Frank Zafiro: Heroes Often Fail

Chaplain Marshall chuckled. “I am. But I’m human just like you. I don’t know the answers any more than you. I can tell you what I believe .”

“What’s that?”

“I believe two very important things that come into play at times like these. One is that these beautiful children are with God now.”

Katie didn’t reply.

“The other thing is this,” Chaplain Marshall continued. He leaned forward slightly and held Katie’s eye. “God has a plan, Katie. He has a reason for everything. We humans may not be able to understand that plan, but that is immaterial. He has a plan.”

Katie considered that. “God has a plan?”

“He does.”

She shook her head slightly. “It doesn’t seem like a very good plan.”

The piping screech of the teakettle pierced the kitchen air, interrupting her. Katie moved the kettle and retrieved the tea bags from the cupboard. Then she laughed.

“What?” The chaplain asked.

Katie held up the tea bags. “I call it sissy tea, but I’ve got a whole box of it here.”

Chaplain Marshall grinned. “Subconscious agreement.”

“Right.” She poured the tea and handed him a cup. They sipped in silence for a few moments. Then Katie said, “I know this wasn’t my fault, Chaplain. I’ll get through it. I won’t say it’ll be easy or that I won’t cry again or have bad days, but I’ll get through it.”

“I know,” Chaplain Marshall said quietly.

“But Stef…I’m worried about him.”

The chaplain nodded in understanding.

“He…” Katie paused. “He’s hurting.”

“I know.”

“And he blames himself for what happened.”

“Because he believes he could have saved her?”

Katie nodded. She thought about telling the chaplain about the things that Kopriva said to her, but decided it wasn’t important. What mattered was that he was hurting. She couldn’t give up on him. But he probably needed even more than just her.

“Would you check on him?” she asked the chaplain.

“Of course,” he replied.

Katie sipped her tea and nodded her thanks.

“What about you?” the chaplain asked.

She took another sip. “Me? I think I’m ready to go back to work.”

2100 hours

Lieutenant Robert Saylor stepped up to the roll call podium. The room quieted. Without preamble, he announced the arrests. He made no mention of Kopriva’s mistake, though he knew that everyone in the room was either aware of the details or would be shortly.

Saylor read through the official press release that Crawford had given a few hours earlier. “Anyone have any questions?”

No one did. Saylor released the briefing to the sector sergeants. He returned to the patrol sergeant’s administrative office across the hall. His own office was almost as large as the patrol sergeant’s office, which was shared by all nine patrol sergeants. Saylor settled into a chair and waited.

A few minutes later, Sergeant Miyamoto Shen walked in. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”

“MacLeod is coming back tomorrow night,” he told Shen.

Shen pursed his lips. “You think she’s ready?”

“She thinks so.”

Shen sat in his own chair and put his clipboard on the desk. “MacLeod is a good troop,” he said. “I just don’t want to her to come back too soon from something like what happened on the bridge.”

“I have the feeling that getting back to work is what she needs,” Saylor said. “I talked to her a couple hours ago and she seemed fine.”

“All right,” Shen said. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Keep an eye on her for a little while, but I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

Friday, March 17, 2005

Day Shift

0640 hours

Kopriva showed the orderly his badge. The skinny man looked at it suspiciously.

“You sure you can’t come back after eight?” he asked Kopriva. “The Medical Examiner will be in by then.”

Kopriva shook his head. “I only need a minute.”

The man bit his lip, chewing absently. “The thing is, I’m not supposed to let people in outside of business hours.”

“I’m not people,” Kopriva said. “I’m the police.”

The man sighed. “I’m pretty sure the rules mean all people.”

“You want to talk about this at jail?” Kopriva asked him.

His eyes widened, then narrowed. “I’m just trying to do my job,” he muttered, reaching for a ring of keys at his belt.

“And I’m just trying to do mine.”

The orderly unlocked the door and held it open. “I don’t understand why you can’t do it after eight, when the M.E. is here.”

Kopriva stepped through the door, ignoring his statement. “Which one is she in?” he asked, gesturing toward the wall of refrigerated compartments.

“Three-A,” the orderly said. He walked directly to it and slid it open.

Kopriva stepped toward the long drawer. Someone had folded the black body bag almost in half and tucked the excess under the covered legs. A lump rose in Kopriva’s throat when he saw how tiny the body was.

“Unzip it,” he told the man.

The orderly didn’t argue, having already capitulated to this point. He took hold of the oversize zipper and slid it down to Amy’s navel, then pushed the bag aside.

Kopriva stared down at the body. Her bruised and battered face was cleaned of any blood. Her long, dark hair was combed straight back almost lovingly. Her eyes were closed peacefully.

“You the detective on this case?” the orderly asked.

Kopriva shook his head, staring down at Amy. The black dashes of sutures dotted her body where the Medical Examiner had cut her open for the autopsy.

“You know the funeral home is coming for her later today, right?”

Kopriva opened his mouth. He wanted to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. He gazed down on the little girl’s still face. He imagined that her eyes were about to fly open and bore into him.

“Hey, man, are you okay?”

Stefan Kopriva couldn’t answer.

0911 hours

Browning read through the last of the report and nodded in satisfaction. He signed his name next to his typed name and badge number.

Tower sat at Billing’s old desk, absently tapping a pen.

After signing his report, Browning looked up at him. “Were you a drummer in high school?” he asked.

“Huh?” Tower asked. “Oh, yeah. The pen. Sorry, nervous habit.”

He put the pen down.

“You okay, John?”

Tower nodded. “I’m good. It’s just a shame, that’s all. Beautiful little girl like that…”

“We did our best,” Browning said.

Their eyes met, but neither man mentioned Kopriva.

Tower sighed and stood. “Nice working with you on this one, Ray. I hate that we had to work on it, but it was nice that it was with you.”

Browning held out his hand. “Same here.”

Tower took his hand and shook it. “Well,” he said, “back to the land of sex perverts and freaks.”

He walked slowly away.

Browning watched him go, then closed the file and put it in his outbox. He closed his eyes and he burned the picture of Amy Dugger’s face into his memory. He tried as hard as he could for the image to be the one that her parents had provided from her Kindergarten school photo. But he couldn’t completely banish the images of her lying in a field inside a black plastic garbage bag. In the end, that was the image that stuck.

Browning sighed and turned back to his active case drawer. He stared at the labels with the names of victims and the police report numbers. When the black print on the white labels blurred, he blinked in surprise and wiped away his tears.

A moment later, he reached up and turned off his desk lamp. His keys were in the desk drawer. He picked them up and headed for the door.