I tucked Tulip in my room with a bowl of food, then retreated down the hall for a long hot shower. I scrubbed and scrubbed. Shampooed, rinsed, conditioned. Did it all over again.
Was it just my imagination, or could I still smell the gunpowder on my fingertips? I searched my naked body for other signs of the evening’s activities. Blood, bruising, something. I felt altered on the inside, ergo it made sense the outside should change as well.
But…nothing. My leather shooting gloves had done their job and protected my boxing-battered hands as I’d careened down the fire escape. My heavy winter wardrobe had done its job and guarded my already battle-scarred skin as I’d dropped and rolled. Even my ankle felt almost fine, a minor twist that had quickly recovered.
When I got out of the shower, I cleared the steam from the mirror to confirm what I already knew.
I had just killed a man, and I looked absolutely, positively the same as I had before.
Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant meet Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.
Loving niece, loyal friend, respected dispatch officer, and stone cold murderer.
I started shaking again, so I returned to the shower, cranking up the water as hot as it would go, but still not beating the chill.
ELEVEN FOURTEEN P.M. Tulip and I caught a taxi to work.
Second-to-last shift.
Sixty-eight hours, forty-five minutes.
I kept my arms around the dog that wasn’t my dog and didn’t let go.
“BABY’S CRYING.”
“Wh-wh-what?”
“Baby’s crying. Down the hall. Crying and crying and crying. Nothing helps. Dunno…” A shaky sigh. “Dunno, dunno, dunno. Please, ma’am, tell me how to make it stop.”
Sitting alone in the glow of multiple monitors and a muted TV screen, I rubbed my face and forced myself to focus. Crying baby. Overwhelmed new parent. One of dispatch’s top ten calls. Protocol was to establish basic physical health of newborn and basic mental health of new parent. If both seemed okay, then remind caller that 911 was for emergencies, not for parenting tips, before disconnecting.
I didn’t disconnect my caller. It had been a relatively quiet shift, the police scanner filled with chatter about one major crime, already being handled, with no other emergencies coming down the pike. And I understood, like a lot of dispatch operators who sat alone in darkened comm centers at 2 A.M., that sometimes people just needed to talk.
So I let my caller talk. I learned the name of her nine-month-old baby girl, Moesha. I learned that the baby’s father worked graveyard for a janitorial service company. I learned that my caller, nineteen-year-old Simone, was still hoping to get her GED and wanted to be a vet tech someday. She’d been excited to get pregnant, still held out dreams of getting married. But her baby daughter cried most nights and it was getting tough, and now the baby’s dad was being a jerk and Simone just wanted to go shopping with her friends, but she didn’t have any money and her boyfriend said she was too fat to buy new clothes and why didn’t she wait till she lost all the baby weight, and yo, when might that be?
Simone talked. Simone cried. Simone talked some more.
I sat and listened and stroked Tulip’s head.
Simone talked herself down. Call ended. Screen went blank.
I sat in the dark, smoothing Tulip’s floppy ears.
“Baby’s crying,” I whispered to Tulip.
She gazed up at me.
“Down the hall.”
Tulip placed her head in my lap.
“I screwed up, Tulip. All those years ago, in my mother’s house…I failed that baby. And that’s why I don’t think about my mother anymore. I don’t want to remember. Not that it matters anymore, does it? Too little, too late.”
Tulip nosed my hand.
I smiled down at her, stroked her head. “Funny, I’ve spent a whole year planning, preparing, and strategizing for my last stand. And in the end, I’m probably gonna die just like everyone else—filled with a list of unfinished business.”