Images de pluie, dans l’ombre

Images de pluie, dans l'ombre

Lost in their eyes as you hurry by

Counting the broken ties they decide

Love comes to you and then after

Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise

Lost on a wave that you're dreaming

Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise

Sharp distance

How can the wind with its arms all around me

Sharp distance

How can the wind with so many around me

I feel lost in the city

Heart Of The Sunrise Yes

+++++

"2141, show me in-service with an accident report, and I'll need a second service number the a Signal 60 supplemental report, with 95 JCID."

"2141, clear at 1845 hours, second service number 8521197."

"1197, received."

It was close to dinner time and he looked at his watch, figured he was close enough so he might as well run home, maybe grab some dinner and get out of the heat for a few minutes. He started the Harley and checked traffic, then u-turned in the street and started for the highway. The neighborhood was hilly, full of dense brush and tall trees between widely spaced houses, and the afternoon sun was slanting through the trees, casting long shadows in the stillness. A father and son tossing the football in their yard waved as he passed, and he waved back, smiled at memories of his father on autumn mornings, then he thought of the kid back there in the road. No more football, that much was certain.

Running wide open with his girlfriend on the back of his dirt bike, he'd lost it in a corner and tried to brake but high-sided -- and they'd been launched as the bike flipped sideways.

His trajectory took his right thigh through a stop sign -- and severed it completely. His body landed in a bleeding heap and tumbled, his outstretched arms impacting the curb and shattering both in several places, with the remainder of his leg vaulting into a vacant lot, almost lost among tall weeds and scraps of litter.

The girlfriend landed in the street, and a kid speeding through the neighborhood in a pickup truck didn't see her until it was too late to stop.

People in their homes ran out and stopped the boy from bleeding out, but the girl was dead. Mothers hid children's eyes from the sight -- but for too many it was too little too late, the damage done. But now the damage done to three lives was irreparable, and for the girl, final. There were open beers in the kid's pickup, alcohol on his breath, and at fifteen his life was now little more than wreckage, just as surely as the other boy's dirt bike was scrap.

And it was his job to make sense of it all.

To make sense of the senseless.

Pointless, too, he thought. Physicians would try to put one life back together, and maybe psychiatrists could fix the other life, but what of the girl? Lawyers and insurance companies would slug it out, he knew, and they'd rely on his report to get to some kind of arrangement, some sense of closure, but she was gone and her death would never be anything more or less than senseless.

Once the road was closed he'd gone about the scene making his measurements, taking photographs and talking to witnesses, and when he, in the end, knew what had happened he just shook his head, put his stuff away and wanted to disappear down a deep hole. What were fifteen year olds doing out on the streets in cars and motorcycles? Playing? Playing their parts in a vast mechanism of automobile manufacturers, car dealerships and insurance companies, all orchestrated by oil companies and big government. Profit and loss statements to some, the shattered lives of all the others: parents called from homes to scene after scene, day after day.

Freedom. Free to be irresponsible.

Free, to look like a pizza smeared down seventy three feet of asphalt. Free, for the stump of your thigh to look like a spiral sliced ham. That's freedom, alright.

He stopped at a stop sign and sighed. "How many this month?" he wondered. Fifteen by last weekend, and five more this week, so far. Twenty dead, and those were just the wrecks he'd worked. Day in and day out, no time off for holidays, people were simply out there killing themselves in record numbers and nobody gave a damn. Killing more in a year than in ten years of war in Vietnam, and where was the outcry, the outrage.

Just the price you pay for freedom, right? Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, or so goes the song...

He thought of the TriStar tumbling through the grass, smoldering bodies in wet grass. He'd walked up to the first water tower, where the cockpit impacted and he couldn't recognize anything human. And yesterday, an NTSB investigator told him the cockpit was found there, where he'd been looking, and everything, the entire cockpit -- man and machine -- had been compacted in the impact to a lump about the size of a shoe box.

He heard a car pulling up behind his Harley and saw people sitting there, looking at him, waiting, and he shook his head, waved them to pass him, then he paddled over to the side of the road.

Two girls, teenagers, pulled up alongside.

"Are you okay?" the girl closest to him asked.

And he nodded his head. "Yeah. Thanks for asking."

