by JD Nixon
“I’m not a demon,” I said, almost begging.
“Drop the knife now,” insisted the Sarge, stepping forward again.
“Do you have wings?”
Oh God, I thought. What should I say? If I said yes and he checked, he’d stab me. If I said no, he’d stab me.
“Drop the knife now.” The Sarge advanced again, his gun up in front of him.
“Do you have wings?” Dylan asked again, suddenly striking out with his free hand, knocking my knife out of my grip.
He sprang forward, closing the gap between us. He slipped his arm around me, running his hand over my shoulder blades through my t-shirt, while pressing the serrated edge of his knife against my throat, its multitude of pointed edges digging into my soft skin, drawing drops of blood. We stood as close together as if we were dancing. I gagged on his stench, bringing up the water I recently drank. It trickled from my mouth and dripped off my chin.
“No wings,” he claimed triumphantly, as if he’d proven his own theory. “Demon!”
“Please, don’t . . .” I pleaded, terrified. I gagged again, my stomach in turmoil.
“Put the knife down now and step away from the officer,” shouted the Sarge.
Denny had stopped screaming and now keened. He paled as his blood flowed from his wound.
“The demon must be redeemed.”
With determined effort, I shoved Dylan away as he sliced out with his knife across my throat, a shallow, stinging movement that drew more blood. He sprang forward again, knife raised.
Two shots rang out and I was drenched in blood. Dylan crumpled to the ground, the knife falling from his hands.
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,” I couldn’t stop saying, shaking violently, another person’s blood running down me.
“Tessie,” the Sarge said hoarsely, looking down at his gun as if he was wondering how it got into his hands.
I roughly ripped my hair free from the bushes, ignoring the pain and leaving a few clumps of it behind. I dropped to my knees next to Denny and used my hands to press on his ragged wound. The Sarge stripped off his t-shirt and threw it to me. I wadded it up and pushed it down hard on the bleeding. The blood soaked through the material in no time.
“Tessie,” Denny said weakly.
“It’s going to be okay,” I lied. “We’re going to get you help. You’re going to be okay.”
The Sarge crouched down next to a motionless Dylan and felt for a pulse, his face robbed of all colour. He tried his neck, both wrists and then his neck again. He leaned down to feel for breath. He checked his eyes. At the end, he rested back on his haunches and looked at me, his eyes bleak.
“He’s dead,” he announced, stunned. “I killed him.”
Drops of blood from my shallow neck wound fell on Denny’s face. His eyelids flickered.
“Denny needs an ambulance. Fast.”
Trying to compose himself, the Sarge stood, staggering a little. “There’s no fast, Tessie. What are we going to do?”
“There’s nothing we can do for Dylan, but we can carry Denny down the mountain.”
The Sarge cast his glance over at Denny, empathy on his face. He shook his head slightly and our eyes fixed on each other. “No, Tessie. That would be cruel. I’m not sure we could climb over the rocks with him anyway.”
“We can’t leave him alone. You go for help. You’re faster than me. I’ll stay here until you bring people back with you.”
We stared at each other, our shocked distress reflected in each other’s features.
“I’ll never get anyone to come up here in the dark. They won’t come until tomorrow morning.”
I swallowed and pressed down harder. Denny began to whimper, a constant heart-rending sound. “I can’t leave him, Sarge. You have to go. I’ll be okay here.”
“I hate this,” he said, his face twisting in torment. “You need help too.”
I tentatively felt my own wound. “I’ll be okay. It’s quite shallow. It’s not bleeding much. But Sarge, you have to go now. It’s getting late. One of us has to get back to town tonight. We need people up here as soon as possible.”
I can honestly say I’d never seen a man more torn than the Sarge was at that moment. He took deep breath and leaned over to carefully pick up Denny in his arms. Denny howled in pain. The Sarge carried him inside the shelter, depositing him on Dylan’s disgusting bed. I kneeled down to press on his wound again, while the Sarge took a few minutes to examine mine.
