Snapshot

You were just thinking earlier about how you need to get over Molly, a piece of him whispered. If you let her force you to do this, then what are you?

Still, he’d just shot a man. An innocent man. Now here he was, with Chaz, at exactly the right moment. Just like he’d planned and imagined it. Why not take this step?

It was all inevitable, wasn’t it?

Was it inevitable that he’d failed before, IRL? Was he the Deviation, or was Chaz? Did it matter?

I can start fresh, he thought. Get a new life. Date new people. But if I pull this trigger, I’ll never be able to do that. I’ll never be able to live with myself if I kill him.

He took a deep breath. In the end, people became cops because they wanted to do something good. At least that was what they told themselves. That was what he’d always told himself.

Davis lowered his gun.





Ten





“How long have you known?” Chaz asked, raising a shot of whiskey to his lips. They were in the kitchen of the small townhouse, the one with two corpses upstairs.

“I caught sight of you up in the window about five months back,” Davis said softly. “After that, it was obvious. You kept prompting me to go see Hal.”

Davis poured himself another shot, and had to be careful not to spill, with his hand shaking. How could Chaz drink so calmly?

“I did it once in real life, Davis,” Chaz said, leaning on the counter. “Shouldn’t tell you that, should I? But I need to come clean. It was just before the divorce started.”

Davis closed his eyes.

“That’s why it works in the Snapshot,” Chaz continued. “I don’t show my badge. She thinks it’s the second time, each time. I promised to come see her again, but never did, IRL. I figured I needed to confine it to this place. Out of respect for my partner, you know? It’s a Snapshot. Nothing matters in a Snapshot.”

“Yeah,” Davis said, then opened his eyes. “To nothing mattering.” He raised his shot glass.

Chaz nodded, raising his own.

Davis drank and looked at his phone, which sat in front of him, the text he’d sent to Maria glowing on the screen.

Photographer, the serial killer, it read, is going to try to kill a group of peanut-allergic children from Mary Magdalene School. Tomorrow, May 12th. Set up a sting, catch him. You can find evidence of his activities at the following addresses. He’d then sent the address of the school and the house they were in now, hoping the evidence there would corroborate his words, even if the Photographer had moved on from them IRL.

Maria hadn’t responded, but the message had gone through. He could imagine her shock. And her likely anger.

“We did good, partner,” Chaz said. “Didn’t we? We’re going to do great things together moving forward.”

“Chaz?”

“Yeah.”

“I never want to see you after today. Never again.”

Chaz looked down at his empty glass. “Right. Okay.”

They drank in silence.

“I’m glad you didn’t shoot,” Chaz eventually said. “Glad you couldn’t shoot.”

Davis finished his whiskey. “You know why I insist on turning off the Snapshot myself, each evening?”

“No. Why?”

“Every time I do it, I kill Hal. Every time. Someone has to do it, so I do it myself. But it rips me up each time, knowing. And if I’ve killed my son a hundred times, do you really think I couldn’t shoot you?”

Chaz went white.

Together, they took their things and walked to the front of the building. Outside, the air smelled sweet, a breeze coming in off the ocean. Davis climbed down the steps, exhausted, then stopped at the bottom. A couple of people were on the street here. A tall black man. And a woman. The woman from the diner. She had changed her outfit.

“Detectives Davis and Chavez?” the tall man asked. “Can we have a word with you?”

Davis shared a look with Chaz, who shrugged.

“What’s this about?” Davis asked. “You from the precinct?” His frown deepened. “You’re from IRL? Are you feds?”

“We’ll explain,” the tall man said, taking Chaz by the shoulder, leading him a little farther down the street. The woman stepped up to Davis.

She was pretty. Like he remembered. “I lost your number,” he blurted out. “Sorry.”

She blushed. “Detective Davis. Why didn’t you kill your partner today?”

“How do you know—”

“Please just answer the question.”

Davis rubbed his chin. “Because I’m not a monster. Pointing the gun at him was a momentary lapse.”

“A momentary lapse?” she asked. “That you planned for months, waiting for an exactly perfect Snapshot, where you would be able to hide your actions and pretend a gangster shot him?”

Farther down the street, Chaz suddenly shoved back from the tall man. “No!” Chaz shouted. “No, no, no!” He reached for his weapon.

The tall man calmly gunned Chaz down in the street.

Davis stared, feeling cold. It can’t be.

“It would really help our investigation,” the woman said, “if you could tell us what we did wrong.”

“You’re Snapshot detectives too,” Davis said. “It . . . Damn! That’s why they don’t have us on the Photographer case. They’re using someone else!”

“You’re a distraction, Davis. A way to cover up the real teams, who come into the Snapshot on different days from you. We can file your records though, and show the city is using the Snapshot device that people paid for. We can pretend that we’re not—”

“Doing something deeper,” Davis said. “With secret cops. Watching people. Damn! That’s why they don’t want us working real cases, at least not the in-depth ones.” He shivered, then continued, whispering. “Right now, you’re here to investigate me. Today’s a Snapshot . . . It’s a Snapshot of a Snapshot.”

“We weren’t sure if it would work. No cop has ever before needed to be investigated for killing his partner in a Snapshot.”

“But I didn’t kill him.”

“You did, in real life.” She pointed. “After stopping the Photographer, you shot your partner.”