Acoustic Shadows

TWO

The on-scene reporter was a bottled-blond man, with an actor’s angular jawline, and a steady, dramatic voice. He held the microphone to his mouth as the camera showed glimpses of the elementary school over his shoulder.

‘Details are still coming in,’ he advised, ‘but we are providing exclusive coverage right now of yet another school shooting; this one, in the small town of Frosthaven, Florida, where, once again, a close-knit community has been ravaged by gun violence. These people are friends, co-workers, and fellow worshippers at the nearby ’Tween Lakes Baptist Church.’

The camera panned over to show the church, which had become a makeshift command post, with policemen from several local agencies swarming around it like bees. Blue and red lights flashed harshly. Streets were crammed with cars parked at odd angles, doors left open, hysterical parents huddled together, screaming into cell phones, held back by yellow crime-scene tape, and reassuring, but guarded, troopers from the Florida Highway Patrol. Across the bottom of the televised broadcast from THN (Televised Headline News), a banner read: Initial reports: 10 dead. 4 wounded in Florida Elementary School.

The reporter continued. ‘These are humble people of modest income. Hard-working, simple people who, like the rest of us, are wondering, why did this happen here? When will these shootings stop? And, as authorities begin to bring out the wounded and the dead, we are left to question, who did this and why? How did Travis Hanks Elementary School fall in line with Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, and Sandy Hook? What causes these human tornadoes, if you will, to visit these innocent communities, and disrupt and devastate them as we all watch in horror and disbelief? Gail, back to you.’

The camera lingered on the reporter, as the news anchor, Gail Summer, turned to her producer, and whispered, ‘Did you get that? The human tornado thing? That’s brilliant. I’m going to keep it going.’ The producer nodded enthusiastically.

‘Well, Dave, it’s clear that this tragedy is even tough for you to report, but I think you’ve made a significant analogy with your reference to human tornadoes. That’s very descriptive of exactly what these mass shootings are. They happen without warning, like a tornado, and literally tear apart the fabric of the community, not just figuratively, but physically and psychologically as well. No one can predict them or stop them, and they seem to be growing in number. And, speaking of numbers, we’re getting some additional numbers from the police spokesman right now…Can you and your crew catch that, Dave?’

The camera panned back as a police chief pushed through the crowd and took his place on a small dais. Coils of black electrical cables ran like snakes up to the makeshift podium to feed the dozens of cameras and microphones; to feed America’s insatiable interest in this obscene phenomenon.

The police chief was from a nearby municipality: Sebring, home of the 12-hour Grand Prix race. Frosthaven did not have its own law enforcement agency, but was covered by several surrounding city and county departments. The Calusa County Sheriff’s Office normally had jurisdiction, but the Sebring Police Chief was the first ranking officer on scene, so he was stuck with the command assignment. This included talking to the media; a job he did not like and for which he felt ill-equipped. He stood before the cluster of microphones, staring at them as if they were gun barrels pointed at him, sweat glistening on his pate.

‘I’m uh, Chief Dunham with the Sebring Police Department and…uh, want to assure everyone that, uh…the school grounds are now secure.’ He paused to brush sweat off his brow with his sleeve. ‘All of the children have been gathered at the Baptist Church, and their parents are collecting them now. Initial entry was made by some of Sebring’s PD and Calusa County Sheriff deputies at approximately 8:42 this morning, following an emergency alert made by a staff member at the school. I…we…have assessed the deceased and wounded, and the injured parties have been transported to nearby hospitals. There are, at this time…,’ he paused again to refer to his notes, ‘ten school employees that were killed, the names of whom we cannot release at this time, pending notification of their families. I also want to say, though one child is being treated for a minor wound, by some miracle, it appears none of the children were killed. Now, that is all the information I have at this time…’

Dave Gruber jumped in. ‘Chief Dunham, can you tell us if it’s true that one of the teachers had a gun and shot the intruders?’

Chief Dunham looked as if he was punched in the stomach. Wearily, he leaned back toward the bank of microphones. ‘I…I’d rather not…’ he began, but as he glanced around the crowd, many of whom were parents who had just picked up their children, he felt he had to say something. ‘It does appear that, possibly, one of the teachers was able to obtain a gun and was able to shoot the, uh…shooters.’

Questions were hurled like Frisbees at the Chief from the myriad of reporters who were still showing up by the dozens. They were in vans with giant telescoping antennae being manoeuvred and raised. There was a helicopter flying overhead. Chief Dunham felt dizzy.

