by Maris Soule
Tears slid down my cheeks. I didn’t want Jason dead. I didn’t want him hurt in any way. He wasn’t my biological son, but I’d grown to love him as if he were mine. I wanted him around when Paige Joy arrived. I wanted her to have a big brother, something I never had.
“Be safe,” I whispered as I neared the entrance to the school.
A deputy stood in the middle of the school’s driveway. Focused on him, I barely noticed the line of cars and trucks parked along the side of the road. As I neared, the deputy raised his hands in a gesture for me to stop. I wanted to ignore his order and swerve around him, but I forced myself to step on the brake and roll down my window as he approached. “You’ll have to park out here and wait until we get the all clear. It’s still an active scene,” he said.
“But my stepson—” I stared at the one-story rectangular building set back from the road. “I think he’s the one who’s been shot.”
“As soon as we know anything, we’ll let you know,” the deputy said and stepped back, again blocking my way.
For a moment I did nothing, simply stared at the school building, then I saw the deputy motioning me to move on. Slowly, I backed up and drove on down the road to a spot where I, too, could pull off and park. Purse and cell phone in hand, I locked the car and walked back to join dozens of other parents huddled in groups as close to the school’s boundaries as they could get. “What have you heard?” I asked as I joined one group.
“Nothing recently,” one woman said and nodded toward the woman standing next to her. “Diane lives across the street. She heard the shots. Three of them.”
Diane looked my way. “At first I thought it was fireworks, then I realized no one would be shooting off fireworks at this time of the year or this early in the morning.” She looked at my belly. “Do you have a child here?”
“Stepson,” I said and left that group to continue on until I reached the deputy guarding the driveway.
“You can’t go in,” he repeated as I neared. “Please stay back with the others.”
“Do you know if Deputy Sergeant Wade Kingsley is here?” I asked.
“No, Ma’am, I do not know.” The deputy waved another car away from the driveway. “Please step back,” he repeated to me.
Reluctantly, I did as ordered, but I kept looking toward the school building. Somewhere in there Jason was either injured, dead, or, hopefully, hiding. “Please be all right,” I silently prayed.
I wanted everyone to be all right; however, in the distance I could hear a siren, the sound growing louder and louder. Soon I saw the outline of an ambulance, lights flashing as it screamed its way toward the school’s entrance. At the last moment, the deputy stepped aside, allowing it to pass, but before he could regain his position, a double-cab truck with extra-large tires followed the ambulance up the drive. I caught just a glimpse of the driver, but I knew who it was. Daniel Hart, Danny’s father.
Suddenly, I felt lightheaded, and my stomach churned, bile pushing its way into my throat. My legs were shaking, and I knew I needed to sit down or at least lean against something. “You all right, P.J.?” a familiar voice asked, the gentle touch of a hand on my arm. “Do you want to sit down?”
“Yes,” I said, and allowed Wade’s sister to help me ease down to a sitting position on the curb.
“Have you heard anything?” she asked, crouching beside me.
I shook my head, tears making it difficult for me to talk. “This morning, Jason . . . Jason was afraid something would happen. He was afraid Danny would beat him up. But this is worse, so much worse.”
“Think positive thoughts,” she said. “Is Wade in there?”
“The deputy didn’t know. Oh, Ginny, we should have done what you suggested, pulled him out of here and sent him to Galesburg.”
“He wanted to be here,” she said and handed me a linen hanky. “He told me that.”
I wiped away tears and blew my nose, then looked at the fancy embroidery on the cloth, and had to laugh. “I didn’t think anyone used these anymore.”
“Just part of the image.”
She meant her interior decorator image, of course. An image which, at this very moment, was getting soiled. The stiletto heels of her black boots were sinking into the wet grass, and the hem of her tailored, grey wool coat was dragging in the same mud that was soiling my jacket. She held her hand out for the hanky she’d given me, but I shook my head. “I’ll wash it then give it back.” I stuffed it in my jacket pocket. “I’m guessing you were either on your way to see a client or with one. How did you know to come here?”
“I was on my way. I heard about the shooting on the radio, so I called them and told them I’d be late.” She pointed down the street a short way. “I actually got here before you. I’m parked over there. You want to sit in my car, or do you prefer this cold curb?”
“Car sounds better,” I said, my bottom already feeling the chill.
Ginny helped me back onto my feet and we crossed over to her car. More and more cars were arriving, parents stepping out to join others, sharing what they knew and waiting to hear anything new.
Once inside Ginny’s car, I tried calling Wade but was immediately instructed to leave a message.
“That probably means he’s here,” Ginny said.
I left a message. “I’m with your sister, parked across the street from the school. Call when you can.”
My phone rang less than a minute later, and I immediately punched the accept button. I didn’t look at the caller ID, so when a woman asked, “Is this P.J. Benson?” I was surprised and confused.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Laura. Laura Parks. I’m the receptionist at Homes4Homeless. I met you last week when you came by with Anna.” Laura paused for a moment, then continued, almost whispering. “It’s Anna I’m calling about. Do you know where she is?”
