Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

She still wore the blue nametag of a rookie, too. The one with “B.J.” emblazoned in bright white letters. Carson had loved having initials for a name when she was young enough to wear pigtails. It set her apart. But by the time she reached junior high, the obvious sexual connotation became a plague. High school was even worse, as her initials became an excuse for boys to believe she was more likely to be promiscuous and girls to assume the same. And maybe it was even a little true, but she didn’t like people just assuming it. In her junior year she changed to a different high school, where she became just Billie. That helped her finally get free of the B.J. curse.

Or so she thought. The day she graduated the academy, they handed her a dark blue River City Police nametag with her initials, and her stomach fell. Then she figured that since she was an adult now, working with other adults, the initials wouldn’t matter anymore. Maybe she could even be B.J. again, and like it.

Not hardly. The police department was an older, grayer version of high school, which was, after all, just a crueler version of junior high. Whenever a male officer saw or heard her initials, she saw in his eyes exactly where his mind went.

As she cruised down Monroe, she pushed away those thoughts and took stock of her platoon mates, instead. Some were easier to figure out than others. She was accustomed to the hard-sell come-ons of a guy like James Kahn. Since she was on probation and trying to fit in, she endured his clumsy, overbearing efforts. She had him figured for a guy who wouldn’t give up unless he ran into a hard stop, so she guessed that she would need to manufacture a fictional boyfriend soon in order to keep him at bay. It wasn’t a perfect solution but it was a better choice than some she’d made regarding male coworkers before.

That’s in the past , she thought. Before I became a cop. Things are different now. I’m different.

Being a cop. Already it was a job full of adrenaline and stress and powerful personalities. Inevitably, that led to a sexually charged environment.

How did Katie MacLeod handle it? Since the rotation with MacLeod had been Carson’s first, they’d focused on much more basic things than the finer arts of dealing with men in the workplace. Still, while the men around the police department cast MacLeod an appreciative glance once in a while, they seemed to genuinely respect her as an officer.

Of course, Carson knew the stories. MacLeod had exchanged gunfire with the Scarface robber several years ago. Another time, she faced a no-win situation on the Post Street bridge with a crazy man and his infant son. And there was her near-fatal encounter with the Rainy Day Rapist about two years ago. The story of how the suspect attacked her in her own home was told to her academy class during the Officer Safety course as an example of why awareness and precautions both on and off duty were so important.

She’s almost a legend, Carson realized. And since that legend was the only other woman on the platoon, she knew very well what the benchmark would be for her, and she felt both admiration and resentment when she considered this.

Still, MacLeod had been a good teacher when they’d ridden together. She’d shown patience and let Carson stretch her limits. Unlike the three male training officers she’d been assigned to, she never felt like she was being protected or that someone was waiting for her to fail. That was an attitude she’d encountered a lot since being hired. She’d hoped it would end as she made it through the field training phase, but she could tell that it wasn’t. She’d need to prove herself further.

Take Chisolm, for instance. His flat, appraising gaze made her nervous. It wasn’t like he was waiting for her to fail, though. It was more like he simply expected she would.

She wasn’t sure why he looked at her that way, but it wasn’t like Chisolm hadn’t earned the right if he wanted to. If MacLeod was almost a legend, Chisolm most certainly was a legend. He was the man who took down the Scarface robber, for one thing. His steely, steady gaze was supposed to give officers confidence and make criminals worry. It had an entirely different impact on Carson, though. It made her nervous.

Carson touched her brake pedal lightly as she coasted down the Monroe Street hill, a short serpentine stretch that dropped from the upper north side of River City into the wide valley that extended north from the Looking Glass River. When she neared the bottom, she turned on Mona Street without thinking about it. A moment later, she realized why-this was where MacLeod had been attacked by the Rainy Day Rapist while acting as a decoy.

She slowed to a crawl and scanned the sparsely populated block, wondering exactly where it happened.

About two-thirds of the way down the block she spotted a long stretch of wooded area with no house. She slowed to a stop and stared at the ill-maintained sidewalk and the thick brush just off the roadway. She had visions of a goblinesque attacker leaping out of the bushes with a knife. She knew it was silly; she’d seen pictures of the Rainy Day Rapist after he’d been arrested. He looked normal enough, even with the sensational newspaper headlines above his photo.

It had been that news story about Katie MacLeod that spurred her to apply to be a police officer. She distinctly remembered sitting on her couch, balled-up tissues in one hand and a vodka cran in the other, watching the news. The news station gave almost ten minutes to the piece, describing the attack and showing a photograph of a confident, smiling Katie MacLeod in her police uniform.

Carson wanted to be that. The next day, she went down to civil service and filled out an application. Becoming a cop was going to be a complete reinvention for her. She could become a confident, skilled professional, just like Katie. She could leave her old life behind.

Carson stared out the window and wondered what the attack had been like. She wondered how Katie handled it, how she bounced back from all of the things she’d encountered on the job. She wondered if she could do it herself now that she was on the job. Was her transformation complete, or-

She heard the racing engine before she saw the approaching car. A small gold Honda flashed past the intersection, southbound on Post Street. There was no way she could estimate the speed in the brief glimpse of the vehicle, but it was well above the thirty mile an hour speed limit.

Carson punched the gas. The V-8 engine of the Crown Victoria gave a throaty roar and surged forward. She hooked a quick right onto Post and buried her accelerator to try and catch the speeder. The taillights were already approaching the light at Buckeye.

“Good God,” she muttered. “He’s flying.”

She knew she should reach for the microphone and advise radio she was trying to catch up to a speeder, but she hesitated. What if the car got away from her? It already had a sizable head start.

Carson gripped the wheel and swallowed hard. Adrenaline coursed through her body. She glanced down at the speedometer.

Seventy.

If she crashed her car right now, it would be lights out for her career. She was still on probation. They’d fire her, no question.

It’s only a speeder , she thought. But losing a car on her first night out on her own was not the way to make her bones. Carson clenched her jaw and maintained her speed. To hell with that.

The taillights went straight at Buckeye. Carson had the green light and zipped through the intersection, bouncing heavily on an uneven patch of pavement. She held her speed and quickly closed the gap. He must have been doing around fifty miles an hour.

With half a block between them, Carson hit her overhead lights. For a long moment there was no reaction. She wondered if this might turn into a vehicle pursuit, something she hadn’t been involved in yet. Another shot of adrenaline kicked in, causing her fingers to tingle.