So I kept the crosshairs trained on him. The task force finally decided to send their man out, so I listened to the supervisor giving him last-minute instructions. I listened with half an ear, since now I was thinking about April’s parents, the look in her mother’s eyes when the sight of me made her remember how scared she’d been for April. I wondered if somebody somewhere was worrying about this dealer. I wondered if he had any kids. When I tried to imagine pulling the trigger on him, it made me feel sort of weak and sick.
It turns out I never had to take the shot. The undercover went out there and made the buy and there wasn’t any trouble. The dealer never pulled a gun and no one else ever came out of the shadows. And we got the whole conversation on tape. The task force was happy. I wasn’t. I was relieved I didn’t have to shoot the guy, and when I realized that, I was scared.
Over the next six months, I had I don’t know how many other sniping assignments. I don’t get that many. It must have been June before I had someone in my sights again. During that time I was mostly providing cover for raids on crack houses, watching the windows while the team went in the front door. A couple of times I saw suspects come out windows and make a break for it, but none of them started shooting at the team, so I didn’t have to take them out. I could have done it, though. I’m sure of that. I’d worry about it while I was sitting there staring at the house — I’d worry that I would start to worry, and that would get me going — but when someone popped out a window I snapped into focus. I’m sure I wouldn’t have hesitated if any of them had pulled a gun. I’m sure of it now and I was sure of it then too, and that made me feel better, since I started to think that if it was a different story shooting someone who was shooting at my guys, then I probably could have shot that dealer after all, since that’s the only reason I would have been told to. At least that’s how I figured it. After a while I changed my mind, or realized I was wrong in the first place. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t shoot a target unless they were dangerous, it was watching their every move that bothered me, getting to know them, and then putting a bullet through their head.
By September I wasn’t sure I could do that anymore.
Barbara said, “Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Keith shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Finally, some sign they were getting somewhere.
“Well,” he said, “like I said, I didn’t really think it was a problem until September. Probably late September. That’s only, what, five, six weeks ago.”
“But those were five or six weeks you weren’t sure you could do your job.”
“Well, I only got like three assignments during that time.”
“Still, what if you’d found yourself in a situation where you were told to take the shot? Did you have a plan for that?”
“No.”
“So what happened yesterday...”
“That wasn’t planned.”
She didn’t say anything, watching him.
Eventually the silence became too much for him. He said, “Most of those weeks were when things were going bad with April. That’s part of this. I don’t know how, but...”
He trailed off.
For a moment Barbara didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure what April had to do with this, but he obviously needed to talk about her.
So she said, “Tell me about your relationship with her.”
She moved in four weeks after our first date. So I guess you could say things were going good. I guess she wouldn’t have moved in if she hadn’t been living at home, but there weren’t any problems once she did. We still got along great. She cooked every night I was home and insisted on chipping in with the bills even though I said she didn’t have to. She never complained about my hours and she didn’t worry about me getting shot, or if she did she didn’t show it. Living with her was easy. I loved it.
I loved her.
That lasted... oh, I don’t know how long. When I look back now, I’m not sure when the trouble started. I think of times when she seemed happy and I wonder if she really was. But I think what happened is, the trouble started when I met her friend Cory.
We met him and his wife for dinner at a restaurant. I got the feeling he didn’t like me right away. There was something in his eyes when April introduced us. I don’t know if he has some secret crush on her, or maybe it’s a protective older-brother kind of thing; he’s like fifteen years older than her. He was in the army, although I didn’t know that till he said so. Maybe he knew I was a Marine and that was the reason he acted like he did.
Actually, the way he acted, April might have told him I was a sniper in Iraq. When he asked if I was there, and what I did, he didn’t look surprised when I told him.
He said, “I was there too, back in ’ninety-one. Twenty-fourth Infantry. Right out in front.”
And then he just sort of looked at me, glaring at me.
I said, “Hot as hell there.”
He said, “You got that right.”
There was some more silence.
The girls seemed to get that something was going on between us. Cory’s wife, Jessica, broke in and said to me, “You’re a policeman now, right? That’s how you two met.”
I said, “Yes.”
April smiled and said, “He fell in love with me through his rifle scope.”
Jessica rolled her eyes and smiled, loving it. “Oh my God. I’ve heard of love at first sight, but that’s awesome!”
Cory said, “I can’t believe there’s a lot of work for a police sniper.”
I said, “There isn’t. I’m on regular patrol most of the time.”
He nodded, looking like he had something else to say but he was keeping it to himself. I knew exactly what he had to say. That sort of made me regret answering his question. It felt like I’d tried to defend myself, even though I knew I hadn’t.
He and I didn’t talk to each other much during dinner. The girls chattered the whole time, acting like there weren’t any hard feelings between Cory and me. But afterward, when we were driving home, April asked me about it right away.
She said, “Was that an army thing? That vibe between you and Cory?”
I said, “Maybe. Sometimes guys who were in different branches of the service sort of look down their noses at each other. A rivalry kind of thing. But Cory’s deal probably has more to do with me being a sniper in Iraq.”
“Why?”
“Because he was general infantry. ‘Right out in front,’ you heard him say. That was a dig at snipers. We aren’t out in front, so we don’t get shot at as much.”
“You don’t?”
“Not like them. We stay hidden. That’s the whole point of sniping — not being seen. Taking out the target and no one even knowing where the bullet came from.”
April was confused. “So... what? He thinks he’s braver than you?”
“I don’t know if that’s it. It’s more like general infantry thinks it’s not fair that we don’t take the same risks as them. We take other risks, but they don’t think about that. And they think it’s wrong somehow, the way we sneak up on the enemy and take them out. It’s not sporting.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It’s how they think.”
She didn’t ask me about it again for... it must have been a month. Then one night we were lying in bed and she said out of the blue, “What was it like being a sniper in Iraq?”
I said, “I already told you about that.” Meaning the little bit I’d said driving home from the restaurant that night. We hadn’t talked about it before or since.
She said, “You weren’t very specific.”
“Well, it’s sort of like hunting.”
“Only hunting people.”
“Yeah.”