“It’s not deep, thank God, because if I had to make a choice about who I’d carry down this wretched mountain, it would be you every time.”
He went back outside and retrieved Dylan’s body, bringing it inside the shelter and draping a blanket over it.
“You probably shouldn’t have moved him,” I said.
He shook his head. “Couldn’t leave him lying out there for scavengers to discover.”
“I guess not. You better go, Sarge. Denny needs help.”
He placed my backpack near me so I had easy access to snacks and water. He needn’t have bothered, the unbearable stench as well as the traumatic events killing my appetite – probably forever.
He squatted down next to me, hugging me, in the process smearing Dylan’s blood on himself.
He smoothed back my blood-speckled hair. “I don’t want to leave you.”
Without any warning, I started crying. “I don’t want you to either.”
“God, Tessie, please don’t cry. I’ll stay with you.”
I willed my tears to stop, snuffling. “No. There’s not much chance that people will want to trek up here tonight, but there’s a small chance. We have to try at least. Denny needs medical help urgently.”
He checked his watch. “I’m leaving you both backpacks. I’ll get back down before the sun sets and I want to make sure you have enough light, food, and water to get through the night if necessary.”
“Okay,” I said in a small voice.
“I’m going to run the whole way, and I’m going to try to force people back up here tonight.”
“Okay.”
He hugged me again and stood, looking down at me with reluctance. He seemed to debate something in his mind, but then he turned and strode away. My last view of him was him jogging off back down the path.
*****
Nobody returned that night.
I’d never felt more alone than sitting in that suffocatingly foul space, trying to reassure Denny in the increasingly brief moments he was conscious that he was okay and that help was coming any minute now.
“Tessie,” he said in a whisper during one of his lucid moments. I took a second to switch on the torch before I answered. I pressed a water bottle to his lips, but the liquid spilled down his chin, none of it taken.
“Yes, Denny.”
“Please don’t hate me.”
Tears filled my eyes. “I don’t hate you.”
“I know I’ve been a pest to you, but . . .”
Silence filled the space for so long that I turned the torch off again.
“Such a pest . . .” he said, and I switched the light back on, shocked at how pale he was. I’d been applying pressure to his wound for hours and it hadn’t stopped bleeding. It seemed to me he wasn’t big enough to hold so much blood.
“It doesn’t matter, Denny.”
“I know you won’t believe this, but it wasn’t because of Jakey.” He weakly reached a hand up to grip my arm. I would have grasped it in mine, but I needed both to try to stem the blood. “I told him things about you but only because he made me.”
“Denny, you don’t have to talk.”
“No, I want to. It was because I worried . . .”
“Worried?”
“About you . . . and my family. After that beating . . .” His voice grew softer and I had to lean down to hear his words. “I want you to be safe, Tessie. And my family . . .”
That took me by complete surprise. “You were trying to keep me safe from your family?”
“Yes
. They think I’m stupid. They call me stupid. I’m not stupid.”
“Of course you’re not. You’re not stupid, Denny,” I said, even though I’d called him that a million times myself.
“Just can’t deal with them . . .”
“When you’re better, I’ll help you find a job a long way from here. You can leave this town and forget your family.”
“Tessie, I think I’m dying.”
“No! Help’s on the way any minute now. The Sarge left ages ago to fetch help.”
“No help for a Bycraft from the townsfolk.”
“Denny, you ran in to save my life today without any thought of your own safety. That makes you a hero, and I don’t care what your family or the town says. You’re a hero to me.”
“Thank you,” he said, so weakly I barely heard it. His eyes closed.
“Denny, did you send me a tipoff about Red being at the boatsheds?”
His eyelids fluttered, his bloodless lips barely moving. “Yes. Always hated Red . . . mean bastard. Mum’s favourite.”
“You saved a young woman from being badly assaulted.”
“ . . . glad.”
“Are you comfortable?”
“Tessie . . .” he said in the barest whisper.
“Yes?”
