My only plan had been to spend some time alone while I calmed down. I scraped off the remains of the paraffin that had been used to lift gunshot residue from my left hand for evidence. Then I pressed the damp towels to my face.
Something happened to me after I saw what I had washed from my face, saw the front of my blue shirt in the stark fluorescent light; pale pink stain, spots of dark brown.
The detectives kept asking about peripheral details, who, where, how. No one had given me time to think about the actual shooting, to talk about what I saw. It was all over so fast. From memory, I played it back more slowly.
The bullet exploded Roddy’s throat, destroyed it, shot flesh and blood and bits of bone spraying into the night like many-colored confetti. I had felt his debris, cold, sharp needles on my face, and the sting of gunpowder tattooing my hand, was deafened by the sound, dazzled by the streak of blue-green light.
I was on the wooden bench between the lockers, sobbing into the crook of my elbow, when I felt arms around me. My head was gently pressed against a firm, uniformed bosom that smelled of perfume.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked, patting my back. “No,” I gasped.
“First kill?”
I nodded, snagging my hair in her badge.
“It’s rough. I shot a man during my rookie year, left him a paraplegic. It was his fault-brandishing a loaded firearm-I had to stop him. Still…” She kept patting. “Heard you took him clean. Left-handed.”
I snuffled, used my arm in lieu of handkerchief.
“You a lefty?”
I said, “No.” I admit a tinge of something verging on pride had crept in.
“I brought in your woman passenger,” she said. I straightened up so I could read her badge, D. Rukowski. “Know what we found in her bag?”
I said, “Besides chewing gum?”
“Chloroform. She had a Baggie with a saturated wad of cotton. Best guess is, she was supposed to sing you a lullaby so there wouldn’t be a struggle when O’Leary took you out. Wouldn’t work, though, if the bag was in the backseat.”
“I threw it in back.” I managed to get to my feet, got some new towels to wipe my face. “The way she was fussing with her purse, I thought she had a tape recorder in there. Or a hypodermic. They used drugs once before.”
Officer Rukowski squared my shoulders, brushed my damp hair from my forehead. “You played it smart, honey. Old Flint’s out there wearing a groove in the floor, pissing and moaning, saying how lucky you were. You tell him luck had nothing to do with it.”
Mike was going to say a lot more than how lucky I was. A lot more. Just thinking about the barrage to come wore me out. I sagged back down. “I can’t face him.”
“Sure you can.” She stood and reached for my arm. “Go fix your face.”
I pulled myself together the best I could, borrowing a comb and some blush from the collection on the counter. Then I unbuttoned a couple of buttons to show a little cleavage-emergency ammo-and walked out.
“All set?” Mike took my hand, the one that had killed Roddy O’Leary, and folded it in his. He didn’t say another word about it all the way home.
It was after three when we got home. Michael and Guido were playing chess at the dining room table.
Guido said, “Maggie?” in a tentative way, rising from his chair.
“Everything’s under control,” I said, leaning against Mike. Michael came over and kissed my cheek, squeezed my free hand, and made the tears start all over again.
“I know you feel awful,” Mike said. “You’re going to feel awful for a while. Go ahead and cry.”
“I never imagined it would feel so bad.”
Mike took over where Officer Rukowski left off, patted my back. “If it makes you feel any better, you probably saved Jennifer’s life. O’Leary wasn’t about to leave a witness, even if she was in on it.”
“I know. He was aiming at her when I shot him.”
Mike said, “Oh?”
“If I hadn’t been armed, he would have hit us both, her first, then me.” That’s just about the point where anger began to dispel shock. “For what? To protect the election scenario? To add a plum to Roddy’s resume?”
“To save his butt,” Mike said. “He’d already killed two people and you were closing in on him. Hector ran his DMV and his credit cards.”
“So?”
“Last Tuesday he rented a dark-blue four-wheel drive that looked a whole lot like mine. Turned it in early Wednesday.”
“Ah,” Guido chirped, connection made. “Tuesday night, that flower of the evening said the guy who shot Hanna was driving a car like Mike’s.”
I looked up at Mike, started to laugh. “Roddy blew it on deep background all over the map. But, damn, the idiot should have known who he was messing with when he tried to set you up, cupcake.”
“Yeah.” Mike winked at me. “Don’t mess with the big boys.”
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
He nudged me, started to laugh, too.
Michael had the family furrow between his brows. “Dad, you know, this is the first time I ever heard you talk about what you do at work.”
Mike flushed a furious red. “I’m sorry, son.”
“Sorry for what? It’s more interesting than I thought. I sort of imagined you drove around giving people tickets. You’re a strange guy. I like it.”
“Oh, Jeez.”
“I was thinking of going into teaching, but…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Mike said.
“Teaching, police work,” I said, “they’re pretty much the same thing. People shooting at you all the time.”
Michael asked, “How do you get into the academy?”
Chapter 32
My mother called at nine o’clock on Monday morning-nine o’clock Boston time. She and my father were there on vacation and had seen my name in a wire service item that ran in the local papers, “Filmmaker Slays Attacker.”
“Should we be hysterical?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Whatever you read, it’s a lie.”
She chuckled. I read that you were a renowned and gifted filmmaker who shot a carjacker.”
“Thirty-three and one-third percent a lie, anyway. You can decide for yourself which third of that you want to throw out.” She grew serious. “Are you all right, Margot?”
“Shaken, but untouched.”
“Your father, feeling nostalgic, wonders, do you need bail money?”
“Not this time, Mom,” I said. “Just bring me home some lobsters.”
After speaking with my dad and repeating virtually everything I had said to Mom, I went outside to fetch our morning Times to see whether they had something to say.
I had made the first page of the Metro section, just a short piece with very few details, not even the names of the victim and my passenger. The paper had gone to bed before there were many details to learn. It would be different later. I would see to it.
Before word got out, before all her friends heard about it, I had to talk to Casey and explain what had happened the night before.
There was a period after her father and I separated when Casey was morbidly afraid for me all the time, worried that something would happen that would take me away from her. For two weeks, I had hardly been able to leave the house. After a reasonable time she overcame her fear, but with reservations I had to be careful to respect.
It was nearly time for her to get up, anyway. I went in and sat on the end of her bed with Bowser and talked it out with her. She was at once dubious, and frightened, and sympathetic. When we had gotten to the end, she made a half-hearted attempt to feign illness and stay home-the old pattern-but gave it up when she remembered she wanted to ask Mischa whether her friends could come to classes with her on Friday. When she left with Michael, she seemed fine.