The video played forward until it showed Millie Adkins standing and shooting Anichka. Summer continued, ‘there, that woman who shot and killed one of the foreign tourists is believed to be Erica Weisz, the teacher who was, herself, shot in the tragic attack on Travis Hanks Elementary just two days ago. She vanished from the hospital where she was recuperating. She and Agent Thiery have now both disappeared and spurred a statewide manhunt. Only moments ago, we interviewed Calusa County Sheriff Alton Conroy.’
Dave Gruber held the microphone to Conroy’s face and asked, ‘Sheriff, what do you make of this new turn of events in this perplexing and seemingly expanding case?’
Conroy squinted into the camera. ‘I have to say, I don’t know why this feller was sent here in the first place. We were doing fine, trying to pick up the pieces and pull this community back together. The state sent this investigator down and, if you ask me, that’s when everything got worse. We still aren’t a hundred per cent sure what happened in that school, but it should’ve stopped there. Now, more of our good citizens have been shot and killed, while this Thiery guy goes poking his nose around.’
Gruber pressed for more. ‘So you feel Agent Thiery has botched this investigation?’
‘Well, I hate to throw another law enforcement officer under the bus, but it seems we would’ve done better without him. We need to talk with that teacher, find out what she knows and why she’s running from the law, and it appears Mr Thiery blew that chance for us.’
Conroy started to turn, but Gruber got one more in. ‘Sheriff, one more thing. Is it true you will be taking over as lead on this case, and if so, what will be your first order of business?’
Conroy looked at the ground for a moment, as if considering spitting out some of the tobacco juice in his mouth then deciding against it. His eyes went back up to the camera, a determined look fixed in his countenance. ‘The governor himself called and put me in charge. My first order of business is to apprehend those I feel are responsible for the carnage wrought on our community. The governor has reassured me that any and all means of support will be provided. In the past, we’ve had our hands tied by financial constraints, and this community has suffered for it. But we’re moving forward, now. Today, we take back our streets, our schools, our safety, not only for our small town, but for everyone in ’Merica. It’s time we stand our ground! God bless us all.’
A crowd of onlookers pressed in around the camera crew – and the prophetic sheriff – turned local hero. All let out a cheer.
Sally Ravich held her husband’s hand as he helped her walk the length of the hospital hall. Besides the horrendous facial wound, the rest of her body was fit, and her doctor wanted her to get out of bed more often. Get some exercise, move some endorphins around, make her feel better. Her biggest obstacle was her mental well-being, rather than the physical recovery of her gunshot injuries.
‘Are you ready to try the stairs, Sally?’ asked Harold, Sally’s husband of twenty-eight years. He tried not to stare at the side of her face still covered in bandages.
Sally nodded, her one good eye levelling with his, revealing the determination to do this task. Their steps echoed off the ochre-coloured, institutional walls, like the teeth of a giant clock clicking away time.
The couple moved up the stairs, one flight, then another, until they arrived on the final floor. Harold pushed open the ‘Exit’ door and entered the hall leading to other patients’ rooms. They had performed this exercise routine for a couple of days, now. Knew the layout, and where the nurses were, if they needed help. But, Sally didn’t need help walking, or getting around; she was way past that, she needed to get her head straight, and, without words, had managed to get Harold to understand. And because he did love her still, after all these years, the ups and downs of any good marriage, raising a family together, all the emotional, financial, and logistical struggles they’d overcome, he could make that commitment without any hesitation.
They moved down the corridor, saw the Cuban Sheriff’s deputy stationed outside one of the rooms and, at the nurses’ desk, a young and curvy Latina from Puerto Rico. The Ravichs strolled up to her station, and Harold made a request. ‘Hey, Shakira,’ he addressed her, ‘why don’t you make me a cup of that coffee, like you do for Jose over there?’ He nodded toward the guard.
Blotches of red appeared on her neck as though she was having a niacin reaction. ‘My name is Linda, sir,’ she corrected the man who, to this point, hadn’t revealed his ignorant, racist side, ‘but that coffee, there, is left-over from this morning.’
