Second Chance

Chapter 32

I HAD JUST ABOUT GOTTEN HOME when the distress call crackled in: “Available units, proceed to three oh three Seventh, near Townsend.”

1-0-6... officer in trouble.

I pulled my Explorer to the curb. Listened to the call.

EMS's to the scene, the district captain called in. The quick, urgent exchanges convinced me the situation was critical.

The hairs on my arms were standing up. It was an ambush, a long-distance shot. Like La Salle Heights. I threw my car in gear and executed a quick U-turn down Potrero, slamming onto Third Street and heading for downtown.

When I pulled up four blocks from Townsend and Seventh, bedlam reigned. Barricades of blue-and-whites, flashing lights, uniforms everywhere, radios crackling in the night.

I drove ahead, holding my police ID out the window; until I couldn't go any farther. Then I left my car and ran toward the center of the commotion. I grabbed the first patrolman I could find. “Who is it? Do you know?”

“Patrol cop,” he said. “Out of Central. Davidson.”

“Oh, shit... ” My heart sank. I felt nauseated. I knew Art Davidson. We had gone through the academy at the same time. He was a good cop, a good guy. Did it mean anything that I knew him?

Then a second wave of fear and nausea. Art Davidson was black.

I pushed my way through the crowd toward a run-down tenement where a ring of EMS trucks were parked. I ran into Chief of Detectives Sam Ryan coming out of the building, holding a radio to his ear.

I pulled him aside, “Sam, I heard it was Art Davidson. Any chance...?”

Ryan shook his head. “Chance? He was lured here, Lindsay. Rifle shot to the head. Single shot, we think. He's already been pronounced.”

I stood to the side, a whirring wail growing louder and louder inside my skull, as if some private, unknowable fear had revealed itself only to me. I was sure it was him.

Chimera. Murder number three. He only needed one shot this time.

I brandished my badge to the uniformed cops at the entrance and hurried into the run-down building. Some EMS techs were coming down the stairs. I kept going past them.

My legs felt heavy and I could hardly breathe.

On the third-floor landing, a uniformed cop barreled past me, shouting, “Coming down. Everybody get out of the way.”

A couple of medical techs appeared - and two more cops carrying a gurney. I couldn't turn my head away.

“Hold it here,” I said.

It was Davidson. His eyes still and open. A crimson dime-sized peephole above his right eye. Every nerve in my body seemed to go slack. I remembered that he had children. Did these murders have something to do with kids?

“Oh, Jesus, Art,” I whispered. I forced myself to study his body, the bullet wound. I finally touched the side of his forehead. “You can take him down now,” I said. Fuck.

I made my way to the next floor somehow. A crowd of angry plainclothesmen was gathered outside an open apartment. I saw Pete Starcher, an ex-homicide detective who worked with IAB, coming out.

I went up to him. “Pete, what the hell happened?”

Starcher had always had an edge for me. He was one of those cynical old-timers. - “You got business here, Lieutenant?”

“I knew Art Davidson. We went through school together.”

I didn't want to give him any inkling of why I was here.

Starcher sniffed, but he filled me in. The two patrolmen were responding to a 911 in the building. There was only this tape recorder there. It was all set up, orchestrated. “He was suckered. Some sonofabitch wanted to kill a cop.”

My body grew numb. I was sure it was him. “I'm going to look around.” Inside, it was just like Starcher had said. Spooky, weird, unreal. The living room was empty. Walls stripped of paint, and cracks in the plaster. As I wandered into the adjoining room, I froze. There was a pool of blood soaked into the floor; blood had splattered on the wall where the bullet had probably lodged. Poor Davidson. A portable tape deck sat on a folding chair in the center of the room.

I looked to the window, a hanging pane of splintered glass.

Suddenly everything was clear to me. There was a cold spot at the center of my chest.

I went to the open window. I leaned out, looked across the street. There was no sign of Chimera, or anybody But I knew... I knew because he had told me - the shot, the victim. He wanted us to know it was him.