He took a long shower to flush the rabble from his head. And the nightmare images of Terry Farina. They haunted him all day long, lurking in the shadows, popping up at the slightest reminder as if trip-wired. He could barely attain an objective distance on the case without feeling that he was pursuing himself. It was like being stuck in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.
He put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the living room.
A cold silence filled the space. He thought about making a fire except that fires were for wine and intimacy. He opened a bottle of Sam Adams and sat in the armchair and stared at the dead hearth, listing to the numbing silence. One of their hundred rituals was sitting by the fireplace with a bottle of wine to recap the day. On the mantel sat a photo of Dana and him at a pool bar in Jamaica from their honeymoon. For a long moment he stared at their beaming faces, thinking how the pain of her absence was what amputation must be like—phantom sensations where parts had been lopped off.
He closed his eyes. Maybe it was the beer or the stress or toxic blood sloshing through his brain, but he felt as if he were in the center of a bottomless vortex sucking him down. All he could think was how he just wanted to let go—an urge that made sense given his family heritage of contention, betrayal, divorce, and defeat. He could still hear the screaming matches, his father’s fireball accusations, his mother’s denial and spells of withering self-pity. He could still feel the tearing in his soul as he tried to defend his mother—a woman of Celtic beauty but an unstable constitution—against his father’s attacks. And while he tried to blot those years from his memory, he knew deep down that he had been imprinted with his temper and her urge to withdraw. No wonder he couldn’t commit to having kids. No wonder the booze and dumb dick-first impulse to violate everything that was important to him. And now Dana was making makeover plans that didn’t include him. Abandoned him as his parents had done. Left him flat when he needed her the most.
And the more he thought about that, the more resentment bubbled up like acid.
It was her fault, when you got right down to it. He couldn’t commit, so she decides to shut him off, leaving him even more depressed.
For a spell he hated her for that. He had even acted out, smashing a lamp the night she told him she wanted to separate. But unlike other husbands, he had never let loose his demons on his wife. Not at Dana. To some that would seem a lame victory to celebrate.
And yet, he carried resentment like a low-grade fever. He had read someplace that rejection actually registers in the area of the brain that responds to physical pain. That in the extreme, the reaction is the production of stress hormones that can give rise to blind and dangerous impulses.
The question shot up out of nowhere.
“Shit,” he said, and guzzled down the rest of the beer and returned to the kitchen.
His pistol sat in its holster on the counter. In his seventeen years on the force he had fired it on duty only three times, wounding two felons in critically dangerous incidents. The third he killed in self-defense. The rest of its use was at the range.
He picked it up.
The standard Boston P.D. issue, a Glock 23. He snapped it out of the holster and held it by the grip. For a moment he understood how people committed suicide: when nothing holds any appeal, when even onetime simple pleasures go flat. When you look forward to nothing. When you feel guilty for being alive.
He tested the heft. The gun boasted an ergonomic design with a satisfying weight distribution to ensure a controlled shot even under the most adverse conditions. A grip angle that complemented the instinctive abilities of the shooter and a satisfying twenty-five ounces with full magazine, the gun was constructed out of a high-tech synthetic that was reportedly stronger than steel yet a lot lighter. It was the weapon of choice of law enforcement.
The grip was cool and comfortable in his hands, as if they’d grown up together.
He raised the gun so that the end of the barrel rested squarely on the middle of his forehead. His finger curled around the trigger. Just five and a half pounds of finger pressure separated him from oblivion, from joining the grim statistics of police suicides.
And they’d say he did it because of the high stress of the job; because of the constant danger; because of the Kodak gallery of death scenes in a cop’s head; because a cop is a take-charge figure who’s supposed to fix problems whether in or out of uniform. Because a cop is a different species from the rest of society, an isolated being who is rendered “other” by the uniform, the badge, and the gun. Because cops are part of a quasi-military institution where emotions are to be kept hidden so as not to let others sense doubt or to burden family members. Because cops are tempered by cynicism and mistrust of outsiders. Because the hopelessness, despair, and disillusionment with the human animal create conditions that destroy. Because the only people outside the uniforms that cops trust are family, and when one of those relationships ends, the cop’s emotional support base is lost. And all that’s left is the abyss.
He shook open his eyes and returned the weapon to the holster and put it in the closet of his bedroom where he stored it each night, thinking how for one brief moment his death made all the sense in the world.
20
A Jamaica Plain woman was found dead Sunday morning in her apartment on Payson Road. The case is being treated as “suspicious.”
The woman, Terry Farina, thirty-eight, was found in her second-floor apartment bedroom by a concerned friend and the building’s landlady, according to Cheryl Coombs, a Police Department spokeswoman. The friend and landlady called 911 after discovering her body.
Authorities refused to explain the exact nature of her death. All they revealed is that the woman died within twenty-four hours prior to her discovery. An autopsy is planned to determine the exact cause of death.
They have released a photo and a description of Terry Farina. She was five seven, and weighed one hundred and thirty pounds. She had red hair and blue eyes.
If the Farina death turns out to be a homicide, it would be the city’s thirty-ninth murder this year, seven more than last year at this time…
Dana opened the paper to a photograph of the woman on an inside page. Her age was listed as thirty-eight, but she looked younger in the undated shot. She had shoulder-length dark hair and a heart-shaped face with large eyes, a broad brow, a thin nose, and a short chin. It was eerie: except for the nose and brow, the woman could have passed for a younger version of herself.
According to Steve, someone had wrapped a stocking around her neck and snuffed out her life. Being married to a homicide cop for so many years did not mitigate the horror that someone could do that to another person. The woman had gotten up that morning, fixed her hair, dressed, made plans for the day, totally unaware that hours later she would die a hideous death. And here Dana was anguishing over her eyelids.
She folded the paper.
It was a little after ten when she finished doing her grades, wondering if it was the last time—a thought that made her a little sad. She would miss the kids. She still had another few weeks to give notice, but word had gotten out that she was considering resigning, because two students had left notes at the end of their exams, wishing her good luck but hoping she’d change her mind. One girl said that she was not only the best teacher she had had at Carleton but was her role model and wished she could take another course with her next year when she was a senior. The note was sweet but only added to Dana’s anxiety.
As she got ready for bed, she suddenly felt vulnerable. Maybe it was the Farina story and being alone in the house, but as she went through the rooms turning off the lights she felt an irrational fear rise up. When she and Steve were living together, the place felt safe, even with the constant reminders of the violence of life. Maybe it
