by BJ Bourg
The other man rushed back into bank and the door swung shut. Before it closed, I saw him disappear to the left, between the counters. “They’re behind the counter. Call Alvin; ask him if he can see the counter.”
“Sierra One, Sierra Three, you have a visual on the counter?”
There was a slight pause and then Alvin’s voice came on the radio. “Negative. A female subject pulled the curtains shut about an hour ago. I have nothing.”
“London, standby,” Captain Landry called over the radio. “Things are gonna move fast. We’re bringing the SUV to the front of the bank as demanded. Hold on for more.”
“Ten-four,” Jerry replied for me.
Six SWAT members rushed toward the back of the bank. One of them carried a battering ram and another held a ballistic shield. When they reached the corner of the brick building, they crouched low, poised for an assault. Making entry into a building occupied by innocent hostages and a crazed gunman was too risky. This was shaping up to be a sniper-initiated assault, where I would take out the primary gunman and the entry team would move in to secure the hostages and take out any other threats.
“London,” Captain Landry called a minute later, “we’re live in fifteen. As soon as the SUV gets here and the suspect shows himself, engage him. When he goes down, the entry team will move in and secure the hostages.”
“Ten-four,” Jerry called.
I kept my crosshairs focused on the front door to the bank. The minutes ticked by like hours. The sun had slid low to the west and long shadows stretched across the southeastern side of the parking lot, but it did little to stifle the heat.
“It’s here,” Jerry finally said.
I moved my rifle slightly to the right and saw a white SUV with dark tinted windows pull into the parking lot behind Betty Jo’s. Captain Landry walked over and spoke with the driver, a young patrol officer. After a brief moment, Captain Landry walked toward the eastern side of Betty Jo’s and stood behind a patrol car where he could watch the exchange. The patrol deputy drove the SUV around Betty Jo’s and parked it directly in front of the bank, about twenty feet from the front door, with the passenger’s side positioned toward the door. He then rolled out of the driver’s seat and made a run for one of the patrol cars parked nearby. When he reached it, he squatted beside a SWAT officer who had been there all afternoon.
I saw Captain Landry lift his radio to his mouth and his voice boomed beside me. “All units…pull your vehicles out of the parking lot, ASAP.”
The area suddenly came to life as officers scrambled into the cruisers stationed around the bank. They sped away, some pulling back as far as Food-N-Stuff and some driving around to Bestman’s Market. Just as the bank parking lot cleared out, I detected movement from inside the bank. “Jerry, you catching this?”
“Yeah, is that…”
“It sure is!” From the number of legs moving, it looked like three people were walking toward the door. A large curtain was draped over their bodies. My heart began to thump in my chest. If they made it to the SUV and sped off, the hostages were as good as dead. I quickly surveyed their feet. The last person in line wore faded jeans and boots. The others wore slacks and dress shoes.
“The suspect’s at the back of the line,” Jerry said.
“Unless they changed clothes,” I warned. “I can’t take the shot unless I know for sure.” They continued to walk, bumping into each other as they moved.
“They’re almost to the car…you’ve got to do something!” Jerry called, his voice tense.
I didn’t answer. As the curtain jostled with their movements, I strained to see beneath it. Nothing.
“Sierra One, they’re almost out of runway. Take the shot,” said a nervous Captain Landry.
I centered the crosshairs over the head at the back of the line, then hesitated. I couldn’t shoot what I couldn’t identify…period. I glanced back to their legs, hoping for some hint of verification. Still nothing.
Just as they reached the SUV, the person in the front jerked the curtain up and bolted from the group. In that split second, I saw that the person in the middle was a white male with blond hair and a tattoo on his neck, and his gun hand was starting to rise. The very instant my crosshairs touched the center of the suspect’s right ear canal, my rifle bucked against my shoulder. The explosion made my ears ring.
