Cop Town: A Novel

by Karin Slaughter

  “Kate!” Maggie yelled. She was running straight up. She wasn’t stopping.

  The hogleg fired again. The boom echoed like cannon fire. The responding pop was a smaller-caliber weapon. Two different sounds. Two different guns.

  Maggie rounded the next floor and stopped. She strained to hear something other than the blood rushing through her ears. Kate was still running at least one floor above. There were heavier footsteps on the stairs below her. One set? Two? Three? Everything echoed. Heavy breathing. Scuffing feet. Was it Chip? Was it the Shooter? Was it the mysterious shadow from the doorway?

  She crouched with her gun out in front of her. Her finger almost twitched when Chip rounded the corner. He waved for her to keep going. Maggie didn’t hesitate. She ran up the stairs. The pop of the revolver echoed in her ears. A chunk of concrete splintered near her head. There was another pop. The air shimmered. The stairs felt like they were crumbling under her feet.

  Maggie took the next flight at a crouch. She stopped on the landing and pressed her back against the wall. Kate’s footsteps had slowed. She was getting tired. Maggie was the opposite. Her heart was hammering. Her guts felt twisted. She couldn’t get her breathing under control. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t slow it down.

  For just a second, she closed her eyes. She concentrated on controlling the air going into and out of her lungs.

  Jake Coffee.

  Maggie couldn’t get the man’s face out of her head. The bullet hole that unblinkingly stared back. Rick’s forlorn expression when he told her what had happened.

  Jake’s girlfriend would get the news. His baby brother, his mother and father, his whole family would hear about what had been done to him. Executed in the street. His pants pulled down.

  Maggie opened her eyes.

  Why were Jake’s pants pulled down?

  The hogleg went off. The revolver returned fire. They were close. Too close.

  Maggie ran up another flight of stairs. She stopped again, straining to make out sounds. There was a slow shuffling from above. Why was Kate going up at all? Had she panicked, or had Chip told her to keep going to the roof? They were three against one with two guns. Why run up the stairs when they could stake out a better tactical position on any one of the floors? Chip had run the SWAT team before he walked away. He taught tactical support at the academy. He knew the procedures better than all of them put together.

  Maggie felt her lips part.

  Chip knew their routines. He knew all of their codes.

  He had been an Army Ranger in the jungles of Gaudalcanal.

  He didn’t take a breath without assessing the tactical advantages.

  And he hadn’t been right since Edward Spivey walked. Everybody knew Chip was screwing a prostitute when his partner was murdered. The guilt was a heavy burden, but Spivey’s acquittal had nearly broken him. Over the last few months, Chip had been showing up at the house unannounced, dragging Jimmy out of bed, sometimes calling Terry to come over, so he could rehash the good old days he’d had with Duke Abbott.

  Every cop loved telling stories, but Chip somehow managed to make them sound like checklists. He had the annoying habit of listing things out. Steps he and Duke took to isolate the aggressor. Options they had explored when choosing their weapons. Chip talked about their targets like they were his prey. The deranged husband who took his wife hostage. The bank robber who hunkered down in the back of a Cadillac. The teenager who got high on PCP and chased after his mother with a hatchet.

  They were all crazy, Chip claimed. But that was okay. He was crazy, too.

  Crazy like a fox.

  The hogleg fired, just like it did every time Maggie stopped. Just like it had downstairs when Maggie had tried to break the chains on the locked exit door.

  Chip had been first on the scene. All the information about what happened to Jake Coffee would have flowed from his mouth. He had told Terry that the Shooter was in the other building, that the shots had come from the third floor. Meanwhile, Chip had staked out a spot across from the action.

  There was no other way to explain his sudden appearance downstairs. Maggie and Kate had come through the front door. The exit was barred, the windows too narrow for escape. The shadow they had seen in the doorway was probably cast by a cop who’d been trying to help. The hogleg had likely stopped him cold, just like the rifle shot had stopped Terry. Maggie could practically see it in her mind’s eye: Chip leaning out the first-floor window, aiming down on Terry out in the street.

