The Shotgun and the Tie Tack
Monique Steele’s yearlong probation didn’t end for another eight months, and her training partner only began to let her drive a week ago. She pulled the squad car from Crump Station’s parking lot with extra care onto the busy highway that poured traffic out of Arkansas into Memphis.
“This long-sleeved shirt is killing me,” she said. “I’m about to itch to death.”
Bret Canipe, her senior partner, rubbed at his neck. “It’s the necktie I hate when we transition to winter uniforms. Your shirt is just new, that’s all.”
Monique eyed Bret. “The tie looks more professional than the summer open collar. I thought my little handcuff tie tack was cool. But did you see Lieutenant Coulter’s?”
“Yeah, it’s special.”
“Wonder where he got it.”
Bret tapped on their laptop’s keyboard, logging them in for the afternoon shift. “A jeweler downtown made it. He does a lot of work for cops. It’s the butt end of a .40 caliber shell casing. Even has the firing pin’s indentation in the primer from his pistol’s hammer.”
“Which jeweler? I’d like one.”
Bret looked up. “No, you don’t. That’s from the round he fired that killed the mental case who shot Councilman Winslow.”
“You mean the one who held Councilman Prewitt by the hair?” She shuddered.
“Yeah, that one. It took some guts. Lucky he didn’t plug her.”
“Head shot at fifteen yards,” Monique said. “We studied the video in the Academy.”
“With the bad guy spraying lead everywhere,” Bret said, “Coulter didn’t have time to think. He just reacted.” He looked down and shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it. It’s hard enough to hit center mass on a cardboard silhouette target standing rigid.”
“You’ve killed deer,” she said. “I’m not sure I could shoot an animal.”
Bret smirked. “Bambi doesn’t fire back.”
“Lieutenant Coulter is a legend.” Monique couldn’t hide the awe in her voice. “I told him I liked his tie tack. Hope he didn’t think I was brownnosing. Thompson wore one, too.”
“He shot a burglar who went for bad.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. I guess I don’t want one after all.”
Bret test-clicked the button that released the shotgun from the rack, mounted solid on the steel screen behind them. “Maybe someday you’ll shoot someone, and you can keep the shell.”
“I hope not.”
“Me too. By the way, I liked your devotion to close roll call this afternoon. Keep praying this won’t be the day any of us have to use deadly force, and maybe it will be so.”
She tilted her chin up. “I only hope if I’m forced to fire my gun, I can perform as well as Lieutenant Coulter did.”
“At least you’ve got military experience to fall back on.”
“I tugged a rifle around the big sandbox for a year,” she said, “and we trained with it all the time. But thank God I never got into a firefight. I heard plenty of gunfire and bombs in the distance, though. It always left me shaking in my boots.” She paused. “Sometimes I even cried.”
Bret smothered a chuckle. “It’s scaring me to hear about it.”
She took a breath. “My dad and brother both served honorably in the army in Vietnam and Kuwait. If I ever chickened out, I’d have to quit.”
Bret swelled with bravado. “Just stick with your senior partner, and you’ll be fine.”
The dispatcher interrupted them with an urgent call. “Cars 422, 424, and 421. Receiving a silent robbery alarm at Sonorous National Bank at Main and Gayoso.”
“Okay, 422,” the radio blared.
“En route, 424,” another officer announced in a calm tone.
Today, Bret was tasked with writing their interminable paperwork, and as the driver it was Monique’s job to handle the radio duties. She spoke into the mic, trying not to tremble. “431. Er. . . 21” She flipped on the emergency lights and reached to activate the siren.
Bret blocked her hand. “Let’s run silent. And leave the blue lights off. The other cars are coming from wards closer to the scene than we are. We’ll hang back.”
Bret’s hesitation to ever arrive first at a hot call gave Monique pause. “So you won’t have to write the report?” She didn’t add or confront the danger.
“No. Most banks won’t even trigger the alarm until the bad guys vacate the premises so nobody gets hurt. If this is a good robbery, then they’ll be long gone before any of us get there. We’ll be in a better position to make an apprehension.” The warble in his voice betrayed his motives.
Since Monique was a probationary rookie, her training partner reigned as king. A minor infraction could get her fired.
