Page 56 of Nightwatching

He was young, and she blinked to try to make him older.

“There’s something in my eye,” she told him.

The boyish officer nodded. “Yeah, you’re pretty torn up.”

“My kids?”

Another policeman appeared out of the bright light of the entry, blue-red-blue-red flashing at his back, and likewise squatted downbeside her. It was the same thing she did with the children. “Getting on their level,” the parenting books called it.

“You remember me, ma’am?”

She looked into the smooth blue eyes over the blue paper mask. Took in the graying blond hair.

“The sergeant,” she said.

“There’s an ambulance on the way.”

“I need to go to my house,” she muttered.

“You think you can talk a little louder?” the sergeant said, leaning toward her.

“My kids.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a car at your house now. You say someone broke in, is that right?”

The neighbors spoke at the same time.

“That’s what she said! That someone had broken in and—”

“Someone was after her kids, she said, and she hid them ’cause he was going to—”

The sergeant put up a hand in a practiced “stop” gesture, like he was directing traffic.

“Ma’am, let her tell it. So,” the sergeant said evenly, “someone broke in, is that right?”

She nodded. “A man. I hid—I hid with the children.”

“All right. Was this man armed?”

“He had something. About—” She set the mug beside her and held her hands six inches apart. “This big. He—” She mimed the Corner’s motion, the way he’d whacked the weapon into his palm. “It made a noise. It was…loose.”

“How can a weapon be loose?” the woman asked, and the neighbor shushed her.

“Any gun?”

“Huh?”

“Did this man have a gun?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“You didn’t see a gun? A knife?”

“No.”

“And is there any way my guys can get in the house? Any key under the mat or the like that might make that easier?”

“In the rock,” she said.

---