  But why shoot Terry? Maggie didn’t have to consider the question for long. In all of Chip’s stories, he was the one who always took the shot. He wouldn’t let Terry get the kill. They were both the same kind of man, but only one of them could be in charge.

  The hogleg fired.

  Maggie didn’t startle this time. Instead, she gripped her revolver with both hands and pointed it down the stairs.

  Chip had lured Jake Coffee to the rail yard, and now he was trying to get Kate and Maggie up to the roof.

  The hogleg fired again. Then the revolver. Or maybe it wasn’t a revolver. Maybe it was a .25 caliber Saturday night special.

  Maggie heard Kate’s footsteps again. She looked up. The light was sharp. Kate was almost to the top. Slowly, Maggie climbed to the next landing. Sunlight. The roof door. She couldn’t go down. The only option was up.

  She took the last flight of stairs full on. Maggie wasn’t stupid enough to think that Chip wanted her on that roof. She would be collateral. It was Kate he was after. Like all the other victims, Kate fit the kill criteria; everything about her said she didn’t belong. She was a woman. She was independent. She was a Jew.

  Maggie’s only chance to save them both was to get a tactical advantage. The stairwell was a deathtrap. She needed to be waiting for Chip the minute he came through the roof door. The afternoon sun would blind him. Her gun would do the rest.

  She looked up. She could almost touch it. Blue sky. The flat white asphalt of the roof. She raced toward the open door at the top of the stairs.

  And then an arm snared around her neck. Maggie fell back. The warm muzzle of the hogleg pressed against her temple.

  Chip said, “Drop the gun.”

  Maggie hesitated.

  “Do it.”

  She threw the revolver as hard as she could out the door.

  33

  Kate stood on the white asphalt roof. She could barely catch her breath. The sunlight sent needles into her eyes. She had to cover her face for a moment just to get her bearings. The door was behind her. The rail yard was to her left.

  Jimmy was on the ground in front of her.

  He saw Kate, and his eyes went wide with fear.

  She rushed to his side. Jimmy’s hands and ankles were tied together. Sealing tape covered his mouth and was wrapped around his head. She didn’t know where to start. The twine around his wrists cut into the skin. The knots were red with his blood. Kate started to pick at the threads.

  And then she heard a noise behind her.

  Kate turned. Her eyes were still playing tricks on her. She saw a gun flying through the air. A revolver, just like the one she carried on her belt.

  Jimmy groaned. His shoulders twitched. He was looking at the gun.

  Kate was looking at Maggie.

  Chip Bixby had his arm wrapped around her neck. A large pistol was in his hand. Kate had never seen anything like it. The barrel was at least a foot long. He had his finger resting on the trigger guard the same as he had taught them at the gun range.

  “You,” Kate said, because she could see it now. Everything that had made her think Terry Lawson was the Shooter could also be applied to this repulsive maggot.

  Chip told Kate, “Thanks for runnin’ all the way up here, darlin’. I didn’t wanna have to drag you.”

  Kate looked at the revolver lying on the roof. It was twenty feet away.

  “Go ahead.” His voice held a challenge. “You think you can reach that gun before I pull this trigger?”<
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  Kate’s hand went to her chest. She had to say the words before she truly believed them. “You’re the Shooter.”

  “Smart gal.”

  “Kate,” Maggie said. “Get the gun.”

  Kate moved because she always followed Maggie’s orders. And then she stopped when Chip’s finger went to the trigger.

  He said, “You really wanna try your luck?”

  Kate felt something trembling against her chest. She realized it was her hand.

  He said, “Take a step back.”

  Kate didn’t move. She could finally see how Chip had brought all of this into play. He had told Kate to run up to the roof as fast as she could. Obviously, Jimmy was already up here. Now Maggie had a gun to her head. This was no happenstance, all of them standing on this rooftop in this rail yard. They were all exactly where Chip wanted them to be.

  Maggie said, “Don’t do this.” Her body was stiff against Chip’s. Her fingers dug into the back of his arm. “You think you’re honoring Duke’s memory by murdering a bunch of cops?”

