I ARRIVED AT the Campions’ home within fifteen minutes of getting Jacobi’s call. A herd of patrol cars blocked the street, and paramedics bumped down the stone steps with their loaded gurney, heading out to the ambulance.
I went to the gurney, observed as much of the victim as I could. An oxygen mask half covered his face, and a sheet was pulled up to his chin. I judged that the young man was in his late teens or early twenties, white, with well-cut, dirty-blond hair, maybe five ten.
Most important, he was alive.
Is he going to make it?” I asked one of the paramedics.
She shrugged, said, “He’s got two slugs in him, Sergeant. Lost a lot of blood.
Inside the house, Jacobi and Conklin were debriefing the former governor and Valentina Campion, who sat together on a sofa, shoulder to shoulder, their hands entwined. Conklin shot me a look: something he wanted me to understand. It took me a few minutes to get it.
Jacobi filled me in on what had transpired, told me that there was no ID on the kid Campion had shot. Then he said to the former governor, “You say you can identify the second boy, sir? Help our sketch artist
Campion nodded. “Absolutely. I’ll never forget that kid’s face.
Campion looked to be in terrible pain. He’d shot someone only minutes before, and when he asked me to sit down in the chair near the sofa, I thought he wanted to tell me about that. But I was wrong.
Campion said, “Michael wanted to be like his friends. Go out. Have fun. So I was always on his case, you know? When I caught him sneaking out at night, I reprimanded him, took away privileges, and he hated me for it.
No he didn’t,” Valentina Campion said sharply. “You did what I didn’t have the courage to do, Connor.
Sir?” I said, wondering where he was going with this.
Campion’s face sagged with exhaustion.
He was being irresponsible,” Campion continued, “and I was trying to keep him safe. I was looking ahead to the future - a new medical procedure, a pharmaceutical breakthrough. Something.
I told him, straight up, ‘When you decide to act like an adult, let me know.’ I wasn’t angry, I was afraid,” Campion said, his voice cracking. “So I lost him before I lost him.
His wife tried to calm him, but Connor Campion wouldn’t be soothed. “I was a tyrant,” Campion said. “Mikey and I didn’t speak for the whole last month of his life. If I’d known he had a month to live . . . Michael told me, ‘Quality of life, Dad. That’s what’s important.
Campion fixed me with his bloodshot eyes.
You seem to be a caring person, Sergeant. I’m telling you this so you understand. I let those hooligans into my house because they said they had information about Michael - and I had to know what it was.
Now I think they killed him, don’t you? And tonight they were going to rob us. But why? Why
I don’t know, sir.
I told Campion that as soon as we knew anything, we’d let him know. That was all I had for him. But I got it now, why Conklin had given me that look when I’d walked in the door. My mind was running with it.
I signaled to my partner and we went outside.