I remembered Laura, but I wasn’t sure why she was calling me or even how she got my cell phone number. “No, I don’t. Why?”
“Yesterday, before I left, she said she’d leave me a note and let me know how the board meeting went,” Laura said, her voice still hushed. “I haven’t found any note, and one of the board members just told me Anna didn’t show up at the meeting last night. I tried calling her but didn’t get an answer. I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing, but something doesn’t feel right. I guess I’m wondering if she started labor and went to the hospital. I thought you might know if that was why she wasn’t at the meeting.”
I had been watching the school as Laura talked, my focus on what was going on there rather than what had happened to Anna. “I haven’t heard anything,” I said as another ambulance went screaming by.
“Are you all right?” Laura asked. “Are you at the hospital?”
“No, I’m at my son’s school. There’s a shooting going on.” Cars slowly drove by Ginny’s car, people looking toward the school. “I can’t really talk now, Laura, but I’ll see what I can find out. Should I call this number?”
“Yes, please. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I’m worried about her.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ginny started her car, turned the fan on full blast, and in moments warm air filled the interior. We didn’t talk during this time, simply sat staring toward the school entrance. After several minutes, to avoid the possibility of carbon monoxide, she turned off the engine. I heard, then saw, one of the two ambulances that had gone onto the school grounds come back to the main road, lights flashing and siren blaring. Again, the deputy stepped aside, and the ambulance sped by Ginny’s car, heading toward Zenith’s main intersection. It went through the flashing red light without stopping, past the library and post office, and on toward Kalamazoo. A part of me wanted to tell Ginny to follow the ambulance, wanted to arrive at the hospital when it did, so I could see who was inside. Reason told me to stay where I was, wait until I heard from Wade or at least knew who had been shot.
I expected to see the second ambulance leave soon after the first, but seconds went by
, then minutes, and no other vehicles came from the school. The car was getting cold, so Ginny started the engine again. “Waiting’s the hardest part,” she said.
I decided to call Anna. I might as well do something while waiting.
She didn’t answer her cell phone, so I left a message. Then I called Connie. If Anna was in labor, Connie should be with her, helping her give birth. That was the plan.
Connie didn’t answer, so I left a message. “Are you with Anna? If so, call when you can. Oh, and let her know Laura Parks at the charity is worried about her.”
“I might win a bet,” I told Ginny after I ended the message. “I bet Anna she’d have her baby before I had mine. Looks like I win.”
“You look like a sneeze might put you in labor,” Ginny said and turned on the radio. She switched from station to station, from music, to sports, to talk. “How is it I can get Chicago news but no local news,” she grumbled, and after several tries, she turned off both the radio and the car’s engine.
“Look!” I pointed toward the school’s driveway. A group of children were walking toward the main road, two adults with them, keeping them together. Small children. “Looks like they’ve let out the young fives or kindergarteners,” I said and opened the car door.
Parents rushed to where the deputy still stood by the entrance. He tried to stop them from going up the drive toward the children, but he couldn’t hold some of the parents back. I watched mothers and fathers race forward, then drop to their knees and hug their children. Ginny and I walked over to where the rest of the parents waited.
One mother headed for the two women who had come out with the children and for several minutes talked with them. Slowly she came back to where Ginny and I and dozens of other parents stood. “She said the kindergarteners were never in any danger. They heard shots, but don’t know who was shot or how many. They think the police have the situation under control.”
I noticed the deputy at the gate nodding as he talked on his shoulder radio. Moments later, he came closer to where I and the others were standing. “They’re letting them out in classroom groups,” he said. “Please wait until your child reaches the end of the driveway before you go to him or her.”
He should have saved his breath. As soon as the next group came into view, parents rushed past him to meet their children halfway. Ginny and I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Soon the cars parked along the side of the road had diminished to just a handful and only a few of us stood near the entrance. Finally, one father had had it. “I’m going up there,” he said and headed for the school building, ignoring the deputy’s demands to stop.
A woman followed him. Then another and another. I looked at Ginny, and we both started for the school. As we neared the building, I saw the second ambulance parked near the school’s side entrance door. Right next to it was the black pickup that I believed belonged to Daniel Hart. Several sheriff’s patrol cars surrounded the truck. The ambulance attendants were wheeling a gurney out of the school, the small body on it obviously a child’s. Boy or girl, I couldn’t tell. Bandages covered most of the face.
Two other children sat on a bench near the doorway. One had a white bandage wrapped around his upper arm, the other had a bandage covering his forehead. I didn’t see Wade, didn’t hear him come up behind me. “Jason’s okay,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and on Ginny’s. “Shaken up and crying, but okay. They’ll bring him out in a few minutes. They’re taking his statement.”
I leaned back against Wade’s firm body, the tension I’d been holding ever since hearing of the shooting easing out of me. Jason was all right. He wasn’t dead, wasn’t wounded. But there had been casualties. I looked up at Wade. “What happened? Was it Danny?”
Wade grunted his answer, then stepped back. The sheriff had just brought Danny’s father out of the building in handcuffs. “Gotta go,” Wade said. “Jason will tell you everything. When he comes out, he can go home.”
