A gun shot shattered the quiet.
The report made me flinch despite the fact I'm a cop accustomed to such
sounds and that I knew what was coming. I glanced at the clock on the
stove. Eighteen after.
Sitting at my kitchen table cluttered with breakfast remnants of cereal,
Poptarts, spilled milk and the uneaten crusts of warmed-over pizza, I
closed my eyes again and listened to the ensuing silence, absently crushing
cornflakes beneath my fingertips. A second gun shot exploded. I looked at
the clock. Six minutes had passed. Exactly two and one half minutes later
the cassette clicked off.
An image of Trudy Moore flickered across my mind. Trudy in the beginning
and Trudy near the end. Over the years in my police work I had tried hard
to stay uninvolved personally, but sometimes it just couldn't be helped.
This case had been one of those fraught with disappointment and
frustration, impeded by the very system meant to remedy it.
It began for me on a blustery day in November in the cramped detective
division of the Spring Valley Police Department where I serve as the
department's first and only female detective.
"Detective Winick?"
I looked up from the bottom drawer of my desk where I had just stashed an
assortment of commandeered Halloween candy that my seven-year-old nephew,
Billy, had collected trick-or-treating the night before. I recognized the
woman standing at my desk. It wasn't the first time she'd been in this
department. In fact, I'd seen her at least three times in the past,
working with two other detectives; first with Sal, then Chester.
But that had been months ago. The change in the woman was shocking. I
recalled a rather plain, but robust-looking young woman with a straight,
confident posture wearing a tidy waitress uniform.
She didn't look so robust now. With dark smudges under her eyes, lipstick
chewed away from dry lips and the shine gone from hair that was limp and
beginning to show gray, she slouched with what I could only describe as
obvious despair. Her uniform had lost it starch and fit a little looser.
There was no doubt about it, this woman's appearance had gradually gone
downhill with each visit to the station.
"I'm Trudy Moore. Detective Bernstein said you were probably the one who
could best help me."
"Oh yeah. Why is that?"
She shrugged. "Maybe 'cause you're a woman."
That sent red lights flashing in my head. "Have a seat, Mrs. Moore." I
let go of the candy and reluctantly closed the drawer.
She sank into a chair. Behind her at the double glass doors I saw Sal and
Chester approaching, laughing and talking, about to enter when Chester
glanced our way then pulled on Sal's arm. Sal looked, his smile instantly
changing to a grimace as they both executed a quick about-face and
retreated.
So that was it. Mrs. Moore was a pass along. First Sal, then Chester,
and now me. She was no doubt the station kook. What was it? Voices in
her head? Little people on her heels? The neighbor's barking dog?
With head bowed, fingers picking at something that looked like spaghetti
sauce on her uniform, she said, "He's beginning to really scare me."
"Who?"
"It's all on report. I told Detectives Parker and Bernstein all about it.
They took reports."
"Why don't we just start fresh. From the beginning, okay?"
She nodded, sighed with resignation. "I know there's no anti-stalker law
in this state, but I--"
"We're working on it."
"Isn't there something you people can do anyway?"
"Why don't you tell me about it. First," I said, readying my note pad,
"give me a little background on you, if you will."
She nodded again, swallowed, and began.
She was thirty-one, divorced three years and had a daughter, five. She
worked as a waitress in a coffee shop in the mall, but she was going to
quit because of him. Before the waitress job she was a teller at a bank, a
ticket seller at the Cinema 8, and a clerk at the Stop n' Go, all jobs
she'd had to quit because of this weirdo.
"Pestering you, huh?"
"Without let up. Since April Fool's Day."
"Go on."
"I get a new job and he finds out where and suddenly there he is, hanging
around and grinning that creepy grin."
"He an old boyfriend of yours?"
"Absolutely not!"
She told me that this man turned up one day at the convenience store where
she worked, the one under the overpass, and pretty soon he was there
everyday, hanging around, drinking coffee and watching.
"Watching?"
"Me. Watching me."
"Go on."
Intimidated by this, Trudy quit and went to work for the movie theater.
She felt a measure of safety inside the ticket booth, but when he started
showing up there she left and went on to the bank. At least they had a
security guard. But after only two weeks she was fired because she made
too many mistakes, so unnerved by his vigil on the bus bench across the
street--the bus would come and go and still he sat there staring at her
through the tinted glass of the bank's drive-up window. Her latest job at
the cafe had brought him inside again. He'd come full circle. He was back
to sipping coffee and watching her, except now he was calling her at home
on her unlisted number.
"What's he say?"
