But soon, the Internet would be buzzing about Wallace. Social pages would be updated with breathless posts of I was in grade school with that guy, he used to pick his nose and wipe boogers on his Toughskins. Wallace would be summed up in 140 characters or less: Dude, that guy is my boss. Total dick. Always knew he would snap. In fact, in just a few hours, Wallace Biggsby would be trending on Twitter.
She said she was going to leave him. That she was taking the kids and going. She wanted more from life. That they weren’t right for each other. They’d grown apart.
She didn’t come right out and say it, but he knew the grease smell bothered her, too. No matter how often he bathed, Wallace always smelled vaguely of deep fryer oil and the reconstituted onions used on the hamburgers and Big Macs. They used to joke about it. It was cute. But she never kidded him about it anymore. He knew that she had grown to hate the way he smelled. It was a symbol to her. It was everything that was wrong in their lives.
She said he didn’t love her anymore. He was distant.
Distant? Well of course he was distant. He was working his fucking—forgive me, Lord—ass off to support her and the children. He was away working himself to death dealing with acne-faced teenagers who had zero respect for anything in this world. So yes, he was distant.
He was not going to let her take his children and leave him. He was not going to let another man step into his life and be a husband to his wife and a father to his children. A man who in all likelihood would not smell of grease and onions. A man with ambitions. Wallace could not abide that.
Working fast food didn’t mean you weren’t ambitious. A lot of famous people have worked at McDonald’s. It’s true. Jeff Bezos. Jay Leno. Sharon Stone. James Franco had worked the drive-thru, and Star Jones had gone from fry cook to cashier. It didn’t have to be a dead-end job. Wallace knew he would likely never get his own talk show or found a Web-based multinational company. But he could be a district manager. He knew he had that in him.
Ellen said he’d changed. That he was a different person now. Well, didn’t she think she’d changed, too?
He had images of pushing Ellen’s head into a vat of boiling oil. See if she still wanted to leave him then. And that violent thought had made him feel good. He was a good man having bad thoughts. He thought of the gun hidden in his closet in a box marked TAX DOCUMENTS. He retrieved the gun. The gun made him feel powerful. In control.
He walked down the hall of his red brick ranch-style house, holding the gun at his side. It was a .38. He’d bought it for protection.
He opened the door to Christopher’s bedroom. It was empty. Stripped of everything. Carly’s bedroom was the same. Barren. And his and Ellen’s room. Empty. She’d robbed him. He had nothing. They were gone. Ellen had taken the children and left him.
He wanted to die. Was ready to die. Fuck it. Fuck it all. Fuck the grease, fuck the teenagers, fuck the district manager position, fuck Ellen, fuck living. And fuck God. That’s right. Fuck every last motherfucking motherfucker in the motherfucking world. Fuck it. Just fuck it.
He was going to shoot himself. A bullet right through his brain. That’s what he told the 911 dispatcher. He just needed a little help.
He was a good man.
#wallacebiggsby was trending.
* * *
They were in position. Belly down on a hilltop amongst a patch of prickly yellow star thistle. The sun beat down on them, baking them in their brown and tan desert BDUs. They watched the modest brick ranch house below. It looked just like the other houses in the neighborhood, except there were several patrol cars parked in front of it.
“Okay. We’ve got this guy contained with the perimeter team. He’s armed, but has no hostages. Our job here is to provide high cover while the negotiators try to talk him out of the house.”
“Well, at least it gets us out of training in this heat.”
“Training isn’t a chore. It’s what keeps you alive. This will probably be over in about fifteen minutes.”
Jacob’s mind was consumed with the shooting death of Captain Bryant. And he couldn’t help but believe that the showmanship aspect of it had been intended for him alone. The sniper could have taken Bryant out with a single shot—done in one—while he waited for the school bus with his children. Or likely a thousand other times before that moment. Jacob knew. A sniper did not just climb a hill and pop off a shot thirty minutes later. That’s not the way it worked. A sniper located his target or the place that target was likely to appear. Then the sniper staked out a position above his target, in this case the crest overlooking Bryant’s house in Vista Canyon. He would probably assume a position on his belly, setting the bipod on his weapon. The bipod was collapsible so it folded flat against the gun while in transit, and was then flipped out to hold the barrel up while the back end, the stock, was on the ground, or nestled into the sniper’s shoulder. Without the bipod extended, the barrel was always lower than the target, and thus below the point of aim a little.
