The Morning Of

by S. B. Cody

  CNN Reporter: What role, if any, will the FBI be playing in the following investigation?

  President Harris: The Stanford Police Department will be taking the lead in the investigation, but the FBI will be making themselves available to them, to provide whatever resources and manpower they may need.

  MSNBC Reporter: Do you plan to introduce any legislation as a means to combat gun violence?

  President Harris: Exploring ways to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous criminals is definitely a step we need to take in going forward.

  Fox News Reporter: With this shooting occurring during the protest about the Noah Spaulding shooting, is there any reason to believe that the two are connected?

  President Harris: There is no reason to speculate that the two are connected.

  Fox News Reporter: Is it true that during the protest a speaker made a threat on children?

  President Harris: Investigators will be looking into any threats that may or may not have been made. That’s all the time I have. We will keep you posted as more information becomes available. Thank you.

  And all around the country, random citizens took to Twitter and Facebook, offering their condolences, assuring the victims that they were in everyone’s thoughts and prayers.

  10

  The sun had just started to peek over the horizon when Kara walked into the station. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Not once could she shut her brain off long enough to rest. She’d decided to come in early and put her fevered brain to some use.

  When she walked in there were just a couple desk jockeys who’d been saddled with the night shift, but besides that the place was a ghost town, and would be for about another hour. Kara sat at her desk where the box of case files she had requested lay undisturbed. From the moment she’d gotten the call about the shooting, they hadn’t even crossed her mind, but now it became consumed with it. It just served as yet another reminder of her failure. And a reminder of how vital things were this time. An entire town, an entire country, would be watching this case unfold. Any mistake would be amplified. Any error would be the epitaph on her career.

  But she had no time for that. She had to get down to work. She began by reviewing what case notes she had. The clothes were being processed through forensics. They’d relayed the information on the guns to the ATF, hoping to trace them. God knows how long that would take. She and Brody would need to visit the couple gun shops in town and hope they lucked out. Then came the laundry list of interviews that they needed to conduct. Kara reviewed the list, overwhelmed by the number of names on it. The scheduling alone would take a fleet of officers. Adding to that, most of them were kids, which only made it that much more of a headache. And once that was done, who knew how long it would take to actually get through them all.

  Kara set down to work and had been at it for half an hour, when Brody walked in.

  “Shoulda figured you’d be here already,” he said as he slumped down in the desk across from Kara’s. “Solved it yet?”

  “Yeah. The butler did it,” Kara responded without looking up. A minute passed without a word when she threw her head back and sighed. “Where the hell do we even start?”

  “Well, I have one idea,” Brody offered.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “As I was on my way in, Hicks stopped me.”

  “And he is?”

  “He’s one of the officers that was at the protest yesterday. Said that during it, some lady from the SSPA made a threat against kids.”

  “She what?!”

  “Yeah. Something to the effect that the privileged wouldn’t care about them until their kids were the ones who were killed.”

  “Jesus…”

  “Yeah. So I figured that that warranted us having a word or two with them.”

  “Why are we just now hearing about this? No one thought to say something yesterday?”

  “Well… I think people had their hands full yesterday.”

  “Jesus. Well, I guess that just shot to the top of our never-ending list of things to do. Let’s get to it.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  Kara hoisted herself up from her chair, packed her notes back up, and headed towards the door with Brody in tow. Prior to heading out the door they stopped at the desk of Detective Dixon, who was new to Homicide, and gave him the unenviable task of getting started on setting up the interviews.

  * * *

  The headquarters of the SSPA sat across town, but it was really nothing more than a hole in the wall. A small splintered door interrupted the brick side of an office building. This door then led down a flight of stairs that would creak if so much as a feather happened to land on it. The cracks in them would widen with every step someone took. Brody stepped cautiously on them, sure that he would go through at any second.

  Kara and Brody made it to the bottom without incident and landed in an open basement, with several desks placed at random on the floor. The moment they entered, an aura of tension filled the air as the four people who occupied the office stared over at them, looking like bulls ready to charge. At the back, Denise Liman stood up from a desk and plowed her way to where Kara and Brody stood.

  “Do you have business here?” Liman asked. She strived to sound formal, but it still managed to come across as a threat.

  “Are you Ms. Liman?” Kara asked.

  “I am.” Fuck you she seemed to say.

  “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Concerning?” I said fuck you.

  “Is there, perhaps, someplace else we could do this?” Brody asked.

