Hard Feelings

Officer Susanna Maria Figueroa was frightened, and she hated being frightened. It made her angry. Even worse, she was sure her partner Norm Bennis 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."

"Thirty-three."

"We got a second call on that woman screaming for help. Where are you?"

"Northbound on LaSalle. Driving's real bad, squad," Bennis said, trying not to gasp as Figueroa slewed within kissing distance of a light pole. "But I'd guess we're just two minutes out now."

"Yeah, thirty-three. Okay. By the way, the news is it's gonna keep snowing until noon tomorrow."

"How nice."

Bennis and Figueroa pulled up in front. They had entered thousands of buildings, not knowing what they'd find. They relied on each other. Each knew that the other would be there, and they even had their own shorthand way of communicating. Bennis pointed a finger to show Figueroa that it was her turn to stand to the far side of the apartment door. Then he knocked. But before he could knock again, Figueroa pointed. "Look."

There was smoke coming out around the top of the door.

Bennis felt the door to see if it was cool, which it was. The last thing he wanted was to start a backdraft. Then he backed up to take a kick at the door. But that instant it opened and a man came running out. His hair and jacket were on fire, and he was screaming. He didn't even see the two cops, but crashed frantically down the stairs.

Bennis spun and went after him, knowing Figueroa would put out the emergency call to the dispatcher. He raced down the stairs three at a time and still couldn't catch up with the terrified man until, leaping, screaming down the cement steps outside the front door, the man fell. The fire on his hair and jacket had spread. Bennis rolled him over in the snow three or four times. Then, thinking to chill the charred flesh and prevent further burn damage, he grabbed up handfuls of snow and slapped it all over the man's head and back.

There was no time to wait and see how badly hurt the man was. God only knew how many people were in the building. Bennis bolted back inside and up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Figueroa had keyed her radio. "One thirty- three, emergency."

"Go ahead, thirty-three."

"There's a fire in this apartment, and it's going fast."

"I'll get the smokiest."

" 'Four."

Talking on her radio had used just six seconds. At the same time, she had been scanning the apartment. She could hardly see anything, the smoke was so thick! but she heard a woman screaming. Figueroa dropped to her hands and knees and crawled fast toward the screams.

She found herself in the kitchen, where a woman, standing up, was rushing into a broom closet, falling down when she hit the wall, rushing in again, terrified and convinced it was the front door.

Figueroa grabbed her. "Get out of my way!" the woman screamed over and over.

Figueroa said, "Hey! Stop it!"

"Get out of my way!"

Figueroa slapped her.

The flames were running along the floorboards now. The woman kept shrieking.

"Come with me, god-dammit!" Figueroa seized the woman's hand, pulled her to the floor. She put her arm over the woman's shoulder and hustled her on all fours toward the front door.

This woman was burned already, Figueroa thought. Her skin felt hot to the touch, and Figueroa could almost believe she felt blisters starting to form.

Pushing and cajoling and bullying, she got the woman into the living room. Crossing the floor, she realized she was crawling over the body of a man lying there unmoving, but she didn't have time to worry about that. She got the woman to the door.

The hall was still cool and the air in it was fresh, so she pushed the woman out and yelled after her, "Warn your neighbors!"

There was no time to make sure she did. Suze Figueroa saw Bennis coming up the stairs. She yelled, "There's a man inside."

On hands and knees she crawled back in, touching the hot wall to make sure where she was going. She found the man, but at the same instant she and Bennis heard a baby start to scream. Bennis was next to her now and he slapped the man's cheek, but the man didn't move.

Figueroa felt the man's forehead. Smoke swirled above him, but he was lifeless and cold. The baby screamed louder, from a back bedroom.

"I gotta get the kid," she said to Bennis. She wasn't sure he could hear over the roar of the fire, but then she found him following her as they crawled to the bedroom.

"How many kids?" she yelled.

There was just one crib.

Bennis stood up, grabbed a little girl out of the crib, put her solidly under one arm, and ran like a quarterback for the front door. Suze stayed to check for another child.

The fire was flashing across the ceiling now. She didn't have much time.

One crib. Hurry up! No other child's bed. No crying. Hurry! It's hot! As far as she could see through the smoke, only girl- child toys in one age group-two soft dolls, one stuffed bear, a play muffin tin, and some plastic spoons. One child.