"Nothing." She twisted her fingers. "If he don't quit calling and saying
nothing I'm gonna go crazy."
I took a report like my two colleagues before me and suggested she get a
new unlisted phone number. Other than that, I said, our hands were tied.
She worked in a public place. It was a free country and the man had a
right to a cup of coffee if he'd paid for it. Where he looked was his own
business as long as he wasn't peeping in her window and as long as he kept
his hands to himself. All things she'd heard before and didn't want to
hear again.
I knew what she was going through. My sister had gone through the same
crap. The calls, the letters, the looming shadow. But instead of a
stranger stalking Lilly, it had been her ex-husband. Lilly had gone
through all the right channels. The police, the courts. Nothing helped.
Least of all the restraining order that failed to keep her ex from
ambushing her one night after work and shooting her five times in the head
before putting the gun to his own head. Lilly's two boys, Billy and Chuck,
now live with me.
Two weeks later Trudy sank down into the chair by my desk and said, "He
knows where I live."
"Whatshisname? The watcher?" I asked, though not the least bit surprised.
He probably knew exactly when she ate, slept, even when she took her daily
vitamins.
"He's hanging around our house. I got a little girl, she's just a baby,
five. Detective Winick, you've got to do something. Arrest him."
"Has he done anything illegal?"
"I'm not sure. Like what?"
"Like prowling around your house. Going through your mail. Vandalizing
personal property. Laying hands on you...laying hands on your little
girl."
She visibly blanched at the latter. "He's harassing me. He calls or
shows up all hours of the day and night. Isn't there some law that says
people got a right to peace and quiet, privacy, and the pursuit of
happiness?"
"He has the same rights, Mrs. Moore. And unless he's actually doing
something that's against the law, you know as well as I do that I can't do
a darn thing."
"What's gotta happen before you can step in, huh? He gonna have to break
into our house and hurt me, hurt my little girl? Kill us?"
I repressed a shudder. Bile rose to my throat as I remembered looking
upon Lilly's nearly unrecognizable face at the morgue when asked to
identify her body. "He threaten to do those things?"
"What he does is calls and tells me he loves me, can't live without me and
hopes to spend eternity with me. What's that sound like to you?"
It sounded like he wasn't going to give up, but I didn't say as much to
her. I knew that even in states where anti-stalker laws existed, little
could be done to stop these guys. Behavior such as theirs was not normal
and they went to great lengths and risks to pursue their victim.
Before I could answer, she stood, dug into the wide pocket of her uniform,
brought out a dozen photographs and tossed them onto my desk.
I fanned them out. Though the background view was different in each one,
the man was the same. A scrawny little guy with greasy dark hair and tiny
eyes like blackened steelies, dressed in army fatigues. He stared directly
into the camera, grinning, obviously aware he was being photographed.
"Nam vet?" I inquired.
"I didn't ask. But when I turn up missing or dead one day, you'll know
what my killer looks like." She pivoted sharply and marched off.
That night I drove to the quiet neighborhood where Trudy Moore lived. Her
house, a little bungalow of Spanish design, surrounded by a jungle of
shrubs and trees, was a prowler's paradise. The weather was mild and
balmy, yet all around the small bungalow the doors and mini-blinds were
shut tight. No toys in the yard, no sign of a child anywhere.
And then I saw why.
Parked at the curb was a beat-up Jeep Wrangler. A man in camouflage
fatigues sat slumped behind the wheel with black steelie eyes fixed on the
house.
I parked behind him, got out of my car, adjusted the harness holster of my
colt .45 beneath my blazer and moved toward the driver's door, taking out
my shield as I approached.
I had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention, so engrossed was he
in his vigil. Flashing my shield, I said, "What do you think you're
doing?"
The man looked me up and down. "Minding my own business."
"You live there?" I jutted my chin at the Moore house.
"No, but a friend of mine does?"
"Lemme see your license and registration."
The man sighed, shifted around and got his wallet from a deep pocket in
the fatigues. He handed over the driver's license, then went for the
registration papers.
Martin Cole, age forty-two, it read. "Look, Martin, I don't think the
lady wants to be your friend. I think she wants you to leave her alone.
Know what else I think? I think you'd better knock off this crap cause
you're getting on the lady's nerves."
"Have I broken the law?"
"Maybe."
"Arrest me then."
I wished to hell I could. I hated garbage like him. Garbage who knew
the law and teetered on the edge of it. Garbage who knew exactly how far
he could go. Garbage that pecked away at the system, never quite breaking
through the layered skin of legality. Garbage who had the power to disrupt
lives and create chaos.
