by Thomas Scott
No shit, Junior thought. “Fuck Sermon Sam. Pedophile asshole.” Then a minute or so later. “Maybe you’ll see him there. In hell.”
“No maybe about it,” Senior said. “No maybe at all.”
The press conference was being held at the USS Indianapolis Memorial, near downtown, on the east side of the canal walk. The Sids parked their van at the back of the lot just north of a medical education building that gave them a clear shot of the podium where the governor would give his speech. The plan was simple. Take the shot, burn the van, then walk away. They had a getaway car parked in the lot, and Senior had the keys in his pocket. They turned into the lot and drove to the back.
They were right on time.
Indianapolis Metro Patrol Officer Jonathon Cauliffer drove along Roanoke Street and turned his cruiser onto West North Street and then hung a left on Walnut. He was in the area where the governor was going to give his speech and if he took Walnut to the end, right where it met Ellsworth, he could sit in his squad car, eat his sandwich and watch the big guy give his speech. Another day on the job.
Except the traffic was heavy, and there was no real place to park, so Cauliffer turned around and hooked a left and went back north toward the parking lot adjacent to the education building. He’d be able to see just as well. Either way, he’d have his lunch.
Senior had the van backed in at the rear of the lot that gave him a clear view of the memorial and the area where the governor was going to speak. He moved to the back and slid the rear window of the van open just enough to allow the barrel of the rifle to slip through. The lot was virtually empty. They were good to go.
Cauliffer turned into the mostly empty lot and parked right next to the building. He unwrapped his sandwich, took a quick bite, and then set it down on the passenger seat. He unbuckled his seatbelt, turned the volume on his radio down, lowered the window on his squad car and settled in. He was on the last day of his tour before his three days off. Four hours to go. He couldn’t wait.
The governor stepped up to the podium and turned on his smile for the cameras. “I have a quick announcement to make, and then I’ll take a few questions, if you have any, that is.” The reporters all laughed politely. “Well, as you all probably already know, I am here today to announce my intentions to run for reelection for the office of governor for the great state of…”
Senior put the cross hairs on the governor’s forehead. His finger had just started to pull the trigger when Junior spoke and everything changed. “City cop turning in. He’s parking right next to the building.”
Senior relaxed his finger. “Son of a bitch.”
“Want me to take him?” Junior said. She reached under the seat and pulled the silenced pistol out. “I bet I could get him before he knew what’s what. Just like that state boy.”
“No, no, hold off. Let’s see what he’s doing.”
“Looks to me like he’s eating a sandwich.”
“Maybe today’s not the governor’s day,” Senior said.
“It has to be today. We don’t have a choice.”
Senior thought about it. It did have to be today. The cops would put it together before too long, and they did not want to be around when that happened. The governor had flown the plane, everyone knew that. But it was Rhonda Rhodes’ husband, the on-scene fire department commander who wouldn’t let anyone in the hotel after the crash. Elle Richardson’s husband, the city cop had backed him up. Together they let Sara burn. Goodwin’s wife, Tess, was the one who’d switched Sara’s schedule to the night shift, otherwise she wouldn’t have even been there that day. And Bob Anderson? He worked the tower that morning, so his hot little number of a wife, Jenny, well she had to go too. Now every single one of them would know what it felt like to Sid, Sr., what it still felt like every damned day of his life.
The weight of it all had been building for such a long time that Sid felt like he might bust. He laid the rifle down, turned and spoke, his voice as hollow as Junior had ever heard. He was always going to tell her, but he was also going to wait until after they were done with the governor. But now…
“There’s something you should know, Sidney. About the governor.”
“What?” she said. “I know everything there is to know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What else is there? He crashed his plane into the hotel and Mom burned to death,” Junior said as she pointed to where the governor stood talking to the media. “Nobody went in to rescue her or anyone else, all while that son of a bitch floated down in his parachute and landed without a scratch.” She shook her head. “Now pick up your gun, take the damned shot and I’ll go take care of the cop.” Junior reached for the door handle but Senior caught her arm and stopped her. The pressure of the situation was almost too much for Junior to take.
“What?”
“Listen to me,” Senior said. He practically hissed it at her. “There’s something you don’t know. Something I should have told you a long time ago.”
“Well, what the hell is it? We’re out of time, here.”
So Senior told her…
Cauliffer finished his sandwich and for the first time noticed the van at the back of the lot. It was white. He scrolled through his computer and checked the logs. There was something about a BOLO for a white van. There was a plate number too, he thought. He found the report and read through the details.
…and when Junior heard the words, she snapped. Her life had been a sham, everything she knew to be true, everything that made her who she was and what she had become was a lie. She didn’t think, she didn’t weigh her options, she just did what she thought anyone would do, something that she was very familiar and very comfortable with after all these years. She raised her gun and fired. Senior took one in the forehead.
Then two in the heart.