She switched off the blue lights and headed north on Third Street toward the alarm, traveling the 35 mile per hour speed limit. Silence over the police radio ratcheted the tension.
“422 on the scene,” the radio finally bellowed. “424, scene.”
“How close do you want to get?” Monique said.
“Just keep rolling like you’re doing.”
“422,” the radio sounded, “send an ambulance. We have a male and a female who fled in a red Mustang, southbound at a high rate of speed. Both are armed with pistols.”
“What are the charges?” the dispatcher asked.
“Robbery and attempted homicide. They fired shots inside the bank. We have one employee down.”
The dispatcher repeated the information in a broadcast. “Ambulance en route. 421, what is your location?”
Monique answered. “Third past Crump, 421.”
Just then, a grimy rust-red Mustang blew past them in the opposite direction, weaving over traffic lanes and screeching tires. It forced other drivers to slam on brakes and yank steering wheels to avoid crashing. A red-dye-stained packet of cash flew out the passenger window, and then another.
Monique dropped the mic and skidded the car into a U-turn. Bret brought the car’s emergency signals alive and yelled into the mic. “421, we’re in a high-speed chase behind the Mustang, southbound.”
Monique stomped on the accelerator. She squeezed the steering wheel at nine-and-three o’clock, braking and then speeding through panicked traffic. Her training kicked in, and she made hard, precise lane shifts like a racecar driver.
At a bottleneck, the Mustang veered into the opposing lane and pulled off a sweeping left turn onto McLemore Avenue, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a dump truck. The car fishtailed, and its rear smashed into the nose of a sedan, and then it sped on.
“Eastbound on McLemore,” Bret screamed over the siren’s yelp. “It just hit another car.”
Monique followed, but eased up on the gas, having gone from maneuvering on a six-lane highway to a narrow four-lane. The Mustang pulled far ahead. Smoke billowed from its tailpipe.
“He’s going about a hundred,” Bret squeaked into the mic.
“401, break off the pursuit,” Lieutenant Coulter’s intimidating baritone commanded over the radio. “Too dangerous to the public.”
“421,” the dispatcher ordered, “401 advises to break it off.”
Monique took a gulp of air. Her palms felt damp with sweat. Her partner leaned back in his seat, gripping the mic.
She reached over and took it out of his hand. “Okay, 421. Mustang was last seen east on McLemore. It’s gushing smoke. We’re headed that direction.”
Monique turned off the siren but left the blue lights flashing. She inhaled deep with resolve as she followed the getaway car’s path, exceeding the speed limit but not chasing.
“You okay?” she asked Bret.
His wide eyes and shallow breaths didn’t encourage her. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“We made it so far, partner,” she assured him.
As they neared Stax Records, the dispatcher came back. “421 and any other car in the area, we’re receiving reports of a red Mustang crashed into a house in the 1200 block of College. A male and female have broken into the residence. Shots fired.”
Monique goosed the accelerator, and Bret flipped the siren blaring again. “Policy says we contain it,” he shouted. “I’ll cover the front. You take the back.”
Monique couldn’t argue. Not only was she busy dodging other vehicles, but she was also the rookie. But standard operating procedures also dictated, in the event of an active shooter, they abandon containment and hunt down the gunman full tilt. Not to mention that Bret’s plan left him behind the solid cover of their engine block, while she had to scurry to the rear, exposed like a naked dancer.
She made a hard right at College Street. As they skidded to the left, their back tire skipped over the curb. Overcorrecting the wheel, Monique sideswiped a Cadillac parked on the side of the road.
Their car’s undercarriage screeched an ear-piercing racket, and she limped it to where the Mustang rested, crashed into the splintered-wood front porch of a shotgun house. Tire tracks gouged the mud, and smoke seeped from under its hood. Shell casings littered the porch.
“On the scene,” she managed to bark into the mic. Only then did she notice a man lying to the side of the entry, motionless in an unlikely pose. “One down.”
Bret yanked on the shotgun, secured in the iron rack. “It won’t come out.”
Monique reached down and pushed the red button. It clicked, and Bret jerked the gun free.
She threw the door open, held her pistol firm to her hip in its holster, and ran as hard as she could toward the rear of the house. Rounding the corner, she skidded to a stop as a stringy-haired woman in jeans and stained sweatshirt leaned out the front door. The pistol in her hand fired a deafening blast.
