Death and a Life in Emerald Cove
Chapter 1
Copyright© 2014 by Jay Cantrell
Bryant Hawkins felt positive as he took in the fresh sea air. Feeling positive was a rarity. His life hadn't lent itself to many good thoughts.
He was burned out. After more than 15 years as a police officer (first as an MP in the Army; and then as a cop in Chicago) he couldn't think of a single act of depravity that hadn't shown him its consequences. The sights that he couldn't seem to shake had taken a toll on his psyche.
A few weeks before driving southeast, Bryant had almost eaten his gun. Sitting in his lonely home after another shitty day in a shitty city, he'd almost killed himself. He'd put away six quick beers before switching to something harder. That day, he'd been called to the scene of a domestic dispute that had turned deadly. A man had killed his ex-wife and his two children in a tenement on the South Side before committing 'suicide by cop'.
The man didn't have the sense to simply reverse the order. No one would have cared if the man had killed himself first and left the rest of the world alone.
It was that thought that had Bryant reaching for his back-up piece. He had realized that no one would miss him, either. Oh, a few of his colleagues would have lifted a beer or four in his honor. A couple of his neighbors would have thought of him whenever they needed something fixed or wanted to borrow his lawnmower.
But no one would have missed him for very long.
He sat with the gun on his lap. He was pondering as to whether the people who found him would appreciate the consideration he'd shown by spreading a tarp across the floor, to catch the blood and brains that would land there in a minute.
Then he saw an Angel. She had not been a heavenly apparition; this Angel had been fully earthbound. She was his neighbor, the 14-year-old daughter of the couple who lived next door to him. She had been looking in his window, and her face had been white with fear.
He realized that lost in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed the frantic pounding on his door.
Despite his general disdain for humanity, there was no way he would force a teenager to witness his suicide. He had held up a finger to let her know that he was on his way. He put his gun on a side table, and stumbled to the door.
Her mother and father had stood beside her on the porch.
"Hi," Bryant said, weakly. "Need something?"
Angel, despite the fact she was a foot shorter and a hundred or so pounds lighter, pushed past him and into the room.
"Bryant, is everything all right?" her mother, Maria, asked in a gentle voice.
"Does it look like everything is all right, Mom?" Angel asked shrilly. "Jesus, what a stupid question."
"Angel..." her dad cautioned.
Angel responded by lifting up the edge of the tarp with her foot and giving her father a glare.
"Might as well come in," Bryant offered in a toneless voice.
The father, Dave, sighed but nodded.
He had looked around the room as he entered. He had seen the empty beer cans and the almost empty Jim Beam bottle. He had walked past Bryant — and past his daughter — to the gun. With practiced ease, Dave had ejected the clip and had ensured the chamber was cleared.
"I wasn't going to really do it," Bryant offered weakly.
"I've been outside for fifteen minutes!" Angel said. There were tears in her eyes and her voice cracked.
"Oh," Bryant offered.
He had been so lost in his preparations that he hadn't noticed someone looking in while he had dry-fired the weapon as it rested under his chin.
"Bryant, you're a good man," Maria said. "Please, get some help. We'll go with you if you want."
Bryant was embarrassed. Not about planning to kill himself, but that someone had caught him.
"I'm not a good man," he said. "Maybe I was once; but I don't think I am now."
"Is this about this afternoon?" Dave asked. He sat down softly on Bryant's couch. "Because I don't think anyone is going to cause you trouble over that one."
Bryant shrugged.
"Some of it, maybe," Bryant said. "It's complicated. Shooting that guy today didn't bother me. That's a big part of it ... I killed a man, and I don't even care."
"From what the news reports say, there is no question that you were justified," Maria offered.
"Oh, I was, that isn't the problem," Bryant admitted. "Dave, I know you were in Iraq. Did you ... did you have to do anything like that?"
Dave had glanced at his daughter briefly but nodded. Bryant returned the nod.
"Today was the fourth time I've killed a person," Bryant said. "The first one, I didn't sleep for a week. I cried for two days. Each time, it has gotten easier. I remember the first time like it was yesterday! He was a meth-head, who pointed a sawed-off shotgun at us. He would have killed us. I knew that then, and I know it now. But I still thought about trying to wound him for a split second. Then my training kicked in, and I emptied my weapon — center mass — just like they taught me at the academy and in the Army."
Angel sat down in the chair Bryant had planned to use for his exit. Bryant watched her move to the edge of the seat.
"I'm sorry, Angel," Bryant said. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this."
"No, we should," Angel replied. "You need to talk about this, and we're here to listen."
"We are," Maria added. "If you need to talk about this, we won't leave until you've said everything you have to say."
"It doesn't change things," Bryant said with a shrug.
He pulled a chair from his kitchen table and plopped down.
