Everything on Black

Chapter One

Will Cousins didn’t look exactly like Leo DiCaprio, and he didn’t look exactly like Ryan Gosling. He just sort of had that look. The boy next door, and something more. Tall enough that his height was the first thing you noticed, a tennis player’s loose strong build, a teenager’s full head of brown hair. He was barefoot, in cargo shorts and a black polo shirt. He was in his early to mid thirties—thirty-five to my thirty-two, I was soon to learn—and he gave a pretty good impression of thinking he was nobody special. But maybe part of that was the blood smeared down the left side of his face.

“Do you feel lightheaded?” I asked him, studying the planes of his face. I kept my hand on my belt, close to my taser, as I always do in situations like this. I am fit—to excess, I’m told—but I’ve never pretended I’m not a woman. He had let me step into the entryway of his McMansion for a safety check. I could see an indentation, at about punching level, in the off-white wall, next to the kitchen entrance. The living room, to my left, looked like a neat little hurricane had blown through. After dealing with her husband, Mrs. Cousins had apparently driven off somewhere. The neighbor had made the call.

He was holding a pale blue dishrag to his head. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “Shit happens. Really, this is nothing.” He lifted the dishrag off and looked at the blood on it, shook his head and blew air out of his lips. I noted the gash—a laceration of possibly an inch, not very deep—before he pressed the material against it again.

“I want you to know I’m documenting your responses on bodycam,” I said. “Did your wife do this?”

His unobscured eye sharpened briefly, and then he smiled and it was all Hollywood. It surprised you, in quite a pleasant way, like the rabbit coming out of the hat. His eyes were hazel and just a little too big, I noticed. Too puppy-doggish. I knew without thinking that he got a lot of mileage out of those eyes—and that smile—but I didn’t register anything externally except professional concern. “I did it to myself,” he said. “I…hit my head on the wall like an idiot.” He waved his hand toward the indented drywall. “Nobody assaulted anyone. There’s no reason to make a federal case of this.”

“An ambulance is en route. If you refuse, I need that on camera.”

“Oh, hell no. I mean, yes. I refuse. This is nothing at all.” The smile kept going, and the eyes—I thought he was looking for my bodycam, but they crawled down and lingered just below my duty belt. I wondered if he could be so brazen, but then he seemed to be looking at some point past my elbow, and I thought maybe I had imagined it, after all.

“All right, sir,” I said. “Your refusal is on record. I’ll cancel the ambulance.” I extended my hand. “Here is my card, and the Notice of Rights pamphlet. Please give that a look.”

He was already nodding, saying, “Sure,” and it made me feel as if we were both involved in a charade.

“And if you need anything,” I persisted, “or if the situation changes, please don’t hesitate to call us. Remember: your safety is important.”

He raised the items, and scanned around the dishrag. “Thank you, Mrs. Burgess—is it Mrs.?”

“Miss,” I said.

“Miss Burgess. Thanks.”

“Let’s stick with Deputy Burgess.”

He worked the smile. “Oh, yeah, sorry. And I’m sorry you got called. This is nothing, really. Hundred percent self-inflicted. Except for that, there was just a little yelling. The HOA busybodies, you know. They blow everything out of proportion.”

I was moving toward the door, and he followed me almost, but not quite, too close. “Take care of yourself, Mr. Cousins,” I said, “and don’t be too proud to reach out if you need help.”

“I won’t be, Miss—Deputy—Burgess.”

There was something in the tone. I stopped and looked at him and the eyes—the left one obscured by the dishrag—were vacant of implication.

“Be safe,” I said, turning away. I was shamefully glad that I had ended up responding to the call alone. His story seemed an obvious bluff, but it was plausible enough to bend protocol if the wife didn’t contradict it when we attempted contact. I found myself hoping she wouldn’t. He made me feel, even then, as if he and I were conspiring.

I made my way into the stark daylight, down the decorative concrete steps, along the walk bisecting the brochure-ready front yard, and back to the waiting department Explorer. I knew I was being appraised, and I fought to keep any extra motion out of my walk.

***

I had a slightly ridiculous variation on the same dilemma a week later, when Will Cousins appeared behind me in the mirror at FitZone. Strength training had become one of my healthier forms of self-medication the last few years. I could deadlift two-thirty and do an easy one-fifty for five reps on the squat rack—which was where I was when I noticed him. And a woman doing squats in modern workout attire—I wore black leggings; my nod to discretion—draws the eyes of any male without a practiced gym poker face.

He was one of those guys, I guess, that you don’t forget. The extra couple of inches of height didn’t hurt. Maybe it was just the almost juvenile, frankly sexual interest, trained directly on me. An experience I had all but forgotten. Since the day of the domestic disturbance call, images of him had arisen unexpectedly in my mind, and more frequently than I would care to admit. It was as if I had willed him to appear, and maybe even at that moment, when I was doing the equivalent of some primal sexual display.

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