By habit born of a million repetitions, I automatically bolted another round and prepared for a follow-up shot. Almost immediately I heard the boom from a flash-bang and a faint pop from somewhere near the bank. The two bank employees, one a woman and the other a man, were screaming as the entry team forced them to the ground and secured them. The suspect lay in a bloody heap where he had fallen, unaware that he had even died.
The police radio suddenly erupted in confusion. Amidst a dozen voices trying to talk over each other, one frantic voice dominated. “Shots fired! Officer down! Officer down!”
“Who in the hell fired that shot?” someone else bellowed over the radio. “Damn it, who fired that shot?”
I jerked my scope to the bank. Are there two gunmen? Who is down?
I searched frantically, but saw no other movement from inside. Several of the SWAT officers tore from the group in front of the bank and ran south toward Betty Jo’s. They were yelling something I couldn’t hear. I swerved my rifle in that direction, but before I could see what was going on, I heard Jerry gasp beside me.
“Oh, shit! They…they got him! They got Captain Landry!”
My heart began beating a thunderous rhythm in my chest. I moved my scope to the area where I’d last seen the captain. My stomach immediately turned sour. I gritted my teeth and swallowed hard.
CHAPTER 3
“Sierra One, where’d that shot come from?” a voice demanded over the radio.
Quickly regaining my composure, I twisted around and swung my rifle from left to right in a large arc, scanning the entire parking lot and surrounding area. “Did you see anything, Jerry?”
“I… I’m not sure what happened.” Jerry’s voice was strained. “I think the suspect got a shot off.”
“No way. I dropped him before he could pull the trigger. He died instantly. Besides, he wasn’t even aiming in Captain Landry’s direction.” I scanned the trees along the bayou side and spotted Alvin Reed, my newest sniper. His jungle hat was pushed high on his forehead and sweat had streaked a number of lines through his face paint. His rifle was rotating from side to side as he also searched for a possible shooter. His scope momentarily rested on our position.
Jerry saw him, too, and called him over the radio. “Sierra One, Sierra Six, you’ve locked on our position.”
“Ten-four,” Alvin returned. “I thought that was y’all. Tell Carter I’ve got nothing on my end.”
“Call Dean and Ray,” I told Jerry.
Jerry smashed the button on the radio. “Sierra One, Sierra Three, anything?”
“Negative,” called Dean Pierce.
“Sierra Four, anything?” Jerry asked.
“I didn’t see anything,” Ray Sevin said over the radio. “But I thought I heard a report at my nine o’clock.”
I rose to a seated position and pulled my left knee up, resting my left elbow on it. Supporting the fore-end of my rifle with the palm of my left hand, I peered through my scope and located Ray’s position. I then searched directly to his left—his nine o’clock position—and came upon the highway. It was empty. Traffic had been diverted for miles to the north and south. Other than cops, there was no sign of life within a couple hundred yards of the bank in every direction.
“Sierra One,” the voice bellowed again, “where’d that shot come from?”
I suddenly recognized the voice—Sheriff Calvin Burke. I grounded my rifle and took the radio from Jerry. “I don’t know, Sheriff. There’s no sign of hostiles anywhere.”
There was a long moment of radio silence. Finally, Sheriff Burke came back on the radio. “Ten-four. Meet me at the command center.”
I gl
anced down and found my spent casing on the tar roof. I snatched it up, dropped it in the chest pocket of my coverall and zipped it shut. I engaged the safety on my rifle and pulled the sling over my shoulder. Jerry gathered up his gear and followed as I hurried to the access door and pulled it open. We scurried down the ladder and ran to my cruiser. I screeched around the parking lot and raced up Green Oaks, swerved onto Highway Three and was in Bestman’s parking lot within seconds.
A team of detectives had arrived, and they were carrying notebooks and toolboxes and preparing to process the scene. At around the same time, a second wave of SWAT officers arrived in one of the department’s tactical vans and piled out of it. Michael Theriot, the captain of detectives, was barking orders to the SWAT officers, sending them out in teams to search the surrounding area in an attempt to locate the shooter.
