Frank Zafiro: Under a Raging Moon

Go, Ranger! Never quit!

He kept crawling.

The grass, swaying with the early morning breeze, still showed traces of blood as Chisolm tracked the injured man. The blood appeared black in pre-dawn light combined with distant street lights, but flared red when his flashlight illuminated the thin streaks in the grass. He could tell by the drag marks that the suspect was not frantic yet, that he kept a cool head. Chisolm pointed his weapon ahead of himself, always at the threat.

He passed a black wig and kept walking.

Stray, crumpled bills marked the trail. He followed, his jaw set.

Twenty yards from the edge of the field, over two blocks from the store, Chisolm spotted him. He moved slowly now, but steadily, always forward. He clutched a wad of bills tightly in his left hand. The right hand was empty, grasping at the ground in front of him and pulling.

Unarmed.

Maybe.

Chisolm thought for a moment.

Probably. He’d seen the gun back at the store.

Chisolm holstered his pistol and slid his flashlight into its holder. The blood streaks were smaller now, almost nonexistent in the suspect’s trail. The bleeding had almost stopped and Scarface was still moving… which meant he would probably live.

Which meant he would stand trial. And possibly be acquitted.

This sonofabitch gunned down Winter! Chisolm felt a surge of rage. He reached for his pistol, but stopped. He couldn’t shoot an unarmed man. All the wounds the robber had were from Kopriva’s gun. There would be no justification for Chisolm to shoot.

Gun dropped back at the scene. .

Chisolm made his decision in an instant. He moved as soundlessly as possible up behind the suspect and fell upon him.

Katie took Kopriva’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. “Stef?”

She thought for sure he was dead until he groaned and weakly opened his eyes.

“Stef? It’s all right.” She squeezed his hand again. “I’m here. It’s Katie.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m here.”

Chisolm drove his knee downward toward the nape of the suspect’s neck. He was rewarded with a sickening snap. The man went motionless.

Chisolm grabbed a handful of hair and rotated the man’s neck. The floppy, circular motion told him all he needed to know. He took a deep breath and yelled, “Police! Don’t move! Don’t resist!”

Forcing the suspect’s limp hands behind his back, Chisolm keyed his mike.

“Adam-112, I’ve got a suspect at the south edge of the field-” he let the mike button up and counted two seconds. “He’s resisting.” He let the button up again and cuffed the dead suspect with his second pair of cuffs.

His report would read that the suspect had resisted arrest as he attempted prone-cuffing. Everyone in the department knew that prone-cuffing was the proper procedure to use with a dangerous felon. Sometimes the felon was injured.

He keyed the mike, forcing himself to breathe heavily as he spoke. “Adam-112, one in custody. I’ll need medics here, too. Injured suspect.”

Radio copied his transmission. Chisolm looked down at the motionless suspect.

Sometimes the felon even died.

Chisolm thought about Bobby Ramirez and he thought about Karl Winter and he resisted the urge to kick the unmoving robber until there was nothing recognizable left.

Kopriva slowly blinked. He tried to say her name but could only mouth it.

“I’m here, Stef,” she told him over and over. “I’m here.”

The sound of her voice gave him strength, and he held her hand tightly. Medics arrived and worked on him at a frenetic pace, tearing and cutting clothing, bandaging, applying pressure. Kopriva would not let go of her hand, and she seemed to be doing her best to stay out of the medic’s way as she held his grip.

A second ambulance arrived and began to work on Morris. He heard medics ask her to unlock the handcuffs. She handed them her cuff key, refusing to leave Kopriva’s side. He stared at her as they slid him onto a backboard, ignoring everything around him. She walked with him to the ambulance and got inside with them. His eyes never left hers, oblivious to the work the medics were doing. He didn’t feel the I.V. go in, didn’t see anything they did to him.

The ambulance doors slammed shut and he heard two hard taps on the back door. The ambulance lurched forward. The medics did not pause in their efforts.

He continued to stare at her until everything melted into a gray mist and his eyes closed.

Friday, September 2nd

Day Shift

0603 hours

The police officer sat in his living room, staring at the television but not seeing it. The service pistol in his right hand felt heavy, but his grip on it was firm.

Several art books adorned his coffee table. He wondered fleetingly if any of his co-workers or family knew about his knowledge when it came to the subject of art. Probably not. Everyone thought they knew exactly who and what he was, when in reality they had no idea at all.

Just as she had no idea.

He found it oddly humorous that he sat alone in his living room holding a gun, and it was a woman who had eventually put him here.

“Who the fuck cares?” he grumbled, staring at the white ceiling above him. He thought of Da Vinci, of Giotto, of Botticelli. He thought of Michelangelo. He wondered how they would have felt about modern art.

Well, he would create a masterpiece for them to ponder.

He put the gun under his chin, closed his eyes and painted the ceiling red.

1257 hours

Lt. Robert Saylor rubbed his eyes, trying to remember the last time he’d slept. Well, after he prepared the press release, he could go home and get a few hours of sleep before he had to come back for the night shift.

What a night. At least Kopriva would make it. The doctors said that Chisolm’s light tourniquet probably kept him from bleeding out.

Chisolm. He saved Kopriva and managed to catch Scarface, now identified as James R. Mace. Kopriva’s shots hit him twice in the belly, but Mace still crawled away. According to Chisolm’s report, Mace had struggled when Chisolm tried to cuff him. He told Saylor with a straight face that he’d been unaware that the man’s neck was broken until medics had told him.

Saylor decided that Chisolm was telling the truth. Even if he wasn’t.

Matt Westboard caught the accomplice only a block and a half from where Chisolm found Scarface. He took her straight to Major Crimes, where she spilled everything. Westboard had confirmed hearing Chisolm’s commands and the struggle with Mace, but he hadn’t actually seen anything because he’d been covering the accomplice.

Units were scouring the city for T-Dog, Morris’ accomplice, and an arrest warrant had been issued based on Kopriva’s radio traffic. Detective Browning showed the injured officer a photo line-up as soon as the kid woke up. Kopriva identified Trellis, positively.

Later, Saylor informed Kopriva that Morris remained on the operating table and that he may or may not make it. Either way, he would be a cripple. Kopriva hadn’t even tried to suppress a smile before he’d gone back to sleep and the doctor ushered Saylor out of the hospital room.

The lieutenant felt bad for Kopriva. Before he even had a chance to recover from his wounds, the newspaper would question his actions in scathing editorials. Worse yet, Internal Affairs had to begin their mandatory investigation. And the questions they asked were never pleasant.

Saylor wrote his press release carefully, only giving away what information he knew he had to release to satisfy the media.

Goddamn piranhas, he groused.