Blindshot

by Denis Coupal

  “What?” asked Bernier.

  “You said there was a moment when you thought you missed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long a moment? From when you shot to when you saw Carignan, or whoever, go down?”

  “Why?”

  “Did you hear any other shots?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I was panicked. It was dark, I couldn’t see!”

  “But you could hear.”

  Bernier said nothing.

  “Tell me again,” said Tom.

  So, Bernier described every detail of that fateful moment again, until he grew tired, and it was soon impossible for him to go on. The words were hard to get out, though he kept trying.

  Tom listened with more attention than he had ever given to anything in his life before. This was his mentor, his father figure, his friend. He owed him respect and care. Though Bernier was absolutely convinced of his responsibility for the shooting, however accidental, Tom’s police-trained intuition told him it wasn’t true. Something about it didn’t feel right. Something about the way the Police Chief described it all. Something about the timing of the incident itself—and the timing of Carignan’s reaction.

  He had to doubt what Bernier said, though he didn’t quite know why. Maybe it was just plain denial. He couldn’t believe Bernier had made the shot. And if he had, such a shot would cause its target to react instantly, without any delay—at least none that the human eye could perceive. Why did Bernier’s account, drunken though it was, insist on a moment’s delay after he’d pulled the trigger?

  This detail nagged at Tom.

  “I don’t want anything to do with you at all,” Lennox told Catherine. He looked at the three boys coldly. “I wish you would all go away. Beaufort was better before you came here and put in this huge house on the best hunting trail in the whole county. Brilliant, that was.”

  Lennox came to Jack, grabbed his hair in his fist and yanked him flat to the floor.

  “Stop it!” Catherine yelled.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” He kicked Jack in the gut. Jack curled up, moaning. Lennox enjoyed it. “What is my plan, you asked? Well, I’ll tell you what it is. First, we need to warm things up a bit.”

  Lennox went to the fireplace again and chose a long wooden match from a shiny ceramic vase. He walked across the living room to the fallen pile of books and struck the match.

  “Lennox, you piece of shit! I’m going to kill you!” screamed Jack from the floor.

  Lennox dropped the match among the books. A thin wisp of smoke rose up and thickened. “There we go! Now, back to the question of my plan. Pretty simple really. As far as anyone knows out there, I’m still a hostage and you’re hostage-takers,” said Lennox sarcastically. “So, I burn this place down like I should have done last year. With you in it! Poof, you’re gone! Fried to a crisp! And where did I go? Well, I just escaped, lucky to be alive! Bet you news reporters come and interview me! Call me a hero!”

  “They’ll call you a sick loser,” said Noah brazenly. “Forensics will show we were all tied up. How would we start a fire if we were tied up? They’ll know it was you, you numbskull!”

  “Easy, Noah!” said Catherine.

  “He’s such an idiot!” said Noah.

  Lennox grew furious. He grabbed Jack and smashed his head to the floor. The others all screamed at him, then quieted down out of concern for Jack, who twisted and moaned, very much alive but hurting like hell.

  “You’re a monster,” said Catherine to Lennox.

  Lennox disappeared into the kitchen, rummaged around, then reappeared with keys in his hand with a rabbit’s foot dangling.

  “Then I explain I got free somehow, that we fought for my keys and I got away. You know, by the time this house burns, there’ll be nothing left. They won’t tell your charred bodies from the bits of rope that are left.” He threw the keys in the air, as if by habit, and caught them again by the rabbit’s foot.

  “You know what the trick is to starting a nice fire? Eh? You don’t know I bet. The Carignans are not really outdoorsmen. No, you guys are geeks. Private school nerds. Don’t know anything about a good campfire. Trick is simple, really. It’s to give it attention while it’s starting up. Simple as that. Stay there and watch it. If it needs wood, you put more. If it needs air, you blow on it.”

  Meanwhile, the piles of books were flaring up, thousands of pages blackening in the orange heat. A thick grey smoke made its way around the helpless Carignan family and Zeph.