"Get out of here, mister. Now." I returned his papers. "And don't
come back."
The man stared blandly at me. I felt the muscles bunching at the back of
my neck. Was Martin Cole going to force me to take action? Without a
court order Cole was legally within his rights to sit in his vehicle on a
public street. I could haul him in on some trumped up charge, risking a
false arrest complaint, or I could back off and walk away, giving this
maggot the satisfaction of besting me.
Something in me snapped. I saw my sister's ex-husband sitting there,
smirking at me. Saw the man who'd made my two nephews motherless. My hand
moved toward my police revolver. Maybe he sensed my rage or maybe he was
just tired of the game, he started the engine and, with one last look at
the house, drove off.
I knocked at the door. I saw the blinds split, fingertips and an eye. A
moment later a visibly shaken Trudy Moore invited me in.
A little blonde girl, the same age as my youngest nephew, sat on the floor
watching cartoons on a large screen TV. "Karen, honey, turn off the TV and
go play in your room while I talk to the nice policewoman, okay?"
"He do that everyday?" I asked when the girl left the room. "Sit out
there?"
"Most everyday, yeah."
"Well, I had a talk with him. I don't think he'll be bothering you any
more."
Her response was a short, sharp laugh. "See that?" she said, pointing to
an entertainment system covering one entire wall. "I just bought it.
Might as well have the best, it's all Karen and I get to do anymore. If we
try to take in a movie or get an ice cream, he's right there. She can't
play outside and I just work and come straight home. He's got us prisoners
in our own home." Then she broke down and cried.
The following week was spent at home sick with the latest flu bug and two
rowdy boys. On my first day back at the station, still feeling rotten,
Trudy dropped in. She looked a zillion times worse than I felt.
What little defiance she'd exhibited on her last visit was gone. She
crossed the room as if each step were an effort and collapsed into the
chair, wringing thin fingers with nails bitten down to the quick.
I reached out and gently squeezed her thin arm. "Trudy?"
"He's making threats. Now can you arrest him?"
"What kind of threats?"
"'I can't live without you. My life is meaningless.' Garbage like that.
He had a representative from a funeral home contact me asking for
confirmation on a joint plot at the cemetery. And last night he called and
said we had to do it."
"Do what?"
"End it. Double suicide. 'It's the only way, Trudy', that's what he
said."
I had run a check on him. No priors. He was single, lived with his Bingo
playing mother in a trailer park west of town.
"He's been bugging me for eight months now. He gets bolder each passin'
day. Karen's scared to death. She wakes up screaming with night terrors.
Anymore her time is split between watching him out the window and watching
TV. She can't go outside like a normal kid unless I take her to my mom's.
And it's probably only a matter of time before he starts hanging around
there."
"Have you considered moving?" I asked quietly.
She couldn't move, she told me. Her husband had child visitation rights
and he'd raise a stink. If she made too much of it, he'd try again to get
custody of Karen. Besides, she was raised here, all her friends and family
were here. She had a house and financial obligations.
"It isn't fair he should be able to chase me off." She scratched at the
back of her hands, which were raw and chafed. "Anyway, he'd probably
follow me like he did the last time."
"Last time?"
"Karen and I went three hundred miles last weekend to visit my
grandmother. I watched him drive by her house."
"You correspond with your grandmother?"
"Yeah, sure."
I figured Cole had gone through her garbage and found the discarded
letters. I told her to be careful what she tossed in the trash. "Mrs.
Moore, do you own a gun?"
I went to see Cole's mother. I caught her between bingo games. She
invited me into her mobile home, listened patiently, then shrugged
helplessly and said Martin was a grown man and though he had his problems,
he stayed out of trouble.
"Problems?" I asked.
"Well, he don't like to work. And he has this fascination with war stuff
and firearms. I don't care for all those firearms under my roof."
"Your son served in Vietnam?"
"No. He was in the service, but they let him out on a medical discharge."
"May I see his firearms?"
She took me to a room in the back, Cole's bedroom. A virtual arsenal.
Firearms in a wide range of makes and models. Handguns, rifles, shotguns
and the ammo to go with them, all legal and proper. No uzis or MPs. Cole
was simply exercising his right to bear arms.
Tacked to the walls and scattered among black and white pictures of war
scenes were candid shots of Trudy Moore. Trudy getting into her car.
Trudy getting the mail. Trudy and her daughter at a school playground.
Trudy wasn't the only one snapping pictures, it seemed.
"Who's this?" I pointed to her photograph.
