The Sacrifice (24 page)

“You’re off the Frye case. You’re being reassigned. But you’re out of this precinct, so clear your desk and get out.”

She was stammering—her words were indistinct—
I don’t understand . . .

It must have been, Iglesias had been expecting a very different greeting from the Lieutenant. She’d cut short her sick leave eager and anxious to return to the precinct. She’d been prepared to tell the man

Thank you Lieutenant I’m fine. I was never in serious danger.

The Lieutenant had not the slightest interest in Ines Iglesias’s
medical condition. Her still-swollen mouth, bruised eyes hidden behind dark glasses, the wincing limp with which she walked—(and this limp much less in public than in private)—these aroused in the man a roiling contempt he would only allow her to infer from the way in which he could not bring himself even to look at her, fully in the face.

“No need to close the door when you leave, Iglesias. But leave.”

Zahn, Jerold (“Jere”). Born March 22, 1960. Died December 11, 1987. Patrol officer, Pascayne Police Department and lifetime resident, Pascayne, New Jersey.

Nine-twenty
A
.
M
. that day which was approximately eighteen hours after he’d got the terrible news he was at his parents’ house repairing the roof. Squat-climbing the peak of the roof in cold stark overbright December sunshine. Dark glasses protecting his red-veined eyes. He’d always been a good handyman, carpenter. Throwing himself into tasks at his former house. He was
the good son
though it embarrassed him to be so named, through childhood and now into adulthood approaching the (hard-to-believe) age of thirty.

Maybe he’d anticipated the news. Had to be an open secret at the precinct by this time nearly two weeks after the Camden Avenue disturbances.

Or maybe, just maybe there was no actual connection. Between
anticipating the news, and receiving the news. And driving across town to his parents’ house to repair a section of (rotting, leaking) roof-shingles. And once he’d done with hammering on the roof—(which was how his mother Mimi Zahn knew Jere had come over: heard him before she saw him, hurried to a window to see, yes Jere’s car was in the driveway which was like her youngest son to just show up unannounced at the house, immediately throw himself into the carpentry and handyman tasks his older brothers with their busy lives and families wouldn’t have thought of doing for their parents)—he carried the ladder around to the garage to replace burnt-out floodlights on the garage roof and while he was up there, to secure a loose drainpipe.

Taking care then to place the heavy long ladder back in the garage exactly where he’d found it which was where, in fact, he’d put the ladder a few months ago which was the last time the ladder had been used by anyone in the Zahn family.

Too wired to stop work. Anxious to clear away debris from last week’s storm scattered through the backyard in time for trash pickup later that week.
Jere is such a good person. Even as a boy he was always the first to volunteer help. His dad and I just wish he did more for himself not always other people . . .
Which meant a mother’s concern that her youngest son was living alone at the age of twenty-seven, no (apparent, desirable) prospects for marriage, obsessed with his job (which by calling a mere “job” Mimi hoped to minimize) as a new recruit in the Pascayne Police Department.

Rookie cop Jerold Zahn. Rank Police Officer I.

The Zahns were proud of him. Anxious for him.

He hadn’t had an easy time at the New Jersey State Police Academy in Sea Girt. Never certain why, when he’d been so excited about being accepted. Graduating in the lowest third of his class of cadets.

In the Pascayne PD, in the Red Rock precinct which was the worst
precinct in the city, highest crime rate, blocks of burnt-out buildings, Zahn was the rookie feeling the most stress.

(Not that Jere complained to anyone. He’d never been the kind to complain.)

(On the Pascayne North High varsity team Jere Zahn was known for having finished a championship game limping on a sprained ankle. Another time, concussed for as long as a minute flat on his back on the ground but insisted on going right back into the game.)

In a haze of grief the Zahns would claim
We had no idea. No warning
but in fact Mimi had been concerned, something in the boy wasn’t quite right. The intensity with which he threw himself into handyman tasks. Anything you’d ask him to do and some things he volunteered, you hadn’t even thought to ask like thinning the old straggly shrubbery around the house, replacing cracked bricks in the patio. And his old room, he’d cleared out and painted a pale yellow for his mom’s sewing room, his own idea entirely.