  “And then the trick is leaving it alone,” he continued, “and waiting for it to grow.” Lennox kneeled low, raised his undershirt up over his mouth and nose, and stayed perfectly still, as if meditating.

  Noah was the first to cough. The entire house was quickly consumed in smoke and flames. All of them were having difficulty breathing, except for Lennox.

  “Have a great evening!” he said, waving as he left them.

  Jack kicked and wriggled, but it was useless. Zeph did the same. Catherine was bound too tightly to move a muscle.

  “What do we do?” she yelled. “What do we do? Help! Help! Help!”

  “Mom! Mom! Stop,” said Jack. “They can’t hear you outside. You built it that way, remember?”

  “Oh, my sons, what have I done?”

  Zeph fell on his side, struggling against his ropes.

  “It’s not your fault, Mom. We did this,” said Jack.

  The orange and red flames crawled up the walls.

  The Police Chief’s monologue had faded to silence. Bernier was asleep.

  Tom watched him a long moment.

  Then his cell phone broke the silence. He put it to his ear.

  “What!”

  It was Hanes on the other end. “Get back here, Brooder, the whole place is burning!”

  “I’m on my way!” He took a quick glance at Bernier, who was snoring, then back and ran upstairs, grabbing the rifle at the door. “Get everybody out of there! Get those kids out of there!” he yelled into his phone as he ran.

  “Put all this away for me, and only me!” he instructed Gabrielle, handing her the Morrison rifle and dumping the ammunition on a counter.

  As he moved to the front door, he could see that Gabrielle wanted his thoughts on her anguished husband and his horrible confession. “What do we do now?” she begged him.

  “Let him sleep it off,” he told her. “For the rest, I’ll figure it out.”

  She stared at him. She had run out of tears.

  “Those poor boys,” said Gabrielle.

  “I have to go,” was all Tom could say.

  She watched him run out to his truck.

  Tom drove exceedingly fast along Chemin Van Kleet, dust flying behind him. The narrow road was never safe, certainly not this speed. If a buck decided to cross through, neither Tom nor the buck would make it.

  When he saw smoke rising from the roof of the Carignan house, he accelerated even more, then slowed barely enough to control his turn into the driveway. Then he jumped out of his truck, not bothering to turn off the ignition or even shut the door.

  There was a lot of activity—even more cars than before, curious neighbours, some in housecoats and pajamas. Mayor O’Neil was in the gardens, flanked by her staff. She called out to him.

  “Tom, Tom, over here!” she called.

  Tom ignored her and ran up the gardens to the opposite end of the Carignan house, where he figured Hanes must be attempting to control the situation. Jonathan, the pizza-delivery boy, was snapping photos. The fire crew was trying to move the big fire truck closer to the house.

  Easier said than done. Some cars had been moved, and the barricade was coming down, but there were still too many vehicles blocking the way.

  Tom finally found Hanes, who was pitching in with a group of Beaufort volunteer firemen trying to ram th
eir way through the rear entrance of the house. The thick steel doors were not giving way. Hanes took Tom aside.

  “Doesn’t look like we can get in from here!”

  “You’ve got to get the ladder to the broken window over on the front! It’s the only way! Hurry!” said Tom.

  “Yeah, they’re moving the truck!” Hanes was exasperated. “How the fuck did the fire start? And move so fast?”

  “Move that ladder to the roof! Go!”

  Hanes ran off.

  Tom tore past the firefighters ramming at the rear entrance to the window wall. He could see nothing inside the house. The tall vertical window louvers were closed, and dark grey smoke filled every gap. He ran to see Hanes’s progress with the fire truck. There was no progress. The truck was stuck behind too many vehicles, and it would take too long to move them.

  Then, at the far end of the house, a garage door rolled open. Lennox’s pick-up truck, headlights on, raced out, with Lennox at the wheel. Smoke billowed around the truck from inside the garage.

  Tom was stunned. Did Lennox have everyone with him? Did he save them?

  No! There was nobody with him, not in the cab, not in the open rear box.

  Lennox drove off, as fast as he could, through what remained of the barricade, spraying gravel and dust behind him on his way out to Chemin Van Kleet,

  Tom ran down toward the garage.