Once in this position you could see a sniper settle and melt into his weapon. They became one. Breathing changed, everything.
But there was work that went into making a shot before the rifle was even taken out of its case or sheath. In larger jurisdictions with heavy gang, drug, prostitution, fugitive hunts, etc., law enforcement sharpshooters were always absorbing information. Up until the point they jumped down the rabbit hole, they were diagramming houses and buildings, sketching the geography and physical layout of the property. How many ways in and out were there? What does the target person drive? Which vehicles never move? What’s his routine? What was the collateral risk? Who comes and goes? The variables were endless. Human behavior, the way your target held his body, the way he walked, swung his arms, the rhythm of his gait. There were facial recognition points, in case someone grew a beard or shaved one off, cut their hair, or had extensions put in, or simply put on big sunglasses and a floppy hat.
Collateral concerns. Were there kids in the house? Is the target guy actually there or did he just leave? Is it safer to stop him on the road or wait until he comes back to the house? It all evolves and changes as the sniper hunts and stalks. It was better with an observer, a spotter. The observer just keeps eyes on everything. But it felt unlikely Bryant’s shooter had a partner. And of course the sniper has to be invisible, too. Ghillie suits were good for that. For invisibility.
Assigned to guard a witness, Jacob had once built a hollow metal air-conditioning unit on the roof of a building across the street from the store of the man he’d been charged with protecting. He sat in the metal box for three days and kept eyes on a high traffic area where the stakes were much higher for civilian interaction. He never pulled the trigger, and no one ever knew he had even been there.
“How do you know this’ll be over in fifteen minutes?”
“He’s the one who called 911.”
Kathryn cupped her hand over her ear.
“Copy. Suspect to exit by the front door. Team Two ready and in position.”
Jacob looked at Kathryn and raised an eyebrow. Then returned to the rifle scope and lost himself.
Kathryn said, “So? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
Her tone changed to all-business. “Front door opening. He’s coming out.”
The front door swung wide. The man had one hand behind his back.
“Gun,” Kathryn said.
“I see it.”
Kathryn thumbed her mic.
“Suspect has a gun in his right hand. Handgun. In suspect’s right hand.”
Below them, Wallace Biggsby strolled out onto the front walk. He stopped about halfway and closed his eyes. Clinched. Like he was gathering courage. He brought the weapon out from behind his back and put the barrel in his mouth. He pulled back the hammer. And held that pose, shaking.
Kathryn and Jacob could hear the shouts from below, the clearest being Billy Simon, “Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air!”
Wallace opened his eyes. He un
cocked the gun and pulled it out of his mouth, trailing stringers of saliva. Tears smearing his cheeks, he gestured with the gun—toward the police on the street, in his front lawn. The blue line ebbed back.
“He’s brought the gun out.”
“I can see that.”
“You’ve got the green. Men are in danger.”
Jacob simply stared through the scope, finger on the trigger.
Biggsby now held the gun down, at his side. He stared at the police presence the way an animal will look at humans that are watching it in a zoo—with mild curiosity.
Now Baker’s voice was prominent. “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air. Do it now!”
Jacob had the man in his sights. Caught in his reticle. His finger resting lightly on the trigger. It would be an easy shot. Cold barrel. No wind. No obstructions. No known collateral.
The man wiped his tears with his left hand. He looked around, curiosity morphing into bewilderment. How did it come to this?
Below, Baker repeated, “Drop the gun now! Drop it!”
It was often better to stick to one clear message. In the end, all any of them wanted was for the man to drop the gun. Anything else could wait for later.
Wallace Biggsby’s hand began to shake and tremble. He brought the gun up, tilted the barrel, but overall, it was still pointed downward. If it discharged, the bullet would go in the ground.
Kathryn said, “Jesus, Jacob. What the hell are you waiting for?”
