Hornet's Nest

  "Excuse me?" He stepped closer.

  "Come here." Hammer wearily motioned to him.

  He sat on her porch swing. She turned out the light and sat on the steps, certain this young man must think she was the biggest, most dishonest bureaucrat he had ever encountered. Hammer knew this might be the night her controversial community policing project would go to hell along with everything else.

  "Andy," she began, 'you've got to believe that I said nothing to anyone. I swear I kept my promise to you. "

  "What?" He was getting a very bad feeling.

  "What promise?"

  She realized he did not know.

  "Oh God," she mumbled.

  "You didn't hear the news tonight?"

  "No, ma'am. What news?" He was getting excited, his voice rising.

  Hammer told him about Channel 3 and Webb's scoop.

  "That's impossible!" Brazil exclaimed.

  "Those are my details! How could he know the stuff about the bloody money, the washcloth, any of it! He wasn't there!"

  "Andy, please lower your voice."

  Lights were blinking on. Dogs were barking. Hammer stood.

  "It's not fair. I play by the rules." Brazil felt as if his life were over.

  "I cooperate with you, help as much as I can. And get crucified for it." He got up, too, the swing moving, slowly swaying, and empty.

  "You can't stop doing what's right just because others do things that are wrong," she spoke quietly, and from experience, as she opened the door that would lead her back inside her fine home.

  "We've done some pretty wonderful things, Andy. I hope you won't let this ruin it."

  Her face was kind but sad as she looked at him. He felt the ache in his heart, and his stomach was doing something strange, too. He was sweating and chilled as he stared at her, unable to imagine what it must have been like for her children to be raised by such a person.

  "Are you all right?" Hammer thought he was acting oddly.

  "I don't know what my problem is." He wiped his face with his hands.

  "I think I've been trying to get sick or something. It's none of my business, but is your husband all right?"

  "A flesh wound," she replied, weary and depressed again as moths fluttered past, into her house, where soon they would die from pesticide.

  Misfires rarely occurred with double-action revolvers. But when Hammer had demanded that Seth return the . 38 to her, he had gotten angry and mean. He'd had enough of being bossed around by this woman, who next would begin searching him and his bedroom. There was no way out.

  Unfortunately, she'd walked in before he'd had a chance to stash the gun in a place she couldn't find it. Worse, Seth had been sleeping in a drunken position that had resulted in tingling and numbness in his right hand. When he had decided to send this same hand down to his crotch to fish out the revolver, it had not been a wise move. It was also Seth's bad luck that the one time he did not want the cartridge lined up with the firing pin was precisely then.

  "His left buttock," Hammer was explaining to Brazil, who was inside the house with her now, because she could not leave her front door open all night.

  Brazil looked around at vibrant oriental rugs on polished hardwood floors, at fine oil paintings and handsome furniture in warm fabrics and rich leathers. He was standing in the foyer of Chief Hammer's splendid restored home, and no one else was around. It was just the two of them, and he began sweating profusely again. If she noticed, she did not let on.

  "They'll X-ray, of course," she was saying, 'to make certain the bullet isn't lodged close to anything important. "

  There was a dark side of +P hollowpoints, Hammer thought. The objective of their design was for the lead projectile to expand and rip through tissue like a Roto Rooter. Rarely did the bullets exit, and there was no telling how much lead was scattered through Seth's formidable lower region. Brazil was listening to all this, wondering if the chief would ever get around to calling the police.

  "Chief Hammer," Brazil finally felt compelled to speak.

  "I don't guess you've called this in?"

  "Oh dear." It hadn't even occurred to her.

  "You're absolutely right. I guess a report has to be taken." She began pacing as the reality hit.

  "Oh no, oh no. That's all I need! So now I get to hear about this on TV, the radio. In your paper. This is awful. Do you realize how many people will enjoy this?" She envisioned Cahoon sitting in his crown, laughing as he read about it.

  POLICE CHIEF'S HUSBAND SHOOTS SELF RUSSIAN ROULETTE SUSPECTED

  No one would be fooled, not for a minute. A depressed, unemployed, obese husband in bed with his wife's . 38 loaded with only one cartridge? Every cop who worked for Hammer would know that her husband had been flirting with suicide. All would know that there were serious problems in her house. Some would even suspect that she had shot her husband and knew exactly how to get away with it. Maybe it wasn't his left buttock she had been aiming at, either. Maybe he had turned around just in the nick of time. Hammer went into the kitchen and reached for the phone.

  There was simply no way she was dialing 911 and having the call broadcast to every cop, paramedic, reporter, and person who owned a scanner in the region. She got the duty captain on the line. It happened to be Horgess. He was fiercely loyal to his boss, but not especially quick-thinking or known for shrewd judgment.

