A Maidens Grave

shit. You tell me there was some crazy cop doing things he shouldn’t oughta’ve. But you should’ve been more in charge, Art. It’s the way the law works, isn’t that right? You’re responsible for things people work for you do.”
    Angie was frowning.
    “What?” Budd asked, seeing the hopeless expression on her face. It matched that on Potter’s.
    “What’s the matter?” Frances Whiting whispered.
    Potter grabbed the field glasses, wiped the greasy smoke residue off them, and looked out.
    Oh, Christ, no . . . Desperately Potter said, “Lou, it was a mistake. ”
    “You shoot at Shep it was a mistake. You don’t get me my chopper on time it’s not your fault . . . . Don’t you know me by now, Art?”
    Only too well.
    Potter set down the glasses. He turned away from the window, glanced up at the pictures above the diagram of the slaughterhouse. Who will it be? he wondered.
    Emily?
    Donna Harstrawn?
    Beverly?
    Potter thinks suddenly: Melanie. He’s going to pick Melanie.
    Frances understood and cried out, “No, please no. Do something!”
    “There’s nothing to do,” Angie whispered.
    Tremain leaned his miserable face down to the window and looked out.
    Handy’s voice filled the van. He sounded reasonable,wise. “You’re a lot like me, Art. Loyal. That’s what I think. You’re loyal to them that do what they’re supposed to and you don’t have time for those that don’t.” A pause. “You know just what I’m saying, don’t you, Art? I’ll leave the body outside. You can come get it. Flag of truce.”
    “Lou, isn’t there anything I can do?” Potter heard the desperation in his own voice. Hated it. But it was there just the same.
    Who will it be?
    Angie had turned away.
    Budd shook his head sorrowfully. Even boisterous Roland Marks could find nothing to say.
    “Tobe,” Potter said softly, “please turn down the volume.”
    He did. But still everyone jumped at the stark sound of the gunshot, which filled the van as a huge metallic ring.
     
    As he stumbled toward the slaughterhouse, where the body lay pale in the halogen lights, he pulled off his flak jacket and dropped it on the ground. His helmet too he left behind.
    Dan Tremain walked on, tears in his eyes, gazing at the still body, the bloody body, lying in the posture of a rag doll.
    He crested the rise and saw from the corner of his eye troopers standing from their places of cover. They were staring at him; they knew he was responsible for what had happened, for this unconscionable death. He was walking up Calvary Hill.
    And in the window of the processing plant: Lou Handy, a gun pointed directly at Tremain’s chest. It made no difference, he was no threat; the captain had dropped the utility belt holding his Glock service pistol some yards back. On he stumbled, nearly falling, then just catching his balance like a drunk with some irrepressible sense of survival. His despair was deepened by Lou Handy’s face—the red eyes, set back under bony brows, the narrow jaw, the five o’clock shadow. He was smiling, an innocuous smile of curiosity, as he gazed at the sorrow on the cop’s face. Sampling, tasting.
    Tremain gazed at the body lying there in front of him. Fifty feet away, forty. Thirty.
    I’m mad, Tremain thought. And continued to walk, staring into the black eye of the muzzle of Handy’s gun.
    Twenty feet. Blood so red, skin so pale.
    Handy’s mouth was moving but Tremain could hear nothing. Maybe God’s judgment is to make me deaf as those poor girls.
    Ten feet. Five.
    He slowed. The troopers were standing now, all of them, staring at him. Handy could pick any of them off, as they could him, but there would be no shooting. This was the Christmas Eve during World War I when the enemy troops shared carols and food. And helped each other collect and bury the shattered bodies strewn throughout no-man’s-land.
    “What have I done?” he muttered. He dropped to his knees and touched the cold hand.
    He cried for a moment then hefted the body of the trooper in his arms—Joey Wilson, Outrider Two—and lifted it effortlessly, looking into the window. At Handy’s face, which was no longer smiling but, oddly, curious. Tremain memorized the foxlike cast of his face, the cold eyes, the way the tip of his tongue lay against his upper lip. They were only feet apart.
    Tremain turned and started back to the police line. In his mind he heard a tune, floating aimlessly. He couldn’t think of what it might be for a