Free Stranger Danger by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

to take a
header.   There wasn’t much time so I ran
up the steps toward him, weapon drawn.   I
asked him to hand over the boy, but he refused.   He told me to fuck off, then climbed onto the
rail like a monkey.”
    Santiago’s
eyes darkened as he recalled the terrible moments. “I could smell him, the
rank, horrible stench of a user, and I knew I had to do something or he’d go
over, with the kid.   In the parking lot,
the woman kept wailing and screaming, so I snatched the little boy from
him.   I didn’t even think about it, just
did.   I put him down and the guy pulled a
knife.   He waved it at me and so I shot
him, drilled him through the head with one shot.   Blood spattered on me and everywhere around,
blood and worse, then he went over and hit the
ground.”
    “Oh,
Santiago.”
    His lips
twisted together. “Yeah,” he said. “I put up my Glock and bent down to the
kid.   He’d stopped crying by then. I
think it scared the holy crap out of him.   I talked to him in Spanish, and he let me pick him up.   I took him down to his mother, and then I
bolted into the alley.   I puked until I
couldn’t bring up anything else and left Ted to deal with calling it in.   I’d killed before, in the line of duty, but
not like that.   It had always been a
clean shot and with more justification.   I
knew my judgment would be questioned and figured I’d be investigated.   And I was, but Sara, I couldn’t have been
sure I saved the kid otherwise.”
    Sara listened
until he’d finished.   A few tears crept
down her cheeks.   He crushed out his
smoke and met her gaze. “I’ve done ugly things, no?”
    “No,” she said
and meant it. “You did what you had to – you saved the little boy.   The druggie didn’t give you a choice,
Santiago.”
    He shrugged.
“That’s what I thought, then. By the time all the investigations were over,
though, I hardly knew my own name.   Force
Investigation Division, the Chief,   Office of the Board of Police Commissioners, the District Attorney, and
the Justice System Integrity Division all had to determine, one bunch at a
time, whether or not I was in compliance with the LAPD use of force
policy.   I was on administrative leave on
half pay for almost a year while they made up their mind.”
    Bitterness
tainted his tone and she knew, before she asked, what his answer would be. “So
did they clear you?”
    Santiago shook
his head. “No, they didn’t, not at first.   I was on unpaid leave for months.   After that, they decided I could return and I did, but then Areli was
killed...”
    Shock
overruled manners and she interrupted. “Killed? Your sister was killed?”
    “ Si, I thought I told you.”
    “You said she
died.”
    “She did,” he
said in a crisp voice. “ Mara Salvatrucha gang bangers killed her.”
    “What
happened?”
    “Her novio met her at the hair salon where
she worked and they left together, to go somewhere to dinner or a club,” he
said, his voice as dead as his sister. “It doesn’t matter which because along
the way, a four door, dark colored sedan pulled up beside them and shot them
both.   Areli tried to flee, but they cut
her down.”
    Sara could
envision the woman she’d seen once with Santiago riddled with bullet wounds all
too well.   If she hadn’t misjudged their
relationship, she might’ve been friends with Areli, maybe even family. “That’s
awful,” she said, knowing no word existed to reflect the true horror of the
event. “Why, Santiago?”
    “Ramon, her novio , resembled a drug player, looked
enough like him he was mistaken for him and executed,” he said. “Or so the
official ruling said.”
    The deep frown
dividing his forehead told her he didn’t agree. “That’s not what you think, is
it?”
    “No. I think
he was a member of M13 at one time.   He’d
left the life, though, and was working in construction.   But maybe he knew too much or someone thought
he did.   So he died and so did