Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli Page A

banging a kettledrum but it just doesn’t matter. The father is yelling so loudly he’s deaf to everything else.
    You think of a dead woman in the hospital morgue two levels underground, her breasts full of curdled milk. You think what a fucking waste all of this is.
    Ray isn’t even going to try to get close. He’s maybe forty feet away and gets into a proper shooting stance. You can tell he’s eager and rushing the situation because he doesn’t want some sharpshooter to get the credit. The negotiator’s plaintive voice sounds like nothing but sniveling up here. They should only know.
    You make a tentative grab for Ray’s shoulder, but he shrugs loose and gives you the look again. This time with real heat. You say, Wait, wait. And he says, No. You watch events unfolding along a prescribed line and understand exactly what’s going to happen next. You think, There’s no way Ray can make the shot. If he pulls the trigger, the kid is dead. Ray is one of the worst shooters on the force, consistently in the lowest bracket.
    He’s either going to miss the father and scare him off the ledge or he’ll put one right into the baby.
    Maybe it’s the truth. You move like it is. You see a chance to do something here, whether it’s right or wrong, and you act.
    The adrenaline darts into your heart. The rage is in full bloom. It’s been waiting for you to catch up.
    You kick Ray in the ass and knock him down.
    You holster your weapon and walk across the roof toward the father. The negotiator sees you and starts to squawk and squeak. There’s a chain of command you’re not following and that’s going to piss off a lot of people.
    For an instant you wonder if the sharpshooters will sight on you. You feel as if you’re in the crosshairs already but you always feel that way, so it’s something of a relief to know it might actually be happening.
    A glance back and Ray’s still on the ground, giving you the look, but it’s a different kind of look now. What the fuck.
    Hell, right there the whole day’s been worth it.
    Being a cop, dealing with the two little mooks drawing switchblades inside your gut, it’s like being constantly torn in half.
    The father’s holding his child out in his arms like Abraham making an offer to heaven. You lift your hands up in a kind of
Come on, man, don’t do this
sort of gesture. You hear yourself as if from a distance. The voice is accommodating but not soothing, it sounds like you’re appealing to an older brother who you’re on the outs with.
    The voice is chattering, jumping from topic to topic. It covers grief, envy, fatherhood, second marriages, Little League coaching. You’re annoyed with thevoice and tell it to stop, but it doesn’t. The father also tells it to stop, and it doesn’t. The negotiator below tells it to stop, and it still goes on.
    The baby is crying. The father is crying. The mother is dead. Ray’s on his feet, watching. The edge is near and coming closer. The father rubs his wet face on the blanket wrapped around the newborn and sniffs deeply, smelling his child. He must be smelling his wife too because his eyes fill with an even more profound despair. You inch closer. He inches closer. The baby hums for breath.
    The end is here and you know it. This moment will seal your fate in ways you’ll wish you could have avoided, all the while knowing it was impossible to do anything else.
    You hold your hands out to take the baby, and the instant you touch the blanket the father’s face ignites with madness and he screams. He was dead the second he hit the roof, the only question was whether he would take the kid with him.
    He’s going to try.
    The edge is only eighteen inches thick. You fumble and try to grab the child, but there’s no point. The guy’s holding the baby like a football now, tucked under his armpit, and he’s flailing. He’s got his hands on you and grabs your shirt. His fist tightens on the material. You’re being tugged off your feet. The sky