Bullet Buddies

Steve sits there waiting for the officers to join him in the interrogation room. He looks at the walls around him; they seem to be closing in on him. The white paint of the walls is fading from years of neglect. Shaking, Steve stares at the drops of sweat on the floor and wonders why he did what he did. He wipes his hands on his green denim shorts, and wipes the sweat on his forehead with his black Pearl Jam shirt. He looks at the window that bars from the outside where the officers stand. He can’t see them, but he knows they are there waiting to hear what he did. He analyzes his reflection in the window, watches how his sweat soaked face shakes, and stares at the redness of his eyes.

“Dick, let me brief you on the situation before you go in there. We got a kid who’s about seventeen in there and an eighteen-year-old down at the hospital in critical condition for a bullet wound in his chest. This kid has been crying, sweating, and shaking like a leaf since we brought him in two hours ago. I can’t get a peep out of him. No name. Nothing. Luckily, we found this blue wallet at the scene of the crime."

Dick examines the outside of the wallet for a second and then opens it. He flips through a few gas cards, college rep. cards, and finally stops at a license.

“Steve Cavanaugh, huh? Red hair, hazel eyes, 5’7”, 125, scrawny little kid, huh? How long has he been here, again?” Dick says as he hands the wallet back to the officer.

“About two hours, I left him in there to calm down, but I think he is ready to talk.”

"Okay, wish me luck, I’m going in"

Dick slowly opens the door trying not to scare the kid. He pulls a chair from the corner and sits across from Steve. He hands Steve a handkerchief as Steve is covered in sweat and tears.

“Hi. I’m officer Dick Holloway, but you can just call me Dick. Looks like you have had a rough night. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“I’ve done something . . . something horrible," Steve replies, shaking and crying.

“I can’t help you unless you help me by telling me what that thing was.”

“I didn’t have to do it, I could have handled it another way. He arrived about . . . .“

“Wait, who arrived? The guy we found lying on the floor in the house on 16^th Street?”

“His name is Tom. Yes. We, um," Steve struggles with his words. “We started drinking about half an hour after Tom arrived. I didn’t drink much, but he did. He seemed to have a bottomless pit. Almost finished two bottles of Jack Daniels himself. We had been watching The Last Boy Scout . He just started asking these weird ass questions. Like why I had taken Jenny from him?”

“Now, who is Jenny?”

“My girlfriend and his ex. We’ve been dating for um . . . two months and um . . . they had broken up two months previous to this. Tom and I had been best buddies for almost 10 years. Anyway, he kept on asking and asking questions. I did not know how to answer. 'Did you fuck her?! Do you touch her?! I bet you do! Well do you?! Does she enjoy it?! I said do you fuck her?!' he said to me. I was scared. He sat there interrogating me like you are now, Dick. He um . . . started throwing things. Bottles, shoes, plates . . . anything he could find, he threw. He kicked the wall a few times, violently. He is a big guy, 6’5” and he just scared me. I didn’t know what to do. I knew my father had a shotgun um . . .down in the cellar, but it was locked up. I didn’t know where the key was. Tom started walking toward the kitchen um . . . um . . . to get his red duffel bag. I thought he only brought booze, but he had a gun. He pointed it at me. I didn’t know what he was going to do. So, I jumped um . . . towards him and landed on him. I um . . . grabbed the gun and then it just went off. Next thing I knew there was blood on my hands and my shirt. I shot him!! I shot my best friend!!" Steve yells. Just then there was a knock on the door. "Yeah, what is it?” Dick asks.

The door opens, “Dick, can I see you in the other room.”

“Jerry, can’t you see I am busy now. By the way, Steve, this is Officer Jerry Riggs. He has been here a year and still can’t tell when I am busy.”

“Look, I need to see you; it cannot wait.”

“All right, don’t be such a hothead. Excuse me, Steve.” Dick stands up and starts to walk away and then turns to Steve handing his handkerchief to him again and says to the him, “I know.”

Jerry watches Steve wipe his tears away as he closes the door.

“Now, Jerry what was so important that you needed to pull me away from an attempted murder suspect, for crying out loud?!"

