Political Science 101

Chapter Forty-Three

DETECTIVE LENNY Knight absolutely hated chasing suspects on foot. "Stop!" he yelled, but the chase was on. He shared the displeasure of chases with Roger Murtaugh, the simple philosophy of, I'm too old for this shit! But he kept the chase, trying to track down the fleeing suspect as he sprinted through this suburban upper-class neighborhood after this suspect emerged from the lavish house of a man who recently (and suspiciously) committed suicide.

Detective Knight ran as fast as he could, but the man he pursued only lengthened the distance between the two of them. Lenny fought the restrictive pull of his trench coat as he tried to sprint, unsuccessfully. He had no idea why he was chasing this man. All he knew was that he'd stopped by this house — the scene of the recent suicide of Jeb Larkin — because he still felt like something was missing. When he pulled into the long winding driveway, a tall hooded man stepped from the front door, saw Lenny's quintessential black unmarked police cruiser, and took off running. Detective Knight quickly jumped from his car and immediately gave chase, now asking himself as he ran why he didn't just use the car to chase the fleeing suspect who appeared to be carrying a small bag.

Lenny quickly snatched his police radio from his belt beneath his trench coat and began to breathlessly shout into it as he ran. "Three-William-Fifty-Six in foot pursuit of suspect; requesting backup!" He took a deep breath, mid-stride, and shouted the cross-street location of the man he pursued, and after several more steps, shouted into his radio, "Suspect is now getting into a black Ford Explorer, passenger side! Now in pursuit of two suspects!"

"Copy, Three-William-Fifty-Six," replied the monotone dispatcher on Lenny's police radio, "do you have a description of the suspects?"

"Black male," Lenny said quickly, "six-foot-four, 180 pounds, wearing a light blue t-shirt, blue jeans, and a red hooded sweatshirt!" Lenny finally slowed his sprint to a jog, slowed his jog to a walk, and slowed his walk to a stop; he realized his chance of catching the guy now had been reduced to zero, and Lenny was just too old for this shit.

"Black Ford Explorer is heading east," Lenny said into his radio as he caught his breath, watching the Explorer disappear from his line-of-sight.

The radio went silent and Lenny felt deflated. He walked defeatedly back to his city-issued unmarked police sedan and plopped down into the driver's seat, slamming the car door shut in frustration. But just then, his police radio erupted again.

"Three-William-Fifty-Six," the radio chattered with static in a voice different than the dispatcher, "this is Patrol Thirty-Seven, I am code-four with that black Explorer in a T.A. at First and Main." The patrolman paused. "Dispatch, send EMS for suspects and civilians." The patrol officer paused again. "Actually, send the coroner for these two suspects. Oh my god..."

Lenny quickly started the car and sped to the scene of the accident, unsure of what to expect.

A Ford Explorer is, comparatively, not a small vehicle. It could adequately be described as a midsize S.U.V. and had always scored fairly well in crash-test ratings. However, traveling into an intersection and being broadsided by a sanitation truck (which ran a red light) reduced the midsize S.U.V. into a heap of metal approximately the size of a Mini Cooper.

Traffic had stopped at the intersection as Detective Lenny Knight arrived at the scene, joining the patrol officer who was the first to respond only moments after the accident after witnessing it from a block away. The flashing red and blue lights from the patrol car were soon joined by those of an ambulance and a fire truck. From a distance, there was smoke, but no fire; there were lights, but no sirens; there was blood, but no bodies. However, up-close, the full image developed.

The first assault on Knight's senses was the mixed and potent aroma of gasoline and garbage. As each step drew him closer to the scene, he could see drops of gasoline dripping from what used to be the Explorer's gas tank, mixed with water dripping from what used to be the Explorer's radiator, mixing with the blood from what used to be the Explorer's occupants.

Approaching the wreckage seemed to take days. But when he finally stood before the carnage, his eyes seemed to drink in every single detail, despite his better judgment of his other four senses.

The driver had been decapitated upon impact, leaving a broken stump of a spinal column protruding from two bloodied and broken shoulders pinned between a blood-soaked seat and a twisted broken steering wheel. The head was nowhere to be seen. Blood was pouring steadily from the bottom of what remained of the driver's side door, likely (Lenny estimated) from the immediate severing of the driver's leg and/or femoral artery. Knight looked down to see the blood pooling at the soles of his bargain-store dress shoes. He quickly and carefully took several steps backward.

As Detective Knight tiptoed around the wreckage to the twisted metal of the passenger's side, he searched for any indicator of the man he'd chased — apparently chased to his death. But he saw nothing resembling a human being; he only saw a soaked and dripping shred of purple rags — Lenny's best guess: the red of the blood mixed with the light blue hue of the man's shirt, ripped and shredded by 95 miles per hour of panic, recklessness, and death. Indeed, this was certainly the man Lenny was chasing, and now, he feared, he may never know why.

A horrific silence blanketed the fatal wreckage. With the exception of the dripping gasoline, water, and blood, the carnage was motionless.

"What the hell were you doing at that house?" Lenny said aloud to the mangled corpse in front of him. This rhetorical question was one he needed answered. Every cliché cop instinct within him told him something was not right and something was certainly missing. He walked hastily back to the officer working the scene.

"Hey," Lenny said, approaching the patrolman, "I am going to need a complete inventory of everything in that Explorer, and I need it labeled as evidence. This is not the scene of an accident anymore; this is now a crime scene."

"Okay," the patrolman said, sounding official as he spoke to the detective. "I'll get the Crime Scene Unit in here."

"Thanks, kid," Lenny said, turning and walking back to his car, hoping to quickly make it back to the house where the chase originated. As Lenny saw it, that house was a new crime scene as well, and he needed to find something — anything.