profile, an expanded, spicier version of the last article, a piece that he can “always look back upon and be proud of, something his kids will show their grandkids.”
Imagine their surprise when they hear he wants nothing to do with it. He tells Pastorini and Hartwick that’s the last thing he wants, another puff piece celebrating the hurdles he’s had to overcome. Sitting in the sergeant’s office, he says, “What I have to say wouldn’t translate well, Pete. The department wouldn’t like it. It’s not sound-bite friendly.”
“What do you want to say, Hank?” Pastorini asks.
Madden doesn’t respond at first. But after some reflection, he says, “Between you and me, Pete, shooting that kid and—”
He falls silent, suddenly embarrassed.
“What?” Pastorini urges.
“Well, saving the doc there in the park and rushing Jim to the hospital—that whole thing, the whole combination, just set something off in me. Afterward, I thought about what Cogan did. Here’s this kid who could have destroyed his life, and without even a second of hesitation, he goes all out to save him. I don’t know, Pete. You go through all your life looking for some sort of revenge and suddenly you realize what you really should have been looking for was the exact opposite. It threw me for a loop.”
Pastorini looks at him, a little dumbfounded. “Did you apologize to him?”
“No. I thanked him, though.”
“For what?”
“For being a good doctor.”
“Very touching,” says Pastorini.
Madden smiles. “Hey, Pete.”
“What?”
“Say Open Wide.”
“Why?”
“Just say it.”
“Open Wide,” Pastorini says.
Madden smiles again.
“Say it again.”
“Open Wide.”
Madden’s smile broadens.
“I’ll be damned. Hey, Billings,” Pastorini shouts through his half open door, “Get in here. I want you to see something.”
The next day, Cogan opens the newspaper and spots a short article with the headline, “Detective Still Mum on Shooting.” About half the piece is a rehash of earlier profiles of Madden, describing his physical handicap, as well as his childhood sexual abuse—both of which, according to Commander Hartwick, the detective has long ago put behind him.
“While Detective Madden is a private man,” the commander is quoting as saying, “the main reason he doesn’t want to discuss the shooting is that he feels strongly that Dr. Cogan and the team of doctors and nurses at Parkview Hospital who saved Jim Pinklow’s life are the heroes here. What they did was truly remarkable. All he had to do was to pull the trigger of a gun.”
And for a time, Cogan does feel remarkable. He knows the feeling will fade, but while it lasts, he feels a quiet satisfaction that he hasn’t felt in quite some time, not since he pitched a three-hit shutout his senior year, the only complete game of his college career.
One morning he gets a call from a hospital administrator. She’s calling to ask him what day he’d like to start again. Not if, but what day.
“Monday, I guess, is fine,” he replies. “I’ll take my usual shifts if that’s possible.”
“Absolutely. But you might want to take your first few weeks a little slower. You know, work your way back into the swing of things.”
She sounds more like a flight attendant than the impatient underpaid staffer he was used to.
“No, you’re right. Can you just put me on for three days? I’ll see how I feel after a couple of weeks.”
And so months of contemplation, fantasies of a triumphant departure, and nerve-racking debates over possible career paths are erased in a single instant by an inconsequential bureaucrat with a nice tone of voice who happened to ask one question instead of another. Not if, but what day.
“It just seemed all right,” he tells Carolyn that Monday, calling her from his old office, which he found exactly the same way he’d left it.
“How does it feel to be back?” she asks.
“Well, it’s the same plane, but I’m flying business class instead of coach. That’s what it feels like.”
“Now there’s the secret to life.”
A month passes. Then two. And soon it’s as if he’d never left. July and August come and go, and he doesn’t hear from Carrie. He’s vaguely disappointed, for although part of him thinks it will be best to forget her, he feels she owes him some sort of explanation and an apology. Madden had given him that—maybe not in precise words, but the sentiment was there. They’d had a drink together at The Dutch Goose and somewhere between beer one and two he agreed to become an assistant coach for Morey’s, his son’s Little League team sponsored by Peninsula Building Materials.
Madden didn’t think he’d hear