The Best American Mystery Stories 2015

Eric Rutter The shot From Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Barbara 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.

She said, “If you had been told to shoot Mr. Guinness that day, could you have done it?”

Keith answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

She could see he believed it.

She said, “So this woman, April Ozga... Did you ever see her again?”

Yes. I went to her house a couple days later. That was as long as I could make myself wait. I knew it was wrong. Maybe not against department policy, technically, since with Guinness dead the case was closed, so I didn’t have to worry about tainting a witness or anything like that. But I knew going to see her was... just wrong. But I couldn’t help myself.

The address she’d given us was in Bay Heights. I went there on a Saturday, figuring she’d be home, but when I found the address I started to worry. It was a house, not an apartment. A nice house too, way nicer than a woman in her mid-twenties should be able to afford. I started to worry that maybe she was married even though she didn’t wear a ring. I realized then I didn’t actually know anything about her. She could be a lesbian, for God’s sake. If she wasn’t, she pretty much had to have a boyfriend, as beautiful as she was. But I got out of my car anyway and walked up to the door. It seemed to take forever for someone to answer when I rang the bell.

The man who did looked old enough to be her father. He said, “Yes?”

I said, “Hi. I’m Officer O’Donnell, Metro-Dade Police. Is April Ozga here?”

“Oh. Sure. Come in. Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” I said, stepping in. The living room was filled with furniture that looked like it was pretty old. That is to say, it wasn’t new and expensive stuff like a young person with money might buy, or really beat-up hand-me-downs like you’d expect for a young person who blew everything they had on the mortgage. I saw some family photos on the walls. They included pictures of this guy who’d let me in, looking younger, and a couple of dark-haired girls. One of them looked like she might have been April at about ten or twelve years old.

The man said, “You’re here about Thursday.”

I said, “Yes.”

“Thank God she’s all right.”

“Yes.”

“Sit down. I’ll go get her.”

I nodded, although I wasn’t going to sit down — I was too nervous. But a woman came in just as the man turned to leave the room. She had to be his wife, April’s mother. He explained to her who I was, then went as far as the bottom of the steps to yell April’s name up them. It was so much like I remembered from when I was a teenager, going to pick up dates, I almost laughed. Her mother came over to me and gripped my hand. She didn’t shake it, she just held it with both of hers and gazed into my eyes with a look that said my being there reminded her of how scared she’d been on Thursday.

She said, “Nothing’s wrong, is it?”

I said, “No. Everything’s fine.”

She offered me something to eat or drink. In between the words I heard footsteps on the stairs. I turned toward them and watched April come into the room. Watched her pause, recognizing me.

Her father said, “This policeman’s here to see you.”

I said, “Keith O’Donnell.”

April said, “Yes, I remember.” She came toward me slowly, stopped a fair distance away.

Her parents turned to look at me then. Everybody stood there, waiting for me to say something.

I said, “How have you been?”

April said, “Fine. All right, I guess.”

“I wanted to... see how you’re doing.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then her mother said, “That’s nice. It’s nice to see the police know she might be, you know, affected by what she went through.”

Her father said, “Sit down. You two can talk.”

April said, “Let’s talk outside. We can go for a walk.”

She headed for the door. Her mother made these cooing noises, encouraging us to stay, but her father said, “No, no. It’s all right. Give her some privacy.”

I nodded and smiled to them both and followed April outside.

She started up the sidewalk and I fell into step beside her, not knowing what to say. After a moment she said, “They mean well but...”

“They’re your parents?”

“Yeah. I had to move back in with them. I had an apartment, but my roommate lost her job. She couldn’t pay the rent, so she moved out. I couldn’t manage on my own, so I had to move back here.”

“Well, maybe it’s for the best. This way you weren’t living alone when Thursday happened. It’s good to be able to go home to someone who cares about you after something like that. Even a boyfriend wouldn’t have been the same if you don’t live with him.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend right now.”

I didn’t say anything, pleased as hell with myself for getting that information out of her so cleverly.

She made a sound. I looked over and saw she was crying.

“Oh!” I said. “I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive. You know the department has victim’s advocates you could talk to. They could help you work through this.”

She looked over at me, wiping her eyes. “I thought that’s what you were.”

“No, I’m a police sniper. I was there that day. I saw you through my rifle scope.”

At the time I couldn’t read her expression, but now I see that was the moment she realized what I was doing there.

I said, “Does that make you feel any better? To know I was watching over you?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. Finally she said, “That day is the scaredest I’ve ever been. I actually peed myself.”

