by BJ Bourg
“Command Post to Sierra One, stand by,” said Sheriff Cory Chiasson, whose voice sounded excited in my earpiece. “November One says negotiations are breaking down. Subject is threatening to kill a hostage.”
November One was our top crisis negotiator, Uma Menard. If she said communications were breaking down, then that meant this guy’s grapefruit was about to get popped.
Uma was as good as they got, and had quickly moved to the top spot after her predecessor, Lieutenant Henry Petit, had mishandled his last situation. He had responded to a crisis call about a troubled teenager threatening suicide. When he arrived with his team, they found the young boy sitting on a high branch in a tree with a noose around his neck. Petit had walked up to the tree and said, “Kid, get your ass down from there.” The kid did exactly as instructed—he promptly jumped out of the tree and killed himself. They said his neck nearly snapped clean off when the rope went taut. Members of his family were outside and witnessed the whole ordeal. One of his junior negotiators later said Petit had been arguing with his wife earlier in the day and was distracted, but that didn’t save his ass—or the sheriff’s budget—in the lawsuit that followed. It was the largest liability payout yet for the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office and it cost Petit his job.
I quickly calculated the distance between Gaylord and the glass window. Between ten and fifteen feet. In all my years of sniping, I’d learned that there were no guarantees when shooting through glass. As the distance between the target and the glass increased, the chances of a one-shot stop decreased. The dangers to nearby hostages also increased with distance, and I was acutely aware of this as I made my calculations.
At the moment, Gaylord was leaning against a cubicle wall and he was on his cell phone. A black pistol dangled from his right hand and he waved it around as he talked. The nearest hostage was sitting on the floor several feet to my right. If Gaylord needed to be taken out, now would be a good time.
I pressed my left thumb against my chest to activate the radio button strapped to it. “Sierra One to Sierra Two, are you ready?”
Jerry mumbled into the radio that he was born ready.
I keyed up my radio again and called out to the sheriff. “Ready when you are, MS1 (it was the sheriff’s radio sign and stood for ‘Magnolia Sheriff’). We’ll go on your count…”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, relaxing every muscle in my body. When I reached my natural respiratory pause (that point at the end of a normal exhale when the body naturally pauses in preparation for the next breath), my crosshairs settled on a mole about an inch in front of Gaylord’s right ear. At his current angle, that mole represented the center of his head.
Suddenly, Gaylord pushed off of the desk and yelled into the phone. He threw it across the room and lifted the pistol in the direction of the nearest hostage.
With the cold calmness born from many years of mental preparation and doing this job, I pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 2
Cynthia Alvey plopped to the couch and pressed the power button on the remote control. She’d only been back in Louisiana for three weeks and she was already bored. Her mom had sent her to live with her dad in Kentucky when she was sixteen, and she’d only been back a handful of times since then—mostly Christmases or Thanksgivings. Now she was back for good, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
The television fired to life. It was on a local news channel and a young female reporter was standing in front of what looked like a car dealership. Cynthia thought the reporter’s blue dress was pretty, and she wondered how she’d look in it. She also wondered if Hank would ever change and start doing nice things for her, instead of beating her every chance he got. Maybe she could afford nice clothes if he didn’t waste what little money they had on beer.
“…sources close to the investigation say an armed gunman threatened the lives of the hostages,” the reporter said, “and police snipers were forced to take him out. The name of the police sniper is not being released, pending the investigation, but the manager of the business, a Mr. Wilton Michot, agreed to speak with us.”
The camera turned away from the reporter and settled on a man standing directly to her left. The man wore a business suit, but his clothes were covered in dust and his sports coat was torn.
“Mr. Michot, what happened inside the dealership today?”
“It was horrible,” Michot said in a shaky voice. “Gaylord came in brandishing a firearm and he went straight to his ex-wife’s cubicle, shot her dead. A customer screamed and he turned and shot her, too, and then he shot one of my salesmen, who happened to be in his wife’s cubicle.”
“So, you know Mr. Gaylord?”
Michot nodded. “He used to drop by a lot when they were still married. He was a nice guy. We’re all shocked.”
“Do you know why he targeted his wife?”
“Well, she had intimated to one of my secretaries that she was seeing a salesman from here.” Wilton stopped and cleared his throat. “I think her husband found out about it and came in to…you know, he targeted her.”
“Is there any indication that the salesman he shot was the one having an affair with his wife?”
Wilton stammered for a few seconds and finally said, “I have…I’m not…I shouldn’t comment on that.”
A truck door slammed from the driveway just outside the wall of the kitchen and Cynthia jumped in her skin. “Shit!” She hadn’t heard her husband’s truck pull up. She glanced at her watch. It was only four o’clock. Hank didn’t usually get home from work until six. Why are you home early?
The knot started swelling in her stomach. It was a constant in her life—same as the beatings—and it camped out in the depths of her gut like a tumor. Whenever she was alone and Hank was at work, it would shrink to the size of a large fist, but as soon as she’d hear his truck pull up it would balloon to the size of one of those watermelons that won the Kentucky State Fair last year.
