Then, as I turned, I saw the blade glint in the winter sunlight. And the neurons fired.
She had just stabbed me in the back.
Carrie Michaud lunged at me again. I brought my left arm up to protect myself and received a slash across the forearm. This time I felt the pain fully, knowing what it was. I staggered away, trying to get my legs under me, but I stepped on a patch of ice and went down on one knee. I fumbled for my sidearm but couldn’t find the grip.
She came at me again, this time from above. Her lips pulled back from her sharp little teeth.
All I could think to do was punch her. I jabbed with my left fist and hit her squarely between the eyes. Her head snapped back violently, the knife dropped from her hand, and down she went.
I spun around frantically for a few moments, trying to feel with one hand between my shoulder blades, certain it would come back wet with blood. But all I could feel was torn fabric.
The blade had sliced cleanly through my poncho and the parka underneath. My body armor had been designed to stop a bullet, not a knife. By all rights, the blade should have cut through my trapezoid muscle, severed an artery, and punctured a lung, if not my heart. Had I turned at just the right moment? I had no idea how I had been saved.
My other hand finally found the grip of my SIG and pulled it free of its holster.
Carrie Michaud lay crumpled on the ground. I had knocked her out cold, or maybe she had hit her head on the ice. Her body looked as delicate as that of a child. And yet this waif had come within inches of killing me.
Under the law, I would have been justified in shooting her dead. It didn’t matter that she seemed to be unconscious. She had stabbed me, and that was all that mattered. I knew I could pull the trigger and end Carrie Michaud’s miserable existence and the state of Maine would claim that I had been fully justified. The legislature had granted me an indulgence to commit homicide.
I lined up my gun sights at her narrow chest and slipped my finger inside the trigger guard. In shooting class, you are taught that is the point of no return. Out of the box, in single-action stage, the SIG Sauer P226 has a trigger-action pull rate of 4.5 pounds. The slightest squeeze and it would be done.
But I couldn’t.
Instead, I swung the pistol around on her boyfriend. If anything, the Goth looked even more helpless and pathetic. He was still sitting wide-eyed and slack-jawed behind the wheel of the immobilized Raider. Smoke from the exhaust continued to melt snow and fill the yard with oily fumes.
“Don’t you fucking move!” I shouted.
But his mind was afloat in some other drug-induced realm.
I flipped Carrie Michaud onto her stomach and twisted her arms behind her back. I felt a cruel urge to snap her wrists but resisted the impulse. I reached behind my belt and found my handcuffs. When I heard the clasps click, I took a breath.
The harrowing reality of the situation was slowly beginning to take hold. I had almost joined the ranks of the police dead, only there would have been no video to show the cadets at the Criminal Justice Academy. Just a cautionary tale to frighten the new recruits: “Did you ever hear about Mike Bowditch? Poor guy got knifed because he tried to take away a drug addict’s wolf.”
The knife had fallen into the snow. It was a Gerber tactical model: black, with a tanto point and a serrated edge. The blade was wet.
Blood was dripping from my arm. It spotted the smooth patch of ice at my feet. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stung as if it had been rubbed with salt. I couldn’t put pressure on the wound without reholstering my weapon, which meant I had to deal with Spike first.
I used so much strength pulling him from the running truck that he sprawled on the ice at my feet.
“Don’t hurt me,” he whined.
“Shut up!”
I used my second set of cuffs to secure his wrists. The effort pumped more and more blood from my arm onto the snow. When I was convinced that both of them were restrained, I finally put my gun away and clutched at the wound. Only then did it occur to me to raise my eyes to the house. For all I knew, there was someone else inside the building; someone else out of their drug-crazed mind, only maybe this person was armed with a gun instead of a knife.
I retreated back to a position of cover behind an oak tree at the edge of the drive.
All the while, the wolf dog watched me with keen interest. He didn’t run off, nor did he approach. He just studied me with his eerie eyes while I called for help.
“Can you describe your injuries?” the dispatcher asked.
“She struck me in the back first, but the knife barely punctured the skin. Don’t ask me how. I’ve also got a cut across my left forearm. I’m losing blood, but I’ve got pressure on the wound, and it seems to be helping.”
“You’re sure your back is all right?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Stay on the line until backup arrives. Nearest unit is five minutes away. Ambulance is right behind.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Keep talking to me.”