“I’ve done that lots of times.”

She looked at me again, trying to see if I was kidding.

“Seriously. When I was in the Marines. You get set up on a target and sometimes you can’t move. I mean you can’t move at all or someone will shoot you. If you really gotta go, you just go.”

We walked in silence for a while.

Then she said, “Did you see the whole thing? Thursday?”

“Not the beginning. We got there at nine-ten.”

“But you saw the end?”

“No. The other sniper was on station then. I’d just stepped out into the hall.”

“I saw him do it. Kill himself, I mean. I didn’t see him shoot Martin but I saw him put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. All that blood. I was looking at him then. I saw the look in his eyes right before he did it. He realized he didn’t have a choice.”

“He had a choice. Lots of choices. He made a couple of bad ones.”

She didn’t say anything.

I said, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

She said, “Thanks.”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“What should we talk about?”

“Anything you want.”

Again, I didn’t think of it then, but right there she could have turned around and gone home. She could have told me to get lost, told me what a scumbag I was for coming around like this, so soon after what happened. But she didn’t. We kept walking, and talking. We walked around the block five times.

“We started dating.”

From his expression and his tone of voice, Barbara knew the answer to her next question. But she asked it anyway. “Are you still seeing each other?”

“No.”

“When did you stop?”

“A couple weeks ago.”

She nodded, watching him. The sadness in his eyes was the first real emotion she’d seen from him. It wasn’t much, at that, but he obviously wasn’t very expressive. Most people fidgeted at least a little bit when describing stressful situations they’d been through, maybe tapping one foot or wringing their hands, but Keith had just sat there so far. Captain Smith said snipers needed to be able to remain perfectly still for long periods of time. They also had to be intelligent and observant and extraordinarily patient. Keith seemed to have all those attributes.

She said, “So around this time, did you keep having trouble concentrating at work?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh, I started seeing targets differently.”

My first sniping assignment after the Guinness case was providing cover for an undercover narcotics officer. He was going to make a buy off a drug dealer in West Miami, back in this industrial area. I was set up on the third floor of an old factory 175 yards away. This was like eleven o’clock at night. Dean was there with me, sweeping the area with night-vision binoculars, but I had my regular scope. The buy was supposed to happen in an open space that was lit with streetlights. I could see just fine. I could see the dealer. He was there before our guy, standing there waiting around. Dean and I joked about that. This guy was supposed to be a big shot, that’s why Narcotics targeted him, but big shots don’t show up early and then stand around waiting. They sure don’t stand around lit up like that, so anyone can see them. We figured this guy was either a small fry who’d been sent there by his boss or he’d just recently jumped up the ranks. If he’d been promoted, at this rate he wasn’t going to stay on top very long.

Dean and I both had headsets on. We were listening to the task force we’d been loaned to arguing about whether they could send their guy out to meet the dealer early without looking suspicious. It was while I was waiting for them to make up their minds that I started noticing things about the dealer. He didn’t look nervous exactly, but he looked, you know... uncertain. Like he really was some low-level guy who wasn’t sure what he was doing yet. I could see his expression clear as day. It made me think of April and the look on her face a couple weeks before.

It bothered me. It worried me. I felt like I could feel how vulnerable this guy was, standing there not knowing I had him in my sights. Snipers can’t afford to do that. They make sure you don’t think that way when you’re in school. That’s why they have you put your sights on real people sometimes, not just bull’s-eyes. I never had a problem with it before. In Iraq most of the targets I took out didn’t know I was there, and some of them were unarmed. I watched some of them for a long time, hours maybe, waiting to get the right shot. I watched one guy for days. That whole time, with all of them, they looked like they were so close I might have been standing right next to them. You get to know somebody’s habits when you watch them like that. You see their mannerisms, you get to know their personalities to some degree. And the whole time you have their life in your hands, right up until the moment when you take it. But it never bothered me.

It was bothering me now. I watched the dealer look up and down the road between the buildings, cross his arms and uncross them, lick his lips and then lick them again like his mouth was dry. I told myself to get over it. This guy was a criminal. He was there to sell drugs. He probably had a gun tucked in his waistband under his shirt. But it didn’t matter. I could feel the power I had over him and it gave me a weird sort of itch between my shoulder blades.

Maybe it didn’t help that the task force was arguing about whether this might be a trap. The dealer looked so clueless, they thought he might be some pissant whose bosses sent him out there as bait. Dean was checking every alley mouth and window for signs of an ambush, but he didn’t see any. Still, we agreed I had to be ready to drop this guy in a heartbeat.

