me, right out of the bushes, right in front of my car. I swerved, I tried to miss her, but… but… I couldn’t.”
Carusso took the man by the arm, leading him toward the shoulder of the roadway.
“Joe,” he said as he walked, “get on the horn… see what’s holdin’ the ambulance. Hurry up.”
Rizzo stood on weakened legs, turning and running back to the radio car. Frantically, he radioed for expedited medical backup. Then he went back to the girl, again kneeling at her side.
During his four years of ser vice as an Army M.P., Rizzo had seen some ugly things, things he preferred not to think about. But never had he seen anything like this. As he looked down at the woman, the girl, an eerie, dry hollow rattle suddenly sounded from deep within her chest cavity. Simultaneously, the pulsating blood from the head wound went oddly still. It began to pool within the skull, filling the depth of the depression and again spilling slowly onto the already bloodstained pavement.
Rizzo glanced up over his shoulder at Carusso, now standing above and behind him. “She just died,” he heard the older cop say. “It’s over.” Rizzo stood slowly, his hands trembling, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
Carusso took him by the arm.
“Hey, kid,” he said softly. “Get hold of yourself. Stiffen up. Go see if there’s anything in the trunk. We gotta cover her up a little, give her some dignity. She don’t need to have her ass out here on display. Go ahead. Go find somethin’.”
Later, Rizzo examined the abandoned car hidden in the bushes off the side of the highway. It was an old Dodge, the engine still hot, ticking in the April morning air with an eerie cadence.
The woman had been stripped naked, sexually assaulted, and savagely beaten in her own car. The medical examiner would later determine there had been at least two assailants involved. At some point, the girl had broken free, terrified and panicked, running blindly from the car and into the path of oncoming highway traffic. There she had been struck with violent force and dragged under a car, then ultimately thrown free from its undercarriage. The terrified driver, hearing her body thump and thrash beneath the floorboard, swerved and skidded off the roadway onto the grass shoulder.
The responding detectives examined the Dodge, but it had yielded no usable clues. The case remained open, no arrest had ever been made.
Now, nearly twenty-seven years later, Joe Rizzo lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.
The dream came periodically. Often, at first, then once or twice a year. Lately, he had gone nearly two years without having it, and Rizzo thought he knew what had triggered it this time.
He swung his legs off the bed and sighed, sitting up and rubbing at his face.
The dream was always the same. They were alone on the highway. Just Rizzo and the body. No vehicles, no Carusso, no citizens. The cold wind blew over the desolate scene, chilling him.
The girl, scarred, battered, bloody, and naked against the dirty, cold concrete of the roadway, gave her death rattle. The pulsating blood went still, tranquil, inanimate.
Rizzo held a soiled blanket. Gently, he covered the girl’s naked body and face. As he stood on the empty highway, the wind rushing in his ears, gazing down at the covered corpse, his eyes began to tear.
Then, slowly, the blanket began to stir. The young woman pulled the blanket from her face with a bloodied, trembling hand. Rizzo stepped back suddenly, enveloped in a fear that overwhelmed his grief. He stared at the pretty young face, blond hair wisping lightly in the breeze against the skin, the eyes now wide open. Blue, sharp, piercing. The pale lips parted, and in a throaty, wet voice, the young woman pleaded to him. “Help me,” she said.
Terrified, he backed farther away, his bowels going loose with fear.
“Help me,” she whispered, desperation and chilling terror in her eyes. “You’re a cop. Help me. Please.”
Then he would awaken, violently sweating, arms flailing, panic-stricken. Time after time.
Rizzo sighed. “And that,” he said aloud, “is the reality of it.”
“The reality of what?” he heard suddenly. Startled, he turned quickly. Jennifer, rubbing at her hair with a fluffy towel, stood naked in the bathroom doorway.
“The reality of being a cop,” he said to her. Rizzo shook his head sadly. “That’s what Carol doesn’t get. What she doesn’t understand.”
Jennifer crossed the room, sitting beside him on the bed.
“Is this about that damn nightmare of yours?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. That’s what triggered it this time, this business with Carol going on the cops. She figures she’ll be a big hero, Charlie’s friggin’ Angel, riding to the rescue in her blue-and-white. Then she’ll spend the next twenty years learning the truth. How you wind up kneeling on the road watchin’ some kid die, with some old cop tellin’ you to note the time. For the incident report. Note the time and go get a goddamned blanket.”
Jennifer laid a hand on his shoulder but remained silent. Rizzo glanced at her face, saw the tension in her jaw.
Forcing a smile to his lips, he leaned over and gently kissed her cheek, laying a soft hand on her thigh.
“We’ll handle it, Jen,” he said. “Believe me, we’ll handle it.”
She nodded, still silent, grim-faced.
He nuzzled her ear. “We need to have a date soon, hon,” he said, lightening his tone, willing his body to relax. “Okay?” he asked.
“A date?” she said, a small smile forming. “You mean, like when we were in high school?”
Rizzo allowed his own smile to broaden. “Well,” he said, “considering you’re sitting next to me naked on the bed, I figure more of a college-type date. Remember?”
Jennifer brushed his hand from her thigh and stood. She removed the towel from her head, shaking her dark hair free.
“Yes, of course I remember. But relax, sailor, let’s not start ‘dating’ just now. I’ve got to get to work.”
“Well, then, get that nice-lookin’ ass out of my face or you may be late for homeroom.”
Jennifer laughed, her tension nearly gone, and spun from his exaggerated efforts to grab her, disappearing back into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.
Later, as they sipped coffee at the kitchen table, Rizzo now in his bathrobe, Jennifer dressed and ready for work, he saw the tension return to her face.
“Can we really do it, Joe?” she asked. “Can we really handle this with Carol?”
He smiled, trying to convey a confidence he didn’t feel.
“Sure we can,” he said. “This expedited hiring they announced, that shook me a little, I admit. I figured we had more time. But… I got a plan.”
Jennifer glanced at the wall clock. “I have a few minutes. Tell me. What’s your plan?”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s nothing new. What we’ve always done with the girls. All three of ’em. The truth. My plan is the simple, friggin’ truth.”
She leaned in over the table, closer to him. “Meaning what?” she asked.
“The Daily thing, for one,” Rizzo said. “That whole mess me and Mike stumbled into. The tape I got stashed in the basement. The whole fuckin’ mess. And that other business, the internal affairs thing that drunk Morelli got me jammed up with. That whole rotten ball of crap. I’m gonna tell Carol about it. All of it. How I.A.D. was squeezin’ me to rat out Morelli; how I played Councilman Daily to use his juice to squash it. I’m gonna tell her how me and Mike are sittin’ on that tape-withholding evidence, riskin’ an accessory charge, all because we couldn’t trust anybody, couldn’t go to the bosses with any confidence. And let’s face it, to grease our own wheels, too. To get Mike to the Plaza, get Cil her gold shield, get me some pensionable overtime. I’m gonna tell her that to fight them, to do what
Now Rizzo paused, allowing himself to calm down. “The fire to fight the fire,” he repeated. “That and the blanket. Always the blanket.”
He sighed. “To cover up the bodies,” he said softly, nodding. “To cover up the fuckin’ bodies.”
LATER THAT morning, Rizzo sat sipping coffee and looking into the bright, animated eyes of his youngest daughter, Carol.
