“One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.”

Warrun’s feet landed one after another as his familiar, calming tune ran through his mind. He had to work a bit more than he would have liked to breathe normally. A building tension frayed his nerves as he approached the Captain’s office. The coming conversation would not be their usual exchange of professional words between a chief and his subordinate. It would be far more akin to a plea of forgiveness on Warrun’s part for being a little too forthcoming with his limited power as the First Officer. He had no right to be offering deals, and his credibility rested solely on his superior’s opinion. If Warrun didn’t sell the urgency of the deal well enough, punishment could very well come his way.

“One, two, three. One, two.”

The nervous man’s shoes squeaked to a halt unsatisfactory to his tempo as he came to the door separating him and his potential doom. He steadied himself with a deep breath, fighting the overwhelming urge to pull out a smoke in the middle of the crowded hallway. Warrun wasn’t a man given to anxiety, but the recent year had put him on edge. With his wife gone, he couldn’t afford to take as many risks as he did in his youth. He could almost remember the days when he would rush down perps with the bravery of a man invincible from a lack of other responsibilities. Now, the chances for gallantry and self sacrifice, the very acts on which Warrun had built his life and career, were the embodiment of an ever growing fear that haunted his heart day and night.

The casual observer might infer that his old age tamed him, that he had come to understand his own mortality. The thrill of a grand and noble life is so often undone by reality that many, if not most, would come to the same conclusion. Far fewer would have inferred the truth, and only Warrun truly understood himself. He had given up his fear of death many years ago. His life, in his estimation, was the purest dedication to the greatest good a man could achieve. Whether he lived or died, his life had belonged to the world. He’d given it freely in service and heavy handed care. For justice. For righteousness.

For order.

Now, however, such ideals took a backseat to something he had not expected. Something he would not have described as being given. Rather, it was stolen from him by a vile temptress who worked towards his undoing. His heavy hand had softened. His firm resolve had diminished. His ideals had long ago weakened. Gradually at first, though ever stronger as the years passed by, his purpose and directive were altered. The ideals he had dedicated his whole life to became secondary, a fleeting memory, to a whole new purpose. Where before he had fought for order for the sake of order because it was the good and righteous thing to do, now he fought for a whole new reason. A reason that took away from his ability to be an unbiased, distanced, and unshakable judge of society. A reason that caused him endless uneasiness every time he placed his hand on his gun. A reason that made him weep with fear for the uncertainty of what the day had in store.

For love.

What possible chance did the convictions of morality or idealism stand in the face of those two crystal blue eyes? How could he be brave for an entire world when he was the entire world for his little girl? How much of a man could he possibly me when all it took was a glance of those eyes and the thought that they should ever bare tears for him to cow him into submission of the fact that his life was not his own to give? What passerby could see him and know that he lived purely for another’s sake? Who could know that his life used to not matter to him at all until the day he first laid eyes on his rambunctious but pure Maria? Who in his dark and horrible world, so full of anger and violence, could understand that he did not love himself? Who could fathom that he’d only truly begun to love when his laboring wife had birthed him a purpose beyond idealism or self satisfaction?

Such was his fear, the constant burden of his life, as he raised his fist and struck the office door three times, “One, two, three.”

A stern voice from within echoed, “Enter.”

Warrun entered the large office with bookshelves bordering his left and right. Across the room, a figure hunched over a stack of papers in close contemplation. The broad desk on which the man worked was loaded with hundreds of files packed in manilla folders. He seemed almost bigger than life even as he was seated, a man among men. This seemed contradictory in light of the fact that he was not a large man. Rather, it was the sense of authority the man exuded that called attention to him when he entered the room and gave finality to anything he said.

The first officer stood ill at ease until the man raised his head and asked in a tone that reflected his position, “What can I do for you today, Warrun?”

Well aware that the use of his first name was not provocative of any familiar exchange, Warrun launched into his explanation, “I assume you’ve been briefed on Mr. Jack Vinetti?”

The Captain placed his pen on the desk and leaned into his high backed chair answering, “Yes. The man accused of killing his wife. What about him?”

“Well,” Warrun continued, “I need you to authorize a deal for him.”

The Captain’s stern expression suddenly became disgruntled as he silently demanded, “And just why would I be organizing a deal for Mr. Vinetti?”

The nervous man could almost grimace at the severity of his superior’s tone. “I need you to organize one because I offered him one.”

“You did what?!” the Captain shouted, standing from his chair with red fury. “Explain yourself this instant, Warrun. Nobody offers deals without my say so.”

Careful not to back down an inch, Warrun responded coolly, “Lt. Thompson discovered last night that Mr. Vinetti was a cocaine dealer back in Chicago over a year ago. I am under the firm belief that he is now on the local net. The information he has will become much less valuable if we waste any time debating his credibility. I made him an offer to prompt him to confess within the day.”

“Within the day?!” the Captain screamed on something bordering hysteria. “Why would you go off all half cocked, Warrun? You don’t make deals. I do! Do you realize that he can get off if I don’t approve this deal, and he confesses?”

With a curt nod, Warrun answered, “I was well aware of the risks. I felt they were reasonable at the time as I was speaking to him. I understand that I took too much of a liberty presuming to know what you would authorize. This is an oversight that will not happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again!” The Captain took a deep breath and calmed himself. After he’d regained his composure, he stated with deathly chill, “If you weren’t my best man, I’d fire you this instant. I will not tolerate this level of insubordination from anybody. We have a chain of command here that you would do well to respect.”

With a dignified voice that strived to overpower his rapidly beating heart, Warrun stated, “I will respect your command. I hope you realize I did this because I believed it was necessary.”

The Captain sat back down in his seat and signaled his first officer to sit down. As Warrun obliged, his superior answered, “I know you did, Warrun. You’ve been with this department a long time, a good deal longer than myself at least. I’ve learned to have some faith in your instincts. As firm as your roots may be though, I’m still in charge. I’ll allow you to cut a deal as long as it’s on my desk for approval by tonight. If anything like this happens again, I won’t be so kind.”

Relieved beyond words, Warrun merely nodded. After a moment, he asked, “Is there a reason you had me sit down, sir?”

The Captain returned with his own nod and said, “I heard you got called into a scene last night. Nobody seemed to know much of anything beyond that aside from there seemed to be a domestic disturbance. May I ask what happened?”

Warrun couldn’t help but avert his eyes as the conversation suddenly turned from the freezer to the frying pan. The Captain was not going to like his report, no matter how necessary it was. With hushed words, he explained, “I got called in by Lt. Thompson after he investigated the scene. He wanted my personal opinion on some evidence he found.”

“Evidence of what?” the Captain queried.

Feeling like a mouse, Warrun answered, “We believe the Devil was there.”

Warrun’s superior responded to the news by burying his face in his palm and stating with resignation, “You’re never going to let this phantom go, are you?”

“With respect, sir,” Warrun muttered with some indignation, “he’s not a phantom.”

With clear frustration, his Captain countered, “You’re right. He’s your God damned imagination running after you.”

“Sir!”

“How many years have you been doing this to yourself, Warrun?” With a slam of his fist against his desk, he declared, “You’ve got to stop chasing this conspiracy creature you’ve imagined.”

Flush with anger, the first officer responded, “I did not imagine him. He’s real, and he’s out there right this instant ruining the lives of the men and women he meets every day.”

“He’s not real.”

“But you’ve seen the pictures! You’ve seen the footage!” He climbed from his seat. “You’ve seen what he’s done!”

With a calm voice, his superior answered, “What I have seen is inconclusive. All of it. I’ve seen men that look similar, but aren’t necessarily the same. I’ve read names that are never the same. I’ve seen events take place that are too big to be one man. Indeed, they would be incredible feats for groups of men working together. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts worth about as much as a four year old’s opinion.”

Veins bulging in anger, Warrun cried, “But sir. You can’t just think all those things are coincidences. None of it makes any sense if it’s not the same man.”

“None of it would make any sense if it was!” the Captain countered. “Every time you point the finger at him for some crime, we turn up nothing and nobody. Leads go nowhere and the case grows cold. Then you spend valuable department time and money chasing down your phantom only to turn up nothing. Not even crime lords run on twenty year hot streaks without producing a name.”

“But we’re close this time!” Warrun countered. “We found his jacket at the scene. It could lead us back to him, and we could catch him once and for all.”

“There is no once and for all with you, Warrun. You think you’re close every time you think you’ve found something he’s done. Every nook and cranny is a hiding spot for him, just waiting for your imagination to turn over and find nothing but more clues. He’s not real!”

“Why would I make him up?” Warrun demanded.

“Because he’s the solution to your ignorance,” the Captain continued to explain calmly. “It’s like when people didn’t understand how weather worked, and they invented gods to explain why it rained and snowed. Every time we come to a crime you know you can’t solve, you mentally twist the crime into some amalgamation perpetrated by some man who is evil and doesn’t have a name. For God’s sake, you call him the Devil. How much more imaginary do you need him to be before you realize you’re chasing a shadow of your own psyche?”

The first officer stiffened at the question and turned away, preventing himself from retorting in violence. His mouth clamped shut and his fingers tightened into fists. His steaming was interrupted by a firm voice behind him stating, “I will not allow you to pursue your dream any longer. I’m calling off any investigation you may have authorized. Do you understand?”

Biting his tongue, he answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

“May I leave, sir?”

“Not yet.” The Captain stood from his seat and rounded his desk. He placed a strong hand on his inferior’s tensed shoulder and said with the comforting strength of a father to a son, “You are the best of men, Warrun. This place wouldn’t be what it is today without you. You had such passion not so many years ago. We could use some more of that. We just can’t afford to have it when chasing ghosts. Even if we caught this man, we have nothing on him that’s conclusive enough to put him away. I don’t want to lose you because of the hate you have for him.”

Warrun closed his eyes and absorbed the words for a moment. His anger deflated slightly as the truth of what his Captain said stood unquestionable. Even if they did catch this man, this Devil, they would be hard pressed to put him away on the grounds of circumstantial evidence, no matter how much of it there was. In that regard at least, Warrun had no real argument to put forward. His frustration maintained firm ground in the fact that he knew he wasn’t imagining a creature. He was being eluded by a monster, he and every single officer of the law around him. Convicted as he may be, probably nothing was going to change unless the Devil did something truly illegal, and they caught him in the act. With his feet pointing towards the end of his life rather than the beginning, that possibility seemed to grow dimmer with each passing year.

Warrun sighed with a heavy heart and nodded despairingly. Without another word, he stepped away from his Captain and exited the office, shutting the door softly in his wake.

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Warrun strummed his fingers in time with the beat of his signature sonata. Again, as it did that same morning and every morning previous, the music rolled softly and sweetly through the confines of the vehicle, banishing the din of the traffic outside. It was unusual that the familiar tune should play when the sun was nearing its zenith, but the day had been upsetting for the man who lived the law. There were few things he took as certainty in his world. In fact, his soul for the last several years had rested firmly on three different resolves; the love of his daughter, the importance of his work, and the undeniable evil of the Devil.

Now however, two of his three greatest resolves were challenged in a single statement. The last several hours had been spent with his nose in his paperwork so as to not burden himself with the uneasy implications of what his superior had told him. Unfortunately, as the city streets rolled by and the music permeated him, Warrun found he could not find reprieve of the mental tremors running through him. He tried his best not to think or wonder. His own thoughts terrified him. Try as he might, they came with fury.

“Could the Captain be right?”

Warrun shook his head suddenly, trying to banish the thoughts even as they came. The deed came to no avail as they continued to beckon, “Is this man really doing all of the things I believe he did? Is he really the monster I have made him out to be?” He grimaced as one frightful thought stung him like a needle, “Is he even real?”

A sharp right brought him into the lowest level of a parking garage outside the Lenox Hill Hospital. His mind continued to tug at him as he drove up multiple stories, “He has to be real. He can’t not be real. I’ve seen his face too many times in too many situations for him not to be the one.” He pulled his car into a spot on the third level, “But what if the Captain’s right about the futility of chasing him? Even if I caught him, there’s a good chance he’d just walk. Just like there’s a chance Vinetti could walk if he fights this hard enough. With a really good lawyer, anything’s possible.”