Part of the ceiling fell.

Taking a last breath of air from floor level, Figueroa jumped up and bolted for the front door. The living room was a hell of flame, and if she hadn't memorized where the door was, she would never have made it. Her hair was singed. She could not even see the man on the floor. He was dead, anyway, and she had to warn the upstairs neighbors.

Outside, fire engines were fighting their way through streets blocked with stalled cars. They didn't arrive until ten minutes later.

"I want to point out," Commander Sazerac said to Deputy Wardron, "that Officers Bennis and Figueroa got the other tenants out of the building. Which, given the weather and the time it took for the fire battalion to arrive, surely saved their lives."

"We understand that," Wardron said, clipping his words.

Sazerac said, "The building was totally involved when the fire engines arrived. And then they had trouble getting water to it. Stalled cars were blocking the fire hydrants."

"We are aware of that."

"When the fire was finally struck at 0330 hours, Officers Bennis and Figueroa were still caring for residents, even though they were four and a half hours past the end of their tour."

"Commander Sazerac, I appreciate your attempt to help your men-ah, people-but we are interested in what happened in the Molitor apartment, not what happened afterward. We'll proceed."

Bennis said angrily, "I personally saw Officer Figueroa rescue six residents from the upper floors."

"Officer Bennis, we'll get your story later."

Commander Sazerac said loudly, "And she was burned in the attempt, Deputy!"

"Not relevant now. We'll take it into account during sentencing."

"Don't you mean if there is a decision to go to sentencing, Deputy?"

"Of course, Commander. This is just a preliminary roundtable. My mistake." He turned his head and addressed the four board members. "We will note Commander Sazerac has questions about this process.

However, we will take matters up in order. We are not going to use this process today as a way for the two officers involved to get their stories straight between them."

Commander Sazerac said, "They could have done that at any time in the last twelve hours. It's their integrity and their unwillingness to alter their reports to say the same thing that has caused a difference in perception to be blown up into this silly-"

"Commander! This is a fact-finding proceeding. It is an inappropriate time to make arguments. Hold them until the charges have been proven or not proven."

Wardron was in charge here, not Sazerac. Departmental structure being what it was, there was nothing Sazerac could do but sit by, just about as useful as the photo of the superintendent on the wall.

He and Wardron held each other's eyes for two or three seconds.

 

Figueroa said, "Sir, may I ask what the circumstances were that led up to the fire? We came into a situation midway-"

"I'm not suggesting that it is. But the fire obviously started in that apartment, and there were three adults inside who didn't seem to have made any effort to put it out. Why was Mr. Molitor lying in the middle of the living room floor? If he'd been shot, for instance, I would think I'd be entitled to know that. It certainly wasn't the smoke that killed him. He was down on the floor where the air was good."

"I don't suppose there's any reason not to tell you. We have a reasonably full picture, from the statement of the woman and the statements of the neighbors."

The Molitors had begun fighting in the afternoon-a husband, his wife, and the wife's brother. Fighting and drinking, and drinking and fighting. Among the burned remnants of their apartment were dozens of beer cans and the fragments of two bottles that had contained scotch.

By early evening, the neighbors were getting pretty tired of it. Judging by their observations and the wife's story, about nine the husband, who until then had been just shouting and threatening and hitting the wall with his fists, started hitting his wife. She hit back for a while, then fell, and he kicked her. She screamed for help and one of the neighbors, too frightened to go in or knock, called the police.

Meanwhile, the brother had come to the wife's defense. He attacked the husband, who by now was in a blind rage. The husband pushed the brother, who fell over the wife, and then the husband grabbed a can of lighter fluid, ran wild, spraying it along the living room and kitchen walls, and lighted it. The brother surged up off the floor. The wife, terrified, crawled to what she thought was the front door, but she was dazed from several blows, and now smoke was filling the room, and she actually went into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the brother had picked up a chair and hit the husband over the head, hard. The husband went down.

At about this point, Figueroa and Bennis were pulling up outside. The brother's hair had caught fire. He panicked and ran out of the apartment, where he was intercepted by Bennis.

Wardron continued: "Officer Figueroa, what you should have done after Officer Bennis left with the baby was to attempt to get Mr. Molitor out. You might not have succeeded, but you should have tried."