So I kept the crosshairs trained on him. The task force finally decided to send their man out, so I listened to the supervisor giving him last-minute instructions. I listened with half an ear, since now I was thinking about April’s parents, the look in her mother’s eyes when the sight of me made her remember how scared she’d been for April. I wondered if somebody somewhere was worrying about this dealer. I wondered if he had any kids. When I tried to imagine pulling the trigger on him, it made me feel sort of weak and sick.

It turns out I never had to take the shot. The undercover went out there and made the buy and there wasn’t any trouble. The dealer never pulled a gun and no one else ever came out of the shadows. And we got the whole conversation on tape. The task force was happy. I wasn’t. I was relieved I didn’t have to shoot the guy, and when I realized that, I was scared.

Over the next six months, I had I don’t know how many other sniping assignments. I don’t get that many. It must have been June before I had someone in my sights again. During that time I was mostly providing cover for raids on crack houses, watching the windows while the team went in the front door. A couple of times I saw suspects come out windows and make a break for it, but none of them started shooting at the team, so I didn’t have to take them out. I could have done it, though. I’m sure of that. I’d worry about it while I was sitting there staring at the house — I’d worry that I would start to worry, and that would get me going — but when someone popped out a window I snapped into focus. I’m sure I wouldn’t have hesitated if any of them had pulled a gun. I’m sure of it now and I was sure of it then too, and that made me feel better, since I started to think that if it was a different story shooting someone who was shooting at my guys, then I probably could have shot that dealer after all, since that’s the only reason I would have been told to. At least that’s how I figured it. After a while I changed my mind, or realized I was wrong in the first place. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t shoot a target unless they were dangerous, it was watching their every move that bothered me, getting to know them, and then putting a bullet through their head.

By September I wasn’t sure I could do that anymore.

Barbara said, “Did you tell anyone?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Keith shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Finally, some sign they were getting somewhere.

“Well,” he said, “like I said, I didn’t really think it was a problem until September. Probably late September. That’s only, what, five, six weeks ago.”

“But those were five or six weeks you weren’t sure you could do your job.”

“Well, I only got like three assignments during that time.”

“Still, what if you’d found yourself in a situation where you were told to take the shot? Did you have a plan for that?”

“No.”

“So what happened yesterday...”

“That wasn’t planned.”

She didn’t say anything, watching him.

Eventually the silence became too much for him. He said, “Most of those weeks were when things were going bad with April. That’s part of this. I don’t know how, but...”

He trailed off.

For a moment Barbara didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure what April had to do with this, but he obviously needed to talk about her.

So she said, “Tell me about your relationship with her.”

She moved in four weeks after our first date. So I guess you could say things were going good. I guess she wouldn’t have moved in if she hadn’t been living at home, but there weren’t any problems once she did. We still got along great. She cooked every night I was home and insisted on chipping in with the bills even though I said she didn’t have to. She never complained about my hours and she didn’t worry about me getting shot, or if she did she didn’t show it. Living with her was easy. I loved it.

I loved her.

That lasted... oh, I don’t know how long. When I look back now, I’m not sure when the trouble started. I think of times when she seemed happy and I wonder if she really was. But I think what happened is, the trouble started when I met her friend Cory.

We met him and his wife for dinner at a restaurant. I got the feeling he didn’t like me right away. There was something in his eyes when April introduced us. I don’t know if he has some secret crush on her, or maybe it’s a protective older-brother kind of thing; he’s like fifteen years older than her. He was in the army, although I didn’t know that till he said so. Maybe he knew I was a Marine and that was the reason he acted like he did.

Actually, the way he acted, April might have told him I was a sniper in Iraq. When he asked if I was there, and what I did, he didn’t look surprised when I told him.

He said, “I was there too, back in ’ninety-one. Twenty-fourth Infantry. Right out in front.”

And then he just sort of looked at me, glaring at me.

I said, “Hot as hell there.”

He said, “You got that right.”

There was some more silence.

The girls seemed to get that something was going on between us. Cory’s wife, Jessica, broke in and said to me, “You’re a policeman now, right? That’s how you two met.”

I said, “Yes.”

April smiled and said, “He fell in love with me through his rifle scope.”

Jessica rolled her eyes and smiled, loving it. “Oh my God. I’ve heard of love at first sight, but that’s awesome!”

Cory said, “I can’t believe there’s a lot of work for a police sniper.”