The first officer left the parking garage behind and entered the sterile smelling, gauze white interior of the building. His entrance drew eyes from nurses, patients, and visitors as he approached the receptionist’s desk. The attentive gazes were something Warrun had ceased to notice many years ago. A woman in her late thirties with her hair tied back in a bun smiled expectantly and asked, “Hello. May I help you?”

Warrun returned with a similarly cordial smile and said, “I’m looking for a patient that was admitted to the emergency ward yesterday. He came in from an auto accident. A Mr. Jobo DeCosta.”

The lady turned her eyes to one of the thick monitors on her desk and said, “Mr. DeCosta is in Ward B, room 205. If you take the elevator down the hall there to the second floor, his room will be on your right.”

“Thank you.” Warrun leaned closer and lowered his voice a bit asking, “Would you happen to know which doctor is on duty for that ward?”

The question caused a twinkle of recognition to rise in the receptionist’s eyes as her smile dimmed, and she studied the officer more attentively. She answered, “Of course. Dr. Slavinski is working the trauma ward at B. Do you need to speak with her?”

Warrun nodded and explained, “Yes, actually. I understand that Mr. DeCosta is in stable sedation. I’m here to question him as to the cause of the accident he was in.”

The nurse nodded and picked up her phone saying, “I will have Dr. Slavinski meet you in Mr. DeCosta’s room.”

The first officer nodded his thanks and proceeded down the hall. His mind could not help but chant, “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.” In a fairly unprofessional manner, he let his gaze drift to the floor and set his stride so as to not step on the cracks. Because, of course, to step on the cracks would be to slip between them into some infernal abyss below where the foolish men and women who refused to watch their feet landed. Such machinations were often the sign of an unentertained mind. In Warrun’s case, they were a personal attempt to cease worrying. It was best not to seem worried. After all, it wasn’t every day he got to meet his little sister.

His mind drifted him up the elevator and into Ward B before he even had a chance to prepare himself. He stopped in the doorway of room 205, coming face to face with, or more appropriately chin to forehead, with a petite, blonde woman in a long white coat. The pair collided with an initial show of embarrassment before recognition brought them together in a tender embrace. Warrun’s worry flooded from him to be replaced with an immense smile. His immediate joy got the better of him, and he lifted the woman off the ground and began shaking her left and right like a rag doll. What probably should have been countered by severe chagrin was given the benefit of snorting laughter as the woman cried, “Stop it, Warrun! I’m working!”

Warrun’s own laughter echoed a little louder as the woman in his arms slapped both her hands against his face and pushed away. Demeanor broadened with a toothy grin, Warrun begged excitedly, “How have you been, Alexis? It’s been too God damned long.”

Straightening out her jacket, Alexis answered, “I’m not sure. Months now I think, not since the funeral. You didn’t tell me you were coming to visit. How did you know my shift?”

The officer’s smile receded the slightest bit as he explained, “I didn’t. I’m actually here for work.”

His sister’s smile dwindled into a sad frown as she muttered, “I was afraid of that. Are you in a big hurry to talk to Mr. DeCosta?”

“No, actually,” Warrun answered as he beckoned Alexis to enter the room and closed the door behind him, “if you have a few moments, I would really love to catch up. We shouldn’t be apart all the time when things have been so rough this past year.”

Alexis nodded sadly and took a seat in one of the visitor’s chairs. Warrun sat with her as she agreed, “I know. I’m really sorry about that. It’s just that working and raising a kid alone, well, you know how it is. How is Maria holding up?”

Warrun sighed and said with a touch of remorse, “She still cries. I was really hoping it wouldn’t affect her as hard as it has. She wouldn’t even sleep alone for the first few weeks. She has dreams about the robbery all the time. It’s gotten a little better though. I took her therapist’s advice and got her a little guardian angel.”

“Guardian angel?” his sister beckoned.

He countered with a sad smile and explain, “Her mother got it for her right before she died. It’s a little stuffed owl. The therapist said a stuffed animal would help a lot with coping. I told Maria that it would keep her safe at night and help her remember Mommy.”

“Is it working?”

Warrun’s smile brightened as he answered, “I’m really hoping so. I think she’s made some progress with it. She slept without it last night.”

“That’s good.” The doctor took her brother’s hands in her own and asked solemnly, “How are you holding up?”

The officer of the law closed his eyes and hung his head. With a heavy heart, he answered, “Not as well as I’d hoped. It’s not easy without her. I never realized just how much I relied on her until she was gone. I don’t just mean for the practical, physical things like helping around the house or taking care of me and Maria.” Moisture peeped through his closed lids, hidden from his sister’s view, as he went on, “I miss just looking at her. I swear to God, all she had to do was smirk at me in the morning, and I would just know that the day was going to work out. I would just know that, no matter what happened, I would be okay. And no matter how many horrors I faced, I would come home at the end of the day, and she would be there waiting for me with a smile.”

In sympathy fueled by familial love and mutual understanding, she wrapped her arms around Warrun’s neck and hugged his head to her bosom. His tears seeped into her gauze white gown as her own tears fell into his own well kempt, blonde hair. Their discourse was broken in sadness and pain. A multitude of machines hummed and beeped in the background, the ambiance of loss. A far rarer thing it is now, not to die in a hospital bed. People rarely seem to have the joy of a sudden death. Like the wife of Warrun and the husband of Alexis, men and women usually get to suffer tragedy just long enough to link sad endings to hospital beds.

Though not all hospital beds bear sad endings. Some bear sad beginnings. A child born into massive debt and poverty. A diabetic waking up to find a missing foot. A woman with cancer coming out of a surgery to discover the operation had been unsuccessful. Sometimes the new beginnings are so sad that a sad ending would have been preferable. Warrun’s mind buzzed with such thoughts as his tears subsided, a weakness secondary to his purpose. He was here to see to the revelation of one such beginning. As tender as that moment was, it was only a moment between moments. The moment before was filled with fear and despair. The moment after would be filled with remorse and reality. The moment needed to end, as all moments do.

Warrun lifted his head out of his sister’s arms and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. As Alexis did likewise, he asked, “What exactly is the condition of Mr. DeCosta?”

Alexis gave a weak smile, sad to see the moment end, and walked over to the foot of the bed in the center of the room. She absently read the conditions and stated with a coldness that reflected her work ethic, “Aside from superficial lesions and a significant concussion, the crash displaced two lumbar vertebrae and severed his spinal cord. He is well enough to come out of sedation, but there is little to no chance of him ever walking again.”

The officer cringed slightly at the thought and begged, “Are all of the other victims doing okay?”

The doctor shook her head and said with a note of melancholy, “No. Two more died last night, and I don’t have much hope for a third. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen the ER flooded with so many people so quickly. Not since 2001 I think.”

Her brother sighed and came to stand next to her. He looked down at the mess of a man in the bed. Mr. DeCosta’s left arm was dangling in a sling and held straight in a cast. Dove white gauze covered most of his face and head while the top bar of a large brace stretched across his torso showed over the collar of the dull green gown he wore. A number of tubes ran into his barren right arm, pumping him with nutrition and pain killers. There was very little to see of his face aside from a single closed eye and a large, exotic pair of lips.

Warrun turned from the bed ridden shadow and stated matter of factly, “He had hair last time I saw him.”

His sister nodded and explained, “His concussion called for an invasive pressure relief operation. If nothing else, we believe that went well. He shouldn’t be suffering from any brain damage, but there’s always a possibility. If you’re here to interview him about what happened, you might be disappointed. Accidents like this tend to skew events right beforehand, if not completely undo the memories altogether.”

Warrun bit his lip and sighed again. “I was afraid of that. If he’s the only witness to what happened before the crash that we can find, then there’ll be no getting to the bottom of this. Even if he tells the truth of what happened, the smallest possibility of brain damage will make his testimony invalid. He won’t be able to do much to help or incriminate himself.”

His sister tightened her brow and asked, “Should you do the questioning at all then? I can bring him out, but if it’s a waste of time then I’d prefer to leave him to rest. It’ll be a couple nights before we can even start talking to him about rehabilitation. Emergency case though he may be, his insurance doesn’t cover much in the way of long hospital stays or complicated surgeries.”

“Yes.” The first officer rounded the bed and bent his face close to the Jamaican man’s dark hued cheek and said, “I’m already here, and we need his testimony in any case.” Close up as he was, Warrun noticed a frown twitching on the man’s face. Curious, he wondered, “Is he in pain?”

Alexis frowned and explained, “Yes, actually. The poor man is allergic to oxycodone and most of its delineations. The best we could give him was some methylated morphine. If I wake him up, he will be in pain. That will be the case for a long while though. He’ll probably have to live the rest of his life with it. Not to mention he will most likely become addicted to the substitute painkillers we’re giving him. I suppose that would be another strike against his testimony.”

Silence ruled for a few seconds as the pair looked at the bandaged man. With a little hesitancy, Alexis whispered, “Do you think he’ll go to prison?”

“It’s hard to say.” Warrun’s eyes drifted from the sleeping form to a green screen showing the man’s vital signs. “One death in a mutual accident can usually go clear if no substances were involved. No drugs came into play here, but there’s, what, ten people dead? Unless he has a damn good reason for what happened and can prove it outside of his sole testimony, he could very well be convicted of mass manslaughter. Be that as it may, I imagine the worst he’d get is a couple decades in a minimum security hospital prison. Would probably be a cushy life for him after the tragedy he’s caused.” As an afterthought, he asked, “Has he had any visitors?”

The doctor reattached the clipboard to the foot of the bed and answered, “No, but I’ve received a phonecall from his mother. Apparently, she’s flying all the way up from Jamaica tonight to come take care of him. Are you going to question her too?”

The first officer shook his head and said, “Probably not unless she somehow becomes relevant. If she does then I’ll have someone else take care of her. For now, can you bring him out? I don’t mean to rush away like this, but I promised to meet my colleague for lunch in an hour, and I have no clue how long this will end up taking.”

With a firm nod, Alexis answered, “Less than an hour I would assume. We’ll see how much strength he has. I’ll be back in a few.” She turned from the bed and left the room, again closing the door behind her.

Next to the vegetable, Warrun was left in seclusion with his thoughts. “I wonder if he’s dreaming.” He lifted a finger and softly brushed the dark hued man’s one exposed cheek. “I hope it’s something nice if he is. Maybe he had a girl or fling or something. It would be nice to live in a dream for awhile. Some crazy or convoluted adventure that couldn’t really happen. A dream where everybody who ever made you happy are together in the same place at the same time even though they’ve never really met.

“How much fun it would be. To talk to those you have lost once more. To embrace that high school sweetheart that never worked out. To talk to that random stranger you saw once in the street and create a character for him from scratch. You could even just dream a wild and imaginary world, one where you could fly just by thinking or speak with animals and have them answer. What I wouldn’t give to slip into a permanent little sleep and give my existence over to that pleasant fairy tale.”

Warrun withdrew his finger from the man’s face and sighed again. He slid his hands into his pockets and hung his head wearily. His silent words echoed with such defeated resignation that Atlas himself would have slumped his shoulders even further in sympathy, “Too bad we can’t dream forever or live in fairy tales. Whether they’re good dreams or bad, we always wake up. We always have to open our eyes and greet our ugly world and make our living contributions to it. And, much like the dreams, we have to deal with the results of our contributions whether they were good or bad.”

The electronic beat of the man’s heart monitor echoed, “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.” In the silence, Warrun concluded, “It would have been better if you’d died.”

The first officer’s eyes opened as he heard the door open and shut behind him. He stepped away from the bed and watched as his sister’s firm, calculating hands pricked a syringe syringe into her patient’s arm and emptied its contents in a steady stream. When the last of the serum was dispensed, the doctor turned to Warrun and said, “He should be awake shortly. I have to get back to my rounds. There are just too many cases needing my attention at the moment. We really need to find a time when we can catch up more. Maybe we can arrange a playdate for the girls?”

Warrun smiled at the thought and answered with muted enthusiasm, “Of course. It’s been too long since I’ve seen little Samantha. How does this saturday afternoon sound? I have that time free with no call-ins.”