He had no response to that except a choking gasp and it was a full five minutes before I realised it had been his last breath.
“Thank you, Denny,” I said into the emptiness, my voice quavering.
And for the rest of the night, I sat alone, hunched up against a rock wall in the dark in that almost-cave. I hugged myself, wide awake and gluggy from Dylan’s and Denny’s blood, with two dead men as company. It was definitely in the top five worst nights of my life.
I had a lot to contemplate during those long hours, worrying about what would happen to the Sarge and me. I also pondered over what Denny had said about Red. That, on top of Tommy’s letter, made me wonder whether maybe the Bycrafts weren’t as tight a family as I’d always believed.
A couple of hours after dawn broke, people arrived en masse – police, forensics, and unneeded paramedics, who instead of saving lives, hovered over my clotted neck wound. Staff from the Police Integrity Unit, charged with the duty of investigating every shooting by a police officer, asserted their authority over all of us. The Sarge was not in the group that arrived. Instead, one of the local SES volunteers had led the grumbling crew up the mountain, Denny’s mud map guiding them.
I was escorted down the mountain by one of the PIU officers, a senior sergeant, who politely refused to allow me to speak to the Sarge, not even on the phone. In fact, she confiscated my phone. She accompanied me to my house, and after a multitude of photos had been taken of me and my neck, allowed me to shower and change clothes, standing guard at the bathroom door. I was conscious of her presence even as I washed away Dylan’s, Denny’s, and my own blood, sadly watching the watery red swirl down the drain.
I barely had a chance to say hello and goodbye to a shocked Dad before being whisked away to Big Town. I felt almost naked and vulnerable sitting in the back seat of her car. The senior sergeant had refused to allow me to strap on my knife, advising me in a courteous, neutral tone that I hate when other cops use on me, that bearing weapons in her presence was out of the question.
I spent the rest of the day at the Big Town police station being interrogated by the senior sergeant and her offsider, a sergeant. She played at being deceptively disinterested, him deceptively keen. After each interview they left me alone for thirty minutes, returning to ask me the same questions in a slightly different order, each time swapping their disinterested/keen roles. If they were trying to disorient me, it didn’t work. I was so tired, and more than a little traumatised, that I answered every question in a flat monotone, repeating identical information every time I was asked.
They didn’t allow me any contact with the Sarge, and I hadn’t spoken to or seen him since he’d jogged away the previous afternoon. I could only presume he was being given the same third-degree treatment as me. The PIU officers were testing our stories against each other.
After explaining the same sequence of events five times, they’d wrung every scrap of information from me, almost down to the number of leaves on the bushes in which my hair had become entangled. Left alone in the interview room once again and with no sleep the night before, I laid my head in my arms on the table and closed my eyes. What seemed only seconds later, the female PIU officer informed me I was free to go. In a not unsympathetic voice, she informed me she’d been instructed to tell me to return Big Town in uniform the following day for a meeting at eleven o’clock sharp in the Super’s office.
I slipped out the back door of the Big Town police station to avoid everyone, but ended up in the carpark with no idea how I was going to find my way home. Then I spotted the Sarge leaning against our patrol car, waiting for me. I ran over to hug him.
We held each tightly before I disengaged and stepped away, wrapping my arms around myself. He appeared pale and drawn.
“Have you been here all day too?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m so pissed off that they put you through the wringer like that after what you’ve just been through. You probably haven’t had any sleep.”
“No. I’m beyond exhausted at the moment.”
“Were you told to come back tomorrow?”
“Yes. What do you think will happen?”
“I don’t know, but I do know I’m in a load of trouble.”
“You saved my life, Sarge. I’m going to make sure everyone knows that.”
“I killed a man, Tessie. It could be the end of my career.”
“Let’s not think the worst,” I said, slipping into the passenger seat.
“I’m finding it hard to think of anything good about this situation.” He drove out of the carpark and I leaned against the seat, closing my eyes. “So Denny didn’t make it?”
“No. Poor Denny. He turned out to be one of the good guys in the end.”