Cynthia jumped again when the knob turned in the door and it was jerked open. She turned off the television and hurried to greet him. At forty-six, his dark hair was starting to show signs of gray, so he put lots of gel in it and slicked it back. He had a thick mustache, but his beard was thin and grew in weird patches. She’d often thought about asking him to shave it off, but she dared not.
He slammed his keys on the table and she could see that his jaw was set. Crap! That spelled trouble. She made a detour for the kitchen cabinets and grabbed the rice pot. “I’ll cook some rice and fry up some shrimp,” she said, trying not to sound scared. He didn’t like it when she acted scared of him—it only made him beat her harder. He’d say things like, “You want to act like you’re afraid of me? Well, I’ll give you a reason to be scared!”
Hank didn’t say a word to her. He jerked the refrigerator door open, snatched a beer from the shelf, and then plopped down on the sofa. He turned the news back on and sat there sulking, pulling long and hard from the longneck. If she were lucky, he’d drink himself into a coma like he often did and she’d have the night to herself.
Setting the rice to cook, Cynthia pushed her short, stringy blonde hair out of her face and stole a glance in his direction. She’d met Hank thirty years ago when her mom decided she’d had enough of her rebellious ways and sent her to live with her dad in Kentucky. That summer was the loneliest of her life, but things improved when she started school. She was the outsider so all the girls hated her, but the boys were curious and she got a lot of attention. Hank wasn’t the first boyfriend she had at her new school, but he was the last.
“Get me another beer,” Hank called gruffly from the living room.
Cynthia dropped what she was doing to bring him the longneck. He took it with a grunt and used his gray tank top to twist off the cap. He took a long swig, then stared up at her. “What do you want?”
“I…I was just wondering why you’re home early.”
He turned his attention back to the television, where footage of the hostage scene kept pla
ying over and over. After a few minutes of tense silence, he said, “They cut my hours at the shop.”
Cynthia almost crumbled to the ground, remembering the day Hank had come home last year and announced that the coal preparation plant that employed him was closing and he was being let go. She’d innocently offered to get a job until things improved, but her suggestion triggered within him a rage she’d never seen before…or since. It was the worst beating she’d ever received at his hand. She’d blocked out most of the events of that day, as well as the week-long hospital stay, and she’d rather not be reminded of that horror. Best not to say anything, she thought, returning to the kitchen.
“Are you blaming me?” Hank asked from the sofa. “Is that why you’re not saying anything? Is that why you just walked away from me? You think I’m not a man because I can’t support you? Is that it?”
“No, not at all,” Cynthia said quickly. “You’ve had a rough day and I’m sure you’re hungry, so I want to get your food cooked. If I would’ve known earlier, I could’ve had it ready—”
“How in the hell was I supposed to let you know earlier?” Hank sprang to his feet. “You think I planned this shit? You think it’s my fault they cut my hours?”
“No, of course not.” Cynthia’s heart beat in her chest and she cowered against the cabinet. There was no reasoning with him when he was this irrational. Every word was the wrong word. Her only hope was that something would distract him and spare her the pain she knew was coming.
“It was your idea to come here,” he said. “Go to work for the oilfield in Louisiana, Hank. We’ll never have to worry about money again. You remember that?”
Tears welling up in her eyes, Cynthia nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”
“Damn right it’s your fault.” He squinted, eyeing her suspiciously. “Why’d you really want to come back home, Cynthia?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. Who’d you come back to see?”
“Oh, God…no one. I hate this place.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Your mom sent you away because you began screwing all the boys in the neighborhood.” He spat a stream of saliva in her direction. “You were nothing but a common whore. You’re lucky I got a hold of you when I did. I saved you from yourself.”
Cynthia nodded her head in agreement, hoping it was convincing enough for him, but she remembered how bad things had changed once he’d gotten a hold of her. It was her junior year, back when she had plans for her future. She wanted to be a teacher or an astronaut or a veterinarian. She actually believed she could do whatever she wanted, to be whatever she wanted, but that was before she slept with Hank.
One time together was all it took for him to start thinking he owned her. Afterward, if any boy in school showed the slightest interest in her, Hank would wait until the final bell rang and follow the boy to the parking lot and beat the crap out of him. Despite the extreme fear she felt, Cynthia almost grinned to herself as she remembered thinking, I knew I was good in bed, but damn…I ruined that poor kid.
Hank finally got kicked out of school for fighting, and he demanded she quit with him. When she refused, he hit her, and he hit her hard. She’d never been hit before and she thought she was going to die. He apologized and told her it only happened because he’d never known true love. He said he loved her so much it made him crazy. She was scared, but flattered at the same time.
When she got home that day, her dad demanded to know why her lip was busted. She dared not tell him the truth, because he was in poor health and she knew he would go after Hank. If he did, Hank would kill him. So she lied…and she’d been lying ever since to cover for Hank.
“Sweetie, you’ve got to believe me,” she pleaded, bracing herself for what she knew was coming. “I would’ve never suggested coming back here if we didn’t need the money.”