His smile was infectious. Alexis nodded eagerly and jumped into another hug. Warrun returned the favor as his sister whispered in his ear, “Never think twice about calling me. It’s no good to do this alone. We need each other, Warrun. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate, and I won’t either.”

The officer of the law did not respond with words as he feared cracking into more tears when he was just about to interrogate the man on the bed. Relishing the moment before it was gone, he let go and watched as she left the room. He took a deep, steadying breath to calm himself and turned back to find his subject’s one eye gazing up at him intently.

Taking immediate control of his emotions, Warrun set his face to an expression of neutral seriousness and began, “Good morning, Mr. DeCosta. My name is Officer Slavinski. I’ve had you awoken to ask you some questions. How are you feeling?”

Instead of answering, the man’s eye wandered around the white and green room. His thick lips were caught in a tight grimace as fear and pain began striking his senses. His arm tensed up, and he looked about ready to start flailing until Warrun slid his hand into the man’s grasp. Mr. DeCosta’s eye looked down at the gesture and his fear receded a little. He flared his nostrils and struggled to ask, “Where am I?”

With the pained man’s hand in his own, Warrun answered calmly, “You’re in an emergency ward of the Lexon Hill Hospital. You were in a very serious motor accident and have suffered a severe concussion.”

The dark brown eye squeezed shut, and he stated laboriously, “It hurts, mon.”

“Yes.” Warrun reached behind him and pulled up a chair to sit on. “You are allergic to most of the postoperative medications they offer. I know it hurts, but it’s the best that they can do. I know this is difficult for you, but it is important that you try your best to cooperate with me. I need to hear exactly what happened from your perspective before the crash. Do you think you can help me?”

The pain seemed to vanish from Mr. DeCosta’s face in an instant to be replaced by a look of horror. Warrun cringed to think that this could be news to him. If he didn’t remember the crash, then the entire investigation would most likely be a dud. The hysterical questioning that came next was not what the first officer was expecting, “Ay mon! Spanish Town! How be da flames, mon? Oh my gawd, mon! Me Mudder! Where is me Mudder, mon?”

Trying his best to calm the agitated man as the heart monitor began beeping in a frenzy, Warrun answered, “Your mother is fine. She’s fine. She’s on her way in a plane right now to see you. She should be in this evening. She’s fine. She’s alright.”

The answer struck home as a massive splash of relief. The Jamaican man rested his head against the pillow and muttered, “Oh thank gawd. Thank gawd me Mudder be okay. Ah was so worry, mon.”

Mr. DeCosta’s worry reeked of all the motive he was looking for. After he had given the man a moment to rest, Warrun pressed, “Is that why you crashed yesterday? Did it have something to do with your mother, Mr. DeCosta?”

“Ah jus be Jobo, mon. Mr. DeCosta was me Fodder.” He took a pained breath and explained through his discomfort, “But ja, mon. Ah heard me city of Spanish Town was up in flames. Me yank buddy from him sunny coast be telling me of da plane crash.”

The first officer bit his lip as he tried with difficulty to follow the thick accent. “Hold up a minute, Jobo. Are you saying you thought your mother died on a plane? Is that why you crashed?”

Jobo made a brief effort to shake his head before the realization of the pain stopped him. With gritted teeth, he explained, “No, mon. Me Mudder were not on de plane. She were in da city. Me Spanish Town be up in flames, mon. Did ya not hear?”

Warrun frowned and answered, “I’m sorry. I haven’t heard of any plane crash. Where is this Spanish Town? Is it your home in Jamaica?”

“Ja, mon.” Moisture rimmed his eye as he continued to mutter, “My gawd, mon. Me city burning without me ta help? Is so sad, mon. Ah’m jus glad me Mudder got out safe. Did she send any news ta me?”

Warrun furrowed his brow as he answered, “She didn’t say anything about the city being on fire. I was told she was on her way here because you got in the crash. When did you hear about your city?”

“Right before da crash me guess. Ah don remember da crash too good, but Ah remember me yank friend wat tol me. He was a good blood brit mon from Portmore on da sunny coast.”

Pulling a pad and pen from his chest pocket, Warrun prompted, “Can you tell me where you met this man? What his name was? Is he a good friend of yours?”

Jobo managed a tight smile as he answered, “Blood brit yank he be, but Ah don know is name. Ah pick him up past da Bronx uptown. He was an eagah mon to get to da Lombadee’s. On da way we make da talks an he tol me bout da tragedy.”

“About the fire?” Warrun interjected.

“Ja.”

The investigator penned the details down and pressed, “What was this lombadee place you were taking him to?”

Just managing to pucker his face in indignation, he answered, “Da Lombadee’s Pizza, mon. Is populah place, mon.”

“Really? Lombardi’s?” Warrun smiled to think some convenience had come his way. “I see. So, you brought him to Lombardi’s and dropped him off. Then what happened?”

The man gave a despairing frown and answered, “Ah’m not so sure, mon. Me mind was nere good. Ah took off ta get home an call me Mudder. Ah tink Ah miss da light an dat’s when Ah got hit.”

The first officer nodded and scratched the details down on his pad. Jobo watched him intently for a moment before again letting his eye wander to his form. With some struggle, he lifted his head and looked down at his body. He stared at his feet for a moment before resting his head back with a sigh. A tear seeped out of the corner of his eye as the Jamaican asked the question Warrun had been dreading, “Ah’m paralyze, aren’t Ah?”

Warrun swallowed, noting how dry his mouth had gone. He stopped writing and stated without letting his voice break, “Yes.”

“Will Ah walk again?”

“No.”

The silence that followed was again only interrupted by the beeps and hums of the many machines. Warrun waited expectantly for the man to react to the news. He had already braced himself for offering a comforting hand in case he should break down. He would not have blamed him. What life did he have left? Battered? Broken? In a foreign nation without any useful education or a skill beyond driving a car? Even that little skill, what little worth he had, was gone. “What does a man like him have left to do but cry or die?” Jobo’s answer was not the tears Warrun had expected.
“Me Fadder who art in heaven, hallowed be die name.”

“Is he?”

“Die kingdom come, die will be done, on Earth as tis in heaven.”

“He prays?”

“Give me dis day me daily bread an forgive me my trespasses as Ah forgive dem dat trespassed against me.”

“How can he?”

“An lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil. Amen.”

As Jobo finished, Warrun sat in awe. He almost could not believe what he’d heard. Though he knew it to be a forward gesture, he could not prevent himself for asking, “Why would you pray to God when He let this happen to you?”

The man opened his eye and flashed a smile that spoke of a serenity Warrun had not felt in himself for many years. It was calm and joyful beyond reason, like a beautiful spring day in the middle of a cold, harsh winter. Whether the look was of knowledge of ignorance, Warrun could not say. What he could say beyond a doubt was that he envied that misplaced smile as Jobo declared very simply, “Yer eyes be closed mon if ye have ta ask me why. You ask why Ah can pray when he has taken away? I ask you, mon. How can Ah not pray jus tinking dat Ah evah had so much given?”

Flustered, the officer begged, “What do you mean?”

Jobo hummed a deep and throaty chuckle. He flashed a toothy smile, revealing for the first time to Warrun that several were missing, and stated, “Yer like a child, mon. Ya see dat yer fodder took yer toy away an den hate him for it. A child sees only wat he want ta see. When da child grows up an becomes da man, he does not hate his fodder fer taking a toy. He does not because he sees dat his fodder gave da toy in da first place. Wat’s more, mon, he sees his fodder gave him his whole life before an after da toy.

“All tings are done through da Fodder, mon. He took me legs, ja. He took dem cause Ah was a child misbehaving. Even if He had no reason though, mon, Ah would see dem off glad. He gave me me life, me Mudder, da whole universe. Any bitchin be child bitchin. As dey say, da Lord giveth an da Lord taketh away. Jus like a child understand some tings but can’t understand all tings, so we may only begin to understand why God does as He does. Da only ting Ah can bring meself ta do is tank him fer caring to give me legs in da first place an a mouth to eithah bitch or praise him wit.”

The first officer sat back in his chair neither having an argument nor wanting to argue. He’d only wished to know why a man would praise God after losing so much. Warrun did not hate God, but his praises had ceased many years ago. They’d ceased when he’d killed his first man, and the Lord would not answer his plea as to why there should be death in the world. It seemed to him to be a far easier thing to hate God than to love Him. If God gives all good things, then he also gives all bad things too. What good is praising God when He has given you a terrible life? Are we then to praise him for ending it? It’s easy to say that the good outweighs the bad, but Warrun had seen too much of the bad to believe it to be the truth.

Dismissing his thoughts, the protector of the law leaned back forward and said, “Thank you very much for your time, Jobo DeCosta. There is only one more thing I need from you today.”

The man’s serene smile disappeared as a wince of pain shot through him. “Dat’s good, mon. I tink I be needin da rest for me Mudder.” The smile returned, “It’ll be good to see her again.”

Flipping to a new page of his notepad, Warrun asked, “I know you don’t have a name for the man who gave you the news, but could you describe him to me? I’m actually headed to Lombardi’s after this and would like to see if any of the staff recognize him. We may need to question him at some point.”

“Very good, mon. I can do. A good, handsome yank he be, dressed all fancy. He was a touch on da pale side. His skin was a little whiter dan yers is. Den he had brown hair pushed back all neat. His nose went straight an his lips was thin an pink. It was his eyes dat surprised me da most though. He had dese dark grey eyes like da living devil.”

The officer’s pen stopped moving. Warrun looked up from his notepad and stood from his seat. With sudden anxiety, he demanded, “Do you remember what was he wearing, Jobo? Did you see what he was wearing?”

Wide eyed, the man responded, “It’s okay, mon. It’s okay. Ah gave him a good look when he said he was from me homeland. He had a suit. I don know if it be black or dark brown.”

Almost shouting, Warrun pressed, “Did it have stripes?”

“What?”

“Did it have stripes?!”

Jobo closed his eye and tried his hardest to recall the scene. The first officer hung on the moment of tense anticipation, hearing the beeps and hums in the background, until the man before him opened his eye and said with no uncertainty, “Yes. Vertical pinstripes on his coat and pants. Why? Do ya know of dis man?”

Warrun’s legs lost their strength, and he collapsed back into the chair behind him. Jobo continued to look at him expectantly, but the officer gave him no answer. He instead reached into his belt and pulled out his flip phone. After holding down the number 2, he brought it up to his ear and awaited her familiar voice.

“What can I do for you, Officer Slavinski?”

With a sigh, he asked, “Could you do a quick search on all air traffic incidents over North America this past week, Sherry?”

“Can you be more specific, sir?”

“Plane crashes. Have there been any plane crashed reported in the last week, specifically in Jamaica.”

“Please hold on a minute while I check.”

From the bed, Jobo asked in confusion, “What do ya mean have dere been any crashes? I told ya dere was one.”

Again Warrun did not answer the man. He instead switched his phone to loud speaker and waited. A clear, feminine voice finally rang out, “There were no plane crashes in Jamaica. I’m not showing any crashes in this hemisphere from over the last month.”

“Are you certain, Sherry?”

“Yes, sir. Is there anything else you would like me to do?”

“That’ll be all.” Without giving a polite goodbye, Warrun shut the phone and stared at the man whose wife was ruined in the blink of an eye.

The obvious question came as the man asked, “What happen?”

“I wonder how many times I’ve heard that question asked.” He slid his face into his hand. “And the only solution I’ve been able to provide is worthless.” There being no point for keeping the man in the dark, Warrun answered, “You have been duped.”

Frowning, Jobo pleaded, “What do ya mean?”

Without lifting his face, the officer answered, “We know that man, the one you picked up in your car. We do not know his name, but he has a history that goes back over twenty years. I am sorry to tell you that he lied to you.”

“What did he lie to me about?”

“Everything!” Warrun shouted, throwing his arms into the air. “Everything! He lied to you about every single thing he said to you. There was no plane crash. There was no fire. He’s not even from Jamaica! He was born here in Manhattan as far as we can figure.”

Bewildered, Jobo begged, “Why would he do dat?”

“Because he can!” the peacekeeper cried, bursting from his seat. “That’s his only reason. That’s the only reason that makes sense. He is a man who has made it his life’s work to ruin as many lives as he can without ever getting caught or leaving a trail. I’ve chased him for years, trying to understand his motivations, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that he takes some sick pleasure in seeing other people suffer.”