When Cauliffer saw that the make and model of the van matched the BOLO he picked up the microphone to call for backup, but then just as quickly set it back in its holder. Check the plate first, he thought. Lots of white vans in the city. He opened his door, got out, and brushed the crumbs from his uniform shirt. He was about half way across the lot when the side door of the van flew open and a woman jumped out with a gun.
He pulled his service revolver and yelled. “Police! Drop the weapon!”
The woman spun and fired a single shot at Cauliffer. The bullet hit the handheld radio clipped to his belt and when it did a shard from the plastic casing fragmented upward and sliced into Cauliffer’s forehead, just above his left eye. He ducked, winced at the pain, and momentarily lost sight of the woman. He thought about running back to his squad car to call for help, but then he remembered that the governor was only a few hundred yards away.
And the woman with the gun was running that way.
Cauliffer started after her, one eye pinched shut and full of blood.
Junior heard the cop yell for her to stop, or freeze or some such shit that the cops were always yelling. She spun around, fired once to slow the cop, and then ran toward the governor. She was still on autopilot, the thoughts of what her father had just told her spinning through her brain.
Her father.
She’d been lied to, abandoned, neglected, abused, and rejected her entire life. But it was all about to stop.
It was all about to end.
Cauliffer was gaining on the woman, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He wanted to stop and take a shot, but with one eye full of blood he knew the chances of hitting his target were slim at best. And if he missed she’d be on top of the governor before he could do anything about it. His radio was useless, so Cauliffer did the only thing he could think to do, something that at the academy they told you never to do because of the danger to yourself or others. Cauliffer fired three warning shots into the air.
When Junior heard the shots behind her she turned to look back, and when she did she tripped in the grass and fell to the ground. The cop was about thirty yards back and coming hard. Junior knew then that the governor woul
d live and she would not. There would be no comfortable and peaceful villa in the Keys with her lover, Amanda. There would be nothing except a jail cell and ultimately a needle in her vein. She scrambled to her feet and turned toward the cop.
When the governor’s three-man protection detail heard the shots, two of them took the governor to the ground and held him there while the third ran toward the sounds of the gunfire. Most of the media people were on the ground as well, but one of the cameramen, a veteran from the war and no stranger to the sound of gunfire put his camera on his shoulder and followed the cop. He got the entire thing on tape.
Cauliffer saw her fall and he kept running until he saw her get up. He stopped, leveled his gun and yelled one more time for her to drop the weapon. He saw her start to bring the gun up, saw the crazy light in her eyes and pulled the trigger. The nine millimeter caught her center mass and Sidney Wells, Jr. dropped in a heap in the grass. Cauliffer ran over and secured her weapon, then sat down in the grass and tried to wipe the blood from his eye.
When it was over the governor and his protection detail pushed their way through the circle of cops and chaos. The governor walked up to Cauliffer and shook his hand. “Officer Cauliflower, you’ve saved my life.”
Cauliffer shook the governor’s hand. “It’s, uh, Cauliffer, sir.”
The governor reddened at his repeated gaff. “Yes, yes, of course. I keep getting that wrong, don’t I?”
The cameraman got the entire exchange. It made the evening news and went viral on the Internet within hours.
Indiana Governor…Saved By Cauliflower.
“That’s all right, sir,” Cauliffer said, as he wiped more blood from his eyes.
“What the hell happened?”
“It was a woman. She was headed your way with a gun. She fired at me. I chased her here and when she tried to fire again I took the shot.”
“A woman? Where is she?”
Cauliffer pointed to the other grouping of cops. “Right over there,” he said.
The governor walked over and looked at the body of the woman on the ground. When he saw her face he turned away, then vomited all over his shoes.
That went viral as well.
22
Virgil swam in and out of consciousness, or imagined he did over a period of time that may have been a few minutes or a few days. People shimmered in and out of focus, fuzzy around the edges, like images on a big screen television with poor reception. When he was finally able to hold his eyes open and keep them focused, he found himself on his back in an uncomfortable bed in a darkened room. A tube was taped to his right arm that led to a needle poked into a vein on the back of his hand, held in place with more tape. His left leg was in a cast that extended from the tips of his toes to the bottom of his knee. As soon as he saw the cast the pain brought him fully awake.
“He’s up,” someone said. “Better get the doc.”
A door opened and a shaft of light from the hall snuck into the room then faded away as the door hissed closed and clicked against the latch. Sandy leaned in close and brushed the hair off of Virgil’s forehead. “Hey, tough guy,” she said. “About time you woke up.” Mason stood right behind her.
It was all coming back now, the attack, being tied to the steel girder, the beating, everything. Virgil wanted to ask a dozen different questions, but when he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was: “Hurts.”
Mason stepped forward. “Cora was here, Son. She stepped out to get the doctor. There’s a button for the pain. Do you want me to press it?”
Virgil nodded and his dad pushed the button. After a few seconds, the morphine made its way through the IV and Virgil felt it beat the pain back, though not completely. He tried to sit up a little, and then wished he hadn’t.
“Where am I? What happened?”
