Jennifer Ollwood looked up at him, not in fear but fury. “Motherfucking pig!” she screamed.
The Volkswagen raced off.
Matt dropped to his knees to take his pistol from his ankle holster.
There was a burst of carbine fire, seven, eight, ten rounds. Matt looked down the lane.
Chenowith was standing in the center of it, trying to clear a jam.
“Drop the gun!” Jack Matthews shouted.
Chenowith turned to look at him.
Matthews, his issue .357 revolver held in the position prescribed, shot him twice, calmly and deliberately.
Matt, his pistol now in hand, ran after Jennifer’s Volkswagen.
She had apparently decided to ram her way past the garbage cans Matthews had placed in the lane. The one she had hit had wound up under the nose of the Volkswagen. Unsteerable, the Volkswagen had crashed into another parked car. Jennifer Ollwood now had the Volkswagen in reverse, trying to free herself. The Volkswagen’s tires were smoking, but the car was just barely moving.
Matt ran to the Volkswagen, smashed the window with the butt of his pistol, and then aimed it right at Jennifer Ollwood’s face.
She took her hands off the steering wheel, and the sound of the racing engine died.
Matt opened the door and then grabbed Jennifer’s sweater front and jerked her out of the car, tripped her, and threw her on her face on the lane.
She kicked and fought, and he hit her on the side of her head with the butt of his pistol. It didn’t knock her out, but it made her groggy enough so that he could pin her left arm behind her and, with his knee in her back, start to put the handcuffs on.
He heard a female voice say, indignantly, “He didn’t have to do that to her!”
And then he heard a baby start to howl.
He jerked Jennifer to her feet, looked in the back of the Volkswagen, and saw the baby.
Susan can handle the baby.
“My baby!” Jennifer screamed. “Somebody help my baby!”
Matt turned to look at the growing crowd of spectators.
“Nobody go near that car!” he ordered. “I’m a police officer, and I’m going to get someone to take care of the baby!”
“Goddamn cops!” the same indignant female voice muttered.
Matt propelled Jennifer around the corner of the building, back toward the bank of pay phones.
Jack Matthews saw him coming, and stepped into the lane. He held both hands up, as if stopping traffic, and there was a pained look on his face.
Matt saw the obese young woman sitting on the ground, screaming, and after a moment, saw that she was holding her bloody right leg.
“Matt, don’t come down here!” Jack called.
Matt had just enough time to wonder what the hell was wrong with Matthews, when he understood.
Susan was on the ground, too. Matt put his foot in front of Jennifer Ollwood and pushed her hard. She fell again to the pavement, and started to scream obscenities.
He ran to Susan. Jack tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t be stopped.
Susan was on her back, her mouth and her sightless eyes open. There was a small, neat hole just below her left eye. Her blond hair was in a spreading pool of blood.