Gabriel's Introduction

Eight blocks away from his destination, Officer Gabriel Matterson shut down the lights and siren on his patrol car.  Although this neighborhood was not exactly unaccustomed to the flashing of red and blue lights and the wailing of sirens, it was usually best not to alert suspects any more than was strictly necessary.  Keeping his eyes on the road, he listened to the traffic coming over the radio.  A steady stream of chatter poured from the speaker mounted under his dash, detailing a hundred simultaneous real life crime dramas playing out all over the city of Denver.  He glanced at the address he had scrawled on a notepad attached to his center console, and blacked his headlights.  The darkened cruiser glided to a halt against the curb a block away from the residence.  Grabbing the radio mike, he transmitted a brief message to notify dispatch that he had arrived.  He noted the other responding units calling out status updates, backup was less than one minute away.  He got out of his car and closed the door gently.  Nothing attracted attention like a slamming car door.  He checked the charge on his flashlight, clicking it on and off into the palm of his hand.  Satisfied with the output, he jogged towards the trailer.  He moved with a purpose, avoiding the pools of light from the street lamps overhead.  He did not need a great deal of light to find his way, he had been to this place before.

The dispatch center had recorded multiple calls from this area, reporting shouting and banging noises coming from inside the trailer.  One caller from next door had reported hearing what she believed to be gunshots.  The reports were hardly unusual.  This was one of the poorer sections of the city.  The high rate of poverty combined with an easy access to various illegal narcotics transformed this neighborhood into a powder keg, and tempers around here exploded on a regular basis.  The heat wave gripping the city had done nothing to calm things down, and Gabriel often wondered if the residents weren't ready to just burn the whole place down and call it a day.

The trailer was shabby, typical for that part of the city.  Peeling off-white paint, gutters falling off in spots.  Broken glass and other litter coexisted with dirty children's toys and weeds in the tiny plot of land that passed for a yard.  Gabriel could see that the lights were on inside, though the shades were drawn.  A rusted pickup that had once been red was parked on the street in front.  The area was relatively quiet, though Gabriel could hear the distant wail of sirens, emergency services of all varieties responding to the normal Friday night emergencies.  Other officers were arriving in the area, calling out their presence on the radio.  Though he had only been on the force for three years, Gabriel had mastered the art of the stealthy approach.  Being too loud in the wrong situation was a good way to get shot.  He caught the shadowy forms of his approaching partners out of the corner of his eye.  Nothing moved in the trailer, at least not in front of the windows.  He kept his eyes on those windows as he approached the trailer.

He crept closer, sliding up to a window by the front door.  Light from inside escaped through gaps in the shades, and Gabriel pressed his face up to the window.  The quiet of the residence was strange, but not completely unheard of.  He had arrived at the scene of many a reported domestic quarrel only to find everything quiet and peaceful, with only the cuts and bruises on the combatants left to tell the tale. As he peered into the window, he realized this would not be one of those cases.  Cheap furniture tossed around the room, beer cans scattered on the floor.  Food scattered around everything, mingled with the broken dishes which had held it earlier.  A body, face down on the floor in front of the television.  It was a woman, judging by the clothes and the long hair that haloed around her head.  And she was dead, judging by the pool of blood that the dark hair floated in.  The cooling blood caught the reflected light from the TV, which was tuned to a sitcom playing at low volume.

Communicating with hand signals, Gabriel indicated to his partners that there was a victim down inside, and they prepared to force their way in.  When they had knowledge of a severely injured party, they were not bound to get a warrant before entering.  He drew his sidearm, a Kimber .45 caliber handgun.  The reassuring weight in his hand helped to calm his nerves.  He had kicked many doors during his short career, but no two were ever the same.  He took a deep breath and lashed out with his foot, kicking the door directly below the hasp.  The cheap metal door gave immediately, flying in and rebounding off the wall.  Gabriel rushed inside, his partners right behind him.  Adrenaline fueled his movement as he ducked left, towards a narrow hallway.  He paid no attention to the woman on the floor, stepping over her into the hall.  If she was dead, she was beyond their help.  If she wasn't, they had to be sure her attacker wasn't waiting in ambush.

Gabriel ran down the hall, weapon at the ready.  He kicked the door at the end of the hall, which opened to reveal what must have been the couple's bedroom.  Clothes scattered around, trash and clutter everywhere.  A man laying on top of two mattresses, the better part of his brains splattered on the wall.  A revolver lay on the bed next to a lifeless hand.  Gabriel recognized the man only by the distinctive skull tattoo on his right bicep, his face was just one more firearm suicide.  Used needles and a rubber tourniquet lay around his body. 

