Acoustic Shadows

by Patrick Kendrick

  The camera shot switched to Gruber, the Lakeland Regional Hospital in the background. The reporter held his hand against his ear, the mic to his mouth, as he continued the story.

  ‘Yes, Gail, we’re here at the hospital where not only some of the survivors were taken but one of the gunmen as well. We’ve been trying to get an interview with Erica Weisz, the brave young teacher who, it’s been reported, was able to obtain a gun and shoot the gunmen, in a strange twist of fate we don’t usually see at these tragedies. It’s been reported that she has undergone surgery and is recovering, but that’s all we’ve been able to get from the hospital’s public information spokesperson. Now, the alleged gunman, we’ve learned, is still in a medically induced coma, but we’ve also learned that David Edward Coody was a troubled young man. As we’ve seen in other cases like this, Coody was a loner who seldom talked to classmates and, in fact, did attend classes at Travis Hanks Elementary School several years ago. More recently, he was a student at the University of Central Florida where he was majoring in agricultural science, until he dropped out about six weeks ago. There have been sporadic reports from fellow students that he’d been seeing a psychiatrist, but we don’t have a specific diagnosis as to what he was being treated for. We’ll keep you informed as we get new information. This is Dave Gruber, reporting for THN. Gail?’

  ‘Thank you, Dave. We’ll get back to you soon. Now, we have to take a break but please stay with us for live, up to the minute coverage of the Tragedy at Travis Hanks, and, later, please tune in to my own show, The Summer Report, where I’ll be discussing the Human Tornado Phenomenon with our guest, celebrity psychologist and best-selling author, Dr Jay Gill.’

  Before cutting to commercial, they ran a video clip showing a seriously concerned-looking Dr Gill, who was commenting, in his pseudo-southern drawl, ‘I agree, Gail, these Human Tornadoes, as you call them, come in like a wrecking ball and destroy so many lives, and it’s usually because they come from destroyed lives themselves. They’re looking for what we are all looking for: love and acceptance … ’

  Thiery accepted Croll’s offer to drop him by the FDLE offices in Orlando, where he had called ahead and arranged to pick up a loaner cruiser. The governor went on to meet the media at the school while Thiery filled out the necessary paperwork and picked up the navy blue fleet car; a gas-guzzling Crown Vic that smelled like cigarettes, and was home to an army of black ants that lived in the Burger King detritus littering the floor.

  The drive from Orlando to Frosthaven was soporific. The air conditioning in the car held the shimmering outside heat at bay, but made Thiery’s eyelids heavy. He felt as if he was dreaming as he drove into the nightmare ahead. Crows stood along the arid road as if too tired to fly, their beaks parted, pointed tongues jutting out as if issuing a silent warning. The topography was mostly flat; wildlands turned into cattle pastures or citrus farms. A cow’s skull hung on the gate of a ranch he passed. One stretch of highway looked exactly like the last, but Thiery grew more anxious with each passing mile. There was a segment of I-4, then on to US 27, a two-lane road that provided a singular hopeful moment when it snaked through Lake Wales where the old Bok, or ‘Singing’ Tower stood, its bells tolling as Thiery drove by. The area’s small hills and moss-covered oaks reminded him of his home in northern Florida and made him long to be there.

  He listened to the carillons playing, a melancholy sound that reminded him of the music from Phantom of the Opera. He slowed the car and opened the windows to hear the haunting sounds better, then found himself thinking of masked gunmen bearing assault weapons, strafing their way through a small schoolhouse filled with frightened children. He became filled with an empty sadness, then anger, considering the incongruity of the beautiful music and the atrocious event that had brought him here. He never had to worry about such tragedies when his boys were at school, and he wondered what was happening to society as a whole. Was it lost? Could it get any worse? In just over a year, the country had gone through the Aurora theatre shootings, the Sandy Hook shootings, and the Boston Marathon bombing, all perpetrated by young men, most, barely out of their teens.

