The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (57 page)

I would say nothing—not ever—to my father or to my uncle Denis, but a certain long level look passed between us, a look of understanding, yet a look too of yearning, for what was concealed, that could not be revealed. When I next saw them, and the subject of the nun’s death arose. My father had kept a newspaper to show me, the front-page headlines, though I didn’t need to see the headlines, knowing what they were. In a hoarse voice Dad said—
Good riddance to bad rubbage.

By which Dad meant
rubbish.
But I would not correct him.

Now that months have passed there is not much likelihood of a formal inquiry into the death of Sister Mary Alphonsus aka “Dorothy Milgrum.” The Oybwa County medical examiner has never contacted us. Dr. Godai has left Eau Claire to return to Minneapolis, it has been announced. (Many, including me, were disappointed to hear that Dr. Godai is leaving us so soon, though it isn’t surprising that a vigorous young doctor like Dr. Godai would prefer to live and work in Minneapolis, and not Eau Claire.) Yet, I have prepared my statement for the medical examiner. I have not written out this statement, for such a statement might seem incriminating if written out, but I have memorized the opening.

Early shift is 6:30
A.M.
which was when I arrived at the elder care facility at Eau Claire where I have been an orderly for two years. Maybe thirty minutes after that, when the elderly nun’s body was discovered in her bed.

ERIC RUTTER

FROM
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

B
ARBARA PAUSED WITH
her hand on the doorknob, clearing her head. Sometimes she could learn something from her first glimpse of a patient. On the other hand, it was all too easy to project onto them preconceived notions she already had. Not that she truly had patients in this job. A patient was someone you saw more than once. Most of the people she dealt with here were suspects who’d been arrested and the people they’d victimized—that is,
allegedly
victimized. In an odd sort of way the members of the police department were more like real patients, or they would be if she wound up working here a few years.

She opened the door to the waiting room. He was sitting in the chair by the far wall, legs crossed, not reading anything. He might have been staring at her receptionist, Maggie, the moment before, but somehow she doubted it. He looked too at ease, content just to sit there thinking his own thoughts. His eyes met hers and in them she saw no trace of uncertainty or dread, which did indeed tell her something about him.

She smiled and said, “Officer O’Donnell? I’m Dr. Neal.”

He smiled faintly. “Hello.”

“Come in.”

As he stood up and crossed to her, she studied him without seeming to. In his gait she saw calm self-assurance. A man whose career was on the line wasn’t supposed to walk that way.

She stepped out of the doorway to let him into her office, then closed the door behind him. “Please sit down,” she said, gesturing to the patient’s chair.

He took it. She took the one opposite, noting how he looked the room over. She’d already learned that police officers seemed to notice everything. If she asked him, he could probably tell her how many framed diplomas were hanging on the wall behind him. From the way his eyes lingered on the box of tissues sitting on the cabinet beside his chair, she surmised he’d never visited a psychologist before.

She said, “Is it all right if I call you Keith?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Barbara.” When he nodded once, she added, “I don’t think we’ve actually spoken before. I haven’t been with the department that long.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

There was a second’s pause. During it Barbara thought, So this is a police sniper. Captain Smith had said they were a different breed. Her first impression of Keith was that he was quite a bit more restrained than the average person. No,
restrained
was the wrong word. That implied he was keeping his emotions in check. He didn’t seem to be. He just seemed . . . cool.

She said, “Do you understand why you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I don’t want you to worry. I’m not here to judge you. I just want to find out what happened. See if we can figure out where the trouble started.”

“I know just when it started.”

“Really? When?”

“Back in March. The hostage situation on Seventh Avenue.”

Barbara remembered it. She would have even if she hadn’t read the official reports of that incident earlier this morning in preparation for this session. Hostage crises didn’t happen every day in Miami.

But she said, “Tell me about it.”

I filed a report about it. If you really want all the facts you should probably read that. But I guess you want to hear it from me, right?

Okay. That incident was a workplace shooting. A guy named Guinness had a problem with his boss, so he went to work one day with a gun in his pocket. He took it out and started yelling. Probably just wanted to scare his boss, but somehow or other he got carried away and shot him. Then he wouldn’t let anyone leave. I mean the people who hadn’t snuck out when he first pulled the gun. He had nine hostages in there with him, plus the boss, who was dead.

I got there with the team—the Special Response Team. When we got there the street was cordoned off and the building had been evacuated. I set up in a building across the street, in an office on the fourth floor. We’d evacuated that too. I had a nice view of the whole office Guinness was in. It was a row of rooms with big windows facing me and he hadn’t thought to close the blinds. I set up first. Dean—Dean Farleigh. You know him? He’s the other sniper on the team—we trade off on two-hour shifts. I took the first one.

So I was watching Guinness through the scope. He was twitchy, pacing back and forth. You could see he was trying to think. He was in over his head and he knew it. I was only like sixty yards away, and from there a sniper scope gives you a real close look. I could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. I could see his eyes darting around, looking for a way out of there. But he never looked my way. He stayed away from the windows, so I guess he was clearheaded enough to be afraid of getting shot by someone down in the street. But he never glanced at my window, which he might have done, since I had it cracked open. I was set up a little ways back from it, lying prone on some desks we’d pushed together. And we had the lights off. So he didn’t know I was there. I could see him but he couldn’t see me.

I could see the other people in the office too. The hostages. Most of the time I’ve got a better view of the scene than anyone else so I do surveillance, especially early on, before I have a green light and when it seems like there’s still a chance we might be able to wrap things up peacefully. That’s how it was those first two hours. Guinness was still talking to Barry then. Barry the negotiator. I was making reports through my headset to Sergeant Erb. He was the supervisor on the scene. I was checking out the hostages, to see if any of them were wounded or anything. That’s when I saw her.