Jobo’s gaze drifted away from Warrun to the tiled ceiling. The first officer could only imagine the fury that must be building inside the man. For what else could it be but pure, irreparable fury? For the third time in their brief intercourse, the Jamaican man surprised him by saying, “Well, dat’s a relief.”

Mortified was the only word to describe Warrun at that moment. He demanded, “What do you mean a relief? What he did caused you to lose your legs!”

“Given ta be lost me friend,” the man countered with a pained frown. “I meant about da plane crash. I’m happy he lied ta me. Better dat Ah be hurt than dey be dead.”

Not at all amused with Jobo’s lighthearted assessment of the situation, Warrun explained with less tact and more anger than he’d meant to, “But people did die! He lied to you, and you crashed and killed ten people!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Warrun would have done anything to take them back. Past being the in the past however, he could not take back. He could only modify what was said, and he had no words that could be anything but hollow in light of the terrible revelation. In his effort to boil the man’s blood to provoking anger mutually enjoyed, he succeeded only in cruelty. Having nothing to say, Warrun sat back down in his chair and waited.

Distantly, as though from a sleeping dream, Jobo whispered, “A lot a people hate me. Don dey?”

In a similar undertone, the officer answered, “I would guess so.”

“But dey are not right ta hate me,” he stated a bit more clearly. “It were an accident. I did not mean ta hurt anybody.”

A little coldly, Warrun pointed out, “That won’t matter to the families of the people you killed unless you can prove your story by helping me find the man who caused this.” He bent forward and explained seriously, “I can back your story one hundred percent. If you testify that this man caused your distress and made you crash, we can place the blame on him, and you could get off without a prison sentence.”

A glimmer of hope lit the man’s half hidden face as he asked, “Ya know how ta catch da mon?”

Warrun frowned and explained, “No, actually. At least I can’t promise I’ll bring him in right away. I’ve been chasing him for the past twenty years. If we can’t find him, then the case will grow cold. If we do find him however, then all the people will know to hate him instead of you. You would be vindicated.”

The immobile man closed his eye and puzzled over the words. An easy opportunity was to be had, a card for freedom. Warrun took some satisfaction in the fact that he could prevent the many years of prison that could be in this man’s future. It confused him that Jobo was even thinking about the offer.

Finally, Jobo opened his eye to look blankly at the ceiling. In a voice that bore no reservations or worries, the ruined man answered, “I won testify.”

“What?”

Again with simplicity, “I won testify against da man wat lied ta me.”

“Why not?” Warrun demanded in anger.

“Because,” Jobo retorted indignantly, “he did not kill those people.”

Warren cried, “But he caused you distress! He made you do it. If he hadn’t lied to you the way he did, none of this would have happened.”

Raising his voice above the muted speech his pain was allowing for the first time, the man of Jamaica shouted, “Well, don dat seem like a convenient truth mon? Ah got anudder fer ya ta chew on. Those people would be livin now weren’t it fer my bein born in da first place.”

“What do you mean?”

Jobo scoffed and explained, “Dere ya go again, tinkin like a child. Tinkin dat, jus cause somebody acts, ya gotta react. Ya can say all ya want dat dat udder mon kill dem peoples, but you’d be wrong. Just cause anudder mon influence me actions don mean it’s his fault and not mine. If ya look at it dat way den everybody in da past is responsible fer every problem in da present an everybody in da present is free of sin because everything bad is because of somebody else. Dat line a tinkin would vindicate everybody fer everything they do bad, includin dis man dat lie to me.

“What dat man did was bad, ja. He lied ta me, but he did not drive da car. Ah did. Maybe Ah could lie an save meself. But den Ah would be doomin meself an him. Ah could blame him fer lyin an get away wit it, but God would know da truth. God would know Ah refused ta take responsibility fer what Ah done. What a sinnah Ah would be. Ta lie about someting is one ting. Ta doom a man fer da crime of ten dead? Dat would beg da wrath of God. Ah did da deed. Dat’s what really matters.”

Jobo’s words stunned Warrun back into silence. He looked at his watch and noted that lunch time was upon him. He could not bring himself to leave however, not without asking one more question, “Don’t you feel the deeds before you matter at all? Isn’t the man who lied to you the least bit guilty of this crime too?”

The ruined man smiled and answered him, “Maybe mon. Tankfully, Ah don have ta be da one ta decide dat. Only God sees all time an understand all tings. Only He can be da perfect judge. All we can do, mon, is as He said. We can only forgive da peoples dat tresspassed against us. Maybe den, He will forgive our own tresspasses.” He flinched in pain, but his smile did not diminish. He stated, “If ya don have more questions mon, Ah’d like ta sleep. Ah don want me Mudder to see me weak. She’ll cry enough as is.”

“Okay.” Warrun stood and walked towards the door. He paused while opening it and said, “Thank you for your time Mr. DeCo, uh, Jobo. I guess I’ll send somebody along if I have anymore questions.”

Still with his smile, mocking his situation, the man replied cheerfully, “Any time, mon. Any time.”

Warrun exited then, shutting the door softly in his wake.

And opened another.

“Warrun!”

The first officer turned to his left and locked onto the speaker. With wanting enthusiasm, he answered, “Lieutenant.” Warrun stepped through the door and ambled over to the two seated table shining in the light of the large window beside it. Two cold bottles rested on napkins, condensation dripping heavily on their sides. The red and white checker patterned cloth glared with the gaudiness of the cliche pizzeria.

The lieutenant’s face was lit with a coy smile that diminished as his superior closed the gap between them. No words needed to be exchanged for a sense of gloom to penetrate the otherwise uplifting atmosphere of the restaurant in its lunch rush. As Warrun took the seat opposite of him, his friend begged with worry, “What happened?”

Warrun rested his chin in the palm of his hand and gazed listlessly at the hundreds of people walking endlessly just beyond the glass. His answer didn’t come immediately. It did not even come in the form of an answer. It came as a question of contemplative fear, in the mood of a man pondering a universe that is beyond the scope of even his wildest imaginations. “Why do we do it, Phillip?”

The lieutenant widened his eyes in surprise both at the question and the unusual informality that he had long learned not to expect from the man even as he called him a friend. Sensing his pain, Lt. Thompson decided to forgo a comic retort and asked, “Do what, sir?”

Looking beyond the people to the yellow taxi cabs driving by, he answered, “Why do we keep fighting for the law?”

Philip chewed his bottom lip in thought, not at all ready to be grilled on life motivations. He absently ripped a corner off the napkin under his drink and began tearing it into pieces. As his fingers worked, he explained with a little uncertainty, “A lot of reasons, sir.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” the lieutenant began, “I suppose we do it to protect people like our family and friends.”

Still lost in the traffic, Warrun countered, “You could buy a gun, and do that for yourself.” He lifted his gaze and stated pointedly, “In fact, working this job actually hinders those efforts. It makes it harder to protect our friends and family. They are in danger for our sake.”

The officer’s friend turned his eyes back to his napkin mutilation and suggested, “Then I guess the more appropriate answer would be to protect everybody including those who are not our friends and family.”

Warrun drew a finger around the lip of his beverage and pointed out, “We don’t protect the people we kill; do we Phillip? We aren’t protecting everybody.”

His friend crossed his arms and sat in acquiescence. Lt. Thompson’s shoulders rested on his chair’s back as his own gaze wandered beyond the window to contemplate the people he claimed they protected. They were ostensibly the same people they were forced to kill as his counterpart so grimly noted. Not much caring for the cryptic conversation, Phillip asked, “What’s wrong, Warrun?”

A ceaseless chatter enveloped the room, the business of a busy venue. While the lieutenant found no difficulty pushing the sound out, Warrun struggled to ignore the din. It enveloped him in discord he did not enjoy. Working against the noise, Warrun answered, “I met with Mr. DeCosta.”

“Oh,” his friend muttered in understanding. “How did that go? Was he up for talking?”

“We talked,” the first officer explained with a nod.

“Did you learn why he crashed?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Warrun folded his hands together and pushed, “Why do we do what we do?”

Phillip’s curiosity was curbed by a frown as he asked, “Are you looking for a specific answer, sir? I can read you the one on our badges if you like, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’re really asking for.”

The comment caused his superior to lift a finger and scratch at the triangular pin on his chest, the most convenient symbol of his authority. He said, “Perhaps I should reform my question. Why do you specifically do this, Phillip? Why do you work long hours, committing yourself tirelessly to follow evidence and fill out paperwork just for the chance of putting yourself in real danger?”

The lieutenant sat silent again for a moment before scrunching his face in bewilderment and asking, “How many years have we known each other? And you’ve never asked me that question, have you?” When his question was met with nothing more than a passive stare, he stated, “It’s not for any particularly noble reasons.”

With an unusual seriousness, Warrun pressed, “Regale me.”

Phillip frowned and answered, “I enjoy making people pay for the shit they do. I enjoy watching them suffer in court, in prison, in death.” A smile peaked the corners of his mouth as he explained, “It makes me feel good to see their worlds come crashing down around them. In all honesty, I would enjoy being a loose cannon if I could, dealing out justice like a cowboy or some other nonsense. Makes me sometimes feel like it’s a shame that we can’t. If we could just be let loose for one day, doing whatever we wanted, I bet we could clean these streets up real pretty, make them smell a bit less like Detroit.”

“Wouldn’t that be the day?” Warrun muttered indecipherably.

“If you don’t mind my saying, sir,” Phillip pressed, taking a draw from his beer, “I never took you for a man who had to ask a man’s motivations to figure them out. Hell, I’d reckon you never asked me because you’d figured it out long ago for yourself.”

Warrun raised his own bottle to his lips, drinking deeply. Not being able to take any special joy from the beverage in his apparent distress, he stated dryly, “I guess I did know. You’re not the first man I’ve met who’s enjoyed this work a bit more than usual.”

“Do you have a problem with that, sir?” the lieutenant queried with a raised eyebrow.

Taking in the familiar, bitter aftertaste, the officer answered bluntly, “If I had a problem with your motivations, I’d keep them to myself. As long as you do your work and do it well, what does it matter?”

Surprised, Phillip returned, “I should think you of all people would care. You always question what drives people to do what they do. Hell, you do it more than any man I’ve ever met. Doesn’t everybody need a reason in your eyes?”

Warrun strummed the fingers of his right hand on the checkered table to the rhythmic time in his mind. His left rested casually over the buckled holster on his belt. He explained simply, “As much as I ask, I don’t usually care about them. When someone commits a crime, I don’t really give two shits as to why they did it. Reasons are subjective and flawed. Testimony is always bent to make a criminal seem like a victim. The why is intangible, really. The only thing I really care about is the what of the matter.”

“The what?” his friend begged.

“The crime,” Warrun explained. With the subtlest hints of satisfaction and pride touching the corners of his mouth, he said, “A lot of people like to bitch about America, but I think it’s great that we have a society of firm laws. Granted, the wealthy can get around them pretty well, but the everyday scum dog is completely at their will. Every man has to learn the laws and obey them. Ignorance is no excuse, as indeed it shouldn’t be. When we take a man in and prosecute him, we don’t judge him for what he thought. We judge him for what he did. It’s deeds that make a man guilty or innocent, not the thoughts that lead up to them.”

Phillip bit his lip before launching into a sharp retort at his superior’s skewed understanding of justice. Unable to keep silent however, he stated carefully, “To be frank, sir, it seems a little cold to say thoughts don’t have any bearing on judging what people have done. Clearly that is not the case. We treat manslaughter and murder very differently. You know that.”

“I do.”

“Are you saying,” the lieutenant pressed, “that you would give the same punishment for murder and manslaughter?”

The first officer gave a sardonic guffaw and countered, “Are you saying we shouldn’t? Does murder end a life more than manslaughter? Is it somehow less tragic for the people who have to experience the loss? Does anything that happened in the past have any relevant bearing on the situation at hand?”

“Of course it does!” Phillip burst out with a touch of ire. The expression of anger he wore gradually dissolved as a moment passed in silence. With a sort of meekness that gave portents to worry, he asked at length, “Doesn’t it?”