I said, “There isn’t. I’m on regular patrol most of the time.”

He nodded, looking like he had something else to say but he was keeping it to himself. I knew exactly what he had to say. That sort of made me regret answering his question. It felt like I’d tried to defend myself, even though I knew I hadn’t.

He and I didn’t talk to each other much during dinner. The girls chattered the whole time, acting like there weren’t any hard feelings between Cory and me. But afterward, when we were driving home, April asked me about it right away.

She said, “Was that an army thing? That vibe between you and Cory?”

I said, “Maybe. Sometimes guys who were in different branches of the service sort of look down their noses at each other. A rivalry kind of thing. But Cory’s deal probably has more to do with me being a sniper in Iraq.”

“Why?”

“Because he was general infantry. ‘Right out in front,’ you heard him say. That was a dig at snipers. We aren’t out in front, so we don’t get shot at as much.”

“You don’t?”

“Not like them. We stay hidden. That’s the whole point of sniping — not being seen. Taking out the target and no one even knowing where the bullet came from.”

April was confused. “So... what? He thinks he’s braver than you?”

“I don’t know if that’s it. It’s more like general infantry thinks it’s not fair that we don’t take the same risks as them. We take other risks, but they don’t think about that. And they think it’s wrong somehow, the way we sneak up on the enemy and take them out. It’s not sporting.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s how they think.”

She didn’t ask me about it again for... it must have been a month. Then one night we were lying in bed and she said out of the blue, “What was it like being a sniper in Iraq?”

I said, “I already told you about that.” Meaning the little bit I’d said driving home from the restaurant that night. We hadn’t talked about it before or since.

She said, “You weren’t very specific.”

“Well, it’s sort of like hunting.”

“Only hunting people.”

“Yeah.”

She fell quiet. I lay there in the dark, wondering if she was going to ask for more details. I hoped she wouldn’t.

Then she said, “Were they shooting at you, the people you shot?”

“Some of them.”

“But not all.”

“They all would have, if they could have.”

“The ones who couldn’t... is it because they didn’t have guns?”

I turned my head toward her in the darkness. “Why do you want to know about this stuff?”

“I just want to understand what it was like for you there.”

“It was hot. And dirty. And dangerous. A lot of people died. But the media didn’t get it right. The Iraqis didn’t hate us as much as the news made it sound.”

“So you were shooting regular soldiers?”

“There weren’t any regular soldiers. Not like you’re thinking of, guys with colored uniforms that are easy to spot. These were insurgents. And yes, most of my targets had guns. Once in a blue moon we’d go out looking for a high-value target, some big terrorist leader. I got a couple of those. They didn’t have guns in their hands when I got them, but they probably had a pistol on them somewhere, and if they didn’t you can be sure they had an AK-47 in the next room.”

“Is it hard shooting someone like that? I mean when you have time to think about it, not just in the heat of the moment?”

Right then I knew where these questions were coming from. She’d been talking to Cory. He’d laid out the rank and file’s opinion of snipers for her.

I said, “You mean am I a cold-blooded bastard?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I wasn’t going to say anything more. But then I realized if I didn’t, she’d think a cold-blooded bastard was exactly what I was.

So I said, “All the worst things soldiers do happen in the heat of battle. Taking time to think is good, when you have time to do it. It keeps innocent people from getting killed.”

“So police snipers... Is doing it for the police the same as doing it in Iraq?”

“It’s easier. And not as many people have a problem with it. Criminals are the only people who get shot by police snipers. People don’t mind that so much. Especially since I’m never going to shoot anybody unless they’re an imminent danger to someone else.”

She stayed quiet, but I felt compelled to add, “Anyway, I’ve never had to shoot anyone yet. Hostage situations are so rare. Most of what I do is surveillance, watching the team do raids and providing security for visiting ambassadors, stuff like that.”

She never asked me about it again. But from then on I thought about it, that conversation, whenever she seemed a little quiet. I’d wonder if she was thinking about what I do and what kind of person it makes me. I’d wonder if Cory was talking to her about it, bad-mouthing me behind my back.

Then her grandmother died. It wasn’t quick. She was in the hospital for a while. So there were trips to see her, and visits to April’s parents’ house. And then the last trip to the hospital, and the funeral and everything. I went with April to all of them. Well, I guess I missed a few, because of work, but I went along when I could. And I was there for her at home. I held her a couple of times when she cried. I was extra-nice to her, like you are with people who just lost someone. I thought I did a good job. I thought I was being supportive.