So that day December 11, 1987, when Jere turned up at the house before 9:00
A
.
M
. (after his dad left for work at 7:30
A
.
M
.) without having called first, hauled the long ladder out of the garage and leaned it against the side of the house with a thud and climbed the steps rapid and unerring and then heavy-footed on the roof hammering in a fury of concentration for the remainder of the morning—she’d sensed that something was possibly wrong but was determined to make a joke of it, a jest, that was the Zahns’ way, four boys and a younger sister and their dad a great kidder so Mimi had learned to laugh as the first line of defense. Tugging open a second-floor window to call out to her son overhead (and out of sight) who failed to hear her and so she’d gone outside into the backyard to call plaintively up to him—
Jere? Hi! Did you tell your dad you were coming over, honey?—
shivering hugging herself in just a cardigan sweater, and her son on the roof a startling sight in bright cold sunshine in his old hunter-green high school hoodie,
knitted wool cap pulled down over his creased forehead, boyish face grim and unsmiling. He seemed embarrassed, possibly annoyed, his mom outside in the cold calling up to him through cupped hands, he was hoping neighbors wouldn’t hear. Jere’s way to shrug and say
No big deal
when people made too much of the least little thing he did for them. Mimi chided him come inside and get warm, she’d make him something hot to eat reasoning he’d had just cold cereal and coffee for breakfast as usual if he’d bothered to eat at all. With a grimace he waved at her
I’m OK Mom, I’m almost done with this, go back inside Mom OK?
Definitely he was embarrassed by her solicitude but she could see he was losing weight, since summer he must have lost at least ten pounds. Actually becoming lean-faced which wasn’t like any of his brothers. And his eyes ringed with a kind of adult fatigue she’d never seen in Jere before.

Henry had said to the older sons
Spend some time with Jere can you? Invite him over for supper? He needs something I’m not sure that your mother and I can supply
.

After he’d cleared away a sizable portion of the fallen tree limbs in the backyard and raked brush into a pile Jere came into the kitchen to get warm, removed his hoodie and wool cap and Mimi couldn’t resist brushing hair out of his face as she’d done without thinking for most of his life. Jere’s hair was white-blond, pale-silvery-blond like her own, though her own was mostly gray now, and Jere’s eyebrows and lashes pale like hers, almost invisible so growing up he’d hated the color of his hair which was freaky he’d complained, like a girl’s hair. Mimi had felt a mother’s (small, finite, contained) heartbreak assuring him
Don’t be silly, honey! You are a very good-looking boy. Girls would kill for hair natural-blond like yours.

And Jere’s eyes, ghost-eyes, pale eyes, pale blue or gray, like Mimi’s eyes also, that looked raw, vulnerable.

She’d insisted, he had to sit down for a few minutes at least, have
something to eat so he said with a smile
OK, Mom, you’re the boss
and she felt a little thrill of triumph—thinking she would keep her son with her for a while longer, and the big house not so empty, and when Henry came home she would tell him with a quiet kind of pride
Jere came over this morning and surprised me, repaired the roof and changed the outside garage lights and we had a nice talk like we haven’t had in a while
.
He told me . . .

Instead after he’d eaten only about half the food on his plate—(scrambled eggs, bacon and toast which was a special breakfast in the Zahn household)—he’d seemed to lose appetite suddenly, and ceased eating; and Mimi asked him if something was wrong, and evasively he’d said
Nothing is wrong, Mom. I’m OK.
She knew that he’d been seeing a young woman named “Kim”—“Kimba”—who wasn’t ideal, from Mimi’s perspective, being a single mother, and not younger than her son, and this person Mimi had not ever met, and hoped she would not. And yet—
I want Jere to be happy. I want him to get married, someday. He can’t live alone, he needs someone to take care of him.

She knew that since the “disturbances” on Camden Avenue following a meeting in a black church, when so many police officers were involved in quelling a near-riot, things had been tense in the Pascayne Police Department, particularly in Jere’s precinct in Red Rock. (It was their son’s bad luck, to be assigned
there
. But Jere never complained even to his brothers or his sister with whom he’d always been close, so far as Mimi knew.) Jere said of the incident that it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, and the fact was nobody got killed, nobody got seriously injured, no police cars were overturned and burned, and there was “zero” looting.