‘Just make some fresh, J-Lo,’ he said, releasing his grip on his wife’s hand. Due to her injuries, Sally still couldn’t talk. Seemingly embarrassed by her husband’s abrupt and abusive manner, she slowly and silently distanced herself from him.
The nurse’s mouth hung open as she tried to form words that might assuage the man’s rudeness without making too big a scene. After all, he was taking his ailing wife for a walk, and she didn’t want to upset a patient who had arrived only a few days ago with half her face shot off.
Noting the escalation unfolding before him, the deputy stood up.
‘Fuck it,’ said Harold. ‘I’ll get the damn coffee myself.’ He darted around the counter, invading the nurses’ station, hell-bent for the coffee pot.
‘You can’t come back here, sir,’ the nurse advised, now quite agitated.
The deputy moved in. There was honour to be saved here. And pride. As he crossed the threshold of the nurses’ station, his attention wholly focused on keeping the peace, Sally disappeared down the hall.
‘Sir,’ addressed the deputy, ‘what is your problem?’ He was six feet two-inches tall, with shoulders wider than some doors allowed, courteous and handsome and chivalrous in an old-fashioned way.
Harold picked up the coffee pot. ‘Just getting some coffee, Miguel. Or maybe it’s Ricardo. You know, like Dick. Mind your own business, comprende?’
It was the deputy’s turn to grow red-faced, and he began to grind his teeth. ‘Come out from behind that station, sir. Now.’
Harold ignored the lawman, rummaged through cabinets until he found styrofoam cups, and poured himself a coffee. The nurse moved away, her eyes wet.
Sensing a disturbance, the floor manager emerged from a nearby office. ‘What’s the problem, here?’ she asked.
Seeing her chance, Sally Ravich quietly entered the dark room the deputy had been assigned to guard. Once her one good eye adjusted, she focused it on the marvel that dwarfed everything else in the room, specifically, the bed that rocked slowly back and forth like a baby’s cradle. It reminded her the killer was just a kid. Still, she inched quietly over to bed and tapped the young man on his forehead.
David Coody’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. His eyes widened as he stared into the half-bandaged face of a woman. She looked like a mummified zombie, and frightened him. Unfolding a piece of paper and holding it up so he could see the words she’d scribbled, he read: ‘DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME?’
Harold turned around and noted the floor manager had arrived, adding to the small but intense gathering of hospital staff. ‘Ah, finally someone I can relate to,’ he spoke to the woman with the clipboard. ‘You must be the person in charge, eh? Gotta be a tough job keeping these tacos in order.’
‘That’s it,’ the deputy said, lunging forward.
Harold raised his arms, as if gesturing to give himself up, then dropped the coffee pot. It burst and splattered everyone with hot coffee and glass.
The deputy grabbed him and shoved him against the wall. ‘I don’t know what your problem is, old man, but we are done here.’
‘Not quite,’ said Harold calmly, smiling like an idiot.
David Coody frowned at the spooky woman in his room. She turned the note over in her hands and let him read the other side: ‘I BROUGHT YOU SOMETHING FROM TRAVIS HANKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL’. His moderate fear gave way to instant horror.
From beneath the hospital-issued gown, she removed a
gun: a small, easily concealed Ruger LCP. Made from glass-filled nylon mated to hardened alloy steel, it weighed only 9.4 ounces and carried six-in-the-clip and one in the chamber. She planned to use them all.
Sally removed her bandages, revealing the vacancy where the other half of her face used to live. Young Coody’s eyes filled with terror. He tried to scream, but his throat was dry, and his diaphragm no longer pushed breath through his lungs as efficiently as before. Despite painful efforts, he managed nothing more than a squeak.
The sound reminded Sally of a rat, and made it even easier to squeeze the trigger. Her little gun fired again and again, sending bullets like flesh-eating termites into his chest, knowing he couldn’t feel them, but wanting to inflict as much damage as possible in the few seconds she had. His paralyzed torso jolted with each shot, as if he were being spanked. Down to her last two rounds, she fired into his rat mouth. The last she sent with a delicious fervour into his brain.
