Chapter Twenty-Eight
Breaking the habit.
An hour later, or so the paramedics told me, I awoke, propped up on a stretcher in a temporary shelter outside Bennett’s house. A dozen police officers and white-clad forensics officers bustled around, processing the crime scene, including, the two detectives, Welsh and Fairbanks. The same pair who’d harangued me at my apartment. Turner and Hooch. They simply passed by with a grudging nod.
I drank stale coffee with my left hand. Each breath hurt like hell. My right hand was bandaged up. My ring finger and pinky had been broken and my palm had swollen to the size of an apple. At some point in the skirmish, I had also taken a blow to the side of my head, which had been dressed by the ambulance crew.
After the armed response officers had shot Billy