But then, a few days after the funeral, April started crying again, so I tried to hug her, but she pushed me away.

She said, “Don’t.”

I said, “What’s wrong?”

She wouldn’t answer me.

I said, “Are you mad at me or something?”

Again, she wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t even look at me.

I had to ask a couple more times, but finally she said, “You can’t help me with this.”

I said, “Well, I guess that’s right. Nobody can help, really. Only time will make it better.”

She said, “No, I mean you can’t help.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t know how this feels.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant. I didn’t know exactly what kind of relationship she’d had with her grandmother, but I’ve lost grandparents too, and other relatives. I tried to tell her that, carefully, trying hard not to be insensitive.

But she said, “No, I mean no one who kills people for a living can really know how this feels.”

I was floored. “What are you talking about?”

“If you’d ever felt this way, you wouldn’t be able to do your job.”

It was everything I’d been afraid of. And somehow it made me mad.

I said, “So you think I’m a robot? I never grieved for anyone? I’m not capable of it?”

She just looked at me and said, “I don’t know what you feel. But it can’t be like normal people.”

I couldn’t talk after that. I couldn’t make words come out. The worst of it was, she wasn’t mad. She was just sort of cold. Closed off.

We talked about it some more later that night, a little bit, but I don’t remember anything I said. I don’t think I made any sense, I was so upset. I know I didn’t say anything that had any effect on her. Nothing made a dent.

She moved out four days after that. Not back to her parents’ house. She already had an apartment lined up.

Barbara said, “Did she give you a reason?”

“Lots of them. She had a whole list. We were two different people, that’s the main one I remember.”

The look in his eyes showed that he was in fact capable of feeling grief. Barbara said, “I’m sorry. Did you ever live with a girlfriend before her?”

“No.”

Barbara wasn’t surprised. His personnel file included his results from the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Inventory, which he’d been required to take when he joined the force. It showed he was introverted, cerebral, and extremely self-reliant. Just the qualities you wanted in a sniper, but not necessarily in a romantic partner. It would have been only natural if he’d had trouble getting along with his first live-in girlfriend.

She said, “Well, how did you cope with your relationship ending?”

“I don’t know. I just tried to work. Tried not to think about it. But in the end I couldn’t do either one.”

Gently Barbara said, “Tell me about what happened yesterday.”

I got the call while I was out on patrol. I got to the scene first, before Dean, so I picked a spot to set up in. It was in one of the offices of a car dealership across the street from the suspect. I had a clear shot out the window from there, straight at the side of the car the suspect was sitting in. It was only fifty yards away. The scope brought him so close I could see the pores on his face.

His name was Clarence Schappell. I remember thinking you wouldn’t expect someone named Clarence to ever do anything violent. His girlfriend’s name was Valerie. She was sitting in the front seat on the passenger side and he was sitting behind her, both of them facing front. Most of the time he kept the gun pointed at the back of her headrest, but sometimes he’d put it down. It was a heavy gun, a Smith & Wesson 686. That’s the big .357 Magnum, stainless steel with a six-inch barrel. It holds seven rounds, but one would be enough to kill Valerie, no question.

I got set up. It took Dean a long time to get there. I was on my own for probably an hour. And that whole time I’m worrying, the same old thoughts running through my head. But now it’s worse, because now I feel like I have answers to a lot of the old questions. I feel like I really do know this guy because of what he’s going through. You see, before I got there he was already on the phone with Barry. He told Barry he’s just trying to work some things out with his girlfriend. I can sure relate to that. I mean he’s gone way overboard, but I know just how he feels. A week or two ago I had moments when I fantasized about cornering April in a room somewhere, locking the door, and not letting her leave until she told me whether or not she ever really loved me, and why she did what she did. I didn’t do it, of course, but I felt like I knew what drove Clarence to do this.

And now there I am, and I’m going to have to shoot the guy. I can see it. He’s even more squirrelly than Guinness was. Whatever answers he was hoping to get from Valerie, she’s not giving them to him. Sergeant Erb can see it too, and everybody else. I can hear through my headset, people warning each other this guy’s going to lose it.

About five minutes after Dean gets there, Sergeant Erb asks me for a status report. He wants to know my state of readiness. That’s him giving me a heads-up, letting me know the next thing I get from him is going to be the green light.