  He thought of his sons, Owen and Leif, and wondered how they were doing. He tried to call them, just to check on them, but neither answered. He made a mental note to try again when he got settled in to whatever cheap motel he could find.

  Thiery stopped at a convenience store to get a soda. While browsing the shelves, he watched a couple pull up to the gas pumps. They both got out of the car. The man had no arms and his wife placed something in his top shirt pocket before grabbing the pump handle and inserting it into the car. Thiery noted she had huge biceps and wondered if it was because she had to do more with her arms because her husband could not. The man came into the store. He nodded to the clerk and leaned forward, obviously a regular customer there. The clerk withdrew a credit card from the armless man’s shirt pocket and looked out the window to see which pump he was at. Thiery marvelled at the symbiotic relationship the trio shared. His loneliness bore down on him again, and he tried to shrug it off as he got back into his car and onto the road.

  Thirty minutes later, he arrived in Frosthaven. It was easy to find the only elementary school in town. The governor had beaten him to the scene by about fifteen minutes. Thiery was pleased with that. He didn’t want to arrive together and appear to be Croll’s gopher boy, though in truth, that was exactly what he was. Thiery was comfortable talking with the press, but didn’t want to try to talk over the governor as they searched for the right words to address a community undoubtedly in shock and looking for answers that would not be easily forthcoming.

  He parked the car and saw the governor already talking to the media. Generator-fed lights beamed bright spots into his face before the sunset. Croll looked like a small nocturnal creature caught in the shadows. Thiery knew he should go over and stand next to him as he, in turn, would designate the FDLE as the organization that would be taking over the investigation. But the thought of asking the local police chief to step aside while he and Croll bathed in the limelight did not appeal to him. He decided, instead, to take a quick look at the school, first. The governor was in love with the cameras, and it would be a perfect opportunity for him to remind everyone what a wonderful, caring man he was. Thiery expected he would milk every second of it.

  He noted dozens of memorials had already been placed on the sidewalk: pastel teddy bears, bouquets of flowers, signs made up with words like ‘God Bless you, Dr Montessi’ and ‘We will never forget you, Mrs LaForge’, written with magic markers in a rainbow of colour. ‘So long, Mr Swan’, ‘Thanks for taking care of us, Nurse Nora. Now, God will take care of you’. Candles lined the path and flickered in the slight breeze. Crude, white crosses made out of pressure-treated furring strips stuck in the grass. Several children, embraced by their parents, sang softly as they rocked back and forth, comforting each other.

  Thiery pushed past the yellow plastic crime-scene tape that surrounded the school and identified himself to the phalanx of Calusa County Sheriff deputies who stood guard. One of them radioed his supervisor for the okay to allow the FDLE agent inside.

  Thiery entered the main office first, as the shooters had. The reception desk had been shredded by bullets. Walls were pocked with holes. There were blood stains on the tile floors, marker tape where bodies had fallen, a red smear on the wall, ending in a handprint. Thiery noted something he couldn’t quite make out, lying on the desk in a dried pool of blood. He produced a small Mag light he kept with him and shone it on the puddle. Bone fragments and broken teeth. He wondered if the person they belonged to had lived, and if so, what did he or she look like, now?

  He caught himself holding his breath, trying not to inhale the death-filled air, as if by doing so, he was in some metaphysical way taking something from the victims. He shook off the feeling and tried to breathe through his mouth, so he wouldn’t smell the burnt scent of carnage.

  He proceeded slowly down the hall, passing another taped ou
tline next to a janitor’s work cart and another blood stain, its edges smudged, probably from the victim rolling around in pain. He continued on.

  Around the corner, he saw yet another taped outline and began to feel anger building up inside. He tried to push it away and remain objective, professional, but he’d always been a man ruled by his emotions and not his intellect. True, it was a detriment as a law officer, but people are who they are; with very few exceptions, that can’t be changed.

