Page 47 of Somewhere in the Sunset

“Yeah? Well, I’m not my father,” I mutter, grabbing some napkins to dab at the spilled coffee on my pants. I’m too tired for this.

Bill opens his mouth to say something, but instantly clamps it shut again when the static of our vehicle’s radio erupts into life. Dispatch requests our immediate response, but Bill has thrown me off my game and my head is so scrambled that I don’t even remember what the dispatch code means.

“Buckle up,” Bill orders, and he lights up the street with our blues, reds and whites.

The one good thing about working nights is the lack of traffic. It’s easy to maneuver diligently around vehicles at this time and I have to hand it to Bill, he is a great driver. I pull up the dispatch notes on the computer and my adrenaline starts pumping. We’re assisting a medical emergency – someone has fallen from a hotel roof.

The hotel is only a few minutes away, so we reach the scene in no time at all. The ambulance has made it here before us, and two medics burst from inside and race toward the person sprawled out on the sidewalk. Passersby watch on in horror.

Bill radios dispatch to inform them of our arrival on the scene, then kills the engine.

I peer through my window at the hotel building. It’s seven stories, and the roof has barbed wire around the edge. “How did they fall from the roof? There doesn’t even look to be a terrace up there.”

Bill pauses with one foot out the door. He throws me a puzzled look, but within a split second, it changes to sympathy. He’s been on the force for decades and there’s not a single thing he hasn’t seen in his career, but me? There are a lot of things I’m only encountering for the first time. He says flatly, “They didn’t fall, Weston.”

My stomach drops as Bill gets out the car.Fuck.This is something I haven’t dealt with yet during the first eight weeks of my field training, but I have to face it like I face everything else – by pulling myself together as best I can and keeping my composure even when I’m terrified.

Sucking in a breath, I leave the safety of the cruiser. Morbidly curious hotel guests rush outside to spectate, and Bill stretches his arms wide, creating a physical barrier as he instructs the public to stay back.

Every step forward feels weighted. The medics tear open their supplies as they kneel by the person on the concrete, and I edge closer and closer until I realize it’s not really a person anymore, but a severely mangled body. Dead on arrival.

“Reed, cordon off fifty feet in every direction,” Bill calls over to me, but I’m so paralyzed with terror, his command doesn’t even register.

It’s a man. I think. Their skull is split open, brain matter seeping onto the concrete, their face barely even human anymore. Two limbs are definitely broken. There’s so much blood, I don’t know how it’ll ever be washed out of the ground. It’s the gnarliest thing I have ever seen in my life. I can’t even fathom that it’s real.

“A cordon, Reed!” Bill shouts again.

No. I’m gonna hurl. I seal my mouth shut, but I still gag. I press my hand over my mouth and back away from the body. There’s so much frantic commotion around me, but I can’t focus on a single thing except the grotesque image that’s now permanently seared into my mind. IknowI need to do my job, but I simply .?.?. can’t.

“Weston!” Bill snaps with exasperation.

I look at him. Shake my head slowly. Swallow the trauma.

He runs over and grasps my shoulder, pushing me away from the scene. I expect him to yell at me to get my shit together, to grab the tape from the trunk and set up the damn cordon, but all he says is, “Breathe.”

I can’t. I’m hyperventilating now; my breathing so erratic, I feel pain in my chest. Dad always warned me that there would be days where you come home and bawl your eyes out because you see unspeakable, unimaginable things in this job, but then you bury that scene in the back of your mind, brush yourself off, and then show up to your next shift as a more resilient officer than you were the day before. Right now, I can’t imagine ever showing up to work again.

“Sit in the car, Weston,” Bill orders, and it’s the gentlest command he has ever given me. It’s the tone of voice I only ever hear him use when dealing with kids.

“But .?.?.”

“Sit in the car,” he repeats, pulling open the passenger door of the cruiser. My body is so numb, he even has to guide me into the seat. “Your shift is over.”

Bill shuts the door on me. He retrieves the tape from the trunk and I watch him through the windshield, pale and expressionless, as he does the job I couldn’t. He cordons off the scene and deals with the prying public while the medics work.

And as I sit in the cruiser, trembling and panting, I bury my face into my hands and weep.

Bill drives me back to the station in silence. It’s just after two. Our sergeant is busy filing reports when we find him. Bill tells him I’m not mentally capable of completing my shift. My sergeant dismisses me for the night. Tells me to go home and get some sleep. Says he’ll check in on how I’m feeling ahead of tomorrow’s shift. Bill tucks my duty belt into my locker, grabs my belongings, then walks me back out into the parking lot.

“Are you good to drive?” he asks.

I nod. My body feels numb with shock, the same way it did the day I learned my mom had died. I’m fighting back tears with everything in me, and I know if I even so much as part my lips to say a single word, I’ll break down. So, I remain speechless.

Bill hands me my keys. Opens my car door and sets my phone and wallet down on my passenger seat. He watches me with great concern as I slide behind the wheel.

“Call the station if you need me,” he says, and then steps back from the car. “I mean it, Weston. Take care of yourself tonight.”

I pull my door shut, click on my seatbelt, turn on the engine. I shouldn’t be driving right now when I’m this emotional, but I’m on autopilot. Before I know it, I’ve pulled out of the lot and left Bill behind in my rearview. Every minute that passes, I blink and wonder how I even drove this far without being aware of it. It scares me a little, being so out of it like this.

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