So now I’m trying hard to find a way out. Which is ironic, because you can see Clarence isn’t even thinking about that, he’s so wrapped up in his conversation with Valerie. He’s looking more and more upset. I can’t think what to do. Things are getting so tense, Sergeant Erb tells Dean to go on station along with me. As Dean finishes unpacking his gear, I hear Sergeant Erb put the team on standby. Time is running out, fast.

Clarence is crying now. I watch him lift up the gun. He had it down out of sight, in his lap. Now he puts it to the back of Valerie’s headrest and cocks it with his thumb.

Sergeant Erb says, “O’Donnell, green light.”

I break out in a cold sweat. I’ve got one second to make a decision here. If I don’t shoot Clarence he’s going to kill Valerie, but I’m still hesitating. If I can’t shoot this guy in this situation, who can I shoot? But I still can’t make myself do it. But I can’t let Valerie die.

Clarence is holding the gun perfectly still, pressing it hard against the back of the headrest. I adjust my aim and squeeze the trigger.

My focus was too tight to see what happened. I just saw the gun jump out of my field of view. Or the hammer, to be more accurate. I back out my focus a little and I can see Clarence through the broken window. He’s staring down toward his lap. I didn’t know it in that moment but he still had the gun in his hand. When I shot the hammer off it, I didn’t knock the gun out of his hand. And by some stroke of luck he was clearheaded enough to see what I did and realize that meant the gun was useless. It’s a good thing, otherwise he might have pointed it at the team. They were rushing at him right then, with their own guns raised. They would have shot him in a heartbeat.

Barbara said, “Department policy is to shoot the suspect in that situation, not the gun.”

“I know it is.”

“Do you know why that’s the policy?”

“Because the objective is to eliminate the threat posed by the suspect. The only sure way to do that is to kill him, and kill him instantly. Just wounding him might make him pull the trigger out of reflex, or anger. And trying to shoot the gun out of his hand might make it go off too.”

Barbara nodded, straight-faced, as if she’d known any of that herself twenty-four hours ago. She couldn’t admit it, but her first reaction yesterday had been delight when she heard what Keith had done. Captain Smith needed to explain to her that disarming a suspect is the goal when the suspect is suicidal, but when they’re homicidal it’s a different story.

Keith said, “I just couldn’t put a bullet through his head.”

“From what I understand that was a tough shot, shooting the hammer. A small target, behind glass?”

“The bullets we use are big enough to go through glass without breaking up or changing trajectory. And there was no chance I’d miss. I’m too good a shot. If I can’t make that shot from fifty yards, I don’t have any business being a sniper.”

His lips twisted into a grimace. “Well,” he added, “I guess I don’t have any business being a sniper regardless. If you can’t take that shot...” He waved vaguely, then ran that hand through his hair, a gesture of helpless frustration. “Well, at least you can tell the brass I wasn’t hot-dogging it. I’m sure they’ll wish I was.”

“Do you still want to be a sniper?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Do you still want to be a police officer?”

Desperation flashed in his eyes. “Yes! But — Jesus! What if... what if I can’t take any shot? What if somebody pulls a gun, points it at my partner — or at me! — and I can’t shoot him?”

Barbara said soothingly, “We can examine that. I’m going to recommend we keep on meeting while you’re on suspension. We should meet two or three times a week. During those sessions we’re bound to get some idea what you’re capable of. If I think you can still fulfill all your responsibilities as a patrol officer, I’ll recommend you be returned to active duty — once the investigation into yesterday is finished. But understand, not everyone is capable of shooting a person. A lot of people couldn’t do it even if their life depended on it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“How can it change?” he cried, frustrated and angry. “For God’s sake, all the people I shot before! Why would it change now?”

“People change.”

She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him there was a reason why the military preferred eighteen-year-old recruits, boys who were so young they didn’t yet have fully developed consciences and higher reasoning faculties. But like so many other revelations, it would be better if her patient came to that realization himself.

Still, she could offer Keith some consolation.

She said, “Think of it this way. Whatever else happens, you saved Clarence’s life. And Valerie’s. You saved them both.”

He nodded, relaxing visibly.

Then he said, “You know, it’s like she cast a spell on me. April.”

“She might have been the catalyst for change, but she didn’t force change upon you. Remember, you worried about shooting that drug dealer before you and April ever talked about your job. Before you met Cory.”

Keith nodded, relaxing some more. He sighed. “Still, if I’m going to have all this trouble — if I’m going to lose my career and everything — you’d think I should at least get the girl.”

Barbara smiled wanly. You’ll get another one, she almost said. When you’re ready.

But she didn’t think hearing that would help him right now, so she didn’t say it.