A bumblebee buzzed loud and ugly by Monique’s head at a thousand feet per second, and she ducked behind an oak. She surveyed their squad car with its horrid paint scrapes and flat tire but didn’t spot her partner. “Bret,” she yelled. “Bret!”
Bret’s forehead eased over the hood. The woman pointed the pistol at him and fired another shot. Their passenger-side window shattered, scattering shards of glass everywhere.
Bret shouldered the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked with a puff of smoke.
The woman stared, stunned. As she collapsed in the doorway, screams sounded from within the house.
Bret threw the shotgun, turned, and sprinted down College Street. He disappeared fast as a jackrabbit.
Monique’s jaw gaped. She didn’t know what to say into her walkie-talkie. She could only try her best to control the situation until more officers arrived. She dashed to the car, picked up the hefty gun from the ground, and racked a fresh shell into its chamber.
Before she could take cover behind the engine, children and teenagers poured out of the front door in all directions, tripping over the woman’s body. A menacing man wearing dark clothes followed. He held a large black semi-automatic pistol to his side.
Monique had just begun to aim the gun when a toddler crawled onto the porch behind the man. She was stunned all the other children abandoned the baby. The child whimpered at the downed woman in her path.
With a thousand-yard stare, the man appeared to be either dazed, drugged, or both. He stumbled toward Monique. She tried to remain frozen, hoping to take advantage of what appeared to be his tunnel vision. But her ploy only worked for a few seconds before his glassy eyes widened. He advanced nearer.
“Drop the gun,” she shouted in her biggest voice.
The tot on the porch bawled. Monique couldn’t risk scattering buckshot all over creation. Even if she put every one of the twelve heavy pellets into her target, shot might pass right through him, deflect shattered bone in all directions and maim or kill the baby.
The man moved closer. And then he lifted the pistol.
Monique raised the shotgun. With all her weight and strength, she lunged and thrust the barrel, like a bayonet mounted onto an M-16, into the crazed man’s skull. As he crumpled to the ground, his weight pulled at her. His body buckled, and the gun broke loose from his eye socket with a hideous crack.
Monique stood horrified. Squalls from the infant on the porch stirred her.
She gazed at the gore on the gun’s barrel. She set its safety and placed it on the grass with care.
She moved to the porch and picked up the child. She took refuge behind the battered patrol car and cradled the wailing baby in her arms.
Squad cars screeched up in droves. Officers cuffed the dead couple’s hands behind their backs.
***
Monique sat in the dim light at Poor Red’s bar, where cops often hung out, and decided enough time had passed for the ice to dilute her drink to her liking. As she took a sip, voices from a police radio startled her.
She wheeled around. “Well hello, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Coulter sidled up to her stool. “Mind if I sit down?”
Maybe it was the alcohol, but his heavy voice no longer moved her. “No, sir. Not at all.”
Coulter took a seat, removed his walkie-talkie from his belt and set it on the counter. “Saw your car out front. Thought I might find you here.”
“Just taking advantage of the last of my unscheduled vacation.”
“We’ll be happy to see you at work. We’re running shorthanded.”
“I’ll be glad to get back. I’m bored.”
“When an officer is involved in a deadly-force incident, she needs a few days off to get her head together.” He nodded at her glass. “What are you drinking?”
“Jack.”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s only four o’clock. That your first one?”
She gave a wry grin. “Sure.”
The bartender made his way over. “What can I get you?”
“Orange juice.” He turned his radio’s volume down. “Are you okay?”
She twisted the glass in a slow circle on its cork coaster. “About as good as I’m going to get.”
“Did you speak with the department’s psychologist?”
Monique nodded. “I did. Dr. Summers gave sound advice. She said what’s done is done. Now it’s up to me to make something good come out of it.”
“You already have. You probably saved that baby’s life. Maybe the entire family’s.”
She took a sip. “I still can’t figure out why those bozos spread their misery to the bank. After they shot the teller, the employees even had to remind them to take the cash to shoo them out the door.”
“Banks are magnets,” Coulter said. “They attract crazies to act out their demons.”
Monique sipped again. “Those two sure were awash in the Devil.”
