was on the photo of the family on his desk at work. I could have picked her out of a lineup with that smile. Her husband is shot, and she’s giving me that smile, big and broad, just like Ryan’s.
“I’m so sorry, Kali. He took that bullet for me.”
She looked confused. “What are you saying?”
“We were at this suspect’s house, gonna bring him in for questioning, when Ryan figured out he might take a shot at us. Ryan was pushing me off to the side when he took the bullet.”
Kali nodded, like that was the kind of thing people said to her all the time, so she wasn’t surprised. “The chief was here. He said he was going to put Ryan in for some kind of commendation.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “He deserves it.” I started to tear up. “He’s just a terrific detective. Just a terrific guy.” She leaned in and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Now I’m crying, and it’s your husband.” I tried to get myself under control. “What have the doctors told you?”
“Not that much,” she said. “It’s still too early.”
The doc walked in. “Hello,” he said. He looked like he was thirty, a big shock of jet black hair, silver wire-rimmed glasses sitting on a long, thin face. I realized he was closer to my son’s age than to mine. His expression was grim as he turned to me. “I need to talk with Ms. Miner now.”
Kali said, “No, that’s fine. She’s family.”
I think that’s the first time anyone ever said that about me. Right after Bruce and I got married, seventeen years ago, he introduced me to his mother. “Ma, this is Karen,” he had said.
“Okay,” the doctor said to Kali. “We think we have your husband stabilized now. He lost a lot of blood, but we got him on the table fast. As you know, the bullet didn’t hit a vital organ. It ripped up his bowel pretty bad so we’ve taken a chunk out and done a temporary colostomy. Right now the biggest concern is sepsis. When the bowel is torn, it spills all the bacteria and stuff out into his system. We’ve pumped him full of antibiotics. The next couple of days are going to be critical. But once the bowel is healed—two to three months—we’ll re-attach it, and his plumbing will be as good as new. He looks like a tough young man.”
“He is,” Kali said, her eyes getting glassy. “He really is.” She paused. “The blood loss,” she said. “Will there be any effects from that?”
The doctor shifted. “It’s too early to know.” He pointed to one of the machines putting out beeping noises. “We’re registering brain activity now,” he said.
“But you can’t tell …” Kali broke down, started to sag.
I took the infant out of her arms, and the doctor came over to support her elbow. He half carried her over to a chair near Ryan’s bed.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Miner, we can’t tell at this point if there has been any damage to any parts of his brain.”
She nodded, her hands coming up to cover her face.
The doctor said, “We’ll know a lot more in twenty-four, thirty-six hours. I’ll check in with you later.” He turned and walked out.
The infant in my arms—I didn’t even know his name—looked puzzled as he gazed at his mother crying quietly.
I looked at Ryan. He had an oxygen mask on, an IV in one arm. He looked a little pale, but what struck me was that I’d never seen him not moving. His chest rose and fell slightly, and all the machines made beeping sounds rhythmically.
I carried a chair over toward Kali and sat down next to her. I started to play with the baby, lifting him up and down on my lap. I could smell his baby powder. He gave me a gummy half-smile, and I couldn’t help smiling back at him. I looked into his blue eyes, just like his dad’s.
“Do you want me to take him?” Kali said to me. She had pulled herself together.
“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re getting along just fine, aren’t we, little fellow?”
“Were you hurt this afternoon?”
“No, not at all.” I said. In fact, I did land hard on my left elbow, which was still throbbing. “You want me to catch you up on the case?”
“Can you do that?”
“Unofficially, sure,” I said. “We have the guy who shot Ryan.”
“Is he the one who killed the exchange student?”
“Yeah, he is. They’re working out the legal stuff now, but the bottom line is, just for what he did this afternoon, he’s going away for at least twenty years.”
Kali nodded but didn’t say anything. “How are the Gersons doing? Do you know?”
“Andrea is very upset. Dr. Gerson says the church is—what was the phrase he used? Something like ‘looking at a number of possible responses.’”
“And Mark?”
“He’s back in the treatment center. He’s gonna be there a while.”
“This has been a terrible ordeal for them.”
“Yes,” I said. “It certainly has.”
We sat there silently for a few minutes, me playing with her little boy. “Kali,” I said. “I know Ryan’s told you I’ve had a kinda hard time, you know, getting back on track.”
She nodded and touched my forearm.
“I want you to know how much it’s meant to have Ryan with me. He’s saved me, couple of times, at least.”
