Frank Zafiro - Beneath a Weeping Sky

Crawford’s words burned in his ears. He didn’t believe in luck. He believed in choices. And it was a series of choices that brought things to a head. A series of choices that put one of his officers in the hospital.

His choices.

Captain Michael Reott took another sip of the whisky.

“Damn fine scotch,” he said aloud. He allowed himself a wry chuckle, remembering Crawford’s theories on pay scale.

Maybe the lieutenant had been right about that.

But lucky?

Reott was pretty sure that wasn’t a word he’d use.

1658 hours

Katie MacLeod glanced to her left. Kyle, the large, bespectacled man in the driver’s seat remained focused through the windshield wipers and the rain upon the road ahead.

“Thanks again for the ride,” she said, her voice still a little groggy.

“No problem,” the hospital security officer said. “It’s an honor.”

Katie looked away. She remembered what Stef had gone through after his gun battle with the Scarface robber. There’d been a mixture of hero worship and contempt from the different members of the department. She wasn’t entirely sure which he’d been more uncomfortable with, but she knew that he’d struggled with both. She didn’t particularly want to go through that.

I only did what I had to do.

An image of her gun sight trained on the back of the rapist’s head flashed through her mind.

“Is this it?” Kyle asked her, pointing as they rolled up the street.

Katie followed his gesture toward her familiar brick house. Somehow, in the windy, rainy darkness of the night, it didn’t seem as welcoming as it once had. Yellow crime scene tape still hung from the screen door, flapping in the wind.

Kyle put the car into park. “Here we are.”

Katie paused. Suddenly, she didn’t want to go inside. She knew that he wasn’t there. Neither was Phil, for that matter. Those demons might not be vanquished, but after talking with Julie Avery, she felt like maybe they would be eventually.

But not yet.

In the meantime, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be alone. A strange need swept over her and she thought about calling Kopriva. Maybe he would understand.

“Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

Katie turned toward him. “Yes,” she answered. Then, “No. Not really.”

Kyle gave her a confused look.

“Can you take me to a pay phone?” Katie asked. “I think I want to go somewhere else instead.”

1704 hours

Stefan Kopriva sat at his kitchen table, staring down at his hands. His knuckles pressed against the cool bottle of beer in front of him. A small black and white television flickered on the table. The mindless jingle about car insurance did little to keep his attention.

He glanced up and around at the small downtown apartment. The already narrow walls seemed to close in on him. His tiny kitchen lay only a few feet from the living room, which doubled as a bedroom when he remembered to unfold the bed inside the couch. Right now, a twisted pile of blankets lay in the corner of the ratty couch. Empty beer bottles were strewn across the rickety, stained coffee table.

Brave, dead soldiers , he thought mockingly. They served their city well.

“Better than I did,” he muttered, and lifted the bottle of beer to his lips.

He wondered in passing if he ought to consider taking up smoking. A few cigarettes might prove an interesting way to make the time pass. But he rejected the idea. He had precious little in the way of money as it was, and he much preferred the beer. And, of course, the pills that the nice doctor at the free clinic gave him for his arm and his knee.

“Too bad he can’t prescribe something for my heart,” Kopriva told the woman on television who was hawking insurance in a bright red dress.

Sadness awash in self-pity flooded through him, coupled with some shame. The idea of sitting around his tiny apartment smoking cigarettes all day made him think of convicts in prison. The irony that he used to be the instrument that put men behind those walls was not lost upon him

He took another drink. An image of a child’s still body in a half-empty body bag flashed through his mind.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He took another drink and glanced at the cheap Casio watch on the table next to him. One hour and eleven minutes. He had one hour and eleven minutes before he was supposed to take another pain pill.

The commercial dropped off suddenly. In the pause between the advertisement and the broadcast show, the TV screen went black. Kopriva saw his own disheveled image on the dark glass.

“You look like shit,” he said, raising the beer in mock salute, then draining the bottle.

The screen lit up with the station’s logo, accompanied by intro music for the news. Kopriva rose and went to the small brown fridge that he was pretty sure the landlord had bought from a Motel 6 going-out-of-business sale. Inside, three more bottles of beer stood tall and ready.

“We need some reinforcements,” he said. “And we might just have to move to cans.” He removed one bottle and twisted off the cap. “But what the hell. Not everyone can be a Marine. Not everyone can be a hero.”

Especially me.

He stumbled back to the kitchen table and settled into the chair just as the music faded and the news anchor affected a serious expression.

“A reign of terror is over tonight in River City,” he said. “Police have the Rainy Day Rapist in custody. For more, we go to Shawna Matheson, live at Sacred Heart Medical Center. Shawna?”

The screen cut to the perfectly coifed Shawna Matheson. Kopriva’s lip curled at the sight of her. She’d been on the forefront of reporting the Amy Dugger story last year. Chronicling his mistake and the tragedy that followed.

“You bitch,” he muttered at the reporter.

“Thank you, Jack,” Shawna said in polished tones. “I’m here at Sacred Heart Hospital, where accused rapist Jeffrey Allen Goodkind is being treated for gunshot wounds he received yesterday during his apprehension.”

A small gust of wind pushed Shawna’s hair into her face. Without missing a beat, she raised her hand and brushed it aside, continuing. “Apparently police believe Mr. Goodkind is responsible for the recent spree of violent rapes to rock River City’s north side. Dubbed ‘The Rainy Day Rapist’ by this reporter over three weeks ago, this suspect is responsible for attacking four different women since March of this year. Now, he is in custody.”

The camera switched to a photograph of a police sketch.

“This is a sketch police released of the suspect,” Shawna said, “and this is Mr. Goodkind.”

The camera cut to a professional photograph of a man that closely resembled the sketch. Kopriva immediately knew the man was guilty, simply by the way the face in the picture bore a forced smile.

“Instincts are still good,” he mumbled, a little rueful.

“What’s most interesting about this story,” Shawna continued, “is how Mr. Goodkind was apprehended. Police almost caught him during a sting operation in April, but he was able to escape. Instead, he was captured tonight at the residence of the very same police decoy that he attacked during that sting operation.”

A picture of Katie MacLeod filled the screen.

Kopriva’s eyes flew open in surprise. He leaned forward, turning up the volume of the tiny television.

“Officer Kathleen MacLeod, a five year veteran of the River City Police department, was attacked in her home, allegedly by Mr. Goodkind. She was injured, though police sources say she is recovering from her wounds at a different hospital. Officer MacLeod shot the intruder several times before police arrived to take him into custody.”

“Jesus,” Kopriva breathed.