"Each time, it got easier. Today, hell, I didn't even worry about it. I told him to put the gun down. He didn't, and I killed him. I didn't even know what was in the apartment. I had no idea he had just killed his family. As soon as he lifted the weapon past his waist, I fired. There was no hesitation. I didn't worry about wounding him, I didn't worry about anything."
"I'm sure you worried about some things," Dave had said. "I'm positive you made sure you had a clear backstop. I'm positive you ensured that no one else was in danger from your shots. That's who you are."
"It's not who I am," Bryant insisted. "It might be how I was trained, but that's all. I wasn't worried about my safety. I wasn't concerned about the safety of those behind me. I think I just felt like shooting the ass- ... the jerk, for making me come out in the heat."
"I doubt that," Maria said. "Look, you say it didn't bother you... ?"
She had gestured to the room.
"This doesn't look like you are unconcerned by today," she said.
Bryant glanced around the room and sighed, heavily.
"This is less about today, and more about tomorrow, I think," Bryant said.
"You don't think the PPB will get involved do you?" Dave asked.
PPB was the acronym for "Police Professional Board". It used to be called Internal Affairs.
"Maybe," Bryant said. "It's the fourth time in twelve years. That is something they need to consider — particularly given the circumstance in each one."
"What circumstances?" Angel asked.
Bryant had glanced toward Dave and Maria before answering.
"They were all minorities," Bryant answered. "Two blacks, an Arab and a Hispanic."
"So?" Angel asked.
David, Maria and Angel shared the last name of Jimenez. David was a native of Puerto Rico. Maria was an African-American from San Diego. Angel was the product of their marriage.
"I'm white," Bryant said flatly. "That matters ... to some people."
"That's stupid," Angel declared.
"Well, maybe," Maria said. "But I can see where that might create problems for Bryant."
"It doesn't matter," Bryant told them. "Look, most cops never even pull their weapon. I know cops who have been on the force for twenty-five years, and they never removed their weapon from its holster, except at the range."
"Maybe in Lake Forest or Highland Park," Dave said sympathetically. "But you've been on the South Side your whole career, haven't you?"
"I'm not sure if I even care if the PPB pulls my shield," Bryant admitted. "It might be way past time for them to do that, anyway."
"Bullshit," Maria said. "You know where I work, Bryant. I hear everything there."
Maria worked in the public relations department of the City Council.
"When anything big hits in your precinct, the council hopes it will land on your desk because they know you'll get to the bottom of things," she added.
"And maybe shoot the person who did it," Bryant said. "Particularly if he or she doesn't look like me."
"Not true," Maria asserted.
"Not true, yesterday," Bryant said. "Maybe true, tomorrow. But I'm OK with that, too."
"Then why?" Angel asked.
Bryant looked at her. She was sitting on the edge of the chair, a look of intense interest and sympathy mingled on her face.
"I realized that I'm not that much different than the poor bastard I put in the morgue," Bryant said. "The world doesn't care that he's gone, and the same is true of me."
Angel's mouth dropped open.
"Do you really think that?" Dave asked.
Bryant had shifted his gaze to him, but didn't answer.
"Angel came racing across the lawn like her butt was on fire," Maria said. "She was frantic about what you were thinking of doing. We came back across as fast as she did. We stood out there and pounded for ten minutes. Dave was getting ready to break your door down. If you had reached for what was on your lap, he was coming in."
"I might have shot him," Bryant said softly.
"I knew that," Dave answered. "I was willing to risk it."
Bryant nodded slightly. Although he appreciated what Dave said, it had not change anything.
"What are you selling?" Bryant asked Angel.
"Huh?" the girl said, unsure of the question.
Bryant offered a small smile.
"Look, we're not friends," Bryant said. "I know it. If you came over it was because you had some fund-raiser going on. Outside of that, we nod when we see each other. But this is probably the first time any of you have been inside my house. Outside of helping Dave put the new water heater in, I've never been inside yours. We've been neighbors now for what, four years? So if you were knocking on my door, it was because you know I'm a sucker for school fund-raisers."
Angel had looked down guiltily.
"It's okay. I'm not saying there is anything wrong," Bryant said, "but it's the truth."
"I, uh, I always got the impression that you didn't want to be friends," Maria said. "We tried, you know, when you first moved in here. I mean, we didn't invite you over but..."
She frowned.
"I guess we didn't really try," she said in a soft voice. "I think a part of it is because you're a single guy. You're the only single person living in this neighborhood."
"We're not friends with the married couples either," Dave said.
He, too, looked troubled by where his thoughts went.
"Why aren't you married?" Angel asked. "Are you gay?"
"Angel!" Maria said, embarrassed by both of her daughter's questions.
"No," Bryant answered with a short chuckle, "but I might as well be. I was married once. My ex-wife is an attorney. I guess she still is. We haven't really spoken in a while. Outside of that, a cop's life is pretty hard to share with someone. It takes someone pretty special to be a cop's wife ... the constant worry about the job, the constant changes in mood, and the pay is pretty lousy."