She smiled. “God has saved you, Karen.”
“I’m not on good terms with God. Maybe Ryan mentioned that,” I said. “So I really have no idea about any of that stuff. But I know Ryan has been there for me.”
“It doesn’t matter. He loves you, anyway.”
The inf
ant was getting antsy and holding out his arms to his mother. I handed him to his mother, and she brought him in for a big kiss.
“Ryan loves me?”
“Ryan does, too.”
It took me a few seconds to figure out her words. “Is there anything I can do?” I said, pointing to her little boy. “You know, to help out while Ryan’s in the hospital?”
“Oh, no.” Kali smiled and rolled her eyes, “I’ve got more people at home now than I can stand. Crisis management is our best event.”
I touched the baby’s cheek with my finger. He gave me a small, wet smile. “Can I stop by later and see how Ryan’s doing?”
“Of course,” Kali said. “Like I told the doctor, you’re family.” She leaned over and gave me a hug. “Take care, Karen.”
“I’m keeping a good thought for you and Ryan.” I tried hard to not break down.
She gave me a big smile. “I know you are, Karen. I appreciate it.” She paused and turned to me. “I hear what you say about not believing. But I know that Ryan is going to be fine.”
“You know that?” I really wanted to believe it, too.
She nodded. “I know God has plans for Ryan. Great plans.”
I paused. “How do you know that, Kali?”
She shrugged. “I just know it.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong, Karen. I might be wrong about what those plans are, but I am certain that He has those plans. Whether Ryan comes through this the same man he always has been, or a different man—it doesn’t matter. He will fulfill the Lord’s will, and I will do the same. It will be fine. I know that.”
I started to weep. “Oh, Kali, God love you. I want Ryan back on the force just the way he was. You deserve that.” I wiped at my eyes. “He deserves that.”
“Yes, I think he does, but it’s not really up to me or you. It will be fine. I promise you.” She smiled at me and leaned in to give me another hug.
I nodded. “I’ll see you soon, little fellow,” I said and touched the infant’s tiny fingers. I still hadn’t learned his name.
“Joseph,” Kali said.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s Joseph. Our son is Joseph.”
I left the ICU, wanting desperately to believe Kali that it would all work out.
Outside, the snow was starting up, and dusk was coming on. I felt a chill as I got in my Honda and headed back to headquarters.
The radio told me that Raul Samosa, the Latin Vice Lords’ lawyer, had scheduled a press conference for five pm. Higley would already be charged by then, although that information might not be public. But the news of Ryan’s shooting and the arrest of Higley was already public, so I expected Samosa to rub it in that we had persecuted the hell out of his boy Hector Cruz. Whether Samosa was going to come after me for profiling or whatever, I didn’t know. But I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to go after Ryan, what with him taking a bullet.
I didn’t know whether the chief was going to hold his own press conference. When we get a murderer and we know the prosecutor is going to indict him, most of the time the chief does hold one. It’s good publicity—how we got our man, the guy’s off the streets, et cetera. But with Samosa going to do one at five o’clock, I imagine the chief would wonder whether it would be the right move. On the one hand, the chief would be able to talk up how Ryan took a bullet, and how the guy we nailed wasn’t the Hispanic guy Samosa accused us of persecuting. Then again, it might look cheesy to have dueling press conferences, like we were responding to Samosa’s press conference.
I think it would look better to just issue a written statement to the media about the investigation. That way, it’s Samosa who runs his mouth, and cops who actually do the work and get the bad guy.
But I was happy to leave that kind of question to the chief. He’s real good at it, and I trust him. I get pissed at him when he tells me not to bend the rules, like when we could’ve pushed Hector a little harder to rule him in or out. But I think I’m beginning to understand where he’s coming from. For the chief, every decision is about how he’s going to explain it in a press conference, in an op-ed, or when he gets hauled before the City Council. He figures if he can’t explain it, it wasn’t the right decision. And if it wasn’t the right decision, it’ll be that much harder for us to do our jobs because we’ll lose personnel or something like that. That’s the way a good chief thinks, and Murtaugh is a good chief. So I should try not to get pissed at him all the time. I should try.
I’ve done about thirty murders total, almost two a year. Funny thing is, each one works out different. I don’t mean about whether the victim deserved to die. That’s almost always the same: no, the victim didn’t deserve it. Maricel? We didn’t really get a good look at her, but I’d definitely put her in the category of didn’t deserve it. She did some stupid stuff, sure, but not any stupider than the stuff I’ve done. She didn’t have the self-confidence to know that some shitheads are unworthy of her. Coming from her background, I can’t blame her. Plus, she was twenty-one. I was twice her age and still didn’t know it.