“That’s not all. The toxicology report said that they were also as full of cocaine, meth, and tequila as humans can be and still sustain heartbeats.”
“I’m not surprised. They looked like the walking dead.”
He patted her shoulder. “You performed well.”
Monique stared ahead into the mirror behind the bar. Her own eyes looked a bit dead. “I only did what had to be done.”
“At least you didn’t throw your gun down and run. Just Bret’s bad luck a neighbor got the whole thing on his cell phone, and it’s saturated the television. Even the national news. Bret won’t be back to the shift. He’s been transferred to a desk job at jail intake. He turned yellow.”
She whirled around. “No, he didn’t. He did his job. He took the shot that saved my life. That woman’s bullets could have torn right through that tree and chewed me up. It was the first time he killed anyone. He reacted badly, that’s all.”
“It was your first kill.”
She stared at the ceiling. “And I pray to God it’s my last.” She gulped her drink and wiped her chin with a napkin.
He reached into his pocket “I have something for you.”
“What?”
He pulled out a .45 shell casing. Black, from burnt gunpowder, smudged its dirty yellow edges. “A souvenir from the incident.”
Surprise trilled in her voice. “Isn’t that evidence?”
“For crying out loud, they emptied two magazines and reloaded. The crime scene boys won’t miss one round.”
“I guess not.” She pocketed the brass.
“Take it to Stan’s Jewelers on South Main. He’ll make you a tie tack for free. You’ll be the only kid on the block with a .45 caliber.”
***
Monique settled back in her car seat to log in with her new training partner. “Ready to roll.”
Dorsey Duncan pulled off the parking lot. “Lieutenant Coulter told me to drive for a few days. Obviously, you’re capable. You did a hell of a job on College.”
She chuckled. “I wrecked our squad car.”
“They won’t hold it against you. Maybe send you to driving school and get you off the streets a few more days. Thank my lucky stars, I never killed anyone, and I’ve been hustling calls for seven years.”
“I just did my duty.” She test-clicked the shotgun rack. “Do you mind if we run an errand?”
“As long as it’s not too far out of our ward. Where to?”
“Downtown.”
He grinned. “Stan’s Jewelers?”
She shook her head. “No. Head down Virginia, by Channel 3. Then to the Big River Crossing, behind it.”
When Dorsey parked the car, Monique got out. “I won’t be long.”
She hooked her walkie-talkie onto her gun belt, strode down the sidewalk, and entered the walkway of the pedestrian/bicycle overpass, affixed to the Harahan Bridge spanning the Mississippi River. After a short walk, she reached the Arkansas-Tennessee state line. She closed her eyes and whispered a brief prayer of absolution.
Then she took the burnt shell casing out of her pocket. Aiming dead center between the majestic Hernando De Soto Bridge and the gaudy Pyramid, miles north, she reared back and threw it as far as she could. She watched it drop below and disappear into the Big Muddy.
She muttered into the wind, “Souvenirs from hell aren’t badges of honor. They’re only reminders that you survived.”
END
Ernest Lancaster grounds his crime fiction in real-life triumphs and tragedies. He juggles the truth in a noirish melody, designed to lead the reader down a winding path of authentic, dark adventure.
Ernie retired as a Captain from the Memphis Police Department in 2006, after serving thirty-three years as a cop. At one time or another he patrolled every corner of Memphis, where he answered desperate calls in worlds varying from seedy bars, hotels, and squalid housing projects to opulent mansions and playgrounds for the rich.
Lancaster walked the downtown night beat for two years in the mid ’70’s. At that time the Peabody lay shuttered, and Beale Street turned into a crumbling asylum of faded dreams that attracted unsavory characters most comfortable in the shadows.
He also patrolled in ward cars, trooped for three days through the hundreds of thousands of worldwide pilgrims to Elvis’s funeral, edited the Memphis Police Association’s newspaper, acted as the union’s vice-president, and for twenty-six years held positions on the TACT Squad.
Experiencing Lancaster’s hard-boiled tales brings you as close as you will get to becoming a cop, without donning a badge and gun and hitting the streets to solve the world’s problems.
The Tie Tack and the Shotgun is the lead in Lancaster’s short story collection, Precinct Memphis-Cop Tales, published December 4, 2023.
