T. Parker: Red Light

She lowered her head, held her purse up tight to her stomach and started through. She thought of Oswald in the Dallas PD. basement, thought that a stout man in a hat would lunge out any second. She wondered what a bullet in the gut might feel like, moved the purse up closer to her heart.

... what led you to O’Brien any truth to the Bailey conspiracy how did you uncover evidence from thirty-two years ago why wasn’t the suicide letter made public until recently have you talked to Sergeant McNally is it true Sheriff Chuck Brighton and your own father may he helped cover up the murder...

She looked up and over the heads and lights and microphones toward the stairway leading up to the lobby. The people on the stairway were frozen midway, looking down at her. There was sunlight coming through the windows up there but down here, surrounded by people was like being lost in a forest.

She made eight good steps before she stumbled and fell into a cameraman who backed off then kept shooting her on the floor while she gathered herself back up, her side shrieking in pain.

... your part in the biggest scandal the department has ever had did you have a love affair with O’Brien like you did with McNally will you quit the force now what future do you see with the department...

The stairway looked a hundred miles away. Merci felt a great rush of fury and sadness wash over her and her vision blurred and she felt herself pushing through the bodies but getting nowhere. She was aware of the tan uniforms around then, pressing in even harder. Shouting. Hard voices, angry voices.

They’re going to shoot me, she thought. They’re going to shoot me right here. She wanted to scream but she couldn’t — she drew a breath but knew if she screamed they’d kill her on the spot.

Suddenly she understood what she had to do. She’d thought about before, but the answer had always been no. But not now. Now it made sense, the only sense she could see. She got her badge holder from inside her coat and tried to drop it to the floor but she was crushed up tight against the uniforms that it didn’t fall. Instead, it wedged between her upraised arm and the chest of some deputy she’d never seen in her life and he looked her straight in the face with hate and backed away a half step and the black leather holder fell.

Then came a voice she’d heard before but couldn’t place, so clear and furious, piercing through the shouting. “ Get back, get away, let through me goddamnit, let me through...”

She tried to take a step but couldn’t. Her face was pushed into a tan, starched shirt. She could feel the great weight of the bodies around her, pushing her left, then right. She couldn’t move forward even a step.

Then there was light. And space. She wondered if she was passing out but she had never passed out in her life and wasn’t sure what it was like. She tripped and fell again and she looked for her badge on the floor but it was gone now and that was fine, her mind made up, this was over now, this was the end.

She made it to one knee. She heard shouting and curses, a fight of some kind, the humpff of contact. Her leg was killing her; it felt like she’d been shot in the side all over again. A strong hand fixed on her arm and yanked her up and she wondered if she was about to get punched. Someone fell in beside her and shoved her through the clot of bodies.

“Get back, get away goddamnit let us through...”

Zamorra pushed her straight ahead. He was strong and rough and he pushed her like she was a weapon or a tool, something that couldn’t be broken. He reached around her with his free hand and stuffed something into her inside coat pocket. “Think about that,” he said. He pulled her up the stairs at a run and somehow she got her foot on each step and made it to the top.

The big lobby spread before her, bodies frozen, all eyes turned to her. She was breathing hard and she felt like an animal looking for a place to run.

The Men fell in beside her. She couldn’t speak. Clark grim and Tim jabbering happily, jostled but firm in her father’s arms. Tim reached out and she took him and she knew that in spite of having nothing, she had everything.

A bunch of uniforms closed in around her then, giving her space. Joe Casik was one of them. And some guys she didn’t even know. Two patrol-women. Plainclothes, too — both Wheeler and Teague. Kathy Hulet from vice. Timmerman from the firing range. Gilliam, Ike Sumich and two more of the lab people. Some of the burg-theft investigators, a couple more from vice, a sour old lieutenant who hadn’t said more than two sentences to her in ten years. Gary Brice, no tape recorder, no pen or notebook in sight, looking like he had no idea what to do but was ready to fight.

She started across the lobby floor toward the door. One of the video shooters circled around in front of her. He kept his distance and did his work. The next thing Merci knew she was outside the building and into a bright winter afternoon, sunlight breaking through enormous white clouds, a cold wind in her face.