‘Are you saying there was more than one shooter, Chief Dunham?’

‘It … appears, at this point, that, uh, there were two shooters.’

‘Can you tell us who they were?’ asked another reporter.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the Chief, ‘but this is still an ongoing investigation. The last thing I can tell you is that I will be working with local and state law enforcement agencies, and we will let the news media know more as soon as we know more. Now, I have to go.’

Gruber threw in one last long-shot question. ‘Can you confirm that one of the shooters survived?’

Chief Dunham looked back at the reporter, frowning. ‘No comment,’ he said, as he pulled himself away from the crowd and pushed his way back through to the command post, his cell phone ringing audibly.

Gruber whirled back to the camera dramatically. ‘There it is, Gail. Police Chief Dunham, from the Sebring Police Department, issuing a statement where, at this point at least, it appears there were two gunmen, one of whom may still be alive. And, more importantly, his statement confirms stories of some heroes arising out of this … maelstrom, if you will, particularly, this unknown teacher who, evidently, was able to wrestle a gun away from one of the shooters and stop them before they killed more today. Gail, back to you … ’

Gail Summer’s eyes were large and moist, pupils dilated, excited. This was a story that was just going to keep giving.

‘Well, okay, thank you,’ she said as the camera focused back to her. ‘Thanks to Dave Gruber, our reporter with local affiliate, KBFT, Channel 7, out of Orlando, who was first on the scene with coverage for us. We will keep you posted on this … tragedy, yet another school shooting in a tight-knit community located right in the middle of Florida, really, in what some people might call idyllic, small-town America, typical of where so many of these types of incidents are occurring. Once again, we must ask ourselves, why is this happening and where will the next human tornado vent its fury? We have to take a break right now, but stay tuned as our coverage of this tragedy continues.’

Governor Scott Croll watched the broadcast in his office as his private plane was being readied for his departure. He would be on the ground and at the school in less than an hour. Next to him was Commissioner Jim Bullock, the chief of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement – the FDLE – and one of his top investigators, Special Agent Justin Thiery.

Thiery was a broad-shouldered former quarterback for the University of Florida’s Gators, who maintained his upside-down triangle figure with a steady regimen of weights, running, and sparring. He’d originally been with the Capitol Police, the governor’s own dedicated police force, but as budgets shrank over the years – streamlined, as politicos called it – the CPs were ‘absorbed’ by the FDLE in the 1990s. Thiery was not happy about being absorbed, but what’s a guy going to do when he’s halfway to a pension? He stayed put, and kept his mouth shut, and did his job. He did it well.

Croll strode over to Thiery and, though the crown of his head barely reached the level of Thiery’s coat pocket, he stuck out his hand and shook Thiery’s with robust enthusiasm, his persuasive grip conveying a veiled challenge that belied his diminutive size.

‘Good to see you again, Agent Thiery. How’s the family?’ His wide-eyed gaze was engaging, yet unsettling.

Thiery had no idea what Croll was talking about. His wife had left him long ago and his two sons were grown and gone. ‘Everyone’s fine,’ he replied. ‘Thank you. And yours?’

Croll cocked his head. ‘Where does that accent come from, Agent Thiery? South Georgia?’

‘Close enough. I’m a Gainesville native, sir.’

‘Ah. Don’t meet many of those.’ Croll nodded and pursed his lips as if trying to recall something. ‘My eldest daughter just made the USA tennis team. We’re very proud of her.’

‘Outstanding.’

‘Yes,’ said Croll. ‘Did Jim, er, the Commissioner go over our expectations?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m to take the lead in the school shooting investigation.’

‘That’s right. Jim says you’re the best man for it.’

Thiery glanced at Bullock, who simply raised his eyebrows.

‘I’ll do my best, sir. But, can I ask why you want our department to handle this?’

Croll looked at Thiery as if it was obvious. ‘We’re consolidating our efforts. Trying to increase our efficiency; something I’ve been asking all of our departments to do. Frankly, there are so many departments on scene down there now, they’re tripping over each other. You caught the police chief from Podunk, right?’

Thiery had seen the small town chief on the news, felt bad for him, but there was no way he was going to knock another cop just to cater to a politician. He asked, ‘What about ATF or the FBI? One of my associates in Lakeland said the young shooter, what’s his name? Coody? Said he’d heard the kid had his apartment booby-trapped.’

‘As a matter of fact, the FBI has sent an agent from their WMD office in Miami. A woman named Sara Logan. Know her?’