Jerry and I found Sheriff Burke standing alone beside the mobile command center, staring down at Captain Landry’s lifeless body. There were tears in his eyes. He quickly brushed them away when we walked up.
I looked down at what was left of Anthony Landry’s head. There was a dark hole in his left eye. Although he was on his back, I could see that a large portion of the back of his head was missing. I pursed my lips and shook my head. Captain Landry had been more than just a supervisor to me. He had been a mentor, a friend, a father figure. Whoever did this to him was going to pay…and pay dearly.
I heard sniffling beside me and stole a glance at Jerry. His eyes were fire engine red and tears flowed freely down his face. I slapped his shoulder. “Let it out and then pull yourself together. We’ve got work to do.”
“Wait,” Sheriff Burke said. “I want y’all to hang around to brief the detectives.”
I nodded, then pointed to Captain Landry’s body. “Sir, what happened down here?”
The sheriff shook his head, face pale and blank. “I don’t know. I was standing over there”—he pointed to the door of the mobile command center—“and I heard a loud gunshot. I assumed that was your shot. It was followed by a flash-bang and then another gunshot, but that one wasn’t as loud. I figured it was a handgun. I heard Warren yell like something terrible had happened and when I looked…” Sheriff Burke shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
I glanced around until I found Deputy Warren Lafont. He was sitting slumped over on the curb in front of Bestman’s Market. His face was buried in his hands. I made my way to him and dropped down beside him. “Hey, you okay?”
Warren was trembling. His thick, frizzy hair was wet and plastered to his scalp. When he looked up, his eyes were swollen and red. “Sarge,” he said in a weak voice, “I was standing right beside him. One second he was saying that you got the bastard, and the very next second he was on the ground. He just collapsed.”
“Did you hear anything right before he went down?”
Warren stared down at his hands, thinking. “I remembered hearing a flash-bang go off on the other side of Betty Jo’s after the suspect went down. And then I heard the entry team yelling at the hostages to get down. I heard somebody scream. I thought I heard another popping sound. A second later, Captain Landry collapsed. At first, I thought he had a heart attack or something, but then I saw…I saw all the blood.” Warren shook his head. “I’ve seen mangled bodies before, but his face looked hollow and empty, like everything inside of it just…just blew out the back of his head.”
I looked back toward the Betty Jo’s parking lot. The detectives had moved everyone back and roped off the area with crime scene tape. Sheriff Burke ambled over to where I stood talking to Warren Lafont.
“How are you, Warren?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m okay.”
“If you need something, let me know.”
“Sheriff, who’s heading up the investigation?” I asked.
“I’ve got Bethany Riggs heading down here. The detectives will work the scene and assist her with anything she needs, but she’s going to be lead. They’ll answer to her.”
“Why her? She doesn’t have much homicide experience, if any at all.”
Bethany Riggs had originally been hired to work undercover within the department. She’d made quite a name for herself—to most, that name was rat—by busting a steroid drug ring inside the department. When her undercover days were done, she became the assistant deputy in Internal Affairs. When Justin Wainwright retired after giving thirty-three years of service to the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office, she was promoted to lieutenant. From undercover officer, to assistant IA deputy, to lieutenant in IA—none of those things qualified her to be a homicide detective, especially lead on the most high-profile murder in the parish’s history.
“Since it’s an officer-involved shooting,” Sheriff Burke explained, “I want her to spearhead the investigation. I’ll assign a team of detectives to work side-by-side with her.”
“I want to work with her on the case.” I said it before I even realized I was thinking it.
“You’re not a detective.”
“Make me one.”
“I can’t make you a temporary detective for one case. I need you—”
“Then make it permanent.”
Sheriff Burke stared sideways at me. “Are you saying you want to be transferred to detectives? Permanently?”
“If that’s what it takes to get me on the case.”
“You’d be willing to leave patrol? I thought you said you’d die a patrol dog.”
“I want on this case—no matter what. I need to find out who did this to Captain Landry.”