  “Get the door, somebody!” he shouted as he ran. But no one was nearby.

  The garage door had begun to close. Tom practically dived at the door, but its thick steel panels closed tight when he was inches away.

  “Fuck!” cursed Tom, and he kicked the door hard.

  The fire truck had made it a few feet closer to the house, through the great mess of cars and onlookers. Tom’s staff, even with the addition of fire crew, were not going to be able to deal with the fire. Tom coughed from the smoke. The heat coming from the solid building was ferocious.

  Tom ran to his open truck, shut the door, and kicked down the accelerator. He roared into a spin and took his truck down the driveway to Chemin Van Kleet.

  Hanes saw him head off. “Where the fuck’s he going now?” he said to Kearns. Both were covered in soot and dirt.

  At Chemin Van Kleet, Tom turned left, racing as fast as his truck could go, looking for an opening in the trees that lined the road. When he spotted one, he wrenched the wheel, hard left, throwing the truck squarely over the culvert and into the sloping fields of the valley below the Carignan house. He kept accelerating into the open field, then took another hard left until truck faced upwards on the slope, in a straight line from the Carignan house.

  Tom had a flash. A white fog. A girl he had loved and could not save. Chaos. Death. Helplessness. Regret. Tragedy. Damage.

  So be it, he thought.

  He brought the pedal down to the floor. The truck bucked forward as Tom held the wheel straight and hoped he’d estimated right. He was bracing himself, but deep down he didn’t care about himself at all. He wanted to bust the biggest hole possible into the giant ahead.

  The distance closed. Tom closed his eyes and threw himself flat across the passenger seat. The truck barrelled into the window wall.

  Crash!

  The pick-up broke through, glass and louvers coming apart in pieces, falling all around. The wheels of the truck landed in the living room. The axles snapped, wheels bore down, the shell of the truck peeled back, and the cab buckled where it connected to the rear box. The back of the truck stayed jammed at the broken window wall, the rest of it flattened into the middle of the living room.

  Smoke wrapped around Tom on the front seat of the cab. Flames, fed by the new source of air, curled around the broken truck. Tom struggled to free himself and rush to the opening he had created.

  “Hanes! This way, Hanes!” he yelled, then coughed. He got on his hands and knees and crawled under the thicker smoke in the living room, until coming to what he knew was one of the boys. He couldn’t tell who it was right away. He grabbed the boy and pulled him. It was Noah.

  “Noah!” he yelled. The boy was unconscious.

  Tom tugged at the ropes that held him. He couldn’t get him free. He let go of the boy, temporarily, so he could follow the rope through the smoke to where it was tied. He pulled with all his might, and the rope finally broke, sending him backward. He rolled on his side and made his way back to Noah. He dragged him, and finally was able to pick up the boy and run to the opening in the window wall, where he was met by Hanes.

  “Take him!” Tom yelled, coughing. Hanes grabbed Noah and headed out to the field outside, screaming for attention.

  “I’ve got a boy here!” shouted Hanes, who had found Zeph and was helping him to safety. Kearns came to their aid. The remaining cops and volunteer firemen pushed through the window opening.

  Tom crawled back to the same location, or so he estimated, and desperately tried to locate the others.

  He could see nothing. Then he finally spotted a moving form, blue—a blue shirt. Tom reached out and felt a hand. It was Catherine.

  He could barely see her, his eyes stinging while flames burned at his side. He yanked at her, but she pulled back, insistent. Hoarsely, she yelled back at Tom.

  “It’s Jack! He’s stuck!”

  Despite all the smoke, all the flames biting at her, Catherine pulled fiercely at her unconscious boy and the broken beams and ropes holding him down.

  Tom pulled at the ropes around the boy, but nothing seemed to give. Catherine and Tom coughed in the thick smoke.

  The rope was too strong. Tom pulled out his police .38 from his holster and pressed it against the knot in the ropes. “Stay back,” he shouted to Catherine. Tom fired two shots, one after the other.

