Barely Legal

46

The first cops through the door were uniformed officers responding to a domestic disturbance call. The doorman hadn’t heard anything, and no one had complained to him, but he rang the apartment and got no answer, so the cops went up to check it out.

They were surprised to find the door open. The rookie cop was about to barge right in, but his partner stopped him. She was an old-timer and attached to protocol. She rapped loudly on the door, yelling into the apartment, “Police!”

When they were met with silence, she pulled her service weapon and eased through the door sideways, gun up.

Her partner followed, smirking at her for drawing her gun in a Park Avenue penthouse.

He got quite a shock when they reached the bedroom.

Herbie didn’t move. He stayed exactly as Carlo had posed him, breathing shallowly, the gun still in his hand.

Yvette didn’t move, either, but she wasn’t going to.

That was all the cops needed to see. The naked tableau told the story.

The rookie reached his hand out for the gun.

“Don’t touch that!”

He looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”

“It’s a crime scene. Don’t contaminate it.”

“The guy’s alive. You gonna let him keep the gun?”

“No, and I’m not going to touch it, either.”

She whipped a handkerchief out of her pocket and lifted the gun gently from Herbie’s fingers. She set the gun on the dresser, out of Herbie’s reach. “Cuff him. I’ll call it in.”

“Cuff him? He’s out cold.”

“Okay, I’ll cuff him and you call it in.”

The rookie made the call. “Got a homicide here. Husband in custody, wife DOA. Domestic disturbance gone bad.” He hung up to find his partner smirking at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Domestic disturbance gone bad?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Like a domestic disturbance could be good.”

Herbie was barely stirring when the detectives from the crime scene unit arrived. He was in their way, so they let the patrol officers run him in. With little help from their stumbling, incoherent suspect, they dressed him in sweats and running shoes and took him out to the car. They borrowed a gurney from the EMTs so they wouldn’t have to carry him.

They took him downtown and booked him for murder, which ordinarily would have earned him a chat with an ADA, but he was still too out of it to be Mirandized. He’d have to sleep it off. So they did what they always do with prisoners in his condition.

They threw him in the drunk tank.