Recantation
Jane McConnell

We welcome Jane McConnell back for a third
appearance in Blue Murder Magazine. This is
getting to be a habit...
©Copyright
Jane McConnell

Wood did it.
It was him who tipped them off. Wood and his big mouth and his
black smoke and his cocky insistence on taking Blair out when
Slater ordered him to lay back, to wait for the van parked a block
away with Lieutenant Cherry inside it.
But now the die was cast. Slater was forced to pop caps with the
Charlie Bronsons who despised cops as much as the “real” criminals
who got off scot-free.
The cemetery shed was ablaze, smoke blackening the predawn
skies. The two detectives had to abandon their stakeout rendezvous
and plunge into the burbs shooting their goddamned heads off.
Slater and Wood crouched, reloading. Neither had the benefit of
vests. The terrific trio’s gunfire was a fusillade of bullets riddling the
pine shed. They stood in the street, erect as German storm troopers,
firing from the hip.
Not until a round from Wood’s Ruger bore a hole in one of them
did the TT retreat, going behind Blair’s souped-up yellow
Challenger.
Wood waited for the air to clear, looking back at Slater as if to
guess whether Slater’s icy squint was incredulous or just smokeinflamed.
“Here I opened the door! Darkness there and nothing
more!” Wood recited, his voice a Shakesperean actor’s. He burst out,
dove for a headstone. Slater took refuge behind another.
He wondered what the hell was keeping Cherry. He should have
heard the shots, should have seen the smoke. Slater wondered, too,
about the last partner Wood almost got killed and just how his own
reckless faith had allowed the stripping of himself before such a
prick. His gut ached, a sensation he thought must compare to
internal bleeding. My own fault, Slater thought. Whole thing. I had
to confide in him.
Slater motioned to stay put. But Wood was too busy shooting the
car/shield across the street, shredding its rear quarter panel, tires,
blowing its windows. Then the house. Porch light. Shutters. Walls.
Slater spotted Blair, reloading a 12-gauge, what looked like a Benelli
M1. Slater had a clear shot of Blair’s head, could blow his brains
out, but he kept counting, waiting for the van. Any minute, Any
second. Keep the position.
Then he saw the tiny thing. A fragile girl about four years old.
She appeared out of nowhere, scrambling from Blair’s house
wearing her Pooh jammies.
“Hold your fire!” Slater shouted, feeling a projectile whoosh past
his nose. He borrowed some soul’s flower pot and pitched it at
Wood. Wood stopped. Slater yelled toward the house, “Get the
child! The goddamned girl!”
Blair’s arm reached from behind the Challenger, but she was dead
on her feet, dumbstruck, staring at her father like she’d never seen
him before. It got quiet, then she screamed something about her
mommy. Mommy bleeding. Mommy fell. Blair began crawling
toward the girl, dropping his weapon. Wood rose, his shoe leather
in the dewy graveyard sod, reaching asphalt and finding Blair in his
crosshairs.
“Pull back Wood!”
Things moved fast. Wood in a groove, ignoring Slater. Wood and
his penchant for bloodshed, his asinine grandstanding, probably
betting Blair’s pals wouldn’t do anything with their guru so
defenseless, crawling toward such purity. More often than not,
though, Wood’s bets translated into heavy losses and all of a sudden
Slater froze as Blair’s boys sprang up.
• • •
Twelve hours ago Glenn Slater arrived for the dusk-to-dawn
assignment ahead of Eric Wood, coming through the cemetery’s
south gate to the maintenance shed, its door not visible from Blair’s
house.
Slater mixed briefly with his departing colleagues, Steve May and
Bob Bauer, the detectives reporting an uneventful shift, the only
stellar moment when Blair’s wife polished her toenails on the porch,
hooking one heel at a time onto the edge of an aluminum chair,
affording them a zoom-lensed eyeful of black lace panties.
They were here because of an indictment. Edward Blair’s “Round-
Em-Up” club, the terrific trio, had killed Reverend Timothy Callahan
after reading about the holy man’s windfall in the papers, his 
alleged embezzlement of one Charlotte Moore, the widow
befriended and robbed of her savings. For this, Blair had handed
down a stiff sentence. Death by firing squad. No appeals, just swift
justice the old-fashioned American way. Frontier justice. He and the
posse had donned fatigues and gas masks, flashed onto the church
steps and torn down the good reverend. Only miracle that Sunday
was the precision of the slaughter. No one else felled. The terrific
trio delivered all eighty rounds exclusively into Callahan’s body.