  “They weren’t cops,” Chip hissed. “They were vermin. Nigger lovers, hippies, kikes, greaseballs, fucking pansies.” His eyes were on Kate, and she knew that she was the kike he was talking about.

  She told him, “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Bullshit, lady. You don’t even know what the job is.”

  His disgust was so palpable that Kate felt it like a fist clutching her heart.

  Chip said, “I seen it with my old man. You let one in, they bring another, and another, and pretty soon they’re running the show and your whole fucking world’s upside down.” He pressed the muzzle harder against Maggie’s temple. “All I’m doing is putting things back where they belong.”

  Kate asked the only question that mattered. “How is this going to end?”

  “Ain’t you more curious about how it all started?” He showed his small, brown teeth in a smile. “Think about it, baby. When did this all start for you?”

  Kate didn’t have to think about it. Her part in all of this began that first day on the shooting range. Chip Bixby had suggestively pressed his body against Kate’s as he’d shown her how to hold a weapon. She had been disgusted, but there was no other choice because she had to learn how to use a gun. That initial uneasiness had never really gone away. It followed her to her parents’ house. It followed her around town. And lately, that initial disquiet from six weeks ago had grown into a full-blown feeling of paranoia.

  The glow of a man’s cigarette outside her parents’ house. The smell of smoke in her hotel room. Patrick’s missing dog tags.

  She said, “You’ve been following me.”

  “Watching you.”

  With a sickening clarity, Kate understood the difference.

  Watching implied careful attention. Watching meant you noted gestures, recorded even the most inane details. Kate thought about Chip’s hands roughly grabbing her hips at the range. The rancid smell of his breath. The stench on his clothes from the chain smoking. The revolting knowledge that the stiffening in his pants would probably be later remedied with Kate in mind.

  Was that why he was watching her? Was he gathering more fantasies?

  No.

  What was happening on this roof was no fantasy. Chip was planning to take her.

  “This won’t work.” Kate struggled to keep her voice from wavering. “Those men on the street will come up here eventually. How are you going to explain three dead bodies?”

  “I’ll tell ’em the truth. I chased all of you up here, but I was just a second too late. Jimmy killed Maggie. And then he knocked you out before I put a bullet in his head.” Chip started smiling again. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I gotta nice, safe room all ready for you. Ask Jimmy. You can yell as loud as you want and nobody’s gonna hear you.”

  “I’d rather die than let you touch me.”

  “We’ll see how you feel in a week, Kaitlin.” He grimaced at the name. “Ain’t that what your mama calls you?”

  The breath left Kate’s body.

  “Put on that white nightgown. Wrap yourself in that purple blanket.”

  Kate’s hand went to her mouth. She wore a white nightgown when she stayed at her parents’ house. The purple blanket was on the end of her bed. There was a window right across the room. She left it cracked open most nights. Had Chip been standing on the other side? Had he watched her sleep?

  Kate’s heart stopped at one particular memory.

  Had Chip been there the night she finished what Philip had started? Kate had left the covers off so she could feel the breeze on her skin. She had been at her most vulnerable. Her most open.

  “Oh, God,” Kate whispered. “What did you see?”

  “You think I don’t know what a dirty Jew looks like when she spreads her legs?”

  Bile rushed up her throat.

  “I know you, Kaitlin. I know everything about you. And what I didn’t know, I heard from Oma.”

  Kate felt punched in the stomach. Oma. How did he know her name?

  There was a shout from the street below. Police sirens bellowed in the distance.

  Chip obviously heard the sounds, too. He unwrapped his arm from Maggie’s neck. “Get on your knees.”

  Maggie didn’t move, so he pushed her down. The gun was inches from her head.

  “Don’t,” Kate begged. This wasn’t happening. She couldn’t watch Maggie die. “Please. We can talk about this.”

  “Talking time is over.” Chip unplugged Maggie’s radio from her transmitter. “You know what to do, Lawson.”