Thiery took a long breath, let it out slow. He knew her well, though it had been a few years since he’d seen her. He knew her personally. ‘We’ve worked together on some cases.’

‘Problems?’ asked Croll, noting Thiery’s sudden uneasiness.

‘No,’ he replied.

Croll stared at him now, his lidless eyes like a gecko’s. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get out of this assignment, Agent Thiery.’ His smile was a painful grimace.

Thiery returned his stare. ‘Not at all, sir. I just don’t want to get knee deep, then have the case pulled from me by the Feds. Besides, they seem to have resources we don’t, anymore.’

Croll forced a laugh. ‘You believe this guy, Jim? I thought you’d be thrilled to take part. We need a hero to rise out of this, fellas, and frankly, the FDLE could use one, too.’

‘I’m flattered and very interested, sir. It’s just … it’s going to be a huge case. Complicated. If we’re going to follow the Feds’ lead, I’d rather it be up front and avoid a hostile takeover, or turf war. That’s all.’

Bullock spoke up. ‘I think that’s all he’s trying to say. Right, Justin?’

‘That’s all I did say,’ said Thiery.

Croll stopped smiling. ‘Well, okay. When you’re in the position to make those kinds of decisions, maybe you can go that way. For now, you’re the man, the SAS, the Special Agent Supervisor. Our man. Pull this thing together so Florida doesn’t continue to look like a bunch of morons who can’t even vote right. Do the job you’re supposed to be so good at, capiche?’

Thiery nodded, but said nothing.

Bullock’s face turned red. If he weren’t so close to retirement, he’d tell the governor to go fuck himself. He had no right talking to one of his men like that, especially Thiery, a solid cop who’d raised two boys by himself after his wife walked out on him ten years ago.

‘I’ll be in Washington,’ he said blandly.

Croll looked at him as if trying to remember if he’d given him permission to leave the state, his eyebrow arched.

‘For the National Police Commissioner’s meeting?’ Bullock asked.

‘Of course,’ said Croll, then turned back to Thiery. ‘You want to fly down with me, Agent Thiery?’ Like he was offering a gift.

‘I should probably drive down. If I’m taking lead, I’ll need my car to get around.’

‘Nonsense. Fly with me. I’ve got a limo picking me up. It’ll be the fastest way. If you need a car, you can check out a cruiser at your Orlando office, right?’

Thiery’s jaw muscles flexed. ‘Sure,’ he said.

In a penthouse suite at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, eighty-year-old Emilio Esperanza watched the live coverage of the shooting at the Florida elementary school on one of the three big screen TVs. Another TV was set to the stock market, the sound turned off; banners of numbers flowing across the bottom of the screen reflecting in Esperanza’s eyes. The last TV was showing an old black-and-white gangster film. Esperanza picked a speck of tobacco from an unfiltered cigarette off his lip with his bony, blue fingers, and flaked it to the floor, then reached over and turned up the oxygen that ran into his nostrils via a plastic nasal cannula.

‘You should have a nurse doing that for you, Papa,’ said his son Julio, himself over fifty years old. His thick hair looked like a coiffed chrome helmet on his head. Tanned skin. Teeth like polished porcelain chips. His collar button was open on his starched, maroon shirt, Rat Pack-style, under his tailored, bone-coloured, linen suit.

The old man’s eyes slid over to his son’s like those of a Komodo dragon eyeing its prey. He raised his wrinkled upper lip as if to spit.

‘That didn’t work out too well last time, did it?’

Julio cast his eyes to the ground. One way or the other, it would all be over soon. He wished he had the balls to strangle the old man himself, save them both a lot of trouble. But he didn’t.

‘Time for you to do something, Julio.’

‘Sure, Papa. Anything.’

‘Get that fucking marshal on the phone, numero uno. And, dos, get your little posse together and get down to Florida. This thing stops now.’

THREE

Erica Weisz lay in a private room in Lakeland Regional Hospital dreaming of fire. She saw only bright orange light and felt searing heat all around her, at once welcoming her and, conversely, pushing her back with its intensity. Then it was gone, as if sucked into a vacuum, taking her life with it, but leaving her body and an all-encompassing emptiness as cold as any Arctic region on earth.

She woke up sweating, strands of hair stuck to her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. A feeling of post-operative nausea and dizziness enveloped her. She sat up with great difficulty and felt pain in her side and lower abdomen. The room spun to a stop, and she was able to see her surroundings in the late afternoon light that filtered through the window: an aseptic hospital room painted a vague green, an uncomfortable-looking vinyl chair for visitors, her chrome-railed bed with unwrinkled sheets as if laid over a corpse.

