Joyfully Retired

Hard Feelings

by Barbara D’Amato

Suze Figueroa and Norm Bennis are Chicago cops. They get along real well which is good because they are partners. A lot of people don’t think women make good cops but Norm is not one of them. He has great respect for Suze.

One cold winter day, as their shift is just getting started, the snow starts falling. Within a short time they are rescuing people all over their beat. Then they get a call from dispatch about a woman screaming inside an apartment building.

Just as Suze and Norm approach the apartment, a man burst through the door. His hair and shirt were on fire and he was headed outdoors. Norm took off after him, tackled him, rolled him in the snow and patted more snow on the burned areas.

Meanwhile, inside the apartment, Suze crawls on the floor to avoid the smoke. She was headed for the screaming woman. She found her and sent her outdoors. Suze crawled back in the apartment looking for others. As she was crawling she came across the body of a man. He was lifeless and felt cold to the touch.

Just then Norm was crawling through the apartment and he also felt the body of the man on the floor. And then they both heard the scream of a baby. They moved quickly to the bedroom. Norm tucked the baby tightly in his arm and ran from the apartment. Suze checked for other children and then she too left. The fire was spreading quickly but Norm and Suze managed to get to all the residents of the building and get them to safety.

The next morning Suze and Norm were called into an internal investigation that could cause them to lose their jobs. Suze could possibly face prosecution. It seems that when the partners wrote their reports of the incident, they didn’t match. Suze is now being accused of leaving the man on the floor to die in the fire. Suze thought he was dead but Norm thought he was alive.

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