I’m filled with such rage that I seem to black out a moment.
I find it infuriating that a disgraced, bitter old bent cop is going to have the opportunity to pile on with lies and vitriol to the biggest audience possible in an attempt to not only destroy me but take my daughter away from me.
“John?” Susan is saying. “John? John, are you there?”
“All I did was my job,” I say. “Tried to keep kids from getting killed.”
“I’m sure you did,” she says, “but if you killed one in the process . . .”
“I didn’t. I haven’t. It wasn’t like that and he’s not dead.”
“I’m not saying what it was like,” she says. “I have no idea. I’m telling you how it looks and why someone like Dad has an opening. That’s all.”
“Can I speak to Johanna?” I say.
“I think you need to calm down first,” she says. “Think you need to get your head right, your anger under control before you do, don’t you?”
“I’m fine, but even if I wasn’t, you know I don’t let anything affect how I am with her. I wouldn’t—”
“I was just about to feed and bathe her,” she says. “Use that time to try and pull yourself together. I’ll call you after that and we’ll see what kind of shape you’re in.”
“I’m together,” I say. “I’m fine to talk to her now and I need—”
I stop as I realize the only person I’m talking to is myself.
Consumed with anger and frustration, I decide the best thing for me to do is go for a run, then come back and try to meditate.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Anna asks when I tell her.
I nod.
“Want me to go with you?”
“I’m okay,” I say. “Really, I’ll be fine.”
“Want to see Taylor before you go?” she asks. “I can tell she senses something is going on.”
The truth is I want to wait until I get back, don’t want to do anything but run as fast and as far as I can with hard, driving music being pumped into my brain through my earbuds, but I say, “Absolutely. Of course.”
Following a quick visit with Carla, John, and Taylor, and lots and lots of hugs and love from Taylor, I’m stepping out our side door to go running when I see them.
Descending onto our lawn like a swarm of pestilence are members of the media.
As I stumble back into the mudroom and realize I’m now a prisoner here in my own home, the first thought I have is how I’m going to get the vodka from my car into the house later tonight without being seen.
Coming up behind me, Anna says, “I’ll call Reggie and have her send some deputies over to get them off our property. Why don’t you go ahead and take a shower and I’ll fix you something to eat? I’ll also finish the statement I’ve been working on in my head and let you read it. If you approve it, I’ll walk out there and give it to them tonight. Be a lot better tonight in terms of the news cycle anyway.”
While I’m in the shower, I get the text I’ve been expecting from Susan. She fell asleep. We can try again tomorrow night if you’re in a better way.
I’m overcome with an intense urge to break something but manage to refrain from hurling my phone at the hardest surface I can find.
After slowly drying off and getting dressed, I walk into the kitchen to find my dinner on the table, the media out of our yard, and Anna dressed in her best gray skirt and white blouse, anxious to get my approval on the statement she has crafted so she can go out and read it to the reporters now blocking our road.
She couldn’t look any sharper or more confidently competent. She has been a stay-at-home mom for so long I had forgotten just how incredibly professional and badass beautiful she can be in her official capacity as an officer of the court.
I listen attentively as she reads the statement and give her my unreserved and instantaneous approval to go and drop it on the unsuspecting, outmatched members of the media—something I would have done anyway, even if the statement hadn’t been as perfect as a poem—because while the reporters are distracted by my beautiful and brilliant wife, I sneak out to my car and bring in the various size bottles I plan to strategically hide all over the house.
309
Do you have any idea how hard it is to have to fight a war inside your own head every single second of every single day? Of course I want to put a bullet in my brain.
The next morning a little hungover, I am interviewed by FDLE about my use of deadly force.
Anna is with me, and though the rules don’t allow for her to say anything, her presence has a huge impact on the entire proceeding. She radiates confidence and reassures me just by the way she sits beside me. She is assertive without being aggressive, forceful without exerting any overt force, persistent without being pushy—and all of this before the interview even begins.
“This is a first for me,” the middle-aged male FDLE agent conducting the interview says. “Never interviewed an officer represented by his wife.”
With his salt-and-pepper high-and-tight haircut, white shirt, black tie, and black slacks, he looks more 60s era FBI than modern FDLE.
“If the man who represents himself has a fool for a client,” he says, “what is the man who’s represented by his wife?”
“In my case,” I say, “a genius.”
“Before we begin,” he says, “I just want to say how sorry I am that this happened, that you were ever even put in a position like this. I’m not here to trip you up, not out to get you. I’ll be square with you all the way through. You can count on that. I also want to say before we start recording that I’ve had a number of FDLE agents who have worked with you over the years step to me and tell me what an outstanding investigator and human being you are. These are people I’d go through a door with—hell, some of ’em I have. Their words carry water with me. Oceans of it.”
