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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Epitaph

To those we have loved, those we have lost, and those we hold onto.

In Loving Memory JAD 1922 - 2012

Part One—The Last Supper

T
he prisoner lunged through the
bars and grabbed hold of Dan Lowery’s collar.

“When I get out of here, this game is over!” he shrieked, eyes bloodshot and bulging.

Dan reached for his holster, but thought better of it. He wrenched his shirt free instead, and leapt back a few feet. He cursed himself silently for getting too close to the cell. The prisoner glared at him, jaw hanging open, his pupils wide and distorted. His speech was slurred, and his breath reeked of another night wasted at the bar. His bald head captured the bright lights of the jail cell, reflecting the glare back off his scalp.

Dan fingered the badge on his chest and lifted it up so the prisoner could see. “You pull that shit again, and I’ll have you charged with assaulting a police officer. You hear me, Frank?”

Frank wasn’t listening. He was busy pacing around the cell, and had probably already forgotten what had just transpired. He clutched his stomach and bent over the cell bench, dry heaving.

Dan unfolded his sleeves. He had rolled them up prior to transporting the man from cruiser to cell. There was always a fight to be had with this one, and he was getting damn tired of it.

This time, it had been a dispute over the television station at The Down Under. Frank had insisted the barkeep change the channel so he could watch the boxing match. One of the other locals had resisted, claiming he wanted to catch the weather first. A verbal altercation had ensued, culminating in Frank tripping over his barstool and landing flat on his back. He had screamed and ranted, and had finally been detained by several other patrons. Dan had arrived shortly after, dodging the man’s vomit as he hauled him into the back of the cruiser.

This wasn’t the life he had envisioned when joining the police force. At the same time, he wasn’t sure what more to expect from a small town in Arizona. With a population of only a few thousand, St. Matthews had little room in the budget for reinforcements. Dan was one of only four police officers.

He moved through the small station, heading towards a locker room down the hall from the jail cell. He could still hear Frank coughing and spewing behind him.

“You’d think you would have learned your lesson by now, Frank,” he mumbled.

“Fuck you!” the man screamed from the other room. Dan had forgotten how sound carried in the hollow building.

He entered the locker room, already unbuttoning his shirt. It had been a long day, and he was ready to knock off for the evening. Officer Howard Barrett was already suiting up, ready to relieve him of his duties. Howard was the station’s senior officer.

“You mean I have to watch this joker all night? What the fuck, man?” Howard rolled his eyes, suppressing a laugh.

“Better you than me!” Dan retorted, hanging his shirt in his locker.

The dispatcher had already left for the day. After hours, all calls were routed through a regional office in a neighboring town. Howard would be alone with the prisoner for the rest of the evening.

The senior officer buttoned his uniform over his chest, covering a scar on his left shoulder. He was originally from California. In his eight years of service on the Sacramento streets, the officer had been shot twice, each time refusing desk duty. The scar was one of two on his body—the other was on his calf. Dan had seen them plenty of times. His comrade took pleasure in reliving the stories, showing his wounds with pride to anyone who would listen.

It was a far cry from herding the local drunks into a cell for the evening.

“So what’s Julie got on the burner for you?”

“Word on the street is ham and boiled potatoes.” Dan smiled. Oftentimes, he would invite the officer to join them when they both had the night off.

“Ah, an Irish feast! Well, enjoy it man. I’m sure I won’t feel like eating much after watching Frank throw up in there.”

Howard slammed the locker shut, and the door rattled through the small room. Although he was only five foot nine, he had the build of a football player, making up for his lack of height with a thick, rugged frame.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dan said.

From the other room, Frank continued to dry heave, and Dan chuckled softly.

“Good luck with that one.”

Dan walked across the parking lot, feeling the cool breeze ruffle through his curly blonde hair. His face reddened as the Arizona heat hit his pores. He wiped his arm across his face and felt the perspiration moisten his skin.

He was exhausted. After a long day at work, he was looking forward to spending time with his wife and daughter. On a typical day, they would bring out some of the board games they had tucked in the closet, or enjoy a relaxing walk in the yard. He hoped today was no different.

He looked down at his cellphone, preparing for it to ring at any minute. Julie was punctual, and she would be expecting him shortly. Within a few seconds, the phone lit up. He laughed to himself.

“Hello?”

“What’s so funny?” Julie demanded, but he could hear that she was in a good mood.

“Nothing, honey. I just knew you’d be calling. Right on time, as usual!” he kidded, reaching for his car keys.