"Oh, that's Marty's girlfriend. He's been seeing her for a long time.
First time I saw her picture I thought how much she looks like a teacher
Marty had in eighth grade. He had the wildest crush on that teacher. He
was so googlie-eyed over her he couldn't concentrate in class. Sad part
was she flunked him, got married and left town. He was real despondent
over that." She paused, turned to the pictures and asked, "Is she the one
he's been pestering?"
Soon after that Cole began to get careless. He stepped up his crusade,
calling day and night and even approaching Trudy on the street and at her
home. Once he brandished a revolver, but Trudy was the only witness so it
was her word against his. She tried to hide out, still he found her in
record time. Pushed to the limit, Trudy's brother dragged Cole from the
Jeep and pounded him good. Cole pressed charges for assault and battery
and got the brother thrown in jail overnight. The threats increased. The
situation grew more volatile and the fuse got shorter. Although Cole was
losing a measure of control, he still managed to stay within the boundaries
of the law.
Trudy Moore lost her job, her health, and became a psychological wreak.
Her ex-husband went to court to gain custody of Karen, stating his ex was
emotionally unable to care for their daughter. He was granted temporary
custody.
Through all this I shared the poor woman's anger, frustration and sense of
helplessness. I lay awake at night trying to figure out ways to stop him.
Short of blowing him away myself, I saw no solution.
And then it happened.
It was near noon on a mild winter day when I pulled up to the Moore house
to find a half dozen police cars, lights flashing, and officers with guns
drawn taking positions around the house. Martin Cole's Jeep was parked in
the driveway. Bold little bastard, I thought.
I spotted the sergeant and hurried to him.
"This one's yours, isn't it?" Sergeant Lopez said.
"Yes. Fill me in."
"At 11:28 we got the 10-57; the neighbor on the left heard the first shot.
A few minutes later comes the 10-67. It was a 911, a woman, at this
address, calling for help. Dispatch hears a shot and hears her screaming:
'he's gonna kill me!' Then the line goes dead. That was ten minutes ago.
Nothing more since."
"Anyone see anything inside?"
"Blinds shut tight all around."
"Contact by phone?"
"Dead."
"Damn." Poor Trudy. An innocent victim who had the bad luck to look like
some nut's eighth grade teacher. Cole had ruined her life. Up to this
point the law was on his side and he'd taken full advantage of it. Lot of
good that did her now. I could only pray that Mrs. Moore was still alive
and that she'd make it out of this in one piece, both physically and
mentally unimpaired.
"She's got a kid, doesn't she?"
"Husband's got custody," I said.
The bullhorn barked. Sergeant Lopez was saying, "...c'mon Cole, let the
lady go. You don't want to hurt her. Just open the front door and come
out real slow with your hands up."
Suddenly there was a commotion inside the house. A scream, then a chair
came crashing through the window, spraying glass everywhere, and through a
clattering of mini-blinds a body vaulted onto the front porch. A shot rang
out inside the house. The woman rolled off the porch and into a patch of
iceplant. Within seconds several uniforms were there, giving Trudy Moore
cover and hustling her to safety.
She was bleeding in a dozen places from the shards of glass, but otherwise
she seemed unharmed. Cole had shot at her, but missed. She and I sat in
the back of an emergency vehicle while a paramedic tended her wounds.
"How much artillery does he have?" I asked.
"Just the...the one gun. A handgun."
"Ammo?"
She shook her head and shrugged, then went into a fit of shakes.
I heard Lopez give the directive to fire tear gas through the front
window.
From inside the house another shot rang out and Trudy screamed.
"We're going to rush the house," the sarge said to me moments later.
"It's possible he's down. One of the sharpshooters, scoping through a
crack in the blinds, says he can see someone lying on the living room
floor. No movement."
It was all over in a less than a minute. The police rushed the house,
found Martin Cole down with a bullet to the head, a revolver at his side.
The coroner pronounced him dead at the scene. He was taken to the morgue.
Trudy Moore was treated at Valley Hospital and released.
It had been a long, trying ordeal for Trudy, an act comparable to
terrorism, but at last it was over.


I brushed the cornflakes crumbs aside and lifted my nephew's cassette
player from the table. I removed the cassette and turned it over in my
hands. A good brand. Top of the line. Pitch so true the right notes
could shatter crystal.
An hour later I knocked on Trudy Moore's door. I was surprised by the
change in her. In just two weeks she was less gaunt, had regained some
color and her darting, frightened eyes now mirrored a gentle softness. She
invited me in. I saw suitcases in the entry.