  This time Liman didn’t respond. She simply pushed past Kara and Brody and headed toward a small door tucked away in the corner. She opened it to reveal a supply closet that had been converted into its own office. Liman stepped aside allowing the two detectives to enter. Once in they took a seat, squished up against each other.

  “The door remains open. So don’t try anything,” Liman said as she squeezed around to the back of the room and sat at the desk. “So what is it you need?” You better not be wasting my time.

  “Were you at the protest concerning Noah Spaulding yesterday?” Kara asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Well… It has been brought to our attention of some comments you made at that time.”

  Liman laughed with scorn. I can’t believe you’re wasting my time with this.

  “Did you say something to the effect of…?” Brody began, pulling out his notebook.

  “‘It is not until their children are the ones left alone in a pool of their own blood that they will ever know our pain!’” Liman interrupted, quoting herself exactly. “Is that the comment you’re referring to?”

  “Yeah. That’d be the one,” Brody replied.

  “I stand by my comments. And last time I checked, I’m allowed to speak my mind.”

  “We’re not interested in censoring you,” Kara chimed in. “However, do you understand why those kind of comments may concern us considering what transpired yesterday?”

  “You’re referring to the shooting at West?”

  “Something else didn’t happen yesterday, did it?” Brody chimed in.

  “And you think I had something to do with that?”

  “We’re just asking some questions right now,” Kara said. “Given the reputation of your organization, I’m sure you get where we’re coming from.”

  “What reputation would that be?”

  “Have you ever been to West High?” Brody asked, ignoring the latest comment.

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “What about other members?”

  “I can hardly speak for them.”

  “Why did you make those comments in the first place?” Kara asked.

  “Because it’s true,” Liman spat out, her voice dropping down. “If that school had been on this side of town. If those had been black children who were gunned down, would you even get out of bed?”

  “So do you
actually advocate that kind of action?”

  “I advocate doing what is necessary to get the job done.”

  “And what job is that?” Brody asked.

  “This figures,” Liman groaned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone gets shot and you go running to the brown people.”

  “Hardly without reason.”

  “And this isn’t the first threat that has been linked to either you or your organization,” Kara butted in.

  “Has any crime?” Liman asked.

  Brody threw his head back in exhaustion. “We’re gonna need a list of your members,” he said.

  “No problem. Just let me see a warrant.”

  “Are you really going to fight us on this?”

  “I just want you to follow the rules. Something some of your officers should be more conscious of.”

  Kara stared down at her feet wondering where they went from here. Liman may be a bitch, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. She just needed to hope that she could appeal to the better angles of her nature. Kara looked up and in a somber tone said, “Twenty-eight people have died. Twenty-two of them were children. Some of those were African-American. Any help that you give is only going to help us get to the bottom of this.”

  “And I’ll give you that help once a judge orders.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Brody groaned as he sprang up from his seat and headed out of the closet/office.

  Kara stood and offered a polite, “Thank you for your time.” The two of them scaled the stairs, headed outside, got into the car, and took off.

  “So what do think?” Brody asked.

  “Well, she’s a bitch. But a killer? I don’t know,” Kara responded.

  “You don’t think she did it?”

  “You do?”

  “Who the hell reacts that way when there are dead kids we’re cleaning up after? Sure as shit seems like she has something to hide. And… Jesus… she might as well have said, ‘Hey, let’s go kill a bunch of kids!’”

  “That’s my point. Who the hell announces their plan in front of a bunch of cops an hour before carrying it out? That woman is a lot of things, but she certainly isn’t stupid.”

  “It’s a hell of a coincidence then.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “Well, we should at least try to get a warrant. Certainly can’t rule her out. Keep pursuing our other leads in the meantime.”

  “Damn. And here I was, hoping we were going to crack the case in less than a day.”

  “No such luck. So what do you say? You want to go on a tour of the town’s gun stores?”

  “Ooh! Can we? Can we?” Brody squealed. The car headed off down the street.

  11

  Connor first woke up at 6:00 just like he did every other morning. He almost rose out of bed when he remembered that he didn’t need to today. A brief smile formed on his face upon realization that he could go back to sleep, but a pang of guilt hit him when he recalled why it was. He winced as the gunshots popped off inside his head once again. Connor looked over to see Brandy still asleep beside him.

  She now began to stir. Once she saw Connor sitting, she sprung up. “Connor, honey. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Internal alarm went off is all,” Connor groaned.

  “That it? You have any dreams or anything?” Last night, Brandy had taken to the internet and printed off pages and pages of information about post-traumatic stress. She pored over them with a highlighter, preparing herself and Connor for every eventuality. As they had laid down last night, one thing she had warned him about was that he may have dreams, reliving the whole experience. Connor shook his head, lying. The truth was that he had had a dream, but it wasn’t something that he wanted to get into at the moment.