Wade joined the sheriff, and Ginny and I stepped to the side so the ambulance attendant could close the ambulance doors. Danny’s mother came out of the school next, crying. One of the ambulance drivers said something to her, and she nodded, then went to the truck her husband had been driving earlier. The ambulance pulled away, siren blaring and lights flashing, and the black truck followed.
It was then that I saw Howard talking to the principal’s secretary. I wasn’t surprised to see him at the school. I think he has one of those police scanners and probably knew about the shooting as soon as the police did.
I remembered the school secretary’s first name was April, but I couldn’t remember her last name. She was nodding at something Howard said, her cheeks shiny with tears. She turned when a short, stocky man with gray hair and a beard limped out of the school building. “Burt!” April cried out and rushed toward the man. “Oh my god, Burt. Are you all right?”
Burt shook his head, his shoulders slumped, and April wrapped her arms around him. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but I could tell he was crying, and I heard April say, “It’s all right. You had no choice.”
Howard saw us then and slowly walked over to join Ginny and me. “What a morning,” he said as he neared.
“Do you know what happened?” Ginny asked before I had a chance to say anything.
“Bits and pieces.” He nodded back at Burt and April. “She said Burt stopped him. All I can say is thank goodness. If he hadn’t, who knows how bad this could have been.”
The way Burt was dressed, in baggy jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, I didn’t think he was one of the teachers. Howard guessed my unspoken question. “Burt’s the custodian,” he said. “April said Danny was going down the hallway, shooting into walls, shooting at anything and everything when Burt stepped out from the cafeteria and hit Danny with a shovel. Hit him right in the head with the edge. Split his face wide open.”
I grimaced, the image of Danny Hart’s face cut open turning my stomach.
“Then, what does that idiot of a father do when he gets here?” Howard said. “Instead of being glad his son didn’t shoot more people than he did and is still alive, the guy goes after Burt. Starts throwing punches. Cussing. And, when one of the deputies tried to stop him, he starts fighting him.” Howard shook his head. “I hope they throw the book at the guy.”
I agreed, but it was something else Howard had said that bothered me. “You said it was good that Danny didn’t shoot more people than he did. We saw one ambulance leave. Do you know who was in that?”
Howard nodded. “Sandy.” He paused, and I could tell he was struggling with his emotions. “I don’t know if she’ll make it. From what April told me, Sandy planned on talking to the two boys, then she was going to take them to class and talk to their classmates. Jason was in her office when Danny walked into the building, pulled the gun, and started shooting.”
“Oh, my gosh,” was all I could say.
“She probably saved Jason’s life. April saw Sandy push Jason behind her. She was shutting the door when Danny shot her. Somehow Sandy must have managed to lock the door because April said Danny couldn’t get in. While he was shouting how he was going to kill everyone, April ran down the hall yelling ‘shooter in the school.’ ”
Howard looked over at the two students near the entrance. Each now had a parent close by, along with a teacher or sheriff’s deputy. “Her warning,” he continued, “alerted the teachers and they went into lockdown. I think those two were hit by fragments of wall sent into the rooms. If April hadn’t yelled the warning and Burt hadn’t stopped Danny it could have been worse. A lot worse.”
“The one I feel sorry for,” I said, “is Danny’s mother.” Her facial expression, when she climbed into the truck to follow the ambulance, had relayed her emotions. “Her son wasn’t nice to Jason, but still, he was her baby.”
“I’m more worried about Jason,” Ginny said. “I sure hope the principal survives.”
“They took her to Bronson,” Howard said. “As soon as I know
Jason’s all right, I’m going there.” He looked at her, then me. “I’ll call and let you two know how she’s doing.”
“Yes, keep us posted.” I was going to say more, but my cell phone rang. I considered ignoring it, then decided to at least see who was calling. It was Connie. All the while watching for Jason to come out, I answered. “Did she have a boy or a girl?”
Connie’s response was not what I expected. “I have no idea,” she said. “If we’re talking about Anna, the last time I talked to her she said she was feeling fine, just nervous about a report she had to give last night. Why, what have you heard?”
“She didn’t show up for the meeting. Didn’t give that report. And she’s not answering her phone.”
“Hmm, that is strange.” Connie made a clicking sound with her tongue, then went on. “Tell you what, P.J., I’ll call the two hospitals in Kalamazoo and see if, for some reason, she ended up in one or the other. I’ll let you know what I find out. And, if you hear from her, let me know. Okay?”
“Sounds good.”
“By the way,” Connie added, “I just heard on the radio there was a shooting at the school in Zenith. That’s where your stepson goes, isn’t it?”
“That’s where I am at right now,” I told her. “And I think I see Jason coming out. I’ll talk to you later.”
I ended the call before she had a chance to say anything. Both Ginny and I waved our arms and yelled, “Jason!”
He ran to me and buried his head against my side. His body shook with sobs, and I reached down and hugged him close. Ginny kneeled beside him. “It’s okay, honey,” both she and I repeated, over and over. “You’re okay.”