  He focused on a ceiling light, blown off by a shotgun blast. Hanging precariously from a piece of electrical conduit pipe, it swung slowly back and forth, like a metronome, the acoustic ceiling tiles around it dotted like Swiss cheese.

  Thiery began to look into the classrooms. Nothing of note in the first few. Then he came to one where the door was battered and its window shattered. Entering the room, he discovered another taped outline and scattered bullet casings with small, numbered notes next to them. Had to be one of the gunmen. He looked around the room, observing the devastation: the closet where the children must have taken refuge, a pile of overturned desks. Plywood had been affixed to the blown out windows, but a steady, cool wind crept into the room. Thiery shivered as he saw a small pink shoe with a single drop of blood on it. His eyes grew moist and his jaw muscles flexed involuntarily. He thought of his sons again, remembering them as school-age kids, confused and angry about a mother who had simply left them behind one day. Dropped them at school and disappeared. They directed their anger at him for being a cop who worked all the time, but couldn’t even find his own wife. In spite of that, they’d grown up okay, if a bit distant from him.

  Thiery looked down, surprised to see his fists clenched.

  He exited the classroom and resumed his tour of the hall, past more taped outlines, more emptied cartridges and shotgun shells, more numbered tags next to them. More blood. The smell of gunpowder had permeated the walls and ceiling, and the coppery scent of blood assaulted his nostrils.

  Via email and texts on his tablet, Thiery had been getting updates throughout the day from the local police agencies involved and had finally received the names of all the victims. With the exception of the janitor, they were all women. He wondered about that. Were there no men teachers? If so, why weren’t some of them shot? Wouldn’t they be more likely to confront a shooter? Typically, one doesn’t find many male teachers at an elementary school, but it seemed to him there should be some.

  He completed his initial reconnaissance of the school and followed his path back through the U-shaped building, jotting down notes on his iPad and checking for any new reports coming in. As he went back through the main office he came to the nurses’ station. The window of the door was blasted out; another taped outline on the floor, more blood stains. The mailroom had been sprayed with bullets, but the cubby-holes where teachers picked up their messages were relatively unscathed. He read the names on the boxes, mostly women’s names, but a few belonging to men, too. He checked the contents in the boxes that were clearly male: Ed Bremen, a teacher, stored documents from the Calusa County School Board referencing special needs children; Tim Cress, the coach, had stowed a whistle and a stack of after-school soccer flyers; Randy Perry had lunch schedules and dietician reports, indicating he supervised the cafeteria staff.

  So there were, indeed, some men who worked in the school. But the only one shot was James Swan, the janitor. Thiery tried to accept it was just a numbers thing; the ratio of men to women was such that it was logical more women would be shot. But, as he left the school and walked back to the church that the authorities were using as the command centre, he couldn’t let it go. Did the shooters have a problem with women? Were they men who hated their mothers and decided to make these women pay for their angst? Did they come home one day, as he and his sons had, to find their wives or mothers gone?

  Governor Croll was pontificating to the media as Thiery arrived at the church.

  ‘ … as we send these special people – our friends, family, co-workers, protectors, and teachers of our children – to be with God, we must reaffirm our intent to never let this happen again.’ He banged his fist on the podium to accentuate his message. ‘I say we do not allow these people to die in vain. Let’s utilize their … ultimate sacrifice to make our schools, our communities, and our lives safer. I’ve been on the phone today with governors from around this great nation, and with the President, and there is a groundswell of support for this community, and for newer, tougher laws to protect innocent citizens from harm. Please stand with us and help make the changes we need in order to protect our children and our children’s children. Be safe, be strong, be better. Thank you, and may God bless and keep you.’