No, I mean each case turns on something small. With this case, it was Ryan spotting Jared’s shoes in Amber’s apartment after she told us she was going to drop his sorry ass. All Ryan and I were trying to do was help Amber realize that Jared was a total douche. She told him we had his shoes, and he—being not only a total douche but also a murderer—figured we were going to come after him.
A guy with eighty or ninety IQ points would have turned himself in, tried to deal down to manslaughter or even self-defense. With a seventy or seventy-five IQ, he would have decided to hit the road, buy himself some time, and try to figure out some of the less-obvious routes to Mexico or someplace.
But it takes a truly world-class level of stupid to think that the best way to deal with the situation is to fire a few rounds at a couple of cops standing on the porch. After all, you do that, there’s only a couple of outcomes. You fire crooked and miss them both, you take out one of them, or you drop them both. Within the next ten minutes, fifteen at the outside, you’re either in cuffs or you’re dead. Really, how else could it end?
Of course, it didn’t end this afternoon. It’ll go on for a good long while. My guess is that Jared won’t get the needle. I don’t think he set out to kill Maricel that day. They just got into it, and him being a shithead he grabbed a knife.
The three Gersons, I’m a little worried about them. Al Gerson really believes in what his church says. He’ll be all right. When he came clean at Maricel’s service on campus, he’d turned the corner. His wife, Andrea? I can’t really say. I didn’t hear her talk much about the church, and if she’d bought into it, she might not have been such a mess about her other twin dying and Mark going crazy. I don’t see her getting much better. And Mark, with his disease. If he keeps going off his meds just when he needs to stay on them, good chance he’s going to end up dead one of these days.
And there’s my partner, Ryan. Maybe in a little while I’ll be able to think about what happened without falling apart like I’m doing now. I know we could all get shot any moment. That comes with the job. When I got raped and got the shit kicked out of me at the Nazi compound last year, that was on me. I knew who I was dealing with. I knew the risks I was taking. I walked right into it.
But Ryan getting hurt bad? While he’s trying to protect me? I don’t see how it could be any less fair than that.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to understand how Kali and Ryan think, but, really, I wouldn’t bet on it. I want more than anything to believe Kali that Ryan will be okay—and that even if he isn’t, that will be okay, too. But I’ve got way too many bruises, too many scars, to think that way.
The way I think, if Ryan lost a lot of blood, and his BP was down, and it’s possible that fucked up his brain one way or the other, the best thing to do is assume his brain is going to be fucked up. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. And if I am wrong about this, that will be great. Not okay, but great.
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I know Ryan and Kali think God is just terrific, but I’m not seeing it. If he’s all that great and all that good, God could stop being such an underachiever. Like when Jared Higley was going down I-15 at ninety-five miles an hour—the wrong way—with a BAC of 1.9, and he flew past four different overpasses. That was four opportunities to send his car into one of the concrete abutments. Four opportunities for Maricel not to get stabbed and die out on the river.
If God could just show us how great and good he is—not all the time, but just once in a while—it might be a little easier for spiritual morons like myself to get in line and sign up. I don’t get any satisfaction out of being a nonbeliever. Believe me, I don’t. I truly want to believe there’s someone who knows what he’s doing, someone who’s thought this stuff through. I desperately need to believe that there’s some reason it’s not me in the ICU, why it’s Ryan lying there and it’s a good chance he’s going to die of sepsis or his brain is already mostly dead. “God works in mysterious ways” just doesn’t cut it for me. Not about this.
Why does God have to be all that mysterious? What’s so terrific about being mysterious? After a while—certainly after two thousand years—doesn’t it start to look like he’s stalling, like maybe he isn’t all that great or good?
Toss us a bone. You can bet that’s what I’d do if I was great and good.
With some luck, in a couple of days I’ll learn that Ryan will be okay. Then he’ll be telling me how it wasn’t that big a deal getting shot, how it was worth it because we took Jared off the street, maybe helped Amber get back on track. I won’t be surprised if he tells me he’s meeting with the Gersons every week and he’s beginning to see real progress. And he got Hector to go Mormon. And he’s going to keep working on me. That would be great. Maybe he’ll tell me that in a couple days. If I knew how to pray, or who to pray to, that’s exactly what I’d be praying for right now.