Wood arrived at the shed late enough to prompt Slater’s hand
toward his shoulder holster. He watched as Wood settled in for a
long cold night, lugging in a space heater, rust-coiled hot plate,
mineral-fogged glass carafe, some paperbacks. “Welcome to the
Ritz,” Slater said, looking over his notes, listening as Wood answered
his cell phone.
“Pronto!” Wood sang.
“Your family from Italy?” Slater asked when Wood hung up. They
were back to back, Slater at the window, Wood stirring Folgers
instant at the hot plate. “Isn’t that how the Italians answer the
phone?”
They turned at the same time. “You’re sharp, Slater. I picked that
up from Tracy. When she was working in Milan.”
Wood brought that up again, his Towering Glory. His sixteenyear-
old model 85 with the bronzed girl-from-Ipanema legs and
concave stomach. How could God cram so much knock-out beauty
into so little time, Wood often said about Tracy, till you puked.
Everyone knew Slater was married. Most people also knew about
Justine’s mugging last summer. His wife had taken a bad beating. It
was rare for her Fiat not to overheat. He couldn’t get away. He
didn’t think for a minute she wouldn’t be safe walking home from
the garage.
Two folding chairs held binoculars, Wood’s stuff, and the police
radio, which apparently was broken. But they had Wood’s cell.
Garden tools leaned against the walls or hung from leather straps.
Blair’s porch light was on, a yellow bug light. But the driveway was
empty. Only a Calico poised there for a whisker cleaning, a can of
tuna overturned nearby.
“Tracy’s got this friend,” Wood said. “Wants to model. She’s too
short, like five-five. Says she’ll strip if she has to. They want fame,
these girls. She’s smokin, eh?” Wood produced a snapshot from his
pocket, handed it to Slater. Slater glanced at the girl’s apple cheeks
and deep dimples.
“You’d pay to watch her dance, huh, watch the sweat run down
the crack of her ass? We could go together one night. Do you
realize we haven’t done anything socially since hooking up?” Wood
slurped his coffee.
“Isn’t it enough that I have to work with you? And why don’t you 
take over, let me rest my eyes.” Slater said, handing Wood the
binoculars.
“It’s like staring at a test pattern for twelve hours. Nothing’s
happening over there, except maybe that cat’s gonna curl up to
sleep nice and warm, like I should be.”
“Get off the sunny side of the street,” Slater said ruefully, inserting
a fresh clip in his pistol. “Have you read Blair’s sheet?” He replaced
his gun, threw open Blair’s file. “Shot the knees off a patrolman in
Wisconsin just because he wrote him up for expired tags. Here’s a
character who’d like nothing more than to mount us both over the
hood of his car like hunting trophies given the chance.”
“So you’d like to avoid him.”
“Goddamned right. Hope you do, too. In case you have different
ideas let me remind you of something: This babysitting detail, it’s no
big moment. We’re here to watch that driveway like two bank
guards watching lobby monitors. Nothing more. Don’t paint another
picture out of this. I’m warning you.”
“Warning me?” Wood chuckled. “Hey, I’m not your best bud but
I’m not your enemy either. I can only imagine how I’d be if some
perp hurt Tracy and got away. I can’t tell you not to be pissed,
Slater, but don’t presume I’m a risk. We haven’t been together long
enough for you to expect the worst in me like you do with
everyone else, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll give you time to earn that distinction.
Somehow I doubt you’ll let me down, though.”
“Thank you, sir.” Wood said. Then his phone rang again.
• • •
They swapped turns at the window. Slater attempted deep knee
bends. Wood ate Little Debbie Pecan Spinwheels, reading under
eyestraining light.
“What is that shit?” Slater asked.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and
weary-”
“Ah, Poe!”
“It’s way past midnight, it’s dreary. I’m weary. You see any ravens
out there?”
“Nope. But if I did you’d know what it meant, right?”