Angel nodded as though she understood.
"I know you have work tomorrow folks," Bryant said. "I'm pretty sure I've bothered you enough for one night. Let me get my wallet and you can hit me up for whatever you're selling. I hope it's candy. My Halloween stash is pretty low."
"Bryant, are you going to be okay?" Maria asked.
Bryant nodded, but he was pretty sure he was lying.
The week after Bryant's aborted suicide hadn't gone much better. The police bureaucracy had hundreds of rules for police-involved shootings. Some made sense to Bryant but others didn't.
He understood the need to relinquish his service pistol for processing. He even understood the need for a visit to a shrink's office. But he didn't understand the need for him to take five days off of work, and spend another ten on desk duty. It made sense if there was a question about his culpability but that had not been the case.
He spent the next day, alone, in his house. It wasn't good for his mental health. It was sweltering hot for early June, so outside activities were not really an option.
That left him alone with his thoughts. Not surprisingly, they drifted to his actions of the night before. A part of him was still embarrassed. If he decided to go through with ending his life, he would have to move first.
Angel was one of the few young people he'd met in the past ten years who didn't set his teeth on edge. Although his interactions with her were few, she seemed like a nice person. Dave and Maria were obviously nice people, too. Otherwise, their daughter wouldn't have turned out so well.
He wouldn't put the Jimenez family through the wringer by making them always wonder if his failings were theirs. At least that put the thought of suicide off for a few weeks.
On a whim, he Googled his ex-wife's name. Honestly, he didn't even know if she was still alive. He assumed so but he had no way of really verifying it since his alimony payments were long in the past. They had divorced a decade earlier and their paths hadn't crossed since the decree was issued.
That was probably for the best.
It took Bryant a year or so after the divorce to figure out he'd been used. He provided safety and security while Allyson finished law school and got herself established. Once he'd served his purpose, he was out. Allyson would never rise to partner with a cop for a husband. She needed someone with a bit more "pedigree" to reach the level of upward-mobility she hoped to achieve.
The most recent entry for Allyson Granger-Hawkins was a decade previous — a link saying she was handling the defense of a smarmy bastard accused of bilking the elderly. There was nothing to let Bryant know how that one came out, not that he cared.
He tried Allyson Granger and got a few more hits. The most recent was from five years earlier. She was in Los Angeles and representing a celebrity accused of vehicular homicide while intoxicated. He hadn't known that Allyson was the woman's attorney but Bryant remembered the case. The woman pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to probation. Sadly, the saga hadn't ended there.
Typical, Bryant thought. Money buys justice. Chicago was certainly no different.
A knocking on his door brought him from his thoughts. He chuckled when he found Angel standing there. He glanced at his clock to verify she wasn't skipping out on something — not that he expected she would be.
"I saw your car here," Angel said.
"And wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid?" Bryant asked. He smiled to lessen the sting, but Angel still looked guilty.
"I'm good, kid," Bryant said. "I'd had too much to drink. You know, alcohol is a depressant. I made a bad choice but you were there to save me from it. Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," Angel said. "I think you would do the same for me."
"Yeah, but that's sort of my job," Bryant told her. "So, what's up?" "Nothing," she said. "I was bored. I don't have practice tonight and I figured I'd see what you're into."
"I'm in the same boat," Bryant admitted.
"Let's go to the lake," Angel said.
"You're kidding me," Bryant said, laughing. "I'm sure you have a lot better things to do than go to the lake with an old man."
"How old are you?" Angel asked, in youthful innocence.
"Thirty-six," Bryant said. "Last week, in fact."
"Happy birthday," Angel said. "Well, if we're not going to the lake, can I at least come in? It's hot outside."
"Angel, really, I'm over things," Bryant answered. "You don't need to babysit me. I'm not going to do anything drastic."
"I know," Angel said. "Does that mean I can't come in?"
"I'm sure your parents wouldn't be happy about you going into the house of someone you barely know," Bryant said. "At least I would be that way if I were your father."
"Fine," Angel said. "I guess I'll just stand on the porch and roast." Bryant chuckled.
"Let me get a couple bottles of water, and we'll hang out on the porch," he said. "How's that?"
"Not my first choice, but I guess it'll do," Angel replied with a grin. "Actually, it wouldn't be my first or second choice."
Bryant went back in the house to get water from the fridge and joined Angel on the porch. He was surprised that the conversation was fairly interesting.
"Have you thought about moving?" she asked after sitting on the porch for an hour or so.
Bryant wondered if perhaps he had been thinking out loud earlier in the day.
"Why would I move?" Bryant asked.
"I don't know, just get out of Chicago," Angel said with a shrug. "I plan to get out as soon as I'm old enough. I don't like the crowds."
