C.J. Carmichael - A convenient proposal

“You did exactly what you were supposed to do.” Springer had crouched beside her. He was talking like a coach preparing her for the last game of the season. “You followed procedure every step of the way. Don’t worry, Kelly. You’re young…you’ll get over this. Everything’s going to work out fine.”

The arrival of the team from Calgary had transformed the quiet crime scene into a bustling center of activity. Kelly watched the photographer check the lighting before taking some stills of the body. Someone else leaned over to examine the bullet wound in the victim’s chest.

So much blood.

Kelly looked away. A woman approached her from one of the parked police cars. Mid-thirties, short dark hair, tentative smile. Probably with Member Assistance. Springer obviously thought so, too. He let go of Kelly’s shoulder and stood.

“Staff Sergeant Springer,” he said, stepping forward to meet the new arrival.

“Corporal Webster,” said the woman.

Kelly glanced back at the body. One of the Ident men was making a chalk outline of the victim’s position on the rotting wood porch. From the corner of her eye, Kelly noticed movement from the back of the house.

The victim’s brother, Mick Mizzoni, also the editor of the Canmore Leader, was coming to check things out. He’d been en route to Calgary when Dylan had called him on Sharon’s instructions. As a result, he’d made it here even before the squad cars from Canmore. Now the broodily handsome man circled the busy police officers, his body visibly tense, his expression grim.

Abruptly he switched directions to face her. Kelly didn’t allow herself to shift her gaze or even blink. She felt his condemnation, the current of loathing traveling from man to woman the way electrical energy had passed from clouds to earth in the storm earlier.

As the moment between them stretched, she fought back the instinct to tell him she was sorry. No matter what words she chose, they would come out sounding trite.

Besides, apologies for homicides were rarely accepted.

Two months later

“I WENT TO SEE the kids again today.” Kelly Shannon slouched into the tartan cushions of Scott Martin’s sofa.

“Kelly…was that wise?” At the other end of the couch, Scott propped his feet on the maple table, where he kept a dish of white peppermints and coasters for the coffee, water or tea he offered at the beginning of each session.

Kelly always took water. Now she swirled it in her glass, but the ice cube lodged at the bottom wouldn’t move. It was too big, or else the glass was too small.

“I know what you said about moving on. But I just can’t do it.” One of the worst consequences of being suspended was all the free time. She’d signed up for some volunteer assignments with a local charity, but had found it difficult to concentrate on all but the simplest of tasks.

“Kelly, spying on those kids is only making matters worse—”

“I know.” They circled the same issues at each weekly session. If she didn’t like Scott as much as she did, the sessions would be unbearable.

But Scott was okay. Over the past two months they’d achieved a certain comfort level in their weekly chats. Word had it he was happily married and totally besotted by his twin four-year-old daughters. You’d never know by his office, though. He didn’t have any framed pictures of his family on display. When she’d asked him about it once, his answer had surprised her.

“Lots of the clients I see are working through problems at home, with their marriage or their kids. They don’t need me throwing my domestic bliss in their face.”

It was that kind of sensitivity that made her respect Scott Martin—even though, in her heart, she knew these compulsory sessions weren’t doing the slightest bit of good. But her sisters had insisted, and Kelly figured it wasn’t worth arguing over.

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to go back to work, anyway,” she said. Definitely not in any capacity where she’d have to carry a gun.

“You say that now, Kelly, but it’s only been two months.”

Two months, where each day was worse than the one before it….

“Do you know what they were wearing, Scott? Pajamas! In November. And it was snowing.” Kelly leaned forward, cupping her hands over her knees. She could picture them so clearly, playing in the soft powder of a fresh snowfall, their little faces as solemn as if they were sitting in the front pew at church.

Every now and then the eldest, Billy, who was just five, had glanced in the direction of her car. Did he know who she was, what she’d done?

“And I don’t think their mother is feeding them properly. Even though I leave groceries by the door every week.” She’d never seen Sharon throw them away, but there were never any cooking odors coming from the small bungalow on First Avenue, either.

“Have you phoned Child Welfare?”

Annoyance propelled her to her feet. “Don’t piss me off, Scott.” She prowled the office, as she did every week, checking his bookcase for new volumes, examining the clean sweep of his polished maple desk, peering out the double-paned glass window at the Calgary traffic on Memorial Drive. Beyond the twin ribbons of concrete stood a row of mature, albeit heavily pruned, cottonwoods, planted to commemorate the veterans of the First World War. Beyond those, the Bow River. Follow that river upstream about an hour—and there would be Canmore. The mountain town she’d lived in all her life.

After training, she’d been stationed in northern Saskatchewan for about six years, but she’d petitioned hard to be returned to the place of her birth. Her middle sister, Cathleen, still lived there, although their elder sister Maureen had a legal practice here in Calgary.

“You’ve been put in a difficult situation, Kelly. Society generally accepts that while killing is wrong, it may be necessary in some situations to preserve order and protect the lives of the innocent. Intellectually, most of us accept that.”

Kelly stared out the window and nodded.

“This places a terrible onus of responsibility on the police officer entrusted to make these life-and-death decisions.”

Kelly said nothing. She and Scott had tromped over the moral and ethical issues so many times, the field was flattened. She supposed he thought that if he repeated himself often enough, she’d find absolution. The very idea was ridiculous.

“Kelly, you will learn to cope with this. I promise.”

Scott’s voice betrayed the pain he felt for her. That was something else she liked about him. The man cared.

Unfortunately, in her case, it couldn’t help.

Because she’d killed a man. And even if society decided she’d been acting within the rules by doing so, there was no way to avoid her moral culpability. The only remaining question was, how could she atone for taking another human life? If it was even possible.

KELLY HAD EVERY INTENTION of returning to her basement apartment after her late-afternoon session with Scott, but once she was back within Canmore’s town limits, the right-hand turn onto Bow Valley Trail compelled her. Soon she cruised past the tiny bungalow that Sharon Mizzoni rented. She parked her truck on the opposite side of the street, down the block a few houses. Turning her key onto auxiliary power so she wouldn’t waste gas, she continued to listen to a talk show on the CBC.

An hour passed. Maybe two. Outside it was dark and light now glowed from the small front window of the house, blending with the blue glare of the television set. The drapes weren’t drawn, and Kelly could see directly into the living room. Sharon sat in front of the set, a beer bottle in her hand. Three-year-old Amanda jumped on the sofa. There was no sign of Billy.