J. Konrath - Fuzzy Navel

Jacqueline loathes baking, has no patience for it. Mary hasn’t baked with her daughter since she was twelve years old. That fact makes this experience even worse. Mary should be bonding with her daughter, not with a psycho.

“Why do you bake if it makes you so sad?” Alex asks.

Mary wipes her face with the back of her hand, furious with herself for showing weakness.

“Or are you just upset because this is the last pie you’ll ever make? There’s a last time for everything, Mom. At least you can savor it, knowing it’s the last time.”

“The oven is done preheating,” Mary says. “Put the pie on the bottom rack.”

Alex obeys. Then she pats the excess flour off of her shirt and laughs at the cloud it makes.

“You never baked with your mother?” Mary asks.

“I might have. I don’t remember. When I was small, Father tied her to a beam in the basement and whipped her until she died.” Alex pops a stray apple slice into her mouth. “He made me help him, made me beat her.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

“Not really. He let me rest when I got tired.”

Alex turns away, looks past the living room, out the large bay window facing the street. “Does Jack still drive that shitty Nova?”

Mary doesn’t answer, sees a car coming up the driveway.

Not Jacqueline’s.

Oh, no. It’s Latham.

Mary takes a deep breath, ready to scream out a warning, but Alex is on her, tearing at her house dress, pulling off a sleeve and shoving it past her split lips, wadding it into her mouth. Then the gun is out again, pressed up against Mary’s temple, and they both wait in silence for Latham to come in.

LEAVITT STREET BUZZES with activity. As in the previous crime scene, cops and onlookers surround the house, a walking, talking wall. The media already arrived, two news vans sending live feeds to their networks. I park in the center of the street, since nothing is getting through anyway. Herb extricates himself from my car with much grunting, but I refrain from making any jokes involving power bars or extra energy.

It’s dark now. Dark and cold. The streetlight in front of the house isn’t working, but there are enough emergency vehicles with their headlights on to provide adequate illumination.

We push through the crowd, duck under the cordon, and head for the house. This one is bigger than the two-flat we just left, a single-family home with a giant bay window in front. Through the open blinds I can see cops milling around inside. Herb and I don our booties and go in, seeking out Detective Bobalik to get an update.

She directs the crime scene from the front room, standing a few feet away from Chris Wolak’s body on the floor. I pause, taking everything in. Ten, maybe twelve police officers in the room, most of them CSU. Decor is retro Norman Bates, stuffed ducks and pheasants and animal heads adorning the walls and shelves. A computer desk, the monitor showing porn. A large leather sofa. A framed picture of a smiling man holding the antlers of the buck he shot. An entertainment stand, TV, DVD, stereo. I examine the bay window, find the bullet hole, see the crowd outside looking back at me.

Bobalik is short, wearing glasses, and has really good hair, the kind that moves when she moves.

“I want ALS done before the ME arrives,” she says to her team. “Bruen, organize the door-to-door. Let’s move, people, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here.”

I walk to her, my hand extended in greeting, and then her head explodes.

It looks a lot like someone kicking a pumpkin. The top of her scalp comes off, spins through the air, and bounces off the TV. A fine mist of blood rises up around her shoulders and hangs there even after she crumples to the floor.

“Down!” I yell.

A tug at my waist. Herb tackling me even as I dive for the carpet.

Another shot.

The bullet rips through Bruen’s chest, blood erupting from the exit wound, splashing the wall several feet behind him.

Screaming. From in the house. From the street outside.

I look right. Herb on the floor, between me and the window.

The carpet below me is cold and damp.

Another shot.

A CSU member falls, the round slicing through the sofa he hides behind, taking a hunk out of his neck.

I look left. The victim, Chris Wolak, face-to-face with me, except there isn’t much face left. A white male, in his thirties, a hole in the back of his head, just like Rob Siders.

I’m lying in his blood.

Another shot.

A detective. On the floor next to me, only a few feet away. The bullet enters his hip, exits up through his neck. A long way for a slug to travel through tissue.

We’re not safe on the floor.

I scream, “Get away from the window!”

A uniform stands up, runs for the hallway.

Another shot.

A miss.

He makes it to the end of the hall.

Another shot.

He dives to the floor.

No – he doesn’t dive. Blood volcanoes out of his back.

Herb gets to his feet, attempting to make the same run.

“Herb!” I yell.

He gets two steps down the hall.

Another shot.

The bullet smacks the wall, stripping off wood paneling.

Two more steps.

Another shot.

Over Herb’s head, destroying a dome light.

Two more steps, and he’s next to a door.

Another shot.

Herb falls through the doorway.

“Herb!”

Silence.

I roll, away from the vic, hands tucked to my chest.

Bump into Bobalik. Roll over her.

Another shot, tearing up the carpet where I was a second ago.

I continue rolling, angling toward the window.

Then I ram into the wall. The wall the window is on.

Out of the line of fire. Safe.

I reach up for the turning rod on the blinds, twist it, closing the slats on the window nearest to me, blocking the sniper’s vision.

Another shot. Through the window.

Then another, higher up.

The blinds fall off the wall, clatter to the floor.

“Herb!” I yell with everything I have.

Herb doesn’t answer.

Another shot.

Then another.

The gunfire isn’t hitting the house. I open up my clutch, remove a lipstick, one that has a tiny mirror on the case. My back to the wall, I angle the mirror so I can see out the front window.

Most of the gawkers and media have fled. Cops are behind cars, weapons drawn. Handguns and shotguns, nothing long enough to hit a shooter two hundred yards away. Some are shrugging on bulletproof vests – Type IIIA – which won’t offer any protection against high-velocity sniper rounds. A.338 will punch through them like they’re tissue paper.

Another shot.

I watch a patrolman’s head snap back – he’s behind the trunk of the patrol car, and the bullet slices right through the metal.

I turn back to the room. Five cops down in here, plus the original victim. Five more cops tucked into corners and behind furniture. Plus me. And Herb, if he made it.

I know it will take a minimum of ten minutes for the Special Response Team to gear up and arrive. They’ll have rifles, and heavier body armor.

But in the meantime, we’re ducks in a pond.

I try again. “Herb!”

A second passes.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Then, “Jack!”

I blow out a pent-up breath, a million kinds of relieved.

“Are you okay?” I yell.

“Yeah! My wife called, hysterical. Saw us on TV. She said she’d hold you personally responsible if I’m killed.”

I wonder if I should call Latham. Perhaps I won’t have another chance.

I push back the maudlin thoughts, focusing on how to escape. I glance at the door, so far away. Then I lock eyes with a stag head, hanging on the wall.