“That’s bullshit!” Hank threw his bottle against the wall and it exploded into thousands of pieces. He approached her with fire in his eyes. “What the hell’s his name?”
“There is no one,” Cynthia said. “I love only you.”
“You must think I’m a fool, don’t you?”
“No, Hank, I don’t…”
Her voice trailed off just as Hank reached her and raised his hand high in the air.
She covered her face and closed her eyes, drifting to a far and dark corner of her mind, where she usually remained until the beatings were over. She could feel her body jerking with the force of his blows…could taste the blood in her mouth…could feel the pain…could hear his muffled cursing. Throughout it all, she remained secreted in the darkness of her mind’s eye, waiting for the storm to pass.
Hank finally stopped hitting her, but it was only so he could wrap his large hands around her throat. He squeezed so hard she thought the top of her head would pop off. She felt her eyes bulging, felt herself slipping away.
CHAPTER 3
Detective Sergeant Dawn Luke was heading north on Highway Eighty (a two-lane road that paralleled Highway Three on the east side of Bayou Magnolia) and was five minutes from the dealership when she heard the call over the radio. A woman in Mathport had called to say she heard banging and screaming from her neighbor’s house on Jaguar Lane. The woman couldn’t offer any details about the neighbors—she told dispatch the couple had recently moved into the neighborhood from another state—but she said it sounded like someone was being killed.
“I’m en route,” Dawn called over the radio, smashing her accelerator. While she’d have to drive by the dealership to get to the address, it was less than five miles from her current location and she was the closest unit, so she couldn’t ignore the call.
She flipped on her wig-wags to clear a path along the highway, but kept her siren off so she wouldn’t alert the suspect of her arrival. When she made it to the Mathport Lift Bridge, she glanced toward the dealership but couldn’t see much from the road. She crossed over and swerved onto Highway Three, continuing north.
Within a few minutes, her tires were screeching and she was making the turn onto Jaguar Lane. She cut off her lights and coasted toward the address. Her cruiser was an unmarked Charger, but everyone knew it was a law enforcement vehicle, so she stopped two houses down and pulled into someone’s driveway. Keying up her radio, she asked for the responding deputy’s twenty (location).
“Two minutes out,” he called in a strained voice.
Realizing it was dangerous, but knowing she probably stood a better chance against an abusive husband than the victim did, she eased out of her car and slinked toward the address. Using the corner of the neighbor’s house as cover, she crouched low and surveyed the target house. All was quiet…too quiet.
A small red truck with corny bumper stickers littering the back glass was parked in the driveway. Keeping the truck between her and the doorway, she drew her pistol and approached the house at a low run. She dropped down beside the truck and listened. She could hear movement from inside, but it didn’t sound violent.
She radioed to say she was going to attempt contact, and then slipped around the back of the truck and took up a position beside the concrete steps. Keeping her pistol pointed toward the door with her right hand, she knocked with her left hand. The rustling from inside suddenly stopped.
“Sheriff’s Office,” she called, cocking her head to better hear what was going on in the house. “Open the door right now!”
She braced herself when heavy footsteps quickly approached from inside, but they stopped before reaching the door. She then heard what sounded like someone dragging a large object…
“Holy shit!” She jumped up onto the top step and smashed into the wooden door with her shoulder, sending it flying inward. As soon as she cleared the opening, she saw a man in a gray shirt dragging a woman’s body toward the back of the house. The woman wore blue jean cut-off shorts that made Daisy Dukes look like capri pants. Blood was smeared on her long, tanned legs and covered her damaged face. Her short blo
nde hair was a mess and also bloody.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” the man bellowed, dropping the woman’s arms and advancing toward Dawn in a menacing way.
Dawn did a quick scan of the room and didn’t see any weapons, so she holstered her gun and stepped forward to meet the man. That bold move seemed to confuse the man and he hesitated, looking beyond Dawn and through the busted door.
“You here alone?” he asked.
“That’s not important,” Dawn said in a calm voice. “What’s important is getting her some help.”
“She’s fine,” said the man.
The woman began moaning and tried to sit up.
“What’s her name?” Dawn asked.
“Um…it’s Cynthia,” the man said. “I came home from work and found her like this. I think she fell and hit her head.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hank. Hank Alvey.”
“Well, Hank Alvey, help me get her up.” Keeping a wary eye on Hank, Dawn grabbed Cynthia under the right arm while Hank grabbed her under the left arm. Together, they lifted her gently to the sofa, where she seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. Now that the victim was off the floor and out of the way, Dawn turned to face Hank, dropping her right foot back a little to improve her balance.
Hank’s fists were covered in blood—some of it Cynthia’s and some of it his. There were gashes in his knuckles, and Dawn knew they were from making contact with Cynthia’s teeth.
In a measured tone, she said, “Okay, Hank Alvey, now you’re going to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“And why would I do that?” Hank’s eyes were slits and his jaw was set as he clenched and unclenched his fists.
“Because,” Dawn said simply, “you don’t want to end up in the hospital with Cynthia.”
“Are you threatening me?” A smiled played at the corners of Hank’s mouth. “Are you for real?”