  Jimmy pounded his shoulder against the roof. Maggie looked at her brother. Her jaw was locked. Kate had seen her like this once before. She was resigned to her fate. She was done fighting. She laced together her fingers.

  “Maggie, don’t.” Kate couldn’t let this happen. The revolver was lying on the roof less than twelve feet away. She took a step toward it.

  Eleven feet away.

  Chip said, “Hands on the back of your head.”

  “Maggie.” Kate took another step.

  Ten feet away.

  “Hurry up, Lawson.”

  Maggie put her hands on the top of her head.

  “Don’t do it,” Kate pleaded. There had to be something that she could do. Kate took another small step.

  Nine feet.

  Another step—eight feet away.

  Seven.

  Kate couldn’t stop counting. She always counted when she was afraid. The number of lightning strikes before the thunder. The number of times her heart beat before Patrick’s plane disappeared into the sky.

  The number of bullets fired in the stairwell as she ran up to the roof.

  Kate asked Maggie, “How many bullets are in his gun?”

  Maggie said nothing, but Kate could read her thoughts. This was how it happened. This is what Chip had done to Ballard and Johnson, Keen and Porter.

  Kate said, “I heard six shots that were louder than the others. I counted them.”

  Maggie turned her head toward Kate. She was dumbstruck.

  “How many?” Kate repeated.

  “Six.”

  Kate lunged for the revolver. There was nothing graceful about the movement. Her shoulder slammed into the roof as she scooped up the gun.

  She was too late.

  Chip pulled the trigger.

  Click-click.

  Kate had been right. His big gun was empty, and her little revolver was pointing directly at his chest.

  She said, “Drop it.”

  Chip stared at her for a moment. He let the gun fall from his hand. Kate’s eyes followed the weapon as it clattered to the rooftop.

  “Kate!” Maggie yelled.

  Again, Kate was too late.

  She had made the same damn mistake she’d been making all week. Her eyes were looking in the wrong direction. Chip had dropped one gun, but with his other hand, he had reached behind his back and pulled out another.

  Kate remembered the
weapon from that first day of roll call. Chip had held it above his head for all to see. The Raven MP-25. Six in the magazine, one in the chamber.

  “You have one bullet,” Kate told him. “Unless it’s magic, you can only kill one of us.”

  “You sure about that count, Kaitlin?” Chip sounded calm. He could have been talking about the weather. “Sure enough to bet your life?”

  “I’ll shoot you in the head.”

  “I taught you how to use that thing, sweetheart. You couldn’t hit the side of a bus with a machine gun.”

  “Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Kate struggled to keep the fear out of her voice. Her hands dripped with sweat. She hadn’t cocked the hammer. Had Maggie already cocked it? Would she throw the gun onto the roof without the safety engaged?

  Chip said, “Why don’t you put down that gun before you hurt yourself?”

  “Why don’t you kiss my ass?”

  Chip took the bait. Kate had his full attention now. “I been wantin’ to grab that ass since day one.”

  She held his gaze as she let her thumb travel up the side of the gun. “I thought you already grabbed my ass.”

  “I sure as fuck did.”

  She felt the cylinder release, the metal backstrap that scooped underneath the hammer. “Did you like it?”

  “You think I didn’t know what you were doing?” Chip was making Kate’s mistake, no longer looking for threats. “Pressing that tight ass against my cock, working your kike magic.”

  “I remember that day.” Kate felt the three ridges that scored the top of the hammer. “You said the person with the most bullets always wins.”

  “Oh, darlin’, I’m gonna win this.”

  “No, you’re not.” Kate pulled the trigger.

  The hammer was already cocked. The firing pin dropped. The bullet fired.

  Chip’s shoulder jerked back. His gun went off.

  Maggie fell to the ground.

  For one heart-stopping second, Kate thought Maggie had been hit, but the bullet had pierced the asphalt a few inches from her leg.

  Kate heard a familiar noise.

  Click-click.

  Chip was pointing the gun at Maggie’s head, but Kate had been right. The magazine was empty.