Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

Sri said, holding his coffee cup up like a toast at a wedding. Beau could see the heat snakes rise off the cup and his mouth watered.

“Yup.” He drove and pulled onto the street.

“102, your return.”

“Go ahead.”

“427 David King Sam, October of 2018, comes back on a 1987 Buick LeSabre to a Gertrude Brown of Bates City. No wants or warrants.”

“Copy.”

Beau got to the four-way stop light at Rainbow where he waited at the red wanting to turn left. His blinker’s chime dinged in the car and his world was consumed by the darkness outside being invaded by the irritating, penetrating glow of the dash inside and the single monotonous tone of the turn signal. He started thinking about the coffee, about his dream of a boat, about how he wasn’t good at tests and how that was probably going to scuttle him if he went for corporal, about how earlier Campbell told him he was being complained on by a driver he ticketed the previous week and about how this red light was never-ending and that red turn arrow just stared at him and—

“—fired! Shots fir—” across the radio. Panic. A distorted blast in the background.

“Fuck!” Beau shouted and jammed on the gas. His thumb flicked at the overhead lights and his engine growled as it climbed past sixty miles an hour. Those two words had a way of occupying all available brain space. No coffee, no boat, no promotion, no complaint, no red arrow. Only Barros.

“PD to 102.”

The radio was silent and that had a way of sinking into someone’s guts like a cancer diagnosis for a child.

“102. PD to 102, do you copy?”

“Signal 13, Dispatch,” Sergeant Campbell said over the radio. Officer in emergency distress. “100 is in route from 110th and Bleaker. Tone out all the info you have, and then contact all the surrounding agencies.”

“104, responding from Rainbow and 147th,” Beau said into his mic.

“Copy.”

“103, responding, same location,” Sri said.

“Copy, units in route at 0135 hours,” Rick in Dispatch said. The radio pulsed with the alternating high/low tone that was reserved for exigent information. After it stopped, Rick transmitted, “All available units, be in route to a signal 13 at 139th and Rainbow. Officer 102 has reported shots fired. Unknown description on suspects or any causalities. Suspect vehicle is described as an older model tan Buick LeSabre, license plate 427 David King Sam. Radio traffic is reserved for information about the signal 13. PD out.”

Rainbow was virtually empty this late at night, this time of year. Beau tore down it, seeing Sri’s reds and blues in his rearview as they raced south along the street, the crossroad signs getting smaller from 147th until 139th came eerily into view.

Barros’s cruiser sat on the side of the road, empty. Haunted. Overhead lights still on, exhaust still smoking into the night, his spotlight aiming into the nothing down the road. Beau came flying up, saw Barros’s feet sticking out of the grass, one twitching. He swung his car and jumped out. He saw Barros. He saw blood.

He saw a lot of blood.

He saw a young man, facedown and slumped like a rag doll tossed against the wall. By the size of the mess around his face, he wasn’t a threat.

Beau grabbed his mic, said, “Officer down. 102 is down. Get an ambulance times two to the stop location.”

“Copy, already in route.” Rick was good. He could read the tea leaves over the radio static.

Sri blasted past them, taking the next corner on two wheels. Over the radio, Beau heard him say, “103, in pursuit of suspect vehicle, southbound on Bales Avenue off 139th.”

Click here to learn more about It’s Ugly Because It’s Personal by Ryan Sayles.

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