“That Blair needs a better cat.”
“I’m serious. You like ‘The Raven,’ but do you know how to read
it?”
“With a fire, an Irish Mocha and a sweeping view of the Smokies,
none of which this unfortunate hole affords.” Wood repositioned his
heater, increased its output.
Slater tapped Wood’s book. “Let me illuminate you. This bird is a 
messenger from the dead, the beautiful dead woman haunting some
lovesick guy. It’s perfect, Wood. So apropos for you to read Poe. He
invented the detective story. Oh, my, you’re a detective. He’s from
Boston, like you. He’s one colorful character. You again! In fact,
don’t think I’m making this up for your benefit, but the opiumaddicted
derango married his thirteen-year-old cousin, a juvie
named Virginia Clemm. Now you can really admire him.”
“Fuckin hilarious. Tracy’s sixteen. And what makes you assume
I’m in her? Maybe you don’t, but I have restraint over my gonad.”
“How gallant.” Slater paused. “And what do you mean maybe I
don’t have restraint?”
“Nothing.”
But Slater shivered, feeling Wood encroaching where he didn’t
belong. Slater knew exactly what the “restraint” crack was about.
Suddenly Slater knew that Wood had talked to Lieutenant Cherry
before coming here tonight. His new partner had talked to his boss
about the guy on the force who’d been securing hookers, about the
filthy, raw sex with utter strangers, the cop boinking whores with
no identity because it’s, well, void of reality.
Because this cop was him and suddenly Wood seemed to know
it.
Might be a load off, Slater thought, but he didn’t speak and in fact
popped out of a fog to hear Wood talking, “...comes a point you
gotta have a friend in someone ... and where the fuck is Blair? A
few more hours of this’ll kill me.”
“This won’t kill you, Wood. Just be yourself, that’ll suffice.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re a risk, that’s what I’m saying.” Slater mirrored Wood’s rigid
stance, pointed at him. “Forget the lies you told to get this job. And
the ten-year veteran shot while you’re tackling some nutcase with a
thousand rounds clipped to his belt. For the meantime let’s forget all
that. You’re all over the place, Wood. Unfocused. You look the
other way too much. It creates a liability for me.”
Wood loosened up. “That hair bag you mentioned, we never told
each other anything. Not good. It makes for a shitty partnership. I’m
willing to divulge a little. Would it kill you to do the same, Slater?
Maybe tell me something personal. Just me. There’ll come a time, if
we put that off too long it won’t get done. Nothing saying we have
to, but-” Wood smiled disarmingly.
Slater felt himself caving, a boulder of a man breaking into falling
rock.
Had it really been five months since Jack Shea, Slater’s longtime
partner, died of a heart attack? They’d been inseparable, on and off
the job. The work he needed to do dealing with Justine’s attack got
tangled up somehow in the morass of Jack’s death. Wood offered
no reason to believe in him, gave nothing of value. But Slater went 
ahead anyway.
“Fine. You wanna know something about me? Sit down.”
They sat. Slater looked Wood straight in the eye. “My wife was
raped.”
“W-what? Justine-”
“She wouldn’t let me tell anyone. Hell, she didn’t tell me for days.
We filed it as a mugging; I went along. You can’t force a woman to
deal with things your way. Me, I would’ve shot the dirtbag, but he
got small in a hurry. That kills me.”
“Shit I had no i-”
“Sometimes I look at her; she’ll be cooking or reading, and she
looks fine, great as ever. But she won’t go out alone, won’t take the
slightest chance. The other night she was looking across the way, at
a vacant apartment. There was a bare bulb turned on there. I knew
what she thinking. That place is us, our marriage. Bulb burns bright
but no one’s home.”
“And you, you wind up with women who ask nothing of you
except a reasonable fee. I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand, Wood.” Slater leaned forward, lowered
his voice. “I didn’t pick her up. I made a mistake. She called me to
pick her up at the garage. But my goddamned job. Then I had to
look at her afterwards. Hair torn out in clumps. Jaw crushed. Did a
man really punch my wife’s face? Did he break six of her fingers
before or after? I gotta wonder these things now.” Slater rose,
peered out the window. “And sometimes I gotta wonder how far
off-center guys like Blair are. Compared to me, he’s not even
slightly agitated.”