Warrun’s cynicism melted into a look of sad defeat as he responded, “I always thought it did.”

Leaning forward in his chair, worry evident in his frown, Phillip begged, “What’s wrong with you, Warrun? I haven’t seen you like this since the night Maria died.” The lieutenant stooped his head low to the table and locked onto his friend’s downcast eyes, saying sternly, “If something’s bothering you, you should act like a man and talk about it. Don’t act like a child and keep what’s making you angry quiet. That only aggravates the feelings.”

A fleeting smile stiffened the first officer’s lips as he stated, “Only twice in ten years have I been called a child, and both had to come on the same day.” The smile became a half hearted laugh that again subsided into grim sadness before Warrun explained, “As I said, I met with Mr. DeCosta.”

Lt. Thompson sat back in his seat and folded his arms repeating, “How did it go?”

Again Warrun’s eyes drifted to the red and white checker patterns as he said, “He didn’t make out of the accident very clean.”

“He’s alive,” the lieutenant stated with enthusiasm. “That’s a Goddamned miracle if you ask me.” He added as an unhappy afterthought, “Unless he’s a permanent vegetable.”

Shaking his head softly at the unasked question, the man of the law explained, “No. He’s alive and aware. He may as well be a vegetable though. That would have been much better in fact. He’ll never walk again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to be fed through a tube for the rest of his life.”

“That’s a rough story,” Phillip interjected, “but nothing you haven’t seen before. What did he say that’s got you so riled up? Or did he say anything at all?”

“We talked,” Warrun answered simply. “I asked him a few questions and figured out what caused him to crash.”

“Oh yeah?” The lieutenant smiled broadly and cheered, “That’s brilliant! Isn’t it? Or do you think he was lying or something?”

“Or something,” the first officer mimicked under his breath. He took another long draw of his beer, draining it to less half its original volume. A dignified burp seeped through his puckered lips before he answered, “Mr. DeCosta said a man told him his hometown in Jamaica was up in flames yesterday as he was driving. The news threw him so out of sorts that he raced into the intersection down there without looking at the lights.”

“Wow.” Phillip peered out the window to catch a glimpse of the intersection they’d cleared only the day before. No trace of the crash was left. The build up had been contained to the center of the busy road. There wasn’t a ding on a fire hydrant or a mark on a parking meter. Nothing stood in commemoration of the tragedy except reports, pictures, and the fleeting memory of the people who’d seen the mess. It was nothing but a hiccup in the endless breathing of a city that doesn’t sleep.

Taking a sip far more restrained than Warrun’s, the lieutenant stated, “That guy really didn’t have a good day. I suppose he must have had family down there. Do you know if any got hurt.”

Warrun grunted and inhaled the last of his drink. With a turn of his head, he stated curtly, “Hey Babs, I need another.”

The freckle faced waitress, with her red hair tied back into a ponytail, turned at the question and answered with an eager smile that seemed dismissive of her customer’s moody demeanor, “Sure thing, Mr. Slavinski.”

“A second?” Phillip asked with hesitance. “Aren’t you still on duty, Mr. Slavinski?”

Warrun sneered at the comment and retorted, “Keep it to yourself, rookie. I’m not in the mood.”

“Clearly,” he returned with a frown. “I’m hardly your keeper. I would like to know more though. What happened with Mr. DeCosta?”

The first officer’s sneer did not fade at the reasonable petition. With misdirected contempt, he answered mockingly, “His name is Jobo. Mr. DeCosta was his father.”

Retaining his patience, the lieutenant prodded, “Did his father die in the fire?”

“No!” Warrun spat venomously. “Nobody died in the fire because there was no fire. The man who rode in that cab with Jobo lied to him.”

“What?” Phillip sputtered in confusion. “Why? Why would a guy lie about that? Who would do such a thing?”

The lieutenant’s question was interrupted as the waitress stopped between them. Still smiling, she popped the cap off the bottle in her hand and placed it before Warrun saying, “Here you go, officer. I’m sorry your pizza’s taking so long. Rush time and all that. I should have it out to you shortly though.”

Before the perky young woman could disappear among the other patrons, Warrun stopped her saying, “Could you hold on a moment, Babs?”

“Was there something else you needed, Mr. Slavinski?”

Warrun reached a hand into a small container on his belt and pulled out a small photograph. He handed the sheet over to the girl asking, “Have you seen this man recently?”

It took no more than a few seconds of brow pinching before she flashed her teeth and cried, “Oh, yes! I have seen him. He comes in every once in awhile and orders a slice of pepperoni.” She rubbed a greasy thumb over the photo and mused aloud, “Isn’t he dreamy? It’s a shame he has a husband. I’d snatch him up in a heartbeat if I could.”

Unmoved by the endearment, the first officer pressed, “Did he come in here around 11:00 AM yesterday?”

Surprised, she answered, “Why, yes. He did. I think he came in right before that awful crash down the road.” With a timid smile, she asked, “Can I keep this?”

In confusion, Lt. Thompson sat forward and asked, “What’s going on, Warrun? Who’s in the picture?”

Babs turned a questioning look to Warrun who nodded his head to the lieutenant. A little morose to be parted with the photo, she handed it over grudgingly and said, “I can’t dawdle anymore, officers. I really need to get back to work.”

Phillip gave no mind to the young woman as she slipped away. His lips quivered a bit, and his face turned pale. An unspoken moment passed as Warrun tipped his second beer to his lips, his friend’s mouth going dry from the all too familiar image in his hands. The lieutenant laid the photo gently on the checkered table and placed his shaking palms face down to steady them. Closing his eyes and swallowing audibly, he asked in a tone of despairing resignation, “Why am I ever surprised anymore?”

The first officer set his half emptied bottle down and slid his cool, wet hand against his forehead. He took no pleasure in the awe of his colleague, nor did he answer the figurative question. Instead he sang a mournful refrain, “Why do we do it, Philip?”

Lt. Thompson flinched at the question and asked tersely, “What is your problem, Warrun?” He snagged the photo off the table and demanded, “Is it because of him? Is he the reason you’re acting so strange?”

Warrun took to peeling the label off the back of his beer as he answered sullenly, “I think I’m losing it, Philip. After twenty years, I think I’m finally going crazy.”

The lieutenant’s pallor shifted from bad to worse as he buried his face in his hands and moaned, “Please, for the love of God, please tell me you’re not doing this.”

Surprised, the first officer asked, “Doing what?”

“You can’t be letting this guy get to you. Not now. Not when we’re so close.”

Warrun’s gaze shifted morosely out the window as he asked, “What makes you think we’re any closer this time?” Having removed the label completely, he crumpled the wet paper in his hand and stated, “We’re always close. No matter how close we get though, no matter how certain we are that we’ve got him, he slips away, and we’re left with nothing but his horrible aftermath.”

“But,” the lieutenant cried, “but this time will be different. He’s left too much evidence. We have his jacket.”

The first officer’s ears perked at the words, and he asked, “I forgot about the jacket. Did the preliminaries for the DNA test turn up anything good? Could we at least confirm it was his?”

Lt. Thompson’s face suddenly scrunched up in frustration. He opened his to begin speaking and closed it again, unsure of what to say. Finally he managed, “It’s the strangest thing. We got results back from the splat lab right away. They didn’t have to go any further.”

Confused, Warrun pressed, “Why’s that?”

“The samples we took from the jacket were not human, not even close. The cells contained 64 chromosomes a piece instead of 46.”

The first officer crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair asking, “What was it then?”

Shrugging his shoulders, the lieutenant explained, “They’re not certain. There are a number of species with that many chromosomes. There is one genus in particular that humans interact a lot with that seems to be the lab’s best guess, that is, until we authorize more testing.”

Warrun rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t keep me in suspense. What was it?”

Smiling at the shift from sadness to the more characteristic annoyance in his superior’s visage, he explained, “Horses, sir. Or perhaps some breed of pony. That seems the most likely case.”

Scratching at his chin, Warrun mused in silence. He took a long sip of his second beverage before saying in absent thought, “Now how would horse urine and vomit end up on the Devil’s jacket between his trip to Lombardi’s and your forced entry later that same night?” The words he said confounded him, and he asked with interest, “Are you sure the vomit was from a horse?”

His subordinate bit his lip and explained, “That’s where it gets even more confusing. We are certain that the vomit was from the horse. It’s slewing with its DNA after all. The contents however, are confusing to say the least.”

Frowning, Warrun pressed, “Did it eat something peculiar?”

“Not really,” Lt. Thompson answered. “At least, we don’t think so. We were able to identify broken down cellulose as well as gluten. Neither of those things are peculiar as grain and hay are regular parts of their diets. What does stand out however is the actual gastrointestinal juices they were contained in.”

Curious, the first officer begged, “What was wrong with them?”

“The juices had the acidity of a carnivore, not an herbivore,” he began. “Well, maybe omnivore is more accurate.”

“Is this a strange occurrence?”

“I could not have said much about it, but they explained the oddity to me at the lab when I went to pick up the results. Horses do not have the digestive capacity to eat meat in any form. They don’t lack the protein making genes we lack, so their stomach and cecum only maintain the acidity necessary to digest plant life. We have more potent stomach acid because we have adapted meat into our diets.”

“And horses haven’t?” Warrun mused in awe.

“No,” the lieutenant explained. “That’s what makes this so odd. Either that stomach sample comes from some creature we have never heard of before, or whatever horse it came from has developed a taste for eating flesh.”

Warrun almost chuckled at the thought. “That’s absurd. Imagine if the newspapers got a hold of this?” Sweeping his hand before him grandly, he exclaimed, “Rabid, man eating horse is loose in Manhattan! Citizens should beware of vomit and urine attacks!”

The pair shared a rowdy laugh that drew looks from the people around them. Their fun was only disturbed by the sweet, redheaded waitress dropping off their pizza. The pair thanked Babs and turned their eyes to the feast before them. Lt. Thompson immediately dug his hand into the greasy mess and ate, moaning in the simple delight.

His superior did not reach in with him. Warrun instead hesitated, his smile sliding into a frown. When his colleague shot him a pair of expectant eyes, he explained, “So what you’re saying is, we’ve got a crap pile of evidence that adds up to nothing. We’ve literally got nothing. We can’t even confirm it’s his jacket. All we can say is that we’ve found something that doesn’t make any sense.”

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and asked, “Since when has that stopped you before?”

“It hasn’t before,” Warrun whispered, hanging his head sadly. “But it will now.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is,” he started, “Chief pulled the plug this morning. The investigation is a no go. We couldn’t chase him down even if we did have something.”

“Oh,” the lieutenant muttered in disappointment. “Well, we’ll just have to get him next time. We can’t win them all, I guess.”

Silently, Warrun muttered under his breath, “There won’t be a next time.”

Stopping mid chew, his colleague asked, “What was that.”

“I said; there won’t be a next time.” Warrun took another gulp of his bear and set it down saying, “I’m done chasing him, Phillip. I’m throwing in the towel to the next poor sod who thinks he doesn’t have enough problems in his life.”

Aghast, Phillip cried, “You can’t just give up on the Devil! We have to keep chasing him. We have to catch him.”

“No, we don’t.”

“No, we don’t?!” The lieutenant slid their pizza to the side and leaned in close to beg, “What is the matter with you? Why here, why now of all times and places do you choose to give up? We can’t just let this guy go. He’ll go on lying, cheating, stealing, killing. What happened to protecting Manhattan from scum like him?”

In resignation, Warrun answered, “I just can’t do it anymore.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I have no certainty anymore.” Lt. Thompson sat back in his chair and waited for more. His superior sighed and said, “Nobody believes in me, Phillip. Nobody thinks the Devil is real. Everyone thinks I’m just an outdated kook out of his prime fighting for some pipe dream that’s not even real.”

Phillip countered sternly, “You and I both know that neither of those things are true. Since when did what other people think of you help or hinder your convictions? You’re a better man than that!”

“Not anymore.”

“Then what’s changed?” the lieutenant demanded, standing from his chair. The sudden, loud motion grabbed the eyes and attention of much of the restaurant as he went on, “Why would you stop doing what you’ve told me many times you’ve vowed your life to doing? Are you really just going to let that lunatic run free just because you’re suddenly having difficulty stomaching the insufferable ignorance of the people you work with? So what, they don’t believe you. That’s not what matters to you.”