Now Simon’s voice floated up, “I need to see your hands! Now drop the gun, damnit! Don’t make us do this.”
The man raised the gun ever so slightly more.
Baker moved out from behind his squad car door.
Simon, off script, said to Baker, “The fuck you doing?”
“Relax, it’s okay.”
Kathryn said, “Jacob…”
“Easy, partner.”
Jacob’s finger tensed on the trigger. He was prepared to end this in a heartbeat. He knew that Baker putting himself forward like that was a vote of confidence. That he trusted Jacob to protect him. Baker wanted to stay alive as much as the next guy. He wasn’t stupid.
Baker, hands open, said, “C’mon man, you don’t want to do this. Just drop it now.” Baker quieted his voice in the same way he’d physically opened up his body.
Biggsby lifted the gun higher and Jacob’s finger began a slow deliberated squeeze.
Baker said, “You agreed to come out and give up the gun. Let’s end this. Drop it.”
Biggsby’s hand steadied for a brief second, then it came up so that it was pointing straight at Baker. In that same motion, Biggsby relaxed his hand, and the gun fell to earth. He sank to his knees and began sobbing into his hands.
Uniformed officers and SWAT members rushed to him, kicked the weapon out of the way and put him facedown on the lawn, then cuffed him.
Jacob relaxed his hand.
“Why the hell didn’t you take the shot?” Kathryn was genuinely stunned. She would have put the man down. “He could have killed one of us.”
“He didn’t.”
Jacob inspected his rifle, thumbed back the bolt, ejected the unused .308 cartridge, and snatched it out of the air. He studied it a moment and then pocketed it.
“Listen closely, because I will never say this again. When I am in the reticle, I am gone. I’m not here or there. I’m in a kind of middleground. And when I’m in the middleground, you are my eyes and ears. I depend on you for that. But you were badgering me while I was in the middleground. Stick to your job. I will train you. I will tell you why I did A or B, but don’t ever tell me when to pull the trigger. Understand?”
Sesak looked wounded. Jacob was putting up a wall, marking boundaries, defining their roles.
“Never tell the primary when to discharge his weapon. I am the primary. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Now ask your questions.”
“He was a threat to the officers. I thought we were providing them cover. Keeping them safe.”
“We did.”
“Why didn’t you shoot?”
“Because he wasn’t a threat to anyone. He didn’t take hostages. He hadn’t harmed anyone. He just wanted to die. But he didn’t have the guts to take his own life, so he tried the next best thing. Suicide by cop.”
Jacob realized that he had become quite talkative of late. Chatty. A shrug would have made a far better answer to Sesak’s question.
From below, Simon caught Jacob’s eye. Simon pointed his finger like a gun and fired it at Jacob. His smile was filled with contempt.
Jacob said, “Looks like Simon sees it your way.”
“Because the man could have fired upon our officers. He held that gun a long fucking time.”
“I could have killed him faster than he could have ever shot Baker. That knowledge gives me leeway, because I know that a precisely placed shot will stop all motor function instantly. There’s no way the gunman could have shot and hit any of the officers.”
Jacob slung his rifle over his shoulder.
“Besides, he never would have fired it.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I saw it in his eyes.” Jacob debated whether or not to say what it was he saw in Wallace Biggsby’s eyes. But he realized that he had come to the point in his life that his own father had once come to in his.
He was ready to give instruction. Godly instruction.
“He wasn’t a wolf.”
And there it was. The truth. He had spoken the truth.
CHAPTER 9
Cameron County was seven thousand square miles. Massive by most standards. It had vast expanses of unspoiled rural beauty that still echoed with the promises of the gold rush. Morgan City was the county seat, a business center with congested streets and tall buildings that gave way to suburban sprawl and clusters of pastel houses on treeless lawns plunked down amongst TAN/NAIL/LIQUOR strip malls. Vista Canyon was the newly developed upscale community for the upwardly mobile.
And there was Hangtown, an urban center similar to Sacramento. It was here that the affluent (who had not yet fled to Vista Canyon) and the abject poor gathered. The middle class stuck to the suburbs.
