Ralph Epperson is seated in a comfortable lounge chair with his feet propped up on an old wooden coffee table. He is holding a beer in his right hand and has a black remote control at the ready on the left armrest of the padded, brown chair. His small fingers grip the beer bottle with lazy satisfaction as he watches a boxing match on HBO. The forty-five-year-old looks a bit grim with swollen, bloodshot skin under his eyes, thin tufts of messy, sweaty hair, and a wide face with beady brown eyes. There is a half-eaten can of beans on the nightstand to his right, and an old photo from his married days that came to an end over ten years ago.
His pale complexion is for the worse, having not spent quality time in the sun for months. The man is short in stature, but has a wider stance than most. His blue overalls help him to appear a bit larger, which is why he wears them even after he is done fixing cars for the day.
“Hell yeah!” The throaty southerner says with a smile as he watches the two men battle on the television. “Get him, Sanchez, knock that boy on his ass!”
The doorbell rings, and Ralph looks over at the entryway in infamy, having a serious dilemma about getting out of his chair to miss any of the fight. When it rings a second time, he takes a swig of his beer, removes his feet from the coffee table, and gets up to find out who is disturbing him this late.
Ralph scratches his head as he approaches the front door. After unlocking the deadbolt with a quick twist, he reaches down and pulls on the corroded, silver doorknob to open the large cedar door. As the door opens, he is shocked to see Ned Lawhorn standing on his porch pointing a .45 caliber Colt Revolver at his chest.
Sally drives like a mad bat out of hell, her jeep bouncing along the winding dirt roads as if she is filming a commercial. Her mind races with the possible scenarios that could be played out by her drunken boyfriend. She has been spinning her wheels on the plausibility of Ralph doing these things to get even with Ned after being sent to prison. Her face turns to a cavalcade of hatred as Sally considers a reality where Ralph would ever try to harm her boyfriend again. Although there is one thing bothering her as she weighs out the situation. If Ralph had been smart enough to send Mary with her bullshit story, and run over the dog, then who did he hire to run over the dog, and how was that orchestrated?
Sally racks her brain for an answer as she nears the Epperson home on the other side of town. Her foot presses down hard on the accelerator as she notices that Ned’s truck is already parked out in front.
“Just like that…” Ned says as he staggers around the rear side of Ralph’s car within the small garage.
Ned stands over Ralph, looking down at him with pride from his bright blue eyes. The mechanic is lying under his own car with the rear end jacked up enough for him to fit his chest under the heavy frame. His assailant is holding the jack handle, staring at him with a victorious smile, having wanted this for so long.
“That’s exactly how she was!” Ned confirms with a drunken misconception of authority, still pointing his pistol at Ralph’s head. “My little girl was pinned under your bus just like this. She laid there as it rolled over and crushed her chest. Assfixing her… Assfixying her to death.”
“I spent two years in prison!” Ralph evokes with a great deal of emotion and fear.
“And I spent ten years in hell!” Ned growls back, twisting the jack handle a bit to lower the car onto Ralph’s chest. “So what do you think will happen when this comes down on you? I think… I think it’s going to crush your heart. You know how they say... The breadbasket in karate? Well, this car is going to come down right on your breakbasket. I mean… breadbasket.”
“Don’t do this, Ned, I never meant to hurt your little girl!” Ralph pleads in a terrified panic, looking up at the frame of the two ton Chevrolet Corvette hovering just an inch above his body.
“You never meant to hurt her?” Ned asks with an irritated, drunken hatred. “You never meant to hurt her… You just had some beers, and decided you were good to drive a dozen or so kids home from school?”
“I was weak and I had a problem!” Ralph pleads from underneath the heavy steel as Ned begins to lower the car slowly.
“No, you’re wrong!” Ned says with a slur. “You are weak, but you haven’t had a real problem yet… not until now. Take a look at this heavy ass car coming down to crush your chest… This is what it feels like for a parent to lose their child… So if you can balance a car on your chest, and live, then I guess God has decided to spare your irresponsible ass? Or maybe we’ll just collapse a lung, and you’ll live on a breathing machine forever… Either way, it sounds like fun!”
Ned twists the handle further, watching the vehicle lower until the frame is compressing Ralph’s chest to the point where it is nearly snapping his ribs. At this point he stops lowering the car, watching his daughter’s killer suffocate and squirm, feeling like he is doing the righteous thing.
“Ned don’t!” Sally warns as she steps up to him in the garage. “He’s paid his debt to society; it’s not our job to decide his fate.”
“This is poetic justice, Sally, stay out of it!” Ned warns as he looks at her with a bit of confusion.
“Ned, you can’t end your life this way!” She insists with strong confidence. “Don’t you realize that someone has been playing us? These past few days with the rope, your dog getting run over by a drunk driver, and Mary lying about having sex with you?”
“I have wanted this for so long… Sally.” Ned replies with a selfish plea, her words barely registering in his mind. “If you know so much about justice, then why don’t you tell me what he deserves? Come on, Ms. Morality, tell me what he deserves for getting drunk and crushing my baby girl under his bus?”