The door opened again and Cora came into the room, a doctor in tow. “You’re at Methodist Hospital, Detective,” the doctor said. He took a pen light from his pocket and checked Virgil’s eyes. “If you had to rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, what would you say the number is?”
Virgil tried to blink the light away. “Uh, I don’t know. Eight now, I guess. My dad just pushed a button.”
The doctor inspected the IV line and adjusted the drip. “I upped the dose a little. You can push this button every seven minutes if you have to, and you’ll probably have to for the next twenty-four hours or so. Did anyone tell you what we did?”
“He just woke up,” Sandy said. “We haven’t had a chance.”
The doctor wrote something on a chart while he spoke. “You apparently took quite a thrashing. You’ve got a broken rib on your left side that punctured a lung. You lost quite a bit of blood and I don’t mind telling you that you had us all a little worried there for a while. Your chest is taped and we’ve repaired the internal damage so you’re going to be just fine, but you’ve got a nice scar on your belly that will make a great conversation starter at the beach. The discomfort you feel in your leg is what’s going to be the worst of it. We had to pin it, so it’s going to take a while to heal. You’ll need physical therapy. The pain you’re feeling now is from the surgeries, and it’ll get better over the next few days, but you’re going to be pretty sore for a while. That cast is going to drive you bonkers for about eight weeks. You’ll know when the weather is about to change, too.”
The morphine filled Virgil’s brain like a convective fog over a pond. “Okay.”
“Your leg is broken, Son,” Mason said. “The surgery took almost four hours.”
“We used an artificial bone graft material, along with a few pins and screws,” the doctor said. “Had lots of success with it in the past, so you’re going to be okay. There’s always a slight chance of infection, but we got you cleaned out pretty good. I’ll check on you in the morning. The nurses will be in to bother you every time you’re about to fall asleep. Good night.”
Virgil reached out and found the pain button and pushed it. Twice. He looked at Cora and motioned her over to the bed. “Where’s my gun and badge?”
“We’ve got them, Jonesy. They were there, at the scene. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.”
“Listen, Jonesy,” Cora said. “I’m going to get out of here and let you rest. Sandy’ll fill you in on everything. Donatti and Rosencrantz were here earlier while you were still out. They said to let you know they’d be back in the morning. The governor sends his best. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
Virgil could feel the morphine flowing through his body as if his blood were being heated then recycled through his veins. “Okay.”
After Cora left Sandy moved closer and stood at the edge of the bed. “My god, Virgil, you could have been killed.”
He was drifting and there were still questions Virgil wanted to ask but he couldn’t seem to get them out. “I heard the sirens, Sandy. I saw my mom, too. She was there. I think she was there with me the entire time.”
Mason was sitting in a visitor’s chair in the corner of the room, and when he heard what his son said he walked over to the side of the bed. “What was that, Virg? Say that again, will you?”
But the drugs pulled him back under before he could answer.
The doctor was right. The nurses did come in every time he fell asleep. It got to the point where Virgil thought they were all sadists. The doctor ordered rest, but then they didn’t let you get any. But the next time he woke on his own the light of the day peeked through the slats of the window blinds and he could hear the business end of patient care coming alive from the other side of the door. Sandy was curled in a ball on a recliner next to the window.
His leg still hurt like hell, but it was not as bad as the previous night. It was more isolated and not over his entire body like it had been before. He found the call button for the nurse and pressed it, and when she came into the room he asked her about switching to a pain pill instead of the IV drip. “It’s making me pretty loopy,” Virgil said.
“I’ll have to c
lear it with the doctor,” she said. “But between you and me, I don’t think you’re ready just yet. In the meantime, don’t be a hero. Hit that pain button if you have to. Loopy ain’t all bad, honey.”
A short time later an orderly wheeled in a breakfast tray and set the cart next to the bed. All the in and out woke Sandy. She stretched, yawned, walked over to the bed, and leaned in and kissed Virgil, hard, on the lips.
“You should have gone home last night,” he said.
“Would you have?”
“No.”
“So, okay then.”
His leg was throbbing now, the pain worse as he became fully awake. “I was thinking about last night. The way you called me Virgil.”
The door opened and Rosencrantz and Donatti walked in. “Of course she called you Virgil. That’s your name, isn’t it?” He looked over at Donatti. “Isn’t that his name?”
Donatti nodded. “Yep. Hey Small, what’s shaking? Did you know his middle name is Francis?”
“About time you woke up,” Rosencrantz said as he lifted the lid on the food tray. “What’s for breakfast?” He put the lid back down. “Wow, are they trying to cure you or kill you?”
“You know, you don’t get jack for workmen’s comp in Indiana,” Donatti said. “I think you’re faking.”
“Yeah, definitely faking,” Rosencrantz said.
“Hey, is it true you can predict when it’s going to rain, now?” Donatti said. “I heard TV 8 is looking for a new weatherman.”
“I’ll bet they’re giving you some good shit for the pain. Can I have some?” Rosencrantz said.