A crib stood in the corner of the room, and Gabriel glanced inside.  He only caught the briefest of glimpses, but the image seared into his mind.  A child, probably a boy, dead in the crib.  He had been shot as well, an innocent victim caught in yet another senseless orgy of drug fueled violence.

A quick check of the closet showed nobody else in the room, and Gabriel yelled out that his section of the trailer was clear.  Other officers yelled back that the rest was clear, and Gabriel left the room behind him as he joined his partners.

The woman in the living room was dead, and she had not been granted the quick death of the bullet.  Her face and throat had been brutalized, battered and smashed.

As the adrenaline in his blood subsided, Gabriel let out a long sigh.  The entire search had taken less than a minute, and now the stench of the place threatened to overwhelm him, a mixture of food on the edge of spoilage, marijuana smoke, and blood.  It wasn't just the smell, though.  The pure senselessness of the violence here was beyond comprehension.  Gabriel followed his partners outside as he communicated with dispatch on his portable radio.  No ambulance would be needed here, just the coroner's van and the crime scene processing unit.

Walking out of the home, Gabriel avoided the curious glances of the neighbors.  He had done no heroic act here, had not saved anyone.  He had just discovered the mess, and he wasn't even going to be the one who had to clean it up.  He leaned up against the side of the trailer and closed his eyes, trying to forget what he had seen.  Approaching footsteps alerted him to the presence of Stephen Camby, one of the senior officers on the shift, who had mentored him through the first year of his career.  He walked up and lit a cigarette.

"Hell of a thing in there, huh? What is that now, fifty one, fifty two, city wide this year?" asked Camby.

Gabriel nodded. "Sounds about right."

"Wow, man," said Camby. "we keep this up and we'll set a new record for most homicides in the district.  And you, my friend, get the paper on this one.  First one in writes it up."

"Sure, Steve, I got the paper," said Gabriel.  The first crime scene van was pulling up to the curb.  Technicians began to get out of the vehicle, pulling on bright yellow jackets.  They began setting up equipment, pulling cases of gear from the van and running cords for floodlights.  They would not be able to enter the scene until the detectives arrived, but the sooner they were set up, the faster their work would go.

Camby punched him in the arm, a playful gesture.  "Why so glum, my friend?" he asked. "This ain't your first trip around the block."

"Doesn't it ever just get...old to you?" asked Gabriel. "The blood, the bodies, the stink?"

Camby shrugged. "All the same after a while, I guess.  Just another crackhead family doing everyone a favor."

"What about the kid?" asked Gabriel.

"The kid sucks, no doubt," said Camby. "But odds are, he was a little crackhead in training.  Nothing we can do about it anyway.  We just show up and clean up the mess."

"It's not right," said Gabriel. "Daddy wants to off himself, fine by me.  You might make the case that his old lady wasn't making a real big contribution to society, either, though she had as much right to breathe as you and I do. But the little boy, come on.  He never even had a chance."

"Just be glad you don't have to process the evidence, Gabe.  Can you imagine all the paper on that?"

"I'd do as much paper as I had to if I could just keep these people from killing each other," said Gabriel.

Unmarked cars began to arrive, a lieutenant and two detectives to pull the case.  One of the detectives, a short, balding man, approached Gabriel and Camby.

"Detective Fern," said the man, flashing an identification badge. "Who was first on scene?"

Camby took an exaggerated step away from Gabriel and pointed to him. "Not me, boss, this is your lucky man right here."

Fern looked at Gabriel and readied a pen and small notebook.  "Let me have it," he said.

Gabriel told Fern everything, from the initial call to making entry, to finding the bodies.  "Standard stuff, really," he said, wrapping up his statement.

As Fern was closing his notebook and pocketing his pen, Lieutenant Marjorie Walker approached.  She pulled Gabriel aside.

"Doing okay?" she asked.

"Yes, m'am, I'm just fine," he lied.

"So tell me what happened," she said.

Gabriel repeated the whole story, almost word for word as the report he gave Fern.  When he was done, Walker nodded.

"How much time left in your shift?" she asked.

Gabriel looked at his watch.  "I'm only about halfway done," he said, "so about another four hours or so."

Walker grinned. "Good," she said, "we can use a few more hands on the perimeter.  Keep all the nosy neighbors from getting a free freak show."

She started to walk away, and turned back abruptly. "Say, Gabe, before you hit the perimeter, would you mind making a coffee run for us?" she asked. "We're going to be here awhile, and we could use the perk."

"Sure, not a problem," he said "I'll get right on it."