The deputy heard gunshots, remembered his orders, and released Harold, screaming ‘Shit!’, as he ran into the unguarded room. He found Sally standing next to Coody, the gun lying on his bloody chest, a tendril of smoke still curling from the barrel. Her hands were in the air and she was smiling with the remaining half of her face.
At the nurses’ station, Harold apologized to the Puerto Rican nurse and the rest of the staff. ‘If you have a mop,’ he offered, ‘I’ll clean up this mess.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thiery’s phone rang. He had steered off I-4, knowing his fellow police officers would have the interstate covered with the Florida Highway Patrol, and driven north along tiny Highway 17, until it ran into State Road 40, then banked east. He’d be in Ormond Beach in less than a half hour. Thiery looked at the caller ID and answered. The timing couldn’t have been worse but Thiery felt he had to answer in case his kids had seen the news.
‘Hey, Owen,’ he greeted his son. ‘How ya doing?’
‘Doing great, Dad. I’m up here with Leif in San Francisco. Partyin’, you know?’
‘Sounds … fun,’ he said, relieved. They hadn’t seen the media coverage that was making him out to be either an inept cop, or a rogue lawman gone crazy. ‘What’s the occasion?’ Thiery asked, looking out the car’s window, watching the green blur of the trees – life – passing by, as Millie sat in the passenger seat, staring blankly ahead.
‘You sitting down?’
‘Uh, yeah.’
‘I got engaged, Dad. I’m gonna get married!’
Thiery was speechless. ‘I, uh, that’s great, son. Who … are … who’s the lucky girl?’
‘C’mon, Dad. Susie, remember?’
‘The girl you were dating when I came out last time? What’s it been, six or seven months?’
‘It’s been over a year … ’
‘That’s still such a short time … ’
‘Dad, you always told me I’d know when it was the right one, right? And she is the right one. She’s perfect!’
Sure, he thought. Like a young man of twenty-five knows perfect. At that age they were ALL perfect. Thiery caught himself gripping the steering wheel so tight, his hands looked skeletal. Dots and smears of Logan’s blood patterned his shirt sleeve. Who am I to question or advise anyone on marriage or relationships?
‘I’m happy for you, son,’ he finally said. ‘I … congratulations.’
I hope you’ll be better at it than I was.
The words were left unspoken, but, for what remained of the Thiery family, the subject of marriage always conjured the memory of the boys’ mother. The missing mother subject was still a sensitive spot, like the crack in the glass of the picture they’d kept hanging in the living room for five years. There were just the three of them, and someone had broken the picture and put it back on the mantle overnight. No one claimed responsibility. Later that night, he heard the boys talking in the bedroom, before they knew he was home from work, and young Leif told Owen, I think Dad was drunk last night and broke the picture of Mom … Thiery knew, or thought he knew, he hadn’t done it. The doubt and denial still lingered.
‘You want to talk to Leif?’ Owen interrupted his father’s thoughts. ‘He’s kinda hung over,’ the boy explained, ‘but still eating everything in the house, while leering at my fiancée.’
Thiery forced a laugh at the joke but regretfully declined. ‘Uh, Owen,’ he stalled, ‘can you give him my apologies, and tell him I’ll call him back? I’m kind of in the middle of something urgent right now.’
There was a moment of silence that echoed disappointment.
‘Sure, no problem,’ the formerly excited young man replied. ‘He probably wouldn’t make much sense right now, anyway. We hit it hard last few days down in Cabo. You okay, Dad?’
‘Yeah, I’m … fine,’ he lied. ‘Just busy with work. Speaking of, I’ve got to get back to it. Always nice to talk to you. You guys enjoy yourselves, but try not to party too hard. I’ll give you a call later, and we’ll talk some more, okay?’ And then he remembered the big news. ‘I’m really happy for you,’ he added. ‘And proud.’
‘Thanks, Dad. Love ya. Later.’