“Forgiveness, Ned!” Sally says as she reaches out, pushing the pistol away from Ralph’s head and toward the ground. “He deserves your forgiveness… and so do you!”
Her words hit Ned like a sour batch of grapes from the bottom of a wine bottle. He closes his eyes for a moment, weighing out the importance of his rage versus his love for her, and then he looks down at Ralph’s terrified face.
“I forgive you.” He says slowly, reaching down to pump the jack handle a few times and release the pressure from Ralph’s chest.
“Thank you!” Ralph says with tears flowing from his eyes, feeling a deep wound closing after years of self-punishment. “I never wanted things to go the way they did… I think about it every day, Sir! It haunts me every day of my life! I’m so sorry!”
Ned begins to release a series of healing tears that are long overdue as he uses the jack to free the man from under the frame of the car. Then he dutifully places the pistol in the leather holster at his right side, and steps over to Sally for a drunken bear hug.
“I love you, my red hen.” Ned whispers with a sweet smile.
“I love you too, my crazy cowboy!” She replies with a wildly passionate kiss, grabbing her man by the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go home.” She says after the kiss, grabbing Ned by the hand and leading him out of the garage.
“Thank you for coming to get me, Sally.” Ned says with an exhausted smile, turning a bit to watch Ralph make his way back to the house behind them.
“Ned, I think something very strange has been happening in town these past few days.” Sally says as they walk down the driveway hand in hand. “I think someone in town has been messing with your head because they want you to kill Ralph.”
“Oh, geez, woman,” Ned laughs with a broad grin, “who would want me to kill Ralph?”
“The CIA!” A voice says quickly from behind Ned’s right ear as a gunshot explodes through the night sky.
Sally has only a moment to watch as Ned’s Colt .45 Revolver is pointed at his own face and fired, knocking off his cowboy hat and sending him backwards to the ground. The killer is in his late forties and has blue-gray eyes. His tufts of gray and brown hair blow a bit in the wind as he stares at Sally, and the young woman gets a good look at his face just before he shoots her in the right side of the head with Ned
’s pistol.
After Sally drops in a lifeless heap to the concrete driveway, Mason steps up closer to the dumpy white house on the Epperson property. He watches the front windows for a few seconds, turning every so often to see if anyone is coming out of the garage. Within a few seconds, Ralph’s round face appears in the window to investigate the gunshots, and Mason quickly makes it disappear with another shot from Ned’s pistol. He watches through the window for a moment longer, ensuring that the short mechanic isn’t moving, and then steps cautiously over to Ned’s body, kneeling down to place the pistol in his right hand.
Once the murder weapon is in place, Mason flexes his hands inside of his black, latex gloves, feeling a rush of pride from a job well done. He looks over the scene briefly, and then begins to jog back to his silver rental car that is parked nearly a hundred yards up the road. Mason makes good time as he returns to the car, his arms and legs moving swiftly in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a matching navy blue sweatshirt.
THE OBDAT – CHICAGO
“We’ve had a murder-suicide in Texas.” Mason announces from his headset.
“What happened?” Lorabell asks with a shocked expression, appalled at the thought of another suicide. “I didn’t even know that our subject was in play!”
“Yeah, I’m still trying to sort this out, but it looks like he went over to attack the bus driver that killed his daughter.” Mason confirms in a shaky voice.
“Did you have a chance to stop him?” Henri asks, turning to watch Lorabell’s reaction.
“Negative.” Mason reports with an uneasy tone. “We didn’t know anything was going down until it was done.”
“Okay, we’ll talk more when you get back from Texas.” Henri says with slow affirmation, shaking his head from side-to-side. “Good luck out there…”
“That’s fucking crazy!” Maxwell offers with wide eyes. “Two suicides this week!? Holy shit!”
“Now let’s calm down until we have all the details.” Henri reassures them. “We know these people are unstable; that’s why we were given permission to run this op. I just want to ensure that we don’t make the same mistake on the next case.”
PHILLIP AND LETISHA BELFORT
‘The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was so much simpler than this life of hell,’ Phillip thinks to himself, dangling the cell phone in front of his knee with his right hand. The young man keeps his eyes closed, trying to erase the horrific image from his mind, gripping the phone firmly as his heart begins to thunder with an unearthly fury. The text message he just received is by far the most foul and disturbing thing he has ever witnessed in his life.
In the war, there were men getting gut shot, with intestines hanging from their bodies. A few heads were torn apart by wayward bullets, and soldiers lost limbs at random intervals throughout the day. However, none of that compares to what he holds in the palm of his now trembling right hand. Tears of sorrow, pain, and fear stream in thick lines down his chiseled black face. For the first time since the war, Phillip buries his head in his hands and begins to rock back and forth, weeping spastically like a small child.