"You were at the wreck, weren't you? Stacy...she was our friend."

"I'm sorry," he said, but he turned away, didn't know what to say to their grief.

He heard doors opening and closing, felt them standing by his side, putting their arms around him and he realized he was crying. He'd been crying for weeks, ever since the moment --

The spinning hulk coming to a rest. Running through fields of gold, running through bodies falling like rain, then through the smoke a man, walking. He's running towards the man, his white skin black now, black and peeling, his business suit smoking, and the man walked up to him.

"Excuse me," the man said -- and he remembered the voice, "but I seem to be lost. Do you know the way to the baggage claim?"

And then the man fell into his arms.

Dead.

He put the side-stand down and climbed off the bike, went and sat on the side of the road, the girls crying now as they held him up.

Another car stopped -- Stacy's mother, it turned out -- and she came up to see what was the matter, what was wrong, and soon she was holding the girls, and him, crying as the sun slipped behind trees far, far away.

II

'Desjardins fourth week of training,' he wrote in his training log, 'and she's made progress but it's a struggle for her to let go of old ways of seeing the world...'

He looked at her across the briefing room table, thought of her those first few days...so self-centered, almost narcissistic. Always questioning, never listening for an answer, never watching things take shape right in front of her face -- to blind to see -- seeing so much she was blind to everything going on around her.

But she was changing. The chase, losing her friend, shooting a man who was getting ready to shoot her. She was starting to listen. Just. She would make it, he knew, but only if she could keep on listening.

They walked out to the patrol car in a light rain, and she checked out the car while he put his gear in the trunk. She got behind the wheel and checked them into service while he settled-in and put on his seat belt.

"Where to?" she asked, but he just turned her way and shrugged.

"You listen during briefing? Even maybe just a little bit?"

She picked up her notepad and he snorted, shook his head. "Goddamnit all to hell," he grumbled -- and she put her pad down and sighed.

"Sorry," she said, looking down.

"Concentrate! Commit to memory! Recall! CCR -- got it! Now think...what happened in our district today?"

"Two burglaries...?"

"Suspect information?"

"Male black in an old Datsun pickup, light blue, maybe a lawn mower in the back?"

"Anything on Camp Wisdom this morning?"

"Armed robbery, gas station at Cockrell Hill, in Duncanville."

"And the suspect did what?"

"Came into Dallas, east on Camp Wisdom."

"Vehicle description?"

"Red Firebird, first three on LP are 277."

"Good. Damn good. So, based on that, where should we go?"

"Camp Wisdom to Red Bird, neighborhoods first, before people start coming home from work."

"Okay? So, what are you waiting for?"

She smiled, turned on the windshield wipers and into traffic, then made for Highway 67.

"You still flying? Doing lessons and all that?"

"Yup."

"Could you take me up sometime?"

He turned and looked at her, then resumed scanning.

"It's just, you know, I'd kind of like to learn how to fly."

He looked at her, didn't say a word -- yet.

"It looks like it would be fun, I guess. Up there. Free as a bird."

He sighed. "Yeah. When we finish up together, if you still want to give me a call."

"Who was your favorite FTO?" she asked, out of the blue.

"Guy named Ed MacCarley. Worked deep nights, downtown, out of Central."

"Worked?"

"Retired a few years ago, went sailing."

"Sailing."

"Yup."

"Alone?"

"No."

"Have you heard from him? Since he left?"

"No. Don't imagine I will, either."

"Oh?"

He pointed ahead. "Focus on the road. Three cars in front of us. What do you see?"

"Red Firebird."

"And?"

She sped up, pulled close enough to read the license plates then slowed down, pulled back into the right lane.

"Don't get caught up day dreaming, Deb. Did you see the light blue Datsun pickup headed north?"

"What? No..."

"You were talking about flying just then."

"Shit."

He sighed. "No lawn mower, driver was white."

"Shit."

"None so blind as those who will not see. You can't talk and think about this shit at the same time, so don't try."

"Shit."

"You know, we need to work on your vocab."

"Right."

"Yeah, take a right -- on Red Bird, let's take the back way in, by Westmoreland."

"Reason?"

"My ass is twitching."

She took the Red Bird exit, drove down to Westmoreland and turned left there -- and a moment later he said "Stop, now."