“I’ve got your favorite meal on the stove. Quinn even helped with the potatoes.”

“I can’t wait! I’ll be there shortly.”

“I love you,” she said.

He hung up and inserted his key in the car door. The police vehicle was a 2006 Ford Crown Victoria. Given the size of St. Matthews, the town’s officers normally used their patrol cars as their primary mode of transportation. In the event of an emergency, they would be expected to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

Dan had rarely been required to do so. He kept his radio by the bedside table, just in case, but he couldn’t remember the last time it had woken him from sleep.

He often caught Julie staring at it before going to bed. He imagined she was having a silent chat with the device, warning it to stay silent.

Dan pulled out of the lot and into the roadway. He lived within 3 miles of the station, which provided a quick commute from work to home. Because of this, he used the time to unwind—to transition from his rugged exterior as a police officer into his role as father and husband.

He loved his position on the force, but Julie and Quinn were his main focus—the reason he woke up in the morning.

Dan navigated the streets with ease. It hadn’t taken him long to gain familiarity with St. Matthews. In fact, there weren’t many streets that he didn’t know. The city roads were well maintained, featuring a mixture of commercial and residential properties. In between them, small shrubs peppered the dusty landscape, constant reminders of the desert backdrop.

The White Mountains surrounded the town on all sides. A frequent destination for Arizona tourists, they provided a makeshift border, sheltering St. Matthews from the neighboring towns and insulating them from the worries of big city life.

Dan rounded a corner, heading away from the center of town and into one of the residential neighborhoods. Here, houses began to dominate the roadside, and he relaxed slightly. He was a few blocks from home when his cellphone rang.

He glanced at the display, expecting to see his wife’s name. Instead, he saw Howard’s.

“Hey, man. Want me to save you a plate of potatoes?” He grinned.

“Dan?” Howard’s voice wavered.

For a split second, it sounded like the reception had been lost. A deep breath from the other end told him that his friend was still on the line.

“Are you still there?” Dan asked.

“Frank’s dead.”

The words rang in the air. Dan stared at the phone in disbelief.

“What happened?”

“Can you come back to the station?” Howard begged.

In his five years on the force, it was the first time he had heard his friend rattled.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, closing the phone.

He threw on his sirens and raced back into town.

H
oward met him at the
station door. The front of his shirt was covered in sweat, and he looked visibly upset. His usually stocky frame seemed to be shrunken, as if he was trying to disappear into his clothes.

“Are you ok?” Dan asked.

“I think so,” Howard said, but his demeanor said otherwise.

“Where is he?”

“In the cell. I covered him with a blanket. I called the paramedics, but it sounded like they’d be a while.”

Dan was hit by a pang of fear, but he wasn’t sure why. His friend was making him nervous. He hurried through the door and down the hall to where Frank had been kept. As he proceeded, he half-expected to hear the prisoner still cursing, spilling the contents of his stomach onto the jail floor.

Instead, the station was eerily quiet.

Howard hung behind him, as if afraid of what his friend might find.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Dan entered the main room, feeling his heartbeat quicken in his chest. In the center of the cell, a bulky figure was covered in a blue blanket. For a second, he imagined that Frank was hiding somewhere in the station; that the lump under the blanket was a decoy, and that the prisoner would come lunging at them from the shadows.

Pull yourself together
, he thought.

He tugged on the cell door, but it was locked. He reached for his keys.

He stopped when he noticed a trickle of dried blood on one of the iron bars. The fluid had made its way down the side of the cell, forming a pool at the bottom.

“What the fuck?” He stepped back.

“He attacked me, Dan. I mean, I was lucky to get out of the room alive.”

Howard motioned towards his arm. The officer’s shirt was torn at the elbow, and a red stain blossomed towards his bicep. Dan was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Howard, you’re hurt! What the hell happened?”

“He took a chunk out of my arm, man. I thought he was going to rip it off.” Howard covered his face with his good hand.

Dan drew his gun. He inserted the key into the lock, watching for any sign of movement through the bars, his finger on the trigger of the pistol. The blanket remained still on the floor.

“Stay back,” he warned, stepping inside.

Dan crossed the cell towards the body, and immediately gagged. A puddle of Frank’s vomit lay under the steel bench. If circumstances were different, he might have found it amusing.

He nudged the blanket with his foot, expecting Frank to grab onto it in a drunken rage. The figure remained stiff. He bent down slowly, grabbing the edge of the fabric, and slid it off a few inches. It dragged slightly, caught on a piece of flesh that looked like the prisoner’s ear.

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