Showing no rise in emotion or tone, Warrun countered, “Just what do you think matters to me?”

Noticing the unwanted attention he was receiving, Phillip dignified himself and sat back down. Having lost much of his appetite for the meal before them, he gazed absently out the window for a moment before looking his friend in the eyes and saying, “The big picture.”

“What?” Warrun asked in confusion.

Nodding, Lt. Thompson explained, “The big picture is what matters to you, Warrun.” He again turned his gaze out the window and continued slowly, thoughtfully, “You’re the best of men. You are who good, decent people look up to. Not in the way children look up to super heroes. You’re the kind of person people are thankful exists because, for as great as you are, nobody wants to be you.”

Warrun scoffed, “Why? Because I trudge through shit?”

“Everybody trudges through shit, Warrun. You’re not special because of that.” Taking a sip of his beer, Phillip finished, “What sets men like you apart is you know how to do it and come out clean. It’s easy to see what’s bad in the world. Everybody’s a critic after all. Some men decide to do something about it. Gradually though, they lose their values because of time, disillusionment, or money. You, on the other hand, see the big picture.”

Though he suspected the answer, Warrun asked anyways, “And just what is the big picture?”

“Morality, Warrun.” Lt. Thompson smiled a soft, sincere, and somewhat boyish smile. Gently, he reached a hand across the small, checker patterned table and took hold of the hand of his friend. When Warrun made no move to end the endearing touch, Phillip continued in a tender voice, “You’re not motivated by money. You’re not a narcissist. You don’t make anything about you because you know it’s not about you. It’s about everyone. It’s about all of society. You know deep down that the world only functions when somebody stands up and makes it a better place.

“You’re selfless, Warrun.” The younger of the pair took a steadying breath and concluded, “That’s what makes you special. That’s why I’ve always. . . admired you. That’s why I’ve never hesitated to trust you or follow you where we both know it’s dangerous.”

Warrun looked intently at the masculine hand wrapped in his, not once lifting his eyes as his friend spoke. The intimate touch did not confound him as he thought it might. It also did not scare him. It was comforting in a way he had not expected. And the kind words touched his heart, causing him to soften his otherwise stern visage. He might have smiled had he the stability of mind to do so with any confidence. Instead he accepted the comforting touch stoically, saying nothing.

The moment passed in relative silence. There was no real silence in that metropolis after all. There was always a chaotic din. No moment could really be quiet. As moments come between moments though, they can be softer than the ones before and the ones after. So it was when the moment ended with the veteran police officer saying into the table, “I appreciate your words, Phillip. I really do.” Warrun let go of the firm hand and crossed his arms before continuing, “But I am not that man you say I am. Maybe I was once. I will admit, it’s the man I tried to be. I’m afraid I don’t have the courage anymore. Or maybe I’ve just learned that we can’t live up to ideals. There’s too much reality to deal with. There’s just too much at risk sometimes.”

“What’s at risk for you? Your life?”

Shaking his head, the first officer answered, “No. My daughter’s.” Lifting his eyes from the table, he stated, “Most men think it’s noblest to protect your family first. Then there are men who find it even nobler to view the whole world as your family and protect it all judiciously. We are supposed to love our fellow men, are we not? While I was never a great lover, I loved the thought that we could all care for each other whether we were related or not. Believe it or not, that was my greatest motivation for becoming the man I am today.”

His smile widening, Phillip interjected, “I believe it.”

Warrun gave a small smile himself. It quickly disappeared as he looked out the window, his gaze trailing to the intersection down the road. Almost absently, he said, “I don’t know a soul who would call it selfish, but I believe it to be. I love my daughter too much for me to bear the thought that she should ever live without me. It’s bad enough that she lost her mother to a violent and angry man. She doesn’t need to lose me because I’m off chasing the Devil. I wish I could say it was a selfless act of love that has forced me to the decision I’ve made, but I would be lying. Rather, it’s a selfish love. It is how one might say, possessive. It’s because I love her that I am going to give up my nobler goals.”

With a worried look, his counterpart asked, “What do you mean give up your nobler goals?”

A smile alighted Warrun’s distant gaze as he explained, “I’ve decided to retire from the force.”

“What?!” Phillip cried. “You can’t do that. We need you, Warrun. Our precinct is the pride of Manhattan because of you. You’re a legend, You’re the reason many students decide to join the academy.”

“I know who I was, Phillip,” the first officer said calmly. “It’s just not the kind of person I can afford to be anymore. I’ve made my decision and, frankly, it’s been a long time coming.”

The lieutenant absorbed the information with some sadness and resignation as he understood very well that he had no right to judge or pry into the mind of his colleague and secret hero. He asked in defeat, “When do you plan to resign?”

“When I get back to the station,” he said, picking up his beer to finish in one last draw.

“Chief isn’t going to like this.”

“He’s not paid to like things. The precinct will manage just fine without me.” Giving a kind smile, he concluded, “You’ll manage just fine too, lieutenant. You’re a good man yourself.”

While a casual observer might have thought the words a bit hollow, they meant the world to Phillip Thompson. He returned his friend’s smile and went back to eating the pizza. Between bites, he asked, “What finally made you decide? Was it something Mr. DeCosta said?”

Having taken up his own slice, Warrun paused and answered, “While he wasn’t the main reason I’ve decided to quit, he did say something that finally convinced me.”

“What did he say?”

Continuing his meal, the soon to be ex-first officer explained, “I told him who it was that lied to him and caused him to crash. I offered him an out. With me backing his pleas, he could have gotten off with very little punishment.”

Intrigued, Phillip asked, “Didn’t he take you up on the offer?”

Warrun shook his head and explained, “He refused because he believes he is the only responsible party. The Devil wasn’t the one driving; he was. In his mind, the Devil isn’t the least bit responsible for their deaths.”

“Of course he is. Isn’t he? You said he lied to Mr. DeCosta about the fire, right?”

Nodding, Warrun answered, “That doesn’t matter to him though. All he sees is that he was reckless and other people suffered and died because of it. Since the Devil didn’t physically do anything to make him behave the way he behaved, he feels he is the only one truly responsible.”

The pair mulled over the words for several moments as they ate. Unsure of what he thought, the younger of the pair asked, “Do you think he’s right?”

“I don’t know,” Warrun answered bluntly. “And there’s the rub. It was a stupid technicality to me at first, but now, it’s tearing me apart. Yes, the Devil caused Jobo the unrest that eventually caused him to crash his car. But any number of things could have done that. Anything could have made him lose his sanity. Whatever the case was or might have been however, the result was still the same. What happened before doesn’t matter because it still lead to the deaths of ten people. Knowing the past doesn’t change what happened.”

“But it can affect the present!” Phillip cried in conviction. “Because we know it was the Devil who caused him to crash, we can go out and capture this monster. That’s our job, isn’t it?”

“Are you saying then that Jobo isn’t the least bit responsible?”

“Well, I,” the lieutenant faltered in his speech wishing he could give a frank yes or no answer. He could not however give one without feeling uncertainty creep into his tone as indeed he was not certain. The best he could manage was to say with resignation, “I don’t bloody know, Warrun. I’d like to say no, but that wouldn’t entirely be true. Mr. DeCosta did have control over his actions. No one forced him to crash. And, just as you say, the people are no less dead because it was an accident.” He brought his fingers up to scratch his rough chin in thought saying, “I guess they’re both at fault. Maybe they should both be punished.”

“But you don’t sound certain,” Warrun interjected. “Do you not think you’re a good enough judge to decide?”

“If I thought I was a perfect judge of character, I’d be wearing black robes instead of a uniform.”

“Black robes?” The first officer smirked and asked, “You’d want to be a judge?”

In all seriousness, Phillip explained, “I wouldn’t be a judge. I’d be a priest.”

Warrun’s smirk diminished. “I guess. They’re the same thing aren’t they?”

“Hey! That’s just what you need.”

“What?”

“You should go speak to a priest.” Phillip pressed. When his suggestion was met with a shake of the head he pushed, “No, seriously! All these questions you’re asking, all these doubts, a priest might be able to give you some serious answers. At least, he should be able to give you better advice than I can.”

Warrun continued to shake his head, saying, “Nah, man. I can’t do that. It’s been too long.”

“Too long?” Phillip stopped for a moment and thought back over the years. While he knew his friend was not especially religious, it had never occurred to him that he didn’t even know his Warrun’s religious beliefs. “Do you have a religion?”

Biting his lip, Warrun answered, “Yes. I was baptized Catholic when I was a babe. I never quite cared for that. You know how Catholics are. They indoctrinate you before you can even begin to understand what it means to be part of a religion. Then they brainwash you to believe dozens of ridiculous dogmas that seem so horribly arbitrary as to be borderline absurd.”

“You don’t believe Catholic dogmas?”

“Well,” Warrun explained, “there was a time when I believed all of them without question. That’s not something they teach you to do when you’re young; question. Then when you get to be a young man, they say that you should question your faith so that you may learn better to trust in God.”

His curiosity growing, the lieutenant pressed, “Judging by your tone, I’m guessing that didn’t really happen for you.”

Shaking his head, the first officer explained, “I got to the questioning part. Didn’t get to the answers. All I found was more questions, endless questions, indecisive questions that don’t have answers, questions that can’t have answers.”

“Are you sure you just didn’t look hard enough for the answers.”

Snorting, Warrun countered, “Who has the time? There’s too much of real life to deal with to be answering nonsense.”

“I think priests are given the time.” Their conversation fell quiet. Their silence revealed that the venue around them had toned down a bit, the lunch rush quickly coming to a close. Taking a deep breath, Phillip stated, “You should seriously consider giving a priest a talk. I don’t know how long it’s been since the last time you’ve given the church a chance, but you’re going through a lot of problems right now. I really don’t see how it could hurt, and it just might make all the difference.”

Warrun sat looking blankly at the checker patterned table. It had indeed been a long time, about as long as he had been chasing the Devil. He did not want to go back to the church. He had never given to it, and it had never given to him. There was no relationship that existed between his heart and that order he’d given up on so long ago. “That is,” Warrun thought to himself, “no relationship except one.”

Taking a deep breath of his own that concluded in a great sigh, he said, “Okay. I’ll consider it. I guess, as you say, it can’t hurt.”

“Today?”

“What?” the first officer looked up in surprise.

Almost as a plea, his friend asked, “Please go today. Don’t give up on the force until you talk to someone. Yes, we’d manage without you, but you help to make this place great. We don’t just manage; we thrive. And we both know that’s very much because of you.”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think about it.”

Their attention was suddenly grabbed by the young Babs stopping by their table to ask, “Is there anything else I can get you, sirs?”

Phillip gave a courteous smile, saying, “The bill will be fine.”

Giving her own infectious smile, her bright white teeth accenting her girlish freckles, she pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and said, “I figured as much. Here you are. Your total is $17.38.”

His smile becoming less courteous and more sincere, Phillip answered, “You’re a darling, Babs. Never stop with that smile.”

Blushing, the young waitress skipped off. Lt. Thompson regarded the bill and reached in his wallet to pull out $15. Warrun did likewise, throwing the same amount and said, “I’m not hungry for anymore. You?”

“No. Not really.” Phillip stood from his seat and queried, “What are you going to do now? Have any leads you’re following?”

“I told you. The Devil case has been dropped.” Hanging his head a moment, he answered, “I suppose now is as good a time as ever to shake Mr. Vinetti down. We need him to talk today.”

Nodding his head, the lieutenant asked, “Do you think he’ll talk?”

“I honestly don’t know. It’s as I said. He is a man of loyalty. I truly believe he did what he did for the betterment of his budding family, the moving to Manhattan I mean. Whatever prompted him to kill his wife must have been profoundly devastating. I think my best chance is to uncover why he killed her. Maybe then, his own shame will cause him to confess.”

“That’s a narrow time slot. All we really have is his testimony to determine his reasons.”

“I’m afraid that’ll have to be enough.”

As Warrun stood from his seat, his friend said, “I have to get back on my patrol. I hope I see you tomorrow.”

