Red Man Down(9)

‘You hit it, too, didn’t you?’ Sarah said, letting a little glint of admiration show. They didn’t have the autopsy report yet, but they had retrieved the digital recording from the camera in his squad car and were playing it, over and over, on Sarah’s desktop. It showed Lacey standing beside his truck, his right hand pulling a weapon from behind his head while his left hand followed it forward, getting ready to support the gun he was already firing. He’d got his feet apart, almost braced, before the first of Spurlock’s bullets slammed into his throat. The video showed just the tip of Spurlock’s Glock firing, at the left edge of the screen.

There was one electric moment, after Spurlock’s first shot caught Lacey under the chin, when the man stood perfectly still – stopped in his tracks by that first bullet. His inertness lasted long enough so Spurlock’s next two shots went through-and-through in his upper chest, the bloody spray of the exits showing plainly in the video.

Immediately after the third shot Ed Lacey’s knees buckled and he fell backward onto the asphalt where he lay without moving, his dead eyes staring at an empty sky.

The young officer, taking no chances, apparently maintained his shooting stance for twelve seconds (Sarah had timed it, thinking, I bet it felt longer to him). Actually it felt longer to the officers watching the video now, too – an incredible taut stretch of time while the nose of the Glock stayed motionless at the edge of the screen and Lacey lay on the asphalt, little motes of dust rising in the sunshine from the body heat his wounds gave off.

Then the edge of the Glock disappeared and Spurlock moved cautiously into camera range, his gun lowered but still not holstered. He walked stiffly to the side of the fallen man, leaned down, and with his left hand touched the spot behind the ear where the pulse should have been. Finding none he straightened up, holstered his gun and walked slowly, like a much older person, to his vehicle.

Out of camera range, he could be heard on the dispatcher’s recording, calling to report the shooting and ask for an EMT unit. It was extremely poignant, after that textbook performance with the Glock, to hear his young voice ask plaintively, ‘Am I ever going to get any backup here?’

Spurlock’s face flushed brighter at the sound of his own voice. He had been spooked and sunburned, standing so long alone in that lot with the corpse. Now, his knees were starting to jitter in his chair; his cheeks and nose and even his eyeballs got redder and redder. He looked about ready to light up like a box of fireworks and fly into space.

Sure glad his weapon’s put away, Sarah thought. She found herself hoping he had no guns at home for personal use.

‘Let’s watch it again from the beginning,’ Jeffries said. They had sent Spurlock home, telling him to expect a call from somebody on the counseling staff no later than Monday morning. ‘If you don’t hear from them by noon,’ Sarah had said, ‘you call me, you hear? And I’ll light a fire under somebody.’

‘Sure,’ he’d said, not meeting her eye. ‘But I’m all right, Sarah.’

‘I know. But it’s very important that you talk this through with someone who’s trained to help.’ She’d watched him walk away, hoping he’d do as she’d asked. He was getting a ride home – his squad car was impounded and his personal Prius had been chauffeured home after Jeffries checked his blood pressure. They were treating Dan Spurlock with every consideration, which little by little was stripping him of his newly-formed identity as an authoritative officer of the law.

‘I asked Counseling to get to him as soon as they could,’ she said. ‘But they’re so busy – they might have to make him wait.’ She did an anxious dry-wash.

‘He’ll be all right,’ Jeffries said. ‘I had bad dreams for a couple of weeks after my first gun fight, but I survived it and he will too.’

‘Tough to have it happen in his first six months, though.’

‘I know. But right now our job is to clear him and the department of culpability. Let’s take another look at that recording.’

They locked the door and asked the support staff to hold calls. With all the building sounds at a distance, they watched the four-minute film again, rolled it back to the beginning and started over. After they’d watched it twice more in silence, Jeffries said, ‘OK, I’m ready to review, are you?’

‘Yes.’ She got her mouse ready. Seven seconds in, she stopped the video. ‘First thing I noticed is here.’

‘Yes. The suspect moved around to the far side of the box he was working on. Getting his back out of sight, right?’