Her mouth was dry. A small folding table next to the bed held a yellow plastic pitcher of ice water, a clear cup, and a plastic straw. She peeled the paper off the straw, stuck it directly into the pitcher, and drank deeply. She looked at the IV in her arm and up to the bag that fed it. Lactated ringers in a one-litre bag, piggybacked with a half-litre of normal saline, a red tag on the bag that read Amoxicillin on its side. Both were dripping at KVO (‘keep vein open’) rate. She reached down with one hand and pinched the skin on the back of the other hand. It made a small fleshy tent that lingered for a few seconds before slowly laying back down. She was extremely dehydrated. She glanced up again and saw an empty plastic IV bag, its insides coated with blood. Must be pretty bad if they had to give her blood, too. She reached up and turned the drip rate up on the bag of ringers, and forced herself to drink more water.

She wondered if she’d said anything while under anaesthesia and wondered how long she’d been out. What happened to the red-haired man after I shot him? Was he dead? She recalled the urgent jerk of her body as the buckshot caught her in the side and spun her around. She remembered the look of surprise as she fired and caught him in the neck.

Fear crept through her as she thought there might have been other gunmen and that some of the children – those precious children – might now be dead. She hoped she had stopped them all in time. Before they could get to the kids. She remembered being consumed with that goal: stop these bastards before they hurt anyone else. She remembered waking up briefly in the recovery room, a doctor speaking to her and she back to him, but she couldn’t remember what the conversation was about. Probably previous medical history, current meds, etc. Standard medical questions. Had she revealed anything?

The plastic name band on her wrist read: Weisz, Erica. I didn’t tell them everything, she thought. It gave her relief, made her feel safe, at least for now. But that wouldn’t last long. She needed to make a plan; first, she needed to make a phone call.

The phone rang at Robert Moral’s home. Moral was in his office, on the computer, playing Slots Jungle Casino. Netbet.org had given it a ‘#6’ rating, so he dived right in. Let his wife answer the phone. He heard her banging around in the kitchen then shuffling over to pick it up.

‘If it’s those vultures from MasterCard,’ he hollered to her, ‘tell them I already sent a payment, and it is illegal – make sure you tell them it’s against the law – to call a debtor’s home and hassle them.’

‘But …’ she began.

Moral lost two hundred dollars on his opening bid at a double-down blackjack game. It infuriated him. If he hadn’t been distracted … ‘Just fucking tell them!’ he roared.

His wife padded to his office as quiet as a cat, her hand over the phone receiver.

‘It isn’t MasterCard,’ she said, trying to ease the bitterness she found in her own voice. ‘I think it’s that woman. I think she’s called before. I recognized the area code.’

She handed him the phone abruptly, glancing at the on-screen gambling site as if it were child pornography. She whirled and left the room; a woman with a heart of gold encased in a two-hundred-twenty-pound bag of cellulite that assured she would hold little regard for herself and forever put up with shit from her husband.

Moral licked his lips with a scotch-dried tongue. He tried to clear his throat, then helped himself to another gulp of booze: J & B’s. He winced. No more Johnny Walker Green Label. Hell, not even black or red label these days. These days. But he’d get back there. Right after the next big day at the track. Or the tables. The real tables. Not these virtual games that were probably rigged to begin with.

‘This is Deputy Moral,’ he said. Nothing. But, he could hear breathing. It was her. It had to be. And she knew. Guilt welled up in him like a longing for another hit at the table.

‘Mildred?’ He listened for a moment. ‘Are you okay?’ he tried. ‘Can you talk?’

Just the breathing.

‘Millie,’ he said, gathering his courage after another swig of cheap scotch, ‘I’m working on another plan. Don’t worry. Stay where you are, and go to safe haven ‘B’. We’re going to send in an extrication team. You’re safe. I’m coming down myself. Okay?’

There was a cough; someone clearing a throat. Then, a click on the other end of the line, a dial tone that seemed to grow louder with every beat of Moral’s heart. He felt an icy sweat form on the back of his neck and lower back. He realized, with growing trepidation, that the caller might not have been the woman. Oh fuck! he thought.

‘Honey?’ he pleaded. ‘Did you recognize the area code on that call?’

‘I think it was from Las Vegas, dear.’

But she wasn’t in Las Vegas anymore. His voice quivering, he said, ‘You better pack me a bag. I’m going to have to leave. It’s … uh, work.’