A moment of silence followed in which they stood looking at each other. It seemed to Warrun that Phillip had more to say. Instead of saying anything however, the lieutenant stuck out his hand. Officer Slavinski shook it and said with kindness, “If I don’t come back in tomorrow, know that I have total faith that you will be the one to replace me.”

With a sad smile, Phillip stated, “No one could replace you.” Suddenly, and rather boldly, the younger of the pair closed the gap and embraced the man he was proud to call his best friend.

Warrun did not hesitate to reciprocate the hug and said casually, “Don’t make too much of this, lieutenant. It’s not like you’re never going to see me again.”

Phillip withdrew and sniffled, saying, “Of course not. A beer at the pub tonight?”

“It sounds like a plan.”

With that, the superior turned and exited the pizzeria, the door closing softly behind him. Phillip watched as his best friend left him, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He frowned and crossed his arms, muttering to himself, “I wish I could tell him.” A tear seeped out of the corner of his eye. He squeezed them shut and sniffled again. Doing all he could to fix his countenance, he said with all the conviction he could muster, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll tell him.”

Rubbing his eyes, he left the venue to do his duty.

There was no music in his cruiser as he made his way back to the station. There was no steadying beat to sooth his mind. The agitation he’d felt earlier in the day seemed finally to be soothed. Though he had an important task ahead of him, he did not feel worry. In all his questions, he had found no answers save one. Speaking with Phillip as he had, he’d opened his thoughts more fully to the possibility of just leaving his responsibility behind. Every passing moment seemed to reduce his hesitation as the thought of retiring became more familiar in his mind. A year earlier, even a day earlier, he might not have been able to accept it. Now however, he knew there was nothing more important to him then staying around for his daughter. With that certainty close to his heart when two other certainties had been so shaken, there wasn’t much left to think about.

“Except for that priest.” Warrun drove, down the crowded roads, very gradually making his way to his precinct. A very slight smile lit up his lips, a sign of his growing confidence. “I’ll see him. I guess I owe at least that much to Phillip. He’s been there for me for a very long time.”

His turn signal clicked as he hung a left down a one way street. Buildings continued to pass him by as he thought, “I don’t think it’ll change anything though. Besides, I knew him so long ago. He wasn’t a young man then. If he’s alive, he must be ancient. Certainly, he’d at least be retired.” Warrun nodded in self confirmation. “I’ll go, but he’d be the only one I’d talk to. If he’s not there then I’ll just leave. It’s not like a stranger is going to convince me to change my mind. Though I guess he’d be a stranger to me after so many years.”

As the minutes ticked by, he made a right followed by another left. The drive was not far in the least. Really, it was barely enough for a man to catch a breath. Absently, the first officer considered turning off his path and just driving home. He would not of course. At least until the day was done, his duty was to his work. Still, it surprised him that the thought seemed so sweetly tempting. He wouldn’t just go home though. He’d stop and pick up his darling daughter, his little Maria.

Heavy traffic slowed his car almost to a stop, causing him to smile. He did not want the joyful thoughts to end. “I could take her out to the park. No. We’d go and visit Alexis. Sam and Maria could play together, and we could forget about the messes we’ve been dealing with this last year. I could finally get around to reading that book Alexis has been so thrilled about writing.” Warrun scowled playfully at himself in his rear view mirror. “What a brother I’ve been. I don’t even know the title of the blasted thing. She’s right. We can’t keep avoiding each other.”

His car lurched forward again as traffic gave way, and he found himself in sight of his precinct. “I’ll go over there tonight! Maybe after I see that bloody priest? Wait. I promised Phillip I’d go out with him. I can’t miss our date.”

Warrun’s line of thought abruptly ceased as he pulled his car into the station’s garage. He nosed his way into his spot and stopped the car. He did not immediately step from his vehicle. He sat in relative silence with the car off. The confines of the car muted much of the city’s ambiance, and the darkness of his corner of the garage gave some clarity to his thought, “Is it a date?”

The first officer recalled the warm, heartfelt touch his friend had given him. The memory gave him the smallest hint of giddiness, the feeling of looking forward to something rare. Warrun rubbed his hands together happily and whispered, “I guess it is.” His smile widened. “I guess the visit with Alexis will just have to wait until the weekend. Once I’m retired, we’ll be able to spend all sorts of time together.” Closing his eyes dreamily, he concluded, “Mostly though, I’ll be the best dad I can be to my little girl.”

Without another thought, Warrun stepped from the car and made his way into the building. Upon entering, he was immediately scoped out by the receptionist.

“Officer Slavinski! How’re ya’ll doin?” cried the middle aged, blonde haired, and rather rotund woman.

Still wearing his smile, Warrun answered, “The three of me are doing just fine, Sherry.”

“That’s good.” Her eyes shifted in thought as she asked, “What was that business ‘bout seein if there were any plane crashes about?”

Warrun waved his hand dismissively and said, “It was just part of an investigation. Listen, Sherry, I need you to get the boys to bring Mr. Vinetti back to the box room.”

“Sure thing, Officer Slavinski. I’ll tell them right away. It’s a good thing too. They were saying he’s gettin real antsy.”

“Antsy?” His smile disappeared into a once more professional facade as he whispered to himself, “Maybe he’s ready to talk. That’d at least make this a good last day.”

The first officer turned and walked to his office. On his desk lay the case file he’d forced himself not to blanch at just that morning. It had not moved or been disturbed, reminding him that all he had was the pictures of the crime scene and whatever amount of intimidation he could inflict on Mr. Vinetti. “I wonder what motivated him?” he wondered to himself. “Maybe he was insane. She probably did something that hurt him. In a sense, maybe she caused him to do it. Just like Jobo said though, whatever the reasoning was, she’s still dead.” He gathered up the files and stiffened his back saying aloud, “And just like Jobo, Jack will get the punishment for killing. At least I can put this monster away.”

With stern conviction, Warrun marched out of his office and made his way down to the lowest level of the precinct. Two officers standing outside the door signaled him that his man was ready to be spoken to. With the calmness of a professional, he walked to the door and entered.

Jack Vinetti bolted out of his chair as the first officer entered and demanded, “Where’s my phone call!”

Though not suspecting the outburst, Warrun nonetheless maintained his calm and asked, “Have you not gotten one?”

“No!” the very frazzled looking man cried. “You said I could have one this morning.”

“Are you ready to call council?”

“What does it matter who I’m calling?” the man screamed. “I just want my phone call.”

“Okay. I’ll give you your phone call if you just let me ask you a few more questions. Can you do that for me, Mr. Vinetti. Just a few more questions. If you don’t want to answer any of them then you can just remain silent. Then I’ll get you your phone call.”

Jack was seething but found a state of mind that allowed him to curtly nod his head and sit back down. Warrun took the seat across from him and again laid out the photos from the crime scene as he’d done that morning. Jack averted his eyes, not so much as glancing at the pictures.

Warrun was honestly surprised to see a bit of moisture coming out of the corner of his eyes. As bold a front as he’d put on this morning, his suspect’s confidence was clearly failing him. It was at that moment that the first officer knew for certain that he could break the man and make him tell the truth.

Warrun slid the photo of the woman’s pale face forward, a stream of blood trickling from the red circle in her forehead. Softly, with a touch of sorrow that had not been present in his voice that morning, the first officer said, “I can see that you loved her very much. That much seems clear to me. It’s too violent a death for just any woman. May I ask why you and your wife moved from Chicago?”

Silence.

“I see. May I ask, was she a good woman?”

Jack winced at the question and closed his eyes. His guilt was becoming more obvious to Warrun by the second. He prodded, “She must have been a good woman. I mean, you gave up a lot for her, didn’t you. Not many men I know of would uproot their lives for the sake of one woman and succeed in staying with her. It’s certainly a romantic gesture but so few people are both romantic and convicted. Those two ideas are so often conflicting each other, aren’t they? It’s rather like trying to be spontaneous without budging an inch on what you will or will not do.”

“Can I get my phone call now?”

Ignoring his request, Warrun continued, “You seem to have found a balance though. Is that your secret? Was the murder spontaneous, and now you are showing your conviction in how well you can try to deny the obvious?”

“Stop it.”

“Was it romantic? Was loving then killing your wife solely your choice and duty? Or perhaps someone forced you to do what you did. Perhaps she forced your hand.”

“Stop it!”

“Or maybe you’re a perverse little monster that enjoyed it.”

“Shut up!” The red faced man gritted his bared teeth as tears dripped down his face. He shouted between heaving breaths, “I am not a monster! I want my phone call. You can’t do this to me.”

Warrun puckered his face and put his cruel accusations away. They sat in silence for a moment before the officer said, “Okay, Mr. Vinetti. If you will stand and follow me, I will bring you to a phone and you can call whoever you’d like.”

Refusing to say thank you, Jack stood and followed Warrun out of the room. He was immediately flanked by the two officers outside the door as they walked down the hall to a set of almost antique payphones. Grudgingly accepting a quarter from the first officer’s outstretched hand, he waited until the men in uniform gave him some space and began dialing.

Warrun stood back and watched the man intently. He did not have the keenest ears, and Jack’s muttering was indistinguishable to him. “Now is the moment of truth.” He mused. “Now we’ll know whether or not his boss is going to cover for him.” The first officer would normally have cringed at the thought. He would have hated for the guilty man to even have a fighting chance. Now however, he was almost apathetic. It would be another man’s problem in just a day’s time after all. His mind wandered, “I promised Maria ice cream last night, didn’t I? I’ll have to make sure to pick some up tonight.”

His musing stopped as he heard Jack’s mumbling suddenly lose its repose. The one sided conversation sounded, “You checked all the floors, right? . . . You have to be wrong. . . . You’re sure you were at Etsy? . . .”

With growing interest, Warrun focused in on the conversation. This focus soon became unnecessary as his suspect’s voice quickly rose to a crescendo.

“No. No! You have to be wrong. . . . They really said? . . . No! Oh God no!” Jack Vinetti dropped the phone. Its metal cord caught its decent and slammed it against the wall while the stricken man faltered backwards in horror. He seemed on the verge of hyperventilating as his mouth caught mid breath over and over again. Warrun stepped forward to catch the man who looked ready to swoon. Instead of falling however, the man screamed in pain, “No!”

The ferocity and terror in Jack Vinetti’s voice caused both Warrun, and the guards to take a step back. The first officer was the first to respond, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh my God! What have I done?” His flooding eyes turned towards Warrun’s. They did not bear any hate in them. There was only profound sorrow and misery to be seen in the man.

The man of the law stepped forward again, more cautiously, and asked once more, “What’s wrong?”

Almost as if from another world, Jack whispered, “I killed her. I killed my dear Isabella. I killed her, and she did nothing to me.”

Taking another step forward, Warrun pressed, “Why did you kill her?”

Seeming completely defeated, the man explained, “That man. He told me. He told me she cheated on me. I thought my good, saint wife cheated on me. But he lied.”

Another step forward.

“He lied to me. I was so angry, so full of hate.”

The gap almost closed, Warrun begged, “Who lied to you?”

Jack answered in agony, “I don’t know who he was. He was just a man in a pinstripe suit.”

Warrun stopped cold. His feet became lead, his throat became stone, and his inside bottomed out. He tried desperately to swallow what Jack had said as the man collapsed to his knees in a torrential fit of tears, but his heart almost could not take it. Not knowing what else to do, he sank to his knees as well and placed his hands on the guilty man’s shoulders. He tried as hard as he could to say something, anything. He searched his entire mind for any possible words of comfort, but he found every receptacle empty. There was nothing he could say to the man because he did not even have the words of comfort he needed for himself. He instead kneeled on the floor, stunned in almost equivalent trauma.

It might have been the case that words of solace would have prevented what happened next. Even a single reassurance might have changed the mind of the destroyed man who had lost the most important thing to him. One would have hoped that his wife would have been most important in his life. That was not the case though. It was his pride that ruled his actions most. Now, even his pride was destroyed. It is easy to wonder whether changing something in the past would have prevented an action. Any alteration, whether major or minor, could potentially change the entire cosmos. The past being in the past however, mankind will never know the truth of that statement.