  "Horgess," she said.

  "I need an officer over to my house ASAP to take a report. There's been an accident."

  "Oh no!" Horgess was upset. If anything ever happened to his chief, he'd answer directly to Goode.

  "Are you all right?"

  She paced.

  "My husband's at Carolinas Medical. I'm afraid he had an accident with a handgun. He should be fine."

  Horgess immediately grabbed his upright portable radio. He ten-fived David-One unit 538, a rookie too scared to do anything other than what she was told. This decision would have been good had Horgess not failed to overlook the reason Hammer had called him, the duty captain, directly.

  "Need you over there now to take an accidental shooting report," Horgess excitedly said into his radio.

  "Ten-four," Unit 538 came back.

  "Any injuries?" ~ "Ten-four. Subject en route to Carolinas Medical;' Every officer on duty, and some who weren't, and anyone else with a scanner, heard every word of the broadcast. Most assumed Chief Hammer had been accidentally shot, meaning Jeannie Goode this very instant was the acting chief. Nothing could have sent the force into more of a panic. Hammer had a base radio station in her kitchen and it was on.

  "Horgess, you idiot!" she exclaimed in disbelief to no one in particular, inside her kitchen.

  She stopped pacing. It struck her that Andy Brazil was still standing in the doorway. She was not entirely sure why he was here and suddenly doubted the wisdom of a handsome young reporter dressed like a cop being in the house with her, in the wake of a domestic shooting. Hammer also knew that her entire evening shift was heading toward her address, flying to investigate the fate of their leader.

  W Goode never kept her radio on at home or in her car, but a source had tipped her off, and she was already putting on her uniform, preparing to take over the Charlotte Police Department, as Unit 538 sped through Fourth Ward. Unit 538 was terrified. She worried she might have to stop to vomit. She turned on Pine Street, and was stunned to find five other police cars already in front of Hammer's house, lights strobing. In Unit 538's rearview mirror, more cars came, miles of them, speeding through the night to help their fallen chief.

  Unit 538 parked, shakily gathered her metal clipboard, wondering if she could just leave, and deciding probably not.

  Hammer went out on the porch to reassure her people.

  "Everything is under control," she spoke to them.

  "Then you're not injured," said a sergeant whose name she did not recall.

  "My husband is injured. We don't think it's serious," she said.

  "So everything's okay."


  "Man, what a scare."

  "We're so relieved. Chief Hammer."

  "See you in the morning." Hammer dismissed them with a wave.

  That was all they needed to hear. Each officer secretly keyed his mike, broadcasting several clicks over the air, signaling comrades everywhere that all was ten-four.

  Only Unit 538 had unfinished business, and she followed Hammer into the rich, old house. They sat in the living room.

  "Before you even start," Hammer said, "I'm going to tell you how this is going to be done."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "There will be no implication that the right thing was not done here, that exceptions were made, because the subject involved happens to be married to me."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "This is routine and will be worked according to the book."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "My husband should be charged with reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm in the city limits," Hammer went on.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Unit 538's handwriting was unsteady as she began filling out the accidental shooting report. This was amazing. Hammer must not like her husband much. Hammer was nailing him with the maximum charge, locking him up and throwing away the key. It just proved Unit 538's theory that women like Hammer got where they were by being aggressive hard asses They were men poured into the wrong form at the factory.

  Hammer recited all the necessary information. She answered Unit 538's banal questions, and got the cop out as fast as possible.

  Brazil remained seated at the kitchen table in Chief Hammer's house, wondering if anyone might have recognized his distinctive BMW parked out front. If the cops ran his tag, what would they think? Who was he here to see? He remembered with a sinking feeling that the condominiums Axel and friends lived in were just around the corner.

  Cops with their suspicious minds might think Brazil had parked a street away, trying to fool everybody.

  If word got back to Axel, he'd believe Brazil was stalking him, had a thing for him.

  "Andy, let's wind this up." Hammer walked in.

  "I sup pose it's too late to get this in the paper for tomorrow."

  "Yes, chief. The city edition deadline was hours ago," Brazil replied, glancing at his watch, and startled that she would want a word of this in the paper.

  "I'm going to need you to help me, and have to trust that you will, even after what happened with Channel Three," she said.

  There was no one Brazil would rather assist.

  Hammer looked at the clock on the wall, in despair. It was almost three a. m. She had to get to the hospital, whether Seth liked it or not, and she needed to be up in three hours. Hammer's body did not appreciate all-nighters anymore, but she would make it. She always did. Her plan was the best she could devise under circumstances which were truly extreme and upsetting. She knew tomorrow's news would bristle with Seth's bizarre shooting and what it might imply. She could not preempt the television and radio stations, but she could at least straighten out the facts the following day with a true, detailed account by Brazil.

