Stories from the Leavening

Officer Gibson

Officer Marian Gibson picked up the call with a groan, it was almost the end of her shift and driving round Loomis' nervous driving style was driving her nuts. It was a domestic violence call on Copeland: they used to be nice houses before the steel plant went to China. Now there were families hanging on desperately among shuttered, tattered homes. The low desiccating sunlight of the end of the afternoon blinded her for a moment as Loomis swung onto Copeland, then she saw the smoke and moments later they heard the screaming.

The house looked as if someone had used an enormous hole-punch on it. There were neat black holes, ragged on the top floor where boards were sagging into them, but sharp dinner-plate circles in a front window and white-plastered wall. As they piled out they could see the body lying slumped in the bushes of the front lawn, stained t-shirt, pistol in hand, head missing.

The woman appeared in the shattered doorway as they walked over to the body, neatly dressed in fawn slacks and but with her hair snaking over her face and blood spatters on her blouse. "Not my fault! He wouldn't stop! Not my fault!" she was saying, one hand held out in supplication, one hand clawing at the door-frame.

Marian tried to edge in front of Loomis. He was too blunt, to impatient for these calls, too unaware of how threatening he looked. He was reaching out with his hand, too close, "Now, ma'am, just take a moment, calm down".

Afterwards she remembered it as if the slanting yellow light had locked them all in amber, trapped them. "Just a moment Luke..." she was saying, when the woman screamed, "NO! Don't touch me..." and the light came flooding out of her mouth and burnt a neat soup-plate hole through Luke Loomis.