Play Dead

I can hear the shooter coming closer. I can’t tell how close, but I would guess he’s thirty feet away. It is impossible to avoid the realization that this person is going to kill us unless I do something to stop him. I have no idea how to do so, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have the courage or ability to pull it off.

On the other hand, I do have Karen, and she pushes something into me which feels rock hard. I reach out and take it; it feels like a piece of firewood. It makes sense; if she or her neighbor has a fireplace, this would be a likely place to keep the wood.

So I have a log, and he has a large gun. Advantage, bad guy, although I wouldn’t feel confident even if the weapons were reversed.

I whisper to Karen: “Move as slowly and quietly as you can away from the Dumpster and back toward that wall.” I say it so softly that I’m not even sure if actual sounds are coming out of my mouth, but she must hear me, because I can feel her slowly move away.

I can hear the shooter’s footsteps move toward me, and I force myself to come up with a plan. It’s not a good one, but it’s the best that I can do.

As he gets closer, I slowly stand, dreading the clicking sound that my knee usually makes when I get up after sitting for a while. This time it doesn’t; I wonder if fear-induced adrenaline is a cure for knee clicking.

Taking a deep breath, I quickly raise the lid of the Dumpster a few inches and let it drop. It is a distinctive sound, and I want the shooter to think we have taken refuge inside.

It seems to work, because I can hear him move quickly to the Dumpster. He opens the lid, and the next sounds I hear are bullets being fired into it.

Using that deafening sound to camouflage the sounds I will make, I stand and start swinging the log at the spot where his head and body are most likely to be. I seem to strike him a glancing blow, probably on the shoulder, and I hear him yell in pain.

I know that he must be readying the gun to fire, and I make an adjustment and bring the log down as hard as I can at where I think his head must be. It makes a crunching sound, and he moans and seems to fall.

I’m not taking anything for granted, and I keep swinging the log at him, alternating between hitting cement, Dumpster, and something else that I hope is his head. I’m sure the sound of wood hitting skull is quite disgusting to most humans, but right now it sounds pretty good to me.

I start screaming to Karen to run into the house and call 911. I eventually stop swinging the log, because the shooter is completely silent and apparently unmoving. Lights go on in Karen’s neighbor’s house, probably because they are wondering what the racket is about.

My eyes adjust to the dim light, and I can see the shooter at my feet. His head is literally smashed in, and a pool of blood is forming next to him.

I can’t see his face, and I gently move him with my foot so that I’ll be able to. I’m guessing it’s Banks, Carelli, or Winston, since they are the unaccounted-for people in that alleged helicopter crash.

I’ve seen pictures of them all, but the damaged face on the shooter does not seem to match any of them. It’s disappointing; there seems to be enough people in this conspiracy to fill Yankee Stadium, all of whom want to kill Karen.

Within a few minutes the area is filled with seemingly every cop in New Jersey, and the paramedics arrive moments later. But this particular conspirator is not going to kill anyone ever again.

He is dead, just the latest bad guy to learn that you don’t mess with Andy Carpenter.

* * * * *

KAREN AND I don’t get back to my house until four in the morning.

It would have been even later, but Pete Stanton arrived on the scene at Karen’s house and ushered us out of there faster than another detective would have.

After what happened, Karen hadn’t wanted to spend the night at her house, which was totally understandable. Right now we’re both exhausted, and I show Karen the bedroom where she can sleep, and head to my own to go to bed. I call Laurie to tell her what happened, since I know she would want to hear about it as soon as possible.

I wake her, but she quickly becomes alert when I start to tell her what happened. This is the first time I have ever told a story about my own actions that is simultaneously heroic and truthful. I faced death without Marcus to protect me, and I prevailed. The mind boggles.

Laurie has many questions for me about tonight’s events, the last of which is, “Andy, are you okay?”

I know that right now she is referring to my state of mind, my emotional health. I have killed a man, violently and at close range, and that is known to have an often terrible effect on one’s psyche.

Not on mine.

Maybe it will set in later, but I feel absolutely no remorse or revulsion about what I’ve done. This is a guy who deserved to die, whose intent was to gun down Karen and me. “Better him than us” is an understatement.