Sheriff Burke was silent for a long moment. “I don’t have an opening for sergeant in the detectives division.”
“I’ll take a demotion.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But how do I justify putting you on the case without having investigative experience?”
“I’m not exactly green, Sheriff. Shit, I’ve got twelve years on the job—that’s more than some of your detectives. And that’s more than Bethany Riggs.”
“Let me think about it,” Sheriff Burke finally said. “I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”
I nodded and walked to where the rest of the sniper team had gathered around my cruiser.
“Are we still having sniper training tomorrow?” Dean wanted to know.
“Absolutely,” I said. “I need to meet with y’all so we can straighten some shit out.” I looked at Gina. “Did Kenneth ever call in?”
Gina pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly. “I called him about eight times, left voice messages and sent four or five texts, but I never heard back from him.”
That got my blood boiling. One of our department’s great leaders had been gunned down that afternoon, and Kenneth hadn’t even bothered to call in to say he couldn’t be there. He had some explaining to do.
“Who the hell’s that?” Ray asked, removing his hand from his slick, bald head to point at the entrance to Betty Jo’s parking lot.
We all turned and saw a black unmarked car pull into the parking lot. It stopped at the edge of the crime scene tape, and the driver killed the engine. After a few seconds, the door opened and a tall female stepped out. She wore dark jeans and a navy blue polo shirt. The sheriff’s office logo was embroidered over her left shirt pocket. A shiny shield was clipped to her belt, along with a pancake holster holding her pistol.
“That’s Bethany Riggs,” Gina said. “I spent a week with her at a homicide conference a few months ago. Definitely not the best week of my life.”
Bethany Riggs paused in the doorway and gathered her shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair and pushed it into a ponytail. She slipped a rubber band over it. She then snatched a metal clipboard from the front seat and pushed the door shut with her knee. Her eyes caught mine for a brief moment, and I nodded. She turned her head without acknowledging my existence and walked to the mobile command center. After talking to the sheriff for a moment, she strode briskly to where we waited. She stu
ck her hand out to me. “Sergeant Carter?”
I nodded, took her soft hand in mine and squeezed. She squeezed back, and I was surprised at her grip strength. I was also surprised at how blue her eyes were. “You can call me London,” I said.
“London, I’m Lieutenant Bethany Riggs, Internal Affairs. You can call me Lieutenant Riggs.” She glanced at the others, nodding. “The sheriff just informed me that I’ll be lead on this case. I understand Captain Anthony Landry was a dear friend of yours.”
I simply nodded.
“I know how it feels to lose someone close to you, and I’m really sorry for your loss.”
I’m sorry for your loss usually sounded hollow rolling off the tongues of most people, but Bethany Riggs sounded sincere. “I appreciate that,” I said. “I’m going to really miss that old bastard. He was a great man and a solid leader.”
“That’s what I hear.” Bethany looked from one of us to the other, studying each of our faces. “In lieu of statements, can I get a report from each of you as soon as possible? That way I’ll be able to better recreate what took place here just prior to the random shot being fired.”
“We’ll get on them right away,” I promised. “But this was no random shot. Someone deliberately took out Captain Landry.”
Bethany’s eyebrows furrowed. “What makes you say that?”
“We had the place sewn up for a couple hundred yards in all directions,” I explained. “So whoever took him out had to take the shot from outside that perimeter, and they shot him directly in the left eye. From that distance, to make that shot, they knew what they were doing.”
Bethany Riggs began jotting some things down in her notebook. “And no one saw anything at all?”
“All eyes were on the hostage taker. No one saw a damn thing.” I pursed my lips as realization slowly set in and whistled. “No shit. That’s the perfect plan. The shooter knew we’d all be concentrating on the hostage taker and he took full advantage of it.”
Bethany nodded her agreement and shut her notebook. “I’d appreciate those reports as soon as possible.” She then walked away and met with a group of detectives who were examining Captain Landry’s body.