Like most cities, Hangtown had its red brick rows of public housing, the neighborhoods where the gas station convenience stores posted signs that they accept food stamps—CalFresh EBT cards.
This was where Lee Staley lived. Lee “Harvey Oswald” Staley they had called him, once upon a time. “Oswald.” Sometimes just “Oz.” It was still how he thought of himself. And truly, that was where he was now, the land of Oz. With his retirement pension and disability compensation, he could have set himself up in a pale green split-level in the suburbs, but Hangtown was where he had been drawn.
He had let himself go. He knew that much. The truth was, he wasn’t entirely sure how it had all come to this. He lived in Warter Estates, amongst the dopers and the deviants. The disabled and chronically unemployed. The single mothers who turned afternoon tricks to make ends meet. The woman upstairs who performed homegrown plastic surgery on teenage girls—injecting them with silicone purchased from Home Depot. The misfits. The relegated.
The forgotten.
The cops had a name for it when one of their own checked out, turned his back on the regular world and the people who populated it. The ones who couldn’t hack it anymore. The ones who grew overwhelmed with seeing just how deep our society had eroded, and had to divorce themselves from it. No cop was ever going to tell you his partner took early retirement due to an overwhelming spiritual angst—your garden variety existential crisis. No, they had a truer name for it. It was a poetic term. Oz liked it. He liked the poetry of it. They would say, That guy? Oh, he burned out. Now he’s a blue recluse.
Maybe, in the end, that was all he really wanted. To be a blue recluse. To forget and to be forgotten.
But why? Why go gentle into that good night? Why be forgotten? Why fade away?
The booze was
certainly helping him get there, though. He was forgetting himself. Erasing his mind one drink at a time. He’d grown fond of Old Crow. They called it bourbon, but they might as well have labeled it amnesia in a bottle. It made you forget. And when you weren’t drunk enough to forget, the paralytic hangovers made you too sick to care.
It was a good balance. Too drunk to remember. Or too sick to care. Life was good that way.
But there was the middleground. That in-between time. The middleground could be a nuisance. The time when your stomach sourly revolted at the thought of the day’s first shot of Old Crow. When you had to put food in your belly, but what you really craved was alcohol. It was the time when your existence crept into that shadow world called sobriety. That was a bitch. A real motherfucker. The state of sobriety was a motherfucking bitch. Luckily, it wasn’t a state Oswald had to enter very often. He preferred the country of the forgotten. He would go drunk into that good night.
But what was it he wanted to forget? Nothing. There was nothing to forget. The shooting. Of course the shooting. That was what everybody thought had happened to him. (At least those who thought of him at all. Here in the dim nation of the forgotten, where the light had died long ago, invisibility was issued along with your passport.) But Oswald knew it wasn’t the shooting. He knew that. He had made peace with that long ago. He was good. It’s all good.
Sometimes when he found himself in that in-between place, that middleground, and the thoughts were flowing whether he wanted them to or not, Oswald thought about Julius Edenfield.
Julius Edenfield was a good cop. Nobody ever said otherwise. And he had his head on straight. He was solid. As solid as they come.
Edenfield was involved in a fatal shooting while on patrol. Nothing to do with SWAT or the kind of calculated killing Oswald had saturated himself with.
A guy pulled a gun on his partner, and Edenfield shot him.
He was never the same afterward. And no, he didn’t become a stumbling drunk or even a blue recluse. He was just. Never. Quite. The same.
It was a clean shooting. A good shooting. Everyone said so. Even Edenfield himself. But he was different. And the thing is, no cop ever knows how he’s going to react after a shooting. After taking another human being’s life. Even if it’s self-defense. And the risk of change remains whether it’s the officer’s first suspect killed in the line of duty, or the fifth. No one ever knows just how it affects the guy. Just exactly what thoughts a killing will set loose in someone’s head. No cop thinks it will be him or her who gets the bad reaction. They think, I would never feel bad or guilty or uncertain if I took a life in self-defense or to protect the safety of the innocent. That’s my calling. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m wearing this uniform. The idea that doing what they were born to do could somehow fuck them up was an idea of utter lunacy.
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