"I knew the man on the floor was dead. He was cold."

"Officer Bennis, was he cold?"

Bennis swallowed. Figueroa fixed him with her eyes, but he didn't look at her. For a moment he straightened up, squaring his shoulders, as if he were steeling himself to take action. Then his face sagged.

"He was still warm," he said.

Commander Sazerac asked, "Isn't there a way to tell whether he was dead before the fire got to him? You should be able to test for carbon sucked into the lungs. If he wasn't breathing-"

"Commander Sazerac, we appreciate your help," Wardron said, in a tone that made it clear that he didn't. "Believe it or not, we thought of that."

Sazerac watched sourly. He knew there was something wrong with the way they were getting the picture, but he couldn't put his finger on where the problem was. Figueroa would not have left a living man to burn to death. Sazerac had been a commander much too long to make serious mistakes in judgment about his officers' characters. There was a problem with Figueroa, but it was the opposite. Like a lot of short female officers, she had a tendency to put herself in harm's way unnecessarily and play Jane Wayne. This charge against her was dead wrong.

Wardron added, "The entire building was engulfed when the fire department finally made it. Shortly after that, the top three floors of the structure collapsed into the basement. What was left of Mr. Molitor looked a lot like a blackened pipe cleaner."

Figueroa had been staring at the tabletop.

"Wait!" she said suddenly. She knew that wasn't the way to talk to the brass, and said in a quieter voice, "If you'll give me a minute, to go get something, I think I can explain what happened."

She got up.

Wardron said, "You can explain it right here."

"If I may leave for just a minute, sir, I can demonstrate."

"One minute, then."

Figueroa took two Styrofoam cups from the table that held the coffee urn and was back in less than a minute with two cups of water.

"Would you put the fingers of your left hand in one of these and the fingers of your right hand in the other, Deputy Wardron?"

"No. Explain to me what you think you're trying to do."

"Well maybe Commander Sazerac will, while I explain. We can always repeat it." Sazerac, intrigued, did as she said.

"One cup is hot water and one is cold. On the night of the fire, Officer Bennis had patted snow all over the brother, outdoors, and then ran back into the burning apartment. While he was doing that, I was pulling the woman out of the kitchen. She was hot to the touch and felt like she was starting to blister. When I came back, I felt along the hot wall. The instant Officer Bennis returned from outside, we both touched Mr. Molitor."

Commander Sazerac said, "I begin to see."

"Mr. Molitor was dead, but only ten to twenty minutes dead, so his skin was probably about the temperature of mine today. Commander, will you use both hands to touch my forearm?"

Sazerac did so. He smiled. "Amazing. Your arm feels warm to my right hand and cold to my left." Sazerac turned to Wardron. "The same arm," he said. "And it feels entirely different." He gestured to Wardron. "Want to try it?"

Figueroa and Bennis sat in their squad car. Bennis said, "Reminds me of this case I had once."

Figueroa sighed loudly, but Bennis knew she liked his stories.

"Guy decided to rob a fraternity house late at night, on a night when there had been a late snow. Flat, untouched snow leading up to the door. So he says to himself 'If I walk in backward, they'll think it was somebody from inside who stole the stuff, because there won't be any tracks leading in.' "

"Not a bad plan."

"Which he proceeds to accomplish. Picks up a lot of odds and ends, one or two wallets, a ten-inch TV, a boom box, and leaves. Kids get up in the morning' call the cops, we come in, see the tracks. Well, we'd been onto a guy in the neighborhood we knew'd been doing this kind of stuff. Go pick him up. Now he's got a problem. He wants to ask about tracks in the snow, but he shouldn't know anything about it, see?"

"Yup."

"So he says, real cute, 'You'd think you could tell whether it was an inside or outside job, snow like this and all.' "

"Real subtle."

"Yeah. Well, we said, 'We did and we knew by the tracks it was an outside job.' He says, all astounded 'That's impossible! I faced backward, going and coming!'"

Suze Figueroa giggled. "They get cute, but they never get smart."

"So you see, Figueroa, it's like this case with the fire. The way things are is all a matter of which angle you're looking at it from."

"Right, Bennis. Got it. Want to do a movie after work?"

He checked around to make sure nobody was watching and put his arm over her shoulders. "Let me take you to dinner, Figueroa. We missed Valentine's Day."