“Don’t blame yourself for what happened.”
I didn’t answer because it wasn’t me blaming myself that I worried about – it was the Bycrafts blaming me. No matter the facts of the situation, I knew I wouldn’t escape retribution for Denny’s death. But that was a problem for tomorrow, and I was too tired to think straight.
We didn’t speak any further because I promptly fell asleep and didn’t wake until he pulled up in my driveway. Murmuring a sleepy goodbye, I staggered up the stairs and opened the door. He waited until I was inside before driving away.
Dad, of course, was overcome with relief at my return, not knowing what was happening to me. I gave him a brief rundown on recent events and he told me in a shocked voice that rumours had been flying around town all day. He’d rung Fiona, but she’d stonewalled him and from the sounds of it, they’d had a very tense and snappy discussion about me.
Finally though, I couldn’t keep my eyes open for another second and went to bed, falling instantly into a thankfully dreamless sleep that lasted until morning.
Chapter 35
I nervously checked my appearance a hundred times in the mirror waiting for the Sarge to pick me up the next morning. When he arrived, I noticed his boots were extra shiny and his uniform crisply neat. Neither of us wore our utility belts, and once again I felt vulnerable without a weapon.
I kissed an anxious Dad goodbye, squeezed his hand, and we drove away.
The Sarge looked tired as if he hadn’t slept, and I guess that wasn’t surprising. Being responsible for taking someone’s life, no matter the circumstances, would weigh heavily on a man like him.
We didn’t talk much, an air of bleakness between us. My stomach flipped as the Big Town police station came into view and tightened when we drove into that familiar carpark.
We were directed to the Super’s waiting room by the sympathetic desk sergeant, and made our way there, avoiding the eye of every other officer. Nobody spoke to us. Ominously, the Super’s
office door was closed.
Fifteen minutes later, she came for us herself. She wore her dress uniform, another little fact that didn’t bode well for us.
“Any weapons?” she asked, pointedly looking at me.
“No, ma’am,” we answered in unison.
She inclined her head towards her office. “In you go.”
Inside the room, three male senior officers sat in fairly cramped conditions, all wearing their dress uniforms, more brass on show than a jazz band.
She introduced the men. “This is Deputy Police Commissioner Parisher, Chief Superintendent McCarthy, Head of the Police Integrity Unit, and Superintendent Manning, Head of the Police Media Liaison Unit.”
The three men nodded at us, but there was no reciprocal introduction offered. They all knew who we were already.
“Take a seat, Officers,” said Parisher, an abrupt, haughty man with over-styled hair and a dramatic nose. We sat. “Obviously you realise we’re here today to discuss the Krysztofiak matter and the steps that will be taken to thoroughly investigate recent events and limit our reputational damage.”
Manning jumped in. “So far we’ve managed to keep this . . . er, unfortunate incident from the media. But we must issue a press release about it today, otherwise it will look as though we’re trying to cover it up. Actually, as soon as this meeting is over my office will be sending it out.”
“Naturally, the media will be highly interested in this incident. It will receive intensive nationwide attention,” said Parisher. He nodded toward the silent McCarthy. “However the investigation by the Police Integrity Unit will take weeks, probably months, before they’re able to judge whether there was any malfeasance, neglect, or incompetence leading to the deaths of Dylan Krysztofiak and Dennis Bycraft. In the meantime though, the media will hound the both of you.”
I bit my tongue so hard I could taste blood. The Sarge’s hands gripped each other until his knuckles showed white. If the Deputy Commissioner noticed, he paid it no attention.
“It’s crucial at a time like this for us to assure the public that police officers only resort to shooting civilians in the most dire and life-threatening situations. And we must show that the Police Service is fully committed to investigating all such incidents in a balanced and just way. Sergeant Maguire, taking all this into account and after much discussion with my colleagues here, I have decided to suspend you on full pay until the PIU’s investigation is complete. I am also directing you to remove yourself from the location of this incident.”