“And can you tell the court, Constable Renaldo, why you murdered an unarmed man on the day of March twenty-second?”
“Objection!” Constable Renaldo’s lawyer shouted, rising to his feet. “Your honour, the victim, as police documents demonstrate, was clearly armed.”
“Police documents!” the slick-haired prosecutor sneered, “Documents made by the constable’s friends!”
The jury murmured and the old, fat judge pounded his gavel.
“Order! Order! Objection overruled.”
Constable Renaldo’s harassed lawyer grumbled and sat.
“As I was saying,” the prosecutor continued, “Please tell the courtroom how you killed Donald Pinkberg on that sad Tuesday morning.”
Constable Renaldo swallowed her beating heart and looked at the jury—only one young man met her eyes—then at the gallery of reporters, curious spectators, and families (her’s and poor Pinkberg’s). She was dressed in her formal best: a neat visored cap perched over her tied back hair; her deep navy uniform with its shiny brass buttons pressed tight against her small frame; a little pink lipstick and a touch of mascara around her sad, blue eyes. She swallowed again, and began her tale.
* * *
Some teenagers had stolen the “Support Our Troops” magnet off the back of the old woman’s car. Her late husband had been a decorated veteran, and filled with a sense of duty, she followed the school-skippers to Beresford Park. There, they started smoking marijuana and taunting her—that’s when she called 911. It was quarter past eleven when I got the call.
By the time I made it over, the teenagers were gone and the small park was empty, except for a nanny watching a toddler and a man in a far corner digging with a trowel.
I approached the man. He saw my shadow and said, “Leave me alone,” without looking up.
I stood my ground and he turned to face me. The man was in his mid twenties: bloodshot watery eyes (brown), slight of build, tall, unshaven, with mid-length unkempt hair (brown also), tear-stained cheeks (white) and snot running into his mouth. He wore what looked like second-hand clothing—making him appear out of place in the otherwise middle-class neighbourhood. Seeing my uniform, the man took a step back, gripping the trowel. I put my thumb on the stun gun at my belt.
“Drop the trowel,” I said. He took another step back. “What are you doing?”
“Digging.”
“For what?”
“A ring.”
“Did you bury it?”
“Yes.”
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
“If you’re telling me you stole that ring, I’m going to have to take you in.”
“It’s my fathers.”
“Theft is a crime.”
The man started breathing heavy, then said,
“Will you listen to me?”
I noted a tone of desperation so said,
“Yes.”
“He never wore his wedding ring—always kept it in a box on his desk. When I was thirteen, he went on a business trip. I was talking to him while he packed. He packed condoms. When he was gone, I took his ring and buried it here.”
“Did he miss it?”
“Every six months, my mother gets her jewellery cleaned. A few weeks after my father came home, she asked if he wanted his ring cleaned. He said sure, then couldn’t find it. My mother was furious:
‘You lost it.’
‘I didn’t lose it.’
‘You lost it.’
‘How the fuck could I lose it if I never take it outside the house?’
‘Maybe that’s the problem!’ my mother screamed. ‘If you don’t wear it, it frees you for fun. Right? You think I don’t know what happens when you’re buying fabric with Scott in Bangkok?’
My father looked hard at my mother, ‘Yeah, I know the way you think. I know you. You probably flushed it, hid it; you got rid of it for a little drama. Well fuck you, I don’t need to take this shit.’”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“That fall, my mother filed for divorce.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A lifetime ago.”
The man started crying, convulsing. His knuckles were white from where he clutched the trowel.
“Take it easy,” I said. “It can’t be your fault. Divorces come from a build up of things.” I said this sincerely, knowing all too well as both an adult and child.
He took a step closer.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he said between sobs and sniffs.
“Drop the trowel.”
“They hate each other and it’s my fault. I thought maybe if I’d put the ring back in the house, my mother would find it, call him, talk.”
“Listen,” I said. “I have a friend in forensics. If you give me a minute, I can put in a call and get him over here with a metal detector. But listen: you can’t just go around digging in public parks. It’s a felony.”
The tears came harder. “Thank you,” he said, “thank you.”
I took out my phone and dialed the number. When I looked up, the man was coming at me, trowel held high, saying, “Thank you. Thank you.”
I dropped the phone and pulled out the stun gun as his arms came down—“Thank you”—and hit him in the chest.
* * *
“And you had no inkling that the man may have being trying to embrace you? To hug you? A show of gratification?”
“I thought he was attacking.”
“With a trowel?!”
“Yes.”
“A blunted trowel that could have caused little more than a flesh wound?”
“It is police procedure to use a stun gun when threatened with bodily harm of a non-mortal nature.”
“And thus this young man died, suffered a heart attack because he was trying to repair his parents’ marriage.”
Constable Renaldo looked away from the slimy lawyer to where Donald Pinkberg’s parents sat, tears in their eyes, holding hands—the wedding ring had been found, then mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Shawn Otis