“I appreciate you sharing that with me,” I say. “I know you didn’t have to.”
“Okay,” he says. “Shall we begin?”
I nod and Anna pats my leg in support.
“Why don’t we begin by you taking me through everything you can recall about yesterday from the time you woke up until the time Derek Burrell was shot.”
I do, being as specific and detailed as I can, and not consciously holding anything back.
When I finish I receive several affirming nods and pats from Anna.
“You’re saying Derek definitely swung around with a shotgun and fired at you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, and though I know he did, I’m less sure in that moment than I have been at any other time since it happened.
“And you’re sure you fired just two rounds at him?” he asks.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you recall where you aimed?”
“I believe I do. He was holding a shotgun in a shooter’s stance, so at first I thought I would shoot to hit the shotgun or his hand holding it, but his head was leaning on the stock to sight down the barrel, so I decided to aim for his left hip and left knee since they were the closest to me. But it all happened so fast—in far less time than it takes to tell you. I just remember thinking about the officers at Columbine and Parkland who didn’t act quickly enough. I wasn’t going to hesitate, wasn’t going to wait in a safe place for backup. So it’s possible that the first round was higher than I thought, maybe I did try for the gun itself after all. But I think I aimed both rounds at his upper left leg and knee. My thinking was to either knock the gun out of his hands or knock him off his feet. And I think I went with the latter.”
“Did you shoot to kill?”
“Absolutely not,” I say. “I had a headshot. I didn’t take it.”
He nods. “Okay. We’ll see what ballistics shows. Now, can we go back to why you were there to begin with?”
I tell him again.
“So you were assisting the Potter County Sheriff’s Department in the investigation into the possible school shooting threat? Were you on loan from your department?”
“Not, officially, no.”
“And you say Sheriff Glenn knew you were involved but didn’t specifically ask you to be?”
“He may have asked . . . I’m just saying I wasn’t in an official capacity.”
“Why you?” he asks. “Why were you involved instead of an investigator from the Potter department?”
“I was asked by the deputy who found the notes—Chip Jeffers, who used to work for my dad when he was sheriff here—and the SRO and guidance counselor, who’re friends from high school.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why, does it?” he says. “Do you know why they asked you?”
“The sense I got was that no one was really taking Deputy Jeffers seriously and he felt like he needed to take action. He asked to meet with my father, who sent me when he couldn’t make it.”
“And you took the threat seriously?”
“To be honest, I took a bit of convincing,” I say. “But yes, I came to.”
“And it was your idea to guard the school on the twentieth during the play because it was the anniversary of Columbine?”
That’s something I haven’t told him and that’s not in my report. He’s being very thorough.
“Yes, sir, it was.”
“Do you think the actions y’all took stopped the shooting on Friday or that it was planned for Monday all along?”
“I have no idea.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he says. “I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m truly not. But . . . do you see yourself as a super cop?”
I shake my head.
“Do you think others see you that way?”
“No, sir,” I say.
“Well, they do. Sorry to use that term. I don’t mean it in the worst way it sounds. But it conveys some of what I’m asking. Anyway . . . many of those who know you do see you like that—some even use that term. Does that surprise you?”
I shrug.
“Verbally for the recording, please,” he says.
“Yeah, I guess it would.”
“Many of your colleagues and officers you’ve worked with in other agencies say you’re a truly great investigator—relentless with a keen mind for making connections.”
I don’t respond.
“Would you say that you try to do too much?” he asks.
“I’m sure I have on occasion,” I say. “I don’t think I’d say in general.”
“Did you on this occasion?”
“I don’t believe so, no, sir,” I say. “I was just on my way to a meeting about how to regroup after Friday. The shooting had already started when I reached the school. The SRO was the only one responding and needed backup. At that point all I did was what any other cop would do and—”
“Sadly, that’s not the case,” he says. “We’ve seen numerous instances of cops waiting outside the school for backup while kids are being killed inside.”
“Well, I doubt many would now that we have a better understanding of how these rampage shootings work and that there’s no tactical advantage to waiting outside because it’s not a hostage situation.”
“Well, we still have some that do—that have very recently. What you and Deputy Miller did was heroic, which is why I hate that you’re in this situation, hate that I have to be asking you these questions—especially this next one.”
I brace myself for what’s about to come and I can feel Anna next to me doing the same.
“Do you drink?” he asks.
My heart sinks into my stomach and begins to bang around down there.
I nod. “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” I say. “I have issues with addiction. I was not drunk nor did I have anything to drink the day of the shooting. Not a single drop. I was not impaired in any way. Alcohol is not an issue here, was not involved in any way.”
Though she can’t say anything, I can tell Anna is surprised by my response. I’m sure she expected me to say that I have over a decade of sobriety, but of course I can’t say that now.