The phone went dead, but Thiery replied, anyway. ‘Love you, too.’
He turned his full attention back to the road and breathed deeply, his eyes wet.
‘Are you okay, Agent Thiery?’ asked Millie.
He looked over at her, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Yeah. Yes. That was my son calling.’
‘I gathered. I couldn’t help but hear. He’s getting married?’
Thiery nodded, but couldn’t speak with the lump in his throat.
Millie was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Congratulations, Agent Thiery … ’
‘Please,’ he said, swallowing, ‘call me Justin. And thanks.’
‘Can I ask where we’re going?’
Thiery had to think about it for a moment. He glanced at the sky as if trying to get his bearings. Its liquid blue shone through clouds that looked like gauze bandages.
‘I’m … I thought it best to get you away, sort some things out. Agent Logan has … had … a house in Ormond Beach. It’s a small, old Florida beach town. No one is there, and I know it’s safe. It’s not far. I’m going to call my supervisor when we get there. Get him to respond a team out to us and bring us in safely.’
Millie nodded slightly, but he noted her hesitancy. ‘Will it be people you know?’ she asked.
Robert Moral let the paramedics clean and dress his wounded arm, which turned out to be nothing more than a two-inch laceration. He’d had to think quickly, so people would believe his answers to the questions they’d asked, such as why he was there, why he was wounded, and where the missing teacher supposedly under his protection had gone. In short order, he came up with a fantastical tale that stretched the boundary of rational thought, but, given a gullible and willing television audience, could be plausible. It was a gamble, but that in itself, was what made it even more attractive to Moral. He had been in the business long enough to know, if the television reported it, people – even other law enforcement officers – were willing to believe it, as if God had told them, Himself.
Gail Summer could barely keep still behind the anchor desk as she blurted out the latest live report from Orlando, Florida. ‘In a bizarre twist to the tragedy at Travis Hanks Elementary School in Florida,’ she almost giddily read from the autocue, ‘we have reports and footage of a shoot-out that left several persons dead at a popular resort in Orlando, Florida. At this time, we do not know all the details as investigators, themselves, are still trying to put together exactly what happened, but it appears that the teacher, Erica Weisz, who shot the school intruders and was, herself, wounded, then vanished from the hospital for the past two days, was tracked to the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Kissimmee, Florida. Witnesses report the scene was ground zero for a bloodbath that may have included international hired hitmen, and has cost the life of at least one FBI agent. That agent was Sara Logan, the same woman who, just this morn
ing, took over the investigation of the initial school shooting from FDLE Agent Justin Thiery, who officials now say has fled the scene with Erica Weisz, the wounded teacher.’ Summers hesitated, her throat obviously dry from her round-the-clock reporting. She rubbed her neck and a hand reached into view to place a cup of water on her desk. She drank deeply and dramatically, conveying the sacrifice she was making for her viewers, then continued. ‘At this point, it is unknown if she left willingly with him, or was abducted, or the other way around. This is an alarming report and we must caution that some of the footage you are about to see is graphic.’
The shaky, handheld video taken by one of the tourists in the Gaylord Palms lobby was replayed as Dave Gruber reported live from the scene, his image, from the shoulders up, displayed in a tiny box in the corner of the screen. ‘Gail, this footage is raw,’ he explained, ‘but we’ve obtained a copy from one of the hotel residents who wished to remain anonymous. You can see the video tells its own story. If you watch as our technicians slow it down, you’ll recognize Agents Thiery and Logan involved in a gun battle with persons who some law enforcement officers are saying were possibly hired hitmen. Others say they were simply tourists trying to defend themselves when the shooting started.’
The video played out, again and again, slowing, backing up and going forward. The carnage lasted only a couple of minutes, but long enough for viewers to watch in awe as windows were shot out, bodies fell, and blood coated the floors of the hotel lobby.
The camera turned back to Gruber, who was now interviewing a US Marshal on the scene, one whose arm was held in a sling and bandaged, his coat slung over his shoulders. Sheriff Conroy stood next to him as if they were old fraternity pals.
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