"Going on a trip?"
She nodded. "Karen and I. We want to celebrate our freedom--freedom from
him--by taking a little vacation to Mexico."
"You got custody of Karen again?"
"Oh, yes." Her eyes shone with exhilaration. "I'm picking her up at her
father's on the way to the airport."
In the door frame to her right I saw a bullet hole. The day of the
shooting I had watched SCI dig that slug out. I put my finger to the hole.

"Four bullets were fired from Cole's gun," I said. "One was found here in
the door frame and one in Cole's head. There's no trace of the other two."

"Does it matter one way or another?" she asked, her gaze unflinching.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It's just that I'm one of those people who likes to
have everything sorted out, if possible. Got a minute?"
She nodded, led the way into the kitchen. Without asking, she poured two
cups of coffee.
We sat, silently staring at each other. Finally, in a soft voice she
said, "You have reservations about that man's death?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. The way I see it he didn't pull that trigger."
She stiffened. "You think I did? I wasn't anywhere near him when he
died. You know that."
"I know I was with you when we heard the final, and presumably, fatal
shot. Now that's where those reservations come in."
"The medical examiner found something?"
"Oh no, everything points to suicide. Couldn't be neater. The autopsy
report states the victim's death occurred well within the time restraints.
Gun powder residue on his hand. Four shots were heard and there were four
empty shell casings in the chamber of the weapon. The weapon was
registered to the victim. Everyone knew the man had been harassing you for
months, documented by myself and a number of police dispatches. Everyone
also knew there was no way you or your family could stop him unless he
broke into your house and tried to assault you. No, everything falls into
place...except for one thing."
I reached into my purse and brought out the cassette. The color drained
from Trudy Moore's already pale face.
"Four reported gun shots and only two recovered slugs."
"The missing bullets could be buried in the carpeting or the furniture.
The police really didn't search very hard. If you'd like to look for
yoursel--"
I shook my head. "It'd be a waste of time. Because I know where they
are." I tapped the cassette. "They're right here on this tape. The tape
I took from your cassette player the afternoon of the shootout."
She leaned back. She looked very tired, emotionally drained. "Why don't
you tell me what you think happened."
I slowly turned the cassette over in my fingers. "You knew he had a large
gun collection and you knew where he lived. I think you managed to get
inside his place and steal a gun. You figured it would take at least four
shots to make your plan work--what'd you do, shoot off a couple rounds in
the woods ahead of time? And how'd you get him to come inside?" When she
only stared at me, I shrugged and went on. "However it happened, you got
him inside and then you shot him at very close range. You wait a few
minutes, call 911, scream out 'he's going to kill me' as you wrap his
fingers around the gun and fire. The second gun shot is heard. That's the
slug that enters the door frame. All the while you had the tape running
and now there are two gun reports recorded on a cassette all ready to play
back on that rather fine stereo with the Dolby sound. Did they test your
hands for powder residue?"
"No."
"No reason to, actually."
She scratched at the back of her hand and continued to stare at me,
calmly, coolly, as though I were merely relating the plot of a movie I'd
seen.
"Let's see if I got this right," I said. "Cole is dead on the floor. The
cops have surrounded the place. You start the tape, break the window and
jump out at the exact moment the first shot on the tape is heard. Then
several minutes later--six to be precise--while paramedics tend to your
wounds, the final shot is heard. The house is surrounded. Cole was the
only person left in the house so it had to be him who fired the last shot."
I offered a thin smile. "I'm sitting with you in the ambulance when your
tormentor puts a bullet in his own head. Me, the cops and half the
neighborhood, we're all right there. You got yourself one helluv'n alibi.
"Luck was with you. A few more seconds and tear gas would have been used,
which, nasty stuff that it is, would have showed up during the postmortem
exam. Tear gas residue on Cole and his clothes, but, oddly enough, not in
his air passages or lungs since he was already dead. Yeah, luck was
finally with you, Trudy."
She was crying now. Softly. "He wasn't ever going to leave me alone.
Ever," she spoke quietly. "He called and I told him I was ready...ready to
die. Told him he'd ruined my life so there was nothing for me to live for.
He came right over. I could see by the craziness in his eyes that he
wanted it to happen. He could hardly wait. It was no game, not to him.
He was smiling that...that creepy smile of his. The gun--"
"Well, it's over, Trudy," I said, cutting her off. I squeezed her hand,
stood. "It's all over."
I placed the cassette in her hands and closed her fingers around it.
"Give Karen a hug for me. Have a good trip. Have a good life."
I turned and walked out.

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