He was looking out the right side of the car into a thick stand of trees and he picked up the radio before she managed to stop. "2141, show us out on a 54, Red Bird at Westmoreland."

"2141 at 1615."

He was out the door, running, and she still hadn't seen a thing, let alone a 'welfare concern,' but she got out and started running after him -- then she saw it. Him. A kid, young boy, naked, holding onto a tree, crying. When she got to the kid he was already kneeling there, talking to him.

"Hey buddy," she heard him say, "what's going on?"

The kid was in shock, taking deep breaths between vacant sobs, and she guessed he was eight or nine -- and there were bruises all over his torso and legs. Wide bruises, straight edges.

He took out his hand unit and called in: "2141, need an ambulance, code 2 this location."

"1617."

"Can you tell me your name, buddy?"

The kid was shivering in the rain, looked up and saw the badge, the uniform, then fell into his arms, suddenly hyperventilating.

He held the kid close, and as he stood she watched the kid wrap his arms around her partners neck, legs around his waist. He cradled the kid and walked through the trees back to car, telling the kid it was all over now, that everything would be okay now. That he was safe now.

And she knew he was telling the kid the absolute truth. She could feel it in his voice, in the strength of his words, and the kid felt it too and he let loose, started crying -- and then she saw feces, runny diarrhea running down the kids legs, urine flowing down her partners shirt and pants -- but still he held on to the kid -- and he held on tight until the ambulance and a fire truck arrived, ten minutes later.

Paramedics took the kid and put him in the back of the ambulance, and he got his duffel out and took out his change of clothes, had firemen hose him down. He toweled himself dry and changed in the street, then went to the back of the ambulance. A paramedic saw him and stepped outside.

"Kid's been raped. No telling how many times, but a bunch. I'd say he was strapped down for an extended period of time, maybe days. He's dehydrated and..."

"Okay, I got it. Is he stable?"

"Yup."

"Hold off on transport for now. I need to talk to him first." He turned, called the watch commander. "2141 to 2102, need you to 25 my location, and 2141, need someone from CID this location, code 2."

"2141 at 1625."

"2102, code 2."

He turned to Desjardins. "Take a fireman, go back and see if you can pick up a trail, but don't let anyone see you. There are house about a quarter mile in..."

"Right."

He went back to the ambulance, stepped inside and closed the door. The boy was wrapped in blankets, an IV running wide open into his right arm. The boy was staring ahead, wide eyed, almost catatonic -- and he sat next to him, ran his fingers through the boy's hair.

"Look at me," he said, and the boy turned to the voice. "I need your help now, and you're the only one that can help me. Understand?"

The boy nodded his head.

"Do you know the man, the -- who did this to you?"

The boy shook his head, but he didn't break eye contact.

"Do you know where you were when this happened?"

"No," the boy said, his voice far away and tiny.

"If I drove you by the place, do you think you would recognize it?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"Did you see the man who did this to you?"

"There are a lot of them. They keep us in cages, then they take us out and take pictures of us while they do things..."

"How many boys? In cages?"

"I don't know. Five or six in the room I was in. I think there are more, in other rooms."

"How did you get out?"

"The lock on my cage wasn't shut right and I snuck out, crawled out through a window where they do the laundry."

"How long ago? Did you crawl out the window, I mean?"

"Not long, but I'm not sure. Maybe an hour?"

"Could you tell me your name?"

"Jason."

"What about your mommy and daddy..."

"Don't call them," he cried, suddenly very frightened. "Please, don't..."

"Okay, Jason. I won't, but can you tell me why?"

"They took me there, left me..."

"They took you there? Why?"

"It's a secret. I can't tell."

"Okay Jason. No problem. I want you to just stay here and rest, okay? I'll be right back -- in a minute."

He stepped outside, the hot rain wrapping it's arms all around him and he shook himself back into the present, tried to keep his anger in check -- saw the watch commander's car pulling up behind the fire truck - followed by a gray Ford Fairmont -- and he walked to them as the lieutenant and the detective got out of their cars.

"Saw a kid over there in the trees," he said, pointing, when they were standing together in the rain, "naked, in shock, semen around his anus. I just finished talking to him, says he's been locked in a cage for a long time, along with several other kids in cages, raped and photographed during the act. And here's the thing. His parents dropped him off there, left him..."

