It was a dark & stormy night

Stormy, rainy nights bring back a lot of memories. Like the night I handled a non-typical call at an apartment building near Flamingo & Koval Ave. Not like the picture above, but you get the idea. Ad music from Phantom of the Opera. I was working shift, assigned as one of only three one-man units for the Strip and was still fairly new to the job. My call sign was 3K12, said, "Three-King-Twelve."(K was the area designator and 3 meant I was swing shift, 12 was actually beats 1 and 2 out of 3 beats within the geographic areas of King. Major streets defined and divided the beats. Swing shift hours were 1500 to 0100 hrs. Confused?) It had been raining most of the night, enough to make the streets wet & shiny and the air damp, a nice change from the normal dryness. The clouds seemed low enough to reach up and touch. I liked how the rain drops on the windshield became little stars until the wiper blades erased them. The steady slap of the wipers had a calming effect, yet each time they cleared my view of the streets, I told myself that I shouldn't become too calm, too complacent. I may have had a 7/11 hot chocolate in the drink holder. It was a mixture of feelings as I was also looking for the elusive "bad guys." Finding one or getting a call for service would interfere with this easy-going mood.

The peacefulness of it ended with the call that came first on my MCT (mobile commuter terminal) and then the dispatcher’s all-serious voice came over the radio, telling me "The P.R would be waiting for me outside her apartment." It was a "425" call, a suspicious circumstances call. "Female arrived home to find a suicide note, but no sign of her husband." No back up units were available, she would send one as soon as one cleared.

I announced my arrival over the radio so anyone who was listening knew I was on the scene and alone. Every officer who hears a suspicious circumstances call paints a picture in his own mind based on experience of similar events or his own imagination. I was no different as I tried to imagine what was waiting for me. As I walked through the apartment complex, I could hear and smell the normalcy of everyone else’s nightly routine. Dinners were being prepared, TV sets and stereos were entertaining the apartments’ tenants. Soon, I would be with someone who’s night was not going to be normal. I hunched my shoulders up in my jacket against the cold wind and looked for the apartment; numbers on the doors. I met the wife outside the front door, right where I was told she would be waiting. So far, so good, but still no backup unit.

The wife said she had not been able to get in touch with her husband all day. She just got off work. When she came inside the apartment she found a note on the kitchen table, and after reading it, was afraid to go any further, so she went to a neighbor to call us. With trembling hands, she handed me the suicide note she had found. The words weren’t as important as was the context. He simply had written a few short words implying she could find him in their bed; she could now, " have it all." I think he wanted her to find him in a ghoulish way as well as be the martyr and let her have everything they owned.

My mind raced to several scenarios. Was he waiting for her so he could kill her first, then himself? (It's plausible and it does happen.) Was he hoping she would call us and end up having a cop shoot him? Suicide by cop is a reality of police work. As usual, I tried to plan what I would do before I had to confront the unknown. Several scenarios always went through my mind. Lightning, wind and thunder added to the suspense, as if I was in a movie.

After a brief interview of the wife about the couple’s relationship, I theorized that he didn’t have any animosity towards her, he was just tired of life, and I could assume the first scenario was probably not in his plans. It looked like he only wanted to end it all. ( I remember talking to her in hushed tones, as if he were listening to us from the bedroom.) But I recalled my academy training. The word "assume" is broken down into a truism: Whenever you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. It was a risky assumption on my part. Still no backup and we’re both standing in the small kitchen just inside near the front door. The rest of the apartment was quiet and dark. Was the husband even home? I had to find out. I had to do something, this is why she called.
I held my department-issued Smith & Wesson 9 mm automatic in my right hand (this is before I had bought my Glock 40 Cal) and my heavy police flashlight held out away from my body in my left. I could see the bedroom at the end of the short, dark hallway. He had said in the note, that’s where she could find him. While I was slowly walking down the hallway to the bedroom, the hallway light came on! I was illuminated but the bedroom was still dark. I turned around and told the wife to turn the hall light off. I guess she thought she was being helpful. I asked her to stay in the kitchen as I continued on. I now faced bad odds; I had no element of surprise; if he was lying in wait for me. But in reality, if he was alive, he knew I was heading his way.

As my flashlight scanned the bedroom, my gun almost fired when I jerked back before I realized what I was seeing. My view in the full-sized mirrored closet doors was of the husband lying on the bed with a gun in his hand, pointing at his head. I took a deep breath and told myself to calm down. The gun in his hand was unmistakable. Looking closer, it looked like he had already shot himself, although at first sight, I was ready to swear the gun had been pointed right at me. Keeping my gun pointed at him, just in case, I slowly entered the bedroom for closer inspection and confirmed what I thought I already knew. There was no mistake, he had killed himself. (Omitting the graphic details here.)

Relief shouldn’t be an appropriate word for me to use finding her husband like this, but that’s what I felt as the mystery was solved and I didn’t have to confront an armed man in the dark. I had seen a few suicides by this time in my career, but not under these conditions. All I had to do now was tell the wife what I found. As I recall, she had that knowing look on her face when I came out of the bedroom. I nodded and told her he had taken his own life, doing what his note suggested. I avoided using the word "dead," being mindful of the circumstances. Per policy I notified detectives, county coroner and mortuary - in that order - and got her neighbor to come sit with her. I busied myself with the "Dead Body Report." The three of us sat in silence or awkward small talk until the first detective arrived. (They ensure it is a suicide, not a murder made to look like one.) I then left to the sanctuary of my patrol car, the rain, and the rest of my shift.

* Sorry I didn't post about the big snow storm but it's been covered very well already.