  Brazil was silent and stunned as he sat in the passenger's seat of Hammer's impeccable Crown Victoria. He took notes while she talked.

  She told him all about her early life and why she had gone into law enforcement She talked about Seth, about what a support he had been as she was fighting her way through the ranks of what was truly a male militia. Hammer was exhausted and vulnerable, her personal life in shambles, and she had not been to a therapist in two years. Brazil had caught her at a remarkable time, and he was moved and honored by her trust. He would not let her down.

  "It's a perfect example of the world not allowing powerful people to have problems," Hammer was explaining as she drove along Queens Road West, beneath a canopy of great oak trees.

  "But the fact is, all people have problems. We have tempestuous and tragic phases in relationships we don't have time enough to tend to, and we get discouraged and feel we have failed."

  Brazil thought she was the most wonderful person he had ever met.

  "How long have you been married?" he asked.

  "Twenty-six years."

  She had known the night before her wedding that she was making a mistake. She and Seth had united out of need, not want. She had been afraid to go it alone, and Seth had seemed so strong and capable back then.

  X* As he lay on his stomach in the ER, after X-rays and scrubbing and being rolled all over the place, Seth wondered how this could have happened. His wife had once admired him, valued his opinion, and laughed at his witty stories. They were never much in bed. She had far more energy and staying power, and no matter how he might have wanted to please, he simply could not carry her same tune, didn't have as many pages, usually was snoring by the time she'd returned from the bathroom, ready for the next act.

  "Ouch!" he yelled.

  "Sir, you're going to have to hold still," the stern nurse said for the hundredth time.

  "Why can't you knock me out or something!" Tears welled in his eyes as he clenched his fists.

  "Mr. Hammer, you're very fortunate." It was the triage surgeon's voice now, rattling X-rays that sounded like saw blades. She was a pretty little thing with long red hair. Seth was humiliated that her only perspective on him was his corpulent fanny that had never seen the sun.

  The Carolinas Medical Center was famous for its triage, and patients were med-flighted in from all over the region. This early morning, helicopters were quiet silhouettes on red helipads centered by big His on rooftops, and shuttle buses moved slowly from parking lots to different areas of the massive concrete complex. The medical center's fleet of ambulances were teal and white, the colors of the Hornets and much of what filled Charlotte with pride.

  The entire hospital staff knew that a V. I. P had arrived. There would be no waiting, no bleeding in chairs, no threatening, no shortcuts or neglect. Seth Hammer, as he had been erroneously registered and referred to most of his marriage, had been taken straight into the

  ER.

  He had been rolled in and out of many rooms. He wasn't certain he understood the pretty surgeon's vernacular, but it seemed, according to her, that although the bullet's destruction of tissue had been significant, at least no major arteries or veins had been hit.

  However, because he was a V. I. P, no chances could be taken. It was explained that medical personnel would do arteriography, and shoot him full of dye, and see what they found. Then they would give him a barium enema.

  Hammer parked in a police slot outside the emergency room at not quite four a. m. Brazil had filled twenty pages in his notepad, and knew more about her than any reporter who had ever lived. She fetched her large pocketbook with its secret compartment, and took a deep breath as she got out. Brazil was struggling with his next question, but had to ask.

  It was for her own good, too.

  "Chief Hammer." He hesitated.

  "Do you suppose I could get a photographer here to maybe get something of you on your way out of the hospital, later?"

  She waved him off as she walked.

  "I don't care."

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized it didn't matter what he wrote. Her life was over. In the course of one short day, all was lost. A senator had been murdered, the fifth in a series of brutal slayings committed by someone the police were no closer to catching.

  US Bank which owned the city, was at odds with her. Now her husband had shot himself in the ass while playing Russian roulette. The jokes would be endless. What did this suggest about where he assumed his most vital organ was, after all? Hammer would lose her job. What the hell. She may as well offer her two cents worth on her way out the door. Brazil had just gotten off a pay phone, and was walking fast to keep up with her.

  "We'll also be running the Black Widow story, if there's a positive ID," he nervously reminded her.

  She didn't care.

  "I'm wondering," Brazil pushed his luck, 'if you'd have a problem with my slipping in a few
details or two that might trick the killer. "

  "What?" Hammer glanced blankly at him.

  "You know, if I messed with him a little. Well, Deputy Chief West didn't think it was a good idea, either," he conceded.

  The enlightened chief caught on to what he was suggesting, and was interested.

  "As long as you don't release sensitive case details."

  She fixed on the triage nurse in her console, and headed there. No introduction was necessary.

  "He's on the way to the OR right now," the nurse said to the police chief.