Too quickly for the shaken Warrun to react, Jack Vinetti unclipped the first officer’s weapon holster. Realizing too late what was happening, the destroyed man brought the loaded weapon to his chin and pulled the trigger, ending that moment so no more could follow.

It was several minutes before Warrun again became aware of the world around him. He had not gone unconscious insofar as he had remained awake. Rather, he lost touch with reality in the aftermath of that concussive blast. The dreaded ringing broke the voices of the woman in white before him. Her existence seemed only a trivial point to him at the moment. Nothing seemed important right then as the woman shined a light in both his eyes and ears. Her lips were moving, but he could not register her voice. Instead, he looked past her at the torrent of action in the previously empty hallway.

Several officers stood in a circle off to the side. Among them was the Chief who looked furious. Warrun could tell by the dramatic flailing and lip movements that he was screaming though he couldn’t hear the screams himself. His gaze slid left to what was now a crime scene. A forensic analyst knelt over the limp and pale body of Jack Vinetti, taking pictures and cataloging everything she could.

Warrun looked long and hard at the body on the floor, ignoring the woman vying for his attention. He did not think. He did not move. He only looked and felt a heat gather in him. The shock was quickly wearing off, and moment by moment, he could begin to hear the commotion around him. No heed was given however. All he felt was the heat.

On a subconscious level, the first officer could almost see the heat. It was like a fire burning first in his stomach, then in the whole of his chest. Reds and yellows and oranges. Burning, singeing, it consumed his body and mind. His face turned red and his teeth grit together to make noise. His hot breath felt like steam against the hand of the paramedic. Warrun heard then that she called to his superior but his mind was consumed by something more powerful than a single emotion, something more blinding, something more cataclysmic.

Hate.

The apathy was gone. His ability not to care was gone. His dismissive view of the day was gone. The two certainties he had lost conviction in that morning came back to him, and he felt his purpose renewed. There would be no stopping him now. Nothing could keep him from finding that horrible monster that had caused so much suffering to humanity. Nothing could stop him from catching the Devil once and for all.

Nobody could stop him from killing the man in the pinstripe suit. No person save one.

The sound that truly pulled him back to the world was that of his phone ringing. The harsh clamor pierced the air and caused everyone to go silent. All eyes turned on Warrun as he reached into his belt and grabbed out his phone. Flipping it open, he put it to his ears and said roughly, “Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Slavinski?”

“Yes.”

“Are you the father of Maria Slavinski, student of Hunter College Elementary School?”

“Yes.”

“Have you or anyone you know taken Maria from class without informing the school?”

Warrun bolted upright, the fire instantly replaced by icy fear. “No. Why? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I am very sorry. Mr. Slavinski, sometime this morning, your daughter disappeared between classes. A teacher’s gross oversight allowed her absence to go unnoticed until we were collecting lunch tickets. We cannot find your daughter on school grounds.”

Warrun forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. He’d been through enough missing persons cases to know panicking was the worst thing he could do. The chilling fear still caused him to stutter as he begged, “D-do you h-have any idea-dea where she is?”

“No we do not, sir. We will inform the police immediately of the situation.”

With a tremor in his voice, Warrun answered, “You just did.” Without waiting for a response, he ended the call and turned to his chief to say, “My daughter’s gone missing, sir. I have to go find her.”

The grim statement could do little to shake the men and women in the room after the accident that had just occurred. Knowing full well he would not be able to stop him, the Chief of precinct 13 said, “Okay, Warrun. Where do you need us?”

Already walking towards the double doors at the end of the hall, he said over his shoulder, “I need a sweep done over the area surrounding Hunter’s College Elementary School.”

“What about you?”

Stopping with his hand on the door’s handle, he said, “There’s one place I think she might be. I just pray I find her.” Without waiting for a response, Warrun opened the door and ran for his car.

Again, there was no music. There was no finger tapping. There was only a profound sense of urgency as the first officer weaved through traffic with his siren blaring. Running red lights, cutting corners dangerously, Warrun’s frantic pace went beyond the reason of urgency. Vehicles clamored to get out of his way as he plowed his way through the city of eight million. Though his drive took him all the way to the north end of Manhattan, quite a distance from his child’s elementary school, he made the distance very quickly as the ocean of people parted at his command.

Within the cruiser, the siren roared. Within Warrun’s mind however, there was silence. It was not silent because he had nothing to think about, nor was it silent out of fear. It was only silent because the man had spent many years learning to clear his mind when tragedy occurred around him. For this Warrun was grateful. Otherwise his fear might have paralyzed him. Indeed, if he were a lesser man that cold gut wrenching fear would have harnessed that nightmare of every parent and brought him to fitful tears and agonized cries.

Every ounce of his being yearned to find his lovely daughter, and he prayed that she was in that cold and desolate corner of Manhattan that breathes the sadness of absence where she had so often before wandered. “No,” Warrun rethought in consternation. “I hope we find her anywhere else but there. I don’t want her to be there.” Yet the place he hoped most she would not be found was the first place he knew to check.

Warrun’s vehicle rounded the last bend his given course offered and the sprawling cityscape gave way ever so suddenly into the greener landscape that bordered the northern end of Manhattan. It was not wild or untouched as some corners of America still are. It instead gave way from any living institution to an institution of death. A less disturbed mind than Warrun’s might have stopped to note a touch of beauty to the landscape. Behind the low iron fence were many beautiful and ornate stones. Many were white as marble, statues cutting figures as stern and thoughtful as David did while he stood in thought over whether or not to throw his stone and secure his fame and immortality. Most however were glossy, grey, and dead; little more than pedestals trying vainly to link men and women of the distant, intangible past to this topsy turvy present.

Warrun parked his cruiser and bolted out of it. His hastened pace drew no attention as that particular boulevard and institution was empty of all human life save one figured sitting against one of those glossy, grey stones. Hastening his footsteps, Warrun quickly closed the gap between him and his daughter.

Maria did little to acknowledge her father as he fell to his knees in front of her and overwhelmed her tiny frame in a two arms that slammed together as the tides of the red sea once did. The cries of consternation, remorse, and fear that droned in her ears did not register much, nor was she made happy at what was otherwise a touching reunion to behold. It wasn’t until her father had let her go and asked the right question that she bothered to register his existence.

Looking down into her arms, her eyes greeted the shredded remains of Owlowiscious. Warrun did not see the mess of cotton fluff and tattered wrappings for what it was and begged softly, “Maria, what are you holding? Why won’t you talk to me?”

“I will,” she answered simply, as though that were all the explanation that was necessary.

“Thank God!” Warrun cried in relief. “Come on, sweetie belle. Tell daddy what happened. What are you doing here?”

Dodging his second and more urgent question, Maria held up the ball of fluff, dropping much of the contents on the ground to be caught up in the chill autumn breeze, and said matter of factly, “Owlowiscious died.”

A look of chill horror showed on the first officer’s face. His mouth opened to say something, but no words came to him as he looked at the mess. It seemed to him even more macabre than the one he’d just left back at the precinct.

Indifferently, the little girl with those crystal blue eyes balled up the mess and through it saying, “He’s dead just like mommy.”

Warrun’s eyes followed the discarded ball. “What happened to him?” Turning back to his daughter, he pressed, “Did you do that?”

With a sad frown besmirching her otherwise cheerful face, Maria asked, “Is God real, daddy?”

With an ever deepening frown, Warrun crossed his legs beneath him and asked, “What makes you ask a serious question like that?”

Her frown turned a little angry as she stated in accusation, “You didn’t answer me! Is God real or not?”

The demand stunned Warrun into silence. He was not the least bit prepared for answering a question he’d been debating all his life. The best he could manage was to meekly say, “I, I don’t know, Maria.”

His little girl’s anger contorted back into a look of despair as she hung her head and stated, “He isn’t, Daddy.”

Reaching his hand beneath her chin, Warrun lifted Maria’s eyes to his own as he asked, “Who isn’t what?”

“I believed, Daddy.” Frustrated moisture glistened in those crystal blue orbs as she cried, “I really believed! I did just what Fr. Allen told me. I gave him everything, and I didn’t tell you or the teachers or anyone, and I did everything good.”

Warrun fretted as he saw his daughter begin to shake and ball her fists, her usually congenial persona being torn asunder by equal and opposite pulls of anger and sadness. Her father interjected into her rant demanding fearfully, “Who is Fr. Allen? What did he tell you to do?”

“I saw him yesterday.” She turned her eyes to the ground and pulled up a clump of grass out of the grave. “He came to me here while I was talking to Mommy.”

Terrified, Warrun’s voice grew even more demanding, “Did he touch you?”

His daughter turned up a confused face and answered, “No. He talked to me.”

The officer of the law pressed his interrogation only a tiny bit relieved, “What did he say to you? It’s very important, Maria. Tell me everything.”

Reading the agitation in his voice, Maria said, “Um. He told me that he could talk to God. He said that he could make Mommy come back to life if I gave money and Owlowiscious to God.”

“Money and Owlowiscious?” Warrun mimicked to himself. “You gave this man, Fr. Allen, money and Owlowiscious?” As his daughter gave a soft nod, he pressed, “What did he do with them?”

Maria’s eyes went to the ball of cotton being scattered in the wind. Warrun followed her eyes, his mind finally registering exactly what the carcass was. “Oh my God,” he cried in horror. He reached down and lifted his daughter into his lap so as to grip her once again in a bear like hug. “I’m so sorry, Maria. I don’t even. I don’t even know what.” His words failed him, and he choked, “I’m sorry.”

Though she herself was on the verge of sobbing, Maria maintained herself enough to comfort her father, “It’s okay, Daddy. I don’t need him anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

In a way could only be described as courageous for an eight year old girl, she explained with a small, sad smile, “You always told me that Mommy’s right here, and that she can hear me when I come talk to her. I know she’s not though. I know you just said that to make me happy.” The smile dissipated. Only a frown lingered. “She can’t hear me because she’s not with God. God’s not real. Mommy’s just dead.”

“Don’t say that, Maria!” Warrun furrowed his brow and declared, hardly believing his own words, “Mommy’s with us right now, listening to us. We just can’t see her right now, but we will one day. Someday we’ll all meet up in heaven, and we’ll all live together forever.”

“But Fr. Allen said that if I really believed, God would bring Mommy back to us now.”

Biting his lip, Warrun explained, “Well, this Fr. Allen was lying to you, sweetie belle. People don’t come back to life.”

“Why would he lie?!” the little girl screamed. Tears ran down her face freely as she cried, “Why would he lie and kill Owlowiscious? Why would he do that? Why was he so mean?”

Warrun hugged her rosy cheeks to his shoulder, stifling the tears, and answered morosely, “I don’t know, sweetie belle. I’ll make sure you never see him again. Okay?”

His little girl nodded her head and muffled into the patch on his jacket, “Okay.”

Holding her face out once more and locking her eyes with his, Warrun said in with intensity, “I need you to do something very important for me, Maria. I need you to describe exactly what Fr. Allen looked like. Can you do that for me?”

Maria nodded meekly.

“Good.” Warrun pulled out a pad and pen from his chest pocket and engaged in the detective side of his vocation, “Now tell me, what was he wearing?”

“Um,” she started, her face puckered in thought. “He was wearing a black coat and pants.”

“Good,” the first officer said scrawling. “Was it dark black?”

“No.”

“What else was it?”

Frowning, she explained, “It was, like, stripey.”

Warrun’s pen stopped scrolling. Throat dry and raspy, he pressed softly, “What did his face look like?”

Again thoughtful, Maria answered, “He had brown hair and, like, really white skin. And, um, his teeth were really clean, and he smelled good.”

The first officer bit his cheek until he tasted copper. Slowly he reached into his pocket as he had just an hour earlier and withdrew a small square photo. Holding the image up to his daughter’s face which sported ample baby pudge and asked, “Is this the person you saw?”

The recognition that instantly flashed in her eyes was all Warrun needed to learn his answer. Even as she cried, “Yeah! That’s him, Daddy. That’s him.” Warrun’s eyes fell from hers to the ground between them. His silence that followed caused almost as much distress to his daughter as he felt within himself.

“Daddy. Daddy! Please talk to me. I’m sorry Daddy! I won’t do it again. I’m sorry!”