Frameshift

The city cops were a salt-and-pepper team: a wide black man and a taller, skinnier white woman. The black man seemed to be the senior officer. He got a sealed package of latex gloves out of his glove compartment and snapped them onto his beefy hands, then moved in to examine the body. He checked the body’s wrist for a pulse, then shifted its head and tried again at the base of the neck. “Christ,” he said. “Karen?”

His partner came closer and played a flashlight beam onto the face. “He got a good punch in, that’s for sure,” the woman said, indicating the wound Pierre’s keys had made. Then she blinked. “Say, didn’t we bust him a few weeks ago?”

The black man nodded. “Chuck Hanratty. Scum.” He shook his head, but it seemed more in wonder than out of sadness. He rose to his feet, snapped off his gloves, and looked briefly at the campus cop, a chubby white-haired Caucasian who was averting his eyes from the body. He then turned to Pierre and Molly. “Either of you hurt?”

“No,” said Molly, her voice quavering slightly. “Just shaken up.”

The female cop was scanning the area with her flashlight. “That the knife?” she said, looking at Pierre and pointing at the bowie, which had landed at the base of another redwood.

Pierre looked up, but didn’t seem to hear.

“The knife,” she said again. “The knife that killed him.”

Pierre nodded.

“He was trying to kill us,” said Molly.

The black man looked at her. “Are you a student here?”

“No, I’m faculty,” she said. “Psychology department.”

“Name?”

“Molly Bond.”

He jerked his head at Pierre, who was still staring into space. “And him?”

“He’s Pierre Tardivel. He’s with the Human Genome Center, up at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.”

The officer turned to the campus cop. “You know these two?”

The old guy was slowly recovering his composure; this sort of thing was a far cry from getting cars towed from handicapped parking spots. He shook his head.

The male cop turned back to Molly and Pierre. “Let me see your driver’s licenses and university IDs,” he said.

Molly opened her purse and showed the requested cards to the officer.

Pierre, chilled without a shirt on, still shaken by the death of the man, arms covered to the elbows with caking blood, managed to get out his brown wallet, but just stared at it as if he didn’t know how to open it.

Molly gently took it from him and showed his identification to the policeman.

“Canadian,” said the cop, as though that were a very suspicious thing to be. “You got papers to be in this country?”

“Papers…” repeated Pierre, still dazed.

“He’s got a green card,” said Molly. She leafed through the wallet, found it, and showed it to the officer. The male cop nodded. The female cop had retrieved a Polaroid camera from cruiser and was taking photos of the scene.

Finally the ambulance arrived. It came through the north gate, but couldn’t get down the path to where they were. All the vehicles had turned off their sirens once parked, but the ambilance left its rotating roof light on, making orange shadows dance around the scene. The air was filled with staticky calls over the police and ambulance radios. Two attendants, both male, hurried to the downed man. A few spectators had arrived is well.

“No pulse,” said the male cop. “No signs of respiration.”

The attendants did a few checks, then nodded at each other. “He’s gone all right,” said one. “Still, we gotta take him in.”

“Karen?” said the male officer.

The female cop nodded. “I’ve got enough shots.”

“Go ahead,” said the man. He turned to Pierre and Molly. “We’ll need statements from both of you.”

“It was self-defense,” said Molly.

For the first time, the cop showed a little warmth. “Of course. Don’t worry; it’s just routine. That guy who attacked you had quite a record: robbery, assault, cross burning.”

“Cross burning?” said Molly, shocked.

The cop nodded. “Nasty fellow, that Chuck Hanratty. He was involved with a neo-Nazi group called the Millennial Reich. They’re mostly across the Bay in San Francisco, but they’ve been recruiting here in Berkeley, too.” He looked around at the various buildings. “Is your car here?”

“We were walking,” said Molly.

“Well, look, it’s after midnight and, frankly, your friend seems a bit out of it. Why don’t you let Officer Granatstein and me give you a lift? You can come by headquarters tomorrow to make a report.” He handed her a card.

“Why,” said Pierre, finally rallying a bit, “would a neo-Nazi want to attack me?”

The black man shrugged. “No big mystery. He was after your wallet and her purse.”

But Molly knew that wasn’t true. She took Pierre’s blood-encrusted hand and led him over to the police car.

Pierre stepped into the shower, cleaning the blood from his arms and chest. The water running down the drain was tinged with red. Pierre scrubbed until his skin was raw. After toweling off, he crawled into bed next to Molly, and they held each other.