My fingers stilled on the keyboard and I closed my eyes, starting to feel the pressure. My job was to get information. I was Officer Mackereth’s eyes and ears. If I did my job right, he walked into a situation forewarned and forearmed. If I failed at my job, a lone officer got to approach a darkened house at one thirty in the morning, with nothing but his quick wits to save him.
I got back on the radio. “Four sixty-one to nine twenty-six. Caller states she doesn’t know if husband is armed. Caller states she doesn’t know if husband has done drugs tonight, but states he has done drugs in the past.”
“Nine twenty-six to four sixty-one, roger that,” Officer Mackereth replied. I felt the weight of his disappointment in those words. He was counting on me, and I was letting him down. He notified me that his position was one block from the address. He was cutting his sirens and going dark. Meaning I hadn’t given him enough information. Meaning he was approaching quietly, in order to assess the situation for himself.
“Come on, Dawn,” I murmured under my breath. “We gotta do better. For all of us, we gotta do better.”
I returned to my caller, listening to the sound of her shallow breathing and straining now for other noises in the background. A husband calling a wife’s name? Shattering glass from a man in the throes of a violent rage? Or maybe even a knock on the downstairs front door marking Officer Mackereth’s arrival. I heard nothing.
“Dawn, is your husband still in the room?” I asked now.
Beep.
“An officer is approaching. He’s almost there, Dawn. Help is on its way.” I hesitated, struggling. My next order of business should be to establish a description of the offending party. That way if he tried to flee the scene, Officer Mackereth could identify him and give pursuit. I didn’t know, however, how to engage in such a conversation with phone beeps.
The tension again, my shoulders creeping up, a low ache developing in the back of my neck. Officer Mackereth should be at the address by now. Opening his door, looking up at the residence, trying to get a bead on the situation.
“Dawn, is your husband still angry?”
Beep.
Then what’s he doing? I wanted to shout. What kind of enraged man didn’t make a sound?
Then, just like that, I knew. I could picture in my head exactly what kind of angry man could stand so quiet, so still, right outside a closet door.
I grabbed the radio. “Four sixty-one to nine twenty-six,” I nearly shouted. “Don’t ring the doorbell! Do not approach! Stop immediately!”
A pause, I didn’t hear Dawn anymore, just my own ragged breathing.
“Nine twenty-six to four sixty-one,” Officer Mackereth came over the radio, his voice as dry as mine had been heated. “Nine eight two?”
Nine eight two was our own code. The numbers corresponded to the phone digits for WTF. What The Fuck? Hey, in this job, you had to have a sense of humor.
I took a deep breath.
“Four sixty-one to nine twenty-six,” I said. “Please hold.”
“Dawn,” I whispered into my headset, “does your husband like pizza?”
Silence, then beep, then the first noise I’d heard in a while: Dawn, weeping. “One more minute, Dawn,” I promised her. “Hang in there for me. Just one more minute.”
Quickly, I ran Vincent’s name through my system and came up with a second number, a cell phone registered to his name. Keeping my fingers crossed, I picked up my prepaid cell and dialed those numbers. Not a move from the training handbook. One of those things that, in this job, you just knew when to do.
For a surreal moment, I got to hear ringing in stereo. My mobile ringing in my ear. Vincent’s cell phone ringing in the bedroom. One, two, three times.
I was clutching my cell too tight.
Then my radio crackling to life: “Nine twenty-six to four sixty-one—”
“Shut up!” I hissed, just as Dawn’s husband connected with my mobile.
“What?” he said, one word, loaded with menace and threat and the icy cold kind of rage that kept his wife sobbing silently in their bedroom closet.