  Bang! Bang!

  The knot gave way. Tom dropped the gun. He and Catherine pulled Jack free. They ran back, to the opening, half-carrying the boy through the darkness between them, finally breaking through and dropping down on the grass.

  “We need help here! Help this boy!” shouted Tom.

  Tom wiped soot from his burning eyes and crawled close to Jack, Catherine and the first responders. He couldn’t tell if the boy was alive or not. One fireman performed mouth-to-mouth, as another held Catherine away. She was coughing terribly.

  Tom dragged himself up, pulled his shirt up to wipe his face. He was coughing, too, as though he would never stop coughing.

  The boy finally coughed. He was alive, thank God.

  Officer Kearns stepped up to Tom and showed him a dusty rifle.

  “Got this from inside. It’s one of the boys’ rifles, I think.”

  “So what?” asked Tom, irritated.

  “Thought you should know,” said Kearns insistent, reaching over and snapping the bolt action open, retrieving a bullet. Tom took it in his hands.

  “You were using blanks?” Tom asked Jack.

  Jack shrugged. “Bought them online,” he said, between coughs.

  “We weren’t really going to shoot anyone!” Noah added.

  “Goddam blanks,” muttered Tom.

  “Lennox,” said Jack, coughed some more. “Lennox tied us up! Started the fire!”

  The fire engulfed the Carignan house.

  Another fire surged, white hot, within Tom. This was on his watch, and it had all gone far enough. The boys were all safe now and being attended to. First responders had provided oxygen masks and blankets and were checking their vitals.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Officer Hanes’s police cruiser spin its wheels and race off, but Officer Hanes was standing near to where Tom was, securing the path for an ambulance.

  “Where’s Catherine Martelle?” shouted Tom.

  Hanes shrugged.

  Catherine was the one driving the cruiser! She was going after Lennox herself. A brave, crazy thing to do.

  To fin
d him, Tom quickly considered, she would likely head out to Lennox’s home on the southeastern edge of Beaufort County. He might beat her there if he cut across the valley on the dirt road between the Carignan property and that part of the county. Catherine would probably take the dirt road, and it was possible Tom would have five minutes on her, maybe ten, if he drove fast.

  Really fast.

  Catherine tried to get her breath back as she drove. She was still expelling smoke from deep in her lungs, and her eyes burned like she had never felt before. While she was trying to save Jack, jagged metal from a broken window frame had slashed her waist. She was bleeding, but she figured it was a flesh wound. Whatever it was, it was nothing like the bullet that killed Paul. None of her feelings were important right now. All she wanted was to wrench Lennox’s head off his shoulders. Somehow, she would find the strength. Her family had endured enough. She was ready to destroy, the primal urge coming from deep within her.

  She pressed the accelerator, propelled by rage.

  Tom Doran was racing toward the same destination in another police cruiser, lights flashing, siren squealing. He ran his sleeve across his face, wiping soot and sweat. He had never been to Lennox’s house, but he knew exactly where it was. He hooked off onto Chemin du Moulin, forcing himself to slow down, make less noise. He brought the car to a stop on the edge of Lennox’s land, a small, narrow property that sank down to an old, grey, two-storey house and a cluster of evergreens. An eight-point set of whitetail antlers, set upon a withering wood fence, marked the entrance.

  Tom stepped out of the cruiser and edged his way along the boundary of the property. He kept moving forward. His whole body was hurting.

  As he got closer to the house, he went to pull out his .38. His holster was empty. He’d dropped his gun in the fire while rescuing Jack. He would have to improvise.

  Tom walked around Lennox’s pick-up truck, which was parked near the front of the house. He followed the side of the house to the back yard. There was nothing there except a small barbecue, a worn-out wooden table, and a rusty metal tool shed. A black and white target, the kind used in darts, was pinned to a pole at the back of the yard. Small slits covered its surface, indicating to Tom that Lennox had practiced knife throwing. Tom came close to the rear door, walking softly until he was directly in front of it. There was a loose post in the balcony railing, to his right. He leaned over and grabbed it, yanking it free.