“Well for starters he’s a murder suspect now, Tom Hoskins died about 15 minutes ago. And second, you know Ned, from Downtown, right? Well, he just came back from the crime scene and he says he found another gun, a 9mm.”

“Where did he find it? I thought we searched everything?”

“Well, not well enough. They found it outside in a ditch, almost under the house. What did you get out of the kid?”

“Well, he says he shot him in self defense and from the way he describes the story, it was in self defense.”

“Then, the case is solved, thank god. I thought we had a long one here.”

“One problem, he did not do it.”

“What?! He confessed! What more do you want?! Is that what you meant when you said ‘I know’ to the kid?”

“Yes, he did not do it. His story is bunch of bullshit!”

“Oh give me a fucking break. What evidence do you have?!”

“A hunch. It’s all in the way he tells the story, he sounds like he is making it up as he goes along."

“He’s shaken up! He killed his best fried for Christ sake!"

Dick grabbed Jerry by the shirt, saying, “Now look, I have been on the force 17 years! You hear me! Seventeen fucking years and when I have a hunch it is usually as good as gold alright!"

“Ok, now get off me! Just get the hell off of me!”

Dick lets go, “Sorry, but, I know what I am talking about.”

“For my sake, I will say you do,” Jerry says as he massages his chest and walks away.

Dick pulls a smoke from his shirt pocket, lights it, and says, “Chris do me a favor, would you?”

“Yes, sir. What is it?”

“Take the kid to the holding cell.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dick takes a long deep inhale of his cigarette. “He did not do it.” I know it. I wonder if they found anything on the gun Ned found." He calls Nedh and takes another puff.

“Hello, Officer Ned Jasper speaking. How may I help you?“

“Hello, it’s Dick from 25^th, what you got on that gun you found on 16^th Street?”

“Hey, how you doing my man Dick? You called just in time, Forensics just called.”

“Well, what did you find?”

“Well, the fingerprints on it match those of a woman named Jennifer Hardy. I just was about to pick her up and bring her in for questioning, unless you want to do it.”

“Yeah, sure thanks.” Dick hangs up and enters the name Jennifer Hardy into the computer. “Eighteen, no record, 5’5” and 120, blonde hair and blue eyes. Sounds like a hell of a knockout. God, I hope I’m right about this. Jerry will be flooding my life with ‘I told you so’s’ if I’m not. 924 Jackson Street, it’s only about twenty minutes from here and it is 1 a.m. Question is should I go down there? Yeah, I better I go down there. I wouldn’t want to be right and she skips town," he thinks to himself.

Dick arrives at Jennifer’s house at 1:30. Walks to the door, knocks softly. A woman in her forties answers the door, “May I help you?”

“Yes, I am Officer Hollaway and I’m looking for Jennifer Hardy.”

“Well, she’s asleep. Can I help you with anything?”

“You are going to have to wake her up. I need to bring her in for questioning for the murder of Tom Hoskins.”

“What?! There must be a mistake!”

Suddenly Jennifer walks up behind her mother and says, "It’s all right, Mom. I will be back later.”

“I assume you are Jennifer Hardy? You’re going to have to come with me.”

“What’s this all about, Jen?”

“I’ll explain later, mom,” Jen says as she walks out the door.

Dick leads her to the door of his gray Buick, “We brought in your boyfriend Steve last night after we found Tom dead at Steve’s house last night. Steve says he shot Tom, is that how you remember it?”

Jennifer stares at Dick for a second, but keeps her mouth shut as Dick opens the door for her. It is silent all the way to the station. When they arrive at the station, Dick takes Jennifer to the interrogation room and pulls out a chair for her. “I’ll be right back. I am gonna get some coffee. Want some?”

“No thank you,” she says as she watches Dick walk out of the room. As Dick pours his coffee, Jerry walks in the room. Jerry tosses a tape on Dick’s desk and says, “That’s the tape from the 911 call last night. I think you should take a listen. I think you are, as much as I hate to admit it, right about the kid bullshitting us.”

“You do? What changed your mind?”

