felt horrible, too. Nevertheless, he had made a serious mistake, and his mistake had gotten them both into trouble.
Suze Figueroa sat on one side of the waiting room, her arms folded across her chest. Far away in the other corner-as far away from her as he could get and still be in the same room-sat Norm Bennis, feet spread, elbows on knees, hands dangling, head hanging. He looked absolutely miserable.
Hell, Suze thought, he ought to. She just hoped he felt guilty as hell, making a stupid mistake and then sticking with it. Stubborn bastard!
But they'd been together so long!
Bennis was her mentor and her friend.
The Police Academy teaches you what they think you need to know. Then the job-and your partner-teach you what you really need to know. Suze Figueroa had been assigned to Bennis just after she finished the initial on-the-job phase of working with a supervisor. She'd been afraid of what Norm would think of her at first. He looked so solid and experienced-like a walking ad for professionalism in police work for the twenty-first century. He'd been ten years a Chicago cop when she came on. He was built like a wedge, with narrow hips, a broad chest, and very wide shoulders. His square brown face, when she first saw it at that first roll call, was set in a scowl. But she soon realized that he thought it was lots of fun being mentor to a five-foot-one-inch naive female.
They hit it off immediately, and Bennis never made fun of her for not knowing whether a ten-young or a one-frank was a "disturbance, domestic, peace restored" or a "dog bite, report filed." He didn't belittle her, as her trainer sometimes had, for not knowing how to fill out a specific form. He knew the department didn't run on gas or electricity, it ran on paper, and he knew when she'd filled out a couple hundred of them, she would remember all the forms.
Bennis was sardonic, but not sour.
For her part, Suze teased him about the long series of women who took his fancy for about three weeks apiece, but she sympathized too. She was divorced. Her ex-husband called her the "affirmative-action cop." By this he meant that she was too short and too female to be any good to anybody.
Bennis thought she was just fine on the job. "You back me up better than any partner I've ever had."
"Hey, Bennis! I'm not just backup. I'm forefront."
"That too."
Suze and Norm and half the First District went to the Furlough Bar for a beer after a tour. Recently, Suze and Norm had taken to going to an occasional movie instead. It was not exactly a girl-and-boy thing, Suze told herself. They were both too embarrassed at the thought of being called just another squad car romance.
And now-now they wouldn't even look at each other.
It was 11 A.M. on February 15, the day after the incident. Two rooms down the hall, a roundtable of inquiry-four men and one woman, including an assistant deputy superintendent, a state's attorney, and the union rep-were reviewing the documents in the case. They had before them the fire department reports and the preliminary findings of the medical examiner and the detectives. But the reports from other departments only explained what happened after the incident. After the point where Norm's story and Suze Figueroa's story diverged.
Their commander, Sazerac, sat with them in the waiting room. He was as unhappy as they were. Finally he spoke.
"There's no way I can stop this. But it bothers me. I wouldn't have figured you for a shirker, Figueroa."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you realize how they see this?"
"Yes, boss. They know that Bennis and I have two different stories about last night, and so they think one of us is improperly describing the case. So they think one of us is lying. Which would be a reprimand."
"NO, Figueroa. It's not that minor."
"Minor! I've never had a reprimand and I don't intend to have one now! Uh. Sir."
Sazerac sighed. "Listen to me. We're talking separation from the department. Maybe prosecution."
"For what?"
"They think you left that man to die in the fire, Figueroa. And made up your story later to cover up. To make it seem he was dead."
Bennis groaned. "But he was dead, sir! Figueroa would never-"
"And they think you, Bennis, added that diagnosis later, after you realized that your story cast doubt on whether he was dead."
"That's not true. I said he was dead when I wrote it up this morning."
"Not strongly. You 'thought he was dead.' They figure that you said it more strongly later because the two of you have gotten together to save her ass."
"No. NO, sir. That's just not true. Sir, Figueroa is the best officer I've ever worked with. She'd never abandon a living person."
"Are you reconsidering your testimony, Bennis?"
Bennis looked from Suze Figueroa to the commander and back. His face was anguished. "I can't. I'm sorry, Figueroa. I can't lie. Maybe I was temporarily disoriented by the fire. But I have to say what I know. I can't lie."
"You're lying now, Bennis," she said. "I wish I knew why."
Figueroa was seething. Bennis stared away from her at the dead plant in the corner. The commander sighed again, and then sat silent.
The door opened. A man in uniform came one step into the room. "The board is ready for you," he said.
"It was one of those nights that a lot of people call 'real Chicago weather,' " Suze Figueroa said to the board. "It had started to snow at about three in the afternoon, just as Officer Bennis and I came on duty. We knew immediately that the rush hour was going to be hell-uh, was going to be very difficult. People had started coming into town, too, for Valentine's Day dinners. By four o'clock it was snowing so hard you couldn't see across the street. By five there were already cars backed up spinning their wheels on the steeper access ramps to Lake Shore Drive and the Kennedy Expressway. Some of them had run out of gas, blocking the streets, and would be there until Streets and San made it through to tow them."
She was trying to hold in her fear, trying to put out of her mind the thought that she might be fired. Being a cop was what she had always wanted.
"It was constant from the moment we hit the street. We picked people out of stalled cars who were too scared to get out. We found several street people and ran them to shelters. We-"
The ADS, Wardron, chopped her description short. "Officer Figueroa," he said, "get to the incident."
"Yes, sir. But the weather played a very large part-"
"We know what the weather was last night. Move forward."
"Yes, sir." This guy Wardron was going to be trouble, she thought. He looked dike Mike Ditka and used his voice like the blade of a guillotine. She had vibes, sometimes, when she felt sure that another cop didn't like women on the department. She didn't want to think that this guy was out to get her, personally and specifically, but she'd bet if he could prove that some woman cop had run scared, he'd enjoy doing it.
"At 2140 hours we got a call . . ."
"One thirty-three," the radio had said. They were car thirty- three in the First District. Since Figueroa was driving, Bennis picked up and said, "Thirty-three."
"Woman screaming for help at eight-one-seven west on Chestnut."
"You got a floor on that, squad?"
"On the two."
"Caller give a name?"
"Oh, yeah. Citizen. Concerned citizen."
"I know the guy well."
"Gal."
"Whatever."
Because of the snow, all the usual city sounds around them were muffled. In fact, there were virtually no automobile noises, and they heard the dispatcher more clearly than usual. No need to repeat. Bennis said, "Ten-four."
The snow had filled the streets and was still coming down. Figueroa said, "Jeez, Bennis. It's not the traction that's a problem. It's all the abandoned cars."
"You can get around 'em here if you drive on the sidewalk."
"Right."
"Don't clip the fire hydrant."
"Bennis, please! You know what an excellent driver I am."
"Figueroa, my man, I'd trust you with my life. In fact, I do it on a daily basis."
"And you're still alive, too."
"Watch out for the dumpster!"
"Missed it by a mile."
"A good quarter of an inch anyhow."
The radio said: "One thirty-three."
Continue Story
"Thirty-three."
"We got a second call on that woman screaming for help. Where are you?"
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