He thinks back to the previous night, a few hours after the Crips walked through his neighborhood; a car full of Bloods drove past his home with their stereo pounding. The men inside the car were making obscene gestures with their hands and tongues, thrusting their hips toward the home. Unfortunately, Letisha saw them through the window, and his wife went straight for the medicine cabinet, forcing Phillip to stop her from taking a bunch of pills.
“Oh my God..!” Phillip says to the emptiness of his front porch, biting the knuckle of his left index finger to repress the agony. “My baby! Look what they did to my baby…”
His biceps are tense with extreme hatred, feeling a raw surge of animal malice that festers from his jaw all the way to his toes. After a long period of denial, he finally decides to face the horror in the palm of his hand, knowing that the war never ended for him and his family. Phillip opens his eyes, showing the courage of a soldier as he turns the cell phone over and looks at the abomination that was text to him less than half an hour ago.
As the screen turns bright again, he sees the photo of his horribly battered wife, lying naked in the street and left for dead. The message that came with the picture reads: ‘Talkin’ to the cops won’t make it stop.’ He shakes all over inside as the fresh pain explodes from his center, stripping away every ounce of happiness he has ever known. His lovely flower and soul mate, stripped down and beaten like an animal by a pack of cowards in the street.
The photo had been described to him during the trial six months ago, but his loving wife had refused to show it to him, knowing he didn’t have the strength to see her in that much pain. Phillip’s stomach is twisting in knots, an empty, biting pain, raw and visceral; paramount to the suffering of that most sacred to him.
With renewed fury, the ex-marine gets to his feet, moving like a man on a mission, feeling like a predatory animal whose lair has been invaded. He moves back inside the house with the intensity of a heavyweight boxer, keeping his eyes to the ground and realizing what battle lies ahead. Phillip walks to the back bedroom and checks on Letisha, ensuring that she is still sound asleep from the pills that he did allow her to take.
After verifying that his wife is safe, he blows her a kiss, immersed in horrible regret for not being at home when the attack took place. With steady, powerful hands, Phillip grabs his cell phone and dials a familiar number, hoping for someone to answer.
“Dotty, this is Phil,” he says in a whisper, “you said I could call if we needed anything… Well, tonight I need you to come over and be here with Letisha…” He pauses for a moment, watching from his kitchen window as the neighbor’s bedroom light turns on. “Yeah, come on in the front door, I need to go take care of something… If you see anything strange or anybody tries something, I want you to call the police… No, nothing to worry about, just being careful… Okay, love you too, I’ll see you soon! Bye…”
The streetlights come toward Phillip’s blue, F150 Pickup Truck in perfectly symmetric rows as he drives across town to Inglewood. He keeps his eyes open for the familiar, spray-painted tags that will let him know when he has reached gang territory. After a few blocks, he begins to see black and red paint, showing off symbols on concrete walls created by the local Bloods. His chest seizes up with aggression and pain as he makes his way from one block to the next, something he has done many nights before. Unlike previous nights, he has the terrible image of his wife’s brutal assault burned into his mind, sent to him right after dinner by some anonymous coward.
Phillip notices a few drug dealers on the corner, but they are only around the age of thirteen, and he is not in the water for small fish tonight. His instincts tell him that there are much larger and more dangerous creatures somewhere just around the corner, lurking in the darkness behind their younger recruits. The .45 caliber pistol feels good against the palm of his hand. He grips it with the hollow desire for revenge, imagining the damage that he can do to these pieces of trash with one quick swipe of his hand. Gun violence is nothing new to this battle-hardened marine. He won’t be needing any liquid courage tonight, not with the proof of their evil deeds in his right pocket.
Phillip pulls over to the side of the road, hearing the familiar sound of rap music blaring through the neighborhood. He looks to his right in the side view mirror, watching a house just a bit to the rear of his vehicle. The place looks to be filled with gangsters, as it has been most other nights when he traveled this deep into his revenge fantasy. Almost everyone in the yard is wearing some form of red shirt or a singular bandana tied around one of their limbs. These are the big fish he has been looking for, the smarter, stronger bunch of hardcore thugs that run operations from the heart of Inglewood. In just the six short months since his return, asking questions and doing surveillance from his truck have helped him to pinpoint their center of operations.
Phillip pushes the pistol down the front of his pants near
his stomach, wanting the option to draw if he winds up on his back. He checks his tactical knife with the serrated edge, flipping it open using the single action, and then folding it back into place before putting it away. Phillip closes his eyes, taking a few deep breaths in preparation for the attack. His hand gently clutches the door handle and he opens it slowly, slipping out of the truck to the sidewalk. He immediately closes the door, pushing it just enough to hear the click. Then he starts to walk forward to the other end of the block; away from the house and loud rap music. Phillip knows that the gang members are watching him as he moves through their territory, especially for the fact that he is in their neighborhood, driving a large, blue truck; the color of their sworn enemies. He makes his way around the corner, ducking down behind a brick wall where he can wait for their suspicions to fade.
She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) Page 21