“Listen to the tape and you’ll find out.”

Dick puts the tape in the tape player and pushes play. “Why is this different from any other 911 call?”

“Just listen, and you will find out. You’re gonna have to turn it real loud to hear what I want you to hear.”

Dick turns the volume way up and the sound of the tape fills the room. A woman’s voice answers the 911 call, “Sacramento Police speaking.”

“Yes! I need an ambulance. My friend has been shot! He’s dying!” Steve yells frantically.

“Sir, I need you to calm down. Now do you know shot your friend?”

It took a while for Steve to answer, he didn’t know what to say. In the background there was a woman’s voice saying, “Say you shot him in self defense, just do it!!”

Then Steve’s voice fills the room again, “I um . . . did. I shot him!!!”

“Stop the tape right there. That’s all I wanted you to hear.”

Dick stops the recorder, “Now, I bet that woman in the background is Jennifer.”

“She’s Steve’s girlfriend and Ned found her fingerprints on the gun that they found under the house.”

“Where is she?”

“In the interrogation room. Let’s go speak to her. Bring that tape and my stereo.”

They go to join Jennifer in the interrogation room. Dick opens the door and lets Jerry walk in first.

“I’m Officer Jerry Riggs and this is Officer Dick Holloway. You sure look better than that boyfriend of yours looked last night.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you have an answer yet to that question I asked back when I picked you up?”

Jennifer was silent for a moment and then she answered, “Yes. Yes I do.”

“Well, I suggest you tell us if you have a different story than Steve.”

“That night I had planned to go out with Steve and Tom. Hopefully to get them talking again. They stopped talking about a month ago after a fight. I arrived at Steve’s house at 7 p.m. Tom arrived shortly after and we all had been listening to music for a while. Then Steve decided that he wanted to go get some beer but none of us wanted to go, so he just went by himself.”

“How did that scrawny kid pass for 21?” Jerry asked.

“He has fake ID that he uses.”

“How come we didn’t find it in his wallet?”

“He doesn’t keep it there.”

Then Dick says, “Jerry, let’s get on with this. Forget about the beer Jen, go on with the story."

“Like I said, Steve left and left me and Tom there all alone. I had been wearing a sports bra and blue jeans. Tom commented that I look real sexy and made a move on me

I told him that I was with Steve now and that me and him were way over. That didn’t stop him, he walked toward me and kept saying that he wanted to make love like the old days. I told him no and he ran in the kitchen. I knew what Steve kept on the top shelf of the china cabinet because he showing it to me earlier in the week. I reached up to grab the gun and that’s when Tom said sorry. That he was sorry about everything. I pulled the gun out anyway to play around, you know to scare him and . . . .” She starts crying. “I thought that the safety was on and I started pointing it at Tom. He got scared, real scared. I asked him if he was scared. ‘Are you fucking scared. If you are, I will shoot you. If you flinch, I will shoot you motherfucker.’ I said. I just wanted to play with him, get him frazzled. Well, thinking the safety was on, I pulled the trigger. The gun went off and I shot him right in the head. I shot him!! I did it!! Steve didn’t want me to go to jail so he covered for me.” She broke down crying and buried her face in her hands.

“Now are you sure that’s how it went/”

“Yes!! Do you want me to spell it out?!!”

“One more question.” Dick plugs in the cassette player in and sets it on the table. He pushes play. The sound of the 911 call fill the room again. Dick waits for the part where the woman’s voice is heard on the tape. “Is that your voice?”

“Yes, it is. As I said before Steve was covering for me. I’ve told you everything! What more do you want?!”

“We’ll leave you alone to get a hold of yourself.”

Jerry and Dick leave the room. Dick pulls a cigarette and lights it. He takes a long inhale before blowing out the smoke. “I think we have got our lady.”

“Yeah we sure do. How long you think she will get?”

“About five 5 to 10, and maybe parole in 5.”

“And the boyfriend?”

“One year’s probation.”

“Sorry I doubted you Dick.”

“That’s all right. Now the case is over. Just remember, good as gold, all right.”

© David Iribarne