His father had said
When a class of individuals can’t support themselves, have to live on food stamps and welfare, and no jobs, it’s a powder keg. Thank God worse didn’t happen.

They’d heard of a black teenager in Red Rock charging white police
officers with kidnapping and rape, and how preposterous these charges were—totally unsubstantiated. Jere’s father had asked him about it and Jere had said with a shrug he didn’t know anything about it except people said it was a “race-thing.”

Jere had had enough of his mother’s breakfast, and was eager now to get back outside and finish clearing the yard. Through a window she observed him for a while, working fast, pushing himself as if punishing himself; she could see no logic to it, no reason, but their youngest son had often behaved this way. As young as twelve, in seventh grade, when Jere had begun to play on sports teams, and to be a player whom coaches singled out for particular attention.

She thought of putting on a fleece-lined jacket and joining her son outside. Vigorous exercise in fresh air would be good for her—cheer her. Helping Jere rake debris into those big black plastic trash bags which was a task requiring two people. But she knew—oh, she knew—Jere wouldn’t have liked that. He was a sweet boy but sad-hearted and right now he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

Well—Mimi assumed Jere would come back inside to say good-bye but around 2:00
P
.
M
. she noticed his car was gone from the driveway.

He was going to tell me, I think. I see that now.

I didn’t, then. I guess I . . . missed it.

First thing was thinking of Mimi. Thinking of Mom.

In fact he’d come over to tell her. That was why he’d come.

Then, lost courage. Sick-hearted.

Intending to tell her when no one else was around. Just Mom, and she could tell Dad later, in her own words, and he wouldn’t be there, and that would be a way of doing it. And his parents would tell his brothers and his sister, in a way they could. But he needed to tell her in some way that wasn’t direct.

How disappointed she’d be. But sympathetic, wanting to hug him.

(Could he bear being
hugged
? Jesus! He was twenty-seven years old.)

And his dad stunned with disappointment. And his brothers pitying him so for once they wouldn’t tease or torment him. (But—what would they say to him, when they saw him? Something inside him shriveled and died, trying to think what he’d say to
them
.)

Kind of shitty news. Can’t talk about it right now OK?

On patrol with his training officer he’d made some mistakes. It was his “probationary period”—they’d kept reminding him—which made him more anxious and more likely to fuck up like freezing when advancing on an altercation in the street, black youths with guns, drug dealers, knowing what he was supposed to do but totally unable to do it, unable to draw his weapon as commanded, hyperventilating so he’d nearly fainted. And on Camden Avenue assigned to crowd control at the black church he’d had something of the same thing happen, a swirling in his vision, pounding heart, breathing quick and shallow and he’d heard gunshots and his instinct was to duck, actually wasn’t able to hear—
to hear and process
—what his training officer was shouting at him. He’d been utterly, hopelessly—could not even think of the word to describe his state—terrified? panicked? paralyzed? Like at the gun range in the academy when he was being examined he’d misfire while before that, at practice, he’d done fairly well—it was the pressure on him that was suffocating him, felt like a vise tightening around his chest.

A cop obeys orders. A rookie cop doesn’t fucking
think!

He’d tried to explain, he loved being a cop. He’d always hoped to be in law enforcement. City cop, state trooper, highway police. He’d had his heart set on it. He wanted to “enforce” law—“protect” people. He liked the uniform—he loved the uniform. Carrying a firearm was a symbol, like a badge. The uniform, the badge, the holster and revolver
but something in him was uncomfortable with the gun, not the object but the firing of the gun in the presence of others, the loud
crack!
—the sense that, having pulled the trigger, you could not nullify what you’d done. Pull the trigger, it was
done
.

Ironically for a law enforcement officer he hadn’t been a kid who’d played much with guns. He’d taken little pleasure in “killing” his friends and he’d been dismayed when they’d shot at
him.

And he wasn’t “political.” Rarely read a newspaper or watched TV news except local news. Like everyone he knew he’d voted for Ronald Reagan. Reasons behind things didn’t engage him as things-in-themselves engaged him. You’re a cop, you follow orders.