"Yeah," Bryant said. "I did the same thing. I left home as soon as I turned eighteen."
"You did?" Angel wondered. "Why did you come back?"
"I didn't," Bryant said. "I'm from South Dakota. I joined the Army, served four years then caught on with the Chicago PD. I guess it's been about ten years since I've gone back there. It'll probably be a lot longer before I go there again."
"Do your parents still live there?" Angel asked.
"Probably," Bryant said with a frown. "I didn't get along with them too well."
"Why not?" Angel wanted to know. If it had been anyone but a kid across from him, Bryant would have told her to mind her own damned business. As it was, he hedged.
"We had different ideas about whose life mine is," he said. "Mom and Dad mapped my life out and I rebelled. Like a lot of things, I didn't do it very well. We all said some things that can't be taken back. I went back a few years ago to apologize. They turned me away at the door." Angel's face clouded. She and her parents had many arguments about her future but she was certain they would never push her out of their lives.
"I went to the Army the day after I graduated high school," Bryant continued. "I got out a couple of years before Iraq and Afghanistan. Hey, I think your Mom is home."
A car turned off the street into the driveway. Maria saw Angel and Bryant sitting on his porch and went over to join them.
She was surprised when Angel gave her a long hug as soon as she hit the top step. She wondered what Angel and Bryant had been discussing. She hoped his depression wasn't dragging down her daughter. She worried about Bryant but not enough to let it affect her daughter's well-being.
"Bryant was just telling me about growing up in South Dakota," Angel announced.
She had seen the look that crossed her mother's face as she pulled back from the hug. She knew that look well enough to know what it meant.
"South Dakota?" Maria asked. "I guess I just assumed you were from nearby."
"Nope," Bryant answered, happy for the change in the direction of the conversation. "I grew up about ten miles from the Nebraska line."
"How did you wind up as a Chicago police officer?" Maria wondered. Bryant shrugged slightly.
"I joined the Army after high school," he said. "That was really the only way out of my hometown. I really wasn't mature enough for college at that point. I was stationed as an MP all over the place but I flew in and out of O'Hare. A guy I knew said the Chicago PD was hiring and giving preference to veterans. So I applied and was hired."
"Does Dave know you were in the Army?" Maria asked.
"Probably not," Bryant answered. "I've heard him mention Iraq and I know he's in the VFW. I've seen his car there a couple of times on my way home."
"You should join the VFW," Angel said.
"I was never in a foreign war, thank God," Bryant told them. "I served during peace time, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I thought about re-enlisting after September 11th but I was talked out it."
"By whom?" Maria asked.
"My wife at the time," Bryant said. "I was still married then. She didn't like the Army. I should have known that she would transfer that to the police, once she finished law school."
There was real bitterness in Bryant's voice.
"How long have you been divorced?" Angel asked.
"Nine years, last December," Bryant replied. "She graduated law school in June. She told me in September that she was thinking about divorcing me. She filed in October and we settled things on December 29th. It was quick."
"But not painless," Maria said.
Again, Bryant shrugged.
"It was a surprise," he admitted. "You know, I worked my butt off to pay for her to go to law school. I mean, I worked twenty hours of overtime a week most weeks. We took out loans to make ends meet. I got stuck with half of the loans, half the car payments and a year of alimony. The civil justice system screwed me. It took me another two years of sixty and seventy hour weeks to get things paid off. Meanwhile, she was rising through the ranks and making a heck of a lot more money than I was. But I still got stuck with the bills, because I was the one working when we accrued them and I was the one with a steady income."
"Wow, that sucks," Angel said.
"She got a big hitter from her firm to represent her," Bryant told them. "I got what I could afford. My union will provide an attorney for criminal charges or civil charges based on something that happened on the job, but not for divorce. It was ugly."
The visit ended shortly thereafter. The Jimenez family was getting ready for supper as soon as Dave got home. But the seed was planted. There was nothing holding Bryant in Chicago, except inertia. He spent the rest of the evening going over job listings.
He was a detective second grade. The shootings and their political fallout meant a promotion to lieutenant was never going to happen. But the listings were for mostly entry-level positions. Anything near his pay grade was for chief of a small-town force, something he wasn't interested in doing.
As he was getting ready to close the browser, he found a listing he had missed: Chief of detectives for a mid-sized city in South Carolina. He bookmarked the ad, and decided to spend the rest of the day putting together a resume. It was something he hadn't done since he left the Army, and he found it rather sparse. He listed his military service as well as his responsibilities and promotions in Chicago.
The resume sure didn't take the rest of the day to compile. It took up a little less than two-thirds of the page. He'd only had two employers in his entire life: the Army, and the Chicago PD.
Edited By BlackIrish & TeNderLoin; Proofread by ZoltanTheDuck.