  A moving speech until Thiery remembered the last line, ‘Be safe, be strong, be better,’ had been used as Croll’s campaign slogan. That was all he was doing: campaigning. Thiery wondered what the governor’s NRA backers would think of him now. He’d previously run on a platform of protecting Second Amendment rights and, by so doing, had amassed an unprecedented campaign war chest. While he had not said the words ‘gun control’ in his speech, he was certainly suggesting it. This, coming from a governor whose first order of business was to walk a bill through legislation called the Stand Your Ground Law, allowing ‘ … Florida residents to justifiably use force in self-defence when there is reasonable belief of an unlawful threat, without an obligation to retreat first … ’ Now, here he was, suggesting just the opposite. What a chameleon, thought Thiery.

  Croll stepped off the dais, but continued to address the barrage of cameras stuck in his face. As he spoke, he saw Thiery standing nearby and waved him over.

  ‘This is Special Agent Justin Thiery,’ the governor announced to the hungry media, ‘from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He will be taking over as lead in this most important investigation. Police Chief George Dunham and Sheriff Conroy have done an excellent job responding to this community’s emergency needs today and coordinating the initial command. But,’ he continued, ‘as this tragedy affects so many people in nearby communities, and there are a myriad of law enforcement agencies involved, I felt it in the best interest of justice for the investigation to be placed under one umbrella. One directly under my personal supervision, and so the FDLE will be that lead. Agent Thiery?’

  Thiery shot a quick glance toward the police chief from nearby Sebring and hoped the governor had given him some notice before pulling the rug out from under him. He was a smaller man, maybe hitting five foot seven with his work shoes on, a ring of premature grey hair nesting around an otherwise bald head. He appeared even smaller in his oversized uniform, though he kept it sharply pressed and neat. Next to him was a tall man with thick, dark hair on his head and arms; the latter were crossed as if he were angry. The five o’clock shadow on his massive jaw looked as if it had been drawn by a cartoonist. His eyes were black and glinted in the media lights, as did the huge gold badge and name tag on his formidable chest. Thiery could barely make out the man’s name: Sheriff A. Conroy.

  Thiery looked over at Dunham. Rather than indignation, Thiery thought he spied relief. He could almost see him sigh and was, once again, mindful of stepping on a fellow law enforcement officer’s toes. He approached and extended his hand. Dunham took it and gripped Thiery’s huge paw with a ferocity that quietly said, I’m glad you’re here.

  Conroy jutted his chin up, but did not extend his hand. Thiery could feel the turf protection and accompanying resentment from him, big time.

  ‘Thank you, Chief Dunham,’ said Thiery. ‘I’ve been inside the school, and it looks like your men did a very thorough job.’ He said it loud enough for the reporters around them to hear. The short, balding, and oh-so-humble police chief nodded, accepting the affirmation. Thiery fielded questions from several reporters before finally ending with, ‘I still need to meet personally with Chief Dunham and his officers, the Calusa County’s Sheriff Deputies, and several other involved agencies. The FDLE will be collating all the information from
each of the very professional departments that responded today to assess what we know and what we need to learn to move forward with this investigation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have considerable work to do.’

  Thiery stepped away from the crowd, and Croll immediately grabbed him by the elbow and ushered him to the side as reporters, still ravenous for some sound bites, lighted on Chief Dunham. Thiery watched as Dunham was forced to struggle through a few more questions about what he first saw, what his officers first saw, what they thought was happening, et cetera. Thiery thought the police chief held up well for a man who had been on his feet for twelve hours.

  Conroy stepped over, obligatorily, and said, ‘I’m Sheriff Conroy,’ and handed his card to Thiery. There was a lump in his lower lip where he held a chaw of tobacco that made his teeth brown and syrupy looking.

  ‘Did you …’ began Thiery, but Conroy held up his paw like a STOP sign.

  ‘We’ve just been supplying the manpower. It was my SWAT that came in but all the vics and perps were down by then and we didn’t fire a shot. The little chief over there was first on the scene and that’s why he has command.’

  Thiery took the hint. He didn’t have the patience or the temperament to come down here, sort through a mass tragedy with all its witnesses, reports, media, and evidence collection, and deal with some cowpoke cop’s ego. He’d be professional and polite, but work around the man whenever circumstances allowed.