"What the hell...?" the lieutenant said.

"My rookie and a fireman are looking for a trail, but he said he escaped recently, like within the hour, so I'm thinking we may be able to find the place. Put him your car, Andy," he said to the detective, "drive him around, see if he can point out the place..."

But he saw Desjardins running through the woods just then, the fireman behind her, and she saw him and altered her course, came up to him and joined the group, the fireman as well.

"Other side of the woods, street," she said, gasping in the hot air. "Men looking, calling out a name..."

"Jason?"

"Uh-huh. Yup."

"One of them is a pastor of some sort, has the collar, anyway" the fireman added -- and the lieutenant sighed, looked away -- for he was a religious man.

"How many houses in the area?" the detective asked.

"I don't know," she said, wheezing, "Long street -- maybe fifty?"

"Front door open at one house near the end. Pale orange brick, white asphalt shingles."

"Let me have your hand unit," the lieutenant said to Desjardins, then he took it from her hand, angrily lifted it to his face. "2102."

"2102?"

"Get a TAC team rolling this way, and about ten patrol units -- and notify 100, have him head this way." The L-Ts voice was dripping cold fury now, and his hands were shaking.

"Uh, 10-4, at 1633," the dispatchers voice trembling now.

"Okay," the lieutenant began, "we need to block off American Way, both ends of Cedar Circle, and, well, probably Corral, too." He turned to the fireman: "Get onto your chief, tell them to standby for a big pediatric emergency, better notify Parkland, too." He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Better use a land line, keep as much of this shit off the air as possible."

He walked back to the ambulance, stepped into the air conditioned space and wanted to sigh, but he walked back. leaned over the boy and scratched his head gently. The boy was woozy now, coming out of shock, but as his body rehydrated his color was improving, and the kid looked up and smiled when he saw the uniform.

"You feeling better now?" he asked the boy.

"Yup."

"The house? Orange brick?"

The boy nodded his head.

"Do you know what color the front door is?"

"White, and there are white shutters, too."

"The roof?"

"White."

"Okay."

He stepped outside, went back to the group. "Kid says orange brick, white door and shutters on the house, white roof, too."

"That's the one," Desjardins said.

"We're gonna need a warrant, lieutenant," the detective said. "This is too thin."

"Exigent circumstances. They know the kid is gone, they'll be cleaning up their act right now."

"So? We let them alone, let things settle down, hit them in a few days?"

"And what if they decide to get rid of a bunch of witnesses? What happens then, detective?"

The detective shook his head, thought he knew how this was going to end. "I'm going, gonna try to get the house under surveillance."

The lieutenant nodded his head, looked at his watch. "Damnit! What's taking them so long..."

"I can take Desjardins, we can work our way behind the house," he said...

"Go!" the L-T said, tossing the hand unit back to Desjardins.

"Come on," he said, grinning. "Up for a little run. Again?"

He took off into the woods and she followed; he heard her swearing under her breath and he slowed, let her catch up. "This is why you ran and ran and ran all during academy," he said, trying not to sound too ironic. "And the reason why you're about to drop right now is you haven't run since you got out of academy. Right?"

"Right, you fucking asshole."

He laughed. "And no more Dairy Queen. Got it?"

"Fuck you."

"God damn you're slow," he said, picking up into a near sprint. The cursing got louder, but a few minute later he slowed, held up a fist and stopped, and she stopped beside him, knelt when he knelt, by his side. She watched his breathing, wanted to reach out and hold him, kiss him. Love him.

"That's it, down there," she said, pointing through thick brush at the orange brick house. There was no activity now, either in the yard or along the street, but he saw the gray Fairmont pulling up several houses further down -- under a shade tree, of course, and he laughed, then picked a way through the woods so they could get around behind the house without being seen.

And she cursed when he took off at a dead sprint, followed him around the back of the neighborhood and into deeper woods. She saw him leap through the air and slowed, then detoured around the coiled up copperhead, trying to keep up with him while keeping an eye on the ground now -- but he had stopped, had a fist raised again, then he was almost tip-toeing through dead leaves and broken branches, moving noiselessly now, and she tried to mimic him.