  He had been back in his classroom, but alone this time. He sat at a student desk and stared at the wall. From outside his room, came a pounding, like a stampede of elephants running into his door again and again. The whole time, Connor didn’t move. He didn’t even look over towards the source of the noise. He was a stone pillar. Next thing he knew, Jason Voorhees stood in front, his arm outstretched and ending in a gun. He pulled the trigger, and at that moment, time slowed down. A fireball erupted out of the barrel. A plume of smoke obscured Jason’s mask. The bullet ripped through the air, making waves as it sailed towards Connor. Inside, he knew that he needed to move. He screamed at himself to do it, but nothing happened. Instead, he sat there as the bullet pierced his head. Globs of blood splattered in front of his face. Connor could feel his skull bursting into pieces. His brains were shredded. And still… nothing. As the bullet erupted out of the back of his head, darkness began to sweep over him. It was at that moment that Connor woke up. He kept it quiet, though, so as not to wake Brandy. It would be another hour before he drifted off.

  “I’m okay. Let’s just go back to sleep,” Connor told her. He laid back down and she wrapped her arms around him.

  They both slept for another two hours. Brandy insisted on cooking breakfast even though Connor hadn’t actually eaten it once in the past couple years. But she was adamant, worried that unless she made him, he wouldn’t eat at all. Connor sat at the table picking at his bacon and occasionally shoving a forkful of hash browns into his mouth. Years of waiting until noon to eat made it hard to have much of an appetite at the moment.

  Connor looked down at the plate, the whole time feeling Brandy’s eyes on him as though he was a puzzle that she needed to figure out. As though he was a cracked vase that threatened to shatter at any second.

  “So…” Brandy started with a heap of trepidation. “I was thinking that it might be a good idea to look into maybe seeing someone.”

  “Someone?”

  “Like a therapist.”

  Connor threw his hand over his eyes and exhaled. “I don’t know, Brandy. You know how I feel about that kind of thing.” Brandy had been promoting this for him for a while now, concerned that he was depressed. She’d even suggested couples counseling for them a few times. Every time she did, he’d managed to duck the issue. He didn’t imagine it helping at all. He’d attempted therapy for a bit in college at the pleading of his parents. It didn’t do much good, so he soon gave it up and hadn’t considered going back.

  “I know. This is different though,” Brandy said.

  “Yeah… but…” He didn’t know what to say.

  “Just promise me that you’ll think about it.” Connor looked at her, the light shining off the glint of a tear in her eye. After all this time, she still amazed him. Amazed at her unwillingness to give up on him, long after he had given up on himself.

  “Fine. I’ll think about it,” he said after a beat. Brandy didn’t say a word. She just reached across the table and squeezed his hand. From there they finished their breakfast in silence. While they cleaned up the dishes a knock came at the door. Connor went to answer the door to find no one there. Instead, a plastic container full of cupcakes sat on the porch. On top of the container was a card with his name written on the envelope. He picked it up and brought it into the kitchen.

  “Who was at the door?” Brandy asked.

  “I don’t know. This was just sitting there.” Connor pulled the card out of the envelope to see “Thank You” printed on top of a floral pattern on the front. Opening it, he saw a handwritten message written inside:

  Mr. Sullivan,

  Christopher told us about what happened yesterday and what you did during the shooting. Our son, and other children, are alive today because of your bravery. There are no words to fully describe the love and appreciation that we feel for you right now. Please accept this small gift from us. There is no way that we could ever possibly repay you for what you’ve done. But please know that you will forever be in our hearts and minds for what you did.

  Sincerely,

  Tom and Clarissa Davion.

  It was from the parents of one of the students who had be
en in his class when the shooter had come in. Connor didn’t know how to react to this. He reread the note a few times and felt more and more uncomfortable each time. Connor had never been wonderful at accepting any kind of compliment. During his first year of teaching, the staff had done a team building exercise where they needed to go around and give different people compliments. Connor had just avoided it altogether, feeling embarrassed by the very idea of it. He didn’t know why, but the whole thing just felt unnatural to him. So now, faced with something like this… he felt like a foreigner in his own skin.

  Brandy came around, peered over his shoulder, and read the note herself. Connor couldn’t stand it when someone did this, but now he barely noticed.

  “Oh my God,” Brandy gasped. “This is…”

  “Yeah…” Connor cut her off. “What do we do with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, should we return these or…?”