Wood rose, saying something about taking a leak. He patted
Slater’s shoulder, a gesture of apparent understanding, and slowly
left the shed.
Wood’s phone rang.
“Pronto!” Slater sang, mimicking his partner perfectly.
• • •
Wood returned talking, “...and I think things will be fine between
us now.” He removed his sweater, flung it onto the chairback.
“Dawn’s coming.” Slater was by the window. “What’s up? The cat
take a dump?”
“He’s home.”
“Shit you’re kidding!” Wood rushed over. The Challenger was in
Blair’s driveway, the terrific trio peering into its trunk.
“Tell Cherry.”
“Oh, look at those asswipes. Look like puny Marines. We could
handle them, Slater.” Wood unsnapped his holster.
“Did you hear me?” Slater cupped Wood’s chin. “Call ... Lieutenant 
... Cherry. Tell him our subject arrived. Procedure, Wood. Follow it.
Put that fire in your belly out.” Slater reached for the phone but
Wood knocked it to the floor. Slater said pick it up.
“No. Don’t you wanna get something out of your system? Pretend
Blair is the guy who hurt Justine. He killed a minister, for Christ’s
sake. Shoot the sack of shit. Unless you don’t think he should go
down.” Wood paused, nodded. “Oh, I see. You wanna let him go,
let him keep removing the trash from the world. You said that.
You’re okay with what Blair’s doing.”
“Godammit you’re wasting time. Step back.” Slater laid his hand
on Wood’s chest and pushed. Wood fell into his chair, knocking it
over. The sleeve of his sweater must’ve hit the space heater’s
electric red strips. In sync with Wood’s getting to his feet the
sweater came to flaming life.
The two of them burst, too, into a shouting match loud enough to
get Blair’s attention.
There was no more talking. The clock had run down on that.
Wood drew first blood, punching a hole in the window and
cranking off a shot at the terrific trio. They rushed outside.
Stuff came out of the Challenger’s trunk. Camouflage-stock long
range sniper rifles. M1 12-gauge shotguns.
Slater didn’t need to wrestle with his conscience. All he had to do
was stop and listen to Cherry in his head, the lieutenant’s voice
through the pinholes of Wood’s cell. Cherry thinking Slater was
Wood, wanting to know if Wood had found out anything during the
long cold night, if Slater had admitted he was the cop securing
hookers. Then the little girl and Blair distracted and two of the
terrific trio’s guns trained on Wood - and Slater went still.
The lions were hungry and Slater threw Wood right to them. He
put his weapon down. Nonchalantly, coolly, the way he’d hung up
on Cherry without a word.
Wood began reciting again: “And my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted - nevermore!” Slater let
him walk right into suicide. Because he was a hero born to die if
Slater ever saw one.
• • •
She’d wet herself. A female officer held the young orphan, tried
hiding from her the cruel sight of her dead parents.
Cherry demanded full disclosure, but it wouldn’t be now. Soon
someone would come for the bodies, the weapons, the Challenger.
Slater stood beside Wood as they readied him for the ambulance,
cringing at the sight of a chalked hopscotch gridwork in the pink
cement.
For a second they left the two cops alone. “Hey, you’ll be okay,” 
Slater said.
“Yeah, then we could talk some more, pick up where we left off.”
Slater couldn’t believe his ears. The SOB had a bullet licking his
spleen and he still wanted to delve where he didn’t belong. Slater
leaned in to Wood’s ear. “What I told you back there, it wasn’t true.
The rumors, that’s all they are. You try to tell anyone different and,
well, I’ll have to deny it. Everything’s great with me. Justine’s fine.
She and I, we’re fine. But it’s too bad you’re so fucked up, Eric.”
He called Wood by his first name.
“Maybe you need therapy. Find out why you need so much
attention all the time. If we’re gonna work together I gotta insist you
come to terms with that, understand?”
A cloud covered the sun. Wood stared up at Slater blankly.
Slater recalled Wood’s response in the shed after their big talk and
he borrowed it, figured his partner’s apparently compassionate
gesture would suffice now, too. He smiled faintly, patted Wood’s
shoulder and walked off slowly.