Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

But by then he was already talking to a dial tone.

1916 hours

Carson woke suddenly. She’d been dreaming something horrible, but the images were gone almost as soon as her eyes snapped open.

What wasn’t gone was the horrible throbbing between her temples and the nausea floating in her stomach. She glanced over at the nightstand. A half empty bottle of Jack Daniels stood next to two used water glasses.

Two.Her and Kahn.

Carson closed her eyes again.

Christ.

She listened to the sounds of her apartment for a while, but was certain that she was alone. At least that was something.

Carson swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Her head swam and her stomach lurched. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The smell of whisky filled her nostrils and made her even more nauseous. She rose quickly and shuffled to the bathroom. She didn’t make it in time to get to the toilet, so she directed her vomit into the bathtub. The terrible, harsh retching tore at her gut and made her head throb like a pounding hammer.

When she was finished she rinsed her mouth, then gargled with some toothpaste and water. She looked at herself in the mirror.

Here you are again, Billie Jo Carson.

This is what she got. Standing in the bathroom, full of guilt, with the stench of a man she despised and too much whisky clinging to her like a leech.

She wondered how many people Kahn had already told about his latest conquest. The looks that had been surreptitious would come out now without much pretense at all. She’d be fending off every halfway interested guy in patrol before long.

And she knew she wouldn’t say no to all of them.

Especially not the married ones.Especially not now.

“I hate you,” she said to the face in the mirror.

She turned away and staggered back into her bedroom. She curled up on the edge of the bed and tried to cry, but nothing came out. The smells of whisky, sweat, and sex still hung in the air. She wanted to get out of there, clean up and go to work. But the bathtub was full of puke and what waited for her at work was even worse. Besides, she deserved to pay some penance. Huddling on the cold edge of her soiled bed was a start.

All eyes would be upon her, she knew. And with her new reputation, would it take long before Chisolm let it out about Battaglia, if he hadn’t already?

Not long. Gossip was human nature. Put three people in a room and two will gossip about the third.

Carson rocked on the cold edge of her bed, her thoughts bouncing around like a frenetic pinball. This was her life. To make the wrong choices. To never do the right thing.

Oh, God. If it came out about her and Batts, Rebecca would find out. Carson’s chest ached at the thought. She pitied the woman that she’d only envied and resented before. Seeing how Rebecca carried herself at her darkest hour only reinforced her own inadequacies.

And that poem of hers that she read at the service. Not in a hundred years could I do that!

Carson reached for the whisky bottle. She poured three fingers into one of the glasses with a shaking hand. When she brought the glass to her lips, her first reaction was more nausea. But when the liquid burned her mouth and throat and coated her stomach with warmth, she suddenly felt a little better. A little stronger.

She’d never live up to someone like Rebecca. Or Katie MacLeod, for that matter. Never be a good cop , never do the job . She wasn’t that strong. But maybe she was strong enough.

She remembered something she’d heard on patrol. Something that, when you really got right down to it, had brought everything to a head. What was the guy’s name who said it to her? Rod? Rob? The last name was Carew. Even her fractured mind inside her pounding head was able to dredge that up.

“Sometimes you just have to let a person sink to their lowest point,” he’d said.

“Well, B.J.,” she said, her voice gruff from sleep and throwing up, “it doesn’t get much lower than this.”

She took another swallow of the whisky, then a third to finish the glass. She put the glass on the table, stood, and walked to where she kept her off-duty gear. A shiny silver badge with her number gleamed in the yellow light of her bedroom. Next to that was her service pistol, the.40 caliber Glock.

She pulled it out of the holster and carried it into the bathroom.

Once inside, she closed the toilet lid and sat down. She let her mind flash back to the call that her and Batts went on. How had that woman done it? How had she made it so clean, so easy? She’d just toppled over and bled out in the sink.

Carson snorted. To hell with that. Her entire life was a mess. Why should this be any different?

She thought briefly of putting on some shred of clothing, but didn’t have the energy to care. Besides, how fitting was that? The department whore, found in the nude.

“Here’s to silent thunder,” she said with a thick tongue, her voice ragged. Or whatever the hell Rebecca wrote. It didn’t matter now.

Billie Jo Carson put the muzzle of the Glock under her chin, closed her eyes, and squeezed.

2009 hours

Chisolm stood at Battaglia’s freshly turned grave. He gazed down at the deeply etched letters on the headstone. He regretted that their last conversation had been a harsh one, but he knew that it had been the right thing to do. If anything, he should have had it sooner.

“I’m sorry, Batts,” Chisolm said quietly. “I let you down.”

The stone stared silently back up at him. Chisolm felt no sense of relief or forgiveness, but he hadn’t expected any.

“I’ll make it right,” he said.

He’d pull Carson aside over the next few days. He’d help her where he could and steer her to Katie MacLeod for the rest. She was part of the platoon now, and she deserved nothing less.

Chisolm glanced down at his watch. He had to get to the station and prepare for a graveyard shift. Battaglia would understand.

“Take care of yourself,” Chisolm said, “wherever you are.”

2032 hours

Connor O’Sullivan sat in his car, half a block away from Battaglia’s house. The engine idled while his foot rested on the brake. He felt guilty as hell for not coming to the house right after the funeral, but he simply couldn’t. All of the grief that had been pent up inside had come ripping out of him. He didn’t want anyone to see him like that. It was bad enough that the two gravediggers had come scrambling over to check on him. Besides, he wouldn’t have been any good to Rebecca or anyone else at the house. He would have been a burden, that’s all.

Still, he was embarrassed by his actions, so he stayed away a while longer. He ignored the phone when it rang. He didn’t check the two messages that someone left for him, sure that it was Rebecca. Probably worried about him.

He didn’t want to see anyone. What he wanted to do was crawl into a bottle for a few weeks and forget that his best friend was no longer among the living.

But that was wrong, and he knew it.

Battaglia was his best friend. That meant he owed it to Batts, and to himself, to be a good friend to Rebecca and the kids. Besides, if there was anyone in the world who understood how he felt right now, it would be her.

Sully released the brake and headed down the street.

There was more to it, he knew. He had a final message to deliver to her. Battaglia’s final words, muttered and bloody: “Tell her I’m sorry.”

Even as he lay dying, his best friend was thinking about his wife and how it would affect her. That was a great man, as far as Sully was concerned.

Sully didn’t know if he had it in him to be a great man. He’d made his share of mistakes. But he knew he could be a great friend. He could take care of Battaglia’s family for him.