“What about the night before?” he asks. “Did you drink then? Were you hungover from the night before?”
I don’t respond.
“I’m not trying to trip you up,” he says. “I’m sorry to have to even be asking, but . . . it’s our understanding that you and some of the others involved in Friday’s . . . exercise went out for drinks afterwards.”
I nod. “A few of us got together at The Oasis to discuss what happened and what to do going forward. Some of them drank. No one got drunk. I had two non-alcoholic beers.”
He nods as if he already knows all this.
“Okay, but what about after that?” he asks. “We have a receipt from a purchase you made at Top Shelf, the package store out on Highway 84. We have two others from the weekend—one from a Good Spirits on Saturday and the Salt Shaker on Sunday.”
310
Life’s tough. Boo-hoo. Get over it. My life’s no picnic bud, but you don’t see me walking into a school with an assault rifle and shooting the place to shit, do you?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anna asks.
“That I’m drinking again?” I say. “That I randomly and with no good reason threw away over a decade of sobriety? That I’m weaker than I thought I was? That I was hungover on Monday morning and I can’t be absolutely certain that it didn’t contribute to me shooting a kid? You know why. I haven’t felt this much shame and embarrassment in a long, long time.”
She reaches over and takes my hand.
We are in the car, heading home. I’m driving. She’s in the seat next to me.
“I wish you had felt like you could tell me,” she says. “Wish I had picked up on it without you having to.”
“The only reason you didn’t is because you attributed everything to the school stuff—the frustration and fatigue from Friday and the guilt and post-traumatic stress from yesterday.”
“Still . . .”
“And I would’ve told you,” I say. “It would’ve just been when I was ready to get sober again.”
“That mean you’re not ready to stop?”
I frown and nod.
She hesitates a moment, seeming to let that in, then nods.
“How does that make you feel?” I ask.
“I’m feeling an awful lot right now,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
But not sorry enough not to do it, the critic inside my head says.
“Well, at least now it’s out in the open,” she says. “No more sneaking around, no more deception, no more hiding it.”
I nod.
“I don’t want to be lied to, John,” she says. “I can deal with a lot of things but not that. I love you. I want you, want what we have, but I won’t be lied to or cheated on.”
I nod again.
Neither of us says anything else and we ride along in silence on the long, flat, rural highway between Pottersville and Wewa, the planted pines on either side of us vibrantly green in the morning sun.
Our silence isn’t exactly awkward, but it is fraught, resonant with both the echoes of what we’ve said and the vacuity of what we haven’t.
“Like last night,” I say, “you were incredible in there today. A powerful force, a calming presence. Thank you for what you’ve done for me. Sorry you were blindsided by my drinking.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything and when I glance over at her I can see tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Anna,” I say.
She shakes her head. “You don’t need to keep saying that.”
“But—”
“Tell you what,” she says. “Why don’t you tell me one more time, but only after you’ve stopped drinking.”
“Okay,” I say, and we retreat back into our silences—this time they seem more like two separate ones, as if we’re each inhabiting our own.
We ride like this for several miles and countless rows of slash pines.
Eventually my phone vibrates and I pull it out to glance at it. It
’s LeAnn.
“You mind if I take this?” I ask. “It’s—”
“No,” she says. “Take it.”
“Hey,” I say.
“How are you holding up, pal?” she asks.
“Not so great,” I say. “Could really use some good news.”
I had asked her to see what she could find out about Derek’s condition.
“Afraid I don’t have any of that,” she says. “Sorry. Wish I did.”
“What’s his condition?” I ask, hoping he still has one.
“He’s still listed as critical,” she says, “but he’s alive. That’s something.”
“Yes it is.”
“Did you aim for the barrel of the gun?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’m . . . I think I did. Why?”
“They’re saying the bullet hit the barrel and sort of skittered down it and went into his head and lodged in his brain.”
Fuck.
“They’ve put him in a medical-induced coma and are trying to get the swelling in his brain to go down so they can go in and operate, try to remove the bullet.”
I try to say something but nothing comes out.
“He lost a lot of blood from the bullet hole in his left leg. It went clean through but severed a major artery and . . . well, losing blood the way he did impacts everything else.”
She pauses but I still can’t get anything out.
“John?” she says. “You there? Did you lose signal?”
I disconnect the call as if I did.
311
What’s that quote people say, something like the only thing that has to happen for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing? Something like that. I feel like that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing nothing while the old, fat, greedy bastards are gaming the system. They’re wrecking our country, looting it right in front of us, and we don’t do anything ’cause we don’t think we can or we have TV we want to watch.
For the next few days I don’t leave the house.
I try to—I try to put in extra time at my part-time chaplaincy job at the prison, but the warden tells me there’s too much publicity swirling around me right now for me to be anything other than a distraction.
True Crime Fiction Page 121