I mean I saw her a couple of times, put my eyes on her and moved on. But then I started to notice her—how beautiful she was. She had dark hair. It was brown but a brown that’s so dark it looks black. And it had this shine to it. The light shone off it like light shines off the curve of a waterfall, you know what I mean? Her eyes were brown too. I don’t know how to describe the color of them, or the shape of her nose and her mouth or anything like that, but she was beautiful. My eyes kept coming back to her.

That’s a big deal. I mean I had a good excuse. Guinness was still pacing around, and sometimes he’d walk past her and out of sight into some dead space behind an interior wall. I had to keep my scope where I last saw him and she was right there, sitting on the floor with the other hostages. But she was breaking my concentration. Sometimes even when Guinness was in sight at the other end of the room I’d be thinking about her, wanting to look at her again.

She looked scared. She must have been crying before I got there because her makeup was smeared and her nose was red. You know in a situation like that she must have been afraid she was going to die. I didn’t want that to happen. That’s a big deal too. That’s not how you’re supposed to think. You’re supposed to keep your eyes on the bad guy, watch what he does, and if he does something actionable, get ready for the green light, because when you get it you have to take him out before he can do anything else. But you’re not supposed to, you know . . .
relate
to the hostages.

Guinness didn’t do anything during my shift. When Dean set up at another window I got up to stretch and move around. I went downstairs to talk to Sergeant Erb.

I asked him how it looked. He said, “I don’t know. He’s still talking, but it’s all Barry can do to keep him calm.”

I said, “Did he say anything about having a grudge against anybody else in there?”

“No,” Sergeant Erb said.

I was relieved. I was thinking about that woman.

Instead of walking around some more and getting loose, I went back up to my post again right away. Dean had a pair of binoculars up there that he’d been using while I was on station, so I got them and stood watching Guinness and the woman. She was starting to calm down a little. Actually it wasn’t calm—she was starting to go numb. Shock was kicking in. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes partway. If you didn’t know any better you’d think she was about to fall asleep. But it was shock. I kept watching her, and Guinness, but her more and more. When she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, my eyes kept going to the fourth finger of her left hand. You know, I was making sure I’d seen right, that she didn’t have a wedding ring on.

I knew this wasn’t right, so I tried to stop watching. I put down the binoculars, but then after just a minute or two I brought them up again. I did that a couple of times. Then I put them down and started pacing the room. Dean told me to knock it off, I was distracting him. So I went out in the hallway.

I was only out there a few minutes when Dean’s voice cut through the chatter in my headset. “Suspect’s down,” he said.

I hurried back inside. “What happened?”

“Suspect ate his gun.”

I picked up the binoculars. People were running around in the office, most of them toward the door but not all of them. Some were panicked, running every which way. A few of them weren’t moving at all.

I said, “Did he shoot anyone else first?”

“No,” Dean said.

I was relieved when I saw he was right. The hostages who were sitting still were just too exhausted or relieved to move. One of them was the woman. As I watched she started crying, softly. She covered her face with her hands and her shoulders moved with her sobs.

Dean and I kept our positions while the team went in to secure the room. Dean kept his sights on Guinness, just in case. But he was dead. All the hostages got out okay.

Dean and I got word then to pack up. I got this feeling, like a panic, when I realized we were going to go back to headquarters and I might never see the woman again. I mean, we’d get her name and all for the reports, but we’d get all their names and if I didn’t know which name was hers that would be it. So I hurried and got my equipment packed and went downstairs ahead of Dean.

I went to the big office on the ground floor we were using as a command center. It was still full of people, department personnel mostly, but the hostages had been brought there too. The woman was sitting in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was talking to an EMT. I hung back, watching, while the other hostages talked to EMTs or police officers or each other. The place was buzzing. I just stood there, staring at her.

The EMT who was standing over her finally moved off. I walked up to her then. I didn’t really decide to, it’s like my legs just sort of took me there on their own.

I said, “Miss?”

She looked up at me.

I said, “Are you all right?”

She said, “Yes.”

I stood there staring at her for another long moment, like an idiot, my rifle case in one hand and a duffel bag in the other, while all the other people in the room moved and talked around us. She sat there looking up at me, her face kind of blank. She was still in shock.

I said, “My name’s Keith O’Donnell.”

She said, “Mine’s April Ozga.”

I smiled at her and nodded and turned and walked away. I can’t even tell you how glad I felt, knowing her name.

When it was clear he’d finished talking, Barbara said, “Has that ever happened to you before? Getting distracted by a pretty woman while you’re working?”

“No. Never. They train you to focus. But they hardly even had to with me. I’ve gone hunting ever since I was a kid. You learn how to keep your eyes on the target while you’re hunting. You don’t get a second shot most of the time.”

Barbara nodded. That fit with what little she knew about snipers—all of which she’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. When the military looked for soldiers to train as snipers, they liked to pick men who’d been hunting since they were old enough to carry a rifle. In fact they preferred those who’d killed deer, or some other animal that was bigger than a man. Apparently killing something that size required you to cross a critical psychological threshold.

According to Keith’s service record, he had crossed that threshold many times. He joined the Marine Corps at the age of eighteen and after a couple years of service enrolled in their sniper school in Quantico. He passed with flying colors, which was quite an accomplishment, since only the best Marines were allowed in and fewer than 40 percent passed. Keith was subsequently deployed to Iraq, where in two years he tallied twenty-four confirmed kills. Barbara really wasn’t sure what
confirmed
meant in that context, but she thought it meant Keith had killed considerably more than twenty-four people.

But he hadn’t killed any since